November music preview: Bruce Springsteen, Smashing Pumpkins, and Phoenix all make their return
We're also looking forward to albums from Christine and the Queens, Spoon, Louis Tomlinson, Phantogram, and more
Music News Bruce Springsteen
L: Smashing Pumpkins, Middle: Bruce Springsteen, R: Christine and the Queens Graphic: Rebecca Fassola
The Boss, among others, is back in November. Bruce Springsteen’s album of soul and R&B covers leads the list of big names returning to the scene with new music. Alt-rock icons Smashing Pumpkins and indie-pop tastemakers Phoenix also roll up with fresh tracks. In addition, November brings new releases from the siren Weyes Blood, rap’s newest it girl, GloRilla, and new tracks from a former One Direction member who’s not named Harry Styles.
16 Comments
The new Weyes Blood is so very good.
I quite like the Springsteen covers I’ve heard so far from this album, but have no intention buying it and wonder if the world really needs it. Then again if Bruce wants to sing these songs and put them out, what’s the harm?Reading this back, I wonder (in the same spirit) why I have bothered to write it, but having done so…
This is the first track I’ve heard from the album, and being old enough to know the original Commodores’ version note for note – I was expecting to cringe, but I dug it, and I actually like the arrangement quite a bit. It feels a little “uncle doing karaoke at a wedding” (albeit an uncle I’ve wanted to climb like a tree for nigh four decades with a horn and string section) but I don’t think the world is worse for this existing.
yeah, say what you want about Bruce, but he really sells this, i think. i can dig it.
well its not as good as ‘Dee Gees’ covers. But The Boss can sing the phone book and it’ll be great.
That Smashing Pumpkins track sounds like a Metallica track that was left off the album for being too plodding and dull. How far have the mighty fallen, etc.
Indeed. I was curious to hear what they’re up to these days, but one listen to that track and – okay – now I know. “Inspired,” is not a word I would use.
Yeah, I check in once every five years or so to see if anything he’s doing has even a hint of that early-mid 90’s magic, but it never does.Lest we forget, Billy at the height of his powers was so damn good that he literally disposed of dozens of killer riffs and song ideas on Pastichio Medley, one of the B-sides on the Zero single, just because he could. The irony here is hilarious. I can think of numerous ideas from Pastichio Medley that are better than anything he has released since 1996.
I thought Oceania was very good. I haven’t been able to get into anything that’s come after it though.
The Zero EP was my jam
The guy kissed genius on the lips in the 90s. Most bands never do it and the ones that do rarely follow it up.
It makes me sad that an artist who so brilliantly wrote songs in technicolor just keeps on churning out dirgey, industrial styled rockers that have nothing of the music that made him famous. I’m not saying he should just repeat the sound over and over but there’s reasons I can’t make it through Mellon Collie or don’t have much interest in his later stuff
So a slide show article is bad enough, but trying to get around the McDonalds pop up ad takes it to another level – and before anyone says it, I’m unable to put an ad blocker on my machine.
Looking forward to new Phoenix. The French boys never disappoint.
I’m a lifelong Springsteen fan- going back to 1979, kids. He should have made this album over thirty years ago. The tracks he’s released so far sound like a talented covers band. There’s no reimagining whatsoever, and his voice, though solid for his age, is not meant to be singing these songs at this point in his life, at least not as the focus of an entire album. I’m frankly surprised at how mundane it all sounds. Way too polite.
If you like late-90s Britpop, you’ll like Louis Tomlinson’s first solo album. Not sure how many OneD fans like late-90s Britpop, though…