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Evanescence – Anywhere But Home (2004) [DVD-Video]

DVD-A By admin · May 7, 2019 · Comments off

Anywhere but Home is a live chronicle of where Evanescence have been since the spring 2003 release and subsequent sextuple-platinum reign of their debut album, Fallen. Recorded at a tour stop in Paris, the set includes all their hits, as well as a previously unreleased studio track (“Missing”). While it’s a fine holdover until the recording of a proper studio follow-up, Home also reasserts Amy Lee’s position at Evanescence’s center. Throughout the band’s rise, there was the drama — co-founder Ben Moody’s contentious departure, the are-they-or-aren’t-they Christian rock debates — but there was always the singular force of Lee, whose powerful vocals, strident public persona, and striking fashion sense broke down the doors of the alternative metal boys club. Appropriately, Lee is the star of Anywhere but Home. Her voice has an impressively raw quality live, and her banter with the fawning Parisian crowd is always engaging. The mix also favors her (as well as the prominent use of keys/synthesizers), which unfortunately lessens the effect of John LeCompt and Terry Balsamo’s guitars and Rocky Gray’s impressive drumming. Still, “Going Under” surges nicely into its anthemic chorus, and when the guitars do show up (like on “Everybody’s Fool”), Lee matches their power easily. She takes a softer approach for the arch piano ballad “My Immortal,” which becomes a singalong moment for 5,000 souls, and that song leads nicely into an extended vocal intro for the breakthrough hit (and Home standout) “Bring Me to Life.” (Evanescence’s cover of Korn’s “Thoughtless” will be another fan highlight.) The album closes, as does Fallen, with the swirling, vaguely Eastern-tinged metal melodies of “Whisper,” and Lee’s throaty vocal endures even as the synths and processed choir effects threaten to engulf her. (more…)

Eric Clapton – Back Home (2005) [DVD-AUDIO ISO]

DVD-A By admin · May 7, 2019 · Comments off

Eric Clapton claimed in the press release for Back Home, his 14th album of original material, that “One of the earliest statements I made about myself was back in the late ’80s, with Journeyman. This album completes that cycle in terms of talking about my whole journey as an itinerant musician and where I find myself now, starting a new family. That’s why I chose the title. It’s about coming home and staying home.” With that in mind, it becomes clearer that the studio albums Clapton released during the ’90s did indeed follow some sort of thematic logic. 1989’s Journeyman did find Clapton regrouping after a muddled ’80s, returning to the bluesy arena rock and smooth pop that had been his signature sound as a solo artist. He followed that with 1994’s From the Cradle, where he explicitly returned to the roots of his music by recording an album of blues standards. Four years later, he released Pilgrim, a slick album that had Clapton strengthening his collaboration with producer/co-writer Simon Climie (who first worked with EC on his electronica side project T.D.F.). If Pilgrim touched on father issues, 2001’s Reptile loosely returned Clapton to his childhood (complete with a smiling boyhood shot of him on the cover) and found the guitarist struggling with a seemingly diverse selection of material, ranking from ’50s R&B to James Taylor. After a brief blues detour on 2004’s Me and Mr. Johnson, Clapton returns to the sound and feel of Reptile for Back Home, but he doesn’t seem to be as tentative or forced as he did there. Instead, he eases comfortably into the domesticity that isn’t just the concept for the album, it’s reason for being. In fact, the album doesn’t need “back” in its title — ultimately, the album is just about being home (which, if the center photo of Clapton at home with his three young daughters and wife is to be believed, looks alarmingly similar to the set of Thomas the Tank Engine, complete with a painted rainbow shining through the window).

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Eric Johnson – Ah Via Musicom! (2002) [DVD-Audio ISO]

DVD-A By admin · May 7, 2019 · Comments off

After being overlooked on his debut, Tones, guitarist Eric Johnson burst onto the airwaves with the surprising hit “Cliffs of Dover.” Armed with excellent chops and a clear tone, Johnson took a tired formula and made it sound fresh again. Despite his talents on the fret board, he plays with great restraint and chose to explore a variety of styles, including rock, pop, blues, country, and jazz. While his singing is not quite as interesting as his guitar playing, it is not obtrusive and is at times quite pleasing. This recording has reached near-classic proportions within the guitar community. (more…)

Eric Clapton ‎- Reptile (2001) [DVD-Audio ISO]

DVD-A By admin · May 7, 2019 · Comments off

For a musician known to strive for authenticity, Eric Clapton has always been curiously obsessed with appearances, seemingly as interested in sartorial details and hairstyles as in the perfect guitar lick. It’s hard to find two photographs of him from the 1960s and early ’70s that appear to be the same person, and even after he formally launched his solo career he switched looks frequently. Thus, the album sleeve of his 13th solo studio album of new material, Reptile, its “concept” credited to the recording artist, seems significant. The album cover shows a smiling Clapton as a child, and there are family photographs on the back cover and in the booklet, along with a current photograph of the artist, who turned 56 in the weeks following the album’s release, in an image that does nothing to hide the wrinkles of late middle age. This photograph faces a sleeve note by Clapton that begins with his explanation of the album title: “Where I come from, the word ‘reptile’ is a term of endearment, used in much the same way as ‘toe rag’ or ‘moosh.'” (Thanks, Eric. Now, all listeners have to do is find out what “toe rag” and “moosh” mean!) The note then goes on to dedicate the album warmly to Clapton’s uncle. All of this might lead you to expect an unusually personal recording from a man who has always spoken most eloquently with his guitar. If so, you’d be disappointed. Reptile seems conceived as an album to address all the disparate audiences Clapton has assembled over the years. His core audience may think of him as the premier blues guitarist of his generation, but especially as a solo artist, he has also sought a broader pop identity, and in the 1990s, with the hits “Tears in Heaven” and “Change the World,” he achieved it. The fans he earned then will recognize the largely acoustic sound of such songs as “Believe in Life,” “Second Nature,” and “Modern Girl.” But those who think of Clapton as the guy who plays “Cocaine” will be pleased with his cover of another J.J. Cale song, “Travelin’ Light,” and by the time the album was in record stores mainstream rock radio had already found “Superman Inside,” which sounds like many of his mid-tempo rock hits of the ’80s. This diversity is continued on less familiar material, especially the many interesting cover songs. Somebody, perhaps the artist himself, has been busy looking for old chestnuts, since Reptile contains a wide variety of them: the 1930 jazz song “I Want a Little Girl,” recorded by McKinney’s Cotton Pickers among others; John Greer’s 1952 R&B hit “Got You on My Mind”; Ray Charles’ 1955 R&B hit “Come Back Baby”; James Taylor’s 1972 hit “Don’t Let Me Be Lonely Tonight”; and Stevie Wonder’s 1980 hit “I Ain’t Gonna Stand for It.” The two earliest of these songs are old and obscure enough that Clapton is able to make them his own, and he recasts the Taylor song enough to re-invent it, but remaking songs by Charles and Wonder means competing with them vocally, and as a singer Clapton isn’t up to the challenge. He is assisted by the current five-man version of the Impressions, who do much to shore up his vocal weaknesses, but he still isn’t a disciplined or thoughtful singer. Of course, when that distinctive electric guitar sound kicks in, all is forgiven. Still, Reptile looks like an album that started out to be more ambitious than it ended up being. There may be a song here for each of the artist’s constituencies (and, more important to its commercial impact, for every major radio format except talk and country), but as a whole the album doesn’t add up to the statement Clapton seems to have been hoping to make. (more…)

Elton John – Tumbleweed Connection (2004) [DVD-Audio ISO]

DVD-A By admin · May 7, 2019 · Comments off

Instead of repeating the formula that made Elton John a success, John and Bernie Taupin attempted their most ambitious record to date for the follow-up to their breakthrough. A loose concept album about the American West, Tumbleweed Connection emphasized the pretensions that always lay beneath their songcraft. Half of the songs don’t follow conventional pop song structures; instead, they flow between verses and vague choruses. These experiments are remarkably successful, primarily because Taupin’s lyrics are evocative and John’s melodic sense is at its best. As should be expected for a concept album about the Wild West, the music draws from country and blues in equal measures, ranging from the bluesy choruses of “Ballad of a Well-Known Gun” and the modified country of “Country Comfort” to the gospel-inflected “Burn Down the Mission” and the rolling, soulful “Amoreena.” Paul Buckmaster manages to write dramatic but appropriate string arrangements that accentuate the cinematic feel of the album. (more…)

Elton John – Madman Across The Water (2004) [DVD-AUDIO ISO]

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Trading the cinematic aspirations of Tumbleweed Connection for a tentative stab at prog rock, Elton John and Bernie Taupin delivered another excellent collection of songs with Madman Across the Water. Like its two predecessors, Madman Across the Water is driven by the sweeping string arrangements of Paul Buckmaster, who gives the songs here a richly dark and haunting edge. And these are songs that benefit from grandiose treatments. With most songs clocking in around five minutes, the record feels like a major work, and in many ways it is. While it’s not as adventurous as Tumbleweed Connection, the overall quality of the record is very high, particularly on character sketches “Levon” and “Razor Face,” as well as the melodramatic “Tiny Dancer” and the paranoid title track. Madman Across the Water begins to fall apart toward the end, but the record remains an ambitious and rewarding work, and John never attained its darkly introspective atmosphere again. (more…)

Eagles – Desperado (1973) [DVD-Audio ISO]

DVD-A By admin · May 7, 2019 · Comments off

If Don Henley was the sole member of the Eagles underrepresented on their debut album, Eagles, with only two lead vocals and one co-songwriting credit, he made up for it on their follow-up, the “concept” album Desperado. The concept had to do with Old West outlaws, but it had no specific narrative. On Eagles, the group had already begun to marry itself to a Southwest sound and lyrical references, from the Indian-style introduction of “Witchy Woman” to the Winslow, AZ, address in “Take It Easy.” All of this became more overt on Desperado, and it may be that Henley, who hailed from Northeast Texas, had the greatest affinity for the subject matter. In any case, he had co-writing credits on eight of the 11 selections and sang such key tracks as “Doolin-Dalton” and the title song. What would become recognizable as Henley’s lyrical touch was apparent on those songs, which bore a serious, world-weary tone. Henley had begun co-writing with Glenn Frey, and they contributed the album’s strongest material, which included the first single, “Tequila Sunrise,” and “Desperado” (strangely never released as a single). But where Eagles seemed deliberately to balance the band’s many musical styles and the talents of the band’s members, Desperado, despite its overarching theme, often seemed a collection of disparate tracks — “Out of Control” was a raucous rocker, while “Desperado” was a painfully slow ballad backed by strings — with other bandmembers’ contributions tacked on rather than integrated. Randy Meisner was down to two co-writing credits and one lead vocal (“Certain Kind of Fool”), while Bernie Leadon’s two songs, “Twenty-One” and “Bitter Creek,” seemed to come from a different record entirely. The result was an album that was simultaneously more ambitious and serious-minded than its predecessor and also slighter and less consistent. (more…)