May 102014
 

They Say It’s Your Birthday celebrates an artist’s special day with other people singing his or her songs. Let others do the work for a while. Happy birthday!

Donovan Leitch was (and to many, still is) seen as the personification of hippy flower-power music. At one point he was pegged as “Britain’s answer to Bob Dylan.” He made his name writing sunny psychedelic pop, but his efforts and ambitions have gone far beyond that. After the initial string of folk-pop hits, most of which are genuinely remarkable, he’s gone on to do a wide assortment of things, often with some pretty prestigious collaborators, suggesting that there’s more to Donovan than just his hippy-dippy songs about love.
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May 242013
 

Full Albums features covers of every track off a classic album. Got an idea for a future pick? Leave a note in the comments!

Every day, more music is released. Most of it will be quickly forgotten, some of it will resonate with an audience, and a very, very small percentage will be listened to for years to come. An even smaller subset can fairly be said to embody a particular moment in time. Surrealistic Pillow, the second release by the Jefferson Airplane, is one of those special albums. Released in early 1967 by a group of hippies who also happened to be extraordinary songwriters and musicians, it is both a classic and a reflection of its era.
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Sep 272012
 

Singer-songwriter and musician Rickie Lee Jones has spent nearly 35 years carving a unique path that has blended rock, pop, blues, R&B, and jazz. From her early success with the hit 1979 song  “Chuck E’s in Love” to the 2000s where she experimented with beats, loops and spoken word, Jones is the embodiment of the evolving artist. Her latest effort, The Devil You Know is a collection of covers of classic rock tracks that read as a greatest hits list. Continue reading »