May 30, 2019
The Album: Ani DiFranco: Little
Plastic Castle (1998)
Ani DiFranco has never been a pop star by conventional measure
but Little Plastic Castle was her dealing with
the costs of stardom within her niche of alternative pop/rock
world. The result is what's considered one of her best albums ever
— it ended up being her...
May 23, 2019
The Album: Gang Starr: Hard to Earn (1994)
Gang Starr's Hard to Earn dropped in the pivotal year of 1994,
arguably the height of the Golden Era as it came alongside
everything from Biggie's Ready to Die to
Nas's Illmatic to
OutKast's Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik. Unlike
those other debut albums, this was Gang...
May 16, 2019
The Album: OutKast Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik (1994)
Antwan (Big Boi) Patton and Andre (Dre) Benjamin began collaborating in 1992 and paired their genuis presenting it for the world to see on their debut project SouthernPlayalisticadillacmuzik which released on LaFace records in the spring of 1994.
LA’s own DJ...
May 9, 2019
The Album: Joy Division Closer (1980)
Moby has been in the game for over three decades, making punk, electronic, alt-rock, dance, and everything in between. When we heard he was coming on Heat Rocks, we had no idea what album he'd pick, but we knew it was going to be some absolute fire.
Joy Division were pioneers,...
May 2, 2019
The Album: James Blood
Ulmer: Odyssey (1984)
“Electric guitar” and “free jazz” may not be terms that folks
normally pair together but when James Blood Ulmer first began
collaborating with jazz giant Ornette Coleman in the mid 1970s,
Ulmer found an instant kinship is the heady, improvisational style
of...