It's time to rank the best of what went around and came around again.
BILLY JOEL
The Stranger
(Columbia/Legacy)
As punk and disco exploded, the Piano Man's deeply unhip 1978 breakthrough proved that top-shelf Broadway/Brill Building songwriting could still sell - and, occasionally, rock. "Scenes From an Italian Restaurant" and "Anthony's Song (Movin' Out)" remain priceless snapshots of Annie Hall-era NYC, the title track bares real teeth, and the Kenny Chesney fave "Only the Good Die Young" -
In case you missed it, NME reported last week that in the upcoming, Febuary issue of Filter, Stephen Patrick Morrissey tells his interviewer that he doesn't want to go on making music much longer, saying, "I think that would suggest a lack of imagination. A certain lack of dignity also. There has to reach a point where you've said enough, I think."
That's actually probably a good plan, Moz. Then you can do a shameless Smiths reunion tour and make loads of skrill.
His new album, Years of Ref
It's hard to comprehend Modest Mouse's mass appeal. With a few notable exceptions, Seattle group's songs are epically quirky, full of jerky guitar meanderings, odd time signatures, jolting and percussive rather than hooky or catchy. Singer, guitar player (one of several) and front man Isaac Brock's voice is distinctively twangy, and rather than sing, he uses it to hector, bark and chant, like an especially gifted feral child asked by playground bullies, of whom he is not afraid, to justify his
"Can you stand it?" Morrissey asks his fans.
Oh, they most certainly bloody can.
Scott Spychalski
Moz was slightly more talkative and frisky than he was at his last show in KC, in 2007. Though the show ran mostly seamlessly from one big, chugging misery ode to the next, the 50-year-old self-loathing charmer did parley a bit with the not-small but not-sold-out crowd at the Midland.
The above question came after the ninth song, "Seasick, Yet Still Docked." Before that, after turning out the S
