95 North. . . The Newspaper

City dwellin' east coast professionals. . . I guess they all have a heart, and The National are here to document it for us  under the florescent city lights of commercial Manhattan.  Is there a science to walking though windows? Who are these guys? For starters: The National mesh, construct, tear down, and play rock n' roll unlike anyone else. At the core of all their  songs lies a detectable heart buried underneath a sea of concrete .  After a typical National song has reached it's conclusion, we've read a tightly constructed essay of postmodern discontent, meticulously built with plenty of poetry and no wasted words. Although the band is led by lead singer Matt Berninger, the National does not serve as a vehicle for any sort of overwhelming personality. As a unit, the National almost always have something to say that seems to stretch beyond just one personality, suggesting that a collective approach is favored by the band.  Unlike much of the musi...

Rust Never Sleeps: Neil Young live. Courtesy Getty Images "Powderfinger" may be Neil Young's best song. In a few short minutes, Young manages to paint an evocative picture that is cinematic in its scope- place, setting, theme, backstory- it's all there as Young tells the story (in first person) of a young man that encounters war, death, and violence admist the backdrop of a small town life, filled with family tragedy and everyday musings. "Powderfinger" can be heard in two formats: first, there's the revved up electric version that Young cut with his band Crazy Horse. Of course, Young's got the heart-wrenching acoustic version in his back pocket as well. Both can be heard below. Most impressive of all is Young's ability to communicate, deeply, the tragedy of an early death on a river town. While the song is filled with specifics, it manages to be general enough- and finds it place in the Vietnam War or perhaps the American Civil War in eq...

Here at 95 North , we love Bob Dylan and Kendrick Lamar. While Bobby won a Nobel Prize for literature in 2017, we were all elated to discover that Kendrick Lamar's got one now, too. Recently, Lamar won the Pulitzer prize for music. Noticeably, he is the first non-jazz/non-classical musician to win the prize, according to the  New Yorker . To honor the occasion, click  here  to read 95 North's overview of the best of Kendrick Lamar, who, along with Bob Dylan, write some of the best American music my ears have been lucky enough to take in. I've been educated, enthralled, mystified, appropriately saddened and enlivened (emotional intelligence?), and generally enriched by the music of these two human beings for a long time. Educated: Lamar-"Institutionalized" Enthralled : Lamar- "DNA" Mystified : Lamar- "Duckworth" Saddened : Lamar-"Sing About Me (I'm Dying of Thirst) Enlivened : Lamar- "Money Trees" Enriched : Lamar- ...

Ryan Adams is a rare talent- a generation X Neil Young- and a singer/songwriter who can rattle off a melody effortlessly. Like Uncle Neil, Adams has built a strong back catalog full of hard rockers, folkly tunes, country waltzes, and delicate piano songs. "Night Birds", from his 2005 album  29  is of the soft piano variety, but it packs as much of an emotional punch as anything a power chord is capable of. The piano steps along the timeline of life, here, zooming in on a reflection of a particular point in Adams' life (29 was a loose concept album with a song about each year of his 20's) with poignancy. "Night Birds" invites you in Adam's head, where sad scenes play out, where the desire for something better is transparent as the clear waves of the ocean on a moonlit night.

Below is a list of album's I'd like to review. I tried to exclude album's I've already discussed here, such as John Prine's Fair and Square , Lauryn Hill's MTV Unplugged , Beck's  Sea Change , SZA's  Ctrl , and Dylan's  P lanet Waves  (not including overviews of  Kendrick Lamar ,  Neil Young ,  The Drive By Truckers , and  the great Jason Isbell ). Some of these albums were youthful obsessions, others; classics I feel need revisiting. Album Artist Funeral Arcade Fire Rubber Soul The Beatles The White Album The Beatles Rockin’ the Suburbs Ben Folds Silent Alarm Bloc Party Desire Bob Dylan Legend (Greatest Hits) Bob Marley The Undisputed Truth Brother Ali Nebraska Bruce Springsteen There’s Nothing Wrong with Love Built to Spill The Greatest Cat Power A Rush of Blood to the Head Coldplay Be Common Deja Vu CSNY Ghost of David Damien Jurado Channel Orange Fran...