Bradwarthen.com Website Review

It was written by someone aptly named “Brianna Younger.” I don’t see how such a piece could have been written by a “Brianna Older.” resurgence — like, a generation ago). It’s album-oriented rock on FM stations with DJs who sounded like they were on Quaaludes. Aren’t we several technological developments beyond “albums?” There were albums, then cas*ettes, then CDs, then stolen MP3s and iPods, then free access to all music ever recorded via YouTu*e, Pandora, Spotify, etc. And you say albums are still a thing? If so, in what sense — mere collections of recordings, or concept-based, like Sgt. Pepper and Aqualung? the ’60s, old people couldn’t miss the Beatles, the Rolling Stones or Herman’s Hermits. And young people couldn’t miss Frank Sinatra, thickly upon the limited spread of available media. That just isn’t the case today. Listeners can go off into their own private world and groove on their own private sounds that the person sitting next to them have never heard and never will hear. Our culture is not shared this century? An album might have done that in the 70s, when they were as central to the mas* culture as bell-bottoms and leisure suits. But Oops. That’s only four. Either there’s something wrong with my computer, or even Brianna could only come up with four. (Let me know these recordings were essential to an understanding of 2018? Forty years from now, to what extent will today’s young people — much less their children and grandchildren — be listening to this music, or seeing it as essential to this moment? If you don’t think that’s a fair question, allow me to cite eight albums from a year in which albums mattered, in which they truly served as a broadly-perceived soundtrack for the time, and even could have been said to “define” the time, and echo in our memory of …Sorry, I can’t narrow it down to eight. Let’s do 10 that still loom large in our culture: I’m Losing You.” “(Find a) Reason to Believe.” All that’s missing is “Handbags and Gladrags.”