Cult of Personality

It his latest music notes column, Thom Jennings (Niagra Gazette), looks at Todd and Joe Bonamassa of examples of 'cult' artists showing how you can still make a living out of the music industry "Of the two, Bonamassa is playing larger venues and commanding a higher ticket price in spite of a complete lack of any commercial singles. What Bonamassa has done is put out a massive amount of recorded material, and offer up tons of high quality live albums and DVDs and merchandise. Bonamassa has a monthly newsletter, filled with tons of content, and he interacts with his fan base consistently. Like many successful groups from the 1960s and 1970s, Bonamassa makes it fun to follow his career because there is usually something new coming out on a regular basis. Rundgren built his cult following in the 1970s much the same way, by putting out a mass of unique material in a short period of time. Even though he no longer puts out new albums very often, he has been able to offer up a number of different live packages over the last 10 years, including album shows, greatest hits shows, symphony orchestra shows, an electronic dance show and an “unpredictable” show. In simplest terms, Rundgren keeps fans guessing, and makes following his career interesting."

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Substack: the new blogging and a new music newsletter

Hello again my old blogger blog. Just checking in to plug the new substack newsletter I'm doing. It is also home to the CTTB Music podcast and its archive too. Why not pay me a visit and sign up for future editions of the newsletter (free)

The Decemberists - 'The Hazards of Love'

Whilst the Decemberists have been around for a number of years, and a friend of mine is a big fan, I have to confess - a few tunes aside - they have never really made much of a splash with me. With their fifth album - 'The Hazards of Love' - a 17-track concept album that sort of tells a story about a fair maiden ravished by a shape-shifting demon (no, really) - however, I am suddenly find myself surprisingly won over. On some levels - like most concept albums - it is utter tosh, but with its repeating musical motifs and reprises, making you quickly think that actually there are only about five actual songs on the album - a clever trick. Like with all good concept albums this makes listening on shuffle not the ideal way to digest this album - especially as their are short 'interlude' pieces joining all the songs too. Added to all this the fact that the band seem to have a love for early 70's British folk/prog/heavy metal and this walks right up my street - and will ...

To be honest, I don’t think 2010 will be remembered as a ‘great’ year music-wise, although some good stuff did get released. It was a year when the hip and happening people told me I should be listening to Tame Impala, Gold Panda, Deerhunter, Beach House and others. And, I did. All were perfectly fine, but none really grabbed me, and I can’t help feeling that tame Impala sounded much better in the context of a Soundtrack album than they did on a full album of their own. So leaving those aside, was there one album that stood head and shoulders above all else this year? Not for me. There were several albums that held my attention at different parts of the year but only a few which didn’t fall away, and less still that made last gasp dashes to improve with time. So, what follows are 20 albums I have enjoyed for various reasons during 2010. If I were doing it another week, maybe O Children, She and Him, Warpaint, Pull in Emergency, Thea Gilmore, Mary Chapin Carpenter, and Liz Phair may hav...

Todd is God

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