The Truth About Music: Play It Loud

"What's hot, what's not, and whats next in pop music"

Play It Loud

Opinion: Robert Dean’s (Short) Opus On SXSW

By Robert posted March 22, 2012 at 08:22

It’s over. After an exhausting trek into the musical miasma known as SXSW, I came away with a lot more, complex feelings than I had intended to. Within the four days I spent roaming the landscape of downtown Austin in search of new sounds, I was met with some interesting opinions about where music is going, why we’re here, what’s coming next, and how the ladder could fall out on this pseudo “music first” festival. SXSW is a very complicated thing to try and stick in one constructed idea. It’s too vast, and there is way too much going on to box it and ship it off. This is a plus for one aspect of the event, but for others, it’s very limiting. Continue...
Review: Van Halen Reunion Record Avoids The Suck, Rocks Out ’70s Style

By Robert posted February 09, 2012 at 08:25

When I first heard the single “Tattoo” from the new Van Halen record “A Different Kind of Truth,” I was fully prepared to write the record off as another waste of time from a classic band grasping for air as they try to milk the reunion machine. “Tattoo” is awful. Why the record suit and tie machine decided that would be the single is beyond comprehension. It gives the record a terrible perception upon first listen. Continue...
Opinion: 2011 Was Histories Largest Musical Fart (Explicit)

By Robert posted December 28, 2011 at 11:57

I always wonder what columnists of the ’70s wrote as the ’80s were in full swing, when the artists that they had once loved, turned into sad portraits of their former selves. Did they realize Paul McCartney, the man who wrote so many classics, could be capable of such crimes against ears as “Silly Love Songs” etc? Did anyone ever imagine that The Rolling Stones, who wrote the masterpiece “Exile on Main Street” would see their singer prance around in the most homoerotic video ever? (Seriously, Mick Jagger and David Bowie likely had sex at some point of the shoot, watch “Dancing in the Streets,” and tell me differently). In those cases it was the time, but did they see it as just, downright bad? Continue...
Obsession of the Week: Of Monsters and Men

By Melissa posted December 08, 2011 at 08:45

I used to be the person that all of my friends came to for music recommendations. I could always be counted on for suggestions that they were sure to like. Now that I’m a so-called “grown up” with responsibilities and a full-time job, (and I actually pay for my music,) discovering new music has dropped more than a few notches on my importance list. Continue...
Review: CAKE Rocks New Orleans, Like Only CAKE Can

By Robert posted October 19, 2011 at 14:19

Cake is a band that a lot of people love, but don’t think about on a daily basis. They’re like Radiohead in the respect that in a lot of people’s minds, they’re the bands who wrote “Creep”, and “The Distance” while, any true fan gets red in the face over consternation with someone not knowing the whole, vastly impressive catalogs of each respective band. Continue...
Review: New Orleans Crowd Meets Two Sides of Hank Williams III

By Robert posted October 10, 2011 at 11:26

There are two men living within Hank III. One is the grandson of the greatest singer in Country Music history. And while, Hank III may be a third generation of musical royalty, Hank III is certainly no slouch, his songs are more tear jerky, or barroom rowdy than any manure on the radio. With his lanky gait, and throaty moan that so eerily mirrors Williams Sr, Hank III is a authentic country music outlaw, and his talent is natural unlike others that were lucky enough to have the name, but none of the forbearers talent. Continue...
Shooter Jennings Verbally Bitch Slaps Nashville Peers

By Robert posted September 01, 2011 at 15:03

Shooter Jennings is pissed, and that’s a fantastic thing for the cesspool known as modern country music. On his new song, “Outlaw You” the singer/songwriter verbally bitch slaps his Nashville peers while smiling in their face the whole time, and no one in the CMT universe gets it. “Outlaw you” is a funny track. If you listen to it without pretext, it sounds like every popular country song that’s plastered all over the radio, and that’s the point. But, when you listen to the lyrics, which assuming most modern country-pop radio listeners don’t, they’re being psychologically fisted by someone who actually knows what it’s like to be an outsider, and not just him, he’s a second generation outsider. It’s a seething, transparent language “EFF YOU” to everyone who’s responsible for making one of America’s original art forms into the sad joke it is today. Continue...
Opinion: Lil Wayne Is The Most Overhyped Rap Artist Of All Time

By Robert posted August 09, 2011 at 11:13

Lil Wayne is the king of everything pop culture related these days. After his seminal album “Tha Carter II” the world has had a raging boner for all things Lil Wayne, and no amount of cultural, bedsheet tearing sex appears to mitigate that hard on, anytime soon. From relatively successful rapper, he went to megastar fame with his biggest hit “Lollipop” staying a number one for a mind-baffling amount of time. Continue...
Review: Slackeye Slim Joins Movement to Change Climate of Popular Music

By Robert posted July 22, 2011 at 08:48

Risk is what can make the average album into something more. Risk is what makes records beyond brilliant, and into legendary status. When a group of musicians come together and make a conscious effort to challenge the climate of popular music, and purposely go left field when the others in the pack are scrambling for radio plays, it says something about the stones of the art in question. Continue...
Opinion: So Limp Bizket Is Back, But Who Really Cares?

By Robert posted June 14, 2011 at 08:00

Eight dudes with sleeveless t-shirts in Idaho with multiple DUI’s are way stoked. Depending on the intensity of the turd known as “Gold Cobra’s ability to stink, a few rapes might happen, and perhaps a few bar fights in between Disturbed and Drowning Pool songs. Continue...