The 2014 Thanksgiving Turkey Shoot

turkeyshoot_web

Jim, Greg and the listeners nominate their most disappointing albums of 2014 as part of our annual Thanksgiving Turkey Shoot. Later, a unique take on the lyrics of Bob Dylan.

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Music News

Garth Brooks continues his quest against iTunes with the release of his new digital music platform, GhostTunes. Brooks is notoriously one of the big iTunes holdouts, preferring instead to sell his music on his own website. GhostTunes has music by Garth and a number of other atists. One of the biggest differences between the platform and iTunes is the split of profits (80/20 vs. 70/30). This is just the latest in a string of press for Brooks, who recently returned to the music scene with a new album and sold-out arena shows around the U.S.

Taylor Swift suddenly pulling her music from Spotify has its CEO, Daniel Ek, acting like a jilted lover in one of her tracks. The reigning pop princess argued people should always pay for music, while Ek fired back that Spotify has paid more than $2 billion to artists in royalties. That being said, on average, one stream of a song pays an artist only 7/10 of a penny. Ek believes that people will ultimately just get music for free if they don't use services like Spotify. So some money is better than none. Apparently he hasn't gotten the message that Swift is firm in her stance, and they are never getting back together (like ever.)

Turkey Shoot 2014

Turkey Shoot: It's Turkey time! Dip these albums in the deep fryers (safely of course). Here are the albums that most let Jim and Greg down in 2014:

Greg

  • Damon Albarn, Everyday Robots
  • Karen O, Crush Songs
  • Neil Young, Storytone

Jim

  • Buzzcocks, The Way
  • Lily Allen, Sheezus
  • Foxygen, ...And Star Power

Listener Turkeys

  • Paul from Marcellus, NY: U2, Songs of Innocence
  • Shawn from Omaha, NB: Lana Del Rey, Ultraviolence
  • Jeremy from Vista, CA: Rancid, ...Honor Is All We Know

Lost on the River The New Basement Tapes

Lost On the River (Deluxe Version)

Who knew that one summer in a basement in upstate New York in 1967 would become such a big deal? But fans of Bob Dylan and The Band are still poring over the material that came out of those musicians' one-take, slapdash recording sessions, decades later. It's amazing considering that those Basement Tapes weren't even supposed to go public. Now, more lyrics from that time have surfaced and have been turned into new music produced by T. Bone Burnett and performed by Jim James of My Morning Jacket, Elvis Costello and Marcus Mumford of Mumford & Sons. The result is Lost on the River by The New Basement Tapes. Greg particularly admires the bluesy, pre-rock sound contributed by Rhiannon Giddens of the Carolina Chocolate Drops. But, for the most part, he doesn't hear any of the magic of The Basement Tapes. And that's not surprising considering it was a contrived project with the manufactured setting of the basement of Capitol Records in L.A., not rural New York. He can only say Try It. Jim thinks Greg is being kind. He doesn't think you can separate Dylan's lyrics and poetry from Dylan's music and voice. This collaboration is nothing like the successful Wilco/Billy Bragg/Woody Guthrie project Mermaid Avenue. He says Trash It.

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