Bobby Bare, Jr. - Ok I'm Sorry - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

Bobby and his Young Criminals' Starvation League's latest is a frothy, brilliant, genre-bending mongrel. There are dreamy pop songs sung by folks not ready to turn their backs on the visceral joys of gutter punk, a a shameless embrace of groovy SoCal country rock, sharp, soulful Stax-style horn Blasts, R&B swagger, and a love of the Brill Building, the Ryman Auditorium, CBGB's and the gas station outside Memphis where the van broke down. It's a beautiful funny, heartbreaking, ambitious, hypnotic, lovesick and lovelorn lyrical knockout.

Bear in Heaven's new album is aptly titled TIME IS OVER ONE DAY OLD. It's a record with a visceral relationship to time and it's processes. Where invulnerability and ambition can support you as you grow, at some point they become dead weight, and being true to yourself means casting them off, starting anew. This plays out as a powerful analogy for the band across the arc of it's career.

Whether inspiring audiences through music, movies television, books or his foundation, Common continues to break new ground, and remains to be one of hip-hops most innovative, positive voices. His new album, THE DREAMER, THE BELIEVER delivers the consciousness Common's audience has to come expect from him, but also a rawness and passion that might come as a surprise. Some might even say that he's rapping with a chip on his shoulder.