BECAUSE WHY NOT?

WHAT I DID LAST THURSDAY

He opened with "Roll Me Away" and closed with "Rock 'n' Roll Never Forgets," and that's probably true, even if these days it needs a night off between gigs and a 10-minute intermission to break up the set. This might well be Bob Seger's final tour; he'll turn 62 in May, but his new comeback album Face The Promise is surprisingly muscular, and I wanted to hear how such hard-rocking new songs would mix with the more soul/r&b-styled (though still punchy) classics. They harmonize quite well, as it turns out. [Read the rest here.]

MORE FROM CLEVELAND

The video for "Le Disko" is a goth-industrial creepshow, but don't let that fool you -- Shiny Toy Guns are as playful as their name. "Don't Cry Out," the opening cut on We Are Pilots, is pure Pet Shop Boys disco-revival bliss, except that half the vocals are by sexy/smirky Carah Faye (remember, "dorks + mouthy babe = $ucce$$ " since Blondie, if not earlier). [Read the rest here.]

FILTH HITS CLEVELAND

Cradle of Filth has been polarizing metalheads for 15 years. While the British band's fan base goes rabid for its symphonically pomptastic black/thrash song-suites, others just loathe the group. Hardcore black-metal fans resent them for getting lumped in with their hermetic and surly genre, accurately claiming that no band with such an obvious sense of humor and showbiz aesthetic could be "true" BM. [Read the rest here.]

COOL THINGS I FORGOT I OWN, VOL. 573

I was digging in a box looking for AA batteries and found a copy of the soundtrack to Taal, a Bollywood movie I've never seen. I bought this at a local Indian grocery in 1999, on cassette ($4, I think), after seeing a commercial for it on this show that used to run on one of the cable channels - musical numbers from the movies, shown like music videos. Most of the female vocals are by Alka Yagnik (quickie research indicates she won some kind of award, and indeed the movie was a big award-magnet the year it came out), though there's one track featuring Asha Bhosle. The music is generally mellow and kinda dubby, heading almost into Wordsound territory on a couple of tracks. Very rhythmic throughout, with some unexpected bursts of melody that'll pop your ass right out of the chair if you're not paying attention - or even if you are. Plus, the J-card folds out with lots of very nice pictures of Aishwarya Rai, always a huge plus. I might have to dig this one up on CD; it's available from Amazon damn cheap.