Team くるり

The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion were one of the most viscerally exciting indie rock acts of the 1990s, but making their blast of frantic energy work in the studio was sometimes a challenge if you were going for anything more than sheer gutbucket stomp. On Orange and Acme, JSBX used strings, hip-hop beats, and various production niceties to add texture to the two-guitar-and-drums onslaught, but with Now I Got Worry, they moved forward into the past with the fiercest and most elemental set they'd released since Crypt Style. Now I Got Worry kicks off with Spencer screaming his head off while Russell Simins lays down a funky, muscular backbeat, and that sets the tone for what follows; the album plays at full-blast from beginning to end, even when the tempo shifts and the band eases back a bit in the name of dynamics.

The Mystic Diversions project is the result of the musical sensibility of Francesko, a musician and composer from Florence, who is well-known for his past successes under the stage-name of Mike Francis. The album started out as a World Music project and became a fascinating journey into Ambient and Lounge, with audible influences from ethnic, latin and the world of RnB and Soul, all filtered through the taste and sensitivity of Francesko and the people he invited aboard.

Even if it was classified as pop-metal, Bon Jovi never really was much of a metal band, relying on big, catchy melodies and not guitar riffs to make their songs memorable. That's why, in 2000, they're able to make an album like Crush, which strays far enough into pop/rock to actually stand a chance of getting airplay (which it did, with the hit lead single "It's My Life").