artist: Jamiroquai function popUp(URL,NAME) { amznwin=window.open(URL,NAME,'location=yes,scrollbars=yes,status=yes,toolbar=yes,resizable=yes,width=380,height=450,screenX=10,screenY=10,top=10,left=10'); amznwin.focus();} document.open(); document.write(""); document.close(); album: Dynamite format: 16-bit Stereo CD/Enhanced Stereo DVD label: Epic release year: 2005 performance: 8.5 sound: 7.5 reviewer: Bryan Dailey If the Bee Gees, Stevie Wonder, KC & the Sunshine Band and Sade all got together for a disco orgy, the resulting love child would sing just like Jay Kay, the front man for modern-day British disco heavyweights Jamiroquai. America was introduced to Jamiroquai in 1997 with the release of the multi-platinum album Traveling Without Moving. The song “Virtual Insanity,” with its retro style and tripped-out video featuring moving sidewalks that carried Kay all around the screen as he seemed to moonwalk and float across the room, helped the band cut through the Nirvanas, Pearls Jams and Soundgardens that were fading in popularity by that time. Jamiroquai were a bit of a vacation from the hard grungy music that had been assaulting the airwaves for so long, and they found a niche that worked on alternative radio, as well as ...

Columbia performance 8 sound 8 released 2005 Switchfoot’s Nothing is Sound may be giving its members post-graduate stress rather than the anticipated, more familiar sophomore jinx, because this is actually the act’s fifth full-length CD. Some might not realize the group initially built up its following in the Christian marketplace. But its 2003 The Beautiful Letdown was simultaneously its Columbia debut and its commercial breakthrough. Chances are, if you enjoyed this San Diego band’s previous morals-inspired and philosophical work, you won’t be let down – so to speak – with this new release.

Reprise Records performance 6.5 sound 6.5 released 2005 So what’s a guitar legend supposed to do with the rest of his career when, just barely out of his teens, “Clapton is God” graffiti starts popping up on the walls and alleys of London? (Here’s yet another example of how your life is enriched in ways you couldn’t imagine by reading Audio Video Revolution. I’m going to reveal a very well-kept “inside” secret here: that afro EC sprouted just after he formed Cream, and, uh, also around the time he met newly-arrived-in-London Jimi Hendrix? – had nothing to do with copping Jimi’s fashion sense. Eric’s head had actually swelled that much, and rather than a massive mop, he had just a very short covering of frizzy hair on that huge head. It’s true. Examine the photos.)

artist: DEVO function popUp(URL,NAME) { amznwin=window.open(URL,NAME,'location=yes,scrollbars=yes,status=yes,toolbar=yes,resizable=yes,width=380,height=450,screenX=10,screenY=10,top=10,left=10'); amznwin.focus();} document.open(); document.write(""); document.close(); album: Live 1980 format: DualDisc label: Music Video Distributors release year: 2005 performance: 7 sound: 3 reviewed by: Bryan Dailey Looking back 25 years later at DEVO, what sticks in my mind the most isn’t the red spud energy hats or the legless white uniform space suits. It is the numbers of bands who have since driven down the alternative rock road that DEVO paved. Like Frank Zappa before them, DEVO took “weird” rock and turned it into something people would actually listen to on the radio. From legendary alt rockers like Oingo Boingo and the B-52’s to modern-day punkers like Green Day and The Offspring, these groups all owe a little thanks to DEVO for having the guts to make quirky pop music and not be apologetic about it.

artist: Dire Straits   album: Brothers in Arms - 20th Anniversary Edition format: DualDisc label: Warner Bros. release year: 2005 performance: 7.5 sound: 6.5 reviewed by: Charles Andrews Sure, sure, sure. You’ve got this album. Somewhere. Or you did have it at one time. Dog ate it. Disappeared at a party. Ex took off with it, along with that Krug ’88 and your heart and several other things she did not bring into the cohabitation. Yeah, you and 25 million other jakes. No, seriously.