Another Effing Sarah

New Marilyn Manson single drops by surprise: Curiously, some of Manson's best work has been his covers of others' work, like Gary Numan's "Down in the Park", Eurythmics "Sweet Dreams", Depeche Mode's "Personal Jesus". Though, his attempt at covering Patti Smith's "Rock n Roll N*****" was absolutely a song any artist trying to be edgy should have stayed away from, I guess if anyone was going to throw themselves on that particular sword, it was going to be him. Having been thinking about this, Patti Smiths responses to being asked about the song, and wondering if I'd been  too critical in my assessment of his choice to cover it, I thought it deserved a brief context: it was a talking point by Smith around an essay being discussed at the time entitled "The White Negro" by Norman Mailer, where the derogatory term was talked about by way of applying it to a demographic of outsiders. She used the term to identify...

Read my review of Tool's album "Fear Inoculum" over at Insights  or read an expanded review here: Fear Inoculum  is the long awaited fifth album from progressive metal band Tool, an album that took 13 years to come to fruition, almost half the 29 years the band has been together. It’s an album steeped in psychology, theology, and social commentary set to a soundtrack that feels organic in the way it flows and breathes. Instead of pushing to create something entirely ground-breaking from scratch, Tool have worked to show how far they have come and what their past work would sound like if they were to revisit themes, and at times invoke the spirits of compositions past. This is partly where the contention lies; it’s not “new”, and at first listen this was what I walked away with. But that’s the trap I think they set with the recording, because inevitably, you’re going back for a second listen, because there was “something” you heard on the first pass and you want to ...