Looking back, it seems inevitable that the Black Crowes would suffer a rocky middle age. Young bands yearning to be old tend to stumble when they years start to pile up, once hunger and ambition starts to fade into the ceaseless grind of the road, and the Crowes were no exception. After they mapped out the furthest reaches of their world on 1994’s Amorica, they slowly spun their tires, turning out records both respectable and tired, before internal tensions slowly tore the brothers Robinson apart, leading to a split in 2002, not long after the release of their sixth album Lions. A few years of solo wanderings lead the band to a reunion in 2005 but they had to go through a few more lineup changes - including the addition of North Mississippi Allstar Luther Dickinson as the replacement for guitarist Mark Ford — before they buckled down to record their seventh album, 2008’s Warpaint. All that turmoil and trouble is felt on Warpaint, as are the years the band spent paying dues on the jam-band circuit after Amorica. Warpaint shows that decade of hard struggle gave the band soul and chops, turning them into the band they’ve always wanted to be.

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Matt Collar: OK, so either America is getting it wrong or the Vote for the Worst people are finally having an effect this year. How else do you explain Amanda Overmyer getting through? And she sounded even worse in the group performance. Nonetheless, last night was perhaps the most interesting results show since Daughtry got the early boot. You couldn’t have scripted a better exit for young Alaina Whittaker, who will probably get a call from Olivia Newton-John this week. Not much to say really about Jason Yeager as his leaving was inevitable. Robbie Carrico is perhaps a bit more of a surprise given his vocal ability, but he never really connected with the audience and did protest a little too much about not being a “rock” singer. It is also too bad for Alexandréa Lushington, who maybe had the most chance for improving during the competition, and her jazz fusion-inflected performances will be missed.

Andrew Leahey: I’m really going to miss saying the name “Lushington.” And while Alexandréa wasn’t my favorite vocalist by any means, I’d sell my upper limbs to get Amanda off this show and out of my life. She and Luke both deserved to go home this week, as did Kady Malloy (who, despite being quite pretty, has yet to bring that attractive quality to her performances). Alaina’s elimination was teary and heartfelt, providing one of the first genuinely moving moments of the season — or at least the first one that didn’t involve David Archuleta. Kudos to Ryan Seacrest for handling the situation well, and to the female contestants for lending their emotional and vocal support (although if I were Alaina, hearing Amanda’s nicotine-clogged voice in my right ear would’ve made me cry even harder).

The sacking of Robbie Carrico also caught me a bit off-guard, as did Simon’s scathing commentary. The dude had just been eliminated, Simon — there was no need to deliver one last “You’re not a rocker” potshot! But Robbie took the metaphorical kick-in-the-balls like a man, sang his final song with gusto, and presumably left the building with that supermodel (his girlfriend? his wife?) who was waiting for him on the Idol balcony. Hey, at least he went out like a rockstar.

Andy Kellman: It’s not quite as off as when Nikki stayed and Tamyra got the boot (during season one), or when Jennifer, Fantasia, and LaToya were in the bottom three (during season three), but Amanda lasting longer than Alexandréa is about as foul as it gets. Alexandréa stumbled a couple times, no doubt — it’s not like she even had a shot at making it to the very end — but watching her approach her potential for a few more weeks would’ve been far more engaging than whatever remaining amount of Amanda we are going to be dealt.

This also goes to show how young, aspiring singers have to be careful about when to audition for American Idol. If you’re good enough to make it to the top 24, and you get ejected early, you might impair or ruin your chances for success later on. If you wait it out a few years, until your early 20s, when you’ve become more seasoned, you might have a greater shot of making it further. Alexandréa’s 17 and has both obvious talent and a lot of room for development. Hopefully she’ll keep performing and improving and will not run into too many obstacles or be written off as a failed AI contestant.

Unified and cohesive would not be two of the first couple hundred words used to describe Quaristice, the first Autechre album since 2005’s Untilted. The only aspect that prevents Quaristice from seeming open-ended, as a bunch of tracks splayed arbitrarily across a disc, is that it begins and ends with ambient (as in entirely beat-less) pieces; an arc might gradually become apparent, but that would only be the result of increased familiarity with the sequence of tracks. It’s disparate, to say the very least, but that is not at the listener’s expense.

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What would happen if the Squirrel Nut Zippers and They Might Be Giants joined forces? It would probably end up sounding like The Two Man Gentleman Band, a New York City duo that performs jaunty tunes about love, math and American history while employing banjos, string bass and plenty of kazoo.
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Underground DJ, producer, and remixer extraordinaire Ruckus Roboticus released his playful debut Playing with Scratches nationally last month. A masterful collage of samples, the album (like his similarly-themed last CD-R mix, Music Machine) fuses children’s music with hip-hop in a cornucopia of ‘70s TV themes, underground funk, hip-hop, and random rarities. Boasting an impressive vinyl collection with thousands of off-the-beaten-path records, he was kind enough to take some time away from his turntables this week to show AMG some of his most treasured finds.

Ruckus Roboticus discusses his secret stash after this break:

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Heather Phares
The best: The flu, nerves, poor song choices and poor styling choices wreaked so much havoc on the American Idol ladies this week that “the best” is synonymous with “who screwed up the least.” That slightly dubious honor goes to the women who opened the show: though Simon was dead-on when he told Carly that she hasn’t picked the perfect song to show off her ability and personality yet, Heart’s “Crazy on You” did display her range and power, even if she didn’t have quite enough charisma to really own it. Brooke White, savvy contestant that she is, took a tip from Jason Castro’s performance last week and performed “You’re So Vain” while playing acoustic guitar, underscoring her “Laurel Canyon for the 2000s” vibe. Even though her take on it lacked the stinging wit of the original, it was still one of the night’s most engaging performances. And though Ramiele’s “Don’t Leave Me This Way” was disappointing compared to last week’s knockout performance, her charm carried her through the song despite the judges’ criticisms.

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We see a lot of records here at AllMusic. A lot of slick major-label product to be sure. Also a large amount of independent music of all kinds, with enough money behind it to create some buzz or enough hype surrounding it to make it stand out. But the majority of what we see are albums on tiny labels with no money or promotion involved, or self-released labors of love that are destined to be heard by only a handful of people, if even that. Most of these titles get funneled through the data-entry process smoothly without anyone even noticing.

Every so often, though, something funny happens. It could be the cover, the band name, the album title…but something makes you stop the machinery and rescue the poor little underdog of an album. Case in point, Threk Michaels. This guy has it all. The name is amazing. The cover is spectacular, as you can see. The concept of the album is flawless too.

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Heather Phares: It’s kind of remarkable how trimming just two contestants pared Tuesday night’s show down to a relatively trim 90 minutes. However, any opportunity to keep things moving at this point in the show is a blessing, especially when the contestants are as uneven as this season’s guys are. That was the other remarkable thing about Tuesday’s performances: the theme was “Songs of the ’70s,” but it felt more like “Opposite Night” — almost everyone who did well last week stumbled, and nearly all of last week’s iffy performers stepped up their game.

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