James Hunter
James Hunter has written for the New York Times Arts & Leisure section; New York Times Sunday Business; LA Style; LA Weekly; Boston Globe; Boston Phoenix; Village Voice; New York Observer; New York Times Magazine; Louisville Courier-Journal; GQ; Details; Rolling Stone; Mademoiselle; Vibe; US magazine; Mens Journal; TV Guide; The New Yorker and The Atlantic (both purchased pieces not published); The Believer; Request; Record; Mix; Music & Sound Output; Creem (updated, not the original, storied in some quarters publication); Blender; Spin.
95 articles
List of articles in the library
Bryan Adams: Waking Up the Neighbours (A&M)
Review by James Hunter, Rolling Stone, 17 October 1991
WAKING UP the Neighbours will, with no sweat, reestablish Bryan Adams as the radio's hoarse purveyor of energy and fun. A scrupulously careful yet adamantly ...
Aerosmith, The Cult, Def Leppard, Mötley Crüe, Whitesnake: Heavy Metal: The Sound Too Dense to Die
Comment by James Hunter, L.A. Weekly, 16 October 1987
TWENTY SUMMERS ago, it was love. In 1987 it was metal, pop-metal, ushered in by Bon Jovi's much less musicianly 7-mil play on Van Halen's ...
Afghan Whigs: Black Love (Elektra Entertainment)
Review by James Hunter, Spin, April 1996
THIS CINCINNATI band was several Sub Pop records and many more feverish live dates into a career when its soulful experiments cohered into Gentlemen. By ...
Gary Allan: Scumbag in the Dark: Gary Allan's Alright Guy
Review by James Hunter, The Village Voice, 19 February 2002
"THIS ALBUM," the booklet inside Gary Allan's current Alright Guy reads, "is dedicated to Willie, Waylon, Johnny, George, Buck & Merle," which is a way ...
David Arnold, John Barry, Sheryl Crow: More Fun With Martinis, Girls and Guns on 007 Albums
Report and Interview by James Hunter, New York Observer, 12 January 1998
PUSHING HER voice to surge and sparkle in ways it just doesn't want to, Sheryl Crow tries and tries to manage the choruses of 'Tomorrow ...
Burt Bacharach: The Look of Love – The Burt Bacharach Collection
Review by James Hunter, New York Observer, 23 November 1998
Kitschy-Kitschy-Koo: Look of Love Gets Too Cute ...
Burt Bacharach: Little Big Things: Burt Bacharach's What the World Needs Now
Review by James Hunter, L.A. Weekly, 28 April 2003
IN THE LATE '80s, I sat with the great Japanese pop artist and composer Ryuichi Sakamoto on a hotel rooftop in L.A. talking about Burt ...
Review by James Hunter, New York Observer, 24 May 1999
Backstreet Boys Play Coy, Robbie Williams Is a Joy ...
Philip Bailey, Phil Collins: Philip Bailey: Chinese Walls (Columbia)
Review by James Hunter, Record, January 1985
WHAT WAS Phil Collins supposed to give Philip Bailey that George Duke — who sound-photographed Continuation, Bailey's vivid 1983 solo debut — couldn't? Bumpy rhythms ...
Anita Baker: Compositions (Elektra Entertainment)
Review by James Hunter, Musician, August 1990
FOUR YEARS ago, Anita Baker quietly stormed the pop music charts with Rapture, a reclamation of jazz-soul balladry driven by acoustic resonances and Baker's forthright ...
Chet Baker, John Barry: Playing by Heart: John Barry in All His Glory
Review by James Hunter, New York Observer, 17 January 2000
A SUPERNATURAL-LOOKING CD entitled Playing by Heart is billed to John Barry, Chris Botti and, weirdly enough, Chet Baker. On the black-and-white CD cover, in ...
Review by James Hunter, Spin, October 1997
THE SINGER throws up lyrics about pursuit and desertion. A snare drum lightly skips across a series of bass pinpoints, an organic foundation unthinkable before ...
Review by James Hunter, Rolling Stone, 3 April 1997
ASIDE FROM a minor hit three years ago, with the perfect pop single 'Girls and Boys', England's beloved Blur have never quite killed alternative-era America. ...
Blur, William Orbit: Blur: 13 (Virgin)
Review by James Hunter, New York Observer, 5 April 1999
Blur's Tender Mercies Shine Through Sheen of 13 ...
Jackson Browne: The Naked Ride Home
Review by James Hunter, Rolling Stone, 17 October 2002
FROM THE COOL romanticism of 1993's I'm Alive to the textured ruminations of 1996's Looking East, Jackson Browne has explored, with a sense of flash ...
Jackson Browne: Time The Conqueror
Review by James Hunter, Rolling Stone, 2 October 2008
AFTER SPENDING the late part of last year stumping for John Edwards, Jackson Browne continues to address the frustration, outrage and heartbreak over the Bush ...
Book Excerpt by James Hunter, Encyclopædia Britannica, 1999
COUNTRY ROCK, the incorporation of musical elements and songwriting idioms from traditional country music into late 1960s and '70s rock, usually pursued in Los Angeles. ...
Review by James Hunter, Musician, March 1992
SINCE 1987, Keith Sweat has exhibited the grip and attitude of a classic soul singer, rather than a conventionally powerful voice. He and frequent collaborator ...
Review by James Hunter, Rolling Stone, 3 September 1998
PERFECT CHEMISTRY ...
The Chemical Brothers, Matthew Herbert, Stephane Pompougnac, Rinôçérôse: Lifestyles of the Rhythm
Overview by James Hunter, The Village Voice, 2 July 2002
Dance music accesses an unseparatist pop sensibility ...
Review by James Hunter, Rolling Stone, 8 February 1990
STARS OF the Gospel Highway traces the exuberant rise of black gospel in America. The third in a series coordinated by Anthony Heilbut, a chronicler ...
Randy Crawford: Nightline (Warner Bros.)
Review by James Hunter, Record, February 1984
SINGER RANDY Crawford — as rightfully celebrated and well-known in Europe as she is not in her native United States — sounds like Gladys Knight, ...
Rodney Crowell: Street Language (Columbia)
Review by James Hunter, Rolling Stone, 6 November 1986
RODNEY CROWELL'S credentials as a first-rate country-pop producer (for his wife, Rosanne Cash, on Seven Year Ache and Rhythm and Romance) and songwriter ('Till I ...
The Cure: Join the Dots: B-Sides & Rarities – 1978–2001: The Fiction Years
Review by James Hunter, The Village Voice, 25 May 2004
THE CURE'S Join the Dots: B-Sides & Rarities: 1978–2001: The Fiction Years is titled with the exhaustiveness that can, in every sense, characterize box sets. ...
Review by James Hunter, Rolling Stone, 14 May 1992
Healing for a Cult of Millions ...
Review by James Hunter, Vibe, August 1995
THIS RISKY debut is puzzling. D'Angelo, a 21-year-old Virginia native, is determined to give pre-hip hop forms like blues, soul, gospel, and jazz a mid-'90s ...
Dido: Boots and Beats Beneath the Bed: Dido's No Angel
Review by James Hunter, The Village Voice, 6 March 2001
WHEN HIP-HOPPERS go anywhere from Spandau Ballet to Annie to Diana Ross and David Bowie to Kenny Rogers for music – as Prince Be, Jay-Z, ...
Comment by James Hunter, The Village Voice, 30 January 2001
DJ Music Builds Its Way Out of the Velvet-Rope Underground ...
Interview by James Hunter, Vibe, February 1999
YOUNG, GIFTED, AND MACK, BALTIMORE SOUL SLINGERS DRU HILL SING SONGS THAT MAKE MEN MOODY, BUT MAKE THE LADIES SCREAM. ...
Everything But the Girl: Missing – the Full Remix EP (Atlantic)
Review by James Hunter, The Village Voice, 27 February 1996
ALMOST TWO years ago, still relying on the fierce understatement they premiered back in 1984, the English duo Everything But The Girl released Amplified Heart. ...
Donald Fagen: Morph the Cat (Reprise) — Catdown to Ecstasy
Review by James Hunter, The Village Voice, 16 March 2006
Steely Dan's unfashionable co-founder catches a New York where things changed forever ...
Review by James Hunter, Rolling Stone, 4 February 1993
RATHER THAN preaching or hectoring, the Five Blind Boys of Alabama featuring the great Clarence Fountain just demonstrate their beliefs through the medium of music. ...
Garbage, Superdrag, Van Halen: Albums from Van Halen, Superdrag and Garbage
Review by James Hunter, New York Observer, 18 May 1998
Is Rock Dead? No, It's Just Morphing ...
Gilberto Gil, Caetano Veloso, Tom Ze: David Byrne Has Got His Ears Wide Open
Interview by James Hunter, New York Observer, 28 June 1999
FOR THE last 10 years, David Byrne has run Luaka Bop, the Manhattan-based record label that specializes in international pop, with Yale Evelev, formerly of ...
Al Green: "There are riders approaching"
Interview by James Hunter, Record, December 1983
THE CONTINUING TRANSFORMATION OF AL GREEN, MAN OF GOD ...
Al Green: In God He Trusts: Al Green reaches higher
Comment by James Hunter, The Boston Phoenix, 12 January 1982
IN THE '70s, in Memphis, Al Green and producer Willie Mitchell made quietly unstoppable soul music the world still hasn't gotten over. If at first ...
Heaven 17: The Luxury Gap (Arista)
Review by James Hunter, The Boston Phoenix, 9 August 1983
DISCRIMINATING rock-and-roll fans in this country can finally tone down their horrified wails about white British dance bands' ubiquitous, maddening, mosquito-whine electroboogie. Pride in shallowness ...
Faith Hill: Redrawing Country's Borders
Interview by James Hunter, The New York Times, 24 November 2002
IN 1999, THE Mississippi-born country singer Faith Hill released 'Breathe', and it sold more than eight million copies. Country music purists were put off by ...
Faith Hill, Tim McGraw: Tim McGraw and Faith Hill: Love and Industry
Profile by James Hunter, The Village Voice, 25 May 1999
COUNTRY MUSIC Nashville is a town of handlers, of purportedly insightful managers and publicists and producers and record company presidents. In 1993, when Tim McGraw ...
Review by James Hunter, Rolling Stone, 17 September 1998
Courtney Love and Hole make a fiery, flowery return ...
Whitney Houston: I'm Your Baby Tonight (Arista)
Review by James Hunter, Rolling Stone, 10 January 1991
Whitney Gets Warmer ...
Michael Jackson: HIStory: Past, Present And Future, Book I (Epic) ***½
Review by James Hunter, Rolling Stone, 10 August 1995
A DECADE after 'Thriller' and MTV transformed pop, Michael Jackson releases a collection that combines a classic greatest-hits anthology with a jarring and uneven new ...
Interview by James Hunter, Vibe, August 1999
More than just a Stevie Wonder enthusiast, Jamiroquai's wonder frontman, Jay Kay, knows a little something about fly birds, fast cars, and the bass-booming beats ...
George Jones: Wine Colored Roses (Epic)
Review by James Hunter, Rolling Stone, 21 May 1987
THIS IS the finest George Jones record in more than five years. Still working with producer-arranger Billy Sherrill, Jones commands a mix of ten songs ...
The Jones Girls: Keep It Comin' (Philadelphia International)
Review by James Hunter, Record, August 1984
KEEP IT Comin', the Jones Girls' latest album, is black pop in the year 2 A.T. (After Thriller), which means craft and consistency are givens. ...
David Lasley: Raindance (EMI America)
Review by James Hunter, Record, August 1984
MICHIGAN-BORN David Lasley sings like Robin Gibb baptized in the grace-giving waters of soul. As a songwriter his compositions often rank with the best of ...
Kenny Lattimore and Chanté Moore: Things that Lovers Do
Review by James Hunter, The Village Voice, 8 April 2003
Their project may cause pregnancy. ...
Jeff Lynne, Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers, Traveling Wilburys: Jeff Lynne's Guitar Craze
Interview by James Hunter, Musician, August 1989
A Wilbury explains why Tom Petty's solo album sounds the way it does ...
Review by James Hunter, L.A. Weekly, 20 May 2004
VAN LEAR ROSE is an album of 13 songs explosively written and sung by Loretta Lynn. Jack White, of the White Stripes, produced it. Eric ...
Marilyn Manson: The Long Road Out of Hell (ReganBooks)
Book Review by James Hunter, Rolling Stone, 19 March 1998
MANSON'S LITTLE BLACK BOOK: MARILYN MANSON UNLEASHES THE ULTIMATE TELL-ALL ...
Massive Attack: Singles 90/98 (Virgin)
Review by James Hunter, New York Observer, 15 February 1999
What Big Ears They Have! Massive Attack's Remix Art ...
Reba McEntire: Greatest Hits Vol. III – I'm A Survivor
Review by James Hunter, Country Music, February 2002
SOMEONE I KNOW once worked long-distance, from laid-back Denver offices, with an old guy popularly known as Boston's crankiest attorney. ...
Profile and Interview by James Hunter, Entertainment Weekly, 10 November 1995
The country star's number one album proves he's here to stay ...
Kylie Minogue, Robyn: Robyn: Robyn/Kylie Minogue: X
Live Review by James Hunter, The Village Voice, 29 April 2008
MOST OF Robyn recasts the teenage hitmaker of a decade ago as a formidable 26-year-old Stockholm chick. ...
N.E.R.D., Pharrell Williams: N.E.R.D.: Recombinators
Profile and Interview by James Hunter, L.A. Weekly, 22 April 2004
PHARRELL WILLIAMS doesn't shout. Today, the co-producer of Jay-Z and Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake and No Doubt (and others) is sort of urgently whispering ...
Alexander O'Neal: All True Man (Tabu/Epic)
Review by James Hunter, Rolling Stone, 4 April 1991
SINGER ALEXANDER O'Neal has been an adult-soul champ since he and his producers, Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, released Alexander O'Neal in 1985. That debut ...
Review by James Hunter, Rolling Stone, 15 April 1993
The Bliss Album: A New Dawn ...
Elvis Presley: From Elvis In Memphis
Review by James Hunter, Rolling Stone, 10 July 2001
IN THE Elvis Presley mythology, 1968 marks the year of the TV Renaissance, when Presley delivered a mesmerizing, passionate performance on NBC, which regenerated his ...
Prince & the Revolution: Purple Rain (Warner Bros.)
Review by James Hunter, Musician, September 1984
Stylistic Seizures from the Love Laboratory: Prince Lets His Latest Out of the Bottle ...
Interview by James Hunter, L.A. Style, January 1993
On Love Deluxe, Sade eschews formula to arrive at the right fusion ...
Davitt Sigerson: Falling in Love Again (Island/ZE)
Review by James Hunter, The Boston Phoenix, 7 August 1984
WITH OPEN EYES Davitt Sigerson drives into the wreck ol romance on Falling in Love Again (Island/Ze), his American début. ...
Interview by James Hunter, Music & Sound Output, January 1984
CARLY SIMON talks a relaxed, slyly attentive kind of talk, zeroing in on a particular point as instinctively as she watches evasive moods and emotions ...
Profile by James Hunter, The Boston Phoenix, 20 September 1983
No longer one of the girls ...
Carly Simon: Come Upstairs (Warner Bros.)
Review by James Hunter, The Village Voice, 1 October 1980
Carly Simon Yells and Screams ...
Review by James Hunter, The Village Voice, 21 December 2004
THIRTY-EIGHT YEARS ago on a huge #1, Nancy Sinatra made her suede-toned warning that 'These Boots Are Made for Walkin'.' For the piano finale of ...
Review by James Hunter, The Village Voice, 25 September 2007
ON HER RECENT Out of the Woods, Tracey Thorn, singing about artists who awed her early on, mentions "Bobby D in '63". But she also ...
Elliott Smith: Something Happened: Elliott Smith's real-life blur
Interview by James Hunter, L.A. Weekly, May 1997
BORED BY stories, interested in the unruliness of things. Portland's Elliott Smith is a singer-songwriter suspicious of singer-songwriter certainties. Angles, hypotheses, probabilities, lucid emotions arising ...
Spandau Ballet: True (Chrysalis)
Review by James Hunter, The Boston Phoenix, 13 December 1983
THE MADDENINGLY obscure, communications-obsessed songs on True, Spandau Ballet's new album, could have been written by Mary Hartman after years of living abroad. ...
Sting: Gentleman's Agreement: Sting dreams a world without junk...
Comment by James Hunter, The Village Voice, 2 December 1994
"IN THE POLICE he was a pop star, the best we've had, a potent force delivering blistering reggae-tinged chart-friendly hits apparently to order." ...
Review by James Hunter, Rolling Stone, 13 November 2001
STING WAS IN Tuscany when he gave this concert in a courtyard there, beginning at nine in the evening, Italian time, September 11th. ...
George Strait: A Conversation With George Strait
Interview by James Hunter, Entertainment Weekly, 19 April 2002
Press-shy trad-country giant goes On The Record for a no-bull Q&A ...
Review by James Hunter, Rolling Stone, 28 August 1986
FORGET GEORGE Strait as the White-Stetsoned sheriff of country's current "new traditionalism" Think of him instead as Elvis Presley balladeering out of the Lone Star ...
Susie Suh: Anti-Diva: Susie Suh
Profile by James Hunter, The Believer, 1 June 2005
SUSIE SUH'S eponymous collection is the debut of a twenty-five-year-old who grew up performing Korean folk songs on local TV with a children's choir in ...
Take That: 'Back For Good' (Arista)
Review by James Hunter, Rolling Stone, 2 November 1995
BEAUTIFUL LOSER ...
Third Eye Blind's 'Never Let You Go'
Comment by James Hunter, The Village Voice, 4 April 2000
THE KIND OF emotional and formal fire Third Eye Blind build on 'Never Let You Go', their current hit, has rocked producers, radio programmers, and ...
Tracey Thorn: Sublimely nonchalant electro-pop majesty: Tracey Thorn's Out of the Woods
Review by James Hunter, The Village Voice, 20 March 2007
TRACEY THORN, of the now-on-hiatus duo Everything But the Girl, sings with the transparency of country air and the significance of Louis XIV furniture. Alone ...
Travis: Luv Hurts: Travis' The Man Who
Review by James Hunter, L.A. Weekly, 17 May 2000
POP RECORDS can come with some pretty heavy reps. Travis' The Man Who appears in the U.S. after moving two and a half million copies ...
Review by James Hunter, Rolling Stone, 15 June 1995
TWENTY-SEVEN-year-old English rapper, writer and producer Adrian Thaws has been known as Tricky since he roughed up bits of Massive Attack's milestone 1991 LP Blue ...
Shania Twain: O Sister, Where Art Thou?
Comment by James Hunter, Country Music, February 2002
We're sorry, Shania. Come back, we need you. ...
U2: All That You Can't Leave Behind
Review by James Hunter, Rolling Stone, 26 October 2000
U2'S TENTH STUDIO album and third masterpiece, All That You Can't Leave Behind, is all about the simple melding of craft and song. Their first ...
Review by James Hunter, Spin, April 1997
WITH BRITISH soul sage Howie B. dispensing '90s groove advice and a thousand rhythm tracks bulldogging throughout this exhilaratingly complex album, Pop could get slotted as U2's ...
Underworld: Warhol Without the Wackos: Underworld's Beaucoup Fish
Review by James Hunter, New York Observer, 19 April 1999
THERE'S ALWAYS BEEN something different about Underworld, the three cunning Englishmen who in the '90s have had their way with U.K. beat culture, recasting it ...
Utah Saints: Utah Saints (London/PLG) ; Various Artists: Techno Mancer (Antler Subway/Caroline)
Review by James Hunter, Rolling Stone, 21 January 1993
TECHNO IS music that gets on people's nerves. Whether pounding like metal or watercoloring like New Age, it strikes many as repetitive and cold, about ...
Luther Vandross, Dionne Warwick: Dionne Warwick: How Many Times Can We Say Goodbye (Arista)
Review by James Hunter, The Village Voice, 3 January 1984
Dionne's Hot Date ...
Was (Not Was): What Up, Dog? (Chrysalis)
Review by James Hunter, Musician, November 1988
DURING THE early '80s, Detroit-based songwriters and producers Don Ferguson and David Weiss competed with New York City art-funksters under the name Was (Not Was). ...
Scott Weiland: Lone Temple Pilot
Interview by James Hunter, Details, January 1998
"TODAY, I am not suffering," Scott Weiland says. "I am not dope sick." The frontman for Stone Temple Pilots claims his fuckup days are behind ...
Lucinda Williams Is Ready for Her Close-Up Now
Profile by James Hunter, New York Observer, 29 June 1998
THE COGNOSCENTI are wigging. "How did a 45-year-old 'neurotic diva' with one foot in Faulkner's South and one foot in Garth's make the year's best ...
Marion Williams: Surely God Is Able (SpiritFeel/Shanachie)
Review by James Hunter, Rolling Stone, 20 September 1990
COMMENTATORS OFTEN place the Olympian gospel singer Marion Williams, a thriving veteran who got her start singing with the Ward Sisters during the late Forties, ...
Robbie Williams: Fly Like an Ego: Robbie Williams' Escapology
Review by James Hunter, The Village Voice, 13 May 2003
WHEN LONDON'S Robbie Williams released his 1999 U.S. debut, he warned Americans. The Ego Has Landed, he called the thing, a shrewd compilation of even ...
Womack and Womack: Womack & Womack: Love Wars (Elektra)
Review by James Hunter, Record, March 1984
WITH A sassy authority too gritty to be bitchy, too determined to be shrill, Linda Womack lithely barks out the phrase "I can't understand that" ...
Dwight Yoakam: Guitars, Cadillacs, Etc., Etc. (Reprise)
Review by James Hunter, Rolling Stone, 5 June 1986
KENTUCKY-BRED singer and songwriter Dwight Yoakam makes his Los Angeles country music get up and go. As he boasts on the Johnny Horton cover that ...
Review by James Hunter, Rolling Stone, 22 September 2012
IN THE 1970s, ZZ Top broke through with a regional sound – simmering Texas blues – and then, in the next decade, reimagined their sound ...
List of genre pieces
Get Right With God: Gospel Truth
Review by James Hunter, The Boston Phoenix, 18 September 1984
A SMOKY, finger-snapping cavalcade of bold quartets, plainspoken guitarists/vocalists, and feverish singing preachers. Get Right with God: Hot Gospel 1947–1953 (Krazy Kat, UK import) is ...
Chain Store Hairdos: Totally Hits 2
Review by James Hunter, The Village Voice, 25 July 2000
THERE'S SOMETHING strange about the idea of Totally Hits 2, the compilation of recent pop smashes by various names, a follow-up to 1999's equally incongruous ...
Overview by James Hunter, The Village Voice, 30 April 1985
RIGHT NOW a hit record carries more mass-audience clout than at any moment in the history of show business. Maybe not coincidentally, there are more ...
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