Young back in his ragged glory

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Coldplay to drop double album

Neil Young with Crazy Horse, “Colorado” (Reprise)

Neil Young is back with his old band Crazy Horse in all their ragged glory with “Colorado”, a beautiful, rambling, chaotic howl against climate change, division and hate.

It’s one of Young’s best record in years, reminiscent of 1989’s triumphant “Ragged Glory”, and his first with Crazy Horse since 2012.

Young, an old man showing no signs of slowing down at 73, cranks up both his rage and tenderness as only he can with the latest incarnation of Crazy Horse behind him. The band members have spent 50 years recording on and off with Young. The latest version features longtime Bruce Springsteen guitarist Nils Lofgren, who replaces retired 70-year-old Frank “Poncho” Sampedro.

But just like Young, Crazy Horse seems to defy the passing of time with the energy and emotion they bring to “Colorado”. That passion is on full display on “Mountaintop”, a companion documentary that captured the recording session high in the Rockies as Young and Crazy Horse suck on oxygen and work out the new songs.

The sweetly melodic three-minute opening track “Think of Me” could easily fit on Young’s 1992 “Harvest Moon”. But in a sharp left turn, Young follows it up with a shambolic 13-minute jam – “She Showed Me Love” – with echoes of earlier Crazy Horse adventures like 1969’s “Down by the River”.

As he has for much of the past decade, Young focuses his rage on climate change, railing about “old white guys trying to kill Mother Nature”.

On the standout “Rainbow of Colors”, Young offers some hope amid the despair. “There’s a rainbow of colors/In the old USA,” Young croons. “No one’s gonna whitewash those colors away.”

Young’s never one to whitewash anything, as he proves magnificently once again on “Colorado”.

Kesha is more glittery than ever in the trailer for her new studio album, “High Road”. The eclectic clip, released Monday, heralds the coming of Kesha’s first album since 2017’s “Rainbow”.

Amidst vintage clips of the American landscape and snippets of new songs, Kesha explains what to expect during a sit-down interview.

“I’ve seen the light: life is like driving across the country in a pretty small Astrovan, with your whole family in it, for 90 years,” she says. “Because I think life is a vacation from where we go when we die.”

The trailer features clips that hint at upcoming music videos. In one scene, a brunette Kesha rocks a pink silk nightie and dances through a supermarket aisle of “Magic Cereal”. In another, she’s sporting a Dolly Parton-esque wig and parading as a Christian minister. Paying homage to “The Shining”, two identical twins dance menacingly at Kesha in a different scene.

“When I made ‘Rainbow’, I was in a very different headspace,” the Grammy-nominated star says. “I had to address some very serious things. But now, on my new record, I revisit my roots of pure and utter debaucherous joy. Kesha got her balls back, and they’re bigger than ever. So have a good time while you’re on this road trip from hell.”

Those serious things are, of course, her ongoing legal battle with her former producer Dr Luke.

The “High Road” trailer ends with a Kesha-shaped candle burning in reverse, rebuilding itself.

Kesha’s latest release was a June single entitled “Rich, White, Straight Men”, which she “leaked” to YouTube before her label released it to digital services. It hasn’t been revealed whether the song will be included in the forthcoming album.

After a teaser campaign that took place over the past few days, Coldplay confirmed in social media posts this morning that they will release a new double album called “Everyday Life” on Nov 22.

The announcement, styled like an old, typed postcard, reads:

dear friends,?my typing isn’t very good, i’m sorry?i and we hope wherever you are you’re ok?for the last 100 years or thereabouts we have been working on a thing called Everyday Life?in the classifieds you might write “double album for sale, one very careful owner”?one half is called “sunrise,” the other “sunset”?it comes out 22 november. ?it is sort of how we feel about things?we send much love to you from hibernation chris, jonny, guy and Will Champion esq

The group, which has been largely off the radar for the past few months, began teasing a new album last week. Posters promoting the release began popping up in major cities across the world, with the musicians dressed like an old-time ragtime band with a bass drum reading “The Wedding Band Dance Orchestra” and the date Nov 22, 1919.

Also:

CAMBRIDGE, Mass: Music artist and actress Queen Latifah is among the honorees being recognized by Harvard University for their contributions to black history and culture.

Harvard is set to award the W.E.B. Du Bois Medal to Queen Latifah and six other recipients on Tuesday, according to the Cambridge, Massachusetts, school’s Hutchins Center for African and African American Research.

Other honorees include poet and educator Elizabeth Alexander, Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution Lonnie Bunch III, poet Rita Dove, co-founder of Black Entertainment Television Sheila Johnson, artist Kerry James Marshall and Robert Smith, founder, chairman and chief executive of Vista Equity Partners.

The award is named after Du Bois, a scholar, writer, editor, and civil rights pioneer who became the first black student to earn a doctorate from Harvard in 1895. (Agencies)

By Scott Bauer

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