Tom Moon
Tom Moon has been writing about pop, rock, jazz, blues, hip-hop and the music of the world since 1983.
He is the author of the New York Times bestseller 1000 Recordings To Hear Before You Die (Workman Publishing), and a contributor to other books including The Final Four of Everything.
A saxophonist whose professional credits include stints on cruise ships and several tours with the Maynard Ferguson orchestra, Moon served as music critic at the Philadelphia Inquirer from 1988 until 2004. His work has appeared in Rolling Stone, GQ, Blender, Spin, Vibe, Harp and other publications, and has won several awards, including two ASCAP-Deems Taylor Music Journalism awards. He has contributed to NPR's All Things Considered since 1996.
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The My Morning Jacket singer seeks authenticity in a world of artifice on his first solo album, Regions of Light and Sound of God. -
The reissued 1977 album includes several bonus tracks, but critic Tom Moon wonders if it's worth it. -
Columbia Records' latest release from the jazz maverick's vault is a three-CD, one-DVD live compilation. The previously unreleased material captures a little-known burst of creativity, recorded between two vastly different periods in Davis' career. -
On his second album, Unorthodox Jukebox, Mars traverses the pop landscape, pulling in far-flung influences and making them his own. -
Whenever things get too cozy on Psychedelic Pill, Crazy Horse is there to rearrange the furniture. When the singing stops and Young falls into one of the band's epic guitar journeys, the music positively erupts.
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On Matane Malit, the singer and her group offers a transfixing balance of old and new, laying expansive instrumentation over traditional Albanian folk melodies. -
Critic Tom Moon says the chilly moodiness of La Havas' tracks sets the young British singer apart. Her debut has perhaps too many songs about heartbreak, but in the best ones, she sounds almost shattered. -
Given the proliferation of year-end Top 10 lists, it seems natural that Shadow Classics — which gives shelter to under-appreciated music — would feature its own list of 2006 recordings likely to become Shadow Classics down the line. Don't let these gems go unnoticed.
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A beguiling and visionary blend of reggae, soul and pop, Jackie Mittoo's Wishbone didn't connect commercially upon its release. Now, more than 30 years and countless stylistic hybrids later, the disc sounds like pure genius — one of the boldest and most cohesive expansions of Jamaican pop ever recorded. -
Billy Nicholls' Would You Believe is so steeped in the florid sounds of the late '60s, and so guileless in its celebration of those sounds, it almost feels like a hoax — the work of a crafty modern student who's painstakingly re-created every detail, right down to the hard-hitting mono mixes.
