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Music can bring on any number of reactions.  If you focus, tune in and really listen - music is pretty fucking visceral.  Certain tunes put you in a mood, a subconscious reaction to what your ears are telling you.  You don’t even have a chance to think about it.  You’re going about your day when a sonic truck broadsides you and blasts you into oncoming traffic.  You’re suddenly violent (The Stooges).  You’re unexpectedly hallucinating (TV on the Radio).  You don’t smoke, but you’re abruptly puffing on a mental cigarette after a quick romp in the sack (Serge Gainsbourg).

The Black Crowes just make you feel better.  No pretense.  None of the goddamn façade that kills other bands’ would-be intentions.  Rich Robinson’s fuzzy blues guitar and his brother Chris’s Faces/Stones vocal swagger will make you smile.  That doesn’t mean it’s necessarily sunny, though.  “Shake Your Money Maker” is the Crowes’ first record and it’s one hell of an introduction. 

Go back and listen to this album.  Do it now.  Every song is better than the last.  But try not to think about it and don’t take my word for it.  Chris Robinson wailing “Always drunk on Sunday, tryin’ to feel like I’m at home” over a stoned piano and an uneasy stomp should make you feel something.

Allmans Division:  The Crowes, like the Allmans, are everything that’s good and irreproachable about rock and roll’s Southern blues.  Not to mention the fact that the last time I saw the Black Crowes live, they had a neon-mushroom backdrop and Rich Robinson was playing the slide like an absolute bastard.  I gotta believe Duane Allman was smiling somewhere. 

Honorable Mention:  Jane's Addiction - Ritual de lo Habitual
 


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