Description
On this 40-year retrospective of Marshall Crenshaw’s live shows, the performance is everything
Marshall Crenshaw’s latest album — an in-concert retrospective of a life and career well-lived — is the LP we didn’t even know we needed. “The Wild Exciting Sounds of Marshall Crenshaw: Live in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Century” is a free-wheelin’, good-time rock ‘n’ roll soundtrack.
Over the years, Crenshaw has developed into one of our finest rock composers. Modeling his work after such all-time greats as Elvis Presley and Buddy Holly, Crenshaw’s music roils with energy and bravado. A self-described “reluctant songwriter,” Crenshaw has long considered his songs as a kind of “means to an end” and “a vehicle for performance. A 40-year review of Crenshaw’s stage work, the two-disc album neatly bisects his remarkable career. The first disc is drawn from his 1983 stints for syndicated radio shows, while the second disc surveys the past 25 years. This two-disc collection manages to be reliably good, while also surprisingly eclectic in places, especially on the second disc. This set is a fantastic keepsake for fans as well as a great intro to his music for the uninitiated,
