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Sep 4, 2012[On Election Special] the first world is in dire straits and it's all the fault of Republicans – architects of Guantánamo and unfeeling people who tie their dogs to the roofs of their cars then drive off (Mutt Romney's Blues).
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Aug 27, 2012The album is full of great music, the sort of bluesy, R&B material master guitarist Cooder does so very well.
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Aug 22, 2012In a recording career that stretches back more than four decades, Ry Cooder has never before made an album as immediate as Election Special.
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Aug 22, 2012Cooder is mad as hell, but because he's a virtuoso with a wry sense of humor that balances indignation and despair, the songs stand as songs, not just soapbox speechifying.
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Aug 21, 2012A political broadside aimed at the hostile takeover of America by Wall Street traders and greedy corporate raiders, it's guaranteed to please anyone inclined to give it a sympathetic listen.
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Aug 21, 2012I give him extra credit for both preaching to the converted and doing his damnedest to rally the holier-than-thou.
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Aug 21, 2012Election Special is protest music delivered with a patriot's gifts – the American-roots beauty and expert fire in Ry Cooder's playing – and long memory.
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Aug 20, 2012It is the most organic record he's issued in almost two decades; and, more importantly, it restores topical protest music to a bona fide place in American cultural life.
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Aug 20, 2012You might even argue that this and its predecessors, My Name Is Buddy (2007) and Pull Up Some Dust and Sit Down (2011), represent the most cogent work of his long career.
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Q MagazineAug 20, 2012While his message is clear, the means of conveying it comes up wanting. [Sep 2012, p.98]
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Aug 17, 2012The tone here is more robust than [Pull Up Some Dust and Sit Down's] thoughtful reflections on history and poverty, taking its cue rather from the ribald pillorying of conservatives in tracks like "No Banker Left Behind" and "I Want My Crown".
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MojoAug 17, 2012It's a scream, as we would expect from a musical humorist ranking only behind Randy Newman on the LOL-meter. And rivaled only by Tom Waits as a gloves-off DIY soundscapist in wood, steel, and string. [Sep 2012, p.87]
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Aug 16, 2012An entertaining, thoughtful and bravely original set.
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Aug 16, 2012The album's long-term problem is will it have any meaning or relevance once the election is done and dusted? Well no, probably not in thematic terms; but the scathing humour of Going to Tampa is timeless and the thunderous Guantanamo, the sort of song Springsteen must wish he'd written, will remain a classic whoever's in the Oval Office.
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Aug 16, 2012[Election Special] is a Texas-sized strikeout.
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Aug 14, 2012Though Cooder's clearly singing and playing from his bleeding heart on Election Special, the results make one wish that he'd pass both his mic and his guitar back to his brain.
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Aug 14, 2012Cooder, like a Keith Richards/Woody Guthrie hybrid, observes [the current political scene] all as a damn shame, with little condescension and oodles of wit.
User score distribution:
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Positive: 2 out of 3
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Mixed: 1 out of 3
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Negative: 0 out of 3
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Oct 18, 2012
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Sep 7, 2012
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Aug 23, 2012