Author: Jeff Giles (Page 12 of 41)

Vampire Weekend: Contra

January 7, 2010 /


RIYL: Talking Heads, Paul Simon’s Graceland, pissing off hipsters

Hype giveth, and the backlash taketh away: Two years after being heralded as conquering indie kings by the blogosphere elite, Vampire Weekend releases its sophomore effort, Contra, amidst a hail of hipster boos. But wait, here’s the best part: All the stuff that seems to piss people off about the band – specifically, that they look like kids that wandered off their parents’ Hamptons estates, and sound like late-period Talking Heads crossed with Paul Simon’s Graceland album – is exactly what drew people to Vampire Weekend to begin with. They haven’t changed, and they haven’t been around long enough for tastes to change much, either – so what gives? We’ll let you draw your own conclusions (our theory has to do with the word “baa”), but no matter the reasons for the backlash, Vampire Weekend has managed to tune out the catcalls long enough to deliver a sophomore album strong enough to satisfy everyone who hasn’t pre-emptively left their flock. As far as second efforts go, Contra is actually pretty ideal; it isn’t exactly a carbon copy of the first album, but it doesn’t stray far enough to leave fans feeling betrayed. This seems to be a case of a band that knows its strengths – namely, crafting deeply derivative, intoxicatingly lightweight pop songs with a faint world-music bent – and is smart enough not to dick around with anything too far outside its wheelhouse. Not ambitious enough to earn high marks from the Pitchfork crowd, in other words, but on the other hand, it really is plenty of fun — Contra is the kind of record that doesn’t want to do much besides make it hard for you to sit still, and it succeeds. Could you ask for more? Sure, but albums this charmingly frothy make it hard to complain. (XL Records 2010)

Vampire Weekend MySpace page

Alternative, CD QuickTakes, CD Reviews, Pop

Timbaland: Shock Value II

December 9, 2009 /


RIYL: Scott Storch, Dr. Dre, Pharrell Williams

It has the Roman numeral II after its title, but Timbaland’s latest effort has more in common with the artistically bankrupt misery common to watered-down later sequels – think “The Karate Kid III,” “Jason X,” and “Superman IV: The Quest for Peace” – than any mere sophomore jinx can explain. As with 2007’s Shock Value, Timbaland assembles an eclectic-by-modern-standards group of guest vocalists to try and create a sort of jukebox effect; problem is, the once-innovative producer didn’t bother to come up with any interesting beats, and most of the artists in question – including Miley Cyrus, Katy Perry, and the dreaded Chad Kroeger – don’t have enough personality to carry these pedestrian tracks on their own.

Timbaland_01

All things considered, there really should be some shock value in Timbaland collaborating with the likes of Daughtry and Jet, but there isn’t a song in the bunch that feels like anything more than calculated pandering, and the album lacks the kind of savvy songcraft that makes this kind of blatant soullessness forgivable. As competent as it is deeply unmemorable, Shock Value II will probably squeak out a few hits, but that’ll be more about the marquee value of participants like Justin Timberlake and Drake than anything to do with the music. Modern R&B at its most mechanized and least inspired. (Interscope/Mosley 2009)

Timbaland MySpace page

CD QuickTakes, CD Reviews, Pop, R&B

Lady Gaga: The Fame Monster

November 20, 2009 /


RIYL: La Roux, Madonna, Christina Aguilera

‘Tis the season for unbelievably crass record company cash-ins, and Interscope is solidly in the spirit, shoving this eight-song batch of leftovers from Lady Gaga’s The Fame just in time to be stuffed into the stockings of dance-obsessed music lovers everywhere. Given its bottom line-oriented origins, and the disposable nature of this style of pop music in general, there’s no conceivable reason for The Fame Monster to work any better than your average strike-while-the-iron-is-hot compilation, but as Gomer Pyle would say: Surprise, surprise! If these are Lady Gaga’s table scraps, it’s a little frightening to imagine what she might have on tap for her next full-length affair. The Fame Monster comes on strong with “Bad Romance,” with a towering wall of synths and soulful vocals that suggest what might have happened if Jim Steinman and Bonnie Tyler had been born 30 years later; from there, Gaga touches on ABBA-esque pop (“Alejandro”) and torch balladry (“Speechless”), has a diva summit with Beyonce (“Telephone”), and throws a wicked S&M dance party (“Teeth”). At a dizzying 35 minutes, Monster concludes just when it feels like it’s really getting warmed up, but there’s nothing wrong with leaving ‘em wanting more, right? The closest thing to an eight-sided single you’re going to hear all year, The Fame Monster proves art and commerce really can get along sometimes. (Interscope 2009)

Lady Gaga MySpace page

CD QuickTakes, CD Reviews, Dance, Pop

Rihanna: Rated R

November 20, 2009 /


RIYL: Keri Hilson, Amerie, Jordin Sparks

Lest you think Rihanna meant to make some kind of cute alliterative play by naming her fourth album Rated R, she quickly disabuses any such notions by getting down to business with a collection every bit as inappropriate for young ears as its title would suggest. “I’m such a fuckin’ lady,” she purrs in the second track, “Wait Your Turn,” and from there it’s off to war. When last we heard from Rihanna, she was urging us to stand under her umbrella; this time out, she’s more focused on letting us know how hard she is, bragging about licking her gun because “revenge is sweet,” and barking “Get it up … is you big enough?” The music reflects this lyrical left turn; the arrangements are braced with metallic, tricked-out beats, cold, buzzing synths, and stacks of raw electric guitars (that’s Slash you hear on the ridiculous “Rockstar 101,” which finds her boasting, “Rocking this club / Got my middle finger up / I don’t give a fuck”).

Rihanna_06

It’s a curious blend, really, because as aggressive as Rated R wants to be – and often is, craptastic ballads like “Stupid in Love” and “Te Amo” notwithstanding – Rihanna can never get past her steel-plated drone of a voice long enough to really make it work. More than anything, she just sounds bored, whether she’s declaring herself a “gangsta 4 life” or strolling her way through a duet with will.i.am. This doesn’t blunt the impact of Rated R’s best moments, like the thudding “Hard” and softcore porn of “Rude Boy”; taken in total, it can even function as a sort of meta statement on the emotional disconnect between mainstream culture and its young consumers. In a pop climate where lack of emotion is the norm, Rihanna’s bloodless art makes perfect sense. Still, after a while, it’s impossible not to wish for some good old-fashioned passion. Remember when R&B had soul? (Def Jam 2009)

Rihanna MySpace page

CD QuickTakes, CD Reviews, Pop, R&B

Leona Lewis: Echo

November 19, 2009 /


RIYL: Christina Aguilera, Whitney Houston, Kelly Clarkson

Leona Lewis has a beautiful voice – clear, strong, and remarkably non-susceptible to the sort of melismatic dicking around that far too many pop vocalists seem to think passes for singing. It’s the type of voice that begs to be dropped in front of a sympathetic band and some truly tremendous material, and using it to record synthetically produced, pleasantly anonymous pop songs is a little like bringing a cannon to a knife fight: a tremendous waste of perfectly good ammo. Of course, not every song can be a standard, but c’mon – Sony BMG is one of the biggest corporations on Earth, and they can definitely afford better material than the middle-of-the-road fluff Lewis is saddled with here. She’s definitely game – in fact, her voice rings so brightly that she almost manages to transcend the uniform ordinariness of the material – but the ultimate effect is never more than mindlessly entertaining. Which is probably precisely the point of an album that was clearly assembled with such an eye toward big-picture chart domination that the finer details – like finding great songs, for instance, or not lumping Lewis’ gourmet voice in with a duet partner as proudly, generically vanilla as OneRepublic’s Ryan Tedder – were somehow forgotten. Echo is fine, for what it is – but like Lewis’ similarly pedestrian debut, it could have been much, much more. (RCA/19 2009)

Leona Lewis MySpace page

CD QuickTakes, CD Reviews, Pop

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