Author: Jeff Giles (Page 8 of 41)

Melissa Etheridge: Fearless Love

April 21, 2010 /


RIYL: Sheryl Crow, Lone Justice, Rod Stewart

With her early albums, Melissa Etheridge helped erase the last bit of novelty from the sight of a girl with a guitar. She wasn’t the first female rock star – not by a long shot – but unlike a lot of her forebears, she didn’t really have an image: She wasn’t cute like the Bangles, or vaguely threatening like Joan Jett, or a hippie intellectual like Joni Mitchell. She was just a musician who happened to be a woman, and one with a knack for combining easily identifiable messages with big, broad, radio-ready melodies. Remember “Come to My Window”? Of course you do.

Melissa_Etheridge_01

Seventeen years later, Etheridge isn’t quite the radio mainstay she once was, but she’s still doing exactly what she’s always done – to a fault, in fact. The last decade has seen her release a pair of live albums, a Christmas album, and a greatest hits collection, in addition to four albums of new material – and Fearless Love, her latest, suggests it might be time for a vacation. It’s certainly a step back from 2007’s The Awakening, which found her using those reach-for-the-sky choruses in service of a spiritual, autobiographical song cycle; in contrast, Fearless Love comes loaded for bear with a dozen tracks of platitudes as corny as its title.

Still, there’s something heartwarming about a performer this unflinchingly sincere, especially in the midst of such a cynical, irony-drenched era for music. Even when Etheridge is singing hoary lines like “Long nights in the small room with the big dreams / Oh, Indiana,” there’s never any doubt that she really means what she’s saying. Maybe next time, she’ll come up with a message worthy of that conviction. (Island 2010)

Melissa Etheridge MySpace page

CD QuickTakes, CD Reviews, Rock

Kate Nash: My Best Friend Is You

April 19, 2010 /


RIYL: Lily Allen, The Pigeon Detectives, Regina Spektor

It’s got to be annoying to win a Brit Award for your debut album, only to draw a hundred unfavorable comparisons to Lily Allen in the process. Of course, among the current batch of pop chanteuses, Allen’s no slouch, but just because Kate Nash is young and boasts an adorable British accent, that doesn’t mean she deserves to be lumped in with her – or anyone else.

Now three years removed from her debut – and the ripe old age of 22 – Nash has re-emerged with My Best Friend Is You, which bends over backwards, and every other which way, to build a case for Nash as a sharply eclectic songwriter who’s equally at home channeling the Shirelles and Rosie Thomas. In other words, the album is a mess, and although it seems safe to assume Nash planned it that way, that doesn’t make Best Friend any more of an engaging listen.

Kate_Nash_06

It’s got its moments, to be sure – the album kicks off with the sparkling one-two punch of “Paris” and “Kiss That Grrrl,” both of which emphasize Nash’s way with jaunty pop hooks and sunny melodies; the latter, in fact, is one of the best things she’s done, thanks in part to Bernard Butler’s Phil Spector production. “Don’t You Want to Share the Guilt?” unspools a breezy blend of chimes, acoustic guitars, and a plaintive electric lead, framing a portrait of a relationship in decline with Nash’s trademark bittersweet lyrics.

Toward the end of “Guilt,” though, Nash launches into a babbling stream of spoken-word nonsense, and you can sense the screws coming loose at the joints, and things fall apart completely with “I Just Love You More,” which sounds like the Breeders getting high with the Cure and forgetting to turn off the recorder. Blink and the album does a sharp U-turn back into catchy pop territory for the first single, “Do-Wah-Doo,” and then there’s “Take Me to a Higher Place,” which kicks off with a Dexys flourish, and then…well, you get the idea. Nash is as brave and restless as any young artist, bristling with ideas and eager to share them all. Her willingness to go out on a cracked limb with her sophomore release is commendable, but listening to stuff like the borderline atonal “I’ve Got a Secret,” or the inane “I Hate Seagulls,” it’s hard not to wish Nash’s label still had a strong A&R person or two – someone who could have kept Best Friend‘s weaker bits in the vaults, where they belong. During “Mansion Song,” Nash spits out, “I want to be fucked and then rolled over.” Once Best Friend meets its fate in the marketplace, she might get her wish in more ways than she intended. (Geffen 2010)

Kate Nash MySpace page

CD QuickTakes, CD Reviews, Pop

Barenaked Ladies: All in Good Time

April 2, 2010 /


RIYL: Camper Van Beethoven, Moxy Fruvous, The Housemartins

From the outside, it always looked like the Barenaked Ladies got most of their goofy humor from Ed “One Week” Robertson, and most of their moody depth from Steven “The Old Apartment” Page – so when Page quit the band last year, it might have seemed safe to conclude that subsequent BNL albums would contain a lot of tongue-in-cheek rapping and punny wordplay. Creative dynamics are never that simple, of course, but it still may come as a surprise to many fans that BNL’s first post-Page effort, All in Good Time, contains some of the band’s darkest, most mature work.

Barenaked_Ladies_04

Even better, Time goes a long way toward correcting the blandly pleasant drift of the Ladies’ recent efforts, restoring some of the bite and emotional depth that lurked beneath their sunny pop hooks. For the first time in recent memory, Barenaked Ladies sounds like an honest-to-goodness band here, and not just because songwriting credits are split relatively democratically between Robertson and his fellow remaining BNLers (Kevin Hearn, Tyler Stewart, and Jim Creggan). There’s an organic, lived-in feel to these performances that shines through the band’s usual production gimmicks; even the album’s requisite rap number, “Four Seconds,” sounds more authentically funky.

There are a number of tracks that sling arrows at departed friends and lovers, and it’ll be hard for fans to resist the temptation to wonder how many of them were inspired by Page’s absence. “I tried to be your brother / You cried, and ran for cover,” Robertson sings on the opening track and leadoff single, “You Run Away”; later, he spits “Can you forgive me for / What I had to do? / I’d use a metaphor / But I’m done with you” in the charging “I Have Learned.” But how truly personal these songs are isn’t as important as the breadth of their appeal – and both of those tracks offer more resonance, boast more feeling, than the band has shown in years. The same is true for much of the rest of All in Good Time. Call it addition through subtraction. (Risin’/EMI 2010)

Barenaked Ladies MySpace page

CD QuickTakes, CD Reviews, Pop

Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings: I Learned the Hard Way

April 2, 2010 /


RIYL: Aretha Franklin, Black Joe Lewis, Mavis Staples

From the outside, it might seem like putting together an honest soul record isn’t such a hard thing to do – all you need is a nice-sounding room, a band of talented musicians, and some, y’know, soul – and from that point of view, it might be tempting to wonder just where in the hell Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings have been since releasing the magnificent 100 Days, 100 Nights in 2007.

Making real soul music is sort of tricky, though; if it weren’t, the genre wouldn’t be in the mess it’s been in since the mid-to-late ‘70s. A lot of things have changed since soul’s heyday, leaving us in a musical bizarro world where people are more accustomed to hearing digital clatter than analog sweat, and as a result, it’s become extremely difficult to cut a soul record that doesn’t sound like a cheap pastiche. What can anyone add to the style of music that gave us Aretha, Otis, and Pickett?

Nothing, probably. Which is why it’s to Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings’ immense credit that they’ve been able to amass such a deeply satisfying catalog. They record using vintage gear, an affectation that sounds like a gimmick in the wrong hands – but their songs, while not as resonant as the true soul classics, deserve the retro treatment. Put another way: the band’s albums never sound like they’re trying to reach for the past – their traditional soul vibe sounds honest and earned, and the songs sound like they could have been recorded in 1968 or yesterday. You know, timeless – the way music is supposed to sound.

If you’re familiar with the band, you know what to expect from I Learned the Hard Way – raw, punchy rave-ups and bluesy ballads, all carried by an airtight rhythm section, shot through with bright brass, and topped off with Jones’ exhilarating vocals. You don’t listen to one of these albums expecting surprises; you expect some sweet soul music, and these songs deliver. These aren’t greenhorns imitating the form of those old classics and forgetting the function – like the title says, they learned the hard way. Let ‘em give you a lesson or two. (Daptone 2010)

Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings MySpace page

CD QuickTakes, CD Reviews, Soul

Martin Sexton: Sugarcoating

April 1, 2010 /


RIYL: Bruce Springsteen, The Jayhawks, Joe Henry

Martin Sexton has a small army of devoted fans who spend a lot of time wondering why Martin Sexton isn’t world-famous – which isn’t unusual when it comes to musicians who aren’t world famous, but Sexton’s fans have more of a point than most. He has a sharp songwriter’s eye, he’s a gifted instrumentalist, and he has one of the supplest, most versatile voices in rock ‘n’ roll – seriously, why isn’t this guy world-famous?

Whatever the reasons for Sexton’s continued obscurity, we can at least be glad he hasn’t let it stop him from building one of the more compelling discographies you’ve probably never heard – and his latest release, Sugarcoating, stands shoulder-to-shoulder with his finest work.

More straightforward than 2007’s Seeds, which found Sexton using a one-man band approach to serve up everything from Tuvan singing to a cover of “Will It Go ‘Round in Circles,” Sugarcoating finds Sexton hewing closer to the confessional singer/songwriter end of the spectrum, addressing topics like love, politics, and fatherhood. The arrangements are a little looser and more expansive, thanks to the involvement of a group of musicians that included guitarist Duke Levine, keyboard player Tom West, and Sexton’s sister Colleen, as well as Sexton’s decision to record without rehearsals and keep production to a bare minimum. It’s a warm blanket of an album, one that makes room to display Sexton’s prodigious vocal talent while also delivering some of his strongest material – perhaps most notably the title track, which hurls vicious barbs at the so-called “mainstream media” against a jaunty, country-flavored backdrop that sounds more like Buck Owens than Rage Against the Machine.

If you’re already a fan, Sugarcoating will give you 13 more reasons to love Sexton’s music. If you haven’t yet been inducted to the cult, it’s as good a place as any to start. What’s stopping you? (Kitchen Table 2010)

Martin Sexton MySpace page

CD QuickTakes, CD Reviews, Folk, Pop, Rock

« Older posts Newer posts »

© 2026 Eat Sleep Drink Music

Theme by Anders Noren — Up ↑