Category: Artists (Page 38 of 262)

N.E.R.D.: Nothing

November 1, 2010 /


RIYL: Prince, Lady GaGa, Justin Timberlake

As the Neptunes, Pharrell Williams and Chad Hugo are as responsible as anyone for the sound of popular music over the last decade as anyone else. Starting out as the apprentices of New Jack Swing godfather Teddy Riley, Chad & Pharrell’s minimal synth stabs took a diverse array of artists to the top of the charts: from coke-rap duo Clipse to teenyboppers the Backstreet Boys, Britney & ‘NSync.

As their performing alter egos N.E.R.D., Pharrell and Chad (joined occasionally by rapper Shae Haley) have not been as successful. One moderately successful debut album (In Search Of…) should have led to bigger things, but two subsequent efforts have been average performers commercially and critically. N.E.R.D.’s sound might be a little too eclectic for Top 40 radio – it’s not very easy to put in a box or define. Is it hip-hop? It is soul music? Is it rock?

NERD 3 - SMALL

A year or so ago, as the band prepared to record their fourth album, Nothing, they introduced a fourth member into the group, female singer Rhea. This move was a head-scratcher to many. It seemed as though N.E.R.D. was looking at label mates the Black Eyed Peas as a blueprint to success. Thankfully (because Lord knows we don’t need another version of BEP in this world), Rhea was sacked and N.E.R.D. returned to its original configuration.

Somewhat surprisingly, given the band’s inconsistent output and the Neptunes’ declining commercial fortunes, Nothing is quite a good album. The sound is still as varied as ever: the guys are still equal parts garage-rock and synth-pop, but none of it feels forced. There are a handful of eye-rolling lyrical moments – Pharrell Williams isn’t and will never be the world’s best lyricist – but Nothing offers more bang for your buck than any N.E.R.D./Neptunes/Pharrell album other since their debut.

The album’s opening track, “Party People,” turns out to be a bit of a red herring. The synthed-up club jam (boasting vocals by T.I.) is certainly the most commercial thing they’d ever released. Interestingly, N.E.R.D. pulls off that sound well – at least for the one song. The rest of the album veers from the rocking “Help Me” to the quasi-mystical “Life as a Fish” (which honestly reads like the diary entries of a very, VERY stoned college student). There’s a cool Daft Punk production (“Hypnotize U”), way more saxophone than on the past 15 years of N.E.R.D. albums and Neptunes productions combined, and a refreshingly varied approach to subject matter that includes the inspirational “God Bless Us All” and the politically motivated “It’s in the Air” in addition to the usual ass-shaking anthems (which happen to be MUCH less annoying and even kinda enjoyable in this context).

Nothing won’t reinvent the wheel and it probably won’t be a huge commercial success, either – the Neptunes’ moment (well, more like a decade than a moment) seems to have passed them. However, this is the most vibrant work that Pharrell in particular has been a part of in quite some time. Strangely (and happily for those of us who don’t live and die by radio and the charts) their music appears to be getting more interesting as their star fades. (Interscope 2010)

N.E.R.D. MySpace page

Artists, CD Reviews, Dance, Funk, Hip Hop, Pop, R&B, Rap

Steal This Song: Nitzer Ebb, “Promises”

October 29, 2010 /

This is one of those moments where we cannot help but think that everything is connected. Earlier this year we got our hands on Selected, a compilation of songs from onetime Depeche Mode sonic architect Alan Wilder’s new band Recoil, and on it is a little tune called “Faith Healer,” featuring vocals from Nitzer Ebb’s Douglas McCarthy. It’s a great tune, and McCarthy turns in a rather impressive vocal performance for a guy who’s spent most of his career yelling. Even better, the release of this album allowed us to score an interview with Wilder (huge, huge thrill), where Wilder delivered perhaps the funniest, most understated comment about Nitzer Ebb that one could possibly dream up: “I guess Nitzer Ebb are lacking a lot of melodic content, you could say.”

Even stranger, when we spoke with Fratellis lead singer Jon Fratelli earlier in the year and asked him who he considered to be the most unheralded artist from his native Scotland, he nominated the Sensational Alex Harvey Band…the guy who wrote “Faith Healer.” Like we said, everything’s connected.

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Anyway, Wilder mentioned that he had recently remixed a Nitzer Ebb track – one with melodic content, we’re assuming – and it hadn’t even occurred to us that the band hadn’t made a record in 15 years, so him mixing Nitzer Ebb was kind of a big deal. The record is now here (Industrial Complex, due out November 9), and the first song, “Promises,” will produce involuntary goosebumps in anyone who trolled the alt-rock clubs when That Total Age was first released. The keyboard track immediately brings “Murderous” to mind but, perhaps remembering how well the “Faith Healer” cover worked, McCarthy opts for actual singing instead of his trademark yelling, and in the process fixes the one thing that ultimately kept us from listening to the band for more than 10 minutes in a row. Oh man, is this a sweet surprise.

Click to download Nitzer Ebb – Promises

Alternative, Artists, CD Reviews, Dance, Downloads, Electronica, Industrial, Me Myself and iPod, Steal This Song

Prefab Sprout: Let’s Change the World with Music

October 27, 2010 /


RIYL: China Crisis, Belle & Sebastian, Stephen Sondheim

Music industry cynics joke of how death is a hell of a career move, but that only applies to the maladjusted and self-destructive. What can a sane, well-balanced songsmith do to raise his profile while maintaining a pulse?

The answer: pull a Brian Wilson. Make a great record, then shelve it.

Paddy_Prefab

Mind you, this was not Paddy McAloon’s intention when he began assembling Let’s Change the World with Music in 1992. At the time, he fully expected to make this record with his bandmates Martin McAloon, Wendy Smith and Neil Conti, with longtime producer Thomas Dolby behind the boards. He was merely assembling demo versions of the songs in his traditionally fastidious manner so the others could flesh them out in the studio…only the fleshing out never happened. The label felt the album’s religious overtones were too strong – which is pretty funny considering that the band’s previous album and BRIT Award nominee Jordan: The Comeback dedicated its final five songs to religious overtones, including one song from the point of view of the Devil begging the archangel Michael to put in a good word with God for him – and the album was scrapped.

McAloon only released two Prefab albums after that, and despite continuing to record, he has no plans to release another album. But when his former home Kitchenware begged him to let them release Let’s Change the World with Music, McAloon decided that late was better than never. And with that, Prefab Sprout has released its best album in 20 years.

Sonically, the album sounds like the tracks that Stephen Lipson produced for Prefab’s 1992 singles collection A Life of Surprises – sequencers and drum machines rule the roost, which makes sense since McAloon assembled the entire record himself – and the dated nature of the electronics works in the album’s favor, as it evokes a time when Prefab was a force to be reckoned with. (Rolling Stone didn’t write an article about McAloon, called “The Last Pop Genius,” for nothing.) Musically, the album is Jordan: The Comeback‘s kissing cousin, with a couple nods to the band’s breakthrough album Steve McQueen (called Two Wheels Good in the States). “I Love Music” is cut from the same cloth as “Horsin’ Around” (the name drop of Irving Berlin is no coincidence), while “Ride” would have been a perfect double A-side for “Scarlet Nights.” The most refreshing thing about Let’s Change the World is how hopeful it is; there isn’t a “When Love Breaks Down” or “Ice Maiden” to be found, as McAloon is too busy turning a song about the earth into a plea for affection, and he even writes a love song about music itself, where he swoons of how “music is a princess, and I’m just a boy in rags.”

The commercial prospects of an album like Let’s Change the World with Music in today’s climate are admittedly are not optimistic – though it did crack the UK Top 40, and probably would have gone higher had the Beatles not re-released their catalog the same week – but that is hardly the point; McAloon has been preaching to the choir for years, and for them, Let’s Change the World is like Santa Claus going back in time to deliver the Christmas gift you wanted 18 years ago. Proof positive that indeed nothing sounds as good as, “I remember that.” (Tompkins Square 2010)

Click to buy Let’s Change the World with Music from Amazon

Adult Contemporary, Artists, CD Reviews, Pop

Bryan Ferry: Olympia

October 25, 2010 /


RIYL: Roxy Music, Thievery Corporation, The Blue Nile

Bryan Ferry’s post-Roxy Music solo career exists in a coccoon of sorts, with few fingerprints from the outside world sullying their beauty and timelessness. Before anyone mistakes that for overblown hyperbole, let’s look at those words a little more closely. His records are beautiful in the sense that they are impeccably played and produced, and they’re timeless in that Olympia, his latest solo record of (mostly) original material, could have come out the same year he released his last solo album Frantic (2002), or Mamouna (1994), or even Bete Noire (1987). Likewise, Mamouna and Frantic could have come out this year without anyone batting an eye as to when they were recorded.

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So they are beautiful and timeless, yes. But truth be told, Ferry hasn’t written a really compelling song in quite a while – that might explain why he hasn’t made back-to-back albums of original material since 1987 – and Olympia does not buck the trend. There are some nice moments, like the bouncy “Shameless,” the haunting “Reason or Rhyme,” and his convincing cover of Tim Buckley’s “Song to the Siren,” but there isn’t a “Slave to Love,” or even a “Limbo,” to be found, a point only exacerbated by opening track “You Can Dance,” which begins with a sample of Avalon track “True to Life.” Likewise, “Me Oh My” is built on the bones of “My Only Love,” from Roxy’s Flesh & Blood. Neither song is bad, per se, but they’ve been done before, and better. There is also the matter of Ferry’s voice. He sings the entire album in that whispered hush, rarely testing his upper range or even his falsetto.

No one expects Ferry to churn out hard-charging numbers like “Both Ends Burning” anymore, but Olympia is awfully sedate, even for a man known for his lounge lizard cool. It’s more or less interchangeable with his recent work, which is a bit of a letdown considering Ferry was able to get four other Roxy veterans (Brian Eno, Phil Manzanera, Andy Mackay, Andy Newmark) to appear, but the overall effort is good enough. If you’re content with good enough, that is. (Astralwerks 2010)

Bryan Ferry MySpace
Click to buy Olympia from Amazon

Adult Contemporary, Ambient, Artists, CD QuickTakes, CD Reviews, Hipster, Pop

Sugarland: The Incredible Machine

October 21, 2010 /


RIYL: Lady Antebellum, Little Big Town, Rascal Flatts

You can’t review a country album anymore without discussing where it fits in the “real country” versus “country pop” spectrum; the debate over what constitutes the real stuff has been raging since the rhinestone cowboy days, and now that Rascal Flatts is the top-selling act in the genre – and the closest country radio gets to trad fare is fauxdowns from rootin’ tootin’ biceps barers like Toby Keith – country seems poppier than ever.

It’s got to be vexing for listeners who like their music nitty, gritty, and dirty, but country music doesn’t have to be “real” to be really entertaining, and Sugarland’s ongoing bid for crossover success is a case in point. They’re nominally a country band, but their music has always had a strong pop component, and it’s really come to the fore over their past couple of releases, 2008’s Love on the Inside and its covers-heavy live follow-up, Live on the Inside. What can you say about a platinum Nashville act that leaves room on a live album for covers of “The One I Love,” “Love Shack,” “Nightswimming,” Beyonce’s “Irreplaceable,” and Pearl Jam’s “Better Man”? They’re either desperate for broader appeal, or they’re trying to make a point about the arbitrary nature of genre boundaries in the first place.

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Based on the savvy songwriting and slick, airless production on display in the band’s fourth studio set, The Incredible Machine, it seems safe to assume there’s a little of both at play. Sugarland members Kristian Bush and Jennifer Nettles have broad musical backgrounds, and they muddy the waters between pop and country more artfully than most; unlike, say, a Rascal Flatts record, you don’t get the sense you’re listening to a pop album that’s been retrofitted with fiddles and pedal steel to appease the county fair crowd. Instead, Machine feels like the work of a band whose singer just happens to have a gigantic, full-throated country holler for a voice – sometimes it’s the focal point of the music, and sometimes it isn’t.

On the other hand, the album’s title is perhaps a little more apt than Sugarland intended. It’s supposed to be a reference to, y’know, the human capacity for marvelous things, but it also makes sense as a statement about how the album sounds – like it was squeezed out of the same denim-coated Velveeta factory that gives us Kenny Chesney records. It’s loud and glossy to a fault, and it’s the kind of record that aspires to bigness even when it isn’t necessarily deserved. This is probably partly a reflection of Nettles’ massive voice, but there are also moments when you can feel Sugarland straining for arena-filling pop profundity, and it’s distracting. (Example: the deafening, all-cards-on-the-table clatter that closes the opening track, “All We Are.”)

It’s a formula that works, obviously – check Sugarland’s RIAA certifications for proof – and it’s hard to fault Nettles and Bush for swinging for the bleachers, especially in such a grim industry climate. Still, the album it adds up to is one that, while certainly entertaining, doesn’t resonate on the level you sense they were aiming for. An impressive machine, surely. Incredible? Maybe next time. (Mercury 2010)

Sugarland MySpace page

Artists, CD Reviews, Country, Pop

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