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Usher - Raymond v. Raymond

Naming your album after a Dustin Hoffman movie is an unusual move for an R&B superstar. Sadly, it’s the most interesting thing about “Raymond v. Raymond,” Usher’s sixth studio album and his dreariest yet. You’d think the experience of a recent divorce would put a novel spin on the usual lover-man cliches, but that’s far from the case: An Usher album, I suppose, will always be an Usher album. On “Raymond v. Raymond,” the heartthrob tries too hard to be all things to all people — musically as well as lyrically — and it adds up to quite a mess of a record.

Granted, the concept of the album seems loosely built around schizophrenia and multiple identities — on the cover, two Ushers stand side by side eyeing the camera — but the incoherence here seems unintentional rather than deliberate. There aren’t just two Ushers knocking around in here; it sounds like a different guy’s popping up on every song.

Luckily, the singer still has an extraordinarily versatile voice, and on “Raymond v. Raymond” he sounds better than ever. The first single, “There Goes My Baby,” may be bland and predictable, but Usher’s wistful vocals bring the song thrillingly to life. Like Michael Jackson, the singer he’s most often compared to, Usher has an ability to shift between coy playfulness and heartfelt emotion, often within the very same bar. The cooing falsetto doesn’t hurt matters either.

Unfortunately, on the gimmicky club tracks that make up much of the record, Usher’s personality is pushed to the sidelines by his collaborators. He sounds indistinguishable from will.i.am (never a good thing) on the anemic “OMG,” and on “Lil Freak,” he’s completely blown out of the water by a stellar verse from Nicki Minaj, who’s well on her way to replacing Lil’ Wayne as hip hop’s most colorful figure.

On the other hand, there are also moments when Usher’s personality comes through a little too strongly — and they’re a bit scary. Yes, I’m all for adding spice to the usual R&B formula, but writing a club anthem about divorce is pushing it a bit far. It also takes nerve to bracket a heartfelt, actually surprisingly moving apology to your ex-wife with two songs that loudly declare how many girls you’re screwing (sample lyric: “I’m better when I touch and go, I’m trying to add your name to my hall of fame”).

Against the odds, it’s the most traditional songs on the album that work the best. Unconstrained by flashy production and interfering rappers, tracks like the slow-burning “Mars vs. Venus” and the Prince-ly “Monstar” give Usher space to flex his vocal skills. “Okay” may be the kind of slow jam that R. Kelly perfected a decade ago, but it’s also brilliantly executed — simmering and sensual where so much contemporary R&B is slushy and saccharine.

Like Usher’s 2008 album “Here I Stand,” “Raymond v. Raymond” is a pretty mixed bag, dictated by the strengths and weaknesses of its producers as much as by its main star. At this point, it looks like the singer hit his peak with 2004’s “Confessions,” one of the best-selling pop albums of the decade and, quite coincidentally, one of its best. If he doesn’t shape up soon, the three-note synth riff of “Yeah” may be the only thing he’s remembered for.

"Raymond v. Raymond" released 26 March, 2010 by LaFace Records.
Images courtesy of LaFace Records and Empire Online.
Published in the Daily Princetonian.

Rihanna-Shakira-Gaga: Ooh La La, It's Been a Bumper Week for Pop

Someone must have been fired over such shoddy timing. After an unusually quiet few weeks in pop, three of the industry’s biggest stars released new CDs on exactly the same day: Rihanna dropped her first CD post-Brown-gate, Shakira released her first English-language album in over four years, and Lady Gaga trumped them both on the charts with “The Fame Monster,” an eight-song reissue of her debut that she thankfully decided to release on its own.

It’s a pop star cluster-fuck — the equivalent of three summer blockbusters hitting theaters simultaneously. And what can I say? Ever since iTunes brought the singles market back, I’ve been waiting for mainstream records to get lazier. But as these three ambitious discs prove, perhaps the idea of a 21st-century pop album isn’t such an oxymoron. They’re not perfect, but they certainly aren’t half-arsed — and that is almost good enough for me.

First we’ll tackle Rihanna’s “Rated R”; the most self-consciously daring of the three and also the most flawed. Just two years ago, the singer was an innocent Barbadian teen beckoning listeners under her umbrella. Fast-forward to the present, and she’s comparing sex to suicide on her new single, “Russian Roulette,” and littering the accompanying album with songs about lesbians, car crashes and cold-blooded murder. And in case that wasn’t edgy enough for you, the record definitely lives up to its name — “Rated R” probably has more swear words than any other mainstream pop album in history.

But as lyrically potent as “Rated R” tries to be (and boy, does it try, almost coming off as a game of “spot the Chris Brown reference”), the music just isn’t up to the task. On her 2007 album “Good Girl Gone Bad,” Rihanna patented a metallic robo-pop sound that worked wonders with her emotionless monotone of a voice. On “Rated R”, however, Rihanna tries on too many costumes, and few of them are a good fit.

The interminable “Rockstar 101,” produced with the help of Guns N’ Roses guitarist Slash, might be one of the most embarrassing pop-rock crossovers in recent memory, while Rihanna’s shameless posturing on songs like “Hard” and “G4L” (that stands for “Gangsta for Life,” by the way) borders on the offensive. In short, there’s way too much going on, with rock, R&B, rap and electro-pop coexisting in an awkward limbo.

Of course, a pop album this high profile is rarely a total dud, and there are a handful of stadium-sized hooks here that’ll keep Rihanna stocked until her next release. “Rude Boy” is a mindlessly catchy slice of bubblegum pop that works precisely because it sets its sights so low, while “Te Amo” just about sells its lesbian-love premise with an unexpectedly swooning chorus.

Most of the singles are pretty effective, too — particularly the spooky, discordant “Wait Your Turn” — but I doubt any of them will enter the pop culture lexicon like “Umbrella” did. Where that song was deceptively simple, these songs try too hard, forgetting that pop music is about more than just fueling gossip mags. ”Rated R” isn’t a boring listen — far from it, in fact — but the emotional turmoil seems so manufactured that it leaves a bad taste in the mouth.

Shakira’s new album is also a kaleidoscope of genres. On “She Wolf,” the Colombian-born singer dashes from Spanish flamenco to punk rock and back again, all in just 40 minutes. The difference is that she pulls off almost every musical U-turn, and the album holds together too.

Partly, this has to do with Shakira’s loony lyricism. The girl who famously warned us not to confuse her breasts with mountains hasn’t lost her taste for the absurd, and ”She Wolf” is popping with some of the strangest lyrics I’ve ever heard. “I’m starting to feel just a little abused, like a coffee machine in an office”? “The good ones are gone or not able, and Matt Damon’s not meant for me”? “Hope the French fleas eat you both alive, and your room smells, and the toilet doesn’t flush”?

Admittedly, the bonkers lyrics might just be the result of one too few English lessons (of her six studio albums, half have been in Spanish), but I prefer to think it’s intentional. Certainly, her quirky, bombastic warble is the only voice I can see fitting these words.

Still, it’s the music that really sells the album. In every way that ”Rated R” typifies the worst excesses of corporate pop, ”She Wolf” demonstrates just how great commercial music can be when it works. It’s truly a case of more being more: Dividing production between The Neptunes and Santigold-collaborator John Hill — with an obligatory, “Hips Don’t Lie”-aping Wyclef Jean collab — “She Wolf” lets everyone show off without overshadowing the star.

It’s amazing, actually, how many musical settings Shakira sounds comfortable in, whether yelping about lycanthropy on the shimmering New Wave title track or moaning atop the synthy Neptunes strut of “Good Stuff.” The whole thing adds up to one of the best pop albums I’ve heard in a long time. At nine songs, it’s admittedly slim, but there isn’t an ounce of filler.

The same goes for Lady Gaga’s new CD, “The Fame Monster” — at only eight tracks, it hovers awkwardly between album and EP, but it’s loaded with more good songs than her debut, even though it’s half the length.

I’ll admit I didn’t think there was much to Lady Gaga when she released her first album; I dismissed it as one-hit wonder material, if that. Then again, I was probably the only person on Earth who bought it without having seen a single picture of her. And if there’s one thing everyone knows about Gaga, it’s that image is everything.

After all, “The Fame” had just three great singles masking a whole load of bland, synthetic crap, but that was hard to notice amid her high-concept wardrobe choices. With “The Fame Monster” though, Gaga’s finally convinced me that she’s more than just a Madonna knockoff. While both are able to capture the zeitgeist with almost scientific precision, Madonna can’t really sing. This girl sure as hell can.

More than that, Madonna can only dream of releasing a song as impossibly massive as Gaga’s new single “Bad Romance.” It’s a song written with the knowledge that it’ll hit number one without breaking a sweat, and, very coincidentally, it might just be the song of the year.

Luckily, the rest of “The Fame Monster” lives up to the hype. If there’s a finite pool of great melodies lurking out there somewhere, these eight songs have definitely helped suck it dry. “Alejandro” is the best song ABBA never wrote, “Telephone” is an epic duet with Beyonce in which Lady Gaga beats her guest at her own game, and “Monster” is yet another great Gaga song about a terrible lover. They’ll all be stuck in your head well into next year.

Never mind that half the album is made up of cleverly disguised carbon copies of “Poker Face” or that the power-ballad “Speechless” is so tongue-in-cheek, it’s positively ripping through the other side. Madonna hasn’t been interesting in at least a decade, and it’s about time someone else stepped up to the throne: Say hello to the new Queen of Pop.

"Rated R" released 23 November, 2009 by Def Jam Records; "She Wolf" released 23 November, 2009 by Epic Records; and "The Fame Monster" released 23 November, 2009 by Interscope Records.

Published in the Daily Princetonian.

Image courtesy of Interscope Records.

50 Cent - Before I Self Destruct

"Before I Self Destruct" is an apt name for 50 Cent's fifth album. The damn thing's been delayed for so long - nigh on two years by this point - that it might as well have been called "Before I Lose My Patience."

I mean, how often do a record's first two singles not even make the final track-list? Yet that's exactly what's happened here: The ferocious machismo of "Get Up" was released over a year ago, the flaccid misogyny of "I Get It In" hit the charts before Barack even hit the White House, and neither song made the final cut.

Usually long delays mean low quality. In this case, though, it sounds like the extra time paid off. "Before I Self Destruct" is the slickest rap record I've heard in quite a while; it's pump-up, macho-man fantasy music taken to the next level. Roping in production like this must have cost 50 Cent a pretty penny, but my Lord it was worth it. You can almost hear the money seeping through your speakers - and for one of the world's richest pop stars, I guess that's only appropriate.

Of course, Fiddy himself is still an epically clumsy rapper, and no amount of money in the world can change that. The bullet to the jaw might have made for a good story, but it also makes for one hell of an awkward emcee. Seriously, the guy has a lisp! It's ridiculous! In a genre wholly dependent on enunciation, the idea of a rapper with a speech impediment sounds like a bad joke, but in Fiddy's case, it's all too painfully true.

I've often wondered why Eminem, a rapper renowned for his flawless flow, signed someone as clumsy as 50 Cent to be his protege. Wouldn't a motor-mouth like Lupe Fiasco have been more appropriate? The only plausible explanation is that it was to make himself sound better - and that's exactly what happens on "Psycho," in which Eminem seemingly does all he can to humiliate his host. It's a hilarious paradox: "Psycho" would be the best song on the album, if only 50 Cent weren't in it.

Luckily, Eminem is the only emcee to make a guest appearance on the record, leaving the other 15 tracks to the main attraction. With almost anyone else, I would say it's to let them "shine," but in Fiddy's case, it's more like an ingenious ploy to make listeners forget how crap he is.

The funny thing? It kinda, sorta works. Left alone with 50 Cent, you start to see why this guy might be the century's most successful rapper: He knows exactly why people buy his music. It's not for the lyrics. It's not for the technique. It's for the entertainment value. Listening to 50 Cent is like watching the latest brain-dead blockbuster, and it's no coincidence that the cover references one of the most successful Hollywood franchises of all time.

But with production this shiny, it's hard to complain. The pounding, cinematic "Death to My Enemies" is easily Dr. Dre's best work in years, a perfect foil to the rapper's arrogant bluster. Diss track "So Disrespectful" is a delicious neo-G Funk concoction that almost makes you forget that everyone Fiddy's insulting is more talented than he is (Jay-Z? Seriously?). "Crime Wave," meanwhile, sounds like gangsta superhero music, a furious assault of keyboard riffs built around a sample of a man screaming, "No, no, no!" It's utterly ridiculous and utterly irresistible.

Unfortunately, some of the album steers a bit too cynically into Top 40 territory (hello, Ne-Yo and R. Kelly!), and the rapper's attempts at love songs are alternately hilarious ("Girl I'll perform for you, like a porn star") and downright scary ("It's like Paul McCartney's stuck in my head / he fell in love with a bitch who walked away with one leg"). And the less said about the God-awful synth mess "Get It Hot," the better. But when the rapper sticks to the gun-toting put-downs, the album is strikingly consistent, even if it's all just hot air.

Then again, it's not like he tries to hide the artifice of it all. By this point, 50 Cent basically sells Vitamin Water for a living, and his patronizing, singsong flow - not to mention the billion-dollar backing tracks - never let you forget that. Mainstream rap is escapist popcorn fodder: I've been listening to "Before I Self Destruct" for four days straight, I've lost a few brain cells, and I'm sure that's exactly the point.

"Before I Self Destruct" released 17 September, 2009 by Interscope Records.
Images courtesy of Interscope Records and Empire Online.
Published in the Daily Princetonian.

Michael Jackson's "This Is It"

How do you commemorate the last days of the most famous pop star in history? "This Is It," the new documentary chronicling the Michael Jackson comeback concert that never was, answers this question in an unexpectedly low-key way: by showing the person, rather than the spectacle.

It's extraordinary, really, just how ordinary it is - no shameless product placement, no pompous myth-making and not a word of Jackson's death until the very end. I walked into the theater expecting some of the most barefaced heart- and purse-string tugging ever committed to celluloid. Two hours later, I walked out quietly moved by the film's honest, no-frills approach.

The structure of "This Is It" is simple: It's a concert documentary, segueing breathlessly from one chart-topper to the next with an occasional pause for cast and crew interviews. We are given brief glimpses of the production behemoth powering the show - the special effects, the fireworks, the dance auditions, the madcap set - but the film's focus remains strikingly narrow, showing fans the concert they missed rather than attempting any larger portrait of Jackson's life and career.

And what a concert it is. Admittedly, we only see informal rehearsal footage, full of little scuffs and slip-ups, but it's this behind-the-scenes peek that makes the film so interesting. For once, MJ isn't a remote, all-singing, all-dancing machine. Instead we see him caught off guard, just being himself, on footage that the notorious perfectionist almost certainly didn't intend for public consumption.

In "This Is It," we see Jackson doing things we've never seen before: joking around, experimenting and making mistakes. We also see just how involved Jackson was in the show's conception, whether rigorously correcting the backup band or tutoring zombie extras on how to be spooky in an updated segment of the "Thriller" music video.

Despite his humble demeanor - I swear, every other word is followed by either "thank you" or "God bless" - it's clear who's in control, and Jackson's presence, even when he's in a pair of baggy tracksuit bottoms, is immense. The genius is in the details: a flick of the wrist, a kick of the foot or an extra bar to let the music "simmer." Of course, there are some pretty ridiculous moments, like Jackson emerging from a massive robotic spider in the middle of "Thriller," but the spirit of the concert, much like its accompanying film, is refreshingly down-to-earth.

We largely have the music to thank for that: Four months of airwave inundation have done little to dampen the power of these songs. If anything, they've just proven how good they are. "I Want You Back," the single that started it all back in 1969, explodes to ecstatic life in concert, all ringing pianos and chirping guitar riffs; the macho posturing of "Beat It" is as irresistible as the day it was recorded; and the bass-line of "Billie Jean," infamously despised by Jackson's producer Quincy Jones for being "too high in the mix," still raises hairs on the nape of my neck.

Even less-cherished tracks from later in his career - like the oppressive New Jack Swing of "Jam" or the endless environmental gloop of "Earth Song" - sound revitalized in concert, brimming with life where they sounded stiff and forced on record.

And what of the man himself? Well, I'm not going to hazard any conspiracy theories, but judging by his performance here, he looks far happier and healthier than the endless whirl of tabloid gossip would have you think. He is 50 years old, of course, so there aren't any back-flips or anything - but you needn't worry; he can still pull off a moonwalk.

Jackson's voice also sounds better than it has in years. On ballads like "Human Nature," his crystalline falsetto tremors and shakes with emotion, while on more upbeat tracks like "Smooth Criminal," he attacks the stop-start melodies with laser-like precision, deploying his usual arsenal of pants, hiccups and falsetto squeals.

The only thing we can hope for, really, is that this is truly it. But considering the tens of millions the movie has already grossed in its fortnight-long release, I somehow doubt the Michael Jackson estate will stop until it gets enough - enough, in this case, being an absolute frick-load of money. And if this is only the calm before the storm, let's just hope the imminent flood of memorabilia takes its cue from "This Is It." Even with the biggest pop star in history, less can sometimes mean so much more.

"This Is It" released 28 October, 2009 by Columbia Pictures.
Images courtesy of Columbia Pictures and Empire Online.
Published in the Daily Princetonian.

Mika - The Boy Who Knew Too Much

On his chart-obliterating debut "Life in Cartoon Motion," Mika turned up his nose at everything music critics cherish. Experimentation? Maturity? Originality? Please. The Lebanese-born, London-based singer defiantly trampled on the hallmarks of good music, swamping his songs in falsetto squeaks, cavity-inducing sentiment and cheap lyrical innuendo that would make a first-grader blush. If you could see sounds, the album would be neon pink, but then again the experience would probably give you an epileptic fit: Mika's music alone is enough of a sensory overkill.

Of course, no one would dare call it "good," but somehow, in its own giddy, effervescent way, the record worked. Sure, it often toed the line between adorable and annoying, and OK, it all kind of sounded like a nursery sing-along, but there was something irresistible about Mika's sheer pizzazz. Put simply, the boy had guts. The five-octave voice didn't hurt either.

But therein lay the problem. From the start, Mika was little more than a flavor of the day: a cute boy with an elastic voice and a knack for preposterously catchy melodies. The short shelf life of his musical style (one that could easily be labeled "listen to it more than once and it gets irritating") combined with today's ADHD approach to pop culture didn't help either. The "one hit wonder" tag was lurking just around the corner.

On the basis of his new album though, Mika is one pop phenomenon that isn't likely to disappear any time soon. Released last week, "The Boy Who Knew Too Much" is an ingeniously crafted follow-up to "Life in Cartoon Motion": bigger, better and - as you might have guessed from the title - gayer than Liberace in a sequined tutu.

Everything about the record screams gay, in fact, before you even press play. The cartoonish cover art makes the whole thing look like a self-help guide to coming out, and that's before you flip open the CD sleeve, which ... well, let's just say the drawing of a naked, androgynous Mika clutching a pair of antlers is just one of its many oddities.

It doesn't take a genius to work it out, then: "The Boy Who Knew Too Much" is a concept album about an adolescence spent in the closet. I could say that's primarily because of Mika's lyrics, and certainly there is a double or (usually) single-entendre to everything he sings, whether it's "Hold me in your arms / I'm just a boy like you," or "Blame it on the boys / who keep hitting on you."

But then again, no one ever listened to Mika for his lyrics. It's through his music that the singer waves his rainbow flag, and the album is effectively a 50-minute sprint to pay homage to every gay singer in the history of pop. The piano-powered "Dr. John" sounds like Elton John on helium; the rather raunchy "Touches You" sounds like George Michael if he'd been out of the closet from the start; and the fluorescent Euro-pop of "Rain" sounds like the Scissor Sisters, but just, well, gayer.

Freddie Mercury deserves a mention, too, if only because Mika himself seems so fond of name-dropping the guy. That said, listening to the album, you've got to wonder whether Freddie's doing a pirouette in his grave to all the Queen-like harmonies and vocal acrobatics on display here. It's hero-worship that verges on plagiarism, but Mika's love for all these musicians is so clearly genuine that it's hard to take it the wrong way.

Of course, those who detested Mika from the moment he dropped "Grace Kelly" should stay well away. If "Life In Cartoon Motion" was a guilty pleasure, "The Boy Who Knew Too Much" should probably be serving a death sentence in musical prison. It's an album that makes an art out of tastelessness.

Every song is an over-wrought, sugar-coated kaleidoscope, from the Lloyd-Webber-like histrionics of "I See You" to the candy-floss whirlwind of "We Are Golden." And then there's "Toy Boy," whose obnoxious Broadway stylings would hardly sound out of place at the climax of "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang." But that's the whole point of Mika. His music is the self-conscious antithesis of "good," and it's all the better for it.

The singer's indestructibly catchy songwriting doesn't hurt matters either. In fact, when talking about Mika, the word "catchy" suddenly seems pathetically inadequate; it would be like trying to call Hitler "naughty." Mika's songs are an invincible audio epidemic: They will hammer themselves into your subconscious before the first chorus is over and will probably stay there for a year or two, festering away and then popping out of your lips at the most unwanted moments.

"The Boy Who Knew Too Much" is unlikely to win Mika any new fans. In fact, if you don't like him, you should probably get your earmuffs out now, because these songs are going to be on the radio for a very, very long time. But enthusiasts of the singer's blindingly shiny brand of pop music could hardly ask for anything more. The album sounds like a caffeinated children's choir going crazy at a gay club, and I mean that in the best possible way.

"The Boy Who Knew Too Much" released 21 September, 2009 by Casablanca Records.
Images courtesy of Casablanca Records and Empire Online.
Published in the Daily Princetonian.

Jay-Z - The Blueprint 3

In the opening minutes of his new album, rap's biggest superstar sets himself a lofty goal: to resuscitate the genre that made him famous, to reel it back from the cliff edge of pop parody. He lays out his manifesto on the album's lead single, "Death of Auto-Tune," against a deliberately organic backdrop of clarinets and guitars: "This is anti-Auto-Tune / Death of the ringtone / This ain't for iTunes / This ain't for sing-along."

Bold stuff, then, especially coming from the man who almost single-handedly brought rap onto the pop charts. From some grimy underground emcees, lyrics like these would hardly sound unusual. But hearing the self-appointed Frank Sinatra of rap announcing that his new album "ain't for sing-along" is a whole different kettle of fish. This is major.

After all, this is the rapper who perfected - nay, personifies - the art of the crossover hit. If "Hard Knock Life," "Crazy in Love" and "Big Pimpin' " weren't sing-alongs, then what were they exactly? Put it another way: If a list had to be drawn up of the people responsible for the birth of ringtone rap, would anyone deny Jay-Z's place near the top? The man is married to Beyonce, for Christ's sake!

And yet there has always been more to Jay-Z than that: He's not just a pop star, nor is he just a rapper. What's made him so interesting (and so outlandishly successful) has been his ability to reinvent himself time and time again, blurring the lines between pop and rap when necessary and then aggressively redrawing them at a moment's notice. So, for every mainstream-baiting collaboration with Linkin Park or R. Kelly, we get an album self-consciously targeted at his critics, from the original "Blueprint," hailed by some (and not unreasonably) as the greatest rap album of the century, to 2007's Denzel Washington-inspired "American Gangster," which was another resounding critical success.

Not just anyone could come up with a rhyme as incisive as: "Don't believe everything your earlobe captures / it's mostly backwards / unless it happens to be / as accurate as me / and everything said in song you happen to see / then actually believe half of what you see / and with that said / I will kill niggas dead / Cut niggas short, give you wheels for legs." As a commentary on rap's morbid fascination with violence and hyperbole, it's second to none. In fact, coming from a man who's partly responsible for that fascination, it's positively ingenious.

Seen from a certain perspective, then, Jay-Z's career actually makes a lot of sense. It's not a headlong tailspin from street rapper to sellout, as many have claimed, but a cautious ballet between those two extremes. Until now, it seemed as if Jay-Z could really have it both ways, posing on billboards with Beyonce one day and rapping about his crack deals alongside a posse of hardcore rappers the next.

Sadly, on his new album, "The Blueprint 3," the emcee trips over himself in his desperation to please everyone. He may promise the death of ringtone rap in the album's opening minutes, but the resulting record is more its coronation than its funeral: It's an album with a layer of pop gloss so thick you could swim in it.

And yet, while "The Blueprint 3" may catastrophically fail to rewrite the rules of hip-hop, that is far from a catastrophe. In fact, if one takes it as a pop album with a few moments of rather confused rapping dotted amidst the high-powered choruses, it makes for quite a satisfying listen. The reason is simple: Almost everything about the album is fine, except the name on the cover. No joke - "The Blueprint 3" should be applauded for succeeding despite its central figure.

Jay-Z's rapping on this record is, for want of a better word, boring. Not abysmal, certainly, but a real come-down following the lyrical triumphs of his last record, "American Gangster." Where that album threw out lines like "Blame Oliver North and Iran Contra / I ran contraband that they sponsored" once or twice a song, the best Jay-Z can come up with here is stuff like "I'm all covered in gold / like C3PO" - cue awkward laugh - or, more typically, puns like "niggas thought they was ill, found out they was ill" - cue painful cringe.

His cultural references, meanwhile, rarely stretch beyond the mundane, from dated celebrity baiting ("she shaved her hair like Britney") to lame product placement ("Blueprint's on my white iPod"). And apparently this music "ain't for iTunes?" Yeah, whatever.

And it’s not just the lyrics that fall short. The rapper’s flow is also a disappointment, veering from long stretches of rhythmic monotony (much of the first half of the album) to ill-advised attempts at gimmickry later on. Jay-Z is not, and never will be, a gimmicky rapper — in fact he’s renowned for his laid-back, conversational flow — so hearing his attempt at Southern twang on “Hate” or his breathless huff-and-puff on “Empire State of Mind” is as confusing as it is disheartening.

Thankfully, Jay-Z is often eclipsed by the background music. It's an embarrassing state of affairs for a man who's so often crowned himself the best rapper alive, but on this album, it's something of a godsend. After all, Jay-Z is nothing if not rich, and on his new album he enlists the creme de la creme of contemporary rap producers to prop him up.

Kanye West laces a good six songs with his trademark blend of soulful hooks and shimmering synths, and on second single, "Run This Town," he even out-raps his one-time mentor, dropping a series of one-liners that make Jay sound like a humorless old crank. West may have an ego the size of the Chicago skyline, but with lines like "What you think I rap for / to push a fucking RAV4," he's almost earned it - the lyric may be the funniest recession slogan yet.

Timbaland, another of Jay-Z's frequent collaborators, also turns in some solid work, concocting furious storms of electronic noise so loud they basically drown out the main attraction. That's certainly the case on "Off That," a raging hurricane of static that leaves Jay panting in pursuit and, not coincidentally, happens to be one of the album's highlights.

Of course, there are a few moments where the man himself shines. Alongside Young Jeezy on the feel-good anthem "Real As It Gets," Jay rediscovers his swagger, proclaiming himself "the audio equivalent of braille" with a ferocious nonchalance. It's one of the rare moments where you actually buy his braggadocio; a few songs later, when he declares himself better than Elvis Presley and the Rolling Stones in one bar, it's impossible to suppress a snigger.

In short, Jay-Z appears clueless and out of touch on his new record, losing himself in an avalanche of self-contradictions. For over a decade, the rapper somehow sustained the illusion that he could be all things to all people - CEO and crack dealer, pop superstar and ghetto icon, buddies with Barack and gun-toting criminal. Sadly, on his new album, the facade begins to crack. I'll admit this is an easy potshot, but it sums up the whole thing pretty well: Isn't it a bit rich to include two auto-tune-heavy tracks on an album whose lead single is called "Death of Auto-Tune"?

"The Blueprint 3" released 8 September, 2009 by Roc Nation Records.
Images courtesy of Roc Nation Records and Empire Online.
Published in the Daily Princetonian.

Morrissey - Greatest Hits

Since the break up of the Smiths in 1987, Morrissey has had a more successful solo career than I think anyone would ever have predicted. Certainly by comparison to former Smiths member Johnny Marr, Morrissey has been one of the few major rock stars to settle well into old age, adapting to current trends while retaining everything that people love him for: In particular, that velveteen crooner of a voice, which sounds just as smooth and polished today as when Moz – as he’s chummily referred to in the British tabloids – was singing “How Soon Is Now?” back in 1984.

Still, there is little doubt that the man’s best days are behind him. His strongest solo records – the irresistibly dark and vicious “Viva Hate” and the terse, muscular “Your Arsenal” – spanned the period 1988 to 1994, and though his most recent releases have been perfectly solid efforts, they show the star settling into a comfortable rut rather than really pushing himself. His last release, “Ringleader of the Tormentors” was especially worrisome: save for a handful of tracks, it was Moz on auto-pilot, lazily working his way through his usual themes of paranoia, cynicism and self-hate over a thoroughly middle-of-the-road modern rock sound.

Oddly enough, on Morrissey’s new compilation album, very misleadingly titled “Greatest Hits,” it is the recent stage of the man’s career that is given wildly disproportionate emphasis – of the album’s already skimpy fifteen tracks, a whopping ELEVEN are culled from the last four years. To any first-time listeners, Morrissey sounds like a fairly bland rocker with a fantastic voice, someone whose career – at least going by the track-listing – only really got going in 2004. He doesn’t sound anything like the revolutionary musical innovator who, in my opinion at least, very nearly deserved the award of “most influential artist ever,” which London-based music mag NME granted him several years ago in typically hyperbolic style.

It’s not that the album’s tracks are bad necessarily. It’s just that they give listeners a drastically poor representation of the singer’s talents. The tracks from “Ringleader of the Tormentors” are especially average, most of them tuneless, repetitive rockers of little note – though I must say, I do have a soft-spot for that album’s first single, “You Have Killed Me,” a charismatic, swooning slice of glam rock with a chorus that ranks among Morrissey’s best.

The other recent album given disproportionately large space here – his 2004 commercial comeback, “You Are The Quarry” – luckily fares better, shown off well by tracks like the cynical-yet-romantic “Let Me Kiss You,” the hook-laden “First of the Gang to Die,” and, best of all, the deliciously spiteful “Irish Blood, English Heart,” in which a typically snarky Moz “[dreams] of a time when the English are sick to death of Labour…and spit upon the name Oliver Cromwell.”

Still, the man’s recent work pales significantly by comparison to any of the compilation’s pre-2004 songs, here represented by a pitifully meager four tracks. Ranging from the majestic, heartbreaking “Everyday is Like Sunday” to the stalkerish witticisms of “The More You Ignore Me, the Closer I Get,” all four songs are masterpieces which stand shoulder-to-shoulder with his Smiths singles. But seriously, there are so many other brilliant solo singles that could have been included here – and in a crime that’s positively a breach of the Geneva Convention, not a single track is culled from what is widely regarded as his best solo record, “Your Arsenal.” Couldn’t they have let go of one of his recent songs just to include the stomping, gritty glam rock of “You’re Gonna Need Someone on Your Side,” arguably Moz’s greatest solo moment ever?

All in all, everything about this compilation is a mystery. If this is meant to win new fans, it does a terrible job; if it’s meant to satiate old ones, it does an even worse one. The only interesting thing you’ll learn from buying this album is that Morrissey really is gay. After years of dodging questions and refusing to publicly come out, releasing an album with shiny purple-pink packaging and a double-page spread of a man’s arse in the sleeve booklet to me pretty much equals leaping out of the closet in bright rosy spandex. It’s just a shame the record’s music doesn’t equal its outrageously flamboyant presentation.


"Greatest Hits" released 11 February, 2008 by Decca Records.
Images courtesy of Decca Records and Empire Online.
Published in the Review.

Oasis - Dig Out Your Soul

Ten years ago, Oasis were the biggest band in the world. They were compared to the Beatles, to Led Zeppelin, to the Who – to basically every big, dumb, classic rock band there ever was – and they spear-headed a long-delayed second British Invasion, alongside bands like Blur and Radiohead. But where Blur and Radiohead were critics’ darlings, “cerebral” and “challenging,” Oasis were anything but, always pandering to the lowest common denominator.

Now, that may sound like an insult, but at their prime, Oasis’ music was stupid in the best way: stupid like Led Zeppelin’s hairstyles, stupid like Pink Floyd’s concept albums, stupid like Ozzy Osbourne eating a dove or Jimi Hendrix playing a guitar with his teeth. That’s what made Oasis such a sensation. After the artifice and make-believe that defined eighties pop and rock, Oasis represented a return to everything that people loved classic rock for: huge egos, massive riffs, brash machismo, and, of course, that crucial ingredient of British-ness. When people heard “Champagne Supernova” they really heard the Beatles reincarnated; when they blasted “Wonderwall” it was Liam Gallagher’s seventies rock star-sneer that really got them going.

That was ten years ago, though, and imitation can only get you so far. In the long, painful time that has passed since then, Oasis have gone from truly being the “biggest band in the world” to being the world’s biggest has-beens, as out-moded and desperately unfashionable in this world of indie rock domination as Led Zepp or the Rolling Stones were at the apex of punk. In the British media, songwriter Noel Gallagher is the go-to guy for grouchy dismissals of contemporary music; his widely scorned condemnation of hip hop as “totally wrong” for the British music festival Glastonbury only solidified his status as an old, behind-the-times crank. But forget Britain, where Oasis’ reputation as the ultimate ‘lads down at the pub’ band is inextricably tied up with issues of class. Just go ask any American on the street what they think of Oasis and I can guarantee you the answer will be simple: “didn’t they break up?”

Well the answer is no: they did not break up. Even after releasing three critically-mauled albums in a row. But then again, Noel and Liam Gallagher aren’t known for their humility, that much is clear from their music: and here they are again in 2008, horrendously uncool, horrendously dated, and dropping their latest album “Dig Out Your Soul.”

And you know what? If you divorce it from all your expectations – from the karaoke-dirge of “Wonderwall,” or the memory of the time when “(What’s the Story) Morning Glory” was the biggest album in the world, or everything that’s happened in popular music since 1998 – it’s actually a decent rock album, short, catchy, and undemanding. But as with every album released by a has-been band, it’s impossible to forget how good they used to be; and while it may be the job of a critic to try to detach oneself from preconceptions and judge music on its own terms, sometimes that’s just not going to happen.

As usual Oasis are ruled by their influences, and many songs here can be traced to other, better bands, from the bluesy Zeppelin stomp of “Waiting for the Rapture,” to the soft, Stone Roses-like shuffle of “Falling Down.”

Still it’s the Beatles who overshadow the album, and on “Dig Out Your Soul” the Gallagher brothers take their well-documented Beatles obsession to new heights, ripping off George Harrison on the distorted, zither-laden “To Be Where There’s Life,” and effectively reproducing the ending of “Sgt Peppers” on the album’s psychedelic closer, “Soldier On.” There’s also the gloopy, cringe-inducing “I’m Outta Time,” Liam Gallagher’s attempt at writing a Lennon ballad that ends up sounding more like a Celine ballad.

In one way however, “Dig Out Your Soul” is a distinctly different record from the rest of Oasis’ discography. Within the first few seconds of the opening track, anyone who’s faintly acquainted with the band will no doubt be struck by how tight and stripped down the sound is, and it’s a restraint that characterises much of the album. Gone are the deafening wall of sound productions that made the band’s name, gone the choruses seemingly designed to be sung by drunken football hooligans. It’s a major change, one of the first signs that Oasis have stumbled out of their classic rock time machine into an awareness of what’s going on in contemporary music.

Now, when I say “stripped down” of course it’s not Leonard Cohen or Elliott Smith or anything; Oasis churn out loud, commercial rock, and they always will. But there is a sense of self-control here that has certainly never before been heard before on an Oasis album, from the gritty, strutting “Bag It Up,” to the terse blues of “(Get Off Your) High Horse Lady.” Even more standard Oasis rockers, like the blazing, horrendously catchy single “Shock of the Lightning,” are surprisingly stream-lined.

And on the whole, it’s a change for the worse. Sure, it may finally show Oasis moving on from trying to recapture the heady excess of their glory days, but in going for this more ‘tasteful’ approach, Oasis have decisively abandoned what made them great in the first place. Listening to “Dig Out Your Soul” made me nostalgic for the time when Liam Gallagher would sneer away over a gloriously uncontrolled mess of smashing drums and chaotic guitars – and that’s the last thing I expected to feel when I bought the disc, because it’s also that un-ironic sense of excess that made Oasis seem like such relics among the relentlessly hip posturing of contemporary rock.

But hey, if ridiculously uncool genres like eighties pop and disco can be appropriated and reconfigured into the height of cool, who’s to say that one day Oasis won’t be looked back on as the hipsters of their time? Okay: it’s unlikely, but I’d rather see Oasis being themselves than thinning out their sound like they have on “Dig Out Your Soul,” an appropriate title perhaps for their most breezily enjoyable album in a long time, but also for their most easily forgettable.

After all, if I’m being honest with myself, it was always Oasis’ obnoxious arrogance that made their music so darn fun to listen to, and hearing them in 2008, watered down and polite, really sounding like 40 year olds for the first time in their career, is more dispiriting than the fact that the music itself is actually quite listenable.


"Dig Out Your Soul" released 6 October, 2008 by Reprise Records.
Images courtesy of Reprise Records and Empire Online.
Published in the Daily Princetonian.

Rick Ross - Deeper than Rap

Rick ross makes for an unlikely rap star. First off, he’s not remotely sexy. T.I.’s got the looks, Lil Wayne’s got the wit, and Kanye’s just got that ego, but the tubby, Miami-based rapper kind of looks like a whale — an image not helped by him going shirtless in the video to his 2008 single “The Boss.” One word: flaps.

Rappers also, you know, need to sound good, and the bad news for Ross is that his voice is about as unappealing as his body: a wheezing, heaving bellow with all the deftness of a sledgehammer. On his last album, the ridiculously successful “Trilla,” Ross rapped like a monster truck carving its way through an obstacle course. It was a rare thing — an album that succeeded in spite of its star.

And as if that wasn’t enough, Ross was recently exposed as a corrections officer, a revelation that, rather amusingly, rocked the contemporary rap world to its foundations. After pictures of the rapper in uniform surfaced on the internet last summer, Ross repeatedly denied their authenticity, letting rip with caustic diatribes like, “Fake pictures are created by the fake, meant to entertain the fake.” But as the evidence became overwhelming, Ross was forced to bite his words and admit that he had worked in a Florida prison during the 1990s. The fact that Ross models himself on legendary drug trafficker “Freeway” Ricky Ross made the story particularly humiliating, and the affair reached its absurd pinnacle when his lawyer let slip that the rapper had actually never sold drugs or worked in a gang. Fake images are created by the fake, meant to entertain the fake? Oh, the irony.

So “Deeper than Rap” is actually a surprisingly apt title for the portly emcee’s third album. With anyone else on the mic, it would sound like just another boast in a genre founded on braggadocio, but for Ross, this is the chance to prove that he’s more than a desperate poser. And the good news? He doesn’t back down a bit. No apologies here, folks, no heart-on-sleeve tearjerkers either — “Deeper than Rap” is the most gloriously hedonistic rap album of the year so far, and that’s saying something.

From the wildly overblown cover art, framing Ross as a modern-day Scarface, to songs with names like “Rich Off Cocaine” and “Mafia Music,” Ross exposes the facade of rap music and revels in it. After all, if anyone can play with these stereotypes, it’s him, and on “Deeper than Rap” Ross dives into the role with the zeal of a hip-hop Daniel Day-Lewis. Hearing him rap things like “Never had a gun and badge / Back in the day I sold crack” is almost as much fun as watching Day-Lewis chew up scenery in “There Will Be Blood,” because you know they’re both acting — and they know you know.

It doesn’t hurt that Ross has turned into a nimbler, more elastic lyricist. On the gleaming, futuristic “All I Really Want,” Ross pulls off an internal rhyme scheme within the first 10 seconds, and on “Usual Suspects,” he holds his own next to Nas, which is no small feat. And even when Ross is unable to keep up with his own elaborate rhymes — which is quite a lot of the time — that’s half the fun. Hearing him strain to deliver incomprehensible tongue-twisters like “Kill all the middle men / I’m the militant Gilligan / speaking Creole and gentlemen as I cruise the Caribbean” is kind of like watching an elephant jumping through hoops — as uncomfortable as it is entertaining. The same goes for the man’s frequent lyrical hiccups, my personal favorite being the utterly bizarre imagery of “Fuck them all / they sweat from my balls.”

Thankfully, Ross knows better than to present himself as an artiste, and unlike most rappers he never brags about his skill on the mic. Being rich, sure, getting it on, OK, but being talented, not so much — and it’s a self-awareness that makes his mammoth clumsiness all the more endearing.

As with all of Ross’ albums though, the lyrics aren’t really the point, and half the time you can’t understand what he’s saying anyway. It’s the production that keeps him going, and “Deeper than Rap” is easily the most musically accomplished record of the rapper’s career. No wonder Ross named his record label, “Maybach Music,” after a $500,000 luxury car — the music here glistens like a Bentley fresh out the shop, swirling with sugar-sweet vocal samples and rumbling, primordial synthesizers.

And lest we forget, the true artist isn’t the name on the cover, but the incomprehensible misspellings in the fine print: producers like the J.U.S.T.I.C.E. League, the Inkredibles and the Runners, who handed Ross his first certified hit in 2006 with the booming, bass-heavy screw of “Hustlin’.” All three producers weigh in heavily on the track listing, creating an album that gleams like polished gold. It’s the kind of music that doesn’t even need videos — listening to the airy synths and plastic saxophone solos of “Maybach Music 2,” you can almost picture Miami Beach. “Escapism” isn’t a strong enough word for it; this is music that refuses to deal in anything but fantasy and projection, and party-poopers like “reality” are nowhere to be found.

You might disagree with me then, but sitting here listening to songs like “Yacht Club” and “Cigar Music,” I think “Deeper than Rap” might be the perfect recession record — perfect, that is, because it’s so wildly, obnoxiously inappropriate. Who wants reality, anyway? “Deeper than Rap” is the musical equivalent of a summer blockbuster, transporting listeners into a sun-bleached fantasy world where, in Jay-Z’s immortal words, “money ain’t a thang.”

Like Jay-Z, Ross knows this is an ephemeral dream, and you can tell precisely because he never admits it — and thank the Lord, because the album wouldn’t be half as much fun if he did. “My money long / my money strong / if you ain’t getting money that mean you done something wrong,” brags Ross in the album’s opening minutes, and it’s a line he reprises throughout the record under a million different guises. On “Deeper than Rap,” Rick Ross is doing pretty much everything right — he deserves every cent coming to him.

"Deeper than Rap" released 21 April, 2009 by Maybach Music Records.
Images courtesy of Maybach Music Records and Empire Online.
Published in the Daily Princetonian.