Asher Roth - Asleep in the Bread Aisle

Halfway through his debut album, Pennsylvania-based rapper Asher Roth dedicates a song to Eminem. On the track, rather punnily called "As I Em," the skinny white rapper addresses everyone who thinks he's just a second-rate Marshall Mathers: "It's easy to see the pieces and the reach for that connection / each second of every minute, each hour of every day / I'm constantly on defense, defending my own name / explaining we're not the same."

Well, they're not the same. Not at all. Roth grew up in a small, sheltered town and went to college; Eminem grew up in a trailer park and dropped out of high school. Roth's raps are silly and childish and about having a good time; Eminem's are dark and satirical and about murdering his girlfriend. Sure, Asher Roth is basically the first white rapper since Eminem to make it big - but the similarities end there.

And making it big would be an understatement; Roth's about to make it bloody huge. His debut single, the tailor-made frat-boy anthem "I Love College," is well on its way to becoming one of the biggest hits of the year, and it's easy to see why. You can almost see Roth and his producers ticking off the boxes for a popular pre-game song, from the simple chorus ("I love college / and I love drinking") to the do-it-yourself bridge ("Chug, chug, chug!").

So "I Love College" was a story with a happy ending, a fun, throwaway rap song well on its way toward pop-culture phenomenon. As for Roth's debut album, "Asleep in the Bread Aisle?" Well, let me put it this way: Where "Slim Shady LP" had only two brief cameos, giving Eminem the space to display his considerable talents, "Asleep in the Bread Aisle" could almost be filed under "Various Artists." Roth may be the only person on the (quite silly) cover art, but the album itself is ungainly and overcrowded, with Roth's understated raps getting lost amid the glossy hooks and terrific guest verses. There's little doubt that Roth is a capable emcee, but even after 14 songs, one gets little sense of the real Asher Roth. Will he please stand up?

Half the time, Roth is playing the silly stoner kid from "I Love College," coming across like a goofy, hip-hop Beck. The cracked-out opener "Lark On My Go Kart" is about as mature as its name, with Roth proclaiming himself "king of the blumpkins" and then dishing out a series of increasingly bizarre non-sequiturs. The same pattern is repeated several times over, from the self-explanatory "Blunt Cruisin' " to the quite-fun-but-soon-annoying "La Di Da," which nabs the name of Slick Rick's 1985 hip-hop classic but little of its creativity.

Best of the stoner raps is "Bad Day," in which Roth shows off spellbinding storytelling skills as he narrates a nightmarish plane flight: "I silently plead, ‘Oh God, please let there be a honey sitting 27B' / but of course a morbidly obese / beast is in the seat / that wheezes when it breathes ... and when I thought that it couldn't get worse / I forgot my iPod."

The rest of the time, though, Roth just sounds like a gimmick - a geeky, white-boy rapper awkwardly paired with some of hip-hop's most charismatic and experienced artists. On "She Don't Wanna Man" - which, if you think about it, makes absolutely no sense - Roth does his best 50 Cent impression next to a chorus hook from R&B siren Keri Hilson. Unsurprisingly, Roth's 50 Cent is rather embarrassing, and hearing him toss out lines like "I'm the shit" is considerably less fun than hearing him rap, "I'm the king of the blumpkins."

Even more dispiriting is "Lion's Roar," a forced and unfunny sex rap in which a whirlwind guest verse from Busta Rhymes leaves Roth reeling in the dust. True, almost anyone sounds snail-paced next to Busta's demented, light-speed flow, but Roth manages to sound particularly bland. He certainly doesn't help himself with awkward lines like "Ready now, get set / I'm gonna smack that butt / I'm gonna grab them breasts."

Occasionally, there's a hint of a more mature and thoughtful emcee lurking behind the party boy exterior, someone who can do more with his lyric pad than rhyme about boobs and blumpkins. Perhaps fittingly, one of these moments is the aforementioned "As I Em," in which Roth pulls off a surprisingly good imitation of Eminem's terse, rapid-fire rapping style. Maybe it's just so he can rhyme "same complexion" with "similar voice inflection," but either way, it's one of his strongest vocal performances.

The same goes for the album's two best tracks, tucked in at the tail end of the record and therefore unlikely to be heard by anyone who's bought the CD just for "I Love College." That's a shame, because "His Dream," which tells the poignant, perhaps semi-autobiographical story of a father living vicariously through his children, reveals an utterly different side of Asher Roth. No longer bragging about his pong skills or his high alcohol tolerance, Roth turns in a captivating and even vulnerable performance. Again, it's in the moments that he plays up Eminem's influence that Roth himself is most interesting.

That's certainly the case with the other late-album treat, "The Lounge," in which Roth picks apart all the stereotypes about rappers one by one with a series of brilliantly pointed rhetorical questions. Over a smooth-as-butter jazz-rap backing, Roth demonstrates a quick wit: "I'd like to know what makes a rapper... What if he's a she and not a he at all? / Or does a broad have to be a C at least? / Or can it be decreased if she real up on the beat? / And is she realer if she raised in the street? / Or can they still feel her if she raised in C.T.?"

Clearly, this isn't the Asher Roth of "I Love College" or the try-hard trading lines with Keri Hilson on "She Don't Wanna Man." This is a Roth that crops up far too rarely on his debut, and between the stoner, the thug and the thinker, I'd take the latter any day.

Of course, there's no denying that "Asleep in the Bread Aisle" is a unique prospect for a mainstream rap album in 2009. Its name, for one thing, sits rather at odds with the week's other high-profile release, "Deeper than Rap" by the tubby Miami emcee Rick Ross (such modesty!). And, admittedly, it's a rare treat to hear an hour and a half of rapping with no mention of guns or jewelry. But in practice, Roth's debut album is neither as interesting nor as entertaining as it could be. The real Asher Roth has yet to reveal himself, and the obfuscation's certainly not the result of any Eminem-like identity play.

My advice? Stop calling yourself a blumpkin. That might help.

"Asleep in the Bread Aisle" released 20 April, 2009 by Universal Records.
Images courtesy of Empire Online and Universal Records.
Published in the Daily Princetonian.

The-Dream - Love Vs. Money

If you’re the kind of person who treats pop music like the Plague, I’ve got news for you: You’re missing out. This March saw the release of one of the most ambitious and exhilarating albums of the year, and it’s quite defiantly pop-tastic. Certainly in its ingredients, The-Dream’s “Love Vs. Money” is no different from most other high-budget pop records. It’s filled with stuttered percussion, growling synths, and syncopated auto-tune vocals, as well as those Atlanta chants that have become a regular fixture of chart-toppers recently – you know, that slurred and drunken “ayyyy” that seems to make up the chorus of every rap single these days.

The difference with “Love Vs. Money” is in its execution. The-Dream may not have the looks or even the vocal chops of your typical pop star, but the artistry of his contemporary pop technique is peerless. Sorry, Timbaland. Sorry, Pharrell. There’s a new kid on the block.

Well, not quite new. The-Dream does have a few big hits under his belt. In fact, though everyone likes to think that Timbaland is responsible for the sound of pop music in the late-2000s, we shouldn’t forget that two of the most ubiquitous songs of 2007 and 2008 were The-Dream’s handiwork. The ominous robo-pop of Rihanna’s “Umbrella”? That was him. The airy, whirring clatter of Beyonce’s “Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)”? That was him, too.

But where both Timbaland and Pharrell have proved unable to translate their production skills into successful solo careers, The-Dream has outdone himself with “Love Vs. Money.” Neither “Single Ladies” nor “Umbrella” – and certainly not his spotty 2007 debut “Love/Hate” – hinted at the breadth of vision evident here.

Almost every track on the album is a masterpiece, detailed and intricate, but never over-stuffed or claustrophobic. First single “Rockin’ that Shit” is the sonic equivalent of a lava lamp, gushing with marshmallow synths; “Walking on the Moon” is a delirious, day-glo spin on early Michael Jackson; and the title track sounds like it was recorded in a car factory, with The-Dream’s fragile vocals fluttering in between crashing, lumbering percussive hits.

As with The-Dream’s debut, two titans of R&B loom large over the proceedings: Prince and R. Kelly (both immensely talented, both bat-shit crazy). But where “Love/Hate” found imitation to be the sincerest form of flattery, this time around The-Dream synthesizes his influences into more exciting and original creations. “Nikki,” a song from his debut, was a virtual rewrite of Prince’s classic “Darling Nikki,” down to its damn name, and the same went for the airy groove of “Purple Kisses.” On his second album, The-Dream takes Prince’s alien, otherworldly style and brings it rocketing into the 21st century, laying eerie harmonies and vocal effects against high-tech beats.

R. Kelly’s influence is more openly acknowledged – particularly on “Kelly’s 12 Play,” in which The-Dream describes having sex to the sounds of Kelly’s breakthrough album. Ahem. Unsurprisingly, it’s a track that repeatedly teeters on the brink of absurdity (“clean the CD, check for scratches / get up on my mattress / now we doin’ it to Kelly’s “12 Play””), but perhaps that’s appropriate considering Kelly’s rather kooky personal life. Thankfully though, it’s not just Kelly’s taste for the absurd that The-Dream takes to heart. He’s also inherited Kelly’s vocal flair, spicing up his run-of-the-mill singing voice with an orgasmic array of hiccups, sighs and screeches.

And yet, The-Dream is by no means ruled by his influences: on “Fancy,” he leaves Kelly in the dust, transforming the R&B icon’s lascivious style into something far more accomplished. In fact, the song comes close to fulfilling the epic, theatrical vision that Kelly fell so short of with his “Trapped in the Closet” project. In every way that “Trapped in the Closet” is trite and repetitive, “Fancy” is mature and engrossing, starting soft, only to end six and a half minutes later amidst a blissful clatter of synths and drums.

I could go on describing every track in equal detail, but I won’t bore you – and in case you do pick up the album, I don’t want to reveal too much of the delectable ear candy in store for you. Suffice it to say, in its widescreen, multi-layered production style, “Love Vs. Money” is in many ways 2009’s “Thriller.” Think of the number of hooks crammed into a song like “Billie Jean” – guitar licks, synth riffs, and bass lines, let alone the vocals – and you start to get an idea of just how masterfully executed “Love Vs. Money” is. And like Quincy Jones’ work on “Thriller,” The-Dream’s luxurious soundscapes are clearly crafted to support and enhance his melodies, and not the other way around. In a world where studio trickery is often used to mask shoddy song writing, it’s a refreshing change of pace. Hopefully pop’s other super-producers (cough, Timbaland, cough) will take note.

In the end, though, what’s best about “Love Vs. Money” is simple: It is an album, in every sense of the word. Unified in sound and flawlessly sequenced, it runs the gamut of tempos and moods, from the fun loving head-rush of the first few songs, to the simmering anger of its mid-section, to the scandalous erotic bliss of its closing moments. You can leave the “skip” button well alone with this one. Unlike 99% of pop albums, “Love Vs. Money” begs to be listened to in one sitting. Each track segues into the next, literally as well as emotionally, and they don’t really work without each other. I certainly can’t imagine the despairing “Right Side of My Brain” working half as well without the cathartic climax of “Fancy” coming right before it.

Sure, The-Dream’s lyrics may not be deep or thought provoking (sample: “I’m all up on you like a monster truck”), and the record’s aspirations towards concept album complexity do fall somewhat flat. But to me it’s a concept album sonically, not lyrically, and The-Dream’s lyrical and even vocal shortcomings are more than made up for by his production skills. On “Love Vs. Money,” the ingredients may be the same, but the recipe is radically different. If you think indie rock and electronica are the only progressive genres these days, listen to this album and then we’ll talk.


"Love Vs. Money" released 10 March, 2009 by Def Jam Records.
Images courtesy of Empire Online and Def Jam Records.
Published in the Nassau Weekly.

The Game - LAX

I’ll be honest here: The Game is not a very talented rapper. He may look and act the part well (Tattoos! Bullet scars! Bling!), but his rapping leaves much to be desired. Technically, he’s poor – a husky, gruff and really rather bland voice tempered with little rhythmic invention – and lyrically he’s just as bad, rapping about guns, hoes and the size of his wallet with as much originality as his one-time mentor, 50 Cent. What makes things worse is the Game’s constant name-dropping of other, better rappers – on the title track of his debut “The Documentary,” for instance, he managed to squeeze in references to almost every classic 90s hip hop album, and that was just in the chorus. He probably thought it sounded cool, but it just sounds silly – and his near-pathological hero worship makes his own emceeing weaknesses all the more glaring.

Luckily, the Game’s albums aren’t one-man affairs. Not only are his albums littered with an endless number of guest spots, but he has consistently roped in the best producers in hip hop. This means that – thank the Lord – his workmanlike flow and run-of-the-mill lyrics are usually upstaged by stellar production and the charismatic guest verses of other rappers. His first album in particular seemed more like a showcase for Dr. Dre than for the Game, and the result was one of the most enjoyable commercial rap albums of the decade.

On his third, and apparently last album “LAX,” the one thing that made his albums good – their production – falters. And that’s not all: His namedropping grows more relentless and irritating than ever before. The result is his weakest album, a glossy and flaccid affair that’s certainly not destined to become a bangin’ summer hit like his previous two LPs.

One song encapsulates “LAX”’s flaws better than any other, the late-album disaster “Never Can Say Goodbye.” As with most of the songs on “LAX,” it’s overly slick, leaning more for a slushy R&B sound than the hard-hitting gangsta style that made the Game successful in the first place. Where there used to be Dre’s crisp, infectious 808 drums, there are now breathy and never-ending guest choruses, and a layer of pop gloss thick enough to make Britney Spears balk in disbelief. But limp, hyper-commercial production is a small problem compared to the song’s main flaw, which sees the Game take his hero-worshipping to a whole new level; for not only does he rap about hip hop legends Eazy E, 2Pac and Notorious B.I.G., he actually imitates them. Yup. That’s right.

The result is so bizarre that I actually had to listen to the song twice to convince myself I wasn’t having some horrendous musical nightmare. Because as you might imagine, listening to a rapper like the Game imitating emcees as talented as Biggie and Pac is one of the most painful things you’ll ever experience; yes, utterly laughable on one level, but just plain wrong on most. Particularly blasphemous is how utterly caricatured and one-dimensional his impressions are. What made Biggie, Pac and Eazy such icons was their complexity, their constant vacillation between thuggish aggression and raw vulnerability. All the Game does, however, is recreate a crude gangsta cliché of the rappers – and even that he does badly.

While “Never Can Say Goodbye” is certainly the worst song on the album – and one of the most downright ridiculous hip hop tracks I’ve ever heard in my life – it exemplifies well what makes “LAX” such a failure. Overly glossy production drowns more than two thirds of the album in pop gloop, from the Ne-Yo-featuring “Gentleman’s Affair” to the soft-core slush of “Touchdown,” and almost every song is littered with references to hip hop legends. In the album’s first verse alone, he mentions Suge Knight, Jay-Z and Scarface, all figures with more charisma in their pinky finger than the Game has in his whole body.

Still, despite being a considerable disappointment, “LAX” certainly isn’t worthless. Like any major rap album, there are enough high-profile guests and producers to guarantee a handful of notable tracks. The Ice Cube-featuring “State of Emergency,” for instance, is a shining example of what made the Game a platinum-selling phenomenon back in 2005. It’s a furious, high-octane adrenalin-rush, religiously conforming to the gangsta rap handbook, but also a reminder of what made that genre great in the first place. It’s not meant to be headphone music, and you’re certainly not meant to sit at home alone decoding the complex rhymes and metaphors – this is music to pump your fists to, and the anthemic chorus and incendiary production of “State of Emergency” provide more of an energy rush in four minutes than more respectable, intellectual rappers like Mos Def can conjure up in four songs. The Kanye West/Common collaboration “Angel,” as you’d expect, is also well worth listening to, with a silken-smooth Common guest spot and funky, early Dre-inspired production from West which differs from his usual sound.

If you have to download one song though, make it the album’s third single “My Life,” fuelled by an infectious Lil Wayne chorus as well as by the most introspective and interesting lyrics on the album. I mean, they’re hardly groundbreaking or anything, but they make the Game appear like a three-dimensional human being rather than a walking talking dictionary of gangsta rap clichés. Particularly memorable is his protest that he’s been “hated on so much / “The Passion of the Christ” needs a sequel.” Now, if he could come up with angsty, provocative lyrics like that all the time, “LAX” would be a very different album – but the sober reflection of “My Life” is soon cut short by the following track “Money,” a leaden celebration of cash which might be interesting if it hadn’t been done like a MILLION times before.

But who am I fooling anyway? It’s not like anyone buys the Game’s new album looking for originality. People buy Game albums for great production, a stellar guest-list, and the inevitable string of hit singles – and it’s mainly on those criteria that I’m judging “LAX” a failure.


"LAX" released 22 August, 2008 by Geffen Records.
Images courtesy of Geffen Records and Empire Online.
Published in the Daily Princetonian.

Duran Duran - Red Carpet Massacre

When I first heard that Timbaland was collaborating with Duran Duran on their new album, I was overjoyed. What could be better than pairing the dance-floor kings of the eighties and the noughties together? Duran Duran, authors of such pop masterpieces as “Rio,” “Save a Prayer” and “Girls on Film,” have obviously influenced Timbaland — all you have to do is compare their 1982 hit “Hungry Like the Wolf” to the Timbaland-produced “SexyBack” to see how their classic muscular, bass-heavy sound is the eighties equivalent of Timbaland’s now ubiquitous production style. As for Timbaland, well he’s exactly the kind of big-name producer who can throw the New Wave veterans back up the charts after two decades in the wilderness.

Well, I’ve got some sad news to report: the result is a real disappointment, an unfocused, garish mess of an album that once and for all labels Duran Duran as has-beens whose time in the spotlight should have ended long ago. And the problem with the record? Well, it’s very simple: “Red Carpet Massacre” doesn’t really sound like a collaboration at all. In fact it sounds more like a mistake, like two totally different albums that got spliced together in the factory.

The first of these two is filled with slushy, bland pop/rock numbers, and it’s awful: a one-star disaster if ever I heard one. The only clue that this offensive shlock has anything to do with the Duran Duran of yesteryear is the fact that we still have Simon LeBon’s instantly identifiable vocals, as well as his absurdly cryptic lyrics – if you can work out what “At the sharp end of the view / the edge of me and you / and all good sense that tread no further / And the ghost will shiver trees” means, I’ll pay you a fortune.

Otherwise though, this sounds nothing like the sleek, irresistibly stylish synth-pop that made the band’s name. In fact, most of these songs are the antithesis to everything that made Duran Duran successful in the first place: a band that’s known for its pumping, bass-heavy dance tracks instead decides to inundate us with flaccid, over-produced mid-tempo rock. The most conspicuous examples of this trend include the woeful “Box Full O’ Honey,” with its sterile, faux-acoustic production and cavity-inducing chorus, and the even cheesier “She’s Too Much,” with its Westlife-style harmonies.

Almost as bad is the first single off the album, the plodding, leaden “Falling Down” — sure, the chiming U2-style guitar riffs give the song a nice texture, but the song’s sole hook is repeated ad-infinitum, and the whole thing’s a painfully obvious rip-off of their early-nineties hit “Ordinary World.” What makes it worse is the misleading ‘feat. Justin Timberlake’ tagged onto the end of the song, which set my hopes way too high. Sadly, this sounds nothing like the stylish electropop of Timberlake, unless his next career move is to become the new John Mayer.

What does sound a lot more like Justin Timberlake is the other album here, which we’ll call, for the sake of clarity, the “Timbaland half.” Sadly, this half sounds just as little like Duran Duran as the other half — you can dance to it, true, but it sounds a lot more like the deranged dance-pop of Britney Spears, or any other Timbaland production for that matter.

Take the lurid, club-ready “Skin Divers,” for instance: not only does Timbaland rap over most of the song, but with its squelching synths and fuzzy beats it would have sounded much more at home on Timbaland’s recent “Shock Value” than here. The same goes for the effortlessly stylish neo-disco of “Nite Runner,” which is easily the album’s best song — except it sounds absolutely nothing like Duran Duran. So even though these songs are way better than the insipid crapola that infests the rest of the record, they sound like Duran Duran are guesting on their own album, providing a few vocals here and there while Timbaland does all the work.

Only on a couple of songs is any kind of happy medium found. The opening “The Valley” raises false hopes as it seamlessly marries a superb Duran Duran bass-line to Timbaland’s trademark percussion style. Sure, the lyrics are a total mystery, but at least it sounds like band and producer are working together without overwhelming each other. The only other song which actually sounds like a collaboration is the synth-heavy “Tempted” — sadly, it doesn’t live up to its own potential, opening with an infectious verse melody but totally falling apart at the chorus, with LeBon sneering “How much do you want to?” like a leering rapist.

On these songs, you get a little glimpse of how brilliant Red Carpet Massacre might have been. The actual album, however, is a dispiriting mess that’s all over the place stylistically and leaves me convinced of two things. First off, Timbaland’s spreading himself too thin, and has started developing a by-the-numbers sound which he just lazily grafts onto songs. If you take out the vocals, “Skin Divers” sounds exactly like “Gimme More,” while the “Nite Runner” beat sounds a lot like “SexyBack,” and that’s a worrying sign. At the moment, the Timbaland sound still sounds cool, but considering he’s got a packed year ahead, working with everyone from Stevie Wonder to Madonna, he’d better start developing his style soon or it’ll get boring.

More important though, is what happens when Timbaland’s not there, because on the evidence of this album, when Duran Duran are left to their own devices the results are dreadful. Gone is the sleek pop genius of yesteryear, replaced by a wishy washy pop/rock style that sounds like bargain bin Barry Manilow. Conclusion? Go buy “Rio,” the band’s 1982 masterpiece, and leave “Red Carpet Massacre” well alone.


"Red Carpet Massacre released 13 November, 2007 on Epic Records.
Images courtesy of Epic Records and Empire Online.
Published in the Daily Princetonian.

Goldfrapp - Seventh Tree

On their fourth album “Seventh Tree” Alison Goldfrapp and her production partner Will Gregory have pulled off a drastic artistic about-turn. Veering decisively away from the heady, pulsing dance music that made their name on “Black Cherry” (2003) and “Supernature” (2005), the duo retain but shades of their electronica-tinged past as they head into acoustic, folkier territory. It really is an extraordinary transformation — it would be like Mariah Carey deciding to release an album of Bob Dylan covers, or Arcade Fire deciding to try their hand at disco. The question is: can Goldfrapp pull off folk music as well as they pull off glitzy electro-pop?

Some of the time, they do. In fact, the moments that pay off best are those when Goldfrapp swerve furthest away from their glimmering, bass-heavy dance sound of old. “Clowns,” which opens the album, is not only “Seventh Tree”s best song, it’s also the one that sounds furthest removed from the glammy, Bowie-esque sound that made Goldfrapp’s name. Instead, “Clowns” is a rippling, gorgeous ballad that sounds like the love child of Joni Mitchell and the Cocteau Twins, borrowing acoustic guitar riffs and pop smarts from the former and the crooning, dream-like sound of the latter. Alison Goldfrapp’s voice is especially unrecognisable, her trademark ice-cold, dominatrix demeanour traded in for a more affected, strained, almost Joanna Newsom-esque vocal style.

While “Clowns” may be the most extreme and successful reinvention of Goldfrapp’s sound on the album, it is far from the only one. Also of note is the charmingly rickety “Eat Yourself,” which glides along on dusty samples and another charmingly awkward, delicate vocal performance from Alison Goldfrapp.

More sonically complex — though not much — is the sleek, seductive “Cologne Ceronne Houdini” (that’s a mouthful), one of the few songs on the album to bridge past and present styles, and the only one to do it well. With its stately string hooks, thumping bass-line and silken, sultry vocals, it sounds like it could be an out-take from Goldfrapp’s last album. As a result, despite being a perfectly decent song, it doesn’t really fit into the low-key mood of “Seventh Tree.”

The same goes for “A&E,” the album’s lead single. True, it is an almost perfectly written pop song, a lush mid-tempo ballad with a gorgeous verse melody and a chorus that won’t leave your head for days, but it’s so horrendously catchy compared to the rest of the record that it sticks out a mile. It’s like stumbling upon a Madonna song on a Metallica album. That’s not to say it’s bad — but on a record characterised mainly by tasteful restraint, the jubilantly sweet sugar-rush of “A&E” just doesn’t fit.

Actually, “tastefully restrained” is what Goldfrapp wish their album was, because the biggest weakness of “Seventh Tree” is that the duo too frequently confuses “tastefully restrained” for “blandly boring.” Far gone are the theatrical, intricately detailed sound-scapes of yesteryear, and in its place are more traditional song structures, occasionally repetitious melodies and a markedly restricted sonic palette. As shown above, this bare bones musical style can pay off, as with the dreamy “Clowns,” in which a beautifully ethereal ambience is achieved with just three instruments. But equally often, songs fall just the wrong side of that tricky line between low-key and dreary. Case in point: the droningly repetitive “Caravan Girl,” which is so simplistic it almost sounds like a nursery rhyme. “Run away, we’ll run away you and me” is hardly the most complex or brilliant lyric ever thought up, and in “Caravan Girl” it’s only repeated, you know, like TWENTY TIMES. Equally disappointing is “Little Bird,” which tries to meld Goldfrapp’s past and present styles, without realising that grafting processed, dance-pop vocals over a folk music backdrop sounds really, really silly.

If I sound really damning, I don’t want to, because it’s not that these songs are bad per se — it’s just that they’re not very interesting, and represent a serious step down in musical complexity from Goldfrapp’s last few albums. On their 2003 breakthrough, “Black Cherry,” they showed that dance music need not be repetitive or boring, flawlessly matching swirling, Eno-esque sound tapestries to infectious pop melodies. This brilliant balancing act between experimental and accessible is largely what has made the band so successful, but it’s a trick they haven’t pulled off on “Seventh Tree.” Even so, in this download-a-few-songs-and-screw-the-album age that we live in, “Seventh Tree” is a perfect fit. Download “Clowns,” “Eat Yourself” and “A&E,” drop your jaw at the fact that one sounds like Kate Bush, another sounds like Nina Simone, and the last sounds almost like Sheryl Crow, and revel in the results of a band in the throes of musical reinvention.


"Seventh Tree" released 26 February, 2008 by Mute Records.
Images courtesy of Mute Records and Empire Online.
Published in the Daily Princetonian.

Gnarls Barkley - The Odd Couple

Gnarls Barkley’s 2005 smash “St. Elsewhere” was an occasionally brilliant, but mostly frustrating album. True, it boasted top-notch production from the now-ubiquitous Danger Mouse and gorgeous vocals from sometime-rapper Cee-Lo Green, and it had a woozy, Marvin Gaye-via-trip hop vibe that was like little else in popular music; but too often these talents were wasted on songs that didn’t seem to be much more than rough sketches.

Still, there was “Crazy.” And luckily on their sophomore effort, “The Odd Couple,” the duo have fixed nearly all the problems that plagued their debut, unleashing what must surely rank as one of the weirdest – yet at the same time utterly infectious – records to hit the mainstream in quite a while.

Like their debut, “The Odd Couple” is a blast of wacky alternative soul that’s fairly evenly split between melodic, commercial songs and more bizarre, downbeat fare. The difference here is that both styles are pulled off equally successfully, because the duo realises that the first thing that makes a song good is a strong melody, not trippy, fancy production or acrobatic vocal work. Sure, there may be no “Crazy” this time around, but on the whole “The Odd Couple” is a far more satisfying album, consistent without losing any of the offbeat charm that made “St. Elsewhere” such a success.

Highlights abound. On the poppier side, especially, the record comes up trumps, with melodic gems ranging from the Ray-Charles-on-helium vibe of “Blind Mary” to the driving, ecstatic “Surprise,” which is the closest the album comes to topping the chorus of “Crazy.” And those are among the weaker pop-oriented tracks on the album.

Even more impressive is the opening “Charity Case,” whose intricate mesh of vocal hooks and instrumental samples signals a significant step up in the level of song-writing. And while first single “Run (I’m a Natural Disaster)” won’t be tearing up the charts any time soon, it’s far from a disappointment, an utterly unhinged gospel-pop song that tears past at such a pace it takes at least five or ten listens to realise just how complex the track is. Check the day-glo, effervescent video too, which would be getting my vote for “best 1970s music video made in 2008” had Snoop Dogg not already snagged it with his brilliant “Sensual Seduction.” Special cred should also go to “Run” for being perhaps the most buoyant, upbeat song ever written about heroin addiction; the line “can’t you feel the pain / when the needle hits the vein” is sung by Cee-Lo in such an ecstatic fashion I didn’t even notice what the lyrics were actually about until the third or fourth listen.

And that is perhaps the greatest strength of “The Odd Couple” – every time you listen to it, you notice something new, whether it’s noticing that a sweet song like “Whatever” is actually about clinical depression or finding new, earworm-catchy hooks in the most unexpected places.

It’s this brilliant balancing act between off-the-wall, wacko ingenuity and pop smarts that guarantees Danger Mouse’s place as one of the most talented producers in contemporary music. Seriously, no one else would think of doing something as downright insane as dropping random, gorilla-like grunts and moans right into an otherwise (fairly) normal pop song like “Open Book.” And as long as he doesn’t pull a Timbaland and start slouching just as he hits his commercial peak (nothing as mediocre as “Shock Value” from you, thank you very much), we can expect a lot more top-notch work soon; he’s manning production duties for everyone from the Black Keys to Beck in the year to come.

But let’s not forget the other indispensable ingredient to Gnarls Barkley’s success, the yin to Danger Mouse’s yang: Cee-Lo. Without his keening, gorgeous voice – gravelly and marshmallow-sweet at once, and undoubtedly one of the most remarkable, instantly identifiable voices in pop – it’s unlikely that anything on this album would be half as good. It’s on the weirder songs on the record that Cee-Lo’s fundamental role in the band comes out especially strongly, because he is able to make even the most oblique and tripped-out of Danger Mouse’s production pieces listenable and oddly infectious. Even a song as creepy and utterly bizarre as “Would Be Killer,” which sounds like Massive Attack and James Brown collaborating for the theme song of a fifties horror movie, becomes compelling in Green’s hands (or should I say, vocal chords…), and it’s hard to imagine it being anything but alienating with any other vocalist behind the mike.

Now, “The Odd Couple” isn’t absolutely perfect. The track-listing, for instance, does tend to place similar songs one after another, and there are a few songs that could be pruned, such as the ever-so-slightly bland pop/rock of “Going On,” which is the closest the album gets to the mainstream.

On the whole though, “The Odd Couple” is a significant step up from the duo’s promising but flawed debut. What it proves above all else is that Gnarls Barkley are anything but an “odd couple” – they are not just a one-hit wonder, not just a goofy, oddball combination of geeky white producer and charismatic black rapper. Gnarls Barkley really have the chance to create something special and lasting. Now we’ll have to wait and see whether they can pull the same trick twice.


"The Odd Couple" released 18 March, 2008 by Atlantic Records.
Images courtesy of Atlantic Records and Empire Online.
Published in the Daily Princetonian.

Lupe Fiasco - The Cool

I got pretty excited when I heard that Lupe Fiasco’s sophomore effort was going to be a full-blown concept album. One person had told me, rather ominously, that it was a “concept album about Islam,” and someone else had told me it was about a dead man who comes back to life. Both sounded promising…well, they were both very wrong. “The Cool” is as much a concept album as The Beatles’ “Sergeant Peppers” – we’ve got a few token tracks to glue the whole thing together and then a load of songs in between that have absolutely nothing in common. But like “Sergeant Peppers,” it’s exactly the album’s rambling, off-the-wall variety that makes it work so well. Instead of just telling us about some guy coming back to life – which he does, on four or five songs – Fiasco spends seventy minutes touching on every subject from immigration (‘Intruder Alert’) to celebrity (‘Superstar’) to hamburgers (the aptly titled ‘Gotta Eat’) with the same unstoppable energy and imagination.

It’s not just a lyrical triumph though. Musically, this is also a far more colourful, inventive and ambitious album than Fiasco’s debut, which, as impressive as it was, struck me as over-produced and slightly monotonous, with damn near every song following the ‘rap verse - glossy pop chorus’ formula. On “The Cool,” Fiasco widens his palette and unleashes a wildly colourful maelstrom of creativity that almost touches OutKast for variety and inspiration.

Standout tracks abound, from the joyous sugar-rush of “Superstar” to the gorgeous, heart-wrenching story-song “Hip Hop Saved My Life,” but the most impressive are those which point in new musical directions, away from his trademark glossy pop-rap sound. The satirical, synth-heavy rumble of ‘Dumb It Down,’ in which guest Graham Burris warns Fiasco that his music is making girls “think smart is cool” is one example. Another is the brilliant ‘Little Weapon,’ in which Fiasco narrates the gripping story of a young African soldier over chopped Gregorian chants and military drumbeats.

My personal favourite, however, is one of the least intricately produced songs on the album: the lovely, low-key love song ‘Paris, Tokyo.’ On here, Fiasco dons his best Q-Tip impression and unleashes a groovy slice of jazz-rap that sounds like a long lost Tribe Called Quest classic. The song proves that Lupe can relax and still be as charming as when he’s being his usual smart-ass self.

I don’t want to be too positive though, because, for all its strengths, “The Cool” isn’t a perfect album. It’s a bit long – the tacky and repetitive ‘Hi-Definition,’ in which guest Snoop Dogg sleepwalks through his verse, could have been cut, and the same goes for the clumsy, poe-faced rock-rap of ‘Hello Goodbye’ – and it’s a bit glossy, with too many songs caked in a soppy sheen of melodramatic strings and synthesizers.

Overall though, “The Cool” is a resounding success, and has achieved the impossible in topping the charmingly precocious “Food & Liquor,” which, à la “Illmatic,” seemed like the kind of debut that would haunt him for the rest of the career. In dispelling any doubts about him being a one hit wonder, Fiasco has proven himself, lyrically and stylistically, as one the most exciting rappers around. Just listen to his knockout vocal performance on ‘Intruder Alert,’ in which he even manages to make the line “the economic pecking order of emergency relief distribution systems” sound awesome. With “The Cool,” Lupe Fiasco may not have created his masterpiece, but he’s getting closer and closer.


"The Cool" released December 18, 2007 by Atlantic Records.
Images courtesy of Atlantic Records and Empire Online.
Published in the Review.

Keri Hilson - In a Perfect World...

You may not know it, but you’ve heard Keri Hilson before. Sure, “In a Perfect World” may be the 26-year-old R&B singer’s debut album, but it’s far from her first contribution to the pop charts. Remember a little Britney song called “Gimme More”? Hilson wrote that one. Remember Timbaland’s “The Way I Are”? That was Hilson singing the killer chorus. And if you saw the video to Usher’s blockbusting “Love in this Club,” you might recall the drop-dead stunner who’s got the singer buckling at the knees — well, that was her too.

Hilson’s hardly a newcomer to the music scene, then. She’s spent five years filling her phonebook with the biggest names in pop, and it shows on her long-delayed debut, for better and for worse. Yes, it’s a state-of-the-art pop record, glossy and slick and jam-packed with hooks. But it’s also the kind of album that will look desperately dated five years down the road, as it panders to all of contemporary pop’s worst tendencies. Excessive auto-tune? Check. By-the-numbers Timbaland productions? Check. Token appearance by Lil Wayne? You bet.

So while “In a Perfect World” is a highly accomplished record, it’s also a startlingly anonymous one, teeming with all the little bleeps and stutters that have come to define pop music in 2009. Sometimes it sounds like Hilson is simply plucking songs off the charts and reassembling them, hoping listeners won’t notice.

Then again, one can’t really blame her. It’s true that Hilson’s got writing credits on almost every song here, but her name is lost amid an avalanche of mixers, producers and guest vocalists. Like every other mainstream pop album these days, it seems the name on the cover is almost irrelevant to the music inside. Producers, not singers, choose the sound now; on her debut, even a major talent like Hilson is sidelined by the egos around her.

Take a glance at the album art and you get the impression that Hilson is a forceful and independent woman, venturing into her solo career without anyone’s help. But read the liner notes carefully, and you realize there are only two names here that matter: Timbaland and Polow da Don.

Both producers helped Hilson jump-start her career, and both are enormously influential figures in the contemporary pop landscape. Timbaland largely defined the sound of pop in 2007, with songs like “Apologize” and “SexyBack,” and Polow da Don did the same for 2008, with “Love in this Club” and “Forever.” It’s these producers’ ubiquitous styles that define Hilson’s debut, leaving the supposed star of the show sounding like any other debuting R&B singer — a pretty voice for her producers to play with.

This is particularly noticeable on the Timbaland-produced songs, in which Hilson’s virtually indistinguishable from the legion of other R&B singers the producer has worked with in the past. It doesn’t help that many of Timbaland’s contributions to the album come across like remixed versions of his earlier hits.

On “How Does It Feel,” for instance, Timbaland essentially recycles Madonna’s “4 Minutes,” reusing that song’s clattering drum-work as well as its marching-band horn hits. “Return the Favor” is even more shamelessly reprocessed, living up to its cynical name by regurgitating Timbaland and Hilson’s previous collaboration on “The Way I Are.” Five years ago, a song like this would have sounded extraordinarily avant-garde. Now it just sounds boring as hell.

Polow da Don, the album’s other major creative force, fares a little better. His “Turnin’ Me On” is the album’s big single and easily its best song — an infectious slice of techno-funk whose only concession to formula is the “feat. Lil Wayne” tagged onto the end. The producer’s other tracks are less impressive, though. “Make Love” flounders in a sea of lovey-dovey cliches and over-the-top production effects, despite a strong vocal performance from Hilson. Even worse is “Get Your Money Up,” an auto-tune-heavy club track that’s just as obnoxiously superficial as its name.

The rest of the album is handled by a variety of up-and-coming producers, and the results veer from extraordinarily bland — the Akon-featuring “Change Me” — to actually quite good. “Slow Dance,” co-written by Justin Timberlake, is one of the album’s strongest moments, a deliciously sensual come-on that sounds like Donna Summer projected into the year 3000. It’s lucky that Timberlake doesn’t get anywhere near the mike on this one, because “Slow Dance” is one of the few songs in which Hilson isn’t overshadowed by her collaborators. The singer inhabits the track’s salacious, synthetic groove and makes it entirely her own.

Quite the opposite happens on “Knock You Down,” an over-the-top pop production where guests Ne-Yo and Kanye West mercilessly sideline Hilson. The singer has claimed her debut is about female empowerment; it’s ironic then that one of the album’s most memorable songs comes off like R&B superhero music, with the two male singers trading lines like “I used to be commander-in-chief of my pimp ship flying high” along with hilariously tasteless references to domestic abuse.

“Knock You Down” is easily one of the album’s best songs, blessed with a sense of fun that’s sorely missing from the rest of “In a Perfect World.” But caught in the midst of all the chauvinistic braggadocio, Hilson sounds like nothing more than a glorified backing vocalist. To say she’s playing third fiddle here would be a compliment — and surely that’s not what the singer wanted on the fourth song of her debut album.

Like its shiny neon cover, “In a Perfect World” is all surface, no substance. If what you want from a pop album is to listen to it once and throw it away, then Hilson’s debut is pretty much the perfect buy: You’ll be hard-pressed to find a more glossily produced record this year. But after two or three listens, the laziness of the songwriting and the vacuity of the production work become glaringly apparent. This is pop-by-numbers, designed to climb charts and nothing more. Clearly, Hilson has spent too much time hanging around pop producers, and on her full-length debut, she struggles to assert herself amid the din of industry egos — maybe she should stick to singing choruses.


"In a Perfect World..." released 24 March, 2009 by Interscope Records.
Images courtesy of Interscope Records and Empire Online.
Published in the Daily Princetonian.

Kate Nash - Made of Bricks

Kate Nash, whose debut "Made of Bricks" was released stateside on Tuesday, was the darling of the British music scene for most of 2007. She popped up regularly in NME and Q, two of the UK’s most influential (if not always trustworthy) magazines, and both her debut album and single, the catchy-as-wildfire piano pop of ‘Foundations,’ rocketed straight to the top of the British charts and made themselves well at home there. Unsurprisingly then, I had high hopes for the album. I’d heard she was a bit like Lily Allen – not a problem in my books, I have to say – and ‘Foundations,’ even if it was suspiciously similar to Allen’s ubiquitous ‘Smile,’ was promising, with an innocent, off-the-cuff charm that’s hard to come by in the Timbaland-monopolised pop world of 2007. Sadly, I have to report that Nash’s album is not only a disappointment, it’s a catastrophe, one of the most embarrassing and immature records I’ve ever had the displeasure to listen to.

The funny thing is, the album starts off incredibly well, with the offbeat, Hot Chip-like experimentalism of ‘Play,’ in which Nash tells us that she “[likes] to play” over grimy break-beats and high-energy keyboard riffing. On the second track, Nash wittily undercuts the tension with the simple, sugar-sweet pop of ‘Foundations,’ which I’m sure you’ll hear soon if you haven’t already. With its instantly memorable chorus, sunshine-bright demeanour, and a couple of lines cribbed directly from Lily Allen, it’s bound to be a hit; you’ll be humming “My finger tips are holding onto the cracks in our foundation” for weeks. After that though, it’s straight downhill, and for one simple reason: lurking within "Made of Bricks" are some of the worst lyrics I’ve ever heard on a mainstream record.

Now, Nash is hardly original musically. Almost everything here is pretty safe, glossily-produced piano pop, from the chirpy ‘Foundations’ to the soggy sentiment of ‘We Get On’ to the horrendously bland power chords of ‘Mouthwash.’ When she gets off the piano stool it’s equally unadventurous, as shown by synthetic guitar ballads like ‘Birds’ and ‘Dickhead.’ And in the rare occasions she does stray into more experimental territory, she falls flat on her face, as shown by the clunky, repetitive electro of ‘Pumpkin Soup.’ But forget the music for a moment. Sure, it’s bland, but it’s hardly offensive. The lyrics though…now they’re something else.

Take, for instance, ‘Mouthwash.’ Here, Nash decides to write a power pop ballad whose triumphant chorus, swathed in synthesizers and ecstatic percussion, involves her telling us that “I use mouthwash, sometimes I floss, I have a family, and drink cups of tea.” And that’s just the beginning. A few tracks later we get to the hair-raisingly awful ‘Birds,’ in which Nash she tells us four times over that “birds can fly so high and they can shit on your head” – apparently a metaphor for love, because love, like a bird, can both fly and shit. Ahem.

Moving on, we come to the cringe-inducing double-whammy of ‘Shit Song’ and ‘Skeleton Song.’ Now, though the wonderfully-titled ‘Shit Song’ is one of the musical highlights of the album, with edgy synths and punchy drum-work providing some respite from all the blandness, the lyrics just kill it. Here’s the chorus: “Darling don't give me shit / cos I know that you’re full of it.” This is followed by Nash’s monotonous backing vocals, which remind us, in case we’d forgotten that “you’re full of shit, you’re full of shit.” It’s poetry! ‘Skeleton Song,’ meanwhile, is even more cringe-worthy, opening with the lyrical gem “skeleton you are my friend but you are made of bone,” and continuing on in much the same hilariously clumsy vein.

However, the real offender here- the song that will, I promise, have you laughing out loud in the street- is the album’s fourth track, the cataclysmically awful ‘Dickhead.’ Maybe I should have guessed from the title that the song wouldn’t exactly be rivalling Bob Dylan for lyrical complexity, but I don’t think I could have guessed the depths Nash plumbs on here. She opens up the song by asking her boyfriend “why you being a dickhead for” (Grammar! Grammar!), and why he “keep[s] on fucking up situations.” Seemingly convinced that this lyric is a work of genius, Nash then proceeds to repeat the whole verse again, so that within the first thirty seconds of the song, she’s used the word “dickhead” six times. That’s one “dickhead” every five seconds. That’s a lot. And as soon as she’s done with that gem of a verse, she moves on to implore her boyfriend to be “more intelligent so you could see what you’re doing is so shitty, to me.” It hurts. It really does.

Now, if the music worked well with the lyrics, maybe gave us a ‘wink wink’ hint that the whole album’s meant to be taken tongue in cheek, then I might be tempted to restrain my criticism somewhat. Certainly the musical invention and wittiness that characterised Lily Allen’s "Alright, Still" showed that its occasionally dodgy lyrics were meant to be taken in jest, as silly, sarcastic throwaways. But Nash doesn’t make it clear that the whole thing’s a big joke – which would really be the only way of excusing such appalling lyrics. Instead, she surrounds her clunky, affected vignettes in a distant, over-produced haze of glossy power chords and seemingly earnest vocals. Occasionally, a knowing smirk does manage to claw its way out of the blandness. On the irresistible ‘Foundations,’ she delivers the line “I must eat so many lemons, cos I am so bitter” with her cockney twang stretched to an absurd degree, and it’s clear that tongue is stuck firmly in cheek. But on other songs – I’m thinking particularly of ‘Mouthwash’ and ‘Dickhead’ here – all the acerbic humour that Nash clearly possesses is smoothed over, and in such a context, lyrics like “It was well embarrassing and I think you thought that I was a bit of a twat” can’t help but sound worryingly appropriate.


"Made of Bricks" released 8 January, 2008 by Geffen Records.
Images courtesy of Geffen Records and Empire Online.
Published in the Daily Princetonian.

Kanye West - 808s and Heartbreak

If Hal, the malevolent super-computer from “2001: A Space Odyssey,” were to make a concept album about sadness, it might sound something like Kanye West’s new record. “808s and Heartbreak” is a kaleidoscopic, claustrophobic rush of robotic bleeps and squelches, a sinister sonic wonderland where psychedelia meets techno and rap meets pop. It’s avant-garde in the most accessible way. It’s brilliant.

Kanye West has always been a controversial figure: arrogant to near-parodic levels, a pretty talentless emcee, and often seemingly unaware of both. There’s little doubt of his production prowess, though. From his start manning boards on Jay-Z’s “The Blueprint” to his own scholastic trilogy, West has remained at the forefront of innovation in hip hop, constantly coming up with new tricks where production peers like Timbaland and Swizz Beatz have settled into comfortable ruts. “College Dropout” remains one of the defining rap records of the decade, a wild, wonderfully excessive splurge of artistic creativity that successfully masked West’s workmanlike flow. The same goes for “Late Registration,” overlong and overdone in all the best ways, like a hip hop “White Album.” And even last year’s middling, uneven “Graduation” boasted some of his best production work, from the delirious amphetamine rush of “Champion” to the stately, shimmering electro-pop of “Flashing Lights.”

But with “808s and Heartbreak,” West has really outdone himself. This is nothing to do with his previous work: no “PhD,” and certainly no “Grad School.” In fact, West has left hip hop far behind – and most of contemporary pop music with it. He’s out on a limb, working in his own strange, Kraftwerk-tinged universe, and it sounds amazing. Without risk of over-statement, almost every experiment carried out on the album works, from West’s strikingly limited palette of instruments (drums, pianos and synths provide most of the sound effects here) to his treacly, vocodered voice – initially irritating but soon infectious.

“Say You Will,” the epic, cinematic opener, sounds like the last breaths of a dying robot – muted 808 drums pound low in the mix like a fading heartbeat, synths bleep in rhythmic repetition like a hospital cardiac monitor. Against this ominous backdrop, West’s treated voice splutters and shakes like a radio losing signal, as the singer moans about “losing control,” and, rather worryingly, grabbing someone’s neck. And so the tone of the album is set: in every way that West’s previous outings were obsessively upbeat, “808s and Heartbreak” is gloomy and introspective, a complex and difficult work from someone who’d previously made a career out of being obnoxious and immature.

“Welcome to Heartbreak” sees West lament the hollowness of his life against an operatic sonic canvas of shuddering strings and whip-snap drum beats. He’s got “pictures of his cribs” where his friend has “pictures of his kids”; he misses his god sister’s wedding because he can’t find a date; he looks back on his life, and his life is gone. The song’s emotional honesty is startling, crippling even. It’s nigh on impossible to believe this is the same man responsible for “Stronger,” a song that took pride in its cartoonish boastfulness.

First single “Love Lockdown,” meanwhile, is easily one of the creepiest songs to make it into the Top Ten, with West’s utterly disaffected vocals laced around a cloying, almost numbing beat of clattering drums and queasy synths. Even more relentlessly downbeat is “Amazing,” West repeating the song’s name in a deadpan caramel drawl before proclaiming that he’s a “monster and a killer,” a “problem that will never ever be solved.”

Stranded in the middle of the record and providing a welcome respite from the doom and gloom are the album’s two more buoyant tracks. “Paranoid” is a gleefully funky slice of throwback disco-pop, the kind of off-kilter, top-heavy music that Prince might have made in his prime. “Robocop,” on the other hand, is a brilliant example of how pop can be both infectious and experimental at the same time. The song’s opening matches swirling strings to gun shot samples, while its transition from verse to chorus is marked by what sounds like a forklift jerking into motion. It’s almost as meta as Timbaland’s “take it to the chorus” and “take it to the bridge” shout-outs on Justin Timberlake’s “SexyBack,” a hilarious nod to the mechanical A-A-B-A construction of almost every great pop song.

“808s and Heartbreak” isn’t perfect, however. “See You in My Knightmares,” lurking towards the end of the album, is a stupid song with a stupid name, a blaring pseudo-Southern rap anthem so clunky and boring that it even manages to domesticate Lil Wayne. “Street Lights” could also have been plucked, an anaemic little song that veers dangerously close to soppy sentiment. In the midst of an album remarkable for its brutal emotional honesty, “Street Lights” sounds like Celine Dion stuck at a Leonard Cohen tribute concert.

On the whole though, “808s & Heartbreak” is a resounding success, fizzing and sputtering with sonic invention in a way that few other mainstream albums do. But it’s more than just ear candy – the album is also a complex, devastating meditation on loneliness in the information age, a scathingly intense musical diary entry from one of pop music’s most oversized and outlandish caricatures. Somewhere amidst the space age vocal effects and eerie synthesizers, West has managed to capture the isolation of 21st century life – the invisible wall that cyber-space has put up between every one of us, bringing us closer together while at the same time driving us further apart.


"808s and Heartbreak" released 24 November, 2008 by Roc-A-Fella Records.
Image courtesy of Roc-A-Fella Records and Empire Online.
Published in the Nassau Weekly.

Kaiser Chiefs - Off With Their Heads

In their native United Kingdom, the Kaiser Chiefs are one of the most successful bands of the decade, selling out stadiums in seconds and hitting number one without breaking a sweat. In the United States, they’ve barely made any impact at all. Their third album “Off With Their Heads,” released last month, barely scraped into the Billboard Hot 100; its first single, “Never Miss a Beat,” didn’t even chart.

Listening to the record, it’s easy to see why the Kaisers have no following state-side: they are proudly, defiantly, almost offensively British, gulping down a pint of lager with one hand while waving a Union Jack with the other. The album’s cover pays tribute to the Kinks, the back references the Jam, and frontman Ricky Wilson sounds like Damon Albarn of Blur; three oh-so-British bands who famously kept the accents and the Anglicisms and never made the tricky transatlantic jump. With “Off With their Heads,” the Kaisers are clearly situating themselves in this tradition. The album is a savvy, shiny recreation of late-seventies New Wave, almost scholarly in its attention to detail. It’s desperately backward looking – and it’s great fun.

Brash opener “Spanish Metal” sounds like an out-take from the Clash’s “London Calling,” jerking with awkward white-boy funk; the propulsive “Can’t Say What I Mean” rides on a furious churn of guitars and organs, taut and catchy like Elvis Costello circa 1977; and on the beautiful, melodic “Remember You’re a Girl,” the Kaisers sound like the Beatles brought back to life, Wilson losing his usual ironic smirk amidst a lush arrangement of breathy harmonies and slide guitars.

It is true that the British music scene today seems caught in a desperate time-warp. We’ve got Amy Winehouse on one side, raiding the legacy of Nina Simone for all it’s worth, and we’ve got Duffy on the other, reviving the ghost of Dusty Springfield with her soft, Motown lilt. Many have looked on this trend with a strange, somewhat hypocritical mix of joy and dread. In my view, as long as we keep getting albums as smart and enjoyable as “Off with their Heads,” we have no need to worry. Innovation can only really get you so far.


"Off With Their Heads" released 20 October, 2008 by Universal Records.
Images courtesy of Universal Records and Empire Online.

Metallica - Death Magnetic

It may be hard to remember now, but once upon a time Metallica were pretty cool. Their first three albums – “Kill Em All,” “Ride the Lightning,” and “Master of Puppets” – remain untouchable classics to this day, all very influential, and all very, very loud. It’s not often that a band can be credited with the creation of a genre – but with their marriage of Black Sabbath-esque gloom and the cocky musicianship of prog rock, Metallica are often seen as the progenitors of thrash metal, a genre defined by its manic speed and complex guitar work.

But as time wore on, the raw and uncontrollable fury of their early days was softened, replaced by an increasingly bland and commercial rock sound. By the late 1990s, it seemed like Metallica were aiming more for the Nickelback crowd than the hard-core death metal fanatics who had formed the core of their fan-base ten years earlier. Gone were the incendiary, wildly complex guitar solos of old; gone were the crashing, lumbering chords and the ridiculously fast-paced drumming.

The band’s steady downward spiral came to its nadir in 2003, with the release of “St. Anger,” a woeful, cynical catastrophe of an album slavishly following the current trend for nu-metal bands like Linkin Park and Korn. It’s one of the few records I would honestly call “unlistenable” – I bought it, listened to it once through, and threw it away. It really is that bad. Singer James Hetfield half-rapping “my lifestyle / determines my death-style” on the opening “Frantic” is only the beginning of “St Anger’s” problems.

Understandably my expectations for their new record “Death Magnetic” (released September 10) were rather low. Sure, there’d been talk of “going back to their roots,” talk of “recapturing their classic sound” – but that’s exactly what Metallica would say after releasing an album as alienating as “St. Anger.” For once, though, I can report that the rumours were true: “Death Magnetic” sounds more like the Metallica of old than any album the band have released in fifteen years. It’s an album that looks back into the past, consolidating Metallica’s strengths, rather than moving forward into a new sound. It’s a very safe record – and you know what, that’s totally fine by me.

Ninety seconds in, and I already had a huge smile on my face – courtesy of the thunderous, hulking opener “That Was Just Your Life,” an instant Metallica classic that roars along on mighty guitar riffs and a vocal performance from Hetfield that proves he hasn’t lost his legendary animalistic snarl. And while the first track may be the album’s best, there’s more than enough here to keep every metal fan happy, from the virtuoso, stop-start rhythms of “Broken, Beat & Scarred” to the grim churn of “Judas Kiss” to the relentlessly manic closer “My Apocalypse”; a song which reaches a wonderfully ridiculous peak as Hetfield spits out in strangled gasps lyrics like “crushing metal / ripping skin / tossing body / mannequin” and “spilling blood / bleeding gas / mangled flesh / snapping spine.” It’s poetry, I tell ya!

But the track that really convinced me that Metallica were back to their prime is the ten minute-long instrumental “Suicide & Redemption” – because when a band can keep you captivated for that long without any lyrics, and with the barest semblance of a melody, you know they’re good. It’s an epic work that’s almost jazz-like in its virtuosity, moving from deafening chord-thrashing to quiet, nimble guitar solos with the colossal grandeur of shifting tectonic plates. So while it may not be the best track on “Death Magnetic,” it is the most reassuring – undeniable proof that the band’s sub-Linkin Park phase is a thing of the past, and that Metallica are still the technically-skilled musicians they were twenty-five (!?!) years ago.

Of course, I won’t try to argue that “Death Magnetic” is a masterpiece – it’s too repetitive and too long for that, and sitting through the entire record in one go is a pretty numbing experience. But I doubt that Metallica’s first fans back in 1983 could have predicted that in the far distant future of 2008 the band would release an album as potent and energetic as “Death Magnetic.” And it’s to exactly those fans that I repeat: don’t worry! Metallica are back to what they do best – no more commercialism, no more attempts at rapping, no more desperate trend-chasing. It is 2008, and for a bunch of fifty year olds, Metallica can still make a hell of a lot of noise.


"Death Magnetic" released 12 September, 2008 by Warner Bros.
Images courtesy of Warner Bros. and Empire Online.
Published in the Daily Princetonian.

The Killers - Day & Age

Well, if there’s one thing the Killers aren’t, it’s boring. Four years ago, the band burst out of nowhere with its terrifically dark, neon-flecked debut “Hot Fuss.” Main influences: David Bowie, Duran Duran, and the Cure. Result? A heady midnight mix of shimmering synths and spiky guitars that sounded like the soundtrack to some swirling ’80s time warp.

“Sam’s Town,” their 2006 follow-up, was a massive change of pace. Wildly ambitious and just a bit pretentious, it saw the band aping stadium rockers Bruce Springsteen and U2 in an attempt to make some kind of pop music version of “The Great Gatsby” — a “Great American Album” that would somehow sum up America today.

Unsurprisingly, it failed, floundering amid clunky lyrics and a rather scary Bono fixation from lead singer Brandon Flowers. Except Bono in his prime could actually come up with a few clever lines. The best we got from Flowers was some half-baked, Kerouac-esque pap about horizons, highways and diners.

On their third album, “Day & Age,” the Killers take “Sam’s Town” to the next level: They’re not just going to sum up contemporary America, they’re going to sum up the entire bloody world. Clue’s in the names: “Day & Age” is hardly the most low-key title for an album, and lurking within it are other pompously titled tracks like “The World We Live In,” the to-the-point “Human” and, my personal favorite, the humbly named “This Is Your Life.”

The lyrics are just as painfully pretentious. If you thought the absurd, grammar-be-damned chorus of first single “Human” was bad enough — and yes, “Are we human, or are we dancer?” is what he’s saying — then you ain’t seen nothin’ yet. After hearing “Goodnight, Travel Well,” in which Flowers informs us matter-of-factly that his “spirit moans with a sacred pain,” whatever the hell that means, you’ll join me in campaigning for a return to the gender-bending, tongue-in-cheek fun of “Somebody Told Me.” The silliness of “you had a boyfriend / who looked like a girlfriend” has never felt so far away. Now all the Killers do is harp on about “souls” and “flesh,” “universes” and “holy suns,” like they’re trying to make a pop adaptation of Kant’s “Critique of Pure Reason.”

Luckily, though the lyrics are so bad they make me want to take some duct tape to Brandon Flowers’ mouth, the music on “Day & Age” is often rather interesting. A far cry from the staid, middle-of-the-road rock sound of “Sam’s Town,” “Day & Age” is an interesting melting pot of genres, a queasy but oddly hypnotic mélange of pop, funk, jazz and prog rock. Quivering synths and choppy guitars make the usual appearance, but there are also saxophone solos and bossa nova rhythms, which, surprisingly enough, work quite well.

Opener “Losing Touch” spins and eddies with sonic invention, veering from blaring, horn-driven verse to dreamy, bass-popping chorus. If you can ignore the preposterous lyrics, there’s a lot to enjoy. The same goes for “The World We Live In,” a wildly overblown, everything-but-the-kitchen-sink synth number that almost matches the sweeping grandeur of its title.

There are also a couple of tracks so totally out there, so different from the Killers’ usual fare — though what exactly that is has become increasingly difficult to determine — that they deserve special mention. “Joy Ride” is a funky slice of white-boy disco, awkward and silly in all the best ways. It sounds like the band has been listening to David Bowie’s plastic soul era — think “Fame” or “Young Americans” — and the influence pays off beautifully. “I Can’t Stay,” meanwhile, shuffles along on a jazzy back-beat of pattering congas and marimbas, like Stan Getz covering “Tainted Love.” It’s more of a genre exercise than a real song, but there’s something infectiously wide-eyed and innocent about its experimentation.

Of course, not everything works. “Human” is a painfully antiseptic slice of ’80s-inflected Europop, so utterly boring musically that you can’t help but focus on the lyrics, and boy are they disastrous. If only the chorus did say “are we human or are we denser,” because in this case the answer to that question would be very simple. “A Dustland Fairytale” is also a pseudo-symbolic mess, a desperately “epic” and “sweeping” rocker that sounds like a tuneless cover version of U2’s “Where The Streets Have No Name.”

All in all, though, “Day & Age” is no disaster, and, oddly enough, something about the Killers’ wildly overblown ambition is quite refreshing. Sure, a lot of the time their experiments fall flat, but there is something nice about how unafraid the Killers are of looking ridiculous. Just check out the video to “Human,” in which the band looks lost on the way to some absurd, zoo-themed costume party. So while “Day & Age” may not transform the life of every listener, which is clearly its aim, it does provide some enjoyment; not least being the chance to hear a band that’s unafraid to try new things.


"Day & Age" released 19 November, 2008 by Island Records.
Images courtesy of Island Records and Empire Online.
Published in the Daily Princetonian.

Janet Jackson - Discipline

‘Discipline’ is certainly the right name for Janet Jackson’s so-called comeback album. Where her groundbreaking late-80s, early-90s pop masterpieces were breathlessly inventive, hook-filled joy-rides, everything about this new record is safe, restrained and utterly unexciting.

It really is a sad story. Like her brother, Janet Jackson could hardly be topped in her heyday. Sure, Madonna had more shock value and Whitney Houston had a better voice, but at her record-breaking peak in 1989, nobody provided sugary pop perfection better than Janet. And, like her brother, she still exerts a massive influence on contemporary music; just take a look at the charts and you can see that where Ne-Yo and Justin Timberlake are the wannabe Jackos, every breathy, vaguely racy R&B singer owes a large debt to Janet. The tragic thing is that Janet herself hasn’t released any memorable music in at least a decade, if not longer – and ‘Discipline’ is just continuing the downward trend, proving that she, or at least her song-writers, lyricists and producers, have finally lost that golden touch.

What makes the album especially disappointing is the handful of promising songs frontloaded at the start of the album. First single “Feedback” is a thumping, bass-heavy slice of robo-pop that’s fifty times sexier and edgier than anything Janet’s done for a while, and even if it rather obviously follows the rules of Timbaland pop (squelching synths, tick; clattering percussion, tick; top-heavy groove, tick) at least it does it well. Equally impressive is the Ne-Yo helmed second single “Rock With U.” Now, I’ll be the first to admit that it’s got a damn odd name (next she’ll be doing a song called “Thrilla” or “Billie Joe”) but aside from that, “Rock With U” is exactly the kind of fluffy, hook-filled pop that made Janet’s name. The only other song that could fairly be called a success is the aggressive electro-rocker “2Nite,” a horrendously catchy track that proves that Norwegian production team Stargate, who were behind Beyonce’s ubiquitous “Irreplaceable,” haven’t lost their touch.

That’s about it though. Three songs in and my compliments have already run dry. Everything else on the record – and I mean everything – falls somewhere between blandly dull and downright abominable. On the inoffensive side there’s the endless soft-core slush of the title track, replete with incestuous undertones, and the clunky, monotonous “Rollercoaster,” in which Janet very imaginatively compares love to a rollercoaster “cos it goes up and down.” Wow, gold star for that one. Even a guest spot from Missy Elliott can’t shake the feeling of ‘been there, done that’ that pervades the album, and the fact that Janet’s signature breathy vocals have now reached near-parodic levels doesn’t help either. On certain songs it actually sounds like she’s lost her voice, or at the very least has just been running a twelve-mile marathon; seriously, there’s no other way to justify such ridiculously weak singing.

Two songs here deserve special mention though because they are so cataclysmically bad. You should Youtube them, just to hear how low some people can sink. First off we have the horrendously sappy and melodramatic “Greatest X Ever,” which is worse than the worst ballad Celine Dion ever recorded. I don’t really want to write anything about this abomination of a song, and all you really need to do is look at its name. That should really be enough to ward you off. It’s called “Greatest X Ever” for Christ’s sakes! And if that doesn’t have you switching off your iPod, then the next track, “So Much Betta,” the trendsetter to end all trendsetters, certainly will. I can even picture this song being written. Janet’s producers are sitting in room, looking at the charts when they notice Kanye West’s “Stronger” at the top. “Hhmm,” they say to themselves, “sampling Daft Punk seems to have worked for Kanye, maybe we should try it too!” Sadly, where “Stronger” showed relatively (and I stress relatively) inventive use of its sample, “So Much Betta” is disastrous, simply grafting irritating processed vocals and a few clips of Janet breathily moaning on top of the untouched beat of Daft Punk’s “Daftendirekt.” Shameless.

“Billie Jean,” “Rhythm Nation,” “I Want You Back,” “That’s the Way Love Goes,” “Don’t Stop Til You Get Enough”…it really is incredible that so many era-defining songs came from one family. Sometimes it’s hard to believe, but through the controversy, through the dramas, it’s impossible to deny how extraordinary a legacy the Jackson family have left behind. But that’s the problem right there: It already feels like a legacy, because it’s been over a decade since a Jackson released anything close to brilliant. Sometimes I convince myself that there’ll be another “Thriller,” another “Control”…but as time goes by, and the lacklustre albums keep on coming, it’s getting harder and harder to keep my hopes up.


"Discipline" released 22 February, 2009 by Island Records.
Images courtesy of Island Records and Empire Online.
Published in the Daily Princetonian.

John Legend - Evolver

John Legend sure knows how to name his albums. His debut, “Get Lifted,” truly lived up to its title, blasting the fairly unknown R&B singer to the top of the charts and bagging him three Grammy awards. It was an unmitigated triumph, possibly the best retro-soul album since Lauryn Hill dropped her classic “The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill” in 1998. And sealing the deal of course was Legend’s voice, so creamy and voluptuous that the CD should have come with a high calorie warning.

His second album also lived up to its name: “Once Again” was a retread of the singer’s debut, almost song for song. That didn’t mean it was bad, but it was more of the same: refined piano ballads, stately melodies and quite a bit of sentimentality thrown in for good measure. On his latest album, however, he’s made a clean break from his past. “Evolver,” as its title smartly suggests, sees Legend moving in a new direction, filing away his Stevie Wonder and Elton John records, getting up from his piano stool and throwing himself onto the dance floor.

The video for the album’s first single “Green Light” sums up the move brilliantly. At the start of the video, we see Legend in the corner of a crowded party, hunched over a piano, belting out his ubiquitous 2002 ballad “Ordinary People.” He’s a has-been: his sleeves are rolled up, his eyes are closed and no one’s listening to him. This is the Legend whom we might be seeing if his third album was called “And Yet Again” or “Let’s Recreate My Debut One More Time.” But then, just when you least expect it, Legend slams down the piano-lid and stands up defiantly. Everyone looks shocked, and just as the silence is starting to get awkward, the skittering synth beats kick in and the infectious electro-pop single gets going.

“Green Light” is a terrific song, with a witty guest spot and insidiously catchy chorus courtesy of Andre 3000. Come to think of it, in terms of its sheer infectious optimism, it comes close to that man’s own “Hey Ya,” which is high praise indeed. Sadly, the rest of “Evolver” isn’t quite so convincing. With only two piano-based songs, it’s actually too radical a shift for Legend, who seems somewhat lost amid the fancy, hyper-commercial production. Most of the beats on the album – from the growling, grinding synths of “Satisfaction” to the swirling, candy-coated “Good Morning” – seem designed more for the likes of Usher or Chris Brown, fluffy teen popsters in an entirely different league from Legend. Yes, it’s true that Legend needed to spice up his sound a bit, but “Evolver” goes too far, stripping him of personality and turning him into just another over-produced Michael Jackson wannabe.

Some of the time, Legend’s song-writing prowess pulls him through. The wistful, mid-tempo “Everybody Knows,” with its effortlessly gliding melody, ranks among his greatest songs, and the same can be said for “I Love, You Love,” a late-album treat with Legend’s falsetto floating over a sparse, fuzzy electric guitar. Even “Cross the Line,” despite its irritating drum machines and dim-witted lyrics (“Not just my home girl / Time to take you home girl”), works, thanks to its sweeping and immediately memorable chorus.

On the whole though, “Evolver” tries far too hard to sound “hip” and “modern.” Case in point: the shimmering, wildly over-produced “It’s Over,” which just about holds together until Kanye West stops by, dropping a horrendous auto-tune verse which makes him sound like a sexually frustrated robot. Hearing West stutter out lines like “Just like Pamela Anderson's career / except without the titties” in his painfully treated, synthetic voice is a cringe-inducing experience.

It’s nothing, however, compared to the album’s closing song, the hysterically over-the-top power ballad “If You’re Out There,” which sounds like Legend’s attempt to re-write “Circle of Life.” But instead of hitting the target of “sweeping grandeur” or even “guilty pleasure,” Legend overshoots the mark wildly, landing somewhere closer to Phil Collins’ “Tarzan” song on the quality scale of Disney themes. Canned strings, check; children’s choir on the chorus, check; offensive over-use of words like “generation” and “future” and “peace,” check. All in all, it’s soppy enough to make even a hardcore Celine Dion fan wretch in horror.

“Evolver” is a quite a change then, a significant artistic makeover for the self-proclaimed Legend. But what the singer — and the phalanx of producers behind him — have failed to realize is that it was exactly Legend’s geeky retro style that made him cool in the first place. Critics and listeners alike flocked to buy his first two albums for his uncanny ability to revive Stevie Wonder and Al Green, to somehow recreate the golden age of seventies soul that seems so long ago now. In the sterilized world of contemporary R&B — where it’s Amerie one day and Ashanti the next — Legend provided a window to the past, to a time when soul singers actually had soul. “Evolver” is largely bereft of that warm nostalgia, an album as slick and premeditated as his previous two were charming and organic. If Christina Aguilera hadn’t nabbed the title a few years back, I’d be voting for Legend’s next album to be called “Back to Basics.” Let’s hope he gets the memo.


"Evolver" released October 28, 2009 by Sony Music.
Images courtesy of Sony Music and Empire Online.
Published in the Daily Princetonian.