Delbert McClinton: Acquired Taste
First off, if your mama names you Delbert, you are almost fated to be a country blues singer. And so it was with Mr. McClinton, who has been putting out albums since 1972. Like fellow 68-year-olds Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, and Neil Diamond, Mr. McClinton has surfaced in the new millennium with renewed relevance. He may not be the top-selling sexagenarian or the most famous of his cohort, but McClinton showcases his energy and good humor on Acquired Taste. In fact, the faster the song on this album, the better. On the whole, Acquired Taste was quite a pleasant surprise.
Rating: * * * *
Brad Paisley: American Saturday Night
Brad Paisley tries to capture a slice of life—fishing trips, marriage proposals, swimming in the creek. He tells stories, which taken separately sound trite, each offering a heavy-handed moral. Combined though, he manages to capture a simple, rosy picture of middle America—the one where hard-working folks struggle to get by and all the while find happiness in the little things. The music is unabashedly country, never straying from the genre’s bedrock of ten-gallon-hat instrumentation. Often the songs seem done to death (“No” is a less poetic version of Garth Brooks’ “Unanswered Prayers”), but as an album, it’s tolerable.
Rating: * * *
Arctic Monkeys: Humbug
The first track, “My Propeller,” found the wild, free-wheeling Arctic Monkeys sounding shockingly like Morrissey. The stodgier approach is a bit of a humbug. The band was more fun when it ran roughshod and unrestrained. The new songs plod at mid-tempo with subdued guitars. Alex Turner’s accent has shifted from being extreme to being merely noticeable. This isn’t to say that these mature Monkeys are a drag. Humbug sets a somber mood, and the band sounds like they know what they’re doing. That is, it sounds like they’ve taken some music lessons. The result is a bit dark, but compelling.
Rating: * * * *
Passion Pit: Manners
It’s like you froze the Beach Boys in 1965 and thawed them in 2009. They discovered synthesizers and digital effects, Interpol and Grizzly Bear. Then you turned them loose in a well-equipped studio. From there they unleashed their falsetto harmonies on the world in the form of a catchy indie electro-pop album. This metaphor for Passion Pit’s Manners falls apart in any number of ways, of course. The Beach Boys are alive and presumably well, and Passion Pit sound nothing like them. And so forth. The point is, Passion Pit’s experimental flair and knack for melody make Manners a delight.
Rating: * * * * *
Pete Yorn and Scarlett Johansson: Break Up
The theme of Break Up is that Mr. Yorn and Ms. Johansson are at the back end of a passionate romance. Yorn’s inspiration for the songs was Serge Gainsbourg’s collaborations with Brigitte Bardot in the late ‘60s. I have no idea what the Gainsbourg/Bardot duets sound like, so I have no basis for comparison. Yorn and Johansson lack romantic chemistry, so the torrid break up isn’t all that convincing. However, I love the songs, I’m blinded by the mildly retro sound, and I think the duets are great—despite the lack of flame. Also, I like anything by Pete Yorn.
Rating: * * * * *
Moby: Wait for Me
Moby begins each song with some mild rhythm and circular sequence of synthesizers. Then he repeats the thing until we, the listening audience, have been hypnotized. He throws timid singers into echo chambers and captures 3 to 5 lines from them. “Study War” uses the old trick of sampling a spoken word piece to create an effect. After 4 minutes of the quote, I’m ready to disregard the song’s message of peace. Ultimately Moby provides 16 tracks of cool sounds that could have been condensed into 6 interesting songs. That kills the LP, but those would be 6 awesome songs.
Rating: * * *
Cheap Trick: Sgt. Pepper Live
The Beatle’s Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band is iconic. I understand why Cheap Trick would want to perform it. Their decision to record and distribute the performance is another matter. It must have been influenced by arrogance because they’ve added nothing to what the Beatles did. Instead of reinterpreting the music to give it new life, Cheap Trick went for pure imitation. The Beatles sounded pretty good on the original, so if you’re Cheap Trick, trying to out-Beatle them just isn’t going to happen. The album is a knock-off of the original—well done, but still just a knock-off.
Rating: * *
Busta Rhymes: Back on My B.S.
Busta Rhymes manages to surpass Walter Murphy’s “A 5th of Beethoven” as the most terrible use of Beethoven’s 5th Symphony in recorded history with “Wheel of Fortune,” the lead-off song on Back on My B.S. Unfortunately, this is the cultural high-water mark; from there things devolve. The patently tasteless becomes xenophobic and insulting by the seventh track, “Arab Money.” The album on a whole contains predictable, profanity-laced, auto-tuned rap. At a certain point the list of guest stars itself is distracting, and none of the big names on the roster seem all that intent on making the record any good.
Rating: *
Wussy: Wussy
Chuck Cleaver can’t name a band: first the Ass Ponys and now Wussy. But with Wussy he has Lisa Walker on board, and the two share singing duties. As it shakes out, Wussy is much better with Ms. Walker singing. They play garage-band style alternative rock—noisy and unpolished—which clips along quickly. No song lasts long enough to get annoying, and a few with Walker on vocals could stand to be longer. While it definitely falls in the “if you like that sort of thing category,” Wussy turns out a pretty good album. (Bonus points for being from Cincinnati.)
Rating: * * *
Kelly Clarkson: All I Ever Wanted
Ms. Clarkson has continued to distance herself from her American Idol beginnings, and her music has continued to improve. Despite my distaste for the pop style of All I Ever Wanted, I love the energy and appreciate the songs. Her charisma adds allure to even the worst of them. She’s upbeat, loud, and catchy. Other former Idols may benefit by following Clarkson’s lead and taking more creative control. However, many of these singers already sell plenty of tickets and albums and are supported by an amazing corps of dedicated fans (Taylor Hicks’ Soul Patrol and Elliott Yamin’s Yaminions, for example).
Rating: * * * *
