LITTLE ROCK — Allison Iraheta Just Like YouJiveB
Dear Allison’s Mom,
We need to talk. I’m loving the spunk and the sound of your all grit, growl and guts 17-year-old girl’s - and our fourth place American Idol finisher’s - debut. Feistier songs like “Friday I’ll Be Over You,” “D Is for Dangerous” and “You Don’t Know Me,” make Just Like You just like early Pink.
Still I’m troubled about some of the lyrics of the 13-track album. Like from that pop tart “Robot Love” - “Waking up to the sound of text messages and typing in my ear, you can’t wait to check your e-mail, I beg and beg baby connect with me instead.” Um, high-school age sleepovers with boys?
More worrisome is the rhythmic “Beat Me Up,” in which Allison chants “Even though you beat me up beat me up beat me up, I still loveyou cause you heat me up, heat me up.” We can only hope figuratively - and that young gals listening understand the difference.
Love,
- JENNIFER CHRISTMANRihanna Rated RDef JamB-
Searing guitar riffs and pounding drums announce the defiant re-entry of Rihanna after making it through a horrible and very public experience. The singer provided the melody and the attitudeon Jay-Z’s smash “Run This Town” and brings that same swagger to the hip-hop heavy banger “Hard” which features Young Jeezy.
Rihanna hooks up with producers The Dream, Tricky Stewart and Ne-Yo on a collection of dance floor smashes and brokenhearted anthems. The rocking jam “Rockstar 101” features Guns N’ Roses’ Slash grinding hard on the ax. This album is heavy on the electric guitars and drums and light on the R&B. If you’re looking for another “Umbrella,” you may be outof luck. After the firestorm of pain, press and backlash, it appears that the “R” in Rated R stands for resilient.
- SHON MCPEACEA Place to Bury StrangersExploding Head MuteC+
Straight outta Brooklyn, y’all, is this noisy bunch of second-generation shoegazers.
Like My Bloody Valentine and Psychocandy-era Jesus and Mary Chain? Then A Place to Bury Strangers is right up your alley, complete with loud, clanging guitars, echoey vocals and drums that sound like empty barrels. For diversity there’s “Keep Slipping Away,” which is a deadringer for some Cure song (“The Walk,” perhaps?).
Rock ’n’ roll is all about incorporating old sounds into new ones, but it’s the second part of the equation that A Place to Bury Strangers hasn’tquite figured out.
- SEAN CLANCYMaria Muldaur Garden of JoyStony PlainA-
To many, Maria Muldaur is the sultry-voiced singer who popularized “Midnight at the Oasis” in 1974. Since then, she has issued a bunch of superb roots-music albums, such as 2001’s Richland Woman Blues; her 2003 tribute to Peggy Lee, A Woman Alone With the Blues and 2007’s Naughty, Bawdy and Blue.
Here, Muldaur revisits her jug band past with support from David Grisman, Dan Hicks, John Sebastian and the Crow Quill Night Owls. The title song is from her work with Jim Kweskin and it’s even more soulful here. Muldaur’s voice is a marvel throughout, sexy, rich and vigorous. Other high points: the ragtime-flavored “I Ain’t Gonna Marry,” the steamy “Let It Simmer” and the riotous “Shout You Cats.” - ELLIS WIDNERPriscilla Renea JukeboxEMIC
Priscilla Renea’s Jukebox is a colorful, fun romp through pop, R&B and soul with cuts like the piano driven “Lovesick” and the sax-drenched “Rockabye Baby.” There are also slower moving tunes where Renea gets to emote, such as “Baby Please.”
But the album lacks originality and feels like we’ve heard all this before, perhaps when FeFe Dobson or Rihanna or Katy Perry did it. There’s no sense of depth. It appears that no force of nature could dampen Renea’s spirits, so she may bounce back nicely. Until then, you may want to make another selection on the old jukebox.
- SHON MCPEACE
Style, Pages 56 on 12/20/2009