Tuesday, January 21, 2014
B+ Shakira Featuring Rihanna “Can’t Remember to Forget You” RCA
This song’s about a love you can’t quite let go, the heartache that hasn’t faded, a longing for what is slipping away. But rather than a mopey ballad, Shakira and Rihanna offer up majestic pop music with reggae/ska flourishes that has a kind of Bruno Mars-ish vibe and dynamic. At first, it sounds a little reserved, maybe too low-key. But Shakira sets it up and the song builds as it goes, gathering intensity and, when Rihanna arrives, the drama kicks in and the track takes off. It’s not groundbreaking, but it is engaging and better than most of the pop music out there. Remixes could pack the dance floors. Shakira’s next album is due March 25.
C+ Bruce Springsteen High Hopes Columbia
This is a chunk of studio material from the last decade that was never released (including a posthumous appearance by saxophonist Clarence Clemons on “Harry’s Place”), with some added parts; songs that were already recorded but are here revived and retouched; and covers of other songwriters’ work. Official versions, as it were. The best - mostly the resigned or farseeing songs, the songs that have no hero and no story - rise above the odds. But a large portion of the record feels, let’s say, official.
It has sufficient unity of instrumentation and post-production mastering. It’s an album of nearly symphonic roots-rock and selected extras - accordion, uilleann pipes, gospel choruses - to get close to other forms and visions, and some temporary downshifts into sparer and less narrative modes.
It also has Tom Morello(Rage Against the Machine). Sometimes it’s his job to distinguish a track, to add grain or spark to it. His distortion, wah-wah and digital whammy effects open up broad, loud holes in a few songs - especially the gospel-ish “Heaven’s Wall” and the redo of Springsteen’s “The Ghost of Tom Joad” - to the point where you feel that Springsteen has yielded control. This isn’t a very good thing, unless you are here to learn guitar technique from Morello.
It ends with “Dream Baby Dream,” an unblinking love song recorded in 1979 by Suicide. The version here, with strummed guitar, orchestra and a soft rhythm track suitable for yoga, expands it, defangs it and fuzzes up its purpose. Oh, well.
Hot tracks: the waltzy “Hunter of Invisible Game,” “Heaven’s Wall.” - BEN RATLIFF, The New York TimesA- Shelby Lynne Thanks Everso
On this five-song EP, singer and songwriter Shelby Lynne thanks “the great creative spirit … Mahalia Jackson, Elvis, The Dolbears, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, my friend Maxine Waters and many others who have inspired the gospel voice inside of me.”
The songs tap the feeling of Southern gospel music, especially on “Walkin’,” with a moaning lap steel by Ben Peeler providing a wonderful bed for Lynne’s sweet, honeyed voice as she’s “walkin’ in the steps of the Lord.” And when you have the wonderful Waters singing backup, the gospel connection is sealed.
“Call Me Up” might seem a song about a possible romance, but it is more likely a yearning for a spiritual call-up.
Hot tracks: the bluesy,haunting “This Road I’m On,” “Walkin’.” - ELLIS WIDNER
B+ John Newman Tribute Republic
John Newman, a veritable Fatboy Slim sample come to life, is part of the current stream of young British singers who got their starts singing on club records. Newman got his break singing on “Feel the Love” and “Not Giving In” by Rudimental, a sort of organic club music outfit. Newman’s got a 1950s-informed nasal, narrow voice that he squeezes out with real power, finished off with a scratchy edge.
His first album debuted at No. 1 in Britain in October. There is dance music here, especially on the peppy and bright “Love Me Again.” “Losing Sleep” and “Cheating” owe a great deal to the modern soul revivalism pioneered by Amy Winehouse and her early producers.
Newman’s singing is strong, and the way he falls off the notes, as in “Out of My Head,” smacks of maturity and flair. He’s a traditionalist as a songwriter. The pageantry of “Running” and “Gold Dust” echo Adele echoing Shirley Bassey.
Hot tracks: the majestic “Easy,” “Love Me Again,” “Cheating.”- JON CARAMANICA, The New York Times
B Clannad Nadur ARC
Clannad, the much-loved, long-in-the-tooth Irish folk band, returns after significant time away - the last album was 1998’s Landmarks.
Their latest, Nadur, contains sturdy folk songs sung in Gaelic and doesn’t stint on the band’s old sound.
But Clannad’s voices are the worse for wear even as the harmonies remain strong.
There are a couple of unfortunate attempts to work in African rhythms and there is a flat-out awful environmental number, “The Fishing Blues.” It’s a mixed bag and how much you appreciate it depends on whether or not you’ve been waiting for Clannad to come out of hiding.
Hot track: “Brave Enough.” -WERNER TRIESCHMANN
Style, Pages 19 on 01/21/2014