Names and faces

Miranda Lambert has completed her much anticipated, though somewhat overdue, fifth album. But listeners will have to wait until June 3 for Platinum, almost three years since her last album was released. Lambert released an album with her Pistol Annies trio in 2013 and extended her tour, which lengthened the wait. She also decided she was at a place in her career where she’d earned the time to fulfill her entire creative vision. At 16 songs, Platinum sprawls across genre and style and expands on her already adventurous sense of song choice. She said everyone urged her to trim a few songs and conform to the usual country conventions. “Now when you listen to it as a whole, what do you take off?” she asked. The album paints a picture of Lambert’s life as she reaches 30. She wrote or co-wrote eight songs and chose the others based on how they reflected her personality or world view. The first single, “Automatic,” suggests returning to a slower time and way of thinking. She contemplates her self-image in “Bathroom Mirror,” takes on tabloid scrutiny in “Priscilla” and teams up with several guests on songs that underscore her range and willingness to experiment. The collaboration with Carrie Underwood on “Something Bad” brings together two of country’s most popular stars.

Actors Jude Law, Tom Hiddleston and Judi Denchsaw their stage work rewarded Monday with nominations for Britain’s Laurence Olivier theater awards.Law is a best-actor contender for Henry V and Hiddleston for another Shakespeare play, Coriolanus. Dench is a best-actress nominee for her performance as the real-life inspiration for Alice in Wonderland in Peter and Alice. Dench is up against Anna Chancellor for Private Lives, Lesley Manville for Ghosts and Hayley Atwell for The Pride. Law and Hiddleston are nominated alongside Henry Goodman for The Resistable Rise of Arturo Ui and Rory Kinnear for Othello. The Olivier awards, Britain’s equivalent of Broadway’s Tonys, honor achievements in London theater, musicals, dance and opera. New musical Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Stephen Sondheim revival Merrily We Roll Along lead the nominations, announced Monday, with seven apiece.

Front Section, Pages 2 on 03/11/2014

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