WITH HIS THIN frame, throwback wardrobe, flowing beard and wispy delivery, Devendra Banhart was the freakiest of the freak folkers, that wave of lo-fi acoustic strummers who prized the weird, offputting intimacy of off-the-map '60s folk. He's also arguably the most successful: the Houston-born, Venezuela-raised musician has opened for bossa nova legend Gilberto Gil, remixed Oasis, exhibited sketches in museums and dated Natalie Portman.
Success, however, seems to have left him a bit aimless. His 2007 album, "Smokey Rolls Down Thunder Canyon," sounded as formless as a cloud of marijuana smoke, delivering only a mild contact high. "What Will We Be" improves on that sedated haze, indulging a range of sounds and styles over the course of 13 tracks. The fragile "Angelika" breaks for a trippy bossa nova interlude, while "Baby" melds R&B rhythms to one of Banhart's most straightforward compositions. "16th & Valencia" thrums electronically, as if he's covering the Strokes, and "Rats" forays into a dark, Doorsy jam.
At some point, however, that diversity becomes the main point of "What Will We Be," suggesting a willful scrambling of influences rather than a natural synthesis.
Continue Reading "In a Funk: Devendra Banhart, 'What Will We Be'" »
IF KANYE WEST is going to keep collecting proteges who are more charismatic than he is (see: Mr. Hudson, Kid Cudi), the Taylor Swift interrupter might soon find himself overshadowed by his mentees.
Case in point: Kid Sister.
On her debut, "Ultraviolet," Kid Sister (born Melisa Young in West's much-loved native Chicago) joins the ranks of fellow female rappers M.I.A., Santigold and Amanda Blank before her by effectively balancing up-tempo, club-ready jams with pissed off, ego-heavy criticisms of the opposite sex and society as a whole.
Take the frenetic sounds of Baltimore club music, as championed by M.I.A.'s teen protege Rye Rye, then add a healthy dose of The Cool Kids' lighthearted, '80s-channeling mentality and you'll get Kid Sister in a party-ready nutshell.
Continue Reading "Very Good Grasshopper: Kid Sister, 'Ultraviolet'" »
EVEN THOUGH THE entire theme of Slug's and MURS's albums as hip-hop duo Felt is whether they can sleep with the girls they dedicate their records to, the wonderfulness of their latest — "Felt 3: A Tribute to Rosie Perez" — makes it really hard to resent their misogyny.
With 21 tracks, production from Aesop Rock and a plethora of memorable lines from Slug (half of the well-known independent hip-hop group Atmosphere) and MURS (whose acronym name stands for "Making Underground Raw Shit"), "Felt 3: A Tribute to Rosie Perez" is a fitting follow-up to Felt's previous two albums, which were dedicated to Christina Ricci (2002) and to Lisa Bonet (2006).
And although Rosie Perez is rarely mentioned on this third volume — in fact, there are songs named after Kevin Spacey and Paul Reubens (Pee-Wee Herman to most of you), but none for her — Slug and MURS must totally revere the "Do the Right Thing" actress, because this album is an amazing love letter.
Continue Reading "Did the Right Thing: Felt, 'Felt 3: A Tribute to Rosie Perez'" »
SWEDEN HAS LONG been the leading Scandinavian exporter of dance pop. From the still massively popular Abba to current indie obscurities like the Tough Alliance, the Swedes have set the bar high for infectious, slightly silly dance music.
But with her sophomore album, "Don't Stop" (Smalltown Supersound), Norwegian export Annie makes a strong case for her nation as a new force in electro.
Continue Reading "Norse Electro Goddess: Annie, 'Don't Stop'" »
GET READY FOR this one, lovestruck John Mayer fans of the female variety: He may have finally left the days of "Your Body Is a Wonderland" behind him.
With "Battle Studies," Mayer's fourth album, the artist known equally well for his way around a guitar and way with women (like Jennifer Love Hewitt, about whom he supposedly wrote "Your Body Is a Wonderland," Jessica Simpson, Jennifer Aniston and so on) delivers a combination of acoustic and electric tracks that build on the fuzzy rock-and-blues foundation he's been experimenting with for the past few years. Though the album doesn't serve as a complete stylistic departure from what Mayer has done before, it's enough of a difference to make fangirls notice — and to delight those who were wondering when Mayer would finally move past elevator music.
In that sense, then, "Battle Studies" seems like a natural follow-up to "Continuum," Mayer's critically loved 2006 album.
Continue Reading "Heartbreak-Guitar Hero: John Mayer, 'Battle Studies'" »
KATY PERRY'S MTV UNPLUGGED session is exactly what you'd expect of a young pop star with one album under her belt: it's a seven-song performance of her big hits, some nice acoustic ballads, an unreleased tune and a well-chosen cover.
Going acoustic may seem like an odd choice for a singer who's known for her big, brassy pop songs, but Perry did get her start in the singer-songwriter circuit at L.A.'s Hotel Cafe. So it's no great surprise that her mellower numbers here ("Lost", "Brick by Brick", "Thinking of You") come across quite well with an acoustic band.
But what is unusual is that she's also able to translate her more rambunctious numbers into an acoustic format.
LEONA LEWIS IS a lot like Christina Aguilera: both have booming voices, superb vibrato and beautifully controlled vocal runs.
But they differ in two key ways. Lewis's material is middle-of-the-road, adult contemporary material: these are songs about love and life, not Aguilera's "Dirrty," feisty fare. In addition, Lewis' delivery is much more understated than Aguilera's: the latter sounds like a diva, while the former just doesn't.
There's nothing on Lewis' second album, "Echo" (J Records), that drips with the pained emotion of her first big single "Bleeding Love."
In fact, most of these songs have little unique substance to them: there's the inevitable breakup song ("You Don't Care"), the I'm-falling-for-you-hard song ("Can't Breathe"), the I'm-getting-over-you song ("Brave"), another breakup song ("Alive") and ... a song about writing love letters to a guy she sees in her dreams ("Love Letter").
Continue Reading "Songs Remain the Blame: Leona Lewis, 'Echo'" »
IF LADY GAGA thought she was the craziest woman in the music business, she should probably take a listen to Shakira's "She Wolf" to fully understand her competition. Or, at least try to.
Because while Gaga has made a name for herself with wacky outfits and blood-splattered performances, Shakira's third English studio album, "She Wolf," is one of the most bizarrely catchy albums of 2009.
Punctuated by her heavy vocal panting, driven by an electro-pop sound masterminded by The Neptunes and chock full of lyrics about doing the nasty, this is not an album you want to play in the car with your mom. In fact, this is probably an album you should listen to all alone, in your bedroom, where you can safely let the she wolf out of the closet. After all, she's got to breathe.
Continue Reading "Perfect Kind of Crazy: Shakira, 'She Wolf'" »
"THE 2,000 YEAR OLD MAN" was never intended to last one year, let alone 60.
In the early 1950s, friends and fellow comedy writers Carl Reiner and Mel Brooks started doing the routine at parties: Reiner would play the interviewer and straight man, asking Brooks a series of questions that he would answer as the world's oldest man. For example:
» REINER: What was the means of transportation then?
» BROOKS: Mostly fear.
» REINER: Fear transported you?
» BROOKS: Fear, yes. An animal would growl — you would go two miles in a minute. Fear would be the main propulsion.
Neither had experience in stand-up comedy, and neither nursed ambitions in that direction, yet the private routine became such a hit among friends and party-goers that Steve Allen and Sid Caesar pushed them to introduce the 2,000-year-old man to a wider audience. Allen even offered to pay for the studio if they would make a record. It took them ten years to go through with it.
The rest is, ahem, history.
NORAH JONES HAS a pleasant voice and an uncanny knack for rendering any musical genre soporific.
On past albums she ostensibly performed jazz and country, although besides a few minor shifts in instrumentation she always sounds like mellow adult contemporary. Her latest, "The Fall," includes collaborations with indie musicians Ryan Adams and Will Sheff of Okkervil River, but despite a few fleeting moments of distortion, "The Fall" is far from a Mark E. Smith tribute. And besides a few especially silly lyrics, there is nothing here to alienate the many fans Jones won with her first three albums.
Continue Reading "The Same Season: Norah Jones, 'The Fall'" »
Addison Road