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New Music In Stores & Online 7/29/08: Wow, This Is Bad
In most years, there’s a period from mid-July to mid-August during which NOTHING comes out. As a record buyer, this is frustrating because you’re walking into record stores and not finding a thing that strikes your interest. On the other hand, with the holiday selling season closer than you think, it might be a good idea to save your money for the deluge that awaits.
Anywhere, here’s my five picks (if I must) out of this week’s releases. How bad is it? I’m actually mentioning one of the same releases this week that I mentioned last week. Thank God for semantics.
Sugarland “Love on the Inside”-The hottest country duo in the land took an interesting tactic with their new release. It came out last week in a “deluxe” edition, while this week marks the introduction of the presumably less-bells-and-whistles containing (and cheaper) regular version. Ten years ago, if you were to tell me that I’d even be considering buying an album like this, I’d have laughed you into September, but I’ve acquired a fondness for modern-day country. Although I’ve not heard much of Sugarland (aside from the godawful duet with Bon Jovi that I mentioned in last week’s column), I could very well be tempted to check this one out.
http://www.sugarlandmusic.com/splash.html
Rick Springfield “Venus in Overdrive”-Here’s something that just might freak you out. The guy that teenage girls drooled over in the early Eighties (my cousin had a picture of him hanging in her bedroom back in the day) is approaching 60. SIXTY. Nevertheless, the indefatigable Springfield continues playing and touring. This is Rick’s first album of original material in five years. His last album, “The Day After Yesterday” was an interesting collection of covers. I said “interesting”, not good.
http://rickspringfield.com/
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New Music Revue: Nas’s “Untitled”
Sometimes it’s hard to separate artistry from publicity. I was recently involved in a healthy debate regarding whether Amy Winehouse’s success is due to her artistry or the fact that she’s a walking, talking trainwreck (I vote for the former). The fact of the matter, though, is that in an environment when record sales are falling and record companies are scrambling to make their bottom line and justify their extravagant expenditures, artists are relying more and more on publicity stunts to keep their names in the headlines, which ends up putting true music fans in a bind, unable to separate the artist and the artistry from the celebrity.
This is one of two reasons I was initially skeptical about the untitled (or self-titled, depending on how you look at it) ninth studio album by the rapper Nas (or NaS, as iTunes annoyingly lists his name). As anyone who has even a remote interest in popular music must know, a mild furor arose when Nas announced what he intended to originally call the album: “Nigger”. In a hyper-sensitive world where the media seems to pounce on every available opportunity to create division and drama, a simple word/album title turned into a political football (interesting that no one batted an eyelash when Ol’ Dirty Bastard titled an album “Nigga Please” less than a decade ago). Various stories began circulating around the press: was Nas going to get dropped from Def Jam, his label? Would certain stores not carry the album if released? Why was the album’s release date continually getting pushed back? Why did Nas rip off the whip-welt scarred back cover of dead prez’s “Let’s Get Free” for the front cover of his album? Ultimately, Nas chose (or was asked, depending on who you believe) to change the title of the album-well, actually the decision ended up being not to title the album at all. I’ve viewed this whole situation with a cocked eyebrow, amazed at the ability of the average rap fan to buy in to what was obviously (at least partially) a publicity stunt milked to raise maximum awareness of the album’s release (as it turns out, the gambit didn’t exactly work. While the album debuted at #1 on this week’s album charts, it did so with the lowest first-week sales of any Nas studio album since his debut).
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New Music Revue: Robyn’s Back and It’s Almost Worth the 10 Year Wait
A few months ago, I gave Robyn some serious props on this very site. The Swedish singer had just released The Rakamonie EP, a teaser of sorts for her first American album in over a decade. The full-length finally arrived on American shores a little over a month ago, and it’s certainly well worth the wait.
For those that need catching up, Robyn was the bridge between the “urban” teenage girl singer wave of 1994-1995 (Monica, […]