Category: Releases

For some reason, December has established itself as the month when a lot of bigname urban artists release albums. I’m not sure when or how that happened, but over the past couple of years, this month has hosted releases by Alicia Keys, Mary J. Blige and Jamie Foxx…and, hark! They all have new albums scheduled for release THIS December! How coincidental! However, those albums won’t be out for another week or two, so let’s concentrate on what’s in stores today:

Chris Brown “Graffiti”: So, here’s the test: can Chris Brown recover his career? That’s hard to say. A lot of people have a hard time separating someone’s art from their personal lives, although an interesting case study can be found in R. Kelly. Those child-porn charges didn’t stop people from coming out in droves to buy “Chocolate Factory”, did it? That said, Kelly returned with an album that got excellent reviews and spun off a couple of hit singles. So far, “Graffiti”‘s first single, “I Can Transform Ya”has only scored moderate success, and reviews of “Graffiti” have been savage. So this will be an interesting one to watch. Finally, if Chris’s album outsells Rihanna’s in the first week, what does that say about us as a society?

Timbaland “Shock Value 2”:  Allow me to say for the record: as talented as Timbaland is as a producer (and despite being overrated, the man *is* talented), his albums tend to suck. The first “Shock Value” had a couple of good songs and a ton of crapola. This one piles on the star power to the point that there might not be a whole lot of actual Timbo vocalizing on this album-which is probably a good thing. Guests on this album include (inhale) Gucci Mane, Drake, Justin Timberlake, Miley Cyrus, The Fray, Chris Daughtry, Katy Perry, T-Pain, Keri Hilson, Brandy and others. This might be my only purchase of the week-promises to be an interesting listen.

Snoop Dogg “Malice N Wonderland”: Does anyone even care about Snoop’s music anymore? “Sexual Seduction” got me all excited about buying his last album, “Ego Trippin’”, and then the album turned out to be a piece of shit. Let’s face facts: Snoop has basically made variations of the exact same album for the past sixteen years. Nothing suggests “Malice” will be any different, although the production, courtesy of legends like DJ Premier, Pete Rock, and the rapidly-falling-off Dr. Dre, will probably be stronger than on any of the D-O-Double G’s latest albums. Still, this is a “skip” for me.

Gucci Mane “The State vs. Radric Davis”: I knew I wasn’t going to like this dude as soon as I heard his name. As soon as you hear “Gucci Mane”, you know he’s one of those Southern rappers with a mouth full of gold teeth, talking absolute nonsense. Now, to be fair, I only heard this guy once-I caught a commercial just yesterday announcing the album’s release on BET, but those 30 seconds were enough to convince me that this guy is an absolute joke. Of course, given the guy’s impending jail sentence for a parole violation, this will probably be the biggest seller of any of the albums listed here. Sigh.

Clipse “Til’ the Casket Drops”: After a frustrating two-album stint with Jive Records, the Thornton Brothers of Virginia have linked up with Columbia Records and are now releasing their third effort. Granted, Jive and Columbia are both Sony-distributed labels, so I don’t know how much different things can possibly be, but let’s just say it’s a new start for the sake of agreement, OK? Anyway, I find these guys annoying, although some people (especially white music critics) seem to go completely apeshit over these guys. Oh well, they don’t have to go back to the ‘hood and see the consequences of an environment where kids actually accept the unapologetic drug and violence tales of acts like the Clipse as the gospel truth. Honestly, I don’t either, but that’s the environment I come from and it pisses me off to see the unfortunate situations a lot of urban youth find themselves in being exploited by record executives and artists who don’t give a fuck as long as they’re being paid.

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Elsewhere, not a lot to report. Ska-rock legends The Mighty Mighty Bosstones are releasing their first album in seven years, while Jared Leto and 30 Seconds to Mars have settled their legal differences with their label and have returned with “This is War” (look for this one to do boffo numbers when all is said and done…). “Glee” (the most overrated new TV show this year) releases a second soundtrack in record time (the first one came out barely six weeks ago), and there are also new albums out by Jimmy Buffett (for you youngun’s, he’s like an old version of Kenny Chesney or Jack Johnson) and Puddle of Mudd (write your own joke in here).

A full list of this week’s new releases can be found here.

One of the biggest crimes in the music industry is that Rahsaan Patterson is not a bigger star. A gifted songwriter (having written for artists like Brandy and Tevin Campbell) and an exquisite vocalist (think about the love child of Chaka Khan and Stevie Wonder), it galls me that his former “Kids Incorporated” castmate Stacy (Butterface) “Fergie” Ferguson has #1 singles and million selling records and Rahsaan doesn’t even have a major label contract.

That said, Rahsaan has built up quite the cult following over the past decade and change. He’s released four excellent studio albums and I just discovered his 2008 Christmas album “The Ultimate Gift”. I haven’t listened to much holiday music over the past couple of years (for no good reason), but the combination of the strong writing (6 of the 10 songs are originals written or co-written by Rahsaan), the genuine emotion (this doesn’t seem like a contract filler at all) and that soulful voice put me in the mood for good cheer almost as soon as the Thanksgiving turkey got cold!!

The track I’ve posted here is his version of Paul McCartney’s 1978 chestnut “Wonderful Christmastime”. While Macca’s version will remain a classic, Rahsaan updates the track with some serious use of the Linn drum machine, a staple of all those classic Prince tracks from back in the day. Makes you wonder what the Purple One would have done with a happy, uptempo holiday song (because, quite frankly, I LOVE “Another Lonely Christmas”, but that song makes me want to slit my wrists. Enjoy!!

P.S., it doesn’t look like Rahsaan’s main site has been updated recently, but be sure to check out his MySpace page.

After the deluge of releases over the past two weeks, it’s only right that the industry takes some time to chill out. The list of major releases is pretty thin this week. Here are the highlights.

Blakroc “Blackroc”-This is one of the more interesting projects to be released this quarter, or even this year! Blues rock duo The Black Keys have joined forces with a host of hip-hop artists to make what I hear is a quite entertaining record. Scary fact: this album was co-spearheaded by one of my least favorite people in the whole world, Damon Dash. Anyway, the list of guest artists is pretty superb: Mos Def, Q-Tip, Pharoahe Monch, RZA & GZA (along with a posthumous ODB appearance) and…Jim Jones. Hey, you can’t win them all.

R. Kelly “Untitled”- This is Kells’ first album since being acquitted of child molestation charges last year, and it’s hard for me to even believe that this is in stores, considering the fact that this has been moved around the release schedule more than any other album I can think of in recent memory. Anyhow, this album has zero buzz-the single “Number One”, which featured Keri Hilson, barely scratched the Top 10 on Billboard’s R&B chart, and something tells me this album is going to be a huge flop. I haven’t been more excited to see someone’s career go down the toilet (pun intended) since 50 Cent caught a brick last week.

Allison Iraheta “Just Like You”- Truthfully? I can’t even remember this broad. I suppose she finished third behind Glambert and Kris Allen, but I seriously can’t recall one song the lady sang. Either way, she managed to score a record deal with Simon Fuller’s 19 Recordings (not a prerequisite for every 3rd place finisher). Unfortunately, she’s also releasing the album in a year when the winner generated weak sales and even the runner-up had to basically sell his ass on network TV to get noticed. Sorry, Allison.

Juvenile “Cocky & Confident”-Juvenile is still around? At this point in time, fans of New Orleans rap care about one dude and one dude only: and he is NOT Juvenile. He better make up with Baby and them and either have a Hot Boys reunion or jump on Weezy’s next album. I don’t think *anyone* cares about this album outside Louisiana.

The Bravery “Stir the Blood”- I’m gonna try this without hitting Wikipedia. I believe this is The Bravery’s third album. I’ve actually owned each of the first two, and can’t remember a single thing about them other than the fact that I no longer own either one, so that should tell you a little bit about what I think of the band. These guys are completely anonymous, although I read a good review of this album somewhere. If you’re a fan, you’ll be happy. If you’re not, there’s probably no reason to become one.

And that’s more or less it, folks. Get the complete list of new releases from our friends at Pause and Play by clicking here.