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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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  • The Infatueighties Countdown: #105: “All Out of Love”

    I’m paraphrasing here, but Billy Joel once gave an interview where he said something like “Soft rock sounds too much like soft cock. I want a hard cock!”. Funny statement coming from one of the originators of the modern-day “lite music” sound, but his sentiments echo those of most who consider the dramatic pop ballad the bane of modern-day music.

    Not so, say I. A well-sung, melodic ballad can be just as good as any edgy rocker. Case in point, the song that starts off this countdown: “All Out of Love”, by the Australian duo known to one and all as Air Supply.

    Graham Russell (the tall blond one) and Russell Hitchcock (the short, dark one) were the kings of adult contemporary ballads in the first half of the Eighties, scoring hit after hit with orchestration-heavy, borderline sappy ballads like “Even the Nights Are Better” and “The One That You Love”. However, “All Out of Love” stands head and shoulders above the rest. Perhaps because it’s one of the few Air Supply hits that has both members sharing vocals. Perhaps because the way Hitchcock’s voice crests at the end of the dramatic brige. Maybe it’s that impressively long note at the end of the song. Any way you slice it, this is one hell of a soft rock gem. You can’t deny it.

    Since the song’s original video is nowhere to be found on Yahoo and Youtube has disabled embedding on it, I am forced to show you an abbreviated version of the song from Arista Records’ 10th Anniversary concert, which was at some point in the late Eighties. Bask in the glory of Graham’s Bolton-esque mullet. Wither in the face of the diminutive Hitchcock’s powerful tenor (thank God he got rid of that curly fro). Revel in the cheesetasticness that is “All Out of Love”.

    And how’s this for hard cock? One day in the mid-Nineties, I found a familar face on the cover of a tattoo magazine. Who knew that the bite-sized lead singer of one of the most notoriously cheesy pop groups of all time had a body full of ink underneath those suits?

  • Worth a Second Spin: George Michael’s “Listen Without Prejudice Vol. 1”

    It’s hard to imagine an album that sold two million copies, spawned 3 (actually, four) top 40 singles and was an international success being underrated, but George Michael’s sophomore release, “Listen Without Prejudice, Vol. 1” is a gem that has long been overlooked by the general public. The letdown was inevitable after George became a worldwide phenomenon with “Faith”. The album officially announced George as an icon, not as just the lead singer from Wham! For a time, it was a widely held belief that George placed in the pantheon of pop legends that included Michael, Madonna and Prince. “Faith” was nothing less than a juggernaut. Loved by fans and critics alike, it sold over 10 million copies and won the Grammy for Album of the Year. It spawned six Top Ten pop singles, with another three crossing over to hit the Top Ten on the R&B chart. Additionally, “Faith” broke new ground by becoming the first album by a white artist to hit Number One on Billboard’s R&B Albums list. For a brief moment, the former chubby kid with the unibrow was the biggest artist in the world.

    The cover of George Michael\'s \"Listen Without Prejudice\" (1990)

    George, to his credit, immediately realized that wasn’t what he wanted. In a move that seemed utterly pretentious at the time but seems somewhat noble in retrospect, he decided that “Prejudice” would be judged solely on the merits of it’s musical content. He didn’t appear on the record’s front cover (actually, neither did the album’s title…it was affixed to the front of the disc on a sticker), he did no pre-release promotion for the album, and he refused to appear in the album’s videos. Pretty ballsy for such a big name to pull such an obvious retreat, and the move was viewed as petulant by some (Frank Sinatra publicly chastised him), but if you did what the title suggested, you were rewarded by the work of an increasingly mature songwriter who had very obvious reservations when it came to playing the fame game.

    One thing you immediately notice is that it’s nowhere near as “black” sounding as “Faith” was. George publicly expressed his reverence for R&B musicians like Stevie Wonder and Michael Jackson, but was stung by criticism from artists (Gladys Knight being the most vocal) who were miffed about him receiving accolades in the soul arena, including two American Music Awards-for favorite Soul/R&B Album and favorite Soul/R&B male artist. The album took it’s musical cues from a variety of different artists and genres. The ghost of John Lennon is all over the socially conscious “Praying for Time”, while the jangly “Heal the Pain” is a tip of the hat to Paul McCartney (Michael later re-recorded the song as a duet with Macca). The mid-tempo “Waiting for the Day” quotes The Rolling Stones’ “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” while juxtaposing acoustic guitars against the classic James Brown “Funky Drummer” loop (a practice that became standard procedure half a decade later for femme singer-songwriters like Alanis Morissette and Sheryl Crow), while the haunting “Cowboys & Angels” has a strong jazz influence, complete with a nimble bassline played by George himself.

    Lyrically, the album is way more serious than it’s predecessor, and the politically-minded “Praying for Time” and the war-based ballad “Mother’s Pride” both became de facto themes for the 1990-1991 Gulf War (much to George’s consternation). George only truly lets go on the album’s final full track, the brassy, reggae-kissed “Soul Free”. For those not used to pop music asking them to think a little, the seriousness of this album was a bit of a shock.

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