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  • John Legend’s Evolver: Can the Crooner Get Down?

    Photography by sry85.
    Photography by sry85.

    When it comes to smooth, mature soul music, John Legend is the man to beat. The protege of Kanye West, Legend (born John Stephens) has amassed strong sales, five Grammy Awards and critical kudos for his first couple of albums, Get Lifted and Once Again. He’s become known as the R&B singer you can take home to mom, a piano man in the mold of Lionel Richie and Brian McKnight. However, he’s also got a more pronounced hip-hop vibe and a wink-nudge, sly sexuality that’s a refreshing change from the crassness found in most R&B and hip-hop lyrics these days..

    Legend’s third album, Evolver, has been talked about as a departure. The spacy 80s synths of the bouncy first single Green Light certainly isn’t what you’d normally expect for the buttoned-up crooner, but a rap from the irrepressible Andre 3000 and the fun groove makes the song swing.. With Evolver finally in stores and online, two questions need to be asked. 1) Is the entire album a departure for John Legend, and 2) Can he make it work?

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  • Infatueighties #73: Squeeze’s “Tempted”

    Infatueighties #73: Squeeze’s “Tempted”

    Squeeze Tempted Album CoverI discovered Tempted in 1994. As someone who was not listening to college radio in 1981 (cut me some slack, I was five), the only Squeeze I’d heard was (what I believe was) their lone Top 40 hit, 1987’s Hourglass. So, if I can thank the Reality Bites soundtrack for anything at all, it would be for introducing me to the greatness that is this song.

    Ever listen to a song and have a nagging suspicion that “this voice sounds familiar but I just can’t place it”? Well, imagine my surprise when I found out that the voice behind this song (most of it, anyway) was Paul Carrack, who scored a handful of hits as a solo artist (Don’t Shed a Tear almost made this list), in addition to being the lead singer of Seventies one hit wonders Ace (How Long) and the Genesis side project Mike & the Mechanics. The guy gets around, yeah?

    His soulful delivery, combined with the superior storytelling skills of Chris Difford and Glenn Tilbrook and the production of Elvis Costello (who knew?) has made Tempted a modern-day classic, even though it never hit the Top 40 on the American pop charts (wow, that was a run-on sentence).

    As a bonus, here’s the video for How Long, which would have made it pretty high if there was an Infatu-seventies column. Hmmm, that doesn’t roll off the tongue quite as well.

  • The New Music Files 10/28/08: John Legend, Pink, Snow Patrol and More!!!

    Today marks the first “Super Tuesday” of the 4th quarter, where the labels start bringing out their super big guns. Lots going on this week, so let’s get right into it!

    John Legend–Evolver

    …In which the stately piano man gets frisky. Legend has called this album a slight departure for him, and indeed, first single Green Light sounds like nothing he’s released before. However, diehard fans who loved the smooth sounds of his first two albums needn’t fear, there’s tons of smoove balladry amid the club bangers on this album.

    Pink–Funhouse

    I love Pink. I think she’s got one of the best voices of any current pop singer, and I love the fact that she’s not afraid to have a little fun on her albums and in her videos. I must say, I’m a little underwhelmed by the single So What (which puts me in the minority, since the song hit #1), but then again I didn’t like Stupid Girls, and the rest of the album it came from, I’m Not Dead, was great.

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