Counting Crows
Saturday Nights and Sunday Mornings
Geffen
"Saturday Nights & Sunday Mornings," the new album from Counting Crows, is nothing if not ambitious.
"If the album is disappearing as an art form, we wanted to make one last great album," front man Adam Duritz says in the publicity material.
That statement nips at what makes Counting Crows - and Duritz - simultaneously vexing and intriguing. Duritz is nothing if not brutally candid. To a lot of people he's a dork poser masquerading as a rock star and the very first line of the opening tune "1492," trades on that perception: "I'm a Russian Jew American; Impersonating African Jamaican." Later in the song, he gets off a fine description of groupie charm: "morning spreading across the feathered thighs of angels." The talent may not equal the ego, but it's there in some significant measure.
"Saturday Nights & Sunday Mornings" is a kind of concept album. The first half is a plugged-in, uncharacteristically hard-rocking account of rock star decadence, inhabited by groupies, movie star indulgences (Duritz has been linked to both Courtney Cox and Jennifer Aniston) and free-floating cynicism. The second half is a folkier, morning-after bath in acoustic alienation and spiritual vacuity.
As a writer, Duritz has a knack for a simple folk tune, and so it's not surprising that Part II is more engaging. But even at his best, Duritz is given to morose self-absorption punctuated with bursts of naked pretension as in "When I Dream of Michelangelo," in which he inserts himself in the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel with God himself reaching down to him. It's a shame that God didn't opt to hand him a sense of humor.
- Dave Tianen,
dtianen@JournalSentinel.com
Various artists
In the Name of Love: Africa Celebrates U2
Shout Factory
There is always something enticing about the opportunity to hear familiar music in a fresh and mind-opening way.
That experience is at the heart of "In the Name of Love: Africa Celebrates U2." This new anthology, which comes out on April 1, features interpretations from such high profile artists as Angélique Kidjo, Les Nubians, the Sierra Leone Refugee All Stars and lesser-known but equally compelling talents such as the South African stylist Vusi Mahlasela.
This is an ambitious project: It's part African primer, part philanthropic project and part Afro-pop sampler. The liner notes include short bios of the artists, maps of their nations of origin in Africa and short profiles of the nations that outline the struggles they face. Several of the artists have been touched deeply by the political turmoil that besets their homeland.
In a larger sense, the disc is a musical education. There are sweeping choral renditions such as the Soweto Gospel Choir's treatment of "Pride (In the Name of Love)" or booming big band romps like Tony Allen's take on "Where the Streets Have No Name." Other tracks such as Waldemar Bastos' "Love Is Blindness," are intimate and quietly nuanced. English, French and a variety of African languages intermingle. And, of course, weaving through all of them is the rich, rhythmic palette that seems such an innate part of the Afro-pop palette.
- Dave Tianen
The Teenage Prayers
Everyone Thinks You're the Best
True Love Through Better Music
The Teenage Prayers' 2005 debut "Ten Songs" was a blend of prism-pop and soulful come-hither wordplay, but its ultimate success was as a vehicle for singer Tim Adams' shimmering falsetto.
The atmosphere on "Everyone Thinks You're the Best" is more obviously collaborative, with urgent rhythm work, blaring guitars and martini ragtime keys blasting new routes for a throatier Adams vocal track and the oft-shouted responses of his bandmates.
But the Teenage Prayers are most likable when they down-shift and allow their naturally unique sound a chance to aerate: "Don't Call" drips brass tears from electric piano clouds, and "123" is a jokey early '60s throwback just plausible enough that you can't quite laugh along.
These more spacious moments come late, though, and whether the band's early album raucousness proves to be a worthy experiment in contrast probably won't be answered until the next album drops and we can gauge their growth.
"Everyone Thinks You're the Best" was a step up, to be sure. Stay tuned to find out whether it is also a step forward.
- Sam Seiler,
Special to the Journal Sentinel
Gnarls Barkley
The Odd Couple
Atlantic
In August 2006, "Rolling Stone" called Gnarls Barkley "Summer's Weirdest Breakthrough," but that must have had more to do with the dynamic duo's fondness for enigmatic quotes and costumes than with its music. If a fantastic R&B moaner like "Crazy" and a fantastic debut album like "St. Elsewhere" hadn't broken through, that would've been genuinely weird.
"The Odd Couple" retains the debut's sense that British producer Danger Mouse and Atlanta singer Cee-Lo Green know, almost instinctively, how to make best use of each other's sharp-edged talents: the former's Beck-level grasp of ironically hip musical forms, the latter's frighteningly incandescent soulfulness.
Together, they delve into foursquare adolescent snottiness ("Whatever"), elegant Association-reminiscent pop swing and Latin shuffle ("Surprise"), distorted lounge funk ("Charity Case") and blistering desperation underpinned by cut-and-pasted exoticisms ("Open Book") - all united by themes of loneliness and isolation. Success hasn't spoiled Gnarls Barkley's brilliance, which is strange and welcome rather than weird.
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