Young Buck "Straight Outta Ca$hville," (Interscope) Sounds like: 50 Cent with 50 percent less talent
D
If you liked the G-Unit album, "Beg for Mercy," chances are you'll love the debut from 50 Cent's latest prot?g?, Young Buck.
He looks the part: gritty smirk, revolving G-Unit bling, ski mask and we'll just assume that is a gun in his pocket. Young Buck does sound like he looks: a gangster with no credentials. He just wants to play with the big boys.
He tries too hard to be like 50 Cent, following what has become the G-Unit album release formula: a club single followed by a "love-my-bitch" song, (the rap equivalent to a power ballad). By the time Lloyd Banks put out his power ballad, the G-Unit modus operandi was old. Young Buck is too little to late with the material on this album. The public has lost fascination with huggable thugs.
Young Buck is a bad third-best; the beginning of the end of the G-Unit's popularity. Soon they'll start putting their kids in the studio, like Master P, to generate publicity.
TARA JACKSON
Holly Golightly "Slowly But Surely" (Damaged Goods Records) Sounds like: Nancy Sinatra and Patsy Kline opened up a roadside diner on Route 66 with Booker T and the MGs.
A
Once listeners hear Holly Golightly's new album "Slowly but Surely" they'll have to pry their jaws off the floor with a forklift. This might be one of the best albums of the year, certainly one of the best by a female vocalist.
British native Golighty (her real name is Folks), has an absolutely stunning voice, which is achingly sharp on slow numbers like "On the Fire" but has a mean and confident edge on songs such as her "In Your Head." She tackles anywhere from one to five genres at a time and pulls it all off seamlessly. You can tell that there's a strong element of nostalgia to some of the more up-beat tracks, harking back to the days of the mid-1960s pop of Nancy Sinatra and Lee Hazelwood. This whole album feels strangely reminiscent of a rusty jukebox in Kansas City circa 1964 with a steady sensual balance of bluegrass, soul, early rock 'n' roll and jazz.
Matt Radford on bass and The Bongolian on keyboards deserve special notice for adding great soul on the jazzy tracks "My Love Is" and "Mother Earth" amongst everything else. Their accompaniment in addition to Golightly's honky tonk guitar work flesh out the album and make it a must hear.
NEAL FERSKO
Four Square "Three Chords...One Card" (Bad Taste Records) Sounds like: the emo-pop of Jimmy Eat World and the Get Up Kids.
B
Emo hasn't always been so despised. Before bands like Brand New and New Found Glory were matching heavy pop hooks with lyrics about heartbreak and rejection, Jimmy Eat World, the Get Up Kids and Saves the Day were on the sugar-free rock diet of straight-up guitar riffs and sensitive vocals. Now Four Square - a Canadian four-piece that admittedly still writes about heartbreak and rejection, but in a less oh-my-gag-reflex kind of way - is taking on the "good" brand of emo on their second album "Three Chords...One Card." Songs like "Hitmaker" and "Office Space" have the boys making emo that sounds more influenced by '90s alt-rock than '80s punk rock, and that's a dramatic shift from the slew of Warped Tour-savy emo bands that are slowly beginning to fade out. Four Square may not be a gut-wrenchingly affecting band, but their music is honest and refreshingly devoid of emo's usual snap-crackle-pop.
EMILY ZEMLER
Mark Lanegan Band "Bubblegum" (Beggars Banquet Records) Sounds like: The Screaming Trees with blues and folk overpowering the rock.
B
Mark Lanegan has been a blessing to the music world since he entered the scene in the early '90s. Fronting the Screaming Trees, singing for Queens of the Stone Age and gaining the admiration of Kurt Cobain are just some of his accomplishments, not to mention his impressive solo career, which he continues with "Bubblegum."
The album features PJ Harvey, Greg Dulli from the Afghan Whigs, Izzy and Duff from Guns & Roses, and Queens of the Stone Age members, but it remains distinctly Lanegan. Maybe this is because of his unmistakably beautiful and powerful vocals. When this voice is combined with music that ranges from straight-up rock to old-fashioned city blues, it makes for some great songs. "Sideways in Reverse" and "Like Little Willie John" mark the ends of this spectrum, with the gems "Hit the City" and "Morning Glory Wine" falling someplace in between.
The unfortunate downside to this release is a lack of cohesiveness. No particular song brings the album down, but the songs lack a flow that could possibly make "Bubblegum" one of the greats. Still, on the whole, "Bubblegum" is a quality release that adds to Lanegan's legendary reputation.
GARRETT KARRBERG
Phil Collins "Love Songs: a compilation...old and new" (Warner Strategic Marketing/Atlantic) Sounds like: cute fuzzy animals and soft warm sunsets teetering above a treacherous smooth-jazz abyss
B+
Take a whole lot of emotional baggage, unrequited love and lonely nights. Add some synthesized nostalgia, mellow-rock soft beats and a voice smooth as silk (or is it velvet?). Phil Collins, former Genesis vocalist, past Disney crooner and perpetual victim of schmaltzy karaoke singing, has released a collection of his favorite love ballads. He's included 25 songs in this compilation because he really loves them. So who cares which tunes were previously released, previously chart-topping or previously sung by someone else? Most people toss Collins aside as some ol' fogey the folks listen to on those "special nights." Or maybe they associate his smooth serenades with dentist office sterility. Regardless, Phil deserves a good listen or at least a good fist-clenching lip-synch. He may be the king of Squaresville but one thing is for certain: he knows his broken hearts. Boys aren't supposed to cry, but Collins is a man and he's never been afraid to shed a few tears.
ADRIENNE MULLINS
Denim and Diamonds "Street Medics Unite!" (Bloodlink) Sounds like: someone recorded every sound a computer has ever generated and made an album out of it
F
Labeling the genre of this CD as electronic would only be too right. Denim and Diamonds' new album is strictly electronic sounds with random words mixed in. "Street Medics" is the perfect album for any computer geek who simply can't get enough of computer sounds. Every once in a while, there's something that sounds like a guitar, but there is so much going on in every song that it's hard to tell.
There are no real lyrics in most of the songs. The singer, if he can be called that, has a very whiny voice that gets warped by the music. The entire album is a collection of so many indiscriminate sounds and rhythms that the songs are very random and distracting. The music shifts constantly and listeners will find themselves saying "what the hell" in a very bad way.
Along with not being terribly good, the album has only eight songs for a meager time of 31 minutes. And really there are only six songs because two are remixes of songs already on the album. Ultimately, "Street Medics" could be called a bad attempt at '80s techno, but that might be an insult to '80s techno.
ALICIA KRAWITZ
