Adriano Celentano: Best (1975-99)

(BMG)

RECOMMENDED

The balance this incredibly fun disc strikes between Eurocentric hypercool and red wine romance is the result of a pop malleability nearly worthy of Leonard Cohen. Adriano Celentano, one of Italy's premier singers and actors, charms and sneers his way skillfully through a selection of exotic originals and nicely presented covers, including of some English language classics: "Stand by Me," "Michelle," "16 Tons." The '60s and '70s cuts are where it's at though, as Celentano can wring an emotional rush out of dinner music or inspire great populist frenzy with his delirious choruses. Once in a while the disc resembles a drunken singalong at a pub; the rest of the time, it's more like the jukebox that might accompany the gradual emptying out of the same pub.

The Cohen reference point comes from the in-the-moment attentiveness, as irrespective of any chronological sequence the compilation flies through passing dance music trends and the dated but classic sound of Italian chamber pop. Whatever audience he's courting, Celentano remains a constant pleasure -- just don't expect pure schmaltzy romance through and through. It's all more sophisticated than that. But not too sophisticated.

Curren$y: Weekend at Burnie's (2011)

(Warner Bros.)

RECOMMENDED

The world's hardest working stoner returns for his third album in less than a year, fifth overall, disregarding his litany of mixtapes, EPs, and collaborations. Curren$y only seems to be getting better and better as a rapper, his lyrics on Burnie's showing obvious progression from the fixations of his excellent Pilot Talk series from last year. On the standout "She Don't Want a Man," for example, he quickly moves far beyond any posturing to tell a compelling story of being taken as a lover by a married woman -- it's well-told, three-dimensional, and far more empathetic than its chorus ("She don't want a man / She just wants to fuck") suggests. Could Curren$y yet become rap's long-awaited Jonathan Demme, the artist whose deepest concern lies with others as much as with him- or herself?

Who knows, at this point. As a stylist, the guy's still feeling his way through a myriad of ideas, seemingly still in rehearsal for a breakthrough. Like a number of others, I really thought his work with Ski Beatz was high art, its nonchalant incongruity with conventional hip hop a breath of fresh air, especially when matched with his own lyrically breathless paeans to lazing around and smoking weed.

But the last person in the rock & roll field who was so obsessive about relaxation was, gulp, Jimmy Buffett... so it's probably a good thing that Curren$y seems to be broadening his horizons well past the novelties that made his name in the underground. Only thing is, I'm not entirely sure that Burnie's producer Monsta Beatz is much help to this cause. Curren$y is too prolific to worry about too much beyond the moment; in many ways, this can be seen as clearly just his valentine to chilled out summer drives in immense heat, and by September he'll have something else for us to chew on. But as fitting as the deathly slow "Televised" or the thrillingly mellow "On G's" are to Curren$y's calm flow, there's a sense in which they may be a bit too fluid and laid back to have the staying power of something like "Breakfast" or "Montreux."

That said, both those songs sound incredible on headphones, conjuring up a desire to completely revel in their atmospherics, a direction Curren$y seems proud of -- and given the macho aggression that still lingers in some radio-beloved hip hop, it's a welcome development. More to the point, they feature star turns from a couple of Curren$y proteges -- Trademark doesn't do much here, no slur on him, but Young Roddy's quite a scene-stealer, hard but vaguely androgynous, providing more energy than anything else here. He's worth paying attention to.

Burnie's is an unequivocal blast, but its striking moments are scattered. I'm not the biggest fan of the cleverly titled single "#jetsgo" or the already-overrated anthem "JLC" (stands for Jet Life Commandments, just so you know), but producers Magnedo7 and Havoc kill it on "She Don't Want a Man," an inspired bit of laid-back drama. Monsta Beatz is at his best when operating outside his own comfort zone: "Still" trickles out a classic minimalistic beat in the vein of Slum Village, offering a starkness Curren$y's not explored yet. Best of all is the positively explosive "This Is the Life," which seems to directly reference the jazzy textures of Ski Beatz's work with its Bill Evans-like piano backdrop, over which Curren$y offers some of his loosest work yet, scarcely having to do any work to punctuate and keep up with the unconventional track, with weird rhymes that are barely even there like "autobot" and "about," "twistin'" and "attention."

Warner Bros. have changed their minds on multiple occasions about whether Weekend at Burnie's is an album, a mixtape, or an EP. It feels like an album to me -- it has that kind of determination and uniqueness. But it's a testament to Curren$y's tossed-out style that WB isn't quite sure how to handle him yet. Here's hoping they promote this and give it the wide attention that the Pilot Talk albums deserved but failed to receive from Def Jam.

[SEE ALSO:]
Pilot Talk (2010)
Pilot Talk II (2010)

Talking Heads: 77 (1977)

(Sire)

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

In 1961, MAD magazine ran an incredibly prophetic article called "Tomorrow's Parents" revolving around what would happen when beatniks stepped up to the helm of responsibility. This was before the Summer of Love and long before baby boomers joined yuppiedom in droves the same way they'd been drafted to fight in Vietnam. The question MAD begs is essentially that, if today's teenager is sincere in his or her rebellion, is it not true that the only natural rebellion for the following generation is a rejection of the freeform values of their parents? MAD shoots holes not in the ideology of the young set it satirizes -- and incidentally was then its target audience -- but in the inevitable hypocrisy it breeds, in the impossibility of living on principles. (The Beatles: "All you need is love." Keith Richards: "Try livin' off it.")

Rock & roll enjoys an elastic definition. It can encompass with full enthusiasm the amateurish garage band next door, the Katy Perrys on MTV at this very second, the amateurish garage band on MTV, the Katy Perrys next door (I know some people who wish), the rich white man who subscribes to Car & Driver, Maxim, and Spin and hangs his coat on a signed Clapton axe. Like everything else, it has its elitists, the folks who stand reciting their oral version of The Past, the ones who still know/care who Alan Freed was, the ones who look at whatever comes along and tell us why it is not in keeping with the spirit of you know what.

I am not speaking of the people whose awareness of pop music fails to go beyond "Purple People Eater," the ones who closed their ears when the Who came on the radio. These people are not surly old codgers. They can wrap their heads around that which makes its rebuttal to the world clear. Often they adore hip-hop, Nirvana, Eminem. When the Sex Pistols came along it was the first time in a while that a lot of them felt like they understood. It was explicit and confrontational and to many people, it felt like the potential of rock was being realized to its fullest.

In New York City, something smarter was brewing. Rarely has so much talent centered so much around a single building. CBGB's must have been a portal to the great beyond or something. Go out some time and observe your local bands perform. Now imagine that you live in New York City at the U.S. bicentennial and your local bands consist of Blondie, Patti Smith, the Ramones, Television, and Talking Heads. Would make Friday nights a lot more interesting, no?

To be fair, all of the above except the Ramones became critical darlings quickly. There were a few dissenting voices, a lot of them from the same stripe of rock "fan" that was trashing disco because of homophobia. Some accused Smith of poetic melodrama, Television of being the Grateful Dead reborn, Blondie of being bubblegum in disguise (which is what punk is, by the way), and Talking Heads of being... sincere.

Conservatively dressed, their lead singer looking and acting like a born-again, robotic Buddy Holly, they sang songs that could well be Republican campaign anthems. "I see the states across this big nation / I see the laws made in Washington D.C. / I think of the ones I'd consider my favorites." Love becomes a task: "I called in sick, I won't go to work today / I'd rather be with the one I love / I NEGLECT MY DUTIES, I'll be in trouble." And how's this for right-wing? "So many people have their problems / I'm not interested in their problems / I guess I've experienced some problems / But now I've made some decisions."

The Heads were that MAD article, fully realized in three dimensions. They threw the two-faced nature of rock's ideal elite in the air for all to see because they confronted the world with their own unique rebellion, which is supposed to be the point of the music, but because they offered values distasteful to those who had built the mainstream and because they didn't underline everything to show the irony, they frightened people, especially those who were riding Johnny Rotten like a horse to salvation.

Of course the Heads' early work was satirical (with a Scottish eccentric and a woman in the band and, later, an integrated live lineup, they were not exactly WASP), but I also think there was sincerity in it. As Byrne himself has said, it was an attempt at understanding a fickle world, through humor and ideas. It forced rockers to examine their idea of the enemy. The Heads paid no attention to their "scene" or to what they were supposed to be, even openly embracing sugary pop and disco. Long after the impact of most punk has faded, they remain potent because they were the true rejection, the true intellectual challenge to both an industry establishment and to the increasingly mad society around them. In a sense, I believe they may be the only true punk-rock band. So much '60s pop tied itself to the turmoil of the day and now suffers for it. Maybe the Heads knew it and maybe they didn't, but the upheaval and insanity they captured on "Psycho Killer" and "Don't Worry About the Government" is something timeless and far more disruptive.

David Byrne knew that the most potent satire was more scary than funny, and he had an uncanny ability to use this to the fullest advantage, embracing a childlike perspective but with a sinister current provided by the impossibly simplified perspectives that mark so much inflammatory political and philosophical discussion. When he's angry, it gets to you. In "No Compassion," he is soulless, apathetic, and quietly hateful. The casual abandon in his words and vocals are more frightening than anything in the Pistols' catalog because there seems to be no escape from him, and the music isn't wild enough to punctuate his ideas and give us relief.

There is a less than subtle conclusion, though, as on side two Byrne draws a line to a sequel of sorts, the most popular early Heads track, "Psycho Killer," on which Byrne again accuses everyone and everything of being against him but ultimately is clearly off the deep end, sliding in and out of French at random and ranting cluelessly about "conversation." Nonetheless, you don't doubt the title, especially in the song's funniest/creepiest punchline: "I hate people when they're not polite!"

Byrne's detachment, ironic or not, would mean nothing if there wasn't a delicacy to his work. The fact that he can sing "Compassion is a virtue / But I don't have the time" makes the poignant moments twice as effective, but of course they are abstract and unclear. On the band's first single "Love -> Building on Fire," not included here, you can hear Byrne finding freedom and exhilaration within his cold sensibility. Byrne -- or rather his persona -- moving farther into this tunnel would be the running arc through the first four Talking Heads albums.

When human emotion does come to the forefront, as it does in spots throughout the record (for all their humor, "Pulled Up" and "Don't Worry About the Government" both come across in the end as adorably felt), it is joyously, flamboyantly surrendered to -- an apt foreshadowing of Stop Making Sense. The most moving song on the record revolves around what sounds like Byrne's seduction of a pined-for lover, his feelings for whom turn out surprisingly to be reciprocated. "I'm embarrassed to admit it hit the soft spot in my heart / When I found out you wrote the book I read." The song includes the most memorable line on 77: "I'm spinning around and I feel all right / The book I read was in your eyes."

But the most beautiful song here, "First Week/Last Week... Carefree" comes thanks to the rest of the band, always offering a colorful environment for Byrne's one-man dramas. In fact, one reason I find the Heads' music so fascinating is that the music tends to be the foreground, the vocals the background. Brian Eno would, on later efforts, use this characteristic to great effect. With a backdrop of coproducers Tony Bongiovi and Lance Quinn's tasteless but somehow appropriate brass (they wanted to put cellos on "Psycho Killer"), Byrne meanders through a rant about surveillance or meetings or something and at the instrumental break completely loses in his mind in a magical, wordless chant -- the first hint of the alarmingly proficient body music the Heads would unexpectedly become known for.

"First Week" is the least ironic number here and one of the best, but not the most accomplished. On this debut album, the songs have to work doubly hard because of low production values that turn the first half into a jangly mess, so unimaginatively recorded by Bongiovi and Quinn that it becomes monotonous and feels almost like filler. As such, the songs that stick are the ones that display most effectively the Heads' range of influences and their sheer ambition, which of course would pay off later, and yet in its best moments 77 feels complete, not just a predecessor to greater things. "Uh-oh, Love Comes to Town" is a particular joy, recalling the Jackson Five, while the breathless "Pulled Up" is the point at which it all comes together.

Too often on Talking Heads: 77, the production conceals the brilliance of the musicianship of Tina Weymouth, Jerry Harrison, and Chris Frantz, particularly Weymouth, as her bass is buried in the mix. "Pulled Up" is the rawest band performance on this album and also contains Byrne's most riveting moments. The lyrics, like "Don't Worry About the Government," recall the Modern Lovers (Harrison's old band) and the Friends-era Beach Boys. Far less effort is taken to bury the humor on this closing track; what's amazing is that the fascinating sense of detachment that makes the band's early work so endearing is still there, but so is an undeniable conviction. Byrne sounds for all the world like a ridiculously happy little boy, albeit one who knows every vocal tic in "Not Fade Away" back to front. "Mommy, Daddy come and look at me now / I'm a grown man in a great big town," he sings, proudly wailing about his success (he was in fact living in a dingy apartment with Chris and Tina at the time) and thanking his parents for everything they did for him. It's not rude or mean or sardonic, which because of its medium makes it all three. That also means it's simultaneously touching and surreal; the results are spellbinding. You believe every word.

They're playing a song about how much they love their parents. Another one about how much people owe to civil servants. Another one about how everyone needs to stop whining about their problems. Another one preaching intolerance and violence. Another one that argues that work is more important than human relationships. They are everything but rock & roll, and there's nothing more rock & roll than that.

[Updated version of a review I posted at d-b.com in 2004. Only changed a reference to Avril into one to Katy Perry (not that I believe the two are interchangeable), corrected my vastly ridiculous literal interpretation of "The Book I Read," and fleshed out the section on "First Week."]

[SEE ALSO:]
Sand in the Vaseline: Popular Favorites (1975-92)
Bonus Rarities & Outtakes (1975-92)

Old 97's: The Grand Theatre Vol. 2 (2011)

(New West)

!! CAUTION !!

Read my review at Metro Times. (Scroll down a bit!)

They lost me. :(

I saw Old 97's at Cat's Cradle a few months ago. Read my thoughts on that here.

[SEE ALSO:]
Blame It on Gravity (2008)
The Grand Theatre Vol. 1 (2010)

B.B. King: His Definitive Greatest Hits (1951-93)

(MCA)

You're gonna have to ask somebody else about this.

I dig some of King's early R&B sides like "Three O'Clock Blues" and "Hully Gully Twist" but generally I am not a huge fan of this slick, smooth kind of electric blues that he's laid down for most of his career. I've actually never been a big fan of this sound -- Albert King and Buddy Guy do nothing for me, either -- and for years I assumed this meant I wasn't into "the blues," but then I discovered the likes of Blind Willie Johnson, John Lee Hooker, and the rougher-hewn Howlin' Wolf. Only when sitting down with a theoretically grand piece like "The Thrill Is Gone" does it really strike me that I for some reason just can't hear the beauty or passion in it. I know King's guitar style is hugely influential and vital and that he is one of the Greats, and I have absolutely nothing against him nor would I deny any of his accomplishments. But his music, his most beloved and celebrated music, bores me to tears. It's my fault and I'm sorry. I realize it's great music and I should love it but it whooshes by me and leaves no impression, much like other luminaries I would name if I didn't already fear this post was too alienating. I intended to review this compilation and hopefully either come to appreciate it or do a better job of explaining why it isn't my thing, but I just don't have much to say. Forgive me?

Big K.R.I.T.: Return of 4Eva (2011)

(s/r) [download it here]

The free hip hop mixtape is sort of our modern equivalent to the 45 in the '60s -- amidst the illusion of disposability comes freedom. But the comparison is far off in terms of volume; you could spend every day listening to the latest offerings across the net and have little time for much else, and that's if you limit it to relatively high-profile performers. In the '60s, you got the A-side which was often freewheeling and imaginative and pop crass or pop class, and the b-side which was frequently a baffling nonentity or just a visibly subpar work that had to be buried someplace. Make that nearly always, unless you were dealing with some sort of great artist with a breadth of excellent material to provide.

Rappers like Big K.R.I.T. are going to save the best stuff for their studio albums, those things you're supposed to pay for, so even the most gifted artists aren't going to rise to the level of an actual LP on their mixtapes. Take a look at Das Racist's Sit Down, Man and while it is awash in brilliance, its lack of focus is marked. Forget it. You might get some snazzy experimentation, or you might get noodling, usually a lot of it -- these things often cover nearly the full runtime of a CD, sometimes more. And if one, for whatever reason, takes off, it usually garners a tidal wave of hype, seeing as it's free and all. Which is the whole point, from the record company's perspective.

While I see the virtues of the mixtape format, I personally hope it doesn't last forever. I'm much more intrigued by Kanye West's G.O.O.D. Music model, which last year offered work-in-progress songs and other goodies as a series of virtual singles, setting up his album as the healthily built-up climax of a music-filled year. The idea of the mixtape is to plunder, to find the gems amongst the fuckaround. Return of 4Eva is getting ectastic praise, especially in hip hop-exclusive circles, but let's get serious. Big K.R.I.T. is a smart and talented guy and he's only playing to his strengths about half the time here.

Don't get me wrong -- you can totally see why it's making an impact. For one thing, it goes down easy as fuck. K.R.I.T. is a remarkably affable performer, but he also stumbles a lot, his chick-fixated everyman persona sounding like the eyeroll falsehood rappers shouldn't have to worry themselves over in fucking 2011, particularly a man who seems as tuned in and politically conscious as K.R.I.T.; even when he scores on the party music front, it still seems like kind of a put-on -- a bit like Lupe Fiasco's bewildering stab at the same on this year's Lasers, only more down-to-earth. And as much as he keeps up the pace up with steady, occasionally superb production, Big K.R.I.T. can't escape a certain level of sameness and boredom as these 77 minutes wear on. His motifs are fun backing vocals, which feel best on the earlier tracks before the novelty stops sticking, and a play at the fake-ominous backing tracks of early '90s West Coast rap, best exemplified (and most infectious) on "My Sub."

Of course there are a few gems that make the price of this record more than right: "Dreamin'" and "Rotatin'" are both glorious summer hip hop made for beach drives and street cruises that feel smooth as silk and drift along thrillingly without ever pulling into overdrive, one welcome virtue of a lot of mixtapes. "Highs & Lows" is an exquisite slowjam that doesn't feel as overwrought and familiar as most, despite mediocre lyrics (K.R.I.T. isn't the finest wordsmith yet, though as mentioned, his consciousness lyrics seem more felt), and "King's Blues" is one of the best rap cuts I've heard this year -- reaching strongly back to pre-1986 old school but with fuller production, it has a complete enough feeling that it could be a fully-realized classic single. It definitely leaves a hint of great optimism; it alone would make the mix worth downloading.

Much of the rest, while pleasing enough, is far less than what I think Big K.R.I.T. is ultimately capable of. It's none of my business but much like T.I., who he periodically resembles vocally, he could stand to drop the machismo and cop to the busy pop that seems his forte. But I wouldn't be surprised if he took some other left turn. I would be surprised if the first great record he did was one we weren't expected to pay for. And not pleasantly, because as much as I love free music (legal and otherwise), devaluing great rap is not something I'd advocate.

Al Green Gets Next to You (1971)

(Hi)

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

Probably the hardest thing for us to imagine now, forty years after Al Green entered his most fertile period, is that his music was even then a throwback. A few years had passed since the heyday of the emotionally ripped Otis Redding and Sam Cooke records of yore. James Brown was by now thoroughly concerned with sweat generation, Marvin Gaye's Let's Get It On was still ahead and his fixation was on social comment and musical accomplishment. Pure soul music was quaint in 1970, particularly soul music without a hint of machismo, occupied solely with cooing and whining and purring and quirk -- all of which have, like Stevie Wonder's nasal phrasing or Prince's otherworldly falsetto, entered a cultural lexicon that wouldn't have seemed conceivable at the time.

Not so today -- today we know Green as an innovator, the inventor of something. The lineage is surprisingly direct. Al Green Gets Next to You, his breakthrough effort as an album artist, makes astoundingly attractive, addictive hay out of something as simple as a seamless cobbling together of sensuous romance and filthy backwoods funk. It is velvet and smooth without the artificiality of Barry White or Isaac Hayes, never mind the factory brightness of Motown in the '60s. Green quickly asserts himself as belonging in the class with the masters -- his delivery is more nuanced than any of his peers except Gaye, and his adaptability, the craft of his voice, is a universal treasure, so undeniable as to arouse suspicion when confronted with one who doesn't fall in love with it on contact. The hit "Tired of Being Alone," written (like much of the next album, Let's Stay Together, but little of this one) by Green alone, is the perfect explication: tauntingly sad horns and one of the most superhuman, hurt, magical vocal performances to ever light up the radio. Willie Mitchell and the backing band keep up perfectly, and after a calmly sexy opening the record bursts open into harmony and urgency -- flawless and celebratory of flaws, it is an out-and-out masterpiece.

But you know that. What you may not know (indeed, I didn't, having loved Green for some time but never fully investigated his LPs) is that everything else here is worthy of it -- just as spacious, crisp, alluring. Usually Green renders brilliance from the same taut, wound-up self control he exhibits on the single (dig the rhythmic infection of "Driving Wheel"), but he can let go like crazed James Brown on "I'm a Ram" and come off just as naturally. Regardless of one's gender or sexual orientation, the slowed-down Parliament of "Are You Lonely for Me Baby" is the wettest and hardest of turn-ons; opener "I Can't Get Next to You" manages, impossibly enough, to amp up Otis in a breathing arrangement that beckons the audience forward. From there, the minimalism and unfettered beauty are consistent, on both laid-back rockers like "Right Now, Right Now" and material like "All Because," the kind of earthy soul that no one was bothering to make time for in this period. Green made sure they'd start to do so again. And true to form, he even writes a song about Jesus, "God Is Standing By," that's everything Gaye's "Wholly Holy" is not -- honest, well-written, sweet and lilitingly affecting. Even more impossibly, he wrings an excellent performance out of a song by the Doors, whose version of "Light My Fire" he of course effortlessly renders obsolete. Not once across the album does he make an undue indulgence or overstay his welcome; it's all gently throttling and sneakily powerful, any of the three or four genres he tackles done exactly the right way.