EW review: Bice's 'Thing' is mediocre

Also: Generic Jamie Foxx

By Tom Sinclair
Entertainment Weekly

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(Entertainment Weekly) -- Bo Bice's debut CD may share a title with a 1971 live album by Taj Mahal ("The Real Thing"), but the two discs couldn't be more different.

In sharp contrast to Mahal's down-home warmth, Bice traffics in lowest-common-denominator power ballads and sickeningly slick corporate rock. If titles like ''U Make Me Better'' and ''Hold On to Me'' don't tip you off to the aesthetic direction, the presence of guest stars/song doctors like Nickelback's Chad Kroeger and Bon Jovi's Jon Bon Jovi and Richie Sambora ought to. The bland hackwork arrangements only emphasize his wholly unremarkable competence.

Bottom line: Skip this "Thing" -- and go pick up Taj Mahal's.

EW Grade: C

'Unpredictable,' Jamie Foxx

Reviewed by Michael Endelman

Ignore the title -- "Unpredictable." Jamie Foxx's debut album is exactly what you'd expect from this sort of vanity project: plenty of competent-if-generic R&B booty jams and Cristal-sippin' anthems with a who's who of cameos (Kanye West, Ludacris, Mary J. Blige) that only a suitcase of cash or celebrity status can snag.

We know that Foxx can actually sing, but this ballad-heavy disc of cliched wordplay and commonplace melodies proves his music career should've ended on screen.

EW Grade: C-

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