album reviews
The English Beat
The Complete Beat Shout! Factory
The English Beat snuck in under the banner of the 2-Tone ska revival, and on albums like their 1980 debut, I Just Can't Stop It, they showed off a rhythmic attack as buoyant as any north of the Caribbean. But the band's secret weapon was pop, the ear-candy tunes and sharp-fanged lyrics of frontman Dave Wakeling – at his finest, a singer-songwriter as savagely witty as Elvis Costello. This five-CD box set features the band's three great studio albums, plus terrific bonus t... | More »
Tom Findlay
Late Night Tales—Music for Pleasure Late Night Tales
Many DJs mine Seventies AM gold for inspiration, but this mix from London vet Findlay (half of Groove Armada) dives all the way in. Seamlessly and shamelessly blending the obvious (Boz Scaggs' "Lowdown") with the semi-obscure (Hall & Oates' "I'm Just a Kid"), it's a set your mother could love – and recognize. Listen to 'Late Night Tales – Music for Pleasure': | More »
Maroon 5
Overexposed A&M/Octone
It takes chutzpah for a band to call its fourth album Overexposed, especially when the singer has spent most of the past year zinger-slinging in a comfy red chair on The Voice. You can hear that chutzpah in the blinged-up disco sheen of Maroon 5's new LP, which is why it's their best yet. This is where Adam Levine cops to the slick Hollywood sex-panther role he's perfected on TV, wheedling and pitching woo to every lady within earshot, even though they know he won't rememb... | More »
Linkin Park
Living Things Machine Shop/Warner Bros.
Linkin Park showed up to the rap-rock mixer late, but they were the first band with a DJ to sound so utterly alienated, hitching Chester Bennington's existential wail to the suburban swagger of Mike Shinoda's rhymes. Five LPs in, they've traded turntable scratches for dub-step flourishes, but still lean on Bennington's harrowing hooks, including the one on "Burn It Down," one of their best singles yet. But while they've spiffed up their sound for the dance floor, the ... | More »
R. Kelly
Write Me Back RCA
R. Kelly's second consecutive throwback soul LP moves forward in time from the raw mid-Sixties-style belting of 2010's Love Letter. Write Me Back is suave, string-swathed Seventies revivalism, with tips of the hat to Barry White, Off the Wall-era Michael Jackson and Marvin Gaye. It's virtuoso pastiche – but Kelly's Seventies are freakier than your dad's. The distant lover in "One Step Closer" gets play-by-play of R.'s commute home, which culminates in oral ... | More »
The Offspring
Days Go By Columbia
Nine albums in, these Cali punks are coasting by on dourly told jokes and reheated mad-at-the-world bluster. The low point is the deliberately bubbleheaded Dr. Luke rip "Cruising California," a "gag" track with no laughs in sight. Songs like "Dirty Magic," which sounds like an hommage to Nevermind’s deep cuts, will at least aid ex-mall punks looking to work out midlife crises via adolescent angst. Listen to 'Days Go By': Related• Full Album Premiere: The Offspring Stret... | More »
King Tuff
King Tuff Sub Pop
If "Keep On Movin'" is to be believed, King Tuff's guitar doesn't shred, it "drools." That's an appropriate visual: The greasy, catchy garage-pop on the Vermont-bred singer's second record sneers like convenience store parking lot stoners. Black-and-blue bruisers "Anthem" and "Bad Thing" benefit from some chicken-fried riffing, but Tuff is just as good in the slower moments. The dewy-eyed, piano-bar gospel of "Swamp of Love" suggests that, under the leather jacket and... | More »
Kitty Pryde
Ha Ha I’m Sorry EP self-released
"Rap game Taylor Swift" crows teenage internet sensation Kitty Pryde, and she's not far off: like Swift, the Daytona Beach, Florida rapper is a whip-smart young woman from the suburbs with a gift for pouring her loves and loathings into sharp, catchy songs. Of course, Kitty Pryde is a lot hipper, and a lot less PG, than Swift. On her new EP she rhymes – wittily and deftly but with an appealing casualness – about drunk-dialing and coke-snorting; she repurposes Carly Rae Jepsen... | More »
Fiona Apple
The Idler Wheel... Epic
A Fiona Apple record is a study in meticulousness and mayhem. The meticulousness is in the music – the rigorous art-pop constructions that mark Apple as an heir to songwriting sophisticates like Stephen Sondheim and Elvis Costello. And the mayhem? That's Apple herself. For a decade and a half she has been one of pop's most volatile presences: pouting, lamenting, raging, jabbing a poison pen at ruthless fate and callous ex-lovers, but always turning her most savage attacks inwa... | More »
Kylie Minogue
The Best of Kylie Minogue EMI
With electronic grooves dominating Top 40 radio, Australia's Kylie Minogue and her euphoric dance pop are more relevant than ever. This 21-track set plays like a crash course in the history of international club style – from the aerobic corn of her fluke 1988 hit "The Loco-Motion" to 2010's feistier French house-inspired "Get Outta My Way." Listen to 'The Best of Kylie Minogue':Related• Photos: Random Notes | More »
Music Reviews
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star ratingOverexposed -
star ratingLiving Things -
star ratingDays Go By
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star ratingWrite Me Back -
star ratingKing Tuff -
star ratingHa Ha I’m Sorry EP
Photos & Videos
Random Notes: Hottest Rock Pictures
Gallery: How 18 Musicians Came Out
