album reviews
Fela Kuti and Egypt 80
Live in Detroit, 1986 Knitting Factory
When Fela Kuti played this 1986 gig, he'd just spent 20 months in prison on charges brought by a Nigerian dictator. So the Afrobeat godfather's always-present indignation has particular bite on this live LP, as he and a band of 27 unspool powerful jams that mix funk, jazz and traditional African music. The sound quality isn't ideal, but Fela's bruising music is. Listen to 'Live in Detroit, 1986': Related• Photos: Random Notes | More »
Allo Darlin'
Europe Slumberland
"You said a record is not just a record/Records can hold memories," Elizabeth Morris sighs on a wistful ballad called "My Sweet Friend." It’s an apt thesis for her U.K. band's second disc of sparkling indie-pop love songs. Morris' narrators use music to measure their lives: hunting for a bar that has Toots and the Maytals on the jukebox, missing a friend who loves the Silver Jews, cheering on a pal's riot-grrrl band. Allo Darlin's sound is less scattered th... | More »
Lit
The View From The Bottom Megaforce
Post-pop-punk bro-rockers Lit – known for 1999's "My Own Worst Enemy" – return eight years after their last album, three after losing their drummer to cancer. Their ballads now get choked up over bygone glory days, while their Gary Glitter and Bryan Adams riffs sound re-purposed for sports and strip bars. If you can do shots to rote brags about some "redheaded slut" without gagging, you're in, dude. Related• Photos: Random Notes | More »
Justin Bieber
Believe RBMG/Schoolboy/Island
The rise of Justin Bieber was such a blinding explosion of hair and smiles and YouTube cuteness that it was easy to miss his music's ironic achievement: its light touch. His first two releases – the 2009 EP My World and 2010's full-length My World 2.0 – were snuggle-fresh and butterfly-light, luxuriating in R&B bubblegum and first-blush puppy lust. At a time when 12-year-olds can get porn on their iPod Touches, the Biebs made flirty innocence thrive. But Justin'... | More »
Kool A.D.
51 Greedhead / Mishka / Veehead
Kool A.D. of Das Racist headed to Oakland to cut his second mixtape of 2012, but he clearly brought along the stoned flows and dense, hyper-referential punchlines that made his crew internet famous: "Hard to read like a cryptogram/Lady Gaga, Poker Face, chips in hand," he rhymes on the Dipset-esque Marvin Gaye-sampling "No". Producer Amaze 88's quirky soul loops are all highlights, but the project veers off course when A.D. taps Bay Area-beatmaker Young L, and derails entirely (and possi... | More »
Actress
R.I.P. Honest Jons
Like his genre-dodging homeboys Burial and James Blake, England's Darren Cunningham, a.k.a. Actress, makes electronic dance music full of surface-noise nostalgia and bass-heavy, cybernetic soul. Where Burial focuses on vibe depth and Blake on dub-carved songcraft, Actress takes a more ADHD approach, jumping between ideas and emptying the pantry into his abstract LPs. The vocal shards that crowded his thrilling 2010 Splazsh are mostly gone here (as the title hints), replaced by ... | More »
Kelly Hogan
I Like To Keep Myself In Pain Anti-
Kelly Hogan is a go-to indie-rock vet whose sweet-tea vocals have shorn up records by Neko Case and plenty of others. Her second solo set conjures Seventies AM radio country 'n'soul with songs commissioned from genre outliers – M. Ward, Andrew Bird, Robyn Hitchcock, Vic Chesnutt, Stephen Merritt. It's meta Loretta Lynn, played straight; when she wails on the faintly arch title track, the pain sounds like no joke. Listen to 'I Like To Keep Myself In Pain': Rela... | More »
Waka Flocka Flame
Triple F Life: Friends, Fans & Family Brick Squad Monopoly/Warner Bros.
In one of his new album’s more endearing moments, Atlanta MC Waka Flocka Flame eats a bag of chips, punctuating chomps with a zesty burp and a slurred "'scuse me." Consider it artistic growth; 2010's Flockaveli made no 'scuses for its mesmerizingly dumb intensity. Triple F is another set of barked strip-club salvos ("Versace on my ass/Two bands for my underwear/Foreign cars, foreign broads, baller of the year"), over high-hats and slurry synths from producer L... | More »
Usher
Looking 4 Myself RCA
The only thing that rings false on Usher's seventh LP is the title: If there's anyone in music who doesn't have an identity crisis, it's Usher Raymond; the theme here, such as it is, is his own versatility. Club rave-ups, hip-hop ballads, synth pop, blaxploitation funk, a Max Martin song, a Will.i.am jam that borrows from "Uptown Girl" – all here. You'll need the deluxe edition to hear Usher sing, "Let's get together and exchange fuck faces." It's a ri... | More »
Bobby Womack
The Bravest Man in the Universe XL
Sixty-eight-year-old soul survivor Bobby Womack lent his growl on the last two Gorillaz LPs, so this foray into dubby digital funk with Damon Albarn and English record exec Richard Russell doesn't feel at all like a stretch. He's at home testifying over coolly throbbing beats, and on the anti-war title track Womack pleads for brotherly forgiveness over an ominous, jazz-tinged creeping – a classic sentiment updated for the era of drone attacks and wiretaps. Listen to 'The... | 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
