GINUWINE A Man's Thoughts Notify/Asylum/Warner Bros. Ginuwine, the incredibly well-toned singer known for mixing rhythm and raunch, seeks to show he's not all about the physical here: He can still wind it and grind it, but he has evolved into a man who isn't afraid to share his emotions.
MICHAEL JOHNS Hold Back My Heart Downtown/Fontana Aussie Michael Johns couldn't parlay his photogenic stage presence and facility for turning old Dolly Parton and Queen tunes into fresh, soulful laments on American Idol into better than an eighth-place finish in 2008. Even Jason Castro finished four positions higher. Bad voters!
R & B AL B. SURE! Honey I'm Home Hidden Beach Recordings ½ Al B. Sure!, who found success with his falsetto in the '80s as one of New Jack Swing's most popular singers, returns with his first studio release in more than 15 years. Singing over a steady backup of lush vocal harmonies and hip-hop riffs, he sets a laid-back groove on Honey I'm Home and expectedly delivers convincingly on the slow jams about the ups and downs of love.
MOS DEF The Ecstatic Downtown ½ It may seem like ages ago, but Mos Def was once known for his music. As one of the faces of the now-defunct Rawkus records, Mos helped bring underground, socially conscience hip-hop to the spotlight at the peak of mainstream excessiveness and flashiness. But while he focused on his acting career in the 2000s, the music suffered with two sloppy, meandering albums that left much to be desired (including album artwork and a booklet in the case of the bare-bones...
ART BRUT Art Brut vs. Satan Downtown You have to love any band that cops influence from the Fall, and even takes its name from French painter Jean Debuffet's outsider aesthetic. In his wonky, witty work, singer-lyricist Eddie Argos inherits the mantle of clever punk held by Johnny Lydon, Ian Dury and Damon Albarn, preserving the best qualities of each.
GRIZZLY BEAR Veckatimest Warp Records ½ Animal Collective, Fleet Foxes, Grizzly Bear: These days, there's a zoo full of melodically gifted indie-rock mammals who have spent ample time hibernating in their bedrooms with their Beach Boys records. Grizzly Bear, which doesn't sound the slightest bit ferocious but comes by its moniker honestly (the drummer's name is Christopher Bear), is a Brooklyn quartet of NYU grads whose third album is named after a small island off Cape Cod. Sometimes...
The singer-songwriter Yusuf enjoys the reaction he gets driving through London in his '60s-vintage VW Kombi van, which is custom-painted with artwork from his days as the artist known as Cat Stevens -- including images depicting such huge hits as Peace Train and Moonshadow.
GREEN DAY 21st Century Breakdown Reprise Urgent and visceral, with a raging but earnest punk heartbeat, Green Day's 21st Century Breakdown is a dizzying emotional and musical barrage.
EMINEM Relapse Aftermath ½ As the sound of flatulence emits on We Made You, Eminem's first big single after a four-year hiatus, the rapper born as Marshall Mathers says ``you think that's bad, you should hear the rest of my album.''
BOB DYLAN Together Through Life Columbia Records At 67 and his 53rd recording, Dylan is beyond righteousness, attitude, politics or anything but a bitter sense of loss, love, and humanity (or the lack thereof). Together Through Life sends a blues powered shot to the gut and the heart, with a deceptively simple set of songs with a deep, disconcerting resonance.
DEPECHE MODE Sounds of the Universe Mute/EMI ½ With Depeche Mode's 12th studio CD, baritone vocalist and recently flourishing songwriter David Gahan, principal songwriting instrumentalist/angelic singer Martin Gore, and, um, the other guy, do something odd in comparison with the band's recent bombastically rocking albums.
Rick Ross Deeper Than Rap Def Jam Rick Ross, who hails from Carol City, has established a Tony Montana persona big enough to fill his burly stature: He claims to be a prolific crime lord with visions of a drug-and-violence filled Miami, as well as a wealthy, yacht-hopping womanizer.
NEIL YOUNG Fork in the Road Warner Bros. ½ ''Taking a trip across the U.S.A., going to see a lot of people along the way,'' Neil Young sings on When Worlds Collide at the start of Fork in the Road, his loosely constructed concept album about his electric car, the LincVolt.
YEAH YEAH YEAHS It's Blitz! Interscope The Yeah Yeah Yeahs are doing an excellent job of growing up -- and transforming themselves -- in public. Used to be, the trio got by on fashionista Karen O's banshee yelp, backed by the headlong rush provided by Nick Zinner's power-chord crunch and Brian Chase's thumping drums. The band still utilizes those elements, and it hasn't entirely broken the habit of hurtling forward with ecstasy in its sights.
FLO RIDA R.O.O.T.S. (Route of Overcoming the Struggle) Atlantic ½ The last time we heard from Flo Rida -- throaty rapper extraordinaire -- the South Florida gentleman went as Low as he could go.
KERI HILSON In a Perfect World Mosley/Interscope ½ It's no secret singer-songwriter Keri Hilson's debut has been kicking around for nearly a year, finally landing a release date thanks to the success of her collaboration with Lil Wayne, Turnin' Me On.
THE-DREAM Love vs. Money Def Jam ½ The self-proclaimed ''radio killa'' and ''R&B gorilla'' writer/producer behind Rihanna's Umbrella and Beyonce's Single Ladies takes to his second CD with sex on his mind and a bizarre sense of melody and rhythm at his fingertips. There are bolts of dissonance in his beats and multilayered operas, and grouchiness in his funny, often loving lyrics. Take Fancy and its lengthy stretch of jazzy, soul chords, or Sweat It Out and its daffy look at sartorial...
KELLY CLARKSON All I Ever Wanted RCA/19 ½ Forget Tatiana Del Toro's histrionic melodramatics on American Idol's current season. Kelly Clarkson is the show's original drama queen.
Fifth season American Idol winner Taylor Hicks suffered the usual Idol indignity: Win the show and rush-release a mediocre major-label album. Then get dropped. Hicks returns as an independent artist with The Distance and . . . it's not bad.
U2 No Line on the Horizon Interscope Records On the title track of U2's latest album, No Line on the Horizon, frontman Bono sings ``Every night I have the same dream/I'm hatching some plot, scheming some scheme.''
MELINDA DOOLITTLE Coming Back to You Hi Fi Recordings ½ Melinda Doolittle, a Top 3 finalist on the sixth season of American Idol, releases her soulful and frisky debut on Tuesday, and it's a quantum cut above the Idol norm. Al Green, Tina Turner, Gladys Knight and Sarah Vaughan are not physically on this 13-track disc, but Doolittle absorbed their auditory DNA while listening to their records as a young girl in Tennessee, and their influences bleed through on this raw and rockin' disc...
BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN Working on a Dream Columbia ½ Bruce Springsteen's first album of the Obama era is infused with the same sense of buoyant optimism the nation is feeling as the president enjoys his first days in office. Songs like the sunny title track with its Elton John-like ''oo-la-la-la'' backing harmonies, the infectious power-pop bounce of Surprise, Surprise and the lush Kingdom of Days are as endearing as anything in the Springsteen canon.
RSS|
My Yahoo|
Newsletters|
Widgets|
Mobile|
Alerts|
Twitter
About The Miami Herald| About the McClatchy Company| Terms of Use & Privacy Statement| Corrections| Contact Us| Advertise
Partners: El Nuevo Herald| Newspaper in Education| WLRN | Miami Herald News| CBS4 WFOR-TV| More
Copyright 2009 Miami Herald Media Co. All rights reserved
