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New Releases For The Week Of October 29, 2007
Edited by Jonathan Cohen
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Britney In The 'Black'
There's an appropriate bleakness to "Blackout," Britney Spears' first Jive album in four years, and her first as a tabloid figure rather than a vibrant teen idol. The hazy-eyed bump-and-grind of her "Gimme More" MTV Video Music Awards performance fits all this material: It's defiant like a bad drunk, uncomfortably oversexed and more at home in a seedy after-hours club than a celebrity ultra-lounge.
"Blackout" was moved from a Nov. 13 release to this week due to widespread leaks of its songs. Among the collaborators on the album are producers Bloodshy & Avant on "Piece of Me," "Toy Soldier," "Freakshow" and "Radar," Kara DioGuardi on "Heaven and Earth" and Nate "Danjahandz" Hills on "Gimme More," "Get Naked (I Got a Plan)," "Hot As Ice" and "Perfect Lover."
T-Pain is credited as one of three writers on "Hot As Ice," while Pharrell Williams wrote, co-produced (as half of the Neptunes) and sings backup on closer "Why Should I Be Sad."
The music ranges from shockingly minimal-"Piece of Me" and "Radar" have the synth fugues and smudgy bass of current underground electro and little else-to novelty pop, like the J.J. Fad-styling of "Freakshow" and Gwen Stefani-ripping snare march of "Toy Soldier." Spears is threatening or seducing, or both, on every track.
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The Boys Are Back In Town
After an extended break and the loss of original member Kevin Richardson, the Backstreet Boys return this week "Unbreakable," their latest studio album for Jive Records. The first single, the piano-heavy rock ballad "Inconsolable," topped out at No. 21 on the Adult Contemporary chart.
Richardson, who exited in June 2006, was not replaced in Backstreet Boys, which also features Nick Carter, Brian Littrell, Howie Dorough and AJ McLean. The group is celebrating its 10th anniversary on Jive this year.
"The one thing about being in a five-part vocal harmony group is that it makes it a lot easier," Carter says. "I'm not saying we couldn't sing a cappella better or just as well [with Kevin], but people who know the Backstreet Boys know what we can do and it wasn't too hard. We're all great singers so we can all cover different ranges. AJ sings bass too. I can sing bass. So, we just cover the parts."
Carter also feels the pressure to return to multi-platinum heights has been lifted, allowing the group to enjoy doing what it does best. "We know that we're an entertainment group. We like to dance and sing, and the stage show is one of the biggest assets that we bring," says Carter. "When we were in the studio, we just wanted to create something that was true to us, but at the same time an evolution of some sort."
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The Long 'Road'
Fans who have waited since 1979 for a new studio album from the Eagles surely won't be disappointed with "Long Road Out of Eden," which arrives this week. The two-disc set, which will be available exclusively at Wal-Mart in North America, bears the Eagles Recording Co. imprint.
The album features a wealth of Don Henley/Glenn Frey co-writes and a broad palette of musical styles most representative of the band's "Hotel California" and "The Long Run" eras, a mix of lengthy set pieces and more Cali-rock, radio-oriented gems. The set, which opens with the gentle but foreboding harmony-fest "No More Walks in the Wood," is part social commentary, part examination of the human condition and part re-introduction of the band via new and powerful songs.
"We've always had love songs and we've always had social commentary," Henley says. "I think we've gotten a little bit better at both ends of the spectrum. In fact, I think our love songs have matured a little bit and the social commentary has matured, as well, and gotten maybe a little bolder. But, it's an Eagles album. It's all over the map, both musically and subject-wise."
The Eagles are known for their environmental activism, prompting some questions as to why they'd work with a giant corporation such as Wal-Mart. Frey responds, "I am in the business of selling records and I want to be in a place where we have the opportunity to sell the most records. It's also nice that Wal-Mart pays us a very lucrative royalty; a royalty that no record company could come close to matching. But that's because we are not a loss leader at Wal-Mart. If the Eagles put out a record at Warner or any other major record label, part of the reason they can't pay up is we've got to pay for all of the bad acts they sign and release."
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Ghetto Blasters
"You guys used to be good. What's up?!?!" "Why'd you sell out? GO BACK TO SCREAMO!!!" Opinions like that were commonplace on message boards in the wake of Avenged Sevenfold's 2005 album "City of Evil," on which the Huntington Beach, Calif.-based fivesome outfitted its speedy hard-rock chug with dramatic film-score strings, fluttering acoustic guitars and Queen-style vocal harmonies.
Frontman M. Shadows says he knew his band was in for some backlash as a result of that stylistic exploration. But two years after its release, he points out that whatever griping "City of Evil" provoked from old-school Avenged fans has been readily drowned out by the success of the album, which spawned the "TRL"-topping video for "Bat Country" and has sold 834,000 copies in the United States, according to Nielsen SoundScan.
This week, Avenged returns with a self-titled Warner Bros. set that Shadows says represents the latest step in the band's "upward trajectory" -- and once again he's not at all worried about what the group's detractors might have to say.
"We've always been very ambitious in terms of our goals and our dreams of where we want the band to be," the singer says. "When we write, we're not after the craziest or the heaviest thing. We're not in the mind-set of, 'Let's thrash as hard as possible.' We're interested in making something palatable that still has heavy guitars and different metal elements. We like pop music, and we want to get people listening."
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Additional titles hitting stores this week include:
The soundtrack to the Bob Dylan-focused film "I'm Not There" (Columbia), featuring Dylan covers by Sonic Youth, Eddie Vedder, Stephen Malkmus, Willie Nelson and Jeff Tweedy, among many others.
Country up-and-comer Josh Turner's "Everything Is Fine" (MCA Nashville).
Latino rapper Baby Bash's "Cyclone" (Arista).
Expanded reissues of the Joy Division albums "Unknown Pleasures," "Closer" and "Still," plus the soundtrack to the Ian Curtis biopic "Control" (Rhino).
Tool frontman Maynard James Keenan's debut from his side project Puscifer, "V is for Vagina" (Puscifer).
Teenage hip-hop outfit the Pack's "Based Boys" (Jive).
Television guitarist Richard Lloyd's "The Radiant Monkey" (Parasol).
R&B veteran Will Downing's "After Tonight" (Concord).
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Carrie Underwood is still generating hits from her six-million-selling debut, "Some Hearts," but she's front and center with a new effort this week. Her sophomore album, "Carnival Ride" (19 Recordings/Arista Nashville) is led by the single "So Small," which made Underwood the first female to debut in the Hot Country Songs top 20 in 43 years.
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Robert Plant shocked many by agreeing to play a one-off show with Led Zeppelin in November in London. But he isn't particularly concerned that his fans might be taken by surprise by "Raising Sand," his new collaboration with bluegrass bigwig Alison Krauss.
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Ween was always one of the more curious major-label signings of the early-'90s alternative rock explosion. After all, the cult favorite Pennsylvania duo preferred to dabble in every genre imaginable (they even made a full-fledged country album in 1996) than attempt to court the favor of radio.
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Neil Young is borrowing the intended title for a 30-year-old shelved album for "Chrome Dreams II," due this week via Reprise.
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