Mary J. Blige: The Breakthrough

CML call number: CD/R&B/Blige
Artist website: http://www.mjblige.com/
Reviews: http://www.villagevoice.com/music/0604,king,71818,22.html
As Jason King wrote in the Voice: "Marketing herself on The Breakthrough as a seen-it-all guru for the united association of jilted sisters, Yonkers's favorite daughter joins will.i.am to rework Nina [Simone]'s epochal 1965 'Feeling Good' into 'About You.' . . . The summer mix-tape hit 'MJB da MVP' is a chronological rehash of her 14-year career set adrift on a chugging The Game sample. . . . Exec-produced by MJB, The Breakthrough improves on 2003's Diddy-helmed misfire Love & Life. . . . Rodney Jerkins's militant 'Enough Cryin' and Raphael Saadiq's vintage 'I Found My Everything' exemplify the album's robust songwriting."
According to She's a Rebel: The History of Women in Rock & Roll, Expanded Second Edition by Gillian G. Gaar (2002; 781.66/Gaar): "Mary J. Blige's mix of smooth vocals over a bed of dance beats gave her a broad appeal; she was eventually dubbed 'the queen of hip-hop soul'" (p. 421).

Sia: Colour the Small One

CML call number: CD/POPULAR/Sia
Artist website: http://www.siamusic.net/home/
Jon Pareles wrote in the New York Times: "Sia's voice is breathy and patchy, as if she'd just stopped sobbing, through most of her second album, 'Colour the Small One' (Astralwerks), which is beng released this week. One song from it, 'Breathe Me,' orchestrated the finale of 'Six Feet Under,' and it's of a piece with the rest of the album: starting out slow and fragile, with a handful of instruments and a fringe of electronics, as Sia confesses to despair and vulnerability. As the down-tempo tracks subtly fill out, steadying themselves, her voice becomes more determined and resolute yet no less delicate. Sia makes Dido sound complacent and makes Sarah McLachlan sound extravagant. Her songs are full of regrets and uncertainties, but the melodies are all she needs to cling to" ("Playlist: From the Heretics of Three-Chord Rock to the Demons of Dion," 1/8/06).
According to her website, Sia herself says, "I just wanted to write an album that was me: a small, weird, needy freak. It's a slow burner, but it's honest."

Mariah Carey: The Emancipation of Mimi

CML call number: CD/POPULAR/Carey
Artist website: http://www.mariahcarey.com/
Winner of the Grammy for best contemporary R&B album; the song "We Belong Together" won best female R&B vocal performance and best R&B song. Worth checking out even if you are not ordinarily into this kind of music. Some of the songs definitely improve with repeated listening.
According to She's a Rebel by Gillian G. Gaar (781.66/Gaar): "A day after graduating from high school in 1987, Carey moved to Manhattan to pursue a singing career . . . eventually landing a job doing backup vocals for Brenda K. Starr. In 1988, Starr brought her to a Columbia Records party, where Carey handed a demo tape . . . to Tommy Mottola, then a Columbia executive. Mottola played the tape on the way home and was impressed enough to return to the party and look for Carey. She was quickly signed to the label. . . . In 1993, she married Mottola. . . . [S]he separated from Mottola in 1997 (they later divorced) and changed her management team. . . . Carey became the only artist to have had a number 1 hit in every year of the [1990s]" (pp. 458-459).

Josh Turner: Your Man

CML call number: CD/COUNTRY/Turner
Artist website: http://www.joshturner.com/
Kelefa Sanneh wrote in the New York Times: "Josh Turner is responsible for the deep voice behind one of the most shameless love songs on country radio. The song is 'Your Man,' from his new album of the same name, and it begins with the three commandments of slow-jammery: 'Baby, lock the door and turn the lights down low/ Put some music on that's soft and slow.' . . . Another of the album's slow jams, 'No Rush,' is even better: it's a sublime piano ballad with half-spoken lyrics ('We've got something special here/ Something worth waiting for') and a gorgeous and quiet refrain. . . . The song most likely to cause a stir is 'White Noise,' an infectious, sing-along country anthem that . . . flirts overtly with white pride. The song, a duet with the country veteran John Anderson . . . pays loving tribute to an old-fashioned 'redneck bar' . . . Near the end, they hedge their bets, announcing, 'It ain't a thing 'bout black and white/ It's Johnny Cash and Charlie Pride [i.e., black country artist Charley Pride]'" ("New CD's," 1/23/06).

KT Tunstall: Eye to the Telescope

CML call number: CD/POPULAR/Tunstall
Artist website: http://www.kttunstall.com/ (note: may not work with Firefox)
Chuck Arnold wrote in People, 2/6/06: "Fresh after James Blunt, another talented U.K. singer-songwriter, KT Tunstall, is set to make a splash across the big pond. Throughout her impressive debut, which brings to mind a bluesier Jewel or a folkier Bonnie Raitt, the Scottish native exhibits such natural-born rootsiness that you'll swear she's all Yankee. Released in November 2004 in the U.K., where it has sold more than 1 million copies, Eye to the Telescope puts the focus squarely on Tunstall in stripped-down settings that showcase her richly textured vocals. Her voice, at times sounding lived-in well beyond her 30 years, can be both earthy (on the funky foot-stomper 'Black Horse and the Cherry Tree") and ethereal (on the gently comforting ballad 'Heal Over'). Even though the album drags a bit in the second half, Tunstall is clearly going places."
An appealing album. Local angle: According to her website, KT attended the Kent School in CT.

Dion: Bronx in Blue

CML call number: CD/R&B/Dion
Artist website: http://www.diondimucci.com/
Contents: Walkin' Blues; You're the One; I Let My Baby Do That; Who Do You Love; Built for Comfort; Crossroads; Travelin' Riverside Blues; You Better Watch Yourself; How Many More Years; Terraplane Blues; Honky Tonk Blues; Baby, What You Want Me to Do; Statesboro Blues; If You Wanna Rock & Roll.
Fred Goodman wrote in the New York Times: "Dion has come back to his prerock roots with 'Bronx in Blue' . . . a spare collection of acoustic blues standards. . . . Accompanying himself deftly on acoustic guitar -- one of the album's surprises -- he added only occasional guitar overdubs and minimal percussion, trying to replicate the feel of blues classics like John Lee Hooker's 'Walkin' Boogie' by miking his foot. Though the album was recorded in a Miami studio, Dion sounds as if he were sitting in his bedroom playing for himself. . . . 'I don't sing black, I don't sing white, I sing Bronx,' he said." ("A King of the Bronx Reclaims His Country-Blues Heart," 1/4/06).

Yellowcard: Lights and Sounds

CML call number: CD/POPULAR/Yellowcard
Artist website: http://www.yellowcardrock.com/
Chuck Arnold wrote in People, 2/6/06: "From Green Day to Fall Out Boy and the All-American Rejects, punk-pop bands are on a real roll. Yellowcard keeps the pogo power going on this rewarding follow-up to the quartet's platinum major-label debut, 2003's Ocean Avenue. While the deceptively upbeat 'Down on My Head,' with its bouncy hooks and pangs of alienation, is the kind of adolescent anthem you might expect from the group, Yellowcard largely eschews the bratty whininess typical of the genre in favor of a more mature, multilayered sound that makes greater use of resident violinist Sean Mackin and his lush string arrangements. The brightest moments on Lights and Sounds are ballads like 'City of Devils' and 'How I Go,' which reveal more emotional depth. Best is 'Two Weeks from Twenty,' a fictional account of a U.S. soldier killed in Iraq just shy of turning 20. Moody and moving, with a jazzy horn part and Beach Boys harmonies, it shows Yellowcard has really come of age."

Gerald Wilson Orchestra: In My Time

CASE MEMORIAL LIBRARY CALL NUMBER: CD/JAZZ/Wilson
REVIEWS: http://www.villagevoice.com/music/0604,davis,71879,22.html
As Francis Davis wrote in the Voice: "The track you should hear is 'Dorian,' a modal romp . . . whose headlong saxophone section writing and overall urbanity are worthy of comparison to '60s Ellington. . . . Wilson is best known for the numerous big-band LPs he recorded for Pacific Jazz in the 1960s. . . . But In My Time is the [album] I'd reach for to persuade a skeptic that we're talking about an overlooked major figure. With the usually drifty pianist Renee Rosnes digging in behind the horns, and Russell Malone, who usually tends toward the humdrum, strumming up suspense on his feature 'Musette,' the ultimate proof of Wilson's talent as a composer might be the way he gooses players to heights you didn't know they could reach. . . . Wilson has always been especially deft at showcasing trumpeters, and some of the most penetrating moments here are from Jeremy Pelt, Jimmy Owens, Jon Faddis (fanning flames on the conquistadorial 'Lomelin'), and Sean Jones. . . . It's all beautifully recorded too" ("Among the Living," 1/25-31/06, p. 72).

Philip Glass: Symphony No. 6 ("Plutonian Ode")

CASE MEMORIAL LIBRARY CALL NUMBER: CD/CLASSICAL/Glass
Allan Kozinn wrote in the New York Times: "Ever since Beethoven's Ninth, composers have fallen over themselves getting vocal music into their symphonies. . . . but there is often a drawback: since the music's primary impulse is symphonic and the singers have to share the stage with the orchestra, sections of text slip into the ether unheard. Dennis Russell Davies has found an imperfect but fascinating solution in his recording of Philip Glass's Symphony No. 6 ("Plutonian Ode"), a 2001 setting of a searing 1978 excoriation of the war machine and nuclear proliferation by Allen Ginsberg. One disc presents the score as it is heard in concert, with Lauren Flanigan giving an emotionally charged, virtuosic account of Mr. Glass's high-flying, disjunct vocal part, and the Bruckner Orchestra Linz pumping its way through the insistently rhythmic instrumental writing. . . . On a second disc, a recording of Ginsberg's own reading is matched to the contours of Mr. Glass's setting, overlaid on the vocal line but not entirely replacing it. . . . [T]he straightforward performance has the edge. But the Ginsberg version is a useful and powerful alternative."

Art Brut: Bang Bang Rock & Roll

CASE MEMORIAL LIBRARY CALL NUMBER: CD/ROCK/Art
ARTIST WEBSITE: http://www.artbrut.org.uk/
The New Yorker wrote: "In the overpopulated genre of British guitar rock -- Franz Ferdinand, Bloc Party, Kaiser Chiefs, and others -- the London five-piece Art Brut stands out, not for its energy but for its comedy. 'Formed a Band,' their breakthrough single, gleefully turns stardom inside out, and the rest of the album is either just as funny ('Moving to L.A.,' 'Good Weekend') or unexpectedly heartfelt ('Emily Kane')" ("Pop Notes: Going Back," 1/9/06, p. 18).
Actually, to this listener's ears, "Emily Kane" is pretty funny too, with lyrics such as "I've not seen her in 10 years, 9 months, 3 weeks, 4 days, 6 hours, 13 minutes, 5 seconds." A lot of the humor is in vocalist Eddie Argos's delivery (never sung, always declaimed), kind of a cross between Fred Schneider of the B-52s and Gang of Four's Jon King. To be honest, I didn't notice any "heartfelt" tracks on Bang Bang Rock & Roll. At the same time, it is not just a comedy record -- the songs have real music as well as plenty of energy. I look forward to hearing them again.

Couperin: Keyboard Music, Vol. 3

CASE MEMORIAL LIBRARY CALL NUMBER: CD/CLASSICAL/Couperin
PERFORMER: Angela Hewitt
James R. Oestreich wrote in the New York Times: "The pianist Angela Hewitt, like her Canadian compatriot Glenn Gould, has devoted much of her career to Bach, usually with excellent results. But in recent years, Ms. Hewitt has also established a sideline specialty in the keyboard works of François Couperin, generally given a wider berth by pianists. Here she completes a three-CD survey of those works in typically fine style. . . . [S]he has taken care to choose the pieces 'which I think are the most interesting and the most suitable to performance on the modern piano.' The main difficulty for pianists in Couperin is an effusion of embellishments, much easier to toss off without overemphasis, let alone clunkiness, on the harpsichord. Ms. Hewitt's handling of all those fleeting lilts and curlicues is a model of lightness and elegance. . . . Ms. Hewitt plays the 13th Order complete, and thus 'Les Folies Françoises, ou Les Dominos,' a wonderful series of miniportraits of figures at a masked ball. As with the disk as a whole, one item proves more delicious than the last."

Cat Power: The Greatest

CASE MEMORIAL LIBRARY CALL NUMBER: CD/ROCK/Cat
ARTIST WEBSITE: http://www.matadorrecords.com/cat_power/
Ben Ratliff wrote in the New York Times: "Chan Marshall, who records under the name Cat Power . . . has an exceptional new album. . . . The title song begins the album gorgeously: a poem about frustrated ambition, told through the story of a boxer, with glittering guitar chords, strings that quote 'Moon River,' and a slow drum rhythm. 'Once I wanted to be the greatest,' she sings. 'Two fists of solid rock / with brains that could explain / any feeling.' But something happens to the boxer: those brains, that lucidity, become smothered. 'Then came the rush of the flood,' it continues, over rest-riddled, backwards-sounding bass lines. 'Stars of night turned deep to dust.' Its potency lies not just in the music, but the hint of its possible truth, the suggestion that Ms. Marshall's erratic run has been a kind of long-haul training regimen -- or that underneath each weird, baleful gesture lies a desire to be incontestably great. 'Could We,' a few tracks later, almost attains the same level. . . ." ("The Slacker Divas' 10th Anniversary Gift," 1/15/06)

Beethoven: Bagatelles

CASE MEMORIAL LIBRARY CALL NUMBER: CD/CLASSICAL/Beethoven
CONTENTS: 7 Bagatelles for Piano, Op. 33; Rondo No. 1 in C, Op. 51; Allegretto in C minor, WoO 53; 11 Bagatelles for Piano, Op. 119; 6 Bagatelles for Piano, Op. 126; Klavierstück in B flat, WoO 60; Bagatelle in A minor, WoO 59 "Für Elise"
PERFORMER: Alfred Brendel
Leon Wieseltier wrote recently in the New York Times: "[Brendel] has . . . demonstrated how big the 'small' Beethoven can be: he makes the Bagatelles, Op. 126, sound like the late works that they are -- sublimity at ease" ("Appreciating Brendel at 75," 1/27/06).
"Apart from his sonatas and variation sets for piano, Beethoven made signal contributions to the genre of the bagatelle: a short, lyrical or whimsical piano piece. . . . Op. 33 appeared in 1802. . . . The Eleven Bagatelles of Op. 119, issued in 1823, juxtapose . . . pieces composed about 1800-1804 with freshly composed pieces. . . . Op. 126 . . . dates from 1824, and represents Beethoven's last important composition for the piano." -- From the liner notes by William Kinderman.

Neil Diamond: 12 Songs

CASE MEMORIAL LIBRARY CALL NUMBER: CD/POPULAR/Diamond
ARTIST WEBSITE: http://www.sonymusic.com/artists/NeilDiamond/
Sasha Frere-Jones wrote: "Diamond's new album, '12 Songs,' which was produced by Rick Rubin, exhibits both his chivalrous approach to romance and his awkwardly phrased enthusiasms, qualities that have been evident since the start of his forty-five-year career. Happily, Rubin reins in Diamond's floridity more than any other producer he has worked with since the sixties, highlighting the weird mixture of guilelessness and gravitas at the center of his work. . . . The album is revealing in its spareness. What few instruments Rubin uses are acoustic, and there is drumming on only one track. At Rubin's insistence, Diamond played the guitar himself, something he hadn't done on a recording in nearly forty years. Rubin understood that Diamond, by being forced to play and sing at the same time, would be less likely to ham it up: '12 Songs' shows what Diamond can do when he is relieved of his crowd-pleasing duties and spangly uniform. . . ." ("Hello, Again," The New Yorker, 1/16/06, pp. 84-85).

U2: How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb

CASE MEMORIAL LIBRARY CALL NUMBER: CD/ROCK/U2
ARTIST WEBSITE: http://www.u2.com/
Chuck Arnold wrote in People's "2006 Grammy Picks": "[T]his is a two-horse race between U2 and [Kanye] West. Had the powerful Atomic Bomb not been released way back in November 2004, we would have tapped Bono and the boys to win. Theirs is probably the better album."
According to Unforgettable Fire by Eamon Dunphy (784.54/U2), the members of U2 were playing together as "The Hype" in 1978 when bassist Adam Clayton decided "they needed a name that would be slightly mysterious, wouldn't pin them down to anything or place in particular. He loved X T C, which was the name of one of the bands around. [Rock singer Steve Rapid] thought about it for a few days before coming up with U2. . . . Nobody knew what it meant, but the name stuck in your brain" (pp. 97-98).

Santana: All That I Am

CASE MEMORIAL LIBRARY CALL NUMBER: CD/ROCK/Santana
ARTIST WEBSITE: http://www.santana.com/
Rolling Stone wrote in their Rock Fall Preview: "'The only thing I won't do is something that is fake, superficial and shallow,' says Carlos Santana, who jams with musicians from Sean Paul to Kirk Hammett on his latest guest-laden album. Steven Tyler sings the power ballad 'Just Feel Better'; American Idol rocker Bo Bice belts the 'smooth'-style 'Brown Skin Girl'; and Mary J. Blige duets with Big Boi on the R&B tune 'My Man.' 'I don't listen to the radio,' says Santana, crediting executive producer Clive Davis with picking many of the guests. More familiar faces were his tourmates Los Lonely Boys, who contributed the slinky 'I Don't Wanna Lose Your Love,' and Michelle Branch, whose acoustic pop tune 'I'm Feeling You' is her second Santana collaboration, following 2002's 'The Game of Love.' But Santana is determined to keep broadening his group's sound. 'A lot of musicians say, "I don't do windows,"' Santana says. 'But to me, life is a big window. . . .'"

Shakira: Oral Fixation, Vol. 2

CASE MEMORIAL LIBRARY CALL NUMBER: CD/ROCK/Shakira
ARTIST WEBSITE: http://www.shakira.com/
Jon Pareles wrote a substantial profile, "The Shakira Dialectic," in the New York Times, 11/13/2005. "Her lyrics . . . mix generalized pop sentiments with unlikely confessional nuggets. In the ballad 'Your Embrace' on her new album, Shakira wonders, 'What's the use of a 24-inch waist if you don't touch me/ Tell me what's the use again of being on TV every day if you don't watch me?' And her music has a savvy but nearly unhinged eclecticism. Another new song, 'Animal City,' starts with an Arabic-flamenco vocal flourish, switches to synth-pop, tosses in some surf guitar and tops it with mariachi horns: 'Never mind the rules we break,' she sings. Even in her more conventional rock or pop songs, her voice is untamed, or rather, her voices: a tearful, sultry alto; a cutting, breaking rock attack; a girlish lilt; a whispery insinuation. . . . [She] was still working on 'Oral Fixation, Vol. 2' after its single, 'Don't Bother,' had been released. She was under deadline pressure by that point but, she says, 'You can't ripen a fruit by hitting it with rocks.'"

Rolling Stones: A Bigger Bang

CASE MEMORIAL LIBRARY CALL NUMBER: CD/ROCK/Rolling
ARTIST WEBSITE: http://www.rollingstones.com/home.php
Chuck Arnold wrote in People: "The Rolling Stones could never record another lick and still sell out stadiums with their considerable catalog. But eight years after releasing their last studio CD, 1997's Bridges to Babylon, the boys are back with a bang, proving that they are more than just the world's biggest oldies act. Indeed, with 16 tracks, the Stones' latest is their longest-running disc since their classic 1972 double album Exile on Main St. Even better, it is long on quality. They sound more fired-up than they have in years on bluesy, raw rockers like 'Rough Justice' and 'Oh No, Not You Again,' on which pouty-mouthed frontman Mick Jagger, at 62, still boasts that same sexy swagger. Meanwhile, twangy ballads such as the achingly regretful 'Biggest Mistake' demonstrate that the Stones were alt-country before alt-country was cool. Guitarist Keith Richards takes the lead on two songs, including the forlorn 'This Place Is Empty,' while the Stones take on President Bush on the biting 'Sweet Neo Con.' . . . "

Miranda Lambert: Kerosene

CASE MEMORIAL LIBRARY CALL NUMBER: CD/COUNTRY/Lambert
ARTIST WEBSITE: http://www.mirandalambert.com/
Sasha Frere-Jones wrote in the New Yorker: "In 2003, when she was just nineteen years old, Miranda Lambert finished third on 'Nashville Star,' the country-music version of 'American Idol,' and was subsequently signed to Sony Records. Her long blond hair and Playmate looks may have helped make her first album this year's biggest-selling solo country debut, but she's no novelty -- the title track, 'Kerosene,' is one of the year's best songs. Lambert wrote it herself, an anomaly in Nashville. It's anomalous in structure, too, closer to rock in its repetitive form: one nagging guitar figure and pounding drums relieved every eight bars by a three-chord turnaround. Lambert has a strong twang, but she's not a belter like last year's rookie sensation Gretchen Wilson -- she lets her verses cruise. The lyrics find Lambert 'giving up on love, 'cause love's given up on me,' but she saves the implicit violence of the title for an entire class: 'Forget your high society, I'm soakin' it in kerosene.' Music historians will note a harmonica quoting the Monkees' 'I'm a Believer' . . ."