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T-Pain
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Published: November 20, 2008
Updated: 11/19/2008 08:05 pm
T-Pain
Thr33 Ringz
Label: Nappy Boy/Konvict/Jive
If you like: Lil Wayne,Chris Brown, Missy Elliott
Song to download: "Keep Going"
In the past year, T-Pain has gone from laughingstock to innovator. His once-signature cyborgesque Auto-Tune-enhanced vocals have almost become a genre norm, thanks to high-profile imitators. The result -- T-Pain has also made the transformation into indignant complainer.
The new Thr33 Ringz makes the case for his misunderstood genius by reasserting that no one has a better idea of how to make a T-Pain song than T-Pain. Check out "Long Lap Dance," a long song about how a fixed-price private dance in a strip club is a better bargain if the accompanying song is longer. It has all the T-Pain hallmarks -- robotic vocals, mild raunch, humor -- but it is far gentler than his previous work, as is the rest of this album, one of the softest soul albums in recent memory.
The track "Blowing Up" recalls the ecstatic dance-soul records of the mid-1980s, flirty but not lascivious.
It's a genuine shift for T-Pain, who has long flirted with lewdness (as he does on the bass-music-influenced "Superstar Lady"). But on most songs he recalls no one so much as Missy Elliott, who also works the eccentric edges of hip-hop, using sexual whimsy and rhythmically savvy melodies.
Like Elliott, T-Pain is a style-maverick operating from just outside the hip-hop mainstream. Unlike her, he wants more. "Keep Going" is a shockingly straightforward ode to his family. The raw emotion surprises, but so does the delivery mode -- gone are the robotic vocals.
Instead, T-Pain sings unadorned, and sings well. Maybe after months of having rappers imitate his every move, he just wanted something that couldn't be copied.
— Joe Caramanic
The New York Times
Southside Johnny with LaBamba's Big Band
Grapefruit Moon: The Songs of Tom Waits
Label: Leroy Records
If you like: Ray Charles big band
Song to download: "Down, Down, Down"
It's become popular in recent years for performers to interpret the music of Tom Waits. But Grapefruit Moon: The Music of Tom Waits, a mating of singer Southside Johnny Lyon and Richie LaBamba's Big Band, works better than all previous sustained attempts.
Lyon is no spring chicken; he and his band, the Asbury Jukes, have been making horn-driven bar-band albums for more than 30 years. But his voice, all R&B passion and soulful grit, is terrific and proves a perfect substitute for Wait's phlegmatic growl. And LaBamba's Big Band -- a virtuosic, powerhouse horn-heavy band -- swings with breathtaking power.
Inventive horn arrangements entwine Latin music, New Orleans jazz, Ray Charles-style R&B and the hipper side of Henry Mancini. Solos blend R&B and jazz; the song selection is perfect; and the performances pull the full melodic and lyrical artistry of Waits' work from within the cacophonous arrangements he often favors. Waits even joins for a song. Delightful.
— Ed Bumgardner
relish staff writer
The Antlers
In The Attic of the Universe
Label: Fall Records
If you like: Neutral Milk Hotel, Sigur Ros, Jeff Buckley, Bon Ivers
Song to download: "Stairs to the Attic"
The Antlers is now a full band, but the name has long been a pseudonym for Pete Silberman, a 21-year-old singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist who wrote, performed and recorded the whole of In The Attic of the Universe, an eight-song musical experience.
It's the sort of disc that is not easily pigeonholed. Short, ambient interludes introduce lovely songs that are dynamically shrewd, instrumentally spare and deceptively primitive (this is a home recording).
Silberman possesses an extraordinary voice, a haunting, expressive instrument that falls between that of the late Jeff Buckley and Jeff Magnum of Neutral Milk Hotel. Songs begin simply on guitar to explode into majestic, widescreen sunbursts of musical color that mesmerize.
Silberman's virtuosity seems effortless, and his way with melody is unobtrusively impressive. The album's multitude of captivating hooks almost takes away from wistful lyrics that are akin to shared secrets. The disc is short -- 27 minutes -- but its haunting beauty and lack of pretense leave you desperate for more.
— Ed Bumgardner
relish staff writer
Snow Patrol
A Hundred Million Suns
Label: Geffen
If you like: Keane
Song to download: "If There's a Rocket Tie Me to It"
Few songwriters can capture the vulnerability and humor of being stupid in love as masterfully as Gary Lightbody, the singer and the main songwriter for Snow Patrol.
Lightbody's fascination with the insular world of lovers is the heart of the band's new A Hundred Million Suns. Opening tracks "If There's a Rocket Tie Me to It" and "Crack the Shutters" seem placed to reassure fans who connected with the heart-on-sleeve emotionalism of "Chasing Cars," the band's breakthrough hit of 2006.
But Lightbody also takes steps outside that private world: "Lifeboats," "The Golden Floor" and "The Planets Bend Between Us" trade modern-rock's ADD rhythms for relaxed tempos that leave space to ponder the delights and perils of human bonding.
The closing "The Lightning Strike" --16-minutes and three movements -- uses repetitive minimalism and pop accessibility to chart the stages that love can travel -- fear and risk, comfort and security, liberation and transcendence.
— Randy Lewis
Los Angeles Times
Brad Paisley
Play
Label: Arista Nashville/SonyBMG
If you like: High-quality guitar playing
Song to download: "Cluster Pluck"
Brad Paisley's ticket is his voice and songwriting, but fans who listen close also understand the importance of his dazzling string-bending and inventively melodic guitar playing.
The guitar's the star on Play, Paisley's new disc. For the most part, Paisley shuts up and plays, tilting the album toward guitar instrumentals that show off his speed, technique and range. He plays surf, rockabilly, blues and swing -- and, of course, various types of country -- including a Bakersfield-style country-rocker with his old friend, Buck Owens, recorded shortly before Owens' death in 2007.
On the humorous "Start A Band," one of the few tunes with lyrics, Paisley and Keith Urban celebrate a young musician forming his first group. Actor Andy Griffith shows up on a track, and on "Cluster Pluck," Paisley gathers seven ace country guitarists. B.B. King even picks a bit.
Amazingly, Paisley's good-time humor and tender romanticism emerge even when he lets his fingers do the talking.
— Michael McCall
The Associated Press
Bloc Party
Intimacy
Label: Atlantic
If you like: The Cure, The Fall, Keane
Song to download: "Signs"
"What's with all this doom and gloom?" prods singer Kele Okereke of Bloc Party near the close of Intimacy, the band's third album. He seems to be talking to a past or present lover, as he does in most of the other songs here. But the line, from an engrossing track called "Better Than Heaven," might as well be self-directed. Okereke, a lead singer and lyricist given to theatrical dourness, has lately been willing himself to cheer up.
Not that he's suddenly an optimist. Intimacy is a breakup album. It may not conjure doom and gloom, but it is hardly sanguine.
The group pushes toward full-blown eclecticism; for every urgent guitar riff there's an industrial-sounding synthesizer blast or viciously chopped-up beat. At times the music, like the lyrics, does illuminate the problem of a band taking itself too seriously. Bloc Party has always favored drama, and there's plenty of precedent for overblown sentiment when it comes to pop and broken hearts.
But tellingly, the clouds part in the end.
— Nate Chenen
The New York Times
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