Stronger soul power
Kelly Clarkson
KELLY Clarkson goes straight to your heart with a more soulful and gospel sound in her latest album Meaning Of Life.
She kicks things off with Love So Soft, an infectious soul-trap R&B number about, well, a kind of loving that will make your head spin.
In the celebratory Whole Lotta Woman, a sassier Clarkson pays homage to her home state Texas with a lot of lyrical food references. Take your pick from “Pot full of grits, I’m hotter than your mama’s supper, boy” and “All I’m needin’ is a baby to love me/Like a warm biscuit on a Sunday mornin’”. It’s better than the burnt cherry pie of a food-themed song that is Katy Perry’s Bon Appetit.
Then there’s the upbeat 90s jam-inspired Medicine that sounds like the perfect song to kick off a fun night out with the aim to forget about a useless ex. The tender bluesy number Cruel and power ballad I Don’t Think About You are two standout tracks that brilliantly allow Clarkson to showcase the range in her voice. Meaning Of Life is an impressive offering from Clarkson where she breaks her mould and confidently showcases a new side.
Clarkson’s Meaning Of Life is perhaps something that fans have been waiting to embrace for a long time.
– Angelin Yeoh Robert Plant
Grammy for best rock album for a seven-year-old concert recording while the band’s former frontman Robert Plant somehow didn’t even scrounge up a nomination for easily one of the best albums of the year.
Three years later, let’s hope the future doesn’t again get overshadowed by the past.
The 11-track Carry Fire finds Plant backed by his talented band, the Sensational Space Shifters, and thrillingly exploring the same fascinating terrain of rootsy folk and achy blues.
If 2014’s Lullaby And... The Ceaseless Roar seemed very personal and soaked in heartbreak, the new album has Plant in a somewhat happier place and looking to the horizon, perhaps becoming more political.
New World is a bitter look at the way we treat immigrants, Carving Up The World Again mocks border walls and Bones Of A Saint coolly dispatches religious fervour. He pushes deeper than ever into Middle Eastern sounds with the outstanding oud-filled title track, an exhilarating multicultural triumph.
Of course, no one does love like Plant – mature, earthy and world-weary. Here, he seems to have found a new spark – “Lay down in sweet surrender/ Your love so warm and tender,” he sings in the opening song. On another, the standout A Way With Words, he sings: “Coming from the cold/ Reaching for your sweet embrace.”
As with his last album, there are coy nods to his past, like the title of the first song, the strummy anthem May Queen, which Zeppelin fans will instantly recognise from Stairway To Heaven. He sings about “dancing days” here, which is also the title of a song on 1973’s Houses Of The Holy.
There’s an intimacy to Plant’s weathered voice throughout, so intimate in fact that it sometimes feels as if we’re intruding on a very personal moment. He’s also using more modern technology to create an album that seamlessly mixes cello, bendir and Moog synthesizer, backed by the accomplished musicians John Baggott, Justin Adams, Dave Smith and Liam “Skin” Tyson.
If anyone still needs proof of the skills on offer here, look no further than the cover of Ersel Hickey’s Bluebirds Over The Mountain, a rockabilly ditty from the ‘50s of no special importance. Plant and his band – joined by Chrissie Hynde – give it a dark synth texture and menacing guitar, making it closer to a David Bowie tune.
There are few undisputed rock stars this accomplished still taking musical risks. Plant’s songwriting remains a class above, even as he nears 70. “Out here the fire’s still burning/ So long into my night,” he sings. Long may it burn. Kennedy/AP
– Mark
WEEZER doesn’t always get the credit it deserves because it makes everything look so easy.
But on Pacific Daydream, the band’s skills and ambitions lead to an impressive set of Californiadreaming songs.
The Beach Boys influence is heavy here, especially in the gorgeous QB Blitz, where Rivers Cuomo laments not being one of the cool kids, before getting caught in a sweet Pet Sounds moment in the bridge, as he reveals, “I be missing you like oxygen”.
Sweet Mary feels like a wrenching update of the Beach Boys’ Don’t Worry Baby, especially in what feels like a dream sequence breakdown of sunny harmonies where Cuomo reveals, “When I am all on my own, one foot is in the grave, my sweet Mary comes to help me to find my way.”
Oddly enough, Beach Boys, ALL right, stop! Collaborate and listen! On this day in 1990, Vanilla Ice made history when Ice Ice Baby became the first rap song to hit No. 1 on the US Billboard Hot 100 charts.
Vanilla Ice wrote Ice Ice Baby when he was 16 and it was inspired by his experiences of growing up in South Florida. The popularity of the song helped to propel his debut album To The Extreme to the top of the US Billboard 200 chart where it spent eight weeks at No. 1. It eventually sold over 15 million copies worldwide.
However, Vanilla Ice faced a lot of legal issues when Ice Ice Baby became a hit. The song sampled the bass line from Queen and David Bowie’s Under Pressure, but he failed to credit them and as a result, had to pay them for songwriting credits. where Cuomo sings about his love of the band, sounds like the second coming of The Clash.
Weezer also tests the concept’s boundaries, giving the first single Feels Like Summer a dub-influenced hip-hop groove to ride, and making Happy Hour sound like the ‘80s R&B that Bruno Mars has mined. It all helps turn Pacific Daydream into a well-crafted reality. – Glenn Gamboa/Newsday/ Tribune News Service
Then, a rapper who goes by the moniker Chocolate claimed that he helped Vanilla Ice to write the song and did not get paid for his part. An infamous story goes that Chocolate’s associate Suge Knight, well, dangled the rapper over a balcony at his hotel room in the 15th floor to make him sign over royalty rights for the song.
He later claimed that the story is “embellished” and instead, said he had a nice chat with Suge. “He had me look over the edge, showing me how high up I was up there,” he shared with Financial Times in 2015.
Vanilla Ice, who turned 50 this year, is grateful for the success that Ice Ice Baby has brought him.
“I still love singing Ice Ice Baby, and it never gets old,” he said to Entertainment Weekly. – Angelin Yeoh
Franz Ferdinand Always Ascending
Weezer