Williams worries, but she still has it
“Stories From a Rock N Roll Heart” Lucinda Williams (Highway 20 Records/thirty Tigers)
At least twice on her new album, Lucinda Williams worries whether she can still write good songs.
She sings on one cut about putting herself “where the songs will find me.” And on the closer, “Never Gonna Fade Away,” she frets about what happens when “the words don’t rhyme, and I can’t find a line, and I’m looking for a sign, and I’m running out of time.”
Ironically, both are good songs. And while it’s sometimes a bad sign when songwriters bemoan the need for inspiration, Williams’ muse visits her plenty on “Stories From a Rock N Roll Heart.”
The album is, as advertised by the name, a collection of hard-charging rock ’n’ roll. It reflects her resistance to being labeled Americana — though she could legitimately claim a spot on that genre’s Mount Rushmore.
Williams’ honesty and empathy serve her well on “Hum’s Liquor,” a tribute to Bob Stinson, one of the founding members of the seminal rock band The Replacements, who died years ago at the age of 35.
The song, which features Stinson’s younger brother and fellow Replacements founding member Tommy Stinson, demonstrates that Williams, who just turned 70, still has the chops to strike deep emotional chords.
Williams dedicates the entire album to Bob Stinson, “a true rock ’n’ roll heart.”
Her band, a mixture of her regular touring ensemble and others, sounds especially good on a tribute to Tom Petty, who died in 2017. Starting with a winding guitar riff that could have come from Petty’s own Stratocaster, “Stolen Moments” has the power to make you miss him all over again.
It’s worth noting, without making excuses, that Williams has had a rough few years. Her East Nashville home was damaged in a tornado in 2020, and later that year she suffered a minor stroke that left her unable to play the
guitar. That forced her to co-write more songs, working with husband Tom Overby and others. It may also explain why these 10 songs feel more hook-based than centered around her lyrics and why she worries if she still has it.
But the songs do find her, with a big assist from friends and bandmates. The album may not match her best work lyrically, but that’s a high bar — and it’s still good enough to add another important chapter to one of the most important musical journeys of the last half-century.
“The Age of Pleasure” Janelle Monáe (Atlantic Records)
A girl’s gotta relax. A girl’s gotta go with the funk. A girl’s gotta have her fun. Janelle Monáe’s fourth studio album, “The
Age of Pleasure,” is a study in sexy chill by the pool in the sun.
The 14 tracks of panafrican sounds flow into one another seamlessly, some gently ending at around a minute and morphing into the vibe, some declaring loud and clear what they’re about (ahem, “Lipstick Lover”). The artist is not afraid to experiment with sounds from vintage funk, trumpets, flutes, steel drums or jazzy piano or to profess her wish for a smoke, a drink or some vigorous smooching.
Listening to the album is like being at the world’s most polite orgy; the lyrics are dirty and bold, but the sound is mellow, subversive, enveloping you like a safety blanket. This indeed is not the Monáe of “Dirty Computer.” As she declares in the first single on the track list, “Float”: “I am not the same,” someone who boasts of newfound confidence and bisexual conquests on both coasts.
Guests at this party include Seun Kuti on “Float,” Nia Long on “Rush,” Grace Jones on “Oh la la,” but find yourself an invite, too, ’cause it’s a great ride.
Song of the moment
“Vampire,” Olivia Rodrigo (Geffen Records): The first single from Olivia Rodrigo’s second album opens with a fake-out: “Vampire” at first appears to be a muted, heartbroken piano ballad in the vein of her 2021 smash “Drivers License,” but after its first chorus the song revs up and kicks into a satisfyingly melodramatic, rock-operatic gear. ( She knows Billy Joel, and apparently Meat Loaf, too.)
The subject matter — a sharp-tongued postbreakup assessment of a manipulative ex — stays squarely within Rodrigo’s comfort zone, but there are hints of grandiosity and a new sense of structural ambition that bode well for the forthcoming “Guts,” due Sept. 8.
The verses’ chatty, run-on delivery is an instant reminder of the songwriting voice that turned Rodrigo into her generation’s everygirl, and as usual the admitted fallibility makes her all the more relatable: “And every girl I ever talked to told me you were bad, bad news / You called them crazy, God, I hate the way I called them crazy too.”
But the song’s true moment of brilliance comes from that melodic ascendance in the chorus — “The way you sold me for parts as you sunk your teeth into me, ohhhh,” she belts — when Rodrigo reaches for and momentarily attains something beyond the reach of mere mortals.