My Everything
ARIANA GRANDE
(Universal)
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21-year old Ariana Grande proved to be as good as a Mariah Carey clone on her well-received debut LP. But My Everything, her slightly rushed follow-up, tackles an array of sounds befitting this one of a kind voice. Big tracks like "Problem," "Why Try," "Just a Little Bit of Your Heart" and "Love Me Harder" avoid all the typical Carey comparisons, exposing Grande to a wide turf of outstanding elements usually off-limits to modern-day female pop stars. Even on the scattered retro throwbacks like "Be My Baby" and the Diana Ross-inspired "Break Your Heart Right Back," Grande sounds like she's earned the rites of passage to sit at the round table of knighted diva icons. My Everything is a proper introduction today to a household name for tomorrow. |
Hypnotic Eye
TOM PETTY & THE
HEARTBREAKERS
(Reprise)
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Now light years away from Damn the Torpedoes, Petty and the boys is no stranger to dropping essential albums since their academic zenith. Hypnotic Eye joins that class of accomplishment. It is bad ass rock featuring Cameo rock ("American Dream Plan B"), Steely Dan bossa nova ("Fault Lines"), down home blues ("Power Drunk") and conventional Petty lifelines ("U Get Me High," "Red River," "All You Can Carry"). Leave it to a veteran to show the anxious rock stars of tomorrow what a classic long-player should sound like it.
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Too Bright
PERFUME GENIUS
(Domino Recording)
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With a stroke of David Bowie power dust, Seattle-based singer-songwriter Mike Hadreas blossoms into an otherworldly dandelion on his third album. The graceful piano-accompanying “I Decline” is one of the shortest beautiful ballads known to man, “No Good” and the title cut, albeit longer, follows in its gentle footsteps. These songs showcase the art of emptiness, something Perfume Genius is duly noted for. When he goes for the flamboyant rock on “Queen” and the claustrophobic dangers of “Grid” is when he makes a perfect curve towards peaking. Talk around town may be fixated on his androgynous visuals and his dominant display of sexuality, but the artistic expressions and experimental pop on Too Bright will rise above the noise coming from closed minds.
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1989
TAYLOR SWIFT
(Big Machine)
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On 1989 (the year of her birth, not just a slap at Prince's 1999), the former prom queen of country has modulated to a new level of creative pop. From the looks of things, she's not looking back at Nashville's strongholds. That's because she liberates herself with a multi-format that's unapologetic in its reach. She grabs a pile of miscellaneous ingredients like minimalistic R&B (“Blank Space”), galactic soul (“Wildest Dreams”), EDM beats (“Style”) and some "Happy"-sounding shimmies (“Shake It Off”). The synth-sewn songs are still attached together using Swift's diary approach and candy-coated hooks, so it's not like her devout fans are going to be clueless inside the makeover. But what gives Swift's album its timelessness factor is how easily these pop tunes sound in these new elements. From the realm of career breakthroughs, consider this the She's So Unusual of our generation.
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G I R L
PHARRELL WILLIAMS
(Columbia)
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Ten tracks were all super producer and magnetic pop songwriter Pharrell Williams needed to pull off his best album to date. Like Cee Lo Green did with The Lady Killer, G I R L acts as a definitive game changer for Williams' career. He doesn't need the Neptunes or hiphop superstars to pucker up his compositions. Listen to the MJ funk of "Brand New," the Earth, Wind & Fire-meets-Daft Punk flavor of "Gust of Wind" or the sexy falsetto gimmick heard on "Hunter" and you're bound to believe this Stella got his groove back.
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St. Vincent
ST. VINCENT
(Seven Four Entertainment/Loma Vista/Republic)
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This self-titled effort from unorthodox art rock performer St. Vincent explores a lost universe of Kraftwerk sounds and 8-bit video game synths that feels like a new wave of psychedelica. When St. Vincent's Annie Clark shoots for uptempo offerings, she doesn't shy away from jamming. “Rattlesnake” crosses silly camp with Prince funk, while “Digital Witness” walks on a Sly Stone cultivated by faux horns and big protests (“What's the point of doing anything?”). When she goes for “I Prefer Your Love” and “Prince Johnny,” her vocals hearken back to a peaceful Madonna era. But the lyrical content is just as creative here on St. Vincent's fourth album. She finds a way to laugh at religion (“I Prefer Your Love”) and to make gory horror scenes sound so appetizing (“Severed Crossed Fingers”).
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Lazaretto
JACK WHITE
(Third Man Records)
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Following up one of the best rock albums of the decade (Blunderbuss) was probably Jack White's greatest headaches, but he pulls off the feat on Lazaretto using a fierce ballsy hodgepodge of dark blues and adventurous psychedelic rock. As if White has been commanded to pull off a soundtrack for a Quentin Tarantino film, Lazaretto beams with nostalgic soul and powerhouse fervor as it cranks out big volume rock like the instrumental “High Ball Stepper.” If you're looking to hear rock funk in all of its glory, “Three Women” and the electric sounds of the title cut are a good way to go. Slow Americana songs (“Entitlement,” “Temporary Ground”) ache back to White's Tennessee surroundings, while “Just One Drink” jams like a Rolling Stones' Sticky Fingers lost track. Besides the innovative construction of the album's “Ultra” vinyl version, White rolls up his sleeves on this record and pours out more of what we've come to trust in his trailblazing indie rock.
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Songs of Innocence
U2
(Interscope/Island)
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You expect the fury of music heads when U2 drops a free album in virtually every single iTunes account across the planet. It's a trick that feels cheaper than Lady Gaga's dollar offer for Born This Way or Jay-Z‘s Samsung episode. These types of promotional gimmicks may have future ramifications on the decaying traditional music industry model, but U2's Songs of Innocence is worth more than the free download price tag that came with it. Helping to make the project deceptively beautiful is the company of versatile album producers like Danger Mouse, Paul Epworth and Ryan Tedder. They don't fight against U2's already-established sound, but only compliment it with a dash of pop appeal. It brings forth colorful Coldplay- adventures (“Iris (Hold Me Close)”), punk disco throwbacks (“This Is Where You Can Reach Me Now”), Ramones tributes (“The Miracle (of Joey Ramone)”) and strong classic rock songwriting to its core – thanks to deeply affectionate details canvassing heartbreaking headlines and digs deep into the personal. The inclusion of something poignant and magical as the love ballad “Song for Someone” just makes this album so essential to the already-storied U2 catalog.
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English pop singer Charli XCX reinvented the wheel of bubblegum pop with her tour de force showcase on Sucker. She takes the silly rebellion of punk and party rock and thrusts it into a soundtrack of three-minute radio-cued singles. The mid tempo smash "Boom Clap" is the album's heartbeat and songs like “Caught In the Middle” echo that great classic pop enjoyment, but there are one to many rampant adventures to not gleam from. "Gold Coins" and the raucous fun of "London Queen" are perfect examples of her type of teen spirit. Think of it as a college girl version of Taylor Swift hooking up with the Ramones. "I don't wanna go to school/I just wanna break the rules," she sings. Without hesitation, Sucker clearly stands out as one of the best pop albums heard all year.
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Lost In the Dream
THE WAR ON DRUGS
(Secretly Canadian)
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Adrenaline rushes of throwback ‘80s New Wave rock highlight this glowing album by indie rock band The War on Drugs. With ten tracks – many stretching past the five-minute mark, band frontman and album producer Adam Granduicel writes yucky stories of midlife crisis, the grueling tour life and songs of loathing and agony (“Suffering”). But he wraps those stories with a dreamlike rhapsody of satisfying arrangements that resonates louder than the most provocative rock album. There's hardly a flaw here: “Red Eyes” and “An Ocean in Between the Waves” dances like charming “Young Turks” spin-offs; “Under the Pressure” flirts with Roxy Music riffs; the title cut allows Granduicel to tell his story using a Bob Dylan grace. Lost In the Dream, the band's third album, shows off a radiant progression in their art and gives reverence to a beautiful tapestry of rock that is hardly exhibited in the universe of mainstream rock. It's their finest contribution to music, and definitely the year's most essential record.
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