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Sunday, February 18, 2007
Rihanna - A Girl Like Me (Mp3 Download)
[2006] Rihanna - A Girl Like Me (Mp3 Download)
Review by David Jeffries
Versatile urban dance-pop singer Rihanna gracefully avoids the sophomore slump with A Girl Like Me, a less tropical-flavored, more urban effort than her sun-and-fun debut. Then again, it's hard to be an effervescent island goddess 24-7 when your love life has suffered a crushing blow, something inferred by the numerous heartbreaking ballads included, all of them elegant, mature, and displaying artistic growth. Fans of her brilliant single "Pon de Replay" need not worry, though, as the album kicks off with its equal. Bursting out of the speakers, "SOS" is a sexy club tune that bites the bleepy riff from Soft Cell's "Tainted Love" in a very modern, very exciting mash-up fashion. The crunchy reggae of "Kisses Don't Lie" offers a less revolutionary alternative to Damien Marley's "Welcome to Jamrock." Then the album gets bolder and seamlessly bounces from genre to genre. Attempting things that would make lesser artists crumble, Rihanna goes from a film noir song that elegantly uses murder as a metaphor for cheating ("Unfaithful") to an easy-flowing weekend cruiser ("We Ride"). Even more stunning is the jump from the 2006 prom-song candidate "Final Goodbye" to the totally juiced "Break It Off," where she gives guest star and dancehall king Sean Paul some serious competition. The good but not great redo of "If It's Lovin' That You Want" with Corey Gunz is the only track approaching filler, but it's clearly marked "bonus," so it's a wash. Executive produced by Jay-Z, A Girl Like Me is unsurprisingly polished, yet a richer experience than you'd expect from a singer responsible for the summer jam of 2005, arguably 2006.
Track Lists
01. S.O.S.
02. Kisses Don't Lie
03. Unfaithful
04. We Ride
05. Dem Haters
06. Final Goodbye
07. Break It Off
08. Crazy Little Thing Called Love
09. Selfish
10. P.S. (I'm Still Not Over You)
11. A Girl Like Me
12. A Million Miles Away
13. If It's Lovin' That You Want, Part 2
14. Who Ya Gonna Run To
15. Pon De Replay
16. Coulda Been The One
Röyksopp - Melody A.M. (Mp3 Download)
[2001] Röyksopp - Melody A.M. (Mp3 Download)
Review by John Bush
Chilled-out or downbeat acts swept through the electronic scene during 2001 and 2002, prompting dozens of identikit compilations, all conjuring up images of exhausted clubbers returning home early in the morning and enjoying a cup of tea or a smoke after a hectic night out. And although downtempo electronica had always been largely album-based, most of these trackmasters didn't do much on the full-length front. The Norwegian duo Röyksopp, however, displayed a careful hand with the boards on their 2001 debut Melody A.M.. Röyksopp balances the haunted atmospheres of Boards of Canada with the more traditional "songwriting" sensibility of downbeat specialists like Groove Armada or Koop. The opener is proof enough, with a chunky bassline undergirding the spooky, ethereal refrain from Bobby Vinton's "Blue on Blue" recorded by some long-forgotten vocal chorus. There's much of beauty on Melody A.M., very textured and imaginatively produced to sound like few of their contemporaries; it's saying much to even admit that Röyksopp is occasionally the equal of such otherworldly acts as Boards of Canada or Goldfrapp. They seem a bit too indebted to the gauzy synths of '70s soundtracks, but there are a few good exceptions, like the distinctly '80s sense of artificial ethereality to the closer, "40 Years Back/Come." Picking up the ball right about where Air dropped it after Moon Safari, Röyksopp produced one of the most intriguing downbeat albums of the year.
Track Lists
01. So Easy
02. Eple
03. Sparks
04. In Space
05. Poor Leno
06. A Higher Place
07. Royksopp's Night Out
08. Remind Me
09. She's So
10. 40 Years Back/Come
Kelly Clarkson - Breakaway (Mp3 Download)
[2004] Kelly Clarkson - Breakaway (Mp3 Download)
Review by Stephen Thomas Erlewine
Kelly Clarkson was the first American Idol winner and the first vocalist to achieve success, but her 2003 debut, Thankful, didn't completely define her outside of the parameters of the show. While the dance-pop and adult contemporary ballads on that record were fresher than the music on AmIdol, Clarkson still hadn't escaped the show's shadow entirely: since it was a hit so close to her time on TV, it was easy to pigeonhole her as simply a creation of television, not a popular singer in her own right. So, her second album, Breakaway, released late in 2004, was a pivotal moment for her, a chance to prove that she was not a one-hit wonder, a chance to prove that she could have a real, vibrant career. Happily, Breakaway delivers on that promise. This time around, the dance-pop elements have been almost entirely stripped away, and the record instead is a rock-influenced, MOR pop affair, not entirely dissimilar to Ashlee Simpson's Autobiography, only a little bit smoother and not as heavy on guitars. Since Clarkson is a better singer than Simpson -- not only does she possess more chops, but she has more on-record charisma -- she can sell the material even when the slow tempos in the middle of record drag its momentum; she prevents the songs from sounding too samey. While there may be one too many ballads here, they often are very good and sometimes are excellent, like the light, layered, yearning title tune. Clarkson may be a fine ballad singer, but what gives Breakaway its spine are the driving, anthemic pop tunes like "Since U Been Gone," "Walk Away," and "You Found Me." These are the numbers that sound simultaneously mainstream and youthful, which is a hard trick to pull off, and they are the tracks that illustrate that Kelly Clarkson is a rare thing in the 2000s: a pop singer who's neither hip nor square, just solidly and enjoyably in the mainstream. After a bunch of rather blah mainstream pop albums, including a glut of half-baked AmIdol projects, this is a nice, low-key relief.
Track Lists
01. Breakaway
02. Since U Been Gone
03. Behind These Hazel Eyes
04. Because Of You
05. Gone
06. Addicted
07. Where Is Your Heart
08. Walk Away
09. You Found Me
10. I Hate Myself For Losing You
11. Hear Me
12. Beautiful Disaster (Live)
Pete Townshend - Who Came First (Mp3 Download)
[1972] Pete Townshend - Who Came First (Mp3 Download)
Review by Richie Unterberger
Pete Townshend's first solo album was a homespun, charming forum for low-key, personal songs that weren't deemed suitable for the Who, as well as spiritual paeans (direct and indirect) to his spiritual guru Meher Baba. Who fans will be immediately attracted by the presence of a couple of songs from the aborted Who concept album Lifehouse (much of which ended up on Who's Next), "Pure & Easy" and "Let's See Action." The Who did eventually release their own versions of both those songs. But Townshend's own versions aren't the highlights of this record, which shows a folkier and gentler side to the Who's chief muse than his albums with the group. "Sheraton Gibson" is a neat tune about rock & roll road life, and "Time Is Passing" takes very subtle inspiration from Baba. Most of the rest of the album contains some of the most unusual pieces Townshend has released: his acoustic cover of Jim Reeves' "There's a Heartache Following Me" (recorded because it was one of Baba's favorite tunes), "Evolution" (which is actually pretty much a solo track by his buddy Ronnie Lane of the Faces), "Parvardigar" (adapted from Baba's Universal Prayer), and "Content" (a philosophical poem by Maud Kennedy that Townshend put to music). The 1993 reissue of this LP for compact disc fleshes out the program considerably with six previously unreleased tracks, including Townshend's demo of the Who single "The Seeker." The other bonus cuts are by no means filler; meditative and melancholy originals, they're just as strong as the tracks on the original release.
Track Lists
01. Pure Easy
02. Evolution
03. Forevers No Time At All
04. Let's See Action
05. Time Is Passing
06. There's A Heartache Following Me
07. Sheraton Gibson
08. Content
09. Parvardirgar
10. His Hands
11. The Seeker
12. Day Of Silence
13. Sleeping Dog
14. The Love Man
15. Lantern Cabin
Blur: The Best of Blur (Special Edition)
Blur: The Best of Blur (Special Edition) (2000) (2 CDs)
 1 Beetlebum (5:05)2 Song 2 (2:02) 3 There's No Other Way (3:13) 4 Universal (4:00) 5 Coffee & TV (5:18) 6 Parklife (3:07) 7 End of a Century (2:46) 8 No Distance Left to Run (3:26) 9 Tender (7:41) 10 Girls & Boys (4:18) 11 Charmless Man (3:33) 12 She's So High (3:49) 13 Country House (3:57) 14 To the End (3:51) 15 On Your Own (4:27) 16 This Is a Low (5:02) 17 For Tomorrow (6:02) 18 Music Is My Radar (5:29) 19 (CD 2) She's So High (Live Wembley Arena) (5:24) 20 (CD 2) Girls & Boys (Live Wembley Arena) (4:21) 21 (CD 2) To the End (Live Wembley Arena) (4:08) 22 (CD 2) End of a Century (Live Wembley Arena) (3:00) 23 (CD 2) Stereotypes (Live Wembley Arena) (3:27) 24 (CD 2) Charmless Man (Live Wembley Arena) (3:31) 25 (CD 2) Beetlebum (Live Wembley Arena) (6:09) 26 (CD 2) M.O.R. (Live Wembley Arena) (3:09) 27 (CD 2) Tender (Live Wembley Arena) (6:20) 28 (CD 2) No Distance Left to Run (Live Wembley Arena) (4:08) -- DOWNLOAD CD1DOWNLOAD CD2
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