Solid new sounds herald the future of music
Quality seems to be the theme this week, as our reviews get ecstatic about fantastic new releases from glam-loving?Mika, hip-hop heavy Jay-Z and iconic rockers Pearl Jam.
The Blueprint 3 by Jay-Z: Out of Jay-Z's 11 releases, his latest album, The Blueprint 3, has taken him the longest to record and deliver.
But as expected, the new set is worth the wait. On the synthesiser-heavy track What We Talking About (featuring Luke Steele), Jay-Z calls out the Game and former friends Dame Dash and Jaz-O, while instructing media personalities Bill O'Reilly and Rush Limbaugh to "fall back" and "get off my b***s," respectively, on the fast-paced cut Off That (featuring Drake).
With the help of R&B star Alicia Keys, Jay-Z gives a nod to his hometown over a simple piano pattern on Empire State of Mind. On the J Cole-assisted, handclap-laden A Star Is Born, Jay-Z boasts of his success while shouting out to others who've reached the top of their game. With witty rhymes, pertinent collaborations and stellar production from the likes of Timbaland and No I.D., the long-awaited Blueprint 3 doesn't disappoint. The album may just be the blueprint for hip-hop music to come.
Backspacer by Pearl Jam: Pearl Jam frontman Eddie Vedder still uses a typewriter to craft lyrics, and the band's new album is named for a key on his favourite old technology.
A reluctance to dismiss the past has always marked Pearl Jam's career, and this newest effort particularly. To help recapture its rollicking, mid-1990s energy, Pearl Jam recruited its longtime producer Brendan O'Brien.
Backspacer opens with a charging block of fast-paced, radio-ready alt-rock, while Gonna See My Friend and the Police-ish Got Some ride on sizzling guitar riffs that play off Vedder's signature impassioned vocals.
The lead single, The Fixer, is a buoyant pop gem. The album is a pleasurable mix of lean, mean rock 'n' roll and pensive ballads reflecting both the state of the world and the band's place in it. It closes with The End, a string-tinged love song with a careful beauty that proves Pearl Jam not only has returned to form, but has revitalised itself.
The Boy Who Knew Too Much by Mika: Anyone convinced that Mika burned through his bag of outré art-pop tricks with 2007's Life in Cartoon Motion should prepare to be (pleasantly) surprised.
On The Boy Who Knew Too Much, this Beirut-born singer comes back strong with another set of over-the-top anthems that prove no one's more entitled to inherit Freddie Mercury's glam-god crown. The sound is the same, if perhaps a bit finely honed.
Final Fantasy's Owen Pallett and Madonna collaborator Stuart Price punch up the song Rain with loads of disco-folk detail, while Imogen Heap lends her trademark vocal acrobatics to By the Time. Yet, as he did on Life in Cartoon Motion, Mika never allows the hyperactive arrangements to overpower his message of jubilant defiance. "We are not what you think we are!" he and a ragtag choir holler in the opening track, We Are Golden. Duly noted.
If You Want It by Pacha Massive: New York-based Pacha Massive's second album, If You Want It, satisfies from beginning to end.
Using an inventive bilingual fusing of Latin rhythms with dancehall and electronica, Dominican-born producer/guitarist/keyboardist Ramon Nova plays with many colourful moods. He captures these by featuring several female vocalists, like Zigmat's Monica Rodriguez on the funky first single, If You Want It and Tonight, which displays addicting production and sensual vocals.
Love Grenades member Elizabeth Wight's hypnotic vocal in English on Take the Wheel drives the drum-heavy track with Nova's rapped-out Spanish, For a While stands out with horns and guitar at the core of the bouncy song, and pop-friendly To the Top has hip-hop influences and woodwind melodies that complement Nova and Yasi Baby's vocals.
Out now at all good music stores from Dh55
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