New Music from 3/22/2011 - The Strokes, Chris Brown, Richard Ashcroft, and Sucker Punch soundtrack

Chris Brown F.A.M.E. - The 21 year old R&B singer is probably better known as the dude that beat up then girlfriend Rihanna the night before the Grammy's in 2009 than for the silky smooth voice he's exhibited since his self-titled debut album at the age of 16.  Brown has the same F.A.M.E. acronym tattooed on his arm and he has previously stated it that it stands for "Forgiving All My Enemies" although in some recent interviews he's attributed additional meanings to the four letters.  Despite his recent infamy, a number of stars help provide guest vocals on this release like Justin Bieber, Ludacris, Lil Wayne, and Busta Rhymes.
 
"Deuces" opens the album with a slow tempo melody that allows Brown's vocals take the spotlight although the song does meander once you reach the halfway point.  "Look at Me Now," featuring Lil Wayne and Busta Rhymes, is an odd track with an off-putting ambient electronica backing that makes it impossible to get into the song despite the talent of the guest vocalists.  "She Ain't You" is a much better track that has a gentle melody with a catchy hook (albeit, one stolen from a Michael Jackson song) that will definitely be a staple on Top-40 radio stations by the end of spring.  "Yeah 3x" is the first single off the album and it will become an instant club favorite with its quick tempo, infectious beat, and an arrangement that seems custom made to be jammed to on the dance floor.

F.A.M.E. is a mostly entertaining release whose bright spots are at times extremely shiny, if not entirely blinding, and whose dark moments weigh down the album without completely overshadowing the good.  The albums' best tracks are the ones where Brown can let himself go vocally and where he in unencumbered by sharing the spotlight with other singers.  The production work is very competent although a small handful of the tracks, like the closer "Beautiful People," seem over produced obscuring the unique vocal talent Brown has exhibited since he was teenager.  The deluxe edition of the album comes with an additional five tracks, including one featuring Timbaland, that I was not able to listen to for this review.  F.A.M.E. isn't a perfect album by any means but it is worthwhile addition to any hip-hop collection. 

Score: 7/10
Song(s) to Sample:  "She Ain't You" [sample it below] and "Yeah 3x"

The Strokes Angles - The Julian Casablancas led five man band from New York City release their fourth album and first since 2006's First Impressions of Earth.  The songs for this album were written and recorded over a two year period after they finished the promotional tour for their last album.  Casablancas took a more hands-off approach on this album recording his vocals remotely wanting the rest of the band to take greater control of the creative process.  Let's see if the change in the creative process affects the music given to us on Angles.

The 10-track album leads off with "Machu Picchu" which begins with funk influenced keyboard and guitar work before adding the more customary feedback laden guitar sound we are accustomed to in a The Strokes song to create a very enjoyable track that employs Casablancas' vocals extremely well.  "Under Cover of Darkness" and "Taken for a Fool" are two guitar driven songs with jaunty melodies that are slight nods to the type of songs that were given to us on their first two albums.  "Two Kinds of Happiness" is a song that wanders without ever reaching anywhere despite a decent hook and guitar work.  "Games" has a slightly different feel for a The Strokes song with a more somber melody and Casablanca's vocals electronically subdued but still prominent for a more complex sounding indie song. 

Overall, it's a very good album from The Strokes although it never reaches the genius of their first album Is This It.  Like their first two albums, Angles is on the short-side lasting less than 35 minutes in length.  Normally this would be something I might complain about but it seems like the band's best work come on abbreviated albums like this one where they can showcase their best ten tracks without bogging down the album with a slew of unnecessary additions.  Some of the earlier tracks have a greater Pop feel than anything the band has exhibited before, especially in comparison to their heavier but uniquely distinctive debut album, but the music still sounds undeniably like The Strokes especially on the waning tracks of the disc.  This release isn't hurt by Casablancas' reduced role but, by the same token, it also isn't as strong or as impressive as the album could have been with a more sure hand guiding the music.  

Score:  8/10
Song(s) to Sample: "Under Cover of Darkness" and "Machu Picchu" [sample it below]

Richard Ashcroft United Nations of Sound - The British singer, songwriter and former frontman of The Verve releases his fourth solo album.  This album actually came out in the U.K. last July under the band name RPA & The United Nations of Sound but for its U.S. release it gets listed under the more familiar Richard Ashcroft name.  This album peaked at #20 on the UK charts which was considered somewhat of a disappointment considering that his other three solo albums all ranked in the top three at one time or another.

The first single off the album, "Are You Ready?," is the lead track off the album.  The song's string intro and it's stripped down melody with a heavy Britrock feel is reminiscent of The Verve and Oasis songs from the 90's, although it's nowhere near as catchy as those two bands at their best, but it at least makes for a credible opener of the album.  This song, co-written with Barry Gibb, has already been heavily featured in other media like a current Volkswagen commercial, the closing credits of the Matt Damon film The Investment Bureau, and during the intro to Fox's World Series coverage last Fall.  After the fun first song you get three songs that don't come even close to matching it with extremely uninspired melodies, boring vocals, and poor composition.  "Beatitudes" then tries to pick up the tempo with an industrial-lite backing beat and more rock-heavy guitar and keyboard work that has a nice buildup but ultimately doesn't go anywhere.  Then comes the best track of the album "Good Lovin'" which finally displays the lush, layered and synthesizer driven sound that we came to expect and appreciate from The Verve and Ashcroft's solo releases.

Unfortunately, United Nations of Sound is ultimately a deeply inconsistent and disappointing album.  Ashcroft's voice, although never what I would call smooth, seems to be getting gruffer and gruffer with many of the tracks sounding like it's Bob Dylan singing lead.  However, the bigger problem with album is very weird decision to forgo the Britpop/electropop sound that has served him so well over the years.  Instead we get a mishmash of musical genres like blues, adult contemporary, and even a touch of rockabilly; none of which end up becoming a good piece of music in Ashcroft's usually capable hands.  Not every song is horrible but only two are above average which is probably why this album tanked in the U.K. compared to Ashcroft's other solo releases. 

Score:  4/10

Song(s) to Sample:  "Good Lovin'" [sample it below]

Various Artists Sucker Punch soundtrack - Sucker Punch is a fantasy-action film from writer and director Zach Snyder (300 and Watchmen) being released this Friday in the U.S.  Snyder has described the film starring Emily Browning, Vanessa Hudgens, and Jon Hamm as, "Alice in Wonderland with guns."  This nine-track disc has no original songs, instead giving us seven cover songs, one remixed song and one mash-up. 

Emily Browning does double duty for the movie by also singing two of the cover songs on the soundtrack.  The first is the Eurythmics' "Sweet Dreams," which is also the first song on the album, that is extremely stripped down version compared to the original with a slower tempo and ambient industrial instrumentation (as if Portishead were covering the song).  The sole remixed song is Bjork's "Army of Me" which has a heavier industrial rock sound that doesn't really improve the song any.  Emiliana Torrini's cover of Jefferson Airplane's classic "White Rabbit" is a high point of the album with a more modern reworking of the melody and Torrini's moody vocals holding up well in comparison to the original.  "Search and Destroy" is a modern, distortion heavy punk cover of the Iggy Pop & The Stooges classic by English band Skunk Anansie that isn't able to bring the same level of energy as the original. The last song on the album is a cover of Roxy Music's "Love Is the Drug" by actors Carla Gugino and Oscar Isaac which is a soaring more melodic version that manages to surpass the original on many levels. 

Only a few of the songs match the quality and fun found in the originals.  However, even for the songs that are inferior versions of the original, that doesn't necessarily make it a bad version of the song especially once you consider that the originals are classics of rock and pop.  Most of the cover songs have a skewing towards a more industrial/hard rock sound or are extremely stripped down versions (like Browning's second song, a cover of The Smiths' "Asleep").  The only two songs that completely fail to capture any of the magic of the originals is Alison Mosshart's and Carla Azar's cover of The Beatles "Tomorrow Never Knows" and Yoav's cover of the Pixies' classic "Where is my Mind?" which completely gets rid of the feedback heavy guitar riff that completely defines the original. Not a great album of cover songs but the versions are good enough where my interest is piqued to see the movie.

Score:  6.5/10
Song(s) to Sample: Carla Gugino's and Oscar Isaac's "Love Is the Drug" [sample it below] and Emiliana Torrini's "White Rabbit"

4.13.2011 UPDATE: I finally saw Sucker Punch a couple of weeks ago and wanted to provide a quick update on how the music worked in the film.  Two songs that I originally panned above definitely worked a lot better on celluloid than just listening to them over headphones.  
The first is Skunk Anansie's version of "Search and Destroy" which is extremely effectively overlaid during a big battle scene and really heightens the action of the scene.  (For those of you that went to Film School with me, the music cleverly starts off as diegetic sound from the beginning of a dance sequence and the song helps segue the movie to an action/fantasy sequence timed to coincide just as the song starts to get cranking.)  
The other song, and the one I was most surprised by, is Yoav's cover of "Where is my Mind" which really expands on the emotional drama in a really tense scene.  I hated the song when I reviewed the album (and still don't love it as a song taken on its own) but I give Zach Snyder credit, he really knows how to incorporate music both in the diegetic and non-diegetic forms to wring out the maximum amount of emotion in each scene.  The album's version of "Tomorrow Never Knows" still blows chunks though.  
After seeing the film, I'd bump the album score up another point to a 7.5/10.