Artist name: Cat Power
Album name: Jukebox
Label: Matador
Gender: Indie
Release date: January 22, 2008
ZMErating: 8/10
Website: www.catpowerthegreatest.com

---

It’s a pretty well known fact Chan Marshall, aka [tag]Cat Power[/tag], is a bit eccentric in nature, to say the least, fact that can be attested by her live show attendants. But this exact eccentricity, combined with her signature weary, smoky vocals made Chan who she is today, one of the most well sought indie artists today, with over 14 years of experience. Her first cover record, the 2000 bluntly titled “The Covers Record,” became a instant hit among indie listeners and combined with her 1998 critical acclaimed Moon Pix, catapulted Marshall from anonymity to mainstream success. Now, a few more albums in and after a successful fight against alcohol and drug abuse, Cat Power is back with yet another cover compilation, in the form of the soulful “Jukebox.”

Permalink to this topic

Def Leppard has set a March 18 tentative U.S. release date (one day earlier internationally) for its new album, entitled “Songs from the Sparkle Lounge”. If things work out then it will be the first release since “Yeah!”, which was a collection of covers of songs by artists who had influenced the band.

In fact their latest original release is 2002’s “X”. The first single is a song called “Nine Lives”, which features a guest appearance by country star Tim McGraw.

Also, they are involved in some projects which include touring with Styx and Reo Speedwagon in North America. The trek will consist of around 20 dates. They are also going to sing two shows in India and they will team up with Whitesnake for a UK co-headlining tour in June.

06/17 - Glasgow, UK @ SECC
06/18 - Birmingham, UK @ NEC
06/20 - Manchester, UK @ MEN
06/23 - Sheffield, UK @ Arena
06/24 - Newcastle, UK @ Arena
06/26 - London, UK @ Wembley Arena
are the dates which have been announced; others will follow pretty soon.

Regarding this topic, people are divided into two sides: those who admit they eagerly await the new Metallica album and those who don’t. OK so their last album was… not quite we expected to say the least. But we all expect the next one especially since it promises a lot. The gods have a chance to redeem themselves and my bet is they won’t give it up.

Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich (who else?) speaks about this album in somehow a misterious way and doesn’t give quite the answers fans were expecting. They were stunned to longtime produced Bob Rock kicked out and replaced with Rick Rubin. Sure a change is good now and then but this kind of chance is definetly unexpected.

Here’s Lars’ claim:

“But for our own sanity, our own creative survival, we needed to work with a different set of circumstances and dynamics,” Ulrich says. “So we’ve been stripped of our defense mechanisms, and it’s been very invigorating to be challenged again. Rick’s taken everything we’ve known about making records and completely turned it upside down.”
And song titles? Ulrich says, “There’s one called ‘19,’ ‘10,’ ‘German Soup’, ‘Glass Cow’, and even ‘Black Squirrel’. Just names that relate to where the idea came from, like Glasgow, Scotland became ‘Glass Cow.’ And when we don’t have anything clever to call it, we just call it a number. They’re just silly working titles.”

When asked whether the album was going to be something unexpected or rather a return to “old school,” Lars replied, “I hate to be that specific, because six months from now people are gonna go, ‘What the fuck? Lars lied to us!’ But it feels that way to me. It’s been no secret that Rick [Rubin, producer] suggested to us that we use a couple of those records as reference points — that we spend some time kind of accessing that headspace. So when we would come to forks in the road, sometimes the exercise became, ‘What would we have done at this point in 1985?’”

Artist name: The Magnetic Fields
Album name: Distortion
Label: Nonesuch Records
Gender: Synth Pop/Indie
Release date: January 15, 2008
ZMErating: 7/10
Website: www.houseoftomorrow.com

---

Highly regarded as one of the most inspired and gifted songwriters of our times, Sthephin Merrit, is less an eccentric, as most people tend to call him, but more of a musical maverick, with a disregard for musical ethics, approaching each of his projects like he would a epic initiating journey. Thus, together with his cohort of fine musicians, with whom he forms [tag]The Magnetic Fields[/tag], Merrit has managed to release constant flow of synth pop compilations, like the 1999 conceptual 69 Love Songs, the album that catapulted the band into mainstream success, that really contains 69 love songs, spaced across 3 CDs; or 2003’s i, another conceptual album, that has every song with the personal pronoun in the title. Now four years later, Merrit doesn’t seem to want to abandon the conceptual album model with the groups ninth record, “Distortion.”

Permalink to this topic

Artist name: Ringo Starr
Album name: Liverpool 8
Label: Capitol
Gender: Pop/Rock
Release date: January 15, 2008
ZMErating: 9 and 1/2
Website: www.ringostarr.com

---

Well most of the people who listened to [tag]The Beatles[/tag] could identify themselves with a member of the band; Paul played the role of the cute, loveable Beatle, John took the smart guy’s place, George was the quiet one and Ringo Starr was the lighthearted dude. He was never the songwriting mastermind that John, Paul, or George were but in a way he was the glue that kept them all together.In this album the songs are nice and just plain fun to listen to. His favorite subject is easy to figure out; yes, it is love. But it is not the exuberant naivity that the Beatles show. Instead he looks and reflects and a big part of his reflections are quite somber. But the sun rises and there is always hope. That’s the kind of feeling you get while listening to the album.
Permalink to this topic

Artist name: Rivers Cuomo
Album name: Alone
Label: Geffen
Gender: Alternative/Geek Rock
Release date: December 18, 2007
ZMErating: 8/10
Website: http://www.riverscuomo.com/

---

As the frontman for the cult phenomenon band [tag]Weezer[/tag], Rivers Cuomo has always managed to form a pop eccentric image and most of all a dictatorial presence in the band, as it’s widely known he says what goes and what doesn’t in the geek group. He’s a perfectionist in nature, proved by the fact he’s recorded and dumped, in his whole career with Weezer and other side projects, over 800 tracks. It’s mainly because of this why I was extremely surprised of his first solo record, “Alone: The Home Recordings of Rivers Cuomo,” a collection of demos recorded most probably in his basement, containing “eighteen tracks, spanning my demo-making career from 1992 to 2007″ as Rivers put it in a recent interview. The reason why I was so surprised is that almost all of the songs sound so under produced, half-backed, with out of sync vocals and rusty guitar works; overall things that Rivers would usually never allow to see the light of day with Weezer.It has a constant vibe of rawness around it, trough out the listen, that I just love.
Permalink to this topic

Artist name: Wu-Tang Clan
Album name: 8 Diagrams
Label: SRC Records/Universal Motown Records
Gender: Hip-Hop
Release date: December 11, 2007
ZMErating: 6/10
Website: http://www.wutang-corp.com/

---

It’s recently been a weird road for the legendary [tag]Wu Tang Clan[/tag]. A division has been introduced within the group, and a weird yet disturbing feeling has flooded this album’s release. From member Raekwon calling RZA a hip-hop hippie, moving the album in the wrong direction, to [tag]Ghoastface Killah[/tag] calling the album as a whole bullshit, it has been a eerie start for an album that should be getting ready for one of the most anticipated releases in hip-hop this year. So with that we see if they’re wrong. If the album is something great like the Wu enthusiast hope it to be, or if it’s this bullshit we’re hearing about. This is Wu Tang Clans “8 Diagrams” (SRC, Universal Motown Records).

Permalink to this topic

Artist name: Ghostface Killah
Album name: The Big Doe Rehab
Label: Def Jam
Gender: Hip-Hop
Release date: December 4, 2007
ZMErating: 7/10
Website: http://www.myspace.com/ghostface

---

In little more than a year [tag]Ghostface Killah[/tag] has propelled himself to be seen as the most flashy and popular member of the [tag]Wu Tang Clan[/tag]. From putting out an album almost every year – just recently he put out two in one year – to having his own segment on MTV 2, Ghost is arguably carrying the Wu on his back. But why? The reason is simply because of his ability to constantly put out good material. Whereas pretty much every member have seen a decline in their material, Ghost has a constant flow of good music and this does not change in his new album Big Doe Rehab.
Permalink to this topic

Artist name: Kylie Minogue
Album name: X
Label: EMI Group
Gender: Pop/Dance
Release date: November 26, 2007
ZMErating: 6/10
Website: http://www.kylie.com

---

Considering what [tag]Kylie Minogue[/tag]’s been through this past years, we can only wonder if the energy and determination she’s put in, fighting and eventually beating breast cancer, could be conveyed in her most recent comeback. Her tenth album, suggestively titled “X,” is far from her best, like the perfection she atteinded with “Can’t Get You Out Of MY Head,” that won her the Princess of Pop label; it’s not bad either, actually if her condition wouldn’t have been so publicized, you’d think she’s been living a regular life and this is just another album.

Permalink to this topic

Artist name: Jordin Sparks
Album name: Jordin Sparks
Label: Jive Records
Gender: Pop/R&B
Release date: November 20, 2007
ZMErating: 8/10
Website: http://www.jordinsparks.com

---

The girl won American Idol when it was obvious that there were better singers than her. But she has personality and she is very young at 17 and her talent could grow and turn into something very good. This release is not at her highest level as she could do better but it is interesting and in fact it is good work.
Permalink to this topic