My Amazon Reviews: Matisyahu "Akeda"

He's your "Hasidic reggae superstar"
3 Out Of 5 Stars

Matisyahu knows who he wants to be, and as your "Hasidic reggae superstar" (as he refers to himself on the song "Watch The Walls Melt Down" and "Confidence"), he's out to deliver his upbeat and spiritual message by hip-hop, reggae and rap beats and singing. At least he's aware that he's got that market cornered. That's not a bad thing. In a musical genre that usually depends on telling you just what a piece of crap the world is, Matisyau wants you to listen to him cheer you on until you become a "Champion." (One of a few very poppy songs on "Akeda.")

Between the soul searching ("Surrender") and the dancehall party songs (the excellent first single "Watch The Walls Melt Down"), Matisyahu is happy to mix styles and emotions into a coherent album. You can pick the messenger, be it you or God as defined by Matisyahu's Jewish roots, just as long as you feel it. I think his previous album, "Spark Seeker," was a bit more adventurous, but "Akeda" still shows Matisyahu in control of his message and image, and refusing to be pigeon-holed.

     

My Amazon Reviews: Daft Punk "Random Access Memories"

The Tin Men Find Their Hearts
4 Out Of 5 Stars

Talk about a departure. "Random Access Memories" retros the old EDM sound of previous albums and plants its flag squarely in the heart of 70's disco. So much so that Giorgio Morodor and Nile Rodgers are here in the flesh. Modern popster Pharrell Williams and Julian Casablancas of The Strokes are on board for what is a pretty wild ride on the wayback machine. Turns out the Robots (as Pharrell kept calling Daft Punk as they racked up Grammy Awards) have a heartbeat that pulses to "Le Freak."

This is some sunny, happy poptunes. "Get Lucky" (featuring Rodgers and Pharrell) was one of the best summer jams this or any year, inescapably warm and funky. "Give Life Back To Music" rides the same kind of funkiness and uses the autotuned vocals that you'd probably expect from Daft Punk in the first place. Yet there are those cameos that reveal the true memories of the duo. "Giorgio By Morodor" has the legendary producer giving a brief biography of his creative life while Daft Punk recreates some old school Munich disco straight off of the "Midnight Express" soundtrack. (I'm of the mindset that this is one of the collabs that didn't quite work.)

But for pure seventies oddballishness, you get 70's syrup-meister Paul Williams on the crescendo-ing "Touch." Paul Who? You may ask? Williams is a 70+ songwriter who can count among his credits Barbra Streisand, Helen Reddy and Kermit the Frog among his clients. When Daft Punk went mining for that pure 70's sound that "Random Access Memories" obviously was looking for, the boys did their homework.

Pure DP fans will still find traces of their old heroes on "Memories." "Motherboard" is a strictly instrumental piece that jitters with some interesting drum lines. The "Contact" finale, a six and a half minute opus featuring DJ Falcon, uses found sound and newsbites to muse about UFO's and aliens among us. It's a rollicking space ride worthy of standing next to everything else on "Random Access Memories." Daft Punk may have done a massive shift for this album, but it's a satisfying one and may have made this their masterwork.

     

My Amazon Reviews: Lady Gaga "Artpop"

Lady Uh-Oh
3 Out Of 5 Stars

One of the brilliant things about Lady Gaga's "Born This Way" was just how varied the song styles were. It was like she took a sponge over the best of what the 80's and 90's had to offer, sopped it up, then wrung it out all over her music. A little Madonna, a little Prince, even a little Springsteen. It was an 'everything but the kitchen sink' approach and it worked to an amazing effect. Now, after riding a tidal wave of personality and more hype than just about any pop album in the last few years, we get "ArtPop." What was an amalgamation before now just comes off as rote. Her personality still compensates for a lot here, but this is not much more than a standard issue laptop dance album. After Katy Perry's disappointing "Prism," "Artpop" carries too much baggage and ultimately fails to deliver the goods.

The opener, the middle eastern tinged "Aura," does give the album a major kickstart, but even then it just ascends into electronic dance music. There's the three rappers on "Jewels and Drugs," which does not one up having Kanye West on the last album. And for friggin' sakes, a pot puffing song in "Mary Jane Holland"? If I wanted Myley Cyrus, I would've bought "Bangerz." The profanities are gratuitous, the songs sound-alikes, and the lack of variety gets painfully obvious after a couple of listens.

The saving graces come mostly from the singles. "Applause" was enough of a bell-ringer that I was prepared for a solid album. Odd that it is what closes the album. "Venus" is also fun, where the worldplay may be juvenile (Uranus, hee hee hee), but the hook inescapable. The duet with R Kelly is a big surprise as the old school crooner is a perfect match for a subdued Gaga on "Do What U Want" (even the title is a throwback, in the way the best songs on "Born This Way" were). That's only four songs that I think will interest me long enough to go back to the album for. Lady Gaga is now in danger of becoming something I was hoping she'd be able to avoid; "Artpop" reveals the artist as cookie-cutter poptart saved mainly by that larger than life character she's invented for herself.

     

My Amazon Reviews: Pet Shop Boys "Electric"

Feel the energy
4 Out Of 5 Stars

Showing nothing if not incredible resilience, Pet Shop Boys continue their third decade with "Electric," an album pointed directly at arty dance floors. Coming of the mostly down-tempo chill of "Elysium," "Electric" should thrill old fans who weren't quite sure what to make of the more introspective point of view on that particular disc. Forget that for now. Spinning with the electronic chill of producer Stuart Price (who helped Madonna mine this same field) and the always dry wit of Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe, they just keep the beat pumping and toss in reminders of past glories and all-night parties to come.

So when you hear reminders of earlier songs in the likes of "Love Is A Bourgeois Construct" while Tennant sardonically tells an ex that he's "Talking tough and feeling bitter," you know that the Boys are feeling old juices flowing. Even more so, there isn't a slow-down number here. This could almost be mistaken for one of the "Disco" series of albums in that the pace never lets up. I do miss that moment of reflection that many other Pet Shop Boys albums would sneak in, like "Happiness is an Option" (from "Nightlife") or "To Speak is a Sin" (from "Very"), which always felt like a moment of deeper thought slipped in between the moments of ecstatic dancing.

Where "Electric" makes up for that in a stunning manner is the album's cover song, "The Last To Die." Maybe back in the "Born In The USA" days, when Springsteen's singles were remodeled into dance mixes would this seem possible, but The Pet Shop Boys take a protest song about the Irag/Afghanistan wars and whip it up as a dance anthem. It is the most subversive thing on the entire album and proof that Neil and Chris have not forsaken the brilliant irony that made classic albums like "Very," "Actually" and "Behavior" (to this day, "Being Boring" can bring a tear) on an album that all but dares you to get on your feet.

"Electric" is something of a triumph. It became the Pet Shop Boys' highest American charting album in nearly twenty years (hitting #26, with "Very" coming in at #20, and their last album, "Elysium" peaking at #44), and only three other albums charting higher in their whole discography. They've never really gone away, but when you get hit with the line in "Vocal," exuberantly proclaiming "everything about tonight feels right and so young," it's enough to make you glad that they've stuck to their guns for so long.

     

My Amazon Reviews: Donna Summer "Crayons"

She Comes In Colors
3 Out Of 5 Stars

"So many years ago on the radio/She crept into your soul and learned to love you." Yes, and we loved to love you, too, baby. Donna Summer sounds happy to be making a new record, some 17 years after her previous album, but she sounds conflicted. Does she want to reclaim her position as Queen of Disco ("I'm A Fire") or just be the Queen and you should lover her for it? "The Queen Is Back" (from which the opening lyric is taken) is a reminder that, when she was a superstar, she had the world in her pocket.

Her performances are decent, yet the material is hap hazard. Did a voice as powerful as Summer's really need to be vocodered on the title track? Ziggy Marley drops in to make the song more credible and the message seems to be a reflection on her old controversy with some of her gay audience. "Fame" does the same thing, with a auto-tuned chorus. Granted, it's not as blatant a ploy as the high NRG dance ploy of 1989's "Another Place and Time." It's just that the album sounds generic. If it weren't for the quality of Summer's singing, this could be any-woman music of the 90's, even if it was released in 2008.

The highlights are "Stamp Your Feet," "The Queen Is Back," and bluesy "Slide Over Backwards." It's a shame she never got to release any more music, because despite the plainness of the songs (and it should be noted, she co-wrote all of them), Summer is obviously relaxed and enjoying herself on "Crayons."

     

My Amazon Reviews: Mika "Origin Of Love"

Dance With me Mika
3 Out Of 5 Stars

For his third album, Mika does an about face and lunges face first into dance pop. This is more a Pet Shop Boys departure than a George Michael, gilded electronically and laced with precision beats. His unique voice still stands head and shoulders above all the production and auto-tuning (hey he really didn't need this much of it, thanks), and the songs are still catchier than a tackle-box. Once again, Mika borrows heavily from the classic pop songbook; if you don't think of The Buggles during "Love You When I'm Drunk," you're missing the point.

But there's something missing, which the delightful "Lola" points out. When Mika isn't being dancified or vocoded half to death, he's a stunningly original artist. Great songs like the title track and "Make You Happy" are gossamered to the point where the beauty of what was so apparent on "Life In Cartoon Motion" and "The Boy Who Knew Too Much" is nearly buried. Mika is in a new phase of his career, and he still excels. Just be prepared that, if you're coming off those first two albums, "Origin Of Love" is a different animal entirely.

     

My Amazon Reviews: Duran Duran "Big Thing"

Give Me the Playlist and Watch Me Eat It,
4 Out Of 5 Stars

Coming off the horn heavy funk of "Notorious," Duran Duran the trio stripped the sound down to some heavy beats for "Big Thing." The first single, "I Don't Want Your Love," sounded like a re-invention. Incorporating the current house and new-jack dance trends at the time, it was a major leap away from the candy-floss of "Rio." "All She Wants Is" carried the same sort of dance-floor urgency, and the title track was an arena ready thumper.

But the trademark lushness wasn't ever too far off. "Too Late Marlene" and "Land" are everything you'd expect from Duran Duran, rich arrangements, Simon's grandiose lyrics and Nick Rhodes' atmospheric keyboards. But perhaps "Big Thing's" best moment is the tribute to the band's late friend Alex Sadkin, "Do You Believe In Shame." Slowing down the swamp groove of "Suzie Q" and laying in an emotional vocal, "Shame" connects on a level that only a few songs in the DD library have ever done before. The remaster also brings out the nuance of these two songs.

The second disc is for serious collectors. Compiling many of the dance remixes and US single mixes of assorted songs, it's a hoot for collectors. (The double disc version of "Notorious" manages the same feat.) For my money, "Big Thing" is equally as good as "Notorious," and in my opinion, better than the "Wedding Album."