Katy Perry - One Of The Boys
Artist: Katy Perry Review: "I hope you hang yourself with your H&M scarf/While jacking off listening to Mozart," Katy Perry tells her metrosexual ex on "Ur So Gay." Risqué words, coming from the daughter of two Christian pastors who only let her listen to gospel tunes as a kid. Now 23, the L.A. singer bucks the WWJD'ers with a debut full of mall-punky, grrrl-power tunes produced by Glen Ballard (Alanis Morissette) and Dr. Luke (Avril Lavigne). But her attention-grabbing doesn't feel very rebellious: On the New Wave-y club... Rating: 2 Stars
Cage The Elephant, Cage The Elephant
If you want to release some good time rock 'n' roll, listen to this album.
Metallica
Historię muzyków, którzy szturmem podbijają rynek, stając się dziś najbardziej rozpoznawalnym metalowym zespołem znają wszyscy. Może lepiej więc spojrzeć na Metallikę pod kątem ukazującej się właśnie płyty "Death Magnetic"?...
Randy Newman - Harps and Angels
Artist: Randy Newman Review: Randy Newman has earned a nice living in recent years as a film composer, but connoisseurs covet his Seventies work, when he emerged as one of the most cutting and empathic of American singer-songwriters. So his return to political-minded material on Harps and Angels is reason to wrap yourself in the flag and cheer. Newman works with piano, an orchestra and a Dixieland-style combo, using American musical tradition to amplify irony and yank heartstrings. The best moments echo classics like... Rating: 4 Stars
Animal Collective - Merriweather Post Pavillion
Artist: Animal Collective Review: Like the Grateful Dead before them, the psychedelic heads of Animal Collective are evolving from raging sonic hallucinations into gentler, more melodic trips. The ninth disc from this Brooklyn/Baltimore crew tries balancing shameless beauty with ecstatic weirdness, and when they nail it, it's breathtaking. "Summertime Clothes" is a swirling pastoral with dance-music thrust, while "Guys Eyes" is a cauldron of the Pet Sounds vocal fractals. "Lion in a Coma" and "No More Runnin" get lost in their... Rating: 3.5 Stars
Kylie Minogue - X
Artist: Kylie Minogue Review: Kylie Minogue has never commanded the zeitgeist like Madonna or stalked a stage with the queenly cool of Beyoncé or hurtled across octaves like Mariah. But in a two-decade career, the pint-size Aussie has ruled the British and European charts by supplying nonstop fizzy fun — she's pop divadom's party planner in chief. Minogue's tenth album arrives on the heels of her battle with breast cancer; thankfully, the experience hasn't made her music discernibly deeper. X compiles... Rating: 3.5 Stars
Jay Z
"Allow me to re-introduce myself/ My name is Hov', OH, H-to-the-O-V" kokieteryjnie literował swoją ksywę na "Black Album", mającym być jego ostatnim w karierze....
The Isley Brothers, 3 + 3 / Go For Your Guns
This 2 on 1 set is genius writ large.
Coldplay, Viva La Vida Or Death & All His Friends
Any way you look at it, this is a massive album.
White Denim, Workout Holiday
On this evidence alone, all signs point to a bright future.
Tapes 'n Tapes, Walk It Off
Walk It Off? More like sleep it off...
The Long Blondes, Couples
The band's second album is not as brilliant as you might hope...
Conor Oberst - Conor Oberst
Artist: Conor Oberst Review: On last year's "Cassadaga," Conor Oberst left his home in New York to wander the country's byways. On his latest album, recorded in Mexico, the Omaha, Nebraska, native is still drifting, having ditched both his Bright Eyes moniker and longtime producer Mike Mogis. A rough-hewn, death-haunted travelogue, this set proves that while you can run from home, you can't run from yourself. And sometimes that's OK. Largely, this is the introspective folk rock of Bright Eyes, though there's some welcome... Rating: 3.5 Stars
Creedence Clearwater Revival - Willy and the Poor Boys
Artist: Creedence Clearwater Revival Review: Hailing from El Cerrito, California, Creedence Clearwater Revival should've logically been another hippie collective waving flowers in neighboring San Francisco. As these 40th-anniversary editions suggest, leader John Fogerty instead invented an alternate identity for his band based on its otherwise unremarkable 1968 debut album's rumbling reinvention of a rock oldie. His singing voice swollen with the exaggerated vowels and slurred consonants of shouting Southern bluesmen, Fogerty discovered... Rating: 4 Stars
Al Green, Lay it Down
On this showing Al Green will still be knocking 'em dead both in the chapel and the concert halls for a long time to come yet.
Leslie Feist sweeps Canada music awards (Reuters)
Reuters - Canadian singer/songwriter Leslie Feist swept the Junos, Canada's music awards, walking away with five trophies during the weekend.
The Corrections, Repeat After Me
This is a likeable but underwhelming album: Coldplay won't lose any sleep.
The Academy Is. . . - Fast Times At Barrington High
Artist: The Academy Is. . . Review: In every emo band's career, there comes a time for "growing up" — dealing with more serious subject matter and jettisoning pop punk for a broader sound. Fall Out Boy have gone that route, but their friends the Academy Is. . . are happy to stay young a little longer. On their third album, themed around the senior year of high school, frontman William Beckett captures the struggle of being 18: the feeling that these are "the best days of our lives," as he sings on "After the Last Midtown Sho... Rating: 3 Stars
Titus Andronicus - The Airing of Grievances
Artist: Titus Andronicus Review: Named for an obscure Shakespeare play and flaunting song titles like "Albert Camus," this fivesome of suburban punks are proud nerds. But they know when to kick ass: "Fear and Loathing in Mahwah, NJ" sounds like a kiss-off ballad, until the 23-year-old singer-songwriter Patrick Stickles stops short and bellows "Fuck you!" with his bandmates and they hurtle into a breakneck Celtic rocker that recalls the Pogues at their most raucous. There's emo in the tortured lyrics and E Street Band in the arr... Rating: 3.5 Stars
Snow Patrol
Mimo zmian obowiązujących trendów zespół konsekwentnie podąża obraną na początku kariery drogą, proponując niezobowiązujące, przebojowe kompozycje, którym zwykle bliżej jednak do popu niż rock'n'rolla....
Journey - Revelation
Artist: Journey Review: If a band sticks around long enough, it turns into a tribute band. For years, Journey have slogged around the oldies circuit with a rotating cast of singers trying to impersonate Steve Perry, who belted out the group's Seventies and Eighties hits. But this double-CD set, which also includes a live DVD, features the most unlikely Perry sound-alike yet: Arnel Pineda, a 40-year-old Filipino who spends an entire disc delivering note-for-note remakes of classics like "Don't Stop Believin'." On the se... Rating: 3 Stars