CD reviews for Jan. 9, 2009
Dion’s powerful voice makes special music
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Celine Dion
MY LOVE: ULTIMATE ESSENTIAL COLLECTION/MY LOVE: ESSENTIAL COLLECTION
Celine Dion fans on their way to her Saturday concert at the New Orleans Arena can take refresher courses for her hits through two new collections. Of course, the 17 songs on My Love: Essential Collection include “My Heart Will Go On,” the blockbuster theme from Titanic. And every song on My Love: Essential Collection also appears on the 27-song, two-CD set, My Love: Ultimate Essential Collection.
Despite the cheap synthesizer instrumentation in many of the two sets’ recordings, Dion’s mighty, theatrical voice always rises to the top. Unlike so many recently ascended pop stars, the French-Canadian chanteuse doesn’t need electronic help to stay in pitch. Her choice of material, too, at least until recently, is exceptional. Dion’s voice plus songs by Diane Warren (“If You Asked Me To” and “Because You Loved Me”), Alan Menkin and Howard Ashman (“Beauty and the Beast”) and Jim Steinman (“It’s All Coming Back To Me Now”) become the grandest sort of pop music.
Celine Dion performs Saturday, Jan. 10, at the New Orleans Arena.
Soulja Boy Tell’em
iSOULJABOYTELLEM
Teen rapper Soulja Boy Tell’em hit the commercial stratosphere with “Crank That (Soulja Boy),” a YouTube and ringtone phenomenon. Now 18, Soulja Boy follows his full-length CD debut, Souljaboytellem.com, with iSouljaBoyTellem. The new disc is loaded with chants, boasts, call-and-response and minor-key keyboard riffs — the usual rap elements.
At worst, the Atlanta-based Soulja Boy’s new tracks are caricatures of the genre. “Every city, every state, Soulja Boy is known,” he announces. “I’m just 18 and I’m already grown!” At best, the new stuff is entertaining, intentionally silly, suitable for getting stupid at the club. And if the rap thing stops working for Soulja, he could give comedy a try, something he does in the spoofy “Hey You There.” Elsewhere, as in “Shoppin’ Spree,” his vanity and consumerism definitely are out of touch with present-day hard times.
Rivers Cuomo
ALONE II: THE HOME RECORDINGS OF RIVERS CUOMO
As the leader of Weezer, Rivers Cuomo was the centerpiece of the band’s amusingly geeky mid-’90s hits “Undone (The Sweater Song),” “Buddy Holly” and “Say It Ain’t So.” But maybe being a rock star and simultaneously attending Harvard was rough going. Weezer’s musically ambitious second CD, 1996’s Pinkerton, was a commercial failure.
While the band eventually rebounded, Alone II, the second collection of Cuomo’s home recordings to be released this year, helps explain the introspective mind that created the unconventional Pinkerton. In CD booklet notes that amount to an abbreviated, intensely honest autobiography, as well as accompanying songs that compare well alongside the best of Weezer, Cuomo surfaces as a brilliant student of popular music. Notes about the Pixies-Nirvana-styled “I Want To Take You Home Tonight” describe the singer-songwriter’s deeply personal inspiration for it. “I Was Scared,” modeled on Pixies music with lyrics inspired by high school experiences with bullying jocks, bursts with long-simmering shame and regret and a tinge of characteristic Cuomo humor. “I Don’t Want To Let You Go” sounds modeled on the Phil Spector-girl group template and there’s even a faithful remake of “Don’t Worry Baby,” a classic from another of Cuomo’s influences, Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys.
The Bee Gees
ODESSA
Between their great hit singles of the late ’60s and a massive comeback in the 1970s that included the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack, the Bee Gees created a sprawling curiosity called Odessa. The album, to be re-released Tuesday, marked brothers Barry, Robin and Maurice Gibb and drummer Colin Petersen following the musical experimentation previously heard from the Beatles, Moody Blues, Who and others.
By the time of its release in February 1969, everything in Odessa — orchestral and choral arrangements, use of the Mellotron, expansive compositions — had been done. Except for a few examples of Bee Gees songcraft — especially the sweetly tuneful “Melody Fair” — the variously capricious and ponderous Odessa pales beside such masterworks of the era as the early Moody Blues albums. Nevertheless, the recent prog-rock revival spearheaded by the Mars Volta, Coheed and Cambria, Islands, Pelican and more contemporary groups suggests the time is right for the 40th anniversary deluxe edition of Odessa.
MY LOVE: ULTIMATE ESSENTIAL COLLECTION/MY LOVE: ESSENTIAL COLLECTION
Celine Dion fans on their way to her Saturday concert at the New Orleans Arena can take refresher courses for her hits through two new collections. Of course, the 17 songs on My Love: Essential Collection include “My Heart Will Go On,” the blockbuster theme from Titanic. And every song on My Love: Essential Collection also appears on the 27-song, two-CD set, My Love: Ultimate Essential Collection.
Despite the cheap synthesizer instrumentation in many of the two sets’ recordings, Dion’s mighty, theatrical voice always rises to the top. Unlike so many recently ascended pop stars, the French-Canadian chanteuse doesn’t need electronic help to stay in pitch. Her choice of material, too, at least until recently, is exceptional. Dion’s voice plus songs by Diane Warren (“If You Asked Me To” and “Because You Loved Me”), Alan Menkin and Howard Ashman (“Beauty and the Beast”) and Jim Steinman (“It’s All Coming Back To Me Now”) become the grandest sort of pop music.
Celine Dion performs Saturday, Jan. 10, at the New Orleans Arena.
Soulja Boy Tell’em
iSOULJABOYTELLEM
Teen rapper Soulja Boy Tell’em hit the commercial stratosphere with “Crank That (Soulja Boy),” a YouTube and ringtone phenomenon. Now 18, Soulja Boy follows his full-length CD debut, Souljaboytellem.com, with iSouljaBoyTellem. The new disc is loaded with chants, boasts, call-and-response and minor-key keyboard riffs — the usual rap elements.
At worst, the Atlanta-based Soulja Boy’s new tracks are caricatures of the genre. “Every city, every state, Soulja Boy is known,” he announces. “I’m just 18 and I’m already grown!” At best, the new stuff is entertaining, intentionally silly, suitable for getting stupid at the club. And if the rap thing stops working for Soulja, he could give comedy a try, something he does in the spoofy “Hey You There.” Elsewhere, as in “Shoppin’ Spree,” his vanity and consumerism definitely are out of touch with present-day hard times.
Rivers Cuomo
ALONE II: THE HOME RECORDINGS OF RIVERS CUOMO
As the leader of Weezer, Rivers Cuomo was the centerpiece of the band’s amusingly geeky mid-’90s hits “Undone (The Sweater Song),” “Buddy Holly” and “Say It Ain’t So.” But maybe being a rock star and simultaneously attending Harvard was rough going. Weezer’s musically ambitious second CD, 1996’s Pinkerton, was a commercial failure.
While the band eventually rebounded, Alone II, the second collection of Cuomo’s home recordings to be released this year, helps explain the introspective mind that created the unconventional Pinkerton. In CD booklet notes that amount to an abbreviated, intensely honest autobiography, as well as accompanying songs that compare well alongside the best of Weezer, Cuomo surfaces as a brilliant student of popular music. Notes about the Pixies-Nirvana-styled “I Want To Take You Home Tonight” describe the singer-songwriter’s deeply personal inspiration for it. “I Was Scared,” modeled on Pixies music with lyrics inspired by high school experiences with bullying jocks, bursts with long-simmering shame and regret and a tinge of characteristic Cuomo humor. “I Don’t Want To Let You Go” sounds modeled on the Phil Spector-girl group template and there’s even a faithful remake of “Don’t Worry Baby,” a classic from another of Cuomo’s influences, Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys.
The Bee Gees
ODESSA
Between their great hit singles of the late ’60s and a massive comeback in the 1970s that included the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack, the Bee Gees created a sprawling curiosity called Odessa. The album, to be re-released Tuesday, marked brothers Barry, Robin and Maurice Gibb and drummer Colin Petersen following the musical experimentation previously heard from the Beatles, Moody Blues, Who and others.
By the time of its release in February 1969, everything in Odessa — orchestral and choral arrangements, use of the Mellotron, expansive compositions — had been done. Except for a few examples of Bee Gees songcraft — especially the sweetly tuneful “Melody Fair” — the variously capricious and ponderous Odessa pales beside such masterworks of the era as the early Moody Blues albums. Nevertheless, the recent prog-rock revival spearheaded by the Mars Volta, Coheed and Cambria, Islands, Pelican and more contemporary groups suggests the time is right for the 40th anniversary deluxe edition of Odessa.
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