Tuesday, February 26, 2008; C05
NEW AMERYKAH, PT. 1: 4TH WORLD WAR
The last new music we got from Erykah Badu was "Worldwide Underground" -- a paltry, eight-song EP with one hot track, "Back in the Day." That was five years ago. In 2006, she resurfaced in the concert movie "Dave Chappelle's Block Party," still performing that one song. During "Block Party," Erykah looked sad and disconnected, especially when standing next to the ever-beaming Jill Scott. It made you worry.
Turns out she was using all that time to heal: "Sometimes it's hard to move, you see, when you're growing publicly. But if I have to chose between, I choose me," she sings on "New AmErykah, Pt. 1: 4th World War," her third full album of new music in 11 years. After having her second child and becoming a Reiki practitioner, Erykah Badu returns to us now as a high priestess, a healer, an empowered artist. "New AmErykah, Pt. 1" is by far the most aggressive work of her career.
"New AmErykah" begins with an energetic remake of Roy Ayers's cynical anthem "The American Promise," followed by nine absolutely ferocious tracks, all connected by hectic interludes. This album has so much testosterone, Erykah makes the hardest hip-hop artists look as though they're just coloring in the numbers. Above the fracas, Erykah floats her smooth, stinging observations on American dysfunction.
That being said, there's not one hit record on the album. Her current single, "Honey," a great song with a brilliant, self-directed video, has limped up the charts. On the rest of "New AmErykah," Erykah takes her sweet old time getting to a refrain, when there's one at all. You just have to sit there and listen. It doesn't matter. It's good medicine just to hear Erykah do Badu.
-- Dan Charnas
DOWNLOAD THESE :"Honey," "Soldier," "Telephone"
BACKWOODS BARBIE
Dolly Parton made her best country records back in the 1970s, before she became Dolly -- a pneumatic and almost mythical crossover creation made from false eyelashes, Nudie suits and construction tape.
Her new disc, "Backwoods Barbie," is intended to signal Parton's return to her roots after years spent wandering in a cultural wilderness of tepid pop albums and Lifetime TV movies. It's a fundamentally warmhearted offering that attempts to merge two things that should never be merged: the sequin-free, "Jolene"-era Dolly and the in-on-the-joke Dolly of 2008. Perhaps realizing that the eternal seriousness of old-school country may now be forever beyond Parton's grasp, "Backwoods Barbie" sticks mostly to rejiggered exercises in mild country swing (the superb "The Lonesomes") and country pop ("Jesus & Gravity," equally great).
Among the other things "Backwoods Barbie" offers up: forbidden love songs, done-me-wrong songs, heavenly choirs, songs about Jesus, and a maniacally perky cover of "The Tracks of My Tears." There's also a Nashville-ized, beat-happy version of the Fine Young Cannibals' "She Drives Me Crazy" that mostly works because of the determined way Parton plows through it, as if refusing to recognize its fundamental unreasonableness.
"Barbie's" best tracks are the ones meant to be universal exclamations of sisterhood but really only apply to Dolly, like the I-wear-a-lot-of-makeup-but-who-are-you-to-judge title track ("Don't judge me by the cover/'Cause I'm a real good book"), or "Better Get to Livin'," another number so packed with Parton's own brand of front porch self-help that a better title for the album might have been "Oprah Barbie." At this point, can her own daytime talk show be far behind?
DOWNLOAD THESE:"Jesus and Gravity," "The Lonesomes," "Drives Me Crazy"
SEVENTH TREE
The sexy, glam-rockin' synth-pop on 2005's "Supernature" got electronica duo Goldfrapp a Grammy nod. They didn't try to milk that formula again. Striving for a more "psychedelic" fourth record, Goldfrapp brought in an arsenal of musicians and choirs to augment their magic synthesizers. Best absorbed through headphones using the process of osmosis, "Seventh Tree" is infused with twinkling, enveloping melodies that will inspire critics to use ridiculous words like soundscapes and dreamscapes.
Mostly, these songs are escapes. Everything is flower-petal pretty -- and in the case of the first track, "Clowns," pretty odd. Over a graceful canvas of acoustic guitar and orchestral strings, Alison Goldfrapp coos sweetly about, um, breast implants: "Only clowns would play with those balloons," she sings, inexplicably yet gorgeously mush-mouthing the words as if she's had her face anesthetized for dental work. Synth guru Will Gregory consistently conjures up interesting environments for her often delicate soprano. On sky-scraping tunes such as "Little Bird" and ethereal trips including "Monster Love," the effect is lovely.
Goldfrapp's first album in 2000 hinted at this cinematic approach to composition. Nevertheless, recent Goldfrapp converts holding glow sticks and wondering where their band went have a couple of options here. The poppy, peppy "Happiness" is a standout empowered by whimsical synth sounds. Heck, the groove of "Caravan Girl" would actually work on a dance floor. Even if Goldfrapp's disco ball has lost some of its sparkle, that's probably where you'll find this artistic duo again in an album or two.
-- Michael Deeds
DOWNLOAD THESE :"Little Bird," "Happiness," "Caravan Girl"
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