KATE NASH
Made of Bricks
(Interscope)
Kate Nash is the heir apparent, or the version 2.0, of fleeting
British-music-tabloid darling Lily Allen (it depends on whether you
liken the British pop-music system more to a royal family or a
planned-obsolescence assembly line). Both are young, comfortably posh
North London girls who—shock! horror!—aren’t afraid to
speak their minds; Allen even effectively anointed her successor to the
popular world by placing Nash in the highly visible top eight of her
now legendary, apparently career-launching MySpace page.
“Foundations,” the Made of Bricks lead single, has more
sparkly momentum than Allen’s relaxed R&B breakout,
“Smile”—sometimes that momentum gets the best of Nash; she has a
habit of running off rhythm and into spoken word, struggling to cram
more syllables than can fit into her lines. “Mouthwash” mixes
propulsive instrumentation with superficially introspective lyrics
(“this is my face/covered in freckles with the occasional spot”). Old
B-side “Birds” is a sweet enough urban bohemian love ballad. The softly
rapped verses and gaudy R&B chorus (“I just want your kiss, boy”)
of “Pumpkin Soup” are built to chart. The slightly morbid romantic lilt
and well-placed violins of “Skeleton Song” suggest a more polished Nick
Diamonds. But the distorted drum break and repetitious stutter of the
throwaway intro “Play” unfavorably recall both Nash’s red-herring debut
single, “Caroline’s a Victim,” and the electro-fop routine of Calvin “I
Created Disco” Harris. “Why you being a dickhead for?” even when
delivered in a well-practiced, slightly world-weary jazz croon, is
not exactly a compelling
chorus (“Dickhead”).
Nash possesses a clear, classically trained voice, capable of
pulling both jazzy pouts and Björk-lite wails, and she’s
surrounded by slickly professional acoustic production—clean
guitars, bright pianos, tight but unremarkable rhythm sections, big
choruses, occasional blasts of horns or Pro-Tooled synths. And her
particular inflections and self-conscious snatches of pub slang (a
“fit” here, a “twat” here, a “wot?” there) will appeal to a certain
indiscriminating brand of twee Anglophile. Others will be thrown by
Made of Bricks‘s constant flirting between confessional
singer-songwriter and teen-pop modes.
ERIC GRANDY
BIRDMAN
5 Star Stunna
(Motown / Universal)
1/2
Last year’s Birdman/Lil Wayne collaboration,Like Father Like Son, seemed like a powerful capping of
Cash Money’s past as well as a look ahead into Wayne’s iridescent
future—an impression strengthened by Birdman’s own proclamation
that it would likely be his last recorded appearance as a rapper. He
has apparently recaught the performative bug, though, which is a shame
not only for those eagerly awaiting Wayne’s much-delayed Tha Carter
III, but for all who hold any value
whatsoever for
lyricism.
Admirable though his business acumen and music empire may be,
Birdman is a terrible, terrible rapper. While his club-footed flow can
feel cool breaking up the space between more nimble rappers (as in his
recent appearances on posse cuts “Make It Rain (Remix)” and “We Takin’
Over”), when forced to carry a whole album it gets numbing almost
immediately. Fittingly then, the record’s one shining moment arrives
during the single “100 Million,” where Birdman’s brief verse is tucked
away amidst a slew of modern rap superstars in top form (Rick Ross,
Young Jeezy, Wayne), an exultant chorus, and regal, rousing production
from Miami duo Cool & Dre. The bulk of the record, however, sags
with droning mumblings about all of the same stuff as every other
Birdman or Big Tymers or, until Wayne’s recent creative leap, pretty
much any Cash Money record: money over bitches, fucking dudes up,
stacking cheese. Most charitably, 5 Star Stunna could be
accepted as a sort of ambient rap music; it is generally unobtrusive
and only really grates when one takes the time to pay attention to it.
SAM MICKENS
RÓISÍN MURPHY
Overpowered
(EMI)
The problem with going solo is that it ruins everything. The
original sound-expanding, in-band creative tensions are lost, and you
end up with some sad, low-key, acoustic, parallel-world version of
something you used to like. When Róisín Murphy left
Moloko, then, a stompy funhouse voodoo-cabaret band with UK indie-dance
highs like “Indigo,” “Familiar Feeling,” and “Sing It
Back”—clearly one of the oddest success stories of the
’90s—she’d already unplugged her relationship with bandmate Mark
Brydon and launched a solo career with 2005’s Ruby Blue, which
defeated none of the unfortunate after-band stereotypes.
Ruby Blue was too tentative. The songs wedged Murphy,
uncomfortably, between broken leave-me-alone has-been and newborn
floodlit chart star, and it wasn’t fun to listen to.
Overpowered finds Murphy more fully formed and confident. It’s
bright, wry, modern, unsettling, occasionally confusing—the sound
of pop-influenced British dance culture filtered
through
personal rebirth
and magazine glam.
On the title track, Murphy’s voice looms with confidence and breaks
into unapologetic ghost falsettos. “Footprints” and “Cry Baby” are
acid-touched creeping disco. “Movie Star” is all Kylie, a warm subway
blast of gay-club shimmer-haze. Elsewhere, stair-stepping piano riffs
and Yello-like samples fill the air like glitter.
Overpowered could only have been made by the woman on its
cover—a mad, alien fashion model plopped down in everyday places
of our ordinary world—but the extra-terrestrial clash doesn’t
always come together. The end result’s often not wild enough, stopping
just short of a total identity wipe. But it restores the idea of
Murphy’s potential so that it’s once again a promise rather than a
curse. If Murphy can’t quite hit the off-balance pop of M.I.A.,
Siobhán Donaghy, or Nelly Furtado, unable to detonate, she now
at least knows what she’s aiming for—a grand, clever exception to
the solo disease. DEAN FAWKES
Seth
Evan
Fogel
McLovin