song reviews
Maximum Balloon feat. Aku
"Tiger"
On the debut single from his new project, TV on the Radio's David Sitek comes up with the killer dance anthem TVOTR never quite delivered. Guest vocalist Aku growls over steely electro, and the "meow-meow" refrain offers a feline response to George Clinton's funk classic "Atomic Dog." | More »
Lauryn Hill
"Repercussions"
Hill has been showing life on the road lately, but "Repercussions," apparently an old outtake, is disappointing — an undercooked jam about struggling through a world that's full of good intentions but devoid of hooks. | More »
Ryan Bingham and the Dead Horses
"Depression"
Bingham and producer T Bone Burnett — who together won an Oscar for co-writing "The Weary Kind" for Crazy Heart — reconvened for Bingham's Junky Star LP. The first single is about a jobless romantic who refuses to crack: "I'd rather lay down in a pine box," Bingham croaks, "than sell my heart to a fucking wasteland." Call it a modern Dust Bowl ballad — raw-boned heartache that's just right for these times. | More »
John Legend
"Wake Up Everybody"
"Wake Up Everybody" turns back the clock in all the right ways: The lead single from Legend's album with the Roots is a sparkling cover of Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes' 1975 hit. Over string-drenched retro-funk, Legend splashes his ultrawarm croon all over, cool-rocking the pulpit like he owns the church. Guest rapper Common, meanwhile, stays right on message: "Even in this generation livin' through computers/Only love, love, love can reboot us." | More »
Robert Plant
"Angel Dance"
Plant is a Zen master who has always marched to his own flute. So it's almost fitting that he's forgoing a much-rumored Led Zeppelin reunion tour in order to revive the band he fronted in the mid-Sixties. First time around, Band of Joy were a British blues-rock footnote. Now they're an American roots crew in which Plant shares vocal duties with alt-country star Patty Griffin. The first offering from Plant and Band of Joy's forthcoming album, "Angel Dance" is a bluegrass co... | More »
Robyn
"Hang With Me"
Robyn's planning to release three albums this year and the first single from the set's second LP proves she's can crank out catchy jams as fast as pop's biggest hitmakers. "Hang With Me" is revamped version of an acoustic track from Body Talk Pt. 1, made even better with the addition of a fierce, club-wrecking beat. "Just don't fall recklessly, heedlessly in love with me," Robyn coos. Too late. | More »
Beck
"Summertime"
This crunchy blast of blues-rock is for the geeks, the manga-loving nerds, the people whose favorite Beck album is Stereopathetic Soulmanure. Beck goes back to his lo-fi roots for this tune that he wrote under the guise of Sex Bob-omb, Michael Cera's fictional band in the upcoming movie Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World. Actors overdubbed several Beck-penned songs for the film, but he takes the reins on the soundtrack for this fun reminder of how he once ruled over something called alternative... | More »
T.I. feat. Keri Hilson
"Got Your Back"
If T.I. left prison and went straight to the 'musement park, got on a rollercoaster with Keri Hilson, and afterwards they ran into DJ Toomp at the caramel apple stand, and all went into the karaoke tent to commandeer the machine and record the spontaneous feeling of that moment, it'd sound like "Got Your Back." T.I. tells "shoady" how to act while her man's locked up, while Keri equates looking "good" with looking "hood" as she pledges her allegiance. Toomp's digitally-lit... | More »
Crocodilies
"Sleep Forever"
On the new single from these California fuzz-rockers, Crocodiles deliver another serving of bleary-eyed shoegaze, mixing ghostly harmonies that sound like Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers singing from the bottom of a well with the pitch-black scuzz of The Jesus and Mary Chain. "I will love you till the sky above you shatters," croons Charles Rowell on the high-arcing chorus — just before a blast of distortion-drenched guitar that sounds like exactly that. | More »
The Ghost of a Saber-Tooth Tiger
"Jardin Du Luxembourg"
"People say your brain is like cream cheese/Takes the shape of anything you please," sing Sean Lennon and Charlotte Kemp Muhl on the debut single from their new band. It's a fitting line for a chirpy psych-rocker — one with a whiff of Papa Lennon's surrealist whimsy. | More »
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