Spring Music Preview: Fifty Must-Hear Albums

Paul McCartney
title tba
Out June

McCartney takes a look back at his life on his new album, which he worked on with Strokes producer David Kahne and which will be the first album released on Starbucks' new Hear Music label. McCartney played most of the instruments on this collage-style disc, which includes a fifteen-minute Abbey Road-style suite. "It's him being reflective," says Glen Barros, CEO of Starbucks partner Concord Music Group. "You can hear real elements of the Wings and Beatles eras."

Ryan Adams
Easy Tiger
Out June

"I didn't listen to anything but hip-hop while making this record," says Adams. "That freed me from any obvious influences." Tiger doesn't sound anything like hip-hop, but it does sound great: Killer cuts include the chugging, Seventies-rock "Halloween Head" and the gorgeous country ballad "Rip Off." And Adams' voice sounds sweeter than ever. "There is an ease now in my playing and singing," he says. "I have a tendency to overwrite. But this time I surrendered control and asked for advice from my friends and the band."

Chris Cornell
Carry On
Out June

Cornell's new solo disc, recorded in Paris and Hollywood with U2 producer Steve Lillywhite, finds him singing over his most riff-heavy tunes since Soundgarden. A number of songs were inspired by the war in Iraq, including the anti-Bush "Safe and Sound," which, he says, "definitely has a tip of the hat to gospel." But not all of the tunes are political: "There's a song called 'She'll Never Be Your Man,' which came from hearing a few stories of guys' wives that left them for another woman," he says. "It's this weird, idiosyncratic, special kind of heartache."

The White Stripes
Icky Thump
Out June

With the Raconteurs, Jack White got a taste of playing in a more traditional band, complete with a bass player -- but he had no problem returning to the just-him-and-Meg setup of the White Stripes. "I've always loved Meg more than any other drummer I've ever played with," says Jack. "She's so perfect." He went into rehearsals with no particular concept in mind: "I just had a lot of ideas for songs." The resulting album was recorded in three weeks in Nashville's Blackbird Studio and ranges from blues to country to "surf/speed metal," with some mariachi horns along the way. The first single is likely to be the title track, on which Jack plays an ancient Univox synthesizer. "Sonically, it's not the same," Jack says of the album. "It's a really enjoyable experience."

JULY

Spoon
Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga
Out July 10th

"We kept asking, 'How can we make it sound thrilling?' " says Spoon singer-guitarist Britt Daniel of Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga, Spoon's sixth LP, the follow-up to 2005's much-loved Gimme Fiction. To find that sound, Daniel demo'd material in a practice space in Portland, Oregon, where he moved last year from Austin, Texas, working while local indie heroes the Thermals and death-metal bands practiced nearby. Spoon then spent months recording, often working from noon till midnight. They recorded some unusual sounds -- including koto (a Japanese string instrument), harpsichord and a packet of Emergen-C bubbling up -- and even got Kanye West and Fiona Apple collaborator Jon Brion to produce one track. The result of all that effort is a record that beefs up Spoon's typically spiky alt-pop attack on killer songs like the Brion-produced "The Underdog" and tosses in experimental cuts like "The Ghost of You Lingers," whose chugging, synthesized groove inspired the record's title. There are also what Daniel calls "more emotional" songs, including "Black Like Me." The title of that song comes from John Howard Griffin's 1961 exposé (in which the white author posed as a black man), but the sound comes from Daniel's personal pain. "I broke up with my girlfriend just before we recorded that one," Daniel says. "Right then, I actually felt as desperate as I sound." (CHRISTIAN HOARD)

More Upcoming CDs

Will.i.am
Songs About Girls
Out Summer

"I never really had an aspiration to do a solo album," says Will.i.am, the mastermind behind the Black Eyed Peas and the producer of some of the hottest tracks of the past year, including Nas' "Hip Hop Is Dead" and Fergie's "Fergalicious." "I always wanted to be in a group, but I'm going to take advantage of this opportunity to try and reinvent myself." On four Peas albums and his many hit records for other artists, Will has become known as an expert beat crafter with a killer ear for pop hooks -- perhaps the only man who could hear hits in the choruses of songs such as "My Humps" and "Let's Get Retarded." But rather than use his solo debut to call in favors to get A-list guest performers, Will.i.am wrote Songs About Girls as a concept album about a DJ and the women in his life. He is still recording the music, but he says it will feature a wide range of styles, from classic R&B to rock, but no guests -- not even his beloved Peas. "I don't think I would be doing myself justice if I went in on my solo project and got a whole lot of other people to dilute the concept I have in my head," he says. "I want to make the kind of record that I'm feeling. If people like it, that's cool, but just so I get my nut off." (EVAN SERPICK)

Kelly Clarkson
My December
Out Summer

Clarkson's previous album, 2004's Breakaway, sold nearly 6 million copies -- but the original American Idol winner still had higher aspirations for her latest release. "My first two albums are very scattered, with different producers and different writers," she says. "They're collections of songs, not albums by any means." Clarkson wanted her third album to be more cohesive, to tell the story of a tumultuous two years in her life -- during which she won two Grammys, went through a rough breakup, hit her mid-twenties and tried to grow up. Against her label's wishes, she opted to write most of the songs herself, with members of her touring band. The resulting album, produced by David Kahne (who worked on the Strokes' First Impressions of Earth), ranges from alt-country (she names Patty Griffin and Ryan Adams as influences) to Foo Fighters-style rock to bare-bones acoustic ballads. "Never Again" and "One Minute," the candidates for the first single, are both rockers; Clarkson calls the former, penned about the aforementioned breakup, "one of the most bitter songs I've ever written in my life." Kahne brought in an unlikely guest musician for about half the tracks: ex-Minutemen bassist Mike Watt."He played on the rock ones and also on some of the ones with a more singer-songwriter vibe," says Clarkson. "He's a badass on the bass -- he can play anything." (BRIAN HIATT)