We took you inside heavyweight returns from
Eminem and
Green Day and bold new projects from
Ben Harper and
Lil Wayne, but May also brings new music from an eclectic
roster that includes Conor Oberst, Cam'ron and the legendary the
New York Dolls. Here's what else is on tap:
Conor
Oberst
Outer
South5/19
Conor Oberst has found his Crazy Horse. For his second album
with his five-man Mystic Valley Band in two years, Oberst laid down
16 roots-rock tracks, including road-tested favorites like "I Got
the Reason #2" and "Ten Women." This time, Oberst invited his
bandmates to contribute their own tunes, and seven of Outer
South's tracks feature someone other than Oberst on lead
vocals. "Everyone has input on the songs," says drummer Jason
Boesel. "Conor would ask, 'What do you think of that line?' I'd be
like, 'Wow, I think you're the best lyricist alive, and you're
asking me what I think?'"
Cam'ron
Crime
Pays5/5
"It's definitely a street record," Cam'ron says of
Crime Pays, his first disc in three years, which he cut in
the basement studio of his New Jersey home. With no big-name guests
or producers, the music skews toward grimy bounce, with Cam turning
in complex rhymes about drug-slinging and his bedroom skills. On
the first single, the soul-steeped "I Hate My Job," he creates a
perfect song for our current economic climate. "Someone I knew was
complaining about her job," says Cam. "But I also imagined
[unemployed] people who'd love to be in her position."
New
York Dolls
'Cause I
Sez So5/5
Todd Rundgren, who produced the glam-punk legends'
1973 debut, has reunited with the New York Dolls to oversee their
fourth studio album (their last was in '06). Singer David Johansen
and guitarist Syl Sylvain are the only living members left from the
original lineup, but the Dolls' raw, bluesy sound still comes
through on new tunes like the title track and "This Is Ridiculous."
"There's not a lot of philosophizing," he says. "It's a band that
knows how to plug in and start playing. I'd sing a song and say,
'Should I sing it again?' And Todd would say, 'Why?' "
• Listen to "'Cause I Sez So"
St.
Vincent
Actor5/5
Multi-instrumentalist Annie Clark (who records as St.
Vincent) prepped for her second album by watching Disney classics
like Snow White. "I'd imagine that I was composing the
score," says Clark, who broke out with 2007's Kate Bush-like
Marry Me. Loaded with lyrics about black eyes and
Playboys under a mattress, the album finds Clark playing
everything from clarinet to Mellotron. On "Laughing With Blood in
Your Mouth," she combines brutal imagery with a singsong melody. "I
was always thinking, 'How can I make it sound human?' " she says.
"I felt like E.T."
• Listen to "The Strangers"
Steve
Earle
Townes5/12
Earle pays tribute to old friend Townes Van Zandt on
this collection of covers, stripping down to bring new urgency to
tunes like "Pancho and Lefty" and "To Live Is to Fly." Earle laid
the album's foundation of vocals and acoustic guitar tracks in his
NYC apartment before heading to Nashville to fill out the sound.
There, he also teamed with a bluegrass group for three more tracks.
"It would have been easy for this to be a record to slit your
wrists by," Earle says. "But this is one of the best records I've
ever made."
• Listen to "Lungs"
Jay
Rock
Follow Me
Home5/12
"I'm just glad to be alive," says rapper Jay Rock,
who grew up in L.A.'s infamously rough Nickerson Gardens projects.
With a commanding voice that recalls the Game, Jay Rock rhymes with
precision about guns, crack spots and life in South Central L.A.
over sleek, soul-specked beats from producers like Cool and Dre and
Will.i.am. Lil Wayne appears on the first single "All My Life," a
cameo that came about after Rock gave Weezy one of his mixtapes. "I
thought he would shine me off," says Jay. "But he was real with
it."
"She's got a voice that sounds like something from
the past, but you can't put your finger on it," says Jack Johnson
of Zee Avi, the Malaysian YouTube discovery he signed to his label.
The singer-songwriter flew in from Kuala Lumpur to work with
Johnson's band at its solar-powered studio in L.A. The album has a
brunch-friendly acoustic swing vibe: "Just You and Me" features Avi
on ukulele, "First of the Gang to Die" is a chilled-out Morrissey
cover, and on "Kantoi," she sings in the Malay-English hybrid known
as Manglish. "I do that one last when I perform at home," she says.
"It really gets the crowd going."
The cult Pittsburgh psych-pop act is poised to break
out this year with its fourth record, a dazzling set that resembles
a trippier Air — whooshing synths, hip-hop beats and lots of
frontman Tobacco's vocoder vocals. The group cut the disc with
Flaming Lips producer Dave Fridmann. "We wanted his spacey kind of
sound," says Tobacco. "I wanted everything to sound much greater in
scope."
• Listen to selections from Eating
Us
Grizzly Bear
Veckatimest5/26
After opening for Radiohead and collaborating with
Paul Simon, the Brooklyn indie-rock crew headed to Cape Cod to
record parts of its third album, named after a remote island off
the coast of Massachusetts. Helped out by classical composer Nico
Muhly, the quartet piled on strings, woodwinds and children's
choirs. "Nico was extremely receptive to doing what we wanted and
not overly precious about it," says singer Ed Droste. The resulting
orchestral-pop odysseys sound like spaced-out versions of Brian
Wilson songs, from the heavy guitars on "Ready, Able" to the
stacked vocals on "Dory." "It's a smorgasbord," says Droste. "We
did some simple pop songs, but we also weren't afraid to get
proggy."
Mandy
Moore
Amanda
Leigh5/26
"We didn't use anything — guitars, basses, amps
— made after 1977," says Mandy Moore of her sixth album. "I
was going for a supergroovy vibe." Moore — who co-wrote the
album with Mike Viola (formerly of the Candy Butchers) — took
inspiration from favorites like Paul McCartney and Joni Mitchell.
High points include the haunting love song "Everblue" and the
country-flavored "Indian Summer," which sounds like a lost
Fleetwood Mac track. "I'm not sure I'll ever go back to the poppy
stuff," she says. "This signals the direction I want to go in."
• Listen to "I Could Break Your Heart Any Day
of the Week"
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"It's definitely a street record," Cam'ron says of
Crime Pays, his first disc in three years, which he cut in
the basement studio of his New Jersey home. With no big-name guests
or producers, the music skews toward grimy bounce, with Cam turning
in complex rhymes about drug-slinging and his bedroom skills. On
the first single, the soul-steeped "I Hate My Job," he creates a
perfect song for our current economic climate. "Someone I knew was
complaining about her job," says Cam. "But I also imagined
[unemployed] people who'd love to be in her position."
Todd Rundgren, who produced the glam-punk legends'
1973 debut, has reunited with the New York Dolls to oversee their
fourth studio album (their last was in '06). Singer David Johansen
and guitarist Syl Sylvain are the only living members left from the
original lineup, but the Dolls' raw, bluesy sound still comes
through on new tunes like the title track and "This Is Ridiculous."
"There's not a lot of philosophizing," he says. "It's a band that
knows how to plug in and start playing. I'd sing a song and say,
'Should I sing it again?' And Todd would say, 'Why?' "
Multi-instrumentalist Annie Clark (who records as St.
Vincent) prepped for her second album by watching Disney classics
like Snow White. "I'd imagine that I was composing the
score," says Clark, who broke out with 2007's Kate Bush-like
Marry Me. Loaded with lyrics about black eyes and
Playboys under a mattress, the album finds Clark playing
everything from clarinet to Mellotron. On "Laughing With Blood in
Your Mouth," she combines brutal imagery with a singsong melody. "I
was always thinking, 'How can I make it sound human?' " she says.
"I felt like E.T."
Earle pays tribute to old friend Townes Van Zandt on
this collection of covers, stripping down to bring new urgency to
tunes like "Pancho and Lefty" and "To Live Is to Fly." Earle laid
the album's foundation of vocals and acoustic guitar tracks in his
NYC apartment before heading to Nashville to fill out the sound.
There, he also teamed with a bluegrass group for three more tracks.
"It would have been easy for this to be a record to slit your
wrists by," Earle says. "But this is one of the best records I've
ever made."
"I'm just glad to be alive," says rapper Jay Rock,
who grew up in L.A.'s infamously rough Nickerson Gardens projects.
With a commanding voice that recalls the Game, Jay Rock rhymes with
precision about guns, crack spots and life in South Central L.A.
over sleek, soul-specked beats from producers like Cool and Dre and
Will.i.am. Lil Wayne appears on the first single "All My Life," a
cameo that came about after Rock gave Weezy one of his mixtapes. "I
thought he would shine me off," says Jay. "But he was real with
it."
"She's got a voice that sounds like something from
the past, but you can't put your finger on it," says Jack Johnson
of Zee Avi, the Malaysian YouTube discovery he signed to his label.
The singer-songwriter flew in from Kuala Lumpur to work with
Johnson's band at its solar-powered studio in L.A. The album has a
brunch-friendly acoustic swing vibe: "Just You and Me" features Avi
on ukulele, "First of the Gang to Die" is a chilled-out Morrissey
cover, and on "Kantoi," she sings in the Malay-English hybrid known
as Manglish. "I do that one last when I perform at home," she says.
"It really gets the crowd going."
The cult Pittsburgh psych-pop act is poised to break
out this year with its fourth record, a dazzling set that resembles
a trippier Air — whooshing synths, hip-hop beats and lots of
frontman Tobacco's vocoder vocals. The group cut the disc with
Flaming Lips producer Dave Fridmann. "We wanted his spacey kind of
sound," says Tobacco. "I wanted everything to sound much greater in
scope."
After opening for Radiohead and collaborating with
Paul Simon, the Brooklyn indie-rock crew headed to Cape Cod to
record parts of its third album, named after a remote island off
the coast of Massachusetts. Helped out by classical composer Nico
Muhly, the quartet piled on strings, woodwinds and children's
choirs. "Nico was extremely receptive to doing what we wanted and
not overly precious about it," says singer Ed Droste. The resulting
orchestral-pop odysseys sound like spaced-out versions of Brian
Wilson songs, from the heavy guitars on "Ready, Able" to the
stacked vocals on "Dory." "It's a smorgasbord," says Droste. "We
did some simple pop songs, but we also weren't afraid to get
proggy."
"We didn't use anything — guitars, basses, amps
— made after 1977," says Mandy Moore of her sixth album. "I
was going for a supergroovy vibe." Moore — who co-wrote the
album with Mike Viola (formerly of the Candy Butchers) — took
inspiration from favorites like Paul McCartney and Joni Mitchell.
High points include the haunting love song "Everblue" and the
country-flavored "Indian Summer," which sounds like a lost
Fleetwood Mac track. "I'm not sure I'll ever go back to the poppy
stuff," she says. "This signals the direction I want to go in."
UP
NEXT:
Sonic Youth, Elvis Costello and more June
releases
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