Brad Paisley – This Is Country Music
Consciously backpedaling from the all-encompassing embrace of American Saturday Night, Brad Paisley narrows his definition of what constitutes modern country on his seventh collection of new songs, This Is Country Music. Gone are the casual multiculturalism, the allusions to the age of Obama, the subtle instrumental flourishes that suggested a
Jennifer Lopez – Love?
Given her promotion to the Paula Abdul seat on American Idol, there’s a distinct irony in having the first sounds on Jennifer Lopez’s Love? all twisted through a vocoder: she may be judging the pop purity of legions of hopeful singers, but even she can’t resist the siren call of
Beastie Boys – Hot Sauce Committee, PT. 2
Once Adam Yauch discovered he had cancer in 2009, the Beastie Boys shelved their forthcoming The Hot Sauce Committee, Pt. 1 and its companion volume, gradually reviving and revising the project once Yauch went into remission. At this point, they scrapped their convoluted plans to release concurrent complementary volumes of
Hank III – Hillbilly Joker
When Hank Williams III made his recorded debut in 1996 on the album Three Hanks (a compilation also featuring performances by his father and grandfather), Curb Records presumably thought they were getting a retro-styled alt-country act with a very marketable name. But it didn’t take long for Williams to make
Alison Krauss – Paper Airplane
Anyone who’s paid attention to Alison Krauss’ musical career, with and without Union Station, had to wonder what would happen after the unprecedented success of 2007′s Raising Sand, her collaboration with Robert Plant. For her, the next logical move was to reunite with US, who had been dormant since 2004′s
Bootsy Collins – Tha Funk Capital Of The World
Thinking big, Bootsy Collins’ 2011 effort is a conceptual trip, a funky history lesson brought to life by the P-Funk veteran, his rock-solid band, and a slew of guest stars, ranging from rapper Ice Cube to professor Cornel West. In between, there’s funk-rock shredding from freaky and frequent collaborator Buckethead,
