Yesterday’s featured artist, Beck, has never made two albums that sound alike. Today’s has never made two that sound different.
If you played songs from all of Ron Sexsmith’s 14 albums on random (and I’ve done this), you would have a hard time differentiating the tunes on his 1991 debut from those on this year’s The Last Rider, let alone the dozen in between.
It’s crazy how artists quietly put together careers that start to feel like legacies. Take Beck, who still has the impish charm of the nerd-punk who crashed MTV with “I’m a Loser,” yet somehow is entering his 25th year as a recording artist.
This year’s Colors is Beck’s 13th studio album, released three years after the unlikely Album of the Year Grammy winner Morning Phase. Somehow, this is the first traditional pop album he’s recorded. Or at least as traditional as an oddball like Beck can get.
If you had told me in 2010, after the release of ‘Tik Tok,’ that I would one day not only own a Kesha album but really enjoy it, I’d have thought you mad.
That song was like an R-rated version of Rebecca Black’s ‘Friday,’ and Kesha (then Ke$ha) seemed just as packaged and talentless.
What a difference seven years, an eating disorder and alleged sexual harassment and rape by producer Dr. Luke makes.
John Mayer released his seventh album, The Search For Everything, over the course of several months, putting out two 4-song EPs before dropping the full 12-song set. To me, that’s a little like watching 2/3 of a movie before it finally gets a theatrical release. But I’m old-fashioned.
Rollout strategy aside, The Search For Everything is a strong return to the soulful pop of 2006’s Continuum, probably still his best album though he hasn’t released a bad one since.
Back in March, when Lana Del Rey released the first single from her new album Lust For Life, I made this statement: “One thing I love about Del Rey is how little she seems to care about bending her sound toward the fads of the day. You won’t find a rap break in any of her songs.”
Six songs into Lust For Life, she made me eat those words, as rapper A$AP Rocky shows up to deliver a verse on the track ‘Summer Bummer.’ He sticks around for the next song, ‘Groupie Love,’ as well.
