Although she resides in the Nashville suburb of Franklin, Tenn., and her biggest successes as a songwriter have come through country singers Radney Foster ("Nobody Wins") and Trisha Yearwood ("Believe Me Baby [I Lied]"), Richey is hardly your typical country performer. Here, on her third album, both her songs and her vocal style are more reminiscent of such pop artists as Sarah McLachlan, Natalie Merchant and, in Richey's throbbier moments, Melissa Etheridge. The tone of the album's 14 songs, all of which Richey at least cowrote, is introspective and, on tunes like "The Way It Never Was," cynical. "And I might let you in," she sings (in "Long Way Back"), "and I might let you twist." Hardly the whimsical musings of a good ol' country gal.
Richey once said that if her career didn't pan out, she'd return home to Bellingham, Wash., to work in a friend's restaurant. But she shouldn't buy her Greyhound ticket just yet. There is a market for soul-baring these days, as the success of McLachlan and her sister Liliths attests.
Bottom Line: Make room on the thoughtful chanteuse circuit
Moby (V2)
Call him one whale of an eccentric pop star. Born Richard Melville Hall, this 33-year-old great-great-grandnephew of Herman Melville, the author of Moby Dick, defies almost every expectation for a contemporary musician with his stoic persona and exuberantly innovative dance records.
An enthusiastic Christian and strict environmentalist, Moby also avoids alcohol, drugs and all animal products. But as a musician he is a hedonist, indulging his every creative whim. "Honey," Play's hypnotic opening track, centers on a scratchy recording of folksinger Bessie Jones made by archivist Alan Lomax more than 50 years ago. What surprises is how Moby transforms the forgotten music into something fresh by adding odd rhythmic and instrumental elements. On "Porcelain," Moby sings in a deep, detached voice over a synthesizer reminiscent of slick '80s groups like the Pet Shop Boys. Other songs percolate with prerecorded snippets extracted from hip hop and heavy metal.
Moby, who plays everything from classical guitar to cutting-edge keyboards on the CD, stands out in the burgeoning field known as techno or electronica in part because he refuses to conform to the genre's unspoken edict of anonymity. By establishing a traditional rock star persona and writing engaging songs, he may be the first techno artist to openly court a mainstream audience. Songs like the rap-based "Bodyrock" will certainly be played in the hippest clubs, but also make for transcendent armchair listening.
Bottom Line: Don't let this one get away
"Weird Al" Yankovic (Volcano)
Thanks to a makeover, Yankovic has lost his trademark nerd-caught-in-the-headlights look. But the 39-year-old comedian-singer-musician who brought us such novelty hits as "Eat It," a spoof of Michael Jackson's "Beat It," and "Smells Like Nirvana," has not lost his knack for lampooning pop heroes. On Scissors, his 10th studio album, Yankovic swipes at sacred pop-culture cows from Star Wars ("The Saga Begins") to glum Pearl Jam singer Eddie Vedder. "Like he's some big tortured genius," Yankovic sings (in "My Baby's in Love with Eddie Vedder"), "and I'm some kinda wiener." On the hilarious "Pretty Fly for a Rabbi," Yankovic parodies an Offspring hit, and on "Polka Power," he gives the accordion treatment to tunes by Hanson and the Beastie Boys, among others.
Bottom Line: Lots of laughs, and you can dance to 'em
Ziggy Marley and the Melody Makers
(Elektra)
Album of the week
David (Ziggy) Marley learned to play guitar and drums at the knee of his reggae superstar dad, Bob, and was just 10 in 1979 when he was shepherded into the family business along with brother Stephen, sister Cedella and half sister Sharon, as the Melody Makers. But after their father's death two years later, the group—branded lightweight purveyors of a sweet and chewy style of bubblegum reggae—wobbled under the weight of the Marley mantle. Happily, Bob's ghost haunts them no more. Here on their 10th album, Ziggy, 30, and his siblings, with an able assist from producer Don Was, deliver 12 original tunes and two by their father, including the lovely "High Tide or Low Tide." Although Ziggy's vocals sometimes sound like an Adam Sandler parody, the melodies the Makers create are as assured, life-affirming and dance-inducing as their dad's.
Bottom Line: Ex-teenyBobbers live up to the family name
Jerry Lee Lewis (Q Records)
By the mid-'80s, three decades after "Great Balls of Fire," ol' Jerry Lee might have lost a step or two to the tangled personal and health woes that had beset his career almost from the beginning. But the Killer could still slay in concert, as he proved on two occasions in 1984 and '87 at Gilley's, the enormous Houston-area honky-tonk that was the setting of 1980's Urban Cowboy and just happened to be owned by his first cousin, country singer Mickey Gilley. One of a series of newly released live performances by the likes of Fats Domino and Carl Perkins recorded at the club between 1976 and 1989, this disc (from two mid-'80s shows) finds Lewis in full-tilt rocker mode. Slowing down only to croon Hank Williams's "You Win Again," Lewis turns in an incendiary set, playing his patented speed-boogie piano and wailing hits like "Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On" and his middle-aged signature, "Rockin' My Life Away."
Bottom Line: The Killer is killer
- Contributors:
- Ralph Novak,
- Alec Foege,
- Steve Dougherty.
Saved by the Bell Reunion
The hookups, the meltdowns, the memoires
The case reveals what was really going on what they think of each other now!
