Things in transitory Nashville being what they are these days, anyone who has been around longer than the Oilers seems like an old-timer. So even though he's only 48 and has been in town for 15 years, Shelton has made enough marks and earned enough respect to take on some of the trappings of an elder. Always calm and confident, here he sounds more in control than ever. The titular delicacies are alluded to in "From the Fryin' Pan (Into the Fire)," and this collection includes other fine country treats as well, notably "I'm the One," "Somebody's Gonna Lose," "All I Have to Offer You Is Me" and "Foolish Pride." Shelton himself cowrote "The Decision" (which will remind pop fans of "Papa Don't Preach"). Not yet up there with Willie and Waylon, he's still a Nashville reliable.
Bottom Line: Nice work from a good not-so-old boy
Carly Simon (Arista)
Three years ago, Simon paid tribute to romantic films of the 1940s with a collection of standards, Film Noir. Now she returns with an album that unfolds like a one-woman show. Always something of a drama queen—just ask ex-lover "Warren Beatty, whom she skewered in her 1972 hit "You're So Vain"—Simon here mocks her own theatricality in "Actress," one of 11 self-revelatory songs that unfold like dramatic vignettes. Some, such as the opening track, "Our Affair," about the wisdom (and heightened eroticism) of waiting before leaping into love, are sweet. "We Your Dearest Friends" is an acidic swipe at showbiz critics: "We make fun of how you sing and then we imitate your speech/ And the stupid things you say we like to slander." Simon is also adept at comedy, as she shows in "Big Dumb Guy," about her preference for unreconstructed meat-and-potatoes types over successful dot-com dweebs. "Whatever Became of Her," about a long-ago bride looking at her wedding photos, is straight out of Pathos 101—sappy, but it breaks your heart.
Bottom Line: Boffo performance
Billy Bragg & Wilco (Elektra)
Album of the week
Oops! They've done it again. Two years after their last collaboration, Bragg, the British agit-pop singer, and the roots-rocking U.S. band Wilco, return with a second album of Woody Guthrie songs that could not be more not in sync with today's teencentric pop scene. Somehow it is difficult to imagine ex-Mousketeers singing "Hot Rod Hotel," about a porter who gets fired for refusing to clean up the mess after a drunken orgy. Or warbling these rockin' ditties that rail against racism, fascism, war, greed and pollution and praise the Lord, Joe DiMaggio and a write-in Socialist presidential candidate named "Stetson Kennedy." As they did on the singular and inspired 1998 Mermaid Avenue, Bragg and Wilco have here composed new music for lyrics written but never performed by Guthrie, the late poet laureate of the dust bowl. Like the first outing, Volume II opens with a tub-thumping rave up ("Airline to Heaven") and reaches the sublime, thanks to Bragg's good-humored fervor and the rich, rasping vocals of Wilco's Jeff Tweedy.
Bottom Line: An American beauty
>EIGHTEEN DOWN Michael Stanley (Razor & Tie) Even if he is never enshrined in the city's Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Stanley remains the king of Cleveland rock. He returns with 10 new tracks of his muscular midwestern soul (plus three rockin' covers).
>Aimee Mann
Just two years ago, singer-songwriter Aimee Mann was so frustrated with the music biz, she nearly called it quits. And who could blame her? After recording three albums for as many labels—the first company wasn't interested, the second went bankrupt and the third rejected her songs altogether—Mann, 39, had simply had it. "I would have done anything else—I really didn't care," she says. "I just didn't want to be a musician."
Enter film director Paul Thomas Anderson (Boogie Nights). After hearing a tape of Mann's album-in-progress—the just released Bachelor No. 2—he was inspired to write Magnolia, his critically acclaimed 1999 movie. Anderson featured her songs on the Magnolia soundtrack, and suddenly Mann was hot again. Major record companies came knocking. But the singer, who started her own label, SuperEgo, last year, wasn't interested. "It was too little, too late," she says. Now touring with musician husband Michael Penn, 41 (brother of Sean), Mann has recaptured her passion for music-making. "It's fun again," says Mann, "because it has nothing to do with all those business people."
- Contributors:
- Ralph Novak,
- Steve Dougherty,
- Joseph V. Tirella.
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!
