Rimes groused about this album during an appearance on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. In an ongoing dispute with Curb Records, her label since she was 12, Rimes has suggested that the album was cobbled together out of leftover tracks from previous albums without her cooperation. In fact, Rimes has filed a lawsuit, "which is pending, against Curb and her own producer father, Wilbur Rimes. And yet her father has issued a statement calling I Need You "one of the best albums LeAnn has ever recorded." A girl should listen to her dad. The highlight is "Written in the Stars," a duet with Elton John on his tune from Aida. The rest is also first-rate. With her big, deep voice, Rimes emotes as easily and effusively as Cher (one of whose favorite composers, Diane Warren, wrote three of the 10 songs). Although she's still only 18, Rimes can even pull off the big-time romantic turmoil of "Together, Forever, Always," which she wrote herself.
Bottom Line: Tangy pop fare from country's teen queen
Aerosmith (Columbia)
Album of the week
With those wacky Carnaby Street scarves, his elaborately embroidered jeans—bell-bottoms yet!—and his hippie-on-a-weird-hair-day look, Steven Tyler is so out of style it hurts. At 53 he's a walking throwback whose prolonged adolescence has now stretched into a new century. Shouldn't we beg him to grow up and get real? Not on your life. Even as he and Joe Perry and the lads are inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame this month, they prove that they're not yet ready to act like museum pieces on their decidedly uncalcified 13th studio album. Relics simply don't rock this hard. Nor do they pack their songs with the kind of goofy puns ("if my karma suits you" is typical of the wordplay Tyler indulges), irresistible if sometimes predictable hooks and guitar riffs that abound here. Like the eternally buff Perry, who could actually pass for one of his band's rock-and-roll-crazy fans, the 'Smithies are ageless.
Bottom Line: No rocking chairs needed for these irrepressible rockers
Kristin Hersh (4AD/Beggars)
On her fifth solo album—her fourth in the four years since she left Throwing Muses, the Rhode Island alternative band she co-founded in 1980—Hersh proves that a quirky, intriguing singer can successfully spin herself off from a quirky, intriguing band. Hersh, 34, has developed into an engaging singer with a slightly husky voice and quiet, understated style that at times evokes the softer side of Stevie Nicks. Her version here of Cat Stevens's "Trouble" suggests untapped blues impulses that might complement her vocal talents. As for the album's other 11 songs, all of which she wrote, suffice it to say that as a lyricist she's a pretty good singer. She uses obscenities like punctuation, as if to prove how liberated she is. She also tends to overdo what she calls her "oh my stupid life" songs. A typical example is "Flipside," which in her press notes she calls her "yay, I'm not dead!" song. Then there's her observation that her tunes "could have been written by the Monkees but only if something really horrible had happened to them." Too bad she didn't apply that humor to her songwriting.
Bottom Line: Ex-Muse needs muse
Dianne Reeves (Blue Note)
Recorded with a live 42-piece orchestra in a scant four days, The Calling has the immediacy and intimacy of a late-night supper club. And that's the perfect setting for Reeves's warm, expressive vocalizing. On her 11th album the sublime jazzist, who got her start as a teenager singing with trumpet great Clark Terry, pays homage to Sarah Vaughan, whom she cites as her inspiration. Revisiting nine songs associated with Vaughan as well as two new tunes written for this project, Reeves glides and swings along with the finger-popping arrangement on the classic "Lullaby of Birdland." On "Embraceable You" she delivers an open-hearted ode to romance that smolders and seduces. With this album Reeves revives interest in one of jazz's greatest singers, and she establishes herself as one of her mentor's rightful heirs.
Bottom Line: A lush and loving tribute to a legend
>OKLAHOMA! Various Artists (Angel) Shirley Jones, Gordon MacRae and the whole sunny-voiced "Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin' "gang are here on this remastered movie soundtrack.
NEIGHBORHOODS Olu Dara (Atlantic) The bluesy cornetist, guitarist and singer explores musical locales from African funk to Delta lullabies on this, his sly and eclectic second album
- Contributors:
- Ralph Novak,
- Steve Dougherty,
- Amy Linden.
CELINE’S INFERTILITY STRUGGLE: MY PRIVATE HEARTBREAK
Daily injections, painful tests and four failed IVF attempts: The singer, 41, reveal her dreams for a second baby. ‘I’ll try until it works’
