True to her name, Carpenter relies on trusty tools—evocative lyrics, foot-stomping melodies and a charismatic delivery—to render these 12 mostly winning and well-crafted songs. Picking up where her last, 1994 album, the more than 2 million-selling Stones in the Road, left off, Carpenter returns to the locale where she seems most at home: the harrowing but often exhilarating precipices of love.
Proving that she just may be country music's answer to pop laureate Joni Mitchell, the five-time Grammy winner essays sonic short stories about broken hearts ("I Can See It Now"), intoxicating love ("I Want to Be Your Girlfriend") and, in the title track, self-empowerment. On the ballad "That's Real," a woman delivers her poignant plea for love: "How far can I crawl out on this limb/ There's so far to fall, and here comes the wind."
Carpenter cleverly mixes it up on this, her sixth album since her 1987 recording debut. For every blazing torch song there's a rustic rocker bearing the deep-fried chops that, to borrow from the CD's title, anchor her own place in the world. (Columbia Nashville)
Social Distortion
Everything that is so perfect about Social Distortion, the best punk band recording today, is captured right there in "I Was Wrong," the compelling first single from this veteran Orange County, Calif., quartet. The music thunders along, yet never pounds your ears to the point where you can't hear the irresistible melody. Mike Ness's urgent, angry vocals are like a stinging slap in the face, forcing you to pay sharp attention to what he is saying. And those words are so honest, simple and direct, they have even more power than the searing music. When Ness roars, "When I was young, I was so full of fear/ I hid behind anger and held back the tears," as the song burns behind him, it's as powerful as rock and roll gets.
With each confessional tune, Ness connects with listeners, making it difficult not to grasp the wisdom and feel the weariness he has accumulated in the 17 years since he formed Social Distortion. There are plenty of punk poseurs out there whose rage seems prefabricated, but White Light White Heat White Trash is the real deal, elegantly fulfilling the promise of the genre. (550 Music)
Funky Green Dogs
If you're going to call your debut CD Get Fired Up!, you'd better be able to persuade listeners to do just that. Oscar Gaetan and Ralph Falcon, the two Miami deejays and dance music producers who once billed their groove collective as Funky Green Dogs from Outer Space, have packed their first full-length album with enough explosive rhythms to crowd any strobe-lit dance floor.
On the single "Fired Up!," already a No. 1 club hit, singer Pamala Williams's trancelike vocals hover over layers of springy tribal beats so that she seems to sing with the voice of God herself. The cut establishes Funky Green Dogs' creative paradox: Though the arrangements on Get Fired Up! are minimalistic, frequently featuring only assorted percussion instruments and Williams's soul-deep growl, the tracks still manage to make a big, booming impression. They're clearly not meant for living-room listening. But then, who'd want to play couch potato while a hyperactive number called "I Came to Stomp" booms on the stereo? (Twisted America)
They Might Be Giants
Listening to the Giants is sometimes like listening to a maniac raving about aliens invading his breakfast cereal. They often don't make much sense but are fascinating to listen to. Even on this sixth full-length CD from the New York City band, what separates the Giants—led by co-songwriters and singers John Flansburgh (guitar) and John Linnell (accordion)—from the lunatic fringe is their immensely appealing gift for pop melodies.
They can make a song extolling the virtues of our 11th President, James K. Polk, sound downright Beatlesesque. There is plenty of requisite wackiness, like the bouncy, addictive "The Bells Are Ringing," in which the pealing chimes hypnotize an entire town, and the aforementioned ode to Polk, which is as catchy as a commercial jingle. What makes this a step forward for the band, though, are surprisingly normal, pleasant tunes, including "Pet Name," a semisweet love song with a minimum of witty wordplay and a maximum of smooth, soulful sounds. Whether it's the result of maturity or lithium, the highly entertaining Factory Showroom indicates that for the Giants, sanity may be settling in. (Elektra)
Greg Brown
Singer-songwriter Greg Brown was no fool to share a stage so long with Garrison Keillor (he was a regular on A Prairie Home Companion in the mid-1980s and still does guest spots). Next to that tall humorist's singing voice, Brown's sounds like Placido Domingo. On his 12th album, Brown, 47, seems more like a wise old bullfrog philosophizing in a fogbank. His style comprises his entire past, from the gospel he heard tagging along with his Pentecostal preacher daddy in Iowa to the decades he spent as a singer-songwriter on the folk-rock circuit. Brown's lyrics, sung in a lazy, Midwest twang, can be witty as John Hiatt's ("There's a young fella rappin' in a thump-thump car/ And he's smug as a commentator on NPR") and as political as a Rock the Vote promo ("There'll be one corporation selling one little box/ It'll do what you want and tell you what you want and cost whatever you've got"). In such tunes as "Not High," Brown sings folk music for grownups who aren't too old to long for a "two-day hug and a three-day kiss and a loving stretch of common bliss." (Red House)
>Jackie Chan
HE GETS A KICK OUT OF POP
In 43 action movies, including last summer's U.S. release Supercop, Hong Kong's charismatic Jackie Chan pummels bad guys with lethal fists and flying feet. Offscreen, however, Chan, 42, has been known to knock out fans with another weapon—his velvet croon. During an 18-year recording career, he has released more than 10 albums in Asia, mostly in Chinese Mandarin and Cantonese dialects, and his recent ballad "How Could It Be?" is getting heavy video play on MTV Mandarin. Before launching his movie career at age 17, Chan studied at Hong Kong's Chinese Opera Institute. Despite the classical training, the longtime fan of American pop is modest about his gentler talents. "I'm not a great singer," he says, "but I'm okay."
What's your favorite musical style?
I like slow songs. Slow songs help me improve my English. When I watch television, the words go by too fast. But I can listen to songs again and again. So when I talk to a girl, I can say, "You are always on my mind."
Are you planning a concert tour?
No. When you do a concert, you spend three months practicing and rehearsing, and then you are only seen in Hong Kong or Taiwan. When I spend six months making a movie, everyone around the world can see it. I don't worry about different languages. There's just one in movies—body language.
Are Asian and U.S. audiences alike?
In Hong Kong, young fans don't concentrate on the singing. They concentrate on your face. They don't listen; they watch. When singers hit a flat note, the audience doesn't care. We are very polite. In America, no matter how ugly or pretty you are, you have to have talent. If you are not good, they boo.
- Contributors:
- Peter Castro,
- Craig Tomashoff,
- Jeremy Helligar,
- Tim Appelo,
- Andrea Pawlyna.
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!
