Next to Neil Young, Bowie may just be pop music's coolest fiftysomething superstar. While so many of his peers are living off the fat of their crusty catalogs and selling out sky-domes and stadiums, Bowie has steadfastly refused to mine the past (after his Sound + Vision tour in 1990, he said he would never perform oldies again, a vow that he has for the most part honored).
On Earthling, after 30-odd albums in a dazzling 30-year career, the former space oddity begins his reentry and winds up, of all places, in the jungle. Most of this collection's nine songs percolate to the fleet beats and cymbal clashes that characterize "jungle" (or drum 'n' bass, as it's also known), a burgeoning dance-music genre that Everything but the Girl and James have already flirted with. But so far no one as mainstream as Bowie, who tested the waters with his new sound recently at club appearances as well as at his 50th-birthday bash at New York City's Madison Square Garden, has made it as accessible. Trendy stuff—and from a card-carrying member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, no less.
Fortunately, Bowie doesn't allow the jungle boogie to consume him. Reeves Gabrels's screechingly artful guitar work evokes some of Bowie's innovative, hard-rock compositions on 1979's Lodger and 1980's Scary Monsters without sounding recycled. Major Tom has fallen to Earth, and it's good to have him back. (Virgin)
Various Artists
In 1974, Muhammad Ali and George Foreman went to Zaire for the legendary "Rumble in the Jungle," a championship fight that was something more: a spiritual homecoming for the two African-American sports heroes.
In keeping with the celebratory occasion, a three-day concert was held to showcase this groundbreaking meeting between Africans and American blacks. Among the performers were B.B. King, James Brown, Bill Withers and the Spinners; and the opportunity to experience these stars live, at what many consider their peak, would be reason enough to buy this CD.
But When We Were Kings (the soundtrack to the award-winning documentary about the festivities in Zaire), is more than just a soulful history lesson. The collection features several new cuts, including the single "Rumble in the Jungle," a freestyle battle among the Fugees, A Tribe Called Quest, Forte and Busta Rhymes, that—like the rest of this CD—packs a wallop. (Mercury/DAS)
Erykah Badu
Badu's debut has created a buzz in the R&B community, and at first listen it's easy to understand why. She has a sweet-and-sour voice that alternately references Billie Holiday and Esther Phillips. And she records for Kedar Massenburg, who once managed D'Angelo (of Brown Sugar fame)—another singer who knows how to work those jazzy inclinations.
Unfortunately, Badu, like many contemporary performers, allows her material to meander, never seizing control; and with the notable exception of her slinky single "On & On," she repeatedly relies on the same vocal mannerisms and musical arrangements.
It's obvious that Badu has skills, and she is to be commended for attempting to stretch the claustrophobic boundaries of R&B. But despite her best intentions, Badu's neo-bohemian stylings quickly become as formulaic as what she's trying to avoid. (Kedar/Universal)
Chris Smither
Bonnie Raitt has called Smither "my Eric Clapton," and the folk-blues guitarist can indeed energize an audience with his fluid finger-picking style. Raitt also endorsed Smither's songwriting skills by recording, in the early '70s, his "Love Me like a Man" (his version is titled "Love You like a Man"), which has become a concert standard for both artists.
Smither's eighth album is refreshingly spare, featuring stellar guitar-playing set against his sometimes quirky, sometimes heady lyrics and offhand, raspy baritone. His cover of Jesse Winchester's "Thanks to You" sets the tone as he belts out "I ain't some beginner." (Small Revelations also includes two more covers, an excellent version of Brownie McGhee's "Sportin' Life" and Robert Johnson's "Dust My Broom," which Smither puts too much rev in.)
But best of all are seven fine new Smither compositions. "Slow Surprise" is a folky song about accepting that a relationship has slowly deteriorated. In "Help Me Now," an up-tempo blues number, some lines suggest Smither's solitary life as a journeyman performer: "Where do I go to close this show/ This one-man band to the bone." His crafty finale, "Hook, Line & Sinker," is a wonderful New Orleans-flavored number complete with a barrelhouse piano solo, the sound of Smither's retreating footsteps and a slamming screen door.
In the title track, Smither sings, "Beware of cheap imitations/ Thankful for small revelations." As one of the latter, he needn't worry about coming across as one of the former. (High-Tone)
Hummingfish
Just when you figured angst must grow as thick on Pacific Northwest rockers as moss on the Douglas firs, here comes Hummingfish, a band as cheerful as it is groovacious. Imagine the B-52's crossed with the Grateful Dead, and you can almost hear the sweet, loose-limbed rhythm the Portland, Ore., group lays behind singer Deb Talan's vocals on "Real Life." "Love Tractor," the quasi-title track, has the stuttering bass and chukking guitars of South African township jive, while "Living Room," a meditation on long-distance love, is as danceable as it is wistful.
While not all of Hummingfish's tunes live up to the album's highlights—sometimes the lyrics are a trifle too oblique, and the melodies occasionally lose momentum—this fish is definitely swimming in the right direction. (Hummingfish)
>Deborah Harry
BLONDIE AMBITION
After riding the crest of the new wave/punk movement in the late '70s as the lead singer of Blondie, Deborah Harry has landed, for now, on a very distant sonic shore. The 51-year-old songbird is chanteusing part-time for the Jazz Passengers, an avant-garde ensemble whose new CD, Individually Twisted, features a remake of her hit "The Tide Is High," a duet with Elvis Costello on "Doncha Go 'Way Mad," and Harry's impressive beboppy chops throughout. But her heart of glass still belongs to rock, as senior writer Peter Castro found. Harry is currently recording with the original Blondie lineup—including her ex-boyfriend, guitarist Chris Stein, whom she years ago helped recover from a rare, near-fatal skin disease—for a tentative late-spring release. "It's nice to get back," she says, "and have that piece of my brain functioning again."
Do you at all miss the new wave/punk era?
It was pretty damn exciting. I don't know that grunge has had the same cultural impact—a real stop-stand-and-turn change of direction. Punk had a wide are of people—photographers, artists, journalists—that had established work in the style of punk.
Did you have anything to do with the current surfeit of woman-fronted bands such as Hole and No Doubt?
In a way, yeah. It was an idea whose time had come. I always felt that if it weren't me, it would be someone else. It was a tough world. A lot of times my ideas and insights about what we should do would only be heard if they came out of Chris's mouth.
You've done a lot of film work—Hairspray and the forthcoming Copland. Who'd you still love to play?
Doris Day was always a favorite. I don't think I look enough like her, but I certainly love dogs.
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