Illinois Entertainer Reviews 2014: D-F

LANA DEL REY

Ultraviolence (Universal)

Well, whaddaya know?  The pre-fab tabular rasa of Born to Die is a real human being after all--one capable of feeling used and abused by the Industry that she strove so long to be a vital part of and of hating herself for having gone along for the ride.  Not for nothing did she light up Baz Luhrmann’s soundtrack for The Great Gatsby.  In the chain-smoking interviews that she has given to promote this follow-up to her overhyped debut, she expresses the desire to die young and beautiful.  This album explains why, in grittier verbal detail and in scarier soundscapes than you might want to know.  It’s really too bad that Lou Reed died on the day of his scheduled collaboration with her.  Edie Sedgwick lives!

ANI DIFRANCO

Allergic to Water (Righteous Babe)

Unless you belong to the politically correct choir to which DiFranco has long preached, she’ll still strike you as somewhat obnoxious—the atheistic equivalent, say, of a (talented) contemporary Christian musician.  But she’s less obnoxious than she used to be, maybe because, in an irony worthy of Oedipus, she finds herself, as a married mother of two, face to face with the very inevitabilities from which she once fled.  A maturity as musical as it is verbal is one of them—her folk-jazz ferment has never sounded more organic.  A sense of humor is another.  Her humble 1999 declaration that she wasn’t “angry anymore” was just a straight-up confession.  Her bemused 2014 realization that she’s “happy all the time” grounds an entire song’s worth of ace atheistic jokes. 

SARAH DOOLEY 

Stupid Things (self-released)

At a time during which the Frozen soundtrack is the most popular album in the world, these ten quirky coming-of-age songs are a tonic.  The bouncy piano, chipper melodies, and detailed lyrics cultivate the same feminine turf but at a deeper level, and Dooley sings almost as well as Demi Lovato, Idina Menzel, and Kristen Bell.  In fact, by singing “worse”--i.e., with less regard for the niceties of professionalistic perfectionism--she could be said to sing better.  If only she weren’t so nasal.  Her piercing tone and helium-huffing range do her occasionally overripe cuteness no favors (“Watching Goonies at My House”).  But when she eases up and meets her sentiments halfway, she sounds as if she could give one-woman, off-Broadway shows a good name.

EARTH, WIND & FIRE

Holiday (Legacy)

On 2013’s Now, Then & Forever, Philip Bailey, Ralph Johnson, and Verdine White strove mighty mightily to recapture EWF’s peak-period glory but failed.  With Holiday they succeed.  (Well, Bailey and White anyway.  Johnson is absent from the credits.)  Granted, given the subject, they didn’t need new material—the “September” rewrite “December” aside, “Happy Seasons” is the only original.  But, lest the project feel perfunctory, they did need EWF-worthy arrangements.  And to that challenge they’ve risen.  It’s not so much that they imbue “Joy to the World,” “O Come, All Ye Faithful,” and “The Drummer Boy,” et. al. with funky pizzazz as that they make doing so sound as natural as trimming a tree.  And the shining star at the top?  An irresistible rendition of the Japanese favorite “Snow.”

THE FEELING 

Boy Cried Wolf (BMG)

These pop-rocking Brits scored four Top-10 U.K. hits in 2006 and 2007, so they could be forgiven wanting to milk their formula.  Instead, they’re deepening and broadening it until the occasional sophistication of their gentle hooks and introspective lyrics becomes a pleasure in itself.  And although the softness at their sound’s core (Ciaran Jeremiah’s piano, Dan Gillespie Sells’ high-pitched, McCartney-esque voice) still makes the sentiments sound treaclier and callower than they are, often enough they just seem carefully thought out.  “The Gloves Are Off,” for instance, neatly balances the literal and figurative similarities between romance and boxing.  And the tolerance anthem “When I Look Above”--the only cut in which Sells’ homosexuality matters at all--seems more like self-examination than a plea for special treatment.

Illinois Entertainer Reviews 2014: G-K

Illinois Entertainer Reviews 2013: D-F

DIDO

Girl Who Got Away

(RCA)

Now forty-one, married, and the mother of a soon-to-be-two-year-old son, Dido is just the singer to harvest afresh that mature, feminine-feminist (in that order) middle ground once tilled by the likes of Helen Reddy and Grand Ole Opry singers with big hair.  But, unlike her foremothers, Dido’s pop sense looks forward: None of these eleven songs (seventeen in “deluxe”-ville) recapitulates her or others’ past glories.  And, unlike Madonna, Dido flirts with electronica rather than hiring it to chain her to a hotel bed and letting it have its way.  A similarly attractive restraint emerges from the way she uses her voice and words to imply depth rather than to flout shallowness.  About Rizzle Kicks’ discordant cameo rap, alas, the same cannot be said.

EARTH, WIND & FIRE

Now, Then & Forever

(Legacy)

The first--maybe even the second and third--time you hear this album, you’ll find yourself thinking it’s just like old times.  Horns adorn the classic EWF vocal trio and suave funk-disco hooks, the lyrics agitate in favor of ecumenical positive mindedness, and the otherwise MIA Maurice White gives his blessings via the liner notes.  But by the fourth or fifth listen, the overreach and underreach all too common to once-great bands past their sell-by date becomes undeniable, perhaps even to Philip Bailey, Verdine White, and Ralph Johnson themselves.  How else to explain the proliferation of “deluxe” editions, four of five of which include greatest-hit bait?  Each of the non-deluxe version’s 10 tracks honors the EWF legacy.  But none of them add anything to it.

FLORIDA GEORGIA LINE 

Here’s to the Good Times--This Is How We Roll 

(Republic Nashville)

Stuff these reified rednecks like: girls in bikini tops, girls in torn jeans, girls in Daisy Dukes, girls who get their shine on, girls who get their feel-good on, girls with Cadillacs, girls without tan lines, new Chevys, Pontiac convertibles, pimped-out trucks, drag racin’, beer, tequila, pineapple-coconut rum, brand-name whiskey, moonshine, the Marshall Tucker Band, Saturday nights, Friday nights, hammerin’ nails, stackin’ bales, country on the boombox, Hank Jr., Skynyrd, Jesus, saying “dayum” instead of “damn”--oh, and Auto-Tune, at least (or is that “especially”?) on the bonus tracks that expand this reissue of the album originally known as Here’s to the Good Times to seventeen cuts and the list price to $19.99.  There are videos too.  See what happens when you encourage people?

DAVID FRIESEN

Morning Star

(Color Pool)

One difference between this jazz Christmas album and other jazz Christmas albums is that it’s live.  (A smattering of applause provides between-song segues.)  Another is that it’s a carols-only affair.  (No “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” or “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer” here.)  Yet another is that for the bassist Friesen (who has recorded with Mal Waldron, Joe Henderson, Duke Jordan, and Jeff Johnson to name just three) and the pianist, drummer, and two saxes he virtuosically undergirds and unites, there’s no difference between jazz and Christmas.  The quintet clearly states the instantly recognizable melodies, loses itself in exploratory improvisation, and returns, all with confident ease and elegant virtuosity.  One has to order Morning Star directly from Friesen via his website, but the rewards repay the effort.

Illinois Entertainer Reviews 2013: G-H