5 [Virgin, 1998]
His convoluted racial formalism have long since come clean as a total absence of original ideas, he grabs the brass ring from behind a tacked-on Guess Who cover best heard on the far more imaginative Austin Powers soundtrack. Lenny, your work on Earth is done. We have Derek Jeter now. C-

>be Cuckgau
>spend most of 70s-80s ranting about prog and metal
>act like a Midwestern housewife who heard Highway to Hell once and thought she uncovered a Satanic conspiracy
>was however somewhat ok with Led Zeppelin, ZZ Top, and that one Danzig album because they talked about being influenced by old bluesmen
Apparently all you had to do to get good press from him was cite at least one black person as a creative influence. Maybe Sabbath should have mentioned Lightnin' Hopkins in their liner notes somewhere and they've get a B plus lol.

Party [Arista, 1981]
Although the music's "tight," and sometimes kinda hip rhythmically too, I guarantee it took him longer to get the Uptown Horns on the telephone than to write these lyrics. Iggy: "Ivan, what rhymes with `touches my feet'?" Ivan: "How about something with `creep'--about how you're not a creep, you know?" "But Ivan, I am a creep." "No one will ever know." C+

>"There was never a performer who crossed so many lines as Harry," says Dylan of this Harlem lefty turned matinee idol. "He appealed to everybody, whether they were steelworkers or symphony patrons or bobby-soxers." Though this artist-selected double CD bypasses the hit 1957 studio versions of both "Day-O" and "Mama Look at Bubu" for show-band arrangements, it's pretty impressive once you learn to listen through his compromises with conspicuous respectability. He deploys Caribbean percussion as subtly as folk melody, jokes around about sex roles without getting sexist about it, ends a ban-the-bomb verse "Back to back and belly to belly," and keeps the musical-comedy exoticism to a tolerable modicum. Though "Jamaica Farewell" isn't quite "Chances Are," he was one of the decade's prettier balladeers. Born poor, he made himself a folk hero.

Safari [4AD/Elektra, 1992]
Now posing as a major-label debut, Kim Deal and Tanya Donelly's 1990 Rough Trade one-off Pod still sounds like the art project it was, but although Donnelly is otherwise occupied, this 1992 EP sounds like a band. Postamateur Raincoats, say. They substitute the Who's "So Sad About Us" for the Kinks' "Lola" because they're less arch and less soft. But they're lovers not fighters nonetheless. A-

Ladies Love Outlaws [RCA, 1972]
Waylon lets you know he has balls by singing like he's twisting them. C

Southern Accents [MCA, 1985]
Tom Petty's problem isn't that he's dumb or even that people think he's dumb, although they certainly have reason to, it's the way he can't stop feeling sorry for himself. Defending the South made sense when Ronnie Van Zandt penned "Sweet Home Alabama" but in the Sun Belt era it's just pique. The neoconservative aura of side one is mitigated somewhat by producer Mike Campbell's modernizations. Side two is less consequential and therefore more significant. Do note however that its real show-stopper is "Spike," in which a couple of redneck--I mean good ol' boys prepare to whup a punk. It's satire. Yeah, sure. B-

Living In The Material World [Apple, 1973]
If you call this living. George sings as if he's doing sitar impressions and four other people in the room, including a little man in my head I'd never noticed before, expressed intense gratitude when I turned the damned thing off during "Be Here Now." Inspirational verse: "The leaders of nations/Are acting like big girls." C

Queens of Noise [Mercury, 1977]
I'll tell you what kind of street rock-and-roll these bimbos make--when the title cut came on I thought I was hearing Evita twice in a row, only I couldn't seem to figure out why the singer couldn't stay in key. C-

History: America's Greatest Hits [Warner Bros., 1975]
Randy Newman once called "A Horse With No Name" "a song about this kid who thinks he's taken acid" and at least back then they were domesticating CSNY instead of CSN. If C, S, N, etc are the Limelighters of rock, and they are, then America are the '70s version of the Grass Roots or the Association and if only they could come up with a song half as lively as "Let's Live For Today" or "Windy." C+

The Best of New Order [Qwest/Warner Bros., 1995]
Marvel all you want over Ian Curtis's desperation--I dig the band on the matched Joy Division comp Permanent and prefer detached techie Bernard Albrecht here. Where 1987's Substance showcased the music's remixed, interwoven glory, this pushes Albrecht's mild-mannered vocals as far front as they'll go. Turns out he has normal feelings about love and rejection and such, dislikes war and guns without getting preachy--just super-unassumingly super-catchy, as befits Britannia's ranking pop group. I mean, could Blur or Oasis write a World Cup anthem so rousing, danceable, and informative? A

>Harlem-preacher's son turned pianist-organist and bar singer, Fats Waller defied the racial odds to become a pop star in the '30s. When he died at 39 in 1943, he'd scored more hits than fellow crossover virtuoso Louis Armstrong. But he's been poorly served by CD reissues until this three-disc collection. Legendary producer Orrin Keepnews avoids chronological mishmash by dividing Waller's immense output into originals, instrumentals and covers. A prolific tunesmith who wrote "Honeysuckle Rose" and "Ain't Misbehavin'" with the great black lyricist Andy Razaf, Waller got big by yakking up such supposed trivia as "Your Feet's Too Big" and "It's a Sin to Tell a Lie." And though his stride and swing were always muscular, he could tickle the ivories like the classical artist he yearned to be.

>Blender, Nov. 2006

Monster [Warner Bros., 1994]
Sick of dummies claiming they can't rock, the old Zepheads deliver the first power-riff album of their highly lyrical career. Peter Buck's sonic palette is rainbow grunge--variegated dirt and distortion as casual rhetoric--and he's so cranked even the slow ones seem born to be loud. As for Mr. Stipe, he's in the band, where he belongs. Message: guitars. Which after years of politics and sensitivity is well-timed. A-

Metropolis: The Chase Suite [Bad Boy, 2008] *bomb*

Arrival [Atlantic, 1977]
Since this is already the best-selling group in the universe, I finally have an answer when people ask me to name the Next Big Thing. What I wonder is how we can head them off at the airport. Plan A: Offer Bjorn and Benny the leads in Beatlemania (how could they resist the honor?) and replace them with John Phillips and Denny Doherty. Plan B: Appoint Bjorn head of the U.N. and Benny his pilot (or vice versa) and replace them with John Lennon and Paul McCartney. Plan C: Overexpose them in singing commercials. Plan D: Institute democratic socialism in their native land, so that their money lust will meet with the scorn of their fellow citizens. C

The Buddy Holly Collection [MCA, 1993]
Finally a compilation format suitable to a minor genius whose achievement seems permanently shrouded in myth: neither 20 astonishing hits nor every hiccup and fingerpick he ever committed to tape, just 50 songs running barely an hour and three-quarters. Even these tracks vary considerably in quality, held together like so much classic pop by the aural glue of an identifiable sound and style--the signature of a miniaturist who till the day he died was comfortable with a radio that preferred two-minute ditties to three-minute extravaganzas, and who found untold emotional and rhythmic nuance within the constriction. He was no nerd, but nerds loved him for a reason: he played by the rules without letting them stop him. A

Anne Murray: Love Song [Capitol, 1974]
I wonder whether Murray, always my second-favorite clean-cut female singer, is going to do a Helen Reddy and begin to remind me of Patti Page despite myself. Well, not yet. I still enjoy her fresh-air sincerity and the sexy catch in her voice. But I wish she had better taste in material--the only standouts here are two (great) rock and rollers from a decade or more ago. B

The Spirit Room [Maverick, 2001]
Only in a biz discombobulated by teenpop could an 18-year-old with an acoustic guitar be plausibly promoted as "the anti-Britney." Don't you remember? Writing Your Own Songs means zip, zilch, nada. By now, literally millions of human beings WTOS, and while Branch may be among the top 5000 (and may not), note that her hit, like most of the front-loaded material, was co-composed by her producer. In this she precisely resembles arrant bimbo Willa Ford, who made her mark batting her plump lips at Nick Carter and Carson Daly and may yet prove the more interesting artist. Britney sure is. C

On this beefed-up sprint to the major-label gold, their shallow attitude makes up for their skinny voices and vice versa. Getting laid can be a healthy character adjustment in singers who don't have the muscle to force themselves on anybody tougher than an a&r man who admires their songwriting. It's all been said before, but few penis carriers put it so consistently or succinctly. "Met a shy guy from Knoxville, Tennessee/High school yum yum give me some Hennessey." Or if that isn't legal enough for you, how about "Don't wanna be your friend/Don't try to take me home/This won't happen again/Just take me to the backseat"? A-

Normal as Blueberry Pie: A Tribute to Doris Day [Verve, 2009]
Though I wish I believed McKay would have discovered Day if the 87-year-old box office queen hadn't devoted half her adult life to animal rights, the spritz, groove, sweetness and delight of this project not only raise Day from the shallow grave of the camp canon but give McKay a chance to grow up without going all sententious or stodgy. If by some mischance she's contracted the writer's block that can afflict kids who've spent years unable to staunch the river of new songs within--the only original is one of the few forgettables--then McKay has a future as an interpreter. At first the jazzy lightness of her arrangements seems like a distortion. But when you compare Day's "Crazy Rhythm" or "Do Do Do"--even the radio transcription of "Sentimental Journey" or a "Wonderful Guy" so much less brassy than Mary Martin's--you remember that like every Cincinnati girl of her era Day grew up with swing and probably resented the orchestral overkill she was saddled with. McKay's covers are jazzier and kookier than anything Day would have dared, or wanted. But to borrow language she's used for Day, they're "uncluttered, sensual and free, driven by an irrepressible will to live." A

[Q] Obviously, you're a fan of great unique female voices. Dionne Warwick, Billie Holiday, and Ella Fitzgerald each have numerous albums on your website reviewed with high recommendations. So I'm curious why you've never reviewed any Peggy Lee or Dinah Washington albums. Surely there must be an album by each of them that you'd unequivocally recommend. Both crossed over from pop to jazz effortlessly and always sounded original and fabulous. My own favorites would be Peggy Lee's Black Coffee and Beauty and the Beat, and Dinah's Dinah Washington Sings the Fats Waller Songbook. You would love them all. -- Ted Ravern, Astoria, New York

[A] First of all, I don't put Warwick in Holiday's or Fitzgerald's class—take a look at my reviews and note that the Warwick picks are basically redundant greatest-hits albums I assume without doing the research were reviewed at different times. Second, I'd almost certainly add Dolly Parton to this short list, exactly how I won't figure out for free. Third, I was just mentioning Dinah Washington as a Subject for Further Research in a recent Xgau Sez and take this note as seconding that emotion. Fourth, checked my CD shelves and found a 2004 reissue of Black Coffee, the only Peggy Lee there though I bet a few are I've tucked away in my vinyl. Promise to play it at breakfast or dinner soon.

This Is . . . Del Shannon [Music Club, 1997]
The first artist ever to chart Stateside with a Lennon-McCartney song, Shannon is suspended forever in that boy-becomes-man moment when teen-romance tropes unload their frightening burden of existential anxiety. He achieves release with his sole trick, in which minor-key verse gives way to major-key refrain topped by a brief escape into a falsetto that never hints at the feminine. This pop-rock apotheosis he achieved precisely 11 times, which here takes us from "Runaway" to "Stranger in Town." All are also on Rhino's slightly pricier 20-song comp. But where the Rhino filler is all carbon-copy follow-ups and failed experiments, the five bonuses here vary the formula without abandoning it, most memorably on--note title--"I Wish I Wasn't Me Tonight." Despite Nashville forays and a mysteriously forgotten 1968 concept album called The Further Adventures of Charles Westover, he never matured. When he shot himself in 1990 at 55, he was still claiming five years less, just as he had 30 years before. He left no note. Did he have to? A-

Funkentelechy Vs. the Placebo Syndrome [Casablanca, 1977]
This seems like your representative 'delicment LP at first, featuring one irresistible and quite eccentric dance cut, other dance cuts that are at moments even more eccentric (including one based on nursery rhymes), bits of inspired jive, bits of plain jive, and an anomalous slow one. But with familiarity the three rhythm hooks that anchor the album start sounding definitive. And never before has George Clinton dealt so coherently with his familiar message, in which the forces of life--autonomous intelligence, a childlike openness, sexual energy, and humor--defeat those of death: by seduction if possible, by force if necessary. A