1. Erykah Badu - New Amerykah Part Two (Return of the Ankh)
New Amerykah Part One (4th World War) was a tremendous record, but since the albums in this series are kind of designed as counterpoints to each other, I knew this album wouldn’t be full of the same kind of dark alien funk. But this slightly more relaxed, less daring record is still pretty awesome in and of itself, and even as “20 Feet Tall” and “Gone Baby, Don’t Be Long” hook me right off the bat, I could see the rest of it growing on me big time.

2. Ted Leo/Pharmacists - The Brutalist Bricks
My status as a Ted Leo stan should be completely confirmed by now, given that I recently called The Tyranny Of Distance my favorite album of the past decade and compiled a mix of all the covers he’s recorded, but I always feel a little out of step with the general opinion of his records. My two least favorite Pharmacists records are the popular breakthrough and consensus favorite, 2003’s Hearts of Oak, and the new The Brutalist Bricks, which has been getting a much warmer critical reception than the last 2 albums that I loved. But I’m still enough of a shameless fan that I really like this anyway, and I’m hoping that this Thursday’s show in D.C. will help me get into some of these songs more. I kinda knew this album might be a disappointment back when he was playing darker, punkier songs like “The Stick” and “Mourning In America” on tour in the last couple years, but so far those are actually some of my favorites, and in general the jangly power pop stuff just isn’t measuring up to his earlier efforts.

3. Jaguar Love - Hologram Jams
It’s kind of funny to me how what little inroads Jaguar Love made to indie rock acceptability on their great debut, Take Me To The Sea, have been quickly reversed with their second album, which isn’t as good but is still perfectly enjoyable. The band fired their drummer and worked up a bunch of material with drum machines and more synths, and immediately Matador said “thanks but no thanks” and Pitchfork panned them. But really this album is neither a sellout nor particularly unexpected, and really just feels like a more amped up version of Johnny Whitney’s 2005 project Neon Blonde. “Up All Night” is really fun, “Evaline” is beautiful, and “Polaroids and Red Wine” might beat out Ted Leo’s “One Polaroid A Day” for the best Polaroid-related song released last month. Even the hopelessly uncool Janis Joplin cover that closes the album is pretty entertaining, and kinda makes sense given that Whitney is one of the only contemporary rock singers I can think of with the kind of crazy screech to pull it off.

4. Jimi Hendrix - Valleys Of Neptune
I’ve always loved Hendrix, he was really the first canonical classic rock artist that I went out of my way to buy CDs of when I started building my own music collection, but that petered out quickly once I realized how vast, inconsistent and largely inessential his posthumous catalog is beyond those 3 Experience albums. Lately I’ve been somewhat inspired to start sorting through all that stuff again, from the comination of reading the 33 1/3 book on Electric Ladyland, borrowing some CDs from my friend Mat to rip to my computer, and eMusic recently getting the Hendrix catalog. So this ‘new’ album comes at a good time for me that I’m a bit less cynical about it than I otherwise might be. And the really exciting thing here is that most of the recordings were actually cut with Mitch Mitchell and Noel Redding, so you actually kinda get to hear what a 4th Experience album might’ve sounded like. The Cream cover and the retreads of familiar favorites like “Stone Free” kinda clutter this up, but the bulk of the album that’s mostly lesser known ‘new’ songs are a real treat.

5. Fabolous - There Is No Competition 2: The Funeral Service
Fab has done a better job than pretty much every other mainstream New York rapper of adapting to the times, working with R&B singers and Southern rappers in a way that’s still in his comfort zone and generally dropping hot lines even on the dumbest hits. It’s still a little jarring to hear him once again reaffirm his street cred with a mixtape of ‘real rap’ to once again appease the fans that hated on his last slick crossover-ready album, but punchlines are what he does and he sounds like he’s having as much fun here as on “Say Aah,” saying goofy shit like “I’m Paul Blart, n---a, all I do is mall cop” or singing “gone” in falsetto in the background after an N Sync reference. Freestyle mixtapes are often only as good as their beats allow them to be, and sometimes he sounds really strained over radio hits like “O Let’s Do It,” but for the most part he makes it work, like he always does. That “niiiice” ad lib really needs to go, though.

This entry was posted on Monday, April 05, 2010 at 11:29 AM. You can skip to the end and leave a response.