'TRANSATLANTIC PING PONG'
'TRANSATLANTIC PING PONG'
Glenn Tilbrook
(Compass Records)
sss Writers of great pop melodies have truly enviable job security. Even back in the late '70s, as punk rock and new wave dismantled the glittering "You Light Up My Life" decade with extreme prejudice, certain groups refused to forfeit the catchy, radio-ready tunes that, by their very existence, seemed destined for destruction. One such example was Squeeze, a British band whose universal accessibility helped bring skinny ties to the American suburbs.
With "Transatlantic Ping Pong," Glenn Tilbrook re-emerges as every bit the tunesmith he once was as half of Squeeze's famed Tilbrook/Difford songwriting duo. While his new songs are very much in the early Elvis Costello/Nick Lowe tradition, they have a refreshingly modern feel that suggest he's not out to re-create the past.
Using pedal steel and twang, Tilbrook turns country storyteller on two of the album's most compelling tracks. "Hostage" finds him making an awkward dinner visit to an ex-girlfriend's house, while "Domestic Distortion" takes an O. Henry plot twist to expose its narrator as an apologetic absentee father, not a cheating lover.
To offset these remorseful sagas, Tilbrook offers the grinning "Hot Shaved Asian Teens," a song that both reaffirms his sharp wit and promises to forever link him through the wonder of Google to smut-seekers worldwide.
'BACK TO BASICS'
Beenie Man
(Virgin)
sss He broke through in America two years ago with the featherweight Neptunes hip-pop of "Feel It Boy," but legendary DJ Beenie Man has returned to the tougher sounds of his native dancehalls.
Not long ago, such a move was an unspoken admission that a reggae artist had done all he could stateside, and was focusing once again on the island. But Sean Paul's massive "Dutty Rock" made the domestic market receptive to Jamaican riddims, as well as patois, and "Back to Basics" takes full advantage of the opportunity.
While the album undoubtedly has some of the Kingston grit its predecessor lacked, uncompromising grinders such as "King of the Dancehall" remain the exception.
Hitmaking producers Dave and Tony Kelly are too savvy to aim this collection solely at hardcore dancehall fans, and nearly every track has an insidious hook buried beneath its Kingston thump; "Good Woe" is catchy enough to make the Coolie Skank rhythm this year's Diwali.
The Marley-style acoustic closer "Back Against the Wall," best considered as an antidote to Beenie Man's lyrical slackness, is still unnecessary: There's no need for him to try becoming another Bob when this album does such a good job of presenting him as himself.
'TUMBLERS & amp; GRIT'
Chris Richards
(Lake Effect Records)
sss Sheboygan, Wis., native Chris Richards makes his home in Nashville nowadays and recorded this album in a Music Row studio, but there's nothing here that will put him on the right side of the tracks in Music City.
"Tumblers & amp; Grit," produced by R.S. Field (Allison Moorer, John Prine), is a near-textbook example of the folk-rock-honky-tonk hybrid that has come to be known as "alt-country" and, like many other albums in this genre, it owes a sizable debt to early Steve Earle albums like "Guitar Town" and "Exit O."
Richards gets able assists from Field, backup singer Dawn McCoy (who delivers a haunting harmony vocal on "Hearts Like These") and veteran Nashville musician Lloyd Green (whose melancholy pedal steel work on "Belly of Odilia" and "Crazy Too" nearly steals the show).
In the end, though, it's the singer-songwriter's melodies and thoughtful lyrics that carry the day.
Most intriguing moment? The disc-closing "Ballad of the Analog Kid," a lament about the decline of traditional country music that wounds with lines like: "They left him in pieces/ Lying scattered on the floor/ Missing parts that they're not making anymore."
'THE HUNGER FOR MORE'
Lloyd Banks
(G Unit/Interscope)
ss 1/2 The title says it all: more gorgeously produced beats, more well-groomed lyrical flow and more of the same money-in-the-bank gangsta crud about rides, gats, ice and hos slicked up in a new wrapper guaranteed to sell.
One-third of the infamous G-Unit, Banks has a delivery more low-toned and deceptively mellow than his partners 50 Cent and Tony Yayo, but the subject is the same: getting and keeping. The first single, "On Fire," is about blowing up -- which it has, taking the album straight to No. 1 with sales of over 400,000 in its first week.
Though not one of the songs on the album stands out in terms of head-popping new production -- there's not a hit that will transcend the hip-hop hard-core -- each cut is utterly bulletproof, and Banks' lyrics provide a few new twists.
On "Warrior," for instance, he croons, "If that's your man, warn 'em/ I got enough bullets to hit every NBA patch on 'em."
"Die One Day" contains a sweet guitar sample and high-funk vocal that recalls the best of Funkadelic, and there are shining moments with Eminem on "Warrior Part 2" and with Snoop Dogg on "I Get High."
This is maintenance music for Gs looking for the newest that isn't going to upset their delicate and dangerous palates.