Sunday, November 23, 2008
“I AM ... SASHA FIERCE”
Beyonc (Columbia)
Grade: B
On Beyonc ’s new album, the 27-year-old singer-diva-icon gives her on-stage, bump-n-grind alter-ego Sasha Fierce co-billing.
“I AM ... SASHA FIERCE” is her attempt at a concept album, with the disc split into two.
There’s the swoony, ballad heavy “I AM ...,” which Beyonc says reveals her true self “underneath all the exciting star drama.” Then there’s the more modern, hip-hop-influenced “SASHA FIERCE,” which Beyonc calls “more sensual, more aggressive.” The cover for “I AM ...” has Beyonc scrubbed free of makeup, a cross dangling from her hand. “SASHA FIERCE” is all glamazon armor: dark eyebrows, gilded eyelids, puckered mouth — all oozing sex.
Does the split-personality attempt work? As a total package, not quite. Individual songs such as the role-reversal jam “If I Were A Boy” and saucy “Video Phone” shine, while other tunes just don’t produce enough oomph.
Vulnerability is nothing new for Beyonc , who touched on her sensitive yearnings on 2003’s solo debut “Dangerously in Love.” But she came roaring back in 2006 with “B’Day,” the kind of woman-in-control hit album that scorched club roofs with its rapid-fire grooves.
Executively produced by Beyonc and her dad-manager Matthew Knowles, “I AM ... SASHA FIERCE” wants it naughty and nice. Still, with only 11 songs on the full album’s standard version, splitting the two sides is unnecessary. Each disc isn’t strong enough to maintain the momentum “B’Day” did, even with five extra songs on the album’s deluxe version.
— Solvej Schou, Associated Press
‘Dark Horse’
Nickelback (Roadrunner)
Grade: C
Nickelback is a lot of things, but dark horse is no longer one of them. The Canadian rock quartet said goodbye to that status when 2001’s “Silver Side Up” album took the band into multiplatinum territory. The group’s follow-up to its 7-million selling “All the Right Reasons” from three years ago is every bit as catchy, with more shredding guitar licks planted strategically within hooky rock songs full of bad boys with hearts of gold.
The addition of superstar producer Robert John “Mutt” Lange to the mix ensures that everything here is as radio friendly and mainstream minded as heavy guitar rock gets. If David Cook were an “American Idol” contestant instead of this year’s winner, odds are he would ditch the Switchfoot covers for more Nickelback.
But not “Something in Your Mouth” or “Shakin’ Hands,” showpieces for more of the band’s signature lasciviousness. “Something” objectifies a hottie in a pink thong — “the honey with a million-dollar body” — while “Shakin’ Hands” celebrates a starlet who “didn’t make it this far by just shakin’ hands.” Illuminating it ain’t. But love those gnarly guitar riffs.
It’s not that lead singer-shrieker Chad Kroeger and his buds aren’t sensitive, too. “Gotta Be Somebody” cracks open a window on loneliness as he pines for someone to care for his neglected heart. “There’s gotta be somebody for me like that.” As long, presumably, as she also looks good in a pink thong.
Lange still has the magic touch in the recording studio, knowing exactly when a band like this should crank it to 11, when to drop back or out entirely for some welcome sonic space missing from too many hard-edged bands’ records.
“If Today Was Your Last Day” brings the requisite party dude’s skin-deep philosophizing, but “This Afternoon” closes the album on a refreshingly loose and bouncy slice of pop-rock revelry where there’s not a hottie or hooker in sight.
Nickelback ought to spend more time in this part of the day.
— Randy Lewis, Los Angeles Times