‘A Man’s Thoughts’

‘A Man’s Thoughts’

Ginuwine, Grade: B

On the day Michael Jackson died, Ginuwine — one of modern R&B’s silkiest crooners — appeared on Fox News and CNN to pay farewell to the King of Pop and sing the praises of his influence. It seemed odd that this onetime Timbaland collaborator, so used to busily hyperactive beats and carnal rhapsodizing, would speak in Jackson’s gentle name.

That is, until you listen to “A Man’s Thoughts.”

Though there’s nothing in Gin’s sultry purr that is immediately reminiscent of Jackson’s tics or pitches, there is the tradition of elegant melody and lustrous harmony that MJ embodied from his earliest days at Motown to his last album. Ginuwine’s grown-’n’-sexy approach to music and lyrics now is about stewing and building slowly to climax on tracks such as the quietly storming “One Time for Love” and the epically simmering “Last Chance.” The confident sexuality is there, of course, but tempered by maturity. When he sings the crisply funky “Show Off,” Gin isn’t just looking to lust. He’s asking the ladies in the house to be proud of their bodies. And even when he haughtily reteams with Timbaland (and Missy Elliott) on the mesmerizing “Get Involved,” their provocative results are more nice than naughty.

Michael would have been proud.

— A.D. Amorosi, McClatchy Newspapers

‘BLACKsummers’night’

Maxwell, Grade: B

You’d think feathery falsettoed soul man Maxwell, after waking up from an eight-year Rip Van Winkle absence, could reward his adoring fans’ patience with more than nine new songs, including one instrumental, the closing “Phoenix Rise.” That’ll be forgivable, though, if the newly Afro-less singer really does make good on his promise to follow up with two more albums in 2010 and 2011 — allegedly to be titled “blackSUMMERS’night” and “blacksummers’NIGHT.” As for the Bsn at hand, it’s largely bedroom business as usual, and in Maxwell’s case that’s a good thing. As his delicate hit “Pretty Wings” demonstrates, he remains an Al Green-schooled boudoir singer par excellence, backed by a subtle and effective (and horn-fired) band skilled at reinforcing his pleas for forgiveness and suggestions that his paramour “prove it to me in the nude,” as he does at the start of “Bad Habits.” You might wish he’d quicken the pace every now and then, but at a time when hip-hop and R&B are ruled by robotic Auto-Tuned machismo, Maxwell’s deeply musical sensitivity is more than welcome back.

— Dan DeLuca, McClatchy Newspapers

‘Spinnerette’

Spinnerette, Grade: C+

Nobody puts Brody Dalle in the corner. She may have ceased the frank function of her trash-can band the Distillers (America’s most melodic hard-core act of the current decade’s early years) after Coral Fang (2003) to be a married mom and partner to Josh Homme of Queens of the Stone Age. But Spinnerette — the band and its eponymous full-length debut — act as if barely a week has passed.

Is Spinnerette slicker than her previous band? You bet, but no sleeker than that last Distillers album. There are pretty choruses to be found in “The Walking Dead” and “Distorting a Code,” synth-pop ripples throughout “Baptized by Fire,” and even a nod to Fleetwood Mac-like whimsical folk on “Impaler.”

“Spinnerette” isn’t perfect. It can be a mishmash of too many things, including the lackluster stoner blues of “A Prescription for Mankind.” Yet the biggest slick shock is Dalle’s voice. It’s still a ciggie-and-whiskey rasp that embraces soul-stirring carnality as few women vocalists currently have the guts to muster.

— A.D. Amorosi, McClatchy Newspapers