record reviews

August 14, 2011 at 12:00a.m.

Jay-Z and Kanye West

Album: “Watch the Throne”

Grade: A

Released online as financial markets took a historic plunge, the full-length collaboration between Jay-Z and Kanye West revels in self-described “luxury rap.” Two of hip-hop’s biggest stars tell us in rhyme form that even in this economy, they can afford fine art, haute couture, even top-tier German home appliances.

If you can forgive these self-satisfied rap titans their name-checking of Mark Rothko, Dries Van Noten and Miele, though, “Watch The Throne” has more on its mind. Celebration of the high life is undercut by regrets, loneliness, and snatches of mournful social commentary. Like West’s acclaimed solo effort last year, the album title reveals itself as both boastful and paranoid, proud and furtive. Watch us on top, they seem to say, but know that we don’t always like what we see from here — both looking outward and in.

“Murder to Excellence” encapsulates the theme in a two-parter that shifts beats halfway through. West begins by quoting an old Jay-Z line — “I’m from the murder capital, where they murder for capital” — to decry black-on-black violence in his hometown of Chicago. Jay-Z then describes ascending to “the new black elite” with Will Smith and Oprah Winfrey. “Only spot a few blacks the higher I go ... that ain’t enough. We gon’ need a million more,” he raps.

Isolation infuses the Swizz Beats-produced “Welcome to the Jungle,” where West drinks away his struggles: “Just when I thought I had everything, I lost it all. So que sera. Get a case of Syrah, let it chase the pain.” Jay-Z places himself in the shoes of fellow musicians at their lowest points, linking Eminem, Michael Jackson, Pimp C, 2Pac and more through coded couplets that reward repeat listening.

Even more dour is the RZA-produced “New Day,” with odes to sons the two may eventually father. Over a plinking piano and Nina Simone sample, West flagellates himself for mistakes, from his choice in women to post-Katrina telethon appearance, noting: “I’ll never let my son have an ego.” Jay-Z is even more direct: “Sorry Junior, I already ruined ya, ‘cause you ain’t even alive, paparazzi pursuing ya.”

Oh, poor millionaire rappers. Go cry into your Armand de Brignac Champagne at your yacht parties, you may find yourself responding. But this type of intimacy and honesty doesn’t come easy — or often enough — in commercial hip-hop.

— Ryan Pearson, Associated Press

LUKE BRYAN

Album: “Tailgates and Tanlines”

Grade: B

Sometimes the pursuit of success gets so confusing.

Take promising singer-songwriter Luke Bryan as an example. In a weird marketing twist, the worst song on his new “Tailgates & Tanlines” (Capitol Nashville) album will likely end up being its biggest hit.

“Country Girl [Shake It for Me]” applies Nashville style to hip-hop come-ons and the result isn’t just oddly off-putting (“Shake it for the young bucks sitting in the honky-tonk, for the rednecks rocking to the break of dawn,” he says), it doesn’t fit with the rest of Bryan’s pretty good album. “Country Girl” is a page right out of the Kenny Chesney playbook — remember “She Thinks My Tractor’s Sexy”? — but it kind of backfires here.

Bryan would be better off drawing attention to his touching piece of empathetic storytelling, “You Don’t Know Jack,” in which he documents all the problems that would drive a man to drink. He would set himself apart from the country guy pack by playing up the bluesy “Muckalee Creek Water,” in which he talks about a South Georgia slice of heaven and declares, “If this was all I had, I’d be living good. ... Let the stock market do what it’s gonna do.”

Bryan can sell ballads like “I Know You’re Gonna Be There” and “I Knew You That Way,” and he should know that those songs would sell “Tailgates & Tanlines” far better for far longer.

— Glenn Gamboa, Newsday

STEVE CROPPER

Album: “Dedicated”

Grade: C

One legend paying tribute to another, with a diverse crop of guests: That’s the concept behind Steve Cropper’s “Dedicated.” Cropper, the guitarist in Booker T. & the MGs and on many of Stax Records’ greatest hits, has often cited Lowman Pauling as his main formative influence. Pauling led the 5 Royales, the influential R&B group whose early ’50s songs were precursors to rock ’n’ roll and soul. However, “Dedicated to the One I Love,” “Think” and “Baby Don’t Do It” are probably better known in later versions by the Shirelles, James Brown and the Band, respectively.

The album is a nostalgia trip and history lesson. Cropper’s guitar and his crack band of Memphis compatriots often take a secondary role to the singers, who include Steve Winwood, B.B. King and Queen’s Brian May. Like many tributes, it’s a mixed bag: Although Delbert McClinton and Buddy Miller nail the 5 Royales’ humor and Lucinda Williams brings out their pathos, only Sharon Jones and Bettye LaVette, and occasionally Cropper’s guitar, convey their essential wildness.

— Steve Klinge, Philadelphia Inquirer

NRBQ

Album: “Keep This Love Goin’”

Grade: B

NRBQ (the New Rhythm and Blues Quintet, then Quartet) has been around for more than 40 years and has undergone personnel changes before. But this album really marks a new beginning.

Keyboardist and founding member Terry Adams has taken the NRBQ name for his own group, formerly the Terry Adams Rock and Roll Quartet. (Former ’Q drummer Tom Ardolino plays on two tracks and painted the cover illustration.)

New members Scott Ligon and Pete Donnelly sing and write along with Adams, and their contributions help maintain a distinct NRBQ flavor — at least, the group’s pop side. Adams exudes his usual shaggy charm, and still displays a knack for writing catchy tunes with an offbeat outlook.

He can also be musically ambitious while remaining unpretentious: “In Every Dream” may recall Buddy Holly, but it’s actually adapted from Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1 in B flat minor.

A couple of numbers rock lightly, but longtime fans may miss NRBQ’s more boisterous bar-band side. Of course, for many of those fans the group hasn’t been the same since its ultimate rock ’n’ roll animal, guitarist Big Al Anderson, departed nearly two decades ago.

— Nick Cristiano, Philadelphia Inquirer

JIMMIE VAUGHAN

Album: “Plays More Blues, Ballads, and Favorites”

Grade: B

JOHNNY NICHOLAS

Album: “Future Blues”

Grade: A

It worked so well the first time, why not do it again? Jimmie Vaughan, older brother of the late Stevie Ray, founding member of the Fabulous Thunderbirds and a guitarist’s guitarist, follows up last year’s “Blues, Ballads, and Favorites” with more of the same — songs well-known and obscure that shaped his musical life and still fire his passion.

Backed by the same group of musicians, Vaughan continues to show the connections among these various strains of American music. His interpretations make everything here seem of a piece, without loss of individual flavor. He tears into material from the worlds of country (Webb Pierce, Hank Williams), blues (Jimmy Reed), and R&B (Ray Charles, Jimmy Liggins), including a healthy dose of the New Orleans variety (Bobby Charles, Lloyd Price, Annie Laurie).

One quibble: When you have a singer such as Lou Ann Barton at your disposal, you have to use her on more than just three of 14 cuts, especially when your own vocals are not nearly as powerful and dynamic. Just as Vaughan sounds as if he was born to play this music, Barton sounds as if she was born to sing it.

Vaughan also plays on the first album in six years by just-as-long-in-the-tooth singer and guitarist Johnny Nicholas. You can see why they connect — Nicholas’ version of Dylan’s “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue” owes a lot to Jimmy Reed.

But while Nicholas draws from the same well as Vaughan, he uses those influences mostly in the service of his own songs — 10 of the 12 on “Future Blues” are originals, and fine ones at that.

While not always hewing strictly to the blues, they extend the tradition in ways that ensure the form does, indeed, have a future, as well as a past.

— Nick Cristiano, Philadelphia Inquirer