RECORD REVIEWS

R. KELLY

Album: “Black Panties”

Grade: B

R. Kelly likes sex. A lot. Always has and probably always will.

What sets his 12th studio album, “Black Panties” (RCA), apart from the rest of the work is that he’s really only singing about sex now. No “I Believe I Can Fly” here. No sex-related “hip-hopera” like “Trapped in the Closet.” He doesn’t even use euphemisms for sex like “Ignition” very much anymore, though he can add “Cookie” to that list.

Kells is now just putting his sex talk out there unvarnished. “Crazy Sex” is straightforward with lines like “Let’s do it on the balcony, let everybody watch, we don’t care ’cause we’re in our zone.”

After all this practice, though, Kelly has become a master of sex songs. “Genius” is a great throwback slow jam, up there with Prince’s “Darling Nikki” and Marvin Gaye’s “Sexual Healing.” “Legs Shakin’,” featuring Ludacris, is another sleek, ’80s-styled soul ballad, while “Throw This Money on You” uses layers of icy synths to create electronic cool as current as anything from The Weeknd or Rhye.

After 18 tracks and 70 minutes or so, “Black Panties” does get monotonous, but Kelly certainly finds ways of occasionally spicing things up.

—Glenn Gamboa, Newsday

various artists

Album: “The Music of Nashville: Original Soundtrack Season 2, Volume 1” (Big Machine Records)

Grade: B

Like the rare, maybe mythical man who only reads Playboy for the articles, some must surely claim to watch “Nashville” solely for the music.

That’s no crime — those who aren’t much for sudsy nighttime soaps would do well to check out the ABC show’s songs on “The Music of Nashville: Original Soundtrack Season 2, Volume 1.” While the storylines strain credulity, these sonic underpinnings hold the show together — as should be the case with a series set and filmed in Music City.

The actors sing their own parts, and the leads, Hayden Panettiere and Connie Britton, do fine jobs at the mic. Yet the true revelations are found in the musical chops of others, such as Clare Bowen and Sam Palladio.

“The Music of Nashville” runs the gamut from the slick and sassy (“Can’t Say No to You,” “Trouble Is”) to tender, deeper cuts (”Why Can’t I Say Goodnight,” “This Town”). Still, less can be more: The acoustic, demo-like take of “Ball and Chain” sung by Palladio and Bowen on the show is preferable to the version on the soundtrack by Britton and Will Chase.

—Jeff Karoub, Associated Press

CHILDISH GAMBINO

Album: “Because the Internet” (Glassnote)

Grade: B-

Donald Glover’s newest album as Childish Gambino, “Because the Internet,” is a self-aware portrait of a young man isolated by technology, celebrity and relentless introspection. Anyone who caught Glover’s recent bloodletting Instagram session (in which he listed a barrage of self-criticisms on hotel stationery) might think that unplugging from the Web would give his brain a much-deserved break. But then he’d have lost his source material for this sometimes goofy, often sad, very capable laptop-rap album.

Trollish Web-culture jokes abound here, but it’s all done in service of documenting the rootless, distracted millennial male mind. “3005” is a lush, electro-bendy production where he tries to muster up a commitment to fidelity; “Crawl” takes moves from Odd Future’s gnarled, noisy goth-rap while “No Exit” nails the aimless night-driving of a guy who wants to be out late but suspects he’s too old for this.

—August Brown, Los Angeles Times

PARMALEE

Album: “Feels Like Carolina”

Grade: B+

Parmalee’s debut album, “Feels Like Carolina” (Stoney Creek), is so good that the band is perched on the edge of an overnight success story. Hey, it’s only taken the quartet a decade or so of touring to get there.

Thanks to the well-crafted, pop-leaning smash “Carolina,” interest in the group — and its combination of likable, Luke Bryan, lighthearted country and arena rock — is running high. Matt Thomas’ distinctive vocals have that tender-but-tough quality that works in a variety of settings, from the catchy country of “Close Your Eyes” to the laid-back, summer-soaked sweetness of “Day Drinkin’” and even out to the southern-fried Def Leppard-like anthem “I’ll Bring the Music.”

—Glenn Gamboa, Newsday