record reviews

Miranda Lambert

Album: “Platinum” (RCA Nashville)

Grade: A

Country star Miranda Lambert describes her fifth album “Platinum” as transitional: She wanted to show the maturity of an award-winning artist who has turned 30 and settled into marriage.

But don’t worry, she’s still the wildest risk-taking Nashville singer roaring through the back roads. She frontloads the new 16-song collection with a saucily slurred lyric about the power of bleach jobs (“What doesn’t kill you only makes you blonder” she cracks in “Platinum”) and another (”Little Red Wagon”) that rips a would-be Romeo with a string of putdowns delivered with punkish glee.

Yes, Lambert continues to grow. But at her core, she continues to celebrate the colorful drama of working-class lives, punching them up with the freshest country rock arrangements this side of Eric Church. The way she reflects modern women, complete with risque word play and edgy humor, is what makes Lambert a fully three-dimensional country star.

“Platinum” only falters when Lambert leans on country cliches, as when she waxes nostalgic about a pre-digital world in her recent hit “Automatic” and on a one-dimensional tale (“Something Bad”) about wicked women that wastes a duet pairing with fellow superstar Carrie Underwood.

But, as usual, Lambert is as entertaining on album tracks as she is on radio hits. From the western-swing throwback (“All That’s Left”), recorded with dance-floor revivalists The Time Jumpers, to a cheeky send-up of celebrity marriages (”Priscilla”), Lambert keeps proving that life, in all its messy glory, is much richer than most of her Nashville peers ever suggest.

—Michael McCall, Associated Press

Chrissie Hynde

Album: “Stockholm” (Caroline)

Grade: C

It’s an awful irony that the most notable thing about the first album Chrissie Hynde is releasing under her own name is its lack of distinctiveness.

After two drug overdoses ended the first lineup of the Pretenders more than 30 years ago, the band essentially became Hynde and whoever came along for the ride. But she always insisted on billing her albums under the Pretenders name. Until “Stockholm.”

Despite that change, Hynde said this disc is as much a collaboration as she’s ever made. She wrote and recorded with Swedish producer Bjorn Yttling of Peter, Bjorn and John. Frankly, much of it is generic, bouncy pop-rock, pleasing to the ear and forgotten as soon as it fades out. Distinctive guitar cameos by Neil Young and John McEnroe (yes, THAT John McEnroe, and he can play!) are wasted.

It could be anyone singing, not one of rock music’s most recognizable voices, even though that voice retains its strength. It hurts to hear rock’s toughest chick spouting cliches or singing, “Look at me, I’m laughing like a child, and all of it because you’re the one.”

Hynde’s voice is special because it can evoke both off-the-cuff sass and heartbreaking melancholy. There’s one good example of each on “Stockholm”: the danceable single “Dark Sunglasses” and the lovely “Adding the Blue.” When her great career is recapped, they’ll be the only two things worth recalling from “Stockholm.”

—David Bauder, Associated Press

50 Cent

Album: “Animal Ambition” (G-Unit/Caroline/Capitol Music Group)

Grade: C+

50 Cent made a ginormous splash more than a decade ago with his multiplatinum platinum debut “Get Rich or Die Tryin’,” pushing out early career hits from “In da Club” to “P.I.M.P.”

But the rapper has been unable to live up to his first album’s success.

Now, as an independent artist, 50 Cent releases his first album in five years with “Animal Ambition: An Untamed Desire to Win.” He often shows rust on his fifth studio offering, but the 11-track set is not a total disappointment.

50 Cent still possesses a high level of cockiness, effectively displaying his street mentality on “The Funeral,” “Chase the Paper” and “Irregular Heartbeat,” with Jadakiss and Kidd Kidd. He raps about still keeping a gun under his pillow on “Hold On” and talks about his thirst to become more successful on “Hustler” and “Winners Circle.”

But while “Animal Ambition” shows some promise, there are some missteps. His rhymes are too simple and easily forgettable on the title track. He teams up with Trey Songz on the Dr. Dre-produced “Smoke,” but the track lacks the infectious spirit that lived in past club hits.

—Jonathan Landrum Jr.