Record reviews

Record reviews

THE 1975

Album: “I like it ...”

Grade: A-

British pop-rockers 1975 get downright and reasonably funky on their latest album. For the record, the 17-track release is called “I like it when you sleep, for you are so beautiful yet so unaware of it.”

Also, for the record, it sparkles with a funky and experimental punch.

“I like it ...,” the band’s second full-length album, owes its cohesion to the upmarket vocals of lead singer Matthew Healy, as well as a refined mixing effort that nicely blends the various traditional and modern sounds. “She’s American” offers up rhythmic guitar work that gives to some nicely delivered futuristic synth work.

There’s even a very soulful slow jam on here, in “If I Believe You,” on which Healy carries the day with some super-smooth vocals. This is serious turn-down-the-lights-and-stoke-the-fire music if ever there was any.

In lesser hands, the 1975’s latest music might sound dated and a bit too referential to a late ’80s, early ’90s vibe. But the band has truly dosed this release up with enough modern production and sound elements to keep from falling into any traps.

—Ron Harris, Associated Press

Willie Nelson

Album: “Summertime: Willie Nelson Sings Gershwin”

Grade: B+

Willie Nelson has drawn material from the great American songbook throughout his career. Notably, his five-million-selling 1978 album, “Stardust,” featured Broadway standards, including George and Ira Gershwin’s “Someone to Watch Over Me.”

Nelson first recorded old-school tunes as early as 1963. For the umpteenth time, he dips into that song bag by interpreting 11 Gershwin tunes – inspired by winning the Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for Popular Song last year. Laid back and beautifully arranged, Nelson’s Gershwin tribute once again shows the enduring quality of “It Ain’t Necessarily So,” “Love Is Here to Stay” and the title cut.

At age 82, Nelson no longer has the range that helped make him an American institution. But his outstanding phrasing and distinctive vocal tone puts across the subtle shades of emotion in “But Not for You” and the playful wit of “Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off,” a duet with Cyndi Lauper. Nelson also offers a beautiful take on “Embraceable You” with duet partner Sheryl Crow.

Nelson won the Gershwin Prize for his songwriting; here, in the autumn of his career, he reminds us what a remarkable interpreter he can be of material written by others.

—Michael McCall, Associated Press

Bonnie Raitt

Album: “Dig In Deep”

Grade: B

Four years after her Grammy-winning “Slipstream,” Bonnie Raitt lights up with passionate vocals, appetizing tunes and adventurous cover songs on “Dip In Deep,” her 17th studio album.

Raitt had a hand in composing five of the 12 tracks, and they are some of the best, including the funky opener “Unintended Consequence of Love” and the piano-driven closing ballad “The Ones We Couldn’t Be.”

Raitt has molded songs from everyone from Del Shannon to Gerry Rafferty on previous records, and here she takes “Need You Tonight” by INXS to a bluesy zone crisscrossed by George Marinelli’s Keith Richards-like weaving guitar. “Shakin’ Shakin’ Shakes” is closer to the Los Lobos original, albeit with her perfectly fine slide.

Backed by her road band and handling production duties herself, Raitt sounds at her usual ease in every song. “I Knew” by Pat McLaughlin is another standout, its soaring chorus belying the helplessness of the lyrics – “I would have run, but I couldn’t run, would have flown, but I couldn’t fly.”

Raitt’s 1991 hit, “I Can’t Make You Love Me,” remains a career peak, and “Dig In Deep” includes several similar ballads.

—Pablo Gorondi, Associated Press