Jack Johnson - Sleep Through The Static (2008)

File Under: Folk-pop

Rating: 7/10

Unlike his jazz legend namesake, Jack Johnson is very laid back. He is so laid back, he probably wears a seatbelt in his hammock. His pop-folk, which has become a genre of its own, is as laid back as is the man.

No matter how complex the theme of his song’s lyrics may be, it would likely still sound like mellow sundowner music. In Jack’s world, everything sounds cool, even when it isn’t. But Johnson is not really about messages, of course. His sometimes banal lyrics are embroidered with the intermittent neat turn of phrase, but it seems improbable that his audience tunes in for the words. In many ways, Johnson is the musical heir to ’70s jazz-folk favourite Michael Franks (he of "Monkey See, Monkey Do" fame). And yet, songs such as the excellent opener “All At Once” and the lovely “Enemy” can strike an emotion (here about sadness in love).

On his fifth album, things proceed with some energy after the slow opener; there are even electric guitars and keyboards, much trumpeted as a departure from his previous albums, which is not strictly true. After a while, however, it all becomes rather unexciting, as if to confirm the effect promised by the album’s title. Paradoxically the title track, a real toe-tapper, stands out as one of the more edgy songs on this set, musically and lyrically.

As on previous Jack Johnson albums, the blame for the incremental monotony effect resides not necessarily with the songs — heard individually, there are no stinkers on this album — but with the overall effect of Johnson’s music resulting from a lack of that vital ingredient in good music: passion.

Johnson seems a thoroughly likable and ethically conscious man — he recorded this album using only solar power — and his decency shows in the lyrics. They are about love and loss, his family, the hopes and challenges and fears of living in the big, bad world today. Most likely, however, his rhyme will not be heard much because this album is destined to serve as soft, static background music — which may well be the function it serves best.

Check out: All At Once; Angel; Sleeping Through The Static; Enemy; If I Had Eyes; Adrift

Colbie Caillat - Coco (2007)

File Under: Pop

Rating: 8/10

Like Lily Allen and Kate Nash before her, Colbie Caillat launched herself into the pop charts on the strength of Internet buzz. Releasing her music first on MySpace (where she made more than 100,000 “friends”), she was soon picked up by the music blog community. If this method of reaching an audience represents the future of pop, instead of the corporate, manufactured and overmarketed likes of Britney Spears, then all power to Web 2.0.

Much has been made of Colbie being the daughter of the producer Ken Caillat, who helped create the Fleetwood Mac masterpiece Rumours. It would be unfortunate if that association should influence her reputation one way or another. Whatever influence there might have been, the album must be judged on its own merits.

Caillat’s debut album, titled rather cornily after her childhood nickname, is breezy folk-pop of the sort usually associated, by way of deceptive shorthand, with the rather more boring Jack Johnson. In sound Caillat is much closer to Tristan Prettyman, her fellow Californian who burst on to the scene equally unexpectedly in 2005.

This is summer music, agreeably mellow, but not at all downbeat; bouncy, but not banal. It is a perfect album for chilling on the porch, or perhaps to be played in the evening as one winds down from a day outdoors.

There is no poor track on this well-crafted album, and a few songs are downright infectious, such as the impossibly cute “Bubbly”, "One Fine Wire" and “The Little Things”. Caillat’s warm voice is a lovely complement to her acoustic sound.

Caillat’s songs deal mostly with the vagaries of love. Occasionally turning a nice phrase, her lyrics are mature but unchallenging — except on “Midnight Bottle”, which, as the title suggests, deals with alcohol abuse to fight loneliness.

Final track “Capri” slows proceedings down and changes lyrical tack as the singer tenderly addresses an expectant mother and her unborn child.

Coco is a joy of an album by one of 2007’s most welcome newcomers — in a year when several wonderful female singers, such as Sara Bareilles, Nicole Atkins and Ingrid Michaelson, burst on to the scene.

Check out: Bubbly; The Little Things; One Fine Wire, Realize (download); Tailor Made; Feelings Show; Capri; Oxygen.

Foo Fighters – Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace (2007)

File Under: Rock

Rating: 9/10

The hints were apparent on 2005’s In Your Honour that Dave Grohl and his Foo Fighters were looking at experimentation. On the new album, the Foos are playing with different genres, sounding in turn electrifying and intimate.

Of course there are plenty songs in the old Foo tradition: the anthemic “The Pretender”, the post-relationship lament “Let It Die” (with its long acoustic intro suddenly exploding into angry rock), the rousing “Erase/Replace”, “Give It To You” and “Come Alive”, and the mid-tempo rock of “Long Road To Ruin”.

But Grohl dishes up a couple of surprises. There is a nostalgia trip to the early '70s on “Summer’s End”, which channels Crosby, Stills & Nash; and there is a slowish, reflective exercise in the excellent and touching “Statues” (that line about "ordinary people" invariably reminds me of that John Legend track featuring the same two words).

The most intriguing (and unjustly oft-maligned) track is the instrumental “The Ballad Of The Beaconsfield Miners”, with the idiosyncratic and quite wonderful bluegrass guitarist Kaki King, written for a Tasmanian miner who, when trapped underground, asked for an iPod containing Foo Fighters music.

There is no poor track on Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace; indeed, it may well come to be regarded as a rock classic of this decade in much the same way as The Colour And The Shape was ten years ago.

Check out: The Pretender; Statues; Summer’s End; Let It Die; Come Alive; But Honestly; Cheer Up Boys, You're Makeup Is Running.

Alicia Keys - As I Am (2007)

File Under: R&B

Rating: 7/10

Here is the trade-off: if you like your Alicia Keys albums to include a few astonishing songs (such as, say “Falling” or “If I Can’t Have You”) among a bunch of filler songs, revisit Alicia Keys’ previous two studio albums; if you prefer an album on which almost every track is of high quality but without the instant classics, As I Am is a safe bet.

Here Keys takes few risks, eschewing innovation in favour of lots of often quite lovely polish. The assured quality that runs through Keys’ new album hints at a growing maturity which, when fully realised, will surely see the 27-year-old ranked among the R&B greats. As I Am isn’t quite there yet, but ranks well above much of the recent output in the genre.

Keys comfortably embraces contemporary R&B (on tracks such as “Go Ahead” and hit single “No One”) and material influenced by the soul music of the old school (“Superwoman”). This album has a cross-generational appeal, and unselfconsciously so.

This appeal is most evident on “Teenage Love Affair”, whose title and production is evidently aimed at the market defined by the title, but which musically recalls soul’s heyday of the '70s.

The album’s highlight is Key’s collaboration with John Mayer, the kicked-back “Lesson Learned”.

Check out: Lesson Learned (download); Tell You Something; Superwoman; No One; Wreckless Love; Sure Looks Good To Me.

Rosie Thomas - These Friends Of Mine (2007)

File Under: Folk

Rating: 9/10
Acoustic singer-songwriter Rosie Thomas is a treasure. At a time when music which can truly touch the listener is excluded from the airwaves and record shops stock only few lesser known albums, this particular treasure will remain largely undiscovered outside the blogosphere.

Thomas’ fourth album is her most consistent yet, full of songs for which the hackneyed term “achingly beautiful” was invented for. In this, she is supported by cult folk favourites Damien Jurado, Denison Witmer and Sufjan Stevens. Like the latter, Thomas is a committed Christian. Unlike on her second album, Only With Laughter Can You Win, she does not express her faith explicitly here (nor does she disavow it). The lyrical thread running through the album is love and New York, sometimes both together.
Recorded as live, the album has much by way of engaging personality. The sparse, moving “Why Waste More Time?” is preceded by an appealingly giggly count-in. The cover version of R.E.M.’s “The One I Love”, lovely though it is, seems redundant, but Tomas’ interpretation of Fleetwood Mac’s “Songbird” captures the intense delicacy of the original.
The highlight, however, is “Much Farther To Go”, a love song in which the arrangement, harmonies and lyrics coalesce to create an evocative hymn to deep yearning.

This intimate set of songs that should serve to compensate for all the soul that is lacking in mainstream music.

Check out: Much Farther To Go; If This City Never Sleeps; Kite Song; Songbird; All The Way To New York City; Say Hello.

Find songs from the album here and here.

Jennifer Lopez - Brave (2007)

File Under: Pop

Rating: 3/10

The album title is a serious contender for misnomer of the year. On her seventh album, Jennifer Lopez is playing it entirely safe. She takes no risks on this competently produced but uninspired album.

An astute judge of musical trends, Lopez has dropped the "tough (albeit diva-like) homegirl from da block" image in favour of an R&B-pop sound that borrows heavily from the '70s and '80s. “Hold It Don’t Drop It”, for example, is pure 1986. In fact, some songs sound like Spice Girls rejects (especially “Forever”), so the '90s were not altogether overlooked—just in time for the imminent revival of that decade.

Much as the retro influence is palpable, the production remains mostly contemporary.
Within its genre, Brave is not unpleasant and perhaps even danceable, but it is also devoid of depth or artistic ambition. Likewise, the lyrical content exploits the dictionary of cliché with vigour (not that we look to Lopez for our life philosophies), complementing the banality of the music.

Check Out: Do It Well; The Way It Is (if you must)

James Blunt - All The Lost Souls (2077)

File under: Pop

Rating: 7/10

Few contemporary artists divide opinions quite as much as James Blunt. His fans admire his ability to bang together an appealing melody and ascribe sincerity to his vocal delivery. His critics object to his androgynous voice, the overwhelming ubiquity of hit single "You’re Beautiful", the hyped promotion of his albums, his lack of edge, even to his posh background. Usually the camps are split along gender lines.

Both constituencies have a point and at the same time miss it. Blunt’s music is pleasant, even well crafted, but it is of no particularly high standard within the folk-pop genre in which the singer places himself.

All The Lost Souls does nothing to bring the opposing factions closer together: those who fell for the debut, Back To Bedlam, will adore the follow-up; those who despised it will find no cause to diminish their hatred.

Blunt does not stray from a formula which has brought him fortune and fame, if not critical acclaim. Where Bedlam included some instantly memorable songs, All The Lost Souls has few tunes that might take residence in the listener’s involuntary ear (though "Same Mistake" doubtlessly will). At the same time, those not given to prejudice against the man may well regard a good few songs with some affection.

Tellingly, the album opens with a song titled "1973". What follows borrows heavily from Blunt's pop songwriter predecessors of the 1970s: Elton John, David Bowie, Billy Joel, Gilbert O’Sullivan, and especially the Bee Gees. The loveliest song on this set, "One Of The Brightest Stars", in particular lifts liberally from the latter’s 1972 hit "Run To Me". Perhaps not coincidentally, the final track, "I Can’t Hear The Music", features the line: "And I hope the Lonely Hearts Club Band will play out one last song", which could be a reference to the Bee Gees' involvement in Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, the 1978 Stigwood-produced mess of a film.

Lyrically, Blunt tries to be deep, but has created some howlers (especially the oft-cited "Why don't you give me some love? I've taken a shipload of drugs"). The trouble with his vocal delivery is that his emotional investment is indistinguishable from the lyrical context: when he sings of tender love he sounds exactly as he does when he sings about a murderous fantasy. This is indefensible in a singer-songwriter, whereas in pop, the vocal interpretation of lyrics tends to be secondary.

James Blunt should not be credited with undue depth. Treated as a standard pop album, however, All The Lost Souls makes for perfectly fine background listening.

Check out: One Of The Brightest Stars; Same Mistake; Carry You Home; Annie; I Can't Hear The Music.