The recording industry is always complaining that sales of cds are in a downward spiral with no end in site. That’s prolly because most of the cds released this summer are some of the weakest in recent memory. Steve Miller Band: Bingo! (Roadrunner)/Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers: Mojo (Reprise); Two of Arena rocks biggest acts tackle the blues with mixed results. Miller returns to the music that he played as a snot-nosed kid growing up in Chicago and Petty’s Heartbreakers try to add some attitude.
Miller (not the greatest of singers) shares the spotlight with vocalist Sonny Charles of The Checkmates fame, giving the album, with Miller’s strong guitar work, an honest shot at blues authenticity.
The Heartbreakers, as great a band as they are really struggle here, giving them that ‘fish out of water’ sound.
Eminem: Recovery (Aftermath); After the success of Relapse, it looked like Em was set to drop it’s sequel Relapse 2 but at he last minute pulled it back and offered Recovery in it’s place. Good move.
This, his seventh studio album is chuck full of Em at his wise-alleck, sneering best. This is a trim and tight cd, gone are the goofy little skits while only Lil’ Wayne, Pink and Rihanna make guest appearances.
Standouts include “Won’t Back Down,” “Almost Famous” and “No Love.”
Herbie Hancock: The Imagine Project (HH Records); As with his previous two releases, Hancock collaborates with giants in both commercial pop and jazz fields to cover a number of classic songs.
While the pairings might seem obvious, Derek Trucks with wife Susan Tedeschi on “Space Captain” or John Legend and Pink on “Don’t Give Up”, the album sours on stuff like James Morrison’s “A Change Is Gonna Come” and Dave Matthews “Tomorrow Never Knows”.
Not as commercial as his Possibilities album or as esoteric as The Joni Letters, The Imagine Project fits snuggly between the two.
Robert Randolph & The Family Band: We Walk This Road (Warner Bros.); Man this hurts. We all know and love Randolph and his ability to play his lap steel pedal, in a live setting with the same originality, imagination, spontaneity and genius as Jimi Hendrix or Miles Davis played their respective instruments.
But man oh man does he make horrible records. Simply the worst ever. I mean his cds wouldn’t even make a good coaster for your drink. They reinforce the old adage that you cannot capture lightning in a bottle. He’s breathtaking in concert but a snooze in the studio.
Miles Davis: Bitches Brew Legacy Edition (Legacy); The 1969 album that opened the door for jazz musicians to incorporate rock influences into their genre gets the royal updated treatment on this two cd, one dvd set.
It’s the original six album tracks remastered and remixed by Mark Wilder, giving the material a welcome update. Also included are a couple alternate takes and single edits titled “Great Expectations” and “Little Blue Frog” which were released as a single but not included on the original album.
The gem here is a dvd of a killer show recorded in Denmark, November 4, 1969. It features, amongst others, Chick Corea and Wayne Shorter who appeared on the original album. It’s color corrected and pretty amazing.
Miles Davis’ Bitches Brew is just as an important album as Sgt. Peppers was to The Beatles, Electric Ladyland to Jimi Hendrix and as Pet Sounds to The Beach Boys. A must for everyone.
John Mellencamp: On The Rural Route 7609 (Island); An interesting box set in that it shies away from the obvious formula.
This is a compilation of the songs that appeared in-between the hits, not really the hits themselves. The music is sequenced here thematically as four separate cds, so they’re not in chronological order.
Mellencamp’s writing has never been stronger as it’s obvious here. No one looks at the workingman’s America and questions the powers that be since 1960’s era Bob Dylan, better than Mellencamp.
The Roots: How I Got Over (Def Jam); I’ll share a little guilty pleasure here, I’ve been playing the heck out of this cd. If you’ve caught Jimmy Fallon’s Late Night, you know that The Roots can accompany any musical act or jam with anyone that appears on the show.
Guys like me have been listening since their 1993’s Organix debut. I always appreciated hip-hop with a live band, ala Tupac back in the day or Jay-Z’s Unplugged.
That being said this is an amazing set of music and includes some unique collaborations (Monsters Of Folk?).
Hip-Hop is taking it on the chin this summer (sans Eminem) in sales and with the Drake album being so R&B influenced, it’s good to know that The Roots have maintained their musical integrity with How I Got Over.
Herbie Hancock (Bob Hanson)
