New Music Roundup (Fall 2006)

The fall season is here, TV shows are back from summer hiatus (not counting the World Series break), and the latest batch of new albums has hit the streets. From time to time I like to review some of my personal favorite releases, or some of the incredible disappointments. Some of the following albums actually been out for a month or so now, so if you’ve already bought the album I hope you can share some of the opinions I have about each of them.

Without further ado:

Haggis’ Fall New Music Roundup:

John Mayer - Continuum
I’m just gonna put it right out there: This is my favorite album of 2006, period. John Mayer’s previous works have always graced my top 100 in Last.fm and iTunes, but this album is by far and above the previous in growth and delivery.

If you’re expecting another album with 13 tracks of Your Body Is A Wonderland, prepare to be disappointed. Taking a note from his recent jaunt with “John Mayer Trio,” this album is by far more bluesy and definitely deeper than his past “pop” hits. In the past John has been confused with Jack Johnson and even Dave Matthews by the generic sound of some of his songs, but on this album he has finally broken the mold and evolved as not only an artist but a songwriter as well.

Some standout tracks: Slow Dancing in a Burning Room, Belief (the first-and-only anti-war track on the album), the simple but smile-inducing Heart of Life, and my personal favorite on the album, Stop This Train on which John laments about the pressures of growing older, complete with sage advice from his father at the end. If you even only slightly like some of John’s past work, do not hesitate to pick this one up.

Audioslave - Revelations
Oh, Chris Cornell. How could you and the former Rage Against The Machine members fall off so quickly? Did you just lose every instance of creativity and originality with the first two albums? This album is a disaster, from beginning to end. With a total of TWO actual decent songs on this album (Original Fire and Broken City), the rest of the album descends into a repetitive blend of mediocrity and flat out unoriginality.

I actually thought something was wrong with my iPod when on no less than three tracks in a row started with almost the same opening guitar rift. The first album was gold, the second was not as good but had quite a few standout tracks. This one, however, should be forgotten and sealed away under the “miserable failure” category. Maybe i’m being too hard on the band, but after two decent albums releasing this tripe was just too much for me.

John Legend - Once Again
John Legend is the MAN. His first album featured tracks ranging from love to infidelity (okay, a lot of infidelity), but all masterpieces in themselves. His performance of Ordinary People with Stevie Wonder at the BET Music Awards last year is something that still haunts me from time to time. The man has talent, and he oozes it out of every pore in his body.

Once Again is his second release and is definitely a more somber attempt by John. Gone are the cheating-heart ballads from the first album.. He’s all about the one woman on this one, although from the video for Save Room you’d think otherwise (featuring him in bed with a different woman in each shot). That particular track is by far the best one on the album, but certainly not the only one. Other standout tracks are Heaven, the Marvin Gaye-inspired Each Day Gets Better, and the tongue-in-cheek PDA (We Just Don’t Care) in which he sings about all the different places he wants to, er, love his lady. This album was just released today, and I predict it will be at #1 by the day’s end on iTunes.

Barenaked Ladies - Barenaked Ladies Are Me
BNL is one of my favorite bands for their consistently witty and catchy songs, not to mention breaking the mold on taking the music industry seriously, or lack thereof. Their latest release, Barenaked Ladies Are Me, is one of their most ambitious albums to date. Listening to this album reminds me of their earlier stuff from Maybe You Should Drive and Stunt (the album that had their only breakout hit, One Week, on it), except the lyrics are much more poingiant and definitely more catchy.

In Bank Job, Ed sings about a bank heist gone wrong after entering the building only to discover the place filled with nuns. I would love to see a video of this with them dressed up a la Reservoir Dogs, complete with shootout at the end. This album also contains the only track I’ve ever liked containing both an accordion and a banjo at the same time, Everything Has Changed. And finally, the deepest and most heart-wrenching song I’ve ever heard from them, Take It Back, pulls the rest of the album in together nicely. For BNL fans I highly recommend picking this one up; it’s their best work in years.

Justin Timberlake - Futuresex/Lovesound
Okay, before you start calling me names and laughing, let me point out that I have always been against the “boy-band” craze of the late 90s, including the one that Timberlake belonged to. Generic bubblegum pop is something that makes you want to slip into a diabetic coma just listening to the crap spewed from Top 40 radio stations.

I was extremely hesitant to listen to anything by him when he dropped his first album years ago, but after seeing his performance of Seniorita on Saturday Night Live I was shocked to discover that he actually had talent. I quickly picked up the album and was not disappointed at all. Now with the release of his second solo effort he’s pushed himself firmly into the arena of being taken seriously as an artist.

I still enjoy the first album a little better, but this one is no letdown. Tracks like the dance-inducing Damn Girl featuring Black Eyed Peas frontman will.i.am, the somber Losing My Way (about a man losing his job, family, and even addiction to drugs before coming to his senses), and the heart-string pulling track Take Away Your Love make this album a top pick for 2006.

Regina Spektor - Begin To Hope
I first spotted this song while visiting the celeb-ragathon that is PerezHilton.com, where Perez featured the ultra-cool video for Fidelity (also posted here on this very blog). Russian-born Regina Spektor is another in a larger group of standout female artist that have broken the mold lately. While still basically an unknown, she’s gaining steam with her unique voice and lyrics, even featured recently in an episode of Showtime’s series Weeds (she did a version of the opening theme and another track played over the closing credits.)

She reminds me a lot of Siouxsie and the Banshees with a little bit of Bjork thrown in. It’s really hard to describe her music (with any justice), so you’ll just have to hear it for yourself. YouTube has several of her videos available (before they’re forced to remove them), including more recent tracks for Samson (a beautiful piano-driven ballad) and On The Radio.

Scissor Sisters - Ta-Dah
While trying to describe their music style to my roommate, I came up with this comparison: Imagine The B-52’s had a child with ABBA and then was raised by Republica. As confusing as it sounds, I also coined this term to sum it up a little better: The Scissor Sisters are Homo-Fabulous.

Their first album had a few really good songs but didn’t appeal to me that much. It took me a long time for the album to grow on me, and even still I found myself skipping past their tracks when they popped up in my playlist, save for a few. Their newest release, Ta-Dah, is far and beyond the scope of improvement as far as growth for the artists.

First of all: I Can’t Decide. This is one of the most catchiest and witty songs I have heard by any artist in years. You can’t go wrong with lyrics like: “I can’t decide/whether you should live or die”. My body simply refuses to sit still while listening to that song, as well as quite a few of the other tracks on this album like Intermission, She’s My Man, and Ooh.

That’s it for this edition. Feel free to post comments about things you agree with, opinions of your own, or to argue your case against something I’ve panned here. All of these albums I have listened to several times over, so my judgments aren’t quick about any of them.