Edwin Arnaudin – Staff Writer Rating: 1 star Far from the pop charms of Songs About Jane, Maroon 5 hit the club full force with Overexposed, a repetitive and lazy excuse for an album. All but two tracks are overproduced, cleaning up lead singer Adam Levine’s voice to robotically on-pitch perfection and confined to the
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“The Flaming Lips and Heady Fwends” by The Flaming Lips
Edwin Arnaudin – Staff Writer Rating: 0 Stars If the promise of music’s coolest weirdos rocking out with guest artists ranging from Ke$ha to Nick Cave sounds too good to be true, that’s because it is. Instead of a grandiose all-star spectacle, the official release of Record Store Day special The Flaming Lips and Heady
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“There’s No Leaving Now” by The Tallest Man on Earth
Edwin Arnaudin – Staff Writer Rating: 4.5 stars When Bob Dylan went electric on Bringing It All Back Home, lively band-backed tracks like “Subterranean Homesick Blues” and “Maggie’s Farm” marked a dramatic shift for an artist known for straightforward acoustic folk. The move polarized his fans, but wasn’t as stark as many made it out
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“Live from the Underground” by Big K.R.I.T.
Edwin Arnaudin – Staff Writer Rating: 4 Stars It took six months, but the first great hip-hop album of 2012 is finally here. Well, half of one, at least. The honor goes to Mississippi rapper Big K.R.I.T.‘s Live from the Underground, a wildly inconsistent effort that tries to please two very different kinds of listeners.
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My Complicated Relationship with Merrill Garbus and tUnE-yArDs
Edwin Arnaudin – Staff Writer It’s been a while since I’ve been as intrigued with a group as I currently am with tUnE-yArDs. I also can’t remember a group with whom I’ve had such an odd history. Indeed, if tUnE-yArDs and I were in a relationship on Facebook, our status over the past few months
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“Here” by Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros
Edwin Arnaudin – Staff Writer Rating: 4.5 Stars In “Man on Fire,” the opening track from Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros’ Here, frontman Alex Ebert lays out an ambitious request: “I want the whole damn world to come dance with me.” Not one to leave listeners hanging, Ebert and his troupe of merry musicians
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“Born and Raised” by John Mayer
Edwin Arnaudin – Staff Writer Rating: 3.5 Stars Ready or not, John Mayer’s folk rock album is here. With electrified Harvest-like cover art and a title suggesting a childhood spent at the turntable, Mayer goes back in time on Born and Raised and the stripped-down sounds fit him surprisingly well.
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“R.A.P. Music” by Killer Mike
Edwin Arnaudin – Staff Writer Rating: 2.5 Stars Over a decade has passed since Killer Mike burst onto the hip-hop scene and went toe-to-toe with OutKast on “The Whole World.” The verse established the big guy from Atlanta as an MC to watch, as did the singles “Akshon (Yeah!)” and “A.D.I.D.A.S.” off his 2003 debut,
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“Port of Morrow” by The Shins
Edwin Arnaudin – Staff Writer Rating: 5 Stars Absence apparently does make the heart grow fonder. Five years after the stiff and snoozy Wincing the Night Away, a new-look Shins returns with Port of Morrow, quite possibly their best album to date. Energized from his Broken Bells collaboration with Danger Mouse, lead singer/mastermind James Mercer
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“Born to Die” by Lana Del Rey
Edwin Arnaudin – Staff Writer In mid-January, Lake Placid, NY native Lana Del Rey became the first artist since Natalie Imbruglia in 1998 to play “Saturday Night Live” before releasing her first major-label LP. Born to Die is that album and follows a pair of EPs, including 2008’s Kill Kill, released under her birth name,