Tunerami » Rolling Stone Reviews

$0$

Tue, 12 Oct 2010 23:20:17 +0000

Die Antwoord are rap's new aliens: a trio of "zef" (i.e., white trash) South Africans led by an MC with a craggy, off-his-meds flow and a pipsqueak hype girl with a crazy mullet. Their major-label debut piles up techno beats, Afrikaans lyrics and choruses that sound like warped schoolyard chants, …
Read More

Old 97′s

Tue, 12 Oct 2010 23:20:17 +0000

"Take ya to the Tate Museum," sneers Rhett Miller on his band's eighth LP, begging a question: Why would Dallas twang rockers name-check a British tourist attraction — over a Clash-style guitar stomp, no less? It's because the Old 97's have always been Anglophiles, and 15 years into their career, …
Read More

Swanlights

Tue, 12 Oct 2010 23:20:17 +0000

The challenge for Antony Hegarty is just how best to use that quivering, purring, sobbing, ecstatic, altogether original voice. Though he's a great disco diva (see Hercules and Love Affair's 2008 "Blind"), his Johnsons work tends toward the sepulchral. On their fourth set, ghosts still haunt Hegarty's piano-and-string-sketched chamber songs. …
Read More

The Union

Tue, 12 Oct 2010 18:20:12 +0000

The Union is a rare gesture in a dying business: an act of gratitude. Elton John repays a long-standing debt of inspiration to Leon Russell — particularly the rowdy merger of soul, country and gospel rapture Russell perfected as a writer, pianist and arranger on 1969 and '70 albums by …
Read More

Doo-Wops & Hooligans

Tue, 05 Oct 2010 16:20:10 +0000

Turn on your radio. Hear that voice, a feathery tenor with a hint of soulful grit? It belongs to Bruno Mars, the 25-year-old Hawaiian newcomer featured on smash hits like B.o.B's "Nothin' on You" and Travie McCoy's "Billionaire." Doo-Wops & Hooligans proves that Mars is a natural — a lavishly …
Read More

Tiger Suit

Tue, 05 Oct 2010 16:20:09 +0000

KT Tunstall turned heads in 2004 with just the power of her voice and her guitar, but the intervening years have found her showing little interest in being just another worked-up folkie. On her third album, Tiger Suit, she leavens sleek pop songs with her warm-whiskey rasp, clawing against the …
Read More

I Am Not a Human Being

Thu, 30 Sep 2010 16:20:09 +0000

What'd you expect, "Folsom Prison Blues"? Lil Wayne has released his eighth studio album while still incarcerated on New York's Rikers Island, serving the final weeks of a sentence for attempted criminal possession of a weapon. But gritty jailhouse music this ain't. I Am Not a Human Being, which Wayne …
Read More

Lonely Avenue

Tue, 28 Sep 2010 07:20:22 +0000

Bob Dylan wrote most of Desire with a playwright, but collaborations between musicians and literary figures are usually pretty painful. This one isn't without promise: Nick Hornby's novel High Fidelity is a music-geek classic, and Ben Folds is great at turning wordy lyrics into crafty pop. But formal knowledge works …
Read More

Clapton

Tue, 28 Sep 2010 07:20:22 +0000

Eric Clapton basically makes two kinds of solo albums. There are his escapes from the strict letter and law of electric blues: the brisk white soul of 1970's Eric Clapton; the cruising-speed funk and reggae on 1974's 461 Ocean Boulevard; the 1992 smash Unplugged. Then there are the homecomings, like …
Read More

Record Collection

Tue, 28 Sep 2010 07:20:22 +0000

The album title cuts to the chase. Like all good DJs, Mark Ronson is first and foremost a collector, the kind of guy with untold 45s lining his loft. In his production work for Lily Allen and Amy Winehouse, he proved to be one of music's wonkiest wonks, bringing encyclopedic …
Read More