Bamboo
?Tomorrow Becomes Yesterday? (Reissue with extra track and DVD); PolyEast Records
Stripped of the metal ad lib, the faux rap and ponderous bridges, previous Bamboo hits like ?Hallelujah? and now ?Kalayaan? in this collection harken back to a songwriting past that worked best in the context of post-punk musical anarchy and power pop resurgence in the days of Rivermaya.
This repackaged edition of Bamboo?s 2008 CD ?Tomorrow Becomes Yesterday? finds the band pulling back a little, toning the youthful energy a notch down and going out on musical foot to explore a bit of funk, a dose of jazz, a pedal of reggae, even a streak of the blues.
One can say it?s about time, or not a moment too soon, but others are content that Bamboo has not yet buckled to the kind of music-related technology that has since gobbled up the rest of the world?hello AutoTune!
B.o.B
?B.o.B Presents: The Adventures of Bobby Ray?; Atlantic Records
To those repelled by hip hop because of its social rap sheet, B.o.B invites you to see for yourself how far the genre has come. His album is refreshingly free of the misogyny, misanthropy, homophobia, vulgarity and an overarching affinity with violence that marred much of rap?s history.
B.o.B?s musical trip showcases ?cross-over??some might even guardedly say ?traditional? ?approaches to relationships with women, pecking order with male peers, ambition and success, and personal and artistic identity.
Co-performed and co-produced by a dozen friends in the business that include, yes, Eminem (albeit a more mature one) and Lupe K., the first three singles alone illustrate B.o.B?s auditory vision of a populist pop pilgrimage from the studio to the dance floor to MTV and YouTube and back.
?Nothin? on You,? the breakout single plunked on heavy rotation on MTV, features Bruno Mars, the wiz who cowrote Travie McCoy?s ?Billionnaire,? and is coproduced by The Smeezingtons, the production outfit behind Sugababes and Justin Bieber.
B.o.B?s lyrics, so often controversially crude and malignant in rap, are characteristically imaginative and civilized. Give this CD a listen and you will find that Mr. Jones is demonstrably cool. It?s a guaranteed, fun-filled, two-thumbs up musical trip.
Kylie Minogue
?Aphrodite?; Parlophone
In her signature hit ?Can?t Get You Out of My Head? (2001), Australian pop singer Kylie Minogue parlayed dance and sexuality and gained worldwide fame. A decade and a life history later, she celebrates all in ?Aphrodite??an all-dance, no-ballad, all-sexy 12-track club album dedicated to the Greek goddess of love and beauty and erotic energy.
All throughout the album Minogue sticks to her tried and true formula of dance as a prelude and imitation of sex and, if need be, a better substitute for sex indeed. On track 8, ?Better Than Today,? she asks, ?What?s the point in living if you don?t want to dance??
