D Robin Thicke
Paula
Universal
Mama always said, "If you can't say something nice ..." so here goes: Robin Thicke has a good voice capable of genuine soulfulness.
Coming off his biggest hit, "Blurred Lines," heightened career visibility/personal issues and an avalanche of publicity over his separation from wife Paula Patton, this album is a pleading for her to take him back. On "You're My Fantasy," he begs with a desperate mantra of "please" over and over, in a song where he is haunted by the woman, her absence and his guilt.
Paula is a breakup album, a genre that has a history in pop music, most powerfully in Marvin Gaye's Here, My Dear and albums such as Adele's 21, Richard and Linda Thompson's Shoot Out the Lights and Usher's Raymond v. Raymond.
Thicke sings -- not always convincingly -- about "drunken rants" and being "a troubled man." The album is unsettling in its choices: music that often seems a little too lightweight and lyrics that, more often than not, seem not to have been well thought out and sometimes edge into creepy, particularly "Lock the Door."
Hot tracks: "Get Her Back," maybe.
-- ELLIS WIDNER
B Ed Sheeran
x
Asylum/Atlantic
Maybe it's his soft, slightly throaty voice, or his wisdom-of-age outlook, but it seems as if Ed Sheeran is older than his 23 years. That mix of innocence and sage wistfulness comes together handsomely, and unpredictably, with the economical, twisting, dark lyrics on his latest.
Musically and vocally, "Runaway" and the stompy "Photographs" sound like the dewy-fresh, ebulliently youthful Sheeran. His rap (yup) on "The Man" may signal disgust toward a cheating heart, but it comes off like a kid with scuffed knees. Then again, it could just be that his rap is so awkward. Luckily, he does better matching falsettos with Pharrell Williams on the slick, woozy "Sing."
The rest of the album portrays Sheeran and his protagonists as weeping-in-their-cider guys whose fame means nothing in the face of love and the fate of a bruised heart. Sheeran's directness comes off as refreshing, balanced by a gentle toughness in his vocals.
Hot tracks: "Runaway," "Photographs," the blunt "I'm a Mess."
-- A.D. AMOROSI
The Philadelphia Inquirer
B Sia
1,000 Forms of Fear
Monkey Puzzle/RCA
You've heard Sia's work -- Rihanna's "Diamonds," Britney Spears' "Perfume," Beyonce's "Pretty Hurts" and Flo Rida's "Wild Ones."
Sia, who stopped touring and appearing in her own videos after being diagnosed with an autoimmune disorder in 2010, wants her career to move on a professional blockbuster track and a more personal one. And on her sixth album, that dichotomy shows.
Previously, Sia was more risk-taking and more intimate, a style represented on the new album by the oddly playful "Hostage," which brings a girl-group sweetness and '80s synth simplicity to a complex relationship, and the stunningly defiant "Elastic Heart," which already has been a hit from the Hunger Games: Catching Fire soundtrack. The single "Chandelier" shows how well she does when she tries to bridge the gap between the personal and the poppy.
All that well-crafted work also makes many of her other songs seem vague and interchangeable. It's one cliche after another in "Fire Meet Gasoline"; in "Straight for the Knife," she wallows in melodrama; the lyrics of "Free the Animal" border on ridiculous.
Sia is a fascinating mix of contradictions.
Hot tracks: "Chandelier," "Elastic Heart," "Hostage."
-- GLENN GAMBOA
Newsday
B Broadway Cast Recording
Bullets Over Broadway
Masterworks Broadway
Turning movies into Broadway musicals is all the rage, and Woody Allen's 1994 film Bullets Over Broadway is a natural choice.
It tells the story of various artists, molls and gangsters putting on a Broadway show in the late 1920s, with all the mayhem and tap dancing one would expect.
The score is made up of songs from the 1920s, with some adjustments to lyrics to make them fit. The results are mixed, though a darkly funny "There'll Be Some Changes Made" is surprisingly appropriate in context. Then there are the oddities like the funny, energetic but nonsensical "Yes, We Have No Bananas" finale.
Not all of the performers are great singers but it's more about personality than great singing. Mostly, it's a fun ride, one that's for just sitting back and enjoying. Don't overthink it.
Hot tracks: "There'll Be Some Changes Made," "Finale (Yes, We Have No Bananas)."
-- JENNIFER NIXON
B-The Felice Brothers
Favorite Waitress
Dualtone
The Felice Brothers have never been the tightest of bands. Their shambolic folk-rock has earned them comparisons to The Band, with some Tom Waits, Bright Eyes and Dylan tossed in for good measure. But the Felices have always had their own skewed, timeless vision, singing about shysters, talk-show hosts, fading beauties, bums and boxers while the arrangements sometimes threatened to collapse.
On 2011's Celebration, Fla., there were even the occasional samples and drum machine beat, but Favorite Waitress, for the most part, eschews those forays, although it does mark the first time the boys have recorded in a proper studio and not a chicken coop or an empty high school.
Opening with a barking dog on "Bird on a Broken Wing," it's obvious that the new surroundings aren't going to keep the Felices buttoned down. The whole album flows that way, with typical looseness and shimmering little pieces of inspiration -- some zydeco fiddle, feedback-laden rock, gospel organ -- found among the laconic stretches. Ditching the handful of aimless tunes ("Constituents" and "Hawthorne," to name two) would have made Favorite Waitress exceptional.
Hot tracks: The sugar-rush charm of "Cherry Licorice," "Katie Cruel," "Saturday Night."
-- SEAN CLANCY
Style on 07/15/2014