If Maxim Can Fake Its Reviews, So Can We!
The scandal surrounding Maxim’s habit of reviewing albums before hearing them just keeps getting more embarrassing for the lad mag. First, there was uproar over Warpaint, the new album by hippie-rockers The Black Crowes, which was awarded 2.5 stars even though an advance copy was never provided to the music editor. Now, the New York Post reports that Nas’ upcoming album received the same score, and the rapper hasn’t even finished recording it!
As a music devotee, I’m appalled. But as a writer, I have to admit…this news couldn’t be more liberating. Why wait for the copyright-paranoid labels to send me watermarked CDs? It’s not like it’s that difficult to predict how an album will sound anyway. Here’s a little exercise to prove it:
Mariah Carey, E=MC² (out April 15) – 2.5 stars
Carey’s latest album relishes in the diva’s signature easy, breezy style, but it lacks the monster singles of her 2005 comeback album, The Emancipation of Mimi. Its first single, the midtempo jam, “Touch My Body,” lazily proves why snap music is both impossible to hate and also on its last legs. On the flipside, her collaboration with T-Pain, “Migrate,” is destined for club-banger greatness, but when an iconic singer like Carey needs to latch herself to today’s most ubiquitous featured artist just to score a hit, you know it’s time to hang up her fur coat.
Christina Aguilera, Sucia No Más (working title, out when she says so) – 3 stars
Instead of experimenting with more youthful, genre-fusing Latin sounds, Aguilera sticks to tradition (as evidenced by the sappy ballad, “Mi Niño, Mi Vida”) and risks falling into the same trap that Jennifer Lopez did with
If it weren’t for Don Omar’s constant, megalomaniacal shouting of this album’s title over every track—oh, and the “
-M.H.
Fat Joe, “Lean Forward”, (working title, out Summer 2008) - 3.5 Stars
As one might conclude from his past, Joey Crack’s repertoire is as limited as his creativity. Although, the Crack Man has scored hits in recent years, with “Make it Rain” and “Lean Back”, Fat Joe the Gangsta has as yet failed to put out a record where he says anything of consequence. 2008’s “Lean Forward” breaks that trend! His lead single, the J Holiday assisted single “I Won’t Tell”, is a total change of pace from the synthed out “What’s Love” featuring Ashanti from 2003, showing a little more of Joe’s softer side (a side that’s apparently really big and REALLY soft). Plus, Joe tackles new and diverse subject material with the follow ups “Crack is Back”, “Crack in the Streets”, and probably the best track on the album with fellow latino tough guy, Jim Jones, “Crack is the Best!!!” The DJ Khaled-produce, futuristic sounding “Lean Forward” a sequel to his preivious hit “Lean Back” introduces a brand new, and different, dance and features verses from Lil’ Wayne, Juelz Santana, Pitbull, Trick Daddy, Method Man, Lil Flip, The Game, Project Pat, E-40, Bone Thugs N Harmony, Trick Daddy, Rick Ross, and Three 6 Mafia’s Juicy J. One listen to “Lean Forward” (either the song or the album) makes it blatantly clear that Fat Joe the Crack Man Gangsta is here to usher in a new, sophistocated and let’s be honest, admirable era in rap music.
-A.D.
Hilarious! It’ll be interesting to see how the predictions hold up. I think you’re spot on about MC, though. I was over Touch My Body about six seconds into the song.
Just wait till MC’s album drops, it’ll be once again one of her biggest album debuts of her career. You can’t judge how an album is going to do just by listening to the first single. True, Touch my Body doesn’t live up to Mariah classics like Hero, and Fantasy, but its a fun song and has a very catchy tune. I hated Rihanna’s Umbrella song when it first came out, but it caught on to me, and now radio can’t stop playing her. Mariah will prove once again why she is the biggest selling recording artist of all time when her new album drops. And the release date is April 15, not April 1.
One more thing, why does MC hasve to be scrutinized just because she partnered with TPain? Gwen Stefani did the same thing by collaborating with Akon, and people weren’t even paying attention to Jordin Sparks until she partnered with Chris Brown. It seems like she was the one who had to latch on to an ubiquitous singer like Brown just to score a hit, and this is her first album!