Emancipation, my ass. Rather than letting their client display her distinctiveness, the members of the Carey Career Resurrection Braintrust have practically erased any individuality she had left. On Mimi’s cover, she looks less like a person than a hood ornament or a carving on the prow of a ship, and…

Once upon a time, the existence of Jennifer Lopez CDs was entirely justified by the photos included with them. Given that she’s now 34 years old and has become one of the most overexposed celebrities to tread the planet’s surface, I figured this would no longer be true–but I’m thrilled…

Some of the nearly 40 holiday discs critiqued below are naughty. Some are nice. And some are as toxic as Aunt Matilda’s fruitcake. As usual, plenty of celebrities are looking to pad their bank accounts via Christmas recordings, and few appear to have broken a sweat while making them. Jessica…

There’s nothing wrong with being a singles act, but that doesn’t stop performers like Fabolous from trying to show they can do more than make radio fodder. For proof, check out Real Talk, which places a couple of first-rate hits alongside some ill-conceived misses. Although the opening track, a spoken-word…

Judging by its recent sales figures, R.E.M. doesn’t matter much anymore–but members Michael Stipe, Peter Buck and Mike Mills hope to prove otherwise. They’re part of Vote for Change, a pro-Dem tour that finds them teaming with Bruce Springsteen and other veteran lefties. On Around the Sun, meanwhile, they tackle…

“I wouldn’t consider us a throwback, but I also wouldn’t say we’re reinventing the wheel of rock and roll,” says Ronnie Vannucci, drummer for the Killers. “We’re taking the best parts of the music we were influenced by, putting them in our songs and making them our own.” The Killers…

Any writer who dares suggest that Mike Skinner, the Brit behind The Streets, is something less than a primitive genius would undoubtedly get the frigid-shoulder treatment at a critics’ roundtable. Reviewers on both sides of the pond worked themselves into a lather over Original Pirate Material, Skinner’s 2002 full-length debut,…

In some respects, Ministry’s Al Jourgensen has mellowed. For instance, he says he’s no longer helping his friendly neighborhood heroin dealer keep up with his Hummer payments. “It’s been over 11 months now since I’ve had anything,” he says. “I’m very proud and very clean.” From a creative standpoint, however,…

Writing about band names is one of the great clichés in rock journalism. Every group with an off-kilter appellation has an allegedly amusing or revealing (and often lengthy) story about how its stage alias was invented, but the majority of these tales are about as fascinating as a day spent…

Despite its moniker, which name-checks a ’60s soul singer best known for the proto-feminist declaration “Women’s Love Rights,” Division of Laura Lee is among a “new wave” of Swedish acts such as the Hives that are heavily influenced by vintage garage rock and punk. These musical elements are hardly novel,…

To paraphrase LL Cool J, Nas doesn’t want people to call his return a comeback, since he’s been here for years. But hip-hop addicts don’t see things this way and never have. “Every time I make an album, they’re always saying, ‘He’s coming back,'” grumbles the rapper during a telephone…

How many versions of “Jingle Bells” does the average person need? Plenty, apparently. Each year, the recording industry unleashes a torrent of seasonal discs, most of them dominated by a humdrum repertoire of tunes–and each year a percentage of them sell well enough to justify a similar deluge 12 months…

Stevie Wonder: The Wonder Years It was 1971 and Stevie Wonder had just turned 21, but when he reached into the trust that was to hold the estimated $30 million he had earned with such hits as “For Once in My Life,” “My Cherie Amour,” “I Was Made to Love…

Genuine musical objectivity is tough to come by, since most listeners, try as they might, can’t help but bring biases to what they hear. Sometimes these predispositions are personal; for instance, my beloved can no longer listen to the Beach Boys’ “Help Me, Rhonda” without displeasure, because it was playing…

Throw a stick, and you’re apt to hit someone who thinks the current pop scene is the worst ever! And who, other than nine-year-old white girls, could argue with that logic? Britney Spears and Celine Dion, to name just two, seem more like actors portraying musicians than the real thing…

Contrary to popular belief, there are still a handful of jazz musicians with recording contracts who enjoy taking chances. But most of the acts that fit this description, including Other Dimensions in Music, Test, and the Matt Wilson Quartet, are indie-imprint signees forced to toil in relative obscurity–and those few…

The complaint most frequently levied against Cleveland’s Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum is a conceptual one. Putting up a tourist-friendly, mainstream memorial to what began as anti-establishment music, critics of the Hall say, is the best possible way to snuff out any sense of danger the form…

James Lavelle, the 24-year-old founder and president of England’s Mo Wax Records, has an active fantasy life, and movies are his touchstone. The promotional items for Psyence Fiction, a new CD credited to a project he’s dubbed UNKLE, include a mockup of the original poster from Star Wars (his favorite…

Bernie Worrell knew that listeners outside the United States had long treated classic American music more honorably than had those within it. Likewise, he’d heard plenty of stories about veteran jazz, country, or rockabilly artists who’d either moved to foreign locales or made most of their money overseas. But as…

Since the release of 1996’s New Adventures in Hi-Fi, three-quarters of R.E.M.–the band more responsible than any other for bringing so-called alternative rock into the cultural mainstream–has been branching out in non-musical directions. Bassist Mike Mills is something of a regular on the celebrity golf circuit and has even commented…

The history of jazz is the history of reputations. Musicians who impressed critics during their primes, such as John Coltrane, tend to be held in ever higher esteem as the years go past, while artists tarred by negative notices throughout their careers are seldom granted access to the music’s pantheon…

Singer-songwriter Jim White’s life has a made-up quality about it. Among the reasons is his colorful way with descriptions; his anecdotes are sprinkled with metaphors and literary allusions softened by self-deprecating humor that suggests William Faulkner after his first joint. And then there are the tales themselves: admirably curious sketches…