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ALBUM : Southern Voice - Tim McGraw
HOT PICK - Still |
 Based on title alone, it would seem that Southern Voice picks up on the harder country edges of Let It Go, but that's not the case: this is Tim McGraw's rockiest album yet, opening with a slow, spacy crawl called "Still" that would not be out of place on a record by a U2 knockoff and often revisiting that territory, taking the occasional detour to Nickelback territory on the Chad Kroeger co-written "It's a Business Doing Pleasure with You."
That tune bristles with Kroeger's barely veiled, unwitting hostility, something that the big-hearted McGraw doesn't wear well — not in the least, because it sounds like a swipe at his wife Faith Hill — and it's something he wisely side-steps on the rest of the record, choosing to mine a sentimental, meditative vein, musing on major changes in his life and wondering what will happen after he's gone. Such big themes fit both the big, atmospheric rock sounds and the reflective acoustic ballads well, creating an inward vibe that is occasionally punctuated by a rocker, like the laundry list of great Southern names on the title track.
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ALBUM: The Element of Freedom - Alicia Keys
HOT PICK - Empire State Of Mind (Part II) |
 Don’t mistake the presence of Jay-Z and Beyoncé on Alicia Keys' fourth album as evidence that the singer/songwriter is burrowing into modern R&B — take it instead as evidence of the rarefied company Keys keeps, her status as a superstar so solidified that the only cameos possible are R&B/hip-hop elite. Superstars are often given leeway to do anything they want, and so it is on The Element of Freedom, where Keys dials back the outward expansion of As I Am and turns inward, creating a clean, small-scale collection of ballads and Prince-inspired pop.
Always apparent on Alicia’s albums, that Prince influence is underscored by how she’s swapped the retro-soul instrumentation of her earliest music for electronics, but she’s retained the warmth, the throwback sensibility and, especially, a sense of reserve, never getting too heated or gauche. This does mean the Prince elements feel more NPG than Revolution, but Keys trademark always has been an easy elegance. On The Element of Freedom, that elegance is so easy it borders on the sleepy, with Keys’ understatement undercutting livelier numbers — chief among them the bubbly Beyoncé duet “Put It in a Love Song” — so they play as ballads. This isn’t a complaint so much as a characteristic: her voice may crack on “Love Is My Disease,” but Keys never gets gritty, she remains reserved, never letting her singing or arrangements obscure the melodies or the classy veneer of the entire proceedings.
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