mixtape maestro (2.0)

Fresh from penning Whitney Houston’s surprisingly irresistable “don’t call it a comeback” entry “Million Dollar Bill” and co-celebrating the Big Apple on Jay-Z’s anthemic Blueprint 3 highlight “Empire State of Mind”, Alicia Keys steers the focus back to her own solo career with the newly leaked ballad “Doesn’t Mean Anything”, the first taste of her as-yet-untitled upcoming fourth album and one that’ll surely garner her some more award gold come 2011 Grammy night.

Built on a steady drum/ piano pounce that initially hints of a “No One” re-do before evoking more of a Fray/ OneRepublic adult-pop feel, “Doesn’t Mean Anything” presents Keys growing even more comfortable in her position as one of today’s most reliable timeless pop creators, delivering a moving “true love > material things” lyric that pierces the soul in all the right ways and an utterly gorgeous musical arrangement and poised diva vocal performance that both slowly swell upward until they seem to break through the clouds above.

Some may balk at the track’s decidedly non-urban stamp (and to be honest, we might not be fully on-board with this project, if we start to get the gist that the rest of the album will follow this somewhat VH1-ish formula), but it’s hard to easily deny the level of class and universally-appealing popcraft on display here.

Consider her “can’t do any wrong” streak extended for at least another year with this one.

Quirky, baby-doll-voiced singer-songwriter Regina Spektor is set to drop her fifth studio effort, Far, later to month, and to build up anticipation for the project, she’s unleashed a few digital downloads and brand new videos over the past month. Of all these pre-release teases, the one that has really brought out our excitement for the next era of Spektor’s odd-ish, ivory-tickling pop is “Eet”.

“It’s like forgetting the words to your favorite song/…It was so easy/ And the words so sweet/ You try to remember, you try to feel the beat,” she coos in the record’s intro, kicking off a series of playful turns of melody and sudden peaks into upper range highs that produce this endlessly entertaining vocal performance as the piano-based arrangement beneath her expands from quaint beginnings to a more heavy, looming presence.

The beautiful ballad’s lyric is centered on the frustrating loss of something familiar, but after a couple digestings (at least for us), it eventually breaks through as a poignant snapshot of how today’s economic troubles have dramatically affected the mindset of some individuals (“Someone’s deciding whether or not to steal…”).

Aww, cutesy-dressed piano-pop and a lil’ topicality? How precious.

Far drops June 23rd, but you can pre-order it here.

Eet

As stated here before, it’s always nice to hear something from 808s & Heartbreak that’s been fleshed out with live instrumentation and a “real” singer, and this take on the album’s second single by anony-pop/ rockers The Fray bears a certain quasi-appeal thanks to some starry-eyed twinkling elements, ghostly background vocals and the ever-zealous Isaac Slade wringing has much angst as he can out of each “Damn her!!!!” lyric.

Ultimately, though, it ends up sounding just as bland and overly-familiar as everything else The Fray does, and past a single curioso listening you could probably care less about ever hearing it again. Hey, but at least Kanye digs it and that says something…right?

Something tells us that we should be expecting a Fray feature (taking the place of the Chris Martin/ Coldplay spot) on the next West album. Insert (groan) with a slight twinge of anticipated interest here.

DL: “Heartless (Kanye West Cover)” (alt)

Never fear, sensitive piano-pop singer-songwriter fans! Some worried that a shocking move to Irv Gotti’s The Inc label would result in Carlton ditching the ivories for booty shorts and Ja Rule duets. Instead, new single “Nolita Fairytale” finds her in the same sickeningly pure headspace she’s been in since first gracing our ears with “A Thousand Miles” a few years back.

Featuring the biting line “take the glitz back/ I want the soul instead”, “Nolita Fairytale” supports Carlton’s meatiest lyrics ever. She targets former label A&M, who dropped her when her second album flopped, in well-poised brutal honesty (“Take away my record deal/ (I don’t need it)/ Spending the last two years getting to what’s real/ (And now I can see so clear)”). It would be cool to say that being surrounded by rappers and street-hewn R&B singers has coaxed Vanessa out of her shell a bit, but being unceremoniously sacked by a record company would bring out the inner thug in anyone.

A drum intro teases Carlton heading in a new direction but it doesn’t take long before those melodic piano chords are front and center, sounding as dull as ever. You would think that raw songwriting and urban labelmates would inspire something more out of her, but Vanessa is intent on continuing to slightly tweak the “A Thousand Miles” instrumental as many different ways as she can think of. “Nolita” finds her at her blandest, a formless cloud of tense classical pop that bears no sign of a hook, or even sense of structure.

It’s the same ol’ same ol’ for Vanessa Carlton on this career relauncher which bores aside from the A&M disses. While going the Nelly Furtado route wouldn’t have been a good fit for the woman behind White Chicks‘ biggest laugh, she could have delivered something that didn’t mark her as such an old-soul fuddy duddy. Damn, even Alicia Keys gets up from behind the piano sometimes.

Download: “Nolita Fairytale” (Amazon)

A massively acclaimed singer-songwriter who has struggled to build a strong commercial presence pretty much his whole career, Rufus Wainwright classes up the atomsphere yet again with his latest single “Going To A Town”, an opulent ballad of disenfranchised gloom given a sharp edge due to it’s anti-American candor.

Packing his things for a destination across the seas, Wainwright is so sickened by the state of the United States that he’d rather reside in a “town that’s already been burned down” then watch Americans continue to endorse anti-gay marriage laws (“Tell me do you really think you go to hell for having loved?”) and take their envied status for granted (“You took advantage of a world that loved you well”).

Dripping with somber piano, swelling strings and ghostly background support from sister Martha, “Going To A Town” gently walks the line of succumbing to it’s operatic vision. If Rufus’ lyrics didn’t cut so deeply, the song would rank as another of his forgettable entries, too caught up in it’s sleepy bliss to be anything but pretty piano-pop. But the juxtaposition of his bubbling anger against the melodramatic backdrop makes for an impeccable blast of artistry, reminiscent of Lennon at his best.