After spending much of her time involved with her family on reality television and coping with her own complicated health issues, Toni Braxton returned to music with a well received concept album with Babyface called “Love, Marriage and Divorce” back in 2014. That won the duo a Grammy for Best R&B Album and now she is back out on her own with “Sex & Cigarettes”, the fifty year old singer’s first solo record in eight years. For her eighth studio album, Braxton had a hand on the writing and production on this project and uses that smoky voice to deliver her brand of sensual soul ballads. While the record doesn’t break any new ground, Braxton makes a welcome return by adding some much need old-school spice to contemporary r&b. Have a listen to the second single from the album, “Long As I Live”, a classic tune about heartbreak that the singer does so well:
JACK WHITE
Known for keeping the spirit of pure rock & roll alive and well, Jack White offers a few unexpected surprises with his latest album, "Boarding House Reach". The Detroit rocker has shaken up his routine and in the mood to be more experimental with his sound. Inspired by how Michael Jackson created his records by working them out in his head instead of writing ideas down, White attempted to recreate that method. And what he ended up with produced some interesting results with electronic beats, heavy metal, jazz piano and rap all scattered together throughout the record. The latest single, "Over and Over And Over" is one that White had been trying to complete since his days with The White Stripes and at one point was supposed to be recorded by Jay-Z. But White finally had a breakthrough and finished the song to his satisfaction which you can check out here:
DAVID BYRNE
David Byrne has always been a unique visionary in pop music since the early days with his art-rock band, Talking Heads. After leaving the group, the Scotland-born, American-raised sixty-five year old performer went on to further merge art and music as a solo artist. With "American Utopia", Byrne's first album on his own in fourteen years, this recording serves two purposes; one as a quirky musical statement with the esteemed Brian Eno on board to help co-write and produce. And the other is as a soundtrack for his multimedia project called "Reason to be Cheerful" which expresses some reasons to be happy and optimistic in spite of the political strife and environmental problems facing the world. Listen to the first single, "Everybody's Coming To My House" in a great video presentation:
No comments:
Post a Comment