RSS Feed for RollingStone.com: Album Reviews
Note: Content for this RSS feed is provided as a text alternative to inline RSS feeds that may not display on all browsers.
RollingStone.com: Album Reviews
Album reviews from Rolling Stone
- Hurley
Rivers Cuomo has done battle with his fans, his record label, success itself. But the title of Weezer's eighth album is an olive branch to the ride-or-die nerd side of his audience: A Weezer record named after Hurley from Lost is like Rick Ross slapping a picture of Scarface-era Pacino ... - Body Talk Pt 2
She's as feisty as Pink, as beat-savvy as M.I.A., does Eurodisco better than Gaga. But can this mercurial diva, a star in her native Sweden, crack the Billboard Top 40? The second EP in Robyn's Body Talk trilogy (PT 1 was in June) offers up another batch of great, club-ready ... - Kaleidoscope Heart
"I've got a thick tongue," sings 30-year-old Sara Bareilles on "Gonna Get Over You," a playfully sexy bit of doo-wop pop. It's the high point on the follow-up to 2007's Little Voice and its megahit, "Love Song." Bareilles veers between fellow pianists Alicia Keys and Regina Spektor, avoiding either's extremes. ... - Mean Old Man
Jerry Lee Lewis is the original, archetypal rock & roll rebel, and he's still pulverizing the piano keys more than half a century after he recorded "Great Balls of Fire." The terrific Mean Old Man ? an even better "comeback" record than Lewis' acclaimed 2006 release Last Man Standing ? ... - Interpol
These dapper New Yorkers were the first band in history cocky enough to call the first song on their debut album "Untitled" ? and that only hinted at their mind-boggling pretensions. But after two classic albums, Interpol hit the wall on their 2007 major-label flop, Our Love to Admire. They ... - I'm Having Fun Now
Jenny Lewis and Johnathan Rice are, by all indications, a happy indie-rock power couple. But you wouldn't know it from I'm Having Fun Now. In their solo work, Lewis and Rice are bards of the bummer, and these shapely power-pop numbers are no exception: songs about hard times ("Big Wave") ... - Junky Star & the Dead Horses
On his own albums and his contributions to Crazy Heart, Ryan Bingham has tried hard to be the next great Texas singer-songwriter: He has the gruff voice, moodiness and melodramatic song titles ("The Poet," "Junky Star"). But on his third disc, his lyrics come off as more cinematic than believable; ... - Red Velvet Car
Everybody has a favorite incarnation of Heart ? the acoustic hippie troubadour sisters of "Crazy on You"? The arena-rock warriors of "Barracuda"? The bustier-clad glitter queens of "Nothin' at All"? For some fans, Heart's finest moment might be right now, as the Wilson sisters keep making good music years after ... - Something for the Rest of Us
The first album in four years from the Buffalo, New York, trio sounds like the darkest moments of previous Goo discs stuck together in a 48-minute marathon of middling angst. For many groups, digging deeper and hitting harder would be a good thing. But when your specialty is multiplatinum pop ... - Back to Me
American Idol Season Three winner Fantasia Barrino comes across like an updated Patti LaBelle: She has a big voice equal parts gurgling and throaty, with a predilection for melodrama to go with it. But on her third album, Fantasia's singing is more contained, which fits the modestly scaled material. Fantasia ... - Pauper's Field
Raised by a country songwriter dad amid old-school guitarists in Shreveport, Louisiana, 20-year-old Dylan LeBlanc can't help but let his roots show on his debut, with brooding songs built around pedal steel and fingerpicked acoustics. He's got the doomed romanticism of Townes Van Zandt, and his slurry voice shines with ... - Fidelity!
"I found my perfect lover, but he's only half my age," sings Chrissie Hynde on Fidelity!, a collaboration with JP Jones, a Welshman who is indeed half her age but not her lover. From an old rock dude, this might be icky. But Hynde is a force of nature with ... - Teenage Dream
There have been countless great pop songs about "California Gurls," some of them by actual California girls. But Katy Perry's Number One smash is one of the girliest and most Californian. It sets the tone for Teenage Dream, Perry's album about Cali girls: their hopes, their dreams, their desire to ... - All Delighted People EP
Some artists think big. Sufjan Stevens thinks long ? whether it's the 20-word song titles or the orchestral suite about the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway. This EP features two monster opuses: the Simon and Garfunkel-quoting "All Delighted People," and "Djohariah," 17 minutes of Aquarian gospel rock that turns into a folk meditation ... - Chamber Music Society
Upright-bass prodigy Esperanza Spalding was barely out of her teens when she dropped her first CD, Junjo, a stunningly sophisticated yet playful set of acoustic trio jazz: rubbery bass, piano, drums and sexy Latin melodies harking back to the Seventies Brazilian jazz of Flora Purim. For her second disc, 2008's ... - Release Me
The Like load up their sharp, peppy tunes with zillions of pop references ? Tracey Ullman, the Four Tops, Toni Basil, Duran Duran, just to name a few. And with good reason. They're children of the music industry; drummer Tennessee Thomas is the daughter of Attractions drummer Pete Thomas, and ... - The Final Frontier
Never mind the artwork or the title, the chief concern of Iron Maiden's 15th album is Earth ? specifically, the end of it: "There will be a catastrophe the like we've never seen," warns Bruce Dickinson on the album's 11-minute closing track, and by the time we get there, we've ... - 11:59
Best known for placing sixth on Rock Star: Supernova in 2006, Ryan Star returns with a much-delayed major-label debut album filled with second-rate pop rock and a formula he beats senseless: He takes his brooding rasp from a muttered whisper to an overwrought rock howl about nine times too many. ... - Spot the Difference
Singer-songwriters Chris Difford and Glenn Tilbrook have named the new Squeeze album Spot the Difference presumably because there's so little difference between these versions of their classic power-pop hits and the ones on their sterling 1982 set Singles: 45's and Under. Frankly, the subtle changes aren't good. The sharp electric-guitar ... - The House
Please allow Katie Melua to introduce herself: "I'd love to kill you while you eat," she sings over the eerie pedal steel guitar of the opening track. The Soviet Georgia-born, British-raised singer-songwriter is a superstar in the U.K., but she's barely registered in the States. The House, her fourth disc, ... - Brian Wilson Reimagines Gershwin
Brian Wilson has more than a few things in common with George Gershwin. Both led wildly successful musical partnerships with their brothers. Both combined pop-song punch with harmonic sophistication worthy of the European classical tradition. Both blazed early then flamed out: Gershwin died of a brain tumor at age 38; ... - God Willin' & the Creek Don't Rise
For a folkie, Ray LaMontagne has always had a deep groove sense. But it's a hot surprise to hear him open his fourth LP with a Meters-style funk grind ("Repo Man"). His band freshens up his sound here, with two pedal steel players adding country lilt and drummer Jay Bellerose ... - No Better Than This
John Mellencamp's 25th album, No Better Than This, continues the thread of American archaeology that he began on Trouble No More, a self-produced 2003 set of traditional songs and covers. But where Trouble was a first brush with history ? Mellencamp trying to make it come to him ? here ... - Modern Rituals
On their debut, this shaggy quartet conjure classic West Coast folk rock like they were baptized by David Crosby and reared by the members of Love. The guitars on Modern Rituals are mostly electric, but the sound is slow-rolling and slightly surreal. Chief pile up lush, profoundly stoned harmonies on ... - The Remix
On this Lady Gaga remix album, 10 producers and DJs sink their teeth into her meaty catalog ? with predictably uneven results. Stuart Price gives "Paparazzi" a breezy shuffle that diffuses the track's gritty tension, Marilyn Manson roars unnecessarily on "Lovegame," and Glam as You add a bloopy bounce to ...