The Early Bird: Top New Recorded Releases 2-17-23 – 2-23-23 Reviewed
Greatest Frank Sinatra: probably in the 50s, the Wee Small/Swinging Lovers era, the following decade he created his own label, Reprise, but it had its up and downs… which means it had its ups, and reaching a 60s height with the introduction of a speeded up samba aka the bossa nova on Francis Albert Sinatra & Antônio Carlos Jobim. The album had “The Girl From Ipanema” which introduced the Bossa Nova to the States. Sam Huber covered one of the tracks “How Insensitive” , a sort of Sinatra miasma including a snippet from “Stranger In The Night”, post-modern drumming, and Sam’s gorgeous and outro vocal, a sort of psychotic lover of the world take as he devastates losing a girl and confronts the man who took her (Grade: A-).
Let’s move to albums where opu can find a 50 song Josephine Baker compilation (with 32 songs -nothing else made it to streaming) as she changes Europe’s (or at least France’s) conception of black art and artistry on The Complete Collection (Grade: A), has it really been seventeen years since Screaming Females became an ultimate punk rock band? and they’ve grown even better over the years, less goth (Marissa Paternoster used to be scary dressed in black looking like a ten year old witch), more mainstream rock like this great album, Desire Pathway, loud, and tight fisted (Grade: A-), TRUSTFALL is P!nk as a quiet singer songwriter -which isn’t necessarily a bad thing- on a fine collection of mainstream dance pop (Grade: B+), three songs off the upcoming Multitudes, Feist is at her loveliest for an alt artist (Grade: B).
Back to singles, we are at the point of diminishing results with the prefab Lana Del Rey at her dowdiest and most disturbed on “A&W” (an acronym: American Whore) about a one off sexual encounter that leaves her unsatisfied… me, as well but at least it wasn’t a quickie(Grade: C+), , a straightforward shot of soul from Janelle Monae who has been missing since 2020 on “Float” (Grade: A-) , I went to see Fetty Wap years ago with Tomas Doncker of True Groove (he co-produced Sam Huber’s Sinatra cover) and he thought it was so funny how Fetty did nothing on stage, sitting on a throne (he’d had a motorbike accident) Fetty laughed and lip synched in an arena, and now he is Wapped out in prison for years as a a bigtime gang member: well at least we have the wonderful autotuned “Tonight” (Grade: B+), Don Tolliver’s “Leave The Club” is trap clap trickery beats and a track that was written to end the night (Grade: B). Finally, our best singer songwriter serpentwithfeet sings the hell outta the brooding if slight- “Gotta Go” (Grade: B+)
Leave The Club (feat. Lil Durk & GloRilla) – Don Toliver – B
Multitudes (Sampler) – Feist – B
Tonight – Fetty Wap – B+
Float (feat. Seun Kuti & Egypt 80) – Janelle Monae – A-
The Complete Collection – Josephine Baker – A
A&W – Lana Del Rey – C+
TRUSTFALL – P!nk – B+
How Insensitive – Sam Huber – A-
Desire Pathway – Screaming Females – A-
Gonna Go – serpentwithfeet – B+
