Chris Willman
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Thanks to Gaga and Adele, Music Business Finally Improves in 2011
Album sales are up only about 1%, but that’s still great news after a decade-plus of decline
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Review: Anthony Hamilton Gets ‘Back to Love’ With Musical, Sexual Humility
The R&B star is semi-retro-soul in his balladic style … but really, really retro in his non-explicit lyrics and genre-defying modesty
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Review: Elvis Costello’s ‘Spinning Songbook’ Almost Worth Head-Spinning Cost
For $200+, you get some of rock’s greatest songs performed live on CD, DVD, and vinyl … and Matthew Weiner and Sandra Oh dancing
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Review: Black Keys’ Glam ‘El Camino’ Leaves Blues in the Dust
The erstwhile indie-rock duo re-team with producer Danger Mouse for that ol’ T-Rex sound
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Review: Amy Winehouse’s ‘Lioness’ Opens Up An All-Too-Empty Vault
Only two of the songs on Winehouse’s posthumous collection post-date ‘Back to Black,’ and they were clearly unfinished, suggesting just how fallow her last years were
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Review: Adele Bares It All in Candor-Filled ‘Live at Albert Hall’
The hottest diva of 2011 bares her sheer musicality on a live CD… and plenty of amusingly profane confessions on the longer DVD that comes with it
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Review: Beyonce’s ‘Live at Roseland’ DVD is Almost Worth the Self-Worship
The singer turns in some typically strong performances on her concert DVD, if you can get past all the self-serving patter
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Review: Hot Chelle Rae Will Leave Grown-Ups Lukewarm With ‘Whatever’
The teen-targeted quartet has captivated the Radio Disney demographic, but more mature listeners will take the impassive album title to heart
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Review: ‘Idol’ Finalist James Durbin’s Hair Metal Is Cheesy Fun
Chris Daughtry isn’t the only hard-rock-singing fourth-place finalist releasing an album this week
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Review: Rihanna Seesaws Between Romance and Raunch in ‘Talk That Talk’
Rihanna alternates between would-be filth and deep feelings on her new album, but she’s more convincing at sex talk than real talk
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Review: Taylor Swift Goes From Country Girl to Broadway Baby in ‘Speak Now’
The AMAs’ top honoree has a solid document of a tour that memorably married her post-adolescent poetry to gleefully over-the-top pageantry
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Review: Drake Is One Lonesome Hip-Hop Lothario in ‘Take Care’
Hip-hop’s biggest freshman of 2010 comes back with a savvy sophomore album about how lonely it is at the (recently-arrived-at) top
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Review: Betty Wright and the Roots Revive the Right ’70s Soul Stuff
A veteran soul singer (and Joss Stone’s mentor) hooks up with the Roots for an album deeply mired, in the best possible way, in the R&B of 40 years ago
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Review: ‘Glee’ Holiday Album Offers the Whitest Possible Christmas
Even with an unambiguously gay “Let It Snow,” the second Christmas album from the “Glee” cast couldn’t be any more musically conservative
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Review: David Lynch Makes an Untranscendental, Unmeditative, Transfixingly Odd Solo Album
The filmmaker’s first musical solo effort has a lot of spooky, character-drive, Vocoder-ized slow blues… and a couple of dance tracks that won’t make the Black Eyed Peas lose sleep