Review: 'Idol' Finalist James Durbin's Hair Metal Is Cheesy Fun
November, 22, 2011 7:50 pm | Comments On #album review, American Idol, Chris Willman, Daughtry, hair metal, Hard Rock, heavy metal, James Durbin, metal, Motley Crue, music, reviews, Rock of AgesRemember when metal was the happiest genre on earth? If not, you’re either too young to recall or too old to care about the 1980s heyday of hair-metal, when the pouffy ‘dos, screeches, and spirits were all as high as a drummer stumbling out of the Rainbow Room.
Chris Daughtry, whose new album came out Tuesday, is much more a product of 1990s grunge’s surface gloom and lower vocal registers, if not necessarily that genre’s exact sensibilities. And Daughtry’s obviously not a hair-metal guy, either literally or figuratively.
But if you’ve been looking to put out a Warrant on the hard rock of the ‘...
Read MoreReview: Rihanna Seesaws Between Romance and Raunch in 'Talk That Talk'
November, 21, 2011 6:10 pm | Comments On #album review, Chris Brown, Chris Willman, music, reviews, RihannaThe advance word on Rihanna’s new album, “Talk That Talk,” was that it’d be full of dirty talk -- as in stark-raving smutty. That turns out to have been an overstatement: Filth-ophilia really only accounts for about a third of the record.
But, um, it's a memorable third. “I want you to be my sex slave,” she sings in “Cockiness.” “I can be your dominatrix… She may be the queen of hearts, but I’m gonna be the queen of your body parts.” No surprise, that, coming from the woman who already had a hit off her last album called “S&M.”
...
Read MoreReview: Taylor Swift Goes From Country Girl to Broadway Baby in 'Speak Now'
November, 21, 2011 12:32 pm | Comments On #album review, Chris Willman, music, reviews, Taylor SwiftTaylor Swift has such an exceptional flair for capturing intimate moments and little emotional quirks on her records that it was bracing to realize, a tour or two back, that the sensitive girl with the teardrops on her guitar is really, at heart, a Broadway baby.
Emotionally aware songwriters aren’t supposed to be spectacular show women, too. Would we have thought less of Carole King, Laura Nyro or Joni Mitchell if they suddenly declared that what they really want to do is direct “Les Miserables”? (Answer: Probably.)
Swift is baiting Black Friday shoppers...
Read MoreReview: Drake Is One Lonesome Hip-Hop Lothario in 'Take Care'
November, 15, 2011 6:56 pm | Comments On #album review, Andre3000, Chris Willman, Drake, Lil Wayne, music, OutKast, reviews, Rick Ross, RihannaDrake certainly didn’t invent hip-hop solipsism. But the genre’s newest superstar proves more intriguingly introspective than most on “Take Care,” a solid sophomore effort that’s destined to have hundreds of thousands of eager buyers also gazing into his navel this week.
The singer-rapper establishes his twin themes pretty effectively in his first two lines: “I think I killed everybody in the game last year, man, f--- it, I was on, though/And I thought I found the girl of my dreams at the strip club, mm-mm, I was wrong, though.”
That’s right: Money (and a debut...
Read MoreReview: Betty Wright and the Roots Revive the Right '70s Soul Stuff
November, 15, 2011 1:16 pm | Comments On #album review, Betty Wright, Chris Willman, Jimmy Fallon, Joss Stone, Lil Wayne, music, Questlove, reviews, Snoop Dogg, The RootsIf you love the classic era of baby-making music -- which could mean that you’re just a year or two past the point of having to worry about your music tastes resulting in actual babies – you’ll love “Betty Wright: The Movie,” the new album by the 57-year-old soul singer and her storied backup band, the Roots.
Wright even addresses that particular legacy in a spoken-word introduction to “Tonight Again,” the sexiest of her new songs (and one obviously intended as a sequel to her 1975 single, “Tonight is the Night”).
“OK, grown folks’ music being’ played right now...
Read MoreReview: 'Glee' Holiday Album Offers the Whitest Possible Christmas
November, 15, 2011 11:18 am | Comments On #album review, Chris Colfer, Chris Willman, Cory Monteith, Glee, Heather Morris, Lea Michele, Matthew Morrison, music, reviewsNow that we’ve had gay teens losing their virginity on “Glee,” the franchise makes a pendulum swing back toward safety with the Perry Como-level musical conservatism of “Glee: The Music, The Christmas Album, Volume 2.”
Christmases don’t get whiter – or, more to the point, any more vanilla – than on the show’s second set of pallid holiday covers. By the time the entire cast joins in on “Do They Know It’s Christmas,” the logical response to holiday-ignorant refugees may be a kind of envy.
Damian McGinty, as Rory, sings “Blue Christmas” with...
Read MoreReview: David Lynch Makes an Untranscendental, Unmeditative, Transfixingly Odd Solo Album
November, 08, 2011 4:45 pm | Comments On #album review, Chris Willman, David Lynch, music, reviews, Twin PeaksSometimes it’s hard not to think that David Lynch’s fixation on transcendental meditation isn’t a joke the filmmaker is playing on us. Is there any major artist whose entire body of work has seemed more ominous, more filled with sinister intonations, less meditative? Mantras don’t come much scarier than “fire walk with me.”
Lynch’s first solo album, “Crazy Clown Time,” doesn’t sound very Maharishi-approved, either. If you’ve ommm-ed your way to a state of higher consciousness, it’s just the record to bring yourself back down to earth, though it might...
Read MoreReview: Noel Gallagher's First Solo Album Is No Oasis of Creativity
November, 08, 2011 2:50 pm | Comments On #album review, Beatles, Chris Willman, Liam Gallagher, music, Noel Gallagher, Oasis, reviewsWhen artists break free from the bands that have always defined them to take up solo careers, some celebrate their emancipation with radical musical departures. Others adhere to the old group’s sound as much as possible, either out of fear, habit, or a desire to prove once and for all that they were the brains of the band.
Noel Gallagher goes the latter route on “Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds,” which almost sounds more like Oasis than Oasis did -- the sole difference being that it’s him singing, not embattled brother Liam.
It’s as if Noel wanted to establish that Oasis would’ve...
Read MoreReview: Induct Miranda Lambert in the Hall of Fame Right Now!
November, 01, 2011 12:40 pm | Comments On #album review, blake shelton, Chris Willman, country music, miranda lambert, music, Pistol Annies, reviewsCan we just induct Miranda Lambert into the Country Music Hall of Fame right now?
Well, no, we can’t, because there are rules about these things, and Lambert will be a firecracker of 60 or 70 or so by the time she’s in. But her new album, “Four the Record,” is the kind of collection that makes you wish we could just skip those pesky intervening decades of eligibility requirements and acknowledge her importance to the artform on the spot.
And this isn’t even her first great album this year. Less than three months ago, Lambert joined up with two lesser-known femmes fatale under...
Read MoreReview: Justin Bieber Now a Baritone, Begging for Pecks 'Under the Mistletoe'
November, 01, 2011 9:04 am | Comments On #album review, Boyz II Men, Busta Rhymes, Chris Brown, Chris Willman, Christmas music, Jackson 5, Justin Bieber, Mariah Carey, Michael Jackson, music, reviews, Selena Gomez, the Band Perry. Kimberly Perry, Usher“Under the Mistletoe” isn’t just Justin Bieber’s first Christmas album. More significantly, maybe. it’s his first album as a baritone.
Well, relative baritone. The kid is still capable of sounding like he’s singing in his falsetto range even when he isn’t. But from the first not-so-stratospheric notes of “Only Thing I Ever Get for Christmas,” it’s clear Bieber has been through the non-menopausal version of The Change.
Or, to put it another way, “vocally, his balls have dropped,” as his manager Scooter Braun was...
Read More
- Previous
- •
- •
- •
- •
- Next
Description
Chris Willman has been a frequent contributor to TV Guide, New York magazine, the Los Angeles Times, Rolling Stone, Spin, Billboard, Parade and other publications. In a long run at Entertainment Weekly, he penned more than 20 cover stories as a senior writer before becoming the magazine’s chief music critic. His recent essay about Bob Dylan for New York magazine was selected for the latest edition of De Capo's’ "Best Music Writing" book series. Advertising Age’s media columnist included Willman in a short list of “the entertainment world’s sharpest critics.”
His book "Rednecks & Bluenecks: The Politics of Country Music" was praised by Stephen King, who said, “You won’t read a better book about American music this year — or, probably, a better one about American political thought.”
During his time at EW, meanwhile, he received the ultimate celebrity accolade from Kanye West, who famously blogged (in response to a B+ review), “Kill yourself, Chris Willman!” Failing to heed that advice, Willman has survived to live, live-blog, and grade another day.
