Music

Ricky Martin - ‘Ricky Martin’: Columbia

One of the definitive summer hits for 1999 has to be Livin' La Vida Loca. On a trip to New York city during late summer, I swear I saw the actual “cheap hotel” that the song's protagonist woke up in, somewhere just east of Times Square, with cracked windows and drapes that were simply sheets tacked up to keep out the light. As I walked passed, I found myself humming the song.

So the album opens with the single, an up-beat, horn-heavy Latin beat that forces you to want to swing your hips around or attempt a samba. The lyrics are wonderfully in-synch with the feel of the music - and rhyming “mocha” and “loca” is truly poetic, and don't let some smug English major try to tell you otherwise.

For me, Ricky is at his best with the slower, ballad tracks. The first one of note is another single from the album, She's all I ever had. Surprisingly, it starts with an Indian sound using sitar and tabla. These are enhanced with guitar and bazooki, until the roll of drums spurs it along. Then, the chorus erupts with a full orchestral sound. The Indian flavor works well and reminds listeners that this isn't just a “Latin” album. And while you're listening, keep an ear on the backing vocals around two-thirds the way through with a plaintiff, siren sound.

His next great track is a duet with Madonna, always one for spotting a good opportunity. A mixture of English and Spanish, along with the use of flamenco guitar gives this song a more Latin feel than the previous. Madonna's vocals are instantly recognizable and the two of them achieve a good vocal balance. In all, it is definitely a duet, not Madonna with backing from Ricky, or vice versa.

Perhaps my favorite track is Private Emotion, another duet, but this time with someone called Meja. To my shame, I know nothing about her, except that when I first heard the song on the radio, I would have sworn blind that it was Liz Frazer from the UK band, the Cocteau Twins. The vocal style, marked by ethereal vocals that border on the indistinct, is so similar that I really had to read the cover notes to be sure it wasn't her. Even the sound of the track is Cocteau; reverbed single-note piano, swelling strings, lush guitar overdubs - hell, I had to go and take out one of my old Cocteau albums to remind myself! This is the track I won't tire of listening to.

While we're on parallels, check out the opening to I am made for you. If that ain't Prince, then it is certainly the-track-formally-known-as-"Thunder" from the Diamonds and Pearls CD! After the homage to “his purpleness,” the song settles into another upbeat percussion-driven number, with lots of horns.

Worth buying? Sure! Great summer listening and the ballads are great anytime listening. Ricky does a good job here and let's hope he can get through the second-album barrier.

Steely Dan - Two Against Nature: Epic label

That venerable old music magazine, Rolling Stone, gave the guys three-and-a-half stars for this album, which is between good and excellent. That's pretty good for a band whose last album release was almost 20 years ago! And Donald Fagen and Walter Becker have lost nothing. The album is as tight as Shania Twain's Lycra leggings and just as sexy. If anyone wanted a lesson in how to produce a CD, this would be on the examples list.

Becker's guitar work is a clean as ever, crafted so as to be not too much and not too little - just right. Fagen's vocals are still a mix of edginess and cool. If anyone wanted to criticize the album, their only attack would be that it is just another Steely Dan set - the album could have come out two years after their last, Gaucho rather than twenty. But then again, why should they change? What makes them what they are is that jazzy pop musicianship that folks love - “Back, Jack, do it again.”

Favorites for me are Janie Runaway and Cousin Dupree. In the former, Janie runs off to New York to shack up with an older man. “Look at you, in long black gloves. Come to old blue eyes, tell me who do you love.” Only Steely Dan would get away with a “Lolita” song and a rewording of “so who's your daddy?”

Cousin Dupree, released as a single, is another dark love story. In this, the song's loser protagonist becomes infatuated by his younger cousin now that she's grown up - “So what's so strange about a down-home family romance?” Special mention here to Ted Baker who plays Fender Rhodes keyboard on this track, counterpointing Becker's slick guitar work. I had the singular pleasure of playing this track repeatedly as I drove south on the Pacific Coast Highway, heading towards San Francisco. And let me tell you, it became part of the memory!

Ted Baker does another stunning job on West of Hollywood, the closing track, while Chris Potter performs a sax solo that is pretty much faultless. Checking out at 8 minutes 21 seconds, it's the longest song on the album. But not a second too long.

In fact, that might be said of most of the album. There's not much musical fat on here - it's lean and finely-honed. For fans of the dynamic duo, whether to get the album of not is a no-brainer. Anyone looking to add a smooth, but acerbic, jazz-pop album to their collection should shell out as soon as possible.

Scritti Politti - Anomie and Bonhomie: Mercury records

The one sin the record company commits that I won't forget is that the sleeve notes don't include the lyrics. So what's the problem with adding a few lousy lyrics to the packaging option? The only sleeve notes available are on the inside back cover in something like 3 point font, visible using a magnifying glass under a spotlight! Call me old-fashioned, but I like to have as much information as possible a long with the CD. Maybe next time the nice folks at Virgin records could add lyrics. Please.

The set opens up with Umm, a great tune for late-night driving. A pulsing bass and snare drum, accented with high-hat, overlaid with a hint of synthesizer, bursts into an up-tempo song, interspersed with reggae-tinged vocal breaks. Occasional smacks of a riffing heavy guitar and rap make this a cross-over sound par excellance.

The next track, Tinseltown to Boogiedown, keeps a rap-hip-hop flavor, with Green adding backing vocals to rappers Lee Majors and Mos' Def. Cool stuff indeed and a big change from the 1980's sound.

Track three is more like earlier songs. Green takes on the vocal lead with the ballad First Goodbye. Slide bass, acoustic guitar and light drum work provide the backbone to the piece. A story of first love, first loss, and regrets.

Die Alone returns to the rap style, followed immediately by Mystic Handyman, a reggae tune that bops along with a foot-tapping beat. Then back to rap with a hint of industrial helping to fill out the sound. Green seems to have no worries mixing styles.

Next up is Born to Be, a regular pop ballad, maybe one of the weaker tracks on the album. Then comes The World You Understand, another up-tempo burst that almost blends into Here Come July, bouncy and pop, with lines like “the end of school, the death of cool” and “maybe I could double all the negatives we know.”

Prince of Men is another rap number where Green takes a vocal backseat, joining in for the chorus. The album closes with the enigmatically-titled Brushed with Oil, Dusted with Powder. Another ballad, another LA story, from the Hollywood Hills to Orange County. The addition of strings doesn't overdo things. On first hearing, I wasn't impressed; but after a few listens, it definitely grows.

Some Scritti fans may be a little disappointed by the seeming change in direction, but its more a development than a divergence. Green has moved with the times a produced an album for the late 90s rather than another 80s sound. Worth adding to your collection if you are eclectic; give it a miss of you hate rap, hip-hop, and high-pitched make vocals.

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