ONE-LISTEN VERDICT: Remember When I Was Cruel, the "back to his roots" rock album Elvis Costello put out a few years ago? Refusal sounds a lot like that, though of course Morrissey's roots are much gentler. The guitars are loud; the drums are pretty close to the red; the bass is distorted; there aren't a lot of filigrees, though the ones that are there are appreciated. Among the music cognoscenti, this isn't going to get a lot of attention probably, given its proximity to the shrill, blunt blarefest Pitchfork gave a 9.6 to this morning, but it deserves some. It sounds louder to me than the last Morrissey album (the ostensible rock one), but more than anything else, it sounds tight. The melodies are clear and direct, the songs get in and get out (5 of the 11 tracks are under 3 minutes), and Morrissey sings his ass off. The horns, children, strings, and theremin (?) work within the songs rather than outside them. When he finally breaks off for a ballad in the second half ("It's Not Your Birthday Anymore"), it sounds earned rather than boilerplate, and the track's mix of '80s synths, Marr-ish guitar, and gong gives way to a fair rager of a rock chorus. No idea if this will hold up a few years down the line (I listened to When I Was Cruel incessantly at the time, but have little interest now), but at the moment, it's a winner.

THE BEST TRACK: I'm a sucker for a leadoff track, and "Something Is Squeezing My Skull" doesn't disappoint. The arrangement manages to sound like the Smiths but aggressive, the way Moz's jumps to the final word of the title in the chorus gives me goosebumps, and the pharmaceutical list and refusal chant of the middle 8 barrels intro a practically ...Trail of Dead-like coda. Morrissey: He rocked my socks off.

ONE-LISTEN VERDICT: The ever-reclusive Prince invited a few people from Los Angeles radio station Indie 103.1 to talk about his new material, which he's looking to release sans major-label involvement, and that chat resulted in four songs debuting this afternoon on the Steve Jones-hosted show Jonesy's Jukebox. I thought the "Crimson & Clover" cover had some great guitars, and I liked the stuttery beat and innuendo ("You wanna four-leaf clover in the round?"—!!) all over "Wall Of Berlin," but I figured I'd ask on-staff Prince expert Michaelangelo Matos to react via IM:

mynameismatos: he's made these kinds of records (guitar, rocky, etc.) over the years and no one paid attention. Chaos & Disorder is a good example—not a classic, but a decent album with some good guitar playing and some decent songs.
mynameismatos: now that he's sort of set the table w/"Creep" and "Best of You" covers, he's laying it out w/"Crimson & Clover"
mynameismatos: which is fine
mynameismatos: if the second song is any indication he's doing the same I'm-a-prophet shtick he's been flogging since "Partyup."
mynameismatos: except it's nastier in tone now because since Musicology he decided he has no truck trying to rope in hip-hop fans or other young people and will stick to being an old man
mynameismatos: which is good for him in some ways, though I always kind of hoped he'd pull a Miles Davis and come around to being hip again without changing a thing
mynameismatos: and in a sense he has
mynameismatos: but he's kind of a sour old man
mynameismatos: otherwise: pretty blues guitarist
mynameismatos: the idea, btw, that Jonesy would be playing this at all if it weren't serviced to him personally and directly is highly suspect by me

WHERE TO FIND THEM: Surely someone will rip them to YouTube, and have that rip taken down, by the time I'm done posting this. And then the cycle will repeat itself again, and again, and again, until Prince figures out just how he's going to release this record to an increasingly purchasing-averse public. (Maybe he can hook up with the Daily Mail again?)

ONE SIX-LISTEN VERDICT: "I feel like this record probably needs the non-compressed experience to be appreciated," Mike said to me when we were discussing who would write up Fall Out Boy's fifth album, which leaked over the weekend. He's kind of right; the one thing that ties all of Folie A Deux together is a sprawling ambition that can't be contained by crappy laptop speakers (although the amp I've hooked into my computer's audio-out jack performed the job about as ably as it could). Yeah, this is another one of those instances where I bemoan technology and its effects on how we consume albums. It happens, you know?

I'm only doing it because the songs are so good, though. The tracks that have already leaked—the robot-stomp "I Don't Care," the half-strident, half-dreamy "Headfirst Slide Into Cooperstown On A Bad Bet—set the table for the jaunty "20 Dollar Nose Bleed," the slick, yet agitated "w.a.m.s." And then there's "(Coffee's For Closers)," which, er, closes with a sprightly string interlude that's reminiscent of "Swami Plus Strings" from the Monkees' Head. It seems sort of odd that no one's yet drawn parallels between that movie, a richly surreal look at what meanings lurked beneath the notions of "celebrity" and "art" in the pre-paparazzi era, and Fall Out Boy, who've dealt with the current age's skewed spin on those phenomena in their own way, going so far as to milk the way heightened craziness over fame for their own viral-marketing purposes in the weeks preceding Folie A Deux's release announcement. (The blogs, the Tweets, the quotes to the ever-ready celebrity press—stitch them together and they could all serve as the Web 2.0 take on a movie.)

THE BEST TRACK: I pretty much figured this would be the case when a snippet of it surfaced on that mix tape over the summer, but I've listened to the soaring "America's Suitehearts" a lot. But "w.a.m.s." is coming up quickly behind it.

ONE-LISTEN VERDICT: There's something about an upbeat, hopeful Bruce Springsteen song that gets my heart going, even during the lower points of my life, which made me pretty psyched to find this Black Friday release in the upper reaches of YouTube's video chart this morning. "My Lucky Day" is a love-against-the-odds track with simple, yet evocative lyrics ("I've waited at your side / I've carried the tears you've cried / But to win, darlin' we must play / So don't hide your heart away"), chiming piano trading off with organ, and a sax solo—it's like "Rosalita" plus 30-odd years, with the graying temples and hard knocks that come with time.

WHERE TO HEAR IT: It's on sale at Amazon, but you can also get a peek at YouTube. Or below:

ONE-LISTEN VERDICT: Like some other listeners, I put off listening to the many leaked component parts from the fourth album by Chicago's second-favorite son until the entire thing arrived intact. Why spoil things, especially since unlike the just-linked Robert Myers, I haven't been anything like a fan of the stuff I'd been hearing. "Love Lockdown" struck me as a cross between lousy Junior Boys and tolerable T-Pain, meaning nothing I'd ever reach for on my own, for pleasure. So I'm not a bit surprised that 808s & Heartbreak is basically 52 minutes of the same. (Or only 46 minutes, if the leak's bonus track, a useless live "freestyle" recorded in Singapore called "Pinocchio Story," isn't included, as the album's Amazon listing currently indicates.) While Kanye gets huge credit for having the guts to swerve completely away from that which made him famous, most of these songs seem like gussied up demos he made with his new toys, not a commanding change of direction. It's not even terrible, which might give it more rubbernecking value; it's just not especially there, which if you're gonna pull an artistic about-face you really do need to have. Instead, songs like "Say You Will" and "Welcome to Heartbreak" crossbreed latter-day Autotune&B and frosty neo-electro with a healthy dollop of high-fructose corn syrup, and it does no one any real favors. Fearless prediction: this thing's gonna get sold back more than any other Christmas-timed release of 2008, including Guns N' Roses.

THE BEST TRACK: When you're dealing with what is essentially a novelty record, go for the funniest track. In this case, that's "RoboCop," from its chase-scene-in-an-8-bit -video-game intro beat to the lyric, which makes liberal references to movies that predate Kanye's high school graduation ("Just looking at your history / You're like the girl from Misery"). And yes, the lulz are on purpose.

ONE-LISTEN VERDICT: The third album by Brandon Flowers' band of merrymen sounds like it was heavily influenced by sitting in a lot of traffic jams with a radio station tuned to Jack-FM, or whatever radio station in Las Vegas Plays What It Wants To: Album opener "Losing Touch" begins with frosty keyboards that could have been lifted from Icehouse track, and they give to a "Roll With It"-style bleating of synchronized horns. Slavish devotion to the music of two decades ago is nothing new for the Killers, but Day & Age brings a new coherence to their retro stylings. Day & Age has a lot of pop gems that'll probably sound even better when plucked from the context of the album and thrown into the mix of drive-time radio; the chugging "Spaceman," the feather-light "I Can't Stay" (which, like many tracks on here, has just enough brass to intensify the feeling of being back in the era where sax solos trumped those played on guitars). The one real misstep is the overblown, overlong finale "Goodnight, Travel Well"—you can probably figure out its many problems just by looking at that title—but otherwise, Day & Age is a nice little package of pastiche.

THE BEST TRACK: The freakishly danceable "Joy Ride," with its skronky sax and thumping bassline, is equal parts early-'80s New Wave and early-'00s Franz Ferdinand, but the true standout is "The World We Live In," in which Flowers tries to channel Hall & Oates' melodic stylings. Sure, his voice may be challenged—especially compared to Philly's favorite blue-eyed soulsters—but his deft-enough navigation of their vocal melodies hits enough sweet spots for the song to be completely satisfying.

Anyway, I'm trying to "research" this development right now (cough), but feel free to kibitz here about your thoughts on the album, whether or not it was worth the wait, WHERE'S IZZY, etc. (And a final note: According to the log files, some dude named David might want to feel a little scared about Axl Rose's people making their way to his door soon.)

Retail copy of Chinese Democracy Leaks! [GearFuse]
[HT Vulture]

ONE-LISTEN VERDICT: It's hard to begrudge Justin Timberlake's efforts to sell "Follow My Lead," since the proceeds from the track do, after all, go to a pretty worthy cause. But really, the credits should be flipped: The dominant presence on the song isn't Timberlake but his YouTube-groomed protege Esmée Denters, whose sorta-nasal voice powers through the somewhat generic pop ably enough. Timberlake's contribution is pretty much reduced to a rap (!), some backing vocals on the chorus, and a few "yeah"s here and there, which I suppose is proof that he's learned at least one trick from his mentor Timbaland. (Just don't go asking Mark Arm about producing a solo album for him, OK, Justin? I need at least one of my grunge-era heroes to retain his dignity in this dark time.)

WHERE TO FIND IT: JT's MySpace page. (But not Denters', for whatever reason.)

ONE-LISTEN VERDICT: Welcome to middle-period Britney. I kind of figured that Circus was never going to be as good as Blackout, and the presence of a ballad in the No. 3 slot here would seem to confirm that. Sure, "Out From Under" is a pretty fantastic ballad, and one of only three on the disc. But Circus is still very different from its predecessor.

Blackout was Britney's just-don't-give-a-fuck album, out of time and meaning, celebrating nothing so much as pop itself. Unabashedly shallow, the lead single was "Gimme More," a nice little summation of pop's ethos. Now we get "Womanizer" for a lead single, setting a critique of the sexual double standard to music (as the video simultaneously undermines the message—nicely, complexly, etc., etc.). Blackout had a message song in "Piece of Me," sure, but it felt more like a classical pop move ("Leave Me Alone," etc.) than something "controversial." Even the title is clearly meant to have the word "media" in front of it, but when you hear the title track, it's actually about Britney's position as ringmaster, controlling things. This is the album where she really takes charge of a dominant persona and tries to unseat the mother. (She even says "I'm Mommy!" in one song.) She famously made the jump from teen ingenue to sexual creature, but it was always as passive object; now she's owning her status as an object of desire and taking the power that position has accrued. There are songs about men being tortured by her loss ("Shattered Glass"), songs about her ability to control her emotions ("Mannequin"), even a song in which she regrets having sex ("Blur"). That no one seems to have noticed this is key to its effect. We all knew what she was doing on previous albums, so it tended to come off as forced and insincere. Here, she slips into the role so easily that it's likely we'll accept it.

(This is all ignoring the track about her baby, "My Baby," which kills the album's momentum dead, but luckily it's the last new track, preceding only a new mix (?) of "Radar.")

THE BEST TRACK: "Blur" is very good, but the winner here is probably "If U Seek Amy," a Max Martin track that might at first seem like a sort of cougar "I Kissed a Girl." Once you figure out the wordplay, it reveals itself as a gender-bender, with the choruses sung from the perspective of someone wanting to eff-you-see-kay Britney, and the choruses back to her POV. The oddly orchestral music (horns, timpani, all fakey-fakey) present Britney as a kind of cabaret MC, teasing the crowd but always walking out with the cheers fully under her control.

ONE-LISTEN VERDICT: "Amazin'" is another downtempo, Autotuned-to-next-week song from Kanye West, although this time out West is lyrically defiant, talking about how he feels while in the afterglow of a show and how no one can take the joy of holding a crowd in the palm of his hand away from him. The endless loop—which is marked by a few guttural barks, choirs of angels, and some otherworldly screeches here and there—breaks just before Young Jeezy comes in to drop a verse that's as much about boasting as it is about his blood pressure, and he sounds so fierce, one might think that Kanye brought him in specifically to channel his more aggro, less mediated-by-studio-trickery side.

WHERE TO HEAR IT: StreetCred.com has a stream:

ONE-LISTEN VERDICT: The sixth album from seemingly unkillable Canadian act Nickelback is co-produced by countryman Mutt Lange, a fact that's belied by the pre-grunge sheen over so much of it. It starts off with the "Crazy Bitch" rewrite "Something In Your Mouth" and gets downer and dirtier from there: The Intervention-ready "Just To Get High" sounds like post-Dr. Feelgood Motley Crue, right down to the lyrics about junkiedom; "Shakin' Hands," which is about a woman who's a gold-digger, a stripper, and a whore, recalls Poison's "Fallen Angel," only with a touch more misogyny. And then there's the big ballad "Never Gonna Be Alone," which could have just as easily been performed by longtime Lange pal Bryan Adams, and on which Chad Kroeger slips out of his post-grunge growl and into that "extra octave" territory mined by Def Leppard to great effect. There's even a "silly outro" track—"This Afternoon," which one could see as Nickelback's attempt to answer the question, "What if there was a rock version of 'Because I Got High,' only without Afroman and with lots of guitar strumming?"

THE BEST TRACK: It's gotta be "Gotta Be Somebody," on which Kroeger dispenses with the sort of icky bro-dom that's going to ensure this album sells as many copies as an album can in late 2008 and indulges in some Alphaville-biting "Up With People" schtick.

ONE-LISTEN VERDICT: A side effect of the singles-based music economy that few people comment on: It's harder to get excited for the drop date of a full-length album, thanks to half its tracks being trickled out in advance. Five of the twelve songs on Thr33 Ringz have been released as singles in some way (available on iTunes, released videos) for them already, so if you've heard those, you have a pretty good idea of what the album sounds like. Actually, if you've heard even the most fleeting glimpse of a T-Pain song, you have a good idea of what his third disc sounds like. The circus theme wears thin really quickly—perhaps even right after the album's extended introduction—but the idea of T-Pain as ringmaster makes sense, what with most tracks featuring collaborators like Chris Brown, Ludacris (whose verse on "Chopped and Screwed" returns his to contention for "Rapper You Must Want A Guest Appearance By"), Lil Wayne, and Kanye West. The beats are solid and fun, ready to blow out your vehicle of choice's speakers without being too serious at any point; attention shifts from one flashy moment to another without much dramatic tension. Nothing on this album reaches the heights of T-Pain's best productions, which seem to be sold to the highest R&B bidders these days, but overall, if you haven't been annoyed by T-Pain's ubiquity yet—a decision that you've no doubt already made—Thr33 Ringz will slip into your personal playlist just fine.

T-Pain [MySpace]

ONE-LISTEN VERDICT: The standard version of Beyonce's split-personality album is a lean affair by the standards of the bloated-CD era—its 11 tracks clock in at just over 41 minutes. But there's something about I Am... Sasha Fierce that still feels a bit lengthy, and that something is the front-loading of the album with ballads. Not that songs like "Halo," which brings together the big GarageBand keyboards that came straight from "Love In This Club" with some Whitney-style emoting, aren't effective; it's just that the good stuff like the slinky electro track "Sweet Dreams" (which leaked earlier this year in a rougher form) should have maybe come first, so that the slower songs could have served as a chance to recover from, say, the twist-tie looping of Beyonce's voice that backs up "Diva," in which "A Milli" producer Bangladesh was recruited so B could have her own "A Milli" beat for people to freestyle over. I'm sure there's some split-personality-derived version for this misstep in sequencing, but no amount of metaphysicality will make me less likely to skip over the album's first few tracks.

THE BEST TRACK: When "Sweet Dreams" leaked earlier this year, I was slightly disappointed by the relatively restrained vocal performance Beyonce was giving, but the song's pretty strong, with a muscular beat and B barking "turn the lights off" at her paramour in such a way that underlines just why her alter ego's last name is "Fierce."

ONE-LISTEN VERDICT: "[The YouTube leaks of five tracks on Chinese Democracy] are in very bad quality. extremely choppy—it will test your patience," the tipster who sent me the link to them this morning wrote. "Have fun!" he appended. If "fun" means "listening to these new songs as quickly as possible so as to let you know they're out there while my dog is barking because of all the distortion laden over the songs," then, well, fun is what I'm having! A few sketches based on what I was able to hear under the distortion:

"This I Love": Our tipster referred to this as "Sedona Phantom Of The Opera, and I can't disagree with that assessment at all.

"Street Of Dreams": Those of you who snagged the leaks in June may remember this as "The Blues." Kind of hard to tell if there are a lot of differences, because of the pop and hiss (and my dog barking).

"Sorry": Pretty sure this leaked back in June as well; the "I'm sorry for you, not sorry for me" lyric sounds familiar. It's a big, sweeping j'accuse with Axl's voice veering between yowl and growl.

"Scraped": The one slightly upbeat track.

"Catcher In The Rye": "Yesterdays Pt. 2: Todays."

WHERE TO FIND THEM: Well, they were on YouTube like 20 minutes ago, but now they're gone. Think of it this way: At least you won't have to deal with all that popping now! Seriously, it was starting to make the veins in my head throb.

ONE-LISTEN VERDICT: The tragedy of loving pop is that your favorite artists have to follow trends, by their very nature, or die. (Or become not-pop.) And apparently it's working for Girls Aloud, since the first single from Out Of Control, "The Promise," is this week's No. 1 single in the UK. That doesn't change the fact that it sounds like Amy Winehouse backed by a wedding band. The Girls covered "Jump (For My Love)" once upon a time and found new energy and meaning in the song, but now they actually sound like the Pointer Sisters, at least in the first half of Control. If you always thought their penchant for intense, hyperbolic arrangements was annoying, and you just wanted some '80s-sounding noises that would complement their voices nicely, Out of Control is for you.

THE BEST TRACK: Closing track "We Wanna Party," despite not being by Andrew WK, is good and energetic, but the winner here is probably "Fix Me Up." It's something of a departure for them since it swings rather than bangs, but it works for them, and there are a lot of good noises. There's also "Miss You Bow Wow," but lord, that title.

ONE-LISTEN VERDICT: Like me, Lily Allen hasn't had the best year, which might be why "Everyone's At It," which she posted today, has something of a paranoid feel about it—the music's dark, the lyrics are about staying out late and lying about drug habits. But for something with such a dark feel, it sure has a nice desperation-disco groove to it. I might lop off the "solo" of synth bloops and bleeps—it sounds like an e-wank more than anything else—but I like the idea of her crafting a song around something that sounds suspiciously like a sample of the theme from Dr. Who for sure.

WHERE TO HEAR IT: It's on her MySpace.

ONE-LISTEN VERDICT: The final, really-for-real version of the title track of Guns N' Roses 15-years-in-the-making Chinese Democracy is here, and while it's definitely the same song that debuted in May 2007 and resurfaced back in June, there are tweaks—most notably, the double-tracking of Axl Rose's vocal tracks between "shrieky 'Welcome To The Jungle' Axl" and "menacing verses on 'Mr. Brownstone' Axl" for the verses, which sound suspiciously like they're about the making of the record itself. There's also the guitar solo, which is much more straightforward in a Slash way, which would indicate that any trace of Buckethead has been erased from the album. Will rock radio embrace it? Well, it's long, and has a bit too many electronics for the purists who frequent rock radio's audience to take. (By which I mean one.) But it's definitely hookier than Axl's last foray into new-music-land, "Oh My God," and given that people have been waiting for this album since the Clinton administration, I'm sure it'll get quite a few curiosity spins, at least.

WHERE TO HEAR IT: Time for another Clear Channel "exclusive" premiere! (Hooray for near-monopolies!) It's at the Web site of CC's rock station in New York City, Q104.3. The page asks people to "help Guns N' Roses promote their new song." I thought all of the media who reported on this album's every non-move (this reporter included) were doing that already?

UPDATE: Hey, look, a stream!

ONE-LISTEN VERDICT: What would happen if Kelly Clarkson had gone the route suggested by Clive Davis and brought in professional songwriters to punch up My December? The result may have sounded something like Funhouse, which has the still-kinda-brash Alecia Moore working with hired hands like Max Martin, Butch Walker, and Tony Kunal (of No Doubt) on a slew of songs about the end of her affair. Funhouse was originally slated to be called Heartbreak Is A Motherfucker, and the sentiment is still there in titles like "It's All Your Fault" and "Could've Had Everything"; it's also there in the sound of the album, which, contrary to the expectations put forth by the still-annoying "So What," is overwhelmingly pensive and anxious. "Sober," which is slated to be the next single, could have been an Evanescence track, with its strings and sorta-morose relationship-as-addiction lyrics; "Glitter In The Air" is a piano-and-Pink ballad that's as close-talking as Christina Aguilera's "Beautiful." This is definitely an album that takes the whole idea of the titular funhouse not being all that fun and throws it back in the face of anyone within listening range, but not necessarily in a bad way. I suspect I'll be playing the whole thing—well, maybe not "So What," but the rest of it—a lot over the coming months.

THE BEST TRACK: The Martin-assisted "Please Don't Leave Me" is a sadder version of "Who Knew," with an airy, wistful "da da da da" threaded throughout the track—and as a sucker for that slow-burn hit, I've already spun it four or five times this morning—but it's the Walker-produced "Mean," which is a direct descendant of Aerosmith's last-call ballad "What It Takes," that I suspect will be the track on this album with the most staying power.

ONE-LISTEN VERDICT: The Smashing Pumpkins are the latest band to ride the "media outlets will still write about new releases as long as they're tied to the Guitar Hero gimmick" train with "G.L.O.W.," a vicious little homage to ladies' wrestling that's covered in razor-slashed guitars a la "Zero," and even has one of those classically SP-like bridges where everything slows down and the drums start reeling off triplets. I really dig the little bits of Cheap Trick-styled harmonies sprinkled in behind the chorus there, too. The only problem? It's a smidge too long. Billy, Billy! I understand that you want people playing along with your song to max out their points, but just remember that the wrestling matches you're paying tribute to are often most effective when they don't drag things out.

WHERE TO HEAR IT: The Chicago alt-rock station Q101 is back in the business of leaking new material by its heavy-rotation staples, so here you go:

ONE-LISTEN VERDICT: Beyonce's attempt at a gender-bending single is a starkly intimate ballad that starts off with her waking up and reveling in the relatively low-energy process of getting ready—no eyeliner or lipstick to be trifled with here! From there, it goes into a description of how she'd spend her day as a he: chilling with the dudes, flirting with any and all women who enter their orbit, and generally ignoring any emotional needs put forth by the woman who's allegedly an important part of his life. (The lyric "I'd put myself first / And make the rules as I go / 'Cause I know that she'd be faithful / Waitin' for me to come home" has about eight levels of bitterness going on.) So yeah, it's pretty much a breakup anthem, as evidenced by the chorus, which is about women being taken for granted and men not realizing that they've got a good thing until said ladies have wised up, moved on, etc. In that sense, it's lyrically different from Ciara's attempt to play Man For A Day; Beyonce doesn't come off as put-upon by her man's screwups as much as she is determined not to make the same mistake twice.

WHERE TO HEAR IT: Z100 has the stream.

ONE-LISTEN VERDICT: The first thing you notice about AC/DC's maiden effort for Wal-Mart: It's long—15 tracks, four of which utilize the word "rock" in their title. (Never let it be said that the folks in Bentonville weren't all about maximizing value.) As a result, Black Ice, while enjoyable cock-rock at the outset, can be a bit wearying as a long-player. Most of the songs are firmly cast in the basic AC/DC mold: A stomping 4/4 beat, a chorus marked by a lot of barroom-ready shouting from the other members, and a hyperactive Angus Young guitar solo. So thanks to that overarching sameness, the length of the album, and the fact that some of the songs seem just a smidge too long, Ice hits a patch about midway through where a torrent of razor-sharp guitar licks and Brian Johnson caterwauls just starts to flow over the listener. There's a little experimentation here and there—the spindly, almost ballad-like (well, for AC/DC anyway) "Rock N' Roll Dream," the Southern-rock swaggering "Decibel"—but the AC/DC formula is in full effect. And it's so effective on most of the album, in fact, that one's left wondering if the more casual fans of the Aussie hard-rockers will feel like they really need to pick up Black Ice while on a deodorant run—or will their copy of Back In Black suffice, particularly in these hard economic times?

THE BEST TRACK: "Decibel" has a twitchiness about it that is pretty endearing. Plus I bet that lead guitar part is going to be awesome to play on the AC/DC-branded Rock Band.

ONE-LISTEN VERDICT: The first single from Paul McCartney's forthcoming album under the guise of The Fireman got some ink for airing out Heather Mills' dirty laundry, but it should get even more ink for being a scorching rocker that sounds more like a lost Led Zeppelin b-side. It's almost as if severing ties with his ex-wife and Starbucks' failed record label at the same time freed McCartney in some way; he sounds pretty liberated here, ready to take on anyone who's intimated that he'll be the last Beatle to kick the bucket for cosmic "best to worst"-related reasons. If the rest of Electric Arguements is this, er, argumentative, I may be able to forgive him for "Freedom." (Maybe.)

WHERE TO FIND IT: Click, click:

Paul McCartney - Nothing Too Much Just Out Of Sight [MP3 / ATO Records]

ONE-LISTEN VERDICT: The Norwegian pop singer's long-rumored cover of Stacey Q's hi-NRG classic—produced by Richard X—is pretty straightforward, with an extra freestyle-styled breakdown near the end and Annie's slightly chilled voice taking the place of Ms. Q's come-hither southern California drawl. One bit of bad news came along with this leak, though: Apparently Annie's label has decided to push back her forthcoming album Don't Stop, which leaked over the summer, to—wait for it—April 2009. Which I guess means they're going to scrap the leaked version and start over, because honestly, what the hell?

WHERE TO FIND IT: Discobelle. And, just for good measure, here's the original :

ONE-LISTEN VERDICT: When I started listening to the song that was claiming to be the first single from Nickelback's forthcoming Dark Horse—which is being given out as a free download today only—I was greeted by synth intro that sounds like it was leftover from a Killers recording session, and became pretty convinced that the band was punking any longtime listeners who dared think of not paying for the track. But then Chad Kroeger's nu-hesher yelp came in, and all was right (?) with the world. "Gotta Be Somebody" represents something of a lighter direction for the band (there will be no "OMG, it's the same song!!" mash-ups with this song and other pieces of the Nickelback catalog), and I credit that to the production work of one Robert John "Mutt" Lange, who probably saw the rock-radio success of pop-friendly fare like Carolina Liar and figured that the time was right for Canada's Great Rock Hope to at least add a synthesizer to their sound. Time will tell whether or not listeners will embrace this change in artistic direction, but hey, at least Lange taught the guys some new chords.

WHERE TO FIND IT: It's available until 6 a.m. Tuesday at Roadrunner Records' site, so get it now! Or, you know, wait for it to show up on one of those shady MP3 blogs.

ONE-LISTEN VERDICT: "Womanizer" is a peppy, aerobics-appropriate bit of dance-pop that is directed toward a cheating guy who's a total dog. Musically, it continues the "thrashy march" trend that's seemingly dominating all of non-R & B-influenced pop these days. (Can someone tell me why this sound is all of a sudden everywhere? Do we have to blame Max Martin, or iPod fidelities, or what?) And Spears sounds actually engaged with the material on a vocal sense—although there are a few weird bits in the song, though, that sound like they were given over to the singer of the guide track. The spoken-word bits, in particular, sound... tougher, as if they were being performed by a woman who had dressed up as Little Mac for Halloween. No, really.

WHERE TO HEAR IT: Z100 has a stream.

ONE-LISTEN VERDICT: It would appear that the Las Vegas band took a few lessons from the reception of their second album, Sam's Town, for their forthcoming full-length—namely, tone down the messy production, and bring the anthems that were made to be played over the closing credits of teen-centric rom-coms (like "Read My Mind") to the forefront. "Human" is a slowly building slice of sweet synthpop, complete with big fake-string build right before the final chorus, and Brandon Flowers harnessing his weak voice in such a way that he sounds even more vulnerable. I have little doubt that "Human" will score a love scene on Gossip GIrl by the end of the month.

ANYWAY, HERE'S THE EMBED: Via YouTube:

ONE-LISTEN VERDICT: Guitar pyrotechnician Marnie Stern has apparently found a greater balance between flexing her fingers and writing stick-in-your-head melodies, and the result is an album's worth of firework-filled songs that are propelled as much by her finger-picking as they are by some seriously developed songwriting chops. On her first album In Advance Of The Broken Arm, her melodies were sometimes in danger of being buried by her frenetic guitar playing, but here, the songs shine through much more. This is not to say that This Is It is as neutered as your run-of-the-mill Avril Lavigne album; Stern's pop sensilbilities, while more present here, are couched in syncopation and fuzzed-out falsettos. Even a track like the glorious "Roads? Where We're Going We Don't Need Roads," which in a perfect world would be a joyous accompaniment to the "we've escaped" scene of a dreary-to-that-point movie, is filled with herky-jerky syncopation—not to mention that it uses a Chris Russo "haaaaaa!"^* to drag itself from its verse to its chorus. And then there's "Vault," which at first sounds like it could be a menacing, muscular track from the third hour of a 1990 Headbanger's Ball episode, then opens up into a glorious arpeggio-fest. Stern's penchant for smooshing together messy pop hooks and mathematically precise instrumentation results in songs that bend and twist out of speakers, much like ambient music one would hear while taking a stroll around a big, unfamiliar city; this is the music of someone who lives in her head and really likes it there, and listening to This Is It makes me feel lucky that she's let us in, if only for 40-ish minutes.

^* Given that Stern is a known Mets fan, I have to wonder if her homage to Russo was intentional. Also, I feel obligated to note that Stern's vocals on "Shea Stadium" sound like they've been amplified through the speakers of the Mets' crumbling home; thanks to that distortion, it sounds like to me like the lyrics employ the word "cry." That could be the result of me projecting a bit, though.

ONE TWO FEW-LISTENS VERDICT: The songs that teased Ne-Yo's Year Of The Gentleman gave the hint that the singer/songwriter would aim for a more mature pop sound on this album. And Year as a whole would seem to bear this out; even "Single," which has been reconfigured from a New Kids On The Block/Ne-Yo collaboration into a Ne-Yo-only slice of radio R & B, sounds like it makes sense here, thanks to it flowing much better with the grating "if you ain't got no money" bits stripped from it. (Although why Donnie Wahlberg's rap remains on this version is something of a mystery.)

What's most striking to me on Gentleman is Ne-Yo's vocal channeling of Michael Jackson. On his blog he says that the lighter-than-air "Nobody" is his Off The Wall tribute, and the homage is definitely spot-on—but there were more than a few instances on the album where I had to double-check the news that's dribbled out about the album to see if the former King Of Pop had lent his vocals to the album. "Part Of The List" and the over-the-top "Lie To Me" find Ne-Yo locked right in to MJ's vocal mannerisms, particularly the latter, on which Ne-Yo's repeated vocalizing of the word "desperately" sounds like it was cribbed directly from "Dirty Diana." The music plays that part as well, having one foot in the current era and the other planted in the days when Michael Jackson had an iron grip on pop. Perhaps Ne-Yo should be the person who engineers Jackson's comeback, if only because tracks in the vein of the breezy, radio-ready "So You Can Cry" would, in some alternate pop universe, be a much better fit for his voice than anything with Akon.

Gentleman isn't a perfect album—like many full-lengths in the CD era, it could be improved by cutting three songs or so, including the over-the-top album closer "Stop This World"—but it's compulsively listenable, with the singer providing his well-dressed shoulder to ladies of the world, whether they need to cry on it or stand on it.

ONE-LISTEN VERDICT: Jenny Lewis' second solo album boasts a long list of collaborators that includes Elvis Costello, Zooey Deschanel, Chris Robinson, Jonathan Rice, and M. Ward, as well as "all analog, no Pro-Tools sessions." That last part may sound like a gimmick, but it's the very key to the aesthetic success of the album. Hearing Lewis and her band through an analog filter is like going to the beach for the first time in years and remembering what the waves sound like.

But while the album's sonics are near-undeniable, the songs are more hit-or-miss. The breakdown goes something like this: four solidly enjoyable songs; four songs that skew a little more toward an iffy, bluesy territory; one goofy story song that will bug some people; one bland song that nobody will care about; and one really crappy song.

"Fernando" and "Carpetbaggers" (featuring a duet with Elvis Costello!) stand out as rollicking testaments to the fun and sheer force of well-turned-out rock. Just don't overthink "Fernando" lyrically, or you'll start getting the creeping feeling that Jenny Lewis' songwriting has devolved into absurd fluff. (Come to think of it, "Carpetbaggers" doesn't make much sense either, but both songs are, at least, incredibly fun musically.) Here's Jenny Lewis performing "Fernando" on Pancake Mountain:

"Godspeed" is sleepy and a little blah the first time around, but—and I realize how much ridicule I'm exposing myself to with this comment, and I say it only because I very genuinely feel this way—there are serious shades of Abbey Road-era Beatles in the chorus—specifically, the chord progression and the bass line when she sings "You don't make it easy / On me / What am I supposed to do with you / You won't let me help you / Won't you?" (Just saying.)

But the best song is the title track. With nothing but an acoustic guitar, some low-end accompaniment, and a bit of harmonizing, Lewis proves that her best work comes when she focuses on singing and songwriting. I was a vocal opponent of the most recent Rilo Kiley album because I felt that it lacked the emotional depth and melancholy that distinguished Lewis from her peers. With "Acid Tongue" she's back in the saddle again, at least for three and a half minutes, thanks to lyrics like "To be lonely is a habit / Like smoking or taking drugs / And I've quit them both / But man was it rough."

My advice to people coming to Jenny Lewis for the first time: Skip the first four tracks, all of which fall under "iffy." "Black Sand" has a cool bass line and a truly awesome string part, but Lewis is for some reason experimenting with the tip-top of her vocal register, and it's really just kind of weird. "Pretty Bird" and "Badman's World" are murky, bluesy songs about... the noirish aspects of life or something. (The abstract, aimless lyrics don't make it very clear.). I have a feeling that "The Next Messiah" is going to be the show-stopping number at concerts; it's very gritty and powerful, but it's just too long, and falls on the silly side of melodramatic. Cool lead guitar riff, though.

"Jack Killed Mom" is the goofy story song. It's sort of a free-floating flotsam of nonsense and it sounds a lot like a White Stripes song—a good White Stripes song, though. "Sing a Song for Them"—an ode to the forgotten losers of the world—is the sonic equivalent of a yawn that saves itself from total worthlessness with the lyric "The bric-a-brac-finding housewives losing their minds." And, finally, the obligatory total miss: "Trying My Best to Love You". Why? The second line of the song is "Our love is thicker than angel wings." That is an atrocious lyric, and the song itself is an equally drippy mess.

But putting aside the the specific missteps, there's just something so tangibly honest about this album. It's a throwback to the lush sound of the '70s, when music was big enough to have an excessive number of instruments thrown onto every track; when men were men, and producers knew how to record a bass track. It's a big album with a few big problems, but in the end it's braver and more fun than a lot of what I've heard lately.

WHERE TO HEAR IT: MySpace.

ONE-LISTEN VERDICT: When I saw Christina Aguilera at the Video Music Awards pregame yesterday, she mentioned that in contrast to the retro-heavy Back To Basics, her forthcoming material would be more informed by "the future." Apparently, the future was envisioned by Gary Glitter back in 1973, because like many other singles^* of recent vintage, "Keeps Gettin' Better" is a muscular, percussive arena-ready song that has some semi-controversial lyrics (Christina saying that she can, in fact, be a "superbitch" sometimes) and lots of opportunities for fist-waving. There are a few space-age sounds dropped in here and there, which I guess is the "future" part shining through.

WHERE TO FIND IT: New York's very own Z100.

^* In the case of the Fall Out Boy track, the jock-jam structure seems to be deliberate, in order to contrast with the wild narcissism of the lyrics. But the aesthetic point still stands.

ONE-LISTEN VERDICT: When this song debuted on BBC Radio 1's Zane Lowe show Monday, Snow Patrol frontman Gary Lightbody made a bit of a production of stating that the band's new album was a radical departure from their previous material. Having heard several tracks from the album, Zane Lowe wholeheartedly agreed. I can only assume that they were discussing the rest of A Hundred Million Suns, because this single sounds just like the more animated tracks from the last two Snow Patrol discs. That's not a bad thng, necessarily—the band occupies a credible space for those looking to get a little more obscure than Coldplay, but not outside of the sensitive British alt-rock-pop act mold. Similar to the hard-rock acts of the '90s, Snow Patrol can't lead with the monster ballad, since they'd be seen as "soft," but I'm certain there's one track that's ready to soundtrack an important scene ER's season finale lurking somewhere in that new album's tracklist. Holding some spot between commercially viability and vague artistic credibility isn't easy to pull off, so why jump off the ride before its finished?

WHERE TO FIND IT: Music Is The Heart Of Our Soul. Or:

ONE-LISTEN VERDICT: The first single from Fall Out Boy's forthcoming Folie A Deux finds the foursome traveling waters that should be familiar to anyone who's tuned a radio to their local pop station recently: It has a stompy beat that recalls stadium-rock staples, not to mention that Pink breakup song that's been burning up the airwaves lately. Patrick Stump's voice sounds in fine fettle (particularly on the bridge, on which all I will say is "oh my"), and the "I don't care what you think as long as it's about me" chorus is certainly in keeping with the band's commentary-on-fame lyrical tradition, but am I wrong to want something that, well, swings its hips a little more? I'm going to just chalk this up to the band's label wanting to release a first single that would be likely to continue the success of Infinity On High's more-truncheonlike-than-its-counterparts "Thnks Fr Th Mmrs," which somehow managed to be the only song from that album that stuck around the top-40 world, despite its other singles being much, much better.

WHERE TO FIND IT: It's streaming at the band's official site, but if that doesn't work, there's always the FOB superfan-haven icecreamhdaches.

(Also, I want to point out that this would have definitely been yesterday's Intentional Leak Of The Day, but as I was posting about it from a lounge in JFK, my computer's battery crapped out. And it's still 1:30 a.m. where I am right now, so it sort of counts. Right?)

ONE-LISTEN VERDICT: While Jessica Simpson's country crossover album leaked today, the titular duet with Dolly Parton is the only track that most people will actually care about because—let's face it—the only thing Jessica Simpson should be "crossing over" into at this point is permanent retirement. So! On first listen "Do You Know" sounds like a slightly less forgettable, more twang-filled Jessica Simpson track. And then you notice Dolly Parton and you think, "Oh, that's nice. Dolly's always a dynamic addition to any song." And then you notice the lyrics.

Apparently, due to a mix-up at some recording studio in Nashville, Kenny Rogers' half of a duet with Dolly was sung by Jessica Simpson and mixed into the final track, and whoever made this error was apparently too lazy to rectify the situation. The end result: A tender lady-on-lady love duet tacked on to Simpson's country cash-in.

Jessica: "Lying here beside you in the dark/I feel the steady Rhythm of your heart/Feel your face against my shoulder/Breath upon my skin/Embers barely smoldered/I make love to you again"

Jessica and Dolly: "Nothing in this world compares to this/The way our bodies fit/The way we kiss"

Jessica and Dolly: "Do you know how beautiful you are here in the afterglow?"

I truly love Dolly, but the last thing I want to think about is her afterglow. And I only barely tolerate Jessica Simpson, so that line essentially ruins the whole song for me, although it's nearly redeemed in the following verse:

Jessica and Dolly: "Do you know how much it means to me / The way you make me feel / Like I could soar the heavens / Gathering shooting stars / Place them in a bouquet / In a rainbow-studded jar."

And then we have the song's last minute and a half. At the 3:30 mark—where all reasonable songs end with dignity—"Do You Know" devolves into a seemingly endless vocal circus. Parton and Simpson spend over a minute wailing "Doooo yoooouuuu knoooowwww?" at each other, and by the five-minute mark you do know... that you never want to hear this song again if it means having to sit through the entire outro.

ONE-LISTEN VERDICT: All I can say is that if you put "Rock N' Roll Train" on for a friend, and told him that it was actually a recently unearthed old b-side from the Australian hard-rock outfit, that person would probably believe you. "Train" has chunky chords, a howl-along chorus, and lyrics about hot chicks; it even sounds a little more messy than current rock productions, perhaps to give the whole enterprise that "back in the good old days" feel.

WHERE TO HEAR IT: It seems to be streaming from the band's official site, but if that's as balky for you as it was for me, there's always YouTube.

[via RS]

ONE-LISTEN VERDICT: How do you transition a group that's known as a retro act into something relevant to the present day? Whoever was in charge of the comeback album for OG boy band New Kids On The Block decided to drag Joe, Jordan, Jonathan, Danny, and Donnie into the present day by stuffing The Block with as many signifiers of the mid-oughts as possible: T-Pain levels of Autotune; cameos by the Pussycat Dolls and Akon; Timbaland beats; lyrical references to Grey's Anatomy; libidinous songs about bottle service and homemade sex tapes. The end result, you may not be surprised to hear, is an album that sounds almost as awkwardly "of the now" as 1993's attempt to drop the "Kids" from their name, Face The Music. With songs like "Sexify My Love," which recalls both Flo Rida and the most generic radio R & B and "Full Service," a New Kids/New Edition collab that should be !!-worthy but instead forces every vocalist on the track through a pseudo-patois filter, The Block is constantly on the verge of turning itself inside-out and becoming a retro piece of its own, although the age it's recalling is one when Akon was all over the radio and Nicole Scherzinger had a chance at a solo career.

Sometimes, the Kids will dip into the memory banks of the ladies who, as screaming young things, filled malls in their honor: "I'm like Swayze," one of the Kids sings on the also-Akon-inspired, Autotune-heavy "Dirty Dancin'." Which should pull the heartstrings of many a 30something; after all, that movie taught a lot of middle school girls about eroticism (and illegal abortions) when it came out. But I can't wonder how many of the younger kids listening to this album are wondering, "oh, you mean like Cisco Adler's bestie?"

ONE-LISTEN VERDICT: If making a song that forces Rihanna to sing a vocal hook based around the "may-ya-heee" melody from O-Zone's "Dragostea Din Tei" is T.I.'s revenge on the Internet for leaking tracks from Paper Trail before its release, I am now in love with him more than ever. And I can't wait to see the video for this track.

WHERE TO HEAR IT: Where else but YouTube:

And what the hell, just for comparison's sake:

ONE-LISTEN VERDICT: After much speculation over what their Citizens For Our Betterment viral project might mean—including a pseudonymous e-mail to this writer that said, and I quote, "new FOB record next week or not at all"—Fall Out Boy have let the world know what they were actually leading up to: A Clinton Sparks-hosted mix tape that serves as a precursor to their forthcoming album Folie A Deux, which is set for a Stateside release on Election Day. Welcome To The New Administration has snippets of demos from the new album peppered between tracks by The Academy Is..., The Cab, Panic At The Disco, and other acts in the Decaydance stable.

There are five new FOB tracks mixed in, all of which are labeled "demo": "ALPHAdog And OMEGAman" is a stridently dancey track that finds Patrick Stump trying on his falsetto; "Lake Effect Kid" is crunchy a la "The Take Over, The Break's Over," and it's twisted around a delicious guitar lick that sounds kinda power-metally; "I Don't Care," which was previewed on FNMTV's final episode Friday night, is masked by a Seth Green spoken interlude (!?) but sounds somewhat military-marchish; "Catch Me If You Can/Proclamation Of Emancipation" brings in Travis from the Gym Class Heroes, who raps about being sober over a track that subtly mines the band's Michael Jackson influences; and "America's Sweethearts" makes me think that it's going to be the "epic first single that'll make girls swoon," especially since Pete Wentz cuts it off at the 37-second mark and tells the audience that he definitely wants to hold that particular track back.

Aside from the Fall Out Boy tracks, the standout song has to be "I Kissed A Boy," which is Cobra Starship's raunchy take on—yes, really—"I Kissed A Girl" by the band's Warped Tourmate Katy Perry. Not only is Gabe Saporta's sleazed-out growl a much, much better fit for the song than Perry's bark, the whole lyrical thrust of the song is a bit more transgressive and less male-gazy. Plus, as Kate pointed out, this track will make the Internet freak the fuck out. Hooray for that!

WHERE TO FIND IT: Fall Out Boy's Friends Or Enemies profile, although you have to part with some geographic and virtual location information to get it. (Disclaimer: Friends Or Enemies is a division of Buzznet, Idolator's parent company. But you all probably know that I was going to write about this no matter what Web site birthed it.)

[HT: CFOBMania]

ONE-LISTEN VERDICT: I know it's probably uncharitable to say not-very-nice things about efforts put forth for a good cause, and Lord knows the "female singers are all so processed" argument is more than a little bit old. But this LA Reid and Babyface-produced benefit single (proceeds will go to the cancer-research nonprofit Stand Up For Cancer) is less notable for sounding exactly like what you'd think an LA Reid and Babyface-produced benefit single made in 2008 and more notable for processing the voices of all the boldfaced names singing on the track into a smooth oleo. Only Rihanna, Fergie, and Melissa Etheridge broke through the Velveeta barrier; shoot, I needed a second listen to figure out that Beyonce was probably singing the opening couplet, and she's not exactly the type who's wont to "blend." Perhaps the production is actually a statement on how everyone should give up their egos for the fight against what is obviously an awful disease, but for some reason I suspect that we're going to see quite the melisma contest during the performance of the track on the charity's attendant telethon, which airs Sept. 5.

WHERE TO FIND IT: Clear Channel's Boston top-40 station has the track streaming, although a warning to any of you who may click while at work: It's on autoplay, so find some headphones first.

ONE-LISTEN VERDICT: The first album in five years from the British singer Dido, Safe Trip Home, comes out later this year, and this non-single from the record dispenses with the dance beats that made previous songs like "White Flag" a staple for music directors on lite-rock stations and soapy prime-time shows; instead; she sings over a barely-there string ensemble. The track is delicately pretty, and I swear, if you put it in front of your favorite music snob and said it was a new song by Feist or one of those other AC-except-in-the-marketing "indie" chanteuses, they would flip out for it. If only I worked in an office where I could try this experiment out on other unsuspecting knowledge workers...

WHERE TO FIND IT: Dido's official site is parting with it in exchange for an e-mail address, but you can find it in other, less savory corners of the Internet.

ONE-LISTEN VERDICT: It's a bit hard to tell, given the very degraded quality of the QuickTime stream, but from what I can tell, "The Day That Never Comes" makes me want to echo the sentiments Idolator commenter Marth: Something doesn't feel right here. And by "doesn't feel right" I mean "sorta gives the impression of a band becoming its own cover band." "The Day That Never Comes" sounds like the end result of gluing together the morose "Until It Sleeps" and the second, riffs-topped-off-with-speeding-up-and-stopping half of "One," and layering over some particularly throat-tightened vocals by Mssr. Hetfield. Is this what the fans want: A band going through the motions that it pioneered more than two decades ago? Given the popularity of reunion and repackaging tours over the past few years, I'm going to say "maybe... no, probably."

WHERE TO FIND IT: It's streaming from Metallica's official Web site via annoying "helper" apps, but if you want an embedded stream, head over to the band's MySpace page.