SOUNDCHECK

Sheryl Crow; Run-D.M.C.; Fiona Apple


Sheryl Crow


Wildflower (3 stars)


After the sunny disposition of her last album, 2002's C'Mon C'Mon, Sheryl Crow makes a hasty retreat into melancholy ballads on Wildflower, her fifth album. Gone for the most part are C'Mon's upbeat, catchy numbers, replaced by bittersweet, string-drenched love songs that eventually weigh the album down. Although Crow's happily in love with cyclist Lance Armstrong (to whom the album is dedicated), this isn't a celebratory disc by any means. The production on quiet tunes such as "I Don't Wanna Know" and the title track is restrained and classy, but it too often borders on bland.


When Crow perks up a little, as on "Lifetimes" and lead single "Good is Good," or a lot, as on the album's one unabashedly exuberant track, "Live It Up," Wildflower shines as brightly as any of her past material, and she consistently demonstrates her inability to write a bad song. Love and age seem to have mellowed Crow a bit, and her music has suffered for it. But maybe now that she's gotten the doldrums out, she'll be back to having fun on her next album.




Josh Bell




Run-D.M.C.


Run-D.M.C., King of Rock, Raising Hell, Tougher Than Leather (5 stars)


The reissued set of Run-D.M.C.'s first four albums presents hip-hop in its truest, purest, most non-commercialized form.


The legendary Queens, New York, trio of Joseph Simmons (Run), Darryl McDaniels (D.M.C.) and Jason Mizell (Jam Master Jay) were rap's first superstars, combining able wordsmithing, world-championship deejaying and humor cut with just enough ghetto grunge to create a platinum-selling sound that bridged cultural, racial and socioeconomic divides.


In the hands of Run-D.M.C., the hard-times, bling-bling, chasing-women-all-the-time rhymes so prevalent among today's rappers sound a lot less brooding and a lot more real, partly because '80s hip-hop was largely uninfluenced by corporate mercenary motives.


There's almost too much good stuff to choose from here: "Hard Times" is essentially an '80s version of Tupac's "Keep Ya Head Up." "My Adidas," which encouraged listeners to tighten up their tennis shoe pimpin', is the obverse of Nelly's please-sign-me-to-a-shoe-deal-old "Air Force Ones." "Run's House" is a study in being arrogant without coming off as aristocratic; the a capella version of "Lord of Lyrics" is a treat—you can hear passion and aggression in the rhymes. This disc set is mandatory listening for all hip-hop heads.




Damon Hodge




Fiona Apple


Extraordinary Machine (4 stars)


Part of the reason for the fascination over Extraordinary Machine is that this is Apple's first disc in six years and only the third release in a career that stretches back a decade. Also, Apple is the rare cult artist still on a major label, and as a result, this disc has a back-story of an early version leaked on the Internet, a write-in campaign and now this, the mostly refashioned and remade Extraordinary Machine.


Despite its shaky history, the result is seamless. The title track (retained from the original sessions) bounces and skips with a cabaret flavor and arrangements that shift as quickly as Apple's many moods, yet manages to offer a variety of aural small touches each step of the way. Amazingly, this same feeling is conveyed on "Parting Gift" where Apple simply accompanies herself on piano. "Get Him Back" is typical in its playful ambiguity between being a promise of recovery or a vow to avenge.


Extraordinary Machine's quirky, insular, fussy and arty songs of the he-done-me-wrong variety prove that despite her long absence, Apple remains nothing more or less than the rock snob's Alanis Morissette.




Richard Abowitz


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