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Thursday, May 1, 2008
Film Noir: Hmmmm….
Interesting story on our favorite Hollywood movie genre…
While we’re on it, got a fave film noir to share? I think I might choose “Double Indemnity,” though I could be talked into a few others…
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New CDs: Mariah Carey, Leona Lewis
Here’s what we’re listening to today! Enjoy:
Mariah Carey, “E=MC2”
Leona Lewis, “SPIRIT”
Even if Mariah Carey and Leona Lewis didn’t have CDs competing closely on the charts at the same time, it would still be tough to avoid making direct comparisons between them. They’re older and younger sides of a very similar coin.
We all know Mariah, at this point. “E=MC2,” her 11th album, offers few surprises, which is sorta the point; her fans aren’t looking for different, and she’s not interested in providing it. That means a full plate here of impeccably produced hip-pop, slick dance tracks and featherweight love songs with a sexy edge.
What’s most unusual about her work these days is that she places less emphasis than ever on the thing that once set her apart — namely, the distinctive quality and impressive range of her voice. She chooses instead to sing fairly straightforwardly without a lot of showing off. The first cut, “Migrate,” opens with a with a multi-octave chirrup, just to remind us that it’s Mariah, before she melts into the mid-register, smaller voice she uses for most of the rest of “E=MC2.”
If you’ve heard the first single, the very average, too-calm “Touch My Body,” you have a fair sense of the disc as a whole. Not much to get excited about. Unlike a lot of artists of her caliber, Carey’s getting less interesting as she goes along.
Then there’s Lewis, who for all practical purposes is as close to a young Mariah as you would get if you minted a brand new one today. A British singer in her early 20s, she has just crafted one of the hottest-selling debuts in UK chart history, and is new to our shores. Take note.
Her light, breathy R&B-tinged pop is squarely from Mariah’s playground, and you can listen to a solid, uplifting tune like “Better In Time,” or a lovelorn bit like “I Will Be,” and imagine it coming from Carey pretty easily. In fact, if you blended Carey with Alicia Keys (plus a dash of Anita Baker), you’d get pretty close to Leona Lewis.
Except that this young singer comes at her material with a confidence and assurance that makes it plain she doesn’t want to be compared to anybody else, which may be behind the big sales — that and the Clive Davis-Simon Cowell production team, of course. One might be critical of the many times when that confidence comes across as forced over-earnestness, but that’s the sort of thing that experience, and maturity, should fix.
Carey: C
iPod pick: “Migrate,” “Cruise Control.”
Lewis: B+
iPod picks: “Bleeding Time,” “Forgive Me.”
