It’s not often that three good albums are released on the same day. As much as such an event fills me with hope about the future of pop music, it’s also a bit frustrating. I want to give all three their due, and the only way I can do that is to combine them all in one omnibus of a review. It’s not ideal, I’ll admit, but at least it gets the word out there that there really is good music out there.
You’re not going to find a lot of shake-your-booty pop here—in fact, you’re not going to find any. What you are going to find is evidence that music is far from its last throes.
And guess what? It still revolves around the guitar.
KT Tunstall: Drastic Fantastic
Considering the runaway success of her debut album, Eye to the Telescope, it’s not surprising that KT Tunstall views stardom as sort of a comic book existence—minus the super powers, of course. It’s not a lifestyle for the faint of heart. If a comic book lifestyle needs a comic book title, you could have a worse title than Drastic Fantastic. And certainly from the album’s packaging, with KT posed like a rock Valkyrie, brandishing a major axe of a guitar, you’d imagine she plans to kick some major ass here.
Well, not exactly.
On this sophomore outing, Tunstall tries on a number of alter egos, from radio-friendly popster to bluesy torcher, but by and large she attacks the material cautiously. Songs like “Little Favours” and “If Only” were designed with radio in mind, channeling equal parts of Chrissie Hynde and Sheryl Crowe at their poppiest. It isn’t until the single cut “Hold On” that Tunstall finds a skin in which she’s comfortable. It’s a somewhat raucous stomp reminiscent of “Black Dog and the Cherry Tree,” and its refrain of “the world will turn if you’re ready or not” tinges it with appropriate angst.
It’s on the more introspective acoustic tracks that Drastic Fantastic is at it most compelling. “Beauty of Uncertainty” and “Someday Soon” are haunting tracks that allow Tunstall to unveil her vocal range, which can stretch from a bluesy rasp to an angelic whisper, often in the same song.
While the album stumbles in places, Drastic Fantastic stands shoulders above the pabulum that passes for pop music today. KT Tunstall has tried on several comic book identities here, but ultimately emerges triumphant.
Eddie Vedder: Into the Wild
Eddie Vedder’s been fronting Pearl Jam for 17 years—hell, for all intents, he’s been Pearl Jam all that time, at least as far as publicity was concerned. It took the coaxing of his buddy Sean Penn to convince Vedder to finally release a solo album, though. Penn’s latest film, Into the Wild, chronicles the ill-fated odyssey of Christopher McCandless, who chunked his worldly possessions to live in the wilds of Alaska.
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