Still, like a southern-fried Everly Brothers, Gentry and partner Eddie Montgomery’s distinctive tenors are soulful and dynamic, and it’s their combination that ultimately saves “You Do Your Thing.” -Paul Griffith Unfortunately, this often makes the records strong performances sound like they were squeezed from a tube of digital cookie dough.
Production-wise, however, “You Do Your Thing” suffers from the digital sameness that afflicts a lot of Nashville’s recording projects. Songs like “It’s All Good” and “If It’s the Last Thing I Do” might sound cliché, but you probably wouldn’t want to tell that to Troy Gentry, whose raging vocal on the latter track is a virtual invitation to a bar fight. “You Do Your Thing” comes on strong from the downbeat, with all the hell raising and anthemic “put up or shut up” you’d expect from Montgomery Gentry, who claim both Lynyrd Skynyrd and Aerosmith as influences. But for a short taste, “I got drugs in my system, and thugs in the system that put slugs in victims” is just a sample line from “Say What,” spit in his signature gravely voice. What’s most impressive is Method Man’s truly original rhyming, hardly any of which, unfortunately, is fit to print. Diddy is sure to keep heads bobbing and “The Show,” with its sped-up hook, is a triumphant-sounding caper. “The Turn,” with fellow Wu-Tang member Raekwon, has a creeping, soulful loop and is one of the best tracks on the album. “Act Right” is a rapid-fire rant on stepping up one’s game.
The respect is a testament to the Wu-Tang Clan member’s wicked skills as an MC, which are put to good use on “Tical 0: The Prequel,” Method Man’s latest collection of witty rhyme-spitting and gritty hip-hop.Īlthough the album is full of good tracks, few go beyond the usual hip-hop playground of Bacardi, babes, cars and crime and even fewer reach the rawness of his delivery on Wu-Tang’s 1993 debut “Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers)” or his 1994 solo debut “Tical.” But then, he was always the Clan clown.īut there are a lot of quality tracks here. “Flawless (Go to the City)” and “Precious Box,” meanwhile, are generic gay-bar electronica. The upbeat tracks on “Patience,” such as “Amazing” and “Cars and Trains,” sound like the breathy Euro-pop you’d hear while shopping for sweaters at Express. His voice remains powerful, but the song itself isn’t as substantial as his earlier ballads, such as “Kissing a Fool” or “One More Try.” This new disc, for which Michael wrote or co-wrote all 12 songs, begins with a whimper: the title track consists of Michael accompanied by a simple, plaintive piano. I love George Michael and I loved Wham! The two-disc “Ladies & Gentlemen: The Best of George Michael” remains in heavy rotation at my house - at least when my husband isn’t around.) This isn’t the dance-friendly Michael you know and love, the one whose famous posterior was immortalized in a “Saturday Night Live” skit: “Put my butt next to a dying flower and it will bloom!” This is, instead, a kinder, gentler Michael - and an increasingly irrelevant one. His latest release, “Patience,” seems to have been titled as a both warning and a request. And “Destiny” kicks the album with a spare and beautiful acoustic guitar melody. Melodically light and heady, the album’s title track “Baptized” features Kravitz singing about love and loneliness. Surprising on the album is the number of acoustic ballads. Some songs on the album including “Flash” and “Sistermamalover,” which mix rock, rhythm and hip-shaking blues, may bring Kravitz closer to a signature sound. Though its lyrics are relatively shallow, the music is.well, it rocks.Īnd thankfully, the entire album doesn’t play into that Rolling Stone magazine cover cliche. The effacing “I Don’t Want To Be A Star” plays into the rock ’n’ roll legend of musicians who make it big before shirking fame and fortune. “I’ll make you freak, I’ll make you lose control.” Virginīold and funky, the song sets the tone for an album of unbridled - and refreshingly new - retro rock (the album’s cover depicts Kravitz emerging from a pool of red liquid strapped with a Gibson Flying V guitar, a rock ’n’ roll relic). “I’m a minister of rock ’n’ roll,” he shrieks. Opening with “Minister of Rock ’n’ Roll,” an unleashed, melodic bellow about redemption, the newly coifed Kravitz - now sporting flowing straight locks instead of the Afro - screams over a fuzzy bass.