Albums of the Week
Will.i.am
“#willpower”
Half a star
JUST when making fun of will.i.am seemed to have become a tired cliché, the Black Eyed Pea has thoughtfully provided us with a fresh batch of awful music to mock. His fourth solo album, “#willpower,” is awash with Auto-Tuned dance-pop pap, much of which sounds like it was written to soundtrack Zumba workouts and domestic beer commercials.
But “#willpower” gets even more infuriating when will.i.am tries to get witty or even profound; the feeble “Geekin’ ” is his clunky love letter to all things tech, while “The World Is Crazy” is an attempt at social comment that ultimately sounds like “Sign O’ the Times” rewritten by a simpleton.
The half-star rating is negotiable, Mr. I.am. I’ll give you another half if you just go away.
Michael Bublé
“To Be Loved”
★
YOU have to hand it to Michael Bublé — if nothing else, he knows how to sell records. By aiming squarely at the piracy-proof granny market, the Canadian crooner can sell albums by the bucket load, even though his schmaltzy covers could be bested by a half-decent jazz band playing in a hotel restaurant.
Bublé’s eighth album continues the mind-numbing formula. The reworkings of the Bee Gee’s “To Love Somebody” and “Who’s Lovin’ You” (made famous by the Jackson 5) are impeccably sung but exasperatingly sterile, and who in the world needs yet another version of “You Make Me Feel So Young”? Of the few originals, Bublé’s duet with Bryan Adams, “After All,” at least registers a pulse with its upbeat, orchestral stomp, but the overload of niceties frequently make “To Be Loved” close to unbearable.
Downloads of the Week
Black Sabbath
“God Is Dead?”
★★
FOR the first time in 35 years, Ozzy has returned to work with his Sabbath bandmates on “God Is Dead?” (taken from the new album “13,” due June 11). This nine-minute dirge is an obvious attempt to recapture the Gothic menace of their early output, but knowing it’s the work of that wobbly guy from “The Osbournes” inevitably cuts the fright factor down considerably.
Snoop Lion
“Ashtrays and Heartbreaks”
Half a star
SO, Snoop Dogg went to Jamaica, smoked an extra strong bag of weed and decided he was a Rastafarian. Not convinced? Well, you can’t get more roots and culture than Miley Cyrus, who turns up on this hysterically bad duet from Snoop’s new pseudo-reggae collection, “Reincarnated.” So lame it deserves a “comedy” classification on iTunes.
Phoenix
“Bankrupt!”
★★ 1/2
WEDGED in the middle of the French group’s new album “Bankrupt!” is a wild card of a title track that breaks up the polished but monotonous dance-rock. A seven-minute opus that combines pulse-like beats with manic synths and some ’60s psychedelia, it shows Phoenix have more to them than they often let on.
De la Soul
“Get Away”
★★★
THE first real material from the Long Island hip-hop trio in almost a decade finds De la Soul tipping their hats to Wu-Tang Clan, with a ghostly throwback track that will get heads bobbing like it’s 1995. It all bodes well for their comeback album “You’re Welcome,” which arrives later this year.