On his sophomore album, Bruno Mars unleashes his bad boy, and his music is better for it. (
)
Check out new music from Bruno Mars, Green Day, Rick Ross, Snoop Lion and more.
Albums of the Week
BRUNO MARS
“Unorthodox Jukebox”
★★★
Cocaine bust aside, Bruno Mars has built a good part of his success to date on being the nice boy you could take home to meet your grandma. But in this follow-up to his 2010 debut, “Doo-Wops & Hooligans,” he’s much less doo-wop than hooligan. The hat-wearing Hawaiian still skips across genres with an impressively carefree attitude; Prince-style funk one minute, Police-tailing guitar rock the next, and even some soft radio-reggae for good measure. But what really makes the ears prick up is the racier, raunchier and angrier lyrical mindset Mars is channeling this time out. Heartless, gold-digging femmes fatales feature prominently (“Natalie” and “Money Make Her Smile”), but the explicit, come-to-bed growls of “Gorilla” especially seem a million miles away from the more syrupy stuff Mars was dishing out on his debut. Indeed, when he opts to return to such timid balladry — as is the case on a couple of songs here — it sounds tired in comparison. Evidently, the devil inside Bruno has the best songs.
GREEN DAY
“¡Tré!”
★★ 1/2
Another month, another Green Day album. But for the final installment of the Cali-punks’ trilogy, the band edges toward the more ambitious outer reaches of their scope. Grandiose opener “Brutal Love,” for example, breaks out the brass and strings in a way that will probably have Phil Spector cracking a wry smile from his jail cell, while the six-minute mini-opera “Dirty Rotten Bastards” is the album’s “Jesus of Suburbia” moment. But as with both previous albums, the fluff quotient is undeniable (hello, “8th Avenue Serenade”) as is the feeling that Green Day has ultimately released three solid albums when they could have released one superlative one. But it’s hard to imagine many other groups of similar stature making such a sustained creative effort, and for that at least, Green Day remains worthy of a salute.
Downloads of the Week
RICK ROSS
“100 Black Coffins”
★★★
Rick Ross’ new tune from the soundtrack of “Django Unchained” will lift expectations for the new Tarantino flick even higher. Produced by star Jamie Foxx, “100 Black Coffins” combines jittering beats entangled with spaghetti-Western guitars and Ross’ outlaw narrative, which is based on the film’s lead character. Riveting stuff.
BIG BOI feat. Kelly Rowland
“Mama Told Me”
★★★
The Outkast man’s latest album, “Vicious Lies and Dangerous Rumors,” is a smorgasbord of sound — but this slinky, ’80s funk-cut finds Big Boi at his most accessible. His rhymes ooze sophistication as usual, but it’s the brilliantly catchy hook provided by Rowland’s chorus that makes “Mama Told Me” a real standout.
THE GAME feat. Kendrick Lamar & Tank
“See No Evil”
★★
Balancing thug life with spirituality is the overriding theme in the Game’s new album, “Jesus Piece,” and this dark, ghostly track from it finds his soul-searching complemented particularly well by fellow Comptonite Kendrick Lamar. Whether the Lord is listening is open to question, but the rest of us would do well to lend them both an ear.
SNOOP LION
“Here Comes the King”
★
Quite possibly the worst musical reinvention of recent times continues with Snoop Dogg’s transformation into a Rastafarian named Snoop Lion. Even with the help of super-producer Major Lazer, this toy-town reggae tune is best suited to a “Sesame Street” skit. “They gonna love me/Call me black chutney,” he sings in one particularly awful couplet. Sorry Snoop, but we have no plans to do either.