Entertainment

No spice left in the Peppers

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Downloads of the Week

RED HOT CHILI PEPPERS

“Strange Man”

★ 1/2

LAST year, the Red Hot Chili Peppers released their 10th album, “I’m With You,” to an almost universal shrug. A year on, and the long-in-the-tooth Los Angeles group has decided to release a collection of songs that weren’t even good enough to make it onto that lackluster collection as a series of one-off singles.

First up is this formulaic, funk-rock ballad, which could easily be mistaken for almost any other song the band has written in the past decade. These guys must really love it when people shrug at them.

CAT POWER

“Cherokee”

★★★ 1/2

IT seems heartbreak might just have propelled Cat Power on to new musical heights. Just months after breaking up with actor and longtime boyfriend Giovanni Ribisi, she’s reemerged with a beautiful new single (from the album “Sun,” which drops Sept. 4) that finds her beefing up her usual bare-bones approach with breaks and synths, to create a track awash with emotional drama.

MUMFORD & SONS

“I Will Wait”

★ 1/2

MUMFORD & Sons keyboardist Ben Lovett has jokingly described the first single from their second album “Babel” (out Sept. 25) as “the worst song on the record.” Behind any joke there’s usually a shred of truth, and while “I Will Wait” isn’t quite a disaster, this banjo-bashing folk tune smacks of a band milking their one good idea for all it’s worth. Would it have killed them to drop a dubstep beat in there, or something?

PAUL BANKS

“The Base”

★★★

THE solo project is often a time for a musician to strip things down, but Interpol’s Paul Banks shows more musical ambition on this number — the lead single from “Banks,” his upcoming solo debut — than his typically monochrome band has for years. Building from a skeletal acoustic riff and lonely drum machine, Banks creates a sweeping orchestral epic. It just seems a shame it took him this long to do it.

DEADMAU5 (FEATURING GERARD WAY)

“Professional Griefers”

Half a star

DRESSING up like Mickey Mouse and peddling recycled house beats has made Canadian Deadmau5 the biggest name in dance. But for his new single (taken from the irritatingly named new record “>album title goes here<,” due Sept. 25), he taps into the rock world by enlisting My Chemical Romance singer Gerard Way.

It’s a collaboration that basically consists of Way shrieking on top of Deadmau5’s uniquely unimaginative production for four excruciating minutes. If there is a benevolent God, he will make sure these two never work together again.

GEORGE MICHAEL

“White Light”

★★ 1/2

HE may have played it down at the time, but last year George Michael nearly died from pneumonia. Having pulled through, the Brit is in an euphoric mood on “White Light,” which finds him relating his near-death experience over a trance-like electro rhythm that, not coincidentally, sounds like a heartbeat. It’s not a subtle return, but it’s definitely a welcome one.