* Justin Timberlake & Christina Aguilera
“Justin & Christina”
RCA/Jive/Target
“Justin & Christina,” a CD being marketed exclusively through the Target department store, is guaranteed to be mocked for excessive commercialism and treated suspiciously by purists who demand separation between artist and corporate sponsors.
Maybe so, but this disc is a deal where everyone draws aces – especially the fans who need to shell out only $5 for this dandy sampler of Timberlake and Aguilera’s individual albums.
“Justin & Christina” serves as a promo and a nifty taste of the summer tour that brings both artists to the Meadowlands on Aug. 13 and the Nassau Coliseum Aug. 16 and 17.
Timberlake and Aguilera divvy up the CD’s six tracks 50/50. Each tries out a new tune that isn’t available on their albums, rounding out the collection with remixes of radio staples such as Aguilera’s “Beautiful” and Timberlake’s “Cry Me a River.”
Aguilera’s new number, “That’s What Love Can Do,” is fantastic – a slow-grind dance ballad where the singer shows off her pipes as a blues babe.
Timberlake’s new offering, “Why, When, How,” isn’t quite as exciting, but it’s a solid piece of optimistic pop.
Not to sound greedy, but the producers should have taken this good idea to the next level – offering a little more music, a DVD clip from the tour and a better booklet.
* Bernie Williams
“The Journey Within”
½ GRP Records
New York Yankees slugger Bernie Williams hits a solid double with his debut CD, “The Journey Within” – a jazzy/bluesy collection that features the center fielder on lead guitar.
Technically, Williams is very good. He’s been studying guitar since he was a 13-year-old in Puerto Rico, and he delivers the music cleanly, a single note at a time.
His approach to the guitar is similar to the way scat singers pop notes out of the melody for their vocals.
That said, Williams’ 13 tracks – seven composed by the ballplayer – are strictly background music. He seems most comfortable when he’s playing easy-listening generic jazz.
The result is an album that sounds as if it were recorded by a good session player, rather than a musician with a unique artistic vision.
He’s best on the breezy “Samba Novo” and a pair of funk songs, “Stranded on the Bridge” and “Bernie Jr.” He’s also pretty good on “La Salsa En Mi,” which sounds a little like “La Bamba.”
* The Soul of John Black
“The Soul of John Black”
½ No Mayo Records
When you consider that the Soul of John Black is essentially a duo – guitarist John Bigham and bassist Chris Thomas – it’s remarkable just how big a sound they’ve created in the little home-recording studio where this disc was made.
The pair excel at old-school funk and acoustic hip-hop, which lands them in the slippery terrain between Sly Stone and Macy Gray.
The opening track, “Scandalous (No. 9),” is a walking-tempo, two-chord funk groove that’s a good introduction to the rest of the disc.
Other notable tracks include the melodic, ethereal ballad “Time (Losing My Mind)” that hints at Otis Redding’s power-soul style.
This is the kind of disc that won’t be on radio or MTV – but should be.
* Brooks & Dunn
“Red Dirt Road”
Arista Nashville
If you’re wondering where old-fashioned rock ‘n’ roll has been hiding out, well, it’s wearing a cowboy hat and boots and living in Nashville in the music of Ronnie Dunn and Kix Brooks.
On “Red Dirt Road,” they’ve tempered their famously aggressive honky-tonk raves with ballads in which the boys wrestle with their devils.
Most of the time, it works, especially when those ballads tell a story, as they do in “When We Were Kings” and the title track, “Red Dirt Road,” two takes on remembering things past.
While this collection is too mucked-up in tired country/pop traditions to break any ground, it has enough good music in it – “My Baby’s Everything I Love,” for starters – to shake a few hips.