Entertainment

New music from Christina Aguilera, One Direction, the Rolling Stones and more

You might not want to take home One Direction’s second album — it’s short on personality, but full of catchy melodies. (
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Albums of the Week

CHRISTINA AGUILERA

“Lotus”

★ 1/2

AFTER 2010’s dud album “Bionic,” the box-office stinker “Burlesque” and a highly publicized divorce, Xtina has come out fighting this time around. “One of me is wiser/One of me is stronger/One of me is a fighter,” she declares on the blustering opener “Army of Me.”

Sounds like another one of her enjoys those self-help books found by the register at Walmart. But perhaps more off-putting than the album’s clumsy emancipation themes is how “The Voice” star has chosen to contemporize her sound with overproduced dance beats and digitized vocals that often obscure her world-beating lungs.

Ironically, it’s on the more stripped-down cuts, such as “Sing for Me,” that she sounds most empowered and dynamic, but those affecting displays are few and far between.

ONE DIRECTION

“Take Me Home”

UNDERNEATH the squeaky clean image, the best boy bands usually hide a hint of rebelliousness and subversion. But short of wearing purity rings, it’s hard to imagine how One Direction could be anymore anodyne.

The Brit group’s second album is not short on catchy melodies, but what it lacks is anything remotely resembling personality. The likes of “Kiss You” and “Little Things” describe innocent romance with all the passion and excitement of an advertisement jingle, and even when the boys attempt to get rowdy on “Rock Me,” they manage to sound so placid that it seems like the group was conceived to act as a Ritalin antidote.

As a business venture, One Direction remain impressive, but as a pop group they’re completely forgettable.

Downloads of the Week

GREEN DAY

“Amy”

★★★

WITH Billie Joe Armstrong languishing in rehab, it’s perhaps fitting that the best song from their new album “¡Dos!” is a tender ballad written about the late British singer Amy Winehouse. Sweet and soulful, it shows Green Day can still surprise after all these years.

DEFTONES

“Leathers”

★★★

BELIEVE it or not, the California crew’s seventh offering, “Koi No Yokan,” is one of the best rock albums of the year, and “Leathers” is a particularly wild and brutal example of how they can still bring it. Juddering riffs attack from all sides, singer Chino Moreno screams as though he’s ready to cough up his spleen and the sound of a band still at the top of their game is undeniable.

SOUNDGARDEN

“Been Away Too Long”

★★★

SIXTEEN years after their last effort, grunge rock’s eternal bridesmaids are back, and this leadoff track from the new album “King Animal” shows they still have fire in their bellies. A thundering main riff and Chris Cornell’s primal howl make “Been Away Too Long” an unexpected jolt of the best kind.

CRYSTAL CASTLES

“Child I Will Hurt You”

★★★

THIS Canadian duo are a big name in the electronic world due to their unsettling electro soundscapes, but the final track on their new album “III” finds them in uncharacteristically genteel territory. It’s a wispy lullaby accompanied by singer Alice Glass’ soft coos, and a beautiful song that nevertheless holds a sinister undercurrent.

KENDRICK LAMAR FEAT. LADY GAGA

“Bitch, Don’t Kill My Vibe”

★★ 1/2

GAGA’S long-rumored duet with Compton’s new R&B star has finally surfaced as a viral video, and it captures her in fine form, supplementing Lamar’s slick rhymes with a smooth vocal to create a superior slow jam. It’s a refreshing change of speed from her usual high-octane pop.

LANA DEL REY

“Blue Velvet”

★★

IT may be hard to take Lana Del Rey’s doleful femme fatale routine seriously, but this cover of the song made famous by Bobby Vinton (lifted from her new EP “Paradise,” and used for a recent H&M marketing campaign), suits her down to the ground. She makes the melancholy her own and smartly avoids lapsing into emotional cabaret.

THE ROLLING STONES

“One More Shot”

★★

FOLLOWING the rollicking “Doom and Gloom,” the second new tune from the Stones’ recent compilation “Grrr!” is a more laid-back, honky-tonk blues number that won’t set the world alight, but it still serves up a swagger you won’t get from any other band of senior citizens.

WHITNEY HOUSTON

“Never Give Up”

TAKEN from “I Will Always Love You: The Best of Whitney Houston,” this sappy ballad full of platitudes and life-coach clichés is feeble beyond belief. As nice as it would be to uncover unheard gems in Whitney’s vaults, “Never Give Up” sadly demonstrates how bereft of ideas she was in her final years.