Brian Wilson, “Brian Wilson Reimagines Gershwin” (Disney Pearl)
What do George Gershwin and the Beach Boys’ prime mover, Brian Wilson, have in common? A jaunty, exuberant tunefulness for one thing, and a desire to push pop into high-art territory for another.
In “Brian Wilson Reimagines Gershwin,” Wilson dresses Gershwin tunes in surfer attire. With varying degrees of success, he turns the melodies into post-Beach Boys pop with stacked harmonies performed in a barbershop tradition that erases vocal individuality for the sake of a creamy harmonic blend.
The best cut is a pulsing, bouncy “They Can’t Take That Away From Me,” in which Wilson sounds like a child in the throes of puppy love jumping for joy. “I’ve Got a Crush on You,” garnished with piano triplets, is taken back to the happy days of early rock ‘n’ roll.
Two beyond-the-grave “collaborations” — obscure minor Gershwin tunes outfitted with wispy lyrics by Wilson and the instrumentalist Scott Bennett — are throwaways. Stephen Holden, The New York Times
Trace Adkins, “Cowboy’s Back in Town” (Show Dog/Universal)
For the past couple of years, Trace Adkins has been country music’s auteur of the clenched jaw. “You’re Gonna Miss This,” “Muddy Water,” “All I Ask For Anymore”: This string of sober family-and-God hits helped rebrand this muscled singer, shifting him from a winking oaf known for pushing the edges of country salaciousness to something more austere.
“Cowboy’s Back in Town” is Adkins’ first album for Show Dog, the label headed by country music’s aging king of thoughtful brawn, Toby Keith, to whose throne Adkins has appeared to be aspiring. But while Adkins shares a sense of gravity and an air of intractability with his new boss, he lacks the winking cheekiness and self-deprecation that have always been Keith’s aces in the hole.
Adkins’ clumsy approach to sexuality, which dates to well before his 2005 hit “Honky Tonk Badonkadonk,” continues here with a pair of pseudo-erotic bruisers: the pleasantly dopey “Ala-Freakin-Bama” and the dull “Brown Chicken Brown Cow” (sung in the bow- chicka-wow-wow pattern of ’70s porn-score parodies). His love songs — “Still Love You,” “A Little Bit of Missin’ You” — aren’t much more nuanced, pleasant enough but mundane.
The brightest moments here are the most ambivalent ones, on songs that merrily undermine and poke holes in all the sacred institutions: marriage, love, sports. The affecting “This Ain’t No Love Song,” of course, is just that.
The comical “Hold My Beer,” this album’s high point, revolves around a day of drinking rudely interrupted by the wedding of those doing the drinking.
And on “Hell, I Can Do That,” Adkins plays an angry couch surfer yelling at the athletes on television, and offers the album’s funniest line, deriding a film that has his woman crying: “A romantic comedy/Starring Matthew McConaughey.” Jon Caramanica, The New York Times
