Jennifer Lopez, “Love?” (Island Def Jam Music Group)
Jennifer Lopez’s latest single — the international smash “On the Floor” — opens with this line: “It’s a new generation of party people.” And luckily the singer has taken note.
Lopez, 41, isn’t the same star she was 10 years ago, when she dominated both pop and urban music charts. She has never been a musical icon, and she probably never will be. But she is a great entertainer — and that’s reflected throughout most of her seventh album, “Love?”
The Pitbull-featured “On the Floor,” which has the “party, party, party” vibe that has taken over Top 40 radio, is irresistible and addictive. It was produced by RedOne, the man behind Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance” and “Poker Face.” The hitmaker also works his magic on the celebratory dance jam “Papi.”
Lopez is best, though, when she collaborates with producer D’Mile. The two songs — “(What Is) Love?” and “One Love” — were leaked in 2009, but they don’t sound dated. If there’s something this girl can sing about, it should be love lapses — and when she does, she does it well. Mesfin Fekadu, The Associated Press
Zoe Muth and the Lost High Rollers, “Starlight Hotel,” (Signature Sounds)
Awards season was even more depressing than usual for anyone who loves smart, honest country music. Taylor Swift’s banal adolescent ramblings, all of Miranda Lambert’s wicked sass kicked out of her on that sappy song about the house. …
So imagine what a relief it is to hear real poetry, ingenious wit and pedal-steel perfection on Zoe Muth and the Lost High Rollers’ second album. A Seattle kid who somehow remembers everything Nashville’s forgotten, songwriter Muth sings in a slightly flat purr that works equally well on evocatively elusive country rock lyrics (“I’ve Been Gone,” “Before the Night Is Gone”), socially engaged folk ballads (“Tired Worker’s Song”) and “If I Can’t Trust You With a Quarter,” the greatest and funniest anthem ever written (with Anna Brown) for a honky-tonk angel with superior musical tastes.
The High Rollers are as tight and innovative a country band as you could ever want to hear; in a genre that has declared authentic and fresh dirty words, Muth and the boys make those lost values ring. Bob Strauss, Los Angeles Daily News
Emmylou Harris, “Hard Bargain” (Nonesuch)
Is it further evidence of the dreadful state of country music that barely a twang is heard on one of its greatest living practitioner’s new album?
Spotlighting 11 cuts written by Harris herself, “Hard Bargain” boasts nice rock, alternative and synth arrangements. At 64, her angelic voice is still distinctive, if more often breathless than ethereal.
Here, she’s concerned with lost companions — discoverer Gram Parsons, for the umpteenth time, on the moving-despite-its-cliches “The Road”; the recently departed Kate McGarrigle — and the world’s injustices past (“My Name Is Emmett Till”) and present (“Home Sweet Home”).
There is some welcome playfulness, too, in tunes about one of her rescue mutts (“Big Black Dog”) and, counterintuitively, mortal road weariness (“Six White Cadillacs”).
It’s all pleasant enough to listen to but, sometime in the future, it would sure be pleasin’ if the woman who’s done so much to expand and preserve the best aspects of country music really rooted around the roots again. Bob Strauss, Los Angeles Daily News
