Some positions draw the mediocre and the listless. I’m enthusiastic about one record, and I do mean record. Every eyebrow in splendid place, “Breathless” distills the Robert “Mutt” Lange ethos into three minutes of ersatz euphoria as convincing as the real thing. As a song? Meh. My friend and I sat out The Corrs when, in a move for which I hope Bono answers in his heaven, they substituted for PJ Harvey during the opening night of the Elevation tour. We entered the arena as the band trudged through “Breathless.” It sounded like Keith Urban.
On record hating “By the Way” a few years ago, I haven’t changed a comma. It sounds ugly, kicking up a ferment that doesn’t resolve into anything resembling funk pop. R. Kelly’s self-aggrandizing squish, LeAnn Rimes’ attempt to resurrect the putrid corpse of “You Light Up My Life” are a tad worse than Em’s interpolation of Martika and several soggy country scrapers.
Longtime guests at this lodge know my distaste for Alicia Keys, but “Unbreakable” is almost her finest hour: a confident stroll through R&B tropes that requires her to underplay like a script given to Joan Crawford in 1950. It’s one of the few things with her name to which I’ve listened regularly.
The Hague
Red Hot Chili Peppers – By The Way
R. Kelly – The Greatest
LeAnn Rimes – You Light Up My Life
Meh
Eminem – Like Toy Soldiers
Emerson Drive – Fall Into Me
B2K – Gots Ta Be
George Strait – Run
Rascal Flatts – I Melt
Jo Dee Messina – Stand Beside Me
Sound, Solid
Rampage ft. Billy Lawrence – Take It To The Streets
Shania Twain – I’m Gonna Getcha Good!
Keith Urban – Making Memories of Us
Alan Jackson – Where I Come From
Kut Klose – I Like
Good to Great
The Corrs – Breathless
Alicia Keys – Unbreakable
The Roots – What They Do
Brandy – Best Friend
Elton John – Blessed
Mya ft. Silkk The Shocker – Movin’ On
Humanizing The Vacuum 