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Summer's sonic boom begins

Long-awaited recordings by Black Eyed Peas and Coldplay are just the first in a summer of aural offerings.

By BRIAN ORLOFF
Published June 7, 2005

Summer means blockbusters for Hollywood and the big guns in the music business come out too. Shelves will be packed this month with new albums from acts as disparate as the Backstreet Boys, the Foo Fighters, ex-Smashing Pumpkins frontman Billy Corgan and rapper Missy Elliot.

Today is the first Tuesday in June, the kickoff to the summer season, marking the release of hotly promised albums by party-hearty rappers the Black Eyed Peas and the much-anticipated third album from Brit popsters Coldplay.

BLACK EYED PEAS, "MONKEY BUSINESS' (INTERSCOPE): Ever since 2003's fun-loving Elephunk, which found the group expanding to a quartet with the addition of singer Fergie, the Peas' music has been unmistakably commercial. It seems the catchier the material, and the bigger the hooks, the more the band's social consciousness dilutes. Monkey Business, as the title suggests, offers little to combat that, continuing the celebratory approach of the band's annoyingly ubiquitous single Let's Get It Started.

But this is summer, and Monkey Business offers 15 club-ready ditties that are as satisfying as a snow cone on a hot day. Listen to My Style, featuring Justin Timberlake, with its funktastic, crunchy groove, and try not to bop. The lineup of high-profile guests continues with appearances by John Legend, James Brown and Sting, who adds vocals to Unison, a "let's all love each other and get along" attempt at lyrical depth riddled with platitudes.

The Peas are best when they stick to sassy material like the relentlessly groovy Disco Club and Don't Lie, which finds Fergie belting over a sunny guitar-led backdrop. It's not exactly deep, but, until September at least, that shouldn't matter. B-

COLDPLAY, "X&Y' (CAPITOL) X&Y, Coldplay's third and most epic album, comes after months of scrapped recordings, a costly postponed release, and right on the heels of the band's largest tour ever (it hits Tampa's Ford Amphitheatre on Sept. 14).

All of this amounts to major pressure on the band, and it shows on X&Y, with its dense sound and arena, or in this case, amphitheater-ready grandiosity. The album clocks in at just over an hour and, apart from one hushed hidden track, it's all swathed in chiming guitar, twinkling keys and singer Chris Martin's warbly tenor, which at emotional moments spirals into a nervy, bewitching falsetto. Songs such as opener Square One with its spacey, ethereal introduction announce this newfound bombast, though Coldplay never seems cocksure about its aspirations to greatness.

That's because Martin exudes a vulnerability and gawkiness that belie his status as an A-list rock star, tabloid fodder and husband to actor Gwyneth Paltrow. Still, the album's textured feel and eclectic influences - including riffs and color from '70s-era Krautrock band Neu! - feel somehow calculated.

Martin's lyrics are unabashedly sentimental, even bordering on cloying. Songs such as the lovely Fix You offer too-precious gems such as: "When the tears come streaming down your face/ when you lose something you can't replace/ when you love someone but it goes to waste."

More successful is the kinetic White Shadows , with riveting tension between guitarist Jon Buckland's terse riffs and drummer Will Champion's snappy backbeat. And Low - does its title reference David Bowie's 1977 album Low with its German-synth inspired sound? - builds upon layers of fuzzy guitar until its breakaway chorus crescendoes in Martin's urgent cry, "all you wanted to be/ living in perfect symmetry," and a buzzing instrumental backdrop.

X&Y - its title is said to reflect uncertainty in life, like the variables in a math equation - is a solid album that rewards multiple listens. And it will provide a pleasant summer soundtrack in the amphitheaters. But with a little more musical temerity, Coldplay could really blossom into the band it aspires to be.

[Last modified June 7, 2005, 02:15:48]