Audio Files

By GINA VIVINETTO, GERRY DOYLE and HELEN A.S. POPKIN

© St. Petersburg Times, published October 29, 2000

JOHNNY CASH, AMERICAN III: SOLITARY MAN (AMERICAN) American III: Solitary Man is the third collaboration 'tween the Man in Black and rock and rap producer Rick Rubin. Like the others, it's an exciting though haunting collection of originals and pop music covers.

Kicking off with Tom Petty's I Won't Back Down, Cash then tears through a peppery guitar send-up of Neil Diamond's Solitary Man.

Cash's voice is still the foghorn blast it's always been, but it's tattered now, even more nuanced with rough living. He has been in ill health for several years, and that gives some of these songs a strange subtlety. Many of the tracks, all with minimal accompaniment of guitar, organ and fiddle, sound downright weighty and revelatory. Issues of mortality abound.

Cash takes U2's One and damns it to a place where further covers are impossible. If anyone else attempts the tune, he'll be embarrassed. In fact, U2 should leave it alone now, too. The organ bleat and Cash's unapologetic delivery will make your skin crawl.

Cash's originals such as Country Trash and Field of Diamonds are equally stripped down and exquisite, but, still, it's mesmerizing to hear Cash sing British goth rocker Nick Cave's The Mercy Seat, a heartbreaking story of a man wrongly condemned to death. Cash sings "I'm not afraid to die," over and over, and considering his frailty, it's chilling.

Harmonies on brighter songs come courtesy of popster Sheryl Crow and June Carter Cash -- better known as the Missus. And thanks be to Merle Haggard who croons with his old buddy on (the let's hope unprophetic) I'm Leavin' Now. Grade A-.

-- GINA VIVINETTO, Times pop music critic

DJ HURRICANE, DON'T SLEEP (TVT) Most of the time, the DJ just sits in the background, playing with two turntables, a milk crate full of records and maybe a mic.

But DJ Hurricane blows all that away.

His latest, Don't Sleep, is a collection of his production and record-spinning skills overlaid with a subway car full of big names in the rap game. He displays a Baskin-Robbins-like assortment of beats and grooves. And more important, each track fits its MCs like a tailored tuxedo. The track with Public Enemy, Freeze the Frame, is fast, driving and full of hard-edged East Coast samples. It really sounds like Terminator X is spinning the Technics. None of the tracks sound contrived, as most special-project albums do.

And the album is littered with big-name rappers. Xzibit, the Lost Boyz, Flipmode Squad, Adrock and Black Thought are a few of the higher-profile MCs swaggering their way through the disc's 18 tracks. Really, though, the award for best performance goes not to the voices, but to Hurricane. It doesn't sound like an album made up of different talent on each track. Hurricane pulls it all together into a coherent whole, which is no small feat considering most rappers would rather eat broken glass than collaborate with the competition.

Keep It Real, which features Faith Evans and the Lost Boyz, easily is the best track on the album. It features the infectious '70s disco hook from Cheryl Lynn's Got to Be Real that leaves the song revolving in the listener's head over . . . and over . . . and over. If clubs aren't bouncing around to this nightly, the club managers are flatlining. And, of course, what would a Hurricane album be without one of the Beastie Boys? The former DJ for the New York-based rap outfit hooks up with Adrock and the Roots' Black Thought for another stellar track, Kickin' Wicked Rhymes.

That's not to say every track belongs on the heavy-rotation list. For some reason, there's a tricked-up version of We Will Rock You featuring Scott Weiland. It doesn't rock, and its hip-hop qualities are lacking as well. And the lyrics of many of the songs don't say a whole lot, either. They just rhyme and make tracks on the wax -- but DJ Hurricane makes them sound good.

This album still is worth having. It's more than a curiousity or a gimmick -- it's a world-class DJ showing that he not only can piece together 18 tracks worth of fresh beats, but can make just about any MC sound like a crowd-rocking superstar. His technical know-how -- he also produced every song -- corrals a bunch of talent into one more-or-less seamless, hip-shaking whole.

Despite the collection of rappers on the album, DJ Hurricane takes center stage. And his talent makes Don't Sleep an eye-opener. Grade: B+

- GERRY DOYLE, Times staff writer

BJORK, SELMASONGS (ELEKTRA) Hey, who doesn't love a good soundtrack? I know I do. When I was little, I made my dad buy me the Jaws soundtrack so I could listen to it in the dark and get creeped out all over again. Then there's my scratched-up vinyl copy of Tubular Bells (from The Exorcist, silly!). And don't even get me started on Mary Poppins.

Now let's talk about Bjork's Selmasongs, the soundtrack she scored for the post-modern musical Dancer in the Dark (in which she also stars). It's seven tracks and just barely over 30 minutes long -- hardly satisfying for Bjork fans waiting for the follow-up of her 1997 release, Homogenic. But there are gems. Set to industrial sounds, Cvalda reveals why director Lars von Trier chose Bjork to play his lead, a vision-impaired factory worker who loves musicals and to whom bad things happen.

When Bjork's Icelandic fairy voice shouts "Clatter! Crash! Clang!" it's as magical as a child's improvised song fantasy. And film buffs take note: Co-star Catherine Deneuve sings along on Cvalda, 30 years after being dubbed inThe Umbrellas of Cherbourg and The Young Girls of Rochefort.

Equally charming is I've Seen It All, Bjork's duet with Radiohead's Thom Yorke. Selmasongs also includes a lot of the swelling orchestral movements one expects. Because, let's face it kids, Selmasongs is, like I just said a minute ago, a soundtrack. A great soundtrack, but like all soundtracks, not the full picture. Grade: B

- HELEN A.S. POPKIN, Times correspondent

© St. Petersburg Times. All rights reserved.