Woooooooooooooooo!
That’s the sound of a man satisfied.

Since watching the teaser on YouTube, which showed 90 seconds of Lenny Kravitz (with sole collaborator Craig Ross) build the bass-and-synth masterwork “Superlove”, I knew I had to hear the full song. Slightly cheesy lyrics aside, it’s well worth the wait. And now, having finally sated that six-month hunger, we can finally assess Black and White America as a complete album.

Lenny Kravitz isn’t an album artist. Then again, he isn’t much of a singles artist either. And if the critics are to be believed, he isn’t Rock, and he’s not quite Soul. Born biracial into the strictly segregated American record industry, where Black equals Soul/R&B and White for some reason equals Rock n’ Roll, he’s been forced to exist in a strange nether region between the two worlds. Yes, he’s kinda like Saffronia that way

It’s a fate he’s acknowledged for years, with aplomb, wit, and occasional frustration. So the album title comes as little surprise. He does address race on the title track, whose killer melody and instrumentation are only slightly dampened by its armchair racial philosophy, phrased so inanely it’s easy to forget believe Kravitz lived any of this first-hand. But for the most part, this album is about what all Kravitz albums are about — love, women, and Oprah-esque platitudes about being our best selves.

You see, there are a few key elements to be expected of any Lenny Kravitz album. A formula Black and White America does little to stray from. So with that in mind, let’s look at it through the prism of the Lenny catalog.

Don’t worry, kids. I’m grading on a curve.

The Great Big Fucking Huge Guitar Number
On every Lenny album, there’s that one cut — almost always a single, almost always in the first quarter of the album — that reminds the listener of Kravitz’s Rock n’ Roll creds, should they ever be in question. Walk down the street with this on and you’ll feel like Superman. That is, of course, if Superman wore tight leather pants, feather-lined jackets, and… well, OG Superman did have the boots right.

The BWA edition of this Lenny staple is the hard-edged, sexy “Come On Get It”. Its peacocky-yet-menacing stomp has already made Kravitz a nice chunk of change, after being featured in everything from movie trailers to the 2011 NBA All-Star Game. While it will never live up to the gold-standard Lenny GBFHGN, “Are You Gonna Go My Way”, it acquits itself nicely, ending up somewhere in the middle of the pile.
Grade: C+    Weighted: C
Further Study: Are You Gonna Go My Way, Where Are We Runnin’?, Battlefield of Love, Love Revolution

The Ballad of Romeo Blue
Lenny Kravitz has always been a hopeless hippie romantic, unafraid of emotion, unashamed of give-peace-a-chance optimism. This means he loves himself a good ballad. The problem is he doesn’t often make a good ballad. Downtempos ranging from generic to downright shlocky make up half of the average Lenny album (the big exception being 5, his tightest, most listenable album to date). However, when it’s good, it’s downright epic. And the Law of Averages is reason enough for him to keep trying, in the hope that he will one day create another “Again”.

The ballad selection on BWA is mercifully short, and the worst offender is undeniably Dream, an abomination with lines like “You can take away my freedom / but my spirit will run free”, and the chorus: “It all starts with a dream / the dawn of a new day.” It’s the sort of piano-driven dreck that belongs in the trailer of a mid-’90s movie about a brave young boy overcoming adversity with the help of a Very Special Friend™.
Grade: D-    Weighted: C
Further Study: Again, Heaven Help, Calling All Angels, Stillness of Heart, Stand By My Woman, I’ll Be Waiting

The Two-Ton Feather
Half of this song’s tension is created simply by walking the razor-thin line of non-commitment to loud or quiet. Powerful in its potential, this cut is the aural equivalent of Kappa-stepping up a storm on a hardwood floor… in bunny slippers. The fact that its dangerous flirtation with volume remains unconsummated leaves the listener with a discomfiting feeling of untapped potential — like a sneeze that never quite comes.

On “Liquid Jesus”, Kravitz’s falsetto floats above a bass-led arrangement, muffled to sound like it’s coming from your downstairs neighbor. It’s an effect that makes a living room chillout track out of a parallel-universe arena Rock anthem.
Grade: B+    Weighted: C
Further Study: Believe In Me, If You Can’t Say No, Breathe (Eric Roberson Remix), More Than Anything In This World

The Appeal to Cool
As someone constantly forced to endure hamfisted comparisons to Jimi Hendrix, Kravitz came to be viewed as something of a walking retro pastiche. Thus, his first dabblings with a more digital sound were mocked as attempts at youth-appeal by an out-of-touch old man. (Kravitz was 34 at the time.) Since then, he’s reinvented himself as a cat who, in any decade, is recognized as cool. Indisputably cool. Cooler than the cucumbers in Billie-Dee Williams’ refrigerator.

Still, you can’t help but greet “Boongie Drop” with a raised eyebrow. It’s a girls-in-the-club cut that feels tired when performed by your average Pop-Rap artist, and downright bizarre coming from Kravitz, who invites frequent collaborator Jay-Z onto the track, effectively upping its old-man-in-the-club ante. But by the end of Jay’s verse, you’ll find yourself warming to the song. It still isn’t an example of great songwriting — it isn’t even silly, insanely catchy earcrack. But Kravitz’s aforementioned cool and Jay’s charisma somehow manage to save the song from its own silliness.
Grade: C-    Weighted: D

And then there’s “Sunflower”, on which Kravitz invites rapper Drake to bond over their love of horticulture a good woman. Drake is a great choice for a collaborator — both are often mocked for being far more emotionally expressive than their contemporaries. But instead of the simpfest their detractors would have you expect, you get Lenny at his most absolutely modern — with producer Swizz Beatz continuing his streak of creating brilliant work that complements (and even advances) the catalogs of artists not named Swizz Beatz. Kravitz adopts a Jamiroquai-as-sung-by-Seal cadence on the spacey, wide-open soundscape, which inexplicably rests on a near-identical drum pattern to his previous album’s “Will You Marry Me”.
Grade: A    Weighted: A+
Further Study: Black Velveteen, Pay To Play

The Sunny Guitar Number
Unlike its older sibling — sometimes cocky, sometimes angry — this cut is the inexplicably happy person you can’t help but like (despite your recurring “Care Bears Come Alive” nightmares that make sleep an impossible dream). Often the album’s most Pop-accessible offering, thanks to its simple but infectious leading guitar chord, the sunny Lenny track is a So-Cal summer day on wax.

Yes, the Sunny Guitar Number is, by definition, enjoyable regardless of objective analysis. Still, I’m declaring “Stand” a winner. Standard Kravitz affirmations are couched in an infectious, retro beach party number, with a stomp-clap that will make you ignore the fact that he just told you to “get up and say ‘Yes I can’”.
Grade: B-    Weighted: C+
Further Study: Dig In, Lady, It Ain’t Over ‘Til It’s Over

The Funk Workout
Every so often, on the right Soul/Rock album, you’ll find the jam session where it’s just a man and his guitar… and the stickiest of grooves. Of course, on a Lenny album, it’s a man and his guitars – acoustic, bass, electric — as well as his piano, drums, and synthesizer.

On “Life Ain’t Ever Been Better Than It Is Now”, lyrics are naturally secondary to the groove — a stick-to-your-ribs drums/bass-guitar partnership that will make you wince like you just ate a whole lemon. This track will make you hope even more for the all-Funk album Kravitz has been teasing for the better part of the decade.
Grade: A-    Weighted: A
Further Study: Straight Gold Player, Come On And Love Me

Sure, Kravitz doesn’t reinvent the wheel on Black and White America, but its unexpected stylistic twists (the unfortunate “Boongie Drop” and the subtle nods to Thriller / Off The Wall-era Michael Jackson on “Sunflower” and “War”) cannot be ignored. And with its consistently strong musicianship (again, provided in its entirety by Kravitz and Ross) and an equally strong editing hand in the song-selection process, it makes for a compelling listen. Though it may lack an undeniable perennial like “Fly Away” or “I Belong To You”, Black and White America is arguably Kravitz’s most consistently enjoyable album since 5.

Plus, it has “Superlove”. That’s got to count for something.

Anyway, last week, designer(ish) Kenneth Cole sent out the following to his 11,000 Twitter followers:

Millions in uproar in #Cairo. Rumor is they heard our new spring collection is now available online at http://bit.ly/KCairo -KC

The response was overwhelmingly negative, with some enterprising San Franciscan affixing a convincingly professional decal (above) to the retailer’s SoMa location. However, the prize for Most Creative Response must go to the genius behind @KennethColePR, a satirical Twitter account that spent the past week pumping out hilariously inappropriate promos for KC, finally leveraging a charitable donation from the designer in exchange for radio silence. Highlight tweets include:

Wardrobe got you water-BORED? GITMO of our new spring collection. #KennethColeTweets
 

You’re gonna want to Abu Ghraib one of our hoodies before they’re gone. #KennethColeTweets

 

People from New Orleans are flooding into Kenneth Cole stores! #KennethColeTweets
 

Black Pants Down – Our new looks are more slimming than a Somali diet! #KennethColeTweets

  

South Africans won’t be able to tear APARTheid my new knits — they’re just that strong! #KennethColeTweets

SEE THE REST

The sad thing is, as ridiculous as these are, they are no more offensive than the very real KC tweet that inspired them. As he stated in the obligatory apology that accompanies fuckups of this nature, Kenneth Cole has a long history of bucking the fashion industry’s trend of bourgeoise apathy (perhaps because his brand was never considered high-end to begin with). So why he would squander such a respectable history for such a cheap attention-grab?

The answer is simple enough — we’re now over a decade into the Reality era, wherein we’ve seen behavior we’d have considered reprehensible in 1994 secure stardom for dumbass after calculated, undeserving dumbass. I mean, if the Lewinsky scandal had happened in 2005, she would have been inundated with offers (and she would have taken them, like she did when Mr. Personality finally rolled around in 2003) It has always been debatable whether all press is, in fact, good press. Over the last ten years, the answer has been a resounding “yes.” I’m just glad that every now and again, the public at large responds to the contrary.

Someone, pass this on to Groupon.

FUNNY OR DIE: 40 PRINCE FACTS

Got my tickets. Next Saturday @ MSG, baby. And I’m a dude!

But the funniest has to be the when this sexual awakening magically coincides with the failure of an artist’s last few singles to do any real business at radio or retail. It befell Christina Milian (masterfully), Ciara (somewhat less so), and now it’s got Keri Hilson in its patent leather clutches.

This, I think, is what cracks me up so much about Hilson’s latest small-screen adventure. She’s still got a career. Sure, the buzz singles from her upcoming album No Boys Allowed (a teasing come-on title akin to a faux lesbian makeout, if there ever was one) have all bricked, but to release this? Are folks that worried at Interscope?

Honestly, that shit’s funnier than the ahead-of-its-time “Spectacular”.

But awkward attempts at sexiness aside… Actually, let’s talk about the awkard attempts at sexiness. I kept wondering  why I wasn’t turned on by any of it. “What the fuck is wrong with me?”, I asked. I mean, this chick licked doors, made it pop, and got her Jane Fonda upside-down bicycle on.

Yet, I was bored stiff (where I should have been stiff as a board). She isn’t a remarkable dancer, so her moves didn’t do it for me. The song itself is pure, generic garbage that sounds like a reject from Brooke Valentine’s 2004/5/whenever album. The video concept was a collection of caper flick clichés, blended into an incomprehensible mess. I mean, I liked the set-up well enough – Keri, along with Dawn “Indistinguishable from the Other One” Richard and JoJo (for those who care) are assassisns trained by Faith Evans (for whom I care, despite a shitty album), on a mission to take out Hilson’s ex/lover. Turns out the punishment they had in mind was Death by Snoo-Snoo, as the final showdown goes from Mexican standoff to some half-assed handcuff play in the space of ten confusing, utterly unremarkable seconds. Quite frankly, I was over it before it got started.

Look, I’m not against a pop star being overtly sexual. Hell no! Rather, I welcome it. But I reserve the right to mock you while appreciating your hellicopter game. I just think it’s wise to sex it up when your career’s at its peak. Ask Janet, Mariah, Beyoncé. It’s much more believable when you say your sexification is about being true to yourself when the whole world’s at your feet.

 Now, I feel it’s only right to let the outgoing Miss Unintentionally Hilarious Sexuality take her last walk as queen.

Kiely Williams  – Spectacular

Well, taking a page from Napster-era high-school girls, Carlson just totally wrote a series of outrageous emails to a Philly journalist, pretending to be Keith Olbermann. Take that, betch!

HUFFPO: TUCKER CARLSON SENT EMAILS POSING AS KEITH OLBERMANN

While I only partly agree with his critique of the Comedy Central duo (specifically the false equivalence of the Olbermann/Beck parallels), he’s definitely reading from my most private journal when he rips on the Democrats for waiting patiently for reason to return to the Republican party like a little latchkey kid who swears Poppa will be back any minute now. He just went to buy some smokes. Three weeks ago.

Here’s a bit of what Maher had to say:

“The message of the rally, as I heard it, was that, if the media stopped giving voice to the crazies on both sides, then maybe we could restore sanity. It was all nonpartisan and urged cooperation with the moderates on the other side forgetting that Obama tried that and found out…there are no moderates on the other side. When Jon announced his rally, he said the national conversation was dominated by people on the Right who believe Obama’s a Socialist and people on the Left who believe 9/11’s an inside job, but I can’t name any Democratic leaders who think 9/11’s an inside job. But Republican leaders who think Obama’s a Socialist…all of them.”

To read more and watch the video, check out Mediaite’s take on the the segment:
MEDIAITE: Bill Maher Disses The Daily Show Rally: It’s Better To Have A Rally That’s “About Something”

I first heard this about six weeks ago. Maybe it was my incredibly manic schedule at the time (hence the prolonged radio silence), but I didn’t really warm to it, despite my excitement at the production credit. Yes, this is the long-awaited reteaming of the Neps and Daft Punk, almost a decade after the spacey, dream-like “Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger” remix back in ’01. The drums thump hard, yet are so synthetic in sound, it’s like being throttled with a foam bat.  The synths are dreamy yet ’80s yet Euro. Pharrell makes the best use of his amateurish falsetto since “Frontin’”, finally meeting his full potential as Rick James’ super-freak heir apparent.

Mariah Carey – “When Christmas Comes” – 2010

Song of the Decade be damned, I always thought “Circles” was the best thing about The Emancipation of Mimi. It was soulful, well-written, and unexpected in its maturity. “When Christmas Comes” is its lesser cousin with the December birthday, and reunites MC with Philly Soul/Hip-Hop genius James Poyser. While this isn’t their greatest work together, it’s a welcome addition to their growing catalog. Indeed, it feels a little derivative and inauthentic at its start (especially in the middle of an album of traditional holiday ballads). But somewhere before the bridge, you’ll find your feet stomping along to the heartbeat drums and percussive horns.

Of course, it doesn’t hurt that one of the greatest voices in contemporary voices is gliding over it all.

Dwele – “How I Deal (feat. Slum Village)” – 2010

Recession-conscious content is bullshit to me — whether presented in the form of television, fashion, or real estate – a cynical, condescending crock of shit intended to craftily separate you from the pennies you now have to guard even more jealously. Fucking assholes (especially that Shameless trailer… don’t get me started).

But this cut from everyman soulman Dwele rings with a depressing sincerity. It’s intensely bounce-worthy, and anyone in this post-Hope-and-Change economy will feel a bitter, knowing twinge when he describes “waiting for Obama to kick in.”

She also is a colossal tease. And kind of a hypocrite.  She spends entirely too much time explaining she technically isn’t Biggie’s widow (the two had separated at the time of his death), and she’s been remarried for over a decade. But then she peppers every other song with a winking Biggie reference that seems to stake her claim to her former position in Hip-Hop royalty.

From “You Gets No Love” to “Mesmerized”, Evans has made slyly referencing Big one of the hallmarks of her career. It would be acceptable, even kinda cute, if she didn’t didn’t try to distance herself from his memory:

While Evans was elevated to hip hop’s version of the bereaved first lady, she didn’t accept the idea that she should beocme one of those long-suffering, seemingly asexual widows like Betty Shabazz or Coretta Scott King.

“We weren’t together when he passed, ” explains Faith, shrugging her shoulders and shaking her head. “What am I going to do? Act like we were?”

in a magazine article for which she goes on to play the merry widow on the cover:

Now, I’m not begrudging her the right to move on with her life — on the contrary, I wish folks like Lil’ Kim would do the same. But there’s something about her denouncing her widowhood as she uses it to line her pockets, that comes off more than a little Courtney Love.

And there are few things worse than being likened to Courtney Love.

Still, I’ve got nothing but love for Faith Evans. Talent is something in such short supply that when someone consistently sporadically puts out great material for a decade (capped off with the stellar The First Lady album), you allow them their imperfections. The woman’s a vocal powerhouse, and is as authentically soulful as it gets in the R&B-Pop sphere. Far as I’m concerned, she’s what Mary Blige wishes she could be.

And speaking of Mary, anyone still concerned with the supposed mid-’90s feud between the two former collaborators could take the title of her latest album, Something About Faith as a subliminal (to borrow a favorite Hip-Hop malapropism) dig at MJB, possibly with a parenthesized “Instead” thrown in.

Highly doubtful, especially as this is a woman who had previously released five albums, four of which were called “Faith”, “Keep the Faith”, ”Faithfully”, and “A Faithful Christmas”. Oh, and her autobiography was called “Keep the Faith: A Memoir”. While the jury’s still out on whether these titles are attributable to her extreme narcissism or mere unoriginality, I doubt Blige even factored into this latest decision.

So, after wetting our appetites in the summer with the sublimely laid-back Snoop collaboration, “Way You Move”, Faith returns with a set of songs so mediocre as to be barely worth the illegal download time. But to add insult to injury, we’re given a fresh set of Big references that are supposed to titilate, but end up falling flat.

Past Big-referencing songs like “Mesmerized” and “You Gets No Love” were strong cuts without the gimmicks, respectively building on old-school funk and street-corner sass to create solid, infectious compositions. But the Keyshia Cole-assisted “Can’t Stay Away” is barely listenable until the “Hypnotized”-aping bridge, and the Raekwon-assisted “Everyday Struggle” is a pathetic string of clichés that sounds like it was written by a needlepoint kit. (Seriously, the beat is brilliant, but the lyrics are insufferable enough to negate her entire songwriting catalogue. In fact, the lyrics are so inconsequential, it would seem the song’s sole reason for being is the Big-referencing title and track.)

And the tragedy is, these are the most interesting cuts on the album! Even the already-familiar “Way You Move” gets a slightly overworked makeover, with superfluous ad-libs and too-long hooks that rob it of some of the charm of the demo version. Lead single “Gone Already” sounds like something  Toni Braxton would scoff at as too banal. “Party” and “Sunshine” try to recapture the brilliance of First Lady‘s “I Don’t Need It” and “Jealous”, and fall on their (unoriginally titled) asses. “Troubled World” starts with Faith giving a range-busting vocal run that goes from her normal alto-soprano to a throaty baritone indistinguishable from Bilal’s. But shortly after, it falls into the realm of the mundane and never really returns.

Can’t Stay Away

Everyday Struggle

And that’s my real problem with this album. It’s not necessarily bad — it’s just… there. And for a singer/songwriter of Evans’ talents, that should never be enough. I’d love to close on a good zinger, but this album has left me so uninspired, I’m just gonna…

Also, I’ve pointed out in the past how her fixation on chart dominance makes her forego originality in favor of formula. Some would argue she did it once or twice in the ’90s, but I doubt any will dispute that since her comeback, the Ghost of Singles Past has been stuck in “We Belong Together” mode whenever she called him up for a recording session.

But it looks like he’s gotten over that — at least for this holiday season — and has reached back to her modern classic “All I Want For Christmas is You” as the soundtrack to which he stalks the halls of her recording studio every night.

Alright, I’m dropping that metaphor now.

So, for those eagerly awaiting the follow-up to her 1994 Christmas album, this should hold ’em for another month. I’m actually not being facetious — “Merry Christmas” continues to do some serious business for Carey every year. And “All I Want” is probably the last source of of good will from the general public she has.

While I was never a major fan of the radio single for “All I Want for Christmas is You”, I do enjoy the 2000 remix that sounds like something you’d hear in an Atlanta strip club on Christmas morning.

 All I Want For Christmas Is You(So So Def Remix)

On “Oh Santa!”, Carey may be pulling the energy and cheer from the original. But the attitude is all remix. (If I could actually decipher any of the words, I’d probably be able to confirm her use of the shlocky slang and syntactical abortions she’s gotten so fond of in past years).

Still, I can’t lie, this is some catchy stuff. I’m not big on Christmas, and I’m not big on cheery Christmas records, but somehow, this hits all the right notes.

See, attempting Christmas fare in a contemporary Pop arena is a delecate balancing act. As is often the case whenever a grown man or (more often) woman is forced to treat Santa Claus like an entity no less real than Chuck Norris or the chupacabra, tongue must remain in cheek for the duration of the farce. And just like your cheeks hurt from fake-smiling all night when that almost entirely unfamiliar aunt visits for Christmas dinner, balancing false childlike innocence with knowing, adult longing can get old pretty quickly.

Luckily, Mariah — the drag-queen Mae West of Pop music — has been doing just that for over a decade, so she knows how to refer her all too adult desire to not wake in a cold bed on Christmas morning to the same problem-solver her nieces consult with their Hello Kitty demands. Speaking of children, I hate them on records. Especially laughing/singing/chanting kids. So the choice of age-ambigious voices for the chanting bits was brilliant. In my mind, thesy belong to third-year NYU and FIT undergrads unable to make it back to Nebraska for the holidays. So rather than have the holidays be a complete waste, they’re pulling out their sluttiest Mrs. Klaus outfit for Jingle Booze night at O’Malley’s.

Sigh, maybe I do love the holidays after all.

Oh Santa!