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ORIGINAL SOUNDTRACK:
Logan's Sanctuary
(Emperor Norton)
Don't run to Movie Madness, desperate to find a copy of
Logan's Sanctuary, sequel to the '70s sci-fi Velveetafest
Logan's Run. It doesn't exist--except in the heads
of Roger Joseph Manning Jr. and Brian Reitzell, who plugged
in their Arps and Moogs and blurped out an imaginary soundtrack
to an imaginary film. Très bonne idée,
eh? Too bad they botched it like only retro hipsters could--by
taking their kitsch too seriously. The fine line between
cute and cloying is ignored, and while the sweeping bleeps
and chintzy blips would fit an Aaron Spelling space opera
perfectly, one has to ask: Who the hell would want to
watch an Aaron Spelling space opera? Wait, don't answer
that.
SPEEDEALER:
Here Comes Death
(Palm)
If the album's title is an accurate prediction for the
onanistic "real rawk'n'roll" mini-movement these over-amped
jokers helped spawn, we're all for it. On the off chance
you can't afford a copy of Sabbath's greatest hits, Back
in Black or Motörhead's Overkill, this will
do in a pinch.
We guess.
SPACCANAPOLI:
Lost Souls
(Real World)
Talk about a promising hook: Left-winger Neapolitan renegades
revivify the pan-Mediterranean sounds native to that most
chaotic of Italian regions with fiery politics and Dionysian
lust. Sadly, Spaccanapoli's meandering flutes, fiddles and
wails are vacuumed of street grit by the sort of slick studio
job most folkie types seem to feel is mandatory these days.
A few moments of elegance make this sanitized trip to Naples
bearable, but they really only suggest what might have been
if these pinkos had lived up to promises of pagan heat and
fist-raising passion. O' sole mio.
MARK KNOPFLER:
Sailing to Philadelphia
(Warner Bros.)
Remember Dire Straits? Listen to their albums instead of
this shrinking, Viagra-ed effort, which shows every minute
of its auteur's age.
BLACK EYED PEAS:
Bridge the Gap
(Interscope)
Any album featuring guest turns, either behind the knobs
or at the mic, by DJ Premier, Macy Gray, De La Soul, Mos
Def, Les Nubian and Wyclef Jean will have some moments that
smoulder, and at least a couple that burst into full flame.
Then again, there's something wrong when the one-track guest
stars are the most exciting thing about an album, isn't
there? Despite frequently beautiful jazz-funk production,
BEP's latest looks pretty wan when you stand it up against
hip-hop's best of the year.
LENNY KRAVITZ:
Greatest Hits
(Virgin America)
Surprisingly, not a CD-EP. Thirteen of the 15 tracks suck
without so much as an apology, but at least you can put
"Are You Gonna Go My Way" and "American Woman" on repeat
and pretend your life is a big, Technicolored car commercial
with appropriately kitschy "retro" touches. Then again,
such a strategy may ultimately call more attention to the
ragged seams marring Kravitz's cobbled-together fake Hendrix
bullshit than anybody wants.
COLOR ME BADD:
The Best of...
(Giant)
"Pop music sucks these days!" Yeah, you hear that every
bleeding minute, don't you? But surely pop music has always
sucked, and only geriatric ex-cheerleaders could ever insist
Ricky Nelson was somehow more of a Serious Musician than
Ricky Martin. Evidence A: Color Me Badd, a group of questionably
attractive boys who pranced like mush-headed marionettes
in manager-dictated outfits while wailing shallow ballads
to screaming teenage girls. In other words, N'Sync minus
10 years in the cheese-pop continuum. These utterly ridiculous
early '90s nitwits are now languishing where they belong--in
blackballed obscurity--and we can now laugh at those puritans
who somehow thought "I Wanna Sex You Up" would cause the
teen pregnancy rate to spike and bring about the fall of
Moral America. So next time the Backstreet Boys make you
feel like ripping out your fingernails and stuffing them
down the nearest mallboy's gold-chained throat, remember
Color Me Badd. All boy bands fall into the void soon enough.
Vengeance will be ours.
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