CD reviews: Charli XCX; Nicki Minaj; D’Angelo and The Vanguard
Charli XCX has become a ubiquitous presence on other people’s hit songs – from Icona Pop’s I Love It (which she co-wrote) to Iggy Azalea’s ubiquitous Fancy.
Sucker
Atlantic
Charli XCX has become a ubiquitous presence on other people’s hit songs – from Icona Pop’s I Love It (which she co-wrote) to Iggy Azalea’s ubiquitous Fancy.
The 22-year-old English singer-songwriter (born Charlotte Emma Aitchison) began creating music at the age of 14 – stuff she has since called “terrible MySpace music”. She has demonstrated skill and savvy for her age, gilding everything she touches with a dark, bratty edge.
Unfortunately, her third solo album, Sucker, emphasises the bratty element. Where True Romance is dreamy and artful, Sucker is more direct and obvious. “I don’t want to go to school, I just wanna break the rules,” she sulks on the album’s titular opener. The petulance that made I Love It so delicious is there, but the cleverness is missing.
The album has its strong moments, such as the lethargic Santigold-ish Gold Coins, the cutesy fun of Famous, and of course Boom Clap, which is already – deservedly – a global hit. Charli XCX’s talents are obvious but Sucker is largely flat and formulaic.
The Pinkprint
Cash Money/Republic/Young Money
If this year in music has been about anything, it has been about women speaking up.
A diverse group of artists, from Taylor Swift to Jenny Lewis, Iggy Azalea to Beyoncé, spoke articulately and directly about the triumphs and tribulations of modern womanhood - not just through the lens of romantic relationships but on its own terms.
And now it's Nicki Minaj's turn. She dominated the rap game in 2014; named her the 11th highest paid rapper in America, an incredible feat for a woman. And her cultural currency is even higher.
She has built her reputation on toughness, audacity, and punky vulgarity. All that is present on these 20 tracks in a perfunctory way, but underneath flows a deeper current of introspection and personal ambivalence.
Rap's relationship to vulnerability has always been fraught, and you can hear Minaj navigating that tension in almost every song. confounds all expectations, offering something totally new. Minaj can't be all things at once, but all power to her for trying.
Black Messiah
RCA
Following a 14-year hiatus, D'Angelo, genius of soul, is back with a fantastic new album that makes me wish he had never gone. D'Angelo manages to sound simultaneously new and old, now and then - he sacrifices none of himself in the struggle for relevance and simply schools us about what we came from and where we are going.
Anyone acquainted with soul music history will think of Sly Stone's when they hear . Both feel salty, eclectic, loose, and seductively narcotic. But unlike , is not anchored by weary cynicism: it bubbles upwards, effervescent and buoyed by hope.
Like many great albums, feels less like a collection of discrete songs than a continuous flow of moments. The sounds are amazingly protean, morphing from funky to wild to mellow to simply gorgeous and back again.
The album is quite clearly an homage to the deep roots of black music, but it never feels like a period piece. As the album's liner notes suggest, "We should all aspire to be a Black Messiah."
