Review: Selena Gomez gets mushy and Playboi Carti pushes bold sounds on their new albums

Artiste: Selena Gomez and Benny Blanco

Album: I Said I Love You First

Rating: **

Selena Gomez and her producer-songwriter fiancé Benny Blanco are in a state of bliss, waiting for the wedding bells to ring. Their carefree way of life can be felt on the new album. Gomez had been unsure of her musical direction since her 2020 LP Rare but I Said I Love You First finds the singer at her most confident.

Consider the song Sunset Blvd, inspired by the couple’s first date, it unspools unhurriedly while retaining a certain degree of cheekiness in the lyrics: Feels so good, it hurts/ But you fill up what’s broken/ Woman of few words/ But for you, I keep my mouth wide open.

Call Me When You Break Up (featuring Gracie Abrams) carries forward the freedom the couple have found to play around. Though lyrically weak, there’s a breezy feel: I’m skipping cracks along the pavement/ Look, I’m emotionally bankrupt/ We’re so meant for each other.

Their freedom also becomes the album’s biggest problem — weak lyrics and music that we have heard before, like on Scared of Loving You: If I lose my s**t, promise not to laugh/ If I throw a fit and get photographed/ Would you take my side?

I Said I Love You First is more of a mood than an album and… you may not be in the mood to play it more than a couple of times.

 

Artiste: Playboi Carti

Album: Music

Rating: ****

Among the most awaited rap albums of the year, Music doesn’t disappoint. The overall sound is deliberately chaotic, allowing Playboi Carti to drip-feed fans varied beats and crafty lyrics.

A guttural howl greets listeners on Crush, which gets balanced by the relatively saccharine quality of Fine Shit. Carti is angry and that makes the album riveting. “I put your ass in the food chain”, Carti declares on Evil Jordan while on I Seeeeee You Baby Boi he hits the high register. He masters the beat and makes it work for him over 30 tracks.

Carti’s songs are unique for how he says things, rather than what he says. In the world of T-Pain, Auto-Tune is a tool for pitch correction and Lil Wayne took it towards distortion but for Carti it’s about texture, warping songs to offer them a new dimension. Listen to him flexing the syllables on HBA and the flow on Like Weezy. Melody for him is more of an afterthought.

Music is a bold title for an album but then you need to see Carti’s effort as a reflection of the current culture. Most of the songs clock in at under three minutes, yet none of the songs feel incomplete. What the album lacks is a sense of track arrangement. It feels like a bunch of raw files have been dumped for his musically-starving fans to enjoy.

 

Artiste: Miranda Lambert

Album: Kerosene (reissue)

Rating: ****

The fire and fearlessness of Miranda Lambert’s debut album Kerosene are revisited 20 years after the original release, with the addition of a previously unreleased track — I Don’t Love Here Anymore.

The album still sounds fresh and relevant, thanks to songs like Mama, I’m Alright on which Lambert sends her mother a letter, capturing notes of uncertainty (You can’t see a desert sunrise in the Bible) as well as appreciation (I’m strong just like you prayed I’d be).

Kerosene was meant to capture her quest for independence. Take the example of What About Georgia in which growing up comes without leaving home. It’s a pep talk for a grown-up man who is stuck on his dad. On Me and Charlie Talking, young love is celebrated while the moving-on song New Strings melds with the album’s vision of a young woman who likes challenges.

Twenty years later, Kerosene sounds inflammatory and sensitive, showcasing the joys of living life as if it were a country song.

 

Artiste: Brian Eno

Album: Aurum

Rating: *****

A surprise release from Brian Eno on Apple Music, it is a celebration of all things ambient. It gets delivered at a time when the genre is being celebrated more than ever before.

This is a man who in the 1970s swam from one project to another effortlessly. Remember The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway by Genesis? He gave the razzle-dazzle beauty to Roxy Music.

Aurum is meant to be an experience. Allow the mind to go on a trip for 80 minutes. Due to its use of spatial audio technology, which Apple Music exclusively boasts, the album is only available on Apple Music.

Eno is a pioneer of the ambient genre with albums like Ambient 1: Music for Airports and Apollo: Atmospheres and Soundtracks to his credit.

The music on Aurum gives the listener “a space to think”. Tracks like The Dawn of Everything and Cascade are magnificently peaceful and musical nuances are turned up a notch on Dark Harbour and Lamented Jazz.

In the era of AI, Aurum is an album that you can listen to while waiting for the paint to try or tears to disappear. Music is under threat? It’s what the musician has said recently: “The biggest problem for me about AI is not intrinsic to AI. It’s to do with the fact that it’s owned by the same few people, and I have less and less interest in what those people think, and more and more criticisms of what the effect of their work has been.”