Keeping up with new music is turning out to be a lot harder than I expected.  Sort of like Open Salon.

ADELE: 21: 21 being her almost age – she actually turns 23 in May. The lyrics occasionally expose her youth, falling into hoary clichés - “set fire to the rain,” meh – but she hides her shortcomings with a husky, booming, soulful voice that shakes the rust off the words and makes her seem emotionally wiser and more experienced than her years.  It helps that the band rocks on the uptempo numbers; I especially like the drumbeats on the lead tracks, the gospel-y “Rolling in the Deep” and bluesy “Rumour Has It,” while “I’ll Be Waiting” practically demands a sing-along.  A couple of the ballads still seem a little too soft for my taste, but I suspect maturity will bring greater depth. (Sample: besides the hit “Rolling In the Deep,” try “I’ll Be Waiting.”)

Come and Get It: The Best of Apple: Oh, goody, 21 non-Beatles singles released by Apple.  They must have had great taste, right?  Well then, let’s see.  The Badfinger, Mary Hopkin and Billy Preston cuts stand up.  Also, Jackie Lomax’s “Sour Milk Sea” and Doris Troy’s “Ain’t That Cute,” both of which have, whaddyaknow, Beatles backing the vocalist.  But the rest, yikes.  An early James Taylor that’s horribly overproduced, a Ronnie Spector that would barely be an adequate Ronettes B-side, a Radna Krsna Temple that sounds exactly how you’d think, a reggae “Give Peace a Chance” that would have both Lennon and Marley spinning in their graves, not to mention a hoedown, a brass band and a song about the Fuh King (go ahead, say it out loud.)  I haven’t mentioned the ones with lyrics that go “Let us fight for Mickey Mouse” (oops, John and Yoko write that) and “She rides an astral moonbeam that sparkles in the night” (whew, no Beatle involved, though Ringo shared the artist’s interest in UFOs). Yes, my friends, the drugs were good back then. (Sample: Jackie Lomax, “Sour Milk Sea.”)

AARON NEVILLE: I Know I’ve Been Changed: I’m not a man of the church, not even close.  That doesn’t mean I can’t feel the spirit of gospel music, the urge to no longer be enslaved by earthly needs and to devote myself to a greater purpose.  When I want to feel the spirit, this is the record for which I’ll reach. Neville’s heavenly falsetto makes the righteous life sound attractive, while Allen Toussaint’s piano gives Joe Henry’s production a New Orleans R & B feel.  These songs are not about sin and punishment, but rather redemption and deliverance, and Neville sounds especially emphatic in light of his wife’s recent death and the continued languishing of his city post-Katrina. “Oh Freedom,” indeed.  (Sample: “I Done Made Up My Mind.”)

R.E.M: Collapse Into Now: R.E.M. was the last band that mattered to me, not because there haven’t been greater bands since, but because they were my obsession when pop music stopped being my raison d’etre and I became a suburban family man.  Over the years, like me, the band became complacent with age and I stopped following them. In 2008, around the time I was trying to shake off my own middle-aged rust, they released a comeback CD, Accelerate, that seemed to scream, “Hey, we can still rock, honest!”  I liked it, but at the time I wrote: career resurrection or dead-cat bounce?  Based on the new CD, the answer may be neither, but rather a new plateau at a more modest altitude.  While a couple of the cuts feel flabby, they still blast on cuts like “Mine Smell Like Honey,” “Alligator, Aviator..” and “That Someone Is You,” while “Every Day Is Yours to Win” is a gorgeous addition to their plainspoken advice song oeuvre (“I cannot tell a lie / It’s not all cherry pie / But it’s all waiting there for you” – P.S. Beware online lyrics sites; they’re often laughably wrong.).  Michael Stipe articulates the words, if not their meanings, better than in his youth, Peter Buck’s guitar is still a force to be reckoned with, and the Peaches cameo is more effective than the Patti Smith.  Well on in years, like me, they are still trying to stay sharp. So maybe they still matter to me after all.  (Sample: “Every Day Is Yours to Win.”) 

RURAL ALBERTA ADVANTAGE: Departing: Much as I love a lot of indie rock, I keep running into recurring problems: indifferent, lo-fi productions that irritate my weakening, old-fart ears; obscure lyrics that sound disengaged from the real world; mediocre vocalists who seem to take the microphone only because they wrote the lyrics.  Fortunately, this Canadian three-piece band avoids those pitfalls.  The musicianship is crisp; check out Paul Banwatt’s propulsive drumming on “North Star” and “Stamp.”  While singer Nils Edenloff’s voice wouldn’t be winning any American Idol contests, it is full of the passion demanded of lines like “I’ll hold you tight enough to crush your veins.”  The songs of love (mostly lost and mourned) are powerful emotionally, but also evocative of the wintry plains environment. (“The ice is gone, you’re leaving too.”)  Not everyone’s cup of tea, probably, but not a bad song in the bunch. (Sample: “Tornado ’87.”)

GIL SCOTT-HERON and JAMIE xx: We’re Still Here: Since Scott-Heron’s I’m New Here was one of my favorite records of 2010 and the xx’s album was one of my favorites of 2009, I was intrigued at the announcement that Jamie of the xx would be remixing Scott-Heron’s record.  Be careful what you wish for.  It turns out that I’m New Here is a bad choice for remixing. Scott-Heron’s original is spare (a mere 28 minutes) and verbal (partly spoken-word, set to simple productions like acoustic guitar or hand claps) and moving in both its depiction of growing up without a male parental figure and apologia for past misbehavior (he spent time in prison for drugs).  The remix fills out the production with electronica but buries the lyrics and disconnects much of it from context, rendering it inadequate for either contemplation or dance floor.  Bottom line: stick to the original. (Sample: “I’m Still Here.”)

 (Remix)

   (Scott-Heron original)

LUCINDA WILLIAMS: Blessed: There was a time, after the 1998 release of Car Wheels on a Gravel Road, when I thought Lucinda was the best artist on the planet. What happened?  As she’s gotten more prolific, she’s gotten more disappointing.  The content has gotten predictable. Song about someone who died too soon? Check.  Song about a guy who’s leeching off her? Check. Song about a beautiful loser? Check. Her slurred enunciation has gotten more extreme, as if it was an affectation or self-parody.  The songs feel dragged out; average song length on the new CD: five minutes.  Her songs of social significance, like “Soldier’s Song,” seem more like writing exercises rather than heartfelt expressions.  That’s not to say that she isn’t often compelling, and it helps that her backing band cooks, but some of the magic has disappeared for me.

YAWN: (Listened, not interested or not my cup of tea)

Lykke Li, Wounded Rhymes 

TALKIN’ ‘BOUT POP MUSIC:

Dear American Justice System,

Last week, I made an attempt to hear Kim Kardashian’s first single, “Jam (Turn It Up).”  By mistake, the website linked me to a recording of a wounded bird slowly dying to a dance beat.  I was offended by this insensitivity and complained loudly to the site, but they assured me it was indeed Miss Kardashian on the vocals.

This document, duly notarized, declares that if I ever attempt to listen to Miss Kardashian sing again, my family and friends are allowed to shoot me, stab me, strangle me, run me over with a truck, throw me off the roof of a tall building, or whatever else is necessary to take the last breath of life out of me, and it is to be considered by the courts as “justifiable homicide.”

Cranky Cuss

NEXT MONTH (tentatively): Paul Simon, Britney Spears, Radiohead, Mountain Goats

Song I really like from a record I’m still evaluating: “$55 Hotel” by Kate Jacobs.