Jamiroquai: Synkronized
(Sony Soho Square)
The Cat in the Hat is back in the house, moon-walking along on a disco beat, and sprinkling cosmic space dust on the dance floor. Jay Kay has the formula down pat by now, and he follows it with admirable aplomb, delivering a turbo-charged tribal mix of funky guitars, squelchy synths, swooping bass and breakbeat rhythms. It's dancey, it's poppy, it's eminently commercial, and there's probably a message for the environment buried in there somewhere. Just like Simply Red in the 1980s, Jamiroquai has become synonymous with solid, reliable but oh-so-boring white soul, and Jay Kay is pop's blue-eyed boy wonder, driving fast cars, dating Denise Van Outen, and staying sure-footed on the dance floor. The current hit, Canned Heat, cocks a snoop at Jay's detractors; Planet Home brims with green energy, while Soul Education covers the ABCs of gettin' down. Whatever Jay Kay does with his hands during that dance of his, it sure ain't brain surgery.
By Kevin Courtney
Various Artists: Baz Luhrmann presents Something For Everybody (Capitol)
With a surprise world-wide smash hit on his hands, film director Baz Luhrmann would be mad not to consolidate his pop star status and release a whole album for the benefit of those fans who sent Sunscreen straight to the top of the charts. If you're expecting more handy, homespun advice set to a middle-of-the-road dance beat, however, take my advice and just buy The Little Book Of Calm instead. Something For Everybody takes something from Luhrmann's previous film, opera and theatre productions, remixes them and serves them up for our delectation and delight. Thus we get to soak up kitchy disco versions of The Cardigans' Lovefool and Prince's When Doves Cry, both from the soundtrack of William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet, or bask in the glitz of show tunes such as Perhaps Perhaps Perhaps, as sung by Doris Day on the Strictly Ballroom soundtrack. There's a glint of hippie wisdom in Aquarius/Let The Sunshine In, from a 1988 musical, Haircut, but take my advice - apply lots of sunscreen before letting said sunshine in.
By Kevin Courtney
Marianne Faithfull: Vagabond Ways (Virgin)
Marianne has few peers in pop. Apart, perhaps, from Joni Mitchell and Leonard Cohen. In the sense that Faithfull's music arcs all the way from 1960s songs of unsullied innocence to this chillingly powerful collection, which tells of a life fully experienced - on every level. She describes her interpretation of Cohen's Tower of Song as "a manifesto of my life"; but that applies to every track. Better still, her own compositions, such as Wilder Shores of Love and File It Under Fun From The Past, are equally open and waiting to be applied to all our lives - as, if you're Irish, is After The Ceasefire. Marianne Faithfull, a woman who once was in the shadow of the Stones, now, with Vagabond Ways, artistically overshadows them.
By Joe Jackson
Ron Sexsmith: wherabouts (Interscope)
`Never said I would be your superhero/I never said that I was strong." Ron Sexsmith ain't kidding; he rarely does, though a puckish sense of humour sometimes breaks through his intimate, doom-laden world view. Just look at that pained cherub face on the cover. It reminds me of that Viv Stanstall joke about Bob Dylan: I've suffered for my art, now it's your turn. Yet this collection, driven by Mitch Froom's sensitive and adventurous production, delivers some truly moving songs to add to Sexsmith's already considerable canon. In addition, this apparently incurable lonesome Canadian throws off his cloak of misery for the intriguing The Idiot Boy and the equally fascinating One Grey Morning, with its bizarre Dixieland jazz band arrangement. Certainly, the impression is of an artist stretching himself; though the blues are never far away.
By Joe Breen