From One Direction, Justin Bieber, Kurt Cobain and More Album Reviews

— -- intro: This week we have a double dose of pop with new releases from One Direction and Justin Bieber, Kurt Cobain’s solo demos get a proper release, A Tribe Called Quest reissues its debut record in honor of its 25th anniversary, Jeff Lynne reboots ELO while Glenn Tilbrook and Chris Difford release a brand new Squeeze album and pop/R&B up-and-comer Alessia Cara releases her debut full length. It’s another truly diverse week.

quicklist: 1title: Justin Bieber’s “Purpose” (Deluxe Edition) ***text: Justin Bieber’s “Purpose” shows a surprising amount of promise. No, this record won’t redeem Bieber in the eyes of many, but here he has delivered a catchy, electro pop record. That being said, he has done so by biting someone else’s style. This record, while surprisingly listenable, wouldn’t exist without The Weeknd’s influence. Bieber and his crew of many producers do their best to imitate The Weeknd’s sultry grooves complete with the sped-up and slowed down voices peppering their way along the back of the mixes. He even goes into Weeknd-style falsetto breaks. So, in other words, if you ever wanted to hear Bieber’s version of a Weeknd record, that is exactly what this album delivers.

It seems to be a conscious move. Virtually every track, regardless of the producer, seems to reach for this blueprint. While this imitation is more than just obvious, it allows Bieber to blossom in unexpected ways and allows room for such club tracks as “What Do You Mean?” and the Skrillex and Diplo-assisted, “Where Are Ü Now?” Not only do elements of The Weeknd’s production habits sneak into the mix as keen influences, but there are also woozy, post-Drake allusions as well, especially on “No Sense,” which features Travis Scott.

This album is very different than Bieber’s past work. It is coated in an electro-chill sheen. When I first read that Halsey was going to make an appearance on “The Feeling,” I wondered how well it would work, but given Bieber’s new sonic-template, he and Halsey mesh better than initially expected.

You kind of have to wonder how Nas ended up on the bonus track, “We Are,” and surely there will be “Illmatic” purists who will take issue that he decided to participate on this record, but at the same time, in an odd way, his verse vaguely fits.

This album won’t make “Beliebers” out of all of us. It is still flawed, but it will make a lot of people probably say, “Wow, that was a slightly better record than I was expecting.” It’s an all right collection. Bieber is inching his way toward maturity. Maybe next time he will develop his own, mature sound.

Focus Tracks:

“Sorry” This is a stunningly effective bit of pop, with a strong, dance-hall reggae beat and some compelling synth work.

“What Do You Mean?” This is a neon-hued ode to indecisiveness with an early eighties synth-pop coating. The clock-like beat brings to mind a quiz show putting a contestant on the spot.

“The Feeling” (Featuring Halsey) While this song is by no way as powerful as anything on Halsey’s record, she and Bieber find a nice sense of electro-tinged harmony.

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quicklist: 2title: One Direction’s “Made In The A.M.” ***text: One Direction’s fifth album, “Made In The A.M.” is both their first since the departure of group member Zayn Malik and their last release before a planned hiatus. Truth be told, it leaves the group in pretty good standing. The production team behind this album turns up the rock elements here to give these songs punch. This might be their most confident and consistent album to date and with maturity, they seem to be losing that “Aw shucks, girl” attitude that fueled past hits like “What Makes You Beautiful.”

This is an album that plays decently, however, some of the same complaints of their past work still stand. These songs are sometimes bland, working off formulas proven by others. "Hey Angel” easily echoes the Verve’s “Bittersweet Symphony” and “Drag Me Down” sounds like a modern outtake from Maroon 5’s “Songs About Jane.” The worst offender in this realm is “Perfect” which sounds like a more rocking rewrite of Taylor Swift’s “Style.” In other words, while this album provides a casually satisfying listen on some level, One Direction will never please those looking for something more original.

“Infinity” is a raised lighter-ready power-ballad, whereas “If I Fly” has a surprisingly soulful edge.

On the flipside, “Never Enough” combines the influence of the Tokens’ version of “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” with Paul Simon’s work with Ladysmith Black Mambazo. Honestly, this song’s semi-African sounding influence sounds awkward and arguably inappropriate, especially at the point when as a group they let out a guttural yell, but you have to give them credit for at least trying to experiment.

“End Of The Day” has a very uncomfortable tempo-shift between the verses and the chorus, while “Olivia” seems to be a winking nod to the side of the Beatles that brought us “Penny Lane.”

“Made In The A.M.” is by no means a perfect record. It has some significant flaws, but at the same time, it probably delivers exactly what One Direction’s audience expects while nudging the group in a more mature direction. Is this bubblegum pop? Yes. Do these songs scream as if they were perhaps written by committee? Yes. But One Direction have never pretended to be innovative. The band has said that they're planning to go on a hiatus, and this album leaves them in an OK place.

Focus Tracks:

“Hey Angel” This song sets off the album in the right way, packing a surprising amount of heft, even if in places the lyrics sometimes make no sense. Is it about a woman? Is it about a deity? Is it about someone who is actually dead looking down on the Earth? In any case, it is a catchy winner and the biggest highlight of the record.

“I Want To Write You A Song” This song is both surprisingly tender and surprisingly stripped down. It brings to mind the Kooks’ under-rated song “Petulia."

“Love You Goodbye” While this song-title is in major need of a comma, this break-up anthem can’t help but gain some extra heft by the talk of the hiatus. Perhaps this would make a good final single from the album and a good closing track on a best-of collection.

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quicklist: 3title: Kurt Cobain’s “Montage Of Heck: The Home Recordings (Deluxe Soundtrack)” *text: Few albums this year will upset you to your core like “Montage Of Heck.” Meant as a companion-piece to Brett Morgen’s documentary, in its deluxe edition, this album contains 31 recently-discovered home-recordings made by Cobain. Most of these are very early demos of Nirvana songs recorded with very low-budget cassette technology. Not only does this mean that the songs themselves and the quality of the recordings are a bit iffy, but since these songs are half-formed in this state, it means that this collection finds Cobain singing half-written lyrics that sometimes get obscured by his guitar-playing.

I realize that the death of Cobain left a massive void in the rock world. He was an often misunderstood musical genius who changed the direction of rock music considerably for a number of years. This album does not show that revolutionary side. These songs and recordings were for the most part obviously made as demos for Cobain himself to listen to later so he could flesh these songs out and make them ready for primetime. The version of “Been A Son,” for instance, is a sad shadow of the version that ended up on “Incesticide.” Combined with downright unlistenable tracks like “Beans,” this album is just an insult to Cobain’s legacy and his fans.

While there are fleeting moments of fascination like the few sound-collages, sonic experiments and ads for live appearances, this is a rather disgustingly exploitative collection that sheds no new light on any of these later classic Nirvana songs. While some of these tracks may have served Morgen well as he was piecing together his documentary, they do not make a fitting release on their own. It seems to me that they were never meant to be heard or mass-produced.

If Universal really wants to reignite interest in Nirvana, they should issue a proper best-of that updates the previous self-titled collection to include single-worthy b-sides like “Even In His Youth,” “Sappy” and “Verse Chorus Verse” among a few others. Some of these songs got radio play at the time of their release and should be mentioned among the best.

In the meantime, I would urge any Nirvana fan to stay as far away from the “Montage Of Heck” collection as they can. Perhaps it wasn’t intended to do so, but 21 years after his death, this collection tarnishes Cobain’s legacy.

Focus Track:

“And I Love Her” The one keeper is this stray, stripped down Beatles cover. It would have sounded much better had Nirvana actually delivered a proper studio rendering.

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quicklist: 3title: A Tribe Called Quest’s “People's Instinctive Travels And The Paths Of Rhythm (25th Anniversary Edition)” *****text: Back in 1990, A Tribe Called Quest helped usher in a hip-hop revolution with its debut, “People’s Instinctive Travels And The Paths Of Rhythm.” A year after De La Soul’s epically playful “3 Feet High And Rising” and two years after the Jungle Brothers’ ground-breaking “Straight Out The Jungle,” as part of the Native Tongues clique, A Tribe Called Quest positioned itself as four jazz-loving cats with wisdom well beyond their years and a positive, Afrocentric outlook.

Listening to this album again, 25 years later, it has aged like the well-worn jazz and soul classics it samples. Not only is this album still just as fresh as ever, it is the kind of record that current hip-hop fans should go back and explore.

At the center of course, was Q-Tip, who at the beginning of “Push It Along” establishes his dominance. His butter-soft voice is the perfect companion to Ali Shaheed Muhammad’s beats. Phife Dawg, who later would develop into a fitting, more bombastic counterpoint to Q-Tip, here is only on roughly a third of the album’s tracks, but he establishes himself on classic, fun tracks like the Lou Reed-sampling, “Can I Kick It?” and the light-hearted “Ham ‘N Eggs.” People familiar with Quest’s history will note that this is the only album they made as a quartet. Jarobi White would leave the group during the making of “The Low End Theory” a year later in order to become a chef. He doesn’t have any real verses on this album, but he does serve as a hype-man while delivering spoken interludes. Fans of ATCQ should definitely check out his more recent collaboration with Dres of Black Sheep as Evitan.

A wide variety of moods are covered here. You get the funny road-trip with a pseudo Mexican twist on “I Left My Wallet In El Segundo” and Q-Tip rapping over Reuben Wilson’s great version of Marvin Gaye’s “Inner City Blues (Make Me Wanna Holler)” on “Youthful Expression.” “Bonita Applebaum” with its funky groove has been said to be the track to light the musical fire underneath Pharrell Williams. You can hear its influence all throughout his work with the Neptunes. Here, his remix is added as a bonus track, along with J. Cole’s excellent reworking of “Can I Kick It?” and CeeLo’s remix of “Footprints.”

This is a hip-hop album for the ages full of both thoughtfulness and youthful enthusiasm and this reissue gives it the treatment it deserves. I would have added Fatboy Slim’s classic remix of “I Left My Wallet In El Segundo,” but that would take it beyond the capacity of one disc, so I understand why it wasn’t included. In the coming years, let’s hope that “The Low End Theory” and “Midnight Marauders” get similar treatments as they cross the quarter-century mark.

Focus Tracks:

“Can I Kick It” (J. Cole Remix) Of the bonus remixes, this is the most successful, giving this track a modern twist. Cole proves that this song doesn’t need that “Walk On The Wild Side” bassline to make its point. The only hint that this song is from 1990 is Phife asking, “Mr. Dinkins, will you please be my mayor?”

“I Left My Wallet In El Segundo” According to “Beats, Rhymes & Life,” Michael Rappaport’s 2011 Tribe documentary, this song was inspired by Fred Sanford of “Sanford and Son” who would frequently make jokes about El Segundo. What has always cracked me up about this song is that it is about a road-trip from Brooklyn to California and in the middle of this voyage, Q-Tip leaves his wallet in a restaurant while ogling a waitress. This track of course was written for laughs, but if something like this happened in real life, it would be his own fault for losing his wallet in this manner.

“Go Ahead In The Rain” Built around a sample of Slave’s “Son Of Slide” this song sounds unlike any other Tribe song to date with its earthy sense of funk.

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quicklist: 4title: Jeff Lynne’s ELO’s – “Alone In The Universe” ****text: That’s right. Jeff Lynne has dropped a new ELO record. It, of course, has a qualifier attached. It isn’t credited to “Electric Light Orchestra” or “ELO." It is credited to “Jeff Lynne’s ELO,” but the moniker doesn’t really matter. It is pretty amazing that in 2015 Lynne can summon that classic ELO energy. This feels like an ELO record in every sense. The semi-Beatle-esque song-craft and Lynne’s excellent orchestration give this album a feel that easily would help it sit next to the vintage ELO work of the seventies.

Yes, Lynne’s work with the surviving Beatles in the nineties along with his longtime friendship and collaborations with George Harrison have rubbed off on him in all the best ways, even if “When I Was A Boy” kind of sounds like “Golden Slumbers” and “All My Life” has a distinctive late-period Beatles sensibility. “Love And Rain” is packed with a scuzzy funkiness while “When The Sun Shines On You” is somehow optimistic and ethereal at the same time. “Ain’t It A Drag” is a classic ELO rocker while “I’m Losing You” is a melancholy, sweeping blues with a melodic center.

It’s amazing how timeless this album actually sounds. Lynne has come back with great force, determined to recapture the essence of his group and he has fully succeeded. All along, his signature production style (which is especially noticeable in the recording of the drums) keeps the record anchored. Somehow Lynne has kept ELO evergreen after all these years.

Focus Tracks

“When I Was A Boy” Flat out and plainly speaking, this is Lynne at his most Beatle-y. McCartney must listen to this with a real sense of pride. It also sounds like a lost George Harrison tribute.

“Dirty To The Bone” Forget the fact that there’s nothing “dirty” about this song’s pristine sound, it captures ELO’s classic sense of pop in a very bright way.

“Love And Ran” You have to love the stink that is put on that bass-line. This song has an oddly sleazy sonic charm while the lyrics are much more positive. But given this backdrop, they are given some blues-driven heft.

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quicklist: 5title: Squeeze’s “Cradle To The Grave” ****text: As Lynne did with ELO this week, Squeeze’s Glenn Tilbrook and Chris Difford have reformed Squeeze and made “Cradle To The Grave” which sounds like a peak-level Squeeze record. Comparing any one of these songs to a number of the band’s past hits, this record comes off quite well. Maybe it is Tilbrook’s distinctive voice that draws a straight line from a classic like “Pulling Mussels From A Shell” to a new song like “Open,” but this album feels like a fitting continuation instead of a rebirth.

These songs have a slightly softer energy than the classic Squeeze material but somehow they are no less peppy. Tilbrook and Difford know what their band has always done best. The perky piano-led sing-alongs like the title-track and the surprisingly effective “Only 15” are powered by an evergreen drive. Nothing in this album’s sound dates it as being from 2015. It’s almost like these songs are previously lost, vintage gems which were recently unearthed and released. Even more interesting is how many of these songs appear to be about the disappointments of youth. Somehow, Tilbrook, now in his late fifties, still sounds at home singing about his high school experience on “Top Of The Form.”

This is also a record where they continually prove their musical versatility. Going from the string-arrangement of “Sunny,” to the slow country shuffle of “Haywire” to the new-wave synth-heavy “Honeytrap,” means that in three songs they make three truly remarkable stylistic leaps.

“Cradle To The Grave” is the kind of reliable record you’d often wish re-formed classic bands would deliver but rarely do. The fact such a record comes from a mere fraction of the band’s original lineup speaks volumes about Tilbrook’s and Difford’s command of their sound. This is an album that should please Squeeze fans both old and new. If radio still championed bands of this nature, this album would contain a number of hits. It’s nice to know the members of Squeeze can still impress.

Focus Tracks:

“Cradle To The Grave” This song sets the set off right with a caffeinated, gospel-driven stomp.

“Sunny” This stripped-down string number is really a beautiful piece of orchestration. The chorus is accented by some Moog-y-style keyboards.

“Nirvana” This is an interesting bit of sitar-assisted disco-funk with a sunny chorus and Squeeze’s signature knack for melody.

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quicklist: 6title: Alessia Cara’s “Know-It-All (Deluxe)” ****text: At 19, Canadian singer Alessia Cara has made a commanding debut record with “Know-It-All.” She’s branded as an R&B singer, but really she belongs equally in the electro-pop world and the fact that she often tends to be backed by tripping, authoritative beats makes her really stand out on the Def-Jam roster of artists.

“Outlaws” for instance is a proper pop song, backed by a power-house trip-hop rhythm. Similarly, opener “Seventeen” exhibits many normally annoying pop tropes (the slowed-down voices, the whistling) but these elements are downplayed by the slamming beat in the forefront and the fact that Cara really owns the track. There really is a sense of cutting-edge taste here that works. And even the use of Isaac Hayes’ “Ike’s Rap II” as the backdrop for “Here” exhibits good instincts. Especially when you consider that that track is also the basis for Portishead’s “Glory Box” and Tricky’s “Hell Is Around The Corner.” Cara one-ups them by also including stray bits of Hayes’ words from that song.

Vocally, Cara sounds like an equal mix between Halsey and Norah Jones with a slight hint of Martina Topley-Bird and yet on “Four Pink Walls” she seems to be updating the “New Jack Swing” sound.

This album showcases a sound that should please fans of classic, nineties R&B and modern electro-pop. Of course, just when you think you have Cara figured out, she delivers the acoustic ballad “Stone” which feature Sebastian Kole and the sensitive and beautiful piano-led “Stars.”

The deluxe version features three bonus tracks, including a stripped down “2:00 AM version” of “Here” which packs every bit as much as punch as the original rendition.

All throughout “Know-It-All” Cara shows a lot of drive and range. She’s definitely a singer to watch.

Focus Tracks:

“Seventeen” This opener crashes through your speakers. That beat feels cut at the snare and yet somehow that gives it more power. Its power wouldn’t be so successful if it wasn’t a catchy, appealing song to begin with. This is Cara’s ode to youthful innocence.

“Stars” This is a breath-taking ballad of the highest caliber and a huge single waiting to happen. Cara’s voice takes front and center and really grabs you.

“Here” There’s something really wonderfully authoritative about both versions of this song. Again, this is a wonderfully fresh use of a well-worn, classic sample, proving you can breathe new life into an old source of inspiration.

Next Week: I could list a variety of other releases here, but frankly, let’s face it. We are all just waiting for Adele to release “25.” Thankfully that release date is coming soon and we will find out if the album lives up to the nearly impossible expectations.

Missed last week's? Get the latest from Ellie Goulding, Seal, Bjork and more.

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