Ann Powers, Pop Music Critic

November 8, 2009

Adam Lambert: Cool, calm and eclectic

Kicking off another typical seven-day work week in the offices of his management company 19 Entertainment, Adam Lambert fixed his gaze on his own pretty face. Scattered across his publicist's desk were proof sheets from a photo session with the singer, who will release his debut album on RCA Records, "For Your Entertainment," Nov. 23. The shots captured Lambert in typical glam-god poses: peacock, street tough, space oddity, freaky adventurer in the boudoir of the damned.

October 25, 2009

CRITIC'S NOTEBOOK

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's discord progression

In pop, as in the sporting world that provided a model for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, one fan's dream is another's disappointment. This is true of the annual artist inductions, which elevate some while ignoring others -- Rush was robbed again! -- and the pattern will repeat Thursday and Friday in New York at the hall's 25th anniversary concerts.

June 26, 2009

AN APPRECIATION

A performer who kept transcending boundaries

Michael Jackson was not of this world. He always seemed to defy gravity, as a dancer whose signature move was so incomprehensibly graceful that it earned the extraterrestrial title "the Moonwalk," a singer whose tenor was high but strong, a rhythmic instrument that went as sweet and tender as a clarinet on the long notes -- and as a man whose physical presence was first androgynous and then seemingly cyborgian, forcing his astounded public to puzzle over their assumptions about race, gender and age.

February 9, 2009

2009 GRAMMY AWARDS

The Grammys turn up the volume

If the apocalypse is here, we might as well enjoy it. Stomp down the doors of your comfort zone. Hook up with unlikely new friends. Get noisy. Have a party before the flames consume us all.

September 24, 2008

POP MUSIC

Rilo Kiley's Jenny Lewis mixes it up on new CD

Jenny Lewis no longer calls Silver Lake home, but she hasn't moved to Laurel Canyon. The woodsy bungalow she shares with her companion and musical collaborator, Johnathan Rice, sits in an obscure corner of the San Fernando Valley, not too far from either of the neighborhoods favored by L.A.'s rock elite, but on its own ground.

September 19, 2008

POP MUSIC REVIEW

Live: Janet Jackson at Staples Center

Control is the ruling principle of Janet Jackson's career and, as far as the public knows, of her life.

September 21, 2008

Dolly Parton loves her '9 to 5' gig

Dolly Parton is at her most delightful when she's laughing at her own jokes. Perched on a leather chair in the den of producer Bob Greenblatt's gorgeous Craftsman home in the Hollywood Hills on a mild September day, the 62-year-old country music queen punctuated an interview about her work in "9 to 5: The Musical," premiering this weekend at the Ahmanson Theatre, with zingers she's admittedly used a hundred times before. She'd let forth a line -- "People always ask me if I'm offended by all the dumb blond jokes. I say no, because I know I'm not dumb, and I know I'm not blond!" -- and follow it immediately with a knowing peal of a giggle. The laughter was neither self-deprecating nor vain; it was her way of celebrating the joy of shtick.

September 12, 2008

POP ALBUM REVIEW

Review: Metallica's 'Death Magnetic'

Metallica "Death Magnetic" (Warner Bros. Records)

September 7, 2008

Ne-Yo, Keri Hilson and the style that lasts: R&B

LOOKING classic-casual in a summer blazer, gray fedora and matching silk scarf, Ne-Yo leaned over his laptop in a West Hollywood recording studio one mid- August afternoon, playing selections from "Year of the Gentleman," his third solo album, out Sept. 16. "The thing that sticks out on this record is the drama," said the 25-year-old singer-songwriter and soul ace as he pushed a button and the swirling ballad "Lie to Me" blasted out of the room's stereo system. "You can almost see it."

August 26, 2008

POP MUSIC REVIEW

Live: Radiohead at the Hollywood Bowl

AN ELECTRIC drone wafted through the air before Radiohead took the stage Sunday at the Hollywood Bowl. It was the ideal sonic prologue to the beloved English group's latest Los Angeles appearance. Atonal and abstract, the drone invoked contemporary classical music, just as the curtain of long tubes encircling the band's equipment suggested the churchy majesty of a pipe organ. But the fuzzy sound also had an edge, hinting at guitar freakouts to come.

July 15, 2008

CRITIC'S NOTEBOOK

Live: Sub Pop's SP20

REGIONALISM IS dead: That's one of many extreme ideas floating around pop music circles during these tumultuous times. The theory goes that, as the Internet turns music thoroughly ethereal and links in people from Athens, Ga., to Australia, the need to form community with one's neighbors -- or to share an artistic vision with them -- will wither.

July 6, 2008

CRITIC'S NOTEBOOK

Jonas, Miley and Demi: The kids are upright

A TORRENTIAL squeal will hit the Southland next week, when the Jonas Brothers play in Irvine and Anaheim, and there'll be much parental chatter about how this latest craze is affecting our kids. Adults love to fret about the chilling effect of Miley Cyrus’ bared shoulders or of Joe Jonas' crucifix-adorned purity ring. But there's also music to consider.

June 27, 2008

POP MUSIC REVIEW

Live: George Michael

George Michael really knows his crowd. When he gave some grief to talk-show shrink Dr. Phil McGraw midway through Wednesday's show at the Forum, it seemed like simple celebrity-on-celebrity taunting. In fact, Michael was nodding to some of his most loyal fans.

June 19, 2008

POP MUSIC REVIEW

Live: Tom Waits

PHOENIX -- The sprawling, brawling concert Tom Waits gave here Tuesday, opening his Glitter and Doom tour with two nights at the city's grand old Orpheum, found its central image, unsurprisingly, in a hat. This wasn't just any of the countless porkpies and fedoras that have sat upon the head of rock's great junkman chorister. It was a mirrored bowler that Waits donned while performing the psychedelic circus tale "Eyeball Kid." The shards of glass made the light in the room bend and sparkle, momentarily turning this baroque revival theater into a steampunk Laserium.

June 14, 2008

POP MUSIC

George Michael embraces his dualities

GEORGE MICHAEL is not a whiskey-swilling geezer like Keith Richards or a rebellious bohemian like Thom Yorke. He's a well-groomed, gracious man of means whose favorite topic of discussion is the domestic bliss he shares with his longtime partner, Kenny Goss, in mansions filled with fine art and Labradors. Though he's faced down his share of scandals, Michael's music still signals frothy good times. It doesn't cause riots; it inspires middle-aged people to dance.

June 22, 2008

CRITIC'S NOTEBOOK

Liz Phair's ambivalent return to 'Guyville'

DISCUSSING THE landmark 1993 album "Exile in Guyville" earlier this month, Rachel Martin, host of NPR's "The Bryant Park Project" program, blurted out a list of emotions the album evokes for her: "A young woman's really kind of raw ambition, her disappointment, it's her lust, it's her joy." Liz Phair, its creator, responded in a tone that was kind but mildly corrective. "Don't forget sadness," she said. She added that when she listens to "Guyville" now, "My heart goes out to the person I was."

April 28, 2008

POP MUSIC REVIEW

Prince reigns at Coachella

"He thinks he's Jesus!" uttered a stunned young observer as Prince -- who did look rather divine in a gold-sequined white tunic and pants -- offered up a particularly rapturous guitar solo early on in his headlining appearance Saturday at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival. This fan was obviously a new member of the Minneapolis master's flock.

March 1, 2008

CRITIC'S NOTEBOOK

Neverland woes won't win them

Michael Jackson will never be just like us. The Us magazine method of democratizing fame by trailing celebs when they head out to Starbucks in their baseball caps doesn't work for this iconic freak -- a snap of him shopping invokes not normality but one of those renderings of space aliens from the Weekly World News. But recent reports that Jackson might finally lose his beloved Neverland ranch to foreclosure do offer one of those illuminating moments about our national crisis of celebrity codependency.

April 18, 2008

POP MUSIC REVIEW

Live: Kanye West's Glow in the Dark tour

KANYE WEST has always fancied himself a hero; now he has staged his "Götterdämmerung." The hip-hop star may or may not have been thinking about Richard Wagner's epic Ring cycle when he decided to turn his Glow in the Dark tour into an apocalyptic space opera. The show, which premiered Wednesday at this city's Key Arena, had more obvious reference points: Japanese anime, Will Smith in "I Am Legend" and any Imax shows about the planets that West might have seen as a kid.

April 22, 2008

CRITIC'S NOTEBOOK

Meat Loaf's rock now all in the family

If one adjective (besides "gigantic") adequately describes Meat Loaf, it's "game." Rock's operatic jester has tried plenty of angles in his surprisingly long-lived career: He's acted in the Broadway production of "Hair," served as John Belushi's understudy in "The National Lampoon Show," helped make history as part of "Rocky Horror," and huffed oxygen to keep going onstage back when the album "Bat Out of Hell" made him as star in the late 1970s.

September 16, 2007

ALBUM SPOTLIGHT

Reviews of James Blunt and Kenneth 'Babyface' Edmonds

James Blunt AS oxymorons go, "soft rock" wields more power than most people admit. Largely dismissed as a watered-down, blown-dry corruption of liberated youth culture, it's been shoved into the category of "guilty pleasure" practically since its inception.

POP ALBUM REVIEW

Maroon 5

For a band that sold more than 4 million copies of its first album, Maroon 5 sure gets called "irritating" a lot. The rep is partly because of singer Adam Levine's busy, successful pursuit of L.A.'s most visible young blonds, but it's also because the band deploys its Wild Cherry-flavored dance hits with such sweat-free competence that rooting for them feels superfluous.

May 15, 2007

POP ALBUM REVIEW

Linkin Park

If I were a band therapist, saving rock legends from self-destruction in stupidly expensive weekly sessions, I'd offer one key bromide to the members of Linkin Park: Dare to be who you are. Running from the past into the arms of a new image may seem necessary when a mid-life crisis afflicts — many have done it, from Michael Jackson to Depeche Mode to Metallica to everybody's role model, U2. But such a move only works if there's substance beneath the semantics. And that pith almost always flows from what made you great in the first place.

November 29, 2006

CRITIC'S NOTEBOOK

A timeless reality in fairy tales re-imagined

"Realism leaves out so much," wrote science-fiction author Joanna Russ in 1995, introducing "The Penguin Book of Modern Fantasy by Women." Russ was making the common feminist argument that fantasy and fairy tale express the inexpressible, especially for women, whose realities, Russ wrote, "wouldn't do."

October 27, 2006

REVIEW

'Shut Up & Sing'

Near the end of Barbara Kopple and Cecilia Peck's documentary "Shut Up & Sing," Martie Maguire, the Dixie Chicks' perky, deeply dedicated fiddler, reflects on the three years of turmoil that overtook the country trio after singer Natalie Maines remarked onstage in London that she was ashamed President Bush was from Texas, her home state. (The singer's notorious aside, seen in its full glory here, actually roped in her bandmates: "We are ashamed," she said.)

September 16, 2006

REVIEW

Cirque’s 'Delirium' seems familiar

Cirque Du Soleil is all about personal growth — in the literal sense, celebrating the astounding physical accomplishments of the centuries-old circus arts, and in the hippie sense, with each production placing those feats within a New Age-flavored framework of self-realization. But "Delirium," the new show whose two-week Staples Center run arrived Thursday with a gala preview, is more transformative than most.

August 23, 2006

MOVIE / POP MUSIC REVIEW

'Idlewild'

The air around OutKast's "Idlewild" is humid and thick as gravy, and I'm not talking about the summer haze enveloping the fictional Southern town where the film takes place. The movie starring hip-hop's top duo and the sort-of soundtrack sharing its name — both out this week — are being greeted with a grim earnestness that seems quite overblown, given that pop stars are always making entertainingly flawed cinematic forays and off-kilter soundtracks to go with them.

July 2, 2006

THE MUSIC OF WAR

Common Dissents

Is Chamillionaire's hit song "Ridin' " a political anthem? What about Shakira and Wyclef Jean's "Hips Don't Lie"? When seeking anthems for a new political age, should those critical of the Bush administration be turning toward a Dirty South rapper mad at the cops for disturbing his cruising game or a belly-bared dance music queen who slips a line about immigrant rights into a nightclub seduction? Or does today's political climate demand voices raised with an urgency that can be inspired only by old-fashioned protest music of the kind country stars like Toby Keith have produced for their conservative fans?