Pop list: Nelly Furtado challenges Katy Perry
Two top pop stars released their long-awaited albums on the same day, and named them similarly. Which is better - Nelly Furtado's "7" or Katy Perry's "143"? But you can listen to both. And if we add rapper Future's mixtape, it becomes clear that the music season is already in full swing. "Izvestia" evaluated the loud novelties, and not only them.
Nelly Furtado - "7"
Nelly Furtado has not pleased her fans with new albums since 2017. Well, the singer's most famous hit Say It Right, which in the noughties sounded literally from every iron, will soon be 18 years old. With such inputs, a full-fledged comeback is a bold step. And Nelly, realizing this, has prepared herself to the fullest. According to her statement, she composed several hundreds of songs, from which 14 songs were chosen, which seem to hit all the current trends. Here you can find fits with black rappers (lyrical duet Crown with 24-year-old native of South Africa Blxckie), and Latin American rhythms (Corazon, where the artist herself raps in Spanish), and elements of r'n'b.
Nevertheless, the basis is still elastic international pop with tenacious melodies performed by Furtado's sonorous, dense voice. And in this respect, one can't help but recognize that the comeback has taken place. Another thing is whether there are hits here, even if not at the level of Say It Right, but at least close to it. Perhaps, the already mentioned Corazon, previously released as a single, is the most sticky and charismatic, but its chart positions turned out to be quite modest. Loves Bites performed a bit better, but it is still as far from the former triumphs as to the moon. Well, maybe the public will like the album more. However, even if Furtado can't climb to the top of the pop Olympus again, it won't stop us from enjoying her work. In particular, great ballads, which are several on the fresh record.
Katy Perry - "143"
Katy Perry, unlike Nelly Furtado, did not disappear anywhere and all these years has been on the radar, regularly flashing on the pages of the media and maintaining a star status. However, her new album - by an amusing coincidence also with a title in the form of a number, as a competitor - the public and critics unanimously did not accept. Orlando Bloom's wife is reproached for "143" in anything - and in secondary, and in the lack of fresh ideas, and in the senseless flirtation with EDM. Undoubtedly, the singer really tried to make the music as danceable and light as possible, while paying tribute to trends - where in our time without rappers, of which there are three: 21 Savage, JID and Doechii.
However, despite the opportunistic nature of a number of production decisions and a real lack of bright melodies, the record still turned out to be quite nice, moreover, enjoyable. Yes, in vocal terms Katie reveals herself only in the final Wonder; yes, there are a lot of straightforward motifs and monotonous background disco "chugging". But is it worth taking this deliberately entertaining work, designed to be a background for a party, a car ride or household chores, so seriously? Everyone can give themselves the answer.
Future - Mixtape Pluto
Rapper Future has developed some unprecedented activity this year. In the spring he released two duet records with Metro Boomin - We Don't Trust You and We Still Don't Trust You. And now just a few months later another longplay has arrived - though labeled as a mixtape, i.e. a kind of collection of diverse tracks, which the artist himself is not inclined to consider as a whole statement. At the same time Future promised here a new sound and in general a different vibe, that is, he characterized the work as a stage.
Рэпер Future
In general, not in vain. And if at first it seems that the beats are a bit boring, and the gloomy melancholic mood and monotonous rhythm spread almost on the whole material, at closer listening you start to pay attention, for example, to a lot of finds in terms of reading: Future growls, screams, moans (check out Plutoski's composition), switches to falsetto... And when he starts singing, as in Ready To Cook Up, he achieves a paradoxical effect by combining a vocal motif in major with minor harmonies of the accompaniment.
And don't let the questionable quote from Nino Rota at the very beginning of the disk confuse you. The rest of the material is original and, despite the mixtape status, stylistically monolithic. Recommended.
Musya Totibadze - Amor Vincit Omnia
The title of the new mini-album by singer and actress Musya Totibadze is translated from Latin as "Love conquers everything". According to the author, it is a reference to Virgil's eclogue and Caravaggio's painting. However, the listener does not need to know Musi's cultural references to "taste" the record. All five songs, one of which - "Siren" - is a cover version of the 1986 hit, have an immediate charm and a retro flavor so fashionable today. And it's not only the mentioned number from the comedy "Above the Rainbow", but also Totibadze's own material.
The initial composition "She" with its moving electronic rhythm and imitation of analog synthesizers seems to be an alien from the early 1990s, the following "Sail" could have been composed in the noughties, and the final "Night Tales" and "Goodbye" come from somewhere in the last decade. But one should not think that they are trying to sell us sturgeon of a second freshness, although the feeling of deja vu is constantly present ("I've heard this somewhere before!"). In her modulations between eras, styles, manners, Musya is organic and light. And this lightness is transmitted to the listener.
Arnold Katz conducts Stravinsky and Bernstein
September 18 marked the 100th anniversary of the birth of Soviet conductor Arnold Katz, who founded the Academic Symphony Orchestra of the Novosibirsk Philharmonic - perhaps the main ensemble of the Asian part of the country. To mark the anniversary, the Melodiya company launched a project to publish Katz's recordings from the original master tapes. And the first swallow was an album with performances of two rather rare sounding works of the XX century: Igor Stravinsky's ballet "Game of Cards" and Leonard Bernstein's Symphony No. 2 "Age of Anxiety". The original LP was released in 1984 and is now almost impossible to obtain. The work of the orchestra and conductor is noteworthy, though.
"Playing Cards" in the USSR was known primarily for its interpretation by Yevgeny Svetlanov, but Katz is perhaps closer to the author's idea than his more willful colleague in the capital. Arnold Mikhailovich achieves more precise, sometimes even cold-blooded playing from his Siberian charges - and wins. As for the symphony by Bernstein, who is known to us primarily as the conductor and author of West Side Story, it is a rarity that to this day hardly ever appears in concert programs. Although it is today that "The Age of Anxiety" sounds particularly relevant.
Izvestia playlist
The playlist opens with a track from the new album by Reyna Roberts, a singer who combines country music with other styles in a very interesting way. For example, check out the banjo inclusions in this quite a rock composition. Followed by a bit of melancholic rap from Money Man and a danceable (but not banal at all) number from Jamie XX. The lyrical culmination of the playlist is an acoustic ballad by American romantics The Boyce Avenue. And lastly - "Goodbye" by Musi Totibadze.
