Rivers Cuomo has done battle with his fans, his record label, success itself. But the title of Weezer's eighth album is an olive branch to the ride-or-die nerd side of his audience: A Weezer record named after Hurley from 'Lost' is like Rick Ross slapping a picture of 'Scarface'-era Pacino on an album cover and calling it 'Tony.'...
Jerry Lee Lewis is the original, archetypal rock & roll rebel, and he's still pulverizing the piano keys more than half a century after he recorded "Great Balls of Fire." The terrific 'Mean Old Man' — an even better "comeback" record than Lewis' acclaimed 2006 release 'Last Man Standing' — follows the template of Johnny Cash's Rick Rubin-produced albums, setting Lewis loose on well-chosen standards and surrounding the legend with big-name fans....
"I've got a thick tongue," sings 30-year-old Sara Bareilles on "Gonna Get Over You," a playfully sexy bit of doo-wop pop. It's the high point on the follow-up to 2007's 'Little Voice' and its megahit, "Love Song."...
She's as feisty as Pink, as beat-savvy as M.I.A., does Eurodisco better than Gaga. But can this mercurial diva, a star in her native Sweden, crack the Billboard Top 40? ...
These dapper New Yorkers were the first band in history cocky enough to call the first song on their debut album "Untitled" — and that only hinted at their mind-boggling pretensions. But after two classic albums, Interpol hit the wall on their 2007 major-label flop, 'Our Love to Admire.'...
Jenny Lewis and Johnathan Rice are, by all indications, a happy indie-rock power couple. But you wouldn't know it...
The first album in four years from the Buffalo, New York, trio sounds like the darkest moments of previous Goo discs stuck together in a 48-minute marathon of middling angst...
On his own albums and his contributions to 'Crazy Heart,' Ryan Bingham has tried hard to be the next great Texas singer-songwriter: He has the gruff voice, moodiness and melodramatic song titles ("The Poet," "Junky Star")...
Everybody has a favorite incarnation of Heart — the acoustic hippie troubadour sisters...
There have been countless great pop songs about "California Gurls," some of them by actual 'California girls.' But Katy Perry's Number One smash is one of the girliest and most Californian. It sets the tone for 'Teenage Dream,' Perry's album about Cali girls: their hopes, their dreams, their desire to hit the skate park in high heels. Throughout 'Dream,' she chases an all-American teen-pop sound that's older than the Hollywood Hills. One of her best songs, "The One That Got Away," sets the scene: "Summer after high school, when we first met/We'd make out in your Mustang to Radiohead." From there, she just piles on the sun-drenched drama...
