Author: Nick Rubin

Paul Simon

Stranger to Stranger (Concord)

Paul Simon was once called “one of rock’s great lightweights,” though I’d offer “one of lightweight rock’s greats” instead. While Simon has never shown interest in proper rocking, he’s imbued pop songs with short-story richness while keeping them catchy, allowing you to sing along with lines like “the poor boy changes clothes and puts on aftershave to compensate for his ordinary shoes.” No mean feat.

Having actively ignored Simon’s last few albums, turned off by his blithe pillaging of global vernaculars and his infamous treachery against Los Lobos, Stranger to Stranger came as a small shock. Simon’s voice, never born to soar, was apparently built to last. He’s also tentatively engaged, addressing economic inequality on “The Werewolf” and “Wristband.” It’s irksome that Simon leaves the topic hanging, especially given his privileged space beyond both the destructive political economy and any resulting fallout. But he’s mordantly funny, and the clattering grooves thrum with life. Stranger to Stranger is no end-of-career miracle, but it’s no gentle going, and the best of it can stand with Simon’s classics. No mean feat.

Santigold

99¢ (Atlantic)

Despite joyful lead single “Can’t Get Enough of Myself,” Santigold’s third solo album met with general indifference when it was released in February. Now that it’s blazing outside with the kind of heat that sinks into your body and loosens your muscles, the vibrant palette of 99¢ is worth revisiting.

An industry vet who has also fronted a ska band and collaborated with GZA, Santigold falls between cracks, too weird for standardized R&B radio and too “urban” for modern rock radio. But her disregard of genre conventions is her strength—not that her tunes sound like nothing you’ve ever heard, they just sound like whatever she wants. Eighties new wave is particularly fertile ground, including the ebullient album-closer “Who I Thought You Were” and “Rendezvous Girl,” which burbles like a lost Eurythmics track. (It also features the album’s best vocal; Santigold dances into her upper register, avoiding a monotonous yelpy quality that plagues some tracks, including the plodding “Outside the War.”) The album title may reference the commodification infecting modern society, but throughout 99¢ Santigold demonstrates a deeper, autonomous currency.

The Mild High Club

Skiptracing (Stones Throw)

From the album’s first sounds—a ping-pongy Casiotone bossa nova rhythm track—one might take Skiptracing for jaded hipster dreck. Indeed, the song proceeds through cheesy lounge-jazz guitar chords, a vibraphone, groggy vocals, a stony slide-guitar passage and, yes, cowbell. But Alexander Brettin, the Los Angeles-based musician who records as The Mild High Club, has sophisticated chops and deceptively sincere songcraft, and Skiptracing transcends irony, despite the band name. Despite the cowbell. Despite that another song is called “Kokopelli.”

If there’s a minor issue with Skiptracing, it’s the distraction of a relentless parade of fairly specific reference points: “Between the Sheets,” “Sentimental Lady,” “Just the Two of Us.” There are variations: On one track Brettin peels off a brief, twisted guitar solo, and “Whodunit” is two minutes of crashing percussion and squalling sonics that can only be explained as a palate-cleanser. But mostly, Skiptracing sticks to its hazy, loopy script, so if you like the idea of ’70s lite rock and soft soul blended with Hawaiian Tropic and cough syrup, this might actually be your jam of the summer.

Radiohead

A Moon Shaped Pool (XL)

Gotta admit I haven’t adored Radiohead so much as I’ve admired them. The group has always written harmonically sophisticated rock music without ever sacrificing the rock aspect. Plus, the band’s albums have always sounded amazing—the relationship Radiohead has with producer Nigel Godrich is on the level of The Beatles and George Martin. Still, I’ve found Thom Yorke’s bleatier explorations of angst irritating, and it might be telling that my favorite Radiohead album is perhaps its most uncharacteristic, 2007’s casually raucous In Rainbows.

A Moon Shaped Pool doesn’t return to the impassioned, tormented Radiohead of Ok Computer, nor is it casually raucous. As usual Yorke’s interests are alienation, morality and such. But, with exceptions like the billowing, propulsive “Ful Stop,” the overall mood is subdued, with Yorke mostly in repose. The soundscapes mainly showcase Radiohead’s gorgeous amorphous mode—viscous liquid with sonic accents floating through: faint feedback, transmuted piano and a good helping of Jonny Greenwood’s string arrangements. In their third decade of recording, the band still sounds engaged and vital, and if it’s ever okay to call a rock album an “achievement,” Radiohead’s still churning them out, admirably.

Betty Davis

The Columbia Years 1968-1969 (Light in the Attic)

In 1973-74, Betty Davis released a pair of funk-rock albums, slept on at the time but retrospectively accorded lost-classic status. Davis’ snarling vocals demanded attention and held up admirably next to high-octane collaborators including Buddy Miles, Larry Graham and Merle Saunders.

The earlier recordings collected here feature a lineup even more stunning—Herbie Hancock, Mitch Mitchell and Wayne Shorter for starters—and the most famous participant doesn’t play a note: Betty Davis (née Mabry) was briefly married to Miles Davis, who produced most of these sessions. Hearing their interplay feels prurient—before “Politician” (a Cream cover), Miles is playful but menacing: “Sing it just like that, with the gum in your mouth and all, bitch.” The singer apologizes “I know, I know,” but at the end of the track when Miles interjects “You can overdub that,” Betty barks “Overdub it? I’ve overdubbed it!” These demos are raw and loose—they’re almost pre-demos. But Betty Davis is potent and charismatic, especially on “I’m Ready, Willing, and Able”—and the band is smoking. The Columbia Years is a document that was worth preserving.

Diarrhea Planet

Turn To Gold (Dine Alone)

Over-the-top music from the band with the over-the-top name. Diarrhea Planet formed in 2009, slamming audiences with a four-guitar attack as well-coordinated as it was ferocious. Their endearingly scruffy, pumped-up power-pop was captured on early recordings like 2011’s Loose Jewels. That EP was released on the label of fellow Nashvillians Jeff the Brotherhood, and Diarrhea Planet has since tapped into the Brotherhood’s core audience of slumming bros seeking their generation’s hairier, sweatier Blink 182.

As the new title suggests, the underdogs are reaching for the ring, and Turn To Gold is unapologetically pompous. It begins with the ridiculous martial fanfare “Hard Style” and continues with an excessive display of signifiers encompassing hair metal and heartland rock. But at its core, Turn To Gold is arena-ready pop-punk, held together by soaring, variably tuneful vocalist Jordan Smith. On the lead single he eagerly shouts “You probably think I’m too old for this, but I / think you’d know what I’d say / I’ve got a…LIFE PASS!” No doubt, Diarrhea Planet is having a blast—whether you’ll enjoy the party or not is a germane question.