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New Releases For The Week Of May 11, 2008
Edited by Jonathan Cohen
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Bit By Bit
Death Cab For Cutie offers a little bit of everything on its second major label album, "Narrow Stairs," due this week via Atlantic. The 11-track set lives up to bassist Nick Harmer's description of the material: "a sampling of the most uptempo, upbeat Death Cab songs as well as some of our saddest."
Several minutes go by before frontman Ben Gibbard's voice is heard on the eight-minute single "I Will Possess Your Heart," the most expansive song Death Cab has yet released. A dark Harmer bass riff initially conjures Jane's Addiction's "3 Days" before the rest of the band kicks in, shifting the track into atmospheric realms.
"No Sunlight" and "Long Division" are jaunty rockers, while marching-band drums, piano and vintage organ support the state-of-the-relationship ditty "You Can Do Better Than Me." Death Cab's more somber side peeks through on "Talking Bird," and the largely voice-and-guitar closer "The Ice Is Getting Thinner."
"I didn't write any songs between finishing 'Plans' and June of 2006, which was almost a year," frontman Ben Gibbard says. "We were on the road and I had no windows of time to sit down and work on them. I set the fall of 2007 as a deadline for myself and made sure to take some time off in between. I sat down by myself and worked on the songs for the first eight months of 2007; I needed that time to rediscover my individuality."
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Small Town Girl
As a music lover who grew up in the tiny Welsh coastal town of Nefyn, 23-year-old U.K. chart phenomenon Duffy admits she's still struggling to comprehend her sudden popularity. "There were more people in the South by Southwest [SXSW] audience [at my show] than there are in my town," says the former Aimee Duffy, whose hometown has a population of 2,550. "Three thousand people watched me at Stubb's."
Duffy is gearing up for her U.S. launch on the back of impressive sales at home. In the United Kingdom, her A&M/Polydor debut, "Rockferry," which marries her rich voice to a fresh take on classic soul and the '60s girl group sound, enjoyed the biggest first-week sales so far this year when it moved more than 180,000 copies after its March 3 release, according to the Official U.K. Charts Co. (OCC).
"That was mind-blowing," she says. "I'm not going to pretend it isn't strange. You really do have a new life overnight." In Europe, the positive reaction to the single "Mercy" at radio meant the scheduled April 7 release was brought forward, with "Rockferry" debuting at No. 2 in Holland, No. 3 in Denmark, and No. 7 in Switzerland, and going top 20 in Norway and Belgium.
In conversation, Duffy has a guileless quality that Bernard Butler, one of her producers and collaborators, attributes to her isolated Welsh upbringing. Nefyn was a bus ride away from the nearest record shop, which only stocked the top 40. That store has doubtless been doing good business with "Mercy," which spent five weeks atop the British chart. Now the upbeat, string-laden track is spearheading her U.S. campaign, where the album will be released this week via the relaunched Mercury imprint.
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An EP Extravaganza
Jason Mraz is nothing if not a man of his word. "I promised a lot of people I'd do an acoustic album, but then my new record turned out to be my funkiest project yet," the laid-back San Diego singer says. Rather than simply hope his loyal fan base would adapt, Mraz took the unusual step of releasing acoustic versions of every song on his new album throughout the course of three EPs, the second of which was released April 15.
The first EP in the series, "We Sing," came out March 18 and has sold 18,000 copies, according to Nielsen SoundScan. The full-length album, "We Sing, We Dance, We Steal Things," will be released this week via Atlantic; the final EP, "We Steal Things," will be released as a digital bundle with the new album.
"I think fans will want both versions of the album," Mraz says. "I like being able to give them options, and they really wanted to hear different versions of the tracks."
Mraz's fans drove the album's first single in their wn way. Since he released a demo version of the track "I'm Yours" on an EP that came with his last album, more than 300 people have posted versions of themselves covering the track on YouTube. "I never instigated any of the covers," Mraz says. "But I can see why people are drawn to the song, and because it is about generosity, I wanted to share it."
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Additional titles hitting stores this week include:
A new album from fresh-from-jail rapper Foxy Brown, "Brooklyn's Don Diva" (Koch).
Reunited modern rock combo Filter's "Anthems for the Damned" (Pulse Recordings).
An album from producer/artist T-Bone Burnett, "Tooth of Crime" (Nonesuch).
Veteran vocalist Joe Cocker's "Hymn for My Soul" (Fantasy).
R&B vocalist Keith Sweat's "Just Me" (WEA).
African native Emmanuel Jal's "Warchild" (Sonic360).
Roots rockers Old 97's' "Blame It on Gravity" (New West).
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During its six previous seasons, TV juggernaut "American Idol" has launched countless music careers -- but the caveat is maintaining staying power.
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