Album Reviews

GENE
Olympian
Polydor

Although England's Gene has constantly been compared to the defunct 80's band The Smiths, the only real similarity is that frontman Martin Rossiter's voice could have been the lamenting voice of Morrissey on all those seminal records.
The songs on Olympian are delivered in a catchy glam-rock guitar package, complete with lyrics of isolation and disgrace that are enough to send shivers down anyone's spine ("I was having the time of my life/ So why did you have to die?", from "London, Can You Wait?"). Rossiter's intelligent lyrical flair even manages to tackle, dead-on such matters such as homosexuality("It's hard to be left-handed/ But smile, you're not the only one/ I know you've been left stranded/ Bruised, kicked, lost your mother's love") with a subtle irony that could actually make the words mean anything else. With songs like "For The Dead" (the first U.K. single, a bonus on the domestic release) and "Truth, Rest Your Head", this is music perfect for those nights when you're feeling that no one else understands--and you can tap your foot along to it, too.

BOSS HOG
Boss Hog
DGC

Anyone familiar with The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion knows about the group's trashy guitar riffs, feedback, and Spencer's menacing croon. Over the years the band has garnered a reputation in the world of the underground for taking music, making it filthy, and dressing in drag for the cover (well, that and the fact that Beck and Mike D. of The Beastie Boys appeared as guests on the last album). Straight out of New York, Boss Hog, the creation of Spencer and his wife, Cristina Martinez, is no different (with the exception of the occasional self-affirming howls of "Oww! Blues Ex-plow-she-un!"). Spencer even carries his trademark theremin along for the ride. Bringing together punk attitude with rockabilly, blues, and funk, Boss Hog has unleashed on the world a major-label debut which seethes with raw energy. They even pause for a playful moment with the coy "I Dig You" (Spencer: "I dig your groovy hips!", Martinez: "I dig your barbequed lips!"). Martinez is no vocal slouch, either--at times she whispers, at times she yells, but she always sounds good, as Spencer's background "oh yeah"s can testify. The whole album pretty much sounds good, especially the angry "Ski Bunny" and "Texas", with its piano and strings and tortured singing. Just be sure to play it loud.

JANET JACKSON
Design Of A Decade: 1986-1996
A&M

Sometimes it's fun to look back to your childhood (which for many of us wasn't so long ago) and remember what music you were listening to then. Sometimes it's hard to remember, but that task is simplified with the release of Janet Jackson's compilation of hits, Design Of A Decade. Ahh, "Escapade". "What Have You Done For Me Lately". "Control". They're all here, along with some new songs. Now you can relive the music of your formative years...and wonder if your threshold for disposable, sugary pop was higher then.
Listening to over an hour of synthetic, keyboard-based, drum machine-driven music is hard to take, unless, of course, you're dancing, for which this album is perfectly suited. Janet does have talent when it comes to singing, though; her voice is clear and she has a powerful range. If only she could get more human musicians to back her up. New songs like "Twenty Foreplay", with it's un-Jackson family lyrics such as "That's when we get to it/ Close our eyes/ Feel our way through it/ I can't wait to groove ya", just sound like a rehashing of her old material. But, if you want to survive in the fickle world of pop, you have to serve the kids what they want, and we proved that her kind of music was what we wanted ten years ago.