monitorTHIS! - December 2008/January 2009 - (Page 37)

Snoop Dogg Ego Trippin’ Geffen Mariah Carey E=MC² Island def Jam PoP TarT W Swedish provocateur Robyn turns on the weird h e n ’ s t h e l a s t t i m e you heard of an American pop princess throwing away her formula and trying to do something avant-garde? Britney has really just lurked on the periphery of hot producers; Mandy Moore becoming a singer-songwriter doesn’t count. Not unlike Kylie Minogue, Swedish superblonde Robin Miriam Carlsson (a.k.a. Robyn) was doing just fine with a moderately edgy pop persona for a decade. Then she devised this bizarre, hilarious and fascinating album, which took three years to reach these shores. So, in a way, Robyn is our reissue of the year. Sometimes she submits witty, boastful raps (“Konichiwa, Bitches,” “Cobrastyle”); sometimes she sequesters herself in synthetic bubbles, offering heartfelt assessments of herself and various loves (“With Every Heartbeat,” “Any Time You Like”). No matter what, she’s taking risks and successfully transforming her career at home and abroad. There’s no shame in Robyn being three years late Robyn to the party—check out cheRRy tRee/ InteRscope Robyn today. Snoop has done enough reality TV to transform from… okay, he was never really intimidating, even in those first Dre videos, but he’s more mascot than MC now. Thanks to the miracle of the vocoder—and try to remember how novel it was at first—the O.G. temporarily reinvented himself as considerate retro lover in “Sexual Eruption” (or, for radio, the much bettertitled “Sensual Seduction”). As for that country song with Everlast, er… boy, we sure liked “Sensual Seduction”! No offense, Mariah, but put some clothes on. We know you wanna flaunt the fruit of your personal training, but the same thing goes for Dave Navarro. The T&A is just kinda gauche at this point. Luckily, the tunes are as solid as ever. Those octave rollercoaster ballads are the stuff of Idol amateurs now, and Mariah has gotten more and more canny in her R&B collaborations. “Say Somethin’” (ft. Snoop Dogg) succeeded with suggestion, not skin. Scarlett Johansson Anywhere I Lay My Head acto/RhIno Disturbed Indestructible Wa R n e R Are our BS detectors malfunctioning, or did we actually learn to tolerate actors dabbling in indie rock in 2008? First Zooey Deschanel did right by collaborating with M. Ward, then sexpot Scarlett took a break from late-period Woody Allen flicks to… cover Tom Waits? As odd as the idea seemed, she sure picked the right assistants for the job— Yeah Yeah Yeahs axeman Nick Zinner and freakin’ David Bowie! The legend’s songs were executed capably. This Chicago quartet looks exactly like they did when “Stupify” and “Down With the Sickness” broke during the umpteenth wave of rapmetal—the front-dude is still bald and they still wear ugly black leather ensembles. So why have they lasted? David Draiman alternates ably between gravelly rasp and operatic roar, and he knows how to wrench a killer melody from his band’s bombast. Anti-suicide crusher “Inside the Fire” revealed surprising depth and empathy. [ dec 08 / jan 09 + monitorthis! + 37 ]

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monitorTHIS! - December 2008/January 2009

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