Keeping up with the noises in our heads
Here is a preview of a the sounds that might merit a raised eyebrow in early 2009:
ALBUMS
Bruce Springsteen and the E-Street Band, Working on a Dream, Jan.27. According to the Boss himself, writing began on this swift follow-up to 2007’s Magic even as the sessions for that record were still winding down.
“I haven’t done that since my first two records came out in the same year,” he said on his website recently. He’s obviously worked up about something.
Franz Ferdinand, Tonight: Franz Ferdinand, Jan.27. The cerebral Scots are back and they’re bringing a full-on disco party with `em. Anything to get “Do You Want To,” currently being abused in beer commercials `round the clock, out of our heads.
Chris Cornell, Scream, Feb.3. Given Cornell’s track record with solo albums to date, working with hip-hop super-producer Timbaland on Scream can’t actually make things any worse. Can it?
Lily Allen, It’s Not Me, It’s You. The new stuff floating around there in cyberspace is a little more earnest than we’d like, but surely some of the spite and sauce that made Alright, Still such a keeper will linger. Please.
U2, No Line on the Horizon, March 3. Word is it’s a little weirder this time out, in the vein of Zooropa. Which would be a good thing, since Bono and the boys’ last two rather conservative albums were largely coasting on creative fumes and their fans’ good feeling.
Neko Case, Middle Cyclone, March 3. Given the international critical huzzahs and growing sales that followed 2006’s Fox Confessor Brings the Flood, this might be the record to finally put Case over the top, Feist-style.
The sometime New Pornographer recruited members of that band to help her and her own band out on Middle Cyclone, along with guests Sarah Harmer, the Band’s Garth Hudson, M. Ward, the Sadies and others.
Handsome Furs, Face Control, March 3. Canadian indie-rock’s coolest (and hottest, come to think of it) couple follows up its smashing debut, Plague Park, with a record that’s every bit as bleak, raw-nerved and sexy.
MSTRKRFT, Fist of God, March 17. With their globetrotting DJ schedule, it’s a minor miracle that Al-P and Jesse Keeler found any time at all to record another album. At least we know they’re plugged into what’s going on on the planet’s dance floors these days.
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