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RAP: Snoop Dogg, Top Dogg ( * * * out of four) For his second outing as a No Limit soldier, Snoop adds heaping helpings of his old California flavor to the mix. He reunites with former Death Row producer Dr. Dre on two hard-grooving tracks and gets funking with West Coasters Nate Dogg, Warren G. and DJ Quik on another jam. The piano-driven Ghetto Symphony is a kicking posse cut with rapper Goldie Loc and labelmates Mia X, Fiend, C-Murder, Mystikal and Silkk the Shocker. Snoop wallows in the funk throughout, supplying laid-back takes on everything from loyalty to love with a heavy injection of street humor. On one of the best cuts, he weaves a rags-to-riches tale as Snoopafella. -- S.J.
POP/ROCK: The Cranberries, Bury the Hatchet ( * * 1/2) On their uneven fourth album, The Cranberries waver between tart and sour. Fortunately, the Limerick, Ireland, quartet abandons the rock pretenses of drab predecessor To the Faithful Departed and returns to the pop shimmer of No Need to Argue. The fragile acoustic Shattered, thumping Delilah, and melodic Animal Instinct and Saving Grace flirt with pop greatness but fall short of the magical buoyancy found in 1993 hit Linger. The band's frothy mix of carbonated guitar and springy rhythms is undermined by bonehead lyrics (particularly on the inane Loud and Clear) and the inconsistent vocals of Dolores O'Riordan, who's smart and sassy one minute, strident and shrewish the next. -- E.G.
Every Tuesday: Album reviews by USA TODAY critics Edna Gundersen, Steve Jones and David Patrick Stearns
RAP: Snoop Dogg, Top Dogg ( * * * out of four) For his second outing as a No Limit soldier, Snoop adds heaping helpings of his old California flavor to the mix. He reunites with former Death Row producer Dr. Dre on two hard-grooving tracks and gets funking with West Coasters Nate Dogg, Warren G. and DJ Quik on another jam. The piano-driven Ghetto Symphony is a kicking posse cut with rapper Goldie Loc and labelmates Mia X, Fiend, C-Murder, Mystikal and Silkk the Shocker. Snoop wallows in the funk throughout, supplying laid-back takes on everything from loyalty to love with a heavy injection of street humor. On one of the best cuts, he weaves a rags-to-riches tale as Snoopafella. -- S.J.
POP/ROCK: The Cranberries, Bury the Hatchet ( * * 1/2) On their uneven fourth album, The Cranberries waver between tart and sour. Fortunately, the Limerick, Ireland, quartet abandons the rock pretenses of drab predecessor To the Faithful Departed and returns to the pop shimmer of No Need to Argue. The fragile acoustic Shattered, thumping Delilah, and melodic Animal Instinct and Saving Grace flirt with pop greatness but fall short of the magical buoyancy found in 1993 hit Linger. The band's frothy mix of carbonated guitar and springy rhythms is undermined by bonehead lyrics (particularly on the inane Loud and Clear) and the inconsistent vocals of Dolores O'Riordan, who's smart and sassy one minute, strident and shrewish the next. -- E.G.
COUNTRY: SHeDAISY, The Whole SHeBANG ( * * * ) Nah, these three sisters aren't a Dixie Chicks knockoff, though you could be forgiven for assuming that after hearing their chirpy first single, Little Good-Byes. The best stuff comes later -- in the form of a soulful, slow waltz called This Woman Needs and a macabre anniversary celebration in A Night to Remember. They don't play their own instruments, but they sing up a storm, and eldest sister Kristy Osborn co-writes all the songs. SHeDAISY's clever vocal arrangements and general feistiness carry the occasional weak tune. This album may not quite be the whole shebang, but it's going to make some noise. -- Brian Mansfield
Kenny Rogers, She Rides Wild Horses ( * * ) Rogers has returned to country radio with The Greatest, a musical retelling of a charming joke about childhood baseball dreams. Its innocent drama makes it one of the best new songs Rogers has found in years. The other stuff's more obvious: a few love songs, some folksy wisdom, and easy-listening covers of undeniably solid material such as I Can't Make You Love Me and Let It Be Me. -- B.M.
JAZZ: Dianne Reeves, Bridges ( * * * ) Reeves imbues this ballad-heavy set with a warm glow and never goes out of her way to overstate her case. She gently caresses her material while conveying emotional power. The stellar musical cast includes keyboardists George Duke (the album's producer), Billy Childs and Mulgrew Miller, bassist Reginald Veal, and drummers Terri Lynn Carrington and Brian Blade. And on those rare occasions when the band kicks into high gear (as on the pulsating Mista), Reeves is more than up to the task. -- S.J.
OPERA: Andrew Parrott, Purcell's Dido and Aeneas ( * * * ) Parrott is one of the most respected members of the early-music world, and he very much takes Henry Purcell's great opera on its own terms, rather than translating it into modern operatic manners. That means voices are smaller and, in some cases, not operatic at all. Lutes (rather than bigger-sounding keyboard instruments) are a strong presence. The performance brings you into a pre-operatic world with more in common with Elizabethan theater, which had a lot of music. One disappointment: soprano Emily Van Evera, whose portrayal of the tragic Queen Dido lacks pathos. -- D.P.S.
CLASSICAL: Aaron Jay Kernis, Double Concerto for Violin and Guitar and other works ( * * * 1/2) In the Double Concerto, Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Kernis leaps into a jazz-classical fusion unlike anything I've ever heard. Having such different instruments as violin (played by Cho-Liang Lin) and guitar (Sharon Isbin) sharing the spotlight is deeply challenging, and Kernis just can't resist letting the violin dominate. But there are flashes of jazz violinist Stephane Grappelli, as well as Leonard Bernstein in his symphonic jazz mode, and a uniquely Kernis synthesis that makes this one of the more exciting new pieces to come from an American composer in a few years. The other works, Air for Violin and Lament and Prayer, are highly listenable, performed by top-notch soloists such as Joshua Bell and Pamela Frank, with the excellent Minnesota Orchestra and St. Paul Chamber Orchestra. Anyone interested in modern American music must hear this. -- D.P.S.
Valery Gergiev and the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 5 ( * * * * )This live recording captures an eruptive meeting between two wildly different musical entities -- sweaty, hyperdramatic Russian conductor Gergiev and the tradition-bound Vienna Philharmonic -- at the Salzburg Festival. But it sounds like love at first sight. The performance is tremendously exciting -- it's Gergiev at his powerhouse best -- and few orchestras in the world are more awe-inspiring at full cry than this one. But what makes this performance stand out is the sense of spontaneity in the phrasing. Much of it sounds so fresh but in such deep communion with the music's content that you'd think they were making it up as they went along. Gergiev has yet to prove himself to be a great musical thinker, but with so much visceral excitement, who cares? -- D.P.S.
PHOTO, B/W, Andy Earl, Island; PHOTO, B/W, Carol Sheridan, No Limit Records; Caption: The Cranberries: The Irish band -- Mike Hogan, left, Fergal Lawler, Dolores O'Riordan and Noel Hogan -- returns to the fizzy pop of earlier albums. Snoop Dogg: He enlists Dr. Dre and other all-stars on 'Top Dogg.'
Copyright USA Today Information Network May 11, 1999