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IN TUNE
PULP We Love Life (Helicon) GARBAGE Beautiful (Hed Artzi) MARY J. BLIGE No More Drama (Helicon) MADONNA Greatest Hits Volume 2 (Hed Artzi)
Who says that today's pop stars are lacking the flamboyant charisma that performers of old - glam forefathers like Lou Reed, David Bowie, Debbie Harry and Freddy Mercury - used to emit like glittery cologne?
Pulp's Jarvis Cocker and Garbage's Shirley Manson can give any Seventies rock star a run for his money in the magnetic personality department, and their mere presence ensures that their bands' discs are never boring.
After six discs of sexually charged Britpop, dominated by Cocker's risque humor and antagonistic nature, Pulp turns all politically correct on We Love Life with a concept album about the environment. Songs called "The Trees" and "Sunrise" may hint at a horror scenario of granola-crowd-meets-prog-rock excess, but aside from a couple of spoken interludes that sound like a BBC nature documentary narrator over a space-trance beat, Pulp's new non-cynical, non-ironic approach suits it well.
Tracks like "Weeds," "The Night that Minnie Timperley Died" and "Trees" burst with classic British rock melodies and propulsive acoustic/electric arrangements.
"Weeds II" and "Wickersham" feature the flat spoken bits, and despite the funky hip-hop of the former and the reverb guitar line of the latter, both suffer from too much serious ambition and big statement-itis.
But from the muted Radiohead musings of the title song to the Sixties English chamber rock...