KELLY OSBOURNE
Sleeping in the Nothing
I'm not a rock star,'' says Osbourne. ''I'm a rock star's daughter. I'm
going to do what I like.'' That's why her new, Linda Perry-produced album
sounds radically different from her pop-leaning debut. ''I love electro
music, so I've always listened to bands like the Faint and
Fischerspooner,'' she says. So far, the new direction is paying off: The
album's first single, ''One Word,'' went to No. 2 on the Billboard dance
charts in early May.
MOST LIKELY TO. . .have you busting out your Max
Headroom sunglasses to do the robot. (JUNE 7)
TEENAGE FANCLUB
Man-Made
Fifteen years ago, Teenage Fanclub were being hailed as saviors of rock
by breathless critics; these days, only the faithful even remember them.
''Fortunately, we've never taken compliments or criticism too seriously,''
quips singer-guitarist Norman Blake. They have, however, kept making
seriously solid albums, like this, their seventh. Recorded in Chicago
with John McEntire (Tortoise), it's quieter than most of their other
work, but no less tuneful. Says Blake of the sparse production style:
''We just wanted to keep it really simple.''
MOST LIKELY TO. . .make a small
army of guitar-pop fans inordinately happy. (JUNE 7)
SHAKIRA
Fijación Oral 1
The Colombian pop star with the Pre-Raphaelite hair and belly-dancer
moves saw her 2001 English-language debut, the oddly titled Laundry
Service, sell a jaw-dropping 13 million copies worldwide. Now she's back
with an album of Spanish tunes. (An English follow-up, Oral Fixation 2,
comes out in November.) The DIY singer is producing — with the ubiquitous
Rick Rubin and others lending a hand — and the first single, ''La Tortura,''
features Spanish superstar Alejandro Sanz.
MOST LIKELY TO. . .stir up some
fantasies with that album title. (JUNE 7)
RY COODER
Chávez Ravine
Cooder has had a long, wide-ranging career that includes producing the
Buena Vista Social Club album. In Chávez Ravine, he pays homage, through
a soundscape of conjunto, jazz, R&B, Latin pop, and old radio
broadcasts, to L.A.'s lost Chicano barrio, which was bulldozed in the
'50s. Along with old-school Latin singers Little Willie G., Ersi Arvizu,
and Lalo Guerrero, Cooder conjures up a ''Poor Man's Shangri-La'' where
there are ''cool cats,'' dirt roads, and hot couples dancing the rumba. As
Guerrero mournfully sings on ''Barrio Viejo,'' ''All that's left are
fragments of those happy homes.''
MOST LIKELY TO. . .be a public-radio
fave. (JUNE 14)
EMBRACE
Out of Nothing
After years of mainstream success in the U.K., these Britpop
second-stringers are storming our shores with an album that has already
sold more than half a million copies and spawned two hit singles in
England. It might help that a Brit with some Stateside experience,
Coldplay's Chris Martin, wrote the single, ''Gravity.'' ''In England, we're
part of things,'' says frontman Danny McNamara. ''When we come over here,
people don't know quite how to take us. It feels kind of evangelical,
like going door-to-door.''
MOST LIKELY TO. . .sound like Coldplay. (JUNE 14)
