I haven't talked about music for a long time on here, so I thought I'd mention some of what I've been enjoying lately.

Sting - Songs From The Labyrinth

I'm a big Sting fan (sad but true) so I was intrigued by his new album, renditions of songs by an Elizabethan composer called John Dowland. Even though the songs are almost 500 years old, they're still palatable to the modern taste. They deal with the usual struggles of love, woe, and loyalty, and along with Edin Karamazov, Sting renders them beautifully. As you'd expect, it's very light on instrumentation, just a lute and Sting's voice in the main. Most tracks are bridged by readings from a touching letter written by John Dowland to Elizabeth I.

Sting's passion for reinterpreting these songs is powerfully evident and they make good listening, although it's easy to tire of the lute-only sound after a while. If you buy it on iTunes, you get a cool PDF booklet with it. Well worth reading.

Robbie Williams - Rudebox

I don't care if the British media along with 99.9% of the British population thinks this song is a pile of crap, I love it. The simple fact is that Robbie Williams is a millionaire many times over and if he wants to screw around in the studio and produce a cheesy album, that's his call. For me it evokes the trash that filled my radio in the late 1980s, so it's a nice journey into nostalgia and I like a bit of cheese from time to time (Readers in the United States probably won't be familiar with Robbie, although he's a major celebrity elsewhere with a dizzying level of record sales and concert tickets sold.)

Christina Aguilera - Back to Basics

The new Christina album is surprisingly excellent. It's mature, well produced, and has a lot of variety. It's a two-disc effort and while the first disc is pretty good on its own merits, the second disc is a really curious set of songs for a mainstream artist. Lots of strings, a swingy/jazz feel throughout, and even a few tracks that are just Christina and an orchestra. A track called Mercy On Me sounds like it could have been pulled from Fiona Apple's When The Pawn. A major surprise is the track Save Me From Myself, a track where Christina is accompanied only by a string section and acoustic guitar. At first I refused to believe it was her singing, but it is. The vocal is nothing like Christina has evoked before, very close to the mic, cutesy and soft.

Christina has left the whole pop thing behind and this is a mature album that should appeal to most music lovers with its wide range and Christina's ever-improving voice. Most of this double album makes Beautiful look like paint-by-numbers.

Pendulum - Hold Your Colour

This album is a totally mindblowing experience. It's like being trapped in a games console sent back from the year 2175. It's intense, it's futuristic, it's extremely loud, it's heavy, and man.. it's just like being stuck in a pinball machine or something. This is what my parents feared music would end up sounding like when they first heard what sampling was in the 1980s. If you want a mere taste of how good the album is, check out this music video for the first track of the album, Slam (don't mind the slow beginning, it goes nuts after a minute or two). Then realize the whole album is like this and this music video is a heavily diluted single mix..

Technically, it's a drum and bass album, but to merely label it as such would be doing it a disservice. It has some reggae, gabba and rave touches on many tracks, along with a clean, highly produced sound throughout. Anyway, if you like The Chemical Brothers or anything like that, check it out. I totally love drum and bass so it's easy for me to say.

The Gnotorious Gnarls Biggie

This is a mashup album in the same vein as the Grey Album or The Beastles. It's the whole Gnarls Barkley album mixed against The Notorious B.I.G. Even better, you can download the whole thing for free at the site linked above. If you're lazy, just get Smiley Faces Hypnotize and Crazy Butt, as they're the two most easily recognized Gnarls Barkley tracks, and probably the best from the album. The mix isn't as smooth as some mashups, but both Gnarls Barkley and Notorious B.I.G. kick ass enough for it to work.

Minor Observations

1. I don't like the new Outkast album very much. It's nothing like Speakerboxx / The Love Below.

2. The Paris Hilton album is actually not as bad as I guessed it might be.

3. So far I think the new Beck album is crap, although I think I need to listen to it properly. None of the tracks is memorable to me so far.

4. Lovestoned from the new Justin Timberlake album is a strong contender for best pop song of 2006, in my opinion. It's definitely my favourite from the album.