November 3, 2003

Outsize Personalities Riff on Sex, Booze and Politics

op music would be dreary without large egos, but they have to be tended carefully, and must change significantly every five years or so. Here are three of the current biggest.

`Stroke of Genius'
Gerald Levert

If you suffer from the R. Kelly problem — that is to say, if you feel the urge to separate Mr. Kelly's art from his legal problems and can't quite achieve that separation even while enjoying his records — you can turn to Gerald Levert.

Mr. Levert, who sings a bit like Marvin Gaye and Ronald Isley but carries himself through his music with the more comfortable air of Barry White, is only about three years older than Mr. Kelly, his fellow Midwestern R&B singer, songwriter and producer. Yet he seems from at least another half-generation back: he has that crucial extra dollop of sense. His sex songs, full of ripe come-ons (the song "Stroke of Genius" contains a less-than-brilliant double-entendre), deliver a much more harmless message. Instead of playing a predator, he plays a decent guy so besieged by women that he is physically fatigued from the double-dealing.

"Stroke of Genius" (Elektra), like Mr. Levert's other recent albums and those he made with the trio LSG, sounds as if it was delivered on time and on budget; it is tight, unpretentious, crafted without show, and its references to 1970's soul songwriting are carried off quietly. Occasionally he can exceed expectations, as in "I Got a Girl," an excellent negotiation between the profound soul of the 70's (his father is Eddie Levert of the O'Jays) and new R&B aesthetics.

He has clearly got his sights on Mr. Kelly as the one to beat. His murmured introduction to "You Got That Love Again" mirror Mr. Kelly's words at the beginning of "Ignition (Remix)"; "Eyes and Ears," made with his father and his brother, Sean Levert, is a fractured, quick-moving dialogue song about love trouble, the sort that Mr. Kelly has been perfecting recently; and he made "Didn't We" expressly for stepping, long popular in the Midwest, just like Mr. Kelly's blissful new single "Step in the Name of Love."

`Shock'n Y'all'
Toby Keith

"I Love This Bar," the first single from Toby Keith's "Shock'n Y'all" (DreamWorks), might be the most appealing song he has ever made. A mixture of roots-Americana sounds, with steel-guitar, organ and ropy lead-guitar lines, it demonstrates Mr. Keith's controlled baritone and cements an aesthetic connection to country music past; toward the end of the song, a large chorus of what sound like drunken patrons echo his lines.

But Mr. Keith is a wary man. His albums lunge at potential country fans from all angles; he has many of his own platinum records to live up to. (His last album, "Unleashed," sold more than three million copies.)

So there are some strengths used as such here, as well as obvious ingratiations and clever ways of seeming like an obdurate, hard-bitten American character without darkening his name. "Whiskey Girl" sounds like a John Mellencamp track from the days when he used a middle name. "American Soldier" is less a song than a commercial for the armed forces. (It's shocking how quickly he drops his nonconformist persona whenever the Stars and Stripes loom near.) "If I Was Jesus" looks from 10 paces as if it is going to be nice and controversial, but isn't. "Don't Leave, I Think I Love You" greases itself into your good favor with a New Orleans groove, a horn section and the word babe-a-licious. Proud of enjoying small pleasures, Mr. Keith writes more confident booze songs than most of his colleagues in commercial country music; "Nights I Can't Remember, Friends I'll Never Forget" is the latest.

The end of the record presents Mr. Keith as imp. "The Critic" tells the story of a self-important music critic who indulges himself by breathing heavily about unknowns and panning stars. (Mr. Keith is not as thick-skinned as he seems.) "The Taliban Song" is a clever but not very funny song about a "middle-aged, Middle Eastern, camel-herding man" in Afghanistan embattled by the Taliban. (You see where the rhymes occur.) And "Weed With Willie" speaks of not being up to the challenge of Willie Nelson's pot; he is not quite up to the challenge of Willie Nelson's musical generosity and honesty, either.

`Rock N Roll'
Ryan Adams

Ryan Adams has often seemed a dull rock classicist posing as a romantic genius. Most of his work — first during the waning alt-country movement in the mid-90's and later mirroring Bob Dylan and the Stones and a few other sources — has seemed so desperate for approbation that if his character bothered you, his music was unlistenable.

No question about his talent: good voice, natural guitar player, stunning ability to mimic. But "Rock N Roll" (Lost Highway) is an immediate improvement: some of the songs (especially "This Is It" and "Luminol") sublimate the self-importance of his posing to the euphoria of rock 'n' roll itself. It sounds trendy, with a flavor of late new-wave, like so much of current New York rock; it is as if he is getting outside himself, competing, reaching for something.