Every year, hundreds of albums are released by pop, rock, hip-hop and other acts yearning for their 15 minutes of fame – and the millions of dollars and cultural significance that go along with it. In 2007, famous musicians from years past – Axl Rose and Dr. Dre among them – will be making another stab at the pop culture game, releasing new material after timeaway from the spotlight. Diversions highlights the top-10 most anticipated albums of the year – love them or hate them, they might not be here to stay anyway. But we’ll see.
10. Wilco, Sky Blue Sky
In 2004 Wilco front man Jeff Tweedy returned from rehab a new man, with a reconfigured band, a new record, A Ghost is Born, and a new outlook on life. Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, the band’s fourth studio album, was considered by many critics to be the best album of 2002. Despite an innovative sound and some off-the-wall effects, the record did much to bring Wilco into the public eye. Now, three years – and several more lineup changes later – the hipster and critical darlings are poised to tackle the mainstream with their sixth studio album, Sky Blue Sky. Wilco began writing in August and recording in November, and Tweedy, currently on a solo tour, announced last week during a show that the album is due to the public on May 15th. The band has previewed the new songs “Impossible Germany,” “Is That the Thanks I Get” and “On and On and On” during its recent tours. “Walken,” another one of the new songs, may be Wilco’s most creative yet, a mixture of Johnny Cash-like country, brilliant songwriting and balls-out rock-and-roll. With a potential nationwide tour and possible spots as a festival headliner, 2007 could be the biggest year for indie-rock’s favorite sons.
9. Nine Inch Nails, Year Zero
For those in the know, Trent Reznor is Nine Inch Nails, the only official member of the darkly introspective industrial rock group that created ’90s masterpieces like The Downward Spiral and paved the way for acts such as Marilyn Manson, who was once Reznor’s protege. Reznor creates a NIN album every five years or so, but Year Zero comes only two years after the band’s last release, With Teeth. This new album is a “shift in direction” from With Teeth, Reznor has said, and is instead “highly conceptual,” “quite noisy” and “f—ing cool.” Reznor has also mentioned the album is “essentially … a soundtrack to a movie that doesn’t exist” and is also “not a particularly friendly record … it certainly doesn’t sound like anything else out there right now.” Until April rolls around, satiate your NIN-lust by watching the trailer for an actual movie, the upcoming 300, over and over again – the background music for the trailer is actually “Just Like You Imagined,” an instrumental track from NIN’s 1999 double album, The Fragile.
8. Linkin Park
It’s been only four years since Linkin Park released Meteora and was on top of the pop/rock world, but a great deal has changed since then. Nu-metal, Linkin Park’s brand of rap/rock music, is no longer in vogue as emo/punk bands such as Fall Out Boy and Panic! At the Disco rule the charts and MTV’s TRL. Since Meteora, Linkin Park has collaborated with Jay-Z, released a live album and performed at the Grammys with H.O.V.A. and Paul McCartney. Linkin Park’s as yet untitled third album is set for release this spring, and features band MC Mike Shinoda and the legendary Rick Rubin co-producing the album. Lead singer Chester Bennigton has promised a new sound. “We’re straying away from a lot of the predictable sounds we’ve had in the past, but there’s no question in your mind when you hear it that it’s Linkin Park,” he said in a interview with MTV’s TRL. Shinoda described one of the songs, “Accident,” to Rolling Stone: “The guitar sounds like Metallica, the beat sounds like Motown and there’s a Stones-like groove to it. But it’s got rapping and Clash-style vocals,” he says. It will be interesting to see if straying from its bread and butter and evolving will be a risk worth taking, or if it will send Linkin Park spiraling into obscurity.
7. Talib Kweli, Ear Drum
Kweli, “your favorite rapper’s favorite rapper,” is known for his sharp and intelligent lyrical flow and will release his third solo album, Ear Drum, early this year. Kweli burst onto the scene with fellow rapper Mos Def; as the duo Black Star, the two released their self-titled album in 1998. The pair then went their separate ways, and Kweli released a critically acclaimed debut, Quality, in 2002. Thanks to the single “Get By” – produced by the egotistical genius of Kanye West – Kweli gained mainstream attention that stayed fixed on Kweli when he released The Beautiful Struggle in 2004. But lacking in terms of record sales, Kweli has taken matters into his own hands by creating his own label, Blacksmith Records. Production talent on Ear Drum will once again include West but also feature Hi-Tek and Rick Rubin, while KRS-One, Musiq, Norah Jones and others will join Kweli on the mic. Expectations are high for the emcee from Brooklyn.
6. Modest Mouse, We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank
When Modest Mouse announced last year that Johnny Marr, the mastermind behind The Smiths, the gloriously depressing British band led by Morrissey in the ’80s, was joining the rock outfit, emo, indie and hipster kids everywhere stood up, wiped away their tears and cheered. Before the band broke up in 1987, The Smiths were the cult band for cool kids, a combination of Morrissey’s ironically depressing lyrics about alienation and rejection and Marr’s hauntingly intricate guitar. But nearly 20 years after the band’s demise, Marr is back with the mainstream-accepted, hipster-loved Modest Mouse. Modest Mouse broke through into the mainstream in 2004 with Good News for People Who Love Bad News, which sold more than a million copies and ricocheted the band into stardom with the singles “Float On” and “Ocean Breathes Salty.” “Float On” was one of the most popular singles of 2004, and was covered by everyone from Ben Lee to Weird Al Yankovic. The album’s first single, “Dashboard,” is already streaming on Modest Mouse’s MySpace page and highlights both Marr’s trademark guitar-style and Brook’s distinct voice. If the rest of the album follows the example set by “Dashboard,” fans of this indie outfit should be very happy come March.
5. Timbaland, Timbaland Presents Shock Value
Probably best known for his addictive beats, Timbaland will release his second solo album this year, Timbaland Presents Shock Value. The man behind many of Missy Elliott’s, Justin Timberlake’s and Nelly Furtado’s hits-we wouldn’t have seen two of 2006’s top singles, “Sexyback” and “Promiscuous,” without the man – will likely bring that same production prowess to the table on Shock Value. A slew of artists will be featured, including Elton John, Jay-Z, Fall Out Boy, The Hives, Lil Wayne and – of course – Elliott, Timberlake and Furtado. The extensive list of guests is reflective of Timbaland’s objective: “My mission is to take over top-40 radio.” We’ll see this year if Timbaland can do the job solo.
4. Britney Spears
Back when MTV still mattered and sometimes actually played music – circa 1999 or so – Britney Spears stormed on the musical landscape as a teen queen whom suburban girls loved and their mothers feared. Gyrating her way through a high-school hallway in a Catholic school girl outfit in the video for her single, “… Baby One More Time,” Spears burned her image into the brains of teenage boys and middle-aged men everywhere. Through the years, we’ve seen Spears go one-on-one with Matt Lauer, we’ve watched her marriage to Kevin Federline fall apart and, yes, we’ve gaped at her sans panties. But Spears claims to have left her Paris Hilton-worshipping days behind her, and despite rumors Jive Records is going to drop her from the label, the singer has posted a few new tracks on her website. If Spears’ fifth album debuts at the top spot this year, she’ll make history; maybe her recordings with the likes of Sean Garrett and Swizz Beatz can help her hit it one more time.
3. Dr. Dre, Detox
Dr. Dre, one of the most highly acclaimed hip-hop producers of all time, only releases one solo album every seven years, but when he does, the world takes notice. As the founder and CEO of Aftermath Records, Dre made his mark on the hip-hop community early. After time spent as a third of N.W.A., the legendary rap trifecta, Dre debuted solo in 1992 with The Chronic, a classic model of West-Coast gangsta rap. Seven years later in 1999, after single-handedly delivering Eminem to the public with The Slim Shady LP, Dre delivered with 2001, which was similarly acclaimed and heralded as a masterpiece. The much-anticipated (and delayed) Detox will finally release this fall, and will most likely feature a number of guest appearances and Dre’s trademark G-funk beats.
2. Radiohead
Fifteen years removed from “Creep” and 10 from the critically hailed OK Computer, Radiohead is set to release its seventh album in 2007, the first since 2003’s Hail to the Thief. It’s not like 2006 was a quiet year for the band, however – in the spring Radiohead returned to the U.S., playing sold-out shows across the country and headlining the Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival in front of almost 80,000 people. Frontman Thom Yorke also found time to release his first solo album, the electronic-leaning The Eraser, to critical acclaim and moderate commercial success. Last week Yorke announced via a post on the band’s blog Dead Air Space that Radiohead was back in the studio working on the song “15 Steps,” which debuted on tour last year. Yorke has also said the new lyrics are “similar to OK Computer in a way, [but] much more terrifying.” If the lyrics are any indication, then Radiohead may have another smash on its hands, as many critics consider OK Computer the album of the ’90s.
1. Guns N’ Roses, Chinese Democracy
More than a decade ago, Guns N’ Roses was at the top of its game: Lead singer Axl Rose had written the hit single, “Sweet Child O’ Mine,” about girlfriend Erin Everly, the song was getting constant radio airplay and the band’s album, Appetite for Destruction, was selling thousands of copies at music stores such as Tower Records. But fast-forward through the hard-rock demi-gods’ breakup, and the pop culture world of 2007 is drastically different from how it was back then – Everly left Rose after only a year of marriage, Tower Records went bankrupt last year, signaling the end of a music era, and the other members of Guns N’ Roses have moved on with former Stone Temple Pilots’ singer Scott Weiland to form Velvet Revolver. What’s Axl to do but finally release the long-awaited Chinese Democracy after years of speculation, hype and doubt from both Guns N’ Roses critics and fans alike? Rose wrote in a letter to his fans on his website on Dec. 14 that Chinese Democracy will finally come out in March 6 – let’s hope the album sounds better than the once-waifish Axl now looks.
