Billboard Singles reviews as presented by Reuters from New York
Artist: Ke$ha
Single: Your Love Is My Drug (RCA Records)
The third single off Ke$ha’s debut album, “Animal” — also known as every bad girl’s sleepover soundtrack — “Your Love Is My Drug” is unforgiving in its mission to equate lustful romance with substance abuse. “I’m looking down every alley/I’m making those desperate calls,” the “Blah Blah Blah” singer narrates over a deeply layered electronic backdrop that knocks even harder than that of her first single, the No. 1 “TiK ToK.” “The rush is worth the price I pay/I get so high when you’re with me/But crash and crave you when you leave,” Ke$ha belts on the bridge. “Is my love your drug?” she asks later — a silly question in theory, but when delivered with spunky vocal conviction and a healthy dose of humor, it’s hard not to answer “Yes.”

Artist: B.O.B Featuring Hayley Williams
Single: Airplanes (Atlantic Records)
Atlanta rapper/singer B.o.B follows up “Nothin’ on You,” his No. 1 hit with Bruno Mars, with a more unexpected collaboration, enlisting Paramore’s Hayley Williams for the inspired “Airplanes.” The rock frontwoman delivers a hook that should have listeners quickly singing along (“I could really use a wish right now, wish right now”), while B.o.B offers introspective rhymes about his transition from underground rapper to burgeoning star. “Somebody take me back to the days/Before this was a job, before I got paid,” he raps. “Back when I was rappin’ for the hell of it/But nowadays, we rappin’ to stay relevant.” Rising UK producer Alex Da Kid anchors a floating piano melody with a militant drumbeat for an arrangement that feels epic yet intimate. With its universal themes of personal struggle and nostalgia, “Airplanes” is a surefire second hit from a bright new talent.
Artist: Miranda Lambert
Single: The House That Built Me (Sony Music)
Though she’s well-known for incendiary tunes like “Kerosene” and “Gunpowder & Lead,” Miranda Lambert demonstrates how beautifully effective she can be with a tender ballad in “The House That Built Me.” The song chronicles a young woman who visits her childhood home to reconnect with her past, and Lambert promises the new owners that if they’ll just let her in, she “won’t take nothin’ but a memory from the house that built me.” The lyric is filled with the kind of powerful visual details that make a great country song, and Lambert’s achingly vulnerable delivery underscores the emotion. This is the latest single from her “Revolution” album — recently named album of the year at the Academy of Country Music Awards — and great performances like this one show why the Texas bombshell has risen to the top.

Billboard CD reviews as presented by Reuters from New York
Artist: Willie Nelson
Album: Country Music (Rounder Records)
 The prospect of Willie Nelson doing country music is like a homecoming for some fans, but his latest release, “Country Music,” isn’t a trip back to “Whiskey River.” Helmed by producer T Bone Burnett, this is front-porch, rural and rustic country music. Nelson is perfect in this setting as he brings his weathered but expressive pipes to percussion-less arrangements of such gems as Ernest Tubb’s “Seaman’s Blues,” Merle Travis’ miner’s lament “Dark as a Dungeon” and the smooth stride of Bob Wills’ “Gotta Walk Alone.” Amid august company that includes musicians Mickey Raphael, Buddy Miller, Jim Lauderdale and Ronnie McCoury, Nelson also digs into pensive treatments of the traditional “Satan Your Kingdom Must Come Down” and Hank Williams’ “House of Gold,” a three-hanky version of “My Baby’s Gone” and a rich rendition of “Satisfied Mind.” But he has some fun on more upbeat fare like Doc Watson’s “Freight Train Boogie” and Bill Mack’s “Drinking Champagne.”

Artist: Natalie Merchant
Album: Leave Your Sleep (Nonesuch Records)
For her first release since “The House Carpenter’s Daughter” in 2003, Natalie Merchant has crafted an ambitious double album that draws upon multiple literary giants for inspiration. “Leave Your Sleep,” features lyrical tributes to famous poems by e.e. cummings, Christina Rossetti, Robert Louis Stevenson and many others. Despite the elaborate concept and overwhelming length (26 tracks), the album soars with gorgeous folk arrangements and Merchant’s daring creativity. “Calico Pie” slides along with the simple pop of a banjo and fiddle, while the playful jazz of “The Janitor’s Boy” uses a delightfully unruly horn section. Merchant’s voice retains its subtle power, and the broad spectrum of genres Merchant explores prevents the set from feeling overlong. The painstakingly constructed record feels light and nimble, a credit to her still-impressive talent as a songwriter.

Artist: Trombone Shorty
Album: Backatown (Verve Forecast)
Troy “Trombone Shorty” Andrews, a 24-year-old singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist from New Orleans, labels his gumbo recipe of funk, rock, R&B and hip-hop as “supafunkrock.” Forget the label. The bottom line on Trombone Shorty’s “Backatown” is the infectious, booty-shaking music and his 100-proof, aged-in-soul vocals. Backed by his band, Orleans Avenue, and such guests as Lenny Kravitz and Allen Toussaint, the horn prodigy (he’s been playing since he was 3) concocts an intoxicating brew of instrumental and vocal tracks, beginning with the energetic, second-line vibe of opener “Hurricane Season.” Then there’s his combustible take on Toussaint’s “On Your Way Down,” accompanied by the piano-playing legend himself. Other standouts include the percolating title track (named for Shorty’s Treme neighborhood, the focus of HBO’s new series of the same title) and the soulful ballad “Fallin’,” co-written with PJ Morton. The gritty, high-energy sound of “Backatown” will have you dancing out of your seat as you search for Trombone Shorty’s nearest live show.

Artist: Arturo Sandoval
Album: A Time For Love (Concord Records)
Trumpets blare, but they can also hush. That’s the revelation in Arturo Sandoval’s lush, strings-graced “A Time for Love,” a dinner-jazz gem that could be the zenith of his 20-plus-year recording career. An Afro-Cuban bebopper at heart whose torrid trumpet runs have been his signature, Sandoval changes course here to deliver long-toned lyrical ballads with a string orchestral backdrop and a fine quartet. He interprets several standards, including the Mandel-Mercer beauty “Emily” and Cole Porter’s “Every Time We Say Goodbye” (featuring a soulful accompaniment by pianist Kenny Barron). But what differentiates Sandoval’s excursion into reflective, slow-song territory from most other orchestral jazz projects is his expanded repertoire. With help from vocalist Monica Mancini, he gently colors Argentine tango composer Astor Piazzolla’s “Oblivion” and gorgeously delves into two classical pieces, one of them Maurice Ravel’s “Pavane Pour Une Infante Defunte.”

Artist: Kurupt
Album: Streetlights (Penagon Entertainment)
Riding high on the critical success of “BlaQKout,” his 2009 collaboration with DJ Quik, rapper Kurupt called on his West Coast brethren to help him maintain the momentum with “Streetlights,” his first solo album since 2001. Kurupt uses the spotlight to contemplate his long and storied career, taking frequent breaks to revel in his insobriety. The tracks “I’m Burnt” and “I’m Drunk” celebrate weed and alcohol with the former employing club-ready bass and claps. In contrast, Kurupt addresses a career’s worth of controversy on “Questions,” while “Yessir” features a soul-searching piano loop courtesy of East Coast legend Pete Rock. Snoop Dogg joins Kurupt on the warmhearted yet vividly vulgar “All That I Want.” Kurupt’s distinct slurred-barking cadence lends itself well to the anthems on the impressive albeit uneven “Streetlights.”

Artist: Matt Pond Pa
Album: The Dark Leaves (Attitude Records)
Matt Pond PA knows a thing or two about chamber pop. And since the Pennsylvania-based band’s first album in 1998, there’s no better example of this than its latest release, “The Dark Leaves.” The appropriately titled opener, “Starting,” melds the warmth of frontman Matt Pond’s voice with melancholy-tinged lyrics; the sprightly arrangements give way to a finger-snap breakdown with unexpected sex appeal. The radio-ready “Ruins” comprises a rolling piano melody, hand claps and a chorus catchy enough for Bruce Springsteen, while “The Dark Leaves Theme” pairs a lively beat with trembling strings and a low-key chorus on which Pond cries, “Life kills me.” But it’s the balance between delicate guitar, lush cello and the singer’s rich vocals on “Brooklyn Fawn” that proves Matt Pond PA is ready to stretch out, not compromise.

Artist: Very Be Careful
Album: Escape Room (Barbes Records)
Colombian music has recently spawned a new wave of electro-folkloric fusion. But on “Escape Room,” Los Angeles band Very Be Careful stays true to the country’s musical roots. Colombian-American Ricardo Guzman (who founded the group with his bassist brother Arturo) voices the everyman on this set of country drinking songs that are delivered in traditional vallenato and cumbia styles. Guzman’s woozy lament on the opening “La Furgoneta” accelerates into a more rousing wail by the second track, “La Abeja.” But the acoustic dance groove of Guzman’s accordion, the Latin percussion and bass never reaches anything near euphoric — and what for some will be a seductively steady beat, others will find merely monotonous. Without digital mash-ups, or the celebratory anthems through which pop star Carlos Vives brought vallenato to the masses in the ‘90s, Very Be Careful achieves an unselfconscious authenticity. The result is music that’s better suited to a corner bar than your iPod.

Artist: Laura Bell Bundy
Album: Achin’ And Shakin’ (Mercury Nashville)
Kentucky native Laura Bell Bundy took an unusual route to Nashville via Broadway, starring in such stage hits as “Legally Blonde” and “Hairspray.” Split into two “sides,” Bundy’s second country album and major-label debut, “Achin’ and Shakin’,” reflects her dramatic flair. The “Achin”’ part of the set includes reflective ballads about pains of the heart, from the pleading “Drop on By” to the surprisingly violent “Curse the Bed,” which is about literally burning an ex-lover’s box spring in effigy. “Shakin”’ features the first single and raucous cheating-lover-kiss-off-anthem “Giddy on Up,” the Shania Twain-esque “Boyfriend?” and “Everybody,” the “Everybody Needs Somebody to Love” for a stomping modern-day country pop generation. Bundy’s obvious affection for feisty predecessors like Loretta Lynn and Dolly Parton adds an appealing jolt to the music’s clever hooks and personal narrative. But what Bundy still needs to develop are the durable melodies and lyrical nuance that turned those artists’ compositions into classics.

Also:
NEW YORK: Craig Finn of the Hold Steady says that one way he knows his Brooklyn-based band has reached a certain level of success is that when it plays smaller markets-as it did during an early-April trek that included stops in Rochester and Syracuse, New York, and Morgantown, West Virginia-people turn up.
“Just knowing that there’s never really going to be a dead show-that’s huge,” says the frontman, who formed the group with guitarist Tad Kubler in 2004 out of the ashes of their Minneapolis post-punk outfit Lifter Puller. “That makes me feel like we’re already operating at this really high standard.”
Vagrant Records COO Jon Cohen agrees with Finn but sees room for growth. He thinks “Heaven Is Whenever,” the Hold Steady’s fifth full-length release (due Tuesday on Vagrant), could trigger a breakthrough along the lines of the one Phoenix experienced with last year’s “Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix.”
“Like the Hold Steady, Phoenix were on a steady rise, then made an amazing record and got some important looks. (“Saturday Night Live”), then the Cadillac commercial. Things happened in succession to move the band to the next level,” Cohen says.

Kubler says “Heaven Is Whenever” is “more dynamic and has more depth” than the band’s past work, with a greater emphasis on guitars (due to the departure earlier this year of keyboardist Franz Nicolay). “There’s a grandeur to the new songs,” band manager Juan Luis Carrera says, though he adds that the album “still adheres to the band’s foundation.” Finn defines that foundation as “this straight rock ‘n’ roll thing,” which reflects Kubler’s surging bar-band riffs, if not the singer’s densely allusive lyrics.
In addition to increased play on radio, an indicator that the Hold Steady is beginning to resonate beyond what Finn calls “the Pitchfork indie world” is an upcoming live performance on baseball’s MLB.com. Heineken has signed the group for a partnership launching in early May that involves signs at retail outlets as well as a handful of private performances.
A dogged live act, the Hold Steady is playing several European festivals this summer, and it’s scheduled to hit Sasquatch outside Seattle, Summerfest in Milwaukee and New York’s Beacon Theatre for a headlining date in October.