Friday, February 27, 2004

JC CHASEZ

"Schizophrenic" (Jive)

So what do the other guys in 'N Sync do now that Justin's established himself as both a superstar and critic's darling in the same breath?

For JC Chasez, the answer is obvious. Follow his lead.

But Chasez hits the dance floor stumbling on the aptly titled "Schizophrenic." "Some Girls (Dance With Women)" tries too hard to channel the eccentric vibe that feels so natural when the Neptunes do it. And Chasez himself tries way too hard to prove that, unlike Timberlake, he doesn't need the Neptunes or anyone helping him out.

He co-writes all but one track here and co-produces several.

But the weird thing is, the album as a whole is pretty good. For what it is. He may sound lost on the edgier cuts, especially on "Some Girls" and "Blowin' Me Up (With Her Love)," in which he slips into a British accent while delivering tired hip-hop street slang, but he's much more at home on the numbers that draw on his musical youth -- from "She Got Me," a slinky little cut that finds him hitting the clubs in a letterman's jacket from the Stevie Wonder school of funk, to "Build My World," a yearning ballad that somehow comes on like a cross between Joe Jackson's "Night and Day" and Paul Young belting out another great lost Hall and Oates song.

Chasez does a convincing Purple Rain-dance on "100 Ways," complete with distorted electric guitar and a quirky falsetto delivery, and puts an infectious electro-funk spin on Robert Plant's orgasmic wailing from "Whole Lotta Love" -- we're talkin' note for note -- on "If You Were My Girl."

It's shameless, really.

But charmingly so.

And that goes double for the ridiculous synth-pop revival of "All Day Long I Dream About Sex," a track that's guaranteed to spin you right round, baby, right round like a record.

Sadly, there are times when even blatant cribbing from the past can feel a little played out. Donna Summer's "I Feel Love" has never sounded so in need of a marital aid, while "Something Special" is anything but as it desperately tries to rekindle the spark George Michael lit with "Faith."

And Corey Hart??!! Who looks to Corey Hart for inspiration?

Give Chasez some credit, though. He's truly up for anything -- anything old, in particular. And unlike several other aging teen-pop idols we could name if so inclined, the guy can really sing.

-- Ed Masley

THE MINUS 5

"In Rock" (Yep Roc)

Now that his Minus 5 team-up with Wilco -- last year's brilliant "Down With Wilco" -- has given Young Fresh Fellow Scott McCaughey the audience he's so richly deserved for nearly two decades, the floodgates have opened on all things McCaughey. Or not floodgates, per se. But things are beginning to trickle out here at a decent clip. The year of "Down With Wilco" (as 2003 is known in certain quarters) ended with "I Don't Know Who I Am," a limited-release collection of outtakes from the sessions that produced 2001's "Let the War Against Music Begin." Arriving two months later, "In Rock" is a reconfigured re-issue of a limited release from Y2K on Book, McCaughey's own label. Four songs have been added, two treasures removed -- "Myrna Loy (#2)" and a spirited cover of the jangling '60s chestnut "The Little Black Egg."

The overall mood of the album is more in keeping with the Young Fresh Fellows than McCaughey's recent Minus 5 releases. In a good way. It opens with "Bambi Molester," a feedback-drenched garage-punk instrumental with a pounding riff that picks up where the Fellows left off on their cover of "Someone I Care About." Among the four new tracks here, "Bambi" sets the tone for an album of raucous garage-punk abandon applied to a pop sensibility formed by the sound of the British Invasion (with an admirable lack of restraint when it came to deciding which songs needed organ and how much). The Minus 5 -- including Peter Buck and once and future Young Fresh Fellow Kurt Bloch -- gave themselves a day to make this record. And it shows. If that sounds like a bad thing, then you wouldn't like it. Sorry. Highlights range from the sweet '60s charm of "The Girl I Never Met" to "Dr. Evil: Doctor of Evil," a song that so perfectly captures the sound of the '60s garage, it could have bluffed its way onto the "Nuggets" box set. And it would have been a better box set for it. But it's not about the highlights, really. Every song here has the feel of people playing rock 'n' roll because they love it. You could too.

-- Ed Masley

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