Lil' Kim, 'La Bella Mafia' (Queen Bee/Big Entertainment/Atlantic)
Hell-on-heels rap diva returns.
By Nick Catucci 07.01.03 3:00 AM
Once upon a time, back when the Kingdom of the East was at war with the Kingdom of the West, Lil' Kim, Princess of Brooklyn, proclaimed herself Queen Bitch. Hard Core, her 1996 debut, updated Roxanne Shanté's scabrous The Bitch Is Back for a hip-hop community groping toward a new synthesis of grime and glamour.
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Hootie and the Blowfish, 'Hootie and the Blowfish' (Atlantic) ; Ben Harper, 'Diamonds on the Inside' (Virgin)
It's not your father's dad rock -- oh, wait, yes it is.
By Andrew Beaujon 07.01.03 3:00 AM
In 2001, singer Darius "Don't Call Me Hootie" Rucker went to the moon. Leaving the echt dad-rock of his once-multiplatinum Blowfish behind, he recorded an R&B solo album called The Return of Mongo Slade, which was eventually de-weirded and released on an indie label with the far-less-advanced title Back to Then.
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White Stripes, 'Elephant' (V2/Third Man Recordings)
In which the blues have a baby and the White Stripes call it art rock.
By Chuck Klosterman 06.30.03 3:00 AM
The White Stripes' Elephant is not a good record. It seems like one for the first eight songs, but then you get to a song called "The Hardest Button to Button." This is when you realize that Elephant is, in fact, a remarkably good record, quite possibly a great record, and certainly the sexiest divorce-rock album since Liz Phair's Exile in Guyville.
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Lucinda Williams, 'World Without Tears' (Lost Highway)
Alt-country siren stops crying her heart out.
By Robert Levine 06.30.03 3:00 AM
Lucinda Williams' 1998 album, Car Wheels on a Gravel Road, was a masterpiece haunted by the drama of its own creation: band lineups shuffled, sounds tweaked, producers replaced. But like 2001's Essence, World Without Tears came easier--and it sounds like it.
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Libertines, 'Up the Bracket' (Rough Trade)
London punks trip over genius en route to the bar.
By Chuck Klosterman 06.30.03 3:00 AM
The Libertines raise a question that comes up quite often in rock 'n' roll: Should we praise a band for seeming like they don't care?
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The Go-Betweens, 'Bright Yellow, Bright Orange' (Jetset)
Australian legends, back again.
By Sasha Frere-Jones 06.30.03 3:00 AM
It started out as a feeling, and now it sounds like a fact: Bands don't have to age badly. Even the Go-Betweens' young 1981 rock sounded, if not old, then happy to spend the night at home with a good chair. Main songwriters Grant McLennan and Robert Forster, both 45, sound younger now that they've brought their band back from deep freeze.
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