A host of big-name artists are releasing albums this week, starting with Madonna’s double-disc collection dedicated to her entire tenure on Warner Music, Celebration. Packing 34 hits and two new songs onto two discs, Celebration is a dizzying, non-chronological journey through the Material Girl’s hits, from “Burning Up” to “Dress You Up” to “Hung Up.” “Her hitmaking genius is unmatched and — with the new Eurocheese blast ‘Celebration’ and the Lil Wayne duet ‘Revolver’ — undiminished,” Rob Sheffield writes in his four-star Rolling Stone review of the collection. “It’s almost enough to make you forget that they left off ‘Angel,’ which is just plain crazypants.” If by some chance you’re somehow unfamiliar with the Rock and Roll Hall of Famer’s oeuvre, or you’re a child of the Britney era, Celebration is a perfect entry point.
Paramore’s third album Brand New Eyes also lands today. On their Rob Cavallo-produced LP, fiery-haired frontwoman Hayley Williams and the rest of Paramore deviate from their mall punk Riot! for something deeper, lambasting TV preachers, questioning the future and trying their hand at an acoustic ballad. When they hit, they nail it, however as Jon Dolan writes in his three-star review, “some of the sweeping moments blunt the band’s fresh-faced immediacy — as if the cute kids from the sticks have had a hard time turning pro.”
And then, there’s Mariah. After a handful of delays, Memoirs of an Imperfect Angel finally arrives in a fiercely competitive sales week. Teaming with the all-star production duo of The-Dream and “Tricky” Stewart and revealing a humorous side usually hidden by the diva, “the result is Carey’s most sonically and tonally coherent release, a mix of love ballads (’Inseparable’) and sassy breakup anthems ...
Article Source: Rolling Stone : Rock and Roll Daily