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More Chuck Campbell

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Ex-‘Idol’ contender Blake Lewis aims for distinction

“HEARTBREAK ON VINYL,” Blake Lewis (Tommy Boy)

Rather than attempt to be everything to everyone, like so many other “American Idol” contenders try to do, Blake Lewis is honing in on a very specific sound.

The sixth-season “Idol” contestant, who finished second to Jordin Sparks, follows his moderately successful 2007 release, “Audio Day Dream,” with a “Heartbreak on Vinyl” that zeroes in on what “Audio” did best — electronic dance music. And although Lewis’ trademark gimmick on the TV show was his beatbox vocals, he graciously offers little of that on either of the releases.

Lewis seems quite comfortable in his genre of choice, and he finds a way to poke through the heavy machinery with stylish singing. He’s no Justin Timberlake, but he’s working on it.

“Heartbreak on Vinyl” nods to a variety of influences. The modern springy funk of “Left My My Baby 4 You” owes something to Daft Punk, while the languid “Our Rapture of Love,” produced by Lewis himself, exudes Depeche Mode. Also, the singer sounds a bit like Sting on “Rebel Without a Cause,” employing smooth, straightforward vocals that churn down the electronica assembly line.

Best of all, there are tracks that might be the building blocks of a Blake Lewis sound, sans the derivative feel. On the opening title track, for instance, he’s a distinctive crooner holding his own in a heady rush of dance/pop and working a sense of melancholy into the cold technology. He likewise extends a human touch into the prodding rhythms of “Binary Love.”

“Heartbreak on Vinyl” features a scattering of formulaic filler tracks, however they’re fewer in number than those on “Audio Day Dream” and they aren’t as anonymous.

Lewis is showing improvement and may yet become a genuine idol.

Rating (five possible): 3-1/2

Sufjan Stevens’ road leads to austerity

“THE BQE,” Sufjan Stevens (Asthmatic Kitty)

As inexplicable as Sufjan Stevens’ live performance-art piece “The BQE” might have been in 2007, it’s even harder to understand why he was inspired to revisit the project two years later and release “The BQE” as a CD/DVD/expanded booklet/stereoscopic image reel.

“The BQE” is an audio/visual exploration of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, a New York City roadway completed in 1964. In Stevens’ rambling (aggressively rambling) liner notes, he meanders through an overly detailed description of the unwieldy, congestion-prone expressway. Suffice it to say, he doesn’t consider it one of humankind’s most beautiful undertakings, though he does refer to it as “the Motherhood of Civilization.”

The Brooklyn Academy of Music commissioned Stevens for “The BQE” for a three-night run during the 2007 New Wave Festival, and he brought aboard a band, orchestra and Hula Hoopers. A week after the performance, he took the orchestra into the studio and recorded the soundtrack.

For some reason, he just recently got around to mixing the music and editing a video that originally served as a backdrop of the performance. The result is a CD soundtrack that is often atmospheric and a DVD that is torturously excessive.

The music ranges from the eerie extended drone of the opening prelude to grandiose symphonic movements with horn and string sections. Along the way are whimsical instrumentals befitting the Magic Kingdom’s Main Street U.S.A., a mid-soundtrack electronica breakdown and even a bit of burlesque art-pop. Stevens is above-par with the CD thanks to his fluid pacing and diverse moods.

The DVD is a disaster, a seemingly endless 50 minutes of vehicles speeding along (or at a standstill) on the BQE, an unremarkable roadway surrounded by mostly drab scenery. The screen is split into thirds, and the perspective is continuously changing and rarely enlightening. Three costumed women wielding Hula Hoops provide campy diversions, but overall, viewers are apt to regret losing nearly an hour of their lives to such self-indulgence.

Some might mentally process the entire experience into a grand statement about progress — an effort they might make out of a need to feel like “The BQE” has to mean something important. Others will just accept the soundtrack as a serviceable bit of music and motor on.

Rating: 3

Greg Giraldo’s ‘Midlife’ averts crisis

“MIDLIFE VICES,” Greg Giraldo (Comedy Central)

Greg Giraldo’s slouchy appearance on the cover of his new “Midlife Vices” indicates he might need some “freshening up.”

But really, it’s the comedian’s material that could use an update.

The 43-year-old New York native ultimately relies on his commanding delivery to drive him through the thin spots on “Midlife Vices,” recorded this past June at New York City’s Union Square Theater. He stumbles a bit out of the block by expressing his love for him hometown, citing as example the city’s reaction to 9/11 — a bit he’s probably been using for several years now.

Later, he’s rehashing the 2008 election and telling jokes about the campaigns of John McCain and Hillary Clinton and throwing in a few jabs at George W. Bush. The danger of political jokes is that they have virtually no shelf life, and these let the air out of Giraldo’s set.

But the Comedy Central mainstay, known for his appearances on the network’s lewd roasts, rebounds with more universal jokes, self-deprecating humor and bawdy observations, gathering momentum to propel him to several satisfying peaks.

He bites with comments about obese kids and the discarded elderly, making America as a whole the primary target. Racism, homophobia, relationships and drugs likewise prove to be reliable subjects. Giraldo also sparkles in a couple of impromptu situations — one in which he flubs an explicit line and capitalizes on the moment to question his own sexual proclivities, and another in which he spies a “Rasta man” sleeping in the crowd.

Yet Giraldo is best as the butt of his own jokes. His texting addiction has left him, “walking around like a crack-addled praying mantis,” and about his resilience in the down-turned economy, he boasts, “Investing all my money in tequila and strippers wasn’t such a bad policy after all.”

“Midlife Vices” listeners may be a tougher crowd than his audience at Union Square Theater, but Giraldo’s perseverance brings it home.

Rating: 3-1/2

© 2009, Knoxville News Sentinel
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