DROPS: New albums for Weezer, Ashanti

By Glenn Gamboa | glenn.gamboa@newsday.com

June 3, 2008

The half-life of Weezer's musical styles is shrinking exponentially. The shifts used to occur from album to album. On "Make Believe," the band's previous album, it balanced two styles - peppy power-pop, including the hit " Beverly Hills," and melancholy ballads.

Now, on Weezer's latest eponymous album, nicknamed "The Red Album" (Geffen), the band jumps genres from song to song, sometimes even within the same song, part of its apparent wrestling with what being a rock band means and whether they want to continue doing it.

The epic "The Greatest Man That Ever Lived" moves from a Coldplay piano opening to power-pop to a chorale bridge to a metal breakdown and back to power-pop triumph in less than six minutes. "Dreamin'" is similarly sprawling, moving from carefree pop to concerned rock to aspirational folk to punkish rebellion.

It's the album's more straightforward cuts that work best, though. The clever twists on the familiar-sounding "Pork and Beans," a song about rebelling against the music industry's hit-making conventions, is so catchy it has already become a smash.

On "Heart Songs," where Cuomo declares his fanboy love of a far-flung list of other people's hits from Joan Baez and Eddie Rabbitt to Nirvana and Slayer, before realizing that Weezer now fits into the category of "These are the songs I keep singing."

With "The Red Album," Weezer's members seem to accept their position as alt-rock pioneers, while staying determined not to be constrained by it.

THE GRADE: B

BOTTOM LINE: Adventurous meditations about being a rock band from an adventurous rock band.

ASHANTI

The Declaration

Ashanti has always been a stealth superstar, the kind who rolls out hits without anyone noticing. "The Declaration" (The Inc./Universal Motown) may blow her cover, though.

The single "The Way That I Love You" has already returned her to the top of the R&B charts, but there's way more where that came from. Jermaine Dupri helps out on the playful "Good Good," while Akon and Nelly bring the bounce to "Body On Me," and Robin Thicke and Pharrell heat up the sultry "Things You Make Me Do."

Her "Declaration" shows that not only does she hold her own with any producer, but she molds them to her vision of what current R&B should be.

THE GRADE: B

BOTTOM LINE: Ashanti leaves her comfort zone to collaborate with superstar producers.

NEW TODAY

Aimee Mann's "@#*! Smilers" (SuperEgo)

Disturbed's hard-edged "Indestructible" (Warner Bros.)

Jewel's country "Perfectly Clear" (Valory)

Bret Michaels' pop-metal "Rock My World" (VH1 Classics)

Chris Brown's rereleased deluxe edition of "Exclusive" (Jive)

Radiohead's greatest hits collection "The Best Of" (Capitol)

BACKSTAGE PASS

"Real World" star has a new single - and Long Island ties. Glenn Gamboa has more at: newsday.com/backstagepass