We are now officially in the fourth quarter sales market. Department stores have begun to roll out the Christmas decorations, big summer movies are winding their way to the DVD department and some major releases in music are on the horizon for the all-important time in the retail year. It seemed appropriate, then, for me to discuss some of the most recent new releases in my headphones, one of which comes with a lot of expectation and another that exploded unbidden from out of the blue. Intrigued?

Ben Folds, Way to Normal (Epic)

I’ve been a fan of Folds’s work for a long time but find his solo efforts incredibly uneven. His last release, Songs for Silverman, was a leaden, ballad-heavy affair with very few tracks to really grab hold of. The latest, Way to Normal, should have been a return to form but only half succeeds. Sure, he regains a bit of his bounce and more than a bit of his bite, but the songs come from a sticky place: the dissolution of his third marriage, a relationship that informed most of his previous two albums. What you end up with is a lot of songs that make you feel like a friend has borrowed your ear for a while, relating to you how horrible that witch he used to be with has been. All the while, you have a sneaking suspicion that this friend is hardly as innocent as he claims.

I have no idea about the details of Folds’s personal life or how his marriage came apart. With semi-scathing tunes like “Bitch Went Nuts”, “Errant Dog,” and “You Don’t Know Me,” I frankly don’t want to know. Kiss-off and piss-off songs are common fodder in pop music, but they’re easier to take in smaller doses. They’re also easier on the ears when the production isn’t as abrasive as Dennis Herring’s. Tweedly-sounding synths, canned beat construction, occasional distortions that could be mistaken for blown speakers all attempt to frame the tunes in the most modern way, but become tiresome after a while. Worse, “You Don’t Know Me” employs the wonderful Regina Spektor and gives her nothing to really work with. Spektor, like Folds, has harnessed the power of solo voice and piano to great effect, so it’s really disappointing to find that anyone could have contributed her part on this song. (more…)

Ah, the fourth quarter. It isn’t as much of an event as it used to be, but even as the music industry crumbles to dust before our very eyes, artists and labels continue to focus on the last few months of the year for the biggest glut of high-profile releases on the calendar, and 2008 is no exception.

Rather than punishing your eyes with a comprehensive fall music preview, or soliciting input from everyone on the staff, I decided to put together a list of the titles I’m either looking forward to (Lindsey Buckingham, Brian Wilson), need to hear to satisfy some dark, unexplained urge (Gym Class Heroes, Queen), or simply find interesting for some reason (Todd Rundgren, AC/DC). If you’ve been waiting for someone to tell you how to spend the “music” portion of your discretionary income for the next few months, look no further — without further ado, here’s my list of 21 fall releases to watch for.

Rodney Crowell - Sex & Gasoline (Yep Roc, September 2)

In which one of country’s most freewheeling (read: consistently interesting) songwriters hooks up with Yep Roc for a song cycle that, if the press kit is to be trusted, is “about women.” You can be certain the songs do more than just live up to that simple billing, especially with titles like “The Rise and Fall of Intelligent Design” — and as an added bonus, our pal Joe Henry was behind the boards (and does a duet with Crowell on one track, “I’ve Done All That I Can”). What, you don’t like country? Yeah, me neither. But I’m buying this. (more…)