POP/ROCK
Skylar Grey, "Don't Look Down" (Interscope)
Revenge is the best revenge in Grey's songs. She can be long-suffering, and she might even savor some of the torment, the better to examine it and house it in a dignified melody. She also writes about offering support, pulling herself together and moving on after a breakup. But when pushed too far, she counterattacks.
"Don't Look Down" is her first album as Skylar Grey, the name she adopted in 2010. But she released her debut solo album in 2006 as Holly Brook, a brooding, piano-playing singer/songwriter. The name change shifted her sound and persona. As Grey, she's still brooding, but her songs now also have the bluntness, electronic sizzle and rhythmic muscle of hip-hop; she also favors the higher, more cutting end of her vocal range. Her doormat days are ending.
Her big break was collaborating in 2010 with producer Alex Da Kid on a bitterly accusatory ballad, "Love the Way You Lie," that Eminem turned into a smash single. Eminem raps here on Grey's sarcastic flirtation, "C'mon Let Me Ride."
Grey's influences can be obvious: Fiona Apple, Alanis Morissette, Dido and Elton John. But she finds unusual situations for her narrators: left behind by an ex's success in "Tower (Don't Look Down)," unwed and pregnant in a song with a vulgar title. For Grey, angst, melody and a hip-hop backbone are a promising combination. Grey performs Saturday at the Icehouse in Minneapolis.
JON PARELES, New York Times
R&B
Ciara, "Ciara" (Epic)
"What I got, baby, you can't have," Ciara taunts a would-be suitor in a track from her fifth CD, and that's denial-as-usual for the appealingly aloof R&B singer, known for the 2004 hit "Goodies."
Yet beyond "Keep on Lookin' " and the swaggering "I'm Out" with Nicki Minaj, Ciara mellows her approach here, the result perhaps of her happy relationship with rapper Future, who joins her for two beautifully spaced-out slow jams: "Where You Go" and "Body Party."
The shift on "Ciara" may also be a reaction to the poor performance of her previous disc, 2010's "Basic Instinct." But Ciara, long one of R&B's most adventurous beat-seekers, isn't suddenly playing it safe. In "DUI" she asks a lover to "put them handcuffs on me," while "Super Turnt Up" includes a rap verse by the singer herself. Content? Sure. Complacent? Not yet.
Mikael Wood, Los Angeles Times
