POP/ROCK: Daughtry, "Break the Spell" (RCA)
"Heard that song on the radio," Chris Daughtry sings on the new album by his platinum-selling rock band, Daughtry, "and it got my gears turning like a real-life time machine." The words come from "Louder Than Ever," a crunchy, guitar-heavy number in which the former "American Idol" finalist chews over his memories of an old romance. It's sweet.
Yet as a track on one of 2011's highest-profile rock releases, "Louder Than Ever" seems to long for more than just a faded affair. When Daughtry slides into the chorus and sings, "Those days might be gone," it's easy to imagine him mourning the death of mainstream rock itself; he's lamenting the end of an era when a crunchy, guitar-heavy number was likely to crop up on the radio in the first place. Several of the songs on his album feel this way.
Daughtry packs more exuberance into "Break the Spell" than fellow radio-rockers Nickelback do with their new "Here and Now" -- partly as a result of his superior singing. But for all his rock nostalgia, he sounds more open to outside influence, too, and that keeps the music relatively light on its feet, as in "Crawling Back to You," a luscious power ballad with traces of spacey synth, and "Crazy," which you could imagine Taio Cruz or Jason Derulo singing in a different arrangement.
Purposefully or not, those other flavors also bring Daughtry's songs more closely in line with tunes from the glory days he sings about missing: pop- and soul-aware material by Bon Jovi and Guns N' Roses and Def Leppard. Back then, rock acts didn't worry about needing to defend their turf, which made people want to join them. Could it be that the only thing rock has to fear is rock itself? Daughtry performs Dec. 29 at Mystic Lake Casino.
- MIKAEL WOOD, LOS ANGELES TIMES
HIP-HOP: Yelawolf, "Radioactive" (Interscope)
Southern rap and Southern rock haven't necessarily been the most obvious of bedfellows. But on Alabama rapper Yelawolf's debut studio full-length, he finds an awful lot of kinship in the dirty South's stylistic exports. "Radioactive" builds on his nimble, more orthodox mix-tape compilation "Trunk Muzik 0-60" for an album that, while scattershot and overstuffed, is a compelling showcase for this very able and charismatic MC.
Yela's at his best when his venomous, speed-freak flow gets to dominate. The 808 patter of "Let's Roll" has an unexpectedly soulful chorus from Kid Rock, but the verses tell a convincing tableau of rising from slow-rolling prescription-pill popping to real pride. "Hard White (Up in the Club)" rides a moaning, goth-exotica vocal sample while Yela works between two very raw musical worlds, boasting that "you'll never see rock 'n' roll do hip-hop like I did."
