MUSIC REVIEWS: Pop, country/roots, jazz and classical releases

The Philadelphia Inquire

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VARIOUS ARTISTS "I'm Not There: Original Soundtrack" (Sony, 3 stars)

Todd Haynes' Bob Dylan movie, "I'm Not There," is an art project that aims to explain the Bard as a shape-shifting cat whose multiple facets are explored by seven performers, including Cate Blanchett and 11-year-old African-American actor Marcus Carl Franklin.

The movie's soundtrack, thankfully, is a much more straightforward affair, and a surprisingly successful one, even if, at two CDs and 34 songs, it runs a little long. Some of the exemplary performances, like the mystical cover of "Goin' to Acapulco" by Jim James of My Morning Jacket (with Mex-Tex band Calexico behind him), are sung onscreen by the artists themselves.

Others, such as Stephen Malkmus' "Ballad of a Thin Man" and John Doe's gospel-rock "Pressin' On," are lip-synced (by Christian Bale and Blanchett, respectively). And many, like Yo La Tengo's "Fourth Time Around," Los Lobos' "Billy 1," and Karen O's "Highway 61 Revisited," are not heard in the film at all.

Dylan, of course, has been covered ad nauseam. But what makes most of I'm Not There worth hearing are savvy song choices such as Mark Lanegan's spooky "Man in the Long Black Coat" or Iron & Wine's (and Calexico's) reimagined "Dark Eyes." (There are also less rewarding, more conventional covers by Mason Jennings and Charlotte Gainsbourg.) By the time Dylan himself shows up to sing the title song - a collaboration with the Band that didn't make it onto "The Basement Tapes" - the INT soundtrack has shown his bottomless catalog to be endlessly renewable.

-Dan DeLuca

ROBERT WYATT "Comicopera" (Domino, 3 stars)

Robert Wyatt has been a cult artist for 40 years, beginning with his days as drummer in the British prog-rock band Soft Machine. He's an enigmatic artist who blends jazz complexity, avant-garde experimentalism, and pop melodicism.

"Comicopera" is sometimes whimsical but rarely comic; more often, it's political. The collection is divided into three "acts": the first of strange love songs, the second of glimpses of a war-torn world (including one from a bomber's perspective followed by one from someone being bombed), the third of songs sung in Italian and Spanish as a form of protest against Britain and America, including an ode to Che Guevara. Phil Manzanera, Brian Eno and Paul Weller appear, as do several female vocalists, but the focus is on Wyatt's keyboards, trumpet and percussion, and, especially, his tender but eerie, boyish but aged, soulful but unsettling voice. It's an instrument perfectly suited to these conflicted songs.

-Steve Klinge

CHRIS BROWN "Exclusive" (Jive, 3 stars)

There are always more than a few young MCs around; maybe now more than usual what with kids like Soulja Boy and Hurricane Chris and Lil' Mama out and about. This must make Chris Brown feel like an old man. At 18.

Perhaps that's why Brown's sophomore effort sounds as if he's ready to ripen, to ease into old age gracefully, beyond the chirpy R&B and shiny hip-hop of his debut. Brown's got a heavier musical bag to high-step around here - some crotchety rock and gospel twists in his mix; some dense funk and blips of go-go to be found. That's fine. The simmering soul pop of "Picture Perfect" and the grand "Wall to Wall" are delicious examples of how Brown reacts to thicker tracks with real melody lines. But it's Brown's swaggering style throughout Exclusive that's sort of impressive. Thuggish? No. Brown's no gangsta. But he's dashingly rugged in a `tween way (think the Jacksons meet G Unit), holding his own with T-Pain on "Kiss Kiss" as well as the wily "I'll Call Ya."