TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 2, 2010 MUSIC QUICK SPINS


Jason Aldean MY KINDA PARTY


Georgia-born country star Jason Aldean may


never do another song as weird as “Dirt Road Anthem,” the redneck rap song that is the high point of his fourth disc, “My Kinda Party.” A cover of a track popularized by country singer-rapper Colt Ford, it’s a standard-issue ode to George Jones and back roads, beer and biscuits made deliriously novel by Aldean’s delivery, which falls somewhere in between beatnik spoken word and Kid Rock. A rock-and-roll-influenced hat act with blue-collar inclinations, Aldean must have figured that one boundary-stretching moment was enough, because the rest of “Party” is likable but Nashville boilerplate. Every other track will sound familiar, even if it’s the first time you’ve heard it. There are manly love songs (like the mid-tempo


“Heartache That Don’t Stop Hurting,” stopped from being a full-fledge weeper only by Aldean’s limited range). There’s a superstar duet (the great and gooey Kelly Clarkson collaboration “Don’t You Wanna Stay,” which sounds like Bryan Adams teaming with Heart in 1984 for a contribution to some alternate universe “Footloose” soundtrack. It’s that good). There are Toby Keith-style odes to patriotism


(like “Fly Over States,” which is milder than it could have been, again thanks to Aldean’s limited range) and a grouping of formulaic “I like beer and pickup trucks, just in case you were wondering” anthems like “Country Boy’s World” and “My Kinda Party” that deliver pretty much what they advertise.


—Allison Stewart Recommended tracks: “Don’t You Wanna Stay,” “Fly Over States”


Recommended tracks: “Oh Santa!,” “Charlie Brown Christmas”


Mariah Carey MERRY CHRISTMAS II YOU


Sixteen years ago, Mariah Carey assured her standing in the pop cultural firmament. Not with a public meltdown or scandalous divorce, but with an increasingly rare and long-lasting contribution: a beloved holiday recording. Carey’s 1994 stopgap album, “Merry Christmas,” was a certified smash, and “All I Want for Christmas Is You,” written with her longtime collaborator Walter Afansieff, became one of the last modern holiday standards. In the intervening decade and a half, Carey has shape-shifted from coquettish butterfly to flopping film star to cheer-worthy comeback kid. So forgive “Merry Christmas II You,” a somewhat tentative return to holiday form. What this sequel of sorts does for Carey is return her piercing, five-octave vocal range to its glossy, meretricious roots. What it does not do is add an original the likes of “All I Want.” There are noble gestures — a neo-soul noel from the Roots affiliate James Poyser, “When Christmas Comes,” and “Oh Santa!,” Carey’s hyperkinetic, stomping team-up with onetime career-saver Jermaine Dupri and the underrated modern soul maestro Bryan-Michael Cox. But neither is unselfconscious, let alone canonical. And the less said about the aerobic New Jack Swing update of “Here Comes Santa Claus,” the better. Only “Charlie Brown Christmas,” a clever re-imagining of the beloved Vince Guaraldi composition, smacks of wit — it’s a sly nod to a previous champion of modern holiday fare. —Sean Fennessey


Matt & Kim SIDEWALKS


Matt & Kim are part of a new breed of musicians that’s much more interested in being your best friend than any sort of rock star. In concert, the impossibly jubilant synth-pop duo is like Sonny and Cher gorged on Pixy Stix and Red Bull. That means singalongs, hand claps and an everybody-get-happy, permanent-smile enthusiasm. The energy level is high on the duo’s new album, “Sidewalks,” but there’s also a sense of restraint that serves the songs well. After the sugar rush, the Brooklyn duo is capable of churning out some straightforward songs that have exactly as much staying power as a three-minute pop song should. “AM/FM Sound” spills the whole bag of tricks — blurting keyboards, a few random whirrs in the background, innocent lyrics “I just sit here tonight and you will wait by my side” that lead into a wordless chorus of “Oh-ey-oh-ey-oh,” all over a rudimentary bounce. Instead of 10 carbon copies, the band throws


in a few new sounds, notably some Southern hip-hop beats on “Block After Block” and “Cameras.” It’s leagues removed from the imposing wall of sound employed by the likes of Gucci Mane and Waka Flocka Flame, and to say it adds edge would be taking it too far, but you can dance to it without simply pogoing in place. “Cameras” at first sounds like an Andy Samberg-style hip-hop parody but is even more sincere and stupid, which makes it the prototypical Matt & Kim song. —David Malitz


Recommended tracks: “Cameras,” “AM/FM Sound”


KLMNO


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THE CLASSICAL BEAT Post critic Anne Midgette offers her take on the classical music world at voices. washingtonpost.com/the-classical-beat.


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CLICK TRACK For more pop music news, reviews and features, visit ClickTrack, The Post’s pop music blog at blog.washingtonpost.com/ clicktrack.


SINGLES FILE


A weekly playlist for the listener with a one-track mind


Nicki Minaj featuring Eminem: “Roman’s Re- venge” This riveting, gross and totally insane exercise in self-debasement (her) and reflexively violent misogy- ny (him) is the most provocative track off Minaj’s up- coming “Pink Friday.”


Crystal Castles and Robert Smith: “Not in Love” (GVNR mix) GVNR adds muscle to last week’s most-buzzed- about track, the ’80s-tastic collabo between the Castles and the year’s biggest “get” — Cure front- man Smith.


U.S. Royalty: “Equestrian” The District-based four-piece (which Esquire maga- zine recently dubbed the best-dressed band at CMJ, despite their fondness for ponchos) delivers a su- perbly folky, harmony-happy pop track, the first sin- gle from the full-length debut, “Mirrors.”


Esben and the Witch: “War- path”


Another exercise in sub- limely spooky, Gothy elec- tro from the recent Mata- dor signees.


It’sTheReal: “My Girl’s a Republi- can” The rap-comedy outfit explores the pros and cons of having a right- wing girlfriend. Time elapsed be- fore the inevi- table “drill baby drill” reference? Almost three minutes.


— Allison Stewart


EDGY: Rapper Nicki Minaj. MYSPACE


MUSIC REVIEW THEATER REVIEW


‘Mi Marido’: A spicy start to Hispanic festival


Teatro de la Luna will host premieres through Nov. 27


by Celia Wren


A firecracker of a one-woman show signaled the opening in late October of the 13th International Festival of Hispanic Theater, hosted by Arlington’s Teatro de la Luna. Writer Elizabeth Fuentes’s “Mi Marido Es un Cornudo (My Husband Is a Cuckold)” is a witty, cosmopolitan and refreshingly cheerful tale of unremorseful adultery that has found a knock- out interpreter in celebrated Ven- ezuelan actress Elba Escobar. Sauntering around the stage with an air of wicked relish, occa- sionally pausing to improvise — teasing audience members about their love lives, for instance — Es- cobar kept a seemingly sold-out house in guffaws for a 90-minute performance. “Mi Marido,” which is directed by Enrique Salas, has moved on to New York — it plays at Manhat- tan’s Repertorio Español on Fri- day and Saturday. But the Arling- ton festival, at the Gunston Arts Center’s Theater II, continues through late November with U.S. premieres of shows from Argenti- na, the Dominican Republic and Paraguay, as well as a world pre- miere: Teatro de la Luna’s staging of the family play “Gotas de Agua (Drops of Water),” by U.S.-based Venezuelan thespian Jacqueline Briceño. With the exception of Briceño’s piece (which is bilin- gual), the productions are per- formed in Spanish, with simulta- neous English translation avail- able via headset.


Audiences will be fortunate if the rest of the lineup is as saucily engaging as “Mi Marido,” about a female magazine journalist who trysts with a hunky colleague while — coincidentally — work- ing on an investigative report


A Halloween program heavy on monster chords


Pianist Andrey Ponochevny’s decision to replace the originally scheduled Brahms, Schubert and Rachmaninoff with Scriabin and Prokofiev for his program at the Phillips Collection on Sun- day was a bad one. His piece de resistance, Nikolai Medtner’s in- terminable E Minor Sonata No. 2, which opened the program, goes on for over a half- hour but seemed far longer. It is the sort of self-indulgent, over- the-top, romantic effu- sion that sounds like what a first-rate pianist might improvise to while away time, and, paired with those other two big Russian pieces (good as these are), it mired the afternoon in an avalanche of monster chords. That being said, however, Po-


out in legato phrases while ev- erything else was crashing per- cussively around them. He rev- eled in the color of the music’s sonorities and he seemed inde- fatigable. It would have been easier to


Ponochevny


savor Scriabin’s Sonata No. 4, Op. 30, if it hadn’t fol- lowed the Medtner. Po- nochevny emphasized the fleetness of the sec- ond movement in a way that underplayed its hard edges and fo- cused, instead, on mo- mentum. However, Scriabin and Medtner share a common idi- om, and, although


TEATRO DE LA LUNA


ONE-WOMAN SHOW: Elba Escobar commanded the stage in “Mi Marido Es un Cornudo (My Husband Is a Cuckold),” which kicked off the 13th International Festival of Hispanic Theater.


about female infidelity. On an eye-catching set, consisting of a white chaise longue, a coat stand and a blood-red rug and match- ing ottoman, the Rubenesque Es- cobar tossed off impressions of a pompous psychiatrist dispensing yawn-worthy advice; a cranky husband spotting surreptitiously bought lingerie; and a male lo- thario with the physique of a Greek god and a proclivity for talking geopolitics (the state of East Timor, say) in bed. Mostly,


Sauntering around the stage with an air of wicked relish . . . Escobar kept a seemingly sold-out house in guffaws.


though, she portrayed the play’s self-aware heroine — shutting herself, taut-faced, in an office bathroom to read a letter from her lover; grinning goofily in a bar while researching an article on martini trends; and, finally, blowing wistful kisses in an air- port after a bittersweet goodbye. Next up at the festival are two


plays from Argentina, Christian Vivas and Hernán Traversa’s “So- corro! Me Caso (Help! I’m Getting Married)” and Pablo Di Felice’s humorous Shakespeare riff, “Ro- meo y Julieta, una Obra en Con- strucción (Romeo and Juliet, a Work in Progress).” Those will be followed by “Ubú Rey (King Ubu),” a version of the Alfred Jar- ry classic by a Dominican Repub- lic troupe; Briceño’s piece; and, finally, Hugo Luis Robles’s “Te- chaga’ú-Añoranza (Wistful Mem- ories),” from Paraguay. style@washpost.com


Wren is a freelance writer.


13th International Festival of Hispanic Theater presented by Teatro de la Luna.


Through Nov. 27 at Gunston Arts Center, Theater II, 2700 S. Lang St., Arlington. Call 703-548-3092 or visit www.teatrodelaluna.org.


P chase tic ru k ts etoday! Look Who’s Coming to the


nochevny is an impressive pia- nist. He couldn’t rescue the Medtner from its excesses, but the technical challenges it posed gave him no difficulty at all. He was able to bring out individual lines from the midst of the thick- est textures and to draw them


Scriabin said it better, Medtner said it longer and louder. The astringency of Prokofiev’s idiom came through nicely in Ponochevny’s reading of the B- flat Sonata No. 7. The quiet rumi- nations of the opening of the second movement were a relief in the midst of a program that was otherwise so bombastic, and the rest bounced along cheerfully.


—Joan Reinthaler


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