(3 of 5)
This season offers an unusually full sophomore class, including singer Sheryl Crow, a fresh face three years ago. Her second album, bluntly titled Sheryl Crow and due out Sept. 24, is a sometimes amusing, mostly blah disc that may move units but doesn't move the soul. In better form is Counting Crows, whose first CD was a multiplatinum hit and a consistent delight; the band's Recovering the Satellites (Oct. 15) is a wise, worthy successor. Also, teen singer Aaliyah's second CD, One in a Million (just out), is soulfully soothing, and neo-soul performer Tricky's Pre-Millennium Tension (Nov. 5) should generate buzz. All three of these sophomores look ready to graduate to stardom.
There are also acts with more and less experience worth watching out for this fall. In terms of freshmen, there's the ska band the Blue Beats, whose Dance with Me (October) will be released on tiny Moon Records, and vocalist Madeleine Peyroux, whose Dreamland (Oct. 1) is an enchanting mix of jazz, country and blues. As for returning upperclassmen, saxman Joshua Redman's Freedom in the Groove (Sept. 24) is wonderfully listenable, and the reformed New Edition's Home Again (Sept. 10) no doubt aims to recreate the R.-and-B. group's old chart appeal.
MOVIE MUSICALS: THEY'RE ALIIIIVE!
To most people under 40, music is the word that comes before video. But what about musicals? That word is obsolete. And movie musicals? As if! A Chorus Line, the last film based on a Broadway tune show, came out (and flopped) more than a decade ago. As for original movie musicals, they exist almost exclusively in the cartoon form perfected by Disney. Aladdin and The Lion King did blockbuster biz and sold quillions of CDS. Still, Hollywood refused to sing along.
Until now. After the drought, the deluge: five new movie musicals. The big news is the Tim Rice-Andrew Lloyd Webber Evita, a stage hit that Hollywood has wanted to film for nearly two decades. Alan Parker (Fame) finally got it done, with Madonna as Argentina's Material Girl, Jonathan Pryce as Juan Peron and Antonio Banderas as the narrator Che.
Woody Allen, whose dialogue has often provided ironic counterpoint to Gershwin melodies, has made Everyone Says I Love You, in which Allen, Goldie Hawn, Julia Roberts, Alan Alda and others break into song. Fortunately, the scary prospect of Alda warbling is balanced by the songs themselves--swank standards of the '30s and '40s.
Two quasi-musicals are set in the '60s: Grace of My Heart, in which a songwriter very much like Carole King meets a songwriter very much like Brian Wilson; and That Thing You Do! with writer-director Tom Hanks playing a record-label exec who manages a one-hit pop group. Both films boast new songs composed in period style. And The Preacher's Wife will offer Whitney Houston putting over surefire spirituals with a gospel choir. That's the kind of musical both Variety and Billboard can understand.
THE HOT ACCESSORY: FRECKLES