All The Way...A Decade of Song, S & M (Explicit), Rainbow, Live Era '87-'93 (Explicit)



by James Russell

     Live Era '87-'93 (Explicit) by Guns N' Roses
The fact is that Axl Rose is a guy who hasn't been seen or heard from in six years and this two-CD live set was recorded over a six-year period. This material was obviously available at any time, so why wait until now to unleash it? The answer is the long-awaited new Guns' album coming this year. If the point in unveiling this collection now was indeed to remind fans of the potency of GNR, then it serves its purpose well. Songs like the great "Welcome to the Jungle," the ballads "Patience" and "Don't Cry," and the poignant rocker "Sweet Child o' Mine" all serve to remind us that Guns N' Roses was on the threshold of being the world's greatest hard rock band in the early '90s.

     Wondering if the revamped band can match the passion and power of the '87-'93 era GNR, you could have a greatest-hits collection culled from performances recorded around the world. Live Era best documents the early, ferocious performing prime of GNR's original quintet.

     S & M (Explicit) by Metallica
In recent years there's been some debate as to whether or not Metallica has lost its edge. At a point in their career when most bands would rest their laurels upon a greatest-hits package or live album, Metallica decided to plunge into philharmonia in uncompromising style. Working with Michael Kamen, the band played two concerts with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra at the Berkeley Community Theatre last April. This double-disc recording documents those shows and, unlike most live albums, actually offers a clearer perspective on the performances, capturing symphonic subtleties that were sometimes lost between Metallica's prodigious playing and its voluminous hometown fans. Metallica hasn't lost its edge this collaboration demonstrates the band is simply cultivating a more refined bite.

     Rainbow by Mariah Carey
Rainbow is easily the most hip-hop influenced record of Mariah's and it is also her most adventurous and personal collection to date. Mariah Carey's seventh studio long-player, is something like a concept album. Its theme is the various stages of the "emotional roller coaster," as she puts it, of her divorce and subsequent rebound. The rain-swept ballads ("After Tonight," "Petals") sound more like filler here, while the funky pop experiments set the pace of the disc. From the opening, Jay-Z blessed salvo of "Heartbreaker," to "How Much," which boasts a 2Pac sample and guest vocals from Usher, its sound is sleek and confident, sounding as psychedelic and super-freaky as the dazzling cover image. It's perfectly clear that the new Mariah is full of such contradictions. The liberation afforded by her 1997 divorce from Sony Music Entertainment president Tommy Mottola continues to propel her into the most unexpected territory, while her newfound liberal side battles with the more traditional balladeer who became the world's best-selling pop artist.

     All The Way...A Decade of Song by Celine Dion
All the Way... A Decade of Song isn't only a multiplatinum seller's greatest-hits package, it's much more. Celine Dion has included seven new tracks, which are presumably meant to stay the course during her upcoming partial retirement. Displaying a generosity toward her fans, Dion cherry picks nine signature singles ("My Heart Will Go On," "Because You Loved Me," "Beauty and the Beast"), then fills the rest of the CD with seven new cuts when one or two would have done the commercial trick. The posthumous duet with Frank Sinatra is icky, in the same way that the commercial with Fred dancing with the vacuum cleaner is icky, but as a fairly comprehensive compendium of hits, All the Way will do nicely.