SONY DADC (CD + DVD), Rs 699

Beyoncé’s sixth studio album and her second visual album features 12 new songs and a short film Lemonade that has music videos of her songs. The lyrics, contributed by many guest writers, make bold lyrical statements in the audio version as well as in the accompanying DVD. The album booklet has colour and black and white photographs from the music videos and a few personal photographs. This conceptual project has lyrics that dwell on the black community, and in particular black feminism, besides also focusing on every woman’s journey of self knowledge and healing.

The R&B sound laced with a bit of soul is well orchestrated, lyrically and musically. The album opens on a slow tone with Pray You Catch Me. “I can taste the dishonesty, it’s all over your breath…” sings Beyoncé as she deals with an unfaithful lover. Hit of the year, Hold Up, a reggae-tinged number, sees Beyoncé as a woman possessed, marking the territory around her lover, the music video would reveal more about what she does on a street with her baseball bat. With a heavy bass beat, the effect is hallucinogenic, with a deep baseline. The melodic Jack White collaboration, Don’t Hurt Yourself, is pop-laced with a few foul lyrics spoken in a moment of rage. Sorry gets up-tempo and then suddenly drops back and jumps back to keep the flow of the song. It could become one of the better club anthems on the party circuit. Daddy Lessons has a brass edge to it, with Beyoncé talking about how her father brought her up, helping her fight for justice for the men in her life. The acoustic guitar playing country style is neat and plucky, shadowing her roots from her homeland. The pitch slows down slightly on Love Drought and the fantastic piano-laced Sandcastles, both of which are fine ballads, with Sandcastles in particular bringing out Beyonce’s rich vocal capability. It has a raw feeling to it, very emotional and personal.

After an 80 second break on Forward, we get Freedom, featuring Kendrick Lamar, which speaks of a cry for liberation. Bey goes ballistic on this piece with a shout for freedom.

Lemonade closes with Formation, a funky piece that has kinky lyrics, a heavy baseline and an unforgettable beat. It is very infectious and surely a tune that might never get out of your head.

At her most benevolent and most unadulterated, the album presents Bey at her most skilled and orchestral mode creating a mix of crazy anthems which all goes to make a great album.

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UNIVERSAL MUSIC, Rs 395

This is the 22nd installment of the best-selling series of Grammy nominees. This set features 21 hits from Grammy-nominated superstars and the hottest emerging talent. The line-up might include a few toppers which you might chill out with to a few not-so-happening tracks by new artists, but it’s worth listening to all for who knows where these same artists would be in a few years’ time. By now you already know who won, but let’s rundown the ones who matter.

Uptown Funk, Blank Space, Thinking Out Loud and Lips Are Moving represent the best in pop music from artists like Mark Ronson, Taylor Swift, Ed Sheeran, Meghan Trainor who all won in their respective categories.

Wiz Khalifa rap on See You Again is impressive on this beautiful tribute to the late Paul Walker. Can’t Feel My Face is the best dance song of the year and The Weeknd certainly deserves a pat on the back for bringing such a heavy groove to it. With his soft vocals, James Bay had stiff competition from his peers in Best New Artist, but sadly lost out even though his song Hold Back The River is the most uplifting song playing on the channels now. His album has good moments that fit well in the sentis category. Girl Crush by Little Big Town is what it says and is a pretty neat piece to rewind to. Newcomer to the industry Sam Hunt’s Take Your Time is a topper and has very infectious lyrics to go with it.

The other artists that make an appearance on this CD include Alabama Shakes, Maroon 5, Florence + The Machine, D’Angelo and the Vanguard, Kendrick Lamar, Chris Stapleton, Tori Kelly, Courtney Barnett, Carrie Underwood, Cam, Lee Ann Womack and Keith Urban.

This compilation brings together the best in the music industry from all music labels, but it would be wise to release this type of a compilation a month before the awards ceremony so that those who want a copy can lay their hands on it before the awards are announced. As for this CD, the release was three days before the 58th Grammy Awards. Production or copyright issues, music lovers should get the release in their hands early, that’s the only way to keep everyone guessing which artist is going to take the Grammy home in each of the main categories.

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He took home five awards on Grammy night, including Best Rap album, but lost out on the main one, Album of the Year, to Taylor Swift’s 1989. But his success has seen him hobnob all over the place and even releasing very recently an eight-track album, Untitled Unmastered (2016), comprising outtakes from the Grammy-winning To Pimp A Butterfly that didn’t make the cut, thus making his discography count to four albums to date. Though it is a standalone piece of work, the tracks have no names except for the date they were recorded. He claims that he still plays these songs and also performs them live whenever he can. The album features a cameo from singer Cee Lo Green, while Alicia Keys’ five-year-old son Egypt is seen on the track Untitled 07.

We are talking about rapper and hip-hopper Kendrick Lamar Duckworth (who dropped his last name to perform as Kendrick Lamar). Lamar was born in Compton, California, on 17 June 1987. His parents relocated to Compton from Chicago to escape the city’s gang culture, although Lamar’s father had been associated with the notorious Gangster Disciples gang once upon a time. Lamar grew up in this aggressive locality, but good for him; he never really took it up on himself to be part of it. He was a good student who enjoyed writing first stories and poems, and then lyrics.

Lamar has stated that he has been influenced by the likes of Tupac Shakur, The Notorious B.I.G, Nas, Eminem, Mobb Deep and Prodigy being his top favourite rappers. He adopted the moniker K-Dot and began performing his lyrics as a rapper. At age 16, in 2003, he circulated a mix tape called Youngest Head Nigga in Charge, which drew a lot of interest in his native Southern California and beyond. The project was enough to get Lamar a record deal with Top Dawg Entertainment, a respected California independent label. He releases two other acclaimed mix tapes, Training Day (2005) and C4 (2009), steadily working with other up-and-coming West Coast rappers like Jay Rock, Ab-Soul and Schoolboy Q. Lamar and these other performers eventually formed their own rap collective, Black Hippy.

In 2010 Lamar dropped the K-Dot tag and began using his own name. He put out a fourth mix tape, Overly Dedicated. That same year, Lamar released his first full-length independent album (July 2011) under Top Dawg Entertainment. Titled Section.80, it was released exclusively on iTunes and later on physical format. The album features guest appearances from rappers and hip-hop artists such as GLC, Colin Munroe, Ab-Soul, and vocals from late singer-songwriter Alori Joh. As a concept album that featured all of Lamar’s five mix tapes he released, it features lyrical themes delivered by Lamar such as racism and medication tolerance. The album’s lead single HiiiPoWeR received rave reviews.

Section.80 received generally positive reviews from critics. The album sold 5,000 copies in the U.S. solely based on digital downloads within less than a week, debuting and peaking at No. 113 on the U.S. Billboard 200 chart with minimal mainstream media promotion and coverage. However some sources suggest the album entered at No. 104. Within a two-week period the album sales had totalled 9,000 copies.

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