Jagger lifts ‘Heavy’ hitters
Print
Dan AquilanteMUSIC REVIEWS
ALBUM OF THE WEEK
Superheavy
"Superheavy"
****
What happens when you put Mick Jagger, ex-Eurythmic Dave Stewart, “Slumdog Millionaire” composer A.R. Rahman, reggae’s Damian Marley and Brit soul singer Joss Stone in the studio together? You get “SuperHeavy,” the single best album of 2011.
This all-star collaboration created a collection of brilliant songs in an incredible stylistic mash-up of reggae-inflected pop-rock, with the group’s vocalists taking the lead in round-robin vocal turns.
Jagger gives his best performance in more than a decade -- in or outside of the Rolling Stones. He actually sounds “Sticky Fingers” dangerous and degenerate again. This disc also gives Marley a proper platform to claim his father’s crown as the king of reggae, and Joss Stone sings with pipes that sound like a young Aretha Franklin.
Jagger and Marley dominate the vocals on the dozen-song disc, but even so the record is never far from collaboration. The song “One Day One Night” is a great example written by the entire ensemble. It opens with Jagger singing about being in a “rotten cheap hotel with a stale old smell” drinking himself into a stupor. He then yields the mike to Marley, who sings in clipped reggae vocals about the personal hell of getting stuck in a dark room with “one spliff and an empty box of matches.” Mick rocks, Damian skanks and Joss Stone caps the tune off with a frenzy of feral soul.
If you’re looking for Jagger wearing his Rolling Stone colors that’s easiest to hear on the song “Never Gonna Change” co-written with Stewart. It has the same country rock ballad vibe as “Wild Horses.” The current single from the record “Miracle Worker” is a gritty reggae piece, but even better is the bright ’n’ breezy reggae of “Beautiful People” that places Stone in lead vocal position with Jagger and Marley testing their upper registers with backup.
