Notable CDs

Stockholm is being called Chrissie Hynde’s “solo” debut, but it really doesn’t differ much from The Pretenders albums that Hynde has composed, played, and sung on lo these many years. That the guitars and rhythms serve the hooks and lyrics rather than vice versa might seem significant except that the same could also be said about Packed!, an underrated Pretenders album that turns 25 next year. What is different: “In a Miracle” and “House of Cards,” in which faith or something like it is what’s learning to crawl.

Anomaly

Nine years in as the biggest frog in that small pond known as Christian hip hop, Lecrae has so firmly established his street-called-Straight cred that he can address broader topics without risking accusations of “secular” selling out. And he’s making the most of the opportunity. Although he knows less about history and socio-political realities than he thinks, neither “Dirty Water” nor “Made in America” seems arrogant. Sincere is more like it. As for the faith references, they go more naturally with his flow than ever.

No Fools, No Fun

From her Everly Brothers tribute with Billie Joe Armstrong to this all-female roots trio, Norah Jones’ side projects have been as charming as they are humble. Not only does she willingly share the spotlight, but she also likes shining it on other composers’ material, material that if not exactly in danger of slipping into oblivion could at least do with fresh appreciation—The Band’s “Twilight,” for instance. Her trio even does all right by George Jones, that is until they tarnish “Tarnished Angel” with an F-bomb.

Frozen EP

Condensing the biggest album of the year down to three songs would be no more than a cheeky deconstructive gesture if these CCM pop-rockers didn’t play and sing the treacly things as if they actually liked them. But they do, and their enthusiasm is infectious. In fact, in light of their similar artistic accomplishment three years ago with the four-song A Whole New World EP, it’s quite possible that stripping Disney down and rocking it up is what they were put on this earth to do.

Spotlight

In the early 1990s, James Brown gave an interview to Details magazine in which he waxed uncommonly religious. In light of his convictions, he was asked, what did he think of his 1970 hit “Get Up (I Feel like Being a) Sex Machine”? Apparently with a straight face, Brown said, “That song has been misunderstood.”

“That song” (which Brown went on to say was mainly about flirtatious dancing) appears in both studio and live versions on Get On Up: The James Brown Story (UMe), the unflaggingly entertaining 20-song soundtrack to a biopic that’s currently getting mixed reviews because it’s impossible to capture in one film the complexity of someone known alternately as the Hardest Working Man in Show Business, Soul Brother No. 1, and the Godfather of Soul or the many levels on which he left his mark. The soundtrack, unsurprisingly, has no such trouble, mainly because it was music into which Brown poured himself for over 40 years.—A.O.