Album Review | featured news

The cover photo of a gorilla locked in a tender embrace with a jukebox, looking as if he wants nothing more than to buy it a glass of pinot and take it to an early showing of “Les Miz,” should be a dead giveaway: “Unorthodox Jukebox,” his impeccably made and compulsively listenable sophomore release, is not your mother’s Bruno Mars album.

There are a few moments on Chris Brown’s new album, “Fortune,” that the harshest critics of the 23-year-old singer might describe as unfortunate. On the pulsating dance monster “Bassline,” Brown’s innocuous brag that “I got bottles,” is tainted by the June nightclub incident where Brown and rapper Drake allegedly hurled champagne bottles at each other in a fight over superstar Rihanna.

One week after “American Idol” season 10 winner Scotty McCreery dropped his debut, runner-up Lauren Alaina follows with her major label bow. Will “Wildflower” debut at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 like McCreery’s “Clear As Day?”

The title of Usher's strong new album alludes to his recent divorce from Tameka Foster.