Before Long - Maroon 5

Maroon 5’s 2002 debut album, Songs About Jane, was the kind of hit that doesn’t happen often in the new millennium — a genuine word-of-mouth hit whose popularity grew steadily after its release, largely due to the sweet, sunny hit “This Love,” a song sly and catchy enough to stay on the adult pop charts for years without wearing out its welcome.

It Won’t Be Soon Before Long appeals to both audiences with an ease that seems effortless, but like any modern blockbuster, this album was shepherded by several different teams of producers, all brought in to emphasize a different personality within the group. The bulk of the record was cut with Spike Stent and Mike Elizondo — Stent worked with U2, Oasis, Björk, and Gwen Stefani, while Elizondo had produced Fiona Apple and Pink — but Queens of the Stone Age producer Eric Valentine was brought in for a couple of cuts, as was Mark Endert, who mixed “This Love.” There may have been three different sets of producers, but the album is streamlined and seamless, never seeming calculated even if it was clearly made with an eye on mass appeal.

Even the flashiest production-driven tracks here — the opening one-two punch of “If I Never See Your Face Again” and “Makes Me Wonder” — aren’t about feel; they’re about the songs, which are uniformly tight and tuneful, sounding better with repeated plays, the way any radio-oriented pop should. If some of the ballads aren’t as distinguished as the livelier tracks, they nevertheless are as sharply crafted as the rest, and the end result is that It Won’t Be Soon Before Long is that rare self-stylized blockbuster album that sounds as big and satisfying as was intended.

Fightstar, One Day Son, This Will All Be Yours

His latest move is to hire American producer Matt Wallace to produce Fightstar’s second album, the ungrammatically titled One Day Son, This Will All Be Yours. An architect of the nu-metal movement, Wallace’s CV reads something like the pencil case of a lip-studded, angst teen, embellished with names like Faith No More and Deftones. But, even with Wallace calling the shots, One Day Son still feels like a record tugged in too many directions. Radio-friendly single “99” is weighty yet melodic, “You and I” is a ripening attempt at a breathy serenade, while harder tracks like “Tannhauser” throb with well-regimented aggression, threatening to pulverise anyone who might question the band’s rock credentials. One Day Son sees Fightstar attempt many styles – some skillfully; others ham-fistedly – but, as Charlie will no doubt be keen to parrot, at least Busted’s skimpy, faux-punk stylings aren’t among them.

Coheed And Cambria - No World For Tomorrow

Like the Mars Volta, progressive-metal suite freaks Coheed and Cambria are almost too smart and ambitious for their own good –not enough, however, to cancel out the instrumental highs and car-radio-chorus charge of the best songs on their fourth album. No World for Tomorrow is reportedly the concluding episode in a tortuous, apocalyptic libretto by singer-guitarist Claudio Sanchez that connects all of the band’s records. (Coheed and Cambria are named after the lead characters.) But there is more immediate, impressive resolution in the decisive pop arc of the mutating riffs and slippery time signatures Sanchez bundles into “The Hound (of Blood and Rank)” and “The Running Free.” His classic-rock aspirations are all over the razor-guitar hum of “Feathers” (note the shards of Uriah Heep’s 1972 hit single “Easy Livin’ ” rattling around inside) and the harmonized Thin Lizzy-style luster of the guitars and Sanchez’s vocals, like a choir of Geddy Lees, in “Justice in Murder.” Sanchez’s rabbit-hole saga may be over –the album finishes with a five-part, twenty-five-minute exclamation point, “The End Complete” –but there is plenty here that is worthy of rewind.

JC Chasez Struggling To Land Record Deal

Former ‘N Sync star JC Chasez is struggling to land a record deal, after losing his contract with Jive Records. The singer has recorded a new LP of material and is on the lookout for a new deal, but is still waiting for an offer. Life is not easy coming and going and between that the numerous flings that pull u up and down can be a real teaser. He needs to keep his head down and keeping doing what all those seeking a career in music do, struggle and struggle till the wait is over and big break is yours. Sorry but no sorry because that’s the way things are in this competitive world one day you are the toast of the town and the very next day you are no more a hot property and have no work to do. Anyways this not something to lose heart over if he has tasted success previously then there is a chance that the success can be achieved again. He needs to persevere with his efforts and surely good times will be his again.