Dig These Discs :: Kelly Clarkson, Mat Kearney, Misterwives, Zara Larsson, Emile Haynie

Beloved reality show diva Kelly Clarkson launches her seventh studio album, with some help from John Legend. The Queens-based indie pop band MisterWives drops their full-length debut album, blending a lot of beloved sounds for a catchy cut. "Sweden's Got Talent" winner Zara Larsson drops her debut EP, "Uncover," which meshes R&B with pop. Singer/songwriter Matt Kearney meshes the sound of acoustic guitar with rap breaks reminiscent of Macklemore and Eminem.

"Piece By Piece" (Kelly Clarkson)

After winning our hearts in 2002 by winning the first season of "American Idol," Kelly Clarkson has literally become an American idol. She drops her seventh studio album, "Piece By Piece" this month, a follow-up to her holiday album, "Wrapped in Red." Her lead single "Heartbeat Song" became a Top 40 hit on the Billboard Hot 100, and it's easy to see why. It's a fast-moving pop song about love with an infectious hook, with Clarkson singing, "you're a different kind of fun/ and I'm so used to feeling none." Sia, who is the hottest thing going these days, wrote the tracks "Invincible" and "Let Your Tears Fall." "Invincible" is a perfect fit for Clarkson, another tale of female empowerment, with the lyrics, "I ain't a scared little girl no more, I am invincible/ I am a perfect storm." "Let Your Tears Fall," is another well-played song about personal empowerment. She does well to team up with Furler; these women are of like minds. Clarkson lays it on the line, brutally honestly, with a false apology in "Someone." She slows things down in "Take You High" and lets steady drums move her through "Piece By Piece," an addictive cut. She croons in the slow steamer, "Run Run Run," with John Legend lending a hand with vocals. She adds heat and drums in the fast-moving trip, "I Had a Dream," a song about being judged on your merits. Excellent piano classes up "Tightrope," which also showcases Clarkson's vocal range. Electronica counters the tribal message in "War Paint," and club sounds pep up "Dance With Me." Both tracks could have easily been found on a Lady Gaga album; they are quirky and heartfelt. "Nostalgic" intros with scratchy radio sounds, and goes on to reminisce. Clarkson closes things up with "Good Goes the Bye," another song about not being able to go back. Clarkson will support her new album with a summer concert tour, with unique pre-sale ticket codes hidden within each box set. Get yours now.
(RCA Records)

"Our Own House" (MisterWives)

Move over sister wives, the indie pop band MisterWives drops their full-length debut album, "Our Own House." The New York City-based quintet features singer Mandy Lee Duffy, guitarist Marc Campbell, bassist William Hehir, Etienne Bowler on percussion, and multi-instrumentalist Jesse Blum. They kick things off with the title track, with Duffy's whispery Kate Bush voice leading to the pop break as she sings, "we swore on that day it would never fall apart." The herky-jerky "Not Your Way" has a post-punk girl band sound but also seems to draw from a history of Broadway standards. They croon on the track "Reflections," and get trippy with the slower "Oceans." "Best I Can Do" and "Hurricane" are Swiftean pop tunes, but "Coffin" is more like something Adele would put out, slow and soulful. "No Need For Dreaming" starts out with the familiar percussions used in "Be My Baby" and "Imagination Infatuation" samples the guitar intro from "Let It Ride." The fast-paced "Box Around the Sun" has cool EMD elements, and "Vagabond" makes the most of a spare piano intro. "Big dreams in the biggest city, she don't care if you ever make it far," Duffy sings in the final track, a love song to the borough the band hailed from. Way to rock it, Astoria. The band will launch their 2015 tour this month with performer B�rns.
(Photo Finish Records)

"Uncover" (Zara Larsson)

It's not bad enough that we've got our own full compliment of "American Idol" contestants scrambling to drop albums; now, "Sweden's Got Talent" winner Zara Larsson has dropped her debut EP "Uncover," a six-song collection of R&B tinged pop. I guess given that she won the contest when she was only 10, and is now a 17-year-old popster, we'll let it slide. It doesn't hurt any that her talented soprano voice ties together everyman lyrics with catchy hooks. In "Wanna Be Your Baby," she sings, "I wanna be your first, your last, your everything." Classic pop stuff. She rolls out the R&B stylings in "Never Gonna Die," singing, "you were the first, that's why it hurts," spitting it out in that staccato style that Rihanna made popular about how everything that was love has turned to hate. Her hit single, "Uncover" became a breakthrough hit on the Scandinavian pop charts. The slow pop song is a heartfelt tune about lowering your defenses for love. It paved the way for her follow-up singles "Carry You Home" "She's Not Me, Pt. 1 & 2" and "Rooftop." "Carry You Home" is a spare arrangement with echo keyboard strokes underlying vocal harmonies. Cool, distant drums intro "She's Not Me," a song about settling for a girl who's second best. And Larsson runs her voice up and down the scales in song, "Rooftop," about falling in love at first sight during a September rooftop barbeque that ends up busted by the cops before she can make her move.
(TEN/Kemosabe/Epic)

"Just Kids" (Mat Kearney)

For a Christian musician, singer/songwriter Matt Kearney sounds a lot like a mix between Macklemore and Eminem. Born and raised in Eugene, Oregon, he sings on his first cut "Heartbreak Dreamer" about leaving Eugene for a foreign land at the tender age of 25. Treks to Nashville led to him starting to writing his own songs; he fell in love with the scene and ended up staying there. He paired simple guitar licks with spoken word or rap, and soon found a style he could work with. Kearney champions the everyman: In his first track, he takes time to give shout-outs to the fat girls, the little brothers, the schoolyard wimps and their bullies, the former prom queens and retired elderly Wal-Mart greeters. A steady beat powers "Moving On" along, a song about seizing the day. In "Just Kids," he sings of rocking out to Bel Biv Devoe in his reflective-strip kicks, wishing he could go back to a time before the hurtful words were spilled. Cool electro flourishes add a little special something to the fast-moving "Heartbreak" and his rap/spoken word style makes "Billion" charming when he raps, "I only wanna be with you." In one of his catchiest tracks, "One Black Sheep," he rapid-fire raps about growing up in the '70s listening to Amy Grant, moving to California and dreaming about singing in Nashville. Kearney shows off his acoustic guitar skills in "Let It Rain," following the pattern of that beloved hit, "To Everything There Is a Season." He croons in the sad, "Ghost" with a cool rap break. In "Los Angeles" he rap-sings about heading to the West Coast to crash on a friend's futon who has a little studio time, and living on ramen. "Miss You" is a sad pop song, and "The Conversation" is a slow acoustic cut that begins, "you've been running with the ghost again," and benefits from female accompaniment. He finishes with "One Heart," with the great line, "tell me I'm more that just the scars I've known," and "Shasta," singing about the bittersweet return to home, while at the same time he faces miles more to go on his journey. Keep that journey Kearny, Mat!
(Republic Records)

"We Fall" (Emile Haynie)

From making beats in Buffalo to becoming a Grammy-winning producer and songwriter for Eminem, Lana Del Rey, Bruno Mars, FKA Twigs, fun., and Kanye West, among others, is stepping out from behind the curtain to drop his new album, "We Fall." The album is reminiscent of classic break-up albums like Marvin Gaye's "Here, My Dear." Haynie calls in his chits on this album, with guest vocalists and performers including Andrew Wyatt, Rufus Wainwright, Lykke Li, Charlotte Gainsbourg, and Brian Wilson. Producers include Florence Welch, Mark Ronson, Roger Manning, St. Vincent's Annie Clark and more. "These are mostly all my friends, and they knew what I was going through," explains Haynie, who originally flew from his New York home to Los Angeles for the Grammys in January, only to stay until he finished the album in June. "I sat and talked for hours about these songs with the people involved. Before any of the songs were even written, Andrew (Wyatt), who is perhaps the biggest part of the album and my best friend, would have coffee and I'd pour my heart out to him. I wanted to put the relationship under a microscope and relive all my emotions, from being pissed off and hurt to a sense of relief. It wrote itself in chronological order." He gets a Beach Boys sound in "Falling Apart," and Brian Wilson sings on it. He reprises the bridge and chord progression in "Come Find Me," with Lykke Li to help with the vocals. Wainwright and a backwards piano make "Little Ballerina," about the moment he first fell in love. Del Rey helps him with the breakup portion of the romance, memorialized in "Wait for Life." It's a heartbreak of a song, with lyrics like, "you drag me down you try to keep it on the low." He owns his flaws (and hers) in "Dirty World," and tries to cope with the separation in "Fool Me Too." "Did it ever occur that you forgave yourself before I did?" Haynie sings in "A Kiss Goodbye." A peppy snare drum keeps "Fool Me Too" moving. Wyatt gets Colin Blunstone to sing on "Nobody Believes You" for a full Zombies ska redux effect, and Randy Newman adds humor to "Who to Blame," reminiscent of Newman's "Lonely at the Top." "Ballerina's Reprise" is a dizzying he said/she said, and he closes with "The Other Side," a depressing song with lyrics, "I was never quite enough for you." Yeah, breakups are a bitch, dude.
(Interscope Records)