New Releases Poised to Rule This Year

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Songs you've got to hear.

Class of 2005

The M.I.A. record that has critics flipping out, and other great releases poised to rule this year.

By Jody Rosen

Posted Friday, Jan. 21, 2005, at 5:16 AM PT

M.I.A.

Arular (XL/Beggars, 2005)

...music geeks have been doing just that: going nuts over the early singles and bootleg releases by M.I.A. (née Maya Arulpragasam), a 27-year-old producer-performer whose debut CD will be released in late February....the songs radiate charisma. Anyone who doubts that M.I.A. is a natural star need only consult the homemade video on her Web site

T.I.

Urban Legend (Atlantic, 2004)

It's no accident that "Bring 'Em Out," the current Top 20 single by Atlanta rapper T.I., features a prominent sample from Jay-Z's "What More Can I Say." T.I. fancies himself Dixie's answer to Jay-Z—hip-hop's reigning poet-genius—and he makes this point repeatedly on "The Greatest"...

Antony and the Johnsons

I Am a Bird Now (Secretly Canadian, 2005)

Click here to listen to "Hope There's Someone," and here to listen to "For Today I Am a Boy."

The singer is Antony, a pudgy New Yorker with shaved eyebrows and a songwriting gift to match his remarkable voice...."Hope There's Someone" proves that the right singer can make banalities ("Hope there's someone who'll take care of me/ When I die") sound profound.

Brazilian Girls

Brazilian Girls (Verve Forecast, 2005)

New York's Brazilian Girls, whose debut album will arrive in stores Feb. 1, aren't shy about their cosmopolitanism. Italian front-woman Sabina Sciubba sings in five languages, and the songs ricochet among styles, genres, eras: French chansoncollides with a house beat, there's a dub-style setting of a Pablo Neruda poem, ska horn fanfares segue into a skittering drum-and-bass rhythm and a bout of scat singing.

Annie

Anniemal (679, 2004)

"Chewing Gum," a song by the exceedingly blond Norwegian dance-pop chirper Annie Berge-Strand, is already a big European hit—as well it should be. It's three minutes and 48 seconds of pop bliss, with a bubbly beat by the British producer Richard X and a deliciously sly vocal by Annie, who, like any sensible would-be radio queen, records sans last name....

Jody Rosen is The Nation's music critic and the author of White Christmas: The Story of an American Song.

Read Ms. Rosen's full review here and download some of the music at:

http://www.slate.com/id/2112474/