Sex Intentions

The very title of Strut makes Lenny Kravitz's intentions for his tenth album plain: he wants to swagger, he wants to get off on his moves. To underscore the whole carnality of it, Kravitz calls the album's opening track "Sex," just the first song in a parade of pleasure, pain, and dirty white boots. Any of the attempted sociopolitical overtures of 2011's Black and White America have been abandoned, jettisoned along with the stylistic excesses that pumped that album to double-LP length. Strut doesn't bother with any of that nonsense. Like so many records from the golden age of the LP, it's just 12 songs and if it weighs in at a slightly hefty 53 minutes, it's because Lenny has a hard time stopping a good groove and Strut consists almost entirely of grooves.

It’s amazing how the floodgates open when you shut out all the internal and external noise, stop pandering to stereotype, cease listening to your anxieties, and disregard the compartment society has built for you. I’m Not Your Man, the Charlie Andrew (Alt-J, Rae Morris)-produced second album from Marika Hackman, begins with an impromptu hearty laugh. It’s not the sound of silliness; it’s the sound of liberation, spontaneity, and joy. 24-year-old Hackman is feeling more herself than ever. Life isn’t necessarily funnier or happier, but when there’s cause for a joke or a big ballsy statement, she’s not holding back any more.

At a time when pop was dominated by dance music and pop-metal, Guns N' Roses brought raw, ugly rock & roll crashing back into the charts. They were not nice boys; nice boys don't play rock & roll. They were ugly, misogynistic, and violent; they were also funny, vulnerable, and occasionally sensitive, as their breakthrough hit, "Sweet Child O' Mine," showed. While Slash and Izzy Stradlin ferociously spit out dueling guitar riffs worthy of Aerosmith or the Stones, Axl Rose screeched out his tales of sex, drugs, and apathy in the big city…