New From Randy Jackson, Devotchka and Ashton Shepherd

VARIOUS ARTISTS “Randy Jackson’s Music Club, Volume One” (Dream Merchant/Concord) 2 stars

Producer and “American Idol” judge Randy Jackson aspires to be his generation’s Quincy Jones. To that end, he has fashioned for himself a Quincy-like compilation album _ a la “Back on the Block” _ by cobbling together a few artists with marquee names along with newcomers he’s trying to introduce to the masses.

The major difference? Jones was a brilliant mega-producer renowned for his work with such true visionaries as Frank Sinatra, Count Basie and Michael Jackson. Until “Idol,” Randy Jackson was known as a session bass player with Journey in the late `80s when the band was declining commercially. He also did some behind-the-scenes production work for Mariah Carey.

Jones had a sound and the clout to attract some greats, but Jackson doesn’t. The results are painfully clear on this mostly lame collection of pop, R&B, hip-hop and contemporary country. The focus track, the return of Paula Abdul, is the worst offender. Her “Dance Like There’s No Tomorrow,” a moronic dance ditty, lyrically celebrates the joy of dancing, yet the track has no rhythm or beat to make dancing possible. It took numerous producers to tweak Abdul’s non-voice in the studio but, like Britney Spears and Janet Jackson on their similarly awful new dance-oriented CDs, Abdul winds up as merely a generic cog in a square wheel.

Jackson taps “Idol” finalists Katharine McPhee and Elliott Yamin for a forgettable R&B tune, and R&B icon Sam Moore is wasted on a dud blues track. And who knows what purpose Carey fills on a gospel track beyond offering some piercing dog whistles in the background?

Newcomers Trisha Covington, Keke Wyatt and Kiley Dean fare well on the rock-tinged “What Am I So Afraid Of.” But the best number by far comes from Britain’s Joss Stone on a modern, percussion-laced revisiting of the old Bacharach-David nugget “Just Walk on By.” Aside from a few lyrics, the track is unrecognizable from Dionne Warwick’s elegant hit rendition, but Stone’s has surprising punch and immediacy. Definitely downloadable.

Pod Pick: “Just Walk on By.”

_Howard Cohen

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DEVOTCHKA “A Mad & Faithful Telling” (Anti-) 3 { stars

To say DeVotchKa’s music is unique in the pop world is to say The Beatles have been slightly influential. The Denver quartet, led by elastic-voiced frontman Nick Urata, employs instruments almost unheard of in contemporary rock _ such as the tuba, accordion, sousaphone and something called a bouzouki _ to create an exotic blend of Eastern European, old-world sounds and modern melodic sensibilities. It’s the music that gypsies would blast while dancing around a fire.

On “A Mad & Faithful Telling,” DeVotchKa’s first release on the Anti- label, the group isn’t shy about paying tribute to its influences: “Basso Profundo” taps David Byrne’s slightly twisted take on world music, and on “Along the Way,” Urata apes Radiohead singer Thom Yorke’s plangent, fragile wailing overtop a Mexican vibe, complete with mariachi horns.

Urata also borrows a bit of Roy Orbison’s sweet vibrato on the aching “Transliterator,” which descends into desperate frustration when he pleads, “You never mean what you say/Why don’t you say what you mean?/I never get anywhere.” With a maudlin melody and lines like, “Is this all there is?/Is this where it ends?”"Blessing in Disguise” proves that waltzes can indeed be cool.

Other high points include the acoustic “Undone,” a Mexican outlaw cowboy’s campfire song of defiant lament (“You know I never hurt no one/What I have stolen won’t be missed”) and the shimmering anthem “New World,” rich with lovely dissonance.

It’s fitting that DeVotchKa was chosen to score the soundtrack for the delightfully odd film “Little Miss Sunshine” _ and also fitting that the soundtrack was nominated for a Grammy. The group’s compositions are more vignettes than songs, conjuring up images of longing, poverty, family and unbridled celebration of life’s less painful moments.

So many modern-rock bands get slapped with the “alternative” label, but for DeVotchKa, it truly fits.

Pod Picks: “Basso Profundo,”"Transliterator,”"Undone,”"New World.”

_Michael Hamersly

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ASHTON SHEPHERD “Sounds So Good” (MCA Nashville) 2 { stars

Newcomer Ashton Shepherd has a drinking problem. It’s enough to almost sink her debut album since the 21-year-old mom from tiny Coffeeville, Ala., writes so many songs about drinking cold beers, whiskey and celebrating the joys of driving old Southern dirt roads with “the sound of a cooler slushin’ on the bed of your truck.”

Judged solely on nailing every cliche in classic country _ beyond the drinking and dirt roads, she also writes about enjoying the music of Hank Williams and Keith Whitley, too _ Shepherd’s twang-rich debut might not merit special mention. Blame some of the obvious, trite lyrics on her youth.

“Sounds So Good” is still the year’s most auspicious country debut, thus far. Shepherd has a strong, core country voice (with shades of Natalie Maines’ range). Producer Buddy Cannon (Kenny Chesney, Willie Nelson) kindly keeps the music country _ as country as anything you’ll hear on mainstream radio these days _ and when she finds a point worth making, Shepherd taps a strong audience of fed-up women who have taken all the guff they can stand.

On the hit single, “Takin’ Off This Pain,” she has “a cold beer in her right hand/In my left I’ve got my wedding band.” Ain’t no doubt about which one’s goin’ down the drain.

Pod Picks: “Whiskey Won the Battle,”"The Pickin’ Shed,”"Takin’ Off This Pain.”

_Howard Cohen

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(c) 2008, The Miami Herald.

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