Recent Articles

Recent Articles By Rachel Devitt

  • Weird War
    Illuminated by the Light (Drag City)
  • The Hives
    Tyrannosaurus Hives (Interscope)

National Features

  • Phoenix New Times
    Canine Crusaders

    That drug-sniffing dog up ahead? He may not be your best friend.

    By Ray Stern
  • Broward-Palm Beach New Times
    The Muscle Men

    Thanks to a string of Florida "anti-aging clinics," baseball's steroid scandal isn't limited to superstars.

    By Michael J. Mooney
  • Miami New Times
    Picked On

    Farm workers earn nada in America's green-bean capital.

    By Janine Zeitlin
  • Village Voice
    "Why I'm No Longer a Brain-Dead Liberal"

    An election-season essay from one of America's greatest playwrights.

    By David Mamet

Ever since Sam Phillips famously found his "billion-dollar" dream of a white artist "who had the Negro sound and the Negro feel," the music industry has been chasing after the Elvis Holy Grail like a coked-up, Armani-wearing Indiana Jones. Joss Stone may very well be the latest in a long line of bloated sequels. What she is not is the young, blond, white, British Aretha Franklin or Jill Scott. Mind, Body & Soul, Stone's second album, is, once again, a collection of old-school soul and R&B designed to sound like it was ripped straight from a vintage Motown sampler. Stone's Voice Beyond Her Years, which boils down to your basic American Idol belt with a few more snarls and swallowed notes, pounds each song out with growly gusto. The singer has a nice voice and some decent material, but would she really be getting as much attention were she not young, white and hot? Then again, "Stone has a nice voice and some decent material" -- would I be this snobby and dismissive if she weren't young, white and hot?

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