Music Reviews: Coco Jones and Viagra Boys

Coco Jones performs on The Kelly Clarkson show

Coco Jones' new album "places her firmly in R&B's upper echelons"

(Image credit: Weiss Eubanks / NBCUniversal via Getty Images)

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'Why Not More?' by Coco Jones
'Viagr Aboys' by Viagra Boys

'Why Not More?' by Coco Jones

Coco Jones' long-awaited debut album is finally here, and it "places her firmly in R&B's upper echelons," said Maura Johnston in Rolling Stone. The 27-year-old former Disney teen star has been putting out singles and EPs for a dozen years, and she won a Grammy last year. But only with this "sumptuous" package has she established the range she favors. "The album's sonic touchpoints are varied—Timbaland-inspired electro squelches, Quiet Storm synth blankets, swaying Caribbean beats—but Jones' steady presence brings them all together in a cohesive whole." On "AEOMG," she cribs from Luther Vandross. On "Taste," she makes the chorus of Britney Spears' "Toxic" her own. "Jones isn't scared to push boundaries, whether it's her own or R&B as a genre," said Puah Ziwei in NME. Of course, she's "at her finest when her voice is the star of the show," as on the Jazmine Sullivan–like "Here We Go." But whether she's throwing herself into a ballad or riding a reggae groove, "the authentic vulnerability in her vocals" cuts through. Why Not More? may be "just the beginning for this star in the making."

'Viagr Aboys' by Viagra Boys

"There's something so refreshingly '90s about Viagra Boys' slacker attitude," said Karly Quadros in Paste. With their fourth album, the Swedish post-punk band trades the conspiracy-bro satire of 2022's Cave World for "a more general sense of absurdism," with wellness culture the chief target of frontman Sebastian Murphy's lyrics. Across this 11-song set, "the body takes on a Wile E. Coyote–level capacity for corporal punishment." It's stepped on, filled with gasoline and warm beer, and even contracts monkeypox, all while the band churns out "big bodacious synth riffs" and "buzz saw bass" grooves. The subjects of these songs are "the kinds of guys that are aggrieved but ultimately powerless" because they can't get out of their own way, said Drew Gillis in The A.V. Club. Yet the characters are sharply drawn, "showing unexpected depth." In "Man Made of Meat," the dude Murphy is giving voice to preens outside a fast-food joint, flexing his muscles, and with Murphy's delivery, "you can hear the veins popping in his forehead." You can also sense the insecurity beneath the foolish machismo, "which actually makes him endearing."