New Releases 11/15/11

In the time before this wonderful album named Campexisted, the “actors who rap” proposition would have been all red flags. Brian Austin Green, Mr. T, Joaquin Phoenix, and many others are on the “cons” list, while the “pros” would have been Drake (barely counts, unless Degrassi: The Next Generation was your thing) and maybe AVN award-winner Dirt Nasty. These were the horrible odds Community star and comedy writer Donald Glover was up against when he took the Internet’s Wu-Tang Name Generator to heart and became rapper Childish Gambino, but anyone who right-clicked on one of his 2010/2011 mixtapes can tell you, he beat those odds, and with Camp, indie rap fans won the Lotto.

After the huge commercial and artistic success of his last album, Thank Me Later, Drake threatened/promised that his next album would be a straight-up R&B record that forsook rapping for vocals. The plan fell through but his 2011 album Take Care has the feel of a late-night R&B album, full of slow tempos, muted textures, impassioned crooning, and an introspective tone that is only rarely punctured by aggressive tracks, boasts, and/or come-ons.

Quadrophenia has been reissued before, including a notably remixed version in 1996, but it has never been expanded. The 2011 “Director’s Cut” makes up for lost time by offering two different expanded editions of the album (presented in its 1996 remix): a double-disc edition rounded out with 11 demos — all performed solo by Pete Townshend, two of which are songs that didn’t make the final cut — and a Super Deluxe Edition that adds an early version of the album comprised entirely of Townshend demos, a DVD containing 5.1 mixes from selected songs from the album, and a host of extras highlighted by a 100-page hardcover book featuring many photos, memorabilia from Townshend’s archive, lyrics, and a new, lengthy essay from Pete.

Betty Wright: The Movie is this Miami soul legend’s first album since 2001’s Fit for a King, but it’s hardly a return. During Wright’s decade away from making her own records, she was busy helping others — including Kelly Clarkson, Joss Stone, Diddy, Keyshia Cole, and Lil Wayne — as a songwriter, arranger, producer, and background vocalist. Here, she links up with the intrepid Roots crew and several supplemental session musicians, and she wrangles complementary appearances from Stone and the tremendously underappreciated Lenny Williams, as well as disruptive interjections from Lil Wayne and Snoop Dogg.