Randy Newman - Dark Matter

Newman’s won Oscars for his soundtrack work, but it’s his sardonic songs—often written from the perspective of an unreliable narrator—that have made him one of America’s most celebrated songwriters. Here, the creator of “Sail Away” and “Rednecks” shines with a merciless portrait of Russia’s Vladimir Putin and “She Chose Me” a tender song for his wife.  There’s also a heartbreaking ballad, “Wandering Boy,” about a father pining for his estranged son. The standout is “The Great Debate,” a devastatingly funny eight-minute mini-musical in which he pits quantum mechanics and astrophysicists in an arena against Presbyterians and Episcopalians to determine whether science or religion has the best solutions about evolution and global warming (hint: gospel music influences the outcome). Newman has long been pop’s most cerebral tunesmith. With his latest album, the man who dared to use the n-word in a song to skewer racists mixes lofty issues of conscience with down-to-earth matters of the heart.