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New Music Friday: Ellie Goulding, Tim McGraw And Sarah Bareilles

By Michael Cerio 

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- All the leaves are brown and the sky is grey, but man, it's like 80 today. It feels like summer in November both outside and in your ears on this New Music Friday. Here is what's new this week in music.

Ellie Goulding – Delirium

The charm of Ellie Goulding since the beginning has been the fragility and playfulness of that voice, often sounding like the rush of emotion could break it at any moment. That vulnerability is what resonated on songs like "Anything Could Happen" and "I Know You Care" off her last album. It's what made her universal yet authentic enough to jump from critical darling to arena-filling pop star. Unfortunately as the stage has gotten bigger a lot of that tenderness has been swapped out for slick homogenized dance pop. Goulding wears it well but it doesn't jump out the speaker like it once did. On Delirium Goulding sounds more like a part of the machine churning out sweaty dance anthems than her candid past efforts. That voice blends more than stand out for the bulk of Delirium. It's done to perfection with the help of Max Martin (who could give YOU a hit single if he wanted to) on the chugging layered single "On My Mind", but it's a song like the sweet and sparser "Army" that reminds you how much brighter she can shine.

Tim McGraw – Damn Country Music

For his fourteenth trip out of the studio McGraw flirts with "new" country, but still dances with the classics that brought him. On Damn Country Music McGraw is a lovesick storyteller, bypassing tailgates and jean shorts for a "sun-soaked yesterday" and an "old Hank cassette tape". When he strays like on the turned-up "Love Runs" or the deluxe edition's hip hop tinged "Everybody's Lookin'" it feels forced. However, McGraw makes up for it when he goes out on a limb with his daughter on the Celtic duet "Here Tonight" or on "California" featuring Big & Rich. Tim McGraw is twenty-plus deep into his music career and here he manages to remain classic without being vapid.

Sarah Bareilles – What's Inside: Songs From Waitress

Sarah Bareilles is following up her Grammy nominated The Blessed Unrest by heading to Broadway. The musical "Waitress" starts previews in March, but today you can hear her weave her way around a restaurant with heartfelt tales from both sides of the counter. Jason Mraz stops by to play the other side of a potential affair on this fun suite of theatrical pop.

There are also some familiar faces reappearing this week on New Music Friday. Seal, CeeLo Green, and ZZ Top's Billy Gibbons all have new albums today as well as a massive collection of Bob Dylan with the twelfth edition of his bootleg series The Cutting Edge 1965 – 1966. You know those years, when he released three of the most important albums of all time?

Enjoy the heatwave and happy listening.

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