Weezer: “Raditude”
I love me some Weezer, but even I’m finding it harder and harder to defend Rivers Cuomo. I’m not sure that the man was ever “cool,” exactly, but any hipster cred he may have had he’s been squandering ever since The Green Album. The angsty, scraping proto-emo of Pinkerton now firmly a relic, Cuomo led his Weezer gang through their what I assumed would be the goofiest, most unashamedly uncool album of their career with last year’s Red Album, what with its painfully silly lyrics, its preposterous rhyme schemes, its delightfully over-the-top stab at a “Bohemian Rhapsody” for the mallrat set. Cuomo was making the least fashionable music of his career, but also some of the most interesting: He was breaking his own rigid set of rules, pointing the way toward something– dare I say it?– as ballsy as Pinkerton.
And then he went and stuck a flying dog on the next Weezer album cover and called it Ratidude. And if that’s not enough to convince you that this is the least cool album Weezer has ever made, just check out the song titles: “I’m Your Daddy,” “The Girl Got Hot,” “Love is the Answer,” “In the Mall.” That last song seems almost like it might be a thinly-veiled reference to the band’s new demographic, for Raditude is nothing if not the kind of slick, unabashedly goofy and unpretentious rock you’d expect to hear playing in the food court.
But is that really that different from the kind of music Weezer has always made? The anomaly of Pinkerton not withstanding, Cuomo has always been a rock and roll geek, and Weezer a band that defies anything resembling irony, hipness, or pretense. They’re pop craftsmen in an age when “craft” isn’t cool; they’ve always been more interested in mixing big, crunching guitars and over-the-top hooks than in creating something textured or nuances; their brand of power pop has less Beatles or Who in it than it does Cheap Trick and Green Day.
They’ve always embraced the unhip sides of rock and roll, and Raditude takes Cuomo’s perpetual uncoolness to a new extreme, resulting in some of the most straighforwardly fun music he’s ever made. While he reined in his weirder tendencies for the more by-the-books– and, therefore, dull– power-pop of Maladroit and Make Believe, here he embraces teen pop production cliches, absorbs George Harrison’s Eastern-mystic tendencies into the bilingual, sitar-enhanced “Love is the Answer,” and even takes a stab at painfully whitebread hip-hop on “Can’t Stop Partying.” And you have to give Cuomo credit: Not only does he choose to emulate one of the least popular sides of the Beatles, but, on the latter song, he is able to make even Lil’ Wayne sound goofy, dropping ridiculous “Weezer meets Weezy” lyrics over a stupidly catchy synth beat.
All of this is par for the course for Cuomo, a geekish student of pop songcraft whose forays into different idioms, both with Weezer and on his Alone records, have lately yielded some of his quirkiest and most irresistible music: Certainly, opening track “(If You’re Wondering if I Want You To) I Want You Too,” which somehow apes both glossy teen pop and vintage Motown, is one of the catchiest, most joyfully rocking tracks Weezer has ever recorded, and it’s not hard to hear how the song grew out of Cuomo’s bookish fascination with melody and songwriting. That attention to craft carries over into his lyrics more than ever; those crossing their fingers for a return to Pinkerton‘s open-wound honesty will be sorely disappointed to find Cuomo disappearing into character (or is it caricature?) more than ever before, affecting a weird teenage motif that initially sounds odd coming from a fortysomething man, married with children, who hear sings about meeting a girlfriend’s parents for the first time and cruising the mall with buddies.
And yet, for all his affectation, Cuomo is oddly endearing, even in his lyrics: They may be simple, even childish, but they also bear a disarmingly sincere, almost naive purity of emotion. “Can’t Stop Partying” is a lyrically simplistic but morally upright song about the consequences of materialism, “The Girl Got Hot” far more compassionate than its title might suggest, the relationship songs revealing not arrested development such as innocence and tenderness. And that’s the ultimate charm of Weezer, circa Raditude in particular: Their music is devoid of pretension, bereft of irony, and completely sincere, which is, in its own totally stupid way, pretty cool.
Landmarks: The Year 2006
If I my be permitted a bit of revisionist history, I can say with the benefit of hindsight that my favorite record of 2006 is almost certainly Tom Waits‘ Orphans. Talk about an album transcending its modest roots: Originally meant to be a clearing-house for rarities, B-sides, and soundtrack cuts, the album proved such an inspiration to Waits that he ended up re-recording most of the old material along with a huge batch of new, resulting in an impossibly vast and astonishingly flawless three-disc epic that stands as easily the closest thing out there to the quintessential Tom Waits album. It’s all here: Bluesy, barroom rockers; howling, junkyard hoedowns; whiskey-soaked piano ballads; theater pieces and stand-up comedy interludes; and strange experiments of inspired madness. In terms of pure, unfettered creativity, I’m not sure if there’s any album out there that matches this one in ambition or generosity.
At the time, of course, my pick for album of the year was Boys and Girls in America, the blazing breakthrough album from The Hold Steady. That’s the album where the group really found their footing, something less ragged and less prone to bizarre detours than Separation Sunday but more sophisticated in its songcraft, and more ambitious in its fusion of raucous barroom rock, Thin Lizzy guitar heroics, and E-Street mayhem. It’s another profound and complex masterpiece from some of rock’s most exploratory and artful poets– an album about relationships, about addiction, and, as usual, about redemption.
One of my favorite trends from 2006 was that of veteran rockers reconnecting with their muse to make some of their most vital music ever. Donald Fagen did it with his sleek, life-affirming soft-rock album Morph the Cat, and Paul Simon did it with the vivid Technicolor of the experimental album Surprise. And of course, there was Bob Dylan and Modern Times, a profound and mystical blues album that’s a bit more ponderous and less volatile than Love & Theft, but nevertheless a rich work that finds poetry and meaning in the tropes of classic American blues and folk songs.
But one of my absolute favorites of the years– and indeed, of the decade– is Bruce Springsteen‘s tribute to Pete Seeger and the canon of great American folk music, We Shall Overcome. A joyous affair that captures the spirit and spontaneity of Dylan’s Basement Tapes and rocks harder than any of Bruce‘s albums since the 80s, the set pulls off the neat trick of being not just a tribute to American music lore, but, more vitally, a thrillingly visceral and lively testament to the music’s enduring power, an album of sharp political protest, and a celebration of Christian love and hope.
My favorite performance by a vocalist in 2006 came from Jolie Holland, on a wonderful, low-key album called Springtime Can Kill You. There’s all manner of ghosts rattling around on this recording– those of parlor folk songs, of country-blues, of swinging jazz– but it’s all vivified by Holland‘s remarkable, sultry phrasing and her evocative poetry. The album becomes a complex series of symbols and images that speak to love and lust and longing.
As far as indie goes, 2006 was all about TV on the Radio and the fractured beauty of Return to Cookie Mountain– an album that sounded something like Radiohead performing Prince songs, by way of Berlin-era David Bowie, and spoke to the confusion and malaise of the Bush years with more poetry– and more genuine, spiritual hope– than nearly any other album I can think of. The Decemberists, meanwhile, mixed history and myth, violence and renewal, in their best-ever album, a song cycle called The Crane Wife, and Danielson cultivated a whole new kind of Christian rock in the hard-rocking, campfire sing-alongs of Ships.
And then there was Game Theory, The Roots‘ pitch-black, righteously pissed-off opus– and the 00s’ equivalent of a great Public enemy album. Few albums released this decade match this one in terms of anger, but the music is anything but despairing; this is cathartic, invigorating music that channels hip-hop street poetry through the weary, dark funk of latter-period Sly Stone.
Meanwhile, Gnarls Barkley had one of the year’s most promising and exhilarating debuts with their pop/rock/hip-hop blockbuster, St. Elsewhere. Alan Jackson released his late-night saloon masterpiece, Like Red on a Rose. Solomon Burke went country with his excellent, Buddy Miller-produced Nashville. Vince Gill went for oversized sprawl with his four-disc epic, These Days, and Rosanne Cash made for pure catharsis with her elegiac, tender Black Cadillac.
So that was 2006 for me. How about you?
Florence and the Machine: “Lungs”
Florence Welch took the simple word Lungs as the title for her debut album with the Machine, and, as big and bloated as the music is, such a spare moniker seems, at first, like a strange irony. But not so fast: Lungs is a fitting banner for this inaugural outing on a couple of levels. It’s taken from a track called “Between Two Lungs,” in which our heroine cries out that her poor heart is so full of sweet and awful emotion that it feels as though it’s trapped within her body, awaiting to burst forth from its fleshy confines. But the title takes on another meaning, as well: It’s a sort of signifier for Welch’s own tendency, at times, toward the grotesque; for as happy as she sounds singing about that ooey-gooey feeling called “love,” she’s just as happy singing about ripping out another woman’s eye and watching it slowly wither.
You could say that somewhere between those two opposites– transcendence on the one hand, earthiness on the other– lies Lungs, and indeed, Florence herself, but that would assume that this music, and this singer, could ever be content to find themselves between anything. But no, this is an album that insists on having it all, on enveloping both ends of the spectrum in its outsized sprawl, in keeping one foot in each extreme at all times. And that’s what this music is: It’s extreme. It’s art-pop for the Glee crowd, low-culture opera for those who think Baz Luhrman’s Moulin Rouge! is pure poetry, modern-day folk songs for listeners who find Joanna Newsom to be too out-there, Amy Winehouse too vanilla.
To speak more plainly: Lungs is enormous, expansive, bloated with ideas, at times wearying, and frequently just too damn much. It’s also extraordinary, breathtaking, and utterly brilliant. And its brilliance is not a hand-me-down; more than any other half-dozen pop albums you could name, this is brilliance of a one-of-a-kind nature.
And that in itself is fairly odd, given the singer’s backstory– she’s been an It-girl in the British music press for some time now, thrown in with songstresses like Adele and Duffy and even given a commercial makeover by a trio of hit-machine producers from the UK– but it’s also a little strange given that, really, the entire album could be reviewed via a lengthy set of name-dropping. Consider this: Though she’s a soul singer of the same caliber as Winehouse or Duffy, she’s less interested in retro R&B than she is in elaborate labyrinths of sound, not unlike Newsom– and yes, she even plays harp. She’s enamored of non-traditional song structures in a similar manner to Kate Bush, as well as vocal contortions of the Bjork-ian kind. She enjoys a production as ornate and other-worldly as St. Vincent‘s, a tendency toward bluster that rivals that of Muse, and a flair for the macabre that brings to mind Tom Waits or Nick Cave– but rather than a bluesy howl or a punkish sneer, she delivers her songs via arias and spectacular vocal showcases that are pitched somewhere in the general vicinity of Broadway showtunes, or perhaps a less serious Patrick Wolf album. I could address the PJ Harvey comparisons that she’s been getting, as well, but now I’m starting to lose my place.
The point is, Lungs bears superficial resemblance to all of those artists but sounds ultimately like none of them, as Welch has an oversized personality that can’t help but shine with its own, utterly individual light. I return to my Glee reference here, because it’s really the best way to begin summarizing Welch’s sound: She’s blessed with a golden voice that suggests she could have a rich and fruitful career belting out neo-soul or retro-minded R&B, but she instead utilizes it in a broadly theatrical manner, all within the context of pop songs. That term is used loosely, of course– structurally, there’s nothing conventional or conservative about this music– but the songs are melodically rich and hooky, even if it takes a listen or two to unearth some of those hooks from the sheer density of the sound.
And it can be overwhelming, as there’s nothing sparse here, few moments that give the listener room to breath. The album kicks off with a four-song sequence of brightly Technicolor pop, St. Vincent via Tim Burton, harps and guitars and layer upon layer of multi-tracked Florences giving the proceedings an operatic weight. That’s a trick she uses throughout the album: Even “Girl With One Eye,” which starts as a fairly primitive blues number that one can almost imagine Nick Cave singing, eventually explodes into a Broadway crescendo of voice and crashing cymbals.
Still, garishly-colored or not, the magic here is hard to resist. “Dog Days Are Over” is simply some of the most exhilarating pop of the year, a visceral blast of euphoria that ebbs and flows like a theater piece but kicks like rock and roll, Welch standing at the center of it and commanding the waves like some sort of goddess. That she can elevate romantic love to such melodramatic, operatic levels makes her a significant talent, but that she can push it to such frenzied heights without the whole thing crumbling on top of her– and without ever drifting into parody– makes her a star, magnetic and simply astonishing. And she does it more than once: “Drumming” weaves pop magic around a circle of tribal drumming to create a blissful trance, and “Rabbit Heart (Raise it Up)” is a choral anthem that flattens anything Patrick Wolf has recorded.
That latter song is also a key to unlocking the secret of Welch’s magic: For as taken to broad emotional gestures as she is, she tempers her theater-student enthusiasm with a storyteller’s understanding of drama, or at least the ideas behind drama. Lungs is an album that’s not only high on feeling, but also given grit and weight by a love of myth, a curiosity with violence, a sense of conflict. “Rabbit Heart” matches its aural and emotional pomp with its mythic grandiosity, referencing Alice in Wonderland as shorthand for disorientation and obsession before moving to a King Midas riff for its chorus, all fatalistic sadness and epic melancholy. It’s something of a case of mixed metaphors, but it’s also intoxicating: The whole album is, similarly, drunk on story itself.
But if she has a geekish love of lore and folk stories– which she assuredly does; look again to the outlandish violence of “Girl With One Eye,” a gothic blues of bizarre violence– Welch tips us off to the true range of her interests and her gift when she stirs up a set of myths that are utterly contemporary. First single and still Welch’s most talked-about tune, “Kiss with a Fist,” commandeers the White Stripes’ minimalist blues, and even the melody of “We’re Going to be Friends,” but what moves it from parody into homage and on into true inspiration is the lyric, a cheeky, pitch-black send-up of domestic violence that provides an eerie twist to Jack White’s own lyrical themes and romantic obsessions. It’s proof that behind Welch’s flamboyance lies understanding, and behind her garishness and pomp lies intelligence and storytelling spark. That breathes humor into Lungs,a and also gives it its heart– and it makes Florence’s debut something that’s unbelievable even once it’s heard.
R.E.M.: “Live at the Olympia”
At the start of R.E.M.’s epic-length new live album, Michael Stipe quietly intones that “this is not a show.” In the same way, let me say from the beginning that this is not a review: This is, rather, an opportunity for reflection on a band that I have long loved, and a conjecture on where they can possibly go next as they stare down their third decade as a rock and roll institution.
Though Live at the Olympia is culled from a series of “live rehearsals” of the then-unreleased Accelerate material, the set is nothing if not a gift to long-time fans who think the band peaked during their IRS years and have been going downhill ever since “Losing My Religion,” if not Green. For these shows– and the resulting 39-song, two-disc LP– Stipe, Mike Mills, and Peter Buck reached deep into the archives for a selection that studiously avoids any of the greatest hits– “Drive” might be the closest thing to an R.E.M. warhorse here– in favor of obscurities and songs that have received little attention since the early 1980s. The set is heavy on Chronic Town and Reckoning, in particular, and also includes gems from Murmur, Life’s Rich Pageant, and Fables of the Reconstruction. Meanwhile, the band’s Warner Bros albums are represented fairly sparingly, and not with the songs you might expect– Monster is present via the rarely-heard “Circus Envy,” for instance. And then, of course, there are a number of tunes from Accelerate, including a couple that didn’t make it on to the proper album. Everything here is played in a lean, muscular rock and roll style– the mystery of Murmur and the raggedness of Reckoning aren’t replicated, but, rather, everything is played with an inspired fervor reminiscent of Document or Life’s Rich Pageant– and the Accelerate songs are given equal footing with those time-worn classics. This means that, though it may be heavy on Accelerate, this new live set is anything but an extended infomercial for the group’s latest album: It feels more like a celebration of the band’s foundation, and to the return-to-roots attitude that made Accelerate a winsome, if minor, record.
The thing is, I’m not one of those fans who think the band’s been sliding downhill ever since those IRS albums became instant, underground classics. I admit that there was an effortlessness to those early LPs that the band has never duplicated, and Life’s Rich Pageant remains my favorite of their records, but what makes R.E.M. a truly great band, in a class above peers like Dinosaur Jr., is their restlessness, their refusal to keep making the same record over and over again. Like U2, they’re a band that insists on pushing their art ahead with everything they do, and, as such, I hold their 90s catalog to be inspiringly forward-thinking. They could have kept making the same careening jangle-pop over and over, but instead they pushed themselves with the experimental pop of Out of Time, the dark-hued folk of Automatic for the People, the raunchy buzz of Monster, the road-weary rock of New Adventures in Hi-Fi, and yes, even their more studied post-Berry albums.
I loved that R.E.M. kept pushing themselves with these albums, even though not all of them were necessarily great. They didn’t break my heart, however, until the stale, utterly lifeless Around the Sun released in 2004, and made me wonder if the band had finally outlived their artfulness.
And so I had slightly mixed feelings about Accelerate, a fine and addicting album though it may be; for me, it represents both the hope for what R.E.M. can still be, but also anxiety over what they might become. Because as inspiring as it is to hear them reconnect with the rock and roll itch that made them great to begin with, the prospect of the band forsaking their adventurousness and becoming a mere greatest hits band, peddling nostalgia rather than boldness, is almost as terrifying a prospect as another album as limp as Around the Sun.
Backward-glancing though it may be, however, Live at the Olympia is an album that makes me optimistic for the future of R.E.M. And ironically enough, what really pleases me about it are the pair of songs pulled from Reveal and Around the Sun. On record, these songs were two studious to ever be thrilling; here, though, they’re boldly re-imagined as rock and roll songs, and, astonishingly, they sound great, using the band’s past strengths as a foundation for pushing these songs forward. It suggests that, though the band may have gotten lost in their studio, they never lost their capacity to write winning songs. Live at the Olympia is filled with great songs, old and new, that remind me of how great this band has always been– and how great they can still be as they push forward, holding to their roots but also looking to the future.
Terri Clark: “The Long Way Home”
Terri Clark’s The Long Way Home bears a title that splits the difference between two Dixie Chicks records– Home and Taking the Long Way– which may not be intentional, but it’s illuminating nevertheless: Clark’s album is indeed pitched somewhere between those two recordings, not quite comfortable in either the neo-traditionalist camp of Home or the more straightforward pop sound of Taking the Long Way. There are elements of both of those albums, to be sure, but it’s ultimately something a little different: A record that plays nicely within the confines of poppy, mainstream country, but also seeks to reclaim the spirit and attitude of more traditional country music.
And just like the Chicks did with the first track on Home, Clark begins her album by invoking the spirit of Johnny Cash. Her “Gypsy Boots” is more ham-fisted in the way it summons the Man in Black, but at least she has the musical goods to back it up; the song is written within the structure of a traditional blues song, though the production borrows from the best, fiercest brand of what Nashville has to offer today. The track that follows is even more of a throwback: “If You Want Fire” is a country-rock anthem that was written, the singer says, as a sort of tribute to Tom Petty. And it’s a success, both in its journeyman guitar and drum build-up and its lyric, which speaks to the consequences and pain that frequently accompany passion and drive.
There are echoes of those tracks scattered throughout the rest of the recording– “Poor Girls Dream” is like a goofier but still irresistible younger cousin to the neo-blues of “Gypsy Boots,” and “If I Could Be You” layers keyboard and organ in a way that recalls the Heartbreakers– but most of the other songs are ballads. And if the upbeat numbers filter classic roots-music trappings through the sound of contemporary country, the ballads are similarly pitched between folk, outlaw country, and mainstream pop ballads. There are a pair of standouts: “What Happens in Vegas (Follows You Home)” is a winning storytelling song about the consequences of recklessness, and musically it’s a ringer for Gram Parsons. Meanwhile, closing number “You Tell Me” is a lovely and sad lover’s duet with Johnny Reid.
There are some talented musicians on the other songs, too– most crucially, Vince Gill– but many of these slower numbers blend into the background, lacking the fire of the surrounding songs (or, for that matter, the earthy twang of the best Dixie Chicks ballads). Even so, The Long Way Home is a noteworthy album. Clark has been playing within the confines of mainstream country since the 90s, and she never quite struck it big in the pop world like her contemporary Shania Twain did. But here, she brings a wisdom that only a veteran of the scene could possess: She’s played by Nashville’s rules long enough to know how it’s done, but also what’s missing from most mainstream country, and this fine recording goes a long way toward finding a middle ground, thoroughly modern in its sound but old-fashioned in its attitude. And that makes it feel like a very different kind of album than most other Nashville releases in 2009– it’s actually authentic, in touch with the music’s roots but not embarrassed about where it is today, and that alone makes it worth investing in.
Yoko Ono/Plastic Ono Band: “Between My Head and the Sky”
Since 2001, Yoko Ono has released exactly three recordings, and only one of them can be termed a proper album. The first two, both released in 2007, were Open Your Box– in which vintage Ono tracks were remixed by the likes of Basement Jaxx and Pet Shop Boys– and Yes, I’m a Witch, in which vintage Ono tracks were re-invented and re-imagined by indie luminaries ranging from Cat Power to The Flaming Lips. Both albums fell somewhere between collaboration and retrospective, and neither were really and truly collections of brand new Yoko Ono music, but they were illuminating albums nevertheless: Despite her standing as the most controversial (and, in some circles, reviled) woman in rock history, she has somehow become something of an icon, and a sort of godmother, to a new generation of indie musicians– musicians who know her not as the woman who broke up The Beatles, but as a visionary whose work in the avant garde has become a touchstone.
That she would be a celebrated figure in indie music is not so surprising; give one listen to the new Flaming Lips LP, Embryonic, and it becomes apparent why experimental and “alternative” acts might find inspiration in her acid-drenched artistry. But what does an avant garde artist do when her music is no longer on the vanguard, but rather has become absorbed into the vernacular? The answer comes in the third of the relatively-new Ono albums, and her first proper release since 2001, Between My Head and the Sky. Simply put, it’s the most accessible music she’s ever made, and also some of the best. Released, as so many critics have noted, in the same month that brought the Beatles remasters and Beatles Rock Band, Ono’s album defiantly ignores those landmarks, instead reviving the Plastic Ono Band moniker she created with John: As such, the album stands as a bold statement of her own identity and legacy as an artist in her own right, not just a footnote in the story of the Fab Four.
The Plastic Ono Band emblem is more of a philosophical thing than an actual band, of course: Ono herself is the only original “member” who is present here, as there are no cameos from Eric Clapton or Ringo Starr. Rather, the Plastic Ono name serves as a sort of banner for a loose, exploratory set of recordings that actually recalls the ramshackle, family-and-friends jam-session approach of early Paul McCartney albums, particularly Ram. But of course, Paul’s music has always been based in old-fashioned rock and roll, while Ono’s is something altogether other: Between My Head and the Sky forsakes the shrill screaming and noise-collage tendencies of her most abrasive work, but it’s still rooted in Eastern music, acid jazz, and experimental rock.
She made this set with son Sean Lennon and a group of like-minded confederates, and the resulting album is outstanding. It’s spirited and spontaneous, recorded in less than a week and mostly improvised in the studio. Its fifteen songs are unashamedly eclectic, and they encompass some of Ono’s best work. The opening trifecta is brilliant: “Waiting for the D Train” is locomotive garage rock with impressionistic lyrics from Ono; “The Sun is Down” is a spoke poem set to music that falls somewhere between jazz and techno, and it’s way out there, moody and hypnotic and utterly edgy; and “Ask the Elephant” is nursery-rhyme funk that’s joyfully childlike and absurd.
From there, the band really stretches out for songs, sketches, and tone poems that are loose, diverse, and absorbing in their spontaneity: Not all of them are knockouts, but taken as a whole, the album has a very winning feel of a group of like-minded friends simply exploring their music and following the muse wherever it takes them. There are acid-jazz freakouts, piano pieces, and even some material that borders on trance. It’s experimental, but oddly mesmerizing and generally very melodic. If it’s creativity you’re after, this thing is unimpeachable.
Ono herself is the unifying spirit here, with her personality poured into every note– and no, that’s not a bad thing. She’s as good-natured, as philosophical and peace-loving as ever, and also plenty weird. She sticks to actual singing here, and her lyrics– again, improvised– are charming in their raggedness, their impressionistic form of expression. At times she’s essentially spouting give-peace-a-chance mantras that don’t read well on paper, but, given the spirit of this project, they come across as rather charming. But the brilliance here is that, while it’s more a proper Yoko Ono album than anything she’s released in years, it’s also very much a collaboration, not just between mother and son, but between Ono and her band: It’s music driven by the common drive to make something special, something brimming with imagination, and on those terms it can only be called a smashing success.
The List: Country Music in the Aughts
I’m tempted to say that it’s been a good month for country. Within the last couple of weeks, Patty Loveless released her second Mountain Soul recording, celebrating the traditional music of the hills. Kris Kristofferson cut a sparse, poetic set called Closer to the Bone. Miranda Lambert continued her quest to bring a punk edge to mainstream country with Revolution. And just this week, Lyle Lovett returns with another fine, wry singer-songwriter set called Natural Forces, while Terri Clark released a fiery mainstream country disc in The Long Way Home.
But again, I’m only tempted to call this a good month for country, if only because the entire decade has been a good one for country. Nashville is maligned in music critic circles, and not always unfairly– certainly, it’s a scene prone to formula– but even as mainstream country has grown stale, a number of artists have kicked against the stagnation of their beloved music with records that have been vibrant and often brilliant.
This is my tribute to the country music of the last ten years, inspired in large part by my favorite country album of this year, Rosanne Cash’s The List. You’ve probably heard the story behind that one: Old man Johnny gave his teenage daughter a list of the 100 essential country music songs, twelve of which are covered on her new LP. My own list isn’t of songs, but of albums; and it isn’t of all-time classics, but of modern-day classics.
Note that this isn’t necessarily a list of my ten favorite country discs of the 00s, but, rather, ten albums that demonstrate the range and depth of what’s coming out of the genre. Also, I’ve tried to restrict these choices to albums that have some kind of clear connection to traditional country forms. And finally, since I’ve already written about newer albums from Cash, Kristofferson, and the rest, I’ve left those out– for now.
On to the list:
Solomon Burke
Nashville
I’ve heard it said that country music is really just soul music, an adage that I’ve shamelessly used in my own writing more than once. That connection is made implicit in this recording, in which the king of soul music dons a cowboy hat, takes up arms with producer Buddy Miller, and makes one of the most authentic and expressive country music albums of the decade.
Caitlin Cary and Thad Cockrell
Begonias
It might sound like hyperbole to say that these are some of the finest country duets this side of Gram and Emmylou, but get a listen of these heavenly harmonies and try to disagree. This is the good stuff: Tears-in-beer ballads mixed with driving, heartland country-rock.
Vince Gill
These Days
Not even Tom Waits’ sprawling Orphans set can top this one in terms of sheer scope and generosity; at four discs of all-new, all-original material, this one is king of the mountain. The four discs are divided according to style, which shows just how diverse and far-reaching the Nashville sound can be when a pro like Gill is given the space to do his thing.
Alan Jackson
Like Red on a Rose
Jackson has spent most of his career making good-times anthems for the honky tonk; Alison Krauss has earned acclaim as a bluegrass virtuoso. Together, they made a late-night saloon album that has less in common with their normal gigs than with Sinatra’s In the Wee Small Hours. I’m not sure how they pulled it off either, but it’s a singularly moving record, perfect for late-night listening.
Patty Loveless
Dreamin’ My Dreams
Though she’s spent most of the decade mining traditional country sounds in her fine Mountain Soul records and the all-covers Sleepless Nights, her finest work might be Dreaming My Dreams, a knockout set that represents a perfect blending of traditional and modern country trappings.
Loretta Lynn
Van Lear Rose
It’s not just one of the best country albums of the decade, but one of the biggest comebacks, in any genre: A storytelling masterpiece that combines autobiography with a healthy dose of garage rock mayhem, the latter thanks to superfan and producer Jack White.
Buddy and Julie Miller
Buddy and Julie Miller
I know of few recordings that capture the joys of love– or the pains of heartache– with as much vigor as this flirty, fun set from country’s best husband-wife team; musically, this one touches on everything from acoustic country ballads to swaggering, Stonesy rock.
Willie Nelson
Songbird
Of late, Willie has proven himself willing to collaborate with pretty much anyone, but who would have thought that one of his best albums in years would be a joint effort with Ryan Adams? This set has Nelson songs, Adams songs, and covers of everything from Leonard Cohen to “Amazing Grace,” and everything here is killer.
Keith Urban
Love, Pain, and the Whole Crazy Thing
It’s the Sgt. Pepper of mainstream country music– not in terms of impact, maybe, but certainly with regard to its baroque arrangements. But there ain’t nothin’ artsty about it: This is thrillingly bold, colorful music that blends the best of country, pop, and guitar rock.
Lucinda Williams
World Without Tears
I know I’m in the minority, but I think this is Williams’ best record: Part country, part folk, part rock, all raw emotion, pain and heartache. It’s sharp, strong and sexy– and though it dabbles in classic rock and talking blues, the close-to-the-bone human poetry is country through and through.
Film Break: “Where the Wild Things Are”
Released by Warner Brothers after a long, family-targeted marketing build-up, Spike Jonze’s Where the Wild Things Are is nevertheless an indie movie through and through; though Jonze met with acclaim for directing films like Adaptation, a more obvious touchstone for Wild Things is his oeuvre of music videos for the likes of Fatboy Slim and Bjork, videos that emphasized big feelings and a homemade aesthetic– traits shared by the best, least ironic forms if indie rock.
That may sound like the feeble attempts of a music blogger to tie a feature film in with his usual musical topics, but make no mistake: Jonze’s film really is an acutely musical film, not just because of its sophisticated integration of Karen O’s very fine original songs or because it’s become so closely tied to Arcade Fire’s song “Wake Up,” though it’s that latter connection that most effectively illuminates what this film is; like Arcade Fire’s Funeral LP, Wild Things is nothing if not a deeply expressive work, a film that’s less about the plot than it is the emotions that are worn so boldly on its sleeve.
And that makes sense: After all, it’s based on a book that contains only ten sentences and is better known for its vivid illustrations. Jonze and screenwriter Dave Eggers have fleshed things out, of course, so what we have in this movie is not an adaptation so much as an interpretation, one that fills in the blank spaces in the book without ever straying from the book’s aesthetic. Jonze and Eggers wisely decided to keep things somewhat abstract– the Wild Things themselves are not direct allegories, and they defy being made into strict symbols, existing as characters first and foremost– but they also mine the sparse story for psychological depth and emotional complexity, turning it into nothing less than a profound (and sure to be misunderstood) exploration of divorce and its effects on children. (David Poland’s analysis of this angle of the film is essential reading.)
This, of course, makes for a melancholy movie– something that is sure to make it unpopular in some circles– but it’s not an opressive sadness so much as an enveloping sadness, punctuated by moments of intimacy and warmth, flourishes of good-hearted humor, and a sense of primal desire and childlike integrity that fit its title. And indeed, with its feral emotions, its vast melancholy, and its refusal to gloss over hardship and suffering, it truly is a wild movie: The argument over whether this is a movie for children or adults is irrelevant, as it’s simply a beautiful and haunting film that resonates deeply.
Film Break: “Law Abiding Citizen”
My review of the new “thriller,” Law Abiding Citizen, is posted at CT Movies. First zero-star review I’ve handed in in ages.
Landmarks: The Year 2005
In the past decade, has anyone done more to enhance the profile of the state of Illinois than Sufjan Stevens? Barack Obama, maybe, but that’s about it. Stevens’ Illinois album was everywhere in 2005, a favorite both in indie rock circles as well many evangelical circles; the album was celebrated both for its musical acumen and its spirited ruminations on God and faith. For me, 2005 might always be remembered, on some level, as the year of Sufjan– though truthfully, that album was never as dear to my heart as it was to that of so many others, and while I hold it in high regard, it’s not what I would call a personal favorite.
Perhaps it’s because the music is all just a bit too twee for me; perhaps it’s because Stevens’ meek voice has never really grabbed me; or perhaps it’s because, by the time the album came out in June 2005, I had already heard my choice for sprawling, freewheeling pop album of the year. Andrew Bird released his Mysterious Production of Eggs early in the year, and, virtually from the opening notes, I was pretty sure I’d found my favorite album of the year. To this day it remains one of the most exhilarating and addicting records I now, a mutant pop album that celebrates melody even as it takes hairpin left turns and oozes with imagination, with lyrics that match the music in their dizzying wordplay and celebration of creativity’s power and intrigue. The album did much to revive my affection for pure melody and the gift of simple, childlike wonder, and it has that effect on me even today.
It was a monster of a record, but it wasn’t the only highlight of the year. The Hold Steady released their second album, Separation Sunday, and I can count on one hand the number of records released this decade that are as profound– and hilarious– as that one. A concept album about drugs, Jesus, and redemption, it’s nothing if not a modern-day, gutter-poet retelling of the prodigal son parable, and its religious fervor is matched only by its irreverent humor. Oh yeah: And it kicks ass, too; few rock albums boast so many devastatingly cocky guitar riffs.
But while The Hold Steady was coming into its own as a guitar band, another band was hanging up their guitars. The White Stripes– a terminally weird band– released their own weirdest album in Get Behind Me Satan. I love the album for its energy, its humor, its boldness… but most of all, I love it for the way Jack White puts away the electric guitars (mostly) in favor of piano and marimba, and still makes an album that sounds like quintessential Stripes.
2005 was also the year of what I call the Near Break-Up album. Over the Rhine released their most intimate and personal collection, a set called Drunkard’s Prayer that chronicled the near-collapse of the duo’s marriage, and the hope of reconciliation. It’s a rousing and ravishing set. And, Charlie Sexton released his wonderful album Cruel and Gentle Things, which surveyed a damaged relationship but held out hope for its survival. Musically, it touched on everything form gospel to jazz to slow-burning rock and roll.
I would almost put Erin McKeown‘s We Will Become Like Birds on the list; though not an album about a near break-up per se, and not as conceptual as either of the records cited above, it is an album about triumph over adversity, particularly where relationships are concerned. It’s also a terrific, sophisticated, and very smart pop album, one that I played a lot in 2005 and still hold in high esteem. And McKeown was just one of a few strong, passionate women who crafted winning, fiery discs in 2005. Additionally, soul singer Bettye LaVette made a bravura comeback with her Joe Henry-produced set I’ve Got My Own Hell to Raise, while Fiona Apple made a ferocious, biting, and at times quite beautiful breakup album called Extraordinary Machine.
But that’s not all. Spoon made their biggest, most eclectic album in Gimme Fiction. Sexsmith & Kerr created harmonies to die for in their folksy, Everly Brothers-inspired album Destination Unknown. Richard Hawley had his breakthrough in the timeless Cole’s Corner. Kanye West released one of the decade’s seminal hip-hop albums, Late Registration– still my favorite of his recordings. New Pornographers crafted a blustery, power pop triumph with Twin Cinema. And Sleater-Kinney released one of the year’s most ragged, raucous rock sets, The Woods.
Those were my favorites from 2005. What about yours?
