Music Notes

The major recent music news in my life was seeing Robbie Fulks play a really fun set at City Winery in Boston last night. This is the third time I’ve seen Fulks. The first was in 2007 in Austin, the first show I saw after I moved to Texas, and the second was in New Haven in maybe 2014 or 2015. Fulks is such a skilled songwriter with such a sharp sense of humor. Of course, this hasn’t always worked that well for him. He had several early songs that had marginally or outright offensive lyrics. He is aware of this and when playing “Cigarette State” last night, noted that he was an idiot when he wrote the song with a dick joke in 1984 and apologized for it beforehand, just replacing whatever the lyric was with “dick joke, dick joke, dick joke” before moving on to the next lyric. That’s probably a good way to deal with it. I am aware he has started playing “Fuck This Town” again, but in a new version that I presume does not have the gay remark in it. He didn’t play it last night.

But outside of the controversial part of his career, Fulks’ great skill is being able to write finely felt songs as well as the funny songs, all without destroying the mood he is creating by alternating between them. He played quite a few songs from his excellent Upland Stories album from a few years ago “Aunt Peg’s New Old Man” is a pretty hilarious song and “Fare Thee Well Carolina Gals” is a really quite touching one and they both work really well. Of course, there were lots of classics too–and he actually has quite a few for a guy who has never really hit big time commercial success. He played “She Took a Lot of Pills and Died,” “Let’s Kill Saturday Night,” and as mentioned above, “Cigarette State,” which has one of my favorite all-time lyrics: “Alabama’s grand, the state not the band.” Say what you about the state, that’s a hell of a shot at a very shitty band that defined a not great era of country music. Only bummer was that he didn’t play any songs of the masterful album Georgia Hard, my favorite of his work by a good bit and one that is full of the best kind of country songs, ones written for adults who have been through some things in their life.

In other news, the great Mac Wiseman has died. To be honest, I had forgotten Wiseman was alive. A really underrated figure in the history of both country and bluegrass music, he was in the end far more influential to other musicians than the general public. There’s not many figures still alive from the classic bluegrass era. Jesse McReynolds, from Jim & Jessie, may be the last one. Sad.

Quite a few other interesting musical figures left us in the last week or so. The most significant is André Previn, who is not someone who ever particularly interested me, but obviously was a large cultural figure. Mark Hollis from Talk Talk also died. That’s never been a band that particularly moved me, but I know he probably meant a lot to at least some readers. The great South African singer Dorothy Masuka died too. So did the jazz critic Ira Gitler.

Rolling Stone has a piece on the last days of Dolores O’Riordan and The Cranberries.

I think everyone wants to see Stevie Nicks’ vault full of shawls. I wonder how much cocaine you can shake out of them.

Is it too early for a Best of 2019 album list? In this era of listsicles, you know it is never too early!

A lost set of Townes Van Zandt recordings! With never before heard songs!!!!

And a lost Marvin Gaye album being released!

Album Reviews, in which I finally get to some 2019 albums!

Tame Impala, Currents

This 2015 pop album from this Australian band was huge with the Pitchfork and otherwise hipster crowd upon its release. I can see why. It has the electronic background with swoopy synths and the funk nods that defines much of what is most popular with tastemakers over the past five years. You almost certainly have heard the chorus from “New Person, Same Old Mistakes” in TV ads or other media, as this catchy anthemic hook was a natural for short television bits, but you probably know it from Rhianna’s smoking cover of it, which is both faithful and better, though it’s a well-above average song in its original version. Overall, I’d say it is fairly successful indie pop, though I find the processed vocals, often pretty low in the mix, frustrating. I guess I am too old to really groove on processed vocals. Lyrically, this goes over some pretty familiar ground about loneliness to some effect, though again, sometimes it’s hard to follow the voice.

B

Anohni, Hopelessness

How far this takes you depends on how you handle the vocals, which are a bit too mannered to my taste. Anonhi, formerly Antony Hegarty of Antony and the Johnstons, provides some really interesting political pop music exploring the darkness of the world as it existed in early 2016, when this was released. Of course, the world is far darker now, so songs about drones and how disappointing Obama was seem pretty quaint three years later, although not less legitimate for that. The overall core theme is the horrors of patriarchy, summed up in “Violent Men.” With some fine production, including by the seemingly ubiquitous Oneohtrix Point Never, this is quite a fascinating listen. I’m not sure it is one I need to buy, again because I personally find the vocals just a bit too mannered. But it is one I am glad I heard.

B+

Juliana Hatfield, Weird

The new Juliana Hatfield is…typically solid! Not saying her career hasn’t had its ups and downs, but she’s been a solid performer for seemingly forever. There are some really strong songs here–“Staying In,” which leads the album is a classic introvert song, though one framed by the fact that Hatfield is someone that a lot of people from a particular generation (mine) would recognize on the street. My own favorite though is “Do It To Music,” which closes the album. What do you do to music? Everything. And what better way to live is there? It’s how I roll. Overall, this is a tight set of songs with catchy hooks and smart lyrics. What more can you really ask from a veteran musician?

A-

Maggie Rogers, Heard It In a Past Life

Rogers is the first pop sensation of 2019 and has an interesting story, since Pharrell discovered her in a college class he sat in on and then put that discovery on YouTube. That certainly put her in a weird position going forward, though no doubt it gave her a break. I have mixed thoughts on her major label debut. First, she has a lot of talent for songwriting and a great voice. Second, on too many songs here that is overwhelmed by layers of sleek pop production. I don’t necessarily oppose pop production. But I think Rogers is a folkie at heart and while that’s not antithetical to pop music, placing her work under the kind of production that one might see on a Ariana Grande album or something doesn’t quite serve her work that well. The electronic effects, the over-reliance on background vocalists and drum machines–there’s nothing per se wrong with any of this, but I just think different production values would lead to a better album. Maybe this is how she sees herself. The interviews I’ve read with her suggest a pretty self-confident young woman. But I also strongly feel a shift in focus would highlight these talents a little better.

B

Seun Kuti & Egypt 80, Black Times

It’s a bit hard to know how to evaluate an album like this, where the descendant of a legend makes music that is on its own pretty good, but is obviously just copying his ancestor. What does one do with imitation legacy? Hank Williams III sounding just like his grandfather is one example here. Seun Kuti is another. Last year, Fela’s youngest son released a perfectly serviceable album of Afrobeat that could have been made by his father. Same sound, same sort of lyrical content. And I’m not going to complain about catchy songs that name drop Patrice Lumumba or Kwame Toure and push politically progressive visions from a Nigeria that could use them. I might complain about allowing Carlos Santana to wank his guitar on one song.

B

The Beths, Future Me Hates Me

This is a really smart, catchy, fun 2018 album of guitar pop from Elizabeth Stokes and her merry band of Kiwis. This is a great garage rock sound with a very nice, almost sweet, vocalist, and a lyrical content rooted in the ambivalence of the young about their future. And while I’m kind of a sucker for this combination of traits, I think this is an album that stands up very well. I buy at least one album every Friday–supporting musicians through purchasing music is important as streaming is just making sure that new musicians never make any money–and this is what I chose last Friday. Yesterday, I bought a Matthew Shipp album. With the new Coathangers coming out this week, that’s obviously what I am buying this coming Friday. Have to switch things up! Anyway, this was a worthy purchase.

A-

Various Artists, African Scream Contest, Volume 2

A decade ago, the amazing label African Analog released African Scream Contest, a smoking hot compilation of music from Benin in the 60s and 70s. That was one of the best African compilations on the market. I still listen to it sometimes. Last year, the label released a follow-up. Naturally, this isn’t quite as revelatory or quite as good as the first. Instead, it is only very good music that you should buy. You may know some of the artists, such as Antoine Dougbé or Orchestre Poly-Rhythmo de Cotonou, or at least I did, already owning some of their music, but there is new material here for anyone except for the true expert on the period and place.

A

Lone Justice, The Western Tapes, 1983

Lone Justice is one of those lost bands, great bands that had the potential of success but it just didn’t quite work out. This country-rock band fronted by Maria McKee, who went on to a pretty successful solo career, had a really strong first album released in 1985 and then a much less good synth-based album the next year after the first one failed commercially. The band broke up after that. The Western Tapes is an early document of a band growing quickly and is a great intro to them. The 1980s was not a great era for this kind of music; a decade later, Lone Justice would have been foundational alt-country figures.

A-

Adia Victoria, Beyond the Bloodhounds

This is an interesting album of southern alienation, complete with a title inspired by a line in Harriet Jacobs’ incredibly powerful slave memoir Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. Victoria grew up in rural South Carolina in a strict Seventh-Day Adventist family and so the desire to escape is deep within her. Her family managed to get out of the religion while she was still relatively young, but the experience of alienation in dealing with public schools and the transition to regular society is real enough. Of course, this backstory is interesting but not really per se relevant to evaluating her music. And while sometimes the vocals are a bit low in the mix for me, there is lots to chew on here. Lines such as “I don’t know nothin’ ’bout Southern belles, but I can tell you somethin’ ’bout Southern hell when your skin give ’em cause to take and take” are pretty damn good. The music is often described as garage punk and blues rock and swamp rock and whatever other fairly meaningless labels. While I don’t know that I was blown away here, I certainly was interested enough to pay more attention. It so happens that this is her 2016 debut that I finally got to and just this week, her follow-up album was released. So I will be checking that out soon.

B+

As always, this is an open thread for all things music and none things politics.