iPod rundown - 05/10/07
1. Animal Collective - "Tell it to the Mountain": From the reissued
live Hollindagain. Animal Collective are great live, but this track
barely captures their chaotic glory. An electronic tone throughout
much of it, alongside a sustained more or less wordless vocal is
overtaken by some ecstatic, messy, sort of tribal drumming. That's
about it.
2. Billy Holiday - "You Turned the Tables on Me": I listen to very
little jazz vocal. I tend to prefer Holiday to a singer like Ella
Fitzgerald, though many of her songs seem to end on the same note, as
she dramatically delivers the final words, which I do find a little
off-putting. This lovely song is on Solitude. At our wedding, our
first dance was to Holiday's version of "Love is Here to Stay".
3. Arthur Russell - "Let's Go Swimming (Walter Gibbons mix): Like a
lot of people, I suspect, I only heard of Russell in the last few
years; curious (and unduly obsessed with filling in the gaps of
post-punk), I bought the Soul Jazz comp The World of Arthur Russell,
which focuses on his disco-related music. I do like his take on disco,
but that has not translated into great reverence. Russell's thin and
distant vocal was initially off-putting for me, but not too much so.
The percussion is great.
4. Feist - "Lonely Lonely": People are raving about Feist's new album,
The Reminder (though I have seen rumblings that it represents the
adult-contemporification of indie rock). I haven't heard it. This is
off her last album, Let it Die, which I bought because we love her
cover of the Bee Gees song, "Inside and Out", that appears on it. The
album itself is pleasant enough, though I haven't listened to it
closely. "Lonely Lonely" is a good one, sounds like a fresh take on a
singer-singwriter sound.
5. Wire - "Marooned": Chairs Missing is great of course.
6. Bardo Pond - "Ganges": I often forget about Bardo Pond, but I
always enjoy when one of their songs comes on. This 11-minute
instrumental begins with alternating channels of psychedelic electric
guitar, which fades after less than a minute. The track settles into a
slow, mellow fuzz groove; about seven minutes in, drums and guitar get
progressively busier above it, before settling down toward the end of
the track. Great music to work to. Dilate is the album.
7. Smog - "Cold Blooded Old Times": One of the best songs on Knock
Knock. An insistent rock guitar and nice piano, which ends in a great
squall of guitar and piano noise. Some lyrics: "the type of memories
that turn your bones to glass" and "in this way they gave you clarity,
a cold-blooded clarity". I still haven't been able to pick up the new
Bill Callahan record.
8. The Jayhawks - "I'd Run Away": For a while, I thought I was
interested in keeping up with various stripes of alt-country bands
(this didn't last very long; most of them are pretty boring--cf. The
Old 97s). One of my favorite such records is Tomorrow the Green Grass,
which includes this song. A lot of what I loved about the record was
Mark Olson's vocals, and he left the band after this album. So I lost
interest, though I know people who swear by the follow-up, Sound of
Lies.
9. Outkast - "Liberation": Damn this is a beautiful song. Why do I
feel like I've never heard it before? I've had Aquemini for years
(since it came out in 1998, I'm sure). At more than 8 minutes, this is
one of the longer rap songs I'm aware of. Just drums, piano, bass. I
should probably listen to this cd more often.
10. The Vandermark 5 - "Cruz Campo (For Gerhard Richter)": Airports
for Light was produced by Bob Weston of Shellac and, of late, Mission
of Burma, and it sounds great. This is solid, workmanlike modern jazz,
in the traditions of free bop and free jazz. I saw the group play in
Chicago at the Empty Bottle (also in the audience: Peter Brotzmann!
Joe McPhee!).
11. The Notorious B.I.G. - "Respect": There's a reason Ready to Die is
considered a classic. I still don't have much intelligent to say about
rap.
12. Miles Davis Quintet - "You're My Everything": The first great
quintet, with Coltrane, Red Garland, Paul Chambers, Philly Jo Jones.
This stuff is pretty much the dictionary definition of jazz for me, so
it's hard to imagine that there were those who reacted negatively to
it at the time. This comes from Relaxin' with Miles.
13. Pixies - "Planet of Sound": I've been sort of bored by the Pixies
lately. Or, bored by the idea of them, bored by their position as
indie rock gods. But a song like "Planet of Sound" comes on, and well.
I've tended to favor the raw, bare-bones, Albini-recorded Surfer Rosa
and not given enough attention to the last Pixies album, Trompe le
Monde, which gives us this song. It's hard to say why; I'm always
surprised by how great it is. There's a lot going on in these songs.
14. Mia Doi Todd - "88 Ways": I'd never heard of Mia Doi Todd before
John Darnielle raved about her most recent cd, Manzanita, when it was
released a couple of years ago. I bought that album and the earlier,
major-label album The Golden State, which includes "88 Ways". I love
Todd's voice. Manzanita is beautiful, and its spare production is much
more to my liking than is Mitchell Froom's overly busy production on
The Golden State. Still, the latter is a good album nonetheless.
15. Belly - "Super-Connected": This is a pretty basic, engaging rock
song from the second Belly cd, King. Tanya Donelly's Belly had some
good songs, but they were nothing like as good as her previous band,
the great Throwing Muses.
Labels: Animal Collective, iPod, Music, Smog/Bill Callahan
posted by Richard at 8:39 PM
10 Comments:
Blogger Tim said...
Funny you should say that about the Pixies as I was thinking
something similar just last week while reading some terribly
pretentious and fawning reviews of their recent Australian
tour. One reviewer claimed that Doolittle is a better album
than anything that has come out since. Not just better than
anything by the Pixies or members of the Pixies - no, anything
by anyone, anywhere!
It reminded me of Piero Scaruffi's criticism of the Beatles.
Scaruffi is pretty damning about most of the Beatles' output,
and he claims that they're only feted because of 1) their
commercial popularity, and 2) the historical ignorance of most
rock music writers. Jazz or classical critics tend to have a
more rounded appreciation of their field whereas rock
journalists are typically more limited in their historical
perspective. Whether that's true I couldn't say, but it's an
intriguing argument and one I often reflect on when I read
nostalgic hyperbole in the guise of rock criticism.
On the other hand, the Pixies were/are(?) capable of making
some pretty great music.
Btw, these iPod run-downs are quite interesting. I've been
trying to figure out a way of writing more about music on my
blog so I might have to steal the idea.
May 11, 2007 12:59 AM
Blogger Scraps said...
I don't have a problem with anyone disliking the Beatles -- of
course -- but when people start trying to explain the bad bad
reasons why other people like the Beatles, they are just being
pissy, no matter how articulately. I don't like Dylan for a lot
of good -- of course -- reasons, but I'd be an idiot to
maintain that Dylan's popularity and importance were primarily
due to popular ignorance. That's not criticism, it's solipsism.
I may have said this before -- of course -- but Mia Doi Todd
had albums before The Golden State, and if you prefer
Manzanita, you'd probably like the earlier ones, too: they are
spare, spooky, and often beautiful. In particular, ZeroOne is
amazing, one of those albums that I'm not in the mood for often
-- it demands complete attention -- but always blows me away
when I put it on.
May 11, 2007 9:29 AM
Blogger Scraps said...
(Anyway, if the Beatles were only feted because of their
popularity, where's the critical love for the BeeGees, Neil
Diamond, Cliff Richard, Madonna?)
May 11, 2007 9:37 AM
Blogger Richard said...
Tim, thanks. I like doing these because it gives me a chance to
touch on a wide variety of music I like, without having to
spend a tone of space doing so.
Scraps - I am aware that Mia Doi Tood has previous recordings,
but I haven't looked for any of them. Thanks for the tip on
ZeroOne.
As for the Beatles/Pixies "feted because they're popular
thing"... It's hard sometimes to distinguish unthinking fawning
from deserved adulation. To say that the Beatles are/were only
feted because they were popular is extremely silly, not to
mention condescending. However, I think it's fair to say that
rock critics have too often had a too limiting awareness of the
music.
Funny that you mention Dylan, Scraps. I, of course, love him.
But the praise heaped on his last album made little sense to
me. For years it was assumed Dylan was washed up, and everyone
seemed to reflexively dump on his new records, but since he
started making music that he seemed more committed to, it's
like he can do no wrong. And he's going to get reviewed
absolutely everywhere, including newspapers that review little
popular music, but have older readerships. Anyway, I thought
Modern Times was way overrated and that people were fawning
over it because it was by Dylan. And yet, some younger critics
wrote about that album in ways that forced me to accept that
they really liked it that much.
(Side note: I would say that there has been plenty of critical
love for Madonna, if not so much for the others, though Neil
Diamond has his adherents.)
May 11, 2007 10:27 AM
Anonymous pgwp said...
Hey - I made that adult contemporification remark about Fiest!
I simultaneously stand by it and am in love with everything
I've heard by her. I've heard half of the new record via
downloads, and just bought the actual thing yesterday; once
I've finished processing it I'll probably go on about it.
I don't like the album version of "Inside and Out," but have
you seen her do it live? It is so, so, so gorgeous. She
completely reinterprets it. You gotta go see her if she comes
to town.
Finally, I feel the exact same way as you about the
Pixies--Surfer Rosa is my favorite. But the one song that
always gets me the way you've described with "Planet" is
"Monkey Gone to Heaven," from Doolittle. When he gets to "And
if the devil is six then GOD is seven"... well, I have to stand
up and chant along with that whole section of the song.
May 11, 2007 3:57 PM
Blogger Richard said...
I'd seen more than one person say something similar about
Feist, but I did see the "adult contemporification" line at
your blog--but I didn't remember where I'd seen it until
sometime today, or I would have linked to your post!
You don't like the album version? I know I've already said it,
but I love it... a lot. Though I am interested in hearing the
live version now...
May 11, 2007 4:26 PM
Anonymous pgwp said...
The album version, in fact, is one of those "adult
contemporary" moments I think Fiest is capable of. It's not the
worst offender but there are many other songs on Let it Die
that I like more.
Here's a live version:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bgtgB-aRjuQ
Actually I was at that show! But I also saw her again a few
months later and the whole band sang on the chorus in four-part
harmony. Even better.
May 11, 2007 5:25 PM
Blogger brandon said...
Arthur Russell! Like probably almost everybody, I've discovered
him through all of the re-releases. Perhaps try his
'Springfield' EP and/or 'Calling Out of Context', it has the
disco-like stuff but a little more popish and more emotional
connected...'World of Arthur' I've found to be his most
underwhelming.
Also, you have smart stuff to say about everything else, why
not rap? I'm not trying to be aggressive, I just curious
May 12, 2007 6:02 PM
Blogger Richard said...
Good question, Brandon. I see what Tom Breihan has to put up
with, and I have little interest in getting into debates about
what is and isn't "real hip hop" (I can see both "sides" of it,
and I don't really care). So I guess it's sort of a cop-out. I
find, anyway, with a lot of music I struggle to describe it,
and with rap I feel it even more so. It's not clear why I feel
that that feeling should therefore prevent me from saying
something else about it (telling personal anecdotes, etc, like
I do with the other tracks).
So, yeah. Next time maybe.
May 13, 2007 12:01 PM
Blogger Scraps said...
I agree that Hersh is a great songwriter, and Donelly merely a
good one. But the first Belly album is IMO as strong as the
best Muses albums. It isn't as strikingly original, but it's
good almost all the way through, has many different moods, and
has several peaks ("Slow Dog", "Low Red Moon", "Feed the Tree",
"Untogether"). The strongest songs are in the middle, which is
unusual and may cause the album to be underrated (R.E.M.'s Up
is another one like that). Anyway, it was interesting to hear a
bunch of Donelly's stuff by itself for the first time, instead
of as sort of asides on Muses albums where, good as the songs
were, they always felt a little out of place.
May 15, 2007 6:47 PM
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