As I reviewed my various playlists I had a pretty good idea what songs to put on a best songs playlist. What was really surprising is that Reinventing Robert Cohn by And Then There Were None was the top played song in our house…

The list of 50 songs is below and are in no particular order. I can’t embed the lala playlist in the post but you can get it here: 2009 Songs

1. Like Steps in a Dance by Anchor & Braille

Album Felt – 2009

2. The Lost Get Found by Britt Nicole

Album The Lost Get Found – 2009

3. No Surprise by Daughtry

Album  Leave This Town – 2009

4. The State by Derek Webb

Album Stockholm Syndrome – 2009

5. Streams of Woe at Acheron by Falling Up

Album Fangs – 2009

6. Keep the Party Alive by Family Force 5

Album Keep The Party Alive EP – 2009

7. When She’s Near by Fiction Family

Album Fiction Family – 2009

8. Take Me As I Am by FM Static

Album Dear Diary – 2009

9. The Man Who Lost His Soul by Until June

Album Sound Of Defeat – 2009

10. Magnificent by U2

Album No Line on the Horizon – 2009

11. All the World Is Mad by Thrice

Album  Beggars vagrant stream – 2009

12. Saviour by The Lights

Album Saviour EP – 2009

13. You Found Me by The Fray

Album The Fray – 2009

14. Gotta Cheer Up by The Cotton Jones

Album PARANOID COCOON

15. Reinventing Robert Cohn by And Then There Were None

Album Who Speaks For Planet Earth? – 2009

16. You Gotta Believe by The Rocket Summer

Album You Gotta Believe EP – 2009

17. Closer by Jars of Clay

Album The Long Fall Back to Earth – 2009

18. Norman Bleik by I Was A King

Album I Was A King – 2009

19. Charmed Life by Joy Williams

Album One of Those Days – EP – 2009

20.I’m Gonna Break Your Heart by Joy Williams

Album One of Those Days – EP – 2002

21. Give It Time by Molly Jenson

Album Maybe Tomorrow – 2005

22. Last Time by Paper Route

Album Absence – 2009

23. Fisher of Men by M. Ward

Album Hold Time – 2009

24. Spotlight by Mutemath

Album Armistice – 2009

25. Every Thought A Thought Of You 3:31

By mewithoutYou

Album it’s all crazy!it’s all false! it’s all a dream, it’s alright!-2009

26. Closer To Love by Mat Kearney

Album City Of Black & White – 2009

27. Fireflies by Owl City

Album Ocean Eyes – 2009

28. Chasing The Daylight by Phillip LaRue

Album Let The Road Pave Itself – 2009

29. Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want by Starflyer 59

Album Ghosts Of The Past [Disc 1]

30. Black Gold by Southeast Engine

Album From the Forest to the Sea – 2009

31. Mess Of Me by Switchfoot

Album Hello Hurricane 2009

32. If (Acoustic) by House Of Heroes

Album The End Is Not The End EP – 2008

33. Just Like A Ghost by Gasoline Heart

Album Nostalgia Ain’t What It Used To Be – 2009

34. I’ve Got Friends by Manchester Orchestra

Album Mean Everything To Nothing – 2009

35. Don’t You Know You’re Beautiful by Seabird

Album Don’t You Know You’re Beautiful – 2009

36. The Fisherman Song (We All Need Love) by Mae

Album (m)orning – 2009

37. People C’mon by Delta Spirit

Album Ode to Sunshine – 2008

38. Devotion by Viva Voce

Album Rose City – 2009

39. Errand Rum by As Cities Burn

Album Hell or High Water – 2009

40. Break by dave perkins

Album pistol city holiness

41. World of Wonders by Bruce Cockburn

Album Slice O Life: Bruce Cockburn – 2009

42. Blood Red Sentimental Blues by Cotton Jones

Album Paranoid Cocoon

43. Look for Me Baby by Fiction Family

Album Fiction Family – 2009

44. Forget and Not Slow Down by Relient K

Album Forget and Not Slow Down – 2009

45. Kamikaze (Subharmonix Economics Remix) by Jonathan Steingard

Album NineteenEightyThree EP

46. Lonely Wheel by The Almost

Album Monster Monster – 2009

47. Just a Closer Walk by Damien Jurado And Rosie Thomas

Album “Come O Spirit!” Anthology of Hymns and Spiritual Songs Volume 1 – 2009

48.Hard Times by Dave Bazan, Rosie Thomas, J. Tillman, Laura Gibson, John Totten And Chris Totten

Album “Come O Spirit!” Anthology of Hymns and Spiritual Songs Volume 1 – 2009

49. True Faith by Anberlin

Album True Faith – 2009

50. The Atlantic Ocean by Richard Swift

Album  Atlantic Ocean

This Kite song by Rosie Thomas sounds more of a Christmas song than the real ones with catchy choruses we hear everywhere these days.

I bet we will hear aboot Rosie a lot in future, such a bright diamond she is. Merry Christmas everyone!

I’m not planning on having another post until I unveil my Albums of the Year list in early January, so for my last post of 2009, I figured I’d close the year out by a little Holiday playlist consisting of a few songs from my collection that (sorta) have something to do with Christmas* and New Year’s. Happy Holidays!

["The New Year" - Death Cab For Cutie :: Transatlanticism]

———-

["Christmas Song" - The Felice Brothers :: Tonight at the Arizona]

———-

["It's Christmas So We'll Stop" - Frightened Rabbit]

———-

["New Year's Project" - Further Seems Forever :: The Moon is Down]

———-

["New Year's Prayer" - Jeff Buckley :: Sketches For My Sweetheart The Drunk]

———-

["Why Can't It Be Christmastime All Year?" - Rosie Thomas :: A Very Rosie Christmas]

———-

["Sister Winter" - Sufjan Stevens :: Songs for Christmas]

———-

["New Year's Day" - U2 :: The Best of 1980-1990]

———-

["In the New Year" - The Walkmen :: You & Me]

———-

*OK, so one of these songs has “Christmas” in the title only because its the name of one of the brothers, but whatever…try to guess which song!

This is the final part of the series of my favourite top ten albums of every year through the ’00s. And to celebrate it, I accidentally wrote 11 reviews. So these are a top 11 then. There is still a link up to my top 20 albums of 2008, which covers that year, and I’ll post a similar mix of my top 20 for 2009 once I have decided which they are. As before, I’m sad to leave out some fine albums from ’07, including efforts by Josh Ritter, Kate Walsh, Laura Gibson, Rilo Kiley, Jens Lekman, Maria Taylor, Rickie Lee Jones, Feist, Billie the Vision & the Dancers, A Fine Frenzy, The National, Brooke Fraser, Foo Fighters, Over The Rhine, Andrew Bird, Josh Rouse, Iron & Wine, Miranda Lambert, Sarah Borges & the Broken Singles, Common, Tim McGraw, The Shins, Abra Moore…

* * *

Wilco – Sky Blue Sky

The Wilco cognoscenti are rather too ready to dismiss the unpretentious Sky Blue Sky, measuring it against the experimentations of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot and A Ghost Is Born. This is an uncomplicated album, and does what its creators set out to do admirably. Here, Jeff Tweedy and chums eschew cacophonic innovations for a straight-forward, mellow rock album that channels the ’60s (Dylan, Grateful Dead, Abbey Road-era Beatles) and ’70s (Van Morrison, Pink Floyd, the Eagles, Thin Lizzy) without losing its identity as a Wilco album. Sky Blue Sky is immediate and intimate. Nels Cline’s guitar work is an utter joy. The highlight here is Impossible Germany, with Jeff Tweedy and Nels Cline duelling on a magnificent guitar solo, an integral part of the song’s lyrics, that borrows from Gary Moore (check out Thin Lizzy’s Sarah) and Carlos Santana.
Wilco – Either Way.mp3
Wilco – Impossible Germany.mp3

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Brandi Carlile – The Story

The name Brandi Carlile suggests a fake-breasted airhead straight outta the Playboy Mansion. As the reader may have guessed by dint of her inclusion on this list, that notion is way of the mark. Carlile is a hugely talented writer and singer of solid rock and country-rock songs. I liked her eponymous 2005 debut, which was rather more rootsy than this set. Here Carlile straddles genres, veering from rock (My Song) to folk-pop (Turpentine) to country (“Have You Ever”). Her distinctive voice can whisper softly and soar ferociously (hear the climactic Joplinesque roar on the title track). The lyrics booklet reveals that Carlile wrote some of the songs as a teenager in 2000 or earlier, hinting at a precocious talent.
Brandi Carlile – The Story.mp3

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Loney, Dear – Loney Noir

The bizzarely named Loney, Dear (real name Emil Svanängen) is something of a genius working in his Stockholm bedroom studio, in which he conducts an orchestra consisting of himself. Operating mostly under the cover of earphones so as not to wake the rest of the household, his songs tend to start softly before building up to a multi-layered, orgasmic crescendo. The melodies are pretty — even twee, in the way Belle & Sebastian are twee — and Svanängen’s high and slight voice is appealing enough, within the context of his music. But I have no idea whether the lyrics are any good; I’ve never really listened to them; I rather have the bedroom symphonies wash over me.
Loney, Dear – Saturday Waits.mp3
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Nicole Atkins – Neptune City

Neptune City came out at a time when Amy Winehouse, another artists borrowing from pop’s rich legacy, was absolutely everywhere. I prefer Atkins’ eclectic references over Winehouse’s mannered soul pastiche. Neptune City is, in places, like Petula Clark covering Blondie through an ABBA filter — glorious pop. On other tracks, Atkins does torchsong soul (“The Way It Is”), or goes into ’80s throwback mode, sounding like the B-52s as sung by Sandie Shaw on Broadway (“Love Surreal” or the rousing “Brooklyn On Fire”, which featured here). Elsewhere there are hints of Phil Spector’s production and Edith Piaf and Joni Mitchell. It should be a total retro mess, but it isn’t. It sounds entirely modern. Neptune City may not be an entirely cohesive album, but it is rather fabulous.
Nicole Atkins – Love Surreal.mp3

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Holmes Brothers – State Of Grace

Some time ago I posted the Holmes’ Brothers gospel-blues style cover of Cheap Trick’s I Want You To Want Me (HERE) from this album. That track was my introduction to the Holmes Brothers, who had released nine albums before this one, starting in 1991 — more than three decades after the two Holmes brothers, Sherman and Wendell, started in the music business. The third member, drummer Popsy Dixon, hooked up with them in the mid-’60s. But they did not become the Holmes Brothers until 1979, having spent the interim as a covers bar-band. Covering blues, soul, gospel, country and even a spot of bluegrass, State Of Grace is warm and often surprising, especially in the Virginian group’s interpretation of other people’s songs, which include tracks by Lyle Lovett (twice), Credence Clearwater Revival, Nick Lowe, Hank Williams Sr and Johnny Mathis. Guesting here with the three brothers are Joan Osborne (who championed the Holmes Brothers in the 1990s), The Band’s Levon Helms and Rosanne Cash. Featured here is the Hank Williams song, featuring Cash.
The Holmes Brothers (with Rosanne Cash) – I Can’t Help It If I’m Still In Love With You.mp3

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Panda Bear – Person Pitch

I can’t claim to be much of an Animal Collective fan. I’m sure I would be if I had the patience to get into them. I was not going to have patience either with this solo album by Collective’s drummer Noah Lennox. But I was attracted to it by the cover art and a glowing Pitchfork review. For some reason I ended up playing Person Pitch on loop, and was entranced by it. The critics in their reviews invariably referenced Brian Wilson, and coming a couple of years after SmiLE (another album I got into by playing it on loop) was released, that is neither surprising nor inaccurate. Person Pitch is a glorious psychedelic trip, especially the epic Bros, that owes a tip of the hat also to the Beatles.
Panda Bar – Bros.mp3

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Richard Hawley – Lady’s Bridge

It is this album’s misfortune to be chronologically sandwiched between Hawley’s two masterpieces, 2005’s Coles Corner and this year’s Truelove’s Gutter, two of the decades finest albums. Lady’s Bridge may not quite reach the heights of those masterpieces, but it gets damn close. It is a very, very good album, with no weak point. It is mostly a sad collection. The gorgeous opener, Valentine, will move the vulnerable listener to tears, or close to it, especially when the strings swell and the drums emphasise the anguish. A couple of rockabilly songs and the upbeat Tonight The Streets Are Ours lighten the mood before suitably gloomy (and very lovely) songs called Our Darkness and The Sun Refused To Shine close the set.
Richard Hawley – Tonight The Streets Are Ours.mp3

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Missy Higgins – On A Clear Night

Where Missy Higgins full debut album The Sound Of White (with its astonishing title track) was mostly plaintive in sound; On A Clear Night is more accessible and upbeat. Higgins invests her intelligent lyrics with evocative vocals. The Sound Of White dealt much with trauma and depression; On A Clear Night is frequently life affirming, talking of escape, healing and self-assertion. Thankfully Higgins’ toned down her distinctive Australian accent which previously came perilously close to making her sound like an Aussie wicketkeeper. This is the kind of album that may at first seem slight, but its depth reveals itself after repeated listens. Crowded House’s Neil Finn makes an appearance on the album, contributing guitar to Peachy and backing vocals to the lovely Going North. That’s what it says on the booklet; I can barely hear the guy.
Missy Higgins – Going North.mp3

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Bright Eyes – Cassadaga

In 2005, Bright Eyes’ I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning was by far my album of the year. It was an immediately accessible album in ways its predecessors were not. Cassadaga is not as easy to fall in love with as I’m Wide Awake. It is a grower which requires a few spins before its full beauty reveals itself. Songs that at first do not seem much creep into the ear slowly, and then take root. It is a richly textured, and cohesive album. Connor Oberst’s poetic lyrics are delivered here with greater self-assurance and less of a quiver than on preceding albums. At times, the album overreaches in its ambitions, and another spoken intro on the first track is simply pretentious. For this album Oberst roped in guests such as the marvellous Maria Taylor, Gillian Welch and Rilo Kiley’s Jason Boesel (whose backing vocals on the excellent “If The Brakeman Turns My Way” provide an album highlight).
Bright Eyes – If The Brakeman Turns My Way.mp3

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Rosie Thomas – These Friends Of Mine

Rosie Thomas’ fourth album is her most consistent. It’s for albums like these that the hackneyed phrase “achingly beautiful” was invented for. On These Friends Of Mine, she is supported by her friends Damien Jurado, Denison Witmer and Sufjan Stevens. The lyrical thread running through the album is love and New York, sometimes both together. Recorded as live, the album is engagingly intimate. The sparse, moving “Why Waste More Time?” is preceded by an appealingly giggly count-in. The cover version of R.E.M.’s “The One I Love”, nice though it is, seems redundant, but Tomas’ interpretation of Fleetwood Mac’s “Songbird” captures the intense delicacy of the original. The highlight, however, is “Much Farther To Go”, a love song in which the arrangement, harmonies and lyrics coalesce to create an evocative hymn to deep yearning (like Nicole Atkins’ Brooklyn’s On Fire, it featured here).
Rosie Thomas – If This City Never Sleeps.mp3

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Colbie Caillat – Coco

Like Lily Allen and Kate Nash before her, Colbie Caillat launched herself into the pop charts on the strength of Internet buzz. Releasing her music first on MySpace, she was soon picked up by the music blog community. Her debut album, titled rather cornily after her childhood nickname, is breezy folk-pop of the sort usually associated, by way of deceptive shorthand, with the rather more boring Jack Johnson. In sound Caillat is much closer to Tristan Prettyman, her fellow Californian who burst on to the scene equally unexpectedly in 2005. This is summer music, agreeably laid-back yet effervescent, and, crucially, not banal.
Colbie Caillat – Battle.mp3

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My top 10 albums for 2008 (not a vintage year) were:
Jay Brannan – Goddamned
Ron Sexsmith – Exit Strategy Of The Soul
Tift Merritt – Another Country
The Weepies – Hideaway
Jenny Lewis – Acid Tongue
Kathleen Edwards – Asking For Flowers
Conor Oberst – Conor Oberst
Ben Folds – Way To Normal
Hello Saferide – More Modern Short Stories…
Neil Diamond – Home Before Dark

Full post here

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More Albums of the Year

Last year Rosie Thomas released what has become one of my absolute favorite Christmas albums of all time. This is the song that gets that record started. It just sounds like a warm crackling fire and a big glass of red wine to my ears. Curl up with someone you love. We’ve got all night.

Christmastime is Here – Rosie Thomas

I guess everybody’s making these playlists this time of year,
but here’s a really good one…

Christmas wishes from me and all of these guys!

• Chris Rea – Driving Home for Christmas
• Ella Fitzgerald – Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas
• Weeping Willows – Christmas In Prison
• Tori Amos – What Child, Nowell
• Sister Rosetta Tharpe – O Little Town of Bethlehem
• Elvis Presley – Blue Christmas
• Johnny Cash – Little Drummer boy
• Sufjan Stevens – That Was the Worst Christmas Ever!
• Travis – River
• David Hasselhoff – White Christmas
  (i wonder how that’s working out for him by the way..)
• Rosie Thomas – Why Can’t It Be Christmas Time All Year
• The Jordanaires – Mary Did You Know?
• Mahalia Jackson – What Child is This?
• San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus – The Nutcracker Suite

#20091211 – christmas

(get your player at www.spotify.com)

Here’s my review of a new Rosie Thomas DVD/LP that ran in Metro Times this week.

Rosie Thomas (with Denison Witmer and Sufjan Stevens)

All the Way from Michigan Not Mars (DVD+LP)
Factory 25

By MELISSA GIANNINI

“My friends are having babies. You know, people are buying homes. … I never needed that foundation.”

It’s 15 minutes into All the Way from Michigan Not Mars, a concert doc that spans tour stops, set-list discussions, meditative car rides, and kite-flying interludes following the release of These Friends of Mine — a collaborative effort between singer-songwriter-producer Rosie Thomas and co-producers-multi-instrumentalists Sufjan Stevens and Denison Witmer — and Rosie is already launching into one of many contradictions: “There’s a part of me that hopes there would be a shift … that I would enjoy the foundation of a routine in life, because I’ve never really had that.”

Fittingly, this dichotomous quality is the most frustrating and delightful aspect of the film — a quirky, behind-the-scenes romp that’s more space camp than drunken debauchery. And it’s a defining feature of Rosie herself, a Michigan native (along with Sufjan, hence the title) who bookends bittersweet, honey-voiced ballads with self-conscious, squeaky stage banter and bizarre visits from her even-more-awkward, neck-braced alter ego, Sheila Saputo.

Born to musician parents in suburban Detroit in the late ’70s (the most amusing anecdote of the film involves a botched local Star Search audition), Rosie sang with Velour 100 in the late ’90s before heading west, landing in theater school in Seattle, where she befriended Damien Jurado and signed with Sub Pop. The film finds her at a crossroads, seeking a respite from the business side of the industry and a return to the simple joy of making music with close friends. The intimacy that unfolds draws a parallel (albeit on a smaller scale) with another recent doc following fellow ex-pats, the White Stripes. 

The medium suits her well. While Rosie’s studio albums are lovely, they only scratch the surface of what this complex individual, equal parts sentimentality and hilarity, wants to express. Included in the package is an LP that collects relaxed apartment sessions, further pressing this desire to unleash something raw, uncut and spontaneous. And as we ride along, watching Rosie stumble as she tries to figure things out, barefaced in bunchy thrift-store dresses, it’s hard not to feel like one of her friends.

A little bit of wisdom from my friend Sheila Saputo that I wanted to share with all of you as we approach the holiday season.

It was a great year for fine albums, though only one merits to be remembered as a stone cold classic. I’m sorry to omit a number of very good efforts released in 2005, such as those by Brandi Carlile, Iron & Wine, Damien Jurado, Death Cab for Cutie, Maria Taylor, Andrew Bird, Emilíana Torrini, John Frusciante, Colin Hay, Kathleen Edwards, Nicole Willis and the Soul Investigators, Kevin Devine, Eels, The Cardigans, John Prine, Kate Earl, Richard Thompson, Ryan Adams & the Cardinals, Blue Eyed Son, Sarah Bettens, Antony & the Johnsons, Beck, Tristan Prettyman, The Magic Numbers, Hot Hot Heat, Charlie Sexton …

* * *

Bright Eyes – I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning

On the same day as Conor Oberst and chums released their best album — and one of the decades finest — they also released what I think is their worst, Digital Ash In A Digital Turn. It was wise that they did not take the option of releasing these two entirely distinct albums — one alt.country, the other electronica — as a double album. I’m Wide Awake, which features Emmylou Harris on a couple of tracks, has Oberst in a restrained, though not necessarily tamed, form. The indisciplined excesses from previous albums have been ironed out, but not at the expense of that most essential Oberst quality: the feverish intensity. It certainly is the most consistent Bright Eyes album. Every song here is beautiful, especially First Day Of My Life and We Are Nowhere And It’s Now, on the latter of which Emmylou harmonises.

Lyrically, Oberst is in fine form: tender, resigned, confused, hopeful, angry. When he sings on At The Bottom Of Everything about capital punishment, he rightly hectors: “Into the face of every criminal strapped firmly to a chair, we must stare, we must stare, we must stare.” And on Old Soul Song, about an anti-war protest in New York, has some beautifully poetic lines: “We left before the dust had time to settle, and all the broken glass swept off the avenue. And on the way home held your camera like a bible, just wishing so bad that it held some kind of truth.”
Bright Eyes – Old Soul Song (For The New World Order).mp3
Bright Eyes – We Are Nowhere And It’s Now.mp3

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Richard Hawley – Coles Corner

From the moment the melancholy strings strike up on the album’s opener, the gorgeous title track (featured HERE), this album captivates the listener. A more even effort than 2003’s Lowedges, Hawley tries to capture a mood of 1950s balladeering, drawing from country, pop and rockabilly with a healthy dose of torchsong crooning. One can almost imagine Hotel Room being reworked as a doo wop song. The orchestration is lush, scoring Hawley’s warm baritone beautifully. Besides the title track and the countryish Just Like The Rain, the standout track here is The Ocean (not the most encouraging title, it must be said) which starts off quietly and slowly builds up to a dramatic crescendo. I’d gladly call Coles Corner Hawley’s masterpiece, but he has topped it with this year’s Truelove’s Gutter.
Richard Hawley – The Ocean.mp3

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Jens Lekman – Oh You’re So Silent, Jens

Jens Lekman featured with his debut album in the 2004 list; here he returns with a compilation of single and EP tracks — and Lekman has an extravagant catalogue of EPs, some of which he made available on his site for free downloading a while back. So it is suitable, and doubtless intentional, that the opening track would be called At the Dept. of Forgotten Songs. Lyrically and musically it’s all very quirky, but nowhere as much so as A Sweet Summer’s Night on Hammer Hill, a song that is at once funny and wistful (and which gets the release date of Warren G’s Regulate wrong and fails to credit Nate Dogg), recorded with probably not entirely sober pals who improvise the backing vocals and at the end shout out requests (the woman who requests Black Cab gets her wish on the album). Lekman channels Morrissey and The Byrds on I Saw Her At The Anti-War Demonstration, muses on the use of the F-Word, and forges the punchline to childhood jokes. In a sequence of three songs, Lekman assumes the alter ego Rocky Dennis (the name of the facially deformed character played by Eric Stoltz in the ’80s film Mask), whom he finally bids farewell at the end of the trilogy. It’s a thoroughly likeable collection of songs.
Jens Lekman – I Saw Her At The Anti-War Demonstration.mp3

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Wilco – Kicking Television – Live in Chicago

I’m ambivalent about live albums. Much of the time they are a letdown: the songs don’t sound as good as they did on the studio album, the live atmosphere is not captured and so on. Some live albums work because the artist’s stage presence or audience vibe translates to record. And some live albums work because the performer adds something new to the songs. Kicking Television satisfies at least the latter requirement (I’d argue that the vibe is there, too). Take Misunderstood. A weedy, proto-emo number on 1996’s Being There, here it’s a dramatic monster — I’m among those who love the repeated “Nothing”s. There’s humour as well. Following the mid-tempo Wishful Thinking, Tweedy announces, laughingly: “Let’s get this party started…with some mid-tempo rock”. True to his word, the band eases into the mid-tempo Jesus etc. With the great Nels Cline in the line-up and Tweedy having polished his guitar work, there’s much to be had by way of axemanship, most notably on At Least That’s What You Said.
Wilco – Misunderstood.mp3

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Hello Saferide – Introducing…Hello Saferide

Like fellow Swede Jens Lekman, who gets a namecheck in the wonderful The Quiz on Hello Saferide’s 2006 EP, Annika Norlin (for she is Hello Saferide) benefits from a quirky sense of humour, an attractive Swedish accent and the fact that English is not her first language. The latter is not a handicap as she manoeuvres her way around conventions to create novel lyrical ideas that are often cute but never twee. Norlin’s mind is fascinating: expressing her affection for a friend, she wishes they were lesbians; she wishes her boyfriend illness so that she can take care of her “teddy bear on heroin”; getting in touch again with an old pen pal, she admits to having told lies; as a high school stalker in the very funny song of the same name she breaks into the dentist’s office so that the object of her desire won’t need braces and then has coffee with his mother. The upbeat tunes are catchy, and the slow numbers are saved by almost invariably great lyrics and Norlin’s lovely, vulnerable voice.
Hello Saferide – Highschool Stalker.mp3
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Neil Diamond – 12 Songs

God bless Rick Rubin. Having re-established Johnny Cash as relevant artist, he resurrected Neil Diamond, redeeming him from the lame-jacketed crooner reputation. The title 12 Songs became a misnomer with the belated introduction of two bonus tracks (a rip-off, surely it’s the initial purchasers of an album who deserve a bonus), one an alternative, upbeat version of Delirious Love, a song featuring Brian Wilson that appears in more muted form among the original dozen tracks.. That song is the closest Diamond comes to his late ’60s pomp, the bonus track’s arrangement in particular. Most of the album is reflective, pensive and acoustic. It is beautiful. And it’s tempting to give Rubin all the credit. That would be unfair to Diamond, who wrote the songs and for whom the acoustic arrangement is not foreign, as fans of his ’60s albums will know. More than equipping Diamond with a new sound, Rubin harnessed the man’s strength and, perhaps more importantly, by association made him, like Cash, relevant again.
Neil Diamond – Save Me A Saturday Night.mp3

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Common – Be

I can think of very few albums on which the three closing tracks may be the set’s best. Ziggy Stardust comes to mind as a contender (though its best song, Starman, is on Side 1). This is certainly the case here. Modern hip hop, especially the leering misogyny and swaggering materialism expressed by dentally adventurous people in whose company I would not want to spend a minute, leaves me largely cold. Kanye West’s album of the same year had its moments, but I never feel prompted to play it. West did, however, produce most of Common’s album, which is good, and appears on many of the tracks, which is not so good when he makes those idiotic high-pitched noises. This certainly is not a hip hop album that’s representative of the contemporary genre. As much of Common’s work, it is thoughtful and socially conscious. It draws as much from Public Enemy as it does from the great era of politically aware black music, the early to mid-1970s. There is more than a hint of Curtis Mayfield and Gil Scott-Heron on Be, and the Last Poets even appear on the album, as does John Legend, one of the few current non-nasal R&B crooners whose music is rooted in the ’70s soul scene (slightly unexpectedly, John Mayer also pops up). Common, in short, is the Marvin Gaye of hip hop.
Common – It’s Your World (Part 1 & 2).mp3

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Josh Rouse – Nashville

On his fifth album, the Nebraskan Rouse said goodbye to his temporary domicile of Nashville before moving to Spain. Where his previous album, 1972, sought to capture the vibe of the year of the title, on Nashville Rouse revisits 1980s indie pop through a country lense. It’s cheerful, catchy stuff for a warm summer’s evening (even if one track is called Winter In The Hamptons), admirably coming in at under 40 minutes, like LPs used to. The lyrics aren’t very memorable here; some are decidedly pedestrian. The album’s most powerful song, Sad Eyes, is also its least jovial. It starts slowly as Rouse observes a woman’s melancholy and builds up to a, erm, rousing climax as he offers encouragement. Alas, it’s followed by the set’s one clunker, the rocker Why Won’t You Tell Me What.
Josh Rouse – Sad Eyes.mp3

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Ben Folds – Songs For Silverman

Ah, the album the hardcore Foldsians love to hate. Granted, there’s some forgettable guff on here. Much as I love Ben Folds, I would not be able to tell you a thing about Time or Sentimental Guy. And, as I’m getting all my irritations with Silverman off the chest, the tribute to Elliott Smith, Late, has some really poor lyrics. But then there is the vintage Folds stuff. Bastard, ostensibly about young Republicans in old clothes, packs a decent groove. Give Judy My Notice has a great West Coast rock vibe. You To Thank has a superb piano break, and the break-up songs, Trusted (“She’s gonna be pissed when she wakes up for terrible things I did to her in her dreams”) and Landed (“Down comes the reign of the telephone czar”), are among the best work Folds has done, musically and lyrically. And having just listened to Time and Sentimental Guy for the purpose of this project, well, they are not bad songs.
Ben Folds – You To Thank.mp3

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Rosie Thomas – If These Songs Could Be Held

The title If These Songs Could Be Held seems apt; there is fragility in Rosie Thomas’ songs, emphasised by her beautiful, sad voice. You want to hold her and the songs. Her family and friends help out again, with Ed Harcourt duetting on the unpretentious cover of Let It Be Me (featured in The Originals Vol. 24). The arrangements are more complex than a casual listen would suggest. Hear the almost martial bass drum in the opener Since You’ve Been Gone. The lyrics range from perceptive introspection to sophomore poetry, but expressed through the medium of Rosie’s gorgeous voice, even the more inopportune words are entirely forgivable.
Rosie Thomas – If These Songs Could Be Held.mp3

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More Albums of the Year

David Bazan will produce the next Rosie Thomas record. (And there was much rejoicing.)

Via: @davidbazan.

Before we move to my Top 10 albums of 2003 — a purely subjective choice of albums from that year which I enjoy, rather than an attempt at a best-of list — let me apologise for the confusion created by wrong links in last week’s two posts, and thank the kind people who alerted me to them. It was a little negligent of me not to test the links first. I have worked out what the trouble was: on Mediafire’s infuriatingly redesigned site, the “copy link” button is seriously wonky; instead of copying the link for the requested file, it copies the link of the first file in the upload folder (in last week’s instance the Iron & Wine song). So, here’s an urgent message to Mediafire, Facebook and all other services: please don’t innovate yourselves into oblivion. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!

* * *

Josh Rouse – 1972

To mark his 30th birthday, Josh Rouse decided to record a concept album intended to evoke the year of his birth. I’ve written about the cover before here. In that post, I wrote the following about the album itself. 1972 might easily have turned out as a pastiche of the worst clichés. Happily, it didn’t: the sound is contemporary. Rouse evokes rather than recreates what he imagines were the sounds of 1972. Imagine the concept as the subtle but essential spice in a delicious meal. The album borrows its influences wisely: James, a song about alcoholism which appears on the first Any Major Flute mix, is a psychedelic soul workout, with Jim Hoke’s excellent jazz flute and Rouse’s falsetto positioning the song closest to 1972. Elsewhere, swirling strings and saxophone (also by Hoke), handclaps and Latin percussions serve as a marker for the ’70s influence being filtered through Rouse’s sound.
Josh Rouse – Rise.mp3
Josh Rouse – Love Vibration.mp3

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Lloyd Cole – Music In A Foreign Language

Lloyd Cole used to get such a bad rap back in the day. I could never understand the charges of Cole being pretentious. Even Easy Pieces, the second Lloyd Cole & the Commotions album which Cole has virtually disowned (on account of having been rushed by the record company to prematurely complete it), has many great and not particularly pretentious moments. Having broken up the Commotions after three albums, Cole’s solo career didn’t really take off. That is a shame. On Music In A Foreign Language, Cole continued on the acoustic trip he began on the previous album. Here it’s just him, his guitar and minimal backing music, with Lloyd singing his melancholy, beautiful songs straight on to his computer. The whole exercise is so intimate, listeners may be forgiven if they feel like they are intruding on a private moment. Lyrically he is on introspective top form. I don’t listen to this album nearly often enough.
Lloyd Cole – Music In A Foreign Language.mp3

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Death Cab For Cutie – Transatlanticism

This is the album where Death Cab for Cutie crossed the line from oddly-named Indie group to serious rock band. Transatlanticism is something of a rock symphony; it’s not rewarding to pluck out its songs in isolation, except perhaps the excellent opener, The New Year, and the acoustic coda, A Lack Of Color. It’s the kind of lush album one must hear in full, preferably with headphones while in a kicked back mood, being immersed in the sound. Lyrically it has its moment, such as the story of the protagonist in Title And Registration who finds a forgotten photo of an ex-girlfriend after being pulled over by a cop (it also features the annoying line: “The glove compartment is accurately named”; thanks for pointing that out, Gibbard).
Death Cab for Cutie – A Lack of Color.mp3

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Colin Hay – Man @ Work

The title of the album is an obvious reference to the Australian band with which Scottish-born Colin Hay had some chart success in the early ’80s. Here Hay revisits some of his best songs from his solo repertoire as well as the Men At Work catalogue. None of these re-recordings do their originals injustice. The acoustic versions of the three big Men At Work hits — Down Under, Who Can It Be Now and Overkill — are strikingly remade and worth the price of the CD alone, especially the far superior interpretation of Overkill. There is also a more faithful reworking of Down Under, with brass replacing the flute; and fine remakes of Men At Work’s Be Good Johnny and It’s A Mistake.

Hay fans will have their own views on which versions here eclipse the original. Looking For Jack is vastly improved here, but I prefer the less dreamy version of Beautiful World on Going Somewhere to that reproduced here from 2002’s Company Of Strangers. Hay does recycle enthusiastically; the recording of Waiting For My Real Life To Begin here is the same as that on Going Somewhere; he recorded a rockier, inferior version for 2005’s Topanga, named after the California town where he now lives.
Colin Hay – Overkill (acoustic).mp3

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The Minus 5 – Down With Wilco

The title of The Minus 5’s fifth album notes the involvement of Tweedy and pals in its production, not an antipathy towards Chicago’s finest (and the group was doubtless aware of the title’s gag). A project of songwriter Scott McCaughey, leader of The Young Fresh Fellows and touring bassist for Robyn Hitchcock, this incarnation of Minus 5 also includes long-time collaborator Peter Buck of R.E.M. and Ken Stringfellow of the Posies. The sound borrows heavily from White Album period Beatles, early Byrds and the Hollies (Life Left Him There sounds more than a bit like Jennifer Eccles), filtered through an ambient alt.country colander. Wilco’s mark is evident but not overbearing, and Tweedy’s voice is welcome when it pops up. There is a joy in the sound which suggests that the collaborators had great fun recording it. This is an upbeat album that doesn’t take itself too seriously.
Minus 5 – Where Will You Go.mp3

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Richard Hawley – Lowedges

All of Richard Hawley’s five full albums will feature in my Top 10s of the ’00s. All of five of them are superb; all are beautifully orchestrated with Hawley’s attractive baritone giving life to his fine, often melancholy lyrics. So when I declare that Lowedges is my least favourite Hawley album, I am being somewhat unfair to what is a fine album. The songs on Lowedges are as affecting as any; one wants to live inside them. Don’t Miss Your Water, On The Ledge, The Nights Are Made For Us or the dramatic Run For Me are as good as almost any Hawley songs. Lowedge’s The Motorcycle Song probably is my least favourite Hawley song; and even that is not terrible.
Richard Hawley – The Nights Are Made For Us.mp3

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Damien Rice – O

O, but Damien was one overwrought lad. You fear for him in what must be a terribly fragile state. But, goodness, there are some beautiful songs on this album, and some heartwrenching lyrics. Rice is not a very good singer, so all the happier the moments when Lisa Hannigan supports him (although, typically, only to make poor Damien even more heartbroken). There are no clunkers on this set, and a bunch of quite brilliant songs, particularly The Blower’s Daughter, Volcano, Eskimo (with the operatic interlude), and Delicate. And Cannonball, which eclipses all of them. The album’s inclusion in this post is something of an anomaly. O was released in Ireland in 2002; after slow-burning success which eventually took the album into the UK top 10, it was released internationally in 2003.
Damien Rice – Eskimo.mp3

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Rosie Thomas – Only With Laughter Can You Win

Of Rosie Thomas’ four albums (excluding last year’s Christmas effort), this is the one on which she is most explicit about her Christian faith. That is good news, of course, for the believer, but should not put off the religious sceptic, for her brand of Christianity — like that of her frequent collaborators Damien Jurado and Sufjan Stevens —bashes no Bible and does not glorify or moralise. Mostly, she is asking God how the hell she is supposed to live this life. Indeed, the evangelical fundamentalists might well call Rosie a Maoist Osama Nazi, as is their objectionable wont, should they encounter lyrics like this, on Tell Me Now: “How am I to tell them if they never follow Christ that heaven doesn’t hold a place for them…when I’m no better than them.” Christ is periodically present; and He should be: the album was recorded in Detroit’s 19th century St John’s church.

The music, as on all Rosie’s albums (which is another way of saying predictably), is intimate, delicate and entirely gorgeous — but there isn’t much by way of the victory-aiding laughter in the title. Iron & Wine’s Sam Beam makes an appearance on Red Rover, alas the weakest track on this album, which is also the weakest of in the Rosie Thomas catalogue — though here I hasten to invoke the Hawley doctrine.
Rosie Thomas – I Play Music.mp3

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The Darkness – Permission To Land

Was it all a glorious piss-take, lending heavy rock all the camp that Queen fans so routinely denied in their group because the band’s name provided absolutely no clue? The cover of Permission To Land even aped the sexism we occasionally encountered in Queen (remember the Fat Bottomed Girls poster that came with the Jazz album?). The debut, unlike the follow-up, borrowed its influences more broadly than merely Queen, of course. The Darkness swigged copiously from the vats of hair metal, Van Halenesque CocRock, and AC/DC. Singer Justin Hawkins camped it up in striped spandex trousers, while bassist Frankie Pullain played the straight man. It was all a bit Spinal Tap, and if not quite a spoof or wind-up, then certainly rock music performed with a wink and a nod. And yet, the Darkness was not a novelty act; they took their music seriously and wanted the listener to have fun with it. They even gave us a damn good power ballad, featured here.
The Darkness – Love Is Only A Feeling.mp3

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eastmountainsouth – eastmountainsouth

Before there were The Weepies, there were the shift- and space-bar boycotting eastmountainsouth. Discovered by Robbie Robertson, the folk-pop duo released only this one album, before Kat Maslich Bode and Peter Bradley Adams went their own way. That’s a pity; the album is lovely. It does not spring surprises on the listener; indeed, played in the wrong mood, it could be considered boring. The songs don’t go beyond mid-tempo, and they don’t always engage as immediately as those of fellow folkie Rosie Thomas. But the harmonies are exquisite, the vibe is warm. This is an album to savour on a lazy, preferably rainy weekend over a cup of coffee.
eastmountainsouth – Ghost.mp3

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More Albums of the Year

Great Comfort Records is teaming up with Bifrost Arts to do their part in reviving gospel pop music. In their own words:

For more than 30 years, pop music has suffered from a God complex—attaching a scarlet letter to artists who include the religious experience in their songs.

But a new generation of musicians from across the spiritual spectrum is emerging, discarding the trappings of the Christian-culture industry to reintroduce the transcendence, beauty and historical gravity of western [sacred] music to the places where it belongs: dinner parties, road trips and back porches.

Come O Spirit brings together artists like Dave Bazan, Damien Jurado, Rosie Thomas, Denison Witmer, The Welcome Wagon (featuring Sufjan Stevens) and Leigh Nash to revive 400 years of long-forgotten melodies and liturgical music. The brainchild of producers Isaac Wardell and Mason Neely, Come O Spirit interprets hymnody through lush, cinematic arrangements and a drop of Southern gothic mystique. It’s like a prayer.

Hopefully a few brief editorial remarks will not come off as untoward: first, it seems that openly Christian bands only really suffer when the music suffers (let’s pick some low-hanging fruit: Stryper, anyone?).

But much more: can we all please quit bemoaning the fact that there is profit to be made in the manufacture of music? Of any genre of music? We’ve been complaining about that for more than 30 years as well, and the output just keeps getting better.

Click on the first link above to download the title track to Come O Spirit by Aimee Wilson, and “I Sought the Lord,” by Leigh Nash and Megan Roderick. Click on the second link to stream tracks from the Christmas album, Salvation is Created: “Bring a Torch, Isabella” by Ben+Vesper, and “Joy Joy!!!” by Devon Sproule And Paul Curreri.

(By the way “Joy Joy!!!” is absolutely beautiful.)

Goodness, wasn’t 2002 a dire year for music? Still, there were some highlights, and doubtless a few gems I missed (as always, I can only include those albums I have and like).
* * *

Johnny Cash – American IV – The Man Comes Around

In 2005, Any Minor Dude had his first guitar lesson. The tutor, a session musician of some repute, asked the 10-year-old what he wanted to play, probably expecting to hear Green Day or Black Eyed Peas. Any Minor Dude responded: “Johnny Cash”. It had nothing to do with my influence; he had seen the wonderful video for Hurt on MTV, and became an instant fan. Soon after, he bought the Highwaymen CD (Cash’s supergroup with Jennings and Kristofferson) and polished up on older Cash music, even buying a live DVD. I suspect that Hurt, which features on The Man Comes Around, may have introduced many young people to the genius of Johnny Cash. It certainly established this album as the best known of the American recordings.

I don’t know whether it is the best of the series. When I hear it, I think it probably is, especially when I consider that this was released only three months before the man’s death, and so stands as a testament (in a prescient bit of sequencing, the traditional ballad Streets Of Laredo, with its theme of death, burial and redemption, closes the set). But when I hear the first or third American albums, I think whichever one I am listening to is the best. American IV has a few songs that did not need to be recorded, such as Personal Jesus and Bridge Over Troubled Water. But then there are those two extraordinary covers, Nine Inch Nail’s Hurt and Sting’s Hung My Head, which Cash entirely appropriates. Those two and the title track eclipse almost anything in this great Rick Rubin-produced series.
Johnny Cash – The Man Comes Around.mp3
Johnny Cash – Streets Of Laredo.mp3

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Rosie Thomas – When We Were Small

Few singers achieve such immediate intimacy with her listeners as Seattle’s Rosie Thomas, whose beautiful, vulnerable voice accompanies sweet acoustic melodies. Lovely though her songs may sound, her lyrics are in turn sardonic, sad and dark. On her debut album, childhood is a running thread, with what seem to be random old family recordings linking tracks. As all her subsequent albums (other than last year’s Christmas album), When We Were Small has a sense of deep yearning for absent contentment, fleeting moment of love to fill in long, lacerating periods of loss felt deeply. If that sounds boring, know that Thomas was signed by Jonathan Poneman of Sub Pop, the record label that made grunge, who had caught Rosie singing during her stand-up comedy gigs (what’s that about sad clowns?). This is an astonishing debut, and Rosie would get even better yet.
Rosie Thomas – Wedding Day.mp3

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Wilco – Yankee Hotel Foxtrot

My pick of song from this album will alert the Wilco fan which side of the group I prefer: the alt-country Wilco. There’s some of that on Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, which many seem to regard as a highpoint of ’00s music. Some Wilco purists may hate me for saying it, but my preference resides with this album’s 1999 predecessor, Summerteeth, or the undervalued Sky Blue Sky. On Yankee Hotel Foxtrot Wilco go experimental, with noise distortion and electronic innovations, which ordinarily are not my bag. Then what, the reader is entitled to demand, is Yankee Hotel Foxtrot doing on this list? Well, within the Wilco framework, it’s actually very good, and at times exhilarating as the musical dissonance accompanies the discord in the relationships Tweedy is singing about. It may not be my favourite Wilco album, but I’ll concede that it is the Wilco classic.
Wilco – Jesus, etc.mp3

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Ben Folds – Ben Folds Live

No artist I like ever comes to play where I live (other than Missy Higgins, whose gig I missed, and Counting Crows, whose tickets I couldn’t afford at the time); only megastars and superannuated irrelevancies fly in to fleece the South African consumer (a largely ignorant group of people who think that Coldplay is on the sharp end of the cutting edge). Happily, I had my fill of great concerts when I lived in London. But if I could invite one artist to tour South Africa, it would be Ben Folds, alone on strength of two DVDs and many bootlegs I have of Folds in concert — and this album.

It seems a strange decision for Folds to have recorded a solo live album only one album after having split the Ben Folds Five. So the tracklisting incorporates old BFF numbers (such as the astonishing Narcolepsy, Army, Best Imitation Of Myself, The Last Polka, Brick, and Song For The Dumped), which lose little through the absence of his rhythm section, and material from the solo debut, 2001’s Rockin’ The Suburbs, plus a rather good cover of Elton John’s Tiny Dancer. The set includes Folds’ two party pieces: directing the audience to provide backing orchestration to the very funny Army (“Well, I thought about the army; Dad said, ‘Son, you’re fucking high”) and spooky harmonies to Not The Same, the song about a friend who climbed up a tree during a party while on an acid trip and had become a born-again Christian by the time he came down.
Ben Folds – Army (live).mp3 (link fixed)

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Alexi Murdoch – Four Songs

Maybe I’m cheating by including an EP comprising, as the title suggest, only four songs by Murdoch, who is usually compared to Nick Drake, and reasonable so. But those four songs are excellent; why dilute things with mediocre filler tracks? Having said that, Murdoch’s full debut album, 2006’s Time Without Consequence, turned out to be a consistently fine effort with few fillers. That album featured re-recordings of three of the songs on the EP (and those three also appear in re-recorded form on the recently released Away We Go soundtrack, which also recycles a heap of tracks from Time Without Consequence). From the EP, the moody Orange Sky received a fair amount of exposure on several TV shows and soundtracks — which we must not scorn; the licensing fees from TV shows, soundtracks and commercials feed many excellent musicians.
Alexi Murdoch – Blue Mind.mp3

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Tift Merritt – Bramble Rose

Like soul music, country in the past decade or so has been molded and packaged to turn out generic, corporate slush headlined by the regrettable likes of Shania Twain, Carrie Underwood and Taylor Swift. For the most part, it’s pop that is unconvincingly dressed up as country. The cowboy-hatted diehards may have recourse to perennial Grammy nominees such as Tim McGraw and Alan Jackson, or the bluegrass offerings of Alison Krauss or, lately, Dolly Parton. But beneath the surface of commercial prosperity, country remains vibrant.

Tift Merritt is one of those who work from a rich, venerable tradition without being compromised by the dictates of commercialism. Merritt’s quiet, melodious debut is the most traditional country of her three albums, with slide guitars and the sensibilities of such legends of the genre as Emmylou Harris or Jessi Colter (and, on the rockier songs, Linda Ronstadt) much in evidence. Her second album veered towards bluegrass, and the third album is more accomplished, but this is a very creditable debut.
Tift Merrit – Diamond Shoes.mp3

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Joseph Arthur – Redemption’s Son

The Indie singer-songwriter has not produced anything I like since 2004’s Our Shadows Still Remain, but the trio of that album, 2000’s Come To Where I’m From and Redemption’s Son should sustain me in those times when I require a Joseph Arthur fix (actually, I’ve sequenced my favourite tracks from those albums on my iPod). Arthur’s strength resides in his introspective lyrics, much on this set of a Christian bent (of the Sufjan Stevens variety, I hasten to add. The man has his fill of inner conflicts). Musically, he is eclectic and experimental, which is certainly commendable and perhaps expected of a Peter Gabriel protégé, though I can do without the kitchen sink production of some tracks. And the album is a few songs too long. But when it hits the sweet spot, it’s gorgeous.
Joseph Arthur – Honey And The Moon.mp3

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Josh Rouse – Under Cold Blue Stars

I know a venerable music journalist who’ll fling all review albums by anyone called Josh or Joshua (or, indeed, Ben) across the floor. It’s safe to say that the man is not a great fan of the often misunderstood and unjustly maligned singer-songwriter label. Still, I have a feeling he’d like Josh Ritter, though I’m not quite sure whether he would take to Josh Rouse. Certainly the music of this Josh would not conform to his expectation of a guitar strumming singer-songwriter. He might be surprised to hear a musician who creates appealing, intelligent pop numbers, many of which would not have been out of place on early Prefab Sprout albums. Under Cold Blue Stars is a fine album; if it was all Rouse would ever record, I’d regard it as a favourite. It was, however, followed by two outstanding albums, 1972 and Nashville. This set can’t compete with those (but it’s better than the two albums that came after those). I’ve had trouble deciding which song to feature, which is a mark of how good an album this is.
Josh Rouse – Feeling No Pain.mp3 (link fixed)

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Iron & Wine – The Creek Drank The Cradle

Sam Beam, for he is Iron & Wine, recorded the songs on this album, another debut on Sub Pop, as demos at his Florida home on four-track, and it very much sounds like it. Beam’s almost whispered vocals accompany very pretty but not necessarily memorable melodies. But it’s not that kind of album (whereas the follow-up, 2004’s Our Endless Numbered Days, had a few of those); you put it on to be immersed by a soothing and ultimately engaging atmosphere, aided by some astutely ambiguous lyrics. The deficiencies in sound quality make sense when Beam borrows from old country and bluegrass, as he does on An Angry Blade and The Rooster Moans, which one might well mistake for some old, lost Appalachian recordings. Indeed, the aural imperfections add to the set’s intimacy.
Iron & Wine – Upward Over The Mountain.mp3

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Counting Crows – Hard Candy

The early ’00s suffered from nostalgia trips by people who grew up in the ’90s: Ben Folds Five devotees who refuse to accept the Ben Folds One, Weezer fans who want Pinkerton perpetually recycled (and, to be fair, the latest Weezer album is awful), and Counting Crows devotees who need to compare every new Crows album to August And Everything After. The latter group was hard on Hard Candy. It may not be the (rather overrated) debut’s equal, but it certainly is more upbeat — and Duritz finally stops going on about the heartbreaking Elisabeth. Admittedly, Hard Candy includes some filler material, but this is the age of WinAmp which allows the listener to re-sequence albums (if only to avoid the ghastly American Girls). If some of the album is frustratingly disappointing, the other half comprises some of Counting Crows’ finest moments. Holiday In Spain is gorgeous, even if the album version is rendered entirely redundant by the gorgeous live version on the New Amsterdam album, which was recorded on the Hard Candy tour. Counting Crows have referenced The Band throughout their career; here their heroes get a namecheck by way of noting Richard Manuel’s death (even if The Band’s late, bearded singer serves only as a MacGuffin to a reflection on a relationship).
Counting Crows – If I Could Give All My Love (Or Richard Manuel Is Dead).mp3

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More Albums of the Year

Sufjan Stevens, Denison Witmer and Damien Jurado guest

It’s been an interesting few years for US singer-songwriter Rosie Thomas. Since she graced the cover of Wears The Trousers #2 in early 2006, she’s left the Sub Pop stable, launched her own imprint through Nettwerk Records, released a collaborative record with her good friends Sufjan Stevens and Denison Witmer (These Friends Of Mine), got married, and put out one of the most adorable Christmas albums ever made. Now filmmaker Matt Boyd has put together ‘All The Way From Michigan Not Mars’, an 80-minute documentary about these busy times that’s described as “a meditative exploration of Rosie Thomas’s work as it connects to her as a human being” and “a lyrical examination of Thomas’s quest for an expression of truth and her unique brand of performance; combining songs of plaintive melancholy with sharp-witted banter and Sheila [Saputo], her bizarre stand-up comedian alter ego”.

Released through new Brooklyn-based independent film and music label FACTORY 25, the film uses intimate live performances with Sufjan and Denison to tell its story, aided by a guest appearance from Rosie’s longtime friend Damien Jurado. A limited edition version of the album comes with a bonus white-vinyl LP featuring previously unreleased alternative versions of the songs from These Friends Of Mine, with some doubtless endearing between-song banter. It’s released through the FACTORY 25 website tomorrow, priced $20 for the DVD and $30 for the DVD+LP. A couple of trailers for the documentary are up there too.

All The Way From Michigan Not Mars – limited edition LP
01 If This City Never Sleeps
02 Why Waste More Time
03 The One I Love
04 Much Farther To Go
05 Talking Bit
06 Paper Doll
07 Kite Song
08 Songbird
09 Talking Bit
10 All The Way To New York City
11 Say Hello
12 Talking Bit

Alan Pedder

A Danielson nevével fémjelzett Sounds Familyre és a Sufjan Stevens kapcsán ismert Asthmatic Kitty Records kiadócsalád egy újabb testvérrel bővült, mely a keresztségben a Great Comfort Records nevet kapta. Irányultságuk egyértelműen keresztény, céljuk pedig, hogy a tradicionális amerikai egyházzenébe új lelket vigyenek, visszahozzák a régi himnuszok organikus hangzását. Indulásuk alkalmából egy válogatást is megjelentettek, melyen hagyományos gospel énekek hallhatók ismerős nevek előadásában, úgy mint Dave Bazan, Damien Jurado, Rosie Thomas, Shara Worden (My Brightest Diamond), J.Tillman (Fleet Foxes), Laura Gibson, Denison Witmer, The Welcome Wagon (Sufjan Stevens segédletével), Leigh Nash (Sixpence None the Richer). Saját bevallásuk szerint a Come, O Spirit! című lemez filmbe illő hangzással és némi Southern Gothic misztikummal szolgál a hallgatóknak.
Az alternatív folk kedvelőinek mindenképpen erősen ajánlott.

I am curled up in bed, shielding myself from the windy cold of this crisp fall day, sprinkled with rain and gray clouds. I was walking around earlier and decided, shivering, that it was an afternoon for working on my latest mix CD creation and sipping on the extra hot spiced wine that Amanda and I had with lunch.

I am sleepy and barely functional enough to write this, but I wanted to share this song because I like its sass:

so much for love
guess i’ve been wrong
but it’s all right
cuz i’m moving on
i’ve got my car all packed with cassette tapes
and sweaters and loose change and cheap cigarettes
i’m gonna drive through the hills
with my hand out the window
and sing ’til i run out of words
i’m gonna stop at every truck stop
make small talk with waiters and truck driving men
i’m gonna fall asleep in the back seat
with no one around but me and my friends

it’s gonna be so grand
it’s gonna be just like my wedding day

i’ve had enough of love
it feels good to give up
so good to be good to myself
i’m gonna get on the highway with no destination
and plenty of vision in mind
and i’m gonna drive to the ocean
go skinny dipping
blow kisses to venus and mars
i’m gonna stop at every bar
and flirt with the cowboys in front their girlfriends

it’s gonna be so grand
it’s gonna be just like my wedding day

so much for love
i guess i’ve been wrong
but it’s all right cuz i’m moving on
i’m gonna drive over hills
over mountains and canyons
and boys that keep bringin me down
i’m gonna drive under skyline and sunshine
drink good wine in vineyards
and get asked to dance
i’m gonna be carefree and let nothing pass me by
never ever again

it’s gonna be so grand
it’s gonna be so grand
it’s gonna be just like my wedding day

I get to see this lovely woman live tonight — I can’t wait.

Joy in the Week of October 5

I’ve had an extremely busy couple of weeks, so here’s my joy list for the last few weeks.

Jane Lynch as Sue Sylvester on TV's "Glee"

1. Jane Lynch on Glee – Or Jane Lynch in anything! As Sue Sylvester,the cheer squad coach, on “Glee”, she manages to deliver the most outrageous, not-politically correct dialogue and make it funny.  Two of her funnier roles were also in circulation on TV these past few weeks in “Role Models” and “The 40 Year Old Virgin”. She also sparkles as Julia Child’s taller sister in “Julie & Julia”. There is such a natural and complete commitment to her characters, that you are momentarily stunned when they come out with the craziest things and this is her charm!

2. The new iPod Nano – Decided that my second generation Nano needed an upgrade, so I gave in to the Apple Gods and bought the new one. Since my old Nano had no video capability, the video functionality is new to me and so convenient… what had I been waiting for!! The iTunes 9.0 makes it so easy to download movies and missed TV show episodes, either through rental or purchase. And I love the FM radio and video camera functions!

3. Food Network’s new series, Chopped – Despite having an annoying commercial spot (“You’ve been chopped, cho-cho-chop-cho-cho-chopped!”), the show is lots of fun. Four competing chefs are given a set of mystery ingredients to make an appetizer in 20 minutes, then the dishes are judged and the worst dish-chef is cut from the competition. The remaining 3 are given new ingredients to make an entree in 30 minutes, and the judging process resumes, until 2 are left to prepare desserts from mystery ingredients in a tight timeframe again. This all happens in one show, so you aren’t dragged week after week through the “Top Chef/Hell’s Kitchen” format. But it’s great fun to see chefs try to make dishes from the strangest combinations of ingredients, like a celery-themed dessert!

4. The new season of The Hour on CBC – No one interviews better than George Stroumboulopoulos!

5. Dragon’s Den on CBC – I’m really late to the party on this one! Caught just a few minutes channel surfing in past seasons, but watched last season’s recap show and found myself highly entertained by this show about average (and not-so-average) Canadian entrepreneurs pitching their new products/services to get funding from a prominent group of investors (the Dragons).  As you watch, you root for these inventors and you also judge whether you’d give them any money – a great way to engage the brain and heart!

6. Rosie Thomas – Those dance competition shows introduce musical artists to you that you wouldn’t normally come across, so thanks to Canada’s SYTYCD for using a Rosie Thomas song on the last show. Downloaded her release “If Songs Could Be Held”, and love her phrasing and clear tone. She reminds me of Shawn Colvin, whom I adore. Great fall weather and cup of tea music! Check out Rosie Thomas on WordPress, too.

7. Shopping in small independently-owned boutiques – In my search for clothes to take on my journey this week, I was once again seduced by the MALL and it’s supposed variety of options. Why do I keep doing this? In the end, I got what I needed at two smaller shops, where the service was excellent and the variety was great. Not a big surprise, but a joy nonetheless.

… Or Not

1. Shoes that aren’t supposed to give you blisters that give you monster blisters… and just before you are about to start a hiking holiday.

2. Uncoordinated health care – One doctor tells you to take something, another tells you to stop taking it and take something different, and the first one reams you out for listening to the second one. Then a third comes up with a completely different diagnosis that doesn’t require anything prescribed so far. And a fourth calls you up out of the blue to book an appointment that no one so far mentioned you’d need! The eHealth database can’t come soon enough!