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May 6, 2006

Eclecticism-In the CD player, on the radio, on the Net

Well, over the past few months I have given serious listening to the following eclectic artists and albums, in chronological order.

Genre: Folk

Several months ago my friend Claire loaned me this CD, which spent several weeks in my car's CD player. Redbird is a sort of folk supergroup, if that is not an oxymoron, consisting of Kris Delmhorst (who, at times, has a voice like smoke), Peter Mulvey, Jeffrey Foucault and David Goodrich. On this album the artists sing each other songs and do covers of artists such as Bob Dylan, Willie Nelson, Tom Waits and REM as well as singing traditional folk songs. The results are brilliant. I like almost every track on this album, and many tracks I like a lot, including "Ships," "Buckets of Rain," "Moonshiner," "You are the Everything." Favoriter track: "Ithaca," which has some killer lines,

It took this much to make me see
Still I barely understand
Love will always, always be larger and different than our plans

Love will never listen to us
And why should it?
Love knows the score
It builds better songs than we do
It sings in better metaphors.

Genre Guess: Quirky, pop rock

I first heard about Andrew Bird on Jeffrey Overstreet's site. Then a student worker at the library loaned me her copy, which also spent several weeks in the car stereo player. You can listen to the entire album online for free here. The lyrics are often bizarre, sometimes insightful; the music is often quirky, always catchy, sometimes beautiful. Favorite tracks: "Fake Palindromes" and "Masterfade." Favorite lyric, from "Measuring Cups:"

Get out your measuring cups and we'll play a new game
Come to the front of the class and we'll measure your brain
We'll give you a complex and we'll give it a name

When you talk about the hand of glory
A tale that's rather grim and gory
Is it just another children's story that's been de-clawed?
When the tales of brothers Grimm and Gorey have been outlawed

Genre guess: Melodic Punk

My friend Anna loaned me the Arctic Monkey's CD Whatever People Say That I am, That's What I'm Not a few weeks ago, and despite intial revulsion because it is generally quite hard, it has been in the CD player for two weeks. Do you see a patter developing here? I really have no business liking this CD so much, as this excellent review of it in the Gaurdian points out, "For the most part, however, anyone over 30 who finds themselves reflected in Turner's stories of alcopop-fuelled punch-ups and drunken romantic lunges in indie clubs should consider turning the album off and having a long, quiet think about where their life is heading." My life is not nearly that desperate, but I am rather surprised at how much I enjoy the music. Perhaps it is a delayed adolesence. I do like the mellow tracks the best, though. Favorite tracks: "Mardy Bum," "A Certain Romance," "I Bet You Look Good on the Dance Floor." Three songs can be heard and seen in videos here.

The writing is clever, and it is fun to hear the singer sing in an English accent with a heavy dialect. As Anna and Morgan point out, even the swear words sound cool. It is also somewhat of a concept album, with the songs chronicling the night life of a rather depressed English city and its youth, and the album art chronicle, more or less, the day of the character (not a band member) pictured on the album cover. While researching the album I also came a cross a new definition: a chav.

Favorite lyrics:

From "Mardy Bum:" Def. of "mardy" here.

Now then Mardy Bum
I see your frown
And it's like looking down the barrel of a gun
And it goes off
And out come all these words
Oh there's a very pleasant side to you
A side I much prefer

It's one that laughs and jokes around
Remember cuddles in the kitchen
Yeah, to get things off the ground
And it was up, up and away
Oh, but it's right hard to remember
That on a day like today when you're all argumentative
And you've got the face on

From "A Certain Romance," a song describing chavs:

Over there there's broken bones
There's only music, so that there's new ringtones
And it doesn’t take no Sherlock Holmes
To see it's a little different around here

Genre Guess: Folk/Blues/Country

I have not heard all of the album Where the People Eat by Willy Mason, but heard a good interview with him on NPR's On Point:

Singer songwriter Willy Mason is twenty-one years old, a slightly-known post-grunge American roots singer in his native USA, and a full-blown platinum-selling celebrity abroad.

Now young Willy Mason is being compared to Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash. He's opening for Radiohead. And he's been pushed out front as the voice of a new generation looking for the real, the true, in a time of spin and sell.

Several videos are available on his web site. Several songs are available on his Myspace page. I would recommend listening to his UK hit "Oxygen" before seeing the video. Its idealistic and hopeful lyrics are reproduced below. This guy is twenty-one. Wow.

I wanna be better than oxygen
So you can breathe when you're drowning and weak in the knees
I wanna speak louder than Ritalin
For all the children who think that they've got a disease
I wanna be cooler than t.v.
For all the kids that are wondering what they are going to be
We can be stronger than bombs
If you're singing along and you know that you really believe
We can be richer than industry
As long as we know that there's things that we don't really need
We can speak louder than ignorance
Cause we speak in silence every time our eyes meet.

If i'm afraid to catch a dream
I weave your baskets and i'll float them down the river stream
Each one i weave with words i speak to carry love to your relief.

Film, Music, Television, Books | By jackdas | 12:23 AM

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Comments

Posted by: Claire at May 6, 2006 6:19 PM

Posted by: anonymous at May 14, 2006 8:55 AM

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