That’s what allows me to listen to music while I work, drowning out some of the endless chatter that sometimes surrounds me.
It’s a good opportunity to try out new and different artists and types of music – a departure from my usual classic rock leanings – and some of the music that I’ve tried out at work has stuck with me and joined my favorites pile on the stereo at home.
Here’s some of what I’ve been listening to the past few weeks:
The first Dixie Chicks album I ever listened to was 2002’s “Home”, which I bought in the spring of 2003 as a protest after country radio cravenly abandoned the Texas trio in the wake of Natalie Maines’ disowning of the boob in the White House. I’ve never been a big country music fan but I was surprised that I liked the acoustic, rootsy stylings of that album.
Three years later, country radio still hasn’t forgiven the Chicks, but that’s OK.
Judging by their new album, the Chicks also are still pretty pissed off and, as one of the new songs goes, “Not Ready to Make Nice”. I bought this one not just as a political statement but because I’d heard good advance buzz about it.
The buzz was on the mark.
With the ubiquitous Rick Rubin producing, “Taking the Long Way” (Columbia), the first album on which the Chicks collaborated in writing all the songs, offers an unapologetic nose-thumbing to the Nashville establishment, from the semi-goth look the group sports on the cover to the music, which has less of the bluegrassy feel of “Home” and more of a rock ‘n’ roll edge. The Chicks figured country radio wasn’t going to play it anyway, so why cater to them?
Lyrically, it’s a lot more serious and personal than their past efforts.
As my pal Al Sussman noted, no more “Cowboy Take Me Away”. While lines like “wouldn’t kiss all the asses that they told me to” might make the Chicks’ new tunes less likely to show up in high school chorus concerts (as two of their early hits did at our school this spring), the songs on this album let you get to know Maines, Emily Robison and Martie Maguire a lot more.
It’s a consistently enjoyable album, with the highlights being the country-rock title track, the angry “Not Ready to Make Nice”, the fiddle-powered “Bitter End”, the rocking “Lubbock or Leave It” (which namechecks my hometown among other music cities), the bouncy “I Like It” (which has Beatley backing vocals), the catchy “Baby Hold On” (with a great sing-along chorus) and the gospel-soul “I Hope”.
It’s country radio’s loss.
Back when the Iraq war was at its height, another performer who drew the ire of Bush-backers with some of her onstage comments was Linda Ronstadt, who of course has been around for decades. I hadn’t listened to any of her stuff in quite a long time, though, until I recently came across an advance disc of an album she’s recorded with Cajun singer/author Ann Savoy.
“Adieu False Heart” (Vanguard), which won’t actually be released until later this summer (July 25), stays mostly in the Cajun and Celtic fringes of the bluegrass-ballads-with-mournful-fiddle branch of alt country/folk. Rondstadt’s voice has lost none of its power, and she and Savoy (who first teamed up on the “Evangeline Made” album) do some very nice harmonies on the collection of tunes by names ranging from Bill Monroe to Richard Thompson.
The two duet on the first single, a remake of the old Left Banke hit “Walk Away Renee”, and Rondstadt sings lead on some numbers (including “I Can’t Get Over You” and “Go Away From My Window”) while Savoy takes the lead on the album’s title track, “Marie Mouri”, “Burn’s Supper” and the bluegrass classic “The One I Love Is Gone”.
It’s a generally downbeat album that makes perfect Sunday mornin’ listening while you’re sipping something hot and sorting through the paper.
Some of the more interesting albums I hear are the ones I pick up off the “freebie” table at work. One that I picked up last fall after it was released in August but stashed in my desk and never got around to listening to until a few weeks ago is “Twentythree” by San Diego singer-songwriter-guitarist Tristan Prettyman (who, despite the name, is very much a surf babe).
Her acoustic folk-pop (which definitely shows the influence of folk-punker Ani DiFranco) is melodic, rhythmic (even funky at times); has sensitive, introspective and occasionally witty lyrics; and makes great use of her hazy, breathy, sometimes bluesy and definitely sexy voice.
I had just put it on at home and the very catchy opening track, “Love Love Love”, was playing when my daughter immediately asked me to copy it for her. Other highlights on the album include the DiFranco-sounding “Always Feel This Way”, her duetting with coffeehouse fave (and boyfriend) Jason Mraz on the slightly jazzy “Shy That Way”, and the suitably simple acoustic guitar ballad that closes out the album, “Simple As It Should Be”.
If my 12-year-old daughter and I both like it, you’ve gotta figure Prettyman has a lot of potential.
This week saw the U.S.
release of an album that I bought last September when it was released in Britain – young jazz-pop singer Katie Melua’s “Piece by Piece” (Universal), the follow-up to her debut, “Call Off the Search”, which sold multi-millions in Britain and Europe but was pretty much ignored here. Now, however, Universal is putting on a major U.S.
push to break Melua (raised in Britain but born in the Republic of Georgia).
Although touted by some as the British Norah Jones, Melua comes down much more on the pop side of jazz-pop than Jones, who often dips into country and blues. I liked the first album (with its quirky smash hit ballad “The Closest Thing to Crazy”) a lot more than I did “Piece by Piece”, but the latter has its charms, including the hit single “Nine Million Bicycles” and the torch song “I Do Believe in Love”.
She’s been Britain’s best-selling female singer for two years, so obviously Melua’s music has broad appeal. Give it a listen.
Whenever I hear a song I like from an album I don’t have, I add it to a list of tunes I get my son to download for me and compile on “Dad’s Discs” that he fills out with numbers he thinks I’ll like (he’s working on Vol.
5 now). Sometimes these are older tracks and other times more recent stuff. Here’s some of what I’ve liked that I’ve heard in the past year (though some of it may be a bit older):
“Take Me Out” by Franz Ferdinand, “Tired of Being Sorry” by Ringside, “Better Together” and “Upside Down” by Jack Johnson, “In the Sun” by R.
E.M.’s Michael Stipe and Coldplay’s Chris Martin, “You Have Killed Me” by Morrissey, “Boulevard of Broken Dreams” by Green Day, “Crooked Teeth” and “Soul Meets Body” by Death Cab for Cutie, “Black Horse and the Cherry Tree” by K.
T. Tunstall, “All the King’s Horses” by Robert Plant, “Tuesday” by Trey Anastasio and “Float On” by Modest Mouse.
There’s some good listening in all of this; I hope you’ll give at least some of it a try.
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