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Oct. 15th, 2015 11:16 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
seekingferretJosh Ritter's new album is out today, "Sermon on the Rocks", and I can't wait to listen. I thought I'd do a quick review of Ritter's discography.
-Josh Ritter- his eponymous self-published debut was my first encounter with Ritter, from the sample tracks posted on mp3.com for free download. "Potter's Wheel" has held mindspace for me continuously in the fifteen years since- the rolling chord progression makes the whole thing feel cyclic and insistent and makes me ruminate on the mysteries of life. "Hotel Song", less impressive on its own, remains memorable to me for a concert performance where Ritter interrupted the song to tell a story about grave robbing.
-The Golden Age of Radio- actually the third Ritter album I listened to, after Hello Starling, it's Ritter's best pure folk album, particularly in its fully acoustic guise. "Harrisburg" I like to say is the best railroad ballad written in this century, and while that's a peculiar distinction it makes it no less powerful and evocative a song.
-Hello Starling- most of the music I found on mp3.com in its heyday as a source for interesting indie music, I lost track of the musicians after the demise of the site. When I found Hello Starling in Tower Records (RIP as well), I was excited to learn that Ritter had gone on to better things, especially once I listened and heard how impressive it was. It's still probably my favorite end-to-end Ritter album, and "Kathleen" is still my favorite Ritter song, with its sharp and memorable lyrics and evocative portrait of making the best of unrequited love. But from start to finish it is fully of songs that put a smile on my face, from "Bright Smile"'s charming seduction to "Bone of Song"'s meta meditation on storytelling's power to "Wings"'s post-apocalyptic landscape.
-The Animal Years- the only Ritter album that gives Hello Starling a run for its money, sharply bookended by the brilliant "Girl in the War" and the terrifyingly passionate "Thin Blue Flame". It's an album of the late Bush years, and it is deeply about the politics of the era, but it's not a polemic in any fashion. It's a collection of songs about faith and doubt and love in the face of terror and fear. I've seen "Thin Blue Flame" live twice- once it was plaintive, a prayer for a certainty we know we'll likely never have. The other time, it was angry, furious about a world so broken that prayers seem to have no effect. Both ways it was mesmerizing, eight minutes of building emotion to a powerful payoff.
-The Historical Conquests of Josh Ritter- Evolving out of the heavier sound developed in "Thin Blue Flame", and taking advantage of the solidification of Ritter's Royal City Band in the aftermath, marks the beginning of a shift in Ritter's music from folk-rock toward more songs that are more clearly in a full rock 'n roll vein. Overall, the songs are less memorable than Hello Starling or The Animal Years, but there is one clear advantage to the rock-ier songs- they make for a more danceable concert. And there's one notable exception to all this: "The Temptation of Adam", a song which I have written fic for twice because it's such an amazing story and it's so well-told. It's about lovers in a nuclear missile silo contemplating ending the world so their love can endure till the end of days, chilling and disturbing and yet somehow really, really believable. It's also the song that probably introduced a lot of fandom to Ritter by way ofisagel's "The Temptation of John Sheppard", one of my all-time favorite fanvids.
So Runs the World Away- Likely my least favorite Ritter album, it does at least have the mummy love story of "The Curse", but it doesn't have much else worth remarking on.
The Beast in its Tracks- Ritter's post-divorce album, it's more introspective than the albums that precede it and it's mostly maybe a little too personal, a little too hard to connect with. But "Joy to You Baby" is I think Ritter's best song since "Kathleen", with the lyrics perfect and memorable and clever while still being incredible emotionally resonant as a story about letting go of a relationship and trying to feel good about it despite the pain. And here I'll once more mention my own Ritter fanwork, a Fringe vid that uses the sharp sense of place in "Joy to You Baby" to resonate with the AU NYC of Season 5 Fringe.
-Josh Ritter- his eponymous self-published debut was my first encounter with Ritter, from the sample tracks posted on mp3.com for free download. "Potter's Wheel" has held mindspace for me continuously in the fifteen years since- the rolling chord progression makes the whole thing feel cyclic and insistent and makes me ruminate on the mysteries of life. "Hotel Song", less impressive on its own, remains memorable to me for a concert performance where Ritter interrupted the song to tell a story about grave robbing.
-The Golden Age of Radio- actually the third Ritter album I listened to, after Hello Starling, it's Ritter's best pure folk album, particularly in its fully acoustic guise. "Harrisburg" I like to say is the best railroad ballad written in this century, and while that's a peculiar distinction it makes it no less powerful and evocative a song.
-Hello Starling- most of the music I found on mp3.com in its heyday as a source for interesting indie music, I lost track of the musicians after the demise of the site. When I found Hello Starling in Tower Records (RIP as well), I was excited to learn that Ritter had gone on to better things, especially once I listened and heard how impressive it was. It's still probably my favorite end-to-end Ritter album, and "Kathleen" is still my favorite Ritter song, with its sharp and memorable lyrics and evocative portrait of making the best of unrequited love. But from start to finish it is fully of songs that put a smile on my face, from "Bright Smile"'s charming seduction to "Bone of Song"'s meta meditation on storytelling's power to "Wings"'s post-apocalyptic landscape.
-The Animal Years- the only Ritter album that gives Hello Starling a run for its money, sharply bookended by the brilliant "Girl in the War" and the terrifyingly passionate "Thin Blue Flame". It's an album of the late Bush years, and it is deeply about the politics of the era, but it's not a polemic in any fashion. It's a collection of songs about faith and doubt and love in the face of terror and fear. I've seen "Thin Blue Flame" live twice- once it was plaintive, a prayer for a certainty we know we'll likely never have. The other time, it was angry, furious about a world so broken that prayers seem to have no effect. Both ways it was mesmerizing, eight minutes of building emotion to a powerful payoff.
-The Historical Conquests of Josh Ritter- Evolving out of the heavier sound developed in "Thin Blue Flame", and taking advantage of the solidification of Ritter's Royal City Band in the aftermath, marks the beginning of a shift in Ritter's music from folk-rock toward more songs that are more clearly in a full rock 'n roll vein. Overall, the songs are less memorable than Hello Starling or The Animal Years, but there is one clear advantage to the rock-ier songs- they make for a more danceable concert. And there's one notable exception to all this: "The Temptation of Adam", a song which I have written fic for twice because it's such an amazing story and it's so well-told. It's about lovers in a nuclear missile silo contemplating ending the world so their love can endure till the end of days, chilling and disturbing and yet somehow really, really believable. It's also the song that probably introduced a lot of fandom to Ritter by way of
isagel's "The Temptation of John Sheppard", one of my all-time favorite fanvids.So Runs the World Away- Likely my least favorite Ritter album, it does at least have the mummy love story of "The Curse", but it doesn't have much else worth remarking on.
The Beast in its Tracks- Ritter's post-divorce album, it's more introspective than the albums that precede it and it's mostly maybe a little too personal, a little too hard to connect with. But "Joy to You Baby" is I think Ritter's best song since "Kathleen", with the lyrics perfect and memorable and clever while still being incredible emotionally resonant as a story about letting go of a relationship and trying to feel good about it despite the pain. And here I'll once more mention my own Ritter fanwork, a Fringe vid that uses the sharp sense of place in "Joy to You Baby" to resonate with the AU NYC of Season 5 Fringe.