(no subject)
Jun. 15th, 2011 07:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
seekingferretTrying to play catchup on AotW reviews. I still need to review Stan Rogers's "Fogarty's Cove" and then I'll start listening to stuff again.
A Hundred Lovers by Timbuk 3
Yet another album where I find myself resorting to comparisons to early '90s alt-rock groups like The Offspring that I never knew well when they were big and certainly don't know much about now. Also, Hootie and the Blowfish, who had that one song whose title I don't remember now that sounded like a lot of this album. See, back in the early '90s I only listened to classical music on purpose, so any exposure to rock was incidental or accidental. (And all along, all along, there were incidents and accidents, so I do have some familiarity with the popular music of the era. But it's kind of random. Like, I first listened to "Graceland" when I was a senior in high school.)
Mostly, though, I'm holding back the urge to rant bitterly about how all my friends send me leftist propaganda, as I mentioned. Because um... yeah, Timbuk 3 really doesn't like conservatives. At all. Though to be fair, this album was suggested by someone who doesn't know me well. But my friends send me leftist propaganda too! Remember that time I listened to Vienna Teng for AotW and we ended up arguing about gay marriage for months? That was delightful, wasn't it?
So anyway, I don't really want to get into that again. That way lies madness. I don't really want to fight with people about what "Prey" suggests about how left-wingers regard religious people. I don't want to argue about the way "Legalize Our Love" simplifies a complicated issue. I don't want to try to detangle "Shotgun Wedding" and piss off people who are misunderstanding an argument I only half-understand myself.
But then, I don't have too much else to say about the album. The bullet points:
-I really only had one thing I loved about the title song. "A Hundred Lovers" had a lyric where all the numbers added up to a hundred."She's 23 goddesses, a couple of Queens /Half a dozen sirens of the silver screen / And 69 bathing beauties lying in the sun /A hundred lovers rolled into one" That was well done. About the fourth time through, I sat down and added them up as I listened and appreciated that it worked. Yay good math in music! Because no, U + ME != Us.
-I think I liked the male vocalist better than the female vocalist. But I didn't like either enough to bother looking up their names. In fact, other than the three or four songs I've mentioned above, I can't really remember anything about the rest of the album. In general, it was pleasant, forgettable music.
The Milk-Eyed Mender by Joanna Newsom
-Huh, this was interesting. Singer-songwriter stuff, by Newsom, who seems to be quite the multiinstrumentalist and is certainly quite the songwriter. Songs are mostly anchored by her harp playing, but occasionally by effective piano. If the album is held together, it's by the song titles, many of which are alliterative lists: "Bridges and Balloons,", "Peach, Plum, Pear", "Clam, Crab, Cockle, Cowrie." etc... If, like me, you are good at spotting patterns, you will notice that more than just alliteration holds these lists together. I'm not sure exactly what else does, though. Glue, perhaps.
-As a singer, Newsom is somewhat nasal, a little awkward, and kind of pushy. She's the type of singer that makes you want to seek out cover versions, like Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen. You hear the songs, objectively say "These are great songs," and then you kind of guiltily think "But I bet if someone else sang it I would like it more." Guiltily because we have built such a cult of the performer as artist that we can't let anyone stay in the background anymore. But there's nothing wrong with being a great songwriter who can't sing well!
- As a songwriter, Newsom throws down phrases with such casual authority that it's as if she's daring you to challenge one of them. They're marvels of rhythmic purety, each line a self-contained marvel that adds to the ongoing narrative. And her vocabulary is magnificent and well-marshaled. I complained that when the Decemberists throw big words at you there's a feeling of artifice and falseness that throws me off. That's the complete opposite of what Newsom achieves. She sings about esoterica like an "Inflammatory writ" with such confidence and command that the songs just flow without any missteps marring them.
-So since I loved these songs and I wished for a better singer, I went out and found some. "Versions of Joanna" was released as a charity effort last year to help the Pakistan flood victims, and consists of 21 covers of Newsom songs by a variety of artists. I thoroughly recommend it, and it's for a good cause!
A Hundred Lovers by Timbuk 3
Yet another album where I find myself resorting to comparisons to early '90s alt-rock groups like The Offspring that I never knew well when they were big and certainly don't know much about now. Also, Hootie and the Blowfish, who had that one song whose title I don't remember now that sounded like a lot of this album. See, back in the early '90s I only listened to classical music on purpose, so any exposure to rock was incidental or accidental. (And all along, all along, there were incidents and accidents, so I do have some familiarity with the popular music of the era. But it's kind of random. Like, I first listened to "Graceland" when I was a senior in high school.)
Mostly, though, I'm holding back the urge to rant bitterly about how all my friends send me leftist propaganda, as I mentioned. Because um... yeah, Timbuk 3 really doesn't like conservatives. At all. Though to be fair, this album was suggested by someone who doesn't know me well. But my friends send me leftist propaganda too! Remember that time I listened to Vienna Teng for AotW and we ended up arguing about gay marriage for months? That was delightful, wasn't it?
So anyway, I don't really want to get into that again. That way lies madness. I don't really want to fight with people about what "Prey" suggests about how left-wingers regard religious people. I don't want to argue about the way "Legalize Our Love" simplifies a complicated issue. I don't want to try to detangle "Shotgun Wedding" and piss off people who are misunderstanding an argument I only half-understand myself.
But then, I don't have too much else to say about the album. The bullet points:
-I really only had one thing I loved about the title song. "A Hundred Lovers" had a lyric where all the numbers added up to a hundred."She's 23 goddesses, a couple of Queens /Half a dozen sirens of the silver screen / And 69 bathing beauties lying in the sun /A hundred lovers rolled into one" That was well done. About the fourth time through, I sat down and added them up as I listened and appreciated that it worked. Yay good math in music! Because no, U + ME != Us.
-I think I liked the male vocalist better than the female vocalist. But I didn't like either enough to bother looking up their names. In fact, other than the three or four songs I've mentioned above, I can't really remember anything about the rest of the album. In general, it was pleasant, forgettable music.
The Milk-Eyed Mender by Joanna Newsom
-Huh, this was interesting. Singer-songwriter stuff, by Newsom, who seems to be quite the multiinstrumentalist and is certainly quite the songwriter. Songs are mostly anchored by her harp playing, but occasionally by effective piano. If the album is held together, it's by the song titles, many of which are alliterative lists: "Bridges and Balloons,", "Peach, Plum, Pear", "Clam, Crab, Cockle, Cowrie." etc... If, like me, you are good at spotting patterns, you will notice that more than just alliteration holds these lists together. I'm not sure exactly what else does, though. Glue, perhaps.
-As a singer, Newsom is somewhat nasal, a little awkward, and kind of pushy. She's the type of singer that makes you want to seek out cover versions, like Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen. You hear the songs, objectively say "These are great songs," and then you kind of guiltily think "But I bet if someone else sang it I would like it more." Guiltily because we have built such a cult of the performer as artist that we can't let anyone stay in the background anymore. But there's nothing wrong with being a great songwriter who can't sing well!
- As a songwriter, Newsom throws down phrases with such casual authority that it's as if she's daring you to challenge one of them. They're marvels of rhythmic purety, each line a self-contained marvel that adds to the ongoing narrative. And her vocabulary is magnificent and well-marshaled. I complained that when the Decemberists throw big words at you there's a feeling of artifice and falseness that throws me off. That's the complete opposite of what Newsom achieves. She sings about esoterica like an "Inflammatory writ" with such confidence and command that the songs just flow without any missteps marring them.
-So since I loved these songs and I wished for a better singer, I went out and found some. "Versions of Joanna" was released as a charity effort last year to help the Pakistan flood victims, and consists of 21 covers of Newsom songs by a variety of artists. I thoroughly recommend it, and it's for a good cause!
(no subject)
Date: 2011-06-16 12:10 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-06-16 04:11 am (UTC)Anyway, all of my Biblefic comes with the implicit warning for subtle heresy. Biblefic is one of the places I confront my problems with the text, imagine what's happening to these characters when the Bible itself doesn't see fit to tell me what they're doing. Judaism as a religion and social institution is very much tied up with asking questions and not being afraid of the answers, even if they don't seem to match up with what I expected. I also believe the Book of Genesis is the word of God, but that doesn't mean that I shun evolutionary theory. It means I read as much evolutionary theory as I can, because where there's tension there's something worth learning.
So I read and write stories about homosexual characters, because in my view sin is a part of the world I live in and sin is not something that dooms you to eternal damnation. It's a natural part of life and it would be unreasonable to suspect that in the hundreds of thousands of Israelites leaving Egypt there weren't some who had homosexual feelings. And look, I have homosexual friends, and I love them with all my heart, and it breaks my heart that they can't be married, that they feel estranged from their communities, that things I take for granted are unavailable to them. But when it comes to religion, I don't follow my heart, I follow the Bible. And from that pain, from that impossible conflict between the love I feel for my friends and the devotion I feel for God and his Book, that's where I find faith.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-06-17 04:08 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-06-16 07:40 am (UTC)I have to admit, though, that I like the effect of Newsom's voice, as idiosyncratic as it is. Though the first time one of my friends had The Milk-Eyed Mender on in the car, I literally said, "What the hell is this!?" I think it was that one song that kind of sounds like gibberish initially.
I'd definitely recommend her other albums (her singing improves somewhat), and the live EP too.
I also think that the artifice of some of The Decemberists' material is at least partly intentional, or at least knowing.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-07-01 02:34 pm (UTC)Here's my big reviews of the Decemberists: http://seekingferret.livejournal.com/89548.html and http://seekingferret.livejournal.com/68169.html
(no subject)
Date: 2011-06-24 04:21 am (UTC)Most reviews of Newsom's subsequent recordings say that her voice has improved tremendously, so you may not mind her recent stuff so much. I still recall my initial shock when I first heard her, but unlike you, I warmed up to her sound pretty quickly. I've been told her style of singing reflects an Appalachian vocal tradition. I find it weird but winning, and no one else can mean her songs the way she does. (I feel the same way about Victoria Williams, FWIW. I guess I'm cool with vocal idiosyncracy as long as the singer actually tends to hit the notes s/he is aiming for (sorry, Amanda Palmer)).
But yeah, my primary reason for recommending this one was definitely the lyrics. Assuming this was the one I recommended.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-06-24 01:30 pm (UTC)I'm not entirely unfamiliar with the sort of Appalachian folk singing she may be imitating. I don't think she's particularly effective in that vein. That tradition uses harrowing vocal technique to sing harrowing songs full of on the surface emotion. Newsom's a great song-writer, but she maintains something of the ironic detachment of our modern indie musician.
I'm largely okay with vocal idiosyncrasy, too. I'll still revisit Newsom's originals even though I've found covers I like in some cases more, just as I keep coming back to Dylan's originals even though Joan Baez does a gorgeous "Forever Young" and the Byrds own "Mr. Tambourine Man." But I'll also keep coming back to the covers, because they definitely give me something I found lacking on the originals. I think some of them showcase the lyrics more effectively.