A Change in the Wind

From Adele to Frank Zappa: 2011 in music

This year in music has been simply overwhelming.

Impossible to know where to start, but relieved to see veteran entertainment editor/critic Ken Tucker agree that this year has been a big one...and also that the discovery of 2011 is Adele. 

If any one musician held center stage in pop music this year, it was probably Adele, the English singer whose 21 was one of the bestselling albums of the year, as well as one of the most highly praised by critics. I would daresay it reached the widest range of listeners, too.

Proposal: when we consider year-end stand-outs, we should give added weight not to artists who are a little more or less popular than their peers, but to artists who are orders of magnitude more popular.

All of the artists mentioned here are successful, but Adele's astonishing Someone Like You has garned 78 million hits, and seems to be adding to that number by about a million a day. She is, as she says in the song, "making memories." And not just for herself. That deserves respect.  

But Adele needs no favors; she's perfect for the American Idol era, and you'll end up hearing her almost whether you want to or not. I was gratified to hear Tucker bring up the charismatic young Deertick, which will never be featured on the TV show, but no matter. It glories in the creation of raw rock, on its own and as a Nirvana cover band, which I would freaking kill to see. (This perf at SXSW gives some idea, despite -- or aided by -- the terrible production value.)

And not all the discoveries were new bands. For instance, this song surfaced this year on Liza Richardson's radio show. Sounded to me like an anthem for the Occupy movement, an ode to --

the left behinds of the Great Society

I wondered which new band this was, which featured everything from an electric guitar to a kazoo, and was shocked to learn it was by Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention, from l966.

Jeez. I think I'm a little behind. 

Other unforgettables included the Mountain Goats, whose lead singer John Darnielle not only writes weirdly fascinating songs but is the first rocker to really seem to get Twitter (his born howling voice is an inimitable mix of self-deprecation,  boxing, and strident opinionating on all matters pop cultural).

Yet more highlights included: overhearing Mavis Staples and Jeff Tweedy continue to develop their heartening You're Not Alone in live perfs, at benefits and D.C. protests. Bon Iver's immaculately beautiful Holocene. Fleet Foxes' flawlessness, especially on their Helplessness Blues, which (as one critic noted) suggested an entire philosophy in its opening verse. Mumford and Sons, the acoustic electricians who had a sell-out crowd at Neil Young's Bridge School Benefit on their feet an instant after beginning to play, a feat accomplished by none of the other ten or so other popular bands on the show. Watching Rufus Wainwright set out to write a hit with pro Guy Chalmers in a BBC doc, and nearly succeed with WWIII. This year was as much about seeing the creating, as the creation itself. 

A last example: A bass-heavy remix of Gil Scott-Heron's epochal Angel Dust...and a great tribute w/extensive interviews from Gil Scott-Heron, complete with his first recording, "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised," a poem with drums, when the grandfather of rap is just learning his craft.

Tom Schnable's interviews with Scott-Heron date back to the early 80's, before "the godfather of rap" became famous, before what we know of as rap today came along, and long before Scott-Heron disappeared. (As chronicled last year in Alex Wilkinson's harrowing New York is Killing Me.)

But Scott-Heron is in fine form with Schnable -- you're not likely to hear him, both the man and his music, better presented.  

Still, in the end, this is the year of Adele, an old-fashioned pop star who combines the power of Aretha with the delicacy of Dusty Springfield. It's especially apparent on her Someone Like You. 

The Little Drummer Boy -- Bob Dylan

Just when you'd given up on him, he comes back in the perfect key, with the perfect song, and sings it not just faultlessly, but with soul -- Bob Dylan, backed by the Ditty Bops. 

For this day, via John Fugelsang

A Wilco riff that just won't quit -- for good reason

Wilco's new album, The Whole Love, concludes with a song unlike any I've ever heard from a Jeff Tweedy band. It's twelve minutes long, but not for the sake of a guitar freak-out (Poor Places). Nor does it want to pound home a point, or feeling (Misunderstood).

A critic from Aquarium Drunkard describes it eloquently: 

The Whole Love closes with “One Sunday Morning (Song For Jane Smiley’s Boyfriend),” a twelve-minute narrative based around a simple acoustic guitar figure that slowly unfolds to reveal gentle vibes and light percussion. If “Like A Rolling Stone” was Dylan’s noisy kiss-off to the folk music scene and -tradition that raised him, “One Sunday Morning” is Tweedy’s inversed equivalent—the song revolves around a son’s recollection of the falling-out between he and his father. But where Dylan is cocksure, towering on warbling keys and a swagger of harmonica, Tweedy sings nearly under his breath; that repetitive guitar run and the rattling percussion are the closest thing to filigree the song allows for. “Something sad keeps moving / So I wandered around,” Tweedy sings shortly after the father’s death. “I fell in love with the burden / Holding me down.” The death of the father, the rejection of all he stood for, and the crackle in Tweedy’s voice—all are devastating. “What I learned without knowing / How much more I owe than I can give,” he sings as the song exhales. It’s a song of remorse, of a very deep love whose full expression comes in its final few minutes, the music continuing well after Tweedy has said his final word.

All true, but you won't hear the lyrics the first few times around -- the music is too sweet.The lyrics ache, but the music soothes. This is Tweedy exploring out loud the pain he cannot forget. Greatness.  

12 One Sunday Morning (Song For Jane Smiley's Boyfriend) 1

 

Fleet Foxes flummox Santa Barbara

The lead singer and guitarist of the Fleet Foxes, Robin Pecknold, is reputed to be a perfectionist, and at the band's appearance at the Santa Barbara Bowl a week ago, he lived up to the description, spending half an hour directly before the show walking around the stage in plain view, pointing, talking to roadies, making sure the slide projector was aligned with the screen in exactly the way he wished. When at last he and the five other Foxes took the stage, to a gentle swell of excitement and emotion from a crowd of perhaps two thousand people, he picked out a couple of riffs, then stopped to note:

    "Okay now -- let us earn your love." 

Though Pecknold insists he's not a hippie, he and the whole band could hardly look more granola if they had just time traveled in from l969, with the scraggly beards, the long hair, the drummer's white shirt, the bassist's wool cap -- you name it.

But the real giveaway is Pecknold's unabashed sincerity. This man is, by all reasonable metrics, a rock star, and yet he doesn't write about love, or sex, or drugs, or even rock and roll. He writes about sunlight, the ocean, orchards, golden apples, aging, dying, his wandering mind, winter, the men who move in dimly-lit hallways, and most of all, most repeatedly, union with an unreachable glory. 

In the title song from the band's new record, Helplessness Blues, he sings:

I was raised up believing I was somehow unique
Like a snowflake distinct among snowflakes, unique in each way you can see
And now after some thinking, I'd say I'd rather be
A functioning cog in some great machinery serving something beyond me

Why does this impossible, ungraspable subject work as the overarching theme for a new band? Because the band illustrates it with their glorious sound, in faultless three and four-part harmonies. We hear the theme; even if we understood not a single word, we would feel at a gut level that yearning for union.   

It's extraordinary, and yet a little frustrating too. There's something monkish about Pecknold's focus. (Fittingly, the slide show behind the band began with an image of an arched building from the Middle Ages, perhaps the Alhambra.) The music uplifts, taking us higher and higher, but without freeing us.

Near the end of the show, heading into an encore, I heard a young fan in front of me yell -- a little hopefully -- "rock and roll!"

Well, not exactly. It's more like choir music -- but good choir music. 

[pic from the Santa Barbara Independent]

Here's the title cut, as striking a popular song as we've heard this year:  

06 Helplessness Blues 1

 

 

GOP candidate stumbles over Kurt Cobain

Having gotten attention with a contrarian admission that yes, global warming is a matter of science and fact, alleged GOP presidential candidate Jon Huntsman again played the rebel card at the Tea Party debate this evening with a bizarre reference to Kurt Cobain. 

"I don't think anything should be off the table except maybe some of the drama that's been on this floor today," he said, mocking the title of Mitt Romney's book "No Apology" by saying, "I don't know if that was written by Kurt Cobain or not."

In fact, the title of the song to which Huntsmen was referring was "All Apologies," a classic Cobain blend of sneer (What else could I say?/Everyone is gay) and spirituality (In the sun/in the sun/I feel as one).

Not the phrase "No Apology," the title of Romney's book. I think we can be pretty sure that book, unlike the song, doesn't conclude with a ringing denunciation of matrimony. (Married! Buried!) 

Don't know what Huntsmen was thinking, but his fifteen minutes are up. These Tea Party folks think of themselves as rebels, but these days it takes a lot more than whining about "entitlements" to be a rebel. 

[Pic from Fountain, Not Mountain.]

Please Hear This: African song of the year

Earlier this week I had the opportunity to interview Lesley Clark, the artist and philanthropist known for her great work with nomadic tribes such as the Wodaabe and the Tuareg. 

She's having her annual "North African market" sale this Saturday at her gallery, with a presentation with the doctor who oversees the medical clinic she founded, a film, and other attractions, I am going myself; these tribespeople make some elegant things, and live, it seems, lives of a great stark beauty. 

This area of Niger, in central Saharan Africa, thousands of miles from the Horn of Africa, where a famine is gathering, but it suffered a famine of its own just five years ago, Clark said, and has been plagued by internal conflicts, along with threats of terrorism, uranium mining, and conflicts with nearby states. Ironically, as a result of the need young men feel to defend themselves, and take up arms if necessary, music has become a means of communication, and its led to a profusion of new bands. 

Anyhow! This is the best song you will hear from Arica this year. Okay? 

02 Amidinine 1

This is the band Tidawt, a Taureg group of three nomads, who really do live come from the Sahara, I understand, but since l994 have played concerts at Paris and around the world, including stints with Mickey Hart, and have toured with the Rolling Stones. 

If I'm wrong about the awesomeness of this song you must tell me, because your song will be utterly jaw-dropping, and I will want to hear it. 

Dawn Upshaw takes a bullet for Ojai Music Fest

That's what it looks like in this picture, from a preview last Friday from NPR:

The featured music at the Ojai Music festival this year, Winds of Destiny, came from American composer George Crumb, which NPR helpfully allows us to hear next to the preview.

It's stunning -- in a festival sort of way. Mark Swed, of the LA Times, described it admiringly: 

Crumb summons up the deafening silence of the battlefield at night, conjures the ghosts of the dead and brandishes the nightmares of the living. In the process he also manages percussion writing of extravagant beauty, if arresting strangeness.

Yes. You can hear it yourself. It's festival music -- harsh, austere, impressive. And not the sort of thing one wants or needs to hear often, despite the predictably great singing of Dawn Upshaw. Once is probably enough for nearly anyone for Winds of Destiny. Though with its serious themes and Peter Sellars stage antics -- see above -- it's as attractive to the press as honey to wasps.

By contrast a couple of days later, Dawn Upshaw sang another original piece for the festival, a setting of Ted Kooser's Winter Morning Walks by the new star Maria Schneider, that was adored by the crowd in Ojai. More than one person I spoke to wondered when a recorded version might become available. 

A couple of years ago Upshaw had a bout with breast cancer. She's fine now. A few years before, the former poet laureate Ted Kooser also had a bout with cancer. He survived, too, but to try and maintain his strength found himself taking walks just before dawn. A poet friend, Jim Harrison, convinced him to write down his morning walk in a haiku, and send it off on postcard. 

The result is all that Crumb's work strains to be, but without the laboring. Yet Swed admitted he didn't exactly like it, despite its undeniable emotionality, and the collaborative skill that went into it: 

The texts are flickering glimpses of nature on pre-dawn walks taken while the poet was undergoing chemotherapy. Upshaw’s depth of feeling and Schneider’s gift for lyricism helped chip away at one listener’s mawkish defense mechanisms. 

But that's an incorrect use of the word mawkish, isn't it? One might think the music was "sickly, sentimental" (even if it's not). But certainly its rejection -- one's reaction to it -- isn't mawkish. 

It's a confusion of an action with an adjective.

Strange that a critic as experienced as Swed should make such an elementary mistake.

No matter. For the local paper, Karen Lindell not only previewed the performance, and gathered some great quotes from composer Maria Schneider, she even included one of Kooser's achingly real poems. 

Perfectly still this solstice morning,
in bone-cracking cold. Nothing moving,
or so one might think, but as I walk the road,
the wind held in the heart of every tree 
flows to the end of each twig and forms a bud.

Good to see a newspaper writer dare to admire poetry so unabashedly. 

The political wit of Jeff Tweedy (with music too!)

Sometimes I think the Internet is the greatest invention ever, and sometimes I think it's the greatest waste of time in world history. 

But sometimes you can split the difference. You can listen to music and do other stuff at the same time. Plus, of course, the music can be pretty darn wonderful. 

Such as a Jeff Tweedy solo outing, streaming for free here on Wilcoworld. 

Tweedy's wry comments to the Washington, D.C. crowd in December, were pretty funny too, in the political context of the infamous "shellacking" the Democrats took in the midterm elections. 

"It's good to be back in D.C. I was here a few weeks ago, for the Rally to Restore Sanity. Unfortunately, it didn't work. Well, it worked for me -- it restored my sanity. Somewhat."

The encore includes a wonderful version of Woody Guthrie's At My Window Sad and Lonely. 

The Decembrists bring back REM

Remember REM, back in their So. Central Rain days, when the band was great? (Even Cobain said so, a little enviously, when he got frustrated with his own sound on In Utero.)

Well, so do the Decembrists, sounds like, from their soon-to-be-released The King is Dead, which you can listen to in its entirety for a week or so, thanks to NPR, right here. 

Apparently Peter Buck (of REM) had a hand in the recording, so maybe we shouldn't be surprised. 

Here's the band, with front-man Colin Meloy holding flowers, and the marvelous singer Gillian Welch, who joined the Decembrists for this effort. 

Something for the weekend...

Every song you've always wanted to hear covered (here)

Searching for a reliable guide to Neil Young covers, I stumble upon a wildly popular site that tracks all rock covers ever: Cover Me.

For music fans, this is not to be missed.

Are you unconvinced? You want an example?

Okay, how about a wonderful Wilco cover of a great song by Neil Young in his Buffalo Springfield days?

Here's the full list of Wilco covers from the site, including Broken Arrow, by this amazingly wide-ranging band, of originals from everyone from The Carter Family to T. Rex.

And here's the band, with guitar wiz Nels Cline lounging against an amp, and mastermind Jeff Tweedy about to sing from the bottom of his gruff heart.

The Web: un-freaking-believable.