Popular Music - May 2018

Tori Amos

• Little Earthquakes
• Abnormally Attracted to Sin
• Native Invader

Beyonce - Lemonade
Christine and the Queens - Chaleur Humaine
Paul Dempsey - Strange Loop
Missy Higgins - Solastalgia
Jars of Clay - The Eleventh Hour
John Mayer

• Battle Studies
• Born and Raised
• Paradise Valley
• The Search for Everything

Joni Mitchell - Blue
Janelle Monae - Electric Lady
Janelle Monae - Dirty Computer
Alanis Morissette - Under Rug Swept
R.E.M. - Automatic for the People
Simply Red - Picture Book
Thrice - Major/Minor

Assuming that anyone actually continues to read this blog, you would have noticed that the April entry for pop music talked about my purchase of two albums as soon as they came out, but only went on to discuss one of those albums.

That was partly for reasons of length, and partly because I knew full well that I had spent a considerable amount of May listening to Missy Higgins' Solastalgia  and could discuss it here.

Of the pair of new purchases, Solastalgia was the one that was a little unexpected and a very pleasant surprise. I already have Missy Higgins' first 3 albums, but had skipped her fourth which consisted of covers of other Australian artists. I might get back to it one day, as reviews indicate she did successfully place her own spin on the material.

Those first 3 albums are a slightly mixed bag for me. They are never poor, but also don't always seem to be quite as great as they could be. Her debut, a significant success at least in Australia, has a somewhat folk feel and some truly beautiful and powerful songs. The second album feels like a struggle in comparison, as if she didn't know how to avoid repeating herself. The third album's first half is a bit more pop and in my opinion has some of the best work she has done, but then the second half falls away a bit.

Solastalgia is something new again, and all the better for it. For one thing it has a considerable tinge of electronica. But the more interesting aspect of the album is how clearly thematic it is. The title itself is a term referring to distress caused by environmental change, reflecting how the album is a rumination on life, the state of the world and in particular the ways in which we seem to be destroying it.

It's the opening track, "Starting Again", that I think is a stunning success. It's a song to a child about all the reasons it's not a good idea to bring a child into the world, and how those reasons evaporate once a child arrives. It's a powerful, complex sentiment that I don't think I've ever heard put into song before, and Higgins' lyrics are fully up to the task.

Nothing that follows has quite the same impact, but the arc of the album is a satisfying one as it roughly moves from past to future, ending with "The Old Star" which imagines our distant descendants returning to the solar system to see what little is left.

The album as a whole is perhaps not a masterpiece, but it's always at least good, and worth hearing. And it means something. I think that was one of the pleasing things when I bought this alongside Dirty Computer: here are two singers both using the album format to present a considered artistic statement and to get listeners to think about things as well as being entertained.

December 2012 - Popular Music

Tori Amos

• Boys for Pele
• from the choirgirl hotel
• Abnormally Attracted to Sin

Kate Bush - Never for Ever
Crowded House - Temple of Low Men
Electric Light Orchestra - The Very Best of Electric Light Orchestra
Gomez - In Our Gun
Gomez - Split the Difference
Missy Higgins - The Ol' Razzle Dazzle
Elton John - Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy
John Mayer - Born and Raised
Moloko - Do You Like My Tight Sweater?
Pearl Jam - Backspacer

December isn't the easiest month for sitting around and listening to music.  Okay, it doesn't have to be "sitting around", but it does have to be a mental space where I can spend time in one place or on one task for the length of time an album lasts.  December tends to have a lot of rushing around - getting ready for Christmas, trying to plan holidays (sometimes), and trying to get things done at work when people said it would be done 'this year' and they suddenly realise that the year is almost over.

The most notable listening would have been in the week after Christmas. Not only the time and space for it with a week off, but 2 new albums as presents, both of which I'd had my eye on since they were released mid-year.

One was Missy Higgins' first album for several years.  I also think in some ways it may be her best. What's striking about The Ol' Razzle Dazzle is how melodic and 'catchy' it is.  There's something deeply ironic about opening an album with a smooth-sounding song about having writer's block, but that's exactly what 'Set Me On Fire' is. Mind you, the lyrics do say it was the lyrics that were the trouble, not the melody.  There are plenty of other songs with tunes that stick in the brain. The more I listened to this record in the period after Christmas, the more I enjoyed it.

I haven't listened to John Mayer's Born and Raised as much, but it also seems to be a pretty solid album. It has a very relaxed feel to it. Everything from the artwork to the lyrics makes it clear what kind of album you're supposed to be listening to, and while I won't claim to be any kind of expert on Americana it seems to tick all the right boxes.

Perhaps it's relative weakness is that 'ticking boxes' is often all that it does. Quite a lot of the songs seem quite safe in a way. However, you then hit something like 'Walt Grace's Submarine Test, January 1967' which is utterly magical and, as a piece of storytelling, completely unlike anything else Mayer has done.  As he himself seems to recognise in an interview I watched.

Year in Review

Only 116 albums listened to this year, down from 134 last year in the space of the 10 months I kept records for. I'm not sure if that means I listened to less pop music, or listened to the same things more often.  Certainly, things like my dedicated Tori Amos and Joni Mitchell sessions would have lessened the variety.  I haven't yet looked at the classical statistics, but I do suspect that there were periods of the year where I was very classically focused - if only to churn through the massive number of purchases.

New pop albums are comparatively sparse in comparison. New Tori Amos, Fiona Apple, the aforementioned Missy Higgins and John Mayer Christmas presents, Sting's Live in Berlin (still haven't tried the CD version of that yet!) newish Gotye and Washington, very old David Bowie, newly purchased but already familiar Bryan Duncan and Beth Orton.

There are actually several more purchases that I haven't even listened to yet.  Which I plan to soon, although I've also become reminded recently of a couple of things I purchased years ago and haven't unwrapped. It does happen, and sometimes it's nice to just put something aside for that day when I'm in mood for new music and I'm not in the mood to actually wade through completely unknown artists.