July 2011 - Popular Music

Okay, so August was kind of a rough month...

Not so rough that I didn't listen to music or keep notes of what it was, but I didn't really have much opportunity to sit down and reflect on the music. So if you'd care to cast your mind all the way back to July...

Tori Amos

• Under the Pink
• The Beekeeper
• American Doll Posse
• Abnormally Attracted To Sin
• Spark part 2 single (Spark/Do It Again/Cooling)
• A Piano: Disc A - Little Earthquakes Extended

Elvis Costello - Extreme Honey
Sheryl Crow - The Globe Sessions
Garbage - Garbage
Gomez - Bring It On
Gomez - Split the Difference
Sarah Harmer - All Of Our Names
Natalie Imbruglia - Left of the Middle
Jars of Clay - If I Left the Zoo
Level 42 - Running in the Family
Wendy Matthews - Ghosts
Joni Mitchell

• Clouds
• Blue
• Dog Eat Dog
• Turbulent Indigo

Moloko - Things to Make and Do
Over the Rhine - Ohio
Pearl Jam - Binaural
Pearl Jam - Backspacer
Plumb - Chaotic Resolve
Radiohead - Hail to the Thief
Radiohead - King of Limbs
Seal - Human Being
Seal - Seal IV
Something for Kate - The Official Fiction
Talk Talk - The Colour of Spring

Gosh. Is it really over a month since I listened to some of these?

I suppose the most notable thing is that I was making purchases. Natalie Imbruglia was a second-hand purchase the month before (same time as Billy Joel), which is really just a fairly light piece of pop listening but it's still enjoyable.  Gomez' first album Bring It On was a new purchase as I get so much out of the 3 I already owned. It's funny what different ordering does to your perception: I know that their debut was when they got lots of attention and the Mercury Prize, but so far I mostly hear an enjoyable band that hasn't got the sophistication of later releases or the amazing command of their resources. It's like they've bought a very fancy new car but are driving it a bit cautiously while they make sure it's all in working order.

Another new purchase was Pearl Jam's Backspacer, continuing the little PJ excursion I seem to be on. I will probably end up with all their albums now, but it's more interesting jumping around in order. I was certainly impressed with their latest. This is Pearl Jam being relatively relaxed and comfortable and, dare I say it, ever so slightly pop.

There was a nice little Joni Mitchell binge, much of it on one weekend. That's the first time since I started this that someone other than Tori has managed more than 2 entries in a month. Not enough to end Tori's dominance though (and, um, I think it gets worse in August...). I even pulled out a single this time. I listen to singles quite rarely, but I decided they deserve a database entry as much as the longer players.

This month also proved again the benefits of going back to listen to things with fresh ears. I can't remember the last time I listened to Chaotic Resolve. It always ranked as one of the more disappointing purchases I'd made.  The best tracks were the ones I already knew, and the best of all was actually a bonus - a remix of a song from a previous album.  Listening to it again, probably for the first time in a couple of years at least, I got more out of it. It's still not a classic, and I doubt I'll ever regard it as one - the music is too square, the lyrics too awkwardly obvious - but I did get enjoyment out of it and that's really the main thing. Not every album can be my favourite album ever or an intense listening experience.

And again, there was more proof of the idea that a large library of music means you can find the right thing at the right moment.  I've never had great love for Seal IV. It's sat there on the shelf, and every now and then I've looked it and asked why it couldn't be more like it's older brother Human Being.  July was the month that I discovered that, when you've spent a couple of days hearing just how shockingly horrible one human being can be by calmly massacring a teenage summer camp, an album that is as light and silvery as its cover and full of touches of hope might just be the best solution you can come up with.

June 2011 - Popular Music

Tori Amos

• Little Earthquakes
• From the Choirgirl Hotel
• Abnormally Attracted to Sin
• Audience bootlegs - San Diego 20 November 2001 (2nd show), Paris 27 November 2001, Amsterdam 28 November 2001, Brussels 1 December 2001 (plus someone's attempt at faking a recording of Hamburg 29 November 2001...)

Fiona Apple - Extraordinary Machine
The Badloves - Get On Board
Kate Bush - Never For Ever
Kate Bush - Hounds of Love
Tracy Chapman - Collection
Paula Cole - This Fire
The Corrs - Forgiven, Not Forgotten
Crowded House - Together Alone
Gomez - Split the Difference
Gotye - Like Drawing Blood
Sophie B. Hawkins - Whaler
Billy Joel - River of Dreams
Maroon 5 - Songs About Jane
Roisin Murphy - Ruby Blue
Beth Orton - Central Reservation
Pearl Jam - No Code
Pearl Jam - Binaural
Something for Kate - Desert Lights
Rachael Yamagata - Elephants... Teeth Sinking Into Heart

Various thoughts for this blog have zipped through my head at some point, here are the ones that stuck:

Billy Joel's River of Dreams was a second-hand purchase during the month.  Many years ago I was relying on a cassette copy of this album, I think made from my sister's legitimate CD version.  I hadn't listened to that copy for a long time, but I decided it was time to reacquaint myself with the album, and this time to do it the right way.  I think the music has survived the passage of time pretty well. In particular, the album makes a fine transition from the more aggressive and bitter sounds on side one to the gentler side two.

It's also quite fascinating to hear the song 'Famous Last Words' after all this time.  When it came out, everyone wondered whether it was Joel's way of saying he wouldn't make any more albums, and whether he'd stick to that.   18 years later, and he's been true to his word. Having run out of things he wanted to write music about, he stopped.  Good on him.

The Pearl Jam exploration continues with a return to Binaural.  I remember being excited by this one when I first listened to samples in a shop, something like a decade ago.  However, it turns out to be a rather patchy affair.  The biggest flaw is the production - rather ironically for an album with a name highlighting the special recording techniques used, the sound is often quite muddy and sucks the life out of many of the songs.  'Sleight of Hand' in particular drowns in a sea of murk.

I was inclined to blame new producer Tchad Blake, but then Wikipedia claimed that the band was actually dissatisfied with Blake's work and wanted the mixes to sound 'heavier', and so brought in their old producer.  Judging from the final results, this was not a terribly smart move!

Rachael Yamagata is a wonderful artist that one of my American friends introduced me around 6-7 years ago.  I just wish to God that she hadn't followed the exasperating trend of splitting her quieter and louder songs onto two separate discs.  It makes no sense to me, musically, to reduce contrast in this way. Contrast means interest. It means the ear is attracted by something new.  Music is fundamentally an art of judging the right balance between repetition and variation, and removing one of the options for variation tends to upset the balance.

I do listen to Elephants...Teeth Sinking Into Heart with the songs in the presented order, but this is one of those extremely rare examples where I've also created my own shuffled version with the faster songs interspersed through the work.  In terms of pacing, the result arguably plays quite a lot like Yamagata's first album Happenstance, and that's certainly not a bad result in my book.

May 2011 - Popular Music

Tori Amos

• Boys for Pele
• To Venus and Back (studio disc - 'venus orbiting')
• Strange Little Girls
• American Doll Posse
• Audience bootleg - Canberra 16 September 2007

Blur - The Best of
Toni Childs - House of Hope
Melanie C - Northern Star
Sheryl Crow - The Globe Sessions
dc Talk - Jesus Freak
Gomez - In Our Gun
Patty Griffin - Impossible Dream
Jennifer Knapp - The Way I Am
Lifehouse - No Name Face
Wendy Matthews - Ghosts
John Mayer - Continuum
Joni Mitchell - The Hissing of Summer Lawns
Joni Mitchell - Don Juan's Reckless Daughter
Pearl Jam - No Code
Radiohead - The King of Limbs
Something for Kate - The Official Fiction
Sting - Brand New Day
Talk Talk - The Colour of Spring
Talk Talk - Spirit of Eden
Thrice - The Alchemy Index

Almost exactly 20 years ago, someone passed on to me the idea that you have a real library when there are books in it that you've never read.

Arguably I'm trying to negate that idea with this whole concept of keeping track of what I've listened to and ferreting out over time the albums that are hiding away.  But I would certainly subscribe to a couple of related ideas: you have a real music library when there are things in it that you haven't heard for so long that they can feel fresh.  And also, you have a real music library when you can find something to tap into a specific mood when you need to.

Both of those ideas were nicely demonstrated when I listened to The Official Fiction towards the end of the month.  Of the four Something for Kate albums I own, I would usually rate it as my least favourite.  As a result I hadn't listened to it for quite some time - looking at the list of track names before I played it, I found that only about half of them, maybe less, triggered a specific musical recollection.  To use a visual metaphor, the album is very brightly lit - it's full of major keys, and strings, and harmonies in thirds.  It's lit to the point where the shadows are washed out by overexposure.  My recollection of the album as a whole was that the sense of melody becomes a bit too much.

But last weekend, I was in a mood where it was exactly the right thing.  I had an 'aha' moment when I finally identified it as the one CD out of the hundreds in my house that would hit the right emotional spot, because of the unique combination of SFK's trademark earnestness and intensity with this album's particular 'brightness'.  I played The Official Fiction quite a lot over the course of a few days.

Another demonstration of the richness of a large library was No Code, which I bought in February 2010 but hadn't really got to know.  Pearl Jam are a good example of how I respond to some artists, where I know I like them but want them to make me fall in love, and they never quite do.  Actually, in Pearl Jam's case they did manage it once, with Vs.  Ever since then I've dipped into other albums in the hope of them achieving something similar.

So, when I bought No Code second-hand, listened to it once or twice and wasn't blown away, my initial reaction was to mentally sigh just a little and file it away with the other reasonably satisfying Pearl Jam albums that usually get passed over in favour of Vs.  But picking it up again this month with more focus, I started to like it quite a lot.  Where Vs thrilled me with its tightness (especially 'Animal', which is the song that turned me into a fan and which I still think is one of the most brilliant sub-3 minute songs I've ever heard), No Code is a much looser and relaxed affair.  It twists and turns in unexpected directions, and I enjoyed myself once I let the odd excursions wash over me with a sense of adventure.

Finally, another album I pulled out for the first time in at least a couple of years, maybe several more, was Jennifer Knapp's The Way I Am.  When this album came out in 2001 I was still in the closet and Jennifer was one of the rising stars of the contemporay Christian music scene.  Now I'm listening to it, and I'm out as a gay man and Jennifer is persona non grata to most of that scene because she's told the world that she's a lesbian and has been in a relationship since 2002.  It's hard not to listen and wonder how much of her struggle is present in the album - especially the title track.  It's also hard not to relate because her story has so many parallels with my own.