Confession time: I’ve never really liked AC/DC. I know, I know, a sin punishable by death, etc. But recently my opinion of the band from down under has started to change after a friend showed me this music video of the song “Let There Be Rock” from their 1977 album of the same name:
I think there’s a lot to like about this song. The first thing that attracted me to it was Angus Young’s deadly guitar riff that carries the whole song. Then Bon Scott proves himself to be a pretty quirky, funny, and entertaining frontman in this video. And it’s hard to resist AC/DC’s use of religious imagery and lingo to craft a worship song about rock music.
I tracked down the album and I actually found it to be pretty good. I still wouldn’t say I’m a fan yet, but I’m at least interested in the dirty rock’n'roll that these guys were laying down in the 1970s.
Any AC/DC fans care to recommend other songs I should seek out based on my interest in the one above?
Erykah Badu recently released a track titled “Window Seat” from her upcoming album, New Amerykah Part Two: Return of the Ankh, through her twitter. This album (one of the most highly anticipated 2010 records at Tone Marrow) is the follow-up to her brilliant 2008 record, New Amerykah Part One: 4th World War, and if this song is any indication, this will contain some of the same terrific neo-soul we heard on that album. The song was produced by Badu and James Poyser and features the drum stylings of the one and only ?uestlove.
One of the gifts that I gave my wife this Christmas was Kanye West’s divisive 2008 album, 808s & Heartbreak. She’s generally a fan of Kanye West and enjoyed a few of the singles from 808s and so I thought it’d be a good gift. I listened to the record back in 2008 when it was released and, like many other listeners, was disappointed. However, after the last month of listening to it in the car with my wife, it’s really grown on me.
Kanye West has in recent years been known for his excessive pride, public outbursts, and internet rants, but I think he’s at his best when he’s operating as an underdog. In retrospect, one of the best moments in popular music from the last few years is when West decided to officially introduce himself as a recording artist with his song, “Through the Wire,” which he recorded when his jaw was wired shut after a car accident that nearly took his life. Even now, listening to that track, West sounds like a confident artist bursting with potential. He’s certainly had a few PR backlashes since then and that has hurt his ability to project himself as an underdog.
The closest he’s come to regaining that underdog persona is on 808s & Heartbreak, which may be the best-selling emo (or blues?) album of the decade. Within a few months, West lost his mother, with whom he was very close, and broke off his engagement. So this record was birthed out of that time of loneliness and depression. West sought to do something different than his trilogy of school-related albums and, for better or for worse, he elected to make an electropop album, making heavy use of an 808 drum machine and the increasingly unpopular auto-tune voice effect.
Though not without it’s fair share of hooks (consider the two songs below as evidence), the album is not nearly as welcoming as West’s previous albums, in fact, it seems to intentionally keep it’s audience at arm’s length. It is clearly a personal album that was made with little concern for an audience’s expectation (many of West’s quotes around the album’s release confirm this). The record is icy and angular, creating a decidedly uninviting, emotionally frigid atmosphere. This electronic music provides the perfect backdrop to Kanye’s lyrics (which are sung via auto-tuner, not rapped) on love, heartbreak, and loneliness. And even the decision to use auto-tuned vocals seems inspired as it makes West sound somewhat robotic and isolated. And West sort of fancies himself as a bit of a non-human, robot on this album; he tries to paint himself as a man who’s experienced so much heartbreak, that only the shell of his humanity remains. The record is not without hope however, as West pushes the non-human metaphor a bit further with the live, freestyle closing track, “Pinocchio Story,” in which he compares himself to Pinocchio and desires “to be a real boy.” Ironically, through all of the robotics (also confirmed by the album photos in which Kanye stands rigidly in a quasi-Pee Wee Herman outfit), West has created his most emotional record.
Though it may be his most personal and sincere effort, this is still not my favorite Kanye West record– that distinction still belongs to his debut, The College Dropout– but this one is certainly underappreciated and it’s hid only record that perfectly captures a real emotional tone. However, I’m not sure how effective West’s attempt at rebranding himself as a sympathetic underdog was (after the Taylor Swift incident at the MTV Music Awards last year, I imagine that any goodwill he earned with this record has vanished), but he definitely confirmed his desire to stretch himself artistically, and in a world where you’re only as good as your last record, it was a bold move. Who knows what West’s next album will sound like, I imagine he’ll drop the auto-tuner and return to rapping, but right now, the possibilities are endless for him. 808s and Heartbreak has freed Kanye up and allowed him to make pretty much any record he wants (let’s hope he doesn’t follow his collaborator, Lil Wayne, by making a rock album). What I know for certain is that my wife and I spent the last few icy weeks of 2009 and the first few blustery weeks of 2010 listening to 808s & Heartbreak, and its tender heart and icy hooks convinced me that there may not be a better record to accompany the frosty days of winter.
OK, I’m back (maybe you didn’t realize that I was gone). For some reason my Spoon post attracted some attention because of the “Before Destruction” mp3 that I uploaded and I was unable to post anything here until it was resolved. What’s strange about this whole thing is that there were two songs on the Spoon post, the aforementioned “Before Destruction” and the single, “Got Nuffin.”
Apparently, posting the single violated no rules, while posting the other song did? Another curiosity is that though I uploaded the song to my website, I did not make it downloadable, only streamable. I can understand if I had put the song as a download on here, but I didn’t. I purchased a record, uploaded a song, and made had it streaming on my music blog, where I encouraged people to seek out said record. Weird.
Some music bloggers abuse mp3s and so we all must suffer, I suppose. But just in case I’ve never made it explicit before: Support musicians and buy their records. The reason I write these reviews is so that perhaps someone will stumble upon them, get turned on to a record they’ve never heard, and buy it.
So, what did I learn from this? I learned that if you’re going to post a song, make sure it’s the single. Anyway, should something like this happen again, they may kill Tone Marrow at WordPress, in that event, look for me at Blogger.
Look for a new review of an old album tomorrow. Coverage of 2010 records will pick back next week.
(A slightly different version of this review is posted at In Review Online.)
Spoon continues their consistently high-quality of output with the self-produced Transference, an album that is noticeably looser than previous Spoon records. In fact, some of these cuts are so loose and capacious that they have a raw, demo-like sound to them, which is remarkable (and somewhat refreshing) coming from the band whose last album, 2007’s Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga, was so carefully crafted that even the studio noises sprinkled throughout felt carefully planned.That wasn’t a bad thing, however, Ga Ga was a record focused on pop songcraft and it marked a high point in the music we’ve come to expect from Spoon.
Even though Transference feels like a really loose record, a closer listen reveals some surprising intricacies proving that Spoon always has been and always will be a studio band. Consider how Britt Daniels and company toy with the vocals on songs like “Is Love Forever?” and “Who Makes Your Money,” as the vocal tracks are cut—sometimes in mid-phrase—or are spliced together in strange ways. Then there’s the closer, “Nobody Gets Me But You,” which opens with a tight bass line but soon gives way to Revolver-esque reversed guitar riffs and the like. Or how about the glorious mess that is “Written in Reverse” which boasts banged out piano chords and out-of-synch vocals while never breaking its groove? Even when Spoon seems to be letting it all hang out, they are a serious, perfectionistic band and it shows in their work.
Though the demo-like quality to some of the tracks makes the album initially feel more immediate than previous Spoon recordings, the hooks are certainly less catching here than those on Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga. This is evident from the very first track, “Before Destruction,” which is a slow burner that at times almost sounds lo-fi (on a Spoon record!) and there are several moments when the music breaks leaving only a casually strummed acoustic guitar. Compare this to previous album opener “Don’t Make Me a Target” which kicked Ga Ga off with a bang.
However, a few listens reveal that beneath the rough edges and studio tricks lie some great singles. “Got Nuffin,” released last year as a single is included near the end of the record and arrives at just the right moment. The guitars and piano form a snappy rhythm as Daniels waxes about leaving behind loneliness in favor of love and prepares us for the love song finale, “Nobody Gets Me But You.” Then there’s “I Saw the Light,” a song which sounds like a typical Spoon cut without really revisiting old territory.
Not many bands could pull off a carefully crafted record that feels so tossed-off while providing intriguing studio experiments and memorable singles. Then again, there aren’t a lot of bands like Spoon. With Transference, Spoon remind us of their strengths, show off some new tricks, and kick open the door to a new decade offering the possibility that perhaps their best work is yet to come.
I’m going to start trying to bring you a great mp3 every Monday– let’s call it MP3 Monday. This week we have the terrific new song from Caribou (Dan Snaith & company), “Odessa,” which appeared online last week. You’ll remember Caribou from their highly acclaimed 2007 album, Andorra. “Odessa” is our first taste of the new Caribou LP, Swim, which drops on April 20 via Merge Records, and if this song is any indication, it’s going to be a album worth seeking out. Enjoy!
Despite growing up in the dear old Southland, I’ve never been a huge fan of old gospel music. Much of the what I encountered as a youth felt dull, passionless, and, forgive me, fake. But after hearing the 2009 collection, Fire in My Bones: Raw, Rare & Otherworldly African-American Gospel, 1944-2007, I think I just may have been going to the wrong churches. The music on Fire in My Bones is vibrant, inspired, and full of holy fire. The collection, produced by Mike McGonigal for Tompkins Square, is a sprawling work that cannot be considered anything but essential for fans of black gospel music.
Fire in My Bones has a wide variety of music but is focused primarily on post-WWII African-American gospel music. And the real victory of the collection is that most of the songs included here have never been heard by more than a few hundred people. McGonigal collected many of them from old 78s at recording studios, radio stations, and churches. Because they were locally recorded, most of these have never been widely distributed until now. It’s worth the price of the record just to hear how this gospel music incorporated the popular music of the times. Were these gospel tunes influenced by the blues, folk, rock ’n’ roll and soul of the day? Was it the other way around? Perhaps it’s a little bit of both.
Everything about T-Model Ford (born James Lewis Carter Ford) seems to come right out of the blues legend playbook. First of all, no one, including T-Model himself, know how old he is, though he’s probably around 90. He served time for murder and allegedly arranged for another murder to take place while on the chain gang. He didn’t begin playing guitar until he was 58, and as he tells it on his newest record, The Ladies Man, within a week women were leaving their husbands to come hear him play the blues. T-Model Ford resides in Mississippi, birth place of the Delta blues, and can be found picking the blues in all sorts of backwoods blues joints and bars. And as legend has it, he once played an eight-hour set in one of them. You can’t make this stuff up. T-Model Ford may be the truest and bluest bluesman still picking the six-string.
Though recording this album for a new label, Alive Records, Ford’s blues style still falls into the dirty, greasy Southern category. He has clearly been influenced by Delta bluesmen like Robert Johnson as well as the Chicago blues stylings of Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf. Ford keeps things traditional here with his acoustic guitar but there’s plenty of harmonica and drums adding color to the background in these songs. The songs collected here consist of blues classics like Muddy Waters’ “Two Trains” and Little Walter’s “My Babe” as well as new versions of some of Ford’s own songs like “Chicken Head Man.”
The most intriguing thing about this record is that it sounds like a documentary film. Ford will play a blues song (often with a light, loose backing band) and the recordings sound like live studio performances. And after many of the songs, Ford will talk or someone in the studio will ask him questions about his life which he answers– sometimes humorously– before playing the next song. “I can’t read, can’t write, can’t spell what I love,” he declares at one time and you’ll swear it’s the blues-iest thing you’ve ever heard. It gives the record a live, warm feel and makes it almost immediately welcoming.
T-Model Ford proves he still has some of that legendary stamina here as well. These ten songs (and one spoken track) clock in at just under an hour and five of them pass the six-minute mark. The nearly eight-minute opener, “Chicken Head Man,” is something to behold. Ford gets in the blusey groove early on and neither hell nor high water and going to get him out of it. Perhaps his fellow musicians were having trouble keeping up with the 90-year old because he calls out during the middle of the song, “come on, white boy,” which elicits laughter in the studio. It’s little touches like this that make The Ladies Man feel less like a record and more like a live blues show in your living room.
Frankly, I wasn’t aware that there were old bluesmen around still making music like this. So it comes as an encouraging surprise to stumble across a record as welcoming and classic-sounding (in a good way) as this one. T-Model Ford is an old man, his words aren’t always discernible and he occasionally fumbles through his blues licks, but this only adds character and charm to what is the best traditional blues record I’ve heard in quite some time. The Ladies Man’s structure begs us to view T-Model Ford as a living legend, and after spending some time with these old-fashioned blues songs and Ford’s larger-than-life blues persona, it’s a hard claim to deny.
1. The Tallest Man on Earth (aka Kristian Matsson, the Swedish guy who made the terrific 2008 album Shallow Grave) has signed with Dead Oceans. (Does this means Shallow Grave may get a proper US release some day?)
2. He has a new album, The Wild Hunt, coming out on Dead Oceans on April 13. The cover, which is a bit similar to the cover of his debut, is above. Here’s the tracklist:
01 The Wild Hunt
02 Burden of Tomorrow
03 Troubles Will be Gone
04 You’re Going Back
05 The Drying of the Lawns
06 King of Spain
07 Love Is All
08 Thousand Ways
09 A Lion’s Heart
10 Kids on the Run
3. One of the tracks has already been released. Here it is:
My reaction: This song doesn’t capture me in the same immediate way that many of the songs on Shallow Grave did, but it shows potential. Considering that his sound is comprised of only one stringed instrument (typically guitar or banjo) and a voice, it’s a bit surprising that this song has a slightly different sound from his earlier work. After two listens, I like it, but don’t love it. Still super excited about this record.
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Why do I care?
1. His first album, the aforementioned Shallow Grave, was amazing and made my Top Records of 2008 list.
2. This guy is the real deal. Of all the people who have been burdened with the label of “The Next Dylan,” this guy deserves it and it doesn’t seem to weigh him down a bit.
3. He recorded this awesome song on his 2006 self-titled EP:
As I’ve been adding records to my personal upcoming release calendar, I was thinking 2010 was looking like a stellar year. This news, well, this takes it up a notch.
Posted by Gavin Breeden 
