She gets it while she can

I finally got around to watching that new Beatles documentary.  I admit that, even for a Beatles nut like myself, it felt daunting: 8+ hours of them sitting around smoking and drinking tea and playing “I’ve Got a Feeling” a thousand times and fracturing under the tremendous weight of who and what they were. Did the world really need more Beatles content?

The pre-marketing of Get Back promised to “set the record straight” about the original Let It Be project.  Peter Jackson and co. would show us that their break-up really wasn’t the acrimonious, Yoko-induced feud that we’d been fed, that there was still sublime musical collaboration going on, that they hadn't lost their Liverpudlian cheekiness, that The Beatles were still The Beatles. And yes, the film checks those boxes. We feel the tension (especially when George bails for a while in Part 1), but we also see how much they loved playing music, and loved the creative process, and loved each other.

But the joy of watching Get Back is not about seeing something new. It’s about seeing everything that leads up to all the magical stuff we already know is going to happen. We know that pretty soon, Billy Preston’s going to show up and breathe life into the sessions. That George is going to stop passive-aggressively noodling around with his wah-wah pedal and come up with the sublime descending lead part during the verses of “Don’t Let Me Down.”  That Ringo’s eventually going to change his drum part on “Get Back” from a straight 4:4 to the sly gallop that propels the song. That these snippets of “Something” and “You Never Give Me Your Money” and “Carry That Weight” are going to coalesce into the miracle that is Abbey Road. 

We also know what will happen to John 11 years later.

The ostensible climax of Get Back is the rooftop concert in Part 3. It isn’t really much of a “concert:” they only play a few songs, and the people down on the street below can’t even see them, and John forgets some of the words, and his fingers are too cold to play the solos well. But they are still glorious, and people down on the street stop and look up and try to see this music that seems to come from the heavens. 

Playing amplified rock music in the middle of London is noisy, and at a certain point the cops show up. “Is this really necessary?” one of them asks, with a British politeness that is almost laughable (one suspects that the Minneapolis PD wouldn't react to a similar situation in quite the same way). He repeats the question a few times, as do the few (mainly older) people out on the street who are complaining about the noise. "Is this really necessary?"  

I wonder if any of those people are still living, and if they saw this movie and thought about the question they asked. What exactly did they think was more “necessary” than stopping what they were doing and listening to the vocal harmonies on “I Dig a Pony?” Catching the next bus? Getting home for dinner? Sleeping? Making sure the wheels of commerce continue to turn undisturbed? 

As I’ve mentioned before, it feels like it gets harder to complete my Critics Poll with each passing year. Between work and doing the dishes and amateur epidemiology, it’s not easy to keep up with what new music has come out, much less to listen to it critically and try to put a year-end list together. I can’t say that I did a great job of it this past year. I crammed most of my listening into December and January, so I’m sure I missed a lot of good stuff. But I keep doing it because all these artists will be gone one day, and so will I, and so will you. Because there are more important things than the next Zoom meeting. Because music is more than entertainment or a sound bed for an Applebee's ad. Because music and the artists who make it and the emotion and meaning it carries are, indeed, necessary. 

 Top Ten Albums of 2021

10. Miranda Lambert, Jack Ingram & John Randall – The Marfa Tapes

Lo-fi country replete with tape hiss, beer cans cracking open, and what sounds like a campfire, or maybe a horse nibbling on straw. These are bona fide Country Music Stars, so you suspect that the casualness itself may be produced, but there’s no denying the songs and the performances.      

9. Tyler, the Creator – Call Me if You Get Lost

What in God’s name is Tyler, the Creator doing rapping about Geneva, Switzerland?  I suspect that he hasn’t ventured too far away from Quai Wilson, but in any case it’s refreshing to hear an American call his passport his most valuable possession.  

8. St. Lenox – Ten Songs of Worship and Praise for Our Tumultuous Times

Andrew Choi brings the confessional indie-pop heat. This deserves more than a one-line summary, especially given the “spiritual” leanings of this here website, but I haven’t listened to it in a while, and I don’t want to do it injustice. Trust me on this one. 

7. Juan Wauters – Real Life Situations 

Like a long Saturday afternoon ride on the 7 train; at each stop, the doors part to reveal a pure, gorgeous glimpse of life in the city.  The protagonist is a very likeable Uruguayan transplant, who breaks the 4^th wall mid-album to say he hopes we’re enjoying ourselves.

6. King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard – LW  

Melbourne's favorite microtonal freaks release the 7,000^th album of their career.  This was my first foray into the “Gizzverse” (eew), and I can imagine how easy it is for young impressionable types to venture in there and never find their way out. 

5. Black Country, New Road – For the First Time

Progressive Klezmer played by some uni-types from Cambridge, UK.  RIYL: Morphine, The Lounge Lizards, John Zorn. The vocalist, who does more of a basso profundo spoken-word thing, might not be everyone’s cup of tea, but I dare you to sit still through this one.  

4. Espanto – Cemento

As if someone had commissioned Kraftwerk to score a Spanish-language version of Teletubbies directed by David Lynch.  No, that’s not right: the synths might feel cold and distant, but Teresa and Luis are coming with mucho joy and love and warmth here. Recalls Dead Media by Hefner, come to think of it.

3. Bad Bad Hats – Walkman

Groovy, well-structured, sympathetic female lead singer, even more sympathetic guitar tones. Aspiring pop music producers, take note: pulling out the bass guitar for the verse and then bringing it back in for the chorus is a very useful maneuver.

2. The World Is a Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid To Die – Illusory Walls

Triumphantly captures the vertiginous bridge between prog and emo. Like Muse without the stadium pretense. I think having a female vocalist helps. Drums like cannon fire. 

1. Kiwi Jr. – Cooler Returns

I find myself wanting to apologize for putting these dudes from Toronto at the top of my list. There are certainly other acts with better chops, more thematic consistency, more scrutable lyrics, (certainly) more sex appeal.  I think I compared them to Pavement last time out, and the lead singer does indeed bear a timbric resemblance to Stephen Malkmus. But these guys don’t have the same need for irony or archness. Sometimes good songs, played well with winning energy are enough. Being Canadian probably helps too.

Story Time

 

Twitter is the Lust of Dante’s Circles of Social Media. It’s still hell, but things could be a lot worse.  Amongst the trolls and doom and Capital One promotions, one does find some interesting stories and glimpses of humanity. Maybe a better metaphor is Twitter is the Marshalls of social media: it’s not a pleasant place to be, and you're going to wade through an awful lot of crap, but there are a few decent items to be found.

One such decent item is Story Club by George Saunders, which came to me courtesy of Maria Bustillos. It’s essentially an English class held on Saunders’ substack. It’s behind a paywall, but it’s great value for money if you’re a fan of the written word, and/or if you believe that engaging with stories in a thoughtful way might be an important and helpful thing to do, especially at this particular moment. We started by reading a Hemingway's “Cat in the Rain,” one paragraph at a time over the course of a week: kind of the antithesis of the Twitter experience.

There are writing exercises as well. Last week, the assignment was to write a story of 200 words (exactly 200, not 199 or 201) using only 50 unique words. So you keep a running tally of the words you’ve used, and once you get to 50, you have to start re-using words (or go back and swap out another one, but the grand total can’t exceed 50). And you're supposed to do this in only 45 minutes. Judging from the comments, many of my fellow students had the same experience I did: you hit 50 words pretty quickly (I think I was at around 90 total words), and then you find yourself in an awkward spot.  But then some interesting things happen as you wriggle free.   

My attempt:

“Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking, and I am happy to welcome you aboard on today’s flight to Oahu. Our flight time today will be only two hours, and Connie and her team are here to make your flight as pleasant as possible.

And I would like to go ahead and welcome you newlyweds aboard today! Congratulations! Time flies. I remember. A good time. A pleasant time. 

A time you would think would go on and on being good and pleasant. Right, Connie? Go ahead and remember. Our time was good and pleasant. This was our time. You think you are happy today, but I would like you to remember. You and I are right. You and I are a team. We would be happy. I am speaking here. Your captain is speaking to you. 

And to you newlyweds: your time is like this flight. Be happy here, but the hours will go and go. Hours and hours. You are here. This is possible. Today will welcome you. You have this today and you think you are happy, but remember: today is only today. Today will go. Make your today right. Go ahead.      

Have a pleasant flight. Mahalo!” 

How do you get to Carnegie Hall, etc.

Our UK/IRE team started an Interfaith Council, and they asked me to record a short video for Interfaith Week, which is this week.  Here is what I said:  

Thanks very much to the team for inviting me to share a “Thought for the Day” for Interfaith Week.  I think it’s wonderful that you’ve created this forum, and in a society which so often seems to want to put up walls and emphasize the differences between faiths, it’s been such a joy to hear people talking about how many consistencies there are across different faith traditions.

So I wanted to share a thought today about the practice of faith, and how important and powerful I think faith practices are.  I think that so often when we talk about faith, we talk either about identity (like “I am a Christian, or a Muslim, or an agnostic.”) or about beliefs (like “I believe in Heaven and Hell,” or “that my God is the one true God.”)  Now, identity and beliefs have their place, but it can be problematic to talk about faith only in those terms.  Focusing on a religious identity can reduce people into camps: “these people are my people, and the rest of you are outside the tent.”  Focusing on beliefs can lead to problematic debates about which beliefs are “true,” and which aren’t.  Beliefs also have a way of evolving over time.  Most importantly, thinking about faith only through that lens of identity or beliefs keep us mired in our own subjective reality – as we focus on who we are and what do we think, we turn away from other people, and we turn away from God.

I think the practice of faith, on the other hand, is different.  When we attend a house of worship, we take time out of our weekend for quiet, and reflection, and communion.  When we pray we make ourselves humble and vulnerable before God.  When we fast, we demonstrate self-restraint, and we set our own desires aside.  Similarly, when we meditate, if we do it correctly, we intentionally turn off our monkey brains and seek a stillness which is kind of a prerequisite for experiencing the divine. 

Now, I’ve just named a few “traditional” religious practices, but I would argue that practices which bring us closer to God are not restricted to formal faith traditions, or even to people who consider themselves religious.  Doing charity work, spending time in nature, or going for a long run are all practices that help us feel a connection with something greater.  And that’s what any faith practice is about: helping us turn away from ourselves, toward God, and toward others. 

So, this week, I encourage you to think about how faith is practiced, and maybe renew your commitment to a certain practice, or try a new one.   One theme that comes through in every faith practice is one of sacrifice.  In today’s world of instant gratification, the concept of sacrifice doesn’t play so well.  But I’m reminded of a great quote from Nasim Taleb: “Love without sacrifice is theft.  Particularly the love of God.”

With apologies to Candidate Moree

I realized on Monday night that Tuesday was Election Day and that I had no idea who to vote for.  It’s not a “big” election year – in Cambridge, only city council, school council and three questions were on the ballot – but I still felt like I should vote, to do my civic duty in a country where civics seem to be on shaky footing, and to honor my inchoate belief that local politics somehow matter, perhaps moreso than national politics, which at this point are basically a circus / opportunity to reaffirm one’s sociopolitical tribal allegiances.  To wit, this morning I saw Democrats far north of the Mason-Dixon line gnashing teeth and rending garments because a Republican won the Virginia Governor’s race. 

So on Monday night I opened the laptop and began the problematic exercise of trying to evaluate around 25 candidates based on a ~60 second video clip and a few bullet points.  This being Cambridge, there were no QAnon zealots or other obvious kooks, and they all echoed many of the same themes: affordable housing, fair wages, diversityequityinclusion, etc.  So with little to go on as far as “issues,” I found myself rating candidates based on superficialities: this one seemed reasonable, that one looked uncomfortable reading from her laptop, that one was wearing a shirt I didn’t like.  I did my own “diversity” calculations, looking for a balance between incumbents (who might know what they’re doing, but who might just as easily be jaded organs of certain unsavory powers) and newcomers (who might bring fresh eyes and new ideas, but who also might have no idea how to operate in local government).  This also included complicated trade-offs around race and ethnicity, as I found myself searching for equilibrium among Black/White/Asian, younger/older, immigrant/native, activist/pragmatist.

Last year, when we were planning to move from Europe to Cambridge, I had toyed with the idea of getting involved in local politics, maybe at some point running for something.  I realize now that I wouldn’t stand a chance: Joe and Jane Cambridge are not interested in voting for a carpetbagging representative of Big Pharma when they have their choice of lifelong Cambridge residents, Harvard graduates, second-generation Haitians who grew up in public housing, etc. 

After an hour or so, I had typed my list of favored candidates into a “Note” on my phone (Cambridge does ranked-choice voting, so you need to pick more than one).  On Election Day, I managed to sneak out during a window between meetings and walk over to my voting place, conveniently located at the middle school on the next block.  I entered the gymnasium where volunteers stood behind long folding tables on the sidelines of the basketball court, and I helped the tall, young light-skinned Black guy locate my name on a printed list.  They didn’t ask for an ID, which I admit felt a little odd, even though I have read all the articles you have about how voter fraud is not really a problem and that “voter ID” laws are discriminatory and suppressive.  A fleece-vested retiree handed me a black felt-tipped pen and three papers of different lengths which kind of nested together neatly, and I made my way to midcourt, and the curtained round high-top tables where you fill out the ballots.  The tables reminded me of the portable urinals I’ve seen at running races in Europe: chest-high, yin-yang shaped fiberglass structures which demand the uncomfortable act of peeing while you’re facing another person who is also peeing.

After feeding my completed ballots into something resembling an industrial shredder (I noted the “Dominion” logo embossed on the lid), I exited the gym and started home.  At the corner I encountered a middle-aged guy in glasses and a baseball hat who was carrying a “Gregg Moree for City Council” sign, and whom I realized I had seen there most mornings this fall during school drop-off.  I thought the red, white, and blue “I voted” sticker on my left jacket breast might confer immunity from canvassing, but he approached undeterred.  He said to me, loudly and with severe indifference to the integrity of one’s personal space, “YOU LOOK LIKE A SMAHT GUY, SO WOULD YOU GIVE THIS TO ONE OF YOUR FRIENDS?”  He handed me a 4x6 “Gregg Moree for City Council” flyer, and, after a quick glance at it, I realized that I stood before Gregg Moree himself.  On the back of the flyer was a photo of Gregg Moree next to an auburn-haired woman, who smiled nervously and seemed to want to escape out of the frame of the photo.  Below the photo was a subtitle: “SUPPORTED BY VICKY KENNEDY,” a fact which Gregg Moree now highlighted by saying, “SUPPORTED BY VICKY KENNEDY!”  I wouldn’t know Vicky Kennedy from a hole in the ground, but I suppose that name-dropping a Kennedy is a safe bet when running for office in Massachusetts.

I wished Gregg Moree luck, put the flyer in my pocket and continued home.  At the corner, I pulled out my phone to make sure that Gregg Moree was not one of the people I had just voted for.

Out and back

Slabs of smartphone lycra’d to each outer thigh, a lithe woman in a Harvard hat smiled at me as she approached.  I didn’t have time to react before I saw that the object of her smile was not me, but a butterfly, a gold and black Platonic ideal of a monarch, which floated between us.  After we passed each other, the butterfly sailed alongside me for a moment, hovered, then executed a skittery descent into the warm grass.

Later I turned onto Huron Avenue and confronted a wild turkey on the sidewalk.  As I approached, I scanned my scarce turkey knowledge, trying to recall if they were territorial or not, and if by continuing I would risk a serious pecking from a creature around half my height.  I held my breath and kept to the right, and as I passed, the turkey averted her eyes, as if searching for something, and we continued our respective ways.  Not unlike what two humans do in similar situations.

The air became hotter and denser, and I lost a few moments.  Time and distance passed, it seemed, without me.  These long runs are good for one’s physical health, but, as I’ve mentioned before, there’s also spiritual fruit which Saturday morning mortification bears.  The early mystics talk about annihilation, but John Main (a Benedictine monk and real-life mystic himself) saw it differently: “This is why we pray to the degree that we turn away from ourselves, from the possessive self-consciousness and trivial distractedness… If this sounds like annihilation it is only because it is a description of the unified consciousness of transcendence…far from being annihilated, we are fully, wonderfully restored to ourselves…we know the wonder of our being, the beauty of life, the centrality of love.”

Alexis de Jokeville

I expected to have all sorts of pithy observations after returning to America after so many years living abroad.  I suppose my main observation is how quickly and efficiently I have been reabsorbed into the American work cycle, which devours all of one’s time and energy and leaves very little room for pithy observations.  I think it mainly has to do with the time zone and my company’s tendency to begin every day with meetings at 7am or 8am (there’s even a 6:30am call on my calendar this week).  So that by the time the workday ends, one doesn’t have much left in the tank for anything else.

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In our neighborhood there are, staple-gunned to telephone poles, signs which read, “CASH FOR DIABETIC TEST STRIPS,” in black all-caps scrawl on a safety yellow background.  A visitor to Cambridge might see this and not understand what it means.  I’m not sure if I understand what it means.  I assume it means that someone (call them Person A) will give money to someone (Person B) in exchange for the strips they use to measure their blood glucose, under the assumption that someone else (Person C) who needs them will pay a greater amount of cash for them.  In the most optimistic scenario, this is a simple correction of a supply imbalance: Person B ended up with too many test strips – maybe because they recently purchased a new blood glucose monitor – so they make a little money off of them rather than throw them in the garbage, and Person A can make a legitimate margin for their service connecting buyer and seller.  Like Air BnB, but for medical supplies.  But what about Person C?  The scenario assumes that they aren’t able to get test strips – which they need so they don’t die – by means other than buying them off the black market.  Not to mention the darker scenarios: Person A sells their test strips not because they have extras, but because they need the cash and they’re willing to roll the dice and test their blood glucose a little less frequently; or Person A’s cousin steals their test strips and sells them to Person B because they need the cash; etc.

One would assume that this sort of hustling and margin-chasing would be unnecessary in a developed country with a functioning health care system.  One would be mistaken.

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The dryer has turned all my nice Hanro undershirts into crop tops.  This isn’t the ideal look for me.

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On Easter Sunday, I got up early and drove down to Cambridge Common for the 7am outdoor service that Harvard-Epworth was putting on.  On my way down Mass Ave, the maroon minivan in front of me kept slowing down as if to turn right but then changing its mind at the last second and continuing straight.  After a while, I semi-angrily passed it, and then saw that it pulled in behind me to park at one of the meters next to the common, as the driver too was on his way to the outdoor service.   

Around 40 people were arranged in three-ish rows which emanated out like the wifi symbol.  I was greeted by Alissa the divinity student from Arkansas, who handed me an order of service, which they call a “bulletin” here.  I said hello to a few people I didn't know, and I thought I recognized one of the women from the Lent group Zoom, whose name I want to say is Terri or Charli or something like that.  I caught Pastor Herb’s eye, and we exchanged waves.

It was a short service, which was appreciated because we were standing outdoors in the early-April chill, squinting into the rising sun, and my glasses kept fogging because of the FFP2 mask I was wearing.  A brief welcome. “Morning Has Broken” (which we were asked to sing in sotto voce). The standard reading from Matthew with the stone rolled away, including the great line which landed especially heavily this year: “Why do you seek the living among the dead?” A short message from Herb, in which he inverted the stone being rolled away not so JC could come out as much as we could enter in and join him. “Christ Our Lord Is Risen Today,” whose melody will be familiar to the C&E churchgoing crowd.  Since these are Methodists, it's the Charles Wesley version, which includes the superb middle-finger-to-Satan of a 3^rd verse (Lives again our glorious King / Where, O death, is now thy sting? / Once he died our souls to save / Where's thy victory, boasting grave?).  All atop an audio bed of whoosh from the passing cars on Mass Ave on one side and Garden Street on the other.

At a few points during the service, we engaged in some "Christ is risen!"/"Halleluiah!" call-and-response, an activity which several years ago I probably would have felt very self-conscious about doing in any setting, much less while standing in the middle of a public square in broad daylight.  But for whatever reason this year it didn't feel awkward at all, and in fact it felt cathartic and right to praise the coming of spring, the promise of rebirth, the hope of return.

Do Fear the Reaper

 

We’ve been driving around a lot since we arrived, and I’ve learned that Boston rock radio stations have two basic settings: a) songs which belong on a mixtape somebody made for your high school reunion: when you hear them for the first time in a long time, they have kind of a thrilling, guilty-pleasure quality to them, but after multiple listens within a narrow window they become horrifically tedious; and b) songs from a band called “Aerosmith.”

Setting a) includes tunes like “Back in Black,” by AC/DC.  As a red-blooded American male, I shamelessly concede that the hi-hat-plus-muted-power-chord count-in before the triumphant opening Emaj always gets my motor running, but by the time the third solo rolls in, and Brian Johnson is pummeling you with his umpteenth “HEY HEY HEY HEY HEY,” you realize there’s a reason you don’t spin this record at home so often.

Same goes for tracks like “Livin’ on a Prayer” and “Eye of the Tiger.”  They possess a certain loin-tugging allure, but after hearing them for the tenth time in a single weekend, you’re ready to steer your car into Fresh Pond.  “Cum on Feel the Noize,” “The Final Countdown,” “I Want You to Want Me:” the list goes on and on.  Or rather, it doesn’t, because the list only has a few dozen songs on it.

Don’t get me wrong: these are all great rock performances (okay, maybe not “The Final Countdown”).  And far be it from me to doubt the magnetism of Robin Zander or the charisma of Rick Nielsen.  The point is not that these aren’t good songs; it’s just that IMHO there are other songs worth spending time with.  And it makes me wonder about the mentality of the supposed listener.  Are there really people out there whose aren’t interested in hearing anything recorded after the first Bush administration? 

Of course, it’s not called commercial radio by accident.  The playlist is curated purely and specifically to lubricate the wheels of commerce – to keep the listener engaged long enough to make it to and through the next batch of ads.  Classic rock targets demographics (Boomers and older Gen Xers) who spend a lot of money.  And I imagine that, by delivering a steady infusion of songs which those demographics associate with their teenage years, the program directors are seeking to push certain buttons.  Buttons which might be labeled “freedom,” “fun,” “sex,” “drugs,” etc.

Still, those listeners have other choices, especially nowadays.  So why is that a market like Boston can still support a good half-dozen classic rock stations, even when a gazillion other songs are only a Bluetoothable phone swipe away?  I suspect that some people simply like to be reminded of what it felt like to be 16, especially while sitting in a mind-numbing commute.  Nostalgia for lost youth is good business.

As I put my top ten list together for 2020, I realize there’s an undercurrent of music snobbery going on here.  As if, by faithfully sitting through a bunch of albums made by people who are closer to my daughters’ ages than to mine, I demonstrate my superiority over the guy who Pavlovianly cranks up the volume at the opening bars to “Love in an Elevator."  A strong case could be made that the same quest-for-lost-youth/fear-of-death is motivating both of us.

More importantly: rest in peace to the lead guitar player for the first band I ever saw live, and who pretty much single-handedly redeems any classic rock playlists he's on.  Thankfully, he's on all of ‘em.

 

My listening schedule was truncated this year by our move to the US, but I still managed to cobble together a Critics Poll ballot for 2020. 

 

Top Ten Albums of 2020

 

10. Kiwi Jr. -- Football Money

You listen to this and you realize that Pavement took themselves much too seriously.

 

9. Andy Shauf -- The Neon Skyline

Linear narrative indie folk rock.  Vocals bear more than a passing resemblance to Paul Simon

 

8. The Beths -- Jump Rope Gazers

Seems at first like a fairly standard power-pop quartet fronted by a woman, and then it occurs to you that she’s singing melodies which remind you of someone, and that someone is Joni Mitchell.  The band is also super-tight. I see that they’re Kiwis, and this year this does seem to be the year for quality releases from ANZAC acts.  The video for “Dying to Believe” is also great.

 

7. Peter Oren -- The Greener Pasture

Indiana baritone sings about horses and cows, which you might expect, and about humanity and technology, which you might not.  The subjects collide beautifully in the album cover art, a cattle ranch envisioned by Sim City, and by “Don’t Eat Their Feed,” which is not actually about hormones and antibiotics in cattle feed.  Or is it?

6. Sarah Walk -- Another Me

This feels like it’s not at all my genre, mainly because I am not a lesbian, but I found this irresistible.  I love her singing voice, and she employs a nifty trick of riding on the same note with the vocals while chords are changing underneath (this worked pretty well for John Lennon).  Tim Merle’s drumming is also outstanding, even though he only plays on like 2 songs.

5. Morrissey -- I Am Not a Dog on a Chain

I understand that we are supposed to disapprove of Morrissey now, because of things he’s said about Brexit or something.  I'm sorry to say I haven’t been paying attention to all that, but I can say that when it comes to how one should consider mass media, or one’s mortality, the Moz is still worth a listen.

 

4. Poppy -- I Disagree

Like the demonic love child of Mr. Bungle and Girls’ Generation.  At first glance, she might seem like she’s trying to ride in the slipstream of the latest Harley Quinn major motion picture release.  But the songs are really good, and the backing band is really, really good.  Not something I’d listen to on a quiet, rainy Sunday afternoon, but this demands attention, in the same way a carjacker demands attention. 

3. Silvana Estrada -- Lo Sagrado

I want to call this deconstructed Mexican music.  The elements are there – female vocalist in Spanish, acoustic guitar, cowbell, horns – but played and arranged in a way that lets something extremely special breathe through.  And the songs are gorgeous.  And the guitar player (who evidently plays a guitar with like 26 strings on it) is amazing.  And the drummer is incredible.  The album is not called “The Sacred” for nothing.

Postscript: the day before we left Switzerland, I was giving a ride to a young brass musician to whom we had given a washing machine and some furniture that we wouldn’t be taking with us.  We struck up a conversation, and, upon hearing that he was Mexican, I put this on the car stereo.  After a few bars, he said, “Ah I know her.  Silvana was my brother’s girlfriend for a while at music school.”  Mundo pequeño.

2. Elizabeth Cook -- Aftermath

Evidently this woman has been singing at the Opry for two decades, but this is closer to Kula Shaker than Roseann Cash.  Overdriven vox, tight-but-not-uptight backing band, and lyrics that sound like they’ve been written by someone with some actual Life Experiences.

 

1. Tame Impala -- The Slow Rush

This isn’t my favorite Tame Impala album.  It might not even be my second-favorite.  But Kevin Parker’s grooves have a way of insinuating themselves into your consciousness, and in retrospect, it seems inevitable that an album about time a would end up on top in 2020.

 

Bonus content for all you lovers out there: my notes on the listening schedule below. Caveat emptor. 

* = recommended

 

070 Shake – Modus Vivendi

I didn’t realize until side 2 that the artist was a woman and not a man, and it forced me to recalibrate my assessment of this.  Initially I was thinking this was ersatz The Weeknd with a strong 808s and Heartbreak influence, which it still is to some extent.  But for some reason the story of betrayal and relationship-collapse lands differently when it’s a woman singing about it.  The converse was true when Leo Marochioli covered “Poker Face.”

 

*2ndGrade – Hit To Hit

GBV meet the Minutemen, with a nod to Real Estate up the Turnpike.  Melodies which climb to the top of the water tower to gaze at the landscape, before unzipping the backpack to get at the mixed beer cans individually smuggled out of their parents’ fridge.

 

Angela Aguilar – Baila Esta Cumbia

She’s got a great voice, but the rich, creamy sauce of horns, strings, and accordion are laid on a bit too thick for my taste.  Listening to Francophone radio over here, one often encounters accordions, and these meetings typically don’t go well. 

 

* Ingrid Andress – Lady Like

This comes up as “country” on Apple Music, and there’s a wisp of pedal steel on the opening track to orient the listener just in case, but this does not get bogged down in genre stereotypes (she in fact decries the shortcomings of drinking one’s problems away, which is especially welcome).  High-quality singer-songwriter stuff in which every relationship is complicated, which hard-hitting couplets like: “Love me or don’t / But you can’t do both”

Fiona Apple – Fetch The Bolt Cutters

I tried like seven times to listen to this during the course of 2020, and for one reason or another I never made it past the third track. 

 

* Vanessa Carlton – Love Is an Art

One of those female singer/songwriters whose vocals are recorded with that technique that allows you to experience every glottal stop as if you were inside her glottal.  She grew on me over the course of the album, and I think she’s at her best when she’s channeling her inner Tori Amos.  The piano playing is very good, too.

 

Gus Dapperton – Orca

Kind of like the Early November, but after all the distortion pedals had been confiscated.  All those emo guys are really theater kids at heart.

 

Lana Del Rey – Violet Bent Backwards Over the Grass

You won’t find this on Apple Music, because it’s not music per se.  Del Rey released a book of poetry this year, and this is her reading it over a bed of incidental, reverbed-out electric piano, through what sounds like an iPhone in her backyard, where the whoosh of traffic and/or the ocean can also be heard.  I happened to read a lot of Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes this year, and with those two as a reference, Del Rey’s poems are a bit hit-or-miss, but I’m sure her fans are devouring this like those chocolate-covered açai berries from CVS.  

 

* Lupe Fiasco & Kaelin Ellis – House

Like the ultra-smart guy in your freshman dorm who talked about the cosmos and was stoned a lot, but who was still a really sympathetic character.  Hyper-intelligent and -observant rapping about metaphoric dinosaurs and shilling on the Internet and covid, over somniferent beats.  Guest starring architect and designer Virgil Abloh, who squeezes every last drop out of the “soul/sole” homophone,

 

* Carly Rae Jepsen – Dedication Side B

In CRJ’s world, romantic relationships aren’t at all complicated.  And I suppose there’s a certain point in every romantic relationship in which things are bright and pleasant and optimistic and you can’t imagine why it wouldn’t stay like that forever, and during those times it’s best not to think about it too much and just enjoy it while it lasts.  An interesting contrast to Ingrid Andress. 

 

Tkay Maidza – Last Year Was Weird, Vol. 2

Quality singing and rapping from an Australian by way of Zimbabwe, or vice-versa.  She hits her stride around mid-album, topped by the barn-burning “Shook.”  Brimming with talent, but I fear she has nothing much to say, and there should be a one-per-album limit on ending a couplet with “tetris.”

 

Megan Thee Stallion – Good News

It’s “of a piece” with “W.A.P.,” though the album doesn’t quite reach the raunchy glory of the single, and a full-length becomes extremely tiring.  Her producer’s incessant employment of her vocal quirk of saying “aaah” like there’s a tongue depressor (or, um, something) jammed into her throat becomes anxiety-triggering after a while.

 

Mildlife – Automatic

Psychedelic, groovy, experimental – all qualities which would normally float my boat.  And yet: trying to impersonate Pink Floyd, much less Tame Impala, is not the sure thing one might think it is.  These guys can certainly play, but I got the feeling, somewhere between the flute solo and the Al Jarreau guitar/scat bit, that they were showing off.

 

Roisin Murphy – Roisin Machine

I was happy to see everyone’s favorite insane Irish disco queen back at it, evidently with some strong label support.  I really wanted to love this, and there are some bright moments (“Kingdom of Ends,” “Gamechanger”), but too often this sounds like standard-issue EDM.   

 

* Nas – King’s Disease

Like Philip Roth in his last decades, Nas has nothing left to prove to anyone, yet he still delivers high-quality stuff that you want to engage with.  My only gripe is with the production, which sounds a little tinny, but it could have been a headphone issue.  Also, as a gout sufferer myself (it runs in the family), I appreciate Nas’s advice on the lemongrass and cherries. 

 

* Open Mike Eagle – Anime, Trauma and Divorce

Deft rapping over backwards-sounding backing tracks.  “WTF Is Self-Care?” an early front-runner for funniest song of the year.

 

The Proper Ornaments – Mission Bells

I listened to this while taking one of the cats to the douane to pay the fee that his breeder should have paid when he (the cat) originally entered Switzerland from Slovakia where he was born, without which we wouldn’t be able to take him to the US in 9 days, a scenario I don’t even wish to imagine, and which was probably not the ideal set of conditions for listening to this album.  Some interesting chord changes, but I believe the artist you are looking for is The Clientele.

 

Caroline Rose – Superstar

Mostly keyboard-driven, mostly danceable pop music.  The Apple Music notes say this is some sort of concept album, but it mainly reminded me of the music I used to hear through my gay neighbor’s door in the mid-90’s.  Great bass playing though, although I can’t find who’s playing, despite extensive googling.

 

Troye Sivan – In A Dream

Like the love child of Justin Bieber and James Blake.

 

Soccer Mommy – Color Theory

Young indie-ish singer-songwriter who strains to hit the high notes now and then, but is otherwise fine to have on while you’re cooking dinner.  “Yellow is the color of her eyes” is a great song.  She’s right to let those chord changes go on for 7 minutes.  Good candidate for should be sent to the minors, etc.

 

The Streets – None Of Us Are Getting Out Of This Life Alive

I first need to get over my need to grammar edit the album title: to change the “Are” to “Is,” and to delete “Life.”  Mike Skinner is back on the horse, with some bumping electro keyboard and trademark ambivalence about phones and the people who use them.  He sounds a little tired, but don’t we all at this point.   

 

The Strokes – The New Abnormal

What does one do when the denim and swagger starts to wear thin?  Retreat to 80’s synth and guitar sounds perhaps, or try to sing like Bono?  I feel like they may be onto something with the last couple of ballad-y tracks, but it felt like a slog to get there.

 

Taylor Swift – Folklore

A convincing Liz Phair impersonation, from the laid-back throatiness of her delivery to the carefully placed f-bombs.  This being Taylor Swift, I’m not sure if I totally buy the casual act, but the songs are certainly good enough.  Oh, look, she just dropped another album this year as well.  I suppose one can only make so much sourdough. 

 

Devon Williams – A Tear in The Fabric

Back in the mid 90’s when I was playing in a band in New York City, we would usually be booked with four or five other acts, each of which would get around 45-minute sets.  One night I remember there was another band playing which was clearly filled with music school guys: they were all very good at their instruments, and they were a bit older than the rest of us (the bass player was probably pushing 40).  They had a bald drummer, who from time to time would wink at the bass player.  The songs weren’t terribly good, and it seemed to me like there was something very intentional about them, if that makes any sense.  Anyway, for some reason this Devon Williams album reminded me of them.  Fans of The Church and Geddy Lee’s low notes might find this interesting.

 

* Hayley Williams – Petals For Armor

I’ve never really gotten into Paramore, so I don’t feel like I have the proper context to approach this.  Her people seem to have listened to some St. Vincent over recent years, and it sounds pretty damn great in these new Shure headphones I borrowed from my wife.  I’m not sure if she has anything interesting to say, but I recommend this for the drum textures alone.