Thursday, December 31, 2009

Vic Chesnutt, gone but not forgotten

It feels like someone famous always dies around Christmas (although James Brown is the only one who springs to mind right now), and today I was saddened to hear (from an Uncut email newsletter) that Vic Chesnutt had died on Christmas day.

While he was very much of the Uncut 'genre' I have written frequently about in this blog, I first heard of Vic quite a few years before I read about him in Uncut, with 1995's 'Is the actor happy?'. That album featured a memorable duet with Michael Stipe, 'Guilty by association', which celebrated and bemoaned his sponsorship by his far more famous (then as now) fellow denizen of Athens, Georgia, as well as 'Gravity of the situation'. I read a bit about Vic then, and learned how he was rendered paraplegic by a car accident at the age of 18.

The famous (at least on these pages) Uncut CD 'Songs of the new west' then featured 'Until the led', a gloriously uptempo romp with Lambchop as his backing band, taken from their full album together 'The salesman and Bernadette', which I still rank as one of my favourites of the alt-country scene (although I do not necessarily think Vic fitted too neatly into even a category as wide-flung as that, and in fact I have no idea what category he ever fitted in to). 'Until the led' can be seen below:


I found some footage on Youtube of Vic with Lambchop, doing the latter's wonderful 'The saturday option' here:

I listened to Vic's later albums faithfully, and while none for me reached the heights of 'Salesman', there were always great songs to be found, such as 'Strange language'



And another uptempo romp in 'Band camp' from 2003's 'Silver lake':

The songs shown here, I think, demonstrate his characteristic and somewhat unmistakeable take on music and lyrics, which just didn't sound like anyone else. I have been listening today to a playlist of my favourite of his songs, which is as follows:

Arthur Murray
Band Camp
Bernadette & Her Crowd
Duty Free
Gravity of the Situation
Guilty By Association
Little Man
Maiden
Mysterious Tunnel
Old Hotel
Parade
Stay Inside
Strange Language
Until The Led
Woodrow Wilson

He also acted in the very good movie 'Sling blade', written and directed by Billy Bob Thornton, from which a clip featuring Vic can be seen here:

It seems clear from what I have read on-line, previously and since his death (e.g., see Guardian piece here) that Vic had a hard and troubled life, and that his early death (from an overdose of muscle relaxants) may well have been suicide. This is certainly a very sad tale, whose end was perhaps foreshadowed since that car accident left him in a wheelchair. All that can be said is that he left a great body of music behind, and made an impression on many, from those famous fans who have come out to praise him in recent days, to far-away fans like me. Click Here to Read More..

Sunday, December 27, 2009

Albums of the decade?

As well as albums of the year, the fact that the year itself has a '9' in it has inevitably resulted in a slew of lists of best albums of the decade; this time 10 years ago we were worried about the Y2K bug, and had never heard of an iPod; now we are worried about swine flu, and the CD is fast becoming something we expect to see in a museum in the near future.


Some of the lists I have found are as follows:

Uncut magiaxine (of course)
http://www.uncut.co.uk/music/uncut/special_features/13807

The Observer:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2009/nov/29/albums-of-the-decade

The Irish Times:
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/features/2009/1201/1224259791948.html

E-music:
http://www.emusic.com/features/hub/decade_albums/index.html

NME
http://www.nme.com/list/the-top-100-greatest-albums-of-the-decade/158049/page/10

So, what are the big winners? Common threads (easier to pick out than for the best of 2009, as commented in my last post) are as follows, in an ad hoc assembled meta-analysis top 10 (no particular order, not scientific methods applied).


Arcade Fire - Funeral (my thoughts of this have been clear on this blog before)
Fleet Foxes - Fleet Foxes (respected, but not loved)
LCD soundsystem - Sound of silver (stole Uncut's 1997 poll from 'Boxer' but did like some of it)
Radiohead - Kid A (never warmed to it, ever, not inclined to try again)
Robert Plant and Alison Krauss - Raising Sand (liked but not loved)
The Streets - Any of them (must admit to loving 'Dry your eyes')
The Strokes - Is that it? (everything about it put me off, never tried it)
The White Stripes - Elephant (recently commented on this)


The absence of alt-country music from most charts (with the occasional exception of Lambchop's wonderful 'Nixon') betrays why my tastes for most of the decade diverge from the lists. I know I am just showing my age here but I would tend to moan predicatbly that my favourite decade for music (so far) is the 1980s, but of course that was when all was new and wonderful and I was impressionable and suddenly interested - such formative influences cannot easily be shrugged off.

I will finish with two tracks I do like from common poll-toppers, the first being 'Crown of love' from Arcade Fire's 'Funeral':




and the second is 'You've got her in your pocket' from 'Elephant' by the White Stripes.


The last two posts have been on the theme of how my tastes and those of critical analysis do not seem to align very well. In 2010, I hope to blather on some more about my tastes, and we will just have to see if they ever converge (as they did, albeit briefly, in 2008) again. Click Here to Read More..

Saturday, December 19, 2009

Best of 2009 - back away from the mainstream again

It is close to that time of year again where multiple lists of the best albums of the year appear. In fact, I am being bombarded with two sets of lists, with one for the decade appearing also, but I will get back to them in a separate post.

At this point in 2009, I must admit that I feel a little let down, because I just don't think it was anywhere near the year that 2008 was. Where are my Glasvegas, my TV on the Radio, my Vampire Weekend? This time last year I wrote a post talking about how my tastes were suddenly in line with what every end-of-year poll listed, and wondered if I had been swept away into the mainstream (can be read here).

This year, I feel like I am on a different planet to the mainstream once again, gazing at it through a telescoope and straining to hear what sounds like music wafting towards me. I actually struggle to remember great albums this year beyond 'Wilco' by Wilco, from which the gorgeous 'you and I' (below) came:



In fact, my favourites have been compilations, specifically:

1. Dark was the night
2. Ciao my shining star
3. Music from the North Country (the Jayhawks)

The critics' lists have been quite diverse too, reflecting the lack of stand-out classics of the year. For example, Q magazine's top 10 were as follows:

10. Phoenix - Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix
09. U2 - No Line on the Horizon
08. Lily Allen - It's Not Me, It's You
07. Muse - The Resistance
06. Arctic Monkeys - Humbug
05. Manic Street Preachers - Journal for Plague Lovers
04. Animal Collective - Merriweather Post Pavilion
03. Yeah Yeah Yeahs - It's Blitz!
02. Florence and the Machine - Lungs
01. Kasabian - West Rider Pauper Lunatic Asylum


While Uncut's are at:

http://www.uncut.co.uk/blog/index.php?blog=6&title=the_best_of_2009&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1

I looked at the NME list and actually have not even heard of several albums in the top 10, and am astonished that I seem to only have 3 of their top 50. A few albums do pop up somewhat consistently, including the XX's debut, which I did download and quite liked, but certainly would not rave about. My favourite off it is probably 'Heart skipped a beat', as seen below:


The Animal Collective, Dirty Projectors and Grizzly Bear all got a lot of mentions too (in most lists), and I have all three albums, but nothing really grabbing me there either! These are in theory the kind of US indie music I have been in love with for several years, but none of those albums have excited me.

I also usually buy an album this time of year just because it appears in the lists and I think I should give it a go; I am also struggling to pick this, but at present the most likely contender is the Wild Beasts one, as it featured pretty strongly (including being no 1 in the Irish music magazine, Hot Press).

Hopefully this is just a slump (whether for me or the music industry remains to be seen) and next year will be better! Click Here to Read More..

Thursday, December 10, 2009

One Christmas song that slipped past

In my last post about Christmas music, somehow I forgot Mick Flannery's 'Christmas pas', re-released recently (after being on his first EP originally) with Kate Walsh guesting. Can't believe I forgot it but here it is belatedly in all its melancholic melodic majesty.


Better late then never!

Click Here to Read More..

Sunday, December 6, 2009

In cautious praise of Christmas songs, for the season that's in it

I guess it is that time of year where I am allowed to think of Christmas music, after my December 1 moratorium deadline on the matter has passed. In fact, I quite like Christmas music, for exactly 5 weeks per year, when I let my soft sentimental side shine through like fairy lights in a snowy mist (see what I mean?). Yes I know it is naff as hell, and it may be psychologically impossible to like Joy Division and Christmas music and retain any musical integrity or sanity (perhaps that is the sanity clause?), but for this season I soften the edges of my musical field of vision to allow some stuff that wouldn't be representative of my playlists the rest of the year creep through.

Anyway, the original Christmas music of my childhood was the Carpenters' Christmas album, which I actually went and bought again in a fit of tenstively-induced nostalgia on Christmas day from iTunes around 2 years ago. I must admit that, Christmas or not, crap songs and cardigans or not, Karen Carpenter has one of the most pure and beautiful voices of all time, so I will start with some unashamedly unabashedly naff 1970s Christmas music (like I said, I have a seasonal dispensation for this stuff, just for one post):





Moving (swiftly) along, I remember a charity CD in 1986 for the Special Olympics which included some good acts doing Christmas songs, and the stand-out by a mile was a tongue-in-cheek version of 'Baby please come home' by U2, which I rediscovered below:




Of course, that Christmas was the time of the Pogues' 'Fairytale of New York' and I know it is pretty bloody obvious to love that one but it sure does have something, and the line 'we kissed on the corner and danced through the night' gets me every time:




Moving ahead by over a decade brings me to Sufjan Stevens' massive Christmas set of a few years ago; as with all his work, it takes a bit of effort and not all of it hits the target, but there are always a few gems, in this case 'Sister winter' and 'Come on, let's boogie to the elf dance', neatly anchoring the opposite ends of the hedonic scale of Christmas from solemn to silly magnificently:







Moving ahead once again (this is like a selection of Dickens' Christmas ghosts!) brings us to the Killers' 'Great big sled' a few years ago, which is a very likeable and fun attempt at getting into the festive spirit (as was their 'don't shoot me Santa'):




The final song for this post brings me right up to this year and Bob Dylan's completely unexpected 'Christmas in the heart' CD, which I like against all expectations. It is perhaps typical that I do not like his critically acclaimed stuff and, when critics hate something (like this), I actually really like it, not in a 'judging by normal standards way' but in a 'judging by Chritmas standdards (when taste is allowed to go out the window) way'. My current favourite is the very Poguesian 'Must be Santa':




Normal service and standards will be resumed next post!

Click Here to Read More..
 
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