Music I've Been Enjoying Lately
1. Adele's 21.
I have a few tracks from her first album, 19, that I like, especially "Hometown Glory." I never bought the album, but after listening to 21 I think I'm regretting the years of pleasure I could have had but missed. (She names her albums after her present age.) From 21, in addition to her present Hot 100 number one song "Rolling in the Deep" that one can hear everywhere around here now, I'm loving "Someone Like You," "Turning Tables," "Rumor Has It," and especially "Set Fire To The Rain."
2. Terakaft and Tinariwen
These are two Tuareg groups from the Sarara Desert north of Mali. Two guitarists from Tinariwen, which has been around since 1979, formed Terakaft, and their sounds are very similar. Here, read from Wikipedia. I think this best describes the make up of Tinariwen well:
"Tinariwen has always been a collective of singers, songwriters, and musicians, who come together in different combinations to play concerts and to record. This is because of the nomadic lifestyle of the Tuareg people and the difficulties of transportation and communication in the Sahara region."
My sense is that Terakaft is more of a "concrete" band and less of a collective, but I could be wrong. At Last.fm they're described as "a gang of guitars." I also learned that Terakaft means "the caravan" there.
It's difficult to describe their music, but one of the tracks I have I found on an album called "The Rough Guide to Desert Blues." I have another album with similar music called Saraha: Blues of the Desert. So I'll call them Desert Blues. I can't understand the lyrics, of course, but I'm told that some of the songs I have deal with love and some of the songs I have deal with their experience in an ongoing civil war. You can feel love and war in every song, though.
3. Lady Gaga's Born This Way
Since it's new and all, I've been playing this all week just to discover what I like and what I can pass on for now. I can pass on "Bad Kids" and "Hair" for now. I think as a bald former teacher, I should get a pass on those.
I am enjoying "The Edge of Glory" the most, I'd say. It feels exciting in a way that some of the great pop of the early eighties felt at the time. I feel she is the granddaughter of the Wall of Sound. (Not the granddaughter of Phil Spector, I wouldn't wish that on her. Although I'd imagine she'd probably shoot him back.)
Bruce Springsteen's Born To Run album, and then again parts of his Born in the USA album, were the sons of the Wall of Sound, and in this odd way she's used that same style or technique on many of the cuts on this album. I truly don't think it's an accident that the word "born" is in the title of this album. (Clarence Clemons of the E Street Band contributes a sax solo to "The Edge of Glory.")
Next up are "Marry the Night," "Highway Unicorn," "You and I," and yes, thank you, "Bloody Mary."
4. Paul Simon's So Beautiful Or So What
There are some beautiful songs on this album, especially the title cut. He's tapping into a deeper mystery on this album. Every beautiful part of this album is fleeting and delicate, like a flower that cannot be touched.
He's drenched in mortality on the album, but often in truly fun ways. "The Afterlife" is an example of that. He imagines getting to heaven and having to stand in line. He describes basically being shuffled through the bureaucracy of heaven and the various souls he runs into along the way, suffering through it just like him.
Many of the songs feel like an honest attempt to sum it all up and pass something on to the people he cares about, presumably his children and maybe grandchildren, and really coming up with nothing. He knows everything he's going to know, but there's nothing he can really pass on. Whatever it is he sees cannot be described. (That's really my feelings about the title cut lyrically and the arrangements in general throughout the entire album musically.)
The same way he described the very experience of youth so well for Simon and Garfunkel, he's now presenting equally evocative music about being where he's at 70.
5. Danger Mouse & Daniele Luppi Rome
I'm still trying to get a handle on this album. Danger Mouse has been a big part of several of my favorite albums of the past five years, as producer of Gorillaz' "Demon Days, as half of Gnarls Barkley for St. Elsewhere, and as half of Broken Bells for their album of the same name. At one point half of my top 25 most played songs on iTunes belonged to Broken Bells.
This time he's paired up with Italian composer Daniele Luppi, about whom I know nothing, and recorded a rather high concept album. It's an homage to Ennio Morriconi, the great composer who gave us the music to all those great "spaghetti westerns" of the sixties. They recorded it in Rome with many of the same musicians and singers who took part in those original recordings in the sixties.
Jack White sings on three songs and Norah Jones sings on three more; otherwise, the rest of the album is instrumental. The album is really worth checking out, but if you want to start with a song or two I'd recommend "Two Against One" featuring Jack White and "Season's Trees" featuring Norah Jones to start.
I have a few tracks from her first album, 19, that I like, especially "Hometown Glory." I never bought the album, but after listening to 21 I think I'm regretting the years of pleasure I could have had but missed. (She names her albums after her present age.) From 21, in addition to her present Hot 100 number one song "Rolling in the Deep" that one can hear everywhere around here now, I'm loving "Someone Like You," "Turning Tables," "Rumor Has It," and especially "Set Fire To The Rain."
2. Terakaft and Tinariwen
These are two Tuareg groups from the Sarara Desert north of Mali. Two guitarists from Tinariwen, which has been around since 1979, formed Terakaft, and their sounds are very similar. Here, read from Wikipedia. I think this best describes the make up of Tinariwen well:
"Tinariwen has always been a collective of singers, songwriters, and musicians, who come together in different combinations to play concerts and to record. This is because of the nomadic lifestyle of the Tuareg people and the difficulties of transportation and communication in the Sahara region."
My sense is that Terakaft is more of a "concrete" band and less of a collective, but I could be wrong. At Last.fm they're described as "a gang of guitars." I also learned that Terakaft means "the caravan" there.
It's difficult to describe their music, but one of the tracks I have I found on an album called "The Rough Guide to Desert Blues." I have another album with similar music called Saraha: Blues of the Desert. So I'll call them Desert Blues. I can't understand the lyrics, of course, but I'm told that some of the songs I have deal with love and some of the songs I have deal with their experience in an ongoing civil war. You can feel love and war in every song, though.
3. Lady Gaga's Born This Way
Since it's new and all, I've been playing this all week just to discover what I like and what I can pass on for now. I can pass on "Bad Kids" and "Hair" for now. I think as a bald former teacher, I should get a pass on those.
I am enjoying "The Edge of Glory" the most, I'd say. It feels exciting in a way that some of the great pop of the early eighties felt at the time. I feel she is the granddaughter of the Wall of Sound. (Not the granddaughter of Phil Spector, I wouldn't wish that on her. Although I'd imagine she'd probably shoot him back.)
Bruce Springsteen's Born To Run album, and then again parts of his Born in the USA album, were the sons of the Wall of Sound, and in this odd way she's used that same style or technique on many of the cuts on this album. I truly don't think it's an accident that the word "born" is in the title of this album. (Clarence Clemons of the E Street Band contributes a sax solo to "The Edge of Glory.")
Next up are "Marry the Night," "Highway Unicorn," "You and I," and yes, thank you, "Bloody Mary."
4. Paul Simon's So Beautiful Or So What
There are some beautiful songs on this album, especially the title cut. He's tapping into a deeper mystery on this album. Every beautiful part of this album is fleeting and delicate, like a flower that cannot be touched.
He's drenched in mortality on the album, but often in truly fun ways. "The Afterlife" is an example of that. He imagines getting to heaven and having to stand in line. He describes basically being shuffled through the bureaucracy of heaven and the various souls he runs into along the way, suffering through it just like him.
Many of the songs feel like an honest attempt to sum it all up and pass something on to the people he cares about, presumably his children and maybe grandchildren, and really coming up with nothing. He knows everything he's going to know, but there's nothing he can really pass on. Whatever it is he sees cannot be described. (That's really my feelings about the title cut lyrically and the arrangements in general throughout the entire album musically.)
The same way he described the very experience of youth so well for Simon and Garfunkel, he's now presenting equally evocative music about being where he's at 70.
5. Danger Mouse & Daniele Luppi Rome
I'm still trying to get a handle on this album. Danger Mouse has been a big part of several of my favorite albums of the past five years, as producer of Gorillaz' "Demon Days, as half of Gnarls Barkley for St. Elsewhere, and as half of Broken Bells for their album of the same name. At one point half of my top 25 most played songs on iTunes belonged to Broken Bells.
This time he's paired up with Italian composer Daniele Luppi, about whom I know nothing, and recorded a rather high concept album. It's an homage to Ennio Morriconi, the great composer who gave us the music to all those great "spaghetti westerns" of the sixties. They recorded it in Rome with many of the same musicians and singers who took part in those original recordings in the sixties.
Jack White sings on three songs and Norah Jones sings on three more; otherwise, the rest of the album is instrumental. The album is really worth checking out, but if you want to start with a song or two I'd recommend "Two Against One" featuring Jack White and "Season's Trees" featuring Norah Jones to start.