CD Odyssey Disc 1170: Conor Oberst

Today I was mistaken for a rock star by a new server at our favourite restaurant. OK – that may be overstating it. She said I looked like “a musician from California” but that’s close enough. I call my style ‘aging rock star’ so it is nice to have an affirmation that people are picking up what I’m putting down. Also, she left out “aging” which was nice.

Disc 1170 is… Salutations

Artist: Conor Oberst

Year of Release: 2017

What’s up with the Cover? Nirvana's "Nevermind" twenty years later and with one less dollar. I wonder how he held his breath that long…

How I Came To Know It: I had liked Conor Oberst’s 2016 album “Ruminations” quite a bit, and while I resisted “Salutations” for a few months (for reasons explored later in this review) I eventually broke down and bought it.

How It Stacks Up:  I have three Conor Oberst albums – his most recent three, in fact. Of those three I must reluctantly put “Salutations” in at…#3. Since this represents my full list of Conor Oberst albums here is a recap:

1. Ruminations: 5 stars (reviewed at Disc 1071).
2. Upside Down Mountain: 4 stars (reviewed at Disc 961)
3. Salutations: 4 stars (reviewed right here)

Ratings: 4 stars

“Salutations” breaks a lot of my rules for what makes a good album and even invented a new way to annoy me, but I still came away loving it. Rules are well enough, but a love of good music is the one rule that trumps all the others, and this record is loaded with good music.

First, the traditional annoyance: this record has 17 songs, which is way too many songs. Even when the songs are as good as these, I expect an artist to keep things to a maximum of 14 tracks. Anything more and it is just too hard to stay focused.

Now, the new wrinkle: 10 of those 17 songs are repeats from his 2016 album “Ruminations.” On “Ruminations” Oberst went for a stripped down ‘demo’ sound, with just him singing and a single guitar or piano, with a little harmonica here and there. On “Salutations” he has re-recorded all of them with full instrumentation.

The result is a smoother, more polished sound that sometimes had me liking the song more, and sometimes had me longing for the stripped down version on “Ruminations.” While I enjoyed hearing the songs again (“Ruminations” is a 5-star album, so we are talking about a collection of amazing songs) it still felt wrong making me buy them all a second time only a year later. Technically I didn’t have to buy them all a second time, but with seven new songs it was hard to resist.

So how good are the seven new songs? Pretty good, actually. The best of them, “Too Late to Fixate” leads the record off. It is a song about mid-life crisis and desperation. A man decides to meditate to put his mind at ease, but instead his mind wanders through his failing marriage and cheap thrills. The lyrics are a clever mix of awareness, denial and dark humour:

“My wife takes a vacation; one she can’t afford

I go fishing the alleys for someone to escort

No, I don’t mind the money. It beats betting on sports

And though it might get expensive it’s cheaper than divorce

And I love her torn stockings and lipstick of red

Is it too late to fixate on that instead?”

This is brilliant stuff, rich in imagery and speaking to larger, deeper issues that are present in every character Oberst explores. His gift with language is exceptional throughout the album, and put him in the heady company of Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen and the other greats.

Musically, Oberst is equally gifted. The slow and meandering sway of “Till St. Dymphna Kicks Us Out” perfectly mirrors the experience of too much drinking over way too many hours. Oberst matches his lyrics thoughtfully to the melody as well. At one point near the end of the song he sings:

“Let’s get enabled, great minds think alike

I never was a good judge of when to call it a night.”

Is followed by a walk-down that feels like the song is wrapping up, but instead it lifts up again, whirling through a few more bars, just like our narrator staggers his own way through a few more drinks when he should be calling a cab.

The album has multiple references to the excesses of drugs and drinking, with recurring themes of tipping one back before noon. On “Afterthought” (another excellent “new” tune for this record) Oberst sings:

“I thought about breakfast but settled on wine

Always choose hunger over despair”

And a lot of the songs feature unison background singing, adding a barroom vibe that would make Tom Waits proud.

There isn’t much bad to say about the record, and I’ve deliberately skipped discussing some of the better songs (“Tachychardia”, “Barbary Coast”, “Next of Kin”) simply because I talked about them at length when I reviewed “Ruminations”.

For all that excellence, I was able to find three of the seven new songs (“Napalm”, “Empty Hotel by the Sea” and “Salutations”) that are good but that I could live without. If these were removed, the album would be back down to a tasteful and restrained 14 tracks. Of course, we would have eliminated the title track in the process and what would we call the album then? How about…Ruminations?

If Oberst had really wanted to show the acoustic vs. full production differences of the songs there are other ways to do it. Both Frank Turner (“Positive Songs for Negative People”) and Billy Bragg (“Mr.Love & Justice”) do it by including a bonus acoustic CD in a single package. If he’d done that, “Salutations” would have easily achieved the 5 stars “Ruminations” did – it is that good. But he didn’t, and so I’m going to be a hard ass and drop it down to 4.

However you rank it, “Salutations” is one of the better indie folk album you will ever hear, so don’t let my pet peeves stop you from doing the right thing. Go buy it.

Best tracks: All 10 that are also on Ruminations, plus Too Late to Fixate, Overdue and Afterthought.