CD Odyssey Disc 1384: Neko Case

Welcome back to the CD Odyssey! This next album is one of my favourites, and given how many albums I have, that’s saying something.

Disc 1384 is…. The Virginian

Artist: Neko Case & Her Boyfriends

Year of Release: 1997

What’s up with the Cover? Neko’s disembodied head floats like an ivory cameo on a black background (well, it is supposed to be black – there’s some glare in my photo).

This album cover was so artfully designed it won first place in photography at the Virginian County Fair. As you can see.

How I Came To Know It: I can’t exactly remember. I think I discovered her around 2009, around the time “Middle Cyclone” came out. “The Virginian” was just me digging back through her catalogue to see what I’d missed.

How It Stacks Up: If you count the 2004 live album “The Tigers Have Spoken” (and I do) I have nine Neko Case albums. Of those nine, I rank “The Virginian” at #1. In many ways it is tied for first place with “Fox Confessor Brings the Flood” but the two albums are so different it is hard to compare them.

I realize this is a controversial choice, and invite you to rank it differently when you write your own music blog.

Ratings: 5 stars

If you like women to sing you songs in coy whispers, “The Virginian” is not the album for you. Neko Case’s solo debut is big, bold and brassy. It will blast you across the room with its raw power and you will love every minute of it.

Raw power exactly what this record embodies. The nuance and subtlety that Case would develop on future records isn’t much to be found on “The Virginian.” She blasts these songs out like she’s standing in some Sun Records studio in 1957, vice-grip around one of those big steel toaster-oven microphones, sound pumping out of her diaphragm like a hurricane. While I love that nuance and subtlety she’d develop on later records, I didn’t miss it one bit here.

The style of the record bears only hints of what she would do later. “The Virginian” is a love letter to old-timey music, with homages to fifties and sixties rockabilly, and later country crooners and belters of the late sixties and early seventies. For all that it still feels vibrant and current and filled with a restless energy that will make you want to move.

Case’s voice is like a one-woman army. Everyone in the band plays big and brash to match her, but she’s still the obvious star of the show. Her power is undeniable, and the tone feels like its going to lift you off the ground. Every time I listen to the album’s title track, I feel imbued with some kind of otherworldly energy. The melody is tailor-made for Case’s style (I can safely say this, as it is one of the originals). It digs deep into you and lifts you up. The song is about a woman who rejects God, but when you hear Case’s vocals triumphantly belt out:

“She fell away
She fell away
She fell away from the side of the Lord
Then she was free to do what she wanted
With clouds of her own”

You can feel she was saved all the same – albeit by herself. I have tens of thousands of songs in my collection, and “The Virginian” is, and always be, one of my favourites.

Case is equally adept at filling her soul (and yours) with cover songs. She does a version of Scott Walker’s “Duchess” and Loretta Lynn’s “Somebody Led Me Away” with exactly the same transcendent power.

In terms of writing credits, this is the least “Neko Case” record short of her “Canadian Amp” EP. She only cowrote half the twelve songs. The other half are classics ranging from early sixties Ernest Tubb through early eighties Loretta. In every instance (and I mean every instance, Loretta included), Case makes the song better.

On the lighter side, Case takes on up-tempo rockabilly sounds with originals like “Karoline” and “Honky Tonk Hiccups” (the latter by her collaborator Matt Murphy). These songs will make you want to jump up and dance with abandon. I have done so many times over the years and heartily recommend it. She even converts the Queen song “Misfire” into rockabilly. And yes, she makes it better too.

Case only cowrote half the songs, but it doesn’t matter one whit. She makes the classics her own, pushing them to new heights, and her new songs are every bit as good, leaving no downturn regardless of the source.

If you are expecting the more nuanced and soulful folk-rock Neko Case has recorded in recent years, this album may be a shock to your ears. It is a different beast altogether. However, if you can park your expectations at the door you are in for a treat. My biggest problem with this record is I put it on too often, and I’m afraid one day I’m going to wear out my love for it. Not so far.

Best tracks: All tracks, but let’s mention a bunch anyway: Bowling Green, Jettison, High on Cruel, Karoline, Lonely Old Lies, Honky Tonk Hiccups, The Virginian, Duchess, Somebody Led Me Away.

Apologies to the other 4 songs, which are also excellent.