CD Odyssey Disc 1610: Maire Brennan

For those of you wondering if I will be posting a list of my Top 10 albums of 2022 this year, fear not – I will be doing exactly that. I am still working through the 80 or so good albums I listened to this year to make the list.

While we wait, here’s a review of an album released way back in 1992 that in no way whatsoever would have made a top 10 list for any year.

Disc 1610 is…Maire

Artist: Maire Brennan

Year of Release: 1992

What’s up with the Cover?  Yech. A gratuitous “look at my baby” picture. I’m sure this is designed to look touching, but I can’t help but wonder if this baby about to bite Maire’s face like some kind of infant vampire.

How I Came To Know It: In the early nineties I was heavily into Celtic folk music. Capercaillie, Clannad and Enya were some of my favourites, but I often scoured the folk and “world” section of the CD store simply looking for songs with Gaelic titles, since I liked the sound of Gaelic.

I had never heard of this record, but it ticked a couple of boxes. First, I knew Maire Brennan (also called Moya) was in Clannad, who I already liked, and second, three of the song listings featured Gaelic. So, despite the disturbing baby photo on the cover, I gave it a shot.

How It Stacks Up: Brennan has over ten records spanning thirty years, but I only have this one. I have a couple Clannad albums with her singing, but I don’t count those.

Ratings: 2 stars

“Maire” is a sleepy album that is suitable for background music if you are shopping for a gift in a curio shop, and not much else. I used to listen to this album back in the early nineties to help me fall asleep. Revisiting it I can see why. Apart from one or two tracks, it is composed of unremarkable, soporific treacle.

The nineties were not known for their production values, but on “Maire” Maire Brennan takes the overly soft, fuzzed out sound to all new lows. Think the musical equivalent of smearing Vaseline on a camera in old movies. It hides defects and makes everything look like a dream. A very boring dream. Brennan’s sister, Enya, takes layered sound and makes it feel otherworldly and fey. On Maire it just strips away any emotional quality to the music.

This is unfortunate, because Brennan (who was one of the lead vocalists for Clannad in their golden days) has a voice that would put a Middle Earth elf maiden to shame. It is feathery and mysterious and has the ability to carry and fill space like a coastal mist, refreshing and beautiful. I love Maire Brennan’s voice, which is why it is so disappointing to have it buried or diffused on so many of these songs.

There are occasions where she lets it shine, most notably on “Oro” a stripped-down tune that showcases her in a way that is sublime. Here there are some layered choral moments, combined with light percussion and production that lets the lead vocal fill in the space. It is everything I liked about this kind of music at the time. “Oro” doesn’t lift your spirit, so much as it encourages it to drift off on a thermal; free and relaxed.

Unfortunately, too often the songs are instead schmalzy and unimaginative. Done well, folk music should feel timeless, but on “Maire they just feel dated. Even songs designed to be topical, such as the environmentally minded, “Voices of the Land,” are awash in excess production. The backing chorus sounds like a children’s choir and was about as welcome as the vampire baby on the cover. Give me a hard-hitting environmental tune like Capercaillie’s “Black Fields” any day over this stuff.

I am probably more critical of this record than it deserves, fueled in part because I can hear Brenan’s voice cutting through in places and it breaks my heart that it doesn’t happen more often. There is genuine pathos in there, but the songs are presented like they’re part of some interminable family Christmas special. I need more from my music experiences than just a well-voiced tune sung while standing stately by a piano.

After I was done with this record, I looked it up to see if it was rare and valuable. It is not, but that just means that instead of selling it, I’ll give it away. In no scenario will I be keeping it. In fact, I’ve already used that space available in the “B” section of my shelving to file my recently obtained copy of Boogie Down Productions’ “By All Means Necessary.” I still like this era of Celtic music, but I don’t keep records on the shelf just because they happen to have a few words in a cool language on them. Later, Maire.

Best tracks: Oro, Land of Youth (Tir na nOg)

CD Odyssey Disc 1609: MUNA

What is this, the second review in as many days? How is this possible, you say? Have I abandoned all responsibility and duty to Rules 1, 3 and 5?

I can assure you, I have not. Turns out a snowstorm provides plenty of opportunity for walking around, and that walking around tends to take a lot longer, on account of so many people not shoveling their sidewalks. This makes for premium music-listening time, along with the bonus of headphones keeping my ears warm.

So here you go, another review before 2022 leaves us behind, and we enter the (likely cold) embrace of 2023.

Disc 1609 is…Self-Titled

Artist: MUNA

Year of Release: 2022

What’s up with the Cover?  Meet the band! Or at least I assume this is the band. That Jack White gaffe from a couple of reviews ago has me nervous…

How I Came To Know It: I read a review, and decided to check them out. This is the usual way I discover music, so apologies if it feels repetitive.

How It Stacks Up: I only have this one MUNA album, so no stacking possible.

Ratings: 3 stars

MUNA’s self-titled third album should have a different name. Bands that fail to name their first album eponymously have missed their window forever. However, once I got past this particular pet peeve and settled in for a listen, I liked what I heard.

MUNA is an all-woman trio that perform pop music and are very good at it. Lead singer Katie Gavin has a pretty voice and while she doesn’t blow the doors off, she has a likeable tone that is easy on the ears and well-suited to the style. These songs are pure pop, and demand the reliable sweetness that Gavin provides, even if the lyrics and structure have just a hint of indie spice about them.

These songs have production well suited for the radio, but I have no idea if they get played there. I hope so, because the songwriting is heartfelt and true to itself and the radio could use more of that. I assume.

As for topics, these feel like “adventurous older sister” songs. I’ve never had an older sister, but I imagine these are the sorts of stories she’d have shared with me if I had. Basically a mix of party music and the joy of self-discovery.

On the let’s party front, “What I Want” is a worthy entry in the genre. It is a song about drinking too much, putting unknown drugs in your mouth, dancing your ass off and lusting for the girl in leather across the bar. It is a night out with the kind of recklessness reserved for youth (I should have noted I imagine this older sister character to be in her twenties, not someone actually older than me…).

“Silk Chiffon” has the sort of specific, poetic approach to its lyrics that initially had me favourably comparing it to the Tragically Hip (it might have just been the opening line of “Sundown and I'm feeling lifted” making me think of the start of “Wheat Kings”). In any event, the song quickly takes a tight pop turn that the Hip would not follow. This song is like its title: airy and romantic. It is dappled sunlight, a light breeze, and a bit of summer love.

On the raunchier side of romance, “No Idea” employs a low club-type thump that oozes sex, even as the lyrics admit to a desire lurking just below the surface of all that innocent-looking romance of the earlier “Silk Chiffon.”

MUNA can also be delightfully nasty. The opening lines of “Anything but Me” uses a matter-of-fact delivery to a deliver a diss that always puts a smile on my face:

“You're gonna say that I'm on a high horse
I think that my horse is regular-sized
Did you ever think maybe
You're on a pony
Going in circles on a carousel ride?”

Nice.

The music on the record does not break any new ground, and while it is all solid, I didn’t often feel drawn deeply in. The closes I came was with “Kind of Girl” which is a Katie Pruitt style confessional. It features a young woman growing comfortable into herself, while also aware that time will continue to change her.

Overall, MUNA is a good record and worth a listen. If you don’t like pop music, then you might find the song construction a bit boring, but who doesn’t like pop music if it is done well? What kind of monster are you?

Best tracks: Silk Chiffon, What I Want, Kind of Girl, Anything But Me, No Idea

CD Odyssey Disc 1608: Miya Folick

Reflecting back it has been a hard year, laden with more than a typical share of triumph, tragedy, and toil. As a result I’m a little tired, although that could be slogging through two feet of snow for the last two days. Whatever the reason, I need a break and as it happens here I sit, with the day off! Huzzah.

In other news, it has come to my attention that I mistook the woman on the cover of “Entering Heaven Alive” as Jack White. Er…oops. Apologies to both Jack and the model in question.

Disc 1608 is…Premonitions

Artist: Miya Folick

Year of Release: 2018

What’s up with the Cover?  Giant Head Cover supreme! This is a tilted Giant Head Cover, which is much less common. Also, there are two other heads attempting to horn in, but Miya Folick’s Head is simply too Giant to allow this!

How I Came To Know It: I read a review and decided to check it out. I couldn’t get this one on physical media so I ordered it as a download from Bandcamp instead, which worked just fine. Not my preferred approach to music collection, but more and more a requirement until the world comes out of its stupor and realizes that Compact Disc is a perfectly acceptable way to collect music.

How It Stacks Up: I am on the lookout for Folick’s EP released earlier this year called “2007” but for now, “Premonitions” is the only album in my collection. Consequently, it can’t stack up.

Ratings: 4 stars

For a record with so many layers of production and sonic swell, “Premonitions” is surprisingly intimate. This is a record that will make you idly sway if you were to hear it in a lineup of a coffee shop (which you won’t, because radio airplay decisions are based on accessibility, not merit). If you are lucky enough to spend a few days with it on your headphones as I just did it will fill you with an ocean swell of emotion and yearning.

Things begin with Miya Folick’s incredible vocals. She has the mysterious lounge-singer tones of k d lang on “Ingénue” combined with the atmospheric techno-siren sound of London Grammar’s Hannah Reid. This is high praise, but well-deserved. Folick has a ton of power and range, but she’s also able to shift from an ethereal head voice to a lower fine-grain sandpaper in her lower register.

Sometimes when you get this much shift in vocal performance it can make a record feel disjointed, but that never happens on “Premonitions”. Part of this is the production and arrangement, which is a primarily pop music vibe, with a soupcon of jazz dance. This sounds terrible to me reading it back, but it is done so well it overcomes my usual reticence for such forms.

More important than the production is Folick’s songwriting. Collaborating with afore-referenced producer Justin Raisen, these tunes pull the light production into dark and intensely personal places. The songs feature plenty of power dynamics – sexual and otherwise – and beneath that much more intimate explorations of self-discovery and triumph.

The record opens with “Thingamajig”, a heartfelt apology that mixes a lighthearted looping of background vocals going “uh uh uh – hay-o” with some of the rawest, most sublime lead vocals you will ever hear. Folick’s apology and surrender so abject it borders on self-hate.

Fortunately the rest of the record contextualizes this song, demonstrating that Folick may be raw at the edges but is very much OK with herself, thank you very much. “Premonitions” encourages a strength in her partner not from a position of surrender, but because the likes to be challenged.

“Stock Image” explores the thin veneer of self-assurance we present the world to hide our doubts and fears. Or as Folick puts it:

“Colour in, colour in
Feeling empty outside of your outline
You scratch at the door of the divine
Within, colour in
You can't stand the greatness of sunshine
You hide in the bones of a stock image”

This reads cold and empty but paired with her voice peeling out in triumph you will here the strength of the song bursting out. Or as she reminds us elsewhere in the tune:

“Don't you get too far from yourself
You're so hard on yourself
Oh, you'll get through
Only hard when you say it's too hard”

That last line is a powerful reminder that how you see the problem is a big part of successfully solving it.

The album came out in 2018, in the birth of the “Me Too” movement and on “Deadbody” Folick sets her sights squarely on those who would abuse their privilege to make it clear their time is over. Folick vibrates with rage and power as she finds her inner rock goddess singing the refrain, “over my dead body”.

“Premonitions” would be a beautiful pop record even if it didn’t have anything to say. It has jump, bounce and brilliant arrangement and vocal performance. However, it is much deeper than that and well worth a deep dive. It didn’t make my Top 10 of 2018 list but that’s only because…I was wrong. I repent: buy this record.

Best tracks: Thingamajig, Premonitions, Stock Image, Stop Talking, Freak Out, Deadbody

CD Odyssey Disc 1607: Jack White

Greetings, gentle reader. I have the day off today, but I spent most of it doing chores and Christmas shopping. With the time left I’m going to write this review!

Disc 1607 is…Entering Heaven Alive

Artist: Jack White

Year of Release: 2022

What’s up with the Cover?  Jack White, dressed in some kind of smock/headband ensemble, leans into the stream of white light, presumably to “enter heaven alive”. Personally, I think entering heaven alive would be quite painful, to say nothing of how you’d manage to keep your corporeal self from falling through the cloud cover as soon as you got there.

How I Came To Know It: I am a fan of a lot of Jack White’s work, so I typically give his new releases a spin. It doesn’t always work out. He’s released five solo albums and while I’ve heard them all, only three of them were good enough to purchase. White released two albums in 2022; this one and “Fear of the Dawn” but only this one measured up.

How It Stacks Up: As you may have already surmised from the previous paragraph, I have three Jack White albums. Of those three, “Entering Heaven Alive” is…last. Someone has to be last.

Ratings: 3 stars but almost 4

Jack White is to rock and roll what Quentin Tarantino is to classic film; both are students and curators of their medium’s themes and evolution across multiple generations. Both sometimes let their enthusiasm for form overshadow emotional resonance, and both are so good at it that you tend to forgive them anyway.

For Tarantino, this means you are likely to see classic movie shots and styles, skillfully worked into a modern film. For White it is the same, only with music, and on “Entering Heaven Alive” White seems more focused on this process than ever before.

The biggest influence this time around is the psychedelic folk/rock of the late sixties and early seventies. White has always had an interest in this era, but it feels (or maybe I remember it) as previously driven principally through his guitar. This is still present, but “Entering Heaven Alive” explores a lot more of the organ and strings you were liable to hear in music of that era.

There is a heavy Beatles influence in places, particularly on “Help Me Along” which has a Sargent Pepper feel to it, if Sargent Pepper was kidnapped by a commune-dwelling string quartet.

The guitar is still there. The Mexican-flavoured picking of “All Along the Way” and the Americana folk of “Love is Selfish” set off well against the fuzzed out riff-fest of “I’ve Got You Surrounded.” On the latter you’d like to say great solo, but the song is essentially a collection of various guitar and piano licks. “I’ve Got You Surrounded” has exactly as much plot as the title provides, and not a lick more, but you won’t mind. Just bob your head and enjoy the patchwork quilt of grooves.

This record is sparsely produced (which I like) and it allows White’s vocals to be a greater point of emphasis. He’s always had a sort of emotionally wounded teen kind of vibe to his delivery, and this makes the album range between “moody troubadour” and “overwrought melancholiac”.  The former is fun and we swoon along with the sad songs, even when (lyrically) they say so little. The latter feels more like when you are trapped in the corner of the kitchen with a party guest telling you about his divorce for the third time that night.

And while the record’s lyrics are more a delivery system for all the musical exploration, there are times when you can tell dear old Jack has found a turn of phrase that he likes a little too much. Examples include, “We met in the rain/in a field of burning sugar cane” and “Pass me the bread and the brown sugar cubes/and I’ll butter your toast while you take off your shoes.”

Kill your darlings, Jack.

The album is more about mood pieces and isolated imagery, but a pair of late-appearing gems, “If I Die Tomorrow” and “Please God Don’t Tell Anyone” rise above. Combined, they tell the story of someone fearful of damnation for the things he’s done. Never mind entering heaven alive, these are the tortured thoughts of a man who is fearful of entering at all. The narrator doesn’t plead for clemency, instead exploring the existential dread of a life of ill-deeds, and a few good ones, and the uncertainty of knowing just how these will balance on the scales when time runs out.

The album ends with “Taking Me Back (Gently)” which has a jaunty beat and a shrill saw of a violin bit that made me feel like I was walking between tents at a carnival. Not so much the area with the rides, but rather the area the carnies hang out on their break. Like a lot of the record, the music takes you backward (in this case to turn-of-the-century ragtime). While I admired White’s capacity for bringing yet another musical element into the mix, the song doesn’t quite land after all the hippy dippy folk-rock revival that comes before it.

While overall I liked a lot of songs on this record, something was missing. White’s craft is there, but I didn’t feel emotionally drawn in. Like those Tarantino films, you love the craftsmanship, but you are more aware of how and why you are enjoying it, rather than it just soaking naturally down into the soul.

Best tracks: A Tip From Me To You, Love is Selfish, I’ve Got You Surrounded, A Tree on Fire From Within, If I Die Tomorrow, Please God Don’t Tell Anyone

CD Odyssey Disc 1606: Muddy Waters

My weekend started off in lovely fashion, catching up with some of my oldest friends (most from university days) enjoying a steak dinner a good conversation and a few drinks raised in fellowship.

Disc 1606 is…His Best: 1947-1955

Artist: Muddy Waters

Year of Release: 1997, but with music from 1947-1955

What’s up with the Cover?  Giant Head Cover returns! Here we have Muddy Waters’ giant head, looking sinister.

That’s a joke for the heraldry nerds.

How I Came To Know It: I had heard of Muddy Waters for years but it wasn’t until my friend Casey put some on for me one evening that I properly turned my attention to his work (Muddy, not Casey). One of the best gifts is the gift of musical discovery so thanks, Casey!

How It Stacks Up: This record is a compilation of music spanning eight years and so, by CD Odyssey rules, can’t stack up.

Ratings: Compilation records don’t get rated, but if they could be this one would be perfect.

There are times on this blog where I struggle with defining an album. Is it indie folk, with a hint of pop? Hard rock edging up on heavy metal? With Muddy Waters there is no confusion. This man is the blues and only the blues. Blues so pure and deep they well up from the soul like a geyser of oil, rich and grimy.

I don’t always get the blues, and I sometimes find it a bit repetitive. Of course, that is part of its charm; kicking your soul down into a groove which is simultaneously celebratory and full of pain. The blues is singing in a storm, dancing at a funeral, and shouting at the moon while lost on a moor.

While my first love of the blues is Howlin’ Wolf, there is no denying Muddy Waters is objectively the pinnacle. That warbling, deep, half-slurred delivery (occasionally punctuated with a falsetto shriek) is about as good a vocal performance as you will ever hear in this world or the next. If you are wondering what song I am referring to here, the answer is “all of them”.

Frequent readers will know I can’t abide a record with more than 14 tracks on it, but this collection of tunes from Waters’ heyday has 20 and just left me wanting more. I wouldn’t cut a single tune off the album. I don’t know enough about his catalogue to judge if these are “His Best” as advertised, but it is hard to imagine there are 20 better ones.

The guitar work on the record is great, and I was equally happy with Muddy (earlier tracks) and Jimmy Rogers (later tracks). They are different, with Muddy playing a bit more spare and Rogers, ironically a bit more “muddy.” Both are great accompaniments to Waters’ vocals.

The thing that surprised me more was how much I enjoyed the other players. Ernest “Big” Crawford on the bass is amazing, and no doubt an inspiration to all kinds of music that followed, first soul and funk and later rap and hip hop. This music centered deep in the heart, with enough oomph to pump its power across generations. I can still hear it echoing today.

The songs sound timeless, as the blues often do, but most are original compositions of Waters, with a few Willie Dixon classics thrown in for good measure, mostly nearer the end of the period. A blues composition is similar to folk song, in that there is an art to staying firmly within the traditions of the music, while at the same time creating something new. When done right, you can’t tell what era it is from, only that it is awesome.

I love Robert Johnson as much as the next guy, but let’s be honest; that tinny thirties production is irksome. Wouldn’t you love to hear blues this good that didn’t sound like they were recorded in a tin can? Enter Muddy Waters, equal to the talent of his predecessor, but with that high-end Chess production that brings you his deep, rounded tone in all its glory. The guitar and bass shake the floorboards, while Waters vocals roil the air with power that is half playful, half menace.

It all adds up to some of the greatest music ever recorded, and it was my privilege to rediscover it in my collection through what was a very lucky random selection indeed. The only downside is that the Odyssey must roll and tumble its way forward leaving this particularly blessed isle behind for now.

Best tracks: all tracks

CD Odyssey Disc 1605: Sunflower Bean

For the second time in three reviews I’m parting with an album immediately after reviewing it. This is also the seventh album in the past 22 that has met a similar fate which I think shows I need to be more discerning with what I purchase. Or maybe I’m just on a rough streak.

Disc 1605 is…Headful of Sugar

Artist: Sunflower Bean

Year of Release: 2022

What’s up with the Cover?  The band hangs out down by the power station. Lead singer Julia Cumming is in the foreground looking cold, likely on account of those leather shorts she’s wearing.

How I Came To Know It: I really liked the band’s previous album, 2018’s “Twentytwo in Blue” (reviewed back at Disc 1230). Ordinarily I would have given this record a listen before purchasing but I saw it in the store and decided to buy it on a whim.

How It Stacks Up: I have two Sunflower Bean albums. Of the two, “Head Full of Sugar” is easily the worst. That makes it #2, and not in the good “silver medal” kind of way.

Ratings: 2 stars

“Headful of Sugar” feels like Sunflower Bean spent their summer vacation digging through their parent’s CD collection looking for inspiration. They find plenty of it, but whatever magic sparked their imagination is mostly lost in the translation. Instead we get a record with a few too many styles, none of which feel original.

When I reviewed “Twentytwo in Blue” I also commented on the multiple eras of music the band explores. Then it was sixties and eighties, and on “Headful of Sugar” they add the late nineties/early oughts to their repertoire. The result is a busy loudness that overpowers a lot of what made the previous record great.

The worst offender is “Roll the Dice” where they embrace the loudness wars of yesteryear, with plenty of crunch, fuzz and thump but very little to hold your attention once you strip away all the bells and whistles. Also, it takes a lot of effort to strip away those bells and whistles. The whole record suffers from this saturation of production, and even when they do strip it away for the bridge it is clunky pop radio artifice; a card trick where you can see the magician pulling the aces out of his sleeve.

“Stand By Me” has a structure like early Madonna, which is a sound I have learned (after a very long time and a lot of denial) to love. The song is buoyed by Julia Cumming’s voice, which is well suited to this bubble gum whimsy. You can see her riding in a convertible, her hair pulled up under a kerchief, girlishly flirting with the camera. It almost won me over, but at least didn’t annoy like some of the tracks.

“Baby Don’t Cry” sounds like Garbage. I mean the band here, but it strays close to the lower case ‘g’. It is a song that feels like teens should be dancing to it at the Bronze, right before a vicious vampire assault. Those songs were passable while watching an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but they are very hit and miss away from that environment, and so too is “Headful of Sugar.”

The most maddening thing about this record is that it still has an undercurrent of what makes “Twentytwo in Blue” such a good record, but they’ve drowned it in production. It has also gone from paying playful homage to earlier eras and instead crossed over into Gestetner territory – a true copy, but in a lighter, bluer colour palate, smudged at the edges with too much ink.

I never got properly angry at this record, but I did get fidgety, and despite a long day I made a point of finding time to write this review so I could move on. I will be passing this album to someone who will enjoy it more than I did.

Best tracks: Who Put You Up to This?, Otherside

CD Odyssey Disc 1604: Neil Young

Before I start in on this next review, a moment of contemplation for Christine McVie, who died this week at the age of 79. McVie had a grace that transcended age. It is hard to know she is gone. While Steve Nicks and Lindsay Buckingham got a lot of the attention, McVie was the heart and soul of Fleetwood Mac, and if you look back on my reviews you’ll find I often reference her contributions as some of my favourites. “Wish You Were Here” and “Over My Head” are sublime and “Songbird” is one of my all-time favourites.

Good travels, Ms. McVie. If there is a heaven the choir just got a whole lot better.

Disc 1604 is…Homegrown

Artist: Neil Young

Year of Release: 2020, but recorded in 1975

What’s up with the Cover?  A farmer and his dog. And some corn, which is clearly the crop Neil is singing about on the title track, and not in any way another plant.

This dog has his tongue hanging out and looks mighty stupid. Being a cat person, dogs generally have the look of dullards to me, and even the smart ones like border collies appear more eager than brainy.

The farmer isn’t doing much better and appears to be eating raw corn which is not the greatest. That said anyone who can grow cob of corn as long as your arm, as is depicted here, definitely has something going on between the ears. Get it? Get it?

How I Came To Know It: I have a lot of Neil Young and while I don’t buy everything he releases these days, I give most of them a listen before I decide. “Homegrown” easily cleared the bar and so…here it is, taking up precious space on my shelves.

How It Stacks Up: I have 21 Neil Young albums and have reviewed two others that I since parted with. “Homegrown” is in the middle of the pack. I rank it at #13, nestling it nicely between “Comes a Time” and “Sleeps with Angels”

Ratings: 3 stars

Over the last few years Neil Young has been digging into his back catalogue and releasing albums he never put out at the time of recording. The fact that he has several is testament to what a prodigious songwriter he is. “Homegrown” is one of these and should have come out in 1975 (he instead released “Tonight’s the Night”, reviewed back at Disc 422). The articles I’ve read that get into such matters suggest the songs were too intensely personal for Young to share back then (they relate to a relationship breaking down).

I try to judge art on its own terms not situated in a biography, but there is no denying that “Homegrown” has a weary, heart-worn quality. It isn’t maudlin, but instead has the dulled-out feeling you get from a combination of stress and sadness. It is suffused with a fuzzy, absent-minded melancholy.

The opening track is the best example. “Separate Ways” is a song resigned to the fact that happier times are in the past, still within view, but no longer within reach. As breakup songs go, it is sad but non-accusatory. The slow meander of the bass line and the whine of the pedal steel in the background combine to remind you that sometimes bad shit just happens to good people. The best you can do is write a song and try to remember the good times.

Of course when feeling bad, many escape into altered states, and that’s the title track in a nutshell. This song is at odds with the record’s overall tone, with Neil’s crunchy guitar jauntily dancing along underneath a song that celebrates marijuana. The song is an earworm, and singing along I almost drove Sheila mad. Fortunately it can be cleansed in the same way as all other ear-worms. Simply sing the tune to “Hockey Night in Canada” a couple times (the original – not whatever the CBC has replaced it with). It’ll wipe away the song stuck in your head, but not permanently replace it. Try it – it works.

Another ear-worm is “Love is a Rose” made famous by Linda Ronstadt but written by Neil and appearing here as originally intended. I heard this song on AM radio too many times as a kid, and while it is a beautiful melody, I didn’t love it.

Instead, the record’s treasure lies in its understated, mournful tunes. “White Line” is mid-seventies Neil at his best. The melody meanders like a country road cutting through fields of wheat, his voice high and quavering. You can feel yourself on that road, white strips rolling by with the reassuring anonymity that travel can bring.

The album is only 35 minutes long, but there are still elements that feel directionless. “We Don’t Smoke it No More” has a directionless blues feel that makes you wish the title were true, but the “overstayed its welcome” jam session feel tells you that the title is ironic. Also bad is “Florida” which is just Neil Young describing a weird event in a detached way like he has been smoking a bit too much homegrown. The story features hang-gliders and dead babies and yet still manages to be uninteresting.

However, other than these two tracks the record is solid, and benefits from that golden age of Neil Young’s mid-seventies sound, where he perfectly melds the folksy elements of his early work with a greasy electric guitar. It might have a folk veneer, but the songs are made out of rock and roll.

Not everything Neil has been “rediscovering” of late is worth your time, but “Homegrown” is a time capsule back to a magical part of his career, full of weed and love that is beautiful in its freedom, even when it is withering on the vine.

Best tracks: Separate Ways, Homeegrown, White Line

CD Odyssey Disc 1603: Amanda Shires

Yesterday was a snow day, or at least the first couple of hours was. Where I live this causes general panic and mayhem and I took the bus to work. This meant I had a nice walk home (in the freezing rain as it turned out) and got a long listen in of this next record. Then, exhausted from all the excitement (snow!) I fell asleep on the couch. So one more day and one more listen…here we are!

Disc 1603 is…Take It Like a Man

Artist: Amanda Shires

Year of Release: 2022

What’s up with the Cover?  Amanda Shires stares you down in a way that could burn the topless towers of Ilium. I’m not saying I bought this album for the cover, but it didn’t hurt.

How I Came To Know It: My interest in Amanda Shires’ music has come and gone over the years. I like her work with husband Jason Isbell, and she is one-fourth of all-woman supergroup the Highwomen, which is also a fine record. Every now and then one of her solo records catches my attention and I give it a shot, but so far none have stuck.

How It Stacks Up: This is my only Amanda Shires solo album, so can’t really stack up.

Ratings: 2 stars but almost 3

When I first heard “Take It Like a Man” I felt certain that it was going to be the one. The record that encouraged me to go back and give all those previous Amanda Shires records I’d passed over a second chance. Sadly, a few listens later it was not to be.

There is plenty to like about this record, starting with the way Shires explores desire from the darkest part of the room. This album isn’t skulking or guilt-filled either; it invites desire, erotic truth and a touch that makes you shiver. There were times it felt so intimate it felt awkward to listen, but you keep listening anyway. “Hawk for the Dove” gets us started strong with these opening lines:

“I’m well aware of what the night’s made of
And I’m coming for you like a hawk for a dove.”

It is a great line, and while the record doesn’t consistently land such dead-shot brilliance, she does well overall. If anything some of her better lyrics are drowned in an excess of pop production, where they would have fared that much better with some sparse country hurt.

The other standout is “Don’t Be Alarmed” which has the added bonus of Jason Isbell’s guitar as accompaniment. Shires shows her range of emotion here, starting with a reassuring whisper and raising up to a head-voiced peel that perfectly captures the no man’s land between being resolute and having a good cry.

Shires vocals won’t blow the barn door down but she has a tone that lends access to a lot of different approaches. On the title track she has a sweet warble that made me think of Kim Carnes, only with two sugars added. On “Empty Cups” she goes for a lot more traditional country sound. Gone is that vibrato, replaced with the sharpness of new country. “Empty Cups” reminded me a bit of Suzy Bogguss in both style and structure although I admit if I had to choose, I would go with Bogguss.

In other moments Shires calls forth the ghost of Olivia Newton John, particularly the version of her where she’s in a musical and pining for some boy. Partly it is the tone and partly it is this undercurrent of joyful optimism in her delivery, even when she’s being sad or sexy.

While I admire all of these different approaches, the album feels over the top in places, particularly where she tries to drag in a flourish of horns. The worst is what I think is a French horn on “Lonely at Night” which is evocative of fifties Sinatra, but just made me want to go put on “In the Wee Small Hours”.

The record focuses on relationship challenges and a lot of very raw and honest sexuality. I love the way Shires opens herself up on this record, and it is the main draw on my initial listens. Unfortunately, with the exception of “a few tracks, I wasn’t consistently drawn in. A good album should catch you up in its emotion, and instead I kept falling out of my reverie.

This record is good, but I don’t love it enough to pull it down and play it very often. And so I must reluctantly admit that once again I have passed Amanda Shires in the night. Close enough to hear and appreciate her music, but not enough to make a lasting connection. Maybe next time.

Best tracks: Hawk for the Dove, Don’t Be Alarmed, Fault Lines

CD Odyssey Disc 1602: Beastie Boys

It's the second straight review this week from the eighties! Do I love the eighties? When it comes to music, I like all the decades. Picking one just shows narrowness of thinking - something that almost prevented me from getting to know this next record.

Disc 1602 is…Paul’s Boutique

Artist: The Beastie Boys

Year of Release: 1989

What’s up with the Cover?  The titular clothing store (note – not a real place). This looks like the kind of place I would buy a pack of gum, but I doubt I’d find a shirt I liked.

On an unrelated note, I’ve always found it fascinating how a store can put its goods out on the sidewalk, knowing that 99.9% of people who walk by will not snatch, grab or shoplift anything. It just goes to prove that line from Rush’ “Second Nature”, “Folks are basically decent/Conventional wisdom would say.”

It’s true, and don’t let a few awful people make you forget all the decent ones.

How I Came To Know It: I was not into the Beastie Boys in 1989. Sure I thought “License to Ill” was solid, but it was mostly the hard rock samples and “Fight for Your Right to Party” that led me there. I was not a rap fan.

So this one came to me much later after I corrected the error of my ways and was digging through the Beastie Boys catalogue. I want to say late nineties, but the exact date is lost in the mists of time.

How It Stacks Up: I have (or had) eight Beastie Boys records. Of those, I put “Paul’s Boutique” in at #2, just narrowly behind “To the 5 Burroughs”.

Ratings: 5 stars

When I first heard “Hey Ladies,” the first single off Paul’s Boutique, I thought, “what nonsense is this?” Of course it was 1989 and I had a lot of growing up to do, musically speaking.

When I finally got over my anti-rap bias and started exploring the Beastie Boys, I bought a used copy of “Paul’s Boutique” and hoped for the best. But those first few listens were a bit too much. Samples were flying fast, and rhymes even faster, and the album was stretching itself in a dozen directions at once. I felt like the sonic equivalent of the victim of Track Four’s “Egg Man” getting egged at such a furious pace I could only duck, yolk-stained forearms showing like defensive wounds. I declared the album “OK, with a few good tracks.” Once again, I had a lot of growing up to do.

Like any great record, over the following years and decades “Paul’s Boutique” has gotten better on every listen. My gateway drug was “Shake Your Rump” with its mix of furious rock-style delivery, funk samples and that deep bass drop that gets right down into…well, into your rump.

From here it was a natural step to forgive “Hey, Ladies” and forgive myself for so seriously misjudging how exceptional a song this is. That opening drum beat and guitar sample is absolutely sick, and that’s before the boys even come in with their singular style, trading off line for line and never missing a cue. Plus, more cowbell in the best possible way.

Other bands making rap in 1989 have also won my heart, and my collection is now festooned with albums from that year by Big Daddy Kane, EPMD, Gang Starr, LL Cool J and many others. These bands all feature serious (and equally good) MC talent, but none of them are doing what the Beastie Boys are up to on “Paul’s Boutique”. The sheer volume of samples and styles is at first bewildering, and then intoxicating. At every listen there is something new to dig down to, some new easter egg of a sample to get hit with. The way to listen to “Paul’s Boutique” is to revel in that egging.

And as has been said often, this record would not be possible three years later, after 1991’s Grand Upright Music, Ltd. v. Warner Bros. Records, Inc., put an end to sampling for free. Because samples now cost a lot of money, hip hop artists are more likely to sample way less and when they do grab an entire hook, rather than five snippets of sound that are combined into something new like you’ll find on “Paul’s Boutique”.

I get the importance of copyright protection, but there were some serious unintended consequences to musical creativity.

But back in the golden age, when you could sample to your heart’s content, few bands did it with the artful eye of the Beasties. Outside of Public Enemy, they have no peers. The artistic freedom could’ve led a lesser band astray, but the Beasties capered and gamboled their way through an unfenced playground of options. The result is sheer unbridled brilliance.

Best tracks: all tracks

CD Odyssey Disc 1601: Blue Oyster Cult

Greetings and welcome to this rarest of events – a mid-week review! I guess I’m needing some escapism, and I know of nothing better than delving into some music.

This next one is a live record. I’m not one for live albums generally, but I have five by this next band.

Disc 1601 is…Live ’83 (also known as Nail You Down)

Artist: Blue Oyster Cult

Year of Release: 1992 but originally recorded in…wait for it…1983

What’s up with the Cover?  The boys of BOC, cleaned up and looking sharp. None sharper than Buck Dharma (centre). How I longed for Buck’s hair when I was a kid, but alas, it was my brother who was thus blessed.

I ended up with Eric Bloom’s hair (left) which I hated then but would learn to love as I got older and discovered the alternating joy of both a fully teased out afro, and the invention of styling gel. 

How I Came To Know It: My buddy Ross bought this for me. This is the second time he’s bought me an album of BOC’s live music out of the blue (the previous one was “Setlist: The Very Best of Blue Oyster Cult” reviewed back at Disc 1333). Thanks again for the gift of music, Ross!

How It Stacks Up: I don’t stack compilation albums up, but I have been known to do so for live albums if they’re all from the same show or tour. While “Setlist” doesn’t make that cut, “Live ‘83” does, and I’ll put it 4th. And here’s the full list of them for you to revel in, or vehemently disagree with (I am good either way).

1. Some Enchanted Evening: 5 stars (reviewed at Disc 391)
2. Extraterrestrial Live: 4 stars (reviewed at Disc 930)
3. On Your Feet or On Your Knees: 4 stars (reviewed at Disc 716)
4. Live ’83: 4 stars (reviewed right here)

Ratings: 4 stars

You know when you’re at a show and some doofus is standing in front of you holding up his phone and recording it all, so he can release a shakey-cam, tinny rendition of the show on Youtube later to prove he was there? Well, that’s the image I get when I think “bootleg.” So knowing that this Blue Oyster Cult performance, was a bootleg of a show held in 1983 at the Pasadena Perkins Palace in California, I was a bit concerned going in.

Turns out I didn’t need to be. The recording sounds a bit metallic around the edges but that provides a welcome new way to give these songs a fresh voice. It is as though their 1974 incarnation had somehow stepped through a time portal, learned their newer material from their future selves, and then let loose with the youthful off-campus flophouse jam where they spent their formative years. Of all their live records, this one feels the most visceral, even punk adjacent, if it weren’t for the fact that punk never thrashed its way through songs this structurally complicated. On “Live ‘83” the boys seem willing to just thrash away, trusting their talents and the bones of the songs to carry along the more complex aspects of their art.

Every Blue Oyster Cult live album I have is a treasure, and not just because these guys play so brilliantly together, or that they are one of the most innovative rock bands in history. It is because beneath that crazy brilliant mix of melodic rock, crunch and prog the boys are, in their hearts, a great jam band. Blue Oyster Cult know the value of a few carefully placed licks and solos that make a song twice as fun without you noticing it is also twice as long.

I have been known to gripe that in recent years Blue Oyster Cult’s setlists haven’t been sufficiently varied. This is partly that I’ve seen them a lot, and I’m always looking for new tunes in the setlist. They could literally play anything new and I’d be happy.

“Live ‘83” comes out just a year after their more famous commercial release “Extra Terrestrial Live” and so there is some natural crossover, but there are also a whole lot of unexpected and very welcome nuggets. Most notably, they play two of my favourite songs from their first album, “Stairway to the Stars” and “Workshop of the Telescopes”.

“Workshop of the Telescopes” was particularly delicious. Coming in thirty seconds shorter than the studio version, they sacrifice a bit of mystery for a whole lot more energy. The original is the hidden mystery of cultists gathered around a telescope located on some dark hill. The “Live ‘83” version is the same scene, but the cultists are moshing.

The band also gives some love to Buck Dharma’s 1982 solo album, “Flat Out” performing that record’s most BOC-ish tune, “Born to Rock”. Buck’s vocals and guitar work are both brimming with energy, knowing the band’s got his back, and that while he was away to make that record, he was never really away. (Of note, Buck is one of only two original members remaining in the band today).

I only have two gripes with this record. The first is the three-song encore. The band does three of their usual “welcome back to the stage” mainstays: “Born to Be Wild”, “Don’t Fear the Reaper” and “Roadhouse Blues”. No complaints there, but somewhere between the main set and their return they either lost the original audio feed or something happened at the sound board, because things get a bit muddy.

My second gripe is that even at 4 stars, it is hard for this record to compete with all my other amazing live records by Blue Oyster Cult. OK, that’s not a gripe – more of a humble brag.

Best tracks: Love them all, but I gotta go with the new live stuff, so Stairway to the Stars, Workshop of the Telescopes and Born to Rock. This version of Burnin’ For You is also great.

CD Odyssey Discs 1599 and 1600: Flying Burrito Brothers

It has taken a while, but here we are, 1,600 reviews in and nowhere near the end. I once had all these ideas for articles when the Odyssey completed. Like “best albums of 1982” or “best Giant Head album covers”. Now I realize as long as I keep buying music faster than I can review it, the journey never ends. And that’s OK with me.

On that note – here is a two-for-one special! This happens when (according to Creative Maelstrom common law) it is a double album set on a single CD. When there are two albums in one jewel case, but separate CDs, I pick one randomly and wait to roll the next.

Disc 1599 is…. The Gilded Palace of Sin
Disc 1600 is…Burrito Deluxe

Artist: The Flying Burrito Brothers

Year of Release: 1969 (Gilded Palace of Sin) and 1970 (Burrito Deluxe)

What’s up with the Cover?  It’s a mashup of the two album covers. The boys standing around in those honky tonk suits are original to the Gilded Palace of Sin, but we’re missing the wooden shack with the two fetching ladies from the original cover.

In its place we have the sequined burrito from the “Burrito Deluxe” album cover. I love a good burrito as much as the next guy (and just had tacos for lunch), but I’d have preferred the ladies. This is what happens when you cut corners and get two albums in one, though.

How I Came To Know It: I think about 8-10 years ago my friend Brennan put me onto the fact that before Gram Parsons was Gram Parsons, he was in a band called the Flying Burrito Brothers. I checked it out on his advice and was immediately hooked. Shortly thereafter I found this “two in one” opportunity and pounced.

How It Stacks Up: If just compared against each other, “The Gilded Palace of Sin” wins the war of the burrito. It is easily the better record of the two. Against all of Gram Parson’s body of work, “Gilded Palace comes in third, and Burrito Deluxe is last. And since Gram jumped around through so many bands, here’s the full accounting from that perspective:

1. Grievous Angel (as Gram Parsons): 5 stars (reviewed at Disc 1487)
2. GP (as Gram Parsons): 5 stars (reviewed at Disc 1486)
3. The Gilded Palace of Sin: 5 stars (reviewed right here)
4. Sweethearts of the Rodeo (with the Byrds): 4 stars (reviewed at Disc 1021)
5. Safe at Home (as International Submarine Band): 3 stars (also Disc 1021)
6. Burrito Deluxe: 3 stars (reviewed right here also)

 Ratings: Gilded Palace of Sin: 5 stars; Burrito Deluxe: 3 stars

Disc 1599: The Gilded Palace of Sin:

It’s not often you listen to a record and witness the birth of a genre, but that’s how “The Gilded Palace of Sin” feels. Fresh from his exit from the Byrds, Gram Parsons took fellow former bird Chris Hillman and further pushes the Bakersfield Sound deeper into the backwoods of Americana (a term that didn’t even exist yet). Down that road you find the music equivalent of a dilapidated shack full of pot-smoking hippies playing folk music. Really fucking great folk music.

These songs have a lighthearted mid-tempo beat to them that belies their seriousness. The band is having a good time, for sure, but they are also crafting songs that are timeless and emotionally evocative. Gram Parsons may not have gotten a ton of radio play but his work with Chris Hillman and the rest of the band is seminal stuff in the history of country/folk crossover, which decades later still influences what today we is often called indie folk.

At first you might find these songs a bit tinny, but once your ear tunes into the jangle, which is simultaneously heart-worn and playful, you start to appreciate all that light and air. It is sneaky complicated with simple melodies with a hillbilly guitar and touches of piano that are almost ragtime. Every now and then a mandolin makes an appearance. It’s that meeting of the minds in a jam gumbo that should be a mess, but instead ends up as a celebration.

There are so many good songs on this record, that is it hard to single any out, but “Sin City” is about as good as it gets. The pedal steel feels like a hangover, and the slow mosey of the song is weary as hell, as the singer bemoans the wages of sin, presumably in Las Vegas but that could be the seedy underbelly of any American city.

The combination of “Do Right Woman” and “Dark End of the Street” book end an exploration of faithfulness. The former being an admonishment that if you want your partner to be true, you have to be a stand-up guy yourself. The latter is an exploration of the temptation and shame of infidelity. Both songs are masterclasses in songwriting by Chips Moman and Dan Penn who aren’t in the band, but penned tunes for many artists.

The rest of the record is principally written by Parsons and Hillman, with equally fantastic results. “My Uncle” protests the Vietnam draft and celebrates those who dodged it. Then – and this is weird – side two features songs titled “Hot Burrito #1” and “Hot Burrito #2”. Both are great, but both appear on this record and not “Burrito Deluxe” which has exactly zero burrito songs. I refer to this phenomenon as “hiding the burrito”.

Neither Burrito #1 nor #2 are actually about burritos, which I found annoying, but I forgave it because both songs are so fucking fantastic. The first, with its slow and accusatory dirge (the record explores a lot of bad relationships) and the second hits an up-tempo version of the same theme, with the best ever use of “Jesus Christ!” in a song’s refrain that I’ve ever heard. I imagine even the Lord would forgive his name being taken in vain in such an artful way.

The only weak spot on the record is the final track, “Hippy Boy”, which is a rambling talking bit over a bluesy tune. It features our titular hippy imparting some homespun (or possibly acid-induced) wisdom about the wages of sin. I think. It felt both preachy and aimless at the same time. However, despite this one misstep, the record is so good and so important to music, the real sin would be denying it a well-earned 5 stars.

Best tracks: all tracks except “Hippie Boy”

Disc 1600: Burrito Deluxe

The biggest challenge “Burrito Deluxe” experiences (outside of the dearth of burritos) is that it follows “The Gilded Palace of Sin”. As such the comparisons are inevitable, and “Burrito Deluxe” is left seriously lacking.

All of the qualities of sound and production I mention for the earlier record are all present here, but the songs are just not at the same consistent level. Instead, this record is that same aforementioned shack full of hippies that early in the evening were jamming out classics, but now are a bit too high and starting to spiral into self-indulgence.

“If You Gotta Go” is a solid cover of the Bob Dylan tune, and I like the way the guitar vibrates away throughout. The song features the dubious argument of “if you’ve got to go, go now/or else you gotta stay all night.” Er…there are other options, Burrito Brothers, and most of them are a lot less douche-y.

“Farther Along” is also awesome, although it is a timeless traditional tune, so credit to the Flying Burrito Brothers only in as much as they do a solid rendition. I’m a bit of a sucker for songs like “Farther Along” that always feels like it should be sung in some southern church during the Great Depression. This one is akin to “Keep on the Sunny Side” except it is a bit slower and doesn’t suck.

Yeah, I just called out “Keep on the Sunny Side”. What kind of monster am I? Who would not want to keep on the sunny side? Hey – I like the sunny side as much as the next guy, but the song is an anachronistic abomination that just won’t die.

But I digress…

Much better is the Burrito Brothers’ penned, “Older Guys” which is a bit of a goofy tune about what I think are the older shack dwelling hippies that have figured out how to do nothing in style. Listening to these songs I start to wonder just who pays the rent at these places, and how much of it is covered through bottle returns.

“God’s Own Singer” is also solid and written by Bernie Leadon who had just joined the band and gets a George Harrison helping of writing opportunity (i.e. 2-3 songs only).

The record ends with a great rendition of the Stones’ “Wild Horses,” although a lot of that can be ascribed to what a great song that is. If you play it straight it is hard to go wrong with a 5-star song like that, and the Burrito Brothers wisely stay in their lane and countrify the arrangement only, keeping the tune’s brilliance intact.

“Burrito Deluxe” is solid, but in the end I could only give it three burritos out of five, which is three more than the record features. I know I’m harping on this lack of burritos situation but seriously, it’s weird.

Best tracks:  If You Gotta Go, Farther Along, Older Guys, God’s Own Singer, Wild Horses

CD Odyssey Disc 1598: King Princess

I’m just back from a four-day road trip for work. Knowing I’d be having plenty of “airport” time, I rolled an album to listen to while I was away, and review when I got home. This was it!

Disc 1598 is…. Cheap Queen

Artist: King Princess

Year of Release: 2019

What’s up with the Cover?  Big eye makeup! A reclining King Princess gives us a stare down that says, “I’ll put on my face for this photo shoot, but I’ll be damned if I’ll put on a shirt!”

How I Came To Know It: I learned about King Princess through her 2022 album “Hold On Baby”. I was unsuccessfully looking for that in the “Miscellaneous K” section of my local record store when I came across this earlier release. I’d never heard it, but I figured I wouldn’t easily find another copy, so I bought it and hoped for the best.

How It Stacks Up: “Cheap Queen” is for now my only album by King Princess, so it can’t stack up against anything.

Ratings: 4 stars

Settling in on the first leg of my plane ride, the opening few tracks of “Cheap Queen” came as a bit of a shock to the system. This soulful alt-pop, electronic-adjacent sound is not my usual fare. Having just spent a week in the familiar and easy world of Billy Joel I wasn’t sure how I felt about it. Kind of like having a fancy meal at a high-end restaurant after a month of burgers and fries.

Once I acclimated this record steadily grew on me with each successive listen. Her vocals were at first a bit too round and soulful (this should be a good thing, but down deep I’ve got a folk/metal soul). After my ears had property tuned in, I realized this is exactly the voice that is needed to encompass the many styles the record explores.

The title track is pure pop genius, fueled by all the things that make that genre successful: funky drumbeat, some hand claps, a distorted organ and just a hint of auto tune – not to correct mistakes, but just to add a fun little echo to the main musical themes developed. This song is slow-dance brilliance or just for snapping your fingers and doing a few head rolls while you wait for the light to change.

This is followed up immediately with a stripped-down guitar strum on “Ain’t Together” which is a by-the-book break up number. This song plays with folk elements, but the chorus blossoms into a full pop song soon enough, ready for the radio if the radio were smart enough to play pop music this well constructed.

Lyrically the record is sexy and vulnerable in equal parts. One of my favourite stanzas is from “Homegirl” from that great subset of songs about the anticipation of taking your lover home at the end of a social event. Here’s a sample:

“And I like the way that you talk,
Spelling my name with your tongue
So you don't have to say it
We're friends at the party
I'll give you my body at home”

This song is all guitar strum and vocal and shows that while King Princess is not averse to the bells and whistles and complex arrangements, the bones of the songs (which she also write) and her vocal talents stand equally strong on their own.

There is a bit of a crooner element to some of the songs that initially put me off as being affected, but after a few more listens I got past my genre bias and realized these songs are genuine reflections of emotion and personal circumstance.

When I set out to write this review, I was going to note that King Princess is in the same style as Samia, Torres, Caroline Rose and “a whole host of artists that are amazing that you may have never heard of because they aren’t Olivia Rodrigo.” Mostly true but turns out King Princess had a hit after all – some song from her 2018 EP debut called “1950” has 20 million Youtube hits – apparently the result of it being the theme song to some popular Netflix movie I haven’t seen.

In any event, if you haven’t tuned in to King Princess since then, she’s still making great music and it is time for you to return.

I should note that I also love Olivia Rodrigo – bought her album in fact – but if you like that kind of thing there are plenty of other thoughtful female pop artists out there worth your time. King Princess is one of them.

Best tracks: Cheap Queen, Ain’t Together, Homegirl, Watching My Phone, If You Think It’s Love

CD Odyssey Disc 1597: Billy Joel

I try to avoid Greatest Hits packages. I’d rather have the immersive album experience, laid out the way the artist intended. For this next artist I have one of his studio albums, but he’s such a hit machine that having all those in one place is one of those things that was just too convenient to pass up. As Jello Biafra would say, “give me convenience or give me death!”

Disc 1597 is…. Greatest Hits Vol 1 & 2

Artist: Billy Joel

Year of Release: 1985, but featuring music from 1973-1985

What’s up with the Cover?  Billy attempts to look wistful and artsy, which is hard to pull off while wearing that atrocious mid-eighties blazer.

How I Came To Know It: Like most people my age, I grew up with Billy Joel on the radio, on records at home and also played at the more sedate and civilized parties (more on that later). All of these songs were already familiar when I bought the record.

How It Stacks Up: Greatest Hits are compilation albums, and they don’t stack up.

Ratings: No ratings provided for greatest hits records. You’ll just have to read the text if you want to learn more.

As longtime readers will know I take great joy in slagging Duran Duran, on account of how much they suck. Recently a coworker asked, “You are not saying Duran Duran is worse than Billy Joel, are you?” Turns out, he hated Billy Joel a lot.

It is a hard thing to hate Billy Joel. He sits at this nexus point of rock, doo-wop, pop, and easy listening that gives him appeal to everyone from the metal heads to the soccer moms. Maybe that’s what to hate about him, but I think you have to strain pretty hard to not tap your toes to some of these tunes.

Because say what you will about Joel, the man could write a melody. No matter what the last song was when I shut the car off this week, it ear-wormed straight into my head. Even the ones I liked less would stick and I’d be humming them all the way up the elevator.

The other great thing about Joel is his voice is solid, with a great tone, but he doesn’t range through multiple octaves, making these songs particularly easy to sing along to. Everyone knows them, too, so if you’re near someone else when such a mood hits you, they are likely to join the chorus. Not always though – more on that later.

Also, Joel never lost the ability to write, making a greatest hits package spanning 12 years of his career relatively free of filler. 1973’s “Piano Man” remains as fresh and engaging today, after hundreds of listens, as the first time I heard it, and while the last song on the record – “The Night is Still Young” – isn’t my favourite, it is solid. Yes, that mid-eighties production is painful, but what the hell. I even like Joels foray into full on fifties a capella with “For the Longest Time.”

One of my disappointments with this package is it doesn’t include the doo-wop throwback classic “Keeping the Faith”. It even had a fun dance number video, which you can still watch here if you are so inclined. It’s more annoying when songs like “Captain Jack” and “Pressure” made the cut.

Another annoyance is Joel’s late seventies obsession with the saxophone. It works on songs from “The Stranger” (which I won’t discuss further, since I’ll save that for the review) but by “Glass Houses” he needs to tone that fucking saxophone a lot. Still lots of classic tunes on that record, but a little saxophone goes a long way.

“Glass Houses” always makes me think of a birthday party I attended when I was 11. At the time I was obsessed with two things. The first was Joel’s song “You May Be Right”, which I felt spoke to my quirky, weird, do-it-my-own-way approach to life. The second was a girl in my class named Sherry. 

How I pined for Sherry, so much so that when “You May Be Right” came on at the party I did what one does with Billy Joel – I sang along, serenading Sherry in front of all and sundry. I fully expected she would be impressed with my derring-do and romantic notions. Instead, exasperated with the unwanted attention, she chased me around the room with her high heel shoe. It ended with me apologizing and learning a valuable lesson around the boundaries of unrequited love. Also there was cake, so not a total loss of an afternoon.

I have explored Billy Joel’s full discography in the past, but other than “The Stranger” I never got inspired. I did buy “Storm Front” but that record was such a maudlin mess I parted with it shortly after I reviewed it. For those who dislike Joel, you may enjoy reading me hating on that record back at Disc 916.

However, I so thoroughly enjoyed the music on this record, and the memories it evoked (even ones where I narrowly escaped impalement) I may just give his other classic studio records another shot.

Best tracks: Piano Man, The Stranger, Scenes from an Italian Restaurant, Moving Out (Anthony’s Song), Only the Good Die Young, You May Be Right, It’s Still Rock and Roll, Allentown, The Longest Time

CD Odyssey Disc 1596: Trace Mountains

Second review this week, dear readers!

Despite the output, I am in a hypercritical mood of late, where it takes a lot more for an album to impress me, even albums I have previously hand-picked.

Disc 1596 is…. House of Confusion

Artist: Trace Mountains

Year of Release: 2021

What’s up with the Cover?  A roadside advertisement. This looks like the kind of lonely stretch of some backroad where the cell coverage is terrible, but if you blow a tire ask for help at the Valley Mart, not the House of Confusion. The folks who live at the House of Confusion are probably a bunch of serial killers. Of course, it will turn out they also own the Valley Mart, so you’re screwed either way.

Happy Halloween!

P.S.: that scrolly bit in the bottom left is not part of the album art – that’s one of my hairs that got in the picture.

How I Came To Know It: I read a review of this album and checked it out, but I did not immediately buy it. I remember it being right on the edge of “good enough”. Then I was looking for something to order and it was on my list. I thought, “did I like this well enough to buy it?” and then I replied (thought-wise) with, “Logan, trust your instincts!”

How It Stacks Up: This is my only Trace Mountains album, so it can’t stack up

Ratings: 3 stars

My experience with “House of Confusion” had me thinking a lot of the name of the band. I imagine a “trace mountain” would be a place where you stake a gold claim because you get some early positive traces, but ultimately the mountain doesn’t pan out. “House of Confusion” is the musical equivalent of that experience. It starts off with a lot of promise but there ends up being less and less value as you dig your way in.

I’ve dabbled a few times in this kind of music, which is a sort of laid-back psychedelic indie country. Other examples are Honey Harper (Disc 1369) and Wild Pink (Sir Not Yet Appearing on this Blog). The structures are folk/country but the tunes tend to have a lot of extra production. Long-time readers will know this usually puts me off, but I’m willing to forgive it when done well.

So how does “House of Confusion” fare? Initially, very well. The first three songs are the album’s best. The opening track “Seen it Coming” showcases the airy quaver of Dave Benton’s voice (Dave Benton is Trace Mountains’ driving creative force and lead singer). This song has a lovely lilting melody that I’m always a sucker for, and the arrangement has a bit of odd organ here and there that is well placed and provides good dynamics.

“If You Do” and “On My Knees” follow it well, with Benton’s voice again front and centre, and with a bit more orchestration but again, serving the song well. “On My Knees” also has some lovely snare drum action that would make early Wilco proud.

By the fourth song, “7 Angels” Benton has delved even deeper into the soup and is approaching Wild Pink sound (although maybe one level down, as no one does this particular sound quite like Wild Pink). It, “The Moon” and “IDK” are all good tunes, despite the latter being an annoying texting abbreviation. Use your words, Dave!

Around Track 7 things start to go south, however. “The Late” is a melancholy soundscape that is both maudlin and directionless. I can handle maudlin, but directionless is harder to forgive. At this point Benton is deep into the electronica sounds, which don’t add anything nor cover up the fact that the melody here has lost some of the record’s early magic.

This is followed by “America” which has a weird sample of someone saying “America!” that is jarring and adds nothing to the song. This song hovers on the edge of being a good tune, but can’t overcome this kind of self-aware studio decisions.

There is a late rally near the end, and “Eyes on the Road” recaptures the album’s earlier magic, but it is too late to score above a modest three stars overall.

And before I sum up a quick note on a pet peeve of mine. The back of the record has a list of the songs but a) doesn’t list a track number, forcing you to count down to find the one you want and b) are presented in some artsy font that is almost impossible to discern. You are listing these tracks so people can look up the songs, Trace Mountains, so maybe make it actually easy for them to read when you do so.

My final listen to “House of Confusion” was on headphones, and its ambient vibe definitely sounds better in that experience than in the car. In the end, that and some of the early nuggets were enough for me to decide to keep the record

Best tracks: Seen It Coming, If You Do, On My Knees

CD Odyssey Disc 1595: Rico Nasty

After a very successful trip to the record store I am champing at the bit for a weekend where I can listen to all my new music. I like my first listen of a new album to be just me and Sheila, hanging out and playing board games. Then two or three more listens with just me and the record before I put it on the shelf and hope to roll it for a review.

Disc 1595 is…. Nightmare Vacation

Artist: Rico Nasty

Year of Release: 2020

What’s up with the Cover?  The vacation depicted here doesn’t seem all bad. There’s a lovely rainbow and a floating bed is pretty great. However, flying about in one at high altitude with lightning forking all around you could turn nightmarish very quickly.

How I Came To Know It: I read a review of this album, checked it out and liked it enough to buy it digitally on Bandcamp (I don’t believe it was released on CD).

How It Stacks Up: Rico Nasty has a bunch of mixtapes but only one full length album, and this is it. I don’t have any of the mixtapes (and the genre confuses me. Are these simply albums on cassette or is it a ‘length thing’ like an EP?). Anyway, I have the full length album but one album can’t stack up.

OK, I looked up “mixtape” and it sounds like something artists release free of charge, except when they don’t. Hmm… The modern world is so confusing.

Ratings: 2 stars but almost 3

I like melodic rappers, dropping rhymes on funky beats that make your head bob or your backbone slide. Rico Nasty is none of those things, but through sheer force of talent and chutzpah she convinced me to try something a little different, at least for a while.

In this case, that something different is a rough-edged, aggressive rhymes in short, staccato statements, with heavy synth beats dressed up in samples that reminded me of nineties industrial metal. A bit of cursory research revealed this style to be something called “trap metal” but I think it is a misnomer. This is not metal, although it does deliver its fair share of crunch on certain tracks.

Whatever it is called, Rico Nasty knows how to do it well, and she attacks these songs with a stylized snarl. It is a good match for lyrics that tend to be in your face. Sometimes this takes the form of a beef with someone (usually for reasons that aren’t fully defined but seem very serious nonetheless). Other times, the tunes are about partying, drugs, or sex. So, you know, the usual.

Rico Nasty is also quite good at swearing. You might say to yourself, most modern rappers are good at swearing but trust me when I say that Rico Nasty raises it to an art form. Swears are both violently emphasized and thrown with a disdainful disregard that makes it clear she’s got a bottomless bag full of those F and B bombs.

For all that, after multiple listens I am already feeling a bit restless about her aforementioned flow and beat choices. On the flow front, she has solid couplets with clever turns of phrase, but she doesn’t string together the kind of intricate rhymes that I tend to favour in rap.

On the beat front, these beats feature lots of weird syncopation and soundscapes, but they aren’t toe tappers. Clever is welcome, but I also want tunes I can tap my foot to. These ones are a bit too ‘robot love’ or ‘nineties modem’ for my taste.

When it all comes together, as it does on a few tracks, I can overlook all that and enjoy the mastery of the style. Unfortunately, there are too few of these moments for me to keep this record in my collection. I like it, but it just wasn’t for me. I can imagine what Rico Nasty would say in response to that, but I don’t think it fit to print on a friendly blog like this one.

Best tracks: IPHONE, Pussy Poppin, Smack a Bitch