Music
Section by Jeb D.
BEST NIGHT OF MY LIFE
Jamie Foxx
After watching him lip-synch his way through Ray, someone asked me if Jamie Foxx could, in fact, sing; in the light of albums like this, my question is “Does that even matter?” With a celebrity name to use as a hook and entrée to catch the program director’s attention, today’s musical producer has more studio tools at his disposal than ever before, allowing him to easily shape the “talent” to the demands of the marketplace. The album begins with a nicely lilting fragment of “This Will Be,” but from there quickly settles down into the mild dance grooves, auto-tuned vocals, and makeout smoochiness that characterizes your Charlie Wilsons and R Kellys; Foxx’s voice is warm and confident, if not particularly distinctive. There’s the usual parade of guests (Drake, Ludacris, Soulja Boy) and borrowed beats. I have to admit that the straightforwardness of the title track is refreshing (“If we keep loving like this / We could make a child“), if a bit clumsy, and “Fall For Your Type” is a nice stud’s confession of vulnerability. The highest compliment I can pay this album is that it will fit right in with the rest of the stuff that Target and Best Buy are featuring in this week’s ads; exactly what sort of compliment that is I leave to your judgment.
THROUGH LOW LIGHT AND TREES
Smoke Fairies
Stateside release of the first complete album from the aptly-named Smoke Fairies: their sound simultaneously ethereal and ominous, Smoke Fairies are Katherine Blamire and Jessica Davies, spiritual sisters who bring Appalachia to the downs of Sussex. Imagine something like the pure harmonies of, say, the Unthank sisters or Mountain Man, infused with the backcountry desolation of The Handsome Family, surrounded by deep, Lanois-style production and bluesy reverbed guitar, and you’ve got some notion of what’s going on here. Musically, they’ve advanced nicely over the first few singles and EP’s, the sound fuller, and less reliant on the simple John Lee Hooker-style blues drone of “Living With Ghosts” (though tracks like “Strange Moon Rising” and “Devil In My Mind” sound as doom-laden as The Hook at his best). The distinctive blend of blue notes and crystalline harmonies are the songs’ greatest strength: clichés of love and loss are the backbone of most of the lyrics, and there’s still a touch of the sophomore poetry journal (“Can you hold me like you held someone / You shouldn’t have let go? /Can you keep me deep inside / Like the regrets that burned a hole?“), but songs like “Eerie Lackawanna” and “Blue Skies Fall” suggest that they’re expanding their horizons. I don’t know how much further they will be able to grow, or how long they can rely on the sheer, stark beauty of their sound to sustain the music without coming up with something more interesting to sing about, but taken purely on its own terms, this is one gorgeous album.
O MOON, QUEEN OF NIGHT ON EARTH
Jonathan Richman
I had lost touch with Richman’s music over the past few years, till I found out that one of my nephews got up onstage and sang “Government Center” with him at a club recently. Even with that evidence that the man still has what it takes to appeal across generations, I was pleasantly surprised to find this latest album one of the strongest song collections of his career. No longer the faux-naif, Richman is still an inspired primitive, building songs around structures he learned in the 50’s and 60’s, but with a raw earnestness that (as my nephew’s enthusiasm suggests) speaks today to fans of artists like Sufjan Stevens. “She had heart / She had soul / And things they don’t have a name for” he intones in his cracked croon, over a gentle Latin beat in “I Was The One She Came For,” a clear-eyed tribute to the mystery of sexual love, while “My Affected Accent” is a funny, oddly touching reflection on the perils of being a high school oddball (“I used big words/ And I talked through my hat / I shoulda been bullied / More than I was”), and “The Sea Was Calling Me Home” captures the claustrophobic unease of nightmare. The music is still mostly just Richman’s strummed-and-raggedly-plucked acoustic guitar, with a few studio touches and backing vocals: raw but sweet, more adult than ever, and utterly winning.
TRUE GRIT (SOUNDTRACK)
Carter Burwell
I haven’t seen True Grit yet, so I have no idea if the Coens are playing things straighter than usual on this one. If Burwell’s soundtrack is any indication, the answer is probably “pretty much, yeah, and classically so” (and if you don’t already know the story, some of the cue names are going to be a bit spoilery). From the “Ken Burns”-style piano intro to “The Wicked Flee” to the swelling strings of “Your Headstrong Ways” to the ominous “River Crossing,” Burwell evokes the wide-open grandeur that is the calling-card of great Western films, with his own contemporary touches: something sly and sinister inhabits “The Snake Pit,” forces looming and ineffable mark “Turkey Shoot.” Like most great Western film scores, Aaron Copland’s fingerprints are all over this one, culminating in the powerful “One Against Four;” while “Riding To Death” and “The Grave” carry the forthright resignation of a world where fate, and faith, were inextricably intertwined, summed up by Iris’ Dement’s timelessly raw and evocative vocal on “Leaning On The Everlasting Arms.” True Grit is classically evocative of the rich heritage of Western film scores, shot through with unique contemporary touches, and suggests that the movie it accompanies will be among the Coens’ best.
Other Notable 12/21 Releases
Keyshia Cole, Calling All Hearts. Smooth and slinky diva pop. Like you needed me to tell you that.
Keri Hilson, No Boys Allowed. Sassy and bouncy diva pop. Like you needed me to tell you that.
Ghostface Killah, Apollo Kids. Not available for preview, but will likely be ubiquitous in short order.
Dave Specter, Spectified. In a year filled with perfectly acceptable white-boy blues albums, here’s another. But you’re not allowed to buy it until you’ve picked up the latest Buddy Guy first.
Dock Boggs, Dock Boggs. Dark thoughts and murder songs on a remastered collection by the man who defined the sound of the modern banjo nearly a century ago.
Sun Ra, Live In London 1970. Like a lot of players of their time, Ra and his Arkestra ventured to Europe when they wanted to find an audience that actually appreciated jazz. Two compete sets from their UK debut performance.
(Yeah, it was kind of a slow week. Happy Holidays!)