January 18, 2007
The Best Music I Heard All Year, 2006 Edition: The Runners-Up.
Regular readers of my now-irregular blog would know that I usually include music from previous years, so not everything will be from last year.
And here we go, in alphabetical order:
The Backyardigans, The Backyardigans (2005)
What I wrote in a previous blog entry:
The real draw of the show of the same name is the music (and the excellent voice acting), which is just superb for a kiddie TV show. They're incredibly catchy and witty children’s ditties that are the functional equivalent of Broadway showtunes—each song within the show is totally choreographed, with dancing. The songs are thematically coherent for each episode, though they're not necessarily tailored to the plot; Irish music, for instance, accompanies the Backyardigans on their quest for the perfect cup of tea to Borneo and China (to ask the grumpy emperor for a cup). Across the series, however, the music runs the range from reggae to rockabilly to country to Dixieland to James Brown funk.
Anyhow, I finally got to see the scrolling credits by pausing the DVD (they get reduced to a tiny window when being broadcast), and discovered to my surprise that the list of musicians reads like a Tzadik session roster: Evan Lurie, Doug Weiselman, Greg Cohen, Smokey Hormel, Tony Scherr, Ben Perowsky, Steven Bernstein, Kenny Wollesen… Totally cool. (It's practically Sex Mob doing the soundtrack!)
Alex Chilton, 1970 (1970)
Early Chilton, coming off of the Box Tops and just before the jangle pop glory of Big Star: ramshackle rock and roll.
Shirley Collins and Davy Graham, Folk Roots, New Routes (1964)
The psychic connections between jazz, blues, ragas, and traditional British folk, explored by a spellbinding singer and guitarist.
Herbert, Scale (2006)
Experimental dance pop of extremely high quality -- at least for the first half of the album, anyway.
Junior Kilat, Party Pipol Ur On Dub TV (2005)
Dubbed-out reggae from Cebu City -- not touristy Bob Marley stuff either, but cave-like bass and reverb set to sky-cracking levels. Their secret weapon is Budoy Marabiles, the rasta-tammed lead singer who exhorts the audience like a manic street preacher.
Jim Noir, Tower of Love (2006)
I'm scrambling for references here: early '70s AM radio, early '70s A&M, mid-'90s Elephant 6. How about that?
Corinne Bailey Rae, Corinne Bailey Rae (2006)
Regina Spektor, Begin To Hope (2006)
Susie Suh, Susie Suh (2005)
It's an odd coincidence that three female singer-songwriters follow one another here, but there you go. Rae and Spektor could hardly be different from each other -- one's intimate and confessional, the other's, um, intimate and confessional (I'm getting lazy here) -- but both work in very different idioms: Rae in cozy R&B, Spektor in a delightful, but sometimes too clever, combination of Joni Mitchell / Tori Amos / Tin Pan Alley / Russian folk songs.
And here's what I wrote earlier about Suh:
I'm only really a casual fan of the women-with-acoustic-guitars genre, but there was something compelling about her 2005 self-titled album that made me take notice. There is nothing necessarily groundbreaking about it -- nothing you won't hear on a Lilith Fair compilation, perhaps, with self-confessional lyrics like "Oh I'm missing you / Or maybe I'm missing who I was when I was with you," and an urban-glossy production -- but there is an autumnal chill that runs through Suh's songs that gives the album an edge. Most important, Suh is gifted with an incredible voice, all husky and soulful, which breaks at perfect moments (hear the chorus of "Light on My Shoulder").
In concert that amazing voice is, unbelievably, even better, now embellished with a slight rawness that fits the emotional intensity of her lyrics. Indeed, the concert was completely stripped down: with her on guitar and vocals and another guy on drums. (You also get the chance to see how fine a guitar player she is.)
To my initial worry, Suh began the short set with four of my favorite songs on the album ("Won't You Come Again," "Your Battlefield," "Harmony," and "Lucille," if I remember correctly). But this anxiety was dispelled with a couple of terrific new songs ("Canopy," probably about her mother, and "Sweet Love," which began with lines like "Clap your hands if you love someone in this room," or words to that effect), and a few well-placed surprise covers ("Don't Think Twice, It's All Right," "Since I Fell For You," "Is This Love"). All together a most excellent experience; I highly recommend catching her in concert if she comes by your town.
Matthew Sweet and Susanna Hoffs, Under the Covers Vol. 1 (2006)
My only disappointment is that some of the cover versions are somewhat safe and superfluous -- do we really another version of "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue?" -- but Sweet and Hoffs revel in harmony-filled power-pop goodness here.
Francois Tetaz, Wolf Creek (2005)
This isn't exactly your traditional movie soundtrack, as there isn't a traditional "score;" it's a series of dreadful (in the good, literal sense) scrapings, bass rumbles, string quartet and prepared piano passages, and samples from Alan Lamb's wires in the Australian desert.
And some other albums that didn't quite make the cut, but were excellent anyway:
- The Little Willies, The Little Willies
- OM, Conference of the Birds
- PUFFY, Splurge
- Michael Shelley, Goodbye Cheater
- Various Artists, '80s Hits Stripped
- Windy and Carl, Antarctica
- John Zorn, Filmworks Vol. XVI: Workingman's Death
And some YouTube fun (if you had checked my page out earlier you would have seen my attempt at embedding the videos -- 12 open shockwave applications sure slows Firefox down though):
- The Backyardigans, "The Backyardigans Theme"
- Junior Kilat, "Original Sigbin"
- Jim Noir, "Eanie Meany"
- Corinne Bailey Rae, "Put Your Records On"
- Regina Spektor, "Fidelity"
- Matthew Sweet and Susanna Hoffs, "Rain" (Live)
And some Amazon links:
- The Backyardigans
- Alex Chilton
- Shirley Collins and Davy Graham
- Herbert
- Jim Noir
- Corinne Bailey Rae
- Regina Spektor
- Susie Suh
- Matthew Sweet and Susanna Hoffs
- Francois Tetaz