A while back I commented on a few albums I was excited about at the time:
1. the new Wilco Album
2. the new Ryan Adams Album
3. the new Josh Rouse Album
4. The new album by Jesse Malin (would it be insulting to call him Ryan Adams’ protégé?)
Anyway, the release dates for these have come and gone, and I am reminded of the cycle of consumption these days. Now, none of these albums are bad. None of them blow you out of the water, not exactly era-defining. Well, maybe, only time will tell. The Jesse Malin album is not bad, some rockable tracks here, some memorable lead guitar lines, about on par with his last album, maybe half a star less, if only for some of the re-tread. The new Wilco, I’ve heard bits and pieces, but haven’t gotten around to buying. This may or may not have to do with the fact that the bits and pieces didn’t blow me away enough to buy from itunes, or it may have to do with the fact that I wanted these albums on cd because my iradio hisses in the car and the local record store shut down (thanks a lot, downloaders), and I have to go way out of my way to buy CD’s, unless I want to shell out like 6 extra bucks at Borders, once I push and shove my way past all the Harry Potter types (more on that later). Things are complicated, as you can see.
First, as I listen to the singer-songwriter collection in itunes at the moment, I must say, it’s more fun to listen to this kind of music in a colder climate, something about soft acoustic music alleviates the bitter winter, or allows you to feel it more fully. But in spite of the prevalence of writers and musicians in this town, this sunshiney, happy-go-lucky, girls-in-Hollister, my-Bentley-is-bigger-than-yours-and-oh-my-God-the-Beaujolais-at-The-Little-Door-is-to-die-for crowd isn’t the most conducive to enjoying it. For example, I live in Pasadena. I love the album Say I am You by The Weepies. It takes me away to that special place. For some reason, when I listened to it at first, I thought of Seattle, or Portland, definitely the Pacific Northwest, nature, greenery, mountains, poetry, early sunsets, keeping warm against the cold, soft pink and gold sunsets, that sort of thing, only to find out they wrote they whole damn thing in, you guessed it, Pasadena. Oh well, that’ll teach me to be rooted in the here and now. (Ironically, today marks the release of Mandy Moore’s new album, which would otherwise be completely uninteresting news, if The Weepies hadn’t co-written 5 songs of the album with Mandy. I’m not sure how I feel about this yet. Does that make Mandy cool or The Weepies sell-outs? Hm, I’ll have to come back to this. Here’s hoping Dylan doesn’t co-write his next album with Ashlee Simpson. Maybe the Weepies were applying the John Ford moviemaking logic: one for them, one for me, one for them, one for me…or maybe they just really liked her in Saved. I’m sorry I can’t get over this.) Where was I?
Oh yeah, so anyway, these albums were to be my Summer blockbusters. Adams’ album gets a solid 4 out of 5, with two overly twangy, countrified, and frankly unlistenable songs knocking off one star. But besides those a strong album, maybe my favorite hangover album of the year. Not that I get hangovers. Ahem. Moving on. Jesse Malin gets a solid 3 and a half. Some good energy on the album. Obviously, I’ll have to go with an N/A on the Wilco album, somehow the vocals on the tracks I’ve heard don’t do it for me, not scratchy enough? I guess I’m still stuck on Summer Teeth and don’t want to let go. Which brings me to Josh Rouse. Josh, Josh, Josh. What happened? We can only infer. Like Ben Folds before him (Australia), Josh finds enlightenment on foreign shores. What happened exactly? These are the known facts. In 2003, little known indie musician drops what may have been the album of the decade (one guy’s opinion) called 1972. Taken with the previous Under The Cold Blue Stars and the successive Nashville, Joshy crafted a mini-oeuvre that could be in desert island top ten status. Really, they’re that good. What happens next? Allow me some conjecture here. Josh is a working musician, traveling the world, bringing British radio hosts to tears with his beautiful live renditions of his heart-rending songs, hobnobbing with celebs in Australia, yukking it up in Nashville. At some point, he tours Spain. The temperature’s right, the weed is good, the beer is cheap, maybe he loves “The Sun Also Rises” and fancies himself a Hemingway man, maybe he gets suckered into a time share talk, maybe he finds a local philly (Paz Suey?), maybe he thinks it’s neat how they lisp their ‘s’ sounds, as in “grathias, amigoth.” Whatever the case, he ditches Nashville for Spain. What follow is the lazily breathey offering “She’s Spanish, I’m American” and the subpar “Subtitulo,” which we should lovingly refer to as “Subparulo.” Not that either of them were bad, just not that great. And finally, Country Mouse, City House comes out. What’s a lazy introvert with most of this artist’s back catalog to do? Maybe it’s a timing thing, maybe I’ve come with unrealistic expectations, maybe I haven’t given the album a fair shake. I’m tempted to buy it on general principle, hey, it’s a Josh Rouse album. Then again, this might be strike three.
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