It used to be easier to pretend that an album was its own perfectly self-contained artifact. The great records certainly feel that way. But albums are more permeable than solid, their motivations, executions and inspirations informed by, and often stolen from, their peers and forbearers. It all sounds awfully formal, but it's not. It's the very nature of music — of art, even. The Six Degrees features examine the relationships between classic records and five… more »
It used to be easier to pretend that an album was its own perfectly self-contained artifact. The great records certainly feel that way. But albums are more permeable than solid, their motivations, executions and inspirations informed by, and often stolen from, their peers and forbearers. It all sounds awfully formal, but it's not. It's the very nature of music — of art, even. The Six Degrees features examine the relationships between classic records and five… more »
Whither country music - or will it wither? Most of the c&w on strut at the recent CMA awards had more to do with 80's power-rock and 00's teen-pop than the morning farm report. In recent years, an alt-country movement in such Willy-billy suburbs as Brooklyn's Williamsburg has waved a country flag, along with a taste for trucker's caps and Pabst Blue Ribbon. This isn't a sudden outcropping on the range; ever since Gram Parsons… more »
One night a few years ago I was zipping through the traffic maze of Los Angeles, on my way to meet the producer Nobody on the occasion of his just-released debut album, Soulmates. He had given me very vague directions, and so the signal strength of KXLU, where he was doing his weekly radio show, helped guide my path. As the static cleared, I grew more confused: what was he playing? Rather than the Project… more »
I don't know if the Y in Robyn Hitchcock's name was there on his birth certificate, but I can't imagine it spelled "Robin." That Y is the same slightly odd Y that's present in the Byrds, in Syd Barrett and in Bob Dylan - arguably the three biggest historical presences behind his music. He's got an enormous, three-decade-long discography, but the early solo albums that have just come to eMusic include some of the sweetest… more »
No, it's not a great name: "shoegazing." Very few artists who've actually played in that style like the term; Stuart Braithwaite of Mogwai has called it "a dumb term made up by clueless... idiots... if someone called us shoegazers, I'd be pretty unhappy." The other leading candidate seems to be "dreampop," which is also not quite satisfactory.
But we're stuck with those words, because it's undeniable that there's a certain tendency in rock music, especially British… more »
As legend has it, the Byrds wrapped up the basic tracks for Byrdmaniax in early 1971 and then hit the road for a concert tour, leaving producers Terry Melcher and Chris Hinshaw to polish the final mix. Melcher and Hinshaw then proceeded to add copious overdubs to what the group had set down, drowning the songs in a swampy morass of keyboards, horns, strings, and massed background singers in the misguided hope of making the album sound more “commercial” (even Clarence White’s superb lead guitar often gets lost in the murk). The shame of it is that the aural gingerbread managed to spoil what might have been one of the Byrds’ better albums; it’s hard to imagine what Skip Battin’s goofy “Citizen Kane” or Roger McGuinn’s witty “I Wanna Grow Up to Be a Politician” were intended to sound like originally, but “I Trust” and “Kathleen’s Song” are lovely if you can listen past the overproduction, and “Green Apple Quick Step” gives White and Gene Parsons plenty of room to show off their old-time country chops. Not an awful album, but Byrdmaniax is hardly the pleasure it could have been in the hands of a more tasteful production team. [The 1999 CD reissue adds three bonus tracks, including an un-overdubbed alternate take of "Pale Blue" that indicates how the album was originally intended to sound.] – Mark Deming
