Last month I was able to plow through a stack of discs left over from previous months. This go around I enter into the New Year with a pair of new albums, a hybrid recast of a best of, and a glorious boxed set celebrating one of the great albums of our generation.
Paul Kelly
Spring and Fall
Gawdaggie Records
Arriving as it does at the onset of our winter, even as his native Australia (where he is universally adored) blooms with the promise of rebirth and warming temperatures, Spring and Fall signifies a steady, inexorable shift for Kelly, returning to the minimal roots that has anchored much of his post 2000 output while reengaging his incurable knack for understated charm and whimsy.
The twin seasons serve as bookends for his current emotional and spiritual state; newfound love abounds but, as always, trepidation and scorn lie just below the surface. Kelly’s straightforward songs have never been difficult to parse — he eschews the labyrinth lyrical approach of his admitted hero Bob Dylan — but they’re hushed, seducing the listener into his swaying chords and lilting melodies.
At this stage of his career, with three decades of recorded music behind him, Kelly is certainly an experience crafter of song, and Spring and Fall evidences this in the strongest possible sense. Its songs unfold at a leisurely pace, benefiting from repeated listens as their subtleties emerge. This is especially true of the melodies, whose relaxed tempos shift unexpectedly — and at just the proper moment — from cadence to cadence. Spring and Fall is a record about heartache and healing, but it’s also about our universal tendencies towards finding solace in both pleasure (“Someone New”) and pain (“Cold As Canada”). In this Paul Kelly has again asserted himself as a national treasure too good for only one nation. ****
Mr. Blue Sky
The Very Best of Electric Light Orchestra
Legacy Music
Having rediscovered the joys of do-it-yourself record making, Jeff Lynne has gone back and remixed what is generally considered the finest of many ELO compilations. Much like a film director who cannot resist the urge to tinker with past triumphs, Lynne is determined to recreate his old arrangements with new technology.
Strictly speaking, these are not reinterpretations of the bands incredible 1970’s streak of top ten hits, but rather newly recorded versions (with Lynne playing virtually all the instruments) of songs familiar to even the most casual of fans. The result is a cleaner and more brightly sounding collection that while on the one hand might be a tad superfluous is an undeniably engaging listen.
Lynne’s voice is in remarkable good shape, the harmonies are impeccably layered, and he’s even managed to replicate old-fashioned analog synthesizers with scant loss of compression. Whether this is reason enough to trade in your old ELO hits album in favor of this years’ model is open to debate but there’s no getting around that for sheer entertainment value Jeff Lynne’s latest vanity project is no mere trip down memory lane. ***1/2
The Idelsohn Society
‘Twas the Night Before Hanukkah: The Musical Battle Between Christmas and the Festival of Lights
Idelsohn Society Music
www.idelsohnsociety.com
This generous two disc set explores the ever evolving 20th century musical role of both Hanukkah and Christmas. Furthering its mission to educate, edify and promote Jewish musical history, The ldelsohn Society has compiled a highly enjoyable collection of Hanukkah songs, both traditional and contemporary, as well as Christmas music sung (and in many cases written) by Jews.
Each disc features 17 tracks, compiled from a wide array of performers, musical styles and genres, from the 1930s to present. Disc One (Happy Hanukkah) highlights both well-known and somewhat lost Hanukkah classics from the past. Disc two, (Merry Christmas) features Christmas songs secular and holy.
The collection tells a uniquely American story: once Christmas was declared a national holiday in 1870, the competitive campaign to increase the visibility of Hanukkah began. The once obscure and relatively minor Jewish holiday grew both in religious prominence and commercial importance.
For reasons both sentimental and out of a simple love for the music, every major Jewish performer of the time recorded a Christmas track. The result was a truly American phenomenon: a category of Christmas music, as sung by Jews, became a vital part of the holiday fabric.
Twas The Night Before Hanukkah is a musical songbook highlighting both rare and iconic holiday music across both faiths. To further illustrate the musical journey, a deluxe 35-page booklet of Hanukkah photos, holiday themed artwork, rare holiday album art from years past and a list of 16 ways (who knew?) to correctly spell Hanukkah compliments the set.
Additionally, the package includes extensive liner notes on both holidays’ history in American culture along with essays by noted music critic Greil Marcus and George Washington University historian Jenna Weissman Joselit. Each of the 34 songs included receives a track-by-track description. Performers range from the obvious (Mel Torme) to the unknown (Gladys Gewitz). And who among us recalls that Woody Guthrie cut a Hanukkah tune or two?
Obviously not everything will resonate with everyone but for an educational and entertaining overview of holiday music from the twentieth century this works as both primer and remedial course. I wish my copy had arrived early enough to recommend it for this year but, unless the Mayans are somehow accurate, there’s always 2013 to look forward to. ****
Reissue of the Month
Rage Against The Machine: XX
20th Anniversary Deluxe Box Set
In more than a few ways the decade of the 1990’s seemed a bit schizophrenic, a period in which the music never quite seemed reflective of the zeitgeist of the country. Even as the peace and prosperity of the Clinton years lulled us into a national trance the youth culture-especially those damn kids from Seattle-were wallowing in confusion and an angst that bordered on self loathing.
This apparent bifurcation was best amplified in the music of Limp Bizkit and Pearl Jam (two bands that held more in common than might at first seem obvious) but in the long run not many albums of the time he aged as well as Rage Against the Machine’s self titled debut. From the start Tom Morello and company (Tim Commerford, Zack de la Rocha, and Brad Wilk) channeled their aggression into something that approached true art.
While other bands used their often feigned indignation as a means to sell music, Rage intentionally left such premeditated marketing off the table and went straight for the kill. Over the course of 52 minutes, and with unerring precision, they eviscerated everything from imperialism to consumerism, fair-weather political impulses, and bogus cultural icons.
Now, two decades later, fans both old and new are invited to recapture the moment with a deluxe box set stuffed with unreleased demos, select live tracks, and DVD extras. And while repackaging the album and stuffing it with an abundance of extra material would seem to go against the spirit of the album its hard to argue with success.
Even after all this time the album sounds as fresh and resilient as ever; if anything its’ grown with the years, a wonderful amalgam of style and substance. There’s the sociopolitical slant of bands like Public Enemy and The Clash, the bluesy guitar leanings of Led Zeppelin and the earnest, unadulterated wrath of hardcore metal.
The demos that follow the remastered tracks might not deviate too much from the original studio versions, but there’s a slightly rougher, unpolished quality to them that better compliments the bands’ ethos. So while the bonus material is welcome it neither detracts nor significantly adds to the original. But with any hope for a new Rage Against the Machine album grow dimmer by the year this is a great way to become introduced or reacquainted with a seminal album that truly deserves such status. *****
