Second Chance At Big Star

If you missed out on scoring a copy of Omnivore's test pressing version of Big Star's Third on Record Store Day, you have a second chance. Omnivore has 500 copies pressed on clear vinyl available for sale exclusively at their web store. The price is steep (in my opinion) at $60, but that is much less than you would pay for a copy on eBay.

I was lucky enough to score a copy in store on Record Store Day, and I don't remember paying that much for the black vinyl version. But I know many were not so lucky, as this was one of the most in-demand Record Store Day items ever (and for good reason). I can practically hear the wailing and teeth gnashing of vinyl hoarders who camped out on Record Store Day about the unfairness of it all. Don't shoot the messenger, I'm just passing along the news to those who might be interested.

This an amazing album and package, and the sound quality is outstanding. It's hard for me to imagine a fan of Big Star not wanting this in their collection.

I also see that Omnivore has a CD and "digital LP" of Richard Thompson's long out-of-print instrumental album Strict Time available for pre-order. I wrote a bit about this album a while ago, and it is gratifying to see it returning to print after having been unavailable for too long.

Deluxe Shoot Out The Lights Coming From Rhino Handmade

Rhino Handmade has announced plans to release a Deluxe Edition of Richard And Linda Thompson’s legendary swan song, Shoot Out The Lights, with previously unreleased live performances from their "emotionally charged" final U.S. tour. "Emotionally charged" is actually quite the understatement here. The tour coincided with the ugly breakup of the Thompsons' romantic and artistic partnership. The set includes a 40 page book that details such fun anecdotes as the time Linda kicked Richard in the shins during a solo at a show in Providence.

The live tracks were mostly recorded in San Francisco and Santa Cruz and include the following eleven tracks: "Dargai," "Back Street Slide," "Pavanne," "I’ll Keep It With Mine," "Borrowed Time, "Did She Jump Or Was She Pushed?," "I’m A Dreamer," "Honky Tonk Blues," "Shoot Out The Lights," "For Shame Of Doing Wrong," "Dimming Of The Day."

It would have been nice if this edition included an official release of the much bootlegged version of the album recorded by Gerry Rafferty and the B-side "Living In Luxury" that was included on early CD pressings, but alas that is not the case.

I already own Shoot Out The Lights on LP, CD (with "Living In Luxury") and SACD. Do I need another version? No. Will I buy it again? Yes. I really do want to hear those live tracks. By all accounts the personal turmoil resulted in some of the most intense and committed performances of either artists' career.

Forever In Blue Jeans

Michael Tomasky at The Guardian asks his readers to "Name us a song or two that all "right-thinking people" would dismiss as sentimental but that you love. And be bold and unapologetic!"

I'll start off with Neil Diamond's "Forever In Blue Jeans" a top 20 hit from 1979, seen here performed in concert for a CBS special in 2009. I could list you hundreds of reasons why all "right thinking people" should not only dismiss this bit of sentimental drivel, but should actively hate it. Instead, I'll limit myself to eight very compelling reasons:

1) This is not a track by the (relatively) cool, early, "Jewish Elvis" Neil Diamond. Nor is it by the Rick Rubin rehabilitated Neil Diamond either. No, this is the by the full-on, rhinestone-jumpsuit-wearing, 70s schlockmeister, Neil Diamond.

2) The fact that the track appears on the You Don't Bring Me Flowers LP should be enough for anyone with even a modicum of "taste" in music to write the song off without even hearing it.

3) The song was used to advertise actual blue jeans. By the Gap.

4) It's been performed on American Idol (by a white guy with dreadlocks no less).

5) It was produced by Bob Gaudio (of The Four Seasons, who is largely to blame for foisting the reactionary Jersey Boys on an unsuspecting world).

6) It features one of those awful disco-synth string arrangements that were already passe by 1979.

7) Oh my God. Look at those middle-aged white people in Diamond's audience try to dance. They probably paid over $500 a head and got all dressed up to sing along to a song about...

8) Most damning of all, this song belongs to the hideous musical sub-genre that features fabulously wealthy people singing about how great it is to be poor. Like John Lennon asking us to "imagine no possessions," Diamond's own life is so far from the simple, happy existence he celebrates in the song, it's laughable.

"Money talks,
But it don't sing and dance and it don't walk,
And long as I can have you here with me,
I'd much rather be,
Forever in blue jeans"

Look Neil, if money is so bad (or at the very least inessential to happiness) I'd be happy to take some of your many millions off your hands for you. Seriously.

I could probably make a relatively compelling argument that songs like this are foisted on us by the entertainment industry to keep the resentment of society's "have-nots" from boiling over into something like a revolution (or at the very least a less regressive tax code). After all, if Hollywood movies, hit pop songs and tabloids teach us nothing else, it's that the rich are never as happy as us simple folk. So maybe I shouldn't even bother to notice that the top 5% in the United States own something like 60% of the country's wealth, while the other 95% of us fight it out over what's left over. After all, all that money hasn't made those fancy rich folks happy, so why should I care? I'd much rather be forever in blue jeans. Yeah, right.

And yet, I love this song.

"Honey's sweet,
But it ain't nothing next to baby's treat,"

First of all, it's hard not to love a song that slips lyrics so casually obscene and vulgar into a tune that gets airplay on easy listening stations and CBS television specials. There's just something about that I respect.

I'm not stupid. I know Neil Diamond doesn't remotely live the lyrics to this song. He's an artist. A performer. An entertainer. A showbiz personality. But the fact is, I really can relate to the song's sentiment. I've made certain decisions in my life that have likely minimized the amount of money I earn, but maximized the amount of time I get to spend with my wife and kids. I wouldn't have it any other way. I was listening to this song on my iPod earlier today waiting for my wife and kids, thinking about the role of sentimentality in music. Just as the song ended I spotted my kids running towards me, just genuinely and totally happy to see me. I feel like I've done okay for myself. I really would much rather be forever in blue jeans.

Other sentimental songs I love:

"Giddy Up Go" and "Teddy Bear" by Red Sovine
I don't think music gets much more sentimental than Red Sovine's signature trucking songs. Both songs feature spoken-word vocals and it sounds like 'ole Red might choke up at any moment. "Giddy Up Go" tells the story of a trucker who discovers that his long-lost son is also a trucker now. "Teddy Bear" is about how a young paraplegic boy whose truck drivin' father has perished in an accident finally gets his wish to ride in a truck thanks to CB radio and some big hearted truckers. You would be hard pressed to find more blatantly emotionally manipulative music than these two songs, and yet I find them strangely sublime.

"Honey" by Bobby Goldsboro
This makes "worst song ever" lists about as often as any other song I can think of. It's a totally maudlin song about a guy who loses his girl to suicide. It even features a Christmas puppy. And yet it is so totally over-the-top and excessive in its sentimentality that I can't help but love it.

"Little Green Apples" by Roger Miller
Written by Bobby Russell (the same guy who wrote "Honey"). This song actually chokes me up. It's about a guy whose wife is tolerant of his flaws, and if that ain't lovin' him, "God didn't make little green apples and it don't rain in Indianapolis in the summertime." It would be easy to dismiss the song as sexist, except that it is so clear that the protagonist really appreciates everything his wife does for him. It's about feeling like you don't really deserve the love your significant other gives, but being grateful for receiving it anyway. It's another sentiment I can relate to. Also, Roger Miller was a genius.

"The Most Beautiful Girl" by Charlie Rich
Everybody's supposed to hate the sappy "Countrypolitan" sound of the 70s, but I've always loved this song. And as you can see I have a soft spot for sappy country music.

"Silly Love Songs" by Paul McCartney and Wings
I understand why a lot of people hate McCartney, I really do. Still, I find this answer to his critics pretty convincing. That throbbing Macca bassline helps.

"A Tiny Broken Heart" by The Louvin Brothers
It's about a little boy who gets his heart broken because his his playmate's parents are too poor to stay in town. Frankly, The Louvin Brothers could have harmonized to the phone book and I would find it incredibly moving.

"Now Is Better Than Before" by Jonathan Richman & the Modern Lovers
Jonathan Richman has created his own unique musical and artistic aesthetic by refusing to be afraid of being corny and sentimental, and by rejecting even the slightest hint of "coolness" or cynicism. He is one of the bravest artists I can think of. I find this to be one of his most moving songs.

More:

"Blue Eyes Cryin' in the Rain" by Willie Nelson

"Just An Old Fashioned Love Song" by Three Dog Night

"What A Wonderful World" by Sam Cooke

"A Good Year For The Roses" by George Jones

"Then Came You" by The Spinners with Dionne Warwick

"A Place In The Sun" by Stevie Wonder

"You Are Everything" by The Stylistics

"Beeswing" by Richard Thompson

"All The Right Reasons" by The Jayhawks

I could go on...these are just some of the first ones to pop into my head. What sappy, sentimental songs do you love?

Sky Rockets In Flight

On his blog at The Nation, Eric Alterman has listed the "World’s Worst Songs: The Top Twenty." (I have added artist names and the year performed in parentheses):

"Imagine" (John Lennon, 1971)
"Afternoon Delight" (Starland Vocal Band, 1976)
"The Night Chicago Died" (Paper Lace, 1974)
"Billy Don’t be a Hero" (Paper Lace, 1974)
"You Light Up My Life" (Debby Boone, 1977)
"Mary Queen of Arkansas" (Bruce Springsteen, 1973)
"The Angel" (Bruce Springsteen, 1973)
"Wildfire" (Michael Murphy, 1975)
"Playground In My Mind" (Clint Holmes, 1973)
"Seasons in the Sun" (Terry Jacks, 1973)
"Ebony And Ivory" (Paul McCartney & Stevie Wonder, 1982)
"My Love" (Paul McCartney & Wings, 1973)
"Let ‘Em In" (Paul McCartney & Wings, 1976)
"Sometimes When We Touch" (Dan Hill, 1977)
"Baby I'm-A Want You" (Bread, 1972)
"'Arthur's Theme' (Best That You Can Do)" (Christopher Cross, 1981)
"One Tin Soldier" (Original Caste, 1970; Coven, 1971)
"You May Be Right" (Billy Joel, 1980)
"We Built This City" (Starship, 1985)
"Kumbaya" (Traditional African American spiritual, popular versions recorded by Pete Seeger, The Weavers, Joan Baez, The Seekers, and others)
"Who’s Ruling Who?" (I have to confess I'm not sure what song Alterman is referring to here, but he might mean Aretha Franklin's "Who's Zooming Who" from 1985)

Alterman's friend Michael Tomasky at The Guardian has taken Eric to task for his bias against sentimentality. By and large I agree with Tomasky, although it seems to me that what Alterman objects to is earnestness as much as sentimentality per se, but that's not really what I wanted to talk about.

Looking at the years these songs were written and recorded reminds me of what generated Richard Thompson's 1,000 Years of Popular Music project. When Thompson was asked to list the "Greatest Songs of the Millennium" by Playboy Magazine, he knew they were really asking for a list of his favorite songs from the past 50 years or so. Thompson, being the clever man that he is, instead prepared a list that began with "Sumer Is Icumen In" (written circa 1260) and ended with Britney Spears' Y2K smash, "Oops!… I Did It Again." This is just one of the many reasons Richard Thompson is far more brilliant than the rest of us. Of course Playboy didn't print his list.

I imagine Alterman doesn't want us to take his list too seriously (after all, he didn't even bother to tell you who did the songs), but what are the chances that all of the top 20 worst songs in human history (with one sort-of exception) were written between 1970 and 1985? Further, what are the chances that 18 of 20 would be written in the U.S. and U.K. ("One Tin Soldier" was written in Canada and "Seasons In The Sun" is an adaptation of a Jacques Brel song)? That just doesn't seem likely to me.

Looking at the list tells me more about its author than the history of music. Even if I knew nothing about Alterman (and I don't know much), I could tell from his list that he was likely born in the United States between 1958 and 1965, probably grew up on the East Coast in a politically liberal family, and likely resented the time he had to spend singing "Kumbaya" at sleep away camp.

All of which is to say that lists like this are inevitably subjective. I don't mean "subjective" in the clichéd "there's no such thing as good or bad music" sense, but rather in the sense that one's experience of the world (where and when you are born, cumulative life experiences, etc.) shapes our understanding of the world, as well as what we value and what we disregard.

Maybe that is just a fancy way of saying "there's no such thing as good or bad music." I'm not sure I'd go that far, but at the very least--even if you are committed to the idea that there is an objective set of criteria that allows us to distinguish between good and bad music--it is undeniable that we can only make these kinds of value judgments about music we have been exposed to.

Frankly, I have never seen an argument that there is some objective standard for making judgments about music (or any other art) that isn't hopelessly tortured. I lean more toward the position that it is only through the power wielded by particular institutions that matters of preference (say a bias against sentimentality) become legitimized as criteria for making aesthetic judgments, and these criteria are subject to change across time periods and cultures.

Personally, I am not at all committed to the idea that there is a set of objective criteria for "good" music, although Starship's "We Built This City" does badly make me want to believe that there are objective criteria for what constitutes bad music, even if its postulates and axioms are elusive to my feeble mind.

**Full disclosure: I actually like a lot of these songs, even if they are bad.

**UPDATE: Alterman responds (and calls me a "really smart guy"). Also, it appears "Who's Ruling Who" is not one of the worst songs of all time, but an editing error. (If I was actually a really smart guy, I might have noticed that Alterman's list of 20 worst songs included 21 titles.)

Free MP3 From Richard Thompson's Upcoming Dream Attic Album

Richard Thompson is offering a free MP3 download of "Big Sun Falling In The River" a track from his upcoming album, Dream Attic. It's an album of new songs, but in order to capture the energy of his live shows, the bulk of the performances on the album were recorded live at the Great American Music Hall in San Francisco. The album is scheduled for August 31st release on Shout Factory.

The track list for Dream Attic is as follows:

1. The Money Shuffle
2. Among the Gorse, Among the Grey
3. Haul Me Up
4. Burning Man
5. Here Comes Geordie
7. Crimescene
8. Big Sun Falling in the River
9. Stumble On
10. Sidney Wells
11. A Brother Slips Away
12. Bad Again
13. If Love Whispers Your Name

Richard Thompson

What makes a particular sound recognizable? Neuroscience has made much progress in helping us to understand things like how we can recognize the voice of a loved one. We can even create algorithms that allow machines to recognize voices with a fair degree of accuracy (though they do not approach the efficiency of the human brain). Someday, perhaps sooner than we think, we will have a fairly detailed idea of what happens to our brain on a molecular level when we answer the phone and instantly recognize a voice.

But what strange alchemy is it that allows us to recognize the "voice" of an instrumentalist? This is a much more rare occurrence. It's one thing to instantly recognize the sound of your mother's voice, but it seems much more amazing that we can distinguish say, Miles Davis trumpet playing from that of Freddie Hubbard. Developing a recognizable "voice" on an instrument like the trumpet takes a level of skill that it is difficult for me to imagine.

Which makes Richard Thompson's accomplishment all the more remarkable. A few months ago, I was standing in line at a Babies 'R' Us and a voice in the back of my head said "Richard Thompson is playing that guitar." I tuned into the background music more closely, and sure enough it was Thompson playing "I Ride Through Your Slipstream" a track from his 1994 album Mirror Blue that I hadn't heard in years. The thing is, I can almost always recognize Thompson's playing--whether on an acoustic or electric instrument--within only a few notes. How does something like this happen? It's one thing to establish a "voice" on an acoustic instrument that produces sound by the force of one's breath (e.g. a trumpet or saxophone), but to do it on a stringed instrument that is at times electrically amplified and distorted--that strikes me as nearly miraculous.

How is it that using hardly anything more than his fingers Thompson has managed to create a "voice" that is so instantly recognizable? It's not just that I recognize Thompson's songwriting or his singing either. I can recall a number of times listening to someone else's music and thinking "that must be Richard Thompson playing." I check the liner notes, and yep, it's Thompson doing a guest spot (something he is asked to do often). Maybe I don't instantly recognize Thompson's playing 100% of the time, but far more often than not I do, regardless of context. I am at a loss to explain this phenomena. Perhaps one day neuroscience will be able to explain it. Until then, I chose to believe that Richard Thompson has magic fingers.

Here's a couple instrumental tracks from Thompson albums that have fallen out-of-print. The first is a Duke Ellington composition, "Rockin' In Rhythm" taken from Thompson's 1981 album of instrumentals, Strict Tempo. The other, "Persuasion" comes from a soundtrack to a nearly forgotten film, Sweet Talker. Tim Finn of Crowded House later added lyrics to the song, and Thompson re-recorded it with vocals for his Capitol era best of compilation, Action Packed. In both cases, despite the disparity in the material, production and instruments played, Thompson's playing is instantly identifiable.

Too often when people discuss the "great" rock guitarists, the basis of evaluation seems to be the level of technical difficultly required to play a particular solo or riff. Such considerations have their place of course--and there is no doubt that Thompson is capable of great feats of technical dexterity--but in creating a unique and instantly recognizable "voice" on his instrument, Thompson has in my estimation done something very special indeed.

Also, Thompson just released his umpteenth solo album, Sweet Warrior.

Richard & Linda Thompson - Sunnyvista

Sunnyvista is one of the most commercial sounding albums of Richard Thompson's career; it is also one of the few that is currently out-of-print. The bright, shiny surfaces of Sunnyvista are belied by Thompson's usual downcast lyrics, and the obvious irony of the cover art. Sunnyvista is a good album with some good songs, but it is hard to escape the feeling that there is something not-quite right about it--the whole project feels much like the mortician's art of painting smiles on a dead man. After this album's commercial failure Thompson would never again release an album with such obviously commercial production, presumably having realized his audience consisted mainly of those who prefer their doom and gloom straight up with no chaser.

Richard Thompson - Dad's Gonna Kill Me

Richard Thompson has posted a very powerful song about the Iraq War, "Dad's Gonna Kill Me" over at The Huffington Post. Thompson has clearly been reading a lot of military blogs of late. The song is only available as streaming content at the moment, but hopefully it will be featured on his upcoming album Sweet Warrior. Thanks to Adam for pointing this out to me.

I have a lot more to say about Richard Thompson, who is one of my all time favorite recording artists, but that can wait for another day.

Update: Thompson has made the song available for download on his website, and it looks like it will be featured on Sweet Warrior.