From: owner-shindell-list-digest@smoe.org (shindell-list-digest) To: shindell-list-digest@smoe.org Subject: shindell-list-digest V2 #351 Reply-To: shindell-list@smoe.org Sender: owner-shindell-list-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-shindell-list-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk shindell-list-digest Friday, December 1 2000 Volume 02 : Number 351 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Re: [RS] Ron's top 5 [patrick t power ] [RS] I hate lists [Jeff Gilson ] Re: [RS] top ? list [Vanessa Wills ] [RS] Re: HMMMM.... [Tom926@aol.com] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 1 Dec 2000 00:44:17 -0500 From: patrick t power Subject: Re: [RS] Ron's top 5 RonG wrote: <> While I have tremendous respect Ron's musical opinions, and for Kris Delmhorst as a musician, singer and (dare I say this in the presence of one Dave McKay) one who possesses one of the greatest faces I've ever seen, "Appetite" in no way approaches "The Green World" for its depth or breadth. Kris' songwriting is still in the developmental stages as is she herself. Songs about relationships, relationships, relationships can go only so far (despite *this* songwriter's propensity for writing them!!). The chances that Dar has taken with the CD (that I believe Norman refers to) have more to do with the content of the songs than with the production of the sound (although there were many comments from the Dar-List -- in the minority -- that would suggest she "sold out" with the "pop" sound). Dar's lyrics have been fairly accessible up until "The Green World". This time around, she presents us with more vagaries than in past CDs. Dar also has taken the chance of revealing so much more of herself than she has in the past. I don't mean it in that she says "this happened to me and that happened to me", but that she reveals her struggles with her own weaknesses; that as bright, creative and self-assured a woman as she is (or at least that *we've* seen), her doubts about herself have run *so* deep so as to question her own worth as a human being. Kris' CD doesn't hold my attention anywhere *near* as much as "The Green World". In fact, I'd bet that I've probably played "The Green World" more times in *one sitting* than I've listened to "Appetite" in total. Pat ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 01 Dec 2000 01:08:35 -0500 From: Jeff Gilson Subject: [RS] I hate lists I really hate lists. And since I hate lists, I won't do a list. No, I won't. This is my collection of albums from this year that struck me. (I'm leaving Richard and Dar off the list because I love SNP and TGW to pieces and am incapable of forming coherent sentences about them most of the time...) Dave & Tracy, Tanglewood Tree. The title song alone is worth the price of admission. It's rare to find albums without one bad song, and this is definitely one. It's an album I can listen to in any mood and have it match my mood. Janis Ian, God & the FBI. If "On the Other Side" were the only song on this album, it would have made this lis-er, I mean, collection. It's not her best album, perhaps, but it's great for just sitting back and listening to. Eels, Dasies of the Galaxy. With a name like "E", I would think the songwriter and main artist of Eels to be highly pretentious, except that he's a damn good songwriter. He also manages to burst any thought you might have as to his pretension in the songs, which are catchy and hooky and upbeat, and completely depressing as far as the lyrics go. Good stuff. Poe, Haunted. If you'd asked me after Poe released her first album (Hello) what the second one would sound like, I would never in a million years been correct. While the first was disjointed and juvenile, this new album is clearly a single vision, and she has definitely gotten a better grasp on the songwriting tool. I don't think there's a potential hit on this album, and that's a positive thing. Fiona Apple, When the Pawn... This one also impressed me a lot, especially since I adored her first album. But this has stronger songwriting, more of a voice behind the songs, more consistent production, and it's got her voice. Every now and then, the major labels surprise you and catch a good one. Macy Gray, On How Life Is. I think this is from last year, but I only heard it this year. It's probably the best R&B album since Smokey Robinson was in his prime, and Macy's voice is so unique that you can't mistake her for anyone else. Mark Erelli. Again, not from this year. If anyone is going to fill Steve Earles shoes, this is the kid. I can say kid because he's a few months younger than me. There isn't a bad cut on this album, and it has me looking forward to his next. So, that's what I've been listening to. 'later, jeff. - -- All those things you taught me to fear I've got them in my garden now and you're not welcome here --Poe - -- (an index of free radical activity) http://www.onefreeradical.com/Journal/ ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 01 Dec 2000 02:24:05 -0500 From: Vanessa Wills Subject: Re: [RS] top ? list Hmm. . . Well, this is in no particular order (and taking SNP as a given): "Music@Work," by The Tragically Hip. For the long version of why the Hip are so good, see earlier post. "The Trouble with Poets," by Peter Mulvey. For goodness' sakes, why hasn't someone else put him on their top of 2000 list? What's happening here? Katie Mahoney, back me up! ;-) For long version of why I love Peter Mulvey, search archives. There has been many a rant on my part. PJ Harvey put out, very recently, "Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea." I listened to the whole thing with a big, giant grin on my face, not believing how darn good it was! A gorgeous, big album, spanning musical emotion from rage to resignation. Let me tell you a little story about PJ Harvey. This woman can rock. I mean, she rocks harder, and louder, and angrier than any man I have ever heard trying to rock. And she rocks smarter, too. Her lyrics cut through you and leave you with no defenses. She tells the truth, and you can't resist it. Besides that, her music is so breathtaking and big and multilayered. PJ Harvey is also physically stunning in this strange, ghostlike way. She is pure brains and violence and honesty, and she consistently puts out what I think are the best albums made by any woman in the business, and she is definitely in my top five favorite recording artists. I should point out that she can slow down and make sort of atmospheric, fluid music with beautiful, tender vocals. I absolutely worship her. I hope some of you do decide to take a listen! I suggest starting with the album "To Bring You My Love." Fans of Nick Cave, The Tindersticks, Portishead, and Diamanda Gallas will adore PJ. She has this ethereal, trembling, sometimes hellaciously angry voice. But I don't want you to think that it's like, just some angry chick screaming about love gone wrong--just listen to her, I don't think I can really do her talent justice. "Tanglewood Tree," "When I Go," for all of the reasons others of you have mentioned. "Exposure," by Robert Fripp. OK, so maybe I'm a little late on this one. Awesome progressive rock album by Fripp of King Crimson, with some help from Peter Gabriel (whoo-hoo!). ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 1 Dec 2000 02:47:21 EST From: Tom926@aol.com Subject: [RS] Re: HMMMM.... In a message dated 12/1/00 12:46:27 AM Eastern Standard Time, owner-shindell-list-digest@smoe.org writes: << I'm sorry, but I have no idea what Dar is trying to say to me on TGW. Look, I absolutely agree that it holds together better than either "Mortal City" (an inconsistent hodge-podge of the silly, the serious, and "Honesty Room" leftovers) or "End of the Summer," and I don't need to be in the mood for it, like I do with "Honesty Room." But everyone keeps talking about the "chances" Dar took with TGW, and I'm not sure how much of a "chance" you take when you make what's basically a nice pop album. To me, Richard's the one who takes chances by NOT straying from what his heart and gut tell him to do . . . by not, for example, making the potentially breakthrough "faux country" album he could make if he'd just sell his soul to the devil (see: Mary Chapin Carpenter) and write twelve songs like "Kenworth" or "TV Light." >> OK RG, I couldn't let these slide by (though one of these days if you are in NYC I would like to meet you, since you do manage to get me to think about all this). I DO agree with you regarding Dar. I mean I *like* Dar, but I don't think she is a top tier singer or songwriter. Her songs are often overwritten, as you say a bit "silly" and sometimes quite overponderous. I really really like pop (actually one of the things I have listened to the most in 2000, which I think was a completely crappy year for music overall, is Marshall Crenshaw's greatest hits collection) so I actually am more likely to listen to MC and EotS than that first album. Really, the only songs on that first cd that have really stayed with me are the Rothko song and the babysitter thing (which is QUITE silly). I got TGW and have listened to it twice. It's a nice pop album but I haven't felt a burning need to keep it spinning in the cd player. And I DON'T think she took any real chances on it. She got a bigger recording budget and you can hear it in the production. But the songs, as they say, remain pretty much the same (old same old). And yes I expect to eviscerated for that one by all you Dar fans. But isn't this a Richard list? Just checking. But Mary Chapin Carpenter is a bit more complicated than I think you give her credit for. On the contrary I think she is an exemplary figure because she both learned to play the game (let's admit it, some of those singles are just breakfast cereal jingles waiting to happen) BUT also stuck to her guns. What did this woman do after the phenomenally successful (and frankly VERY VERY VERY uneven) Come On, Come On? She releases Stones in the Road, which is filled with long brooding ballads that are hardly gonna be seeing the inside of a county radio station in this millennium or next. Joan Baez, by the way, does a kickass cover of Stones in the Road. So I give MC her props. She strews some well-crafted radio-ready slop on each cd for the programmers (I mean her cover of "Passionate Kisses" is an example of glossy passion-gutting-for-the-radio at its uhm 'finest'--PLEASE listen to the Lucinda Williams' original), but then fills the rest of the cd with some personal, thought-provoking stuff. Even her greatest hits cd violates the straightjacker formula for GH country cds (10 songs, 1st and 2nd song biggest hits, 3rd song biggest ballad, second to last song the prom-theme-for-Ok City number, last song a less chart-successful rhythm number). And for country radio in the late 80s/mid 90s she was revolutionary for bringing a real folk/singer-songwriter perspective to the cookie cutter mentality. I mean we could have been stuck listening to the little homilies of the Judds (Wynonna, Wynonna, country's answer to Whitney Houston) or Billy Ray (Let's Send Him To) Cyrpus, I mean Cyrus (country's answer to the Chipendale's Dancers). UGH. And Richard as a faux-country singer? I don't know about that. How does he look in a cowboy hat and a pair of really really tight Wranglers? LOLOLOL Tom ------------------------------ End of shindell-list-digest V2 #351 ***********************************