THE BEST CDS OF 2004
By Jim Mello
Well, after checking several “Best of 2004” music lists in various
publications, it’s fairly safe to say that there isn’t too much overlap
between this anachronistic aging boomer’s list and those who have ready
access to the torrent of new music released each year, the expendable income
to meet their critical whims, or connections to the promotional apparatus of
the music industry. So, for the second year in a row, we present a best of
list from the backwaters of Maine.
On NPR’s Fresh Air, the resident music critic stated that due to
technological changes that have reconfigured the way people listen to music,
this might be the last year he presents a best of list for entire CDs.
Because of the popularity of iPods, MP3s, and other devices I’d be guessing
at, his list next year may be based on individual songs downloaded or
released, or on specific performances gleaned from all over the
technological spectrum. Not to worry here at Wolf Moon. It’ll be
several more years before I catch up to the cutting edge of technology, so
here’s my list gathered from limited resources, with an ear to music just
outside the mainstream, music that IMHO, deserves to be heard.
JUST LIKE THERE’S NOTHIN’ TO IT by Steve
Forbert
I don’t why but Steve Forbert has always been just off my musical radar
screen. A songwriter/lyricist who had some critical acclaim along with a few
popular songs just after the singer/songwriter wave peaked in the 70s,
he remained an artist I’d read about but had never heard. Then he emerged
this year with Just Like Nothin’ to It, a mature songwriting effort
that is deeply satisfying. Forbert sings in a voice that cracks on its
own—especially so with heartfelt emotion— and is accompanied by topnotch
musicians. This CD is a wonderfully human collection of songs that could
reach the soul of anybody not already dead. From the opening song “What It
Is Is a Dream,” (one of the best songs I’ve heard in a long time about the
journey of life) to the last note of the song “About a Dream,” Steve’s
vulnerable humanity is exposed for all to hear. Along the way, he paints an
ambivalent homage to The Band’s Rick Danko and his cocaine addiction, and,
in the “The Change Song,” he is equally ambivalent in his reference to
Smokey Robinson and the inevitability of change as we travel through life.
The CD is a low key, it’s-all-right-to-be-human gem.
BEAT CAFE by Donovan
As I already noted in Wolf Moon, Beat Cafe is the revenge of the 60s
beat troubadour Donovan (Sunshine Superman) Leitch, who reaches back
into the magical, mythical time of the beat-influenced 1960s and conjures up
a mature blend of jazz-inflected songs that attempt to mine a reservoir of
creativity seemingly lost in these Clear Channel times. As he creates a
virtual beat café, Donovan explores his perennial themes of love, hope, and
mysticism with music that is a let-your-hair-down, stand-up bass slapping
groove, which brings out the Beat in all of us. In liner notes that call to
the new generations of musicians to “experiment with spontaneity,” he pied
pipers his way into the new millennium and even dares to talk about placing
flowers in his lover’s hair.
TRAMPIN’ by Patti Smith
This is the third coming of Patti Smith. I missed the first two. But this is
as good a time as any to get on the bus, because trampin’ represents
the maturation of what she set out to do the first two times—the combining
of raw elemental punk music to visionary radical poetry. trampin’ is
a response to the global confusion, tension, and fear ushered in by 9/11,
and Smith comes out on the radical side of the political equation. The CD
runs the gamut from revival gospel, in the title cut, to a call for
community and maintaining hope in the song “jubilee,” but it also includes
social critiques. In the near screedal “radio baghdad,” she skewers American
aggression for demolishing the culture that gave the world so much
scientific thought and the mathematical concept, zero, which she uses as a
kind of chant to signify the level of damage done to both sides of the
cultural divide. An album worthy to be heard by people on any point of the
political continuum if for no other reason than to appreciate the power of
artistic free speech.
THE BEGINNING OF SURVIVAL by
Joni Mitchell
In a culture where the most popular female singers incarnate the
exploitative side of capitalism and its excesses, Joni Mitchell has chosen
to withdraw from the music industry. Mitchell has repackaged previously
recorded songs from her past catalogue, and The Beginning of Survival
is her statement about the signs of the times made with songs that have a
decided social-political edge. The songs explore issues ranging from
American (military) foreign policy arrogance (“No Apologies”) to
environmentalism, (“Cool Water”), and to sexual exploitation (“Sex Kills”).
The songs are deeply felt and provocative in the best sense of the word.
Mitchell once said that artists are both “the disease and the cure” of
culture. This compilation, with music that blends acoustic and jazz elements
with 80s and 90s technology, is a fine example of that aesthetic sentiment.
GREATEST HITS by Neil Young
While those of us who came of age with Neil are fast approaching
gentrification, and his long-distance fans wait for his oft-rumored and
long-promised eight CD archival retrospective, the very unpredictable Neil
has released a never-promised greatest hits package. Although weighted
toward his earlier catalogue, the CD nonetheless spans his sporadic and, at
times, brilliant, career quite well. From the protogrunge, free-form radio
classic “Cinnamon Girl,” to the Fahrenheit 9/11 closing credits
signature tune “Rockin’ in the Free World,” this CD covers a lot of ground.
With a few acoustic gems such as “Heart of Gold” and “Old Man” thrown in for
good measure and a little balance, this is a good overview of Neil’s music,
especially for those who are not Neil Young fanatics. For them, it is a
readily accessible “hit.” And for those hardcore fans, maybe this year will
see the release of those legendary archival CDs. After all, look at what
happened to the Red Sox.
SMILE by Brian Wilson
This one would be on my “best of list” for pure chutzpah alone. For those
who don’t know, this is Brian “Beach Boy” Wilson’s gamy rerecording of his
mythic, oft bootlegged in pieces, but never heard in its entirety, follow-up
to the classic Pet Sounds. The Beatles, in response to Pet Sounds,
had raised the bar with Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band,
and Brian, not to be outdone, aimed high with his visionary Smile.
Derailed by drugs, mental illness, the resistance of those who could not see
his vision, in and out of the Beach Boys, and the vicissitudes of life,
Brian finally recorded Smile, which stands as a testimony to the
indomitable spirit of the human soul as incarnated by an aging Beach Boy.
Not only a triumph of will, but some damn good music as well, a vote for
Smile is a vote for never giving up on one’s dreams.
ACOUSTIC by John Lennon
We are accustomed now, in this age of recordings, to hear from artists from
beyond the grave or, at least, posthumously, and thanks to the generosity of
Yoko Ono, we get to hear some previously unreleased songs from the late John
Lennon. For me, this is a welcome voice for such a time as this. Acoustic
is mostly demo versions of better known songs, and John presents tunes such
as “Imagine” and “Cold Turkey” in raw, working-out-the-kinks versions. Many
believe Paul McCartney to have been the commander-in-chief of the world’s
greatest band, but where would he have been without John, the wounded
healer, who provided a counterpoint to Paul’s more optimistic vision? The
doctor of the dark side of Beatlemania is back with some medicine for these
wounded times.
SOMETHING FOR THE WEEKEND by Uncut
magazine (Paul McCartney selections)
Speaking of Paul, Uncut magazine, a British music magazine that keeps
60s rock icons in the public view, featured Paul in one of their issues last
year. The accompanying CD were songs chosen by Paul, and to this listener,
it is a treat to hear into the mind of one of the most important and popular
song writers/composers of the post war generation. A few contemporaries are
present, such as James Taylor, the first non-Beatle to sign with Apple
Records; along with Beat Cafe Donovan, who is represented by his
prescient, jazz-infused “Sunny Goodge Street”; and Paul’s friendly rival,
Brian Wilson, with “God Only Knows,” a live version of a Pet Sounds
song from his late 90s comeback tour. Along with the voices of a few
contemporaries, there are classic voices from the preceding generation, such
as Frank Sinatra and Nat King Cole, who demonstrate the influences that led
Paul to pen such standard sounding tunes as “Yesterday.” There is a dash of
classical music from the Julian Bream Consort and the London Symphony
Orchestra added for good measure, which underscores the adoption of
classical instruments in such Beatles’ classics as “Eleanor Rigby.” The CD
is rounded out with a few world music selections form artists such as Chinmaya Dunster and Vidroha Jamie, and “Temporary Secretary,” a weird
techno-experimental song by Paul himself.
TRACKS THAT INFLUENCED BOB DYLAN
compiled by Uncut magazine
And also from Uncut, a CD of “tracks that influenced Bob Dylan,” who,
after his cross-pollination with the blues and folk music, went on to
influence just about everyone else. The blues influences are represented
here by the Mississippi Shieks, Lightnin' Hopkins, Robert Johnson, and Blind
Willie McTell. Dylan covers the Sheiks on his album World Gone Wrong
and pays tribute to McTell by a song named after him, on his The Bootleg
Series, Vol. 3. There’s also a nod to contemporary folk artists such as
Bert Jansch, a British folk contemporary who, along with Joan Baez, helped
steep Dylan in the English ballad tradition. Then there are his mentors—Hank
Williams and Woody Guthrie—each represented by a song. The former by the
song “Lost Highway” and the latter by “Talkin’ Dust Bowl Blues.” There’s
also a cut by rock and roll pioneer Gene Vincent, who along with Elvis,
planted the demon seed of rock and roll in Dylan, which eventually came to
fruition and expression in the legendary electric concert in Newport in
1965. No artist exists in a vacuum, and this CD of Dylan influences does a
fine job of contextualizing the oft-enigmatic Dylan.
BOOTLEG SERIES 7: THE HALLOWEEN CONCERT
by Bob Dylan
This leads us to another Dylan archived bootleg, the famed (for forty years
on bootleg) Halloween concert in New York City. Here we get a glimpse of the
gangly, funny Woody Guthrie protégé breaking through to a wider audience.
From our perspective now, it is a glimpse back to the icon just before he
became an icon (that concert was captured on last year’s almost forty-years-too-late bootleg release of the Royal Albert Hall Concert). Listen to both
Tracks and Bootleg and then go read Dylan’s autobiography
Chronicles, which will help put the currently stonewalling Dylan in
proper historical perspective.
