Isabelle Antena - Mediterranean Songs
There is not much Mediterranean in Isabelle Antena’s 1997 album, despite the title, and yet there is no reason to complain. Warm-voiced, sophisticated Antena manages to mix jazzy, tropical rhythms with electronic arrangements, breezy orchestra and polyphonic backing choirs. The result is a strangely retro-futuristic sound, that’s a lot more “21st century” than what we get in the 21st century proper; it’s no surprise Isabelle Antena made a bigger splash in Japan and the Far East than she did here where I sit.
The 11 songs on the record offer a choice of sensual tunes that yet remain somewhat aloof, in a style that sounds like an update of 50s noir nightclub singers. Beautifully produced, and sun in both English and French, Mediterranean Songs is the sort of record that will make us look incredibly elegant and savvy when played at the right moment, and it’s a perfect introduction to Isabelle Antena’s production.
You can listen to it on Spotify, and will be able to thank me later.
https://open.spotify.com/album/1MDQjojSQJNuTv4Fl8znaZ
#isabelleantena #nujazz #electropop #lounge
Al Stewart - The Year of the Cat
In this series I review the records I listen as I listen to them, and Al Stewart’s seventh album, The Year of the Cat, was bound to come up sooner or later, because I listen frequently to this record, and it carries a lot of baggage with me. I still remember distinctly a summer in which the title song seemed to be playing everywhere - on the radio, in jukeboxes, everywhere. It was 1976.
Produced by Alan Parsons and recorded with a lineup of excellent British session musicians, The Year of the Cat shows Stewart at his best - writing stories, taking inspiration from history, books, films, and setting these stories to beautiful music.
Personal baggage, I said. I could start with the cat-obsessed woman on the cover, but as we go through the songs we get Elizabethan navigators, tickling my passion for Elizabethan history; then we move on the border with Hemingway and smugglers and partisans and the winds of Africa - the song was the chief inspiration of my Corsair stories. Amy Johnson and biplanes are up next, and connect with my passion for the lives of adventurous women. I will not get in any detail about the person that Sand in Your Shoes brings back to my mind, and will touch passingly on the Zen of If it doesn’t come naturally leave it. By the time the first bars of The Year of the Cat pour through my earphones, I’ve come full circle, with references to film noir, Bogart and Peter Lorre, exotic locales, Chinese astrology and a mysterious woman. I wrote a story, based on this song, back when I was in high school, to impress the girl that Sand in My Shoes always calls back to my memory. It was not a very good story, but there’s shards of it in everything that I write. And this is the takeaway: Al Stewart is a writer’s songwriter, and this is his masterpiece. You can listen to it on Spotify. Do it.
https://open.spotify.com/album/2qRVGjXrKt3rg5MsunltX9
#alstewart #yearofthecat #alanparsons #classicrock #folkrock
The Divine Comedy - Casanova
Ten songs about sex and one about death, this is essentially what you get when you listen to Casanova, the breakthrough album from Neil Hannon’s The Divine Comedy, released in 1996.
But it’s a lot better than that.
The perfectly crafted tunes are easy on the ear and yet musically intricate and complex enough to go beyond the “Britpop” label that the press applied to the record. The production is fantastic, and the record sounds like a million dollars, the band and Hannon’s vocals backed by an orchestra.
The songs reference a variety of historical, literary and film sources, from the obvious (”Becoming More like Alfie”), to the subtle (is Holly Golightly’s ghost haunting ”A Woman of the World”?) to the obscure (the opener “Something for the Weekend” seems to steal a leaf from “Cold Comfort Farm”, and if you don’t know the novel or the movie, you should check them out), painting a landscape of sexual escapades and variously encounters with the fair sex on the part of the titular patron saint of philanderers. And as tongue-in-cheek situations parade on our player, Neil Hannon slips in not only a variety of musical inventions, but a series of penetrating (pun, obviously, unintended) social observations.
And in this choice resides the true genius of Hannon, that writes great songs and sings them with a distinctive voice but most importantly has understood how Casanova could be the archetype of the turn-of-the-century thirty-something European male. For what other reason, otherwise, would I be convinced that at least four (more probably six) of the songs on this record talk about things that actually happened to me?
Because we are all Casanova at least once in our lives - usually in the worst moment possible.
Truly a record for the ages - and appearing in a few “to listen before you die” lists - Casanova can be found on Spotify, doing his thing - as Casanova would. And you can listen to it.
https://open.spotify.com/album/0txgYRjymfL0U28aTEK6Qk
#thedivinecomedy #neilhannon #britpop #orchestralpop #conceptalbum #casanova
10cc - The Original Soundtrack
The proof of what happens when you get four brilliant musicians and singers/songwriters in a studio of their own with no one to check what they are doing, 10cc were so strange that music reviewers were not sure how to classify them: a novelty act (with songs like “Donna”), a cynical lampooning of pop music (The worst band in the world”), genius (”Baron Samedi”) or madness (“Rubber bullets”). They were described as “art rock”, because there was no other category flexible enough to accommodate them.
Godley, Cream, Gouldman and Stewart did not seem to care.
Labelled “a studio band”, 10cc would produce a string of complex, intelligent and beautifully crafted records throughout a decade, even surviving with a certain aplomb a dramatic split half the way along.
Their third album, The Original Soundtrack (1975), is considered by many the highest point of their incredibly consistent production: a selection of short “song movies” that starts with the mini-rock-opera “One Night in Paris”, that would go on to inspire “Bohemian Rhapsody”, and with such highlights as “I’m Not in Love” (the only love song an intelligent person will ever need), “The Second Sitting for the Last Supper”, all the way down to “The Film of My Love”.
Technically impeccable, musically diverse and filled with humor and intelligence, The Original Soundtrack has to be listened to be believed.
And you can listen to it on Spotify - you won’t need to literally consume a tape like I did on my old walkman.
https://open.spotify.com/album/1CMgmJjMFskwwmK8h8j1Oj
#10cc #artrock
Carly Simon - Have You Seen Me Lately
The song Have You Seen Me Lately was supposed to be the song from the Carrie Fisher biopic Postcards from the Edge, but was not used. It gave its title to Carly Simon’s 1990s album, that is not a concept album, but comes close to it.
The fifteenth album in Simon’s catalog presents a sequence of songs that are somehow connected with the concepts of ageing and moving on with one’s life - from memories of past affairs to a portrait of a midlife crisis in the form of mystery, to other age-related topics.
Some thought the reason was, Carly Simon was now 45 - an awkward age for a woman in the music business of the late 80s and early ‘90s.
Simon, who wrote all the 11 songs on the album, is backed by a top-notch band (featuring Steve Gadd, Michael Brecker, Judy Collins and many others) and makes a beautiful display of her powerful vocals.
I always liked Carly Simon, ever since I discovered her in the mid-80s, and I admire her writing skills, her voice and her tough but sexy and still strongly feminist attitude. I will review more of her work in the future, but for the time being, as I needed to start somewhere, Have You Seen Me Lately is a nice place to start, as this is probably her album I listen to more frequently.
You can listen to it, too, on Spotify.
https://open.spotify.com/album/4yqibi1aoTWOujGDXKGLpH
#carlysimon #popmusic #singersongwriter
Jimmy Buffett - Changes of Latitudes, Changes of Attitude
I first met Jimmy Buffett as a writer, when I bought a paperback of a novel called “Where Is Joe Merchant?” - it was an off-beat mystery/adventure, and it had a seaplane on the cover. It was enough for me. Later I found out that the author was also a songwriter, an entrepreneur and a guy that had his own line of jeans. Oh, well.
Providing a curious mix of Country & Western music with tropical and maritime themes and sounds (Wikipedia calls this sort of music “Gulf & Western”), Buffett had a difficult start in the early ‘70s, and finally made his breakthrough with Changes of Latitudes, Changes of Attitude, that is a pretty laid back record and is to me another perfect example of country music for people that do not like country. Steering away from the truck drivers and diner waitresses that Frank Zappa used to mock, Buffett does a fine job at storytelling, injecting a healthy dose of irony in his music, as well as adding instruments and arrangments that steer away from Nashville and sound more like Florida.
Future albums will bring to the fore his pirate/adventurer persona that in this record makes its first appearance. A strong selection of tunes, here the highlights are certainly Margaritaville and Banana Republic (one of the three tunes out of 10 not penned by Buffet), and this is a great late night album for a hot and humid early september after-dinner.
You can listen to it on Spotify. It’s different, it’s fun. Check it out.
https://open.spotify.com/album/3JWlQzyse21gwhqu2D6UQD
#jimmybuffett #parrothead #gulfandwestern #countryrock #tropical
Libby Titus - Libby Titus
I knew Libby Titus before I ever listened to her singing, as the wife of Steely Dan’s Donald Fagen, and as the inspiration for Carly Simon’s song Libby, on which Titus also sang backing vocals. Together with Phil Ramone, Paul Simon, and Robbie Robertson, Carly Simon was the producer on Titus’ second album, the eponymous Libby Titus, published in 1977. Titus was often mentioned in articles and essays, and I was very curious when I finally was able to listen to this record. The artist had impeccable credentials, and had been like a shadow presence through much of my music listening years.
Titus has a soaring, somewhat retro voice, and weaves through smart, often tongue-in-cheek songs. “The Night You Took Me to Barbados in My Dreams” and “Yellow Beach Umbrella” are my favorites on the album, with the blues of “Kansas City” a close third, but all the ten songs are quite good, mixing humor and melancholia. The record has a strong ‘70s feel, but after all it was recorded and published in ‘77, and it was worth tracking down and listening - it turned Libby Titus from a ghostly character in other people’s lives into one of my favorite singers from that decade.
Libby Titus can be listened to on Spotify, and while very much an artefact of its time, it’s certainly worth the time spent listening to it.
#libbytitus #singersongwriter
Jenny Lewis - On the Line
Actress and musician Jenny Lewis has been a member of Rilo Kiley, The Postal Service, Nice as Fuck and Jenny & Johnny, but I first heard her as a soloist this year when I discovered her latest album, On the Line, that features guest artists Beck, Ringo Starr, Ryan Adams, Don Was, Benmont Tench, Jason Falkner, and Jim Keltner.
Quite a weird lineup, that is perfectly captured by the eleven songs on the record, ranging from roots country style numbers to shoe-gazing synth-pop, by way of “Red Bull & Hennesey”, in which Lewis does to Stevie Nicks what Jeff Lynne did to the Beatles. And I mean this as the highest compliment possible.
Because no matter what you label these songs, the quality of the vocals and the cutting cynicism of the lyrics is always there, and makes listening to On the line, a collection of surreal broken dreams, emotional bruises and sex gone bad, an absolute joy.
Now I’ll have a great time checking out everything else this artist has done over the last two decades. In the meantime, you can listen to On the Line on Spotify.
https://open.spotify.com/album/2AHG3vkC3H7zqHbYdgCCcy
#jennylewis #indierock #indiepop
And as we were talking about the Hound, here’s the audio version of The Hound of the Baskervilles, featuring Kevin McCarthy, from the CBS Radio Mystery Theater, March the first 1977.
