Category: Music

Well, Simon Cowell wasn’t kidding when he told Paul Potts that he was going to make an album. It was June 17th when the former mobile phone salesman won Britain’s Got Talent by singing opera, melting just about everyone who saw him on TV or YouTube in the process (including myself). His album came out July 31st; that’s about six weeks after he won the competition, or maybe one week in the studio plus five weeks’ marketing lead time. The US release of the album occurred last week, and I downloaded it on the strength of his YouTube appearances.

The album is ominously entitled One Chance, presumably referring to his once in a lifetime shot that he took to win the competition. But in a real sense this is the make or break for Paul Potts the career singer. So what did he and Sony bring to the table?

My first impression is: this recording positions Paul in the pop-classical world, not the operatic world. If he wants to get to the Met, this recording doesn’t show that path. On the other hand, if he wants to sell a boatload of records, fill arenas, and appear with orchestras like the Boston Pops, then he’s definitely on the right track.

I have to assume, given the short timeframes, that Sony had more say over the material than Paul did, which perhaps explains the Italian language covers of “Time to Say Goodbye” and “You Raise Me Up,” the Spanish version of “My Way,” and Andrew Lloyd Webber’s execrable “Music of the Night.” Of course, the desire to have him “cross over” to the pop audience explains it too. Some of these are a little limp; my one thought after hearing “My Way” is that it is a mercy they didn’t ask him to sing “Wind Beneath My Wings” too.

But other cuts on the album—his make-or-break “Nessun Dorma,” the surprisingly effective Italian version of “Everybody Hurts,” “Caruso,” and the US-only bonus track “O Holy Night”—show promise in the arrangement and in the passion of his delivery. He is clearly a lyric tenor with strength rather than a true dramatic tenor, but his voice carries across multiple dynamic levels and octaves with relatively little strain. He is a little shy on one or two high notes, but given the compressed recording schedule this is perhaps to be expected.

I hope to goodness for Paul’s sake that this album does great things. It is currently #10 in Amazon’s overall music sales and #1 in Opera and Vocal and in Classical, so one can project that this might actually get Paul the exposure he deserves—and another recording session where he can get into some meatier material.

Who is Black Francis? And where has he been all these years?

The first question seems fatuous, the second coy. Even the 21 year old hipster who was still eating strained peas and filling diapers in 1987 when the Pixies released Come On Pilgrim knows that Black Francis was the frontman, resident UFOlogist, and tortured lead screamer for this most pivotal underground band that almost made it mainstream—opened for U2 during the Achtung Baby tour, for Chrissakes—before he broke the band up by fax.

And Black Francis hasn’t gone anywhere, despite the fact that there have been no releases on which that nom de plume played from 1991’s Trompe Le Monde to 2004’s “Bam Thwok.” That selfsame callow hipster knows that Black Francis became Frank Black when he went solo in 1993, and released a series of solid, if workmanlike, releases between the debut s/t and 2006’s Fast Man/Raider Man.

So much for the history. The questions remain: where has Black Francis been in Frank Black’s solo work for thirteen to fifteen long years? And who is Black Francis, as opposed to Frank Black, anyway? And, most pertinently to Tuesday’s full-length release Bluefinger, why is this the first release of Frank Black’s career to be credited to Black Francis? These are all related questions with one at their core: what is the Black Francis sound?

As I ask the question, I hear Charles Michael Kittridge Thompson IV, aka Frank Black, aka Black Francis, cough, then laugh dryly, then advise me to go f*cking die.

But there is something to the change of name, for sure. Or else this would have been the fifteenth release credited to Frank Black. So is this a change of soul? Or just of brand?

MBA voice over: The Black Francis brand stands for slicing up eyeballs, screaming, quiet loud quiet, being the band that inspired Nirvana, and being the most awesome band ever. The Frank Black brand stands for a workmanlike approach to rock and roll. Direct to two track. Country rock. Low sales. As he sang in “Chip Away Boy,” “I used to have some fun/Me and everyone/Now I’m just employed.”

And that may be all there is to it. Except.

Exhibit A: “Captain Pasty.” Mars attacking. Irregular meters. And that awesome growl-laugh that opens up the track. It will make your car go like nitrous, if you happen to be behind the wheel when you are listening

Exhibit B: “Tight Black Rubber,” with its Fugazi meets Nirvana bass + guitar duet settling into a Meat Puppets meets Velvets chugging rocker full of tension and bondage tropes.

Exhibit C: “Your Mouth Into Mine.” Could be a Frank Black song, except the spaces between the verses run over with Black Francis’s love-as-body-invasion imagery at a speed that feels at once relaxed and chemically enhanced. Love never sounded so much like theft.

Exhibit D: “You Can’t Break a Heart and Have It.” The one song on the album that provides a tight connection to the album’s supposed inspiration, transgressive druggie Dutch artist/musician Herman Brood, whose song this was before Black Francis made it his own.

Exhibit E: “Threshold Apprehension.” A romp through Pixies touchstones, from high pitched, screaming vocals to four-chord hooks to girlish spoken background vocals (courtesy Charles’s wife Violet Clark) to two of the finest couplets in post-Pixies rock: “Every little sh*t gotta find his salt lick/If I don’t find my babe I’m gonna be junk sick” and “Grand Marnier and a pocketful of speed/We did it all night til we started to bleed.” The hit single the Pixies should have had in the summer of 2007, showing up first as a bonus track on the best of compilation Frank Black 93-03. Your reviewer was stuck in traffic on the Mass Pike the first time he heard the song and nearly rear ended the car in front of him, so immediately propulsive was the impact of the song, and so hard was he laughing with the force of the bliss coming at him from six speakers.

Even in slacker moments an animus of tension and anger moves the record forward. “She Took All the Money”’s “shama lama ding dang” chorus is pushed forward by an irritable rhythm guitar, surprisingly sweet backing vocals from Violet Clark, and some impatient drumming that takes the song out on just the right dry note.

So: what makes it a Black Francis work? There are some descriptive touchstones—screaming, odd meters, UFOs, Lou Reed as Surrealist lyrics—that are ultimately insufficient to describe what’s going on here. What this is is nothing more than the rebirth of Charles Thompson, his musical juices revitalized by the 2004 tour with the Pixies. As he says in the publicity notes for the album, reunions “are bittersweet, and all of the rekindled foreplay of performing the old Black Francis songs never warmed to the full coitus of a reunion LP…I privately went back to the old stage name…almost as a joke. I couldn’t get the Pixies back into the studio, but I would transform into my alter ego of yesteryear.” And even if there is no Herman Brood revival as a result of this LP—Wikipedia can’t even be bothered to link to his artwork, and none of his music is available in the usual download sources—the transgressive junkie artist/musician/suicide deserves some posthumous credit for waking up Black Francis and sending him out screaming into the light of 2007.

It is incumbent on me as a tenor to stop and pay honor to the memory of Luciano Pavarotti, who died yesterday (NY Times, Salon). After all, Pavarotti gave the world of popular culture an understanding of what a dramatic tenor could do with his voice, and made opera and vocal classical music accessible through his sheer personality.

One might despair, however, about his long-term cultural impact. Vocal classical music and opera is more of a live performance phenomenon than a recorded phenomenon—and if you doubt me, ask your local classical radio marketing director how he feels about vocal music. And without recordings and radio play, all too often, a classical star’s presence dies with him. Consider Beverly Sills—when was the last time (before her recent passing) that you even heard her name in classical circles? Yet when I was growing up she was a household name.

Guitarist/vocalist Thurston Moore says Sonic Youth should have broken up years ago—so they could make mad Benjamins on the reunion circuit like the Pixies, Dinosaur Jr., and Mission of Burma have. Heh. (via)

When an artist is so moved by the release of his new album to break a world record for highest-altitude concert, it’s hard to avoid puns about other high things: spirits, melodies, hopes. Norwegian artist Magnet raised just such allusions in a March solo acoustic performance of his new album in a plane between Oslo and Reykjavik (in-flight altitude: 40,000 feet; check the video). Now the album is being released stateside, and the question is: will the high spirits of the album live up to the high hopes for its release? Will its world record for altitude take the album to similar heights on the charts?

Before we tackle those questions—what is it about Scandinavian indie rock artists? First Peter Bjorn and John come out of nowhere (er, Sweden) with “Young Folks,” with a whistle hook to die for (and which is already being sampled by Kanye West). Now Magnet, aka Even Johansen, brings a brilliant collection of pop songwriting in his third full-length, The Simple Life, along with pop production that the Shins would give eyeteeth for. What is it about the Scandinavians? Something in the Northern Lights, perhaps.

So, about the music. Some things this release is not:

1. A continuation of the dark, earnest vibe of The Tourniquet
2. Anything to do with Paris or Nicole

Instead, The Simple Life is a collection of upbeat, clever pop, propelled by killer horn and string riffs and buoyed by Johansen’s high, aching vocals. Where The Tourniquet’s “Hold On” registers as an urgent, synth-thick plea, many of the songs on The Simple Life are joyous little ditties, including the handclaps of “The Gospel Song” and the bouncy drumline of “Lonely No More.” Throughout, unusual instrument choices pop out of the texture: a banjo here, a treble harmonica there, poking through the horn sections and pianos.

In fact (again apropos given Magnet’s world record), the one adjective that comes to mind over and over again on relistening to the album is buoyant. That is not to say, however, naïve. The song craftsmanship is tight throughout, with “You Got Me”’s brilliant fingerpicking and horns offset with the string quartet and oboe of “Count.” Buoyant goes a little overboard in the cover of Bob Marley’s “She’s Gone,” including whistle chorus and woodblock percussion. It’s like a meringue, so airy that it threatens to dissolve into nothing at every turn. It holds together somehow, but I sincerely hope a full Magnet/Marley tribute album isn’t in the works.

Is this going to be the album that sends Magnet up the charts, to the toppermost of the poppermost? Unlikely. For all the airiness, there is a depth of sadness and empathy in the lyrics that grounds the album in an un-poplike sensibility. So it is that a wine bottle solo in “Lucid” takes on emotional resonance that belie the rest of the album’s grin. And this is the ultimate joy of The Simple Life: it bears close examination and re-examination and brings new pleasures in each new light, all while still remaining a hummable pop masterpiece. So, probably no pop stardom for Magnet. But maybe the beginning of a beautiful friendship for the lucky listeners who wind their way into this album.

I saw Max and his band play in the early 1990s at UVA, when the university was still putting on tremendous jazz festivals that brought everybody who was anybody in the jazz world in. The jazz fan that I am today would love to be able to remember who was in Max’s band that night. All I remember is that his dry beat and drier wit stole the show that night. And I am sorry that I only got a chance to see him that once; though I am glad that I got the chance.

Obituaries: BBC, NYT, WaPo.

Recommended recordings: just about any Parker or Diz recording; the We Insist! Freedom Now jazz suite, featuring Abbey Lincoln on some seriously inspired vocals; Money Jungle, the trio recording that he cut with Duke Ellington and Charles Mingus. Other pivotal recordings listed by Ben Ratliff in the Times.

The presence of the third Beatle’s solo catalog on iTunes (the holdout at this point is the sublime George Harrison, whose estate one must imagine is going to take some time to process the question of moving to new formats) is old news at this point. In fact, John’s solo catalog generally is old news for most listeners—or is it? I would guess that the number of music aficionados born after 1970 who have listened to much more than Plastic Ono Band, Imagine, and maybe Shaved Fish is pretty low.

I got Mind Games earlier this week and am listening to it right now. There is a lot of mid-70s paunch in this recording; the session musicians aren’t bringing their a-game, and John’s songwriting isn’t at his finest here. Except, of course, for the title track. And “Aisumasen,” which is pretty touching.

And one verse in “Out of the Blue” which completely grabbed me by the throat:

All my life has been a long slow knife
I was born just to get to you

That’s quite a statement. In another universe, that would be the standard toast from a bride to a groom. Coming as it did on the heels of John’s “lost weekend,” it’s got even more power and resonance.

It’s nice to have the opportunity to go back and sample some of this material without having to devote physical space to the disc.

Because I am woefully behind in my posting, and because it is Friday, and because I am listening to music:

1. Jeff Buckley, “Calling You” (Live at Sin-é)
2. Low, “Silver Rider” (The Great Destroyer)
3. David Byrne, “Don’t Fence Me In” (Red Hot + Blue)
4. U2, “Party Girl” (Under a Blood Red Sky)
5. Sonny Rollins, “Blue 7” (Saxophone Colossus)
6. Roy Orbison, “It’s Too Late” (Sun Recordings)
7. Peaches ‘n‘ Cream, “112”
8. Nirvana, “Serve the Servants” (In Utero)
9. The Tallis Scholars, “Requiem 5. Sanctus – Benedictus” (Cardoso: Requiem)
10. Elvis Costello and Burt Bacharach, “I Still Have That Other Girl” (Painted from Memory)

How much buzz must there be about an artist before she is an overnight sensation?

I’m not in the habit of raving about musicians after hearing one performance—there have been too many about whom I’ve obsessed for weeks or months only to have them disappear—but I cautiously think that Marissa Nadler might be the real thing. The Stereogum crowd appears to agree, as they invited her to participate in OKX (she covers “No Surprises”), but the real thing is in her songs and her voice. I was working down the podcasts on my iPod and decided to play her in-studio appearance on KEXP in my car on the way in this morning. Wow, what a sound. Just lifted the hair on the back of my neck. The vocal quality bridges Jeff Buckley and classic 60s folks like Joan Baez, and the songwriting recalls 80s psychedelic folk revival (in fact, there are moments listening to her when I hear strains of Mazzy Star loud and clear—if Hope Sandoval were a high soprano).

She’s kind of a local, too, having grown up in Needham; though, since she makes a reference to being from a “plastic place” in her KEXP interview, I’m guessing that she doesn’t harbor a lot of love for the Bay State. Looks like she’ll be at the Middle East on September 11; I might have to check it out.

New mix up at Art of the Mix: a young escape to find you. Been working on this one for a while, finally got it put together tonight. Copies out soon to the usual suspects.

Two or three superb cuts on this—the return of Black Francis on “Threshold Apprehension,” Sonic Youth’s “Do You Believe in Rapture?,” Gillian Welch’s take on Radiohead’s “Black Star,” and three tunes that have been waiting their turn on one of my mixes since high school, “Fixing a Hole,” ”Yer So Bad,” and “Frou-Frou Foxes in Midsummer Fires.”

While on vacation, I borrowed Björk’s Homogenic from my sister Esta. Listening to it reminds me of nothing so much as the conversation between Björk and Diddy, as imagined by Milkfat.com. “Sometimes… I climb into a laundry basket and tickle my ears!”

Then of course there’s the sequel, featuring the conversation between Diddy and Snoop: “Yo yo, you know that Japanese lookin’ white girl from Europe?” “Bjizzle?”

OK, I’m easily amused, but it does stick in the head. Even after it was posted, like, a lifetime ago.

Ten years ago, I was in North Carolina—specifically, in a small town outside Camp Lejeune—on a consulting assignment. I was bored stiff. The dialup at the hotel was awful—and yes, there was dialup; this was before wifi, before Ethernet in every room, and at least in this hotel before reliable plain old telephone service to every room. Even then I was an Internet addict, so this was like a virtual guarantee of death by boredom that night. So I got out and walked down the street from one strip mall to the other, ending up at a Wal-Mart. In the music section. Where I decided that it was the right sort of night to take a risk on an artist I had listened a little to but didn’t know that much about, and pick up OK Computer by Radiohead.

And something, even as I played the album through my computer’s crummy speakers, exploded in my head.

Ten years on, and I am writing a blog post at my parents’ retirement house in western North Carolina, over wifi while I download OKX, a tribute to OK Computer. While I haven’t heard of most of the artists on the album, those I have—Doveman and the inimitable John Vanderslice—make me think that this is going to be pretty darn good.

A lot has changed in the intervening ten years, but the basic message of impersonal alienation has more relevance than ever before.

Because really, that’s the only possible explanation for their pulling out of their iTunes Store contract. For once, Cory at BoingBoing nailed all the snidery that I wanted to drop onto this announcement in his opening sentence: “Universal Music Group, the largest record label on Earth (an accomplishment akin to being the world’s largest corset-buttoner, horse-shoer, or gutta-percha cable-insulator)”…

Heh.

Following up on Monday’s post, I should report that I decided against joining the tour. Its obvious attractions aside, family and work come first, and I’ll be quite busy with the latter the few weeks around Labor Day.

Not to say I’m not disappointed. I haven’t been to Europe on a non-business trip in a few years. But right now this has to be the right decision.

Until this afternoon, I had the summer figured out. Push like heck to get a software release out and the sales team solid for June; take a week in July to visit family; then get back on the treadmill, with the exception of a single Tanglewood weekend (in monastic compensation for last summer’s excesses). And that would be enough, really.

Until this afternoon. When I got a call from Symphony Hall. One of the tenors in the chorus dropped out, the woman at the other end said. Could I do the European Tour?

Could I? That’s the question. We are, after all, talking about four additional evening rehearsals, more than ten days on the road, and two additional Tanglewood residencies. Of course, we’re also talking about singing with the BSO in Europe; specifically, in Lucerne for the Lucerne Festival, Essen, Mosel, Paris, and London. Even better, in the Royal Albert Hall.

So: what to do? I am fatigued from the year and just want to spend time with my family. But I haven’t sung much lately either (though this would surely cure me of that). I’ll have to decide soon: I have until 5 pm tomorrow.