Music Diary, Vol. 20

For the rationale behind this mad effort, the initial post is here. The full series of Music Diary posts are here. The full playlist is above, and also here.

Week of May 20-26, 2024

LYRICS: Billy Walker (Willie Nelson), "Funny How Time Slips Away"

SONG: Heard this infernally catchy, harmonically odd Chiaki Satō tune in a coffee place yesterday, and I’m mildly obsessed with its borderline aggro insistence on its central synth hook. If this is an earworm, it’s an especially wriggly one.

ALBUM: The great soundtrack for Herbert Ross's underrated American version of this definitive Dennis Potter musical is not streaming anywhere, so I compiled a playlist. You're welcome.

LYRICS: Simon & Garfunkel, "Leaves That Are Green"

SONG: The first Debussy piece I learned to play was this uncharacteristic galumphing romp; I still remember my piano teacher pointing out the vicious parody of Wagnerian Romanticism in the middle section.

ALBUM: It's hard to choose a favorite among the early Dionne Warwick records, but this one gets the slight nod for the range of feeling it touches, from tender to torn-up, breezy to broken.

 

LYRICS: Midlake, "Some of Them Were Superstitious"

SONG: The Korean singer-songwriter Mid-Air Thief is aptly named—he sneaks up out of nowhere like a breeze, picks up and sets down musical elements like a magpie, and, as on this headlong grab bag of a tune, steals your heart.

ALBUM: I still remember the first time I heard most of the songs on this record, particularly "Sweet Emotion." To quote the lyric of one its signature dirty-blues jams: It was love at first bite.

LYRICS: Radiohead, "No Surprises"

SONG: Billie Eilish’s new record feels like a breakthrough, sonically and thematically, but this is the song that leapt out at me on first listen: an abject ode to an indifferent lover that builds from hushed appoggiatura to crashing waves of emotion.

ALBUM: Diving deep into this lush, dizzying collection from Jpop quintet CRCK/LCKS, which moves freely and assuredly among electropop, math rock, and jazz textures.

LYRICS: The cast of Wonderful Town (Bernstein/Comden/Green), "What a Waste"

SONG: Blown away by this Impressions deep cut, from Mayfield’s gritty guitar tone to the strange minor vocalese that frames an otherwise sunny, proto-reggae groove. I know they influenced Jamaican musicians, but it seems to have been a two-way street.

ALBUM: This 1973 Ike & Tina classic does not mess around, packing 32 minutes of blazing funk rock, hard boogie, and swinging soul into tight, brassy, psychedelic-adjacent grooves. I won’t say I prefer its version of “River Deep,” but I do love it.

LYRICS: Lucinda Williams, "Sweet Old World"

SONG: I love Sammy Rae in her usual sunny sophisti-pop mode, which is why I find this stab at minor-key arena rock so disarming and, I’m happy to say, utterly convincing. Not sure I’d want a whole record like this from her, but this is good stuff.

ALBUM: Belatedly diving into the great Southern (California) rock of Little Feat. Among their early records this one sounds to me like the rangiest and rockingest. There’s not just the usual tasty craft here; there’s also urgency, mystery, surprise.

LYRICS: The Clark Sisters, "Overdose of the Holy Ghost"

SONG: This gorgeous Chris Bell tune seems to be encouraging others to recognize the blessings of God’s grace, but in its sweetly yearning tone I hear the narrator trying to convince himself too.

ALBUM: He can shred with the best of them, but to my ears what sets the sitarist Nikhil Banerjee apart is his warmth and expressive elegance—you can really feel what he’s putting across, moment by moment as well as in long form, on this collection.