Music Diary, Vol. 54

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 Jan. 13-19, 2025

LYRICS: Angela Lansbury (Sondheim), "Poor Thing"
SONG: Robert Fripp produced the first and third albums of The Roches (probably no coincidence, their best) and mostly stayed out of the spotlight, save on this engaging instrumental romp, on which his distorted guitar has a classical precision and angularity.

ALBUM: She has a new record I’ve yet to sample, and that’s because I’m still busy replaying Nelly Furtado’s 2003 sophomore effort, an overlooked classic replete with first-rate pop songcraft and acoustic textures. (“Picture Perfect” is the peak among peaks imo.)

LYRICS: Chappell Roan, "Pink Pony Club"
SONG: I dare you not to fall in love with this gently sparkling Jessica Pratt confection, in which she sets her usual snow-globe carousel sound spinning, then tilts and scrambles it with one of the most beguiling chord progressions I’ve heard since Jobim.

ALBUM: So I did make time to check out Nelly Furtado's new record, her first in nearly 8 years. While I make no lofty claims for its greatness, it's enjoyable enough that I've replayed it several times. Fave track is the minor-key kiss-off "Save Your Breath."

LYRICS: Duke Special (Brecht), "The Great Capitulation"
SONG: If I had to pick my favorite Radiohead tune, I’d nominate this sprawling, soaring jam, in which layers of chiming guitars create a fine, crystalline mist around a stately ode to rebirth through resignation, a sort of major-key funeral procession.

ALBUM: The Police’s penultimate album sounds for all the world like they wanted to make a fun, heedless dance record out of some heavy, heady themes and half succeeded. No worries: The stuff you can’t bop to, you can brood or seethe (occasionally cringe) to.

LYRICS: The Band (Dylan), "When I Paint My Masterpiece"
SONG: I’m pretty mixed on the new record that Art Garfunkel made with his son, but this letter-perfect Eurythmics cover is an unexpected joy, with the elder Garfunkel’s rasp seamlessly alternating with Junior’s airier instrument.

ALBUM: “I’m sick of following my dreams, man. I’m just gonna ask where they’re going and hook up with ‘em later.” So much wise, demented, linguistically dexterous hilarity on this Mitch Hedberg record; I find his comedy as beautiful, and as replayable, as music.

LYRICS: Rob Kendt, "Lullaby"
SONG: Linda Martell’s last charting single was this quintessential country confection—i.e., an ostensibly heartbroken lament in a sunny major key, topped by a yodeling chorus that’s like a cherry on top of a sundae.

ALBUM: Davey Graham’s spiky, brilliant acoustic guitar is the star of this essential 1965 record, but his sweet, unfussed vocal stylings are also a draw. A towering collection that lives up to its expansive title.

LYRICS: The Doobie Brothers (McDonald/Loggins), "What a Fool Believes"
SONG:While I always get caught up in the whirlwind of faux-Spanish guitar and the litany of high school cruelty that propel this Belle and Sebastian banger, what I wait for is the moment the carousel abruptly stops and the lyric says, basically: It gets better.

ALBUM: Recorded when she was just 16, Faye Webster’s first record is an overlooked gem—more Waxahatchee-adjacent country than the sleepy hipster sound she later developed. Already fully in effect: her stretchy, sidelong vocal phrasing and the weepy steel guitar.

LYRICS: Sweet Honey in the Rock (Ysaÿe M. Barnwell), “We Are”

SONG: I’ve always been drawn to this Jimmy Cliff ballad, which sounds so much like a gospel tune that you don’t notice at first that it’s a song of total, almost sociopathic desolation and failure. Of course that makes me love it all the more.

ALBUM: Who says psalms can’t be dramatic? These orchestral/choral settings by Lili Boulanger plumb the full range of human feeling, from shuddering terror to weightless ecstasy. The preciousness of this music is intensified by the knowledge that she died at 24.