Music Diary, Vol. 76

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 June 16-22, 2025

LYRICS: Dodie, "Monster"

SONG: I love so many things about the sprawling yet tightly constructed Yes tune that closes Close to the Edge, but the moments I always wait for are when the groove locks in (at :54, 2:00, and 4:49). I don’t think this band ever rocked harder.

ALBUM: Any singer who puts Kurt Weill deep cuts, Schoenberg art songs, and songs by Stevie Wonder and Leonard Cohen on the same record already has my interest. When they do it as jauntily as Patricia O'Callaghan does on this overlooked 1999 disc, I'm all in.

LYRICS: Ray Bolger and Judy Garland (Arlen/Harburg), "If I Only Had a Brain"

SONG: The build of this Björk/Howie B banger is masterful, from its skittering organ start to a full boil of percussion, brass, and an increasingly wild vocal performance—an E-ticket ride I’m always happy to take. (And the Kricfalusi video is beyond.)

ALBUM: Heard now in retrospect, Kathleen Edwards's searingly great 2002 debut record sounds like the bridge from Lucinda Williams to Waxahatchee, and gives further proof, if proof was needed, that Canadians do Americana as well or better than anyone.

LYRICS: Loudon Wainwright III, "The Man Who Couldn't Cry"

SONG: Once again wondering why Weill’s String Quartet in B minor, written when he was just 18 and only premiered posthumously, isn’t a staple of concert repertoire. It’s exquisite. The second movement is a great entry point; the whole thing is gold.

ALBUM: I relish the tasty songcraft on this 2010 Tracy Bonham record, but I especially love its slightly swampy vibe, which makes every instrument, from fiddle to fuzz bass to cowbell, sound intimate and acoustic. Grabs you from the first song and never lets go.

LYRICS: Laurence O'Keefe, "Hold Me Bat Boy" from Bat Boy: The Musical

SONG: The Staple Singers' cover of this Buffalo Springfield classic trades the creepy-crawly, keep-your-head-low hipster vibe of the original for the sound of righteous anger and urgent solidarity. The repeated hand claps at the end insist: Everybody look what's going down.

ALBUM: This extraordinary 1997 record was made in New York City but its swirling, mesmeric soundscapes are rooted in Iran and India, with 3 musicians (Swapan Chaudhuri on tabla, Kayhan Kalhor on kamancheh, Shujaat Khan on sitar) spinning it out like, well, silk.

LYRICS: Amy Winehouse, "Tears Dry on Their Own"

SONG: The closer of Elvis Costello’s underrated record with the Brodsky Quartet is in many ways its high point: an anguished tussle with grief and acceptance from the point of view of the deceased, with gorgeous, wintry harmonies that convey both torment and peace. 

ALBUM: I'd forgotten how much variety of sound and style The Pretenders packed into their 1980 debut record. Punk energy to spare, certainly, but also retro soul, moody/broody midtempo, even math rock. It's like they used their arms, legs, and imagination.

LYRICS: Justina Machado and the cast of “Real Women Have Curves” (Joy Huerta/Benjamin Velez), “Adiós Andrés”

SONG: I love everything about Doris Day’s rendition of this Andy Razaf/Paul Denniker standard, recorded with the Page Cavanaugh Trio, starting with the bluesy vamp that starts it and including the subtle tempo ratchet halfway through, but above all Day’s coyly ardent vocal.

ALBUM: If The Beach Boys were folkier and twangier and from the Pacific Northwest rather than So Cal, they might have sounded something like the great quintet Fleet Foxes, whose 2008 debut is a choral/acoustic gem. Fave track: the surging “He Doesn’t Know Why.”

LYRICS: Bob Dylan, "Masters of War"

SONG: Jean Sibelius wrote this heart-lifting tune as part of his nationalist tone poem, “Finlandia,” but the words by Lloyd Stone that were set to it in 1930s turned it into a moving hymn for world peace. We’ll be singing it at Greenpoint Church today, though not quite as well as Voces8 does here.

ALBUM: The mysterious silences and whispers register as strongly as the almost self-parodically intense and/or goofy cacophonies in this wild musique concrète requiem by Michel Chion, which he made in 1973 and which is paired here with a similar work from 2019.