Music Diary, Vol. 10

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 March 11-17, 2024

LYRICS: Louanne Hogan voicing for Jeanne Crain (Rodgers & Hammerstein), "It Might As Well Be Spring"

SONG: Discovered this Bollywood gem on a recent happy dive into Lata Mangeshkar's oeuvre. While the lyric by Amit Khanna doesn't reference raindrops, the music by Bappi Lahiri clearly owes a debt to a certain Bacharach & David standard.

ALBUM: Eastern European folk music played like jazz, classical music stripped for parts and rebuilt into a time-traveling vehicle—these are some of the ways you might describe the unique glories of Ljova & The Kontraband. Or you could just listen.

LYRICS: World Party, "Ship of Fools"

SONG: Grunge wasn’t really my thing but the stuff I love from that era, as this great Strong Songs episode about Soundgarden's classic hit reminds me, has distinctive, chewy harmony, i.e. the #4 chord on “indisposed,” the maj7 on “disguises,” the sus2 on “rain.”

ALBUM: This 1988 record marked one of the great music reboots, in which a competent CCM artist (Leslie Phillips) was reborn as a chamber pop queen named Sam. Her voice has deepened and her sound darkened since then, but this was the annunciation.

LYRICS: The Raspberries, "Overnight Sensation"

SONG: Somehow Mickey Baker turns the despairing torch song "Gloomy Sunday" into a shimmering surf-guitar bop. The melancholy still seeps in at the edges, but the sunny major-key middle positively shines here.

ALBUM: I've never been a big Philip Glass fan (sorry not sorry), but I find Gerard Cousins's guitar transcriptions of some signature Glass works revelatory. The vertical chordal harmonies, the arpeggios—this music sounds made for the guitar.

LYRICS: John Lennon, "Mother"

SONG: This bonkers Raspberries tune starts as a slightly soppy piano ballad and swells into an epic eight-minute neo-classical fantasia. Is there such a thing as prog pop? If so, I'm very here for it.

ALBUM: It's a bit heavy on the ballads, but this collection of Tom Waits covers by women artists, mostly Americana singer-songwriters, is a revelatory must for any Waits fan. Standouts include takes by Angie McMahon, Rosanne Cash, and Patty Griffin.

LYRICS: Lead Belly, "Goodnight, Irene"

SONG: This Johnny Kidd & The Pirates classic from 1960 was ahead of its time, not only in its alternately simmering and piercing rockabilly sound but in its matter-of-factly disorienting stop-start structure—a case study in form serving content.

ALBUM: Millennial earnestness isn’t quite my jam, but when it comes in a lavish, lovingly detailed symphonic/choral folk package, as on this peak Fleet Foxes disc, I’m all in.

LYRICS: Public Enemy, "Fight the Power"

SONG: The bassist in my old L.A. band really wanted us to cover a certain Britney Spears hit, and I was game. While picking it out, though, it kept reminding me of another song. When I realized what song, we mashed them up and the rest is history.

ALBUM: The first new record Elvis Costello released after I’d belatedly become a fan, this 1986 classic was also his big pivot away from his longtime band to a rootsier sound. Bonus: On some tracks he’s playing with the *other* Elvis’s band.

LYRICS: Bobby Bare, "Dropkick Me, Jesus" 

SONG: What I love about this Jacob Collier cut, apart from its inspired casting (Shawn Mendes, Kirk Franklin, Stormzy), is that it both offers and asks for support; it is as much “I’m with you” and “You’re the light I need,” which I hear as: We are Christ to each other.

ALBUM: Ella followed her knockout run of songbook albums on Verve with this gorgeously straightforward 1967 gospel album. Only in her later Joe Pass collabs did she sing with such unhurried intimacy and quiet conviction.