Music Diary, Vol. 23

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 10-16, 2024

LYRICS: Robbie Fulks, "Jean Arthur"

SONG: The music tells the story: The squashed minor 9th chord that enters and repeats under the chorus of this Curtis Mayfield masterwork (first one hits at 1:37) is the pure, distilled sound of pressure, stress, no options—tragedy, essentially.

ALBUM: If you're a Caroline Polachek fan but you're like, "What if she were about 10 percent weirder?" then her 2014 record as Ramona Lisa is a must—both the primordial pop ooze from which her full aesthetic emerged and a great listen on its own terms.

LYRICS: Leonard Cohen, "Blessed Is the Memory"

SONG: It’s not just the cinematic tricks that make this Brown/Freed ballad a high point from “Singin’ in the Rain”; it’s the rhapsodic tune itself. I especially love the chromatic run on “Nature patterned you” and the pained C7b9 on “I’m content.”

ALBUM: Mildly obsessed with singer-songwriter Labi Siffre, who sounds a bit like Nick Drake or Arthur Lee trying their hand at bubblegum pop. This utterly beguiling 1970 record also has a certain song-and-dance panache to it. Highly recommended.

LYRICS: Johnny Paycheck, "(Pardon Me) I've Got Someone to Kill"

SONG: I'm a sucker for sad ragtime tunes, and this Joseph Lamb is my favorite (and one I can more or less play). I don't think I'm alone: I vividly remember the documentary "Crumb" opening with the artist spinning a 78 of this tune.

ALBUM: Been binging Françoise Hardy since I heard of her passing, and while I’m still partial to the “Comment te dire adieu” record, I’ve shared that here before, and this 1971 record might be even better—less yé-yé kitsch, more gravity and mystery.

LYRICS: Aimee Mann, "You Do"

SONG: Worlds collide in this exquisite cover of a Weill/Anderson standard by Noel Paul Stookey, whose thin but tenderly expressive voice perfectly conveys the song’s bittersweet view of aging passion.

ALBUM: As a kid I thrilled to Isao Tomita's Moog-and-Mellotron takes on Debussy, even if (or precisely because?) they occasionally sound like the Disneyland-electrical-parade version of impressionism.

LYRICS: Dave Bartholomew, "The Monkey"

SONG: What makes this H.E.R. track work, I’d say, is the repeated G# she hits over the A chord (first on “my head”), which is both a smudgy major 7th and a kind of appoggiatura (it resolves to a G# chord). Tells the song’s push-pull story beautifully.

ALBUM: I know I shared Labi Siffre’s “Singer and the Song” record earlier this week, but his 1972 follow-up might be even better—just as charming but less winking, more folky, less poppy, all gold. (It’s also got the tune Madness later covered.)

LYRICS: Marin Mazzie (Flaherty/Ahrens), "Back to Before"

SONG: This sweeping track by Shilpa Ray is the sound of despair breaking through into ecstasy—or maybe vice versa? Much as her harmonium makes sound in either direction, or her soaring voice fights the battering drums, her music contains multitudes.

ALBUM: More effortful and self-conscious than her breakthrough follow-up TAPESTRY—even its title seems both defensive and deflecting—Carole King’s first solo record is nonetheless a joy and often a wonder.

LYRICS: Amy Correia, "O Lord"

SONG: How could I resist a song that includes references to Neptune and numerology, sludge and heaven? We are all in gutter but some of us are looking at the stars. (The Pixies killed this one at Forest Hills Stadium last night.)

ALBUM: This ecstatic qawwali record by Rizwan Mujahid Ali Khan and Muazzam Mujahid Ali Khan, nephews of Nusrat, goes a little harder than their late great uncle’s music, but then they were teens when they made it. Think of it as Sufi punk rock.