Music Diary, Vol. -41

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

Week of March 27-April 2, 2023

LYRICS: The Beatles, "Drive My Car"

SONG: This bustling countrybilly sound blew my mind when I first heard it back in 1986—not least because it features latter-day Elvis alongside many of OG Elvis’s greatest players, and their shared joy is palpable. All these years later it still slaps.

ALBUM: It’s easy to take for granted relentlessly acoustic California folk-country, but I’d argue that to make a record that sounds like it could have come out at any time in the last 50 years yet make it sound fresh is a higher bar. Mapache clears it.

LYRICS: Beck, "Sexx Laws"

SONG: Was listening to some Machaut motets, as you do, and the autoplay’s next recommendation was this mesmerizing cover of one of his hit tunes by Annwn, whom Wikipedia calls “a German medieval and pagan folk band from North Rhine-Westphalia.” Delish.

ALBUM: Thanks to my friend Ray Bokhour for recommending this 2016 Matmos record, which is both a stunt (it's composed entirely from sounds made by their Whirlpool washer) and a work of surprising musical substance. I found it a cleansing listen.

LYRICS: David Bowie (Brecht), "Remembering Marie A."

SONG: Sure, I hear the clear traces of Aimee Mann and Karen Carpenter in Weyes Blood’s lush retro pop, but the perfectly proportioned maximalism and deep feeling of a song like this sorry-grateful jaunt puts it a cut above mere pastiche.

ALBUM: It is never not a good day for Oliver Nelson.

LYRICS: Bruce Springsteen, "Blinded by the Light"

SONG: The emotional sting and shimmer of this deathless Sondheim ballad isn’t primarily in the lyrics—it’s in the vertiginous sunbursts and curlicues of the harmony, which travels from B-flat to E. Into that tritone gap floods a lifetime of yearning.

ALBUM: If you can imagine a French New Wave surf/spy movie, this 2021 The Limiñanas record would make the ideal soundtrack.

LYRICS: Wet Leg, "Being in Love"

SONG: To my ears, suspensions and appoggiaturas convey longing, which explains why this perky Jay Som guitar pop tune also has a melancholy tug: She works the same 2-note phrase in both verse and chorus, but over different chords. Genius.

ALBUM: This 1970 record by Buddy Miles is a real find, a minor rock-and-soul classic at the crossroads of Stax and Hendrix. Highly recommended.

LYRICS: Audra McDonald (Rodgers & Hammerstein), "Mister Snow"

SONG: This hilariously mean, deliberately annoying, diabolically catchy 100 gecs tune makes me laugh every time.

ALBUM: How could Norah Jones and Billie Joe Armstrong hope to duplicate the Everly Brothers' inimitable blood harmony? Blessedly, they don't really try on this unexpectedly moving record, but they do sound unmistakably great together.

LYRICS: Haley Heynderickx, "Untited God Song"

SONG: The Dawn French sitcom "The Vicar of Dibley" was all good irreverent fun, but if there was any doubt about its lightly worn but sincere spirituality, Howard Goodall's theme, a straight-facedly lovely setting of the greatest-hit psalm, was a clue.

ALBUM: At first blush Machaut's angular motets may sound like typical quasi-medieval hairshirt music, but listen closer and you'll start to notice how wild, untameable, even otherworldly they are. This is sacred music that parties like it's 1399.