Music Diary, Vol. 43

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 Oct. 28-Nov. 3, 2024

LYRICS: Rush, "A Farewell to Kings"

SONG: Chubby Parker’s “King Kong Kitchie Kitchie Ki-Me-O,” one of my faves from the Harry Smith collections, may be the chirpiest folk song about a bloodbath I've ever heard. Eerie fun fact: It predates the 1933 film about the giant ape by 5 years.

ALBUM: People forget that this delicious, underrated standards cover record is the one Sinéad O’Connor was promoting when she staged her anti-clerical abuse protest on SNL. A few glib arrangements aside, I think it holds up beautifully.

LYRICS: Pulp, "Disco 2000"

SONG: This sweet don't-cheat Slim Willet country standard, here in Ray Price's definitive early rendition, has an anxious, galloping momentum that is only heightened by the extra beats it regularly throws in (just try counting along).

ALBUM: There is reverberation, and then there is the aural equivalent of persistence of vision, in which resonances ping and unfurl and keep undulating in space. The latter is the achievement of this mesmerizing prepared-piano opus by Erik Griswold.

LYRICS: Leslie Odom Jr. (Sara Bareilles), "Seriously"

SONG: First heard this Salt-N-Pepa banger on the Colors soundtrack. They would go on to greater heights from here, but this lean track, with its apt JBs and Meters samples and flawlessly loose back-and-forth vocals, remains a favorite.

ALBUM: Nothing Rosalía makes may ever top her El Mal Querer for me, but in revisiting her 2022 follow-up, I’m hearing not just edge and transgression, as I did before, but also intimacy and vulnerability. Woman’s got range, and not just vocally.

LYRICS: Shonen Knife, "Devil House"

SONG: His strings-only Psycho score is best known for the violin screech of the shower scene, but for me the title theme is the uncut essence of Bernard Herrmann: tense, passionate, tightly controlled, irrepressible. This music will never lose its edge.

ALBUM: Coppola, seeking an Eastern European sound for his Dracula, hired Polish composer Wojciech Kilar, who called in the low strings, horns, kettle drums, and human voices, in choirs and solo. Like the film, it’s all a bit much but it has some bite.

LYRICS: Billy Joel, "Allentown"

SONG: Sue me, I’m neither a big hater nor a big fan of Andrew Lloyd Webber, but I happen to like his Sunset Blvd. score for its mid-20th-century sound. I particularly love the angular, Copland-esque chords on this anthemic ballad, to give one example.

ALBUM: Every player on Casiopea’s tight, sizzling jazz fusion record from 1979 is aces (including the Breckers and Sanborn), but what drives this killer band, to my ears, is the furious, meticulous, singing bass of Tetsuo Sakurai.

LYRICS: Elvis Costello, "Less Than Zero (Dallas Version)"

SONG: Woody Guthrie wrote this during a literal war with fascism in Europe, but even then he had his eyes on the domestic as much as the foreign version. For better and worse, it’s a timeless anthem, here in Billy Bragg & Wilco’s blazing rendition.

ALBUM: One mark of a good cover: the singer makes it sound like they wrote it. Patti Smith pulls that off with a wide range of eras and genres—folk, New Wave, grunge, etc.—on this lovingly curated, expertly arranged covers record from 2007.

LYRICS: Leslie Phillips, "No One But You"

SONG: Not many hymns can be called haunting, but both the melody and lyrics of this Mary Dana Shindler classic from 1857 manage to be at once eerie and uplifting. This great Secret Sisters rendition brings out all of the song’s dark, flashing colors.

ALBUM: I feel like the subtext of every George Jones gospel song is torment, anguish, abjection, even when the beat is cooking. Come to think of it, not that different from his usual sound. His voice turned pain into beauty like few others.