Music Diary, Vol. 52

And...we officially hit the one-year mark with this mad effort. The full series of Music Diary posts are here. The full playlist is above, and also here.

Week of Dec. 30, 2024-Jan. 5, 2025

LYRICS: Elton John, "Levon"

SONG: Todd Rundgren and Carson Van Osten's short-lived band Nazz mostly sounded of their time (the late 1960s), but this overlooked gem of a tune has a bold quietude that feels timelessly contemporary—so timeless I didn't clock its gentle triple meter at first.

ALBUM: I came late to Jeff Buckley’s genius; was introduced by a friend. Now my 15-year-old has discovered his strummy, expansive rock, and that searing, singular voice is in our house again, like an angel passing through our rooms.

LYRICS: The Replacements, "Take Me Down to the Hospital"

SONG: New obsession: This heartbreaking waltz by Laura Marling. It sounds simple but it’s not, repeating a 3-phrase form in irregular bar lengths (7, 6, 8 ) and holding back the cadence of the penultimate chorus—all befitting a song about accepting a bitter loss.

ALBUM: In Shostakovich’s string quartets, as in most of his work, tunefulness alternates with tension, as a troubled soul struggles to dance, rest, mourn, laugh. This music positively burns with intimacy and anguish.

LYRICS: Beverley Martyn (Randy Newman), "Happy New Year"

SONG: One way I’m celebrating the new year: marveling again at the turnaround out of the bridge of Joni’s perfect piano ballad “My Old Man.” The boldness and economy of it, and the apt thematic pivot from minor to major, takes my breath away every time.

ALBUM: This (now out-of-print) collection of early George Jones cuts—all shuffles and steel and sad-sack barfly bluster, before the Tammy drama and husky-voiced tragedy—was my charmed introduction to his surpassingly beautiful and nuanced vocal instrument.

LYRICS: David Bowie, "Song for Bob Dylan"

SONG: Possibly the greatest tune by my favorite singer-songwriter you’ve never heard of, Kevin Ray, this stately, aching ballad—which, like Joe Jackson’s “Hit Single,” pointedly analogizes pop triumph to personal worth—breaks and mends my heart every time.

ALBUM: This extraordinary record by the Aurelia Saxophone Quartet, covering Ravel’s and Debussy’s pathbreaking string quartets, softens some of their edges and heightens others—a fascinating experiment that makes me hear new things in 2 of my fave pieces.

LYRICS: Ella Fitzgerald (Kern/Mercer), "I'm Old-Fashioned"

SONG: Erskine Hawkins’s bluesy “Tuxedo Junction” became a standard via Glenn Miller’s slow-burn take, and later got words and many covers. On this playlist ranging from Tito Puente to Duane Eddy, my fave may be Quincy Jones’s subtle tweak of the Miller chart.

ALBUM: A few reasons George Harrison’s solo debut remains my fave record by an ex-Beatle: the range and ambition of the songcraft and production; that it introduced one of his sonic signatures (slide guitar) after he left the most famous band in the world; that it improves on every listen.

LYRICS: Bob Dylan, "Bob Dylan's Dream"

SONG: I love the way Madeleine Peyroux turns this Dylan classic into a bittersweet supper-club standard without smoothing out its idiosyncratic phrasing or ornery, self-deprecating spirit. I’m not crying, you’re crying.

ALBUM: I came late to Talking Heads, so by unfortunate chance their last record was the first released after I became a fan. I still rank Side 1 among their best work, and the rest has a dark, disjointed intensity I’ve come to admire more than love.

LYRICS: Sade (with Stuart Matthewman, Andrew Hale, and Paul Denman), "The Sweetest Gift"

SONG: From her unjustly overlooked gospel collection, this Ella Fitzgerald rendition of a great revivalist hymn has a triple-meter lilt lightly befitting its nautical setting. It’s all so gentle and unfussed that you barely the obligatory modulation (at 1:50).

ALBUM: Getting strong Soul II Soul vibes from this sleek, jazzy new gospel record from the prolific Brit collective Sault.