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The Decembrists and Lambchop, the latter veterans and the former relative newcomers, have developed a post-Rock indie seriousness that is uneven but restores the idea of the concept album as a going concern. The Decembrists did the better job of it, as they came up with a cache of tunes that often must compete with their
more indulgent moments while Lambchop try to be a more cerebral version of what Hem does better. Linda Ronstadt and Ralph Stanley
lovingly re-worked the old genres, Cajun and
Bluegrass respectively, in ways that lend a dignified yet listenable stateliness to their efforts. Their CDs are lessons to a new generation that never turn stuffy or turgid.
CDs from Matthew Sweet and Susanna Hoffs, The Wreckers and The Little Willies, the latter featuring Norah Jones in her first "human" performances, are easy-going exercises through classic styles of Pop and
Country that entertain more than inspire while Gnarls Barkley was my only acceptable foray into Hip Hop, a genre that has become deadeningly static and deathly dangerous in a cultural sense.
Top 10 Re-Issued
Albums of 2006
The review of re-issued CDs reflects the genius of a past that I continue to explore through my own purchases of older vinyl records on CD. The Byrds can now rest easy along with the Beach Boys that they were the best that American Rock music had to offer. “There is a Season” shows the band in all its phases and marks the Byrds as an American classic.
The Decembrists and Lambchop, the latter veterans and the former relative newcomers, have developed a post-Rock indie seriousness that is uneven but restores the idea of the concept album as a going concern. The Decembrists did the better job of it, as they came up with a cache of tunes that often must compete with their more indulgent moments while Lambchop try to be a more cerebral version of what Hem does better. Linda Ronstadt and Ralph Stanley lovingly re-worked the old genres, Cajun and
Bluegrass respectively, in ways that lend a dignified yet listenable stateliness to their efforts. Their CDs are lessons to a new generation that never turn stuffy or turgid. CDs from Matthew Sweet and Susanna Hoffs, The Wreckers and The Little Willies, the latter featuring Norah Jones in her first "human" performances, are easy-going exercises through classic styles of
Pop and Country that entertain more than inspire while Gnarls Barkley was my only acceptable foray into Hip Hop, a genre that has become deadeningly static and deathly dangerous in a cultural sense. The figure of Judee Sill which I have already mentioned earlier shows us the wide range of possibility in American songwriting that has been lost to us.
Eschewing electricity for string sections and acoustic guitars, Sill was the first release on David Geffen's Asylum record label and paved the way for Joni Mitchell and Tim Buckley’s brilliant innovations. |
