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November 07, 2005
new releases 11.08
Another week of odds and ends. Really the only new things I'm really interested in are the Angels of Light + Akron/Family collaboration, and the remaster of Patti Smith's Horses. I'm intrigued by the new Kate Bush (yes, I like her, and the advance word is extremely strong), but I'll tread carefully there. The Rick Rubin-produced Neil Diamond disc (a la Johnny Cash's American Recordings) could be good. I'm going to start listening to the stream as I write this post & I'll let you know what I think at the end.
Arcade Fire fans may be interested in the Bell Orchestre thing - it's an instrumental record with some band member overlap, and it's good.
I've been unable to get details on the Damned box set.
Akron/Family & Angels of Light (sample song here)
Patti Smith :: Horses (deluxe reissue)
Neil Diamond :: 12 Songs (stream the entire album at Myspace)
Kate Bush :: Aerial
Bell Orchestre :: Recording a Tape the Colour of LIght
The Damned :: Play it at Your Sister (box set)
OK, I listened to about 3 Neil Diamond tunes while writing the above. It's exactly what you'd expect - his voice is perhaps a little too melodramatic for the stripped-down treatment, but he has an undeniable gift for melody and song arc. The lyrics actually seem reasonable and perhaps even good, relatively devoid of his trademark overwritten clumsiness (I am, I said / To no one there / And no one heard at all / Not even the chair). That torch has been passed to Ben Gibbard.
Posted by borrowed_tunes at November 7, 2005 11:15 PM
Comments
Ha ha!!!
The torch for that has definitely been passed to
Ben Gibbard. 3 examples of "Huh?"
"Your brain is the dam
And i am the fish who can't reach the core."
"The glove compartment is inaccurately named
And everybody knows it."
"I wish the world was flat like the old days
Then i could travel just by folding a map"
Posted by: TO at November 8, 2005 09:46 AM
i think people that don't like ben gibbards lyrics are either old, or work for pitchfork.
that first lyric makes perfect sense if you listen to the whole extended verse. the glove compartment is, in fact, not a receptacle for gloves. and i enjoyed the science fiction reference in the map folding lyric.
and while we're at it, i read a really good defense of that particular neil diamond lyric by bono once. it's a g-d thing, yo.
Posted by: bill at November 9, 2005 02:00 PM
I don't work for Pitchfork, but I am indeed old. However, I can tell lyrical shit from shinola at any age. While I appreciate Ben Gibbard's astute observations on the history of science, glove compartments, and the battle of nature vs. machine in the world's rivers, I think there's a little more to lyric writing than sense. There's also sensibility. A remedial English teacher would call brain/dam/fish/core a damnably mixed metaphor on a good day. The glove compartment lyric is the worst combination of smugly and clumsily delivered.
I hope you're joking about the Bono/Neil Diamond thing.
Posted by: borrowed tunes at November 9, 2005 03:47 PM
yeah, gibbard's no genius. and his metaphor's do strain at times. but i just don't get why people get so angry about him. he has some quite nice little moments, i think. "the gift of memory's an awful curse, with age it just gets much worse."
and i'm really dead serious about the bono thing. he was going off on some religious kick, and was saying how "i am, i said" is a reference to the god of the old testament. you know the whole moses asking Him who He is thing, and He replies "I am" or whatever...can't remember his defense for the chair portion...
Posted by: b at November 10, 2005 02:18 PM