Bjork, Working Through the Pain

Well, holy crap, Bjork just upped the ante on the break-up album! I'm not making light of Bjork's personal tragedy, but, damn, the brutal soul-baring on display here just forces a nervous reaction.
I mentioned to my dear wife that all break-up albums must be compared to Joni Mitchell's "Blue". She disagreed, but if you want her side of the story, read her blog (oh yeah, there isn't one. First point to me.)

And "Blue" isn't really a "break-up album" -- maybe 3 songs are specifically about a broken relationship. But the songs that were are fierce in their nakedness.

And now we have Bjork's "Vulnicura", detailing the break-up of her marriage. Sounds just what you want to listen to on the commute, right?

I love me some Bjork, but the last 2 albums left me confused and uninterested. So this one, as bleak as it sounds, reasserts Bjork's musical mastery. The string arrangements are subtly evocative, the instrumental backing has all the force of a moving glacier, the lyrics are personal and yet universal,  and there are melodies again! Too bad she had to go through so much pain to get there.

Not Quite So Big Ol' Box of Wilco!

I'm white, male, of a certain age, so...yeah, I'm required by law to be a Wilco fan. And I am, I'm not fighting it, but I'm not a super fan. Example: there's a 2 CD best-of Wilco comp out, and I'd bet I only know half of the songs. The box posted above is even more obscure to me: 4 CDs of live tracks, demos and one-offs that surfaced on various EPs and bonus discs over the years. It's a bit of a conundrum to me that there are so many of these songs that I like better than the tracks that made up some of the official albums. The liner notes indicate that some tracks didn't play well with the other album tracks, but Jeff's never had a problem throwing a spanner in the works and just piling noise onto Americana (as I noted very much earlier, faithful reader.) But there are album tracks that just aren't that good (to my ancient ears) and I mentally beg Jeff to put the guitar down and take a break. And then THIS comes out, and this collection of cast-offs sounds so much better than some of the official tracks -- what's up?     

Jeff recorded a 'solo' album last year with his son on drums, and they're touring a bit in support.

I don't know, the 2 CD best-of, this 4 CD box -- it sure sounds to me like a "summing up", but maybe they're just taking a break for other projects. And there are tour dates this summer to celebrate 20 years of Wilco, so maybe they are just clearing the decks for the next 20 years.

Anyway, this box contains a lot of great music, and I think it might have the only officially-released-on-CD live version of "Impossible Germany" which has become (for me) Wilco's "Dark Star", the Grateful Dead song that Deadheads couldn't get enough of. Maybe it's because it was the first live version I heard, but for me, the version on the DVD "Ashes of American Flags" is still the one to beat.

And finally, props to the library for buying this so I could check it out!

Big Ol' Box o' Beatles

 

 

Streaming media gets bigger and bigger, and someone's always ready to pronounce the compact disc dead, so I gave in and bought the mono box when I had the chance. Thing is, as much as I loved the Beatles growing up, eventually I got burned out on them. Of that era, I still enjoy listening to the Beach Boys, but I kinda cooled on the Beatles for a while.

Well, I guess enough time has gone by, because it was fun to hear the old albums again, with the added bonus of the audible kick from the mono mixes. And these are the original British versions, not the truncated US versions, though it is weird to listen to "With the Beatles" (US: "Meet the Beatles") and not hear "I Want to Hold Your Hand" and "She Loves You". (Those tracks and other British singles are rounded up on a special 2-CD compilation in the box.)

These were remastered in 2009, and remastered again last year for vinyl. There are a few subtle differences I hear -- "Fool on the Hill" is shorter, for instance, and the liner notes point out how the stereo mix is different from the mono mix, but for the most part these are the albums I remember growing up with. I mentioned once when I was book-talking to middle school students years ago, and how they all complained about waiting for the latest Harry Potter book. Ah yes, I said, I felt the same way waiting for the latest Beatles  album back in the day. (Whatever, Gramps!) I tried to explain that the anticipation was actually part of the fun -- when you can walk into a bookstore now (what's that again, Gramps?) and pick up every single HP book in paperback at one go, it's just not the same.

And we really did anxiously await each new Beatles album, each one the latest dispatch from the coolest band in the world.