"There's a time in life for Hoagy Carmichael. There's a time in life for Claude Debussy. There's a time in life for Jerry Lee Lewis. There's a time in life for Destiny's Child. All these things have their moment." ~Elvis Costello
Teenage Fanclub, Matthew Sweet and McCartney’s solo work are good points of reference for Brendan Benson’s jangly, melodic power pop.
Benson’s solo career has been unjustly overlooked; he may be best known for his work with Jack White as a member of the Raconteurs. But “Tiny Spark” sounds like a hit single from an alternative reality in which the sound of the Raspberries was never swept from the radio.
In other news you may have missed if you aren’t a pop Anglophile…
Lily Allen just scored a number 1 single on the British charts with a cover of Keane’s “Somewhere Only We Know”, actually besting the band’s original, which peaked at number 3 there (#50 U.S.) in 2004.
After a three-year break from music, Allen has returned in a big way with two songs currently in the British top ten.
“Somewhere Only We Know” was featured in a Christmas advert by leading British retailer John Lewis, and the ad has been a runaway success there. Sales of a Hare and Bear alarm clock featured in the ad have exhausted supplies and the clocks are now selling on eBay for nearly three times the retail price.
The ad has surpassed 9 million views on YouTube….so of course, it was removed.
Boston singer-songwriter Kris Delmhorst covers a range of styles over the course of a typical release, evoking at turns Sara Bareilles, Mary Chapin-Carpenter, Lucinda Williams, even Norah Jones.
Gifted lyricist David Ramirez wonderfully articulates the dilemma of the songwriter whose audience wants hard-hitting truths…just not the inconvenient, overly-truthful ones.
They love me for being honest
They love me for being myself
But the minute I mention Jesus
They want me to go to Hell
It’s hard to find the balance
When I don’t believe in one
When you mix art with business
You’re just shooting an empty gun
You’re just a songwriter, you ain’t a preacher
We came to mourn you, not to look in the mirror
Sing about those hard times, sing about those women
We love the broken, not the forgiven
These songs will only take me
As far as the people will go
If I can’t make them happy
Well then they won’t come to my shows
Maybe that’s what killed
All the great voices in the world
Always bleeding for every line
But no one was bleeding in return
You’re just a songwriter, you ain’t a preacher
We came to mourn you, not to look in the mirror
Sing about those hard times, sing about those women
One measure of the quality of the Beatles’ catalogue is the way in which the material lends itself to reworking in myriad styles. Case in point: McCartney’s “I’ve Just Seen a Face”, which makes a fine bluegrass romp in the hands of Arlo Guthrie.
Arlo has always mined the catalogues of his contemporaries (Dylan in particular) for songs that would benefit from the old time country treatment in which his band Shenandoah specialized. He shows great instincts here.
