I’m straying a bit from my usual pattern and going with two theme weeks in a row. I’m also running this week’s theme posts from Sunday through Thursday rather than Monday through Friday.
Why? Because this week’s theme is Christmas! From today through the holiday I will feature a Christmas song of one sort or another, starting today with an unlikely duet.
Volume 8 in Bob Dylan’s Bootleg Series is one of the best yet, and that’s saying a lot. This collection focuses on the past 20 years of Dylan’s career and it’s amazing that, though his voice has become more and more limited, his songs are just getting better and better.
Though the two-disc set isn’t sequenced this way, it basically boils down to 1) a collection of live and alternate takes of songs on his last five studio albums, and 2) a dozen or so little-known gems that, if released as a proper album, would rank right up there with Dylan’s finest work.
James Brown could almost fit into last week’s theme week… he’s a classic artist with who I am not familiar enough. However, I do know some of the bigger hits so I didn’t include him in that lineup.
I wish I was around when James Brown was in his prime. It doesn’t seem right that my earliest and most vivid memory of an R&B legend like him is from that scene in Rocky IV. (Apollo Creed should have known that Russian meant business!)
Back in August, I used some Amazon.com gift certificates to load up on new music. I bought the following CDs:
Adele – 19
Fleet Foxes – Fleet Foxes
Jump – Between the Dim and the Dark
Randy Newman – Harps & Angels
She & Him – Volume One
Sugarland – Love on the Inside
So my goal this week was to single out some artists I’ve heard about but never really heard. I went with two bona fide legends (Tom Waits and Patti Smith), two lesser-known but well-regarded 70s bands (Buzzoccks and Faces) and one contemporary artist who enjoys great critical acclaim (Bjork).
Overall, my takeaway is that I wasn’t missing much. I’m most intrigued by Tom Waits, though his voice remains a stumbling block, and I like the idea of Patti Smith even if her song didn’t completely sell me. Faces seems like a generic 70s rock band. Buzzcocks wrote a great song but their style isn’t up my alley. And Bjork is intriguing but too much of an art-school show-off to really grab me.
Meet Me In Montauk 