Monthly Archives: March 2010

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Song of the Day #603: ‘Red Red Red’ – Fiona Apple

Today and tomorrow I’m going to take a look at the difference song production makes by highlighting two versions of the same song given completely different studio treatments.

The song is Fiona Apple’s ‘Red Red Red,’ which appeared on her third album, 2005’s Extraordinary Machine. It’s hard to believe the album came out five years ago already. That means we’re approaching the 6-year delay between her sophomore album When the Pawn… and this one. Only now there’s no new album on the horizon, no promise of new material. I really wish she’d record more often.

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Song of the Day #602: ‘Absolutely Sweet Marie’ – Bob Dylan

Blonde on Blonde was the first double album of the rock era, but it doesn’t have all that many songs. Fourteen tracks is pretty normal on a single album these days. But these were some long songs. Three clocked in at more than 7 minutes, and the nearly 12-minute ‘Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands’ took up one whole side of disc two.

And these are among Dylan’s most celebrated and successful songs. Blonde on Blonde features such classics as ‘Rainy Day Women #12 & 35,’ ‘Just Like a Woman,’ ‘Visions of Johanna,’ ‘I Want You’ and ‘Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again.’

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Song of the Day #601: ‘Temporary Like Achilles’ – Bob Dylan

In May of 1966, Bob Dylan completed the most extraordinary trilogy in modern music history by releasing Blonde on Blonde just 14 months after Bringing it All Back Home, with Highway 61 Revisited sandwiched in between. Where did he get the nerve?!

Blonde on Blonde is certainly one of Dylan’s finest albums and it sits in the top ten of virtually every list of the “greatest albums ever recorded.” It’s the fourth member of my Dylan Six and a strong candidate for my favorite of his records. This is the album I’d likely recommend if somebody new to Bob Dylan wanted a sense of what he’s all about.

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Song of the Day #600: ‘Dive In’ – Dave Matthews Band

I’ve been pretty down on Dave Matthews Band ever since the non-release of The Lillywhite Sessions, the bootleg album that remains their best work even if it never debuted officially. The band put out Everyday and Busted Stuff instead, the former a generic mess and the latter filled with lesser versions of the Lillywhite songs.

2005’s Stand Up didn’t even reach my radar… to this day, I don’t think I’ve heard a single one of its tracks. For all I know it’s a hidden masterpiece, but I believe it was received rather coolly by critics and fans alike. And then the band did nothing for a few years, after which they suffered the death of saxophonist LeRoi Moore, a beloved band member and the key element musically in so many of their best songs.

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Song of the Day #599: ‘All I Want’ – Darius Rucker

Former Hootie & the Blowfish lead singer Darius Rucker put out his country album Learn to Live in the middle of 2008, so it’s not really in the same category as the other albums I’m discussing this week (all of which had ’09 releases). But there’s no harm in getting it on record.

Rucker has had an impressive second act, landing this album and its first three singles at #1 on the country charts, no mean feat in general but even more impressive as he’s the first black man to make that kind of impact in country music since Charley Pride. I’m almost entirely unfamiliar with Pride, but a quick scan of his biography shows what great company Rucker is in.

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