Eminem is perhaps the oddest of all the oddball artists in my musical genome discussion. He is very much a genre artist, but it’s a genre that’s almost entirely off my radar.
The easy claim is that I love Eminem’s music despite not liking rap music at all, but I don’t know if that’s true. I have owned maybe half a dozen rap albums (other than Eminem’s) over the past 20+ years and I don’t listen to any of them very often. But how many great ones have I never heard?
Lucinda Williams definitely puts the “plus” in ‘Country Plus.’
She got her start as a modest country-folk artist, kicking around New Orleans, Austin and Houston before testing the waters in New York and Los Angeles. Over 10 albums and 33 years, she has emerged as one of the most respected songwriters of her generation.
My next ‘Piano Man’ is one of the all-time greats… Randy Newman. Newman has had such a long and varied career, alternating between biting satire and Disney movie scores, that it seems silly to pin him down into specific categories.
But that’s not going to stop me.
Newman got his start in the Brill Building tradition, writing elegant, soaring pop ballads for the likes of Dusty Springfield and Peggy Lee.
I debated whether Shakira should be among the 35 artists I’m covering during my musical genome project but ultimately I realized the decision should have been a no-brainer. I own every one of her seven albums, four of which are performed entirely in Spanish — if that’s not dedication, I don’t know what is.
The fact that she is the only foreign language act I listen to makes her an anomaly among this group, but she also stands apart thanks to her musical style. Or styles, I should say, because Shakira shifts between dance pop, Latin rock, R&B and jazz-era balladry.
Entering Week Five of the never-ending musical genome project, I arrive at The Shins.
This is a band that straddles across two of my broad categories — Pure Pop and Melancholy. In fact, on some of their albums it appears as if it’s their mission to do exactly that, as upbeat pop songs alternate with contemplative, somber mood pieces.
