I always sigh when a Morrissey or Smiths song pops up on Random iTunes Weekends, bracing myself for the bashing to come from my regular readers.
I need to find a pocket of Smiths fans to whom I can market the blog on these occasions, so the lovers can drown out the haters.
‘Glamorous Glue’ is a track from Morrissey’s best solo album, 1992’s Your Arsenal. This one of several albums that will always remind me of the year I met my wife.
Here’s the second track from XTC’s excellent 1986 album Skylarking. It’s probably been more than a decade since I listened to any part of this album, and longer than that since I listened to it in full.
Actually, that’s not true. About seven or eight years ago I embarked on a mission to listen to every single one of my CDs in their entirety. The goal was to decide which ones I would keep and which I could sell back. It took me several months and my listening spanned several states (a northeastern road trip helped the cause, though I could only listen to some albums while my wife and kids were sleeping).
It’s not every day that I get a music recommendation from my parents.
Certainly, my exposure to some of the greats — Frank Sinatra, Bob Dylan, Carly Simon, Carole King — is thanks to their influence when I was a kid. And my mother famously introduced our family to Billy Joel (or, as she referred to him, Billy Joe).
But since I turned 15, I can probably count on one hand the number of musical artists they’ve sent my way. I might not even need the one hand.
In my post on Guster’s new album, I praised their willingness to stretch their sound and try new things. On the opposite side of that spectrum is Ron Sexsmith, who just released his 13th album (in 24 years).
Not much distinguishes Carousel One from the dozen albums that preceded it. It’s packed with smart, melodic pop that’s equal parts The Beatles and Elvis Costello. A winning formula, to be sure, and one Sexsmith has never abandoned.
Like yesterday’s featured artist, Josh Rouse, Guster is a moderately popular indie act that has quietly amassed an impressive discography. The band’s new album, Evermotion, is their seventh.
This record finds them a god distance, sonically, from their early work even as the songwriting sticks to the same tried and true folk pop formula. Guster’s calling card in the late 90s was acoustic guitars and stick-free percussion, a very lo-fi organic vibe. Evermotion, in contrast, is synth-heavy — almost distractingly so in some cases.
Meet Me In Montauk 