On the heels of my recent post about Lyle Lovett’s first new album of original material in 15 years comes a Random Weekend selection from Lovett’s 2012 collection Release Me.
This album was recorded to fulfill a contractual obligation (hence the cheeky title and the cover art of Lovett tied up with a lariat) and featured only two originals among its 14 tracks.
Here’s a track from Rufus Wainwright’s 2004 album Want Two that, like so many of his best songs, overflows with romantic longing. ‘Peach Trees’ finds Wainwright on a lonely stroll through New York City, wishing to see a lover who is either absent or non-existent.
Looking back, I’m tempted to say the Want project — which consisted of two albums released a year apart — was the last great work Wainwright released. I need to revisit the three pop albums he put out over the next 16 years to remind myself how they stack up.
‘The Bridge I Burned’ is a cut from one of the extended editions Elvis Costello released in the early 2000s, in this case the 2001 reissue of 1995’s All This Useless Beauty.
At least that’s where my copy of this song lives. It was originally released as part of a 1997 greatest hits collection, a contractual obligation that allowed Costello to finish off his time at Warner Bros.
‘The Moon and St. Christopher’ is the final track on Mary Chapin Carpenter’s 1990 album Shooting Straight in the Dark. It’s a beautiful, simple track that has a bit of that early 90s adult contemporary polish but could really have been written and recorded at any time.
Shooting Straight in the Dark was Carpenter’s third album and her first of three straight Platium releases to start the decade.
Eight years ago, in the middle of the initial wave of Hamilton-mania, I posted a handful of songs from the Hamilton Mixtape, a project that saw the musical’s songs reinterpreted by a host of contemporary musicians.
It was a cool project that shed new light on great songs, and allowed Lin-Manuel Miranda to enlist some of the artists who inspired his work. It’s also the kind of novelty release you listen to once or twice and never revisit.
Meet Me In Montauk 