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Tracey Thorn: Love and Its Opposite

June 2, 2010 /


RIYL: Everything But The Girl, Beth Orton, Amy Rigby

TraceyThornThough it’s a bit jarring to consider, it has been 11 years since the last proper Everything but the Girl studio album (1999’s Temperamental), and singer Tracey Thorn’s solo output in that period has been relatively sparse. Love and Its Opposite, her first new disc in three years, is worth the wait—an extraordinary adult pop record, full of meditations on middle age, its disappointments, and tiny victories.

The somber piano ballad “Oh, the Divorces!” opens the record, with Thorn employing her distinctive, languid voice to emanate empathy as she imagines the sad scenes leading toward a relationship’s downfall and aftermath. She ponders the reticence to wed in the first place, in “Long White Dress,” casting the wedding gown as love’s “opposite,” while quietly celebrating those who demur. Fear of loneliness, however, sends the protagonist to the “Singles Bar,” where life as a cougar ain’t all it’s cracked up to be. “Can you guess my age in this light?” she asks. “Who will be taking me home tonight?” This triptych forms the foundation of the record, delivering a melancholy take on aging, romance, and sexuality.

Elsewhere, Thorn’s wit pokes through on the up-tempo “Hormones,” and she floats on the danceable groove of “Why Does the Wind?” making one miss Everything But The Girl just a little bit. In all, however, Love and Its Opposite argues convincingly for Thorn’s continued viability as an artist, solo or otherwise, and as a chronicler of the everyday. (Merge 2010)

Tracey Thorn Myspace Page
Click to buy Love and Its Opposite from Amazon

Alternative, CD QuickTakes, CD Reviews, Pop

The Purrs: Tearing Down Paisley Garden

May 31, 2010 /


RIYL: The Jesus and Mary Chain, The Velvet Underground, The Brian Jonestown Massacre

The Purrs Tearing Down Paisly GardenThere’s much to be said for a band like the Purrs, with ten years together and six solid releases under its belt. They might not be household names, but they’ve never compromised their music to raise their profile. This is where the music comes out ahead, and Tearing Down Paisley Garden is yet another winner.

At seven songs, Paisley is not quite an EP, though had it been released in 1972, it still might have been considered a full-length album. And then, looking at the makeup of the songs themselves, Paisley could even be called an “odds and ends” kind of collection. “Only Dreaming” and “I Move Around” are covers of songs by ’80s goth rockers Red Lorry Yellow Lorry and the late Nancy Sinatra collaborator Lee Hazlewood, respectively. And “Just a Little More” and “It Could Be So Wonderful” are new recordings of old songs, which explains the oddly out of time reference to “the president” in the former.

In spite of what could easily have been a set-up for a major bomb, Paisley plays like a strikingly cohesive collection, exhibiting all the Purrs trademarks – Jason Milne’s cutting lead guitar lines, Jima’s lackadaisically cool detachment and sarcastic wit, and that reverb-laden, psychedelic shoegazey sound married to seasoned pop songcraft. If there’s anything different about the Purrs this time around, it’s a subtle but noticeable uptick in their mood compared to last year’s excellent Amused, Confused and More Bad News that comes through even in a downer like “I’m Slipping” – which in this case keeps a song about sexual transgressions against a friend from devolving into a pity party. And in the case of the disc’s closing tune, “Always Something In My Way,” the title ends up coming across less as a complaint and more as a celebration of the challenges that would crush a lesser person. Clearly, these Seattle stalwarts are having more fun than ever, which is exactly how a good rock record should sound. (self released 2010)

The Purrs MySpace page

Alternative, CD QuickTakes, CD Reviews, Psychedelic, Rock

Quintessential Songs of the ’00s: #8 “The Way We Get By”

May 28, 2010 /

This is the first track on my Quintessential Songs playlist that doesn’t have its own wiki page or a songfacts page. Sigh.

Luckily, I interviewed Britt Daniel a while back and he had this to say about the track:

That one came really fast and it was another one of those that was sort of like, “I’ll just throw down and idea. It probably isn’t going to work.” But once I sang that chorus the first time and got it on tape, I kind of knew it was going to be a good one.

According to Last.fm, this is easily the most played song in the Spoon catalog and it’s certainly one of the catchiest. In that interview, Daniel said it was one of the most “immediate” of the band’s songs. This Kill the Moonlight track put the band on my radar, and was prelude to the brilliance on display on their next album, Gimme Fiction.

More Quintessential Songs of the ’00s.

Best of 2000s, External Music, Songs

Quintessential Songs of the ’00s: #7 “Last Nite”

May 27, 2010 /

“Last Nite” was the Strokes’ biggest hit of the ’00s, as it hit #5 on Billboard’s Modern Rock chart and put the band on the map nationwide.

Does the opening riff seem familiar? From the song’s wiki page:

The guitar riff that begins the song is similar to the intro of Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers’ “American Girl”. In a 2006 interview with Rolling Stone, Tom Petty said “The Strokes took ‘American Girl’ [for their song “Last Nite”], and I saw an interview with them where they actually admitted it. That made me laugh out loud. I was like, ‘OK, good for you.’ It doesn’t bother me.”

That’s pretty cool.

From the song’s Songfacts page:

British music magazine NME placed Is This It in first place in their list of the albums of the decade. Strokes frontman Julian Casablancas said of the award: “It’s totally crazy! I don’t know what that means. Does it mean it’s a good musical decade or a bad musical decade? I don’t know, I’m such a bad judge of my own stuff. But I thought it was great when I heard. Recording the album was fun, it was stressing, it was exciting. I think if I was to know then that I’d be having this conversation now I couldn’t be more pleased. I’m restraining myself now, I don’t want to get carried away, but I’m pretty damn psyched with myself. Mental high five!”

It’s funny that this was not the first single released off of Is This It, but I guess “Hard to Explain” is pretty damn catchy too.

More Quintessential Songs of the ’00s.

Best of 2000s, Songs

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