Audible

Will Sia’s New Album Bring Her Out from the Shadows for Good?

I don’t remember if I personally first heard Sia’s ‘Chandelier’ in 2014 or 2015, but whenever it was I was immediately hooked. The album, 1000 Forms of Fear spent significant time in rotation on my music listening device throughout the first half of 2015 and on into the late summer early fall. Now, the recently released follow-up, This is Acting, is picking up right where its predecessor left off.

I love this description of Sia’s sound and style from Carrie Battan’s recent review in The New Yorker:

Which is not to say that Sia’s music feels anonymous. She is one of the most distinctive and acrobatic vocal performers working today, her high-register rasp instantly recognizable. Her songs sit somewhere between balladry and modern dance-pop. Everything is in service of a larger-than-life chorus, each song a vehicle for anthemic catharsis. She is wiser and more world-weary than the girlish Katy Perry, more impassioned than the ice-cool Rihanna, more demure than the slinky Beyoncé. Sia is a balladeer at heart, and she is at her best when she uses her voice as her primary tool.

If you give the new album a spin, check out the first single ‘Alive’, as well as ‘Reaper’, ‘House on Fire’, and ‘Footprints’.

Snap

Ryan Adams Releases ‘1989’, Tech Press Rejoices

When Ryan Adams revealed via Twitter a month or so ago that he was working on covering the entirety of Taylor Swift’s 1989, I don’t think I was alone in rejoicing; nor was I likely the only one who feared the project would never see the light of public day. It turns out, our fears were unfounded. With a bit more fanfare than a typical Adams release, the Ryan Adams reinterpretation of Swift’s 2014 chart topper made its way out into the wild.

Much to my surprise, the tech press was all over the news. Here are bits of the reports that I didn’t expect to see coming across my tech RSS and Twitter feeds:

First, James Vincent over on The Verge:

Adams’ reimagining of 1989 has already generated significant buzz thanks in no small part to Swift’s engagement with the project. Last week, she called news of the cover album “surreal and dreamlike” (adjectives that can also be applied to the listening experience), and this morning took to Twitter to retweet praise for the project, including judgments such as “if you need me, I’ll be listening to this on repeat for the rest of my life,” and “SCREAMING CRYING PERFECT STORMS.” It’s fair to say then that the reception, so far, seems pretty good.

Next, Wired graces us with a back and forth between K.M. McFarland and Jordan Crucchiola in Two Superfans Break Down Ryan Adams 1989 Cover Album. Here’s K.M. McFarland aptly drawing out the brilliance of Swift’s original work by way of its role as Adams’ muse:

K.M. McFarland: Turning this into a solo piano ballad reveals the inadvertent work Adams accomplishes with his full-album covers project. In general, Taylor Swift—like other pop artists with younger fanbases—gets pigeonholed as trivial and unworthy of critical analysis. But Adams’ covers are nothing if not wholly serious, proving that the underlying foundation of Swift’s songs merit this kind of meticulous attention. “This Love” is mournful but unspectacular in Adams’ hands, but it highlights the larger merits of this endeavor.

And finally, from probably the most unexpected corner of my tech world, Jason Snell writing for his Six Colors blog:

Covering an entire album is a pretty bold gesture, and doing it while the previous album is still in the public consciousness is even bolder. Swift’s original is very much modern pop infused with an ’80s pop sensibility, which—as an ’80s pop music fan—I love. Adams’ choices in reinterpreting the songs are fascinating—I hear Springsteen, Neil Young, even Chris Isaak at one point.

It’s unlikely I’ll ever recover enough of my overly anxious reactions for a full post or review, but right now my early favorites are ‘Out of the Woods’, ‘Clean’, ‘Blank Space’, and ‘All You Had To Do Was Stay’.

Short Cuts

15 Years Ago: Ryan Adams Releases ‘Heartbreaker’

Adams’ ambivalent relationship with his home state is captured beautifully in “Oh My Sweet Carolina,” featuring guest turns from Emmylou Harris and Pat Sansone from Wilco, but it’s more than that. The song captures the restless nature of young adulthood, when the desire to roam and the pull of deep roots battle for supremacy. “I was trying to find me something / But I wasn’t sure just what / Man I ended up with pockets full of dust,” he sings. We’ve all been there, and even if we haven’t Miss Emmylou’s harmonies are enough to make us feel like we have been.

Ambivalent, indeed.

O&F
Recap

‘Born to Run’ and the Decline of the American Dream

Celebrating the 40th anniversary of its release, Joshua Zeitz, writing for The Atlantic, reflects on Bruce Springsteen’s breakthrough Born to Run in the context of the era in which it was released:

But the story of the ‘70s is much more complicated. Far from being an era of complacency and narcissism, the decade gave rise to social, political, and cultural debates that built on and even surpassed the era of Kennedy and King. Some issues, like civil rights, the sexual revolution, and Vietnam, belonged as much to the ‘70s as to the ‘60s. Others, like feminism, abortion, gay rights, busing, the tax revolt, and Christian Right politics, seemed altogether new.

Considered in this context, Bruce Springsteen’s phenomenal breakthrough in 1975 can only be understood against a backdrop of profound dislocation and urgent activism, particularly in the working-class communities that absorbed so many of the decade’s economic and cultural shocks.

See also: Rolling Stone’s heretofore unreleased transcript of a 2005 interview with Springsteen on the making of Born to Run. (via Shawn King from The Loop)

O&F
Duly Noted

Raleigh to Host The American Roots Music and Arts Festival

Raleigh’s Walnut Creek Amphitheatre will host the American Roots Music and Arts Festival October 17th and 18th:

“Raleigh has an energy that celebrates the best in music, food and arts, making it the perfect place to launch the American Roots Music & Arts Festival. This incredible line-up headlined by North Carolina’s own Eric Church along with The Taste of Raleigh Food & Brews Celebration will give music fans and the Raleigh community an unforgettable experience,”says Keith Wortman, CEO of Blackbird Production Partners, LLC.

Other notable acts include: Modest Mouse, Sheryl Crow, The Roots (!!!), Willie Nelson (!!!), Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, Grace Potter, and more. Tickets go on sale Monday, August 10th.

Locally Notable

‘Compton’ By Way of Raleigh

Detox may never see the light of day, but Dr. Dre is not going to drop the mic quietly. Compton: A Soundtrack arrives this Friday exclusively to Apple Music and iTunes (with a sneak peek available Thursday evening on Apple Music). Please pardon the particular excitement of Triangle and NC music fans as Raleigh’s own King Mez is one of several new or heretofore unknown artists appearing on the album:

Born Morris Wayne Ricks II, 25-year-old rapper/producer King Mez is a native of Raleigh, N.C. He’s been releasing music since 2009, and his latest album, Long Live The King, came out in 2014. An introspective and thoughtful MC, Mez has collaborated with fellow North Carolinians J. Cole and producers 9th Wonder and Khrysis. The Morgan State alum cites Nas and MF DOOM as two of his main influences.

The new (and supposedly final) album drops just in time to coincide with the release of Straight Outta Compton, a new biopic about N.W.A. Here’s to hoping the album is more magnum opus than opportunistic fluff.

Quoted

Breaking Limitations

“If the internet has demonstrated anything over the years, it’s that it has a way of breaking limitations placed on its content.”

Locally Notable

The End Started in North Carolina

Like many other Millenials / GenYers, when I think about the downfall of the music industry, I think of Napster, Kazaa, Limewire and BitTorrent. And certainly those peer-to-peer file sharing innovations played a major role. But dig deeper and there’s a case to be made that the downfall began in our own backyard. In fact, Stephen Witt, in a longform piece for The New Yorker, makes that very case. I especially enjoyed this characterization of early-nineties life in Shelby, North Carolina:

Glover and Dockery soon became friends. They lived in the same town, Shelby, and Glover started giving Dockery a ride to work. They liked the same music. They made the same money. Most important, they were both fascinated by computers, an unusual interest for two working-class Carolinians in the early nineties—the average Shelbyite was more likely to own a hunting rifle than a PC.

In all seriousness, I had no idea that a small chunk of the ridiculous amounts of money I was spending on music in the nineties was coming back to the North Carolina economy. Had I known that there was a literal hit factory in Kings Mountain, NC, I might have tried to spend my summers working there.

Short Cuts

Brandi Carlile Covers ‘Murder in the City’

From Garden & Gun’s First Listen: Brandi Carlile’s “Murder in the City”:

Accompanied by the tight harmonies of Tim and Phil Hanseroth—known as “The Twins”—Carlile played a mix of old and new songs, including a cover of the Avett Brothers’ “Murder in the City,” which became the unofficial anthem of the tour.

I love that she covered it, though I’m not crazy about the result. It’s definitely a song worthy of imitation and reinterpretation.

Audible

I Watch Trailers for the Music

I don’t know if there has been a single more influential medium on my playlists than movie trailers the last few years1 and the latest is the trailer for Aloha, writer/director Cameron Crowe’s first movie in four years. The song is ‘First’ by Cold War Kids and it’s a great excuse to watch the trailer over and over again, which I had to do anyway to try to figure out the gist of the movie. I’m not sure I have it figured out yet, but I don’t think that will keep me from wanting to see the movie. Bradley Cooper, Emma Stone, Rachel McAdams, Danny McBride, Alec Baldwin, Bill Murray, and John Krasinski sounds like a pretty compelling draw to me.


  1. Going back at least as far as Zack Braff’s trailers for Garden State.  ↩