(posts) Bon Iver's "29 #Strafford APTS"

Note: Every once in a while I hear a song that is so good I hate the person that wrote it.

about Bob Dylan's "Chronicles, Volume One"

Chronicles, Volume One is a Bob Dylan memoir. Dylan's reflections pass quickly through these 300-plus pages. His prose is loose; he ends his sentences with a comma so that he can tag on an afterthought or rephrasing.

Not a traditional memoir, Chronicles, Volume One offers only bites from the living legend's five-course career. The original idea was to release three volumes. This first one was published in 2004, and there is no sign that the other two are imminent.

Of the bites chronicled here, the best moments come when Dylan documents the people he has known, the songs that shaped him, and the frames of mind he has that have endured. The man is multiplicitous. The people he describes are scene makers rather than scene stealers or celebrities. There is no gossip here. His favorite songs have all aged well. And his states of mind are, as expected, always at odds with the world.



Notes:
Chronicles, Volume One is worth reading if you are a Dylan fan.

(posts) "Golden" by My Morning Jacket

My Morning Jacket
  -Golden

Watchin' a stretch of road, miles of light explode
Driftin' off a thing I'd never done before

Watchin' a crowd roll in, out go the lights it begins
A feelin' in my bones I never felt before

People always told me
that bars are dark and lonely
And talk is often cheap and filled with air

Sure sometimes they thrill me
but nothin' could ever chill me
Like the way they make the time just disappear

Feelin' you are here again, hot on my skin again
Feelin good, a thing I'd never known before

What does it mean to feel millions of dreams come real
A feelin' in my soul I'd never felt before

And you always told me
no matter how long it holds me
If it falls apart or makes us millionaires

You'll be right here forever
we'll go through this thing together
And on Heaven's golden shore we'll lay our heads


Note: from the "Late Show With David Letterman"

The Animals perform "The House of the Rising Sun"

  -The Animals

There is a house in New Orleans
They call the Rising Sun
And it's been the ruin of many a poor boy
And God I know I'm one
My mother was a tailor
Sewed my new blue jeans
My father was a gamblin' man
Down in New Orleans
Now the only thing a gambler needs
Is a suitcase and trunk
And the only time he's satisfied
Is when he's on a drunk
Oh mother, tell your children
Not to do what I have done
Spend your lives in sin and misery
In the House of the Rising Sun
Well, I got one foot on the platform
The other foot on the train
I'm goin' back to New Orleans
To wear that ball and chain
Well, there is a house in New Orleans
They call the Rising Sun
And it's been the ruin of many a poor boy
And God I know I'm one

Kings Of Convenience, "I'd Rather Dance With You"

How does his new stuff stack up against the old? I don't really care.

Last week I heard Paul Simon's new album, So Beautiful or So What, reviewed twice on NPR. The first reviewer withholds a definitive verdict on the music. He does, however, imply that Simon may have worn out his once fruitful formulas, and that he relies now more on craftiness than sincerity. Then the review mysteriously concludes with,

Whatever the reason, Paul Simon has made an album that succeeds in blending the two best strands of his solo career: the articulate navel-gazing of his 1972 solo debut and Graceland's 25-year-old rhymin' Simon in rhythm. And only a few songs here could use the heavy hand of a rewrite.

The second reviewer offers praise after first wondering if Simon has yet again rehashed his summit solo effort, Graceland. That's yet another way of asking if Simon has worn out his once fruitful formulas, and does he rely now on craftiness instead of sincerity? The second reviewer concludes,

Maybe these familiar echoes, ghosts of past glories, are inevitable. Maybe, as happens to so many elder statesmen of pop, Simon's best work is in the past. Here's all I know: Whenever my attention drifted while listening to this mixed bag of a record, along would come a stark insight, delivered in a tone of cool ambivalence — the audio equivalent of a tug on the sleeve. That's what is so interesting about this album. It's all "Meh," "So what?" and "Heard that one before." Until, quite suddenly, it's so beautiful.

Both reviewers focus primarily on uncovering the artist's motives. Neither wants to be fooled. They elaborate on what personal drama may be unfolding behind the music rather than on what the music supposedly sounds like and whether they enjoy the sounds they hear. And both assume Simon was once in an ideal state--that of The Sincere Artist.

Often, the art critic seeks an understanding with the artist. In this case, the critics want to know that the artist has taken his own music as seriously as they do. A critic may fault a work or its artist by saying that the work failed to achieve what it meant to achieve; this is a kind of positive criticism in that the work is to be taken seriously despite its faults. A negative criticism, for example, would say that a work takes itself too seriously. Sometimes a work or artist is dismissed outright: "You can't expect me to take this seriously?"

I don't.

First review: http://www.npr.org/2011/04/04/135112880/paul-simon-back-in-graceland-with-so-beautiful
Second review: http://www.npr.org/2011/04/11/135319218/paul-simon-old-sounds-new-perspectives