NEW MUSIC FOR OLDS #35
Time to nix the flugelhorns
We meet again.
Today’s songs are so good, so exclusive, I feel the need to place some sort of obstacle in your path. Some frightening trial worthy of Indiana Jones, designed to make the treasures within feel even more treasure-y.
Ooh, I know! Let’s see if you’re able to keep reading after gazing upon the single worst album cover of all time.
YOU MADE IT! I knew you could do it.
By the way, I have no idea what band this is or what the album is called. Someone posted it on Twitter a few years ago and it haunts me still. I pull it up every few months, just to see if I’m still capable of being revolted. Spoiler alert: yep!
UPDATE: Just tried looking again. Almost beat my record (9.4 seconds), but then I started I started counting pube ‘stache hairs and imagining how that mic probably smelled and…ack. The record still stands.
Okay, enough. You’ve proven yourself worthy of moving forward. As your reward, I give you…
My guitar album of 2023!
Joyful depression!
Gen Z meets Jim Steinman!
Internal monologues!
Posthumous critical esteem!
And…a sneak attack!
Shall we begin?
GOOD STUFF
Death. Taxes. A Glossary of Terms.
Cory Hanson, “Wings”
Listen on Apple Music // Listen on Amazon Music
Album: Western Cum
Nutshell: Country-tinged guitar rock
Voltage: 7
Thoughts: Look, maybe you’re able to scroll past an album called Western Cum without clicking play, but I ain’t so strong. I think I expected some irony-laden indie nonsense, but what I got was the guitar album of 2023! Hanson isn’t much of a singer and not all of the songs make an imprint, but man oh man his playing is a joy. This isn’t some Joe Satriani wankfest—everything Hanson does is rooted in Classic and/or Southern Rock. If you’re familiar with bands like White Denim, you know the vibe. I picked “Wings” because it’s user friendly, but I also recommend Western Cum’s 10+ minute centerpiece, “Driving Through Heaven”.
Pairing Suggestion: Air guitar-related beer spillage
Craig Armstrong feat. Self Esteem, “Black Eyed Dog”
Listen on Apple Music // Listen on Amazon Music
Album: The Endless Coloured Ways: The Songs of Nick Drake
Nutshell: Orchestral pop
Voltage: 4
Thoughts: Nick Drake, patron saint of delicate troubadours, is the subject of this extremely posthumous tribute album, featuring artists like Beck, Liz Phair and David Gray. Lots of good stuff. Craig Armstrong is mostly known as a film composer, but he’s released some great solo stuff, including this version of my favorite U2 song. Here, Armstrong (with the help of someone named Self Esteem, which is a dumb thing to call yourself) transforms Drake’s wisp of a tune into something massive and triumphant. Is that an odd way to interpret a song about indefatigable melancholy ? Probably. But who said depression needs to be depressing?
Pairing Suggestion: Using your pill organizer as a shaker
Olivia Rodrigo, “vampire”
Listen on Apple Music // Listen on Amazon Music
Album: Guts
Nutshell: Contemporary pop
Nutshell: 6
Thoughts: Wow look at me, on the same page with Teenage America! I enjoy tons of music that could be described as “pop”, but rarely does my taste intersect with the actual pop “charts”. It’s not snobbery, so much as me not wanting to be a creepy party crasher. With so much music out there, why not leave youth culture to the youth? That said, I quite like this new single by former Disney star (and current star-star) OIivia Rodrigo. It takes a while to get going and, in her lower register, Rodrigo leans on that fake breathiness that Gen Z mistakes for emotional intensity (okay, maybe a bit of snobbery). But once things get going around the :45 second mark, “vampire” transforms into a campy chunk of Theater Kid melodrama. The pop charts could use more Jim Steinman maximalism!
Pairing Suggestion: Embarrassing your kids by memorizing the lyrics
So…?
And if you’d like to express how mad you are about that disgusting album cover, now’s the time.
SOME BULLSHIT
A few thoughts on Nick Drake.
If you’re a self-identified music geek, everything I’m about to type can be filed under “No shit, Sherlock”. But if the name Nick Drake doesn’t ring any bells, fear not—you’re in very fine company. Between 1969-72, Drake released three poorly-reviewed folk albums, each of which sold fewer than 5000 copies, before taking his own life in 1974. Anyone who claims to have been a contemporaneous Nick Drake fan is a big fat liar.
Fast forward to late 1999, when “Pink Moon” was used in a Volkswagon commercial, and suddenly Nick Drake vaulted from obscure British songwriter to still-obscure-but-extremely-name-droppable British songwriter.
For what it’s worth (zilch), I knew “Pink Moon” before its rise to advertising immortality, but only from a 1992 Walt Mink cover. I’ve since acquired what you might call “compilation level interest” in Drake’s music. I love a half dozen songs, but he’s not an artist I listen to with regularity. Still, he’s an interesting artist to think about, for reasons musical and psychological.
First, there’s the unsettling intimacy of the recordings, especially the stuff he did towards the end of his life. By the time he made his third album, Drake’s career was dead in the water, leading him to ditch his previously fussy orchestral arrangements in favor of a more naked sound. Pro tip: once your manager drops you and the record label has stopped returning your calls, it’s probably time to nix the flugelhorns. Thankfully, Pink Moon (the album) is probably music’s clearest example of addition by subtraction. Some people swear by those first two albums, but in my oh so humble opinion, the essential Nick Drake consists of an acoustic guitar, sparse piano flourishes, and a breathy voice so close to the mic that it feels like someone has commandeered your internal monologue.
I wonder, in fact, how much the mass adoption of high-end headphones contributed to the Nick Drake revival. I’ve played Pink Moon through speakers, as background music, and it gets boring pretty quick. I imagine it sounded even worse being squeezed through a Seventies portable radio speaker. Some music is meant to be enjoyed in solitude, with zero distractions—ideally, Nick Drake should only be heard in a SCIF. The guy basically basically invented “interiority” as a pop music aesthetic, birthing future microphone-eaters like Elliott Smith and Iron & Wine and even Billie Eilish. But it’s no big mystery why Drake failed to make a contemporaneous impact. If everyone in 1973 owned a pair of V-Moda Crossfade M-100’s, who knows—maybe his albums would have sold six thousand copies apiece!
From a cultural perspective, Nick Drake is that a classic archetype: the under-appreciated genius who achieves immortality in death. Speaking as a professional creative artist who’s not exactly “killing it”, thinking about about posthumous critical esteem is like scratching and itch and poking a bruise at the same time. Still, I cling to the notion the way some people cling to heaven or the zodiac. Scoff if you want, but future generations quote my “I picked up the wrong dog’s poop” bit in hushed, reverent tones. MARK MY WORDS.
Then there’s the suicide thing. Despair is hard to miss in Drake’s lyrics (and overall vibe), but I try to avoid attaching artistic significance to real life struggles. We have a bad habit of fetishizing self-harm, even while ostensibly wringing our hands. If a piece of music makes you acutely sad (or happy, or whatever), that’s lovely. But if learning the songwriter took his own life makes you enjoy it more than you otherwise might, I’d gently suggest that says more about you than Nick Drake.
Then again, would I be writing about Nick Drake if he was still alive and puttering around a seniors community in Boca? Would I feel the same way about the music? I’d like to think so, but…
One eyeroll-inducing take I’ve come across in YouTube comments goes something like “It’s so sad that Nick Drake never got to see how his music touched people. This just proves that you should never give up!” Look, I understand the impulse, but I beg you: if you’re ever trying to talk someone off a ledge, don’t go with “You have so much to live for! Think of all the Volkswagon Cabrios you’re going to sell! Just hold on for another twenty-five years!”
Intrusive thought: Do you think it’s possible that Nick Drake killed himself because he accidentally smelled his own microphone?
HEY, WHERE ARE YOU GOING??
Anyway, break out your best headphones, find somewhere quiet and listen to Pink Moon. And should you feel so inclined, this perfectly skimmable video covers Drake’s life and legacy quite nicely.
We did it, folks. We made it to the end of the newsletter. Prove you got this far by naming which singer you think probably had/has the worst breath.
I’ll start: Joe Cocker.
That is all! I release thee!
I imagine Van Morrison and Tom Waits probably have breath that would make a microphone Nick Drake itself.
Check this out! https://open.spotify.com/artist/268W4eff5KQNZPMhQ4ONo6?si=TVA0tGDGTyeK1J9yIS4gfA