Good Music There is more to music than MTV

Introduction

There is so much mediocre music nowadays on MTV and such that it is often forgotten that there is also Good MusicTM around. What is Good Music? It can be of any style or period as long it is made by skilled artists, people who know what writing music is about.

Styles

There are no real guiding principles for the kind of music I like and it also strongly depends on my mood at that time. There are some aspects however that are common among most artists I like, but they are hard to catch in words. I guess the artists have to give me the feeling that they're playing music for their own enjoyment and don't care about commerce. This does not imply they may not have commercial success! :-)

To give a little idea of the styles I generally like: Rock (Indie, Experimental and much more), Alt.Country (Americana, Country-Rock), blues and especially singer-songwriters because I believe writing songs is especially about writing texts.

Americana

Some recent music is the Americana / Alt.country / country-rock / No-depression style. It is definitely one of my favourite styles. This recent style which really is a revival of older styles such as country-rock, kicked off with the landmark "Uncle Tupelo" album "No Depression" (hence the alternative name for the style and the origin of the famous americana magazine).

Famous artists are Uncle Tupelo, Wilco, Jayhawks, Son Volt, Whiskeytown and Neal Casal. Especially The Jayhawks did arouse a lot of attention with their utterly brilliant "Hollywood Town Hall" album. Wilco recently departed from the alt.country with the release of the nevertheless stunning and beautiful "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot". For the rest there have not been much real breakthroughs, but it's just a matter of time...

The Jayhawks alt.country / country-rock / americana

[HTH Jayhawks] The Jayhawks, were founded halfway the eighties by Gary Louris and Mark Olson. The album that put them on the world map of music was 1992's utterly brilliant Hollywood Town Hall, which was hailed by critics. The core to their music is the close harmony between Olson and Louris, the buzz guitarsound and the overall feeling that they are playing for their own joy and satisfaction.

As mentioned already, the Jayhawks claim to fame is 'Hollywood Town Hall' which is arguably the best album to come out of the nineties. The close harmonies and the vivid lyrics made songs like 'Waiting for the sun', 'Crowded in the Wings' and 'Two angels' to instant classics which I can hear playing when I close my eyes and think about them. There is no bad song on the entire album though people might argue that the songs sound alike; alike possibly, but equally brilliant!

After the successor to HTH "Tomorrow the green grass" Mark Olson left the band. Now led by Louris, The Jayhawks veered more towards pop/rock music, with albums such as "Smile" and "Sound of lies". This change of course did not bring the success the band had hoped for.

Their latest album "Rainy day music" is a return to form and their roots. A collection of songs reminiscent to The Byrds, Crosby Stills Nash & Young but mostly to The Jayhawks themselves, blends their 60's pop experiments with their own rootsy sound. It's a winning combination!

I've seen The Jayhawks live (aka, Five Feet From a Jayhawk) on two occasions, one utterly brilliant acoustic performance during the Rhythm and Blues festival in Groningen; the accoustic rendition of "Blue" took my breath away. The second occasion was in Paradiso, where they plugged in and rocked.

Various Americana

A short list of favourite Americana artists:

Neal Casal
His first album also was his masterpiece, namely "Fade Away Diamond Time", which is a terrific laid-back CD. Another work of his that I greatly enjoy is a collaboration with Shannon McNally, an EP entitled "Ran on pure lightning".
The Gourds
I was so pleasantly surprised when I listened to The Gourds' album "Cow Fish Fowl or Pig" for the first time. Those guys are very good musicians and seem to be enjoying it thoroughly. Especially that enjoyment makes their music great fun to listen to.
Johnny Cash
American IIIThe legend that is Johnny Cash should officially not be called Americana, but country. However, that does not stop me from liking his later music. Of what I know of his older work is that it is simple country stuff, but his last series of albums, the American Recording series introduced him to a totally new audience (myself included) by covering famous songs and turning them into powerful new interpretation, strongly leaning on an accoustic guitar and his dark gravely voice. I especially like American III but his latest releases, American IV and Unearthed are great too.
Lambchop
Is a womanLambchop used to be an americana band, but no longer is. It is a chamer-orchestra kind of group which make undefineable music, somewhere in between classical music, film scores and americana. I like it.
Uncle Tupelo
The godfathers of Alt. Country made some pretty good music. I especially like their landmark album "March 16-20, 1992", a collection of live recordings.

 

Singer-Songwriter

Tom Waits album rock / experimental rock / experimental blues

[Tom Waits portrait]One of the most brilliant artists around is Tom Waits. Over the years he has created a genre of his own and has become an authority in music business with scores of artists citing him as their source of inspiration. He is probably best known to most people as the man with the voice rougher than coarse sandpaper. His voice characterizes his work and makes it very difficult to get into for the more casual listeners. A second listen however will show the crafted songwriting which lies hidden under his rough, but beautiful voice.

His career started early 1970's with his album 'Closing Time' which was a set of beautifull piano bar blues/jazz with songs about the drinking, women, nighttime and other subject associated with bars. He went on writing more of those albums which did not change much in style up to the early 1980's. One of his best albums from that period is probably 'Small Change' with the beautiful ballad 'Tom Traubert's Blues'.

However in 1983 he released Swordfishtrombones, the first of the mid 80's classic trilogy along with 'Rain Dogs' and 'Franks Wild Years'. These albums were beautifully crafted and offered a great range of rhythm, percussion and top notch songwriting. This style somewhat changed with the release of 'Bone Machine' in 1992. This album was darker, more obscure than its predecessors and had more blues influences than before, though blues as never heard before! After a 6-year silence Tom Waits released his landmark album 'Mule Variations' which won a Grammy Award. This album is undoubtedly a high point in Tom's career. Early 2002 Tom released two more albums, 'Alice' and 'Blood Money'. The latter being very dark and obscure the former having a fairytale sound to it. Listening to 'Alice' gives me the feeling of slowly submerging deeper and deeper into a swamp with no way out but letting yourself go and listening to the music. A beauty, though not for the faint of heart!

His latest release is 'Real Gone', where Tom Waits again changes of direction dropping the percussion, and experimenting with his own voice as beatbox. The result is not his best or most accessible album, but there are some fantastic songs, and the album closer is a strong and overt political statement not seen before in his oeuvre. I was also fortunate enough to obtain tickets to the Real Gone tour shows in Theater Carré in Amsterdam. Seeing Tom Waits live is definitely on the list of things to do before you die... it is a spectacle: his scare-crow-like appearance, odd tales and great music made an evening not to forget.

Summarized, Tom Waits has been at the leading edge of innovative music for thirty years and is still going strong!

Leonard Cohen Singer-songwriter

[Leonard Cohen portrait]Leonard Cohen is widely known as singer-songwriter for his work in the sixties. The most beautiful aspect of his work is his voice. His voice is dark, low, smooth and it sings of somber melancholic scenes and stories. The music is sparse, mostly consisting of keyboard, some guitars and background vocals, but the texts make more than up for it.

His first album was 'Songs of Leonard Cohen' and features songs as Suzanne. Other classic songs include "Chelsea Hotel no.2" and "Birds on a wire". My personal favourite albums are 'I'm your man' and 'The Future' the latter containing great tunes such as "Democracy". In recent years Leonard Cohen released a live album of old tours and a new album 'Ten New Songs'.

I'm still exploring the works of this great artist and am enjoying it all the more, the more I listen to him.

Josh Ritter singer-songwriter

Currently my favourite singer-songwriter by far is Josh Ritter. He writes timeless masterpieces remniscent of Cohen, Dylan, Cash but definitely with a style of his own. His songs just evoke a very vivid imagery when I listen to them.

He currently has four albums behind his name, of which the third, "Hello Starling" is arguably a masterpiece. From the opening lines of the uplifting "Bright smiles" past the all-too-vivid imagery of "Kathleen", on to the beautiful folk tune of "Wings" and the Cohen-homage of "Bone of songs", everything is just too achingly beautiful.

My favourite song however is from his second album, "Golden age of radio", and is called "Harrisburg". That song tells a tale of tragedy, but just works so well with the rhythm of the song evoking the rhythm of a train. When I saw him on stage in Paradiso, Josh turned this song into a brilliant rock song. That entire live show was magical, with the pinnacle that Josh stood on stage alone with his accoustic guitar and sang unamplified to an awestruck audience.

His fourth album is titled 'The Animal Years' and was released early 2006. Although populated with another batch of great songs, this album is best described as a grower. The songs are great by themselves, but put together it feels a bit chaotic, which is probably quite in theme with the topics of the songs. Still, it is a good album by all accounts and I'm looking forward to seeing him live in Dublin (which will become the fourth live appearance I will have seen of Josh!).

Nick Cave singer-songwriter / alternative rock

[Nick Cave portrait]Nick Cave has a long history of work in punk and is also known for his aggressive music full of anger. One of the most famous songs being 'The Mercy Seat' which describes first-hand thoughts of a man sentenced to death. He often collaborated with the 'Bad Seeds' and neither are often mentioned without the other.

I however got to know Nick Cave on his album 'No More Shall We Part' and 'The Boatman's Call'. These albums belong to his later years and differ greatly in style from his early period. In the later albums he still sings of darkness, his unrest with god and insanity, but calmer and clearer, however without losing his anger. His music has become more crafted, the singing stronger.....it sends shivers down my spine!

A noteworthy album is 'Murder Ballads' which features songs, describing murders. I would not be surprised if this album features the most murders on a music album ever!

Jack Johson singer-songwriter / alternative rock

[Jack Johnson]My personal discovery for 2002 must be Jack Johnson. He writes about pretty love and touched feelings, which are not very special in itself, but the slow relaxed groove of his music, his smooth, relaxing voice, make it a pleasure to listen. His first album was "Brushfire Fairytales", and it is a classic by my book. I went to see Jack's show in the "Melkweg" in Amsterdam on 17 September 2002. The place was packed, something he apparently hadn't expected. There was just three of them on stage and this simplicity made it magical. After a while, the band retreated and Jack came back on alone, just playing acoustic and all by himself. This was the most enchanting music I've heard in a long, long time: lovely!

Suggestions?

If you have got any suggestions or tips, contact me!

© 2002—2006, Mark Schenk