Pop – Page 8 – Rock Salted

Scott Walker – Scott 3

Scott Walker – Scott 3 Philips SBL 7882 (1969)

Mr. Walker washed away every trace of duality on Scott 3. The beauty of his music comes through its resilience. Like a purple and sepia whirlwind. Fiercely strong from some inner source he taps. The primary mystery of Mr. Walker’s music is the absurdity of its context, casting Frank Sinatra or Tony Bennett as steadfast existentialists. Each grand orchestral piece finely feeds personal concerns that meander about without dogma to guide or crush them. The great achievement is the dive into the void of pop crooning. In that void is the perfect space to make something happen. Mr. Walker’s gift was perhaps the vision to find his space, that invisible blank abyss which seemed to have always been in plain view. He recognized something was possible in his space, his nothingness.

This album lives in daylight, like a vista warmed into life by the sun. It is quite a different experience from the nighttime torment of Scott 4. It is lyrically imposing. The songs are difficult to penetrate, alien to prevailing reason. Still, the detached experience of hearing Mr. Walker question prevailing reason is what makes the album such a major achievement.

Though Mr. Walker’s name always carried little cachet in his American homeland, worldwide success wouldn’t have led to Scott 3. To parrot his lyrics, “In a world filled with friends/ you lose your way.”

Frank Sinatra – September of My Years

Frank Sinatra – September of My Years Reprise FS-1014 (1965)

A great one. What really makes the album are the strings, arranged and conducted by Gordon Jenkins. They are Sinatra’s burden. He doesn’t sing with the strings as against them. Rather than cater to rock music (gaining popularity over traditional pop by this point), here he’s singing lush pop songs fit for a “mature” place in life. Many songs explore the idea of looking back. The strings have a rather generic quality. They are suited to the songs, but not especially tailored to Sinatra’s voice. So when Sinatra sings, he has to sort of carry the songs over and above those strings, which are like a lifetime of baggage. And Sinatra is a singer who can absolutely carry these things along with his voice alone. This is Sinatra at his somber best.

Paul Robeson – Paul Robeson [Pearl]

Paul Robeson – Paul Robeson Pearl GEMM CD 9356 (1993)

An excellent collection of early Robeson recordings for His Master’s Voice. There are a large and confusing number of Robeson compilations available. This one focuses exclusively on recordings from the 1920s and 1930s (and then mostly from the 30s). The bulk of this consists of showtunes/pop, but there are some spirituals as well. Though these recordings are so old as to have nowhere near the fidelity of Robeson’s 1940s recordings for Columbia Records, they, along with associated stage and screen appearances, are what helped first make him famous. The songs included here are well selected. It’s important to note that at this early stage Robeson was forced to record racist, condescending material in order to make a living in Jim Crow America. So the version of “Ol’ Man River” from the musical “Show Boat” that is so closely associated with Robeson opens with the lyrics “Niggers all work on the Mississippi / Niggers all work while the white folks play.” It is crucial that these bigoted lyrics not be excised from history and forgotten, as if it all never happened, but remembered for what burdens an artist like Robeson had to deal with. Yet, this compilation does a huge service by sequencing “Ol’ Man River” (possibly the reason some might pick up this album) as the last song. It’s worth noting that in later years when Robeson’s stature was assured, he changed the words of “Ol’ Man River” to be more dignified when he performed and recorded it.

Scott Walker – Scott 2

Scott Walker – Scott 2 Philips BL 7840 (1968)

Scott Walker’s records were never exactly subtle. They always had an unmistakably direct quality to them, but they could also have a stunning depth and complexity that wasn’t as immediately apparent. His second solo effort Scott 2 is the most direct and straightforward of his 1960s output. It does, however, come up a bit short on depth at times. That isn’t to say it isn’t commendable. His grandiose rendition of Tim Hardin‘s “Black Sheep Boy” is a triumph. He was writing more originals, which, although often too blunt in execution here, primed those talents for the smashing artistic success of his next two efforts. I know that many consider this their favorite Scott Walker album. For me, it’s just a bit too brash and overconfident. The novelty of his left-field crooner shtick had worn a bit. He started to coast a little merely on what passes for edgy subject matter, without always offering a unique vision of it. Scott 2 was a popular album no doubt, his highest charting solo album (#1 in the UK). But F. Scott Fitzgerald in The Beautiful and Damned wrote how “the type of man who attains commercial success seldom knows how or why, and,…when he ascribes reasons, the reasons are generally inaccurate and absurd.” Fortunately, perhaps, Walker didn’t seem to understand his commercial success, for he betrayed those elements many times in his career to produce something more than commercial. Did anyone really think it was his hauntingly personal musical vision moving albums off the shelves anyway?

The Temptations – In a Mellow Mood

The Temptations – In a Mellow Mood Gordy GLPS-924 (1967)

Instead of soul music, as expected, The Temptations in a Mellow Mood finds the group delivering an orchestrated pop/showtunes album. Although it is clearly a crass attempt to find new audiences, and occasionally it achieves little more than marketing bluster, this does succeed in its aims. Basically, this is a Sammy Davis, Jr. album, or a Robert Goulet one. If that’s not the kind of album you’ll accept from The Temptations, then this one is best skipped over. There are an assortment of arrangers on board (Oliver Nelson among them), which leads to an uneven feel. More lead vocals from David Ruffin, as he delivers on “What Now My Love?,” would have helped the album further.

Karen Dalton – In My Own Time

Karen Dalton – In My Own Time Just Sunshine PAS 6008 (1971)

Harvey Brooks brought Dalton to the studio with a very professional studio band and recorded her singing a selection of contemporary songs. Brooks’ band plays in the warm style of a lot of folk-rock and East Coast singer-songwriter stuff of the day. But the thing is, the whole band sounds thrilled to be performing with the unknown Dalton. Rather than just her usual, limited repertoire of acoustic rural folk — though a version of her signature “Katie Cruel” is here, along with the traditional folk tune “Same Old Man,” the performances reminiscent of her posthumously-released demo and live recordings — she’s mostly performing something akin to a “top of the pops” panoply of soul, rock and blues.

At the risk of sounding like a new-age cliché, Karen Dalton’s voice and her music more generally are life-affirming. Her voice is inimitable, with its constant cracking and slightly swallowed warble her phrasing is staccato and unusually shifting even as she sings as smoothly as she can. In a way, she is someone with a voice that in every manner seems antithetical to everything that commercial music is about. And yet, it is as endearing and irrevocable as any in music. People compare her to Billie Holiday, with good reason! There is something irrepressible in her style. The opener, “Something on Your Mind,” is one of the highlights, on an album without any obvious weak points. She sings, against a relentless, almost severe bass guitar strum, tangly, vexatious electric guitar, some cautious steel guitar and the timidly melancholy histrionics of a bowed violin, “You can’t make it without ever even try___in’ / something’s on your mind isn’t it?,” and her voice cracks irretrievably amid the word “trying”. This is as perfect a moment in music as the fragile human condition can offer. Full of failure, epic simplicity, confused and earnest hope, and, still, a yearning for connection and understanding. The song takes in the simple pleasures that come while looking to grasp what is on this someone else’s mind, an unstated, enigmatic something outside oneself. If the album ended there, it would already be something.

Up second is a soul song, “When a Man Loves a Woman.” There is steel guitar mixed with conventional R&B horns, and a vocal accent developed well outside city limits. Karen’s voice is clipped and cracking again. She’s singing a song completely outside her range, or so it seems, because she winds up making a rather daring argument for forgetting the idea of “range” entirely, and accepting every attempt to communicate on one’s own terms. The next song, “In My Own Dream,” has a walking groove on bass with a thundering piano, and a more sleepy, hushed vocal from Dalton, punctuated by quickened vibrato embellishments. Another punchy soul number, “How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You),” with a disorganized “gang” vocal chorus from the band, interrupts what otherwise was almost becoming a gloomier patch in the album, before the second side take on a more country-inflected repose, once again broken up by an R&B number (“One Night of Love”). If the second side of the record is more sedate than the first, “Are You Leaving for the Country?” is an excellent closer. Dalton was part of New York City’s Greenwich Village folk scene for a while in the early 1960s, but left for a more subsistence existence, living outside Boulder, Colorado in a mountain shack for a time. So this idea of a connection to something outside urban life, with its brisk pace and endless fads, held a strong influence on her life, which did not depend on the city. And yet, the format of In My Own Time pairs Dalton with the trappings of contemporary pop music, from bustling music centers. She is engaged with something different, a musical backdrop that is commonplace yet originating from someplace outside her own cultural background.

This is an album that is like an old friend visiting, someone who has no reason to put on appearances. Karen Dalton sings with no ambitions of any kind of fame. This is a bit like politics.

“The major problem — one of the major problems, for there are several — one of the many major problems with governing people is that of whom you get to do it; or rather of who manages to get people to let them do it to them.

“To summarize: it is a well-known fact that those people who must want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it.

“To summarize the summary: anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job.” ― Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

The solution in Adams’ novel is to make somebody rule the universe without them consciously choosing to do so. Dalton may not be unaware of what she was doing in the recording studio, but she was coaxed there to a degree. As a result her attitude is shorn of the hangups that hold back many singers concerned with being famous, or simply within to forcefully impose themselves on listeners.

Without a doubt, In My Own Time is an album listeners will likely either love or hate. For those who bother to love it, chances are it will remain a special experience bringing out warm, familiar feelings with each repeated listen.

Sufjan Stevens – Come on Feel the Illinoise

Sufjan Stevens – Come on Feel the Illinoise Asthmatic Kitty AKR 014 (2005)

The darling of college radio and the American “indie” rock press, Sufjan Stevens’ Come On Feel the Illinoise (often mistakenly identified as Illinois) is a sedative for the youngest national public radio demographic. That said, the album is even still a bit of a disappointment. It marks a significant downward slide from Stevens’ wonderful, if flawed, Greetings from Michigan: The Great Lake State. It’s also a lesser effort than his inconsistent but rewarding Seven Swans. The problem, in short, is that Stevens has become the Cole Porter of christian rock. Now, many might say that comparing someone to Cole Porter would be a complement. Understand that it is no complement here.

Cole Porter wrote finely crafted lyrics that wandered aimlessly and unwittingly amid the melodramatic. Porter’s sense of harmony was extremely limited, and he often dwelled on the same harmonies across countless songs. His only redeeming quality really was his blunt use of melody. He could, after all, write some memorable refrains from time to time. Delivering those, without any dressings, was about his only talent.

Sufjan Stevens fairs much the same. Come On Feel the Illinoise is his second entry into a purported series of albums inspired by and ostensibly about each state of the United States. Moving beyond the borders of his home state of Michigan, here he muses on historical persons and events in an effort to pull sentiments from isolated events. Mostly, these quaint attempts overplay the basic implausibility of constructing something genuine in set pieces built around historical tidbits that are the equivalents of popular newspaper headlines. The album also underplays any sense of unity in the subject matter, so that the songs feel like a journal entries documenting a loose tour of the most peripheral regions of the state of Illinois. The pessimism inherent in that approach is only addressed, if at all, through periodic invocations of christian dogma.

The songs tend to recycle ideas from Stevens’ previous albums. Familiar rhythms and harmonies return again and again. In those respects, Stevens works from a limited palate. Repeating himself has offered only slight improvements over his earlier work. This leaves his melodic sense to carry the album. Rather, it carries a few of the album’s songs. The magical “ Decatur, or, Round of Applause for Your Step Mother!” is buoyed by soft and lively guitar and banjo phrases that gently sway and gently ascend. “The Tallest Man, The Broadest Shoulders” also comes alive with a lively tempo. “Come On! Feel the Illinoise!” adds lovely counterpoint to the vocals through recurrent string arrangements. Unfortunately, these are rarities. Most other songs are ultimately too ambitious for Steven’s songwriting skills.

Sufjan Stevens has talent. That much is clear from his previous albums. Yet when it comes to songwriting, and historical research, he has proven to be a bit of a philistine. He should get less of his history from the likes of children’s books and newspapers and more from Howard Zinn.

Come On Feel the Illinoise relies too much on an assumption that history offers an escape from reality. On its own merits, the album seems like just another “inoffensive” pop album. It’s a better pop album than most, sure, but not on the level of achievements of the greatest American pop songsmiths. Sufjan Stevens’ self-satisfied righteousness is holding him back from becoming a mature songwriter. It’s time for him to grow, musically.

Scott Walker – Stretch

Scott Walker – Stretch CBS 65725 (1973)

Scott Walker’s mid-1970s period was marked by a shift from adventurous re-imaginings of traditional pop to rather unchallenging exercises in country pop music (Glen Campbell is probably the closest comparison). Stretch is an example of the latter, though the country elements are only just beginning to show. Now, Scott’s voice was arguably in the best form it has ever been. The problem is that stylistically he is playing by someone else’s rules, and his studio band often drifts into bland, clichéd territory. Side two holds some particular interest, with the last clutch of songs managing to make an impression with Randy Newman‘s “Someone Who Cared” and “I’ll Be Home” and Jimmy Webb‘s “Where Does Brown Begin.” The most effective moments come from songs a little more spare and intimate than Scott’s early solo efforts. Not a bad album at all but still a little disappointing compared to what he has achieved elsewhere. Yet Scott’s voice is so effective that this remains rather endearing.

The Beach Boys – Beach Boys’ Party!

The Beach Boys – Beach Boys’ Party! Capitol MAS-2398 (1965)

A better album than it usually gets credit for. Not truly a “live” album, it was certainly a step up from their only real live album of the 1960s, Beach Boys Concert. The whole thing seems quite influenced by the urban folk movement still underway. This is the only Beach Boys album that could draw comparisons to Peter, Paul & Mary and the like. But this is more carefree and juvenile than any folk albums proper of the day.

The Beach Boys – The Beach Boys Today!

The Beach Boys – The Beach Boys Today! Capitol T-2269 (1965)

Brian Wilson was a disturbed guy too sensitive for the smallest amounts of social normalcy. This led him down the erratic and grand path that plays out across the Beach Boys’ many albums. Those wanderings really began with The Beach Boys Today! The result is the complete range of wonder and horror pared down to universal experience lying within not just Mr. Wilson but the rest of us too.

There are three versions of the Beach Boys. Beginning with their scrappy little surf doo-wop number “Surfin’,” they were the extension of a teenage garage band, and they made great songs that were catchy for all the usual reasons. The band, complete with Wilson brothers Brian, Dennis and Carl, were in it together. Things just came easily. Next came a split. With The Beach Boys Today!, Brian Wilson stopped performing live and focused solely on recording. Studio musicians came in to play on the records. This began the Pet Sounds era, with Brian Wilson’s avant-pop genius at its peak. Then Finally, there was the lessening of Brian Wilson’s input and the Beach Boys returned to a more commercial and “live” approach to their records. Maybe their oldies circuit geezer period makes a fourth, but the story is better without that part.

The songs of The Beach Boys Today! make pleasant companions. There are ones with a strong beat leaning more towards the surfin’/cars/girls attitude of the teenage Beach Boys. Then side two debuts the orchestrated pop that became Brian Wilson’s signature. “When I Grow Up (To Be A Man)” is the kind of song ideal for a Wes Anderson film. “Please Let Me Wonder” takes the aching bewilderment of the newly reasserted Beach Boys to the precise affectation of wizened masters. And the opening cover of Bobby Freeman’s “Do You Wanna Dance?” has Beach Boys harmony in one of its most dynamic settings. Brian Wilson has timpani rolls bouncing the beat. Dennis Wilson sings one of the refrains with a muffled, “squ-kiss me baby.” The indecisive fronting belies the song’s dead-on portrayal of longing and dreaming.

“Help Me Ronda” is the original album version and not the hit “Help Me Rhonda.” This original is far denser and more intricate than the later incarnation issued as a single. The LP version does say something about what The Beach Boys Today! stands for. Though perhaps taking only a small step, this album goes beyond a mere collection of songs.