Jamwise #29
Project BAE - Best Albums Ever
Currently listening my way through the Rolling Stone Top 500 Albums of All Time. Progress: 127/500
Time (The Revelator) - Gillian Welch
This album feels like the music that Lucinda Williams was trying to make. Whereas Lucinda, to me, still sounds like she’s looking at the US South from the other side of a pane of museum glass, Gillian Welch sounds as if she’s singing about authentic experiences she’s lived. Apologies to Lucinda for the stray here, as she doesn’t appear in this week’s issue, but that was the first impression.
Maybe I should put it another way - I live near a beach town in the southern US, and this time of year, that means one thing - tourists. There’s been a kind of funny dynamic over the past couple of decades here where there seem to be more visitors than locals - nobody’s from here, everybody’s from like Ohio. There was even a movement of putting “go back to Ohio” bumper stickers on everyone’s cars, which unfortunately might not have been meant as a friendly joke by most. I love our Midwestern cousins, but it’s true: at my old job, out of a 15 person team, there were 11 from Ohio. Lucinda Williams reminds me of one of the Ohioans - amazingly friendly, maybe even lived here for ten years at this point, but still obviously from a different place, which is neither good nor bad in itself. Gillian Welch’s vibe is closer to one of the 2 locals who made it to the professional world despite the southern US educational system (less than stellar).
But enough about poor Lucinda. Let’s focus on Gillian Welch. She’s from Nashville, which is a relief to me as I wrote the above without learning that fact first. She was also on the O Brother Where Art Thou soundtrack as a producer and performer, which tickles me pink.
This album felt natural and effortless - which makes sense, as many of the songs, including “Revelator”, were recorded on the first take. That’s the kind of thing we’re going to miss when AI takes over the music world - authenticity, yes, but also the natural sound of a band just nailing their sound the first try. This entire album, even the tracks that weren’t first-take masterpieces, had the same feeling, like the creative energy behind the music was fresh and not worn down by dozens of takes, but also not too perfect to be real.
That reminds me of a
headline - “AI Singer Finally Completes Song After 150 Takes, is no longer welcome at Muscle Shoals”. Make sure check out Thalia’s God Tier News for actual professional comedy, my attempts are amateuristic by comparison.I hope that first-take natural sound of Revelator is something that never gets coopted by our AI overlords.
Jams
“Revelator”
“Dear Someone”
The Blueprint - Jay-Z
I don’t have anything a gut feeling to back this up, but I feel like for many people the Millennial generation is when a transition happened in popular music - there’s always been a “not Pop” version of Pop music that everyone loves yet somehow doesn’t want to classify as Pop. For decades it was Rock and Roll, which to me is still just a branch of Pop music with some sub-branches that could be considered Not Pop. The transition for Millennials happened when artists like Jay-Z were inventing and refining the sound of hip-hop, which became the kind of default music that everyone loves, yet still classifies as something other than Pop.
Again, not a music scientist, but you get the point - if you were born between 1985 and 1995, I’d bet with like 95% certainty that you would enjoy this album. Jay-Z is one of the foundational artists that made me love hip-hop and all its related subgenres, and just like when I was discovering Zeppelin in my youth, that hip-hop awakening in my late teens is something that will never fade. This album isn’t 100% jams, though, with a lot of dated songs and lyrics, some outright offensive in 2024 terms. That’s a longer conversation, although I’ll say that this album wasn’t the worst offender on this week’s list.
As always, I’ll call out songs that are in my personal “Best Songs EVER” list, like “Heart Of The City.” That song is an absolute masterpiece, with a lot of credit to Kanye West who provided the beat in what became one of his breakout moments as an artist.
Jams:
“Izzo (H.O.V.A)”
“Heart Of The City”
The Stone Roses - The Stone Roses
I know I’ve jokingly complained about the prevalence of British pop/indie rock/sem-related-to-punk-in-my-mind-but-not-really bands on this list, but this is one of the first times I regret that. The Stone Roses haven’t been on my radar before, and I greatly regret that now. This album was like catnip for me - I’m a sucker for a major key song with a melancholic undertone I can’t quite put my finger on, and this album is full of songs like that. My only complaint was that the lyrics were so low in the mix, I didn’t get half of them, but I feel the need to go back and do that, which is rare for me. This one’s a high rating for me, somewhere in the high 8’s to low 9’s.
I love discovering old stuff I didn’t know about, and enjoying it. It’s a rush I never get tired of.
The Slim Shady LP - Eminem
This album is a work of art, I guess. Disturbing art. In my brain I know many would say that’s the job of great art. Art is an insight into the artist’s head, and this album takes that concept literally, framed as a skit with Eminem’s many imaginary sides represented as no-filter personalities duking it out over a beat. So yes, maybe it is art, maybe it has a strong concept driving it. But holy shit, does it give me a hot, queasy feeling in my stomach to listen to. Some would say that’s how you know it’s good - I say that’s what my Grandma used to say when she fed me bacon she’d left out on the counter for a month.
It’s impossible to separate any individual songs from this album because to be totally frank, if I listen to some of this music out of context without knowing the skit concept, they’d be even worse to listen to. Even knowing the concept it was hard to listen to these songs without taking at least some part of them literally. How can I separate the art from the artist when it’s literally named after him?
I will never listen to this again. This album is one of the worst listening experiences I’ve ever had, frankly, and if listening to an album with my skin clammy and a sick feeling in my stomach is what constitutes great art, then I’m happy being a plebe forever.