HAAi – HUMANiSE: As I let “Satellite” wash over me for the first time, it’s clear that HAAi has given us another set of songs that will slowly unfold and drop little shimmers of light as they do so.
Robert Plant with Suzi Dean – Saving Grace: Is the band Saving Grace? Is the album Saving Grace? I prefer to get details like that correct, but I’m so enchanted by the music that I don’t care. This is a natural evolution to Plant’s amazing career arc, an album that nods in equal measures to the roots of Zeppelin, his collaboration with Band of Joy, and his foray into bluegrass with Alison Krauss. Saving Grace solidifies my belief that Plant is a prime example of what can happen when a great artist embraces aging with grace, hunger, and creativity.
Alan Sparhawk with Trampled by Turtles – Alan Sparhawk with Trampled by Turtles: Robert Plant’s cover of “Everybody’s Song” on Saving Grace was a lightbulb moment that illuminated Plant and Sparhawk as kindred spirits who constantly push their musical creativity and refuse to rest on nostalgia. This realization led me to fully pay attention to this album for the first time and hear how its grief and beauty pulsate in every note.
De La Soul – Cabin in the Sky: This record offers a different lens on aging gracefully and avoiding nostalgia. Like Sparhawk’s latest, Cabin looks at grief and beauty and tries to find a path forward through them, but it stays rooted in De La’s essence and spirit. The skits, the humor, and the willingness to call out anything they find to be unartful and unintelligent are all here, mixed among allusions to the group’s 35+ year history. What Posdnuos and Maseo don’t do here, though, is try recreate their past highs; instead, they tap into the life experience of being 50-something hip-hop veterans who are forced to face mortality.
Colter Wall – Memories and Empties: Last week, I wrote that this record is good but doesn’t do anything new. I’m reconsidering that statement. Two things that stand out to me are the way Wall sings about not being part of any country music scenes (even the alternative ones) in “1800 Miles” and the way he alludes to depression in “Living by the Hour.” Of course, there is nothing new about depressed country artists who avoid the beaten path, but his approach feels unique to the 2020s.
Bruce Springsteen – Greetings from Asbury Park NJ: Bob insightfully observed that some of these lyrics—Blinded by the Light being perhaps the most obvious example—act as images, snapshots of a scene that, when viewed together, compose a bigger story. As a new Springsteen listener, this helps me figure out how to grapple with song lyrics that feel as if they could take months or even years to understand. Even a line as simple as “cut loose like a deuce” confuses me as I consider whether it refers to a speeding away in a customized two-seat car, throwing away a crappy card in blackjack, or something else entirely. But when I stop analyzing the words and instead use them as prompts for mental images, I’m greeted by the chaotic cast of a summer night on a New Jersey boardwalk, the lovers and hustlers and fighters and dreamers intermingling as a scruffy kid plays guitar in the background and intently watches them all.
A Winged Victory for the Sullen – A Winged Victory for the Sullen: This album holds a melancholy that is lovely for short days filled with cold, grey skies and evenings lit by Christmas lights.
Gracie Abrams – This Is What It Feels Like: I’m starting to put my finger on why This Is What It Feels Like doesn’t move me the way Good Riddance does. I’m going to keep testing my theory, and I’ll write about it in the next week or two.
Grateful Dead – American Beauty: “Ripple” into “Brokedown Palace” is a beautiful pair of songs.
Old friends who made it into rotation this week: Laufey: A Matter of Time; Pretty Girl: Fabric Presents Pretty Girl.
Record store finds this week: I discovered Chet Baker on the soundtrack to Bruce Weber’s Let’s Get Lost, and “Moon and Sand” remains one of my favorite songs. I had no idea Swimming by Moonlight, the additional songs from those sessions, even existed until I walked past it by chance in my local shop.