2008: Lindstrom, David Byrne & Brian Eno, Near the Parenthesis
Plus "Ten Songs" from Pulp's non-album catalog
Lindstrom. Where You Go I Go Too.
Norway, August 18
This album sounds utterly innocent to me, a feeling most succinctly captured by the brief guitar flourishes at the start of “The Long Way Home.” The innocence of the sound reveals quite a bit of layering and plenty of impeccable timing upon careful listening. “The greatest clarity is the greatest complexity,” Zach Savich once said. But if deep inner complexity is what it takes to produce exterior clarity, well, I wish more music would seek both.
David Byrne & Brian Eno. Everything That Happens Will Happen Today.
England & United States, August 18
This is the most life-affirming pop music that I can recall hearing. Some pop music attempts to affirm life with tight shininess or with colloquial verisimilitude, and in doing so offers a vision of happiness rather than affirmation. Complexity is a prerequisite of the life-affirming. The musical settings of these pop songs are detailed and thick, with lots of moving parts and plenty of room to breathe. The lyrics, with questions about the veracity of home and stories of rising rivers somehow baptizing restaurant staff, are more ambiguous than the music is about lifting spirits, but they portray rebirth and the interest that arises with connection more than they do mistrust and dejection. Criticisms levied against the album lament that these two innovators don’t innovate here. Well, so what? Why is innovation imperative if you can affirm life’s worthiness instead?
Near the Parenthesis. L’Eixample.
United States, August 19
Music is a form of travel, and I like it when artists make it explicit. Explicit, but not explicitly narrative. Near the Parenthesis is a terrific tour guide to this neighborhood in Barcelona. Rather than offer a kitschy or a mundane narration of the neighborhood’s history, he carefully and patiently selects the moments at which to visit a park, or step into the sea, and without saying why, points you in the right direction at the right time. Then he leaves you alone in moments he knows you’ll find luminous.
Ten Songs, as a series, doesn’t promise to always be Ten Songs — sometimes it might be Eight Songs or Twelve Songs. Its only intent as a series is to provide a brief introduction to an artist whose work is worth hearing in total if you ask me.
When I finally had the life pleasure of seeing Pulp perform live earlier in June, they gave the best show I think I’ve ever seen. A highlight was their performance of “Like a Friend,” a tremendous song which they left off of This Is Hardcore in 1997. After hearing that, Melissa and I spent an hour or two listening to other highlights from Pulp’s extensive non-album catalog. We narrowed painfully down to this list of ten songs (okay, eleven). Pulp are known and critically revered for their four albums released between 1994-2001, but during that period they were at such an artistic capacity that they could have easily filled another 1-2 albums with material that was just as good as what they did release on their albums. At least, in my opinion they could have — that Jarvis Cocker decided otherwise does, nevertheless, carry some weight with me. The man doesn’t make many mistakes.
Cocaine Socialism — released on the A Little Soul single, 1998
It’s a Dirty World — released on the This Is Hardcore deluxe edition, 2006
O.U. (Gone, Gone) — released as the O.U. (Gone, Gone) single, 1992
Styloroc (Nites of Suburbia) — released on the Babies single, 1992
After You — released as the final Pulp single, 2013
Inside Susan — released on the Razzmatazz single, 1993
Ansaphone — released on the Disco 2000 single, 1995
Like a Friend — released on the A Little Soul single, 1998
Born to Cry — released on the soundtrack to Notting Hill, 1999
You’re a Nightmare — released on the Lipgloss single, 1993
59 Lyndhurst Grove — released on the Razzmatazz single, 1993
(Full playlist if you’d rather, minus “Born to Cry,” which isn’t on Spotify)