Scanning the dial and searching the sky

When I was a freshman in college, I bought tickets to see Shawn Colvin live in Columbus, Ohio. But thanks to poor planning on my part, I never made it to that show. It took me 13 years, but last weekend I finally righted that unfortunate misstep when I took my mom to Shawn's 10 o'clock solo acoustic show at the Old Town School of Folk.

She's totally wonderful by herself on a stage. Her wit and self-deprecating humor are endearing and entertaining and her songs are spare and stunning and powerful. But the thing that really stands out when you hear her play live is what a truly brilliant cover artist she is. I suppose I shouldn't be so surprised by that, since my introduction to her music was through her 1994 album Cover Girl, which featured Shawn's reworkings of other people's songs.

On Saturday, we were treated to two songs written by Robbie Robertson of The Band, "Acadian Driftwood" and "Twilight," (which is featured on Cover Girl), as well as the Talking Heads' "Naive Melody (This Must Be the Place)" (also on Cover Girl). And then she pulled out a gorgeously sad version of Simon and Garfunkel's masterpiece "America," which she informed us she had recently performed as a duet with Paula Cole at the Summerstage fundraiser in Central Park last week. (That fundraiser is another story entirely -- it paired modern folkies and tasked them with recreating a Simon and Garfunkel hit. She told us that Loudon Wainwright and his daughter Lucy did "Bleecker Street" and Aimee Mann and "some guy I don't remember" (John Roderick) did "Only Living Boy in New York," maybe? Must have been amazing.)

She often jokes that her songs tend toward the depressing and melancholy, and what makes her such a good cover artist is that she is able to draw out the emotional heart of other people's songs in much the same way. In her cover of "America," for instance, I've never really heard the line, "'Kathy, I'm lost,' I said, though I knew she was sleeping/ 'I'm empty and aching and I don't know why'" in quite the way I heard it when Shawn sang it. And her version of Dylan's "You're Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go" is still the definitive version, as far as I'm concerned. (Listen to that and "Naive Melody" on her MySpace page.)

And I had heard Joni Mitchell's "River" a thousand times but I never really knew what the song was about until I heard Shawn's plaintive voice sing, "I'm so hard to handle/ I'm selfish and I'm sad/ Now I've gone and lost the best baby that I ever had."

Of course, her own songs are wonderful as well. I was particularly impressed on Saturday with "Wichita Skyline." I haven't been able to get it out of my head. Here she is performing it at Lilith Fair in 1997:



And listening to it live, I heard "Polaroids" in a whole new way as well. It's a much sadder song than it sounds on the album. Here is a comparable performance from a couple of years ago:

Just enjoy the show

I've been loving the self-titled debut from Australian singer-songwriter Lenka this weekend. The album is a whimsical blend of strings, bells, horns, piano... all with a wry message of realistic heartache in the endearing lyrics. In that way, Lenka reminds me of Aimee Mann, though her voice is much breathier and more melodic than Mann's.

Though this is only her debut, Lenka has garnered tons of critical support. After playing at the prestigious Hotel Cafe in LA (a venue that has launched lots of quirky female singer-songwriters recently), her songs were adopted as media darlings and made the requisite appearance in Gray's Anatomy, among others.

All the accolades are warranted in this case - the sound is happy, catchy indie-pop but the message is deeper than you'd expect. When she sings "The writing's on the wall/ you gave nothing and I gave it all/ But I want something better/ And I won't let this burden bring me down," there is a truth that belies the light poppiness of the music.

Check out her MySpace page to listen to a few of the tracks or watch the video for "The Show."

Happy listening!

JPP Review: Aimee Mann, Whatever

The latest Just Press Play review is Aimee Mann's debut.

The first paragraph:

In 1993, amidst little attention, former ‘Til Tuesday frontwoman Aimee Mann released her debut album, Whatever. Until that moment, Mann was something of a one-hit wonder, known in mainstream America, if she was known at all, for Tuesday’s 80s radio hit “Voices Carry”. And while few people took notice of Whatever at the time, it signaled the arrival of a formidable songwriting force and a return to a solidly poppy sound that was suffering at the time. Against the backdrop of music that made up 1993, from the grunge of Pearl Jam and Nirvana to the hardcore of Tool and Sepultura to the angry-girl eclecticism of PJ Harvey and Bjork, Aimee Mann, with her jangly choruses, intelligent lyrics and solidly memorable tunes, sounded like she came from another planet.

For the rest, click here.

Ignoring how creepily, Clockwork-Orange high she looks, here's an excellent rockin' version of "I Should've Known " from 1993:



And here' s a cool behind-the-scenes doc from the Live at St. Ann's Warehouse dvd set to an acoustic version of"Way Back When" (it's bookended by part of a fairly nervous interview - pay no heed):

Your Brain on Music

Remember a few weeks ago when I mentioned that I was reading a fascinating book called This Is Your Brain on Music? Well, I'm finished now and I cannot recommend it highly enough. Former band member and then record producer Daniel Levitin got curious about the physical and psychological processes underlying our appreciation of music. To answer his many questions, he got a Ph.D. in cognitive psych with an emphasis on auditory and music processing, then distilled everything he learned into a mostly readable full-length book that goes deep into the research and yet remains accessible to the layman.

Now a recent Amazon.com podcast and collaboration interviews Levitin about the book and gets some book and cd recommendations from him. Definitely worth checking out.

A few of the interesting facts you'll learn from Levitin's book include:
* Americans spend more money on music than on sex and prescription drugs. - page 7
* The Catholic Church once banned music that contained polyphony (more than one musical part playing at a time), fearing that it would cause people to doubt the unity of God. - page 13
* A lot of what we think of as “the Eighties sound” in popular music owes its distinctiveness to the particular sound of FM synthesis (introduced in 1983.) - page 48
* In [the Beatles'] “Yesterday”, the main melodic phrase is seven measures long; the Beatles again surprise us by violating one of the most basic assumption of popular music, the four- or eight-measure phrase unit. - page 110

The book is full of these interesting tidbits. And more than any other book, this one screams for a soundtrack of its own. Levitin mentions several songs more than once to illustrate several points, and while I was reading, I definitely wished I had made a mix of these songs. So for your benefit, I have made a list of almost all of the songs Levitin mentions - with *s noting songs that are mentioned frequently. Do yourself a favor: make the mix before you read. You'll get a lot more out of the book.

"For No One" by the Beatles *
"Honky Tonk Women" by the Rolling Stones
"Maria" from West Side Story
"Somewhere Over the Rainbow"
"Light My Fire" by the Doors
Beethoven's Fifth Symphony *
"Chinese Dance" from the Nutcracker by Tchaikovsky
"Straight Up" by Paula Abdul *
"Every Breath You Take" by the Police
"Back in Black" by AC/DC *
"Hotel California" by the Eagles
"Walk This Way" by Aerosmith
"Jailhouse Rock" by Elvis Presley
"That'll Be the Day" by Buddy Holly
"We Will Rock You" by Queen
"Stars and Stripes Forever" by J.P. Sousa
"My Favorite Things" from the Sound of Music
The theme from Mission:Impossible by Lalo Schifrin
"Take 5" by Dave Brubeck
"Solsbury Hill" by Peter Gabriel
The Surprise Symphony by Haydn *
"One of These Nights" by the Eagles
Fantasy Impromptu, op. 66 by Chopin
"Yesterday" by the Beatles *
"I Want You (She's So Heavy)" by the Beatles
"Lookin' Out My Back Door" by Creedence Clearwater Revival
"Spirits in the Material World" by the Police
"Ode to Joy" by Beethoven
"U Can't Touch This" by MC Hammer
"New Year's Day" by U2
"Time and Tide" by Basia
"Opposites Attract" by Paula Abdul
"Like a Virgin" by Madonna
"New York State of Mind" by Billy Joel
"Born in the USA" by Bruce Springsteen
"Be Bop-a-Lula" by Gene Vincent
"Heartbreak Hotel" by Elvis Presley
"Instant Karma" by John Lennon
"Wake Up Little Susie" by the Everly Brothers
"Twist and Shout" by the Isley Brothers
"Here, There, and Everywhere" by the Beatles
"Don't Fear the Reaper" by Blue Oyster Cult
"Something Stupid" by Frank and Nancy Sinatra
"Cheek to Cheek" by Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong
"Hello Trouble (Come On In)" by Buck Owens
"Can't You Hear Me Callin'" by Ricky Scaggs
"YMCA" by the Village People
"I Love the Nightlife" by Alician Bridges
"The Hustle" by Van McCoy
"Purple Haze" by Jimi Hendrix
"Golden Lady" by Stevie Wonder
"Hypnotized" by Fleetwood Mac
"Eine Kleine Nachtmusik" by Mozart
"Stayin' Alive" by the Beegees
"Shout" by the Isley Brothers
"Super Freak" by Rick James
"Sledgehammer" by Peter Gabriel
"I'm on Fire" by Bruce Springsteen
"Superstition" by Stevie Wonder *
"Ohio" by the Pretenders
"Billie Jean" by Michael Jackson
"Straight Up" by Paula Abdul
Frank Sinatra, anything from Songs for Swingin' Lovers
"Stairway to Heaven" by Led Zeppelin *
"Chelsea Morning" by Joni Mitchell
"Refuge of the Roads" by Joni Mitchell
"Sweet Bird" by Joni Mitchell
"The Entertainer" by Scott Joplin
"One After 909" by the Beatles
The Pathetique Sonata by Beethoven
Mahler's Fifth Symphony *
"Blue Moon" by Frank Sinatra
"Back in Your Arms" by Bruce Springsteen
"Lilies of the Valley" by David Byrne
Ravel's Bolero *
"Koko" by Charlie Parker
"Crossroads" by Cream *
"Sweet Sixteen" by B.B. King
"I Hear You Knockin'" by Screamin' Jay Edwards
"Tutti Frutti" by Little Richard
"Rock and Roll Music" by Chuck Berry
"Kansas City" by Wilbert Marrison
"Rock and Roll" by Led Zeppelin
"Jet Airliner" by the Steve Miller Band
"Get Back" by the Beatles
"I've Got Rhythm" by Gershwin
"Sister Golden Hair" by America
"The Thrill Is Gone" by B.B. King

Bonus: You'll notice if you click on Levitin's cd recs above that one of his top 10 cds is Aimee Mann's Whatever, an album whose virtues I have sung recently on this blog.

Update: An e-mail to Levitin elicited a thoughtful response in which he mentioned that the book's Web site features clips of many of the songs mentioned. (Click on "Interactive Features" and then "Listen to music samples.") While there, also check out the "Media Archive" section for lots more interviews with Levitin.

More Aimee Mann and great holiday tunes

Update: If you're hankerin' for more Aimee Mann after my post a few days ago, visit WOXY radio to listen to an archived broadcast of her first annual Christmas show recorded recently in San Francisco. The broadcast opens with an interview about the her new holiday album and goes on to include the full set from Bimbo's 365. So great!

When you're done with that, check WOXY's Holiday Mixer - by far the coolest and least cloying holiday station out there.

Songwriting genius

Like a lot of people, the first time I heard of Aimee Mann was the Magnolia Soundtrack. And also like a lot of people, that led me to go out and pick up Bachelor No. 2 and I'm With Stupid. It's great that she got the recognition she completely deserves. She's even got a Christmas album out this year.

But you rarely hear anyone mention her debut Whatever. It's so underappreciated that I found it in the clearance bin recently and bought it for under $10. And that is a steal, because this album is great. When you think what else was going on musically in 1993, from the grunge of Pearl Jam and Nirvana to the hardcore of Tool and Sepultura to the angry-girl eclecticism of PJ Harvey and Bjork, Aimee Mann sounds like she came from another planet.

What was most interesting to me, though, was how well-formed her songwriting was even on this debut. She is one of the best modern songwriters out there for the simple reason that where every other songwriter strives to master the art of the simple and old-fashioned rhyming couplet, Aimee Mann writes lyrics that read as prose poems, complex and insightful. Prose poems are incredibly difficult to fit into a musical line. And yet she does, every time. And these aren't inaccesible songs. The melodies are catchy, the verses get stuck in your head for days. But reading the lyrics to my favorite song on the album, "I've Had It," you'd never be able to label them strictly as lyrics. This is prose poetry. This is art.

I've Had It
by Aimee Mann

We made it down to New York, with everything intact. But as for getting back it was Boo who made the joke: they don't give you any hope but they'll leave you plenty of rope. And Dan came in from Jersey. He went to get the drums, and if Buddy ever comes, we can get it off the ground. I hope someone's coming down, else I can't see hanging around. Oh experience is cheap if that's the company you keep. And a chance is all I need. And I've had it. I've had it. So we all just started playing and then something strange occurred. Not a person stirred. Oh, it started out one way, but it turned out to be okay and I felt somebody should say, "Oh, experience is cheap if that's the company you keep. And before you know that it's free, you've had it. You've had it." Like most amazing things, it's easy to miss and easy to mistake. For when things are really great it just means everything's in its place. When everything was over, and we loaded up the van, I turned and said to Dan, "Dan I guess this is our prime, like they tell us all the time. Were expecting some other kind?" Oh, experience is cheap if that's the company you keep. And I'll never get that disease because I've had it. I've had it. I guess I've had it.

Lovely, no?