Then there’s Ted Leo & the Pharmacists’ new album, Living with the Living. This is one my teenage son does like for me to play in the car because its snarling guitar work and urgent vocals make him think it’s power punk. Behind that charged-up sound are infectious rhythms, great melodic hooks, and a range of musical styles from Celtic to reggae to acoustic folk. There’s also outright poetry – Leo’s punchy songwriting goes for internal rhymes, word play, and alliteration, which actually make it worthwhile decoding his sometimes-cryptic utterances. You can’t say that for most bands my teenager digs.
Yes, it’s loaded with angry politics (Ted Leo does not approve of the Iraq War, in case you’re wondering – bet it’s no coincidence that that title recalls Neil Young’s Living With War), but intelligent politics, not just mindless authority bashing. Set between the out-and-out antiwar songs you find autobiographical songs of lost love, regret, discouragement - often real heart breakers. (The stunning track “The Unwanted Things” just may hold the key to all life in the universe. I’ll get back to you on that.)
Somehow this softens the politics and gives me sympathy for Leo’s take on life. It’s the cumulative effect — the grand arc you get on a whole album, not just disconnected tracks — that makes this a work that’ll hold up to repeated listening.
The record companies may think the album’s dead, but nobody’s told these guys. They go on writing novels instead of short stories, and looking for an audience with an attention span that lasts longer than four minutes. (Shoot, Beatle albums used to give you 10 tracks if you were lucky – Traffic and Weather has 14 songs, and Living with the Living 15, including two that run over 6 minutes.) Those of us who still care about music need to buy this stuff, to cast a vote with our dollars. If we don’t, and the long-playing album does die, it’ll be on our heads.
Article comments
1 - Mark Saleski
very nice holly.
the album will never be dead in my mind.
2 - Douglas Mays
Holly, the album must live on. Especially in this day and age. The Bush era.
The problem is (in my mind) that artists aren't really saying anything nowadays. Does the music art world have Stockholm Syndrome, afraid to testify against the oppression of government and corporation? This has been going on for years and there seems to be no revolution in music, the most readily available art form to the public.
Hooray for Starbucks!!! A new indy label with a major on it. SubPop has a new spin off label. The indy rules! Let majors license them so perhaps sales will gain some numbers again. There is a wealth of great music saying something out there.
There is no substitute for owning an album (vinyl rules!). Holding it, reading all the trivia in the package. Finding that one song that normally doesn't get played on the radio that is the message an individual listener might need to hear. I wish there was a way to get posters in a CD, like when Dark Side of the Moon came out.
It might help if an artist can actually write an album's worth of quality music....
don't get me wrong. Today I really like the White Stripes, Raconteurs, the Shins, and others. There are alot of musicians that create under the principal of talent + feelings = communication. Sure, there are too many that only envision 'being a rock star'. Try moving the public with musical/social statement. That is where the big money comes in...
best,
Douglas
3 - Holly Hughes
Ah, yes, the album as a physical object -- I didn't even begin to talk about that. All that fantastic cover art created for vinyl LPs (not to mention posters and gatefold covers' inside spreads) doesn't even begin to work on a tiny CD case, but at least you have some art to look at. And lyrics -- I love an artist who cares enough about lyrics to print out the words so you can follow them, treasure them, pore over them. Even if we download entire albums rather than single tracks, we lose the tactile and visual sensations of having that package.
It'll take a revolution in the music business before artists who actually say something are equated with substantial sales. All we can do is buy the stuff that moves us and hope others do the same.
4 - Ron Chalice
Good go Holly!
I wonder how many people would buy just one chapter of the Da Vinci Code... I can think of at least a dozen albums that could easily fall in with the allegory... "Dark Side of the Moon", "Sergeant Pepper" and "John Wesley Harding" immediately top the list. I think the part that I miss most, however, is the packaging. I go back to February 9, 1964 as well. Waited on the sidewalk in front of the music store on the 10th. Spent my life savings on a Harmony guitar and Silvertone amp, then had my first paying gig ($5) on Friday February 14, playing 6 Beatles songs.
My most vivid memories in the years since are a)carefully steaming the 'nice' cover pasted over the original for "Yesterday and Today", b) poring through the lyrics and collateral material in "Sgt. Pepper", c) unfolding the huge poster inside the White Album in the middle of the 'Paul is Dead' stuff, and d) listening to "Dark Side of the Moon" through headphones from a McIntosh power amp.
Yeah, I've got an MP3 player, I download singles and all that. But I love whoever invented the wall frame for LP's... they line the walls of my home and studio.
PS... I'm the guy who writes that 'goofball little Boomersaurus blog'... ;-)
seeya,
5 - Connie Phillips
Congrat! A link to this article now appears on our Myspace profile page.
6 - Holly Hughes
Hey, Ron, good to hear from you! I steamed the cover off my "Yesterday...and Today" album too. Unfortunately, it was a later pressing that had nothing underneath but gray cardboard. Bummer.
You know another good recent "theme" album? The Crane Wife, by the Decemberists. That one just cries out to be listened to in one go.
7 - Ron Chalice
I lucked out. Found treasure underneath, unfortunately about a year later, my stereo and a mess of albums were stolen from our band house in Boulder while we were playing a little dive called Galena Street East in Aspen. Somebody somewhere has a butcher cover with the word DUCK in blue magic marker...
Who knows maybe someday it'll show up.
I will have to take a listen to the Crane Wife... didja ever get into Harry Chapin? Has to be one of the all time greats at telling stories with harmony ;-)
8 - Mat Brewster
It's only critics with a deadline saying that the album is dead. Of course there will always be pop singers who only have one or two decent songs on an album. But there are loads of solid albums out there, The Crane Wife is an excellent example.
9 - giddygabby
Just last weekend I was explaining to podder, who wanted to share her tunes with me, the artistry of the album and how a collection of onesies just doesn't suit. I prefer to hear the entire album sitting down, where I can zone in on the nuances and riffs, though I'm just as likely to crank it up on a Saturday and bang through the housework.
We listened to Big Brother and the Holding Company's Cheap Thrills together (yes I'm that old), and somewhere along the line (I had my eyes closed at the time) she got it.