#nowplaying

Nicki Minaj

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With each new release, artists take a risk. No two recordings can be the same, so it’s inevitable that as newcomers are (hopefully) hopping on the bandwagon, a certain subset of fans are going to feel alienated by the new tune(s). So what do you do if you’re part of that alien-nation? What do you do when musicians zig when you were hoping they’d zag? When they twist when you wanted them to mashed potato? When they feed you a Mounds when you were hankering for an Almond Joy?

Here are the options as I see them:

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Mercies

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In My Room

Who you cover says a lot about you.

A pivotal moment in my Dale Earnhardt Jr Jr obsession occurred when I heard their electro-silken version of The Beach Boys’ “God Only Knows.” What struck me about the cover wasn’t the degree of difficulty (though it’s true that the original is a musical beast that’s said to have taken 23 musicians and 20 takes to bring down). Nor was it the considerable chutzpah it requires to reimagine one of the most revered songs of all time. What drew me in was the sense of adventure I gleaned from Dale Earnhardt Jr Jr’s recording. In context with their elaborate marketing persona and DIY showmanship, it felt like their cover of “God Only Knows” was channeling the creative spirit that The Beach Boys had in droves — a drive that helped them expand the general sandbox in which future pop musicians could play.

I was so excited when I heard Mercies’ cover of  The Beach Boys’ “In My Room,” because that same adventurous spirit comes through loud and clear.

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Wolf//Goat

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I’m never going outside again. Ever.

Maybe you’ve seen the footage that was used to create the video for Richmond-based band Wolf//Goat’s “Madness Is Sanity.” I hadn’t. And I had no idea that in some mountainous corner of this beautiful green and blue planet we call home, EAGLES ARE PICKING UP BABY GOATS WITH THEIR TERRIFYING TALONS AND FLYING AWAY WITH THEM. I mean, seriously?!? If that doesn’t deserve an Independence-Day-style “My God…” I don’t know what does. My family wasn’t all that outdoorsy when I was growing up, but I definitely remember a mountain cabin trip or two, and I’m starting to think that it’s a miracle I made it out alive.

The video above is grisly to be sure, but it’s edited masterfully, bringing the song’s momentum shifts to life with a visceral brutality that has “recurring nightmare” written all over it. And I love that, in a twisted way, the clip offers an analogue to my short history with Wolf//Goat’s music.

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Animal Collective

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Centipede Hz

Welcome to the jungle!

Centipede Hz just became available for streaming, which means it’s time to break out your machetes and slather on the bug spray — we’ve got some exploring to do.

Animal Collective’s world can be a little crazy. There is screaming. There are monsters. Layers of electronic production saturate songs, flooding them with sounds, not all of which are tethered to the rhythm and melody they accompany. It’s a sonic rainforest as dense as any you’ll find, and there’s nothing quite like hacking your way through a new release.

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Paul Simon

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The generosity of the interweb never ceases to amaze me. One day you’re drooling over the trailer for an Emmy-nominated documentary about the making of Paul Simon’s Graceland, and the next thing you know, the whole enchilada is streaming for free [link fixed]. Hot damn!

News that Under African Skies is available for all the world to see only hit yesterday, so I haven’t yet had a chance to watch it, but doing so is at the top of my to-do list this weekend. Getting a glimpse of how an iconic album was made is reason enough to tune in (Can you still use the expression “tune in” when talking about a streaming video? I feel old just just thinking about it.), but I’m especially looking forward to learning more about the socio-political side of Simon’s trip to Apartheid-era South Africa. It’s mind-boggling to think that in making this astoundingly beautiful piece of art, Simon was taking a significant risk, crossing a picket line of sorts to collaborate with musicians who wanted their music to be heard despite the cultural boycott that was in place at the time. I still don’t understand it, but I’m thankful for the opportunity to get a more complete version of the story.

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Matthew E. White

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My wife and I recently jumped on the Game of Thrones bandwagon, which means I finally understand the Internet meme pictured above. Perhaps you’ve seen it before, warning people of a powerful force that’s approaching from just beyond the horizon. I can think of no better way to describe the impending release of Matthew E. White’s Big Inner.

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PSY

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Between the Olympics, the beach, and the Outer Banks’ miserable Internet situation, I had some serious blinders on last week. Some might say, “Well duh, that’s the point of going on vacation… getting away from it all.” Those people probably also say things like “This flip phone does me just fine,” and “Don’t forget to type the ‘www.'”

I feel pretty lucky though, because I came home to an overgrown inbox that was crawling with fun stuff waiting to be watched/heard. My homecoming email catch-up started off with a bang when I clicked on a link to the YouTube video above. Wow. Just… wow.

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Roy Orbison

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“This is making me tense.”

It’s the most feared phrase in any shared listening environment.

It strikes when you least expect it, when Luciano Pavarotti is singing “Nessun Dorma,” or when James Taylor is rocking “Sweet Baby James.” You never know. Certain things just hit people the wrong way.

I’m writing to you from my family’s beach week, which was the setting for the Great Orbison Showdown. There is some debate over the peripheral details, like how long ago it took place, where on the Outer Banks the rental house was located that year, and exactly how many times Roy Orbison’s Black and White Night concert DVD was played, but the words themselves are etched into my memory like footsteps on the moon:

“This is making me tense.” 

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Father John Misty

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“WTF?!? Where’d the meerkats go? And is it just me, or did Narnia throw up on my computer screen?”

Do not be alarmed, good people of the Internet! You’re in the right place! You’ve navigated your browser to the same medium-to-long-winded music blog you know and love, just without the brazen misuse of intellectual property sitting atop the page (these Meerkat Manor fellas sure are cute, but my copyright conscience had, over time, transformed their adorably inquisitive gazes into guilt-inducing death stares). In addition to the new banner and background, I’ve also reclassified all 250-some YHT posts to keep things a bit tidier, subject-matter-wise. The 5 categories (links can be found on the left side of the page) include…

  • #nowplaying — record reviews and recommended listening
  • #live — concert reviews and performance videos
  • #features — recurring gimmicks and especially long reads
  • #rva — music that calls Richmond, VA home
  • #guest — pieces penned by anyone other than yours truly

Many thanks are due to my big sis for hand-crafting the YHT mascot that’s pictured in the new banner, and thanks also to pixlr.com for making a web-based version of Photoshop, because I’m too cheap to buy the real thing and too guilt-prone to download it illegally.

To celebrate the blog’s new ‘do, I’m posting a video I’ve been meaning to write about for ages — one that tells its own story of physical transformation: Father John Misty’s (NSFW) “Nancy From Now On.”

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Old Crow Medicine Show

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Carry Me Back

So we just found out on Tuesday that Bob Dylan is releasing a new album, entitled Tempest, on September 11. I don’t know about you, but album announcements don’t usually get me too riled up. It’s hard to get excited about a press release accompanied by a list of out-of-context song titles, especially when the payoff can be so far away. I mean, September is like a year away (delayed gratification and I are not friends). This announcement was different though, and not just because it’s Bob Dylan, and that’s reason enough to get one’s undies in a bunch. My undies bunched double because I got to thinking that maybe, just maybe, the “Scarlet Town” that’s included on the track list was a cover of the “Scarlet Town” Gillian Welch released on her 2011 album The Harrow & The Harvest. I even spent like 30 minutes drafting unsent Tweets about it:

“Part of me is hoping that “Scarlet Town” from Bob Dylan’s upcoming album is a cover of the @gillianwelch tune. The other part of me thinks that’s wrong.”

Other drafts were less circumspect, focusing on how I’d probably pee my pants if my theory were to hold true. (Does anyone else routinely spend half an hour writing tweets they don’t send? Anyone? Please tell me I’m not the only one.)

But all that excitement and subsequent guilt over rooting for a cover from the greatest songwriter of all time vanished into thin air when I actually took the time to read the whole press release, which states clearly that Tempest features “ten new and original Bob Dylan songs.” Well, then. There goes that. Guess I should know better than to try to predict Bob Dylan’s behavior. After all, this exists.

My Tempest gratification may be delayed until September, but Tuesday was kind enough to balance things out by dropping a brick of pure, uncut, instant gratification in my lap via a text from my friend Tex (say that 5 times fast) asking if I’d heard the new Old Crow Medicine Show album.

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