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By Ron Rollins
| Thursday, June 26, 2008, 06:07 PM
Today’s disc, kids:
Duffy
ROCKFERRY
There have been numerous British Invasions since that first one back in 1964 — some large, some small, some successful, some far less so. The latest comes in female form, as a wave of young women singers who’ve been huge UK hitmakers are heading our way.
Leona Lewis’ Mariah-esque, melodramatic pop has probably had the biggest commercial impact, while performers like Lily Allen have taken the funky-reggae route. Amy Winehouse’s sadomasochistic, broken-glass jazz bits have gotten the most media attention — so much so, sadly, that the quality and originality of her work has been overshadowed by her crack-smoking. And in fact, Winehouse and her troubles have sort of blotted out a lot of her fellow Brit ladies.
Watch out for Duffy, though. Her debut CD, “Rockferry,” is a fine piece of work, and wholly unlike the stuff we’ve been hearing from these others.
She’s Aimee Anne Duffy from Cardiff, Wales, and she sent her first disc straight to the top of the British charts a few months back. And while that’s never guaranteed American success, Duffy deserves notice. She and her production team have placed her within a signature sound that immediately jumps out: A thick fog of rhythmic strings, echo-chamber girl-group harmonies and romantic, R&B lushness that recalls the bygone wall-of-sound arranging of Phil Spector and the frothy, gorgeous uptown sounds of Dusty Springfield and her mod-era brand of blue-eyed soul.
At first listen, Duffy seems to have chosen such a big sound to offset what at first seems like a still-youthful, fairly imperfect voice. The booming resonance of the title tune, for instance, goes a long way toward compensating for some of the places where she doesn’t sound like she can hit the notes she wants. By the end of song, however, with all she can muster building to a grand, sweeping finish, she’s disspelled any naysaying. She goes on to show with the weeper “Warwick Avenue,” and the hip, ultra-sassy swinger “Mercy” that she’s got the good she needs.
The disc crackles with energy and nerve, not to mention something fresh: A true sense of place and time that makes one feel right in the London she sees and writes about with real feeling.
Bravo for a smashing-good debut. Hope this invader is able to crack the beachhead and make it past our crabby U.S. defenses.
Grade: B+
iPod picks: “Mercy,” “Rockferry,” “Syrup & Honey,” “Serious.”
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By Ron Rollins
| Wednesday, June 25, 2008, 09:37 PM
If you read this space, you know I’m no fan of video games … but I was drawn to this article that argues they really aren’t that bad for you, since it’s being shown that violent games don’t make users/players (which one are they, really?) more violent…
Of course, that misses the point I’ve been trying to make all along, which is that they’re bad for you because they make you stupider… So far, nobody’s been able to argue me off that…
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By Ron Rollins
| Tuesday, June 24, 2008, 09:05 AM
Today’s disc, and a good one:
Coldplay
VIVA LA VIDA
Have you noticed what happens to rock bands that hit a certain point of fame and popularity? After an album or two, there seems to emerge this weird groundswell of critics, somber fans and other cognoscenti who start to pressure on the group to be different. Usually, there is an insistence that it needs to be “edgier,” or “experimental,” and the conversation about the musicians in question seems to change — to turn on this idea that in order for them to grow and mature, they need to produce music that sounds different from what they’ve done to make themselves so popular in the first place.
And thus has Coldplay — which over three studio CDs has sold more than 30 million albums of its heavy, high-minded, soaringly melodic soft rock and become close to being the biggest band in the world — found itself faced with this conundrum. Typically true to its crowd-pleasing nature, it has decided not to resist, but accept the challenge — declaring in interviews that “Viva La Vida” is its “political” album, and one on which it dabbles in unusual sounds and songcraft.
Maybe so. But bully for Coldplay that it also turns the entire conversation on its head by doing the “experiment” on its own terms, and nobody else’s. This is a fine album indeed, one on which the British quartet offers some new ideas that pull it closer together as a band and subtly illuminate its collective musical imagination. If the pressure to grow into something different has sidetracked or scuttled other performers, it’s only made Coldplay better.
If Chris Martin’s fluttery falsetto had threatened to become the pre-eminent, defining mark of the band’s sound, new producer Brian Eno, who made his mark in the 1980s with U2, Talking Heads and other groundbreakers, has driven his voice a lot deeper into the mix and turned it into an intriguing, useful instrument that sounds better surrounded by his mates. On “Yes,” Martin’s voice becomes a floating, wordless presence that wafts dreamily in and out of the whirlwind cascade of Jonny Buckland’s guitars.
Listen to the beats and structures on this album. The title track is a minuet with kettle drums thrumming in the background; the fabulous “Lost!” rides on a rolling wave of bass drum and hand claps that sound like they’re keeping time in a Shaker service — all emerging from a church organ that blooms into an unearthly swell. Just when you think they’re about to go all Arcade Fire on us, there’s Buckland’s guitar again — chiming in and grounding what, by the time Martin hits the chorus, is most definitely a Coldplay song. One of their best ever, in fact.
Martin’s lyrics have always been in the light-impressionistic mode, and “Viva La Vida,” which is subtitled “Death and All His Friends,” finds him a little more serious about what it all means. Ghosts, cemeteries and memories of departed friends flit in and out of his usual ruminations on the meaning and power of love, which ends up being the answer to everything. They’re still a soft-rock band with a sensitive singer and lots of female fans, you know.
But they’ve also turned in a pop album that opens with an instrumental that features a hammer dulcimer, of all things, and a magical Middle Eastern beat. Didn’t see that coming.
Bottom line: This is the best work yet from a band that’s unafraid to sound pretty, and which now has decided it also want to sound smart — smarter than their meanest critics, in fact. Well done.
Grade: A
iPod picks: “Lost!”; “Strawberry Swing”; “Viva La Vida.”
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By Ron Rollins
| Sunday, June 22, 2008, 08:30 AM
Aw, nuts. Sometimes you are aware of a creeping trend that bothers you if you think about it, but you can kind of ignore it until you see it written about.
Dang it! Slate is confirming my suspicions about my second-favorite punctuation mark!
Don’t know about you, but I love semicolons and admire anybody who knows what they’re for. Someday, when we start running out of periods, we might just be happy they haven’t all gone away yet.
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By Ron Rollins
| Friday, June 20, 2008, 03:58 PM
A few stray thoughts today:
— One of my favorite paintings at the Dayton Art Institute was the featured artwork at the 51st Art Ball, which was held at the museum last weekend. About 700 elegantly dressed folks got to have a closer look at “Tightrope Walker,” by the American painter Everitt Shinn. It’s a haunting picture — a stark, dramatically composed image of the acrobat, dressed in ghostly white, balancing over the heads of a hushed, darkened theater crowd. Shinn, a member of the so-called “Ashcan” group of realist painters from the early 20th century, started off as a newspaper illustrator who had a fondness for vaudeville — a passion that he drew upon in many works that explored the tension between audience and performer. “Tightrope Walker” is one of his greatest pieces, and a true gem of the DAI’s collection. Go have a look.
— Speaking of the DAI, while you’re there checking out Shinn stop down to see the wonderful exhibition by Ken Butler, “Hybrid Visions.” Butler combines his gifts for music and scuplture with passions for recycling and for transforming things into something different and new. The result: A violin made out of a cowboy boot, a cello from a sled, a piano made of packaging foam — all of which make sound. The show is a masterpiece of reconceptualization, if you can imagine such a thing.
— Speaking of masterful reconceptualization, while writing this I’m listening to the new Coldplay disc, “Viva La Vida.” The cover borrows another of my favorite paintings, “Liberty Leading the People,” by Eugene Delacroix. It’s the one of French Liberty charging across the barricades during the July Revolution of 1830. Coldplay turns it from an image of violence into an image of life; nicely done. Can’t wait to get through the album.
— Other fun stuff I’ve been listening to today: The new My Morning Jacket, which is just as weird, echoey and off-kilter as the Louisville band’s past works. Not sure I love it, but it’s at least a fun first listen.
— Oooh: This is a good disc: “Rockferry” by Duffy, a new British neosoul singer. She’s tough. More on her next week.
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By Ron Rollins
| Thursday, June 19, 2008, 07:59 AM
Well, here are the books that the Big Read committee are mulling over for the next communitywide reading event in the Dayton area, in the winter and early spring of 2009.
They’re asking for feedback! Have you read any of these? Does one sound good to you?
It’s a tasty-looking, thought-provoking list. These descriptions are provided by the review committee, which has come up with this list of final contenders after reading and discussing dozens of other fine books.
FYI, I haven’t read any of these yet personally, though I’ve read other books by a lot of these authors and have read reviews of most of them. Have a look and tell us what you think:
Bragg, Rick, All Over But the Shoutin’ or The Prince of Frogtown: A Pulitzer Prize-winning correspondent for The New York Times recounts growing up in the Alabama hills, the son of a violent veteran and a mother who tried to insulate her children from poverty and ignorance.
Brooks, Geraldine, People of the Book: Offered a coveted job to analyze and conserve a priceless Sarajevo Haggadah, Australian rare-book expert Hanna Heath discovers a series of tiny artifacts in the volume’s ancient binding that reveal its historically significant origins. By the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of March.
Dean, Debra, Madonnas of Leningrad: In a novel that moves back and forth between the Soviet Union during World War II and modern-day America, Marina, an elderly Russian woman, recalls vivid images of her youth during the height of the siege of Leningrad when, as a tour guide at the Hermitage, she and other staff members removed the museum’s priceless artworks for safekeeping.
Hosseini, Khaled, A Thousand Splendid Suns: Two women born a generation apart witness the destruction of their home and family in war-torn Kabul, losses incurred over the course of thirty years that test the limits of their strength and courage. By the author of “Kite Runner.”
Lahiri, Jhumpa, The Namesake: A Novel: A portrait of the immigrant experience follows the Garguli family from their traditional life in India through their arrival in Massachusettes in the lat 1960s and their difficulties melding into an American way of life.
Martel, Yann, Life of Pi: Possessing encyclopedia-like intelligence, unusual zookeeper’s son Pi Patel sets sail for America, but when the ship sinks, he escapes on a life boat and is lost at sea with a dwindling number of animals until only he and a hungry Bengal tiger remain.
Mengestu, Dinaw, Beautiful Things that Heaven Bears: This year’s title for Seattle Public Library, “sounds interesting, but hard”. Seventeen years after fleeing the Ethiopian revolution to America, Sepha Stephanos runs a grocery store in a poor African-American neighborhood in Washington, D.C., where he witnesses a series of racially charged incidents and bitterly reflects on his past and the differences between his actual prospects and the life he imagined.
Mortenson, Greg, Three Cups of Tea: One Man’s Mission to Promote Peace…One School at a Time: Some failures lead to phenomenal successes, and this American nurse’s unsuccessful attempt to climb K2, the world’s second tallest mountain, is one of them. Dangerously ill when he finished his climb in 1993, Mortenson was sheltered for seven weeks by the small Pakistani village of Korphe; in return, he promised to build the impoverished town’s first school, a project that grew into the Central Asia Institute, which has since constructed more than 50 schools across rural Pakistan and Afghanistan. Coauthor Relin recounts Mortenson’s efforts in fascinating detail, presenting compelling portraits of the village elders, con artists, philanthropists, mujahideen, Taliban officials, ambitious school girls and upright Muslims Mortenson met along the way. As the book moves into the post-9/11 world, Mortenson and Relin argue that the United States must fight Islamic extremism in the region through collaborative efforts to alleviate poverty and improve access to education, especially for girls. Captivating and suspenseful, with engrossing accounts of both hostilities and unlikely friendships.
Picoult, Jodi, Nineteen Minutes: In the aftermath of a horrific small-town school shooting, lawyer Jordan McAfee finds himself defending a youth who desperately needs someone on his side, while intrepid detective Patrick DuCharme works with a primary witness in the daughter of the superior court judge assigned to the case.
Rhodes-Courtier, Ashley, Three Little Words: Ashley spent nine years in foster care after being taken away from her mother. She endured many caseworkers, moving from school to school, manipulative, humiliating and abusive treatment from one foster family. See how she survives and eventually thrives against the odds.
Weiner, Eric, Geography of Bliss: Part foreign affairs discourse, part humor, and part twisted self-help guide, this book takes the reader from America to Iceland to India in search of happiness, or, in the crabby author’s case, moments of “un-unhappiness.” The book uses a mixture of travel, psychology, science and humor to investigate not what happiness is, but where it is. Are people in Switzerland happier because it is the most democratic country in the world? Do citizens of Singapore benefit psychologically by having their options limited by the government? Is the King of Bhutan a visionary for his initiative to calculate Gross National Happiness? Why is Asheville, North Carolina, so darn happy? NPR correspondent Weiner answers those questions and many others, offering travelers of all moods some interesting new ideas for sunnier destinations and dispositions.
Zusak, Markus, The Book Thief: Living with a foster family in Germany during World War II, a young girl struggles to survive her day-to-day trials through stealing anything she can get her hands on, but when she discovers the beauty of literature, she realizes that she has been blessed with a gift that must be shared with others, including the Jewish man hiding in the basement.
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By Ron Rollins
| Wednesday, June 18, 2008, 02:12 PM
All right, this is getting a bit outta hand, I think.
Today, the ideologically opposite poles of the Wall Street Journal AND National Public Radio had even more … yes, you guessed it … appreciations for Tim Russert, meaning that the national media frenzy over the man’s passing is verging upon entering its second week. Sheesh.
Poor folks out in ReaderLand must be wondering by now whether John McCain would get the same sort of worship in the press if he should be so unlucky to shuffle off the mortal coil… I know I’m starting to wonder, and this is my business.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m sure Russert was a fine man, and yes, 58 is early in terms of mortality. And I understand, as we all do, that newspapers and TV stations have a custom of making more fuss, at least a bit more, about in-house deaths than we do about those of folks who didn’t spend their careers in the media. Here at the DDN, we did honor a recently departed colleague with a story that some readers may have realized was longer than what may have been done for, say, an accountant at Wright-Patterson.
But we did a short 8-inch story and a mugshot of him. What MSNBC and NBC have been doing for Russert is waaaaaaaaaaaaaay over the top. It’s almost becoming a parody of itself.
And is it OK in all this to say that as a journalist and viewer, I never really thought that highly of Russert’s work? I think he asked lumpy, over-simple questions that seemed to set the world of politics in stark black and white, red and blue terms, and which did little to help the national conversation. He was belligerent and impolite, most of the times I watched him … which, admittedly, were few in recent years because I didn’t seek him out.
I’m not the only person who feels this way, I imagine … but in all the hagiography of the last few days — has there been any NEWS in any of it? — who would feel safe to suggest that maybe the guy really didn’t merit all this fuss?
If you’re looking for an example of just how out of touch the national media has become with what is really going on in the world — the rest of it, I mean — I offer the previous week.
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