The cover of St. Vincent’s new album features Annie Clark in stockings, lingerie, and dyed blonde hair looking seductively at the camera with the title Daddy’s Home in a 70s font. The reality is far from the fantasy being presented. The title is a reference to her father returning home after being in prison for several years for fraud. On the title track, Clark turns visiting her dad in prison into one of the more intriguing tracks on the album where she “signed autographs in the visitation room/waiting for you the last time, inmate 502”.
On her sixth album, St. Vincent presents several soulful funky tracks. “Down and Out Downtown” is a laid number about coming home the morning after the night before. It does a better job than the opener and first single “Pay Your Way in Pain” that strives to sound like Prince but it’s electro-funk comes up short. The album gains some steam towards the end with “Candy Darling”, a quick two-minute ode to the Andy Warhol actress.
The songs that work best are the ones where Clark looks inward. On “Somebody Like Me” she asks over an acoustic guitar “Does it make you a genius or the fool of the week to believe enough in somebody like me” and adulthood hits on “My Baby Wants a Baby” where she wonders “what would my baby say, I got your eyes and your mistakes”.
“…at the holiday party” is intended to be a modern take on the The Rolling Stones’ “You Can’t Always Get What You Want”. While it is not as great as that classic, it is a really cool track about the pharmacy that some have in their purses. There are a few bright spots on “Daddy’s Home” as St. Vincent is far too talented not to show her skills but the sub funk/R+B tracks are not the area where she excels. Co-produced with Jack Antonoff, Daddy’s Home is a rare miss for both.
The Graduate was the highest grossing film of 1967, earning $104.9 million. The Mike Nichols movie stars Dustin Hoffman as a 21-year-old who has an affair with the much older Anne Bancroft, before eventually falling for her daughter. The film soundtrack, that frequently gets mentioned in soundtrack best of lists, is nearly evenly split between Simon & Garfunkel songs and jazzy, orchestral numbers by soundtrack maestro Dave Grusin.
The album is bookended by two different versions of “The Sound of Silence” from the duo’s first album that was later remixed to become a #1 hit. Other S&G tracks include an extended version of “Scarborough Fair/Canticle”, “April Come She Will” and an alternate version of “The Big Bright Green Pleasure Machine”. The movie’s main song is the first appearance of “Mrs. Robinson” that Simon had been working on but initially known as “Mrs. Roosevelt”. The eventual #1 hit appears here twice but not in its full version. Because of the movie, the song has become synonymous with the allure of older women.
While it’s Simon and Garfunkel’s name that is splashed across the record, Dave Grusin contributes six tracks that would appeal to the older generation. They are fun, upbeat numbers that have a dash of novelty and 60’s slapstick to them. The album vacillates between the hushed, folk rock of Simon & Garfunkel before the Grusin instrumentals come crashing in to up the pace. It’s an odd mix, one that appealed to both teenagers and adults at the time and sent the album soaring to #1. Today, it makes for an interesting curiosity that should really only appeal to completists and soundtrack buffs.
On May 20th, Tragically Hip fans across Canada were surprised to find out the band was releasing a new EP titled Saskadelphia. The title being the original working name of 1991’s Road Apples album of which these songs were recorded for and eventually rejected. The original tapes of the EP’s six songs that were thought lost but found in 2019 lean towards the more rocking end of the band’s oeuvre. “Ouch” starts off the EP, with singer Gord Downie’s voice straining to get the words out as the rest of the band chugs behind him. The swaggering “Just as Well” recalls boogie rock of 80’s hit from The Georgia Satellites “Keep Your Hands to Yourself”.
“Not Necessary” is an early highlight. The melodic rocker sees Downie sing “You’re so calico, you’re all the colours in the world” over the chiming guitars of Paul Baker and Paul Langlois. The live version of “Montreal” about a victim of that city’s tragic Ecole Polytechique shooting is another poignant highlight. The bass of Gord Sinclair holds down “Crack My Spine Like A Whip” which also adds the crisp drumming of Johnny Fay. The EP closes with Downie announcing the introduction of the sped-up blues track “Reformed Baptist Blues”.
The sound here is early Hip, straight forward rock with a bit of the blues added, it lacks some of the subtleties they would later work into their music and lift them from clubs/theatres to selling out arenas across Canada. For fans that grew up the band, this is definitely a nostalgic trip that is hard to separate from the art, especially with the passing of Gord Downie in 2017. There are a couple great songs here along with some good ones. Mostly though, it’s just a hell of a lot of fun hearing “new” music from The Tragically Hip again.
Released in February, Ignorance is The Weather Station’s fifth studio album. The Canadian band formed in 2006 and has since seen changing members but is led by singer/songwriter Tamara Lindeman who wrote all the songs here. While the Wikipedia page describes The Weather Station as a folk band, the sounds on the first half of the album are bright and bouncy even if the subject matter is not. First single “Robbers” speaks of Canada’s colonial past and on “Atlantic” Lindeman sings “I should really know better than to read the headlines” (about climate change) over a dance drumbeat and deep basslines.
Strings get added to both “Tried to Tell You” and “Parking Lot” which makes for classy 80s R&B. Slower introspective tracks show up on the second half of the album including “Trust” where Lindeman declares, “Dim the lights and draw the curtains, this is the end of love” and “Subdivisions” ends asking “did I take this too far?” Ignorance is a mature pop record that mixes both of those items in equal doses.
Almost exactly a year after his death in the fall of 2017, Reprise Records put out the 4CD deluxe boxset by Tom Petty entitled An American Treasure. The set was compiled by Petty’s daughter Adria and wife Dana along with old bandmates Mike Campbell and Benmont Tench, plus Ryan Ulyate. Rather than just listening to the greatest hits, the set includes 42 never before released tracks comprised of outtakes, live versions and alternate mixes that plays like a mixtape made by a massive Tom Petty fan.
The deluxe edition is separated into four different decades with the first being the 1970s. The first track “Surrender” is an outtake from the self-titled debut album that sounds like it could be on the Greatest Hits collection. “The Wild One, Forever”, an album track from the debut sounds a bit like a young Springsteen. Both “Listen To Her Heart” and “Breakdown” appear in live form with the darker “When the Time Comes” from the second album You’re Gonna Get It appearing in an alternate mix as does one of Petty’s finest pop songs “Here Comes My Girl”. (9.5/10)
The 80s disc starts with “Keep a Little Soul”, an outtake from Long After Dark, which had never been released until this compilation. The midtempo rocker sounds like it’s been played on the radio forever. Two tracks later, Petty matches it with another outtake from that same album, “Keeping Me Alive” that is a particular highlight from this disc. Fan favourite “Even the Losers” appears in live form with not much more than an acoustic guitar and some piano. Not released until Full Moon Fever in 1989, “The Apartment Song (Demo)” shows up as a terrific duet with Stevie Nicks which is now the go to version. “Rebels (Alternate Take)” features a nice bit of horns while Full Moon Fever B-side “Don’t Treat Me Like a Stranger” sees Petty pleading not to be forgotten. Amusingly, Kareem Abdul Jabbar appears halfway through the disc introducing the band to a LA crowd. (9/10)
An acoustic version of massive hit “I Won’t Back Down” from 1997 opens disc 3. The crowd cheering sends a shiver through the listener. A straightforward version of “Into the Great Wide Open” also comes in a live version just behind that album’s track “You and I Will Meet Again” which is a standout here. The rest of the disc is dominated by Wildflowers era songs including outtake “Lonesome Dave” named after Foghat’s Dave Peverett and the lovely “To Find a Friend” where Petty makes the simple yet sad statement, “it’s hard to find a friend”. “Accused of Love” from the Echo album is a late disc highlight. (8.5/10)
The fourth disc opens with three terrific tracks from the generally poorly reviewed The Last DJ album with the clubhouse version of “You and Me” being a particular highlight. The South gets namechecked in the laidback groove of Hypnotic Eye outtake “Bus to Tampa Bay” and going to see his Dad’s mistress on “Down South”. A spare yet moving live version of “Southern Accents” from 2006 is another highlight. Two of the last three tracks are dedicated to early band Mudcrutch. The first being the upbeat “Save Your Water” and in a touching ending, the set closes with a live version of “Hungry No More” where Petty says goodbye to the crowd before it fades into a dream. (8.5/10)
The extraordinary thing while listening to these tracks is that it’s hard to separate the big hits from the outtakes and the live tracks sound like they could have been done in a studio with crowd noise pumped in. Unlike other vocalists, Petty sounds similar in every form and variation. Not mentioned above is the wonderful Heartbreaker band who are master musicians that add skill, support and warmth throughout. American Treasure stands as a towering achievement to the great Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers that leaves the listener wanting to hear more of their legendary American rock and roll music.
The Light Appears 