Tis the season for some of the biggest releases of the year, just in time for holiday shopping. Every Friday from now until Christmas should bring something exciting to spin.
• Adele, 30 – If Adele’s new record has accomplished anything culturally significant, it’s at least fixed Spotify. Her request (demand) got them to remove the idiotic song-shuffle feature that was the “play” button’s default setting. Users had complained about this pain-in-the-butt since the beginning, but it took Adele reminding them that song sequencing is an artistic and commercial decision to listen. “Anything for you” was Spotify’s public response to her request, simple as that. Maybe she should have crabbed a little about the paltry royalty rates they pay musicians, too.
The other immediate cultural impact of 30 was to cripple this year’s Record Store Day Black Friday. Sony used its global reach and power to essentially hijack vinyl pressing plants around the world to make sure its 500,000 vinyl copies would be available from release date through the holiday season. The upshot has been nearly three dozen titles from the original RSD Black Friday release list being pushed to a later date, delayed indefinitely, or cancelled altogether due to production delays. Adele’s sales typically don’t rely too heavily on independent record stores, she’s a Target/Walmart/Amazon kind of girl, so I don’t imagine the damage done to their bottom lines weighs too heavily on her (or Sony’s) mind.
So how is the album, you might be wondering? It’s the same Adele-of-the-moment as the rest of her catalog, for good or bad. I have an odd relationship with her previous records, and I don’t expect this one to be different. I think it has something to do with the emotional diary aspect of them. She’s been putting out records with titles representing her current age since she started, each one reflecting, supposedly, her state of mind and general well-being at 19, 21, 25, and now 30. I’ve enjoyed each of them a great deal for a short time, and then I, like her, move past them to other things. I find if I go back to them months or years down the road, I just can’t get into them anymore.
30 being her so-called “divorce” record, I wasn’t surprised to hear a more hard-edged Adele, especially lyrically. She’s been through some shit, has regrets, and is coming out the other side a stronger, wiser woman: the record in a nutshell. There’s nothing here to suggest that you won’t like 30 as much as you liked her previous diary entries. Personally, I wish the second half had as much variation of tempo and arrangements as the first half, though. By the end it’s all grandiose ballads, all the time. To my ears, there should be a little more “Cry Your Heart Out” and “Oh My God” bounce here and a little less “Hold On” navel-gazing. And I apologize Ms. Adkins, but the song for your son, “My Little Love,” probably should have remained a private journal entry. It’s several degrees too maudlin and sentimental for me to ever want to hear again.
Bottom line, the world listens to Adele because she’s a freakishly talented singer, and she hasn’t lost anything in that respect. If anything, her maturing voice is even more impressive than her youthful one. She’s got that fascinating combination of pop power and R&B groove that makes me such a devoted fan of women like Dusty Springfield and Bobbie Gentry. That alone will keep me listening until both of us are ready to move on to 34.
EARWORM: Adele, “I Drink Wine” (2021) – If she felt the need to be so emotionally heavy for the entire album, she should at least have given more songs this kind of bounce and lift.
• Robert Plant / Alison Krauss, Raise the Roof – I remember when I heard the announcement back in 2006 or so that these two were going to be collaborating on an album. Led Zeppelin’s banshee wail, combined with Union Station’s soprano croon? I think I was part of the entire music world’s collective wtf? Well tie me to the side of an anthill and fill my ears with jam, it worked splendidly. So well that it became an international smash hit, selling in platinum numbers. Raising Sand was a U.S. Rock Album chart #1, and a U.S. Country Album chart #2. Not too shabby for such an apparent mismatch.
I was one of the multitudes who loved Raising Sand. I dug its spooky, atmospheric production, the way the drum sound mimicked a heartbeat, and the truly seductive honey and sandpaper blend of the two voices. The source material was fun to research, a fascinating collection of carefully chosen Americana. Doc Watson, the Everly Brothers, Tom Waits, Mel Tillis, and Allen Toussaint songs living comfortably alongside each other, sounding like a harmonious piece. The good news is that Raise the Roof is a perfectly matched chapter two.
The only significant change I can hear on the new one is a bit less singing together by the duo. More of the songs are a Robert or Alison solo vocal with the other providing harmony and backups. That seems to be the result of being recorded over more distance than the first, likely due to covid restrictions. Thankfully, the change doesn’t interfere in the slightest with the beauty and power of Raise the Roof. The songs are as carefully curated as they were on the first one, and both singers are in exceptionally fine voice. If anything, age has added a slight layer of burnish to both singing voices, making them even richer and more expressive.
Once again, the songs are stunners. “Go Your Way” drops the echoey production of the rest and Robert gives the old folk song a fantastic reading, with Alison’s chiming background vocals lifting it up several notches in the chorus. Alison’s lead turn on Toussaint’s “Trouble With My Lover” is as sexy and seductive as any song you’re likely to hear this year. “High and Lonesome” is a catchy, noisy Plant original, the album’s only non-cover and, unsurprisingly, the album’s rocking-est song. But the peak for me is the dual vocal on Randy Weeks’ stellar “Can’t Let Go.” The original is an irresistible slice of laid-back rockabilly, Lucinda Williams’ cover on Car Wheels on a Gravel Road is spectacular. The version here is an addictive percussion shuffle, with Robert and Alison singing in unison and showing off their own version of rockabilly moxie in the choruses. An earworm for the ages on a consistently excellent album.
EARWORM: Robert Plant/Alison Krauss, “Can’t Let Go” (2021) – Great song, intoxicating interpretation.
• Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band, The Legendary 1979 No Nukes Concerts – If you’re not one, trust me when I tell you this release is huge news to Bruce Springsteen fanatics, so let me set the stage, so to speak. Bruce and the band gained a reputation as the hottest, most exciting live rock act in the country on his 1978 Darkness on the Edge of Town tour. Three-hour shows with unflagging energy, blistering rock and roll, and a feel for tension-and-release drama miles above most other bands, it’s a no-brainer to call it one of the great rock tours of all time. Until now, you didn't get to experience what all the fuss was about if you weren't there.
I actually saw him the year before, in 1977, when he was touring but wasn’t allowed to play the new Darkness songs because of a pending lawsuit against his former manager. A small acoustically-tuned theater in St. Paul on an icy February evening, easily one of the greatest rock concerts I’ve ever seen. Of the 90 or so performances I’ve attended over the years, his was the only one with an extra encore after the house lights had been turned on, the signal recognized by concertgoers everywhere to mean go home, the show’s over. But nobody would leave that night, we kept stomping and yelling for more. Bruce and the boys eventually came back out laughing, left the house lights up, and gave us a spirited run-through of “Heartbreak Hotel” before they finally said goodnight for good.
Which brings us in a roundabout way back to this record. Bruce and E Street’s live shows from 1977 to 1980 gained them a truly rapturous following, but his record company didn’t cash in on that opportunity with an official live album. There were bootlegs around, and some were spectacular, but nothing with high-quality sound or packaging. Along came MUSE, Musicians United for Safe Energy, an environmental activist group started by Jackson Browne, Bonnie Raitt, Graham Nash, and others after the Three Mile Island nuclear accident scared the crap out of everybody. Their idea was to raise money for the cause by staging a series of concerts in 1979 at Madison Square Garden, then putting out a live album and film. The group’s founders would all play, Nash would bring in his pals Stills and Crosby, and they got a commitment from Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers to join the fun and add some serious rock (and commercial) appeal. But the hottest news was Bruce and E Street agreeing to close two of the planned five nights. Tickets for both shows were gone in an hour. The resulting film and album were an exhilarating, but frustrating tease for Springsteen fans. Two fabulous performances made the No Nukes album; three different, equally stunning performances were part of the film. Until now, these have been the only officially released documents from his reign as king of the rock and roll concert (I don’t count the big, mostly useless, 5-LP Live/1975-85 box, a scattershot batch of live recordings over ten years that has no flow and doesn’t really do justice to the band’s live prowess).
The Legendary 1979 No Nukes Concerts isn’t exactly one of the MSG shows in its entirety, a whole show was recreated by choosing the better performance of each song from each night. The setlist is presented as played on both nights, though, and it’s a seamless blend, nothing about it sounds pieced together. Bruce was part of a multi-act bill, so he had to streamline his show from three hours to ninety minutes, but that’s still a whole lot of high-octane, exciting rock and roll.
What really hits me when I listen to the new release is how ridiculously great the 1979 E Street Band was. In order for the Boss to able to pull off his high-wire, without a net, concert dramatics, he needed a group of musicians that could stop and start passages on a dime, go instantly from pin-drop quiet to full-bore loud and back again, and play anything from the twistin’ jukebox oldies that made up his typical encore set, to intensely emotional and complex set pieces like “Jungleland” and Rosalita (Come Out Tonight).” And damn, did he find the right guys for the job, they were the perfect instrument for Bruce to realize his vision. Clarence Clemons proved to be the heir-apparent to King Curtis, the guy who played brilliant sax onstage next to Aretha Franklin for many years, soulful and exciting in equal parts. Roy Bittan and the late Danny Federici created a shape-shifting piano and organ embroidery for Bruce’s songs that made them sound unlike anybody else’s. And, of course, Mighty Max Weinberg’s drums were a pummeling, steamrolling marvel to behold. Finally, in 2021, the energy and drama of a late-70s Bruce/E Street show is available for our dining and dancing pleasure and it remains, even 42 years later, an exhilarating live rock and roll experience. I doubt the crowds at MSG wanted to leave when the house lights came up.
EARWORM: Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band, “Born to Run” (2021) – After they finish giving the audience an exhausting and joyous 22 minutes of “Jungleland” and “Rosalita,” they steamroll ‘em with the classic set closer.
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