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Metrobolist (aka The Man Who Sold The World) [2020 mix]
(David Bowie)
Changed at the last minute to The Man Who Sold The World, the original stereo master tapes were in fact originally labeled Metrobolist, with the title ultimately crossed out. The 2020 re-release of the album under its original moniker has been remixed by original producer Tony Visconti, with the exception of the track After All which Visconti considered perfect as is, and is featured in its 2015 remaster incarnation.
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Blackbirds
(Bettye LaVette)
Bettye LaVette took a long time to achieve the success she deserved (and one could reasonably argue she still deserves to be much more famous than she is), in large part because she's hard to pin down stylistically. She's a performer in the tradition of the great Southern soul singers of the '60s, she sings with the fearless emotional depth of a blues artist, and she's willing to linger over a song, investigating its musical and lyrical peaks and valleys, with the thoughtful curiosity of a jazz artist. LaVette clearly doesn't worry about genre, as she's far more concerned with her music than where it's filed, and 2020's Blackbirds is another great example of what she does and how well she does it. Like most of LaVette's albums since her mid-2000s rediscovery, Blackbirds is a themed effort, mostly made up of songs previously recorded by African-American female artists (with the exception of her transformative cover of the Beatles' "Blackbird"), and the set list suggests her smarts in choosing her material is on a par with her skills in front of the microphone. LaVette is one of the finest interpretive singers of her generation, with remarkable instincts about where to take a song, and Blackbirds is absolutely up to her high standards. Producer Steve Jordan (who also plays drums) has given her a band that's supportive without stepping on her performances, and she tackles the songs with an assurance that comes with experience. Anyone who tries to sing "Strange Fruit" is either brave or foolish, given that Billie Holiday's 1939 recording remains the gold standard for that song; LaVette is no fool, and there's an undertow of bitter defiance boiling beneath the surface that not only gives it a fresh accent but emphasizes how unfortunately timely the lyrics are in 2020. On Blackbirds, she also honors Ruth Brown, Nina Simone, and Etta Jones, among others, not by following the lead of the previous recordings of these tunes, but by taking what she's learned from other gifted artists and investing it into her own interpretations that lend the music new life and energy. If you believed there was nothing much left to be discovered in covering the Beatles, listen to the take of "Blackbird" that closes this LP and be amazed at how LaVette turns it into a deeply individual message of strength and survival. The R&B and Top 40 charts weren't quite ready for Bettye LaVette in the '60s and '70s and probably still aren't. However, now that she's earned her reputation as a great American vocalist, Blackbirds is proof that she's not resting on her reputation, and hearing her explore the architecture of a great song is a rare treat to be valued.
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Perfectly Imperfect At The Ryman
(Margo Price)
Live album by Margo Price, recorded during her three-date residency at the Ryman Auditorium in May 2018. The album was released to celebrate the second anniversary of the residency, and exclusively through Bandcamp to generate donations for the MusiCares COVID-19 Relief Fund. The album was prepared following the delay of Price's third album, That's How Rumors Get Started, and planned tour in promotion of that album due to the outbreak of the coronavirus.
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Black Pumas [deluxe edition]
Faintly psychedelic, wholeheartedly vintage-sounding Cali-Tex soul duo Black Pumas consist of multi-instrumentalist/producer Adrian Quesada and singer/guitarist Eric Burton. Quesada, an Austin music scene veteran with assorted projects on the boil and in the past -- he won a Grammy with the Latin funk orchestra Grupo Fantasma and was behind Look at My Soul: The Latin Shade of Texas Soul -- laid down the preliminary work in 2017 with some instrumentals. In need of a vocalist, he was put in touch with California transplant Burton, also a guitarist and songwriter. Burton's background in church, musical theater, and busking cuts through these ten studied originals, which are filled out with a supporting group of musicians covering the rhythm section, additional guitar and keyboards, plus horns, strings, and background vocals. The singer testifies with conviction, embodies roles ranging from troubled everyman to enamored lover -- with grit in varying grades -- and applies his experience in turning surprised heads within earshot. Quesada and Burton doubtlessly know and understand the source backward and forward. They're at their best when they diverge a little, like when they drag Willie Mitchell's Hi Records sound across the Texas landscape ("Black Moon Rising") or deliver stoned folk-soul on the level of Love and Rotary Connection ("Sweet Conversation").
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Starting Over
(Chris Stapleton)
As an album title, Starting Over can't help but carry connotations of an artistic rebirth, but three or four albums into his solo stardom, Chris Stapleton is in no position to rip it up and start again. Stapleton found his footing with 2015's Traveller and he's spent the years since digging deeper into his burnished groove, tying the binds between classic country, classic rock, and classic soul even tighter. A new beginning isn't in the cards for a singer/songwriter who has styled himself as an old-fashioned troubadour, an outlaw with a heart of gold singing sweet love songs as often as he kicks up dust. He's a traveler on a long road, not quite forging into undiscovered country as much as finding fresh routes through familiar terrain. Working once again with producer Dave Cobb, Stapleton underscores rootsy continuity not just with his own catalog, but with his idols. He takes the time to salute the pioneers who came before him by covering two Guy Clark songs here ("Worry B Gone," "Old Friends"), along with a deep John Fogerty solo cut that pairs quite nicely with the swampy choogle of the original "Devil Always Made Me Think Twice." The biggest nod to the past arrives through a couple of key members of Tom Petty's Heartbreakers joining the fold: Benmont Tench is on eight of the album's 14 songs, while Mike Campbell co-wrote two of the record's highlights, the funky vamp "Watch You Burn" and the rampaging "Arkansas." The former Heartbreakers are excellent foils for Stapleton and they also emphasize that he's a bit like Petty in how he revives sounds of the past for the present and in how he turns out reliably sturdy albums. Stapleton could use a bit of Petty's flair -- there's not a lot of humor here, nor are there any flirtations with modern sounds -- but his straight-ahead style nevertheless satisfies on Starting Over.
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BILLIE: The Original Soundtrack
The album is the companion 13-song soundtrack to the James Erskine-directed documentary on the breathtaking talent of Billie Holiday. It features her band, the Sonhouse All-Stars, performing her classic works, including I Only Have Eyes for You; God Bless the Child; Strange Fruit; and more. The film features newly unearthed interviews from those who knew Holiday best, Charles Mingus, Tony Bennett, Sylvia Syms, and Count Basie among them.
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Pluto x Baby Pluto
(Future & Lil Uzi Vert)
Collaborative studio album by Future and Lil Uzi Vert. The title signifies the combination of both artists' nicknames: Future is referred to as Pluto, while Lil Uzi Vert identifies as Baby Pluto, previously expressed through the song "Baby Pluto". It is the second project released by Future in 2020, following High Off Life. It is also the third project released by Lil Uzi Vert in the year, following Eternal Atake and its deluxe reissue, notably after a lack of music released by Uzi between 2018 and 2019.
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Return To Greendale
(Neil Young)
Greendale ranks as one of the more elaborate projects Neil Young ever conceived, a concept album inspired by Thornton Wilder's Our Town which was accompanied by a film telling the record's story -- the film was then used as a backdrop for a theatrical production featuring Young and Crazy Horse. Nearly 20 years after the album's 2003 release, Young revisited the project through the aptly titled Return to Greendale, a live effort capturing a September 4, 2003 concert held in Toronto just a few weeks after the August appearance of Greendale. Like the album proper, Return to Greendale has an elaborate accompaniment: Alongside the basic concert album there's a box set that contains a Blu-Ray of the full concert, along with a DVD with the documentary Inside Greendale (previously released in a 2004 expansion of the album), not to mention LP and CD incarnations of the concert. As a live album, Return to Greendale is fairly straightforward: Young & Crazy Horse run through the ten songs on Greendale, giving them a ragged, spirited reading. The performances inject some life into the material, but the songs remain something of an elliptical ramble that circle around their point instead of tackling it straight on. There's some ambling charm to Greendale, but Return to Greendale won't convert doubters. Instead, it'll play well to the album's fans, as this sounds like a leaner, muscular version of the studio set.
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