I spent another week of my life actively avoiding listening to COWBOY CARTER. It was a good week. If someone sends me a review, I promise I will actively listen to it once, all the way through. Until then, here are a few other, shorter, less pretentious albums to consider.
Released: April 26, 2024
Follow-up to: Years to Burn, Week 20
These mini-reviews are framed as comparisons to specific albums that we've covered in Record Club. That means that Light Verse is compared to Years to Burn, Iron & Wine's collaborative album with Calexico. This, despite the fact that it can't be a one-to-one comparison without Calexico's input in Sam Beam's main project. Also despite the fact that a more natural comparison might be to I&W's last proper studio LP release, 2017's Beast Epic, or maybe even what is probably considered his critical peak, The Shepherd's Dog.
Compared to Beast Epic, my favorite Iron & Wine album, there is a lot more production on Light Verse. More flourishes, like strings and other non-traditional instruments. I like it, but I think that when he returns to the stripped-back sounds on certain songs, it then feels lacking. Maybe you can't make these observations when compared with Years to Burn, though, since Calexico provided a unique backdrop to Beam's classic lyrical poetry. They don't sound the same, but it's the same idea. I can hear the ghost of "The Bitter Suite" in the epic "Tears That Don't Matter," for instance.
I will say that I'm not a huge fan of the Fiona Apple stuntcasting in "All in Good Time." Sam Beam and Fiona Apple are two incredible artists, and both kill it vocally here. But the song is lacking a little bit, especially the chorus, which feels generic. I get why it's here—I mean, I've heard this song so many goddamn times on XPN, so Iron & Wine definitely knows its audience. I'm just saying that I could take it or leave it in the context of the album.
That's the overall sentiment I get from the entirety of Light Verse as a whole—it's pretty good, and does well what it sets out to do, but it doesn't make a permanent mark. I don't find many of these songs sticking around in my brain like previous Iron & Wine songs have. Yes, including the Calexico team-up, though I suppose that might say more about Record Club than Years to Burn.
GRADE: 3 pukes out of 5 (+0.5 original review)
Released: April 5, 2024
Follow-up to: Dropout Boogie, Week 176
In my review for Dropout Boogie, I was gracious in Black Keys' pursuit of commercial success over artistic integrity. This might be generic bullshit, but, ya know, who among us wouldn't drop some half-assed bullshit if it meant a nice fat paycheck regardless? I'm not saying that this makes the Black Keys a good band, because it doesn't. I'm simply painting Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney as human beings who are getting paid while they still can, for as many years as they can after their big hit (which came after some sincerely interesting art).
In the intervening three years, this band has tested my graciousness, and I believe that I, along with the rest of the world (or at least the people who give a shit about music outside of the crass algorithms of streaming services), have reached the tipping point. They played some really gross cryptocurrency event that was pretty indefensible. My girl Yola heavily implied that Dan Auerbach was a fucking asshole. And then there was the hubris of a band like Black Keys attempting to plan a world tour in major stadiums and getting embarrassed by not selling any tickets, and then, crucially, refusing to own up to the shrinking size of their own popularity. Why be gracious toward two doofuses who clearly lack humility?
None of this has anything to do with Ohio Players, except for the fact that it all provides a starkly different backdrop for what amounts to pretty much the same fucking level of music quality as the last album. Listening to the mid-tier Dropout Boogie was pleasant because I didn't really have any axes to grind. Listening to the mid-tier Ohio Players is a bit tough because I am generally annoyed by the Black Keys these days, and have legitimate reason to be.
I won't claim that Ohio Players plays exactly like Dropout Boogie. The RC album was straight-up garage rock (generically so, but still). Ohio Players has some elements that the namesake band might find in common—'70s disco-adjacent movin' and groovin'. It also has some AM rock radio sounds, attempts at being Cheap Trick et al. And then there are a few disparate features that don't work at all. Ohio Players has not one, but two extraneous hip hop features. Not that the rapping itself is bad, but its presence on a Black Keys album feels embarrassing for this band. Didn't Weezer try shit like this before? And how do we all feel about Weezer these days?
Beck's presence makes more sense. That dude made a career out of being a rock music chameleon, bringing together sounds and genres that you wouldn't think make sense. Listening to Ohio Players, I get the sense that the Black Keys envision such a path for themselves too. It's a shame that Ohio Players is so mediocre because of those attempts, and even more of a shame (but less sympathetically so) that they need to hawk crypto scams to get here.
GRADE: 2.5 pukes out of 5 (no change from original review)
NEXT TIME: Alright, I'll press the thumb on the big red button and force at least one person, if not two, to write a COWBOY CARTER review. And then let's also check out Rain on the Road by Mary Lattimore and Walt McClements.
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