No sound enhancement, whether it's SACD or 45rpm half-speed mastering will solve the problem of Patricia Barber's brand of torchy, “modern cool,” if you don't go for it in the first place. I dig it, your reaction may be different.
This record reminds me of the first Talking Heads album, '77 The music kicks in a stilted sort of way; the front man is more weird than powerful, but draws skillfully on the music for his punch, so that his oddball catchphrases (many of them about everyday things like cities, buildings, and doing a good job, lending a certain Richard Scarry earnestness) are driven into your head. He doesn't exactly chant, but it feels like he does. The album is actually more “good” than it is “fun to listen to”-I keep having to make myself put it on. But I'm often glad I did. But I don't listen for all that long.
When your wildly influential band dissolves after five albums and a decade of indie acclaim, separating yourself from your past is near impossible. If any band defined the old “critically adored, publicly dismissed” adage, it was Pavement. If you came of age in the sixties or seventies it’s probably hard to believe lines like “Lies and betrayals/ Fruit-covered nails/ Electricity or lust/ Won’t break the door” have had as much impact on a certain generation as anything by Dylan or The Beatles; but it’s true. Sure, it happened to be Generation X, but ask anyone who uses the words “indie”, “alternative”, or “college rock” more than once a month to name the best album of the nineties, and you’re bound to hear a whole lot of “Like, wow…that’d have to be, like, Slanted & Enchanted dude.”
It seems strange that someone who doesn’t even want to be part of this generation has become the voice of it. Jack White could care less about reality TV, George Bush, or the Boston Red Sox. Jack lives in a bygone era where Orson Welles and Rita Heyworth are the new stars, and Robert Johnson, Blind Willie McTell, and Dolly Parton represent the avant-garde.
American Decca's inept handling of The Who (and to a lesser degree the band's inability to produce frothy pop fare) prevented The Who from breaking in the Unites States until Tommy --and even then it was the pure force of the music and the nascent FM “underground radio” scene that spelled success, with little help from the label.
There's an outlaw tune, a tough-chick-struts-her-stuff tune, one about breakup and regret and other familiar subjects, and Kathleen Edwards and her band express it with edgy, pedal steel drenched country roots-rock that has probably already worn familiar pathways through the musical synapses of your mind, but on her sophomore effort, Kathleen Edwards proves she's got the goods to go for the long haul.
“The greatest LP ever recorded in England” gushed The Lama Review (http://www.lysergia.com/LamaReviews/lamaMain.htm) a website dedicated to psychedelic music. “…the best middle Eastern acid folk album ever recorded,” sayeth MOJO. “An oblique masterpiece…” according to Record Collector.
Abbey Lincoln:
In the upside down year of 1961 (not until 6009 will that happen again), the Kennedy era began, Washington D.C. residents finally got the right to vote in presidential elections thanks to the 23rd amendment to the constitution, and the civil rights movement was in its most activist period, with sit-ins staged throughout the south at public places and freedom riders traveling on buses to force the de-segregation of bus terminals as mandated by federal law.
Alec “Rice” Miller isn't the real Sonny Boy Williamson, but whatever, when the original “One Way Out” (later covered by The Allman Brothers) screams from your mono system (okay, your stereo system in mono) you'll know he's real whatever his name is.