Time for another roundup of the music I’m listening to lately.
Although I enjoy Ringo Starr’s songs with the Beatles and back in the ’70s I owned a single of Photograph, I’ve never exactly kept tabs on his solo career. But his latest record, Look Up, came to my attention because of T-Bone Burnett’s involvement and I could not be happier about that. This is an absolutely wonderful record. There’s nothing especially flashy about it, and even the guest artists are mostly understated and largely stick to the background. But the whole is so much greater than the sum of its parts. It’s a real winner and I can’t get enough of it.
The new Horsegirl album, Phonetics On And On, is also a standout. I liked their debut record (Versions Of Modern Performance) quite a lot, but Phonetics is a big leap forward. The writing is more mature and the musical arrangements are a lot roomier. Echoes of Velvet Underground, The Feelies, and other bands of that ilk. There’s certainly no sophomore slump going on here.
I’ve just recently come across Chuck Prophet’s release from last October, Wake The Dead, and it’s fantastic. Collaborating with ¿Qiensave? as his band, Prophet simultaneously hits us with a great new batch of songs and a great new sound. Following on the heels of his battle with lymphoma, he clearly had a lot to say and an eagerness to say it.
Another 2024 release that I missed until recently is Country, by Medium Build. I caught a song on SiriusXM while I was on my morning commute and snapped a photo of the display so I’d remember to look him up. When I dialed up the album that evening I was amazed to have never heard of this guy before. His writing is right up my alley, balancing deceptively simple lyrics with raw melancholy. Commenting on the human condition writ large by focusing intensely on the deeply personal. I really need to explore his back catalog.
And finally, another SiriusXM find: Some time around Christmas I heard a song called Clementine by Sarah Jaffe (and again, snapped a photo). Thanks to the holiday hubbub, quite some time went by before I remembered to check it out. The song comes from Jaffe’s album Suburban Nature, released all the way back in 2012. Man, what a record! I love every song on it. I love the instrumentation, the arrangements, the lyrics. There are a handful of records that I think are perfect — Willie Nelson’s Red-Headed Stranger; Fountains Of Wayne’s self-titled first album; Gillian Welch’s Revival, to name a few. Only time will tell, but for now I think Suburban Nature very well may be another one.
So there you have it. I’m almost literally rotating these five records over and over at this point. Give ‘em a try and see what you think.
Get some music in your ears, everybody!