Fiona Apple - The Idler Wheel Is Wiser Than the Driver of the Screw and Whipping Cords Will Serve You More Than Ropes Will Ever Do (2012)

Muchos son los artistas de los noventas que están teniendo sus retornos este año, R. Kelly, D'Angelo, Neneh Cherry, Garbage, No Doubt, Smashing Pumpkins, pero de todos quien regresa con mayor vitalidad es Fiona Apple. Ya los fanáticos de Fiona están acostumbrados a los largos períodos creativos que la artista se toma de un disco a otro. Además polémica generada por Extraordinary Machine con el movimiento Free Fiona demostró lo fuerte que puede llegar a ser la gente en la artista y la industria. Fiona es ahora una artista que se puede dar el lujo de esperar 7 años para sacar un disco y no ser una artista nostálgica pues tanto los que la conocimos en los noventas como las generaciones que la desconocen se interesan por ver de qué va esta artista.

7 años después de Extraordinary Machine Fiona retoma lo básico, The Idler Wheel Is Wiser Than the Driver of the Screw and Whipping Cords Will Serve You More Than Ropes Will Ever Do tiene todos los elementos esperados por un disco de Fiona, pero también tiene una actitud desenfadada de una Fiona que no está apurada por hacer un producto que sorprenda a todos y que sea un fenómeno comercial. El disco da espacios calmados que se parece los discos anteriores pero que experimenta nuevas fronteras.

"Periphery", por ejemplo, cuenta con el clásico contenido lírico y percusión acostumbrada a un disco de Fiona pero juega con sonidos de palas contra tierra y piedras, sonando además como pasos de marcha militar. Desde el punto de vista sonoro Fiona experimenta con aplausos, objetos y la voz alcanza nuevos tonos, como en el single "Every Single Night" donde la voz brinca por encima de lo calmado de la música y semeja cantos de guerra tribales.

Igual las mejores canciones son las que muestran que la composición de Fiona sigue intacta, siempre refiriéndose a amores fallidos, fracasos emocionales y una que otra simplemente romántica; respetando además sus influencias de blues, jazz y rock. "Werewolf" cuenta la historia de una relación en donde ella contribuía a que el mounstro saliera, ya no es la victimaria de "Fast As You Can" sino se ha convertido en víctima de un monstruo al que ella misma contribuía a sacar.

"Hot Knife" es un ejemplo de lo contrario, una Fiona que desea una relación con un hombre e insiste de forma casi obsesiva. La música en esta canción también es bastante aventurera, sólo percusión y voz haciendo juego de voces al estilo showgirls de bandas de oro al estilo Chordettes o Andrew Sisters pero sin sonar antigua o nostálgica.

El genio de Fiona no necesita de un disco cada dos años para mantenerse vigente, éste es uno de los discos con mayor vitalidad del año.

Tracklist:


1. Every Single Night
2. Daredevil
3. Valentine
4. Jonathan
5. Left Alone
6. Werewolf
7. Periphery
8. Regret
9. Anything We Want
10. Hot Knife

Rate 9,6/10

#FlashBackSunday #Oscars2011 Scarlett Johansson - Anywhere I Lay My Head (2008)

Tonight is Oscar night, so I decided to post actors who have music projects and also acted on a movie nominated on anything this year, being Scarlett Johansson one of these actors. In 2008 Scarlett made a record called “Anywhere I Lay My Head”, containing Tom Waits cover songs, it was amazing to listen how a beauty of the proportions and fame of Scarlett didn’t turn to music to become even more famous, doing a crossover with blond bimbo quality like Mandy Moore.

The album is full of references of the tom waits sound but in moments she makes them darker and add instrumentation making them a little bit more epic sounding than the original songs, also the sentiment she uses when singing shock a lot of people, singing her songs almost like she didn’t care how they were sounding, just needed them to come out; it was that feeling of unawareness of the voice just putting the emphasis in the sentiment.

Another beautiful side of this LP was the echo and Shoegaze that she created in every track; it was really a smart way to not wanting to be better than Tom Waits, but to update the songs and the sounds with a smart approach to some other music genre, something that a cover is all about. This was a smart album and is not a milestone in the history of music but adds to Scarlett’s mystery and charm as an Icon, no mater if is for the fashion, indie or movie industry.

She explored the blues and the jazz and mixed it with Shoegaze and synths getting close to Dream Pop in some songs, she later got out the album she made with Pete Yorn, but this was her first solo music project, might not be a successful one, but it was a good one.

For 2011 she acted on Iron Man 2, big blockbuster that landed nominations of Visual Effects, today I’m not celebrating her as an actress but taking the opportunity to talk about her music. Hope you like it.

Tracklist:

1. Fawn
2. Town with no cheer
3. Falling down
4. Anywhere I lay my head
5. Fannin' street
6. Song for Jo
7. Green grass
8. I wish I was in New Orleans
9. I don't want to grow up
10. No one knows I'm gone
11. Who are you?

Rate: 7.6/10

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#FlashBackSunday Tom Waits - Alice / Blood Money (2002)

Tom Waits has a very interesting story and persona surrounding him; in love with a woman with a successful marriage of more than a decade, artistic personality, talent, and a persona that can be both, enchanting and deeply mysterious. In concerns of his music career, it has had commercial ups and downs, but always a vision, always a sound, always a direction, always a commitment that only true artists have. Not to count points that he has one of the most expressive voices out there. He recently entered to the Hall of Fame, so I don’t have to spend a lot of words talking about him, for he is a true living legend, but I decided to do my tribute talking a little bit about him.

The power of his expression comes from he’s existential search of how to portray his feelings, since early on he had poetic and acting sensibility, read and was involved in the beat movement and had a passion for Jazz, blues and naked emotions, so it was only a matter of time for him to explore these sounds to express himself. It starts with a waits sounding like someone else and finding his true self along the way, and that’s the amazing thing of listening to his records, you can actually know this journey of self discovery without knowing anything about his life, in time he became a success as a Broadway and off Broadway actor, published author, monologue writer, and a true artistic reference of the music history of US of A, but with that also a great inspiration of global recognition in being someone with a unique sound in music.

But lets talk about 2002, he did something very bold and fantastic, he had material to make a new record, but he saw that he had two different visions, a romantic and fatal melancholy side on one hand, and an ironic, strong minded and political side on the other, and before putting out a set of songs that had nothing to do with one another he decided to take one at a time, so he published two albums, “Alice” and “Blood Money”, both with songs that have find a cult following and was the introduction of Tom Waits talent to a younger generation. Don’t forget even Scarlett Johansson’s first LP that was a cover ode to Tom Waits, some covers of this LP’s.

The fist one in alphabetical order, “Alice” is a heartbreaker that has a lot of sentiment, talks about love, suicide, death, and the adventures of "Alice in Wonderland" by Lewis Caroll, music like has just little polka characteristic sounds of Waits, you find the his vulnerable side, the soft side, the side that you can fall in love with, the waits of the whisky bar, the late night Waits with the original mystery edge in songs like Lost In Harbor or Watch her as she Disappears, and the killer (and I mean Killer) theme song Alice, a song so good that I don’t see anyone on earth not liking it somewhere along the way, one of those songs that in life you’ll get to like at some point.

Blood Money on the other hand has a different nature, more animalistic, more messy, dark in a more playful kind or way, also more political messages since the open track “Misery Is the River Of The World”, a stronger voice, from the whisper of Alice that speaks to your ears to the Waits that screams to your chest that gives vertigo and frightens you, don’t forget fantastic songs also in this LP like “God’s Away On Business”, “Everything Goes To Hell” and the softer side that remember the early years with a higher tone like “A Good Man Is Hard To Find”, every song hidden behind drunk trumpets and smell of cigars and alcohol.

These are two really great albums of the past decade that introduces one of the great ones of history of music (for me and for a lot of people), I’m sure there will be some other tom waits flashback in the future.

Alice Tracklist:

1. Alice
2. Everything You Can Think
3. Flowers Grave
4. No One Knows I'm Gone
5. Poor Edward
6. Table Top Joe
8. Lost In The Harbor
9. We're All Mad Here
10. Watch Her Disappear
11. Reeperbahn
12. I'm Still Here
13. Fish & Bird
14. Barcarolle
15. Fawn

Rate: 10/10

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Blood Money Tracklist:

1. Misery Is the River of the World
2. Everything Goes to Hell
3. Coney Island Baby
4. All the World Is Green
5. God's Away on Business
6. Another Man's Vine
7. Knife Chase [Instrumental]
8. Lullaby
9. Starving In The Belly Of A Whale
10. The Part You Throw Away
11. Woe
12. Calliope
13. A Good Man Is Hard to Find

Rate 10/10

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