Quick Hits, Vol. 144 (Beck, Chris Stapleton, Old 97's, Father John Misty)

Beck - Colors.  I love Beck so very much.  A quick aside, which will be explored more later. While waiting for Fleet Foxes to start the other night, the guy sitting next to me started talking about how he had tickets to go see Wilco and they were his favorite band.  He then asked me what my favorite band was, and because it has been my automatic answer for decades, I said R.E.M.  He looked quizzical and asked if I had one who still existed.  And now I've been in an existential crisis ever since.  WHO IS IT?  One candidate is Beck, as I've loved just about everything he has done and would still love to see him play live again.  I'm going to do a whole post about this sooner or later, but for now know that I love me some Beck.  (also, Beck was just named to play both the Auckland City Limits and the Sydney City Limits festivals, AND HE BETTER COME BACK TO ACL NEXT YEAR OR I'M GONNA CRY).

In case you don't remember the last album from Beck, it was the surprise Grammy winner Morning Phase, which was an elegant, lovely, quiet, meditative album of really beautiful songs.  Very chill.  I liked it, maybe not as much as Sea Change from a few years before, but still very good music to relax to.  Well, this new album goes in a 180 degree direction from that sound, as it is all pop energy, hand claps, and danceable grooves.  The first few singles are some top notch dance pop stuff.  First, there was "Dreams," which goes hard on a guitar riff that explodes into a soaring dance party.

The second is called "Wow," and uses one of those weird slide whistle things (well, it probably used a keyboard or something, but it sounds like one of those slide whistles) and a downtempo beat, combined with an almost spot on match to the Nanananah's from Beck's "E-Pro" 8 bit remix from back in the day.  The third then takes it back up to the pop stratosphere with "Up All Night," starting again with guitar riffage and then a hand-clap-powered kick.

Roller skate jam, baby!  "Colors" adds in some pan flutes to the hand-clap dance party.  Also, I can imagine the crowd at the next Beck show, during the chorus of "I'm So Free," and I'm almost giddy about the thought of jumping and bumping and screaming along.  Giddy I tell you.  Give me all of this and more for all time.  I'll be listening to this album for a while.  JAM!

Chris Stapleton - From a Room: Vol. 1.  While not quite so much as Beck, I'm also a pretty deep and hard lover of the Chris Stapleton thing.  The guy can freaking wail, and keeps the flame of traditional country alive in a way that makes me still able to say that I like country music, despite all the absolute garbage that passes for country these days.  The lovely balladry of something like "Either Way," or the rocking shake of "Second One to Know," or the great covers like "Last Thing I Needed, First Thing this Morning," all are so good.  I'll give you the album opener, because it is the one that gets stuck in my head and won't leave.  Here is "Broken Halos," which has 14.9 million streams.

Tuneful, pretty, soulful, and well-written, just sounds like a classic.  I thought his last album was a classic as well.  If you are in to Kenny Chesney or something, then I get that you wouldn't enjoy, but so long as you enjoy country (or even country leaning rock) then you should enjoy this album too.  I dig it.

Old 97's - Graveyard Whistling.  Other than the odd grouping of songs in the middle that take Jesus to task for not being obviously around ("Jesus Loves You"), and then discuss God as a female ("Good with God"), this is a pretty straightforward Old 97's album.  Jangly alt-country rock with multiple tunes about drinkin' or being trouble or pretty girls.  I'm actually a little surprised at how few listens their older tunes have on Spotify.  Other than the engagement-ode (which is honestly perfect) "Question," only one tune from their catalog has more than a million streams.  Weird.  I guess these guys are only big in my circle of college friends or something.  Anyway, the top track from this album, per streaming, is that "Good With God" track, which gets an assist from Brandi Carlile.

451k streams, and another 134k views on YouTube.  Classic jangly rock sound there for this band.  I wonder if they are just trying to tweak the uptight religious community, or if the "God" in here is actually a woman and not the God?  You can tell Carlile is playing the "God" role there, but from the lyrics I still can't tell whether she is the God or woman-scorned-acting-as-God.   "You should be scared, I'm not so nice, many a man has paid the price, you're pretty thick so I'll tell you twice, I'm not so nice, I'm not so nice, I made you up and I'll break you down, I'll do it slow how does that sound, you're just a joke that's been going around."  I don't know the answer, I know that I enjoyed the album, but if pushed, I'd prefer listening to Hitchhike to Rhome or Wreck Your Life again.

Father John Misty - Pure Comedy.  I generally like this album, but it feels really long.  Each time I listen to it, I feel like I've been listening for 2 hours by the time the disc is over.  At 1:14, it is relatively long, but nothing ridiculous.  The best part of Misty are the lyrics - verbose take-downs and put-downs and funny observations about the garbage that we all live in every day.  The music stays pretty relaxed, piano balladry with a little bit of pep here and there, but very little excitement.  "Total Entertainment Forever" kicks off with a great couplet and then ends perfectly as well, with "Bedding Taylor Swift, every night in the Oculus Rift, after mister and missus finish dinner and the dishes." as the opener, and then the closing bit about "when the historians find us we'll be in our homes, plugged into our hubs, skin and bones, a frozen smile on every face, as the story's replayed, this must have been a wonderful place."

Holy shit that video is weird.  I love the cynical view of our current media consumption.  The other classic line that I love every time I hear it is from "Ballad of the Dying Man," where Misty sings: "Eventually the dying man takes his final breath, but first checks his news feed to see what he's got to miss, it occurs to him a little late in the game, we leave as clueless as we came..."  I think that is my favorite song on the album.  I generally like the album, but it is one of those where I honestly think reading the music, like poetry, would be more enjoyable to me than listening to the album.  I just get mired down in the slow, lovely, orchestral stuff like the 13 minute long "Leaving L.A.," which has great lyrics, but just takes forever and is like listening to classical music.  I think Misty is at his best when the music is snappy but the lyrics subversive.  If the music is a bummer, then I'm just less likely to want to go back to the music frequently.  I literally think I'll print out the lyrics of this album and read them...