Archives for March 2017

Certain Songs #835: Kelly Willis – “Not Forgotten You”

March 31, 2017 by Jim Connelly

Album: What I Deserve
Year: 1998

On the short list of Prettiest Song Ever Recorded, Alt-Country Division, the circumstances by which “Not Forgotten You” came into my life now escape me.

Probably — as ever — I was looking for some fresh new female-voiced country music for Rox to hear, and the good reviews plus Gary Louris co-writes plus covers of Pauls Kelly and Westerberg, and figured we might as well take a flyer on What I Deserve.

Certain Songs #834: Keith Richards – “Take It So Hard”

March 30, 2017 by Jim Connelly

Album: Talk is Cheap
Year: 1988

It’s going to shock absolutely nobody that your gentle blogger is Stones over Beatles. And within the Stones, he is Keith over Mick. As it was in the beginning, is now, and shall ever be, world without end, amen.

It’s pretty simple really. Keith Richards, who has been absolutely one of my favorite musicians since just about forever, but especially in my teens and twenties after I read a bunch of true and apocryphal Stones books that referred to him as “Keef” and “The Human Riff,” came to represent to me a certain kind of outlaw cool combined with insane rock and roll instincts that someone as self-aware and tense as I’ve always been could never hope to come close to.

Certain Songs #833: Katrina and The Waves – “Walking on Sunshine”

March 29, 2017 by Jim Connelly

Album: Katrina and The Waves
Year: 1985

Look, I know that you’re sick of it. I’m sick of it. I get that.

But if you if can get past the fact that like “I Feel Good,” it’s become less of a song than a metaphor for happiness in films, TV shows and commercials, then let’s never forget that the major contributor to Kimberly Rew’s retirement fund is also one hell of a pop song.

And in fact, “Walking on Sunshine” is such an awesome pop song that it deserves you being sick of it.

Certain Songs #832: Katrina and The Waves – “Red Wine and Whisky”

March 28, 2017 by Jim Connelly

Album: Katrina and the Waves
Year: 1985

The first thing you need to realize is that the songwriter for Katrina and The Waves, Kimberly Rew, was in The Soft Boys.

It was his guitar and voice that matched Robyn Hitchcock’s on 1980’s Underwater Moonlight, still one of the greatest psychedelic guitar albums ever manufactured on this or any other world.

So he already had a lifetime pass before he even wrote any of his greatest songs.

When the Soft Boys broke up and Robyn Hitchcock went to follow his muse for 35 utterly delightful years (and counting!), Rew hooked back up with a drummer called Alex Cooper he’d played with prior to The Soft Boys, who had been playing in a cover band that included the powerhouse vocalist Katrina Leskanich.

Certain Songs #831: Kathleen Edwards – “One More Song The Radio Won’t Like”

March 27, 2017 by Jim Connelly

Album: Failer
Year: 2003

Lord, do I love Kathleen Edwards’ voice.

A singer-songwriter from Canada who has been putting out records since 2003, her voice is basically bottled-up melancholy, which adds a tinge of sadness to even the most upbeat lyrics, and yet never smothers her more downbeat lyrics with too much sadness.

Certain Songs #830: Kanye West – “POWER”

March 26, 2017 by Jim Connelly

Album: My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy
Year: 2010

Of course, it’s always been a thing that Kanye West isn’t that great of a singer or even that great of a rapper.

But that’s never bothered me, because he’s always owned his technical limitations, and on a production as large as “POWER” they serve to humanize his otherwise outsized music, and his otherwise outsized public persona.

In fact, it would actually make his music worse if he were better, because there would be nothing to bring him back down to earth and reveal him as not just an insecure, arrogant asshole, but an insecure arrogant asshole who lives to make this music.

Certain Songs #829: Kanye West – “School Spirit”

March 25, 2017 by Jim Connelly

Album: The College Dropout
Year: 2004

One of the most polarizing figures in the current musical landscape, it’s almost guaranteed that Kanye West will be remembered by future generations — long after whatever stupid-ass shit he said and did outside of the music that he produced (or, I guess, in his lyrics) — as one of the absolute indisputable musical geniuses of the early 21st century.

To me — and this will probably piss off a lot of the folks who “just don’t like” Kanye — the musical figure he most reminds me of is Jimmy Page.

Certain Songs #828: Kansas – “Carry On Wayward Son”

March 24, 2017 by Jim Connelly

Album: Leftoverture
Year: 1976

Did you know that Leftoverture was Kansas’ fourth album? On a major label? And if you did, can you name the three albums that preceded it? I mean, without looking it up on Wikipedia or Discogs? Of course you can’t.

I have no proof of this, of course, but I feel like the “not having a hit until the fourth or fifth (or later) album” was a particularly 1970s thing. Just off of the top of my head: REO Speedwagon, Foghat, KISS, AC/DC, Rush, Peter Frampton, Blue Oyster Cult, the list goes on and on.

Certain Songs #827: Kacey Musgraves – “Merry Go Round”

March 23, 2017 by Jim Connelly

Album: Same Trailer, Different Park
Year: 2013

Kacey Musgraves is one of the leading lights of what might be my favorite pop music trend of this decade, female country-adjacent singer-songwriters who write their own songs and plot their own course. Obviously Miranda Lambert, but also Brandy Clark, Sarah Shook, Nikki Lane, Margo Price, the list is way longer than you might thing.

In Kacey Musgraves case, she’s been able to balance what are progressive lyrical viewpoints while remaining within the Nashville machine enough to enjoy a huge amount success with both of her albums (and a well-regarded Christmas record).

Certain Songs #826: Joy Division – “Dead Souls”

March 22, 2017 by Jim Connelly

Album: Still
Year: 1980

Still was, of course, a posthumous mop-up operation that was one half odds and sods and one half live album. And as such, it was pretty much, both in terms of sound and style, aimed at completists, as opposed to the casual fan.

(Which raises the question of whether or not there are any casual fans of Joy Division, though I guess that the enduring popularity of “Love Will Tear Us Apart” probably means that there are.)