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Back again from out of country shenanigans, and let's start with an album YMU recommended to me, and I actually adore - Bruce Cockburn's 'Anything, Anytime, Anywhere' [YMU Link], which is subtitled 'Singles 1979-2002', according to Wikipedia.
Actually the Wikipedia entry is useful on Cockburn, who I suspect is slightly better known in North America than he is in England (where I was til '99, lest we forget), but it turns out he's a wonderfully understated Canadian singer-songwriter. I reckon he was dismissed as cheese by many at one point in the '80s, but a longer listen reveals extremely smart, literate power pop, at least imho.
The entry on him also notes: "In addition to a highly successful solo career, Cockburn's songs have been covered by artists as diverse as Barenaked Ladies ("Lovers in a Dangerous Time"), Jimmy Buffett ("Pacing the Cage", "Anything, Anytime, Anywhere", "Wondering Where the Lions Are" (in the movie "Hoot")), Lori Cullen ("Fall"), Anne Murray ("One Day I Walk", "Musical Friends"), Ani DiFranco ("Mama Just Wants to Barrelhouse All Night Long"), and the Jerry Garcia Band ("Waiting for a Miracle")." Fun!
You guys probably know turntablist Lucas 'Cut Chemist' MacFadden from his work with Jurassic 5, particularly the awesome 'Lesson 6: The Lecture' as well as a whole bunch of solo scratch DJ-ing with buddies like DJ Shadow and Z-Trip, as partly showcased in the documentary Scratch.
[Random fact stream - I managed to randomly turn up to the Future Primitive Sound Session in SF in 1999 pictured at the climax of Scratch, with Z-Trip and Cut Chemist cutting up Edvard Grieg's 'In The Hall Of The Mountain King' - which is also the theme tune to classic video game Manic Miner, which I just wrote an article for PC Gamer UK magazine about. Weird. No Kevin Bacon, though.]
Anyhow, Cut Chemist's first solo album has just been released, and it's been available on Yahoo! Music Unlimited [YMU link] in the last couple of weeks. It's not completely cohesive (nor perhaps should it be, being made of snippets of every record under the sun!), but tracks such as 'The Garden', which samples Astrid Gilberto, are pretty DJ Shadow-ish shades of gorgeous, and 'The Audience Is Listening Theme Tune' is a great conclusion. Therefore, we have that very rare thing - a home-listenable turntablist album (sorry, Mixmaster Mike, X-Ecutioners) - so please do so!
Firstly, thanks to Robert Burke of Yahoo! Radish for mentioning this blog over at the official Yahoo! Music Blog's 'This Week In Playlisting' weekly entry - it's very much appreciated, and I'll try to keep up regular entries here to justify the 'hype'.
While this isn't a custom playlist, the Grant-Lee Phillips album 'Nineteeneighties' [YMU link] is almost a compilation its own right, since it features the former Grant Lee Buffalo ringleader, who has apparently "become a reoccurring character on the WB's Gilmore Girls", according to his own site's news page, doing some marvellously downtempo, reflective covers of classic '80s songs.
As his site notes: "A tribute to the songwriters and artists who influenced his own music, nineteeneighties features Grant-Lee Phillips' stunning reworking of The Pixies' "Wave of Mutilation," The Psychedelic Furs' "Love My Way," REM's "So. Central Rain (Sorry)," and many more."
[Mind you, my wife, a major Morrissey fan, doesn't dig Phillips' closing, almost whispered version of The Smiths' 'Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me', and I agree that it's almost too glacial, but everything is forgiven, thanks to the beautiful cover of The Church's already gorgeous 'Under The Milky Way'. More, plz!]
Wandering around YMU randomly, managed to spot that Ugly Duckling's new album 'Bang For The Buck' [YMU link], put out via NY hiphop label Fat Beats, is now streamable - and it's another classic from the all-white, all-goofy Long Beach hiphop crew.
Ugly Duckling specialize in the polar opposite to thugged-out bling hiphop - in fact, when I saw them live in San Francisco a few years ago, they did a great version of 'A Little Samba' from the awesome 'Journey To Anywhere' album [YMU link], also available on YMU in an extended version, which aped the 'Cash Rules Everything Around Me' attitude of a lot of contemporary hiphop - also check 'Big Bank Take Little Bank' on 'Journey To Anywhere' - same concept, hilarious!
Of course, this means that UD aren't really mainstream, at least not in the U.S. - though they're actually reasonably popular in Europe and Australia, where the hiphop pop hooks go down quite well. But the new album seems like another great alternative hiphop release, and I, at least, highly recommend it.
