Irish singer and songwriter Lisa Hannigan first gained attention as a member of Damien Rice’s band, but she went off on her own in 2007 and released her first solo album SEA SAW in 2008. She is now one of the brightest lights of a exciting group of young Dublin-based musicians. PASSENGER is her second album, released in late September of 2011 (too late for the 2011 award), and although I was already familiar with Hannigan, Rick Berkemeier gets credit for strong advocacy on her behalf.
Hannigan’s buoyant personality lifts many of the songs of PASSENGER, making it easy for me to check off the “it has be happy” box (Criterion #2) without the kind of awkward rationalization of previous years. The album’s first single “Knots” is an exuberant, if somewhat inscrutable, piece, and the official video has Hannigan’s white dress and white ukulele gradually being sprayed and splattered with brightly colored paints as she sings. (She has repeated this polychromatic feat in a recent live concert.) Other joyful, danceable numbers include the title song, “Passenger” and “What’ll I Do.” The funniest song on the album is “Safe Travels (Don’t Die).
Don’t swallow bleach
Out on Sandymount beach,
I’m not sure I’d reach you in time, my boy.
Please don’t bungee jump
Or ignore a strange lump
And a gasoline pump’s not a toy.
Other notable songs include “O Sleep,” a duet with Ray LaMontagne, and my two favorites: the haunting “Paper House” and equally poignant “Little Bird.” There isn’t a bad song on the album. I’ve listened to it for hours without getting tired of it.
In June, at the Paradise Rock Club in Boston, I had a chance to see Hannigan, who was touring with Joe Henry and the English singer John Smith. It is a testament to Hannigan’s skill and the simplicity of her music that she sounds just as comfortable and precise in person as she does in her recordings. The three singers finished their set with “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down” in tribute to Levon Helm. By the way, the loudest applause of the evening came for a song by John Smith, whose music I recommend highly: http://johnsmithjohnsmith.com/
Here is the paint splashing video for "Knots":
This is a very nice live performance of "Paper House" with Gavin Glass on piano and John Smith playing guitar:
Finally, here is a clip of Lisa Hannigan singing a segment of "Video Games," a song written by Honorable Mention Lana Del Rey.
2012 ALBUM OF THE SUMMER HONORABLE MENTIONS
BORN TO DIE by LANA DEL REY
One of the traditional indicators of an Album of the Summer is that the songs stick with you. You find yourself singing them in the shower and in the produce section of the grocery store. Singing them even when you don’t want to be singing them. More than any other album this year, BORN TO DIE fits that bill for me. Lana Del Rey is Elizabeth Woolridge Grant’s stage name, and BORN TO DIE is her (their?) first album.
Del Rey comes to us from the Internet. Her career took off when she uploaded “Video Games” to her YouTube channel in June of 2011 and in October released the song as the first single from BORN TO DIE. The album itself did not appear until January of 2012. In the meantime, “Video Games” became an enormously successful single throughout Europe and the US. The YouTube video has been viewed 20 million times. (Not a record. The video of the title song, “Born to Die,” has been viewed 57 million times.)
Del Rey describes herself as a “gangsta Nancy Sinatra,” which seems a bit redundant, but the LDR persona is a rich bad girl who likes bad boys. In addition to Sinatra, there are shades of Madonna and Marilyn Monroe. The songs are nostalgic, cinematic, sardonic, sultry, and drug-and-alcohol-laced anthems set in New York City, The Hamptons, and Los Angeles. Del Rey’s music has also been described as “Americana,” and her album cover art evokes Grant Wood’s “American Gothic.” Some of the songs are upbeat (“Diet Mountain Dew”) and summery (“Summertime Sadness”), but the tone of the album is a little too evil to represent the spirit of an Album of the Summer. However, in my musical Venn diagram, the large circle labelled “Albums I Love” contains the smaller circle labeled “Albums of the Summer,” and I love BORN TO DIE. All the songs are good, but notable numbers include “National Anthem,” “Dark Paradise,” and “Radio.”
Del Rey/Grant is, in my opinion, a better songwriter than she is a singer, and as evidence of this, the Album of the Summer website contains a brief but quite beautiful clip of Lisa Hannigan singing “Video Dreams”— a nice blend of 2012 Album of the Summer winner and Honorable Mention. Nonetheless, Del Rey is a very creative vocal stylist. Her voice often seems to drift into babyish pouting and on “National Anthem” she affects a lisp that makes an effective contrast with the grandiosity of the song.
Thanks to James Spier for nominating BORN TO DIE.
Here is the official video for "National Anthem," which makes the Marilyn Monroe connection explicit.
"Blue Jeans" is one of my favorite songs from the album:
BREAK IT YOURSELF by ANDREW BIRD
As my Psychology 101 students know, Andrew Bird is one of my very favorites. BREAK IT YOURSELF is the second Honorable Mention for this singer, songwriter, guitarist, violinist, and whistler. His first HM was in 2009 for NOBLE BEAST. BREAK IT YOURSELF is easily happy enough to qualify as an Album of the Summer. Your body begins to sway to the beat of the very first song, “Desperation Breeds…,” and other danceable numbers including “Danse Caribe,” “Orpheo Looks Back,” and “Near Death Experience Experience,” with its refrain: And we'll dance like cancer survivors Like your prognosis was that you should've died. There are many more happy numbers here, including “Give It Away,” but the album title is drawn from the more pounding single “Eyeoneye,” and “Lusitania” is a beautiful, longing antiwar-themed duet with St. Vincent’s Annie Clark. The album is full of Bird’s varied instrumentation. He plucks and strums his violin and sometimes saws at it like a country fiddle. Of course, he is also fully capable of trilling the strings with great classical skill. In live concerts he lays down recorded loops and plays over them to great effect, and as usual, his lyrics are clever and artful. There are a few tracks here that I am not in love with—for example “Fatal Shore” is a bit too plodding and monotonous for my taste—but the great majority of the album is very satisfying.
Here is the official video for "Eyeoneye":
This is a very good amateur video of a live performance of both "Desperation Breeds.." and "Dance Caribe":
2012 ALBUM OF THE SUMMER LOCAL ARTIST AWARD
GUITARS, BASS, & DRUMS by THE REDUCERS
Because I am even more clueless about local bands than I am about music in general, this is a very sporadically given award, but this year there was an obvious choice. Once dubbed “America’s Best Unsigned Band,” The Reducers have been the pride of New London for over three decades, playing hard driving punk-inspired rock and roll. Like most people who live in the area, I knew who the Reducers were, but I never saw them play until Sailfest 2011, not long before the news of Steve Kaika’s illness emerged. Steve’s far too early passing brings a great artistic story to an end, but the music of the Reducers will remain with us for as long as we want to hear it. GUITARS, BASS, & DRUMS was the group’s last studio album and a kind of crowning achievement. As guitarist Hugh Birdsall put it, G, B, & D “sounds to me like what we wanted to sound like 30 years ago.” There are many great songs here, but for me “Don’t Ya Wanna” characterizes the joyful righteousness that is at the core of all good rock ’n roll.
Put me in a cab,
Drop me off downtown
Get me to a night spot
Put me in a crowd
---
‘Cuz there’s a band that’s playing somewhere,
And that’s the place I wanna be,
You can sit there if you want to
With your reality TV.
Don’t ya wanna,
Don’t ya wanna,
Don’t ya wanna rock?
Here is a clip of The Reducers as many will remember them playing "Don't Ya Wanna" at Sailfest in 2010:
HONORARY ALBUM OF SUMMERS PAST AWARD
MUSIC FROM BIG PINK by THE BAND
In 1974, when I was a graduate student in English literature and a teaching assistant at Southern Illinois University, I got into a bit of trouble when I canceled my freshman comp class to see Bob Dylan and The Band at the St. Louis Arena. Leon Russell made a surprise appearance during the final set. The show was definitely worth the nasty note from my supervisor a few days later: "Attending a jazz concert is hardly an acceptable reason for canceling class." I respectfully disagreed. This wasn't just any jazz band.
Levon Helm’s death this year reminded us all of the unique sound he created with Rick Danko, Garth Hudson, Richard Manuel, and Robbie Robertson. Released in 1968, MUSIC FROM BIG PINK is 34th on the Rolling Stone list of “500 Best Albums of All Time” and contains three songs written or co-written by Dylan. This was The Band’s debut effort, and it includes the classics “Tears of Rage,” “The Weight,” “Chest Fever,” “Wheel’s on Fire,” and “I Shall Be Released.” Listening to these songs again I am struck by the way Helm’s vocal style helped produce the special emotional appeal of the ballads this group did so well.
Here are The Band and The Staple Singers singing "The Weight" in Martin Scorsese's documentary "The Last Waltz":
And just for comparison here are Wilco, Nick Lowe, and Mavis Staples (35 years later) in a backstage rehearsal of the same song this past December. Both versions have a tendency to make the listener quite happy:
Finally, to wrap it all up, here are Glen Hansard (of Swell Season, Once, The Frames), Lisa Hannigan, and the aforementioned John Smith playing "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down" in an architectural artifacts shop/museum in Chicago.
Glen Hansard, Lisa Hannigan & John Smith cover The Band
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