Music Geekery

BOB DYLAN: TOGETHER THROUGH LIFE

2009-04-29T16:19:00.000-07:00

If you chart time by Bob Dylan albums, it looks something like this -- a deep, smoldering hole from 1978 to 1988 (okay, we’ll give you Infidels, but that’s it), followed by a slow-but-steady ascent that began with ’89’s Daniel Lanois-produced Oh Mercy, ran through two trad-folk/blues releases, caught fire with Time Out of Mind and peaked with 2001’s Love and Theft. Unfortunately, it seems like things have been heading on a gradual slope back down since then. Modern Times felt like a Time Out of Mind sequel without the spark, and now Together Through Life takes that process one step further.

The good news is that Bob Dylan, working under his “Jack Frost” alias, remains the best producer he’s ever had. Working with his longtime road band, bolstered by Tom Petty’s axeman Mike Campbell and Los Lobos’ David Hidalgo, Dylan works up greasy, grinding grooves that tip their hat to the ‘50s Chess discography. At one point, Dylan even offers an odd homage to Willie Dixon’s “I Just Want to Make Love To You,” rewriting it as “My Wife’s Home Town” (and giving Dixon composer credit). The trouble is, however good a blues record Together may be, it’s also a Dylan album, and people rightly expect more from him in the lyrical department than they do from, say, Keb’ Mo’. When Dylan fails to improve on Dixon’s lyrics, it’s indicative of a problem that runs throughout the album. Even in a historic pairing with Grateful Dead lyricist Robert Hunter, who shares writing credit with Dylan on nine out of 10 tunes here, there are very few remarkable (or even interesting) lyrical moments. In the end, this is a Dylan album you listen to mostly for the music, so if that’s your idea of time well spent, dig in. Otherwise, pray that Bob lives long enough for that aforementioned slope to reverse itself yet again.

U2 TOUR HOAX

2009-01-09T14:59:00.000-08:00

U2 is looking out for you. The band has posted a statement on its website warning against "tickets" being sold for a nonexistent tour. Bogus ticket offers have apparently been making the rounds online, purportedly for a U2 summer tour that was never on the band's agenda. "Please don't get stung by buying tickets for a show that doesn't exist," says the band, adding the assurance that any legitimate tours will be announced on the site "as soon as details are confirmed.

So, now that the band has stepped up and put the lie to this scam, surely we can expect it'll just be a matter of time before they put those other scurrilous rumors to rest, the ones about writing songs for a Spider-Man stage musical, right? Um...right, Bono? Edge? Guys?

NEW KAISER CHIEFS VIDEO

2008-09-08T23:34:00.000-07:00

It's a party at Animal Collective's house! No, it's a musical based on that episode of the Twilight Zone where the dying rich guy forces a masquerade on his family. Okay, it's just the new video from Kaiser Chiefs, wherein a bunch of folks in funny wildlife masks dance around and make like West Side Story: The Barnyard Years. "Never Miss A Beat" is the single from the band's forthcoming album, Off With Their Heads, due out on October 13, and the song's sense of visceral fun is effectively translated to the kooky antics of the aforementioned characters (though the Chiefs remain conveniently unmasked throughout). For a band that started out so promising and got too big for its britches on its outsized second album, its encouraging to hear them getting back to the proper, punchy, tight-as-a-drum approach in the hands of superproducer Mark Ronson.

NEW ORDER REDUX

2008-09-04T14:17:00.000-07:00

Well it's about freakin' time. In the wake of deluxe-reissue treatement for the '80s catalogs of everyone from Depeche Mode to Haysi Fantayzee (okay, we were just kidding about the second one, but you never know...) New Order is going the expanded-edition route for their classic, enormously influential '80s output. Movement, Power, Corruption & Lies, Low-Life, Brotherhood, and Technique are all set to greet the 21st century on September 28, complete with bonus discs of alternate versions, b-sides, and other esoterica, and the accompanying booklets will include interviews with all the band members. Here's hoping that A) revisionism will be on the side of justice this time, and all those who gave the woefully underrated Movement short shrift until now will soon be eating their words, and B) the same process will not occur 20 years hence with the deluxe reissue of 2001's Get Ready.

GUNS N' ROSES LEAKER BUSTED

2008-08-28T08:03:00.000-07:00

Thank God the Feds are finally doing something in the public interest. F.B.I. agents arrested Kevin "Skwerll" Cogill yesterday for leaking tracks from the long-awaited Guns N' Roses album Chinese Democracy. Apparently, the dutiful Feds had already gotten up in Gogill's grill in June after he initially posted nine tracks from the album online, at which point he admitted to his treasonous act and took down the offending material. So it's unclear why such an overzealous action was taken at this time, but Cogill wound up in court, where his bail was subsequently set at $5,000.00

So remember, folks, if you see something, say something. Make sure you've got the F.B.I. on speed-dial in case you detect the goat-like whine of Axl Rose braying an unfamiliar song, and don't hesitate to alert the authorities. By banding together as one, we can all help to prevent the arrival of Chinese Democracy. Power to the people.

LAND OF THE LOSTTUNES

2008-07-31T17:28:00.000-07:00

In a move that we can only hope will inspire every other major label (not to mention the indies) to do something similar, Universal UK has gone spelunking into the sonic caverns of the past with a digital pick and shovel. The company has launched www.losttunes.com , a download store that spotlights the most esoteric areas of their back catalog, including some selections that are available exclusively on LostTunes. The amount of albums on offer is still fairly small at the moment, but they'll undoubtedly expand as they go along. And they do go impressively deep; you can stay one jump ahead of the psych-folk archivists with Sunforest and Mike Absolom, impress your post-punk-geek pals with Dalek I, or get your blue-eyed soul fix with Dusty Springfield's complete BBC sessions. Now all they need is a virtual snob behind the counter to berate you for not having all this stuff already.

THE WHO TO HIT ROCK BAND

2008-07-02T12:00:00.000-07:00

OK, all you classic-rock guitarists manque, your moment is nigh. A batch of Who songs are set to be made available for Rock Band on July 15. "Oh, boy," we hear you shout, "now I can get my game on with 'Won't Get Fooled Again,' and 'Pinball Wizard!'" Actually not. "'Magic Bus' and 'The Kids Are Alright?'" Nope, sorry. "'Substitute' and 'Can't Explain?'" Uh uh. "Freakin' 'Squeeze Box?'" No, let's just put the facts on the table right now.

Admittedly, the dozen Who tracks set for RB do include several bona fide classics ("Baba O'Reilly," "Behind Blue Eyes," "My Generation," "Who Are You," the live version of "Summertime Blues"). But not only are there many key songs conspicuous in their absence, there are some conspicuous by their presence. "Real Good Looking Boy?" "Sea & Sand?" "Leaving Here?" Is this curious state of affairs the result of licensing issues? Aesthetic considerations? Sheer pique? We're imagining a meeting where Daltrey and Townshend told Rock Band "You can't have these, but if you take those, we'll give you this." Let the games begin!

B-52's ADDED TO POLICE FAREWELL

2008-06-09T19:37:00.000-07:00

August 7 will be an unusually good day for those who like to party like it's 1979. The newly reactivated/never officially broken-up (so don't call it a comeback) B-52's have just announced that their tour for their new Astralwerks release, Funplex, will include an opening slot for the Police on the final date of the latter's (go ahead and call it a) reunion tour. Sting and company say that the Madison Square Garden appearance will be the last Police show ever, so don't be surprised if there are some teary-eyed fans letting out anomalous wails of despair during "Love Shack." Tickets go on sale June 14 and will also be available as a high-end premium as part of a PBS pledge drive--after earning untold squillions on their reunion, the Police are going out on an altruistic note by making this show a PBS benefit.

Sneak Preview: Mudcrutch

2008-04-22T13:58:00.001-07:00

You've probably heard by now that Tom Petty has reunited with Mudcrutch, his pre-Heartbreakers band from his Gainesville, FL days, for an album and short tour. Considering that Mudcrutch also contained two other Heartbreakers, guitarist Mike Campbell and keyboardist Benmont Tench, it's admittedly not that big a stretch, and there's nothing on the self-titled Mudcrutch debut album, released next week on April 29th (a long time coming for a band that started in the early '70s!) that would prove too off-putting for Petty fans, but there's definitely a difference.

In keeping with the original Mudcrutch spirit (look around the web and you can find some mid-'70s live bootlegs), there's an old-school country-rock feel running through the album. Check the Byrds cover tune "Lover of the Bayou" and the Mudcrutch version of country standard "Shady Grove" for starters, not to mention the easygoing twang of a number of original tunes here. The more straightforward rockers, like "Scare Easy" and "The Wrong Thing To Do" wouldn't sound out of place on any other Petty album, but they'd likely be standouts if they popped up on one of his more recent releases. For longtime Petty fans, the most appealing aspect of the Mudcrutch project will be the fact that he hasn't sounded this loose and inspired since he made the two biggest aesthetic errors of his career: letting drummer Stan Lynch go and hiring Jeff Lynne to (over)produce him. Be of good cheer, Pettyites, this can only augur well.

PUNK IS DEAD (AT LAST)

2008-04-11T21:00:00.000-07:00

OK, so fashion muckety-muck John Varvatos is turning the old CBGB spot into a clothing boutique, and every Johnny Thunders wannabe who ever staggered down St. Mark's Place with a crow's-nest haircut and an overdeveloped trash aesthetic, or just wishes they did, is emitting a Marlboro-choked cry of "foul."

Who really gives a good goddamn? First of all, the joint hasn't been even remotely culturally relevant for at least 20 years, even by the most generous estimation. And what would have been a more fitting monument, some stagnant, fossil factory of a "punk museum" that deadens and de-claws everything that was ever vital about the club's punk history to begin with? Cleveland is bad enough, do people really want that sort of thing on the Bowery too? Maybe they do, considering the theme-park feel that's overtaken much of the East Village anyhow.

Or maybe they'd rather have a bank on that spot instead, which Varvatos claims was one of the building's possible futures before he came along? Another Starbucks perhaps? How about a sports/karaoke bar where overgrown fratboys (and girls) can bellow out tuneless renditions of "I Wanna Be Sedated" and "Psycho Killer" with as much naif charm as the originals?

Most importantly, let's take a quick, objective look at one of the most wearying cultural perspectives of the last three decades. If you could put an ear to the air and hear it in the wind, it would sound something like this: "PUNKPUNKPUNKPUNKPUNKPUNKPUNKPUNKPUNKPUNKPUNKPUNKPUNKPUNKPUNKPUNK"

Alright, already! Sure, punk was a brilliant sonic/conceptual tempest that broke down a host of old conceptions and cleared a path for countless new ideas. No argument there. Unfortunately, it's also been a blunt object with which every intellectually lazy, anti-art, anti-education, anti-sophistication, smart-is-bad, moronic-is-better, the-only-cool-rock-is-caveman-rock douchebag with a Ramones tattoo and semi-ironic Kiss t-shirt has striven to bash to pieces anything that smacks of dreaded complexity. If it's rooted in something other than three-chord ramalama, they maintain, say, for instance, bebop, reggae, bluegrass, classical, avant-garde, blues, gospel, or international styles, it has no hope of ever achieving true coolness. Unless, of course it filters those roots through said ramalama.

Fortunately, the recent rash of progress-friendly bands--the aspirational likes of Yeasayer, Fleet Foxes, Make A Rising, and the like, offers hope that relief from this monomaniacally limited worldview is on the wing. Nevertheless:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. We know, we know, we know. Punk, punk, punk. Give it a rest, and go buy a Thelonious Monk record or something. Right now.

DIGGING LAZARUS (BUT ONLY A BIT)

2008-03-09T21:06:00.000-07:00

As a novelist/poet, former post-punk enfant terrible, and ultimately, piano-based troubadour, Nick Cave constantly juggles three sets of sensibilities at once when making music. The degree to which he hits the mark each time depends on how successfully he balances them all. His finest moments (Tender Prey, Henry's Dream, Murder Ballads) incorporate rich, deliciously knotty, Dickens-in-the-gutter prose, visceral bursts of electric mayhem, and the melodic knack of a songwriter who has absorbed everything from Burt Bacharach to Lee Hazlewood. It's a tough trick to pull off, which explains why, despite many moments of brilliance, his output has been inconsistent over the last decade or so.

Cave achieves that elusive balance roughly 30% of the time on his latest opus, Dig!!! Lazarus Dig!!! When he made it, he was coming off one of his least substantive releases: his Grinderman side project with a few of his Bad Seeds buddies. All brawn and no brains, it reeked of a mid-life crisis case trying to prove he could still rock by making up juvenile lyrics on the spot to accompany sub-MC5 garage-rock vamps. Unfortunately, Cave brings too much of that “hey kids, let's kick out the jams” approach to bear on Lazarus. With the head Seed delivering what often at least sound like off-the-cuff, vaguely poetic lyrical shards atop the most basic and repetitive of riffs, many of the tunes come off like bad Doors outtakes (admittedly, some of of his best tunes have sounded like good Doors outtakes).

You can never count the old coffin-dodger out completely, though, and when he connects he makes a major impact. The title track's modernized biblical tale, the self-mocking literary diatribe “We Call Upon The Author,” and the eight-minute Velvet Underground-esque closer, “More News From Nowhere,” provide some of the only moments where it seems Cave took longer than the time between two Gitanes on mid-session cigarette break to write the lyrics, and he delivers them with urgent ferocity, letting the cumulative effect of his wordy flights of fancy piledrive their way into the listener's brain. Those luminescent spots on an otherwise lackluster album are effective reminders that Cave's muse may go into brief periods of hiding (as it seems to have done on too many of these songs) but it never completely disappears.

IT'S GOOD TO BE THE KING

2008-03-06T22:38:00.000-08:00

2008 is shaping up as a fine (and strange) time to be Leonard Cohen. Most obviously, he's about to be inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. We'll be taking bets as to whether or not the notorious roue makes a pass at fellow inductee Madonna before the night is over (Hey, he used to date the 25-years-his-junior Rebecca DeMornay...). He also wound up, at least tangentially, in the winner's circle at the Grammys this year, as one of the vocalists on Herbie Hancock's Album of the Year-winning Joni Mitchell tribute River: The Joni Letters, and that's the first time in his 40-plus-year recording career he's come within spitting distance of that particular distinction. Hell, he's even getting major props on American Idol! Contestant Jason Castro snared enough ears with his version of (Jeff Buckley's version of) the Cohen classic "Hallelujah" that the instantly-made-available download of the performance shot to the top of the iTunes charts the next day. Amid all this attention, the 73-year-old songpoet himself is getting set to embark on his first tour in eons this spring, and is said to have a new album in the can for release later this year.

As if all this wasn't enough--what's the proof that we went to the wrong night of Jonathan Richman's two-night stint at the Music Hall of Williamsburg this week? How about the fact that we missed Richman's version of "Here It Is," from Cohen's 2001 album 10 New Songs? Damn the cruel fates that kept us from hearing everyone's favorite man-child, author of "Abominable Snowman in the Market" and "Chewing Gum Wrapper," merrily crooning "here is your cart, your cardboard and piss," and "here is your sickness, your bed and your pan" from the ol' Gloomy Gus's songbook. Not only that, it turns out the tune will be on Richman's new album, out on Vapor Records next month. With such an unusual amount of attention on Cohen's plate lately, can a Hannah Montana guest shot be far behind? As previously noted, he does have a way with younger women...

MIA'S GEA

2008-02-25T22:26:00.000-08:00

Like most people, we first caught wind of Mia Doi Todd via her 2002 album The Golden State, which found the quirky art-folk songstress inexplicably sheltered (albeit only momentarily) under the corporate arm of Sony/Columbia and produced (quite well, actually) by Mitchell Froom. Todd's strikingly clear, vibratoless singing, unconventional song structures, and chamber-folk sound subsequently returned to the indie world from whence they came, where her decidedly non-mainstream sensibility seems ultimately more at home. She's done some great work since then, and her latest, Gea, is possibly her most organic, relaxed-sounding album to date. We just interviewed Todd for a fun piece that will be running in the next issue of Harp magazine. Turns out she has a background in Japanese Butoh dance--as an East Asian Studies major in college, she wrote a thesis on one of the style's founders, Hijikata (there's a song of the same name about him on Golden State), and got a grant to live in Japan for a year to study Butoh. We asked her to talk a bit about it, and to imagine what kind of dances (not necessarily Butoh) she might envision for some of the songs on Gea. Due to a combination of the mag's space limitations and Todd's engaging verbosity, there were plenty of interesting outtakes, which we decide to share here. Don't forget to look for the article, you voracious culture vultures.

"Butoh is a sort of avant-garde dance form that started in Tokyo in the 1960s," says Todd. "There were student protest movements, outlandish street performances that evolved into [what they termed] 'The Dance of Utter Darkness'. Butoh talks about the human condition, whereas ballet strives to make the body a superhuman vessel of godlike proportions, Butoh is very much about human fragility and the human condition. I was very influenced by Hijikata's teachings, not just for dance but also for my music. My songs are often about the fragile nature of human emotions. A lot of [Butoh] training is about sensitivity in the body. My songs kind of do that in an emotional way, I think...to try to experience the human condition rather than get around it."

River of Life/The Yes Song:
“It's a celebration of life. I imagine all my friends on the beach with a bonfire at night, dancing around the bonfire, just like hippie dancing in a circle, holding hands. The song's about individuality and self-expression, so I imagine these people dancing through the night around the fire, and then eventually the sun rises and they go down to the border of the ocean and the land, and just celebrate life.”

Night of a Thousand Kisses:
“We actually made a music video for this song. This song is really about romance, so I imagine it as a pas de deux, for two people. It could be a ballet, but we chose to make it a tango. There's a lot of romantic tension and longing, and I think tango expresses that very well.”

In The End:
“This is, I think the heaviest song on the album, the tearjerker. It could be about Mother Earth speaking to humankind...or it could be about a relationship between two people. I can imagine two dancers, this one would be a duet. I can imagine one dancer dancing behind a scrim you suspend from the rafters of a stage. One dancer would be in front of the scrim on the audience side, the audience would only see their silhouette on the scrim. [The dancer behind would be] Jumping, turning, with a lot of virtuosity, and they would have no relation to the dancer in front of the scrim...[who is] dancing with more sensitivity much more slowly.”

Old World New World:
“It has the same sort of celebratory atmosphere as 'River of Life,' so I can see us going back to the beach and the bonfire. I has some kind of do-si-do-like square dancing in it, but it's also about individuality. So this would be another celebratory hoe-down, with everybody clapping and singing along."

FLASH DRIVE-BY

2008-02-17T00:25:00.000-08:00

As the death throes of the music industry get progressively more spasmodic, it's interesting to observe the panoply of half-baked schemes that get trotted out in the interest of its salvation via new modes and models. It's all a bit reminiscent of the '90s web boom's glory days, when every greedy lamestain with an html handbook and a single-syllable domain name tried to P.T. Barnum their way to mini-moguldom. One of the most amusing of these schemes is the "collector's" flash drive. Several enterprising labels have trotted these out in a desperate attempt at creating "digital innovations" and swimming upstream in a withering market. USB drives containing digital album files housed with the appropriate band-branded graphic (sometimes offered on a convenient bracelet for safekeeping) have been made available by everyone from Ringo Starr (you still can't buy digital downloads of the Beatles catalog, but oh well) to Barenaked Ladies. Even Radiohead, whose unique approach to releasing In Rainbows saw them universally hailed as digital-distribution visionaries, is engaging in these questionable practices. Check it out: you can go to the Radiohead Store (screw you, I'm not putting in a link) and buy the "Limited Edition USB Stick" that contains the band's previous seven EMI albums, as recently released on old-school box set, for 80 pounds. Now, they also give you the option to simply purchase the same tracks as regular downloads without the USB drive for 35 pounds, but then you'd be missing out on, um, let's see here...oh yeah, the USB drive! But hey, it comes "shaped in Radiohead's iconic 'bear' image and housed in a bespoke (what is it, a three-piece suit?) deluxe box." In case you were wondering, the actual box set is only going for 40 pounds anyway, but that iconic bear image may just be too seductive to resist. Oh good, here comes the orderly now with our meds...

SCRAPPY SCRIBBLERS

2008-02-15T12:44:00.000-08:00

Now that the notorious writers' strike has been settled and America is assured of another season's worth of carefully crafted inanity, we thought it might be a good time to start pondering the status of other scribes in the entertainment media world. Specifically: what would happen if songwriters went on strike? Would Jimmy Iovine be trolling L.A. dives in search of desperate/unscrupulous scabs to fill out the tail end of the next Gwen Stefani album? Would Metallica finally be forced to release the Neil Diamond tribute album that's been their unacknowledged destiny all along? Would the charts and airwaves be filled with a flood of new-but-inexplicably-familiar tunes like "Soak up the Sunblock, "Dessert Rose," and "SexyBackHair?" Would the proprietors of Youtube and Google lose their status as premier interactive web zillionaires to the guy who runs the the Alanis Morissette Lyric Generator? These and other questions should be food for thought as you envision the source material for the next batch of musical reality shows for which those suddenly prolific TV writers are doubtlessly cooking up celebrity-host intros right now...

THE BOYS IN THE BUBBLE

2008-02-14T00:23:00.001-08:00

We were just thinking about the fact that two of the hottest young buzz bands right now, and another cult-status type who's been bubbling under for awhile, all seem to have an unexpected influence in common.

From the abundance of ambivalent-at-best reviews (by anyone other than corporate buttkissers Rolling Stone) of anything Paul Simon has done in the last 20 years, you'd be within your rights to assume that by this point in time, his cool factor had dropped to a level roughly somewhere between Mitt Romney and the current Deep Blue Something (ask your older brother, kids) reunion tour. This is, of course, in direct opposition to the fact that (with the exception of the execrable Capeman) he's produced nothing but brilliance throughout his entire solo career. Freakin' critics.

That said, it tickles Music Geekery pink to observe that aforementioned hotsh*t twentysomethings Yeasayer and Vampire Weekend both sound like they spent the time between forwarding Onion articles to their friends in their formative years locked in their bedrooms with nothing but Graceland for company. We're hardly the first to note that the lilting South African-tinged guitar lines, polyrhythmic grooves, and general grad-school sensibilities of these guys bear distinct trace elements of Forest Hills' favorite son. And Bonnaroo-friendly singer/songwriter Brett Dennen has frequently attested that Graceland-era Simon is a primary influence (it's pretty apparent upon listening to his album, So Much More). The only downside to this is the fact that the late, lamented Actual Tigers, who worked a similarly Simon-indebted sound on their lone, great album in 2001, turned out to be a little too far ahead of the curve. Somebody find AT frontman Tim Seely, who kicked off an equally unfortunately under-the-radar solo career in 2005, and tell him the zeitgeist is finally upon his ass.

KIDS IN THE HALL

2008-02-12T14:47:00.000-08:00

A new batch of inductees to the Country Music Hall of Fame were announced today, and even your crotchety old pals at Geekery Central can't find any cause to complain about the selections this time. (Don't even get us started about 2007 inductee Ralph Emery). This year, the artists who go down in honky-tonk history are Emmylou Harris, Tom T. Hall, the Statler Brothers, and Ernest "Pop" Stoneman. There's a hell of a lot more hang time in the Country Hall of Fame than there is in the Rock Hall, asa fact exemplified by the "timely" induction of Stoneman, who's been dead for 40 years and started recording in the 1920s. Nevertheless, for a guy who hung with the Carter Family and Jimmie Rodgers, Stoneman (patriarch of the Stoneman Family) isn't as widely known as he should be, so kudos to the Hall for recognizing him anyhow. Emmylou Harris, the baby of the group at age 60, is a no-brainer, the literal "eminence grise" of that crossover paradigm where alt-country, boomer singer/songwriterdom, and mainstream Nashville intertwine (it's practically a rite of passage for everybody who's anybody in the aforementioned areas to record a duet with her). Hall, meanwhile, is another story. His sharply observed story-songs unquestionably place him among the best American songwriters (country or otherwise) of the late '60s/early '70s, but he might as well be Ezra Pound for all the Sugarland/Carrie Underwood crowd knows/cares. And despite the Joe Henry-helmed 1998 Tom T. tribute album, Hall has never really been hipster-embraced either, probably because where his peers (Kris Kristofferson, Billy Joe Shaver, et al) rocked the hirsute hippie look, Hall had more of a high-school-gym-teacher image. As for the Statler Brothers, they've never been a huge favorite here at MG, but they sure could harmonize. You can't deny their pedigree, and they did provide comic relief on the great, short-lived Johnny Cash TV show.

THE SCENE OF THE CRIME

2008-02-12T00:14:00.000-08:00

We at Music Geekery can hardly feign anything approaching surprise when the agendas of art-for-art's sake and the Grammy awards fail to dovetail, but usually they're not even close. When prefab popsters A, B, & C are the only ones in the running, it's no skin off our aesthetic apple which one wins. But when they wave it in our faces, when they come so tantalizingly close to recognizing substance over style, it's difficult not to kvetch. So as happy we were for old-school soul comeback queen Bettye Lavette when she got her Grammy nomination, we were twice as scandalized when she didn't walk away with the golden gramophone. Instead, the award for Best Contemporary Blues album went to J.J. Cale and Eric Clapton for Road To Escondido. Now look, we've got nothing but love for Cale, and nothing in particular against Clapton, and we experienced no overt spasms of pain upon initially listening to the duo's aforementioned effort, but it's a largely unremarkable affair whose main purpose is to convince Starbucks-bound, NPR-addicted muppies that their childhood hero is still cool because he's working with some guy who never had his own VH1 Classic special. And those supporters still stand no better chance of making it through Escondido awake than you or I.

And then there's the scandalously uncrowned soul queen, Ms. Lavette. The lady spent the last several decades singing her butt off to little acclaim. Finally, a couple of years ago, her "comeback" album I've Got My Own Hell To Raise brought her profile up to the proper level. Her emotionally naked, supremely soulful work received accolade after accolade at last. And the follow-up, The Scene of the Crime, proved to be just as rewarding. Ironically enough, the Muscle Shoals-recorded album's title refers to the fact that Lavette first recorded in the legendary music town in the early '70s, only to have her work buried by Atlantic (and finally released decades later on a European label). Surely it's the height of effrontery then, that some 35 years later she should personally and artistically transcend what she attested was a truly traumatic experience, only to be seduced and abandoned by the bozos at the Grammys. Fortunately for us (and her), in the end it means diddley, and we've still got a thrilling emotional rollercoaster ride available to us all when we visit The Scene of the Crime.