One of the more fun and fascinating albums I’ve listened to this year so far is Lea DeLaria’s new jazz release of cover songs Double Standards (Telarc, 2005). This album delivers surprise after surprise by bringing together rock classics and almost-classics like Blondie’s "Call Me," Patti Smith’s "Dancing Barefoot," Jane’s Addiction’s "Been Caught Stealing," and Sound Garden’s "Black Hole Sun." Not only are these some of my favorite songs, but DeLaria’s powerful and innovative vocal style and the band’s jazzy arrangements also made me listen to this CD over and over again.
Delaria’s previous album Play It Cool won recognition form the London Times as the Best Jazz album for 2001. Critics love her voice and have habitually praised her work. DeLaria first made her showbiz mark as one of the first openly gay comediennes in the 1990s and has also appeared on Broadway. The songs in this collection are more than cover tunes; they are jazzed up reinventions of familiar hits.
When Ladysmith Black Mambazo took the Grammy for Best Traditional World Music Album at the 47th Annual Grammy Awards for their lates album No Boundaries last February, South African President Thabo Mbeki proudly remarked, "The Grammy Award that has been so spectacularly won by Ladysmith Black Mambazo makes us all proud to be South Africans. The people and government of South Africa salute this remarkable group on their achievement and wish them continuing success in the future." Ladysmith Black Mambazo combines traditional South African music with some of the sounds and sentiments of Christian gospel music.
The group borrows heavily from a traditional music called isicathamiya, which developed in the mines of South Africa during the apartheid regime, where Black workers were taken by rail to work far away from their homes and their families. Poorly housed and paid less, the mine workers would entertain themselves after a six-day week by singing songs into the wee hours on Sunday mornings. When the miners returned to the homelands, this musical tradition returned with them.
The recent Grammy is the seventh for Ladysmith Black Mambazo dating back to their debut album Shaka Zulu in 1987.
U2
How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb
Universal Music, 2004.
With such a provocative title as How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb, one might expect something strong and directly political by Ireland’s most famous rock band. I certainly expected it, but came away somewhat disappointed. While tracks like "Miracle Drug," "Love and Peace or Else," and "Crumbs form Your Table" are in the theme of the album’s title, focusing on the struggle to cure AIDS and a gentle critique of Western opulence and overconsumption, there is more style than substance to this CD. But on the enormous issue of Bush’s illegal war on Iraq, this CD sits silent. It’s deafening. Perhaps U2 has been bullied into silence by right-wing pundits that insist musicians and movie stars should say nothing about an illegal war, but it still seems to me that those of us with the strongest voices have a responsibility to speak up. It’s like complaining about the bad weather, but not saying a single word about the ten inches of snow that fell last night. Silence is complicity.
Don’t get me wrong, the musical composition is lovely and reminds me of mature version of the band in its youth. I recommend adding this CD to your U2 collection, but don’t be surprised if it comes up a bit short when compared to their past work. Also, look for the version of the CD that includes an extra DVD with videos and interviews with the band.
This well-crafted CD is provocatively poetic, if somewhat obscure, and densely packed with subtle images and sounds that evoke a vision of a humanity capable of forging its destiny, even if only in the imagination or in the lyric at this moment. Yet, while producing such a global vision, the lyrics and music evoke a deep and unmistakably personal and interpersonal ambience that engages the solitary listener. This characteristic alone may make it the perfect CD, or at least a replica of the perfect CD. MacPherson’s work challenges accepted notions of political art and upturns typical slavishness to markets and marketing required for pop music success. Yet one detects a little bit of Dylan, Billy Bragg or even the style and punch of another great Canadian folk/rock artist, Bruce Cockburn.
