2001-07-02 - 11:55 p.m.

I Told You So!

Well, my musical exploration of 1998 has been over for a while, and now I'm at the stage where I'm listening to the CDs I have which have songs from that year. There are about 55 of them. Now that sounds like a lot, but it includes CDs that really were released in 1997. As soon as I get the initial list of songs from 1998, I'll post it. What the heck, right?

Oh by the way when I started this I mentioned that listening to all those MP3s I downloaded would probably cause me to buy CDs I probably wouldn't have anyway. Well, my prediction was right! It's strange how I keep making my own predictions come true!

So all the corporate types sweating over downloaded music can take a chill pill. You're still making money, you rascals!

I picked up three CDs from 1998, and one that just came out a couple weeks ago so why not do capsule reviews of them here? Why not!

Better Than Ezra - How Does Your Garden Grow?

This is clearly the standout of the three 1998 albums. I got BTE's first album and wasn't too impressed with it, but this just gets better every time I listen to it. The standout song is "At the Stars" which was the "hit" off the album and one of the four or five best songs from the Hot 100 in 1998, in my opinion. Also good are "One More Murder" and "Like It Like That." The latter song stakes the baseline from Steely Dan's "Do It Again" and turns it into some funky mud.

The bad news is that this album did nothing, sales-wise and BTE hasn't released anything since. Is this their end?

Natalie Imbruglia - Left of the Middle

Thanks to Alanis Morissette, among others, the late 1990s were the boom years for Female Solo Artists and a lot of really, really good music came out of that time. Off the top of my head I can come up with Lauren Christy's Breed and Jen Trynin's Gun Shy Trigger Happy as personal favorites from that genre. Sadly both those albums also sold for shit. It's kind of depressing seeing musicians get punished for producing discs I liked. Ah well.

The point of this digression is that Natalie Imbruglia should be right up my alley, but this album just doesn't excite me. Imbruglia seems very much like the creation of some slick producer, but looking at the album credits I see she co-wrote most of the material on the album.

A while ago I was looking at a "Top Hits of the 1990s" list and "Torn" came in at number one. Huh??? It did get a lot of airplay, and the video ran a lot, but it only got to #42 on the Billboard charts. The other standout song here is "Wishing I Was There."

It's kind of sobering to consider that it's three years later and Natalie Imbruiglia has been pretty nearly forgotten.

Dave Matthews Band - Before These Crowded Streets

I have to admit I am not a big Dave Matthews fan. I find his vocals a little hard to take. However his first commercial album "Under The Table and Dreaming" was enjoyable to listen to. While there were no songs on that album I was really crazy about, the whole album hung together nicely and the music was complicated enough so I could listen to it repeatedly without getting bored with it.

I have to say that I liked "Stay (Wasting Time)" better than anything on that first album, and it was the primary motivator to make me buy this album. Sad to say this album, overall, does not seem to be as listenable as the previously mentioned album. Dave's Matthews' vocals seem to have gotten more annoying - he seems to roar instead of warble now - and his lyrics appear to have this edge of arrogance to them that I hadn't noticed before.

This may be just irrational prejudice talking at two in the morning. Maybe I should listen to this CD more.

Lucinda Williams - Essence

The fact that this really doesn't LOOK like a Lucinda Williams album may cause some people to blip over it. It is a CD in a cardboard cover, not a jewel case, and it has a close-up of a flower on the cover.

This is an album that I know I need to listen to more to make a final judgement on, but my preliminary feeling is that Essence is not quite as good as its predecessor "Car Wheels On A Gravel Road(1998). Still, it is a very good disk with "Essence" and especially "Out of Touch" being clear standouts. Williams seems to be moving away from straight ahead country and blues and more into crunchy guitars and distortion.

By the way, did you know that Lucinda Williams is our "Best" songwriter? Well, that's what she is according to an issue of Time magazine I just read. While it's nice to see her get the recognition I can think of lots of people who are better songwriters, in my opinion. Aimee Mann, Mark Knopfler, Nanci Griffith, Jill Sobule and that's just people I could think of off the top of my head who have put out an album in the last year or so. And in terms of number of records sold, Williams wouldn't even be in the top 100, not that she doesn't deserve to be.

However I think the REAL Time award is for "Best Songwriter Who Has an Album That Just Came Out That We Can Hype." Just like "Best Movie Star" Julia Roberts JUST HAPPENS to have a new movie coming out. I am a terrible cynic, aren't I?