Says Charlie Manuel of Jimmy Rollins, the NL’s leading MVP candidate, “He’s done everything a guy can do . . . I don’t know what else he can do except sell tickets and popcorn.”
Words of wisdom from the boss. Despite years of negativity, Charlie Manuel is my hero. I believe.
Just heard this new version of Bragg’s anthem “Waiting for the Great Leap Forwards” today. Something inspriring for Sunday.
Especially given the spate of press coverage that suggested that Lekman had gone off the deep end, this new album comes as a pleasant surprise. It’s by far his most consistent and entertaining full-length effort so far. The debut “When I Said I Wanted to Be Your Dog” seemed underdeveloped to me at points, like Lekman hadn’t really learned his craft yet, and the EP collection “You’re So Silent, Lens” featured some real standout tracks, “Black Cab” especially, which is one of my fav songs of the past five years, but neither kept me satisfied from start to finish.
“Kortedala” does so in spades, which is something I never expected. Although I’ve loved a lot of Lekman’s music, I always saw him as a half-jokey byproduct of the indie hipster scene. Maybe it’s because I loved so many of his influences already. The Jonathan Richman references, Left Banke and Magnetic Fields samples were all uber-exicting, clever, and at times, down-right funny, but I always wondered whether everyone else was in on the joke, whether they were laughing with Lens or at him. Or just crying crocodile tears.
Unlike his past efforts, I can listen to “Kortedala” straight through every time, and I’ve been doing so a lot these past few days. I would almost go so far as to say that their are no clunkers on this disc, which is pretty goddam rare these days, and probably the simplest main ingredient in producing an all-time classic album. My fav tracks are “The Opposite of Hallelujah” (here is a really pretty version that pitchfork featured a couple days ago, but you can also find a bunch of live versions if you search google vids), “A Postcard to Nina” (again, lots of other versions if you search google vids), “Shirin”, and “Friday Night at the Drive-In Bingo” (which you can listen to here; play Lost Service Classics #1 feed and skip to track 3 (annoying, I know)).
My fav verse redeems the otherwise minimally underwhelming “It Was a Strange Time in My Life:”
People seem to think a shy personality equals gifted,
But if they would get to know one I’m sure that idea would have shifted.
Most shy people I know are extremely boring
Either that or they are miserable from all the shit they’ve been storing.
Take that Morrissey, art school, and most of the Amerindie hipster subculture. Damn. Bitter, certainly, on Jens’s part, and now mine, but what a great way to put something that is simultaneously banal and incisive. Witticisms like this one occur throughout the album, there’s usually two or three per song, and a lot of them are due to Lekman’s outsider approach to the English language. The “legs/eggs” rhyme in “Postcard to Nina” in particular makes me wish I had English as a Second Language. It’s the sort of rhyme I would never dare make, but which Lekman makes work through shear naive ebullience.
Strangely, I think that this album might actually alienate some of Lekman’s earlier fans. It is by far his most “produced” album, and when it comes to music this sweet and simple that can be a turn-off for some. But I also think it looks forward to some even greater things in the future. Get this guy with a full-time band and start practicing!
Good to know that you can find the FBI’s ten most wanted on-line. I’m a subscriber.
Am I sick/cynical/stupid to find something weird about this headline from the front page of nytimes.com? “Rudy Giuliani has staked his campaign on the idea that he will keep America safe from terror the same way he kept New York City safe from crime — with ruthless efficiency.” Yet he didn’t keep NY safe from terror . . . Not that I’m saying he could have. Nobody did and nobody probably could have, him especially. If anything, it speaks again to the absurdity of “war on terror” rhetoric.
Has a cool Steely Dan sample. Cool.
The new Kanye’s on-line here, and even though I’m afraid it might not be very good, it’ll probably still be worth listening to. I am listening to it right now, though, and I like the first track. I think it’s on filesharing services now too.
Then he said, “We’ll have a nice place in Dallas,” where he will be running what he called “a fantastic Freedom Institute.” Sounds like a great place to work. Where can I get my application?
