Turn It Up - 9/16/2024

Earworms, obsessions, recommendations

It’s a new week, so we’re back to share some things we’ve been listening to. David goes first, then Charles. As always, we’ve listed a bunch of reading recommendations at the end.

Shawna Thompson – “I Don’t Know Why” (from Lean on Neon, 2024)

Further proof that country’s trad turn is nearing full swing is this swell solo debut by Shawna Thompson, one half of last decade’s hitmaking country-pop duo Thompson Square. (Is the genre’s increasing return to twang at least partly a reaction against country’s recent pop leanings? Yes. Is it also at least partly a reaction to country’s obvious absorption of black sounds and to all the high-profile country offerings of black musicians? Oh, hell yes. But that’s a topic for another day…) You can tell Thompson is serious about her old-school by the guest stars she’s rounded up to sing along with her (Vince Gill, Pam Tillis, Rhonda Vincent, Sunny Sweeney, Jimmy Lauderdale, and Ricky Skaggs, among others) and by her smart choice of covers, particularly a pedal-steel dominated version of that great old Leona Williams single, “Yes Ma’am (He Found Me in a Honky Tonk).” Oh cool, what could be better than that, I asked myself, before immediately learning the answer: Thompson duets with Leona herself on “I Don’t Know Why,” a cowrite by Shawna, husband Keifer Thompson, and Williams. Leona, now 81 and several decades beyond her handful of minor solo hits and the major ones she wrote for former husband Merle Haggard, can still use her Ozark-bred voice to embody the anguish of missed opportunities and of hard lessons not quite learned. It’s a pretty sure bet I won’t enjoy a duet more than this one all year. – DC

Role Model – “Deeply Still in Love” (from Kansas Anymore, 2024)

Tucker Pillsbury, AKA Role Model, sounds like cute sweaters, and everything on his second album, Kansas Anymore, is sunny and cozy, then forgotten. For some reason though his “Deeply Still in Love” stuck with me most of the summer. A commenter at Genius.com explains that its opening “Well, hey there lover, I heard that you’re sober” is about his ex-gf Emma Chamberlain, a social media influencer, and that cramped, literal, insidery way of listening to pop music makes my eyes glaze, but the follow up line, “It must be easier without me around” makes the song universal again: The narrator’s an asshole who makes everything about him, just like we all do sometimes. The musical vibe, if only on this cut, is like The Cure meets Haircut 100, so I sing right along when he gets to the title line even as I suspect he may be singing it in front of a mirror. – DC

Lionel Hampton and His Orchestra – “Hamp’s Boogie Woogie” (from Jukebox Hits 1943 to 1950, 2003)

The number one record on the R&B charts, then still called the “Harlem Hit Parade,” eighty years ago this week. What a fantastic record: Vibraphonist Hampton lets pianist and his co-composer Milt Buckner grab the not-quite-solo spotlight for the first two-thirds of the record, barrel housing the boogie while providing what sounds like one of the sources for Louis Jordan’s hook to “Choo Choo Ch’Boogie” a few years later. Then the full big band comes crashing in with chorus after chorus, trading lines with sax man Earl Bostic. “Hamp’s Boogie” is my favorite Hampton side, yet the bandleader hardly had to lift a mallet. – DC

Stephane Lambring – “Hospital Parking” (from Hypocrite, 2024)

Nashville singer-songwriter Stephanie Lembring has an eye for detail as sharp as Lori McKenna’s, but on Hypocrite her affect and moody, raw sonics land closer to indie rock than to country or Americana: “Purity” made me flash to Liz Phair for a split second. (Charles wrote about another rocking Lambring track a few months ago.) The most immediately arresting cut on the first time through, “Hospital Parking” is a poem set to piano chords and, eventually, to drums standing in for a racing pulse. In the song, Lambring’s routine has been exploded by her mom’s medical crisis, then the song’s happy ending smacks headfirst into everyday pains in the ass. – DC

Neil Young – “Razor Love” (from Archives, Vol. III, 2024)

I’m a huge fan of the original release of “Razor Love,” a Neil Young ballad that had been kicking around in his sets for a while before it appeared on 2000’s Silver and Gold. In that version, Young cradles the delicate melody with graceful acoustic guitar. But I think I might end up loving this version even more. Part of Young’s massive new Archives III, which considers the fascinatingly varied period from 1976 to 1987, this “Razor Love” (recorded during the sessions for Young’s underappreciated synth-rock album Landing on Water) turns the song into pulsing electronic pop. Surrounded by waves of electronic pulse, the aching devotional sounds even more committed and desperate. Young’s piercing tenor is the perfect complement to the icy synths, adding prayerful isolation to a “Razor Love” that sounds far more restless than contented. It’s the kind of revelation that deep-dive collections like Archives are made for. – CH

LL Cool J – “Black Code Suite” (feat. Sona Jobarteh) (from The FORCE, 2024)

I’ll call it a comeback: LL Cool J just released one of the best albums of the year. The FORCE is an absolute powerhouse, with LL rhyming with force and dexterity over the not-so-secret weapon of productions from Q-Tip. The tracks sound so brilliantly alive, transcending the nostalgic trappings of old-school rap revivals as the duo brings wit, wisdom, brashness, and beauty to rock the party. On the stunning “Black Code Suite,” over strutting funk, LL drops historical allusions, poetic descriptions of Black life, and affirmations that call back to earlier generations of Black political and literary traditions. Q-Tip shows up on the urgent chorus to insist on the importance of memory and persistence, shaping the many meanings of “Black code” into something like a sacred text. Halfway through, they step aside as guest vocalist Sona Jobarteh evokes this tradition over tumbling guitar and insistent reminders to “read your Black code – it’s for everybody.” On most albums, “Black Code Suite” might overwhelm the rest. On The FORCE, though, it fits right into a set that feels like both conjuring and convocation. – CH

George Strait – “People Get Hurt Sometimes” (from Cowboys & Dreamers, 2024)

Another year, another very fine George Strait album. He never deviates much from the template that’s made him one of his era’s best and most successful recording artists. Like its predecessors, Cowboys and Dreamers features well-written, well-performed, and well-produced tracks that drift comfortably across ballads, two-steps, and cowboy songs. (David wrote about one of them already.) Where it all fits in the Strait story is up to the listener, obviously, but the standout for me is “People Get Hurt Sometimes.” This string-laden ballad takes up the rich thematic terrain of thinking twice, as Strait’s narrator encourages his would-be lover (and himself) to consider what might happen in the future before they go for it in the here and now. Its luxe arrangement, and Strait’s intimate vocal, gloriously recalls the country-soul ‘70s, especially the recordings of peak Charlie Rich. And, like those predecessors, the lyric’s ambivalence is no match for the seduction of the sound. – CH

Elisapie – “Quviasukkuvit (If It Makes You Happy)” (single, 2024)

Last year, Inuk artist and activist Elisapie’s released one of my favorite albums of the year. Inuktikut offered re-conceptualizations of pop-rock classics in Elisapie’s native language, offering both a welcome act of what she called “cultural re-appropriation” and a startling new way to hear canonical tracks by artists from The Rolling Stones to Cyndi Lauper. Now, she’s returned with a new chapter. Here, Elisapie takes Sheryl Crow’s mid-90s rocker and reworks it as spare meditation, relating the lyric’s journey of self-discovery over a muted wash of keyboards and drums. Even on the anthemic chorus, as Elisapie rises higher in her range, “Quviasukkuvit” is more restless sleep than road-tested declaration. It’s a beautiful complement both to Crow’s original and Inuktikut, and I hope that Elisapie revisits this kind of re-imagination at some point down the road. But only, of course, if it makes her happy. – CH

Denitia – “Ready to Fall” (from Sunset Drive, 2024)

I’ve written about Denitia before, and her new album sure sounds like the breakthrough release for the deeply talented singer-songwriter that we hope it will be. Rooted in country but inclusive of a range of pop-rock sounds, Sunset Drive is a bright and vibrant set that centers the singer’s breathy flexibility and the precise, punchy songwriting of Denitia and co-writer/co-producer Brad Allen Williams. “Ready to Fall,” for example, is an urgent rocker that calls back to the clarion crunch of Sheryl Crow (there she is again) and tips a hat to the cosmic cowboys with foggy steel guitar and stabs of sound effects. Emphasizing the “falling” in the process of falling in love, Denitia sings with both excitement and a bit of trepidation. The drums march on behind, encouraging Denitia’s narrator and the listener to lose themselves in the moment and in this glorious gem of a song. Resistance is useless. – CH   

Recommended readings:

-Andrea Williams on “the overwhelming whiteness of CMA Awards history,” for The Tennessean

-Natalie Weiner on Miranda Lambert, for Texas Monthly

-Michael Harriot on the late Frankie Beverly and being “blackfamous,” for The Root

-Mark Anthony Neal on the importance of Maze featuring Frankie Beverly, for Medium

-Hunter Kelly talks to Chris Housman, for Rolling Stone

-Taylor Crumpton on Beyoncé and the CMA Awards, for Time.com

-Michelangelo Matos on the top 50 Stevie Wonder songs, for Rolling Stone

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