Just in time for Valentine's Day, filmmaker John Waters follows up his wonderfully weird Christmas-music collection from 2004 with a new CD for lovers, featuring 14 personally selected "come hither" wolf-whistles from his own twisted-kitsch record collection. New Line Records invites you on A Date with John Waters this week, a wild ride of oddball nuggets that kicks off with "Tonight You Belong to Me," a 45-RPM ditty from 1956 by 11- and 14-year-old sisters Patience & Prudence - the first record the five-finger-discounting Waters admits he ever shoplifted. Alongside tracks from Clarence "Frogman" Henry, Jet Boy Jet Girl, Dean Martin, Mildred Bailey, and Ike & Tina Turner, a few of Waters' cohorts in shock cinema made the cut, with Edith "Egg Lady" Massey's "Big Girls Don't Cry" and Mink Stole's cover of "Sometimes I Wish I Had a Gun."
My biggest complaint about the new digital-music culture is the loss of tactile product. Songs today are simply files to be acquired, stored, and moved about, removed from the album or political era they originated in. Gone, for the most part, is the secret and connective language of an album or a single and all its once-possible elements - the gatefold jacket, inner sleeve, liner notes, and other delightful paper ephemera - that in the hands of a talented designer spoke deeply to the consumer and made the experience something to covet.
Off the radar in the States since its European issue on Frontiers Records last summer, a new heavy masterpiece from hard-rock royalty is released domestically next week. The former voice of Deep Purple and Trapeze, Glenn Hughes may have turned 55 last year, but let the legend show what a frontman is really all about. With his classic, soulful, golden tone refreshingly grand in response to so many whiny emo broken hearts and edgy malcontents, the new album - Music for the Divine - is also one heck of a players' album, ready to feed a nation of hungry, head-banging guitarists and drummers. Fueled by the beat of Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Chad Smith and the expressive guitar work of J.J. Marsh, the album also features Chili Pepper guitarist John Frusciante on two tracks, including the lone cover on the album, The Moody Blues' "Knights in White Satin." Recorded in Smith's Hollywood Hills home - the former residence of Gary Grant - the magic is bristling and alive.
Only a few weeks into 2007, an ambitious new CD from Spanish-Danish vocalist Christina Rosenvinge is an early pick for one of the most seductive albums of the year. A simply shimmering collection of 10 sparse songs that transcend her past pop success as half of the Latin hit-makers Alex y Christine, Continental 62 is mature, caressing, dangerous, and hypnotic, casting angels and demons in both English and Spanish with a vocal range slowly swirling in the smoke of Nico, Marlene Dietrich, Diamanda Galas, Nick Cave, and Francoise Hardy. Recorded in Madrid and polished in New York City with Tim Foljahn of Two Dollar Guitar and Lee Ronaldo and Steve Shelley of Sonic Youth, the new CD is her third release on Shelley's own Smells Like Records imprint. Rosenvinge's soft wail cascades over Spanish guitar and her frail piano work, inviting the listener into her private, redemptive waltz. Highly recommended.
Kudos go out to Sub Pop Records and its commitment to alternatives to fossil fuels. Earlier this year, the label purchased enough wind-powered Green Tags to be 100-percent Green-e Renewable Energy certified, and it debuted the first-ever "green" album with Kelley Stoltz's Below the Branches. Green Tags financially support the generation of power from renewable sources, and are meant to offset a business' or household's consumption of fossil fuels.
