Wednesday, November 28, 2012

Record of the Month

I figured I'd do a monthly 'what I'm listening to' kind of thing. This could be viewed as a lame placeholder kind of post. And probably it is. But it's my blog! So there! 


This selection should be just enough to set my cousin over the frickin' edge. He finds my taste in music questionable....at best. I'm sure he's not the only one.

Iris DeMent has an album of new material out - her first in 16 years (!!), Sing the Delta.

While I know that most of my music choices are not for everyone. I think if folks heard DeMent, they'll  seemingly find my other selections as popular as....well....whoever you kids think is popular these days: the Beatles? The Stones? The Rolling Who? - as Edina's mother might say.

No, Iris is full-on Delta / Americana / Ozark music - not unlike a more rural Bobbie Gentry.

DeMent has one of the most unique voices ever put to tape, but it is her writing and playing that make the voice worth hearing as well. In some ways she's on par with Emmylou Harris for the most identifiable vocal talents.

Yes, the disk is more piano based than guitar, which is slightly different for her, but she's a talented mult-instrumentalist.

If you're looking for a mainstream disk, this isn't it - even for DeMent. But she has strong material with "The Night I Learned Not to Pray", "Go On Ahead and Go Home and "If it Ain't Love".

I won't say it's the perfect disk - I find some of the songs, and the intros to be too similar, too repetitive. I would hope that after a decade and a half that it would be mixed up a little. She's been more diverse on her other disks.

I'm not really complaining - as compared to everything else out there, this is still pretty original material.

You'll all hate it, but if you gave it a listen, you might learn to appreciate the beauty of being different, being original.

2 comments:

A Lewis said...

Love it! I just hope that she's no relation to conservative nutjob Senator Jim DeMint from SC. Ha!

Erik Rubright said...

Hey, she's from Paragould, Arkansas! Which, is supposedly "rural" according to the Amazon entry. It's actually not that rural. Then again, I guess most of Arkansas is rural compared to everywhere else.