May 122017
 

Full Albums features covers of every track off a classic album. Got an idea for a future pick? Leave a note in the comments!

Tired of hearing hoary old crooners covering hoary deceased crooners? Try this as an antidote. 1975’s Blood on the Tracks was Bob Dylan’s fifteenth studio album, and is usually in the critical running for his best, vying with the earlier Blonde on Blonde (covered here). (Of course, whenever a new Dylan record is released, it is compulsory to be proclaimed as a “return to form,” that status seldom lasting until the ink dries and Blonde or Blood regains its rightful pole position.) Let me go on record here: Blonde is a bit meh, with rather too much filler for my tastes, so it is always Blood for me.

Blood on the Tracks was also my first full immersion in Bob, Greatest Hits not quite counting. See, a pal o’mine had access to discounted CBS recordings, half price if I recall. I had my eye on a witchy boho girl, like me newly arrived at University. She had her eye on my discount and, beyond a serious 40 minutes of otherwise silence, as we listened to my purchase of Blood, a prompted and suggested gift for her, that was that. She thanked me, apologized for giving me the bum’s rush, but she had to go out, you see, with the flash harry further along the corridor. I was so hurt, my emotions imbued by and immersed in Bob’s own heartbreak, that I bought a second copy. Probably full price, too.
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Aug 242015
 
little wings

Back in the late ’90s, there was a California band named Rodriguez that consisted of Matt Ward and Kyle Field.  (They went through more drummers than Spinal Tap.)  Rodriguez released only one album, but those two guys went on to create names for themselves.  Matt Ward shortened his name to M. Ward, and – among other projects – is now the “him” in the duo She & Him.  (The “she” is actress Zooey Deschanel.) Continue reading »

Jan 272015
 

“She may be young, but she only likes old things. And modern music ain’t to her taste.”

Death Cab for Cutie only released one album, Codes and Keys, during lead singer Ben Gibbard’s brief marriage to She & Him singer, Zooey Deschanel, but that album gave us with the lyric above, from the song “Monday Morning.” The line is likely about Deschanel, and perfectly sums up Classics, She & Him’s new covers record. The selections were all written before the 34-year-old singer was born, and the production (the album was recorded live with an orchestra) does nothing to make these songs sound like they came out any time recently.

For the most part, that’s okay. She & Him is a band that sounds like they belong from another era, so you have to come to their albums with expectations about the song. While it might have been more interesting to hear newer songs performed in the style of older hits, what they give us is still charming in its own right.
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Nov 132014
 

These days, it seems that every band or artist puts out tracks before new albums come out, and it’s easy to understand why – at $1.29 on iTunes, an individual song purchase costs more than it would in relation to the album, or, if you get the tracks by pre-ordering, you’re locked in for the whole shebang. Most, however, will release a track or two in anticipation. That, apparently, is not She & Him‘s style. In the last few weeks, the easy-listening power-duo of Zooey Deschanel and M. Ward have already released four tracks (out of thirteen total) from their upcoming collection of standards, Classics, which comes out on December 2. Continue reading »

Nov 222013
 

Full Albums features covers of every track off a classic album. Got an idea for a future pick? Leave a note in the comments!

November 22, 1963 is a date that resonates with people the world over – not least because it’s the day that both Aldous Huxley and C.S. Lewis passed away – but it’s an important date in the music world too. It was on this day, fifty years ago, that the Beatles released their second album, With the Beatles. Certainly that date resonated with the Beatles – they released the White Album five years later to the day, and that was no coincidence – and the music they released on that fateful day had proven to resonate just as long.
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