I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: BECK/RECORD CLUB-LEONARD COHEN: Songs of Leonard Cohen (2010).

I won’t say anything because no one ever listens to me anyway. I might as well be a Leonard Cohen record.

-Neil from The Young Ones.

This second recording from Beck’s Record Club is, indeed, a Leonard Cohen record.  I like Cohen and have a bunch of his stuff.  Although he’s never been a huge favorite, I find his songwriting to be top notch.  And, since his arrangements are usually pretty sparse, it’s easy to cover his songs in a myriad of ways, which these artists certainly do.

But just to catch you up to speed about this whole Record club business:

According to the Beck/Record Club website:

Record Club is an informal meeting of various musicians to record an album in a day. The album chosen to be reinterpreted is used as a framework. Nothing is rehearsed or arranged ahead of time. A track is put up here once a week. As you will hear, some of the songs are rough renditions, often first takes that document what happened over the course of a day as opposed to a polished rendering. There is no intention to ‘add to’ the original work or attempt to recreate the power of the original recording. Only to play music and document what happens. And those who aren’t familiar with the albums in question will hopefully look for the songs in their definitive versions.

Introducing this second recording, Beck explains:

This time around the group includes Devendra Banhart, Ben, Andrew and Will from MGMT, Andrew from Wolfmother, Binki from Little Joy, and Brian and Bram returning from the first Record Club.  ‘Songs Of Leonard Cohen’ by Leonard Cohen was chosen by Andrew from MGMT. For those interested, our close second choice was Ace Of Base, which we’ll keep on the list for next time.

So, here we have Cohen’s debut.  I own it and am familiar with about half of the songs, but I didn’t want to listen to it before hearing their covers.  And so, the track listing and comments:

Suzanne (4:54)–A classic song, here given respectful treatment.  And yet they’re not afraid to play around with it, so they give it a dance beat and group vocals, all of which sound great.
Master Song (6:37).  I don’t know this song, and I don’t recognize it from this cover which is perhaps the greatest twist of a Leonard Cohen song ever. They sample Metallica’s “Master!” every time they sing the chorus.  The song is done as a rap with the voices pitched differently in every verse, there’s also a great funky bass throughout.  I assume the lyrics are the original, but I’m not sure.  The only problem with it is that it goes on for way too long.  But otherwise this is what record Club is about–having fun experimenting with songs.
Winter Lady (2:46). This is done as a pretty folk song, the way Leonard intended.
Stranger Song (5:26). This song is also dancey (with MGMT, that makes sense).  It has big drums and cool harmonies.
Sisters Of Mercy (4:36).  This is also pretty, done on an acoustic guitar with multiple singers taking turns.
So Long, Marianne (6:54).  This is also pretty faithful (of another classic).  There’s a group chorus which again sounds great.  The one difference is buzzy guitar solo.
Hey, That’s No Way To Say Goodbye (4:27).  This has a cheap Casio vibe, yet it still sounds good.  Beck sings and the whole things is quite nice.
Stories Of The Street (5:06).  The songs starts with a simple bass and xylophone, but it gradually builds into a full band song which sounds great.
Teachers (4:04).  This is an insane punk version of the song.  It is super fast with a crazy guitar section and shouted vocals.  It shows just how adaptable Cohen’s music is
One Of Us Cannot Be Wrong (5:42).  This is a pretty, slow version of this song with keyboards as the main instrument.  It’s a very nice song until it nears then end when the singer just starts screaming and going nutty  Which is okay, but that goes on for too long at the end.

So overall, this is a very enjoyable collection of covers.  The faithful ones sound wonderful and the silly songs are, yes, silly, but they are not just tossed off (except maybe Master Song.  This must have been a lot of fun to record.

[READ: March 14, 2014] The End of Love

The End of Love is four long short stories.  Each one is about the end of a relationship.  Even though I enjoyed all four stories quite a lot, the book was a lot slower to read than I would have anticipated from its scant 163 pages.  And surprisingly, the stories weren’t sad or mopey–rather, they looked at the relationships via a slightly distant narrator who was engaged and engaging.

I have been reading a lot of Latin American writers, but this book, which was written in Spanish and translated by Katherine Silver, was written by a Spanish writer.  So that’s a little bit different in feel.

“We Were Surrounded By Palm Trees”
This story is not set in Spain. It is set on an island in the Indian Ocean off the coast of Africa.  It is about a man and his girlfriend, named Marta.  They have gone to this remote island for some secluded time alone.  But it turns out that they have to share the small boat (and therefore the small island) with another couple.  Christine and Paul are a German couple who are not outgoing and friendly as the narrator fears (he doesn’t want to spent his romantic vacation with those two), but are cordial and looking to share some of the troubles of their vacation.  One such trouble is meeting with the village elder and the chief, which Paul offers to do.

The details of the island were a little unclear to me.  I think that is somewhat intentional, but there is some confusion about the nature of the power structure on the island and what exactly people get up to there.  So when Christine goes missing, Marta is instantly concerned.  And then when Paul and Christine don’t turn up for dinner, they decide to go and find them.  Christie and Paul are involved in something that I found a bit confusing, but which involved elders of the island.

As the story draws to a close and there is yet more confusion as to where the Germans are, Marta and the narrators are at odds with each other about what to do.  And the strain begins to form between them.   Even though the details of what happened with Paul and Christine are vague, the details of Marta and the narrator are very powerful and really tell the story.  It was wonderful.

“Captives”
This story was peculiar and also captivating.  It is from the point of view of a young boy who grows up through the story.  He speaks of his cousin Alicia, with whom he is close (they both read a lot) and for whom he has a crush. But she is older and is dating Guillermo Cunningham, a wealthy man whom the family doesn’t fully trust because of his white last name.  But Guillermo treats her well and they travel to America and other places.  And all the while Alicia is sending the narrator postcards.  Until one day they stop–Alicia has settled.

And then a new postcard comes from New York City, inviting him to visit them.  Which he does.  He anticipates seeing what the weirdness is between Alicia and Guillermo, and while he feels that something is wrong–they don’t really spend time together but they don’t seem angry at each other–overall, he has a wonderful time.  As the story progresses, this un-tension grows and grows until the couple reaches a logical (and illogical) conclusion.  The narrator is now in the middle of it.  I was utterly engrossed by this fascinating story and the way that love can tear people apart.

“Joanna”
The narrator of the story has had a difficult life.  His mother abandoned him when he was four and his father died when he was six.  So he moved in with his harsh grandmother and by 15 he was set in his ways–as a poor person living in El Escorial, a summer resort where other people vacationed. His grandmother told him not to mix with the vacationers.  But then one day he met a girl his own age who was reading in the same spot that he often went to read.  And they formed a fast friendship.  He never told his grandmother, but she told her mother, so they wound up spending that whole summer together.

The mother acted young and carefree (and was often seminude in front of the narrator, which he was excited and freaked out by).  But that didn’t matter to him.  He was fixated on Joanna.  But when Joanna’s brother came for the rest of the summer, something changed.  Not with Joanna, but with everyone else.  And soon enough, something causes a rift between the narrator and Joanna.

The story ends with the narrator grown up and working as a DJ for a call in show.  It is a call that brought all of this story flooding back to him.  Once again this was a wonderfully crafted story.

“The Last Cold Front”
This story is about a boy and his mother.  His mother divorced from his father when he was young.  The mother and son were happy together, although she was always quite close and careful about him, even when she started dating other men.  It was only when she started seriously dating a literature professor that things became strained.  The boy’s father seems unhappy with things–but then he had his own relationship to contend with.

The father’s relationship ends just as the mother and her boyfriend are planning a summer  trip together (with the son).  They want to try to cohabitate to see how things work out.

So the father stays in her house (which was once their house).  The other three travel abroad for a month.  And it goes very badly.  This story featured the quickest and most dramatic end to and escape from love, and I was really engrossed in this one as well.

All four of these stories were really wonderful.  I think perhaps their slow pacing is what maybe them so engrossing.  I would definitely read more from him.