Monday(ish) Music Recommendations

Speedy Ortiz, Gary Wright RIP, Jimmy Buffett RIP, Shaun Ryder, Smash Mouth, Aerosmith

Speedy Ortiz—Rabbit Rabbit (2023)

A child of the 1990s who was too young to experience that decade's alt-rock revolution, Sadie Dupuis absorbed the vocabulary of '90s indie-rock so thoroughly that her Speedy Ortiz never seem affected: the spiky guitars and sloppy rhythms are part of the language in their lungs. Rabbit Rabbit, the fourth album released under the Speedy Ortiz moniker in the past decade, may be the best of the lot because Dupuis is at ease as a songwriter—but she puts the focus entirely on the noise the band makes. Usually, this means Rabbit Rabbit proceeds at a rapid clip—the first side opens with the breakneck "Kim Cattrall," then just gains momentum—but the slower moments are equally compelling: "Brace Thee" swells with drama on the coda and
Emergency & Me" has the elegant lope of a Stephen Malkmus melody

My friend and colleague Alfred Soto goes into deeper detail in his Pitchfork review: 

Gary Wright—Dream Weaver (1975)

Gary Wright belongs to a certain class of classic rocker who I absorbed entirely through album rock radio many years after he was actively releasing records. He always seemed a thing of an undetermined past, floating somewhere between prog rock and new age—or perhaps shaggy hippies and snazzy new wave, it was difficult to tell. What was clear is that "Dream Weaver," Wright's signature hit, floated in space, its synthesized astral fantasies brought back to earth by a melody and sensibility suited for a waiting room. "Love is Alive," his spritely second hit, also has a sheen of easy listening gloss which seems far removed from his reputation as a blues-rocker in Spooky Tooth, a British band that is an entire blind spot for me. Dream Weaver, the 1975 record that contains both his hits—not coincidentally, they open each side of the LP—has a hint of harder boogie ("Much Higher" has a heavy backbeat that almost suggests funk) but the interesting thing about the record is that it's caught at the crossroads, lurching forward into a synth-future but anchored by a jammy, vaguely blues sensibility that's redolent of the aimless mid-1970s (Ronnie Montrose makes a cameo on "Power of Love"). All the interesting ideas derive from the album's intricate tapestry of keyboards but its MOR heart keeps it from seeming prescient.

Jimmy Buffett—Songs You Know By Heart (1985)

A compilation every bit as definitive as Chuck Berry's The Great 28 or Their Greatest Hits (1971-1975) by the Eagles, Songs You Know By Heart cherrypicks the sunniest and straightest songs from his 1970s records, adding just enough poetry and curveballs to suggest the eccentricities that could be found on such fine albums as A White Sport Coat and a Pink Crustacean. By nature, the comp downplays Buffett's troubadour aspirations but they're here too among the sunsplash of "Fins" and "Volcano": "He Went to Paris" occupies a crucial counterpoint to the opening "Cheeseburger in Paradise," a song that gets by on Jimmy's evident grin. Songs You Know By Heart sidesteps the records he made in the early 1980s, a period where he drifted toward country after having a middling adult contemporary hit with "One Particular Harbour," but what's good about the compilation is that it makes no effort to be comprehensive: it prints the fantasy Jimmy Buffett created. It's no coincidence that Buffett's loyal audience earned the name Parrot Heads around the time this collection was released in the mid-1980s: this provided a passport to "Margaritaville," a fantastical land that perhaps wouldn't have been a destination without an introduction like this record. 

My obituary for the Los Angeles Times

And my list of Jimmy Buffett's 12 Essential Songs

Smash Mouth—Astro Lounge (1999)

Smash Mouth occupies a curious place in 1990s alt-rock, a group who happily left behind their ska-punk roots when they realized they'd please more listeners by playing pop. Unlike their spiritual cousins Sugar Ray, Smash Mouth never quite seemed to bother with modern sounds: they dredged up kitschy leftovers they learned through oldies radio, then gave it a bright coat of paint so it seemed fresh. This sensibility was evident on the many, many covers they cut during their brief heyday but it's the handful of songs Greg Camp wrote and Eric Valentine produced that gave Smash Mouth a permanent place on party playlists. Those singles hold up well, especially "Walkin' on the Sun" and "Then the Morning Comes," which aren't as ubiquitous as "All Star," the song that's as much a fact of life as air. Listening to those records now, what becomes clear is that we don't get these kinds of cross-demographic crowd-pleasers anymore because the connective tissue of radio has weakened. These are songs that only make sense on a large scale, the kind of playing field that's been eroded by algorithms. 

My Steve Harwell obituary for the Los Angeles Times

Mantra of the Cosmos

An aging Shaun Ryder isn't a pretty thing. Deep into a Black Grape reunion—an album is planned for later this year, the new singles "Pimp Wars" and "Milk" aren't bad—the former Happy Monday singer was coaxed into a Britpop supergroup by Zak Starkey who brought along Andy Bell from a latter-day incarnation of Oasis, thereby opening the door for Ryder to invite his hetero lifemate Bez. The ensuing Mantra of the Cosmos knocked out a couple of singles before hitting this summer's British festival circuit, somehow convincing Brix Smith of the Fall to play bass. That's a lot of personality for one band, none of which is evident in the two singles from Mantra of the Cosmos. "Gorilla Guerilla" and "X (What You Sayin')" are endless grooves that Ryder graces with chants, not refrains. He's clearly saving his best words for Black Grape, which leaves Mantra of the Cosmos as a caricature of aging Britpoppers, still clinging onto the beats and fashions of the 1990s, believing that bucket hat still looks good.

Aerosmith Says Goodbye

Finally admitting that they're aging out of the road, Aerosmith has embarked on a farewell tour where they will try to make a young man's music sound fresh. The old records still sound great, though.

My Top 40 Essentials for AV Club.