So It Goes 2023: Week One
U2 surrenders, Peter Gabriel returns, Iggy Pop has fun, Jeff Beck passes, Zach Bryan gets cold.
Music and thoughts that have been bouncing around this past week, the first full (work) week of 2023 (at least for me).
Iggy Pop—Every Loser
By some measures, Every Loser could be called Iggy Pop's first back-to-basics rock album in twenty years. That math only works if the Stooges reunion albums are omitted from the equation and Post Pop Depression, the 2016 salute to Berlin-era Iggy helmed by Josh Homme, is considered an art project but maybe that's an accurate assessment. Certainly, Iggy spent much of the 2010s in seeming recoil from the idea of being Iggy Stooge, a perhaps understandable reaction to having the rest of the original Stooges lineup shuffle off this mortal coil in the wake of 2013's Ready to Die. Every Loser doesn't rock as hard as Ready to Die but, then again, it's not a Stooges album and Iggy has proven that he takes such distinctions quite seriously. Here, he seems happy simply being Iggy, whether that means he's a grizzled old crooner, a gnarly old rocker or some happy medium in between. Producer Andrew Watt might give the record a bit too much definition and shine but that clarity also illuminates how Iggy seems to enjoy wandering down a few different paths. He musters up the energy to keep up with a pogoing backbeat, plows through a grimy guitar grind and flirts with a stylized synth-rock he doesn't have the heart to follow, each sound a vague but recognizable echo of something he's done in the past. The energy keeps Every Loser from sounding like a retread, helping to convey a sense of fun that has been palpably absent from his records over the last decade.
U2—Pride (In the Name of Love) [Songs of Surrender version]
God knows what's going on in the U2 camp. Late last year, the news that Larry Mullen Jr. is currently not in shape to drum leaked out in a Washington Post profile of the band, one tied to the band being honored at the Kennedy Center which just happened to coincide with the release of Surrender: 40 Songs, One Story, a memoir by Bono. This week, U2 announced the impending release of Songs of Surrender, a quadruple album set where each member gets to pick four songs from their vast catalog to revisit. In other words, it's a collection of re-recordings, never a sign of a band in robust health. U2 fights that notion by having the Edge emphasize how this has "new tempos, new keys, and in some cases new chords and new lyrics." The latter is certainly apparent on "Pride (In the Name of Love)," where Bono gets the chance to correct his factual error about the timing of MLK's assassination but also gets to tweak another line into "one boy never will be kissed." Anchored on acoustics but filled with as much studio wizardry as any of their records, this version of "Pride (In the Name of Love)" is handsome, tasteful, and measured. It could easily be interpreted as a band that finally is leaving such follies as Ryan Tedder collaborations in the past, a welcome development by any measure. It also sounds a bit like something that would've been a blockbuster when sold at Starbucks in 2007.
Peter Gabriel—Panopticom
Unlike my friend and colleague Keith Harris, I did feel compelled to check out a song called "Panopticom," since it's the first original Peter Gabriel song to be released in twenty some years. Gabriel explains that the "Panopticom" is an "infinitely expandable accessible data globe" which will "allow the world to see itself better and understand more of what's really going on." That concept sounds suspiciously similar to Pete Townshend's Lifehouse, a tech futuristic concept album the Who guitarist never quite managed to complete, so Gabriel has a leg up in that regard. As a single, "Panopticom" is more teaser than hook: Gabriel's voice doesn't seem diminished, the textures—created in part with Brian Eno—are intriguing, there's enough of a rhythm to keep the ideas from drifting. After a few listens, it's yet to really gel for me but maybe it's laying seeds that will flower when the full-length i/o comes out later this year.
Zach Bryan
All My Homies Hate Ticketmaster (Live from Red Rocks)
I lost track of the number of times Zach Bryan shouts out a variation of "How ya doin' Red Rock?!?," possibly because these regular interjections were eclipsed by the number of times he complains about the cold on All My Homies Hate Ticketmaster (Live at Red Rocks). To be fair, he was performing his tour-closing show during a blizzard, an event that would make anybody bitch, but the frozen frenzy also lends some drive to his amiable Red Dirt Country, making this a bit more fun than the unyielding sprawl of American Heartbreak. I still can't shake one notion, though: after three or four songs by Bryan, I wind up wondering why I'm not listening to Turnpike Troubadours instead.
Jeff Beck (1944-2023)
I paid tribute to perhaps my favorite guitarist of the 1960s at the Los Angeles Times and somehow managed to not mention "Beck's Bolero," the Jeff Beck record I play the most. I did find a way to work "Barabajagal (Love is Hot)" into the piece, though.
Margo Price—Strays
Margo Price continues to leave country music far behind on Strays, a fine record I reviewed over at Allmusic.
I feel pretty much the same about the Iggy and Margo Price records. It's great that Iggy is still kicking ass, and Margo Price has found a way to continually expand her sound and maintain her core sensibility.