Some Singles From NPR From 2013

Soooo...I am listening to NPR’s Critics 50 picks for 2013 and picking them for you.  I am troubled this year that I seem to be listening to more well produced music, often with loops and...God forbid, automated drums.  WTF is wrong with me?  I have been recently wrestling with the paradigm shift that has already taken place in the industry which is away from the CD or Album or the idea that you need to pay for 10-13 songs when all you really want is the hit or the one song that grabs you.  I still like listening to whatever my favorites are doing but have fallen into the habit of just “owning” (buying on iTunes) the one song I really want or maybe two or three rather than the whole CD.  So I am going to look at music in a copule of different ways when looking back on 2013 and NPR’s list seemed like a good way to start but we are talking tunes or singles here rather than the CD they are connected with.  NPR had some interesting stuff I had not heard of and others that I did and here are my thoughts on whaty I gleaned from the list:

1. Bambino: “Amidinine”  This is motorcycle music for you.  I know it is out of season.  They are African Tauregs or some bullshit.  Who cares, this is really good and hooky and has balls. There is something about thisthat I know nothing about and I like.  I think they are from the Taureg tribe from Africa.  I am of the Becker tribe of Webster.  We can march but we do not rock like this.

2. Brandy Clark:  "Pray to Jesus”  70’s Country adapted for modern country poverty… and maybe hope…I don’t know.  “We Pray To Jesus and we play the lotto.”  That sounds like me. This entire CD was well reviewed and I think I probably grab the whole thing but this is “classis country” and I go to tell you, I love it.

3. BUIKA  "LA NOCHE MAS LARGA”  Latin Jazz for a late night…kind of like going to church.  That is all I have to say about that.

4. Haim “The Wire”  Though the intro seems to be “Heartache Tonight” this is interesting in the way Lorde is interesting.  There is something fresh sounding about it.  None essential but a Friday afternoon smile.  I kind of hate myself for even putting this in a list.  I hate myself for a lot of different reasons but let’s add Haim to the list.  I am told the whole CD is good.  I am not sure I can live with myself if I find out.

5. Jason Isbell:  “Elephant”.  If I have not already sold you this album it is my album of the year.  This song is a heart breaking homage to bar culture, cancer and how people die… as best they can.  See upcoming for my list.  Which is… limited but is my traditional CD list. “Different Days”, “Flying Over Water”...lots of depth here.

6. Kasey Musgraves:  “Merry Go Round”.  Really simply well written and performed classic country.  Americana at it’s best.  “Same trailer, different park”, “we get bored so we get married, just like dust we settle in this town”.  That is good shit. I don’t know whether she wrote this song but it is a study in songwriting.  If you like Brandy Clark you should LOVE Kasey Musgraves.

7. Laura Marling “Master Hunter”  NPR calls it "English Cosmic Folk”… Really?  It is driving and literary, she has a sneering little voice and it worth a listen.  It does not sound like most anything else out there.

8. Pedro Martinez Group:  “La Habana”…. there is a critical buzz… all Spanish…brilliant hand drumming… late night…why not?  For simple minded people like me think “quiet, talented Ricky Ricardo”.

9. San Fermin  “Renaissance”  I bought this CD at Euclid Records because of the CD art…it took NPR to make me listen.  Embarrassing.  This is mournful and the song is too “big” but it is pretty.  More listening will ensue.  I report, you decide.

10. Valerie June “Pushing Against A Stone”  Spare like a “Cat Power” song.  But better, with a twang and frankly more interesting.  I will need to check out the whole CD now.  I hate that.

11. Vampire Weekend:  “Step”  The CD is the best thing they have done since their debut.  Once again I have ignored but they are relentlessly pleasant and interesting.  Not enough for me to wax poetically about but seriously, who could really object to having this shit playing softly in the background while talking?  Nobody that you would want to talk to.

12. Waxahatchee:  Hollow Bedroom  All I could think of is Suzanne Vega singing “My Name Is Luka” but then the guitar came in and it got….compelling.

13. The Lorde CD:  I am sure for most of America it is overplayed but I never hear it unless I play it so the song “Royals” and “Tennis Court” are as finely crafted pop as you going to here.  

It has been a pretty good year. So that is NPR and if you don’t pay attention to their web site for music you need to re-evaluate your life.  They keep track of the new stuff as well as classic artists.  Their “Tiny Desk Concerts” are a trove of brilliance that one day might be compared to what the Smithsonian did for the Delta Blues.

STAGE NAMES: NPR... where did you find them?

Soooo... over the last several years I have become a National Public radio addict. This does not make me a bad person, a hater of Jesus or of our country no matter what you might hear. I like it. I feel like they give me two sides and more depth on everything but I also know that I have been indoctrinated and both those sides might be to the left of the mainstream. But NPR can be extremely annoying and pretentious. often they have shows that suck but generally I like them all day long and most of the weekend. They get a little weak for me at night and there are a few weekend shows that just do not have anything for me but today...lets talk about one particularly annoying thing.
WHERE DO THEY FIND PEOPLE WITH THESE NAMES?
It is like they have a casting call from the characters of “Star Trek: The Next Generation” Your name has to be odd, sound something like a plant or a medical condition, should contain an odd monosyllabic middle name when possible or at the very least sound like one of those joke names the characters have in the “A Series of Unfortunate Events” movie.
I am only going to discuss the women correspondents since they seem to be the most self consciously pretentious. I do not mean to imply that these women have stage names like strippers but seriously...it is too much. Do you question me on this?

Mandalit del Barco: Pronounced with an emphasis on the “del” and the first name sounds like it is Mandelita as it rolls off her tongue pretentiously saying...”hey America...I am not from there.”

Then we have Lourdes Garcia-Navarro. Shouldn’t she be of the same nationality or ethnicity as Mandelit? Shouldn’t they have covered the same ground.

Terry Gross: Funny name. Unattractive but very listenable women.

Vertamae Grosvenor: I can only assume by the name that she is a German Lutheran mother of 7 who cans a lot of fruit. Wrong. Now I am not trying to look up or research the ethnicity of any of these people but seriously, which nation is this NAtional Public Radio for? But wait, There is more!

Once again we have another German hausfrau. Annabelle Gurwitch. Seriously? Gurwitch? Gurwitch? Austrian Prime Minister...1972-1975? WRONG! Turns out she used to be on the campy Dinner and a Movie before moving on to...serious reporting. Kind of a hottie for NPR.

For the polo playing... waspy...anglophiles they offer us Charlayne Hunter-Gault. Once again wrong, wrong wrong! According to the NPR web site “Charlayne made civil rights history as the first African American woman to graduate from the University of Georgia in 1962, and has gone on to establish herself as one of television's premier journalists. She joined The MacNeil/Lehrer Report in 1978 as a correspondent, and became The News-Hour's national correspondent in 1983.” One must be impressed but one must also ask...why to many names? Is Charlayne really a name? These are big questions.

Ina Jaffe: Do not know if it a man or a woman. I comparison with the other names it is just “off beat” which is a little cute.

Then they come at us with their super hero name. Right out of a Marvel Comics sword and and sorcery epic I present... Xeni Jardin. The only thing I can say about her is at least she looks the part.

They have one correspondent who at least looks like she is right out of the movie “Broadcast News.” Silk blouse and a set of pearls. it does not get more Debra Sawyer like then this. Mara Liasson.

Renee Montagne: Have no idea about anything...other then I know... this is a stripper name. She is from NPR’s western studios in Culver City CA. Not that far from the place where Vivid makes porn...hmmm.

Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson... the Afghanistan correspondent. Once again most recently from California.
Michele Norris: An apparently normal name but she pronounces it mee-shell. Very annoying

Sylvia Poggioli has a great name which conjures up Italian food and a decent Barolo wine. Fittingly she is senior european correspondent.

But the winning name of all correspondents has to be Ofeibea Quist-Arcton. Once again, seriously... none of those are names. Not only are none of them names but she insists on the dreaded hyphenated name. Was her maiden name Quist or Arcton? What in the world is an Ofeibea? No one knows.

Nora Raum: Because of the way she pronounces it and her ubiquitous morning presence on NPR news I refer to her every time as Nora CD Rom.

Cokie Roberts: What can I say. What a great name. Cokie anybody works for me but the only time I had really heard the terms was when Cab Calloway sang “Minnie The Moocher” in the “Blues Brother” movie.

Kathleen Schalch: Buy a vowel.

Lakshmi Singh is a mid day news hottie who would more likely be a Bollywood star then a news correspondent. Pronounced Lak-shmee. Need I say more.

Dina Temple-Raston... lets hyphenate some more. Fittingly on the NPR website there is no picture of her. She is after all the FBI correspondent.

Nina Totenberg is just not that funny a name. Nice ethnicity but you really cannot compete in this crowd with a name like this.

Neda Ulaby...huh? Neda? What kind of parent would name their daughter Neda? Can you imagine grade school boys and the taunting. She looks like an aging KD Lang but she gives Ofeibea a run for her money. If you had a last name like Ulaby which brings to mind wallaby which is not an attractive reference wouldn’t you go for a pretty name?

Doualy Xaykaothao... if you want an asian correspondent, even if once again she works and lives in L.A. I guess Jane Smith is a none starter. The only thing you can say about Doualy.... at least she comes by it naturally.

As I said at the outset I love NPR. Along with getting older it has helped turn me into a bleeding heart liberal but sometimes the self involvement and the pretense of NPR and it’s listeners is a little hard to swallow. There is a little holier then thou attitude with all the listeners and we do really feel like we are better informed but we probably have just been indoctrinated. One thing that always amazes me though is the depth and level of entertainment they provide and even though NPR would cringe and perhaps even puke at the idea of news being “entertainment” it would appear that through through their correspondent names, whether real or stage names, has acknowledged that entertainment is exactly what it is.