* Sandy Denny doing a cover of Dylan's "Don't Think Twice, It's Alright," way back when she was a fledgling folkie; not bad but overlong. The song comes from a bootleg that's a real mixed bag, quality-wise, but the high points are stunning. (This song isn't one of them, however.) Greil Marcus, back before he totally disappeared up his own ass, once described Sandy's vocal on "Matty Groves" as "towering," and I always think of that when I hear her sing. Her voice is fragile but overwhelming, breathy but clear, overflowing with strong feeling and incredible grace. She was magnificent. And yeah, she towered--over any other vocalist.

* The Streets doing something or other from "Original Pirate Material" (can't remember which track). I love The Streets; I think he's one of the most original and distinctive hip-hop artists to come along in a while. My long-held fascination with British working class culture makes me like him more, I'm sure, but I'm also a complete sucker for clever wordplay, and he's great at it. I like the little tinges of reggae he throws in, too. To my chagrin, I haven't paid nearly enough attention to hip-hop for a long time, not since the days when my then-husband and I would watch the Jukebox Channel on cable to see what rap videos the youth of America was digging. I like Nas and OutKast (everyone likes OutKast, don't they?) and the Roots, but I'm not real up on stuff beyond that. But The Streets makes me want to start paying attention again. The only thing I don't like about The Streets is that his name makes me think of The Street, a really evil character (superbly played by Steven Mackintosh) in one of the "Prime Suspect" series from the '90s. I loved that show, and I've seen almost every series (there were five, I think) at least four times, but I have trouble watching the one with The Street because it's so brutal. And bad things happen to dogs, and I just can't watch shows in which bad things happen to dogs or cats.

* Bettie Serveert's "The Kid's Alright," from their wonderful first record, "Palomine." My iPod looooooooves Bettie Serveert, and shows a strong preference for their most recent album, so it's always nice when something from "Palomine" or "Lamprey" comes up. (Actually, now that I think of it, nothing from "Lamprey"--my favorite Betties record even if it does sound like it was recorded in a dishwasher, sometime in the mid-1980s--ever has come up. Maybe I forgot to put it on the iPod. Must investigate.) "The Kid's Alright" involves beating a cat up with a baseball bat, so it's not my favorite song on the record (see above), but it is catchy as hell. The new album, "Log 22," is great too, though with typical perverseness, the damn iPod almost always plays the same song from it--"Wide Eyed Fools," which opens the record. I hadn't liked the Betties' last couple of records--"Venus in Furs," which was a live thing featuring nothing but Velvets covers, was pretty uninspiring, and I really couldn't stand "Private Suit" (although I ought to give it another try; I wasn't in the best frame of mind when I bought it). So it's a relief that they've come back with such a solid, smart, diverse record. I found out recently that Carol Van Dijk, the Betties' singer, is just a year younger than me, meaning she'll turn 41 this year. Learning this made me strangely happy. I'm kind of fascinated by Carol, with her tomboyishness (just like the song says) and the fact that she started out as the sound guy for De Artsen, the precursor to the Betties. (I was learning to be a sound guy for a while, but got sidetracked, which is just as well since I'm scared of electricity.) And especially with her slyly witty lyrics. When I first heard "Palomine," I was knocked out by her ability to write such clever, punning lyrics in a language that wasn't even her own. Of course, then I found out that she grew up in Canada and grew up speaking English as well as Dutch. Oops. The lyrics are still clever, though. |||95869188|||