Wisdom and radiance
One thing I dislike about music journalism is that it uses … words. Alex Linhardt in the Pitchforkmedia review of Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy’s new LP is suitably decked-out with them: the songs on it are “syrupy, bombastic, truckin’-through-McDonalds, barrel-hoppin’ blitzes” he writes. What does this tell us? That Mr Linhardt can compare the noise to other things with which we might be familiar. Good on him.
This LP is, as is well-documented, a Nashville makeover of his famous Palace songs, or some of them (there are so many to choose from!). Linhardt goes on “Murmurs around my Internet database suggest that now we can finally find out if Oldham’s songwriting skills stand up without the stark atmospherics. Well, based on Greatest Palace Music, they absolutely collapse. New Partner, probably the greatest moment on Viva Last Blues, and one of the best recordings of Oldham’s career, is sieved through jingoistic guitar that veers to the brink of schmaltz and back again.”
What? Apart from The Brute Choir being the highlight, where are the “stark atmospherics” of the original New Partner? Where are they on I See a Darkness? There is no question over his songwriting abilties. Only Bill Callahan can touch him. I have listened to Greatest Palace Music about 50 times already this week (on rotation at work) and it contains, in Gulf Shores, a recording that is life-ruining in its perfection.
Linhardt kinda redeems himself at the end by hinting at the provenance of its true, dialectical joy: “it’s precisely in the listener’s painful struggle - the reaction to the artist’s self-annihilation, devastating arrogance, and backstabbing repugnance - that this record finds its wisdom and radiance.” The important words here are artist and finds.
Other Splinters posts of interest:
- Greatest Palace Music
- Greatest Hits
- WO/BPB
- Albini Hello, I’ll be adding to the weblog alon…
- Thus Spake Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy
