I've been picking up more new music lately than I can realistically review for Playlist, so I'm going to start tossing them up here on the Internets, blog-form style. Some of them may see the light of day in print form once I pick at them a little more.
By the way, Yep Roc Records is shaping up to be quite the hip little label. With Billy Bragg, Robyn Hitchcock, Ian Hunter and Nick Lowe, it's as if they hired the 18-year-old me to sign their roster. Still vital artists making some nifty music, by the way. And they just signed the Gourds!
Nick Lowe
At My Age
(Yep Roc)
If there’s one word I’ve studiously avoided in my attempts to describe music, it’s “mellow.” I loathe this word. It conveys all the wrong meanings to me. Dark Side of the Moon is mellow. Gordon Lightfoot is mellow. “Have You Never Been Mellow” is mellow. These are not the antecedents I wish to conjure with. But avoiding this term becomes difficult when one comes across a record that does all that it can to give “mellow” a good name. Nick Lowe’s At My Age just might accomplish that task.
Over his last few records, erstwhile power-popper and Jesus of Cool (that’s not me talking – his first UK LP bore that impossible-to-live-up-to moniker) Nick Lowe has taken on a new persona, somehow debonair and worldly, but also self-deprecating and aware of his shortcomings. On “Long Limbed Girl,” Lowe reminisces about a lost love, wistfully hoping it hasn’t been a “long and bitter road.” “Hope for Us All,” meanwhile, allows that he is a “feckless man,” but if he can find love...well, you get the idea. Lowe’s lyrics, always a highlight of his records, remain as arch as ever, adding just the right twist to the countrypolitan leanings of this disc. And let's face it , any lyricist who can inject the word "feckless" into a song is eminently worthy.
In recent interviews, Nick Lowe has expressed an admiration for Dean Martin’s country-styled records of the 1960s and ’70s, and that light touch does serve as a musical touchstone here. But while Dino’s Reprise output was too often loaded down with the sense that this was the work of a guy punching the clock, At My Age demonstrates a finely-wrought thoughtfulness that is the hallmark of a true craftsman.
Musically, most of the elements that peppered his earlier work—the blue eyed soul, the countrified acoustic strum-alongs, the unerring ear for a pop hook, are still intact here, they’re brought to a more intimate level. Those who only know Nick Lowe from 1979's “Cruel to Be Kind” and have written him off as a one-hit wonder, you’d do well to give At My Age a listen. You might find he’s mellowed right along with you.
Dig the sounds here!
By the way, Yep Roc Records is shaping up to be quite the hip little label. With Billy Bragg, Robyn Hitchcock, Ian Hunter and Nick Lowe, it's as if they hired the 18-year-old me to sign their roster. Still vital artists making some nifty music, by the way. And they just signed the Gourds!
Nick Lowe
At My Age
(Yep Roc)
If there’s one word I’ve studiously avoided in my attempts to describe music, it’s “mellow.” I loathe this word. It conveys all the wrong meanings to me. Dark Side of the Moon is mellow. Gordon Lightfoot is mellow. “Have You Never Been Mellow” is mellow. These are not the antecedents I wish to conjure with. But avoiding this term becomes difficult when one comes across a record that does all that it can to give “mellow” a good name. Nick Lowe’s At My Age just might accomplish that task.
Over his last few records, erstwhile power-popper and Jesus of Cool (that’s not me talking – his first UK LP bore that impossible-to-live-up-to moniker) Nick Lowe has taken on a new persona, somehow debonair and worldly, but also self-deprecating and aware of his shortcomings. On “Long Limbed Girl,” Lowe reminisces about a lost love, wistfully hoping it hasn’t been a “long and bitter road.” “Hope for Us All,” meanwhile, allows that he is a “feckless man,” but if he can find love...well, you get the idea. Lowe’s lyrics, always a highlight of his records, remain as arch as ever, adding just the right twist to the countrypolitan leanings of this disc. And let's face it , any lyricist who can inject the word "feckless" into a song is eminently worthy.
In recent interviews, Nick Lowe has expressed an admiration for Dean Martin’s country-styled records of the 1960s and ’70s, and that light touch does serve as a musical touchstone here. But while Dino’s Reprise output was too often loaded down with the sense that this was the work of a guy punching the clock, At My Age demonstrates a finely-wrought thoughtfulness that is the hallmark of a true craftsman.
Musically, most of the elements that peppered his earlier work—the blue eyed soul, the countrified acoustic strum-alongs, the unerring ear for a pop hook, are still intact here, they’re brought to a more intimate level. Those who only know Nick Lowe from 1979's “Cruel to Be Kind” and have written him off as a one-hit wonder, you’d do well to give At My Age a listen. You might find he’s mellowed right along with you.
Dig the sounds here!
