News

Tom Waits, Beck, Be Good Tanyas Marked American Music in 2006 By Douglas Lytle

Dec. 29 (Bloomberg) -- The music industry has become so fractured, and tastes so diffuse, that it's almost impossible to prepare a comprehensive list of the ``best'' of the year.

How can I tell you what the best dance music was when I didn't have time to get funky in my khakis at the local club? I barely drive anymore, so I don't listen to the radio, and thus miss out on the rotating Top 10.

I did catch a lot of new releases, including Bob Dylan, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Pearl Jam, Jay-Z, Prince, Cat Power, Gnarls Barkley, Tom Petty, Sufjan Stevens, Bruce Springsteen and Madonna. Parts I liked, some I danced to and others I just plain ignored, never fancied or couldn't find time enough to fit in my life.

The following are a few of the artists, videos or trends that caught my attention enough to remain lodged in my brain.

Rosanne Cash ``Black Cadillac'' (Capitol Records) -- It's one thing to deal with the death of a parent, it's quite another when your father is Johnny Cash. Rosanne Cash sets aside her family's myths and legends in favor of examining her feelings about the death of her father, his second wife June Carter Cash and also her own real mother. A sad and revealing record that allowed us to see these people as complicated human beings.

Todd Snider ``The Devil You Know'' (New Door Records) -- For me, the year's most exciting record. While the portrait Snider paints of America is often bleak, his renditions of people living life on the margins are as finely wrought and as funny as any songs by Randy Newman, John Hiatt or John Prine. The music also rocks as hard as the Rolling Stones on many tracks. Though Snider is lumped in with the alt-country and folk crowd, his music ranges far beyond those borders.

Los Lobos ``The Town and the City'' (Hollywood Records) -- Another elegiac portrait of life lived by the masses, this time in Los Angeles. Los Lobos, who have worked together for more than 30 years, continue to produce their unique brand of rock n' roll that mines a wealth of sources, especially from their Latino roots.

Be Good Tanyas ``Hello Love'' (Nettwerk Records) -- These three musicians from Vancouver produce down-home music that sounds like Appalachian soul with a touch of the blues. Listeners get new tracks like ``Human Touch'' along with a torrid rendition of Neil Young's ``For the Turnstiles'' and a ``hidden'' version of Prince's ``When Doves Cry'' that turns the Purple One's 1983 hit into a down-home spiritual. Wistful, sensual and heartfelt.

Beck ``The Information'' (Interscope) -- I listen to Beck's records the way filmmaker Quentin Tarantino watches movies. He apparently sees a film first to get the plot and other stuff out of the way and then goes back to look at it again and again so he can really get into it. Digging into a Beck record is a similar experience as one paws through a bizarre carpet of sampled noises and funky rhythms and lyrics like ``paranoid jumbotron.''

Tom Waits ``Orphans'' (Anti) -- Fifty-four outtakes, new songs and rare recordings spread out over three lovingly prepared discs from one of the U.S.'s most treasured musicians. Listen to the ``Brawlers'' disc when you're feeling mean, ``Bawlers'' when you want slow and sad and ``Bastards'' when you're feeling downright weird. A key inclusion here is Waits's rendition of Disney's ``Heigh Ho, Heigh Ho,'' from a formerly out-of-print record of Disney songs from 1988 called ``Stay Awake,'' in which the sprightly work song becomes a funeral dirge, appropriate for greeting Monday mornings.

Neil Young ``Heart of Gold'' (Paramount Home Video) -- This film, directed by Jonathan Demme, captures Young's folk-country side in a sublime performance from Nashville's Ryman Auditorium. Like Martin Scorsese's ``The Last Waltz,'' Demme opts for long panning shots rather than hyperkinetic MTV-era jump cuts that so often ruin the enjoyment of watching artists performing live.

Biggest Disappointment: Madeleine Peyroux's ``Half the Perfect World'' (Rounder Records) -- came out of the box sounding exactly like her last jazz-influenced record ``Careless Love.'' I loved ``Careless Love.'' Why couldn't I warm to the new effort? Her ability to sound exactly like Billie Holiday became less charming and more grating. Having this playing put me in the mood to go shopping for new cutlery in a mall.

Most Unwelcome Trend: Singers cranking out ``tribute'' records to long-dead artists, or worse, going whole hog and covering batches of songs from entire eras. Notable offenders this year include Michael Bolton (``Bolton Swings Sinatra'') and Rod Stewart (``Still the Same ... Great Rock Classics of Our Time.'') Ol' Rooster Head has now hit a second wind by working his way through most of the eras, starting somewhere around Pearl Harbor and ending in Woodstock. What's next? ``Stewart Sings Streisand''?

Judging by the numbers of people who bought Tony Bennett's ``Duets'' album, baby-boomers who once looked down at their parents for watching the Lawrence Welk Show and ``Singing Along With Mitch Miller'' better watch out. They're getting uncomfortably close to the abyss.

(Douglas Lytle is a writer for Bloomberg News. The opinions expressed are his own.)