The Devin Cuddy Band – Dear Jane
Genre: Folk rock, Americana
There’s a notion that anyone can play music. Punk-rock, the reason why this website exists, is partly to blame for thinking this. Is it false? No, it’s accurate but represents incomplete information. Anyone can work the way that a guitar works, and many vocalists who can’t hold a note are much more interesting than the kinds of people that they let appear on television karaoke contests.
But music of a certain complexity, both technical and emotional, requires professionals. The Devin Cuddy Band strive to be part of that class of people, of musicians who have passed their exams on the long, dusty road toward the status of lifer. And, for the audiences who still like to have their hearts stolen and their ears tickled by harmonious sounds, this should prove enough.
The Devin Cuddy Band’s “Dear Jane” is a slow, folk-rock number about love, loss and the desire to exchange it all for one solitary moment of bliss. It is a rootsy record, one that pays homage to this genre’s greats. And in doing so, it aligns itself with a movement that has gathered more and more representatives in recent years. This gathering’s motto is “Before was better,” and when it comes to music, they may well be right. There used to be a time when people sang their hearts out and used real instruments. That was no small achievement, and folks like Devin Cuddy would rather keep it this way.
Amanda Palmer – Little Island
Similar artists: The Dresden Dolls, Evelyn Evelyn, Pretty Balanced, Rasputina
Genre: Folk rock, Folk, Alternative Rock
We live in a ridiculous, and, of course, we all know it. The songwriters who wish to accept this fact are thus treated to a reality that is often uninspiring and, occasionally, unbearable. But were the great old songs written at moments that felt more important? Were those the kinds of moments that artists knew they needed to save up for a piece of art?
Every eccentric rockstar ends up making folk music if they’re lucky. It’s the same as talented painters who, as Pablo Picasso said, spent their entire life trying to forget technique and learn to paint like children. Once every trick under the Sun has been learned and utilized, there’s nowhere to go but back to the frail structure that makes a song a song and not just a monologue whispered over a cup of coffee.
Amanda Palmer’s “Little Island” is a folk tune about the hard-to-believe world which we created. It’s not a world of heroes or of villains. There are no great American cowboys riding out of the mountains and no respectable tyrants trying to enslave Europe.
It’s all difficult to make out and thus deserves a song. Palmer, an artist who has sharpened her considerable songwriting skills in front of the public eye for a great long time, knows just what such a tune needs. As it turns out, it’s little else than a bit of poetry, Palmer’s voice, a dry acoustic guitar and a sprinkling of piano. Maybe this ain’t such a graceless age after all.
