Author: Michael Darling
In life’s endless pursuit of great music, it is not uncommon for a record to just miss our attention. Here are five albums worth checking out that might have been under your radar.
1. Little Jackie, The Stoop (2008). Last year, alt-hip-hop singer/songwriter Imani Coppola teamed up with DJ Adam Pallin to form Little Jackie. The duo uses soulful backing instruments that wouldn’t be out of place on a Martha Reeves or Amy Winehouse recording. Lyrically, Coppola creates an atmosphere like “hanging on the stoop in Bed-Stuy on a hot summer’s day,” while making fun of her useless ex-boyfriends.
2) Klaus Nomi, The Essential (2002). I didn’t want to put a “Best Of” on this list, but I felt this album needed some attention. Consider the following if you will: a gay German man dressed like what can be best described as a robot clown. Okay, now here’s the weird part: he’s got an almost inhuman falsetto voice. Nomi was a friend of David Bowie’s during the late 1970s and early 1980s. This album collects a good spectrum of his brief, AIDS-shortened career ranging from glam synth-pop originals with operatic elements to slightly bizarre covers of 1960s pop tunes and arias performed without irony. The closing song, “Simple Man,” has a fantastic Brian May-esque guitar solo.
3) Morphine, Cure For Pain (1993). Morphine was the alternative to ’90s alt-rock. They were a power trio based not around an electric guitar, but a saxophone. The band builds songs around jazz, rock, and blues influences. This second album features some of their best work including the paranoid “Thursday,” the shuffle of “Mary Will You Call My Name” and the simple Leonard Cohen-style pastoral sound of “In Spite of Me.”
4) Various Artists, Stubbs The Zombie Soundtrack (2005). This is the soundtrack to a videogame set in the 1950s. The creative team behind the game had the brilliant idea to ask a bunch of indie rockers to record covers of songs from that decade. Most of these covers turn out quite nicely, although there are a few low points. A few of the highlights on the record include Cake’s rendition of “Strangers in the Night,” Rogue Wave’s Celtic -style take on Buddy Holly’s “Everyday,” and Death Cab For Cutie doing “Earth Angel.” Also notable is the Flaming Lips, a band that might just be from the Land of Oz, performing “If I Only Had a Brain.” Phantom Planet contributes an original song entitled “The Living Dead,” which thematically works with the game, but sounds out of place alongside the other numbers.
5) James Brown, Soul On Top (1970). This is a lesser-known jewel in the crown of the Godfather of Soul. For this record Brown teamed up with jazz arranger/conductor Oliver Nelson. Together the two of them created a record that is a hybrid of big band jazz, soul, and funk. On this album, Brown revisits two major hits, “Papa’s Got a Brand New Bag” and “It’s A Man’s, Man’s, Man’s World.” He also turns in a funky version of Hank Williams’ “Your Cheating Heart.” Brown even handles a few jazz standards, like “September Song,” and redresses them in his signature style. This record is one of Brown’s strangest and best experiments and is a must have in anyone’s collection.
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