Rickie lee Jones, S/D?

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And she's much better than Norah.

Day-old boudin from the world's worst Louisiana restaurant is better than Norah.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 19 February 2003 15:56 (twenty-one years ago) link

I don't understand how people are agreeing the songwriting, particularly on the first album, is generic. You don't find a singular point of view or persona being put forth there? To draw an obvious parallel, would you say Tom Waits's songwriting is generic?

― Sean (Sean), Wednesday, 19 February 2003 16:17 (twenty-one years ago) link

i think the SOUND of the band is kind of generic, the way the instruments sound together. i find the singular viewpoint snapped into focus by RLJ's voice, frankly - she could do standards and i'd probably like it just as much.

Kenen i would absolutely play it for someone who came over.

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Wednesday, 19 February 2003 16:36 (twenty-one years ago) link

the thing that's weird about her though is no "edge" like Tom Waits. she can get broody but that's not the same.

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Wednesday, 19 February 2003 17:23 (twenty-one years ago) link

To draw an obvious parallel, would you say Tom Waits's songwriting is generic?

It's a parallel only to the Early Years stuff. And yes, actually, that stuff leaves me mostly cold -- either finger-popping goofball Beat generation "Ha! Ain't it coooool...." crap or, what is it, 17 minutes of "Tom Traubert's Blues." Nothing before Swordfishtrombones explains why Tom Waits is a God.

― Kenan Hebert (kenan), Wednesday, 19 February 2003 18:37 (twenty-one years ago) link

I feel the same about Ms. Jones as i do about Suzanne Vega; Vulva Cheese.

― christoff (christoff), Wednesday, 19 February 2003 18:41 (twenty-one years ago) link

one year passes...

Interesting to see the discussions of genericism upthread. I was listening to Pirates again yesterday and it's such a restless and unusual album - very much in that vein of MOR-but-weird albums that I often find myself loving (see "The Hissing of Summer Lawns" Steely Dan, The Blue Nile) but are also often much more uncomfortable than straight experimental fare. I mean, something like "Living It Up" - WTF? The emotional navigation on that song is just screwy.

Was it Marcello who traced a connection between this album and Mary Margeret O'Hara?

― Tim Finney (Tim Finney), Monday, 30 August 2004 13:22 (nineteen years ago) link

one year passes...

the genericness definitely works in the s/t's favor -- i hear it more as natural, unforced restraint (not sure that's the right word because it implies "holding back" rather than starting straightaway at an otherwise held-back position). i like how she doesn't feel like she has to be eccentric ALL THROUGH THE RECORD... it comes and goes in a flash, like a kid keying the paint job on your car and running away before you can see who did it. and then it doesn't even feel like "look, i'm being eccentric now!" those moments are just nice little parenthetical burps that don't in any way ruin the mood she's created.

― like a circle in a spiral, like a wheel within a wheel (Jody Beth Rosen), Friday, 2 December 2005 22:53 (eighteen years ago) link

Did anyone else follow her attempt to come to grips with trip hop/the dust brothers/her own past as a sample source etc. on Ghostyhead? There are parts of that album I really really like.

― Tim Finney (Tim Finney), Sunday, 4 December 2005 01:13 (eighteen years ago) link

parts of it are great! it really was trying a bit too hard mostly though - it felt kinda desperate, and since confidence had always been a big element of RLJ's persona, that was a little weird

I personally think the song "Pink Flamingos" on an album whose name I can't remember right now is one of her best songs! -a fairly late record, anyhow

― Banana Nutrament (ghostface), Sunday, 4 December 2005 01:51 (eighteen years ago) link

Traffic From Paradise is the album. one of her best, and a favourite of mine since it came out in 1993.

― derrick (derrick), Sunday, 4 December 2005 05:23 (eighteen years ago) link

two years pass...

Really, Really, Really, Really, Really can't fuckin' stand her.
-- Alex in NYC (vassifer), Tuesday, February 18, 2003

i wouldn't go that far but i am truly baffled at what people see/hear in her.

― gershy, Saturday, 19 January 2008 05:08 (sixteen years ago) link

three months pass...

"i like how she doesn't feel like she has to be eccentric ALL THROUGH THE RECORD... it comes and goes in a flash, like a kid keying the paint job on your car and running away before you can see who did it. and then it doesn't even feel like "look, i'm being eccentric now!" those moments are just nice little parenthetical burps that don't in any way ruin the mood she's created."

This is so right. I'm still baffled and enthralled by "Living It Up" and "Pirates (So Long Lonely Avenue)" - the way they careen dizzily from breezy uptempo soft-focus jazz rock to these sudden burst-through moments of awed and awesome solemnity.

― Tim F, Saturday, 17 May 2008 15:06 (sixteen years ago) link

one year passes...

I've listened to Pirates so much in the past year and a bit. It's probably in my top ten albums ever at this stage. The moment I refer to the above where the title track goes all eerie soft ambience is so astonishing, in precisely the way jody describes it.

― Tim F, Sunday, 9 August 2009 15:01 (fourteen years ago) link

two years pass...

man. traces of the western slopes shouldn't work, but it is so amazing. i feel like i've actively resisted going back into a rlj phase for several years and now i fear for my psyche

― dell (del), Saturday, 14 July 2012 19:16 (eleven years ago) link

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