The ALBUM Section: November 2023

It’s time for the holiday rush, so let’s get to it.

Dolly Parton’s 2022 induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame drew predictable complaints from the rockist crowd (“When is Metallica going into the Country Hall? Huhuhuhuh”).

But Parton experienced plenty of crossover success in her career, reaching a beloved national treasure status transcending genre. And there’s no denying her influence extends beyond country.

Parton herself initially attempted to decline, but changed her mind and was there to accept the honor. The induction appearance turned out to be a lead-in for Rockstar.

Artist: Dolly Parton

Album: Rockstar

Label: Butterfly Records/Big Machine 

★★★ 1/2 (3.5/5 stars) 

The album is a mix of rock covers, some often ridiculously Classic Rock 101 (“Free Bird,” “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction,” “Stairway to Heaven”) and originals meant to fit in stylistically.

And there are guest stars. Oh, so many guest stars. Many of them are also in the Rock Hall (Stevie Nicks, Ann Wilson, Sting, Rob Halford, Elton John, Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, etc.). Then throw in some more recent names like Brandi Carlile, Miley Cyrus and P!nk and some names that don’t need to be there (“cancel culture” whiner Kid Rock, who is neither kid nor rock at this point). The end result is 30(!) songs clocking in at over two hours and 20 minutes.

Your first thought is probably, “That’s way too long!” Go with that thought.

On the plus side, Parton seems to be having a really good time. That, along with her talent and bulletproof likability, helps its best moments connect.

She digs into “Magic Man,” pairing with Wilson like a killer moment from CMT’s Crossroads. Chris Stapleton, filling in for Bob Seger, is such an obvious choice for a duet partner on “Night Moves.” And the nostalgic tone of the song fits her like a flattering dress. Likewise, her spunky grit works well on “Heartbreaker.” And after hearing “Don’t Let The Sun Go Down on Me,” I would be happy with a Dolly album of Elton John covers (I nominate “This Train Don’t Stop There Anymore,” for starters)

Hell, even Journey’s hit exercise in schmaltzy balladry, “Open Arms” soars with Dolly’s chorus lead in a way the original couldn’t (and renders Perry’s guest appearance intrusively unnecessary). Similarly, “Baby I Love Your Way” could have been a hit during her crossover period, with Frampton being a more successful duet partner.

Of the originals, Parton fares well on “Tried to Rock and Roll Me” with Melissa Etheridge. The bluesy “What Has Rock and Roll Done For You” puts her together with Nicks in a way that suits both (although I could have lived without the “banter”). “Bygones” actually has some energy, with the pairing with Rob Halford feeling natural for a song that, too rarely on Rockstar, feels like it would be an actual rock song in its sound.

On the downside, nobody needed another version of “Free Bird,” least of all with the current Skynyrd tribute band that ain’t Lynyrd Skynyrd. Plus, come on, “Call Me The Breeze” is right there. Her version of “Stairway” never rises above pedestrian karaoke. There are loads of ’90s alternative songs and songs with a social eye that would have made a better choice than “What’s Up?” “Every Breath You Take” gets stripped of every bit of menace. “I Dreamed About Elvis,” with Ronnie McDowell and the Jordanaires squanders its opportunity by sticking its participants up to their eyeballs in variety show corniness.

As well-executed as it often is, it’s hard not to mourn the missed opportunity here. Picture a version of this without the bloated runtime, cutting back on the guest stars (especially vocally), a willingness to cover songs that aren’t so bleedingly obvious and a desire for adventurous arrangements. That’s the album that could have stated Parton’s case so much more forcefuly.

As it is, Rockstar is too inconsistent, too much of a play-it-safe marketing exercise to do it. Parton’s discography is full of classics, but this won’t be one of them.

Only those closest to him knew it, but the 2020s were difficult for Jimmy Buffett. To the outside world, once the pandemic eased, he kept playing live shows on the heels of his 2020 album Life on the Flip Side.

The reality was that he’d been battling skin cancer since getting the diagnosis as he was finishing up that album. It was a rare, aggressive form of the disease.

Buffett kept working. He played live as long as he could and also worked on a new album, one that he knew would be his last.

Artist: Jimmy Buffett 

Album: Equal Strain on All Parts

Label: Sun Records 

★★★★ 1/4 (4.25/5 stars)

As with Warren Zevon’s The Wind, the album turns out to be one that sums up and reflects the dying artist. For Zevon, it was full of mordant wit and heart. For Buffett, it’s as if he was a living guest at his own wake.

It feels like he wanted to leave at least one more example of his various musical explorations, thus the amusing “My Gummie Just Kicked In” (with Paul McCartney on bass) and “Close Calls,” which goes full-on country in looking back at past scrapes. The latter comes complete with a final exaggerated lyrical reference to a 1974 run-in with a notorious Tennessee lawman who didn’t appreciate the singer standing on the hood of his car in cleatless golf shoes (“I fought Buford Pusser in a honky-tonk joint. He whipped my ass. That’s beside the point”).

There’s an ode to his love of travel (“Portugal or PEI”), a nod towards taking time off (“Nobody Works on Friday” with its social commentary), a magical tale involving one of his beloved pursuits (“Fish Porn,” which has nothing to do with disturbing browser histories) and a trip to one of his favorite places (“University of Bourbon Street”).

New Orleans isn’t the only place the music itself visits. “Audience of One” tips its hat to Cuba, “Ti Punch Cafe” takes the French grand chanson to the islands with the help of well-chosen vocal help from Angélique Kidjo.

The album’s most affecting moments are when Buffett plays it straight. He covers “Mozambique,” Bob Dylan’s satirical single off 1976’s Desire, complete with bringing in Dylan’s duet partner on the original, Emmylou Harris, to join him. In his hands, it becomes a song about the possibilities of life, the places and people that await around the corner on your travels, less about a specific place and more about a state of mind. It’s a perfect album closer.

Except the album has an even better option in its second song — “Bubbles Up.” Using advice given to scuba divers (basically, if you’re disoriented, remember that bubbles go to the surface) as metaphor, it’s Buffett’s last goodbye.

It feels like it’s his own way of saying “enjoy every sandwich” or, more accurately, the apocryphal Dr. Suess quote of ” Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened.” With gratitude and hope, he nails the feeling of reassurance he was aiming for.

With solid songwriting help from friends and backing from his Coral Reefer Band, Equal Strain on All Parts is a bittersweet farewell that doesn’t forget the sweetness and also his best album in many years, a reminder of the charm and gifts that made him successful in the first place.

There was excitement at the prospect of André 3000’s return after 17 years of acting and occasional guest appearances on record.

That excitement was tempered when everyone got the reveal. He was not going to be working in his hip-hop wheelhouse, but was coming out with an album of ambient flute music.

It might have invited punchlines (“I’m waiting for his accordion jamboree, personally”), but there was potential.

Artist: André 3000

Album: New Blue Sun

Label: Epic Records 

★★ 1/2 (2.5/5 stars) 

André 3000’s a talented man and if one can rightfully quibble with his reasoning for not doing hip-hop (a mistaken belief that middle-aged artists have nothing to say in the genre), it would be wrong to expect him to do something if his heart’s not in it.

Nobody really wants an album where he’d phone it in or shamelessly chase trends or load an album with so many guest stars that people forget it’s supposed to be an André 3000 project. That would be far more dispiriting than what we got.

So, I don’t begrudge the man for following his muse. That doesn’t mean I don’t wish the results were better.

New Blue Sun sounds truly lovely, but doesn’t really go anywhere. There is precious little musical tension or any real sense of dynamics.

He saves any sense of playfulness for the song titles — “I Swear, I Really Wanted to Make a ‘Rap’ Album but This Is Literally the Way the Wind Blew Me This Time” and “That Night in Hawaii When I Turned into a Panther and Started Making These Low Register Purring Tones That I Couldn’t Control … Sh¥t Was Wild” being two examples.

The music mostly sits there, sounding like what would happen if you introduced ayahuasca to any Windham Hill artist of a generation ago. Stretching out eight songs into almost 88 minutes, it becomes an endurance test, like having to hear the results in an elevator stuck between floors on the way home from a dentist’s appointment. The whole thing blurs together into one long piece.

Here’s hoping that if André 3000 continues down this path, that he expands his palette and creates more than just musical wallpaper.

The ongoing band- and heir-approved Giles Martin trips through the Beatles catalog has made its way to the albums known colloquially as Red and Blue, the compilations originally released in 1973.

They were my first Beatles albums, so long ago that I can’t remember whether they were Christmas or birthday presents. I do know I didn’t buy them, as the first album I bought with my own money would be Magical Mystery Tour a couple years later.

So, there are some of us for whom those albums were an inviting Beatles primer for the rest that awaited with further exploration.

Artist: The Beatles

Album: 1962-1966/1967-1970

Label: Apple/Capitol 

★★★★★ (5/5 stars)

The first thing to talk about here isn’t the production, but the tracklisting. The originals were samplers concentrating mostly on singles, creating an effective if incomplete portrait of the band. A lot of the songs that mattered were there, but some of the Beatles more consequential songs were album cuts.

The new versions of 1962-1966 and 1967-1970, which I’ll refer to as Red and Blue from here on out, offer a more complete portrait of the group.

To start with, the original Red had zero songs written or sung lead by George Harrison. Even accounting for the fact that he didn’t really come into his own as a writer until the band’s final years, it was unfortunate. Here,we get the gorgeous jangle of  “If I Needed Someone” and sarcastic wit of “Taxman,” both welcome additions.

The latter is part of a massive influx of material from Revolver. Their best album was only represented by “Eleanor Rigby” and “Yellow Submarine.” This time, McCartney’s “Got to Get You Into My Life” and “Here, There and Everywhere” and Lennon’s “I’m Only Sleeping” and “Tomorrow Never Knows” join “Taxman” in the party.

All are welcome additions, especially “Here, There and Everywhere,” one of the most beautiful ballads Paul ever wrote, and “Tomorrow Never Knows,” the amazingly forward-looking psychedelic masterpiece that’s on the short list of best of John’s career.

Throw in other additions like the classic “I Saw Her Standing There” and “Twist and Shout” from the Beatlemania period and you have a tracklist that gets closer to hitting the mark.

Blue does likewise, adding three White Album songs for starters in “Dear Prudence” (the most welcome addition), “Glass Onion” and “Blackbird” for greater White album representation. The additions of “I Want You (She’s So Heavy)” and “Oh Darling” give a greater context to Abbey Road.

There are 21 new songs over the course of the two sets, which makes for one selling point. The other may or may not be, depending on your point of view. Some self-styled purists consider the Martin mixes some form of blasphemy while others aren’t sold on the results.

In this corner, it depends on the album. His work on Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club band was revelatory. Bringing out the rhythm section made the album muscular, sounding the least dated it had in years. The subsequent remixes have all sounded quite good, albeit in service of albums less in need of a sonic makeover.

There’s not nearly as much new in terms of the mixes on Blue, as most of them come from work Martin did for the individual albums (including non-album singles included in deluxe versions).

The new mix of “I am The Walrus” turns into a rare misstep. At first, one notices the welcome clarity. But then the extended outro happens. The strings get buried. So does Lennon’s voice quoting King Lear. Random radio noise gets pushed up. It gets turned into a big mess that reminds me of the quote from Jurassic Park: “Yeah, yeah, but your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could that they didn’t stop to think if they should.”

The other new mixes on Blue fair better, particularly on a fuller “Magical Mystery Tour” and a heavier “Revolution.”

The other intended draw is the last track, “Now and Then,” a repurposed Lennon solo demo that the three surviving Beatles tackled for Anthology. They gave up on it then, because the technology didn’t exist to salvage it.

Years later, filmmaker Peter Jackson came up with a form of software for use on the new and expanded Get Back documentary. Basically, it allows songs to be broken down to their component parts. For “Now and Then,” that meant McCartney and Ringo Starr had isolated Lennon piano and vocal tracks, as well as Harrison’s existing guitar parts from Anthology to build a track around.

The final result sounds less like the Fabs and more like Lennon circa Mind Games. It’s a lovely little coda (particularly McCartney’s intentionally Harrison style slide guitar on lap steel), but hardly essential in light of all they recorded as an actual band.

Red is where Martin gets to make real use of the new software, building stereo mixes that were impossible before. This may not please those who consider the Beatles in mono to be musical sacred texts, but this package isn’t for them.

The new versions underscore the skill, verve and craft the Beatles had, even at their early stages, as well as underline their explosive growth over those four years.

“Please Please Me” crackles with energy and harmonies, as does “She Loves You” with its genius move of leading off with the chorus hook right away. If one didn’t understand how Beatlemania happened, the new versions of the material through 1964 make an even stronger case. My mother, who was 14 when they made their first Ed Sullivan appearance and introduced me to music through some of these songs on 45, would have loved it.

Red stands with Sgt. Pepper as Martin’s best work as a remixer. Even if the two collections are polished up material a lot of people have on various albums anyway, they serve as the best Beatles compilations to date.

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Kara Tucker

Kara Tucker, after years of sportswriting, has turned to her first-love—music. She lives in New York City with her partner and their competing record collections.

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