The Reverend Will the Thrill Presents the Album of the Week!
As I think may be fairly obvious from previous posts, I love music. I've devoted posts to specific musicians, I've referenced songs in other posts, I've even repurposed popular song titles as titles to some of my individual posts. Even the name of this blog takes its name from a Pretenders song.
Popular culture--specifically music and movies--is probably the closest thing I get to any kind of religion. I find it spiritually uplifting in ways that going to church never could do for me.
Every week on Facebook for about five years now, I have posted a YouTube link to an album I really like and a few words about why I'm drawn to that particular album. Since February, I have also been posting a film recommendation to accompany that with a link to the film's trailer.
On three occasions over the last few months, Facebook has made it very difficult to do this. For two of my film recommendations (including the one for this week, which I will present in my next post), when I attempted to add the trailer, I was informed that it violated Facebook's community standards, which I find laughable. One of those films is considered a classic by every measure and the other is just a supremely well-written 1990s rom-com.
The final straw occurred today when I found out that they had removed this week's album recommendation for similar reasons. I'm trying to appeal it, but since I'm sure no actual, sensible human being is actually, sensibly reading it and they didn't give me any way of explaining why I thought their decision was wrong (I basically just answered a multiple-choice form), I doubt my appeal will be successful. So, in response, I'm going to start posting my album and film recommendations here and then posting that link on my Facebook page. Let's see what their algorithm makes of that!
The Reverend Will the Thrill Presents the Album of the Week!
This week's musical "sermon" can be blamed on a movie (weirdly, I won't be focusing on that movie in my film "sermon" this week--maybe another time). I first heard the artist behind this week's album in that movie. Nick Cave's 1997 song "Into My Arms" was used in the soundtrack of the 2013 Richard Curtis film About Time. It was one of those perfect marriages of film and music. Clearly Richard Curtis (who also wrote the film) didn't believe any other song would have worked in that particular scene. In hindsight, I can honestly say that I firmly believe he was right. If you've not seen the movie, I won't spoil it for you. Just trust me when I say it was... well, perfect.
I fell in love with that song. I don't know if it was the kind of heaviness of the piano, the lyrics, or the deep world-weariness of the vocal--knowing me, it was probably a combination of those things. As the musician (and my cousin) Daryl Shawn pointed out once, you don't hear a lot of songs with the word "interventionist" in the lyrics. I knew I wanted to add the song to my collection, but I didn't just want the soundtrack to the movie--I wanted to hear more of Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds. About a year or so after watching the DVD a few times, my friend Mark Sniadecki was in the process of moving to Bloomington--something I've done twice myself. He decided to divest himself of his "physical media" and put a couple of boxes of CDs and DVDs on the breakroom table at Barnes & Noble and told his colleagues to take what they wanted. There were a number of things that looked interesting to me. I wound up with an underrated Coen Brothers movie, I doubled my collection of The White Stripes, tripled my collection of They Might Be Giants, and even picked up the Carpenters' 1978 Christmas album. But what I considered to be the true gem in the box was a CD titled The Boatman's Call by Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds. I looked on the back of the CD and was extraordinarily delighted to discover that it actually opened with "Into My Arms." To be honest, I probably would have taken the CD even if it didn't have that song, just because I already knew I wanted to hear more than just that one song. I even told Mark how excited I was to check it out. It's still one of my favourite "late night" albums. As I've discovered, it's also really good to play on a Suinday morning/early afternoon while driving around Lancaster County in the commonwealth of Pennsylvania... don't ask.
In 2016, I made a trip down to Bloomington to catch up with some old friends (something I really need to do again). I informed Mark I would be in town and wondered if he'd like to get together for dinner. He told me that there was going to be a special screening of a movie about the making of Nick Cave's new album which was to be released the following day and wondered if I wanted to go. The film, One More Time With Feeling, was one of the more moving documentaries I've ever seen (and it's not going to be my "Film of the Week" either). It was all about how he dealt with the loss of his 15-year-old son, Arthur, and how he channeled that grief into his album Skeleton Tree. It was also shot in 3D, which I thought was an odd choice for a documentary, but it made it a much more immersive experience. The only thing I wish I had done was buy the album at the theater that night just to say that I had gotten it before it was officially available.
Since then, I have to say I have unfortunately not explored his music further. I really need to. It's truly beautiful music, but it is kind of heavy and sometimes dark. One or two albums can go a long way sometimes.
A couple of weeks ago, Cave was a guest on "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert." I was excited to hear he had a new album coming out. As big a fan of Colbert as I am, I particularly love it when he discusses music with musicians. He has a deep reverence for music and understands how it can touch us in inexplicable ways, and I always enjoy it when other musicians seem to have that same reverence. There was a deep spirituality to their conversation which I found rather comforting as I also have that same reverence for music. They also discussed the process of grief, the death of Cave's son, and how one progresses from such profound loss. I posted the interview a day or two after it aired, but I will post it again in the comments section if you want to check it out further.
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds released their new album yesterday. I felt it was one of those that I had to buy the day of its release. In his interview with Colbert, Cave said, "I think it's essentially a joyful, uplifting kind of record, which is quite different than the records I normally make." This automatically intrigued me because what I had heard in the past tended to be rather somber. Listening to this new album brought up a lot of thoughts and emotions. I'll be the first to admit that I'm a cynic--I like to think of myself as a hopeful cynic, but a cynic, nonetheless. I don't know if this is something that occurs within me naturally, or if it's something that's come about from my own experiences, but it kind of makes sense that I would be drawn to Nick Cave's music. But this is quite different for him. It is--certainly compared to Skeleton Tree--quite joyful and uplifting. In listening to it, I find it consoling, which was not what I was expecting. To be honest, I don't know what I was expecting, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't consolation. For a self-professed cynic, I have to say, it seems to be giving me a lot of hope. Frankly, I haven't had this kind of experience listening to an album since Bruce Springsteen's The Rising 22 years ago.
Also, I don't know why, and perhaps it's just me and my eccentricities, but something about it reminds me of Khalil Gibran's The Prophet. You can listen to it for yourself and--if you're familiar with that book--maybe you can understand what I'm talking about. But I still think R.E.M.'s song "Losing My Religion" is a reworking of The Beatles' "I Am the Walrus," so... really, what do I know?
Either way, this week, I am more than pleased to submit Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds with their latest release, Wild God.
Until next week, stay safe, be good to your neighbours, and please remember that if at first you don't succeed, then skydiving definitely isn't for you.
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