Date: February 2, 1999 (release)
Release: Polygram #556074
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A heap of wrinkled laundry led me to discover Wes Anderson’s 1998 film, Rushmore, as well as its soundtrack. I had graduated high school a year earlier and was back at home after my first year in college, ironing in front of the television (what else to do in the ‘burbs on a viciously humid July afternoon? It seemed obvious at the time…), when I stumbled across a movie on cable that was visually and musically unlike anything I’d seen in all my young life. So there I stood for an hour and a half, transfixed and ironing as Rushmore transported me back to the weird time that was high school in songs and images.

Max Fisher, the film’s adolescent hero, is an ambitious kid: he is the president of some half-dozen school clubs and an accomplished playwright who earned a scholarship to Rushmore Academy in the second grade after writing “a little one-act about Watergate.” However, this youthful drive is paradoxically the source of both his greatest achievements and greatest setbacks. Max’s fantastic plays as well as his disastrous attempted romancing of an older woman come from the same bold determination. Furthermore, his unique character often causes him more harm than good as he comes into contact with folks who simply don’t understand him.

As Max rebels against school bullies, back-stabbing middle-aged men and lost love, who then could better furnish the soundtrack of his life than British invasion rockers, punctuated at quieter turns by lovely, twinkling compositions of Mark Mothersbaugh (formerly of Devo), with a dash of Yves Montand and some pre-Islamic Cat Stevens thrown in for good measure? Although this eclectic assortment of artists may seem odd, it is in fact the perfect musical summation of Max, a strange and wonderful kid whose two best friends are a fifth-grader and a middle-age business tycoon. Like the movie itself, the soundtrack is something you want to experience repeatedly and in its entirety. The topsy-turvy mix of mood and tempos it offers up is the essence of its charm. Put it on, and if you’re not put in a better frame of mind, then something just might be seriously wrong with your heart.

Though Anderson originally wanted to use only Kinks material for the soundtrack because

they played loud, angry, teenage rock songs, and they wore blazers and ties and our movie is about a teenager who is loud and angry, and he is almost never seen without his blazer and tie,

he instead opted to round out the soundtrack—it is more faithful to the highs and lows of being a teenager as well as the film’s arc—Max can’t be loud and angry all the time.

The disc kicks off with the Creation’s 1966 hit “Making Time,” full of piss and vinegar, ranting about

making time/shooting lines/for people to believe in/things you say/why do we have to carry on/always singing the same old song?

(In the film, the song plays over a slow-motion montage of Max working, often alone, as the leader of his school clubs.) Nobody cares as much as he does about anything; the lyric foreshadows his anger when he realizes that the love of his life prefers a middle-aged, apathetic loser over him. The halfway point is the Who’s epic “A Quick One While He’s Away”—it coincides with Max’s peaking revenge and hints at the resolution just around the corner with the end repeat “you are forgiven.” By the end of the soundtrack, the listener, like Rushmore’s main man, has realized that there is an inevitable emotional ebb and flow to life that is always beyond control, no matter how talented, committed or deserving you are. The Faces’ bittersweet “Ooh La La” provides the bittersweet closure. “I wish that I knew what I know now, when I was younger,” sums up Max’s final realization that he “didn’t get hurt too bad” during his first foray into love. In fact, he, like us, kind of enjoyed it.

P.S. You don’t have to see the film to appreciate the Rushmore soundtrack, though it is most highly recommended.

Date: 1974
Release: POLYDOR
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Veedon Fleece is a deeply personal album that marked Morrison’s return to the stream of consciousness and raw soul power of 1968′s Astral Weeks. It was recorded around the time of his divorce from Janet Planet, the same woman to whom he had dedicated the passionate love songs of 1971′s “Tupelo Honey.” This album is emotionally wrenching, a powerful statement on love gone bad. The melancholy mood of Veedon Fleece compels the listener to enter the singer’s world of heartbreak. Though occasionally verging on the depressing, there is such immediacy and honesty in the music that you can’t help but feel alive after a listen. Spare and subtle moments abound, such as “Fair Play,” “Streets of Arklow,” and “Country Fair.”

He pulls no punches in his tortured and confessional “Cul de Sac.” Irish spiritualism melds with the flow of jazz and the compelling power of soul music, forming one perfectly realized recording. This was the final installment of Van’s unparalleled 1968-1974 period, and would be followed by his mysterious three year absence from the music world, save for his stirring performance in The Band’s epic concert-film, “The Last Waltz.”

Date: January 28, 2002 (release)
Release: 4AD #72202
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The soundtrack to my most difficult breakup, Neil Halstead’s Sleeping On Roads will always be entangled in my biography. I’m sure that years from now I’ll happen to hear any one of the album’s failed relationship songs, and instantly I will be back in that parked car by the side of the road, struggling to look into the eyes of my longtime girlfriend to say goodbye.

Neil Halstead played in the car for us when things were ending, and, alone now, he plays just for me.

Like a true singer-songwriter, many of Neil Halstead’s songs deal with the dark dimensions of love gone wrong. And like a true masochist, I’ve been listening to these melancholy songs all the time (I should stick with the Buzzcocks), succumbing to their spare and drifting mood. Written with simple honesty and delivered with passion, Sleeping On Roads is loaded with the kind of brutally heartfelt love laments you’d find on an old Van Morrison or Nick Drake record. In song after song, Halstead pours out a broken heart’s worth of feeling. Left homeless after splitting up with his girlfriend, Halstead started Sleeping On Roads while living (and yes, sleeping) in the studio. Out of that pain, these nine songs were born. When they weren’t included on the last Mojave 3 record (his regular band), the idea for a Halstead solo album emerged and these orphaned songs found a home.

Gently understated and distinct in sound, Sleeping On Roads stands solidly alongside Mojave 3’s best output. The music mixes folksy acoustic and electric guitar rhythms and textures with piano, organ, bass, drums (played by M3 bandmate Ian McCutcheon), banjo, cello, glockenspiel, dobro, vibes and trumpet, all delicately layered to give the album its lushly hushed ambience. Consistently flowing but far from one dimensional, Sleeping On Roads balances heavily instrumented and expansively atmospheric tracks (“Seasons” and “See You On Rooftops”) with spare, stripped-down torch songs and ballads (“Martha’s Mantra” and “Hi-Low And Inbetween”).

Like the best heartbreak classics, Sleeping On Roads slowly reveals its sonic complexities with each successive listen, but its bittersweet mood is instantly captivating. With its haunting melodies, confessional lyrics and dreamy sound, this solo album spotlights why Neil Halstead is the dominant creative force behind Mojave 3.

Date: March 6, 2001 (release)
Release: Astralwerks #29072
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Consistent with my post break-up habit of musical masochism, I’ve recently been over-playing Quiet Is The New Loud, encouraging its melancholy melodies to lodge themselves in my heart like salt on an open wound. Instead of letting my old punk records work their healing magic, I keep wallowing in the sadness of morbidly introspective artists like Nick Drake, Neil Halstead, and the Norwegian duo, Kings of Convenience.

Quiet Is The New Loud—it’s almost pathetic how perfectly this album title describes the dominant trend in my listening habits. As I get older, I’ve noticed the volume knob on my stereo progressively turning in the wrong direction (to the delight of my neighbors), even as the music itself has become gentler and more polite. Ten years ago I’d have trashed this record as unpardonably toothless and sissy-sweet, but now it strikes a chord. I’m not afraid to admit it—I’ve grown soft in my not-so-old age.

Premature mid-life crisis aside, Quiet Is The New Loud is a deceptively simple and genuinely moving album you shouldn’t be ashamed to own. Produced by Ken Nelson, whose credits include Badly Drawn Boy’s Bewilderbeast and Coldplay’s Parachutes, the album is so free of contemporary tinkering it’s almost primitive, relying purely on acoustic instrumentation, evocative lyrics and lustrous harmonies to sustain a mood of stark beauty.

“Winning A Battle, Losing The War” opens the album and establishes its tone, as Erlend Oye and Eirik Glambek Boe sing with anguished immediacy: “Even though I’ll never need her/ Even though she’s only giving me pain/ I’ll be on my knees to feed her/ Spend a day to make her smile again.” After this, the album seems to unfold in slow motion, each song another sad installment in the story of love. On “Singing Softly To Me,” the duo’s acoustic guitars roll gently behind their Simon & Garfunkel-flavored harmonies, as minimal touches of trumpet, piano, and cello slowly surface and vanish, subtly deepening the sonic texture. Still, something rare is achieved when the pair performs without accompaniment, as we are reminded of the ageless power of two voices and two guitars.

It’s summer now, and while the Kings of Convenience still beckon, I’m beginning to feel the sunshine. So while Quiet Is The New Loud may not sit at the top of my play-list for long (“loneliness gets tired of itself and breaks like a tomb that can no longer hold its dead”), its songs of love and sadness will still tug at the heart strings so long as I continue to roll the relationship dice.

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Date: October 21, 1970
Release: COLUMBIA CK 30290
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A finely crafted album of diverse and heartfelt songs. With New Morning, Dylan discards obscure and impenetrable lyrics for emotionally accessible songs about love and life. The title track sounds like a blueprint of what would become Van Morrison’s trademark semi-acoustic soul sound of the early 70s. In “Sign on the Window,” Dylan sings about the virtues of settling down and starting a family, which is exactly what he tried to do around this time with the birth of his now famous son, Jakob. “The Man In Me” reveals an openly self-critical side to Dylan, who admits that “it takes a woman like you/to get through to the man in me.” Backed by a soulful chorus of female singers, this song is an absolute classic, and was used to great effect in the Coen brother’s “The Big Lebowski.” Other highlights include the spare “Three Angels,” with its atmospheric organ and gospel-tinged chorus, the comic jazz-blues of “If Dogs Run Free,” and the classic Dylan cynicism of “Went to See the Gypsy.”

Backed by a formidable roster of talents including Al Kooper and Charlie Daniels, this album runs the gamut from laid-back folk-rock to country-blues. None of the album’s cohesiveness is sacrificed in the name of variety, as it flows flawlessly from beginning to end like a true album should. A remarkable first offering in a decade which would see some significant changes in the man and his music.

Date: 1989
Release: Warner #25885
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“Without doubt one of the most beautiful and soulful recordings I have ever heard.”

–Brian Eno

I Will Not Be Sad In This World is an album whose gently defiant title should become our mantra in these times of terror. In the days immediately after September 11, 2001, my stereo fell silent as the TV mercilessly blared out its cacophony of bad news, brutalizing us with images of a new world. We held the Medusa’s head up to the mirror, and refused to accept that the image reflected might simply be a human one. In an exhausting marathon, I remained glued to the tube, wondering what in the hell was going on, wondering what happened to love, wondering what I’d tell my children someday–if I lived that long. In the panic, I had abandoned music–my love, my religion. For four days I lived without it, not realizing what I was doing to myself, until finally I heard that first healing note. I turned to this record, and in a brilliant moment, found serenity.

There is a deeply restorative power present in the music of Djivan Gasparyan. It reaches your ears like a gift, then moves on inside you, even when the record stops. I Will Not Be Sad In This World contains some of the most emotionally expressive music I’ve ever heard. Achingly beautiful sounds emerge from Gasparyan’s duduk, a 3000 year-old flute-like instrument from his native Armenia. His mystical playing can only be described as transcendent, overflowing with a spiritual intensity of Biblical proportions. Like saxophonist John Coltrane’s divinely inspired playing on A Love Supreme, Gasparyan somehow manages to pull from his instrument a sound that feels like the human soul laid bare.

I was first introduced to the music of Djivan Gasparyan through his collaboration with Peter Gabriel on Passion, the soundtrack to Martin Scorsese’s epic film, The Last Temptation Of Christ. With its brilliant fusion of ancient and modern sounds, Passion ignited my deep love for Middle-Eastern music, profoundly influencing the music that I myself began to play. At the time, I didn’t realize that Peter Gabriel served more as an interpreter and synthesizer than a composer of the music on Passion. That’s why I was so shocked when I first put on I Will Not Be Sad In This World, because what I was hearing was clearly Passion’s source. The opening song, “A Cool Wind Is Blowing,” sounded exactly the same as the opening song from Passion, “The Feeling Begins,” minus Peter Gabriel’s heavy drum overdubs. And without the drums, the plaintive tone of Gasparyan duduk poured though the speakers in its purist form, hitting me in my soul. This was something.

Now out-of-print, I Will Not Be Sad In This World was originally released on the Russian Melodya label in 1983 and was subsequently released in 1989 on Brian Eno’s label, Opal Records. It was dedicated to the victims of the devastating earthquake that struck Armenia on December 7, 1988. Although he gained worldwide recognition for the record, he hardly made a dime. Gasparyan donated all of the profits to help his fellow countrymen. Today, as we live through this new man-made disaster, we must all search out the music that helps us recover. Remember the simple message offered by Djivan Gasparyan: I WILL NOT BE SAD IN THIS WORLD.

Date: 1968
Release: EPIC #EK 26420
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A memorable album filled with folk-tinged psychedelic pop gems by the man once touted as the British answer to Bob Dylan. While Donovan Leitch lacked the depth of Dylan, he certainly was capable of crafting catchy hits that were both cosmic and clever. Hurdy Gurdy Man is a prime example of Donovan’s creative powers. The title track, an enduring classic of the late ’60s, combines loud-guitars with mystical lyrics to great affect. The album’s second major hit, “Jennifer Juniper,” frolicks along with its flowery arrangements, precious melodies, broken French, and bouncing rhythms. This track begs you to dust off your love beads and skip through the forest with your true love holding hands.

While it may sound a bit dated in places, Hurdy Gurdy Man is much more than a mere hippy relic with a couple of kitchy hits. On “Peregrine,” Donovan experiments with the sounds of India, creating an entrancing song that is strongly reminiscent of George Harrison’s “Within You and Without You” from Sgt. Peppers.

“Get Thy Bearings” features a funky drum beat that sounds strangely contemporary as it mixes with the song’s swaggering bass lines and sinuous saxophone musings. On the more retro side are “West Indian Lady” and “The Sun Is A Very Magic Fellow,” a quintessential pair of psychedelic-pop tunes that resonate with a distinct ’60s sound recently revived by such bands as Belle & Sebastian. Hurdy Gurdy Man flows nicely like a good acid trip, requiring no use of the fast forward button to reach its satisfying conclusion.

Date: 2000
Release: MATADOR OLE 426-2
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Like the blues itself, Cat Power (aka Chan Marshall) is a soulful product of the Deep South. Her voice is charged with aching strains of gospel, soul, blues, and country-folk. The Covers Record is her quiet storm, a stripped down affair, featuring nothing more than her captivating voice coupled with a lone piano or guitar. Without any contrived nostalgia, her covers of mostly contemporary songs sound as if they could have come from Alan Lomax‘s Great Depression field recordings.

She updates the old American folk tradition of using other peoples’ songs as a way of getting at her own soul. A distinctly individual singer, she reworks the songs of Bob Dylan, The Rolling Stones, The Velvet Underground, Moby Grape, and Michael Hurly, dramatically transforming them into something of her own in the process. Opening the album with The Rolling Stones‘ “Satisfaction,” Marshall turns this classic rock & roll stomp into a restrained and bluesy statement of personal frustration, stripping away the song’s inane “I can’t get no, a-no-no-no” chorus and leaving a brooding sensuality in its place. In her hands, this all-too-familiar Stones anthem is reborn with a real sexiness.

From album’s beginning, you are struck by Marshall’s remarkable ability to create an intense immediacy and depth with every word she sings, making her compelling in much the same way as the great Billie Holiday. Far from being a one dimensional or derivative singer, she covers a wide emotional and vocal range, from the twangy down-home levity of “Salty Dog” to the crooning sensuality of “Wild Is The Wind.”

With its many different currents, this is a mood album only in the sense that all of its songs are spare and expressive. Taken as a whole, the album leaves you throbbing with a delicious melancholy approaching that of Nick Drake’s Pink Moon. Taken individually, each song is a self-contained universe of expression and meaning, pulling you in and demanding your undivided attention. Quietly spiritual, The Covers Record is one of the most heartfelt and original examples of how best to appropriate other peoples’ songs.

Date: November, 1968
Release: Warner Brothers WS-1768
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When Astral Weeks was released in 1969, very few people got it. When I bought the record from a friend 13 years ago, I didn’t really get it either. In fact I wanted my money back. My friend promised that the album would grow on me if I’d just give it a few more spins. By the third listen, Astral Weeks had completely overwhelmed me with its raw emotional beauty. It has since ingrained itself deeply into my musical identity.

There really isn’t anything else quite like Astral Weeks — it was unprecedented when it came out and nothing has compared to it since. Even Van Morrison, for all his creative powers, never topped this early peak (although 1974′s Veedon Fleece comes close). Nothing written on Astral Weeks can ever truly capture its essence — the music speaks for itself. That said, writing about the album feels like one of the hardest things I could possibly do. Rather than try to rally my best adjectives and sing the album’s praises, I will avoid the standard drivel and, as Van sings, “venture in the slipstream.”

Astral Weeks was recorded in a marathon New York session in less than 48 hours. It was reported in Rolling Stone that one man saw God while listening to the record on nitrous oxide. Bassist Richard Davis and drummer Connie Kay, two of the tallest giants of jazz rhythm, walked away from the Astral Weeks sessions scratching their heads in bewildered wonder at the strange music they had just recorded. Jimi Hendrix sat transfixed night after night as Van and flautist John Payne performed songs from the album to row after row of empty seats in a London theater.

The album has since become a cultish oracle of obsession for many: “Sweet Thing” was revived by the Waterboys on Fisherman’s Blues; “The Way That Young Lovers Do” is sung passionately by the late Jeff Buckley on his now-out-of-print Live At The Sin-E. Explaination: Lush flutes, vibes, bass and violins swirl around the gospel-soul of Van’s gut-wrenching poetry songs. Astral Weeks points in four directions — Dylan Thomas, Charles Mingus, Igor Stravinsky, and Ray Charles — with Van’s voice a pulling, powerful, constant magnetic North.

Here it is… astral music to set your inner compass by.

Date: 1968 (recording)
Release: Island #842915
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Just as our memories of such film stars as James Dean and Marilyn Monroe limit us to experiencing them in the past tense-through their films, through the photographs taken of them at their physical zenith, and before age, slowing careers, or personal hardships diluted their peak intensity — four records are all we can know about Nick Drake. The British folksinger, who died in 1974, has become the object of cult worship since his death: his albums have been boxed, his songs individually analyzed, and his life story told and retold to the point of attaining near-mythology. He has been the subject of a tribute album (Brittle Days, on England’s Imaginary Records, 1992), and even his practice tapes have been studied, analyzed and covered by a guitarist who admired Drake’s instrumental ability (Nine of Swords by Scott Appel, on Kicking Mule, 1988). He is a performer who sold very few albums during his lifetime, whose work never appeared on any album sales chart, but whose influence grows yearly — and isn’t likely to decrease in the future.

Born in Burma in 1948, the son of prosperous parents, Drake grew up in Tamworth-in-Arden, a small village near Coventry, England. By one account, he listened to performers like Van Morrison, Tim Buckley, and Randy Newman while attending college in Cambridge, where he began performing during his first year. Fairport Convention member Ashley Hutchings saw Drake and recommended him to producer Joe Boyd, an American who headed up a British recording company called Witchseason Productions — home to John Martyn, the Incredible String Band, and Fairport’s Richard Thompson, among others. Boyd called and asked Drake for a tape, and the ultimate result was the album Five Leaves Left, issued in 1968, when he was 20.

The music of Five Leaves Left was — and is — utterly spellbinding: Drake’s soft, bassy voice, typically accompanied by his acoustic guitar and occasional orchestration, sang songs that were gentle, dreamy, and often melancholy; his lyrics, tied to no specific time or lyrical theme, might have been written a century ago yet still instantly pulled the listener in. By the next year’s equally impressive Bryter Layter, Drake’s spirits in some ways seemed to be picking up; the memorable “Poor Boy” featured a backing female chorus and jazz piano by noted South African player Chris McGregor, and “Hazey Jane I” was as close as Drake would ever come to a love song. Still retaining its melancholic tinge, Drake’s music was alluringly rich and captivating.

Personally troubled and prone to serious depression, Drake sought psychiatric help following the making of Bryter Layter and was prescribed antidepressants. He reportedly recorded his third album, 1972′s Pink Moon in only two days; the lushness of his prior albums was replaced by the stark sound of only the singer’s voice, guitar, and occasional piano. The lyrics were equally spare, and sometimes harrowing. The brief “Know” featured only one short verse:

“Know that I love you
Know I don’t care
Know that I see you
Know I’m not there”

More oblique, but no less revealing, was the snippet from “Things Behind The Sun” in which Drake sang, “And the movement in your brain / Sends you out into the rain.”

After committing himself to a psychiatric hospital for five weeks, Drake returned to the recording studio one final time to record four songs, none of which would be issued until after his death. To some, the songs’ lyrics seem more a cry for help than anything else he’d yet recorded; most chilling was the simple imagery of “Black Eyed Dog,” in which Drake seemed to moan, helpless and dispirited, “I’m growing old and I wanna go home / I’m growing old and I don’t wanna know.” According to writer Arthur Lubow, Drake told studio engineer John Wood at the time, “I can’t think of words. I feel no emotion about anything. I don’t want to laugh or cry. I’m numb—dead inside.”

Drake died at his parents’ house on November 25, 1974, of an overdose of the antidepressant Tryptizol; the coroner’s office declared the death a suicide, though no note was left.

The four songs that Drake had recorded in 1974 emerged on Fruit Tree, a boxed-set of Drake’s complete works released in 1979. The same set was reissued and expanded in 1986, when Hannibal took those four tracks and added 10 other previously unreleased ones to make the posthumous Time Of No Reply, included in the new box with the singer’s three original albums. Predictably, a new generation of critics and consumers were enchanted by the singer’s work. A tragic hero maybe, but a brilliant singer and songwriter most assuredly, Nick Drake will not be forgotten.