Back in the 1970s, Randy Newman was one of my favorite artists. The 1970s Newman is still one of my favorites, but the current version has mostly lost the sense of irony and humor that made him special. It's been pretty much downhill from Faust (1995) as far as I'm concerned. Newman has done lots of film scores since then and a few albums, and most of that music isn't very good. I've been alive long enough now to see the same thing happen to many artists—great when they're younger, bitter and spent when they're older. (But then, life has a way of wearing you down, so I understand.)
Today I'm going to play stuf from Little Criminals (1977) and Faust. It's still great music. The first three selections are from the former, the last two are from the latter.
- You Can't Fool The Fatman
- Rider In The Rain (with Linda Ronstadt and Ry Cooder)
- Baltimore
- How Great Our Lord (with James Taylor)
- Feels Like Home (with Bonnie Raitt)
It would appear to be a pretty consistent pattern also that the music and other popular culture of the seventies and eighties (and the fifties and sixties, if one is a Boomer, I would imagine) was vastly superior to what followed in the succeeding decades. It were as if the entire society took a "blandness pill" in 1991 after the First Gulf War, or something.
Posted by: Mister Roboto | 07/01/2012 at 09:43 AM
Didja know...on my computter, if I begin "Rider on the Range", and then click on Bonny Raitt and then click on "Faust", they all play together. Combined they make a fine pastiche. My kind of music, straight outta the immitable, impossible Charles Ives. But Randy and Ry and Linda and Bonnie were just kids. Now we are all rational-minded adults, ready to keep the warming below 2 degrees Centigrade. Two Degreeeeessss Centigraaade, just a Rider on the Range.
Posted by: Andrew Kirk | 07/01/2012 at 05:46 PM