Yankee Bayonet — The Decemberists

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03eo0asomyM

I was lucky — I heard this album in the nor'east, in Massachusetts, on vacation, by the seaside and surrounded by the old America — museums, vintage downs, thrift shops, history in action and the smell of the salt. And the album became vintage, 1700s. It helps that it has a mood and a place and a theme, but it was more than that — it's about roots. Knowing who you are and what you're from — it stretches the boundaries of empathy. We keep to ourselves. It's hard to think of our ancestors as people with struggles — overarching ones like marriage and death, and tiny ones like market squabbles and leaky faucets. This could have been a pop song for one of them — if I were a DAR, or a WASP, not a Jew.

Furr — Blitzen Trapper

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bqtlcHiSHTE

It's an awful thing that all the folk I know is modern folk; my concept of a genre rooted firmly in the past is, itself, rooted firmly in the present. I know about old folk: Dylan and Wainwright and such; I also know modern folk, like The Decemberists, Andrew Bird, Band Of Horses, Bon Iver, even R.E.M.

What defines this genre? It's about nature and its effect on the human psyche: how rural living is, what it's like to live subject to the seasons; a past-oriented culture, rather than the present, hedonistic suburban culture or the modern, forward-facing industrial culture. It's about and set in the country; it uses naturalistic imagery, but it is nostalgic, a return to the past. As such, 60s folk has no greater claim; after all, real folk music is indigenous. The music of my great-great-grandparents, Polish folk songs and shanties and such. Bob Dylan has no more claim to it than Bon Iver.

So why am I ashamed?

Help I'm Alive — Metric

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZoK63Bk7pgw

I won't write an essay here on the topic of gender in music — I'm not nearly well-versed enough, and, frankly, it's been done. I will say that the few female vocalists I do enjoy are generally either Jazz, Trip-Hop, or Rock'n'Roll. There are some genres where I know female vocalists exist, but I don't enjoy them (modern pop, rap, alt-rock, etc). I can probably name only a few female vocalists off the top of my head, actually... Ella Fitzgerald, Blondie, the woman from Fleetwood Mac, Metric (above), The Go! Team...

Oh my god, is that all I can list? I know the names of male singers from named bands (Thom Yorke — Radiohead, etc) but rarely the names of female singers from named bands (... — The Decemberists? I know Colin Meloy.) Oh! Imogen Heap. This still isn't that many.

Doesn't Massive Attack have female vocalists? Guest vocalists. And, uh, Morcheeba, Portishead! All the associated trip-hop acts.

Oh dear.