Collaboration Extraordinaire

This time I’ll be musing on the subject of collaborations, not the usual ‘Eminem (feat. Dr. Dre)’ fare, instead I’ll be looking at some of the more outlandish and altogether amazing combinations of artists. Unfortunately as I have zero contacts in any aspect of music, I can’t do as I’d like to do and give the stories behind the link-ups and the circumstances surrounding the ideas, but hopefully there will come a time when I can write such an article. Instead I think I’ll just have a look at some of my favourites.

For a start I think these are my top 5 unlikely collaborations:
1. Wyclef Jean & Paul Simon
2. N.A.S.A. & Tom Waits
3. Robert Plant & Alison Krauss
4. Johnny Cash & Joe Strummer
5. The Streets & Muse

It was the Wyclef/Paul Simon combination that set me to thinking about weird and wonderful collaborations. I have no idea how this would have come about and at first I thought it was just a sample of one of his songs I hadn’t heard, but after checking his website I was informed “Paul added his talents to the new Wyclef Jean single ‘Fast Car’.”. Before I actually listened to the song, I was skeptical but upon hearing it, I must admit it is one of my most played songs at the minute. I think that is probably the essence of the unlikely collaboration right there, as they are mixes of artists that on paper, should never work, but in reality the mix is often brilliantly realized. This brings up the question of who did think of this combination? It beggars belief that someone in Wyclef’s camp (maybe even the ‘clef himself) thought ‘I know what this track needs, Paul Simon!’ but whoever it was has my heartfelt thanks.

If my memory serves my correctly, it was producer T Bone Burnett who brought together Plant and Krauss for what was one of the most unexpected standout albums of the last few years (it won album of the year at the Grammys). The duo’s voices work amazingly well together, but few people would have thought of pairing the former Led Zepplin singer with bluegrass royalty Krauss. I’m a huge Alison Krauss fan, and as I didn’t really like Robert Plant’s other post-Zeppelin group Robert Plant & The Strange Sensation I couldn’t see how his voice could possibly work with hers (which has to be one of the best voices in any genre of music at present). However, yet again my fears were misplaced as under the watchful eye of Burnett, they produced an amazing bluesy album.
The Johnny Cash and Joe Strummer collaboration is a strange one, as there are a few different stories behind how it came about. One is that Johnny Cash sung his parts over the vocal Strummer recorded for his own version of the song, which appeared on the ‘Streetcore’ album with his band The Mescaleros, and certainly if it isn’t that recording, his vocals are almost identical. Another is that Cash came to England and suggested they record a duet in honour of reggae music and its greatest icon Marley. Whichever of these is true the recording is one of my favourite of Cash’s final collaborations. Their voices work well together, and while not in beautiful harmony like Plant and Krauss (as it can’t be said either had the greatest vocal ranges) their delivery of the lyrics is very poignant as these are two icons, from completely different musical worlds, celebrating the work of another huge star from an equally removed genre. The minimalist production and sparse guitar seen in much of Cash’s final work just tops off a really great recording.
The track featuring The Streets and Muse is probably my least favourite of the collaborations listed as I think it comes across as sounding slightly forced. I find the blend of Mike Skinner’s voice and his backing music hit and miss at best, and I don’t think it really works in this instance, with neither artists stamping their individuality on the track, or wholeheartedly attempting to mix their styles to create something new. Writing this has however brought to mind another unlikely union. That of Jay-Z and Linkin Park. Linkin Park are one of those bands who, mainly due to their lyrics, are pretty universally derided amongst anyone who claims to be a music connoisseur. But, whatever you think about the content of their songs, I think you’d find it hard to say they don’t make some pretty catchy riffs, just the kind of thing that would (and indeed does) sit well behind Jay-Z’s cocky delivery and lyrics. It isn’t strictly a collaboration, more of a collection of ‘mashups’ of their respective hits, yet for its complete originality (which spawned a thousand and one copycats, including, incidentally, The Streets and Muse) I believe it deserves a mention.
The final crazy combination is between elecronica serial samplers N.A.S.A. and Tom Waits (who I hope needs no introduction). I stumbled upon this on one of the excellent Now Hear This! CD’s free with The Word magazine and, after some hefty research (the band’s last.fm page) I found out that the idea behind N.A.S.A. (namely “to bring people from different worlds together through their shared inspiration and love of music”) has led them to become one of the most prolific odd collaborators. In addition to Tom Waits they have also enlisted the services of the late Ol’ Dirty Bastard, Karen O and David Byrne among others. The Tom Waits song itself is a strange affair, also featuring outlandish rapper Kool Keith, who provides the verses to Waits’ choruses.
I could go on even further about each and every one of the collaborations that have confused and delighted me. However I must know when to stop, so I’ll just say give them all a listen, love them or hate them though, I think you must agree they are all very interesting listening, especially if you are a fan of any of the artists featured.

Music in the Digital Age

I never knew how to work torrents, until i thought I'd give it a proper go earlier this week. I finally got it to work and set about downloading some albums I wanted. I'm no stranger to downloading music, I get bootlegs from a forum and download from Limewire regularly, however when the downloads started finishing from the torrents I started feeling a bit weird. For some reason I felt really guilty as if I was nicking the music (which I do on limewire without any concience problems) and not as excited about finally getting the music as I thought I would be. I think it's something to do with the ease of it and the volumes which you can download in such a short space of time. Even with Limewire there is some work involved it takes time and effort to find rare recordings and full albums but with torrents its just choose and click which cheapens the experience for me. Subsequently I now have about 8 or 9 albums on my itunes which I feel bad about having, and I think I'll have to physically buy the albums to be able to fully enjoy them, which is a strange concept to say the least.

Also I usually won't download a full album of a band's material as instead I like to get a cross-section of their whole back catalogue (say 5 or 6 songs spanning their career) then if I like them I can buy their CD. I think this is why I don't particulary like downloading from torrents or exclusivly listning to music on Spotify. Spotify is good if you want to get a feel of a lesser-known band or if you want to listen to a varied lot a music you may or may not like without it clogging up your computer (like playlists of the artists performing at an upcoming festival) but I wouldn't want that much music at my fingertips all the time. I pride myself on having built up a great collection of music on my computer and in my CD and record collection, but it has taken me quite a while. I just wouldn't appreciate it as much if I had downloaded the whole lot in a day or if it had all just been there at my fingertips to stream. Another fault of the endless resource of Spotify or the huge power of torrents is the removal of the mystery and unknown element of bands. I like nothing better than to find music from a band I love that I previously had no knowledge of, hearing a rare EP or a previously unreleased demo feels as good as finding the band in the first place. Being able to download a whole back catalogue is not appealing to me as you have it all there and there is no room for exploration of the band and the chances of you listening to it all become slimmer as you don't need to seek out the music.

I've digressed a bit from my original subject but I think the major point is that I don't like to not have to work to get the best from a band; that sounds unbelivably pretentious and self-congratulating but I really think it enhances the musical experience. Recently I've been listning to quite a lot of LPs because you can't really pick and choose like you can with Itunes and Spotify. You put the side on and listen to it all the way through, the effort involved in changing disks and tracks means you generally listen to a complete album or side, and in that way songs you maybe didn't like at the start grow on you and you don't tire out your favourite songs as they come around as regularly as the less liked ones. I've got songs on itunes I've listened to 50 times in the space of a week and now can't bear to hear and I think thats quite sad as my constant cherry-picking of my music database has led to me losing interest in a lot of great music. I believe that the availability of everything all the time in music is harming people's listning experiences as there is hardly any work involved in obtaining the music, so the sense of reward is lessened. I know some people like nothing more than to have gigabytes of music from each and every artist, leaving nothing for the future. But for now I'm done with torrenting and think I'll stick to my slow and steady build-up of a great catalogue of music.