Billy Bragg & Wilco - Mermaid Avenue Vol. II
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CD Details
Artist: Billy Bragg & WilcoEdition: Music CD
CD Release Date: 2000-05-30
Music Label: Elektra / Wea
Soundtracks:
- Airline To Heaven
- My Flying Saucer
- Feed Of Man
- Hot Rod Hotel
- I Was Born
- Secrets Of The Sea
- Stetson Kennedy
- Remember The Mountain Bed
- Blood Of The Lamb
- Against The Law
- All You Fascists Are Bound To Lose
- Joe DiMaggio Done It Again
- Meanest Man
- Black Wind Blowing
- Someday, Some Morning, Sometime
Music reviews of Mermaid Avenue Vol. II
Music Review: A Grain of Salt, Please, and a Little Patience
Rating: 5 Stars
It's interesting to read the reviews by the detractors of this album. I find them very biased and short-sighted and would encourage anyone who doesn't know either Mermaid album to listen to cuts from both in random order to dispel the idea of this being a "patchy" "sequel" to the first. In my view, it is a sequel only by default, having come second. I listened to and absorbed this entire album before Mermaid I and I could easily have said the opposite, that the first is not as good, sloppy and patchy without ghaving given it a fair shake. Let's pause for a moment to consider the thought, time and work that went into the project as well as where these artists were in their careers at the time and what they've accomplished since. I found the first volume difficult to enjoy as much, at first; however, I have given both plenty of listening hours and find them wonderful compliments to each other. I enjoy songs on both equally. All of the songs from the two volumes could have easily been randomized and released as a two-disc set in 1998 without provoking the reactionaries to mark it as a disjointed effort.
Also, read up on the project at Nora Guthrie's site:
http://www.woodyguthrie.org/merchandise/mermaidavenuevol1.htm
http://www.woodyguthrie.org/merchandise/mermaidavenuevol2.htm
Mermaid II is a really textural and varied album and anyone who says it is sloppy compared with the Mermaid I is wilfully ignoring a lot, namely the musical experimentation and advancement of Bragg and Wilco in the 5 years between the two. First of all, these artists are renowned for their abilities to be both musically tight and arranged and still work in a lot of improvisation. They switch back and forth between the two disciplines at will and can emphasize one or the other to produce the sounds they desire. I think this was paramount to conveying the ideologies behind Guthrie's lyrics and incorporating his own folk style, as well. Moreover, it is what makes producing Americana, which is exactly what this is, so challenging and to do so PLUS deciding to include and marry to that each of Bragg and Wilco's own combined styles is really an admirable accomplishment. They make it seem effortless and never allow themselves to forsake Guthrie's awareness, intellect and intent. Both albums contain this "loosely tight" format, yet are wonderfully arranged, traversing various signature American genres, textures and instruments. Bragg (a Brit) brings this around full circle with many of the arrangements and influences in each record having originated from the mountain music of the Appalachias brought over by immigrants from the UK in the nineteenth century. I don't think many people consider this, but it is not lost on the artists. Both of these albums are so much more important than some of the biased and knee-jerk reactions they provoke.
Description of Mermaid Avenue Vol. II
Mermaid Avenue, Vol. II finds Billy Bragg & Wilco setting Woody Guthrie's words to their own music a second time. The result is more sonically diverse than the first installment, but just as rewarding. With guests Natalie Merchant and bluesman Corey Harris lending their voices to this new-century hootenanny, this 15-song disc manages to capture the collective spirit of both IWW and the WTO times. Woody would've been proud of the initial collection; he'd be prouder still of this one. --Steven StolderWho knew that after the undeniable, sometimes shimmering, sometimes rustic magic of Mermaid Avenue that there was enough quality material for a second volume? By setting their own music to Woody Guthrie's lyrics, Billy Bragg and Wilco once again offer a 50-minute testament to Guthrie's long, dynamic shadow. This sophomore meeting is as balanced between the up-tempo and the down-tempo as was the first Mermaid. Jeff Tweedy's rasp gives all the Wilco-driven tunes a certain grit, and the songs Bragg takes on have a luminescent, frank earnestness that intensifies the delivery of Guthrie's lyrical social critiques. "Hot Rod Hotel," with Bragg on the mic, melds the two approaches best, and "Secret of the Sea" is the CD's poppiest centerpiece--aptly aimed at radio airplay like the first Mermaid's "California Stars." Natalie Merchant's playful "I Was Born" is brief but sweet, just as bluesman Corey Harris's "Against the Law" is an uplift, with his passionate vocal wail mirroring the political gist of Guthrie's words. The moody closers "Black Wind Blowing" and "Someday, Some Morning, Sometime" end Volume 2 with a pair of sweetly sad gems, one a Bragg-sung folk blues that mourns the loss of cotton crops in the American dustbowl era, the other a Tweedy-sung paean to lost love. At the dawn of a new millennium, with labor and the distribution of wealth as pressing historical issues that disrupt every International Monetary Fund and World Trade Organization soiree, the time is right for Woody. --Andrew Bartlett
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