A shorter entry today. I’ve been busy with frisbee and watching Stargate SG-1 all day. It’s a tough life, I know.
I have put off listening to Josh Ritter for quite a long time – well over a year. And it’s for a pretty silly reason. See, one of my friends back in high school was named Josh Ritter. And I figured, I guess, that if I already knew one, it would be silly to get involved with a second one. Don’t ask me why I thought that made sense – it was just an excuse to explore some other band instead. After all, when there’s so much new music to listen to, the silliest reasons can end up meaning that you don’t hear someone.
It’s a shame because Ritter is, in fact, pretty awesome. I know it’s a cliche to compare singer-songwriters to Dylan and Springsteen, but I don’t care. If Ritter doesn’t achieve the gravity or the greatness of those two, he at least provides a pleasant variation on the theme. He has a warm, full voice and knows how to use it. He writes the kind of songs that make you feel good about life.
His most recent album, The Animal Years just came out, and it’s pretty good. I’ve read some not-particularly-enthusiastic reviews of the album, pointing out the occasionally weak lyrics (lots of vague allusions to religious themes) and the lack of variation in style (it sounds a little like “folk troubadour by numbers” at times). Those points are reasonable, I suppose. But frankly, it’s just such an enjoyable album to listen to that I can forgive it for not being life-changing.
It’s never going to be one of my favorite albums, but I bet that at the end of the year, I’ll have given this one more listens than a number of other records this year that I consider to be better, objectively. The thing is, what makes an album artistically and musically “interesting” doesn’t necessarily make it fun to listen to.
Ritter has two of the albums better tracks available for download from his website:
Girl In The War
Thin Blue Flame
Girl In The War is a track that I’ve seen panned by a lot of people, for the reasons explained above (it’s a criticism of the Iraq war using metaphors of Peter and Paul). But, like I said, if you don’t expect it to be too much, it certainly has a pleasant sound. And sure, maybe it’s a little precious. But whatever. After all, as David Foster Wallace (in A Supposedly Fun I’ll Never Do Again) says, there’s something refreshing about an artist who is “willing to risk the yawn, the rolled eyes, the cool smile, the nudged ribs, the parody of gifted ironists, the “Oh how banal.” To risk accusation of sentimentality, melodrama.”
If that’s true for the first song, it’s even more true for Thin Blue Flame. At almost 10 minutes long, it invites criticism of taking a good idea and beating it to death. But, for me, the sprawling nature of the song gives it a great deal of depth. The sounds have time to get up, stretch their legs, and move about. It’s a jam, but it never descends into meaningless meanderings. The quiets and the louds are well-balanced. And the lyrics are brimming with an idealism that has almost, but not quite lost its way. In a world where there is a lot of reason to be pessimistic about the future of the human race (And those still looking in the clear blue sky for a sign / Get missiles from so high they might as well be divine / Now the wolves are howling at our door / Singing bout vengeance like it’s the joy of the Lord), it’s still important to hold onto hope. As he says, “you need faith for the same reasons that it’s so hard to find.” I like that.
And here’s one more track from the album, that goes in a (slightly) different direction.
Lillian, Egypt
Compared to the rest of the album, this one has a bit more bite to it. A galloping piano interlude, a quick percussion-beat, and some wonderful harmonies give it a great feel. It’s a joyous romp, a nice counterbalance.