Best of What’s New

Welcome to my latest weekly foray into newly released music. This time, my picks include two artists I’ve listened to for more than 40 years and two who are completely new to me, though both are well established. There’s some blues, alternative rock, pop and soul, making for a good mix. All tracks are on albums that came out yesterday (November 19). Let’s get to it!

Mississippi MacDonald/It Can’t Hurt Me

When I spotted this review on Rock & Blues Muse earlier this week, I immediately had a feeling I would dig this contemporary British blues guitarist. From his website: Mississippi MacDonald is a 3 times British Blues Awards nominee, from London, England. He has been playing since he was 11 years old and has travelled extensively on the US blues trail, meeting, amongst others, Pinetop Perkins, Willie Big Eyes Smith, Otis Clay and BB King…Mississippi’s albums, “Dress For The Money” [third studio album from 2016 – CMM] and “American Accent” [2015 sophomore album – CMM] reached number 1 and 3 respectively in the UK IBBA Blues Charts. American Accent was one of the top 10 IBBA albums of 2016, and was the “Blues Is Back” Album of the Year, 2017. This brings me to MacDonald’s seventh and new album Do Right, Say Right. Here’s the official video for lead single It Can’t Hurt Me, which was first released on October 15 – man, this sounds mighty sweet!

Elbow/After the Eclipse

Elbow are a British alternative rock band formed in the Manchester area in 1997. According to their Apple Music profile, they began as a Sly Stone-influenced funk act called Soft, before deciding to change their name and take musical cues from The Velvet Underground, Radiohead, and U2. David Bowie’s Hunky Dory and Joni Mitchell’s For the Roses are two of Elbow frontman Guy Garvey’s favorite albums from childhood. Elbow has had three consecutive No. 1 UK albums: 2014’s The Take Off and Landing of Everything, 2017’s Little Fictions, and 2019’s Giants of All Sizes. The band won Britain’s Mercury Prize for 2008’s The Seldom Seen Kid, which has sold more than 1 million copies. Looks like Elbow have had significant success in the UK. Remarkably, they still have their original line-up: Guy Garvey (lead vocals, guitar), Craig Potter (keyboard, piano, backing vocals), Mark Potter (guitar, backing vocals) and Pete Turner (bass, backing vocals). Here’s After the Eclipse, a track from their just-released ninth studio album Flying Dream 1, credited to all four members. I find this very soothing.

Sting/Rushing Water

On September 1, ex-Police frontman Sting announced his new studio album The Bridge, which is now out: The Bridge was written in a year of global pandemic and finds Sting ruminating on personal loss, separation, disruption, lockdown, and extraordinary social and political turmoil…Representing various stages and styles from throughout his career and drawing inspiration from genres including rock n’ roll, jazz, classical music and folk, the eclectic album features Sting’s quintessential sound on pop-rock tracks such as the album’s opening rock salvo “Rushing Water” and new indie-pop sounding “If It’s Love,” to the smoldering electronic ballad “Loving You” and the romantic “For Her Love” which evokes Sting’s trademark “Fields of Gold” period. Here’s the aforementioned Rushing Water, first released on September 30 as the album’s second upfront single. “The song ‘Rushing Water’ is a fitting start to an album that seeks to bridge all of the petty differences that can separate us,” Sting noted in a separate announcement. The tune was co-written by him, Martin Kierszenbaum and Gavin Brown. It’s an upbeat pop tune with a guitar sound that in part appears to be sampled from Every Breath You Take.

Robert Plant & Alison Krauss/Searching For My Love

After 14 years, Robert Plant and Alison Krauss have come together for another album, Raise the Roof. It marks the second collaboration between the British ex-Led Zeppelin lead vocalist and the American bluegrass and country singer following Raising Sand from October 2007. Like the predecessor, Raise the Roof was produced by T Bone Burnett. Fellow blogger Music Enthusiast featured one of the upfront tunes, Can’t Let Go, in a recent new music revue. Here’s another track: Searching For My Love. Like all except one song, it’s a cover, in this case of a tune written by Robert Moore and first released by soul group Bobby Moore & The Rhythm Aces in 1966. Plant and Krauss sound great together on this nice soul tune.

Sources: Wikipedia; Rock & Blues Muse; Mississippi MacDonald website; Apple Music; Sting website; YouTube

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Sting And Shaggy Deliver Sunny Pop Reggae

Like probably most folks, initially, I was surprised when I learned a few months ago that Sting and Jamaican pop reggae fusion artist Shaggy had teamed up to record an album together. Then I thought if anything, the British artist has demonstrated plenty of versatility throughout his now 45-year-plus career. As early as during his days with The Police, this has included occasional reggae groove-influenced tunes, such as Roxanne and Walking On The Moon. While 44/876, which was released yesterday, is unlikely to become my favorite Sting album, after having listened to it a few times, I have to say there is something intriguing about it.

The album opens with the title track, a combination of the codes of each artist’s respective home country, the U.K. and Jamaica. In addition to Sting and Shaggy, who like on all other songs trade lines back and forth, the tune also features Jamaican artists Aidonia and reggae band Morgan Heritage. By the way, all tracks are credited to Sting, Shaggy and their backing musicians.

Next up: Morning Is Coming, one of catchiest tunes on the record. It was also released separately as a single on March 9. I think the voices of Sting and Shaggy match particularly well on this track, which has summer written all over it.

Don’t Make Me Wait is another lovely tune, which became the album’s lead single in January. Here is the official video. Check out that cool Gibson SG Sting is playing, though no Highway To Hell in there!

Just One Lifetime reminds us that we each only have one life to make a difference, so we should make it count: Just one lifetime/And there is only one/Yes there is only one/Just one life to live/Assuming that we’ll make it/We’ve no choice but to take it…It’s one of the few songs on the album, where political undertones come more to the forefront. The lyrics borrow from The Walrus and the Carpenter, a poem from 19th Century English novelist Lewis Carroll, which originally appeared in his novel Through The Looking Glass.

The final track I’d like to call out is Dreaming In The U.S.A., a tune I’m afraid could easily be misunderstood, similar to what happened in the ’80s with Bruce Springsteen’s Born In The U.S.A. While the lyrics praise America for its movies, music, stars and clothes, they don’t mean to endorse the country’s present situation – in fact, quite the opposite! During a recent interview with ABC Nightline, Sting said, “We’re both immigrants. He’s [Shaggy] from Jamaica, I’m from Britain. And we came here because we love this country, because we value what this country represents. We both feel that the things we value about America are under threat. So it’s really a love letter to the United States.”

So how did Sting and Shaggy meet? According to a Billboard story, it was Martin Kierszenbaum who brought them together about a year ago. Kierszenbaum is Sting’s manager and Shaggy’s former A&R. Despite their very different backgrounds and approaches to music, they clicked and decided to record their first single Don’t Make Me Wait. In January, Sting performed at Shaggy and Friends, a biennial fundraising concert supporting Kingston’s Bustamante Children’s Hospital – his first time to play in Jamaica. During the show, he and Shaggy unveiled their new single. From there, they decided to pursue a collaboration album.

“We just had a rapport,” Sting explained to Billboard. “I decided a joint venture was much more exciting than him just guesting.” Added Shaggy: “He’s brought me patience and intuitiveness. He’s taught me to dissect a record down to the last T…. I used to do three or four songs a day, just write them, boom, boom, boom and done… [but] this is more exciting.”

Perhaps not surprisingly, various initial reviews of the album I’ve seen are lukewarm. “44/876 contains much of the sizzle of classic reggae or dancehall, though a little more substance would’ve been welcome too,” concluded Rolling Stone. “While the world wasn’t exactly clamoring for this album to exist, the end product is more lucid than many likely expected,” wrote USA Today. “If anything, 44/876 is proof that both Shaggy and Sting can keep evolving into the later era of their careers, and maintaining a sense of humor about it in the process.” The Guardian opined, “The sound of two millionaires fretting non-specifically about the state of the world is pretty annoying, especially given their only solutions are Marley-ish bromides about peace and love.”

As I said at the outset, 44/876 isn’t my favorite Sting album. But it’s undeniable he and Shaggy have developed a good rapport, blending their different styles and voices in groovy pop reggae tunes. I think a review by The Associated Press got it right: “The fact that Shaggy and Sting are teaming up on a CD does, admittedly, sound like a gimmick. Why are these two very different artists together? Because they happen to be known by a single name? Why not keep going and add Shakira, Sia, Slash and Seal? Maybe one day, but put the snarkiness aside and enjoy this warm bromance between the Jamaican dancehall king and the cool, intellectual Englishman.”

Sources: Wikipedia, ABC News, Billboard, Rolling Stone, USA Today, The Guardian, YouTube