Weekly Music Roundup: Alicia Keys, Beverly Glenn-Copeland, and Joan Osborne
Week of Sep. 21: This week, new music from Alicia Keys, Sufjan Stevens, Joan Osborne, and new work by Canadian/American singer and songwriter Beverly Glenn-Copeland.
Alicia Keys’ New Album Is An Ode To The Underdogs
The new Alicia Keys album is called simply Alicia. As we’ve seen on past records, many of her songs are anthems of empowerment – both individual and on a larger scale. So while Alicia does include Keys’ musings on the obstacles she’s overcome and the expectations she’s been freighted with, some of its strongest songs are tales of small moments of grace, and people living well outsight the spotlight. One of those is the early single release, “Underdogs,” where a thumping chorus reassures the underdogs of the world – teachers, student doctors, single moms, soldiers – that “You'll find that someday soon enough/You will rise up, rise up.” The pre-chorus, tellingly, could fit any of the song’s characters, or Keys herself: “I was built to break the mold/The only dream that I've been chasing is my own.” The song’s been out for a while, so if you’ve already heard it, try its musical kin “Authors of Forever” or the rockin’ “Love Looks Better.”
New Music From The Singer And Transgender Activist Beverly Glenn-Copeland
Perhaps you read about the Canadian/American singer and songwriter Beverly Glenn-Copeland in an article that appeared in the New York Times last week. His story is remarkable: raised as a Black girl in Philadelphia, moved to Montreal as a college student to study classical singing, released a series of albums in a variety of styles, and finally heard the term “transgender” in the 90s and discovered a language to describe how he’d been feeling his whole life. Now in his mid 70s, Glenn-Copeland is finally having a moment. A compilation of his work is coming out on September 25, and he has just released his first newly-composed music in 15 years. The song is called “River Dreams,” and it is aptly named, as the piano figure rumbles and flows along in a deceptively odd rhythm, while accumulating layers of lush electronic strings as it goes. Meanwhile, Glenn-Copeland sings in a soft, almost chant-like fashion. The song is even more striking within the context of the album, called Transmission, where it both complements and contrasts with early songs that draw more clearly on folk, jazz, and classical music. His earliest recordings (as Beverly Copeland) have moments that sound like a psychedelic Judy Collins, or draw on the so-called “Spiritual Jazz” of John and Alice Coltrane; later ones show his lifelong interest in classical music. This new piece reflects a New Age sensibility and a desire to ignore genres. (Speaking of which, be sure to check out “La Vita,” where he sings in a soul/jazz style over an operatic soprano line.)
Sufjan Stevens Releases “Sugar” And Its Bittersweet Video
Sufjan Stevens’ new album, The Ascension, comes out on September 25; he’s just released a track called “Sugar” which promises to be among the album’s highlights. In the chorus, he sings “don’t make me sing the sad song/Come on baby, give me some sugar,” over the kind of steadily rocking, intricately sculpted arrangement that characterized so much of Peter Gabriel’s best work in the 80s. Plaintive yet catchy, it’s a song that Stevens says “is ultimately about the desire for goodness and purity (and true sustenance),” although I have to confess I can’t get the somewhat less pure line “lend me some sugar, I am your neighbor” from Outkast’s “Hey Ya” out of my mind. The video features choreography by MacArthur winner Kyle Abraham and is a treat to watch, even if you can’t quite figure out what it all means.
Meklit and Kronos Quartet Cover “The President Sang Amazing Grace”
The Ethiopian-American singer Meklit usually performs her own songs. The Kronos Quartet usually performs contemporary and often unexpected music for string quartet. But both came together to do something different: a recording of the song “The President Sang Amazing Grace.” Joan Baez recorded the song in 2018 but it was written by a previously obscure Philadelphia folk singer named Zoe Mulford, after the 2015 murder of Black congregants at the Emanuel AME Church in South Carolina. The song is a simple but affecting reminder of a time when even a most eloquent president realized that words were not going to suffice, and we all saw the televised footage of Barack Obama singing “Amazing Grace” at the memorial service for the church’s slain pastor. There is much to say about the song, and this quietly sad arrangement, but it would be hard to say any of it without getting political, so I’ll simply note that it will be on the next Kronos Quartet album, called Long Time Passing, which is mostly a tribute album to the great American folk/protest singer Pete Seeger. It comes out on October 9.
Mina Tindle Releases A Timely Ode To Indian Summer
The Parisian singer Mina Tindle, whom we last heard helping sing a cover of “22nd Century” a couple of weeks ago, has just released a song called “Indian Summer,” which has a soft, melancholy feeling that many will associate with that time of year. Tindle’s real name is Pauline De Lassus, and she’s recorded and toured with The National, and that band’s autumnal grandeur begins to assert itself in this song as it goes along. Produced by pianist Thomas Bartlett (The Gloaming, Mandy Patinkin, Sufjan Stevens, Norah Jones, etc.), and featuring her husband Bryce Dessner of The National on subtle guitar, the song is definitely a slow burner. And the video, of a lone dancer on the shores of Sicily, somehow captures the mood of an Indian Summer in a year like no other.
Mina Tindle’s album Sister comes out on October 9.
Joan Osborne Brings You Trouble And Strife
If you only know Joan Osborne from her mid-90s hit single “One Of Us,” you might be surprised at the variety of things she’s done in her career: folk, pop, rock, an album of Bob Dylan covers, tours with the Dead, and much more. Her new album, her tenth, is called Trouble And Strife, and it aims for two things at once. The first is a kind of 1970s AM radio vibe – the songs include classic blues-rock numbers, a disco track, and guitar solos galore. The second is to use that comfortable sound to deliver some uncomfortable truths: these are songs that volley between love/heartbreak songs and tunes that call out injustice and inequality. The album’s opener is “Take It Any Way I Can Get It,” with its twin lead guitars and its Memphis soul vocals. Once it gets going, it almost sounds like a missing track from the Rolling Stones’ Exile On Main Street. “I’ll take it any way that I can get it,” she sings, “and I’ll get it anyway that I can,” in a chorus that practically invites you to sing along.
