Matt Morris

MATT MORRIS
"WHEN EVERYTHING BREAKS OPEN"
(Tenman/Interscope, 2010)


Just when I was starting to give up hope of finding anything unique and remarkable in music this year (one of a few reasons why this blog has been so inactive lately), along comes singer-songwriter Matt Morris and his debut album, "When Everything Breaks Open". Since it's produced by Justin Timberlake and Charlie Sexton, it stands to reason that the album would sound like a blend of the contemporary R&B stylings of the former and the semi-bluesy folk-rock of the latter ... which it more-or-less does, but such a simple comparison would sell this album short.

I love artists like Matt Morris, who seem to effortlessly weave from one style of music into another from track to track, but still manage to make their albums sound like a cohesive whole. One moment, he's laying down a funky, layered, R&B-ish jam on "Don't You Dare", then he gets his Jason Mraz on with "Money". A bit later, he wraps a political statement in wry humor on "The Un-American", then breaks for the tender acoustic ballad "Let It Go", only to kick it into high gear once again with the foot-tapping "You Do It For Me". And just wait until you hear the sumptuously soulful closer, "Eternity".

This album was released independently back in January, but somehow I missed it until it was picked up for wider release by Interscope earlier this month. I'm just glad I finally caught wind of it and let it work its charms on me. This album is on its way to being my favorite of the year, and at this rate Matt Morris just might become one of my new favorite artists.

Buy it digitally from iTunes
Buy it on CD from Amazon

Come On Kid

Hey! Guess what!?! While browsing Google for news on "American Idol"'s hunt for a possible successor to Simon Cowell, I stumbled upon news that I'd been waiting so long for that I'd almost given up on ... almost. But lo and behold ... JOSIAH LEMING'S NEW ALBUM COMES OUT ON SEPTEMBER 14TH!!!!

A Long Time Ago, In a CD Box Set Far, Far Away...

Well, here I go again ... nothing reeks of laziness more than writing one post that will update two blogs at the same time. Well, maybe waiting a freakin' month to make said post is just as lazy. But I warned you not too long ago that this blog was probably going to get quiet. I honestly haven't been in a blogging mood much lately. But with any luck that'll turn around after my vacation at the end of this month (during which, yes, it'll be really quiet ... but not like that's a big change, right?). Anyway, I hope you enjoy my latest topic, as it's close to my heart....

Before Greedo shot first ... before Han stepped on Jabba's tail ... before the digitally-botoxed "Special Editions" turned them into Episodes IV, V, and VI -- in other words, before George Lucas got all full of himself -- they were just "Star Wars", "The Empire Strikes Back", and "Return of the Jedi". As relatively recently as those days were, it's already getting hard for me to remember them. It's also hard to believe that, until the 1993 box-set release of "The Star Wars Trilogy: The Original Soundtrack Anthology", most of the music from this phenomenally successful movie saga had never been available on CD before.

The original CD issue of the "Star Wars" soundtrack was a generous, two-disc, track-for-track replication of the vinyl release, but the "Empire" double-LP's run time was chopped nearly in half when squeezed onto a single CD, and "Jedi" only ever saw a skimpy one-disc release on any format. And those were the only compact disc releases that these awesome scores saw for nearly ten years, until this lush cornucopia of audio bliss came along. Sure, there had been a few other albums featuring music from all three films, but those were re-recordings by other orchestras ... and as any film music buff or "Star Wars" fan -- both categories in which I freely admit that I belong (albeit to different degrees now than I did back then) -- could tell you, they just don't hold a candle to the actual soundtrack recordings.

Not only did this release give us the second Cantina Band song in its entirety for the first time, as well as the haunting male chorus during Luke's final furious duel with Vader under the catwalk in the Emperor's throne room, but it's noteworthy for other reasons too. It was the last release of the original soundtrack recordings before the "Special Edition" revamping of the movies in 1997, which means that the Jabba jam "Lapti Nek" and the original tribal-drum vocal version of the Ewok Celebration got their final album appearances here before being usurped by the silly "Jedi Rocks!" and the tepid instrumental "Victory Celebration" (sorry, John Williams, I love your stuff, but the original source music was better).

But there's a more subtle aspect to this release that makes it a bittersweet one. Since 1997, the "Star Wars" soundtrack releases seem to have been preoccupied with delivering the music in an "as heard in the film" fashion, which to my ear makes the compositions flow much less gracefully. I don't know if it's the obsessive film music snobs out there who are to blame or if it's Lucas, but I find so much more beauty in the thematic structure of the pieces on these earlier discs. Who cares if they're arranged more for a concert hall performance than for accompaniment of the visuals in the movies? That's kind-of what I buy soundtracks for in the first place: to hear the music in a way I didn't hear it in the film ... after all, it'll still remind me of the fun I had watching the movies, which is the real point in a soundtrack release.

For a while, I did own the two-disc releases of the "Star Wars Trilogy: Special Edition" soundtracks, but I found them far inferior to the music on this collection and I ended up trading them in. For those of you who don't have the "Star Wars Trilogy: The Original Soundtrack Anthology" box set, believe me that you'd be doing yourselves a favor picking it up ... it's out of print, but still reasonably available from third-party sellers on Amazon and eBay. After all, nobody doesn't like "Star Wars", and anybody who doesn't like the music of "Star Wars" -- well, they just shouldn't be taken seriously about anything, now should they?