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The very notion of “popular” music is evolving before our eyes and ears. The appeal of a catchy tune hasn’t changed, but we are no longer the mass audience we were during most of the 20th century. Hence, massively popular hit songs are becoming fewer and farther between. We go off by ourselves and listen to new music that appeals to us individually. But when we get together in large numbers we keep using the old songs, over and over again.

Two recent observations have reinforced for me the idea that as a society we are coming to experience and use pop music very differently than we did during what I am starting to think of as the “golden age” of recorded music.

1. I’m at a college hockey game. What do you think they are playing over the P.A. to get the fans excited for the home team’s appearance on the ice? A new song by the Foo Fighters? Something off Jay-Z’s new hit album? Guess again. It’s “Won’t Get Fooled Again,” a 36-year-old track by The Who. And what does the pep band play in the stands during a pause in the action? “Jungle Boogie,” by Kool & The Gang, from 1973.

2. I’m watching TV. A commercial comes on for some baby product or other. The music: Steppenwolf’s 1968 hit, “Born to be Wild.” Too much time has gone by for it to be meant as a nostalgic appeal to the parents; this music predates the formative years of most of today’s baby-mommies and baby-daddies. It’s simpler than that: “Born To Be Wild” is a song just about everyone knows, whatever your age.

If you had told me, back in the 1970s when I was in high school, that the records my friends and I were playing at our parties would still be supplying the theme songs for sporting events – and college sports, at that – three decades in the future, I’d have said you were nuts. After all, 30 years before my musically formative period, big-band swing and Frank Sinatra were all the rage, and no one was listening to that any more (except “old” folks experiencing nostalgia). As a rule we didn’t appreciate, or even like, the music of one or two generations back.

And we didn’t have to. We had our own defining songs and bands that everyone our age listened to. Sure, tastes varied – some liked southern rock, some liked the Dead, some liked the heavier stuff, and some got into disco – but whether you liked or hated “Sweet Home Alabama,” whether “Hot Stuff” made you boogie or cringe, you knew those songs, and so did everyone else.

How many recent songs – and by recent I mean since the age of downloads began – can we say that about? I can think of a few monster hits, like “Crazy” by Gnarls Barkley and “Boulevard of Broken Dreams” by Green Day. But mostly all I can come up with are 1990s hits like “Smells Like Teen Spirit” and “Oops! I Did It Again,” which, while they still feel recent to me, date from before the Great Splintering.

It’s not that songs with catchy melodies and great hooks aren’t being written anymore. On the contrary, with recording technology accessible to just about anyone, excellent independent projects abound, and talented songwriters flower more and more readily. While the ability to write “hit-worthy” pop tunes remains relatively rare, it can be found all over if you pay attention to indie music.

But 99.9% of the great pop tunes being written today will never reach a substantial audience, not to mention penetrate the culture at large. The releases are far too numerous, the audience much too splintered. Most of the more traditional obstacles to commercial success haven’t gone away either. So where and how are you going to hear these great new songs?

Even the most popular music websites and blogs have vastly fewer readers than the big radio stations had listeners in their glory days. You might discover a great new song or band, you might tell your friends, but even if you’re today’s version of a tastemaker – an Originator, as the psychologist and media consultant David Jennings calls it in his recent book Net, Blogs and Rock ‘n’ Roll – your “public” is still a very small subset of the culture at large. Hence the same will be true of the audience for your new favorite song.

So where will the next “Born To Be Wild” come from? The next “Mysterious Ways”? The next “Oops! I Did It Again,” even? It’s the wrong question. The right question is, how will they spread? – and there’s no good answer right now.

Is there something inherently good about the existence of mega-hit songs? Maybe not; maybe the new paradigm isn’t fundamentally a bad thing. But it certainly seems like a sad thing – not because I’m still going to be singing Beatles tunes in the shower in the year 2040, but because a kid born today might have to be doing the same thing.

Note: for a more succinct (and tuneful) expression of the point I’m making, listen to Bruce Springsteen’s new hit “Radio Nowhere.”

Update: a discussion of this post has been happening over at Uncertain Principles.

The cream of this week’s musicalicious crop is oh, so creamy.

LittleHorse, Strangers in the Valley

I’ve been listening for the last couple of weeks to LittleHorse’s new album, their third, and it’s a keeper. (Also, judging from the somewhat lesser quality of the two songs they’ve remixed here from their previous CD, it’s probably the best.)

Led by two brothers, LittleHorse is a two-piano power-pop band that sounds a little like (take a deep breath) Queen plus a Latin band, and Billy Joel, backing up Joe Jackson, with Jellyfish on vocal harmonies. Or something. Whatever it is, it’s one of the year’s highlights – inventive but accessible, loaded with creamy harmonies, top-drawer musicality, and joyful fun. Highly recommended. Listen at their Myspace page, or at CD Baby where you can also buy it.

Eliza Lynn, The Weary Wake Up

Although I wasn’t terribly impressed with Eliza Lynn’s song on Putumayo’s recent Americana compilation, I like the label’s work so much that I almost automatically give a listen to anything from an artist they have included in the past. Lynn’s new CD turns out to be a solid, if not spectacular, set that embodies the term “Americana” in its broader sense, drawing on folk balladry, rock, blues, bluegrass, and jazz, but projecting a single characteristic voice.

Part of that consistency comes from Lynn’s literal voice, a cocky, cutting, but cloaked instrument that curls around cryptic lyrics like “You don’t know when it comes, cause it’s here before you’re ready. But if you walk it out the door, you’ll be begging it back on your knees.” In the brighter numbers, like “Hold My Breath,” “How Many Times,” and the Dixieland-style “Puddin’ Pie,” her smiling twang reminds me a little of Ellen McIlwaine, while her darker moments, like the trippy banjo-and-bass tune “Conrad” and the newgrassy “Bound,” express more of a snarly, Lucinda Williams sensibility.

“Intolerance Blues” is one of the more vivid political songs I’ve heard lately (and I’ve heard a lot). Lynn nails jingoistic country singers and right-wing hate radio with one swipe: “A country station is playing a song of vengeance, riding on patriotic hate… The country they sing of sounds like an angry drunkard – blinded and happy on his drug.”

And she picks a banjo as mean as her fights. Altogether, this is a nicely put together CD that grew on me with each listen. Sample the CD at her website or listen and buy at CD Baby.

Dave Sasscer, Quiet Mind

Here’s another artist who does a good job with a variety of styles.

First off: making relaxing soft rock that doesn’t get smarmy or sentimental is a neat trick, and David Sasscer pulls it off nicely here on several songs.

But as the set progresses one hears nods towards Santana, reggae, soul, funk, country, Eastern mysticism, and groovy, late 60s-style pop. Each song, though, has a simple, sweeping flow, even when rocking, which some of them do. The lyrics flow too, soulful and compact.

The only weakness, and it’s pretty minor, is that Sasscer’s singing, while sensitive, doesn’t have much power. Still it works all right in this easygoing, modest music. In fact just about everything about this CD is “all right,” in the best possible sense of the phrase. And playfulness does break up the meditative proceedings. The fun rocker “Dynamite” sounds a little like Jefferson Airplane, while “Jon Stewart is God” takes a good-natured poke at celebrity worship: “Jon Stewart is God / He made the earth and sky… from Genesis through Psalms / If you read between the lines / It’s Jon you’ll find.”

A lot of talented new indie artists mix and match from an assortment of musical styles. Not too many do it as smoothly and assuredly as Sasscer. Highly recommended. Hear and buy at CD Baby.

Riad Abdel-Gawad, El Tarab El Aseel: Autochthonic Enchantment

Living in New York City, I’m exposed to a fair amount of Arabic music. But I know very little about it. So I don’t have much context in which to place this recording by violinist Riad Abdel-Gawad. It sure sounds tasty and interesting, though.

Abdel-Gawad was born in Cairo, and although he was educated at Harvard and in western music conservatories, he explores his musical roots in the four pieces on this disc, mixing the taqasim (improvisational) tradition with tarab, the “performance practice of musical ecstasy.” Adbel-Gawad and his group use the oud (Arab lute), riqq (Arab tambourine), qanun (Arab zither), and nay (Arab flute), all traditional acoustic instruments, together with the violin, which has been co-opted into Arab music (replacing the indigenous two-stringed kamangah).

My untrained ears can’t tell for sure where composition ends and improvisation begins, or where the music adheres to historical forms and where it doesn’t, but I am enjoying it just the same. And on that latter point, Abdel-Gawad says something very interesting in his liner notes: before the advent of recording technology, it was the natural state of musical traditions to evolve. Afterwards, certain recorded performances became canonical, and so a distinction arose between historically “accurate” performances and “evolutionary” or “experimental” music. This is just as true of Western musical traditions as Eastern. And it is, in a sense, an artificial distinction.

I don’t have time to undertake a study of Arab musical traditions, and most likely you (dear Western reader) don’t either. What you can do is listen to these long, twisting, alternately trance-like and dramatic pieces, and I’ll wager you’ll find it a rewarding experience.

Ever heard of Maud Powell? I hadn’t, and I fancied myself at least a semi-knowledgeable classical music buff. My guess is that today’s classical music fans are much more likely to be familiar with the contemporary violinist Rachel Barton Pine, a renowned, award-winning soloist based in Chicago, than with Powell, the turn-of-the-last-century concert hall star to whom Pine pays glowing tribute in her new CD, American Virtuosa.

In these performances (and her liner notes) Pine argues for a place for Maud Powell in the violin pantheon with the likes of Jascha Heifetz and Fritz Kreisler. More detailed notes, by the Powell expert Karen A. Shaffer, explain how each of these selections was transcribed by, written for, or dedicated to Powell during the 1890s through the 1910s. In the process Shaffer makes the case for her designation of Powell as “the first great American violinist.” It’s pretty clear that she was, as Wikipedia puts it, “the first American violinist to achieve international rank.”

“At a time,” Shaffer writes, “when much of North America was still a vast wilderness and travel was dangerous and difficult, Maud Powell braved conditions that few would tolerate today in order to bring classical music to people who had never heard a concert.” By programming light, homey fare together with weightier works, Powell “built a bridge of understanding spanning from the simplest melodies to the large, complex sonata forms.”

By chance or not, these selections also comprise, for us, a good survey of the musical styles in vogue in the American concert halls of the time. (The CD also includes Powell’s only transcription of a true popular song, “Silver Threads Among the Gold.”) Great European composers like Chopin, Sibelius, and Dvořák are represented, but American composers dominate – Amy Beach, Percy Grainger, Cecil Burleigh, Marion Bauer – as do Americana pieces, like Max Liebling’s “Fantasia on Sousa Themes,” Herman Bellstedt, Jr.’s “Caprice on Dixie,” and most notably Bauer’s “Up the Ocklawah,” a sophisticated, modernistic piece which is also one the CD’s most beautiful and romantic.

Historical interest aside, on purely musical terms Pine’s recordings are wonderful. Dvořák’s famous “Humoresque” is weirdly slow and contemplative – perhaps that’s how Powell performed it – but on the whole, Pine renders the classical selections with impeccable taste to match her sweet, warm, but sprightly and crowd-pleasing tone. (Pine’s accompanist, pianist Matthew Hagle, deserves much credit for his careful contrasts and sensitive settings.)

However, the real high spots of the CD come from the west side of the pond. I’ve already mentioned Bauer’s piece. “Romance for Violin and Piano, Op. 23,” written by Amy Beach for Powell when both were only 25, is a knockout of a work, gorgeous and mature. Carl Venth’s “Aria” is filled with lovely, dramatic melodies, and Burleigh’s “Four Rocky Mountain Sketches,” while not compositionally adventurous, are full of American energy and charm.

Two transcriptions of African-American songs bear witness to Powell’s very unusual (for the time) championing of music from the black American experience. She was, in fact, the first white, classical music solo artist to perform an African-American spiritual in concert. Her transcription of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s “Deep River,” and Pine’s performance of it, approach the sublime.

Musically rewarding and historically interesting, American Virtuosa will be a fine addition to the shelf of anyone who enjoys great violin playing, and to the library of anyone interested in the history of American music. It illuminates a time we rarely think about any more when we think about the arts in America. Brava Maud Powell, and Brava Rachel Barton Pine for bringing her back to life.

An unusual amount of original-sounding music has burrowed its way out of my listening pile recently. See, in particular, the first two reviews below. But first a quick note for our New York readers: punk-pop dynamo Kirsten DeHaan, an Indie Round-Up favorite, is starting a residency this Thursday at Club Midway on Avenue B. I wrote about her last year here. Do check her out if you’re in town.

Kelli Hanson, Our Buildings

Contemplative but energetic, Kelli Hanson’s music is a strange bird. With a few exceptions – like “Foolish Champion” and the opening track, “Doesn’t Even Matter” – the songs aren’t particularly hooky, and between Hanson’s drawling pronunciation and the deep reverb on her voice it’s hard to make out the words. But the music draws you in with a mysterious power. One can detect touches of an acoustic singer-songwriter vibe, featuring Hanson’s woodsy guitar picking, as well as R&B, Europop, mystical she-magic, modernism, the obscure edges of classic rock, and other strands. There’s even what sounds like prepared piano on the captivating little instrumental “Fall in Canandaigua.” But Hanson is really her own animal. Her tunes might not follow you into the shower, but her thoughtful, atmospheric sounds very well might. I’m keeping this one.

Hear some full tracks at her Myspace page, or sample and purchase at CD Baby.

Mama’s Cookin’, Mama’s Cookin’

Hip-hop beats and rap-like lyrics merge with heavy blues and strong musicianship in the third album from the young Colorado quartet Mama’s Cookin’. The band has come up with a distinct sound, which is quite a rarity. Slide guitar, organ riffs, and live drums alternate with moody jangle and funk grooves, all propping up singer-guitarist Zeb Early’s impassioned vocals. It’s refreshing and worthwhile.

My only caveat: Early’s half-sung, half-rapped style works less well in some of the smoother tracks, like “Lampin'” and “Tough Times” – this sort of music recalls authentic soul sounds like Marvin Gaye’s, and, to my ear, seems to call for real singing. (Listen to Kevin So for a more fulfulling modern interpretation of this feel.)

By contrast, in the band’s higher-energy rock tracks, like “Run Up Quick,” “What I Am,” and “Black Reign,” the medium matches the socially and politically conscious message, and you can feel the power. Great stuff.

Sample the sounds of this original new band at their website or listen and buy at CD Baby.

The Beautiful Girls, Ziggurats

On their new CD, and especially on its first half, the Beautiful Girls indulge in a harsher sound than I was used to hearing from the band – more electric guitar, is what it comes down to. But they retain the precision ska-reggae feel and the sharp, straight-ahead songwriting sensibility that distinguish them from the pack of bands that take inspiration from the Islands.

The evolution works well, but still, some of the best songs come on the quieter second half of the CD: “In Love,” “She’s Evil,” and the gentle “Dela” among them. That’s not to detract from the harder tracks, like “Royalty” and “I Thought About You,” with their heavy riffage. I found them to be a positive development in the band’s sound, and this CD is certainly up there with the Beautiful Girls’ best work, as well as a good introduction to their music for those new to the band.

Hear some of the new tracks at their Myspace page.

Darius Lux, Arise

Darius Lux, an excessively talented one-man band, weaves textured, hooky power pop into coruscating R&B with strong tenor vocals and harmonies. It’s a winning musical recipe.

“Xtraordinary” and “Every Single Moment” are what used to be called radio-single worthy. So is the formulaic “You Take My Breath Away.” But every song on the CD boasts skilled arrangements and hooks, from “World Keeps On Turnin” with its tasteful acoustic guitar intro to the religio-political hidden track at the end, and from the forceful power pop of “The Great Unknown” to the spirited boy-band soul of “Life Goes On.”

The CD’s only problem is that the words are sometimes preachy, and often very cliched. Sappy sentiment sells, of course, and for the most part the positive, powerful elements of this work outweigh the obviousness of the lyrics. The overall feel suggests Seal, or more currently, Marc Broussard, and it’s right up there in quality. But my enjoyment of the CD would have been significantly stepped up if the lyrics weren’t so full of platitudes and “messages.” This is particularly frustrating when the music is so good.

Listen up.

The Passive Agressives, Reloaded

Liquid, almost twangy female vocals front this rough and ready dry-punk outfit. The contrast catches the ear; the funky, hard rock song constructions and Raggedy-Ann-in-the-gutter grit retain it.

“Evil Clown Song” sounds exactly like you’d think, while “Sweet Lisa” is a dark offspring of Heart’s “Magic Man.” I enjoyed the nearly tuneless “Casino” too. Lead singer Keren Gaiser’s back-and-forths with the other musicians’ shouted male vocals are fun, and guitarist Jose Santiago lays down bluesy licks over the rhythm section’s punked-out pounding.

Altogether the musicianship on this five-song EP is fabulous, and the production is clever, up front, and crystal clear – I really enjoyed the sound of the CD even when I wasn’t paying attention to the vocals. This is a highly promising young band. Hear and buy.

Down the Line, For All You Break

Down the Line is a warm, friendly, acoustic rock band with a soothing sound you can also bop your head to. They take a bit from the Allman Brothers’ sound in “Midnight Rider,” add vocal harmonies from flower-power era pop and CSNY and Jackson Browne and especially bands like America and the Guess Who, and stir it up with modern musical precision and construction. High points often come courtesy of the band’s excellent four-part harmonies, especially in the rockers like “Slip On Through.” But the lead vocals could use more oomph, and ultimately the CD feels rather bland, with unexceptional lyrics and tame hooks.

A couple of tracks that rise above that feel are “She Wears the Sun,” where the band takes more musical chances and ends up with something that stands out, and the soul-flavored “I Can’t Break Away,” with its Freddie Mercury-inspired vocals and sha-la-la harmonies. The guys in Down the Line have talent and taste, but I’d like to see them hit a few more shots cross-court.

Big record labels have to mine their catalogs; these days it's the only way they can stay in business. With Aretha Franklin, the Queen of Soul, there's plenty of material to draw from, and not just from decaying archives. But this collection of collaborations further demonstrates what we already knew: duets between stars are usually far less than the sum of their parts.

The good stuff on here includes a few well-known recordings, like the hit "Sisters Are Doing It For Themselves" with Annie Lennox, and some new numbers, like "What Y'All Came To Do," a repetitive but crisp dance number with John Legend in which the nu-soul crooner shows some uncharacteristic spunk, singing the chorus and bantering with Aretha. Backed up by Bonnie Raitt and Gloria Estefan on "Natural Woman" and by Mariah Carey on "Chain of Fools," the legend sounds great, but how could anyone (especially Herself) screw up those classics?

Two duets with Mary J. Blige turn out well, especially the gospel track "Never Gonna Break My Faith." But a lot of the rest is just '80s (and 80s-style) hokum, bland songs with no purpose but for a singer to exercise his or her lungs. One could imagine Aretha teaming successfully with the likes of Elton John, Whitney Houston, Michael McDonald, Luther Vandross, and George Benson, but one will have to keep imagining. Without a halfway decent song to sing, what was the point of wasting the time of all those musicians and engineers (not to mention ours)?

Of note, but not in a good way, is the disappointing new duet with Fantasia, who can light up a stage on her own terms, but comes off as a lightweight when trying to match vocals with the Queen of Soul. And the less said about the grafted-on duet with Frank Sinatra's recording of "What Now My Love," which was crappy in the first place, the better. Aretha sounds great on it, but it was very, very far from Ol' Blue Eyes's finest moment, and whoever decided to resurrect it for this purpose should be stripped of his or her license to practice A&R.

The disc ends with Aretha's famous rendition of "Nessum Dorma" from the 1998 Grammy Awards broadcast, when she stepped in for the ailing Luciano Pavarotti at almost literally the last minute. Aretha sang the aria, in the tenor's key, with a 72-piece orchestra, and brought down the house. It was a truly magic moment in the history of music, one of many Aretha has given us – but given us, virtually always, entirely on the strength of her own matchless voice and peerless soul. This CD ain't gonna change that.

Syndicated through Blogcritics to the Advance.net network and Boston.com.

From a Beatles tribute by a venerable classic rock band, to a DIY New York City crooner, to a singular bluegrass-jazz fusion project from up Colorado way, there's probably something for nearly everybody in this week's round-up. Read, click, and enjoy!

Pete Wernick & Flexigrass, What The

This appropriately titled CD comes as a nice surprise to the unprepared listener. A truly unique fusion of bluegrass and old-time jazz, it's a showcase for banjo picker extraordinaire Pete Wernick, vibraphonist Greg Harris, and clarinetist Bill Pontarelli. They're supported on a well-chosen set of standards and originals by an able rhythm section, with Joan Wernick adding uninflected but curiously charming vocals.

The head picker in charge wails on his instrumental composition "Traveling Home," then steps aside for tasteful solos by Harris and Pontarelli. A celestial vibes introduction leads into a fun version of the old fiddle tune "Blackberry Blossom." A few other highlights: the fast-steppin' "Leavin' Town" (written by Pete Wernick), the softly insistent "Snowbird," and, on a mellower tip, "Wrap Your Troubles in Dreams."

Forgive the obscure reference, but in spirit this reminded me of Pierre Gossez's alloy of Bach and jazz. And genre-mixing aside, the CD is suffused with such good feeling that it's hard to imagine it failing to cheer you up when you're blue.

Firefall Acoustic, Colorado to Liverpool: A Tribute to the Beatles

The veteran band Firefall's acoustic Beatles covers are reverential, but distinctive enough to provide an original and happy listening experience. The duo of Steven Weinmeister and Firefall founding member Jock Bartley have chosen a varied set of Beatles songs that thrive under their stripped-down but polished, 70s-soul acoustic sound.

It has to be said, of course: songs like "Within You Without You," "Girl," "Norwegian Wood," "Here Comes the Sun," "Eleanor Rigby," "Come Together," and "I'll Be Back" have long since proven their timeless brilliance, and you'd have to work pretty hard to screw them up. Early Beatles, late Beatles, Lennon & McCartney or Harrison, it doesn't matter, these consummate musicians do right by 'em.

Telling on Trixie, Telling on Trixie

A solid combination of crunchy rock, power pop, and organ-fed soul, Telling on Trixie's debut album comes out roaring with "Halfway Back to Sane" and "Dumb Boy." The two songs powerfully describe the two sides of the heartache coin. Derek Nicoletto's vocal flair puts one in mind of soulful rock singers like David Bowie and Chris Robinson. He sings with heart and soul and you can still understand all the words. (Coincidentally or not, the long electric guitar notes in the ballad "Orion's Light" and other places resembles Robert Fripp's feedbacking guitar on Bowie's "Heroes.")

On the last two thirds of the album the songwriting starts to get a bit pedestrian. The snaky groove of "Devil's Best Friend" and the plaintively dark acoustic ballad "Your Silence" are something of a return to form. So, while this isn't a great album through and through, the band's best work is excellent and it's no surprise these New York indie rockers are getting themselves some TV licensing spots and prestigious gigs. Check them out at their website or Myspace page.

James Vidos, Bed, Bar & Beyond

For a slice of low-key, jumpy urban angst, James Vidos is your man. The first two songs, "One I Wanted" and "Draw Me a Picnic," are the best; in "Let's Promenade," Weill-like oompah verses alternate with soft, flowery choruses, with Vidos's airy, languid baritone nicely drawing out the vivid, vaguely apocalyptic imagery. Think Nick Cave.

The tunesmithing doesn't always measure up to the meticulously developed atmosphere. As a whole, the material would benefit from stronger vocals too. But for stumbling through the streets of the Lower East Side in the wee hours of a rainy night, this will be a fine accompaniment.

Hear song samples here

Suzy Callahan, Freedom Party for Insects

Feeling extremely white, and slightly weird? Open up your heart to Suzy Callahan's happy melodies and up-front, pretty voice, which mask an ever so slightly twisted sensibility. From the title track: "I watch you but who's watching me? / Not the beetle or the bee / They're all going to the freedom party without me." You never find out what the freedom party is, or represents – you just have to draw your own conclusions.

Callahan sings plainly of simple emotions but has intriguing ways of framing them. The narrator of "Southern Belle" changes from a strong, modern woman into a weak-willed, helpless female when she encounters an attractive "wild man." It's a story that any number of women might tell, but Callahan's image of the strong woman isn't defiant, triumphant, or entirely satisfied. Rather, "I was down in a trench for days / Air nor light could penetrate / Digging alone, bone on bone… Thinking of home, but not my own."

She's drawn comparisons to Neko Case and Lucinda Williams but in some of her drama I was even reminded of Katell Keineg – e.g. in the chorus of "We Had a History" – or Liz Phair in the disturbingly baby-like simplicity of "I Smile".

Hear extended clips here.

Sacha Sacket, Lovers & Leaders

Sasha Sacket fortifies his earnest, adult alternative music with bursts of power-pop energy and dense electronic orchestration. The rich buttery sound is appropriate since most of the songs on his new CD are avowedly about love, and it has the distinct flavor of a concept album. So, although the songs work individually, the CD is best experienced as a whole, which is saying a lot, because many of the songs are quite strong in and of themselves, despite a tendency toward scattershot lyrics.

The success of this music is not about the sense of the songs, so much as the feeling stirred up by Sacket's keening vocals, which suggest Thom Yorke, and his haunting melodies and piano-heavy arrangements, which sometimes resemble Sarah McLachlan, or Neil Finn's most contemplative solo work.

Listen at the artist's website.

‘Tis the season for sprawling three-disc surveys of American music. Hot on the heels of Murder Ballads & Disaster Songs 1913-1938 comes my copy of Janet Reno’s Song of America. The former Attorney General, with her nephew-in-law, Nashville pro Ed Pettersen, and two other co-producers, has put together a 50-track survey of American history in song as interpreted by an assortment of talented artists of various levels of renown.

Disc 1 (1492-1860) has the largest amount of inspiring stuff. Three a capella numbers – “Lakota Dream Song” sung by Earl Bullhead, the Blind Boys of Alabama’s gorgeously harmonized slave-era spiritual “Let Us Break Bread Together,” and the the Fisk Jubilee Singers’ steely version of “Go Down Moses” – are soul-stirring, and John Wesley Harding’s harshly off-kilter brass band arrangement of “God Save the King” vividly evokes the war pains of revolutionary times. But more often, modern stylistic choices undercut the songs’ power. Often these choices reflect the 20th century fashion for confession in art, where smallness, quirkiness, and meekness are the rule. Elizabeth Foster sings a haunting arrangement of “Young Ladies In Town” (or “Address to the Ladies”) in a chillingly beautiful, quavery voice, but she swallows so many of the lyrics that the meaning is lost. (Some of them can be found here.) A vivid splash of history, the song was a pre-Revolutionary call for women to wear only homespun clothing and not British imports.

Malcolm Holcombe lends gravitas (and gravel) to “The Old Woman Taught Wisdom,” a plea for reconciliation between Britain and the Colonies, while Harper Simon, who sounds like a more psychedelic version of his father Paul, was an inspired choice to arrange and sing “Yankee Doodle.” But producer Ed Pettersen’s soporific take on “The Liberty Song,” Steven Kowalczyk-Santoro’s goopy “Hail Columbia,” and Beth Nielsen Chapman’s languid, affectless version of “Sometimes I Feel Like A Motherless Child” are more typical of the collection’s overall low energy. (“Jefferson and Liberty” is done as a lively bluegrass tune by The Wilders – but what’s the point without the words?) Backed by The Mavericks, Thad Cockrell sings the usually march-like “Dixie’s Land” as a slow swell, but in that case, the re-imagining of a traditional song works.

Marah’s rough-and-ready “John Brown’s Body” is a welcome blast of energy to start Disc 2, which covers 1861-1945. Jake Shimabukuro wails the “Stars and Stripes Forever” on his ukelele. The Black Crowes and their father Stan (billed as the Folk Family Robinson) deliver an honest and moving reading of Woody Guthrie’s “Reuben James,” one of the great topical songs of the 20th century. Old Crow Medicine Show, my favorite of the new crop of Americana bands, does a nice job with Woody Guthrie’s plangent lyric about illegal migrant workers, “Deportee (Plain Wreck at Los Gatos).” And Janis Ian sings the grim “Johnny I Hardly Knew Ye” – perhaps the saddest song ever written in the English language, at least prior to the oeuvre of Harry Chapin – a capella and with all due reverence. The song benefits from the quiet treatment. So does “Over There,” chirped with effective hollowness by – speaking of the Chapin family – Jen Chapin, over Stephan Crump’s mournful sawing on the bass. Instead of a rousing call to arms the song becomes a thoughtful consideration of the business of war.

The early Jazz Age is represented by Andy Bey’s smooth, moody version of “Brother Can You Spare a Dime” and a jaunty “Rosie the Riveter” from Suzy Bogguss, who isn’t a jazz singer but does a decent job. Classical soprano Karen Parks contributes a lovely, art-song version of “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” and Danielson‘s “Happy Days Are Here Again” is refreshingly nutty. But for every well-done or interesting track, there’s a colorless, tepid one. These sleepy versions of what have always been significant, meaningful songs are disappointing.

Disc 3, 1946-present, is also a frustrating mix of the fresh and the tired. It’s great to have Elizabeth Cook and The Grascals’ new recording of the Louvin Brothers’ “Great Atomic Power,” and having Devendra Banhart take a crack at the 1960s condemnation of suburbia, “Little Boxes,” was an inspired idea. But the recasts of very familiar rock-era songs like “The Times They Are A Changin’,” “What’s Going On,” I Am Woman,” and “Say It Loud, I’m Black And I’m Proud” don’t add anything much, though they’re mostly nice enough. Kim Richey having a calmly joyous time with the 60s anthem “Get Together” is something of an exception, and the Ben Taylor Band’s sleepy take on Neil Young’s great protest song “Ohio” is curiously affecting. Bettye LaVette comes off well, taking Bruce Springsteen’s “Streets of Philadelphia” to soulful heights the Boss’s own inexplicably Oscar-winning version didn’t even approach.

But Scott Kempner, Martha Wainwright, Gary Heffern, The Wrights, Matthew Ryan, even John Mellencamp, seem just plain sleepy. Maybe the songs are still too iconic, or too current, for newer artists to want to update them in any interesting way. Pettersen and co. should take a listen to Neil Young and Crazy Horse’s “Blowin’ In The Wind” (on the live Weld album) to hear an example of how a classic can be rebuilt with enough originality and power to draw even deeper waters from an already deep well. In any case, the result here is a set that seems too much like a dry history lesson, rather than the exciting rainbow of historically meaningful songs it could have been.

Education is actually one of the main purposes of the compilation, and Discs 1 and 2, at least, will be good teaching tools. But less postmodern, shoegazing gloom and more rock and roll spirit would have given the whole collection more color, both as a musical tapestry and as a way of interesting kids in American history from the standpoint of those who struggled and still struggle. And speaking of struggles: Native American and African American songs and interests are pretty well represented, but the lack of any Hispanic material is a serious omission.

Serious…that’s the right word. Too much of these tracks just feel too darned hands-off and serious.

Syndicated through Blogcritics to the Advance.net network and Boston.com.

From the wreck of the Titanic through the Great Depression, American folk musicians regularly communicated stories of disasters and murders through song, often adding religious morals. New technologies, especially in transportation, had created a whole new category of disasters that singers and pickers could recount. They still retold the old stories, but they also wrote new, topical songs using old musical forms (and sometimes famous old melodies). Tompkins Square‘s new three-disc collection of these American murder ballads and disaster songs is an extensive, though by no means exhaustive, sampling of what Tom Waits calls in the liner notes the “oral tabloids of the day.”

Disc 1, “Man V Machine,” includes many songs about railroad disasters, from famous stories like the Old 97 and Casey Jones to obscurities like Ernest Stoneman’s tale of a fellow named Talmadge Osborne who died trying to get on a moving freighter, and Alfred Reed’s “Fate of Chris Lively and Wife,” whose wagon got hit by a train. There are auto, airship, and airplane crashes, and a weird reworking of the John Henry legend called “Bill Wilson” by the Birmingham Jug Band. The Titanic is well represented, most curiously in a recording of a traditional Hebrew prayer recorded in 1913 by Cantor Joseph Rosenblatt, and a stream-of-consciousness spoken word ramble by Frank Hutchison written fifteen years after the great ship went down.

Disc 2, “Man V Nature,” deals with “natural” events like fires, floods, drought, pestilence, and disease. (Times haven’t changed all that much since Old Testament days, have they?) The great Mississippi flood of 1927 weighs heavily in this group; rock fans will recognize the basis for Led Zeppelin’s classic “When the Levee Breaks,” recorded here in 1929 by Kansas Joe and the great guitarist Memphis Minnie. But there was a great variety of disasters to sing about. Charlie Patton’s compelling first recording, “Boll Weevil Blues,” is here, contrasting interestingly with Fiddlin’ John Carson’s take on the same subject. Charlotte and Bob Miller’s rendition of “Ohio Prison Fire,” written just three days after the dreadful 1930 blaze that killed more than 300 prisoners, includes an extended spoken dialogue between a grieving mother and the warden, while Blind Alfred Reed’s “Explosion in the Fairmount Mine” uses an unusual minor chord to dramatize a child’s premonition of that 1907 disaster.

The styles range from early country music to rural proto-blues to some more indefinable, eccentric sounds, but the majority of the troubadors are white singers from the rural south. As the liner notes explain, black artists were generally classified as “blues” even if they were doing music that resembled that of their white counterparts, so that relatively few ballads and disaster songs were released for the black audience – ironic considering the magnified hardships faced by rural black folks in those days. (But note the significant exceptions, like Son House, Furry Lewis, the aforementioned Charlie Patton, and singers in the early gospel “sanctified” tradition.)

The songs on Disc 3, “Man V Man (And Woman, Too),” recount violent deaths at the hands of cops, angry lovers, crazed fathers, outlaws, lynch mobs, and the State. Most were real events of the 19th and early 20th centuries, but the stories are exactly like those of today. Plus ça change is the clearest message these musical tales send to us in the 21st.

The handsome packaging and liner notes include background on the songs, the recordings, and the artists, many period photos, and selections from the lyrics. Famous disasters and familiar characters like Tom Dooley, Stack O’Lee, Bruno Hauptmann, Casey Jones, and even Pretty Polly mingle with obscure local tales and the nameless (but, through these songs, not forgotten) dead of disasters past. The music isn’t consistently great, and some of it is readily available elsewhere, but it’s all interesting; taken together, it’s a fascinating treasure trove of doom, and an enjoyable lesson in how American history played an intimate part in defining the popular music of the period – music that gave birth to the forms and songs we listen to today.