The newish album by Kurt Vile and Courtney Barnett has been filling my eardrums lately. The first question we must ask is if they only got together because their names were Kurt and Courtney. It wouldn't be the first time that had happened. I mean, we all remember Kort, the collaboration between Kurt Wagner & Courtney Tidwell, don't we? I dunno, maybe there was even another famous Kurt & Courtney prior to this...
Anyway, the union between this latest Kurt & Courtney seems a bit one-sided if you ask me, with the wonderful Ms. Barnett doing all the heavy lifting and Kurt Vile merely turning up to look pretty. A bit like Lee Hazlewood and Nancy Sinatra in reverse, except Nancy had a better singing voice than Mr. Vile.
The songs mostly sound like Courtney Barnett songs though - full of oddball observational details and that guitar...
I'm going to go out on a limb now and say that Courtney Barnett is the best guitarist in contemporary "indie" (if we're still allowed to call it that). I'll go you one further: she is the 21st Century Johnny Marr. Don't believe me? Close your eyes and listen to this and tell me you can't hear Johnny, 30+ years ago...
Haven't heard this album. Good catch on the Kurt and Courtney name connect! Surely Kurt Vile is a pretty great guitarist as well?
ReplyDeleteOn a side note, I almost included Forgot Myself by Jen Cloher in my top 50 songs of 2017. Cloher is an Australian singer-songwriter and apparently Courtney Barnett's partner.
Vile is a pretty good guitarist, but the sound on much of this record is so reminiscent of CB's solo work, I find it hard to believe he played much of a part in the composition.
DeleteJen Cloher is a new name on me; will check her out.
This is a weird one. I loved it for a couple of weeks, but then it started irritating the crap out of me for some reason. I took it out of the CD player and havent gone back to it since.
ReplyDeleteI'm really not sure why.