Thursday, November 11, 2004
October 19: Various Artists - Sweet Relief II: Gravity of the Situation - the Songs of Vic Chesnutt
Matt (hey everybody, remember him?) was nice enough to procure this for me at a Randy's M&M bargain bin sale a few weeks back 'cause it has an REM song on it.
Vic Chesnutt is a guy from Athens, Ga. who's paralyzed from the waist down and writes quirky acoustic songs. Michael Stipe discovered him and produced his first couple of albums. Sweet Relief is a charity organization that works to pay musicians' health coverage. So REM rounded up a bunch of their celebrity friends to do Vic Chesnutt songs, and it's a pretty A-list group on here (in 1996, when this came out, at least): Garbage, Hoote and the Blowfish, Soul Asylum, Live, Smashing Pumpkins, Cracker, and Indigo Girls, among others. Madonna even does backing vocals on Joe Henry's song.
Is Vic Chesnutt a great songwriter? Eh. Some of these songs are pretty decent, but even the good ones are better lyrically than musically.
As an interesting footnote, the REM track is recorded with a drum machine, eerily foreshadowing Bill Berry's departure a year later.
Vic Chesnutt is a guy from Athens, Ga. who's paralyzed from the waist down and writes quirky acoustic songs. Michael Stipe discovered him and produced his first couple of albums. Sweet Relief is a charity organization that works to pay musicians' health coverage. So REM rounded up a bunch of their celebrity friends to do Vic Chesnutt songs, and it's a pretty A-list group on here (in 1996, when this came out, at least): Garbage, Hoote and the Blowfish, Soul Asylum, Live, Smashing Pumpkins, Cracker, and Indigo Girls, among others. Madonna even does backing vocals on Joe Henry's song.
Is Vic Chesnutt a great songwriter? Eh. Some of these songs are pretty decent, but even the good ones are better lyrically than musically.
As an interesting footnote, the REM track is recorded with a drum machine, eerily foreshadowing Bill Berry's departure a year later.
Comments:
Post a Comment
