After all the Grammy-weekend debauchery, the Smoking Section needed a little vacation. So with our iPod stocked with coming attractions — that is, albums yet to be released — we laid down our weary bones in Italy. The consensus: 2007 is poised to be the most killer year in music since we can’t even remember when. As Jeff Tweedy puts it on Wilco’s mellow masterwork Sky Blue Sky, “Somewhere there’s a war, and sometimes there’s art,” and just like the Italian Renaissance sprung out of the Dark Ages, artists are responding to the wars (against Iraq and against the record industry) by simply creating beautiful art. So here’s a list of S.S.-approved albums soon to rock your world: Dinosaur Jr. top Green Mind with Beyond; Modest Mouse give us stoners something to smoke to on “Fire It Up”; Blonde Redhead shock us with their most accessibly perfect disc ever, 23; Willie Nelson, Merle Haggard and Ray Price team up on the fillerless double disc Last of the Breed; Nine Inch Nails‘ Year Zero will give you nightmares; Feist’s cut “I Feel It All,” from The Reminder, is pop perfection; on Security, Antibalas churn out the best Afrobeat since Fela Kuti left the building; Kings of Leon jump-start the great Because of the Times with a seven-minute epic, “Knocked Up”; and, finally, the Kaiser Chiefs will at last slay the U.S. with Yours Truly, Angry Mob. Start savin’ up!
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Here’s a quick blast for fans of the Flaming Lips: Wayne Coyne revealed to us that the band has been in talks with legendary Broadway producer Des McAnuff, who is responsible for the stage adaptation of the Who’s Tommy and last year’s Tony-winning Jersey Boys. “We’re putting together a Broadway version of Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots,” says Coyne. “As much as I love the more intense experience of being at a rock show, this could be great!”
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Like Bowie and Iggy before him, Rufus Wainwright decamped to Berlin to record his most bare-bones, introspective, confessional record. But a funny thing happened. “I just started wearing lederhosen all the time, visiting rococo palaces, getting into German Romanticism and fascism, and eating a lot of sausages,” says Rufus. “All of a sudden I turned into this wild composer — I was possessed by a classical beast.” While songs like “I’m Not Ready to Love” live up to Roof’s original MO, Release the Stars’ opener, “Do I Disappoint You?” could have blared from the helicopter in Apocalypse Now. “Tulsa” was written about a night out with Killer Brandon Flowers (”We didn’t do anything illegal,” Rufus reports, “or legal”), and on “Going to a Town,” Rufus is as beautifully blunt as ever on the refrain: “I’m so tired of you, America.” Though we couldn’t agree with him more, we’re still happy to be home.