We all know about how absence makes the heart grow fonder, but I think with music sometimes absence makes the ears grow sharper. A few weeks ago I stumbled across live footage of the B-52s playing “Private Idaho,” and I couldn’t tear myself away. In my teenage years, the B-52s were my gateway into nonmainstream music, opening the floodgates for every weird, outsider, and experimental act I’ve sought out in the decades since. But at a certain point I put those records away, metaphorically speaking. I could still enjoy them, but I’d come to see them as just silly pop. Encountering that performance of “Private Idaho” (a song from the group’s second album, 1980’s Wild Planet) made me reconsider my outlook, and now that I’ve dug out the band’s self-titled 1979 debut, I’m the one who seems silly.
Daniel Corral, Refractions (Populist) Jimmy Cleveland, Complete Recordings (Lone Hill Jazz) Françoise Hardy, L’Amitié (Future Days/Disques Vogue) Various artists, Let No One Judge You: Early Recordings From Iran, 1906-1933 (Honest Jons) Fred Neil, Bleeker & MacDougal (Elektra)
