Sunday odds and ends, so far...

-In last week's Sunday Times there's a review for Father John Misty's new album I Love You, Honeybear (an awesome album, both loving and hysterical) with this great snippet:

When the mariachi trumpets burst forth on "Chateau Lobby #4" you feel your heart will explode. How many albums can you say that about?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6NuYJ0RzRg


-My favorite quote I've read so far this weekend: "I was born to be a spinster, and by God, I'm going to spin."<<This is taken from Winifred Holtby's South Riding in a Wall Street Journal review. Lately, their book reviews have had me adding lots to my TBR pile.

-In today's Washington Post there's a review of the new Stevie Nicks biography. It sounds like it leaves the reader wanting more from a book about one of the most intriguing singers ever:

Writing about this drama is easy. Writing insightfully about the process of creating music is much harder, especially when the subject is somebody like Nicks, an untrained but ingenious singer-songwriter who often sounds as mystified by her extraordinary songs as anybody else is.

Howe documents it all — the sex, the drugs and the mystification — with the nonjudgmental vigilance of a devoted fan who has little interest in assessing Nicks’ place in the pop-rock pantheon. Her book is at its most fun — which is to say, somewhat — when she plays hooky from the dutiful reportage and indulges in fansite-style observations and jokes.

The rest of the review is here:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/what-more-is-there-to-know-about-stevie-nicks/2015/02/19/37cc0d58-b064-11e4-827f-93f454140e2b_story.html

-Speaking of talented singers...there's also a new memoir out by Deborah Voigt. Much of the review here focuses on sexism and double standards. I love this part the most:

In opera — an art form that, more than any other, requires a suspension of disbelief — only the singing should ultimately matter. Yes, the singers must act convincingly, and costumes and sets are vital to the experience. But the artist portraying Aida or Turandot, Isolde or Norma, should not have to conform to relatively modern standards of physical beauty if she happens to sing like an angel.
“How can a three-hundred-pound woman play the romantic role of Aida if the audience doesn’t believe the tenor onstage would find her attractive?” Voigt asks. We believe because of the voice. A great singer can float a delicate pianissimo or belt out a dramatic monologue or thrill us with her rapid coloratura or caress her way through the most agonizing love music. What makes opera unlike anything else is the power of the singer to excite, enchant and seduce, to communicate every emotion imaginable using just one thing: her voice. Not her face, not her body, but her voice.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/criticized-for-her-weight-opera-star-deborah-voigt-speaks-up/2015/02/19/fe69e79e-b6b0-11e4-aa05-1ce812b3fdd2_story.html