ON the Beat | A Few Tasty Platters of ’23

This edition of ON the Beat was originally emailed to subscribers on August 31, 2023. To receive Josef Woodard’s music newsletter in your inbox each Thursday, sign up at independent.com/newsletters.

The death of the Long-Playing Record Album has been greatly exaggerated. In the evermore digital and track-oriented realm of music-making and marketing of our day, pundits and persons on the street are sounding the death knell of the album as we’ve known and loved it (when the music is loveable). But it ain’t so. And to be clear, nothing in the term “long-playing record album” actually indicates a format or physical medium, despite our associations with vinyl, compact-disc, cassette, 8-track, and now vinyl’s redux: the idea of an “album” of songs is the thing.
        
Taking a casual, highly-selective and genre-sweeping look at what 2023 — so far — has had to offer the public ear validates the ongoing vitality of the “album” concept and the challenge it presents to artists thinking more in big-picture rather than bite-sized dimensions. Partake of these platters of music as you wish, with whatever utensils or gadgets, but do partake, in large plate fashion. In the end-of-summer slump on the live music calendar, the calm before fall’s storm, recorded music is always there to soothe and rattle and hum.

Father John Misty, Chloe and the Next 20th Century (Sub Pop) Father John, a k a Josh Tillman, swept onto the Santa Barbara Bowl stage this month to deliver one of the more exhilarating and subversive shows of the year. At the root of this year’s Misty model is his “pandemic” album, which finds him soaking in a tub of “fake jazz,” Rufus Wainwright-y melodicism and such memorable ditties as his poignant, Glen Campbell-inspired ode to his belated pooch, “Goodbye Mr. Blue,” and the suave-then-punkishly-brash “The Next 20th Century.” link