The Sounding Board
A weekly column where New Music Tuesdays live on. Conversation is encouraged in the comments.
Every Tuesday, the Sounding Board is a space for a short-ish review of a recent-ish release and conversations about new-to-you music. We’ll get things started with a write-up about a newer, likely under-heard album, and invite you to share your music musings in the comments.1
Ringo Starr’s Look Up is a much better idea than an album.
That’s mostly because it’s such a stellar concept on paper: Take the Beatle most enamored of Country and Western music, team him up with some of the most virtuosic artists making roots music (plus a legendary producer) and give the 84-year-old a chance to record his late-life musings.
It’s wonderful table setting that could have served up a revelatory and profound career capstone like the end-of-the-road albums from Leonard Cohen, Johnny Cash and David Bowie. Alas, the near bottomless reservoirs of money and cachet available to the legend didn’t produce his own Black Starr. Instead, they were used to create something like a sequel to Beaucoup of Blues.2
But that’s still a pretty fun album.
Look Up , is an unwaveringly pleasant, undemanding listen that struts along with a boom-chicka bounce. Its songs don’t ask much of listeners. They’re twangy, breezy and most often about love. There is a song inspired by theoretical physics (“String Theory”), but it’s a hippie-ish meditation on the interconnectedness of everything, so your brain can stay safe and sound in whatever drawer you store it in when listening to something like Look Up.3
Considering he’s 20 years past the once hypothetical 64, it’s amazing that Starr sounds as good as he does on Look Up. His distinctive Liverpudlian voice is still warm and charming.
However, even as a young man, Starr wasn’t a vocal powerhouse, and he’s understandably lost oomph over the years. On Look Up, his voice the sonic equivalent of a beloved but worn stuffed animal. The materials were always suspect, and the combination of heavy usage and time have done it no favors. Still, it remains sentimentally cherished and comforting.
Thankfully, Starr has a little help from his friends on Look Up.4 The album features Molly Tuttle, Billy Strings, Larkin Poe, Alison Krauss and Lucious.5 That’s a legitimately exciting lineup. Starr and producer T Bone Burnett (or their teams) deserve kudos for putting it together. There’s no shortage of unpleasant but lucrative country stars that could’ve been used on the album.6 Instead, listeners are treated to an assemblage of tremendously talented twang, and every song that features a guest is better for it.
Often, the guest vocalists are deployed to sing exactly what Starr is singing. This arrangement comes across as both pragmatic and organic. Starry-eyed love songs work well as duets, and it’s a great choice for adding dexterity and depth to the vocals while decidedly leaving the album in Starr’s inimitable voice.
“Thankful,” an Alison Krauss team-up, is probably the most affecting of these collaborations.7 The album-closer is a simple declaration of gratitude for support that manages to work Starr’s signature “peace and love” into the lyrics. It’s a trifle, but a sincerely joyous one. That’s the album’s MO, and generally true of Starr’s sunny solo output as a whole.
About the writer
Ben Hohenstatt
Ben Hohenstatt is an Alaska-based dog owner who moonlights as a music writer and photographer.
For more information, consult your local library or with parental permission visit his website.
Tags for this article
More articles by Ben Hohenstatt
The Sounding Board
A weekly column where New Music Tuesdays live on. Conversation is encouraged in the comments.
The Sounding Board
A weekly column where New Music Tuesdays live on. Conversation is encouraged in the comments.
The Sounding Board
A weekly column where New Music Tuesdays live on. Conversation is encouraged in the comments.
The Sounding Board
A weekly column where New Music Tuesdays live on. Conversation is encouraged in the comments.
The Sounding Board
A weekly column where New Music Tuesdays live on. Conversation is encouraged in the comments.
Department of
Conversation
What did we listen to?
Waterloo, ABBA
Oddly unpolished.
Rock and Roll Heart, Lou Reed
Lot more jazz elements in this one. Reed continues to be a favourite for me.
Whenever I listen to ABBA I feel like I’ve eaten an entire cheesecake. I mean that in the best possible way because I love cheesecake. But I don’t eat an entire cheesecake everyday. The B-side to the title track, Honey, Honey is what I’m talking about.
Dug my way through the Spotify Filk Compendium, which is basically 75 percent of the filk albums on the service, and obviously not created by Spotify. For every good song, there is one that manages to rub me the wrong way, which is so common in filk that there is a song about that phenomenon!
And then…Warren Zevon. Been a while since I listened to his stuff. I was talking to a Gen Zer about music yesterday and she said she did not know that name, but when I mentioned “Werewolves of London,” she was like “I wait, I do know him!” That one song almost guarantees people will not forget him, but I do hope they move along to the rest of his stuff.
1001 Albums, etc. – despite the shorter window (good call on moving the listening chat to music day!) I’ve managed to fit in quite a bit of listening since Friday. The highlight has been Joni Mitchell’s “Blue”, which is another classic I knew chunks of but don’t think I’d heard front-to-back. It’s really special! Also enjoyed the Fela Kuti / Ginger Baker album, especially when the ensemble sings along with the riffs. The surprising low was Janis Joplin’s “Pearl” – I can admire the power of her vocal but that didn’t really translate to enjoyment, sadly. Other than those, and a welcome relisten for Leonard Cohen’s wonderfully dark “Songs of Love and Death”, this was a middling batch of albums that were pleasant but not terribly exciting. Some good stuff coming up as I move into ’72 though.
Blank Check, Duel – still enjoying the show but the ads are so much worse now that I find myself dragging my feet on listening, since I mostly listen when doing chores / driving and it isn’t always convenient to skip forwards.
The internally recorded ads are clocking in at 3 minutes and I don’t love them being in bed with Regal for some reason. And then there are just more ads altogether. I guess having twins is expensive and David needs the money, but still…
They’re so often repeats now too, I generally don’t mind hearing a unique ad once, but when they’re more frequent, longer AND repeats it gets a bit offputting. And since they’re usually ads for US stuff it’s not like they’re even relevant to me. Seems odd to ramp up the advertising now, when the patreon is doing so well?
I think the return on podcast advertising has probably dropped significantly, no longer worth it for advertisers to pay for new ads every week. I at least like that they have a music cue to separate them out (easier for me to skip). As a proponent of theater subscriptions, I kinda like the Regal partnership, preferable to a studio which might affect their opinions (or worse, dictate content like that one time they did Detective Pikachu).
Yeah if they’re going to have a long-term advertising partner then I’m glad it’s something so closely tied to the theme of the show.
I feel like I’ve moved from quite enjoying the ads to finding them a mild nuisance to actively disliking them though which is a bit of a shame.
Podcasting seems to be turning into an adjunct of YouTube, which sort of misses the point of podcasts, but YouTube rules the world, dontcha know?
That’s what my kids tell me.
Apparently Apple changed how the Podcast app downloads podcasts last year which caused an accounting change in advertising impressions, even though the actual listens stayed constant. So lots of podcasts found themselves not meeting their promises to advertisers even though their actual listenership has remained constant. And this meant they had to do more ad reads while the revenue from ads dropped.
Hank Green talked about it in a YouTube video: https://youtu.be/DnktQrpXHrQ?si=tsHIHW26wOzGlikw
With all the crooked technocrats around now, we sometimes lose sight of Apple’s misdeeds. Good to be reminded.
I wonder if switching to getting at least some podcasts on Spotify will do any good for the content creators.
I don’t think it’s a misdeed. It’s more accurate and wastes less energy.
Aha, good info – this explains a lot! And justifies my ongoing decision to boycott Apple ever since The U2 Debacle
I had a big Joni Mitchell discovery period a few years ago, and she really is something. Blue is an incredible album.
I’ve been listening to them exclusively on YouTube since they nuked their Soundcloud account last year, and I was suprised to realize that they didn’t include any ads on them. Probably because of YouTube’s own ads, though even those aren’t as prevalent on their show.
They did include one ad read on their Duel episode though, and I’m waiting to see if that will be a blip or a trend.
Huh, that’s interesting. I might try a different podcast app and see if the experience is any different… not sure I can bring myself to use YouTube though, I hate the idea of bringing a video app to an audio fight!
Why would anyone want to look at Ben for any length of time?
I know you joke, but there’s no actual video for the podcast on YouTube, it’s just the audio.
Example: https://youtu.be/qzNirfTNOuI?si=7NqgxnYRzCxVHyME
That seems of limited utility. Though I am sure someone somewhere is pressuring them to start going on camera.
What did we watch?
Kids In The Hall, Season Two, Episode Seven
– I wonder if Dave Foley wrote the “Lady Is A Tramp” sketch purely as an excuse to talk like that.
– “Gerald, ya cholesterol sponge!”
– “Okay, let’s stop smiling.”
– “In France, everyone speaks French coz they think it’s cool. Gives them an excuse to smoke.”
– Bruce McCullough is the weakest actor in the troupe but he nails the vibe of an eight year old.
– “I guess I should go.” / “Oh, thanks for stopping by.” / “Okay, I’ll stay.”
– “I’ve been gone a long time, Rudy’s gonna kill me.” One of those jokes where I laughed harder than the audience.
Kojak, “Hush Now, or You’ll Die” – A woman is raped after college classes, and one of the rapists then shoots the other, even as the woman flees. Leaving the cops with a dead body and no one who the victim was. I suspect episodes like this, that unflinchingly address matters of sexual assault, are why soon there would be a ban on “adult content” before 9 pm. This is not something I would necessarily want a kid to watch. But this also is never even a little sensationalistic in how it treats things. While to a degree this follows the usual cop show patterns, it offers sympathy for the victim and does not question her initial unwillingness to talk to the cops. We even get some sympathy for the parents of the murdered rapist since they too are human beings. It’s a bit messy, and Kojak’s desire to help the victim is a bit paternalistic, but everything here is achingly sincere. Plus we briefly meet a Black woman detective from I guess would be the SVU on another show. Not something all that common in 1974. Guests include Kathleen Quinlan and Todd Sussman.
Frasier, “Dinner at Eight” – Yup, starting a rewatch. I guess it was only a matter of time since this is on my all time favorites list. The brothers Crane try to take Martin to dinner at a fancy restaurant, end up at one of his favorite places, and embarrass the old man. It’s played for laughs and we are definitely supposed to sympathize with Martin, but at no point does it become cringe humor (something we would get from time to time over the years from Frasier and Niles’s behavior). This is where Martin gives his memorable “your mom was not a snob” speech to the boys. Also, Niles meets Daphne. I am sure nothing comes of that at all.
Better Man – I’ve never been much of a Robbie Williams fan, but obviously as a Brit I’ve ended up following at least part of his rollercoaster life story just through cultural osmosis. As such I was only mildly curious about this for the “Robbie is portrayed by a CGI ape” element until friends started telling me how much they’d unexpectedly loved it. So I went out to see it and ended up being the only person in the cinema, which is a little sad. I absolutely loved the film though, the ape thing is more than a gimmick and Robbie’s self-critical view of his past and awareness of his own demons make this avoid a lot of the biopic pitfalls. The musical sequences are incredible, and breathed life into even the songs I thought I really never needed to hear again. To say that I wasn’t a fan of The Greatest Showman would be an understatement, but I’m happy that it was successful enough to allow the filmmaker to make this big swing, because I loved it.
Who?
(That’s an American joke. I know Robbie Williams exists, even though I know none of his songs.)
I’m extremely familiar with this “joke”. I don’t really understand the part where people ignore biopics where they don’t know the subject – in most cases I feel like not knowing the story beforehand is a good thing!
Alfred Hitchcock Presents, “The Right Kind of House” and “You Got to Have Luck”
Most of yesterday was flying + driving (currently visiting my parents), so all we were up for by the time the evening rolled around was a couple of AHP favorites. I like that “You Got to Have Luck”–where an escaped prisoner forces a woman to host him for a few hours–plays fair (which makes it a treat to rewatch), but the real highlights are John Cassavetes’s nervy, convincingly close-to-the-edge performance and, countering it, Marisa Pavan’s wide-eyed terror and resilience.
But “The Right Kind of House” still wins for me, because it’s such a beautiful Venus fly trap of an episode. A man endeavors to purchase a house priced far above its worth, and the rest unfolds from there. Clever, funny, and eminently satisfying in its ownage.
The two leads in Right Kind Of House are fantastic. They are fully realized characters in a short time. We understand what they both want and their maneuverings are well written. One of the more folksy and cozy (hope that doesn’t make it sound terrible) episodes but with ownage like you say.
Oh, yeah. It’s great to watch them working their angles—disguised under the folksiness and coziness—and follow it all to the ultimate payoff. They’re both terrific.
Home Alone 3 – Why yes, my son’s turn to pick the movie, how did you guess?
Actually, for as much as my wife and I gripped the armrests to start, this turned out to be not such a bad little flick. I relaxed a little when I saw John Hughes was the writer, not that he’s a 100% guarantee of quality, but at least there’s one seasoned pro on board with everyone else replaced. The switcharoo turns out to be a benefit overall. We don’t have to pretend it’s weird for a teenage Macaulay Culkin to get left behind again. The bad guys are switched up from a doofy duo to a quartet of serious-faced international criminals (a major staple of 90s films by this point). The movie starts out from their point of view so even though we all know we’re headed to the same conclusion (heavy objects knocking over adults), the route is at least shaken up a bit.
It does enhance one’s appreciation for the physical comedy abilities of Daniel Stern and Joe Pesci (it will never not be weird for me to remember that movie came out the same year as Goodfellas), as the best gags in the inevitable booby trap mayhem recall the bodily damage dealt to those guys and their stunt doubles (all these films are great showcases for stunts).
There’s also a ridiculously loquacious parrot and a very young Scarlett Johansson. These things don’t really add much positive to the movie, but they are there. Partially thanks to a ruthless editing job that keeps this moving better than either of the previous movies, this is a slightly less than cynical cash-in and actually better than its immediate predecessor.
I’m actually much more familiar with this one than the more famous Culkin entries – it was on TV all the time when I was a kid.
Friday The 13th: The Series “Crippled Inside” (80s television) – I’ve been skipping through the series on YT deciding whether to watch it all the way through. This makes a pretty good case to do so. The series follows a couple of teens who inherit their uncle’s antique shop. The uncle made a pact with Satan to sell cursed antiques. The teens team up with an old stage magician and occultist to retrieve the items. It was a pretty groundbreaking show before X-Files, Buffy, Angel and Supernatural. The cursed item of the week in this ep is an old wicker wheelchair that comes into possession of a young high-school girl who was struck by a car while fleeing an attempted gang rape by some high-school jocks (80s television). Now paralyzed the girl finds the wheelchair allows her to astrally project her body and seek revenge on her would-be assailants. It also heals the young woman more and more for every murder she makes. Though it takes place in the third and final season after series regular John LeMay (Mulder) left the series after being turned into a child of Satan to be replaced by Johnny Ventura (Doggett) and co-lead Louise Robey (Scully) only makes a brief cameo it’s a solid episode written by Brian Helgeland. Hegeland builds up a lot of sympathy for the paralyzed but murderous teen. Her first kill has one punk burned up by acid with some gory make-up that still holds up well. After that the kills get pretty rote – a guy pushed off a building, another crushed under a falling chandelier. She takes her final assailant with her in a fall down a flight of stairs killing them both. Stephanie Morgenstern plays Rachel in a sad and sympathetic way with the ending hitting pretty hard. The whole thing is really quite sad. Despite Johnny being at the right place at the right time one too many times it was a pretty solid episode. I was reminded of a trashy 80s Paperback From Hell style book I only read a few years ago – Captain Quad by Sean Costello where a young man paralyzed in a motorcycle accident can astrally project out of his body. His bitterness and rage takes the book into some dark places. The book only came out a year or two after this episode, hmmmm.
NFL Wild Card, Vikings vs. Rams
Well, I never thought the Vikings were as good as their record, but I didn’t expect a meltdown of this degree, either. The Rams’ pass rush vs. the Vikings’ offensive line was the real story of this week– even with Aaron Donald retired, the Rams smashed the draft the last two years on their front-seven picks and have kept on rolling. Meanwhile, the last two weeks have shut up everyone who thought the Vikings should trade J.J. McCarthy and pay Sam Darnold $50 million a year or whatever he’ll get on the open market.
The Shield, “Bottom Bitch” and “Streaks and Tips”
Man, forget Marvel or whatever, I’d be way more interested in a “What If?” series with, like, Deena as Mrs. Aceveda #2, Shane and Tulips becoming a thing, etc. Anyway, Tulips left us for good after season 2, but Deena returns here. We also meet Farrah, and, uh, you know.
Also, congrats to Shane and Mara. I think those two crazy kids will be alllllll right.
The Kids in the Hall, Season 2, Episodes 15-16
Man, Kids is such a vibe. Even the sketches that aren’t super funny in themselves just have the feel of something they’d do, and their sensibility is so out of time– the show really doesn’t feel rooted in the late-80s / early 90s at all, but in their observations of peculiarities of human behavior, their clear love of classic forms of comedy (vaudeville, or the oddities of French comedy– see “M. Piedlourde”), and just in these strange, character-based bits (if some of them, like “30-Second Stories”, can even be called that). The latter type, when it’s clearly the idea of an individual Kid and he just runs with it, provide some of the show’s signature moments and really contribute to the vibe – they’re not always hilarious, sometimes just funny in their peculiarity, but I still very much enjoy them, and no other show really did this quite like they did.
Episode 15 is solid (“Buy Poo” is great– maybe one of the only times you see one of the Kids nearly break), but episode 16 opens with “One of These Five Men” and gets even better, with “Cincinnati Kid” and the two “Career Ending” sketches as my own favorites. “No Words” and “Wild Weekend” deserve mention too, though– the latter being a great example of how the Kids were great even when they weren’t trying to point out the absurdities of human social behavior; it’s really just a sketch exploring one of their recurring characters in greater depth. And while there’s an obvious surface-level joke in the sketch, it’s not really played for laughs in the way a much worse sketch show would have.
I am pretty annoyed that I can’t figure out how to get my DVDs to stop auto-playing the next episode.
” sonic equivalent of a beloved but worn stuffed animal”
This is efficiently, helpfully evocative. Thank you.
Great review. Has Starr become everyone’s favorite Beatle? He seems to have come out looking the best of all of them thanks to the PJ doc and just pure longevity all these years. Paul seemed like a very controlling person. John seemed like an unhappy jerk with mommy issues. George was frustrated and sullen with his creativity confined because of the other two. Out of all of them the only one you would want to go down to the pub with after a long day of recording is Ringo. He seems like the nicest one. Never a bad word about the other guys or being a Beatle. He looks to have enjoyed it more than any of them.
It’s probably pretty hard to live in the shadow of a genius, but living in the shadow of three geniuses might be easier.