The Bee Gees: Who Knew?

by Robin Hilton

The other day, I was walking by Bob Boilen's desk and noticed a bin of newly arrived CDs. On the top of the pile of discs was a small box covered in red velvet with the words "Bee Gees" emblazoned in gold letters. I immediately reached for it, but just then, Bob came out of nowhere and snatched it up, saying with a smile, "This one's mine."

I thought it was a joke. How could Bob Boilen, a man who loathes disco more than anyone, possibly be a fan of the Bee Gees? I was merely curious to see what was in the red box. It turns out the CD was a deluxe reissue of the band's 1969 album Odessa -- and, to my surprise, it's just incredible.

As Bob went on to explain, long before they reinvented themselves as poster boys for dewy '70s soft pop and disco, the Bee Gees made wonderfully inventive psychedelic and experimental rock with remarkable harmonies. Many people believed that the band would become the next Beatles. In fact, when the Bee Gees released their first single in the U.S. in 1967, a lot of people believed that they actually were the Beatles, recording under a pseudonym. Some thought the "B" and "G" stood for "Beatles Group." And, if you listen to the early Bee Gees recordings, it's uncanny how much they sound like Lennon and McCartney.

The Bee Gees, pre-disco.

I never thought I'd allow the Bee Gees to suck up space in my iTunes library, but I added Odessa and just love it. Now I want to go back and listen to some of the band's other early albums.

Here's one of the songs from Odessa, called "City on the Black Sea."

Are there any bands or artists you once hated but came to like once you learned more about them?

-- Robin Hilton

12:18 PM ET | 01- 6-2009 | permalink

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Well, That Was Fun: 2008

by Bob Boilen

What sparked a blind man to tour the country and play his mountain music?

How did Justin Vernon convince his former guitar student to drop out of school and start a band?

How did an African lawyer become a legendary guitarist?

Was Randy Newman's love for music and film the result of nature or nurture?

Which artist loves both Scritti Politti and folksinger Anne Briggs?

What inspires Thom Yorke's musical ideas?

Those are some of my favorite interviews of 2008. And here are a few concerts that are worth the time:

Jim James in a church at the SXSW music festival was magic.

Lightspeed Champion on a lawn in Austin, which was absolutely charming (scroll down this page to watch the video).

Dr. Dog, a six-piece band, playing at my tiny desk.

Sam Phillips, also at my desk.

Nellie McKay, creating a song before our eyes.

Tom Waits, on stage in Atlanta.

And, of course, Radiohead at the Santa Barbara Bowl, the absolute musical highlight of the year and one of the best in my life.

But what gets me smiling every day are your email messages, the blog posts, Facebook messages and tweets.

From the hell and praise you tossed our way for our '80s show to the list you compiled for the year's best music, you are the best audience.

This week, we start our 10th year. When I started this show in 2000, it was a miracle for a small team of us to put out one show every three weeks. The original shows were multimedia; every song was accompanied by a slide show with a story about the artist that included pictures. Often, our overly enthused ideas choked the bandwidth of a mostly 28k audience, but the notes of encouragement kept us going.

This year, Robin Hilton and I put together roughly 50 All Songs Considered regular shows; about 50 concerts for streaming and/or podcast, including the launch of video with theTiny Desk Concerts series; and about 40 interviews, including DJ shows by Randy Newman, Thom Yorke and Portishead. There is also Second Stage, our show for great unknown, often times unsigned musicians and there were more than 200 new songs from on Second Stage.

We also launched a new series aimed at letting you hear entire new albums before their release. We started with Bob Dylan, then Neil Young and then Paul McCartney; early in 2009, we'll preview new albums from Andrew Bird, M. Ward, Animal Collective and Bruce Springsteen.

For each, we're going to try having a Listening Party with a chat room, and maybe even get some of the artists to join us for those discussions. It's all a work in progress, and it'll take shape with ideas that come from all of us; it'll get better with your feedback. If you've never written to us before, join the community. It's a pretty great bunch of music lovers.

Thank you, and happy new year.

-- Bob Boilen

3:36 PM ET | 12-30-2008 | permalink

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2008: A Year For Songs, Not Albums

by Robin Hilton

Each December, Bob and I begin our annual debate over which is better: a Top 10 list of the year's best songs, or a Top 10 list of the year's best albums.

I've always argued that we should focus more on albums. A list of songs just doesn't seem as substantive; besides, the standard for most year-end lists has long been albums. Just look at all the other music sites and magazines out there. But for the past eight years, Bob has argued that the growing popularity of digital music, which allows people to buy specific songs instead of whole albums, makes individual songs more relevant. (For the record, I've always won this debate.)

This year, for the first time in our eight-year-long debate, I agree with him. For the past month and a half, I've been trying to finalize my personal list of the year's Top 10 albums, and I just can't do it. I just can't come up with 10 albums I felt that strongly about in 2008. "Iamundernodisguise" by School of Seven Bells is an amazing cut, but I wouldn't say the album it's from, Alpinisms, belongs among the year's most revered CDs. The Canadian trio Plants & Animals put out one of the year's most astonishing songs, "Bye Bye Bye," but the rest of the band's album, Parc Avenue, was largely forgettable.

Bon Iver aside, none of the following albums, as a whole, would end up on a Top 10 list for me. But I spent more time listening to, loving, crying and laughing over these songs than any others:

1. "Time to Pretend" by MGMT, from Oracular Spectacular: This is, by far, my favorite song of the year. The lyrics are such a wrenching mix of hope and grief. "Time to Pretend" may sound like a simple techno-electro dance track to some people, but it really touched me, deeply.

2. "The Wolves (Act I and II)" by Bon Iver, from For Emma, Forever Ago: We've exhausted even ourselves talking about how beautiful and perfect the Bon Iver record is. If I did come up with a list of the Top 10 albums of 2008, it'd be No. 1. It's hard to pick the best cut from it, but "The Wolves" always stood out for me.

3. "Business Time" by Flight of the Conchords, from Flight of the Conchords: This was a viral hit on YouTube long before it was released on CD, so it might feel a little tired to some people. But I've never laughed so hard as when I first heard it, and it can still make me smile. If I'm judging songs based on their ability to make me feel something, anything, then this track needs to be near the top of the list.

4. "Black Fur" by Fredrik, from Na Na Ni: This is essentially a hymn, and a truly gorgeous and infectious one. The band is from Sweden. I featured it on Second Stage earlier this year and found myself returning to this specific song over and over.

5. "Bye Bye Bye" by Plants and Animals, from Parc Avenue: This is simply an incredible, powerful and evocative song. Plants and Animals is a very talented group of musicians, and I believe it'll do great things in the future.

6. "White Winter Hymnal" by Fleet Foxes, from Fleet Foxes: A lot of people loved this whole album. But apart from this song, it never really got its claws in me.

7. "My" by Okay, from Huggable Dust: If I did do a Top 10 list of albums, I'd probably squeeze this one on there somewhere. But I don't have to give a second thought to picking this song as one of the year's best.

8. "Furr" by Blitzen Trapper, from Furr: I was pretty impressed with this whole album. Blitzen Trapper has really evolved and grown in a very short time, so I expect more great things. But this song is the only one from the CD that I'm sure I'll still be spinning 10 years from now.

9. "Grounds for Divorce" by Elbow, from The Seldom Seen Kid: Whenever this Manchester band puts out a new record, there's a song or two on it that just blows me away, even if I don't spend much time with the rest of the album. This time, it was "Grounds for Divorce" -- a great example of how huge this band can sound.

10. "Nothing Would Matter At All" by Jeff Hanson, from Madam Owl: Man, do I ever love this song. The opening line just slays me: "I wonder what I can do for a living, something that makes you all proud, but won't keep me up at night." It's just a gorgeous, thoughtful and inspiring song.

If we were allowed to count reissues among the year's best releases (I think we should; what do you think?), then "Soul and Fire" by Sebadoh, from the band's 15th-anniversary edition of Bubble and Scrape, would be, by far, my No. 1 song of the year.

What do you think? Did songs stand out more for you than albums? If so, why do you think that is? And what were some of your favorite songs of 2008?

-- Robin Hilton

2:01 PM ET | 12-24-2008 | permalink

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Attention Songwriters

by Bob Boilen

I hear an awful lot of people saying that despite the economic woes, these are exciting times. I want to see if we can capture this historic mood in music.

Here's the challenge.
Write a song that reflects your feelings about the change that's coming.
Record it.
Send it to us on a CD by January 15th.

We will post our favorites online around the time of the inauguration. Think of it as the home edition of Project Song, only you get more time and no one is watching.

Please include contact information with your submissions.
send it to:

NPR
All Songs Considered "Project Song"
635 Massachusetts Ave NW
Washington DC 20001

-- Bob Boilen

11:16 AM ET | 12-24-2008 | permalink

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Meet The Beatle

by Bob Boilen

I got to shake the hand of Paul McCartney.

NPR's Linda Wertheimer and I went to New York City to meet the guy who made and influenced so much of the music that I love. The story we were doing was about his new project The Fireman, an inspired collaboration between McCartney and musician Martin Glover, a.k.a Youth. The CD they've put out, Electric Arguments, is worth hearing: It's 13 songs recorded in 13 days over the course of a year.

I'm not usually eager to meet the musicians I love; the music is fine enough for me. My gut attitude is not to be intrusive, but that sort of goes against the fact that I'm also a music journalist. Also, the prospect of putting together a story about this record for Morning Edition -- a story that would hopefully have Paul McCartney describing the process of putting The Fireman's record together -- had me overlooking my more considerate side.

Linda was going to do the interview and I was the producer/engineer, which means that I came up with ideas for the conversation and later would cut that interview and mix it with the music. You can hear the results here. As a producer, I'm very comfortable -- I did that for 19 years at All Things Considered -- and as an engineer, I'm somewhat at ease, having played around in studios long before my radio days. I've had my own home studio for plenty of years.
This was different, however: It's one thing to accidentally forget to record that guitar part on a song, but you don't want to forget to hit the record button when you're sitting with Paul McCartney.

We were to meet McCartney at Radio City Music Hall sometime early Saturday evening. He was in New York City for the holidays to see family, and to see a show at Radio City Music Hall, but he was also squeezing in three interviews between the show and his dinner plans. Linda and I arrived at Radio City, went in the back entrance and rode up a freight elevator filled with Rockettes and little people and other theater mavens.

We were escorted to a room to wait, since we were the last of three interviews; Stephen Colbert and ABC News were ahead of us. The room we had was something like a big boardroom, with fluorescent lights, a brown table and unremarkable furniture -- not the atmosphere I'd have chosen, but it would do.

As a producer, it's important that I make Linda as informed and comfortable as possible. Not that she couldn't do that on her own, but you just do your best to make everything work. Unfortunately, I wasn't really happy with the room: The refrigerator hummed and the string quartet in the next room was distracting, so I began to scout for other spaces. And, with the help of a gracious Radio City escort, I found the Roxy Room. The atmosphere was a knockout, with great lighting, Christmas decorations and original Art Deco decor. It was perfect.

I found a few comfy chairs and set them up by the Christmas tree, and hooked up my Flash recorder. Once the microphones were set up, Linda and I were ready. Linda had been sick with a cough now settling nicely in her chest; she only hoped to curb the cough long enough to do the interview.

I wondered what McCartney would be like. With four gazillion interviews behind him, how could this possibly be fresh? Just before he walked in, I found out that he was running late for dinner plans and that we needed to be quick -- maybe 15 minutes tops. Hardly time to make friends.

McCartney walked into the the flatteringly lit room looking great for a 66-year-old guy. When introduced to Linda, he offered his hand and a friendly smile. Linda turned his hand away, telling him that she had a disease he wouldn't want; he said not to worry and extended his hand a second time. She refused, at which point he put out his paw as a compromise.

"Gracious," is how I'd describe Paul McCartney; as for me, I was a bit scared of mucking up the recording. I held a fish-pole (a pole with a microphone at one end) in my hands, my recorder around my neck. I must have looked down at the digital display a dozen times to make sure it was counting up; in the land of digital, that's your only reassurance.

The conversation was going well: Paul was telling good stories about working with his collaborator, about digging into poetry books for lyrics, about coming to the studio with a blank slate and walking out at the end of the day with a song. Then, somewhere about 12 minutes into the conversation, Steve Martin (the publicist who arranged this meeting) pointed to his wrist. I signaled to Linda as best I could -- using gestures with my head, since my hands were full -- that we were short on time. Then, I signaled to Steve that I had a camera on my bag behind me on the floor, and to get a shot of all this. (My sister told me that if I didn't get a picture with McCartney, she'd disown me.)

When the interview was done, despite his time crunch, Paul McCartney gathered for the picture you see here.

We quickly left Radio City for the train home, and in the middle of Rockefeller Center, while the skaters did their thing and the tree sparkled with crystal and lights, I pulled out my Flash recorder. Amid a thousand people trying to relish their Christmas moment in the New York streets, I hit play and heard the interview. Whew! I spent my time on the train home transcribing the interview -- and then, a few days later, cutting 15 minutes to about four minutes of conversation and three minutes of music. It's how we make radio, and an utter pleasure.

-- Bob Boilen

4:47 PM ET | 12-23-2008 | permalink

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My Top 10 Is No Better Than Your Top 10

by Bob Boilen

Yesterday, I posted my 10 favorite musical treats of 2008 online. It's one of so many great lists sprouting daily on the NPR Music site -- one every weekday for the past few weeks. You should take a peek. I thought I'd put a link to my top ten here, as well, since it quickly got buried by John Schaefer's brilliant list.

I was attracted to the quiet and the subtle in 2008: The harmonies of Fleet Foxes, the fiery gentleness of Bon Iver and the African kora of Toumani Diabate held me together and kept me company. We all need and want different things from music at different times, and gentility won out for me this year.

So take a look here, and either on the blog or as a comment on the page where my list is, leave your Top 10. And, if there's music you think I might love based on my list, drop me a note, as well. Thanks, and enjoy!

-- Bob Boilen

5:58 PM ET | 12-18-2008 | permalink

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Chat About The Top 25 NPR Listener Picks

All Songs Considered host Bob Boilen, Song of The Day editor Stephen Thompson, and Monitor Mix blogger Carrie Brownstein chat about the Top 25 NPR listener picks for the year's best albums:

-- Robin Hilton

10:12 AM ET | 12-16-2008 | permalink

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Complete Poll Results: NPR Listeners Pick 2008's Best Music

by Bob Boilen

NPR listeners cast tens of thousands of votes in the All Songs Considered music poll. You nominated 100 albums, and we've added up the votes.

You can listen to songs from the Top 25 CDs of the year by going here or subscribing to the podcast.
We will have a live chat about the poll December 16th at 2pm EST. Check here for more information on Tuesday.

What do you think of this list? Add your comments to the blog.

I also wondered where the bands nominated in our poll came from. I put this together, so feel free to comment or correct me on this. You can also go to our archive of any band on the map.
It's fun, but Montana, Idaho, Utah and Nevada didn't produce a single band on the map. Let's make this a priority for 2009! Anyone know a world-class band from that region?

View Larger Map

-- Bob Boilen

3:38 PM ET | 12-15-2008 | permalink

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Your Vinyl Collections

by Robin Hilton

Yesterday, Bob Boilen and I, along with Song of the Day editor Stephen Thompson and Monitor Mix blogger Carrie Brownstein, got together to talk about the year in music. We shared our picks for the best new artists of 2008, the best songs, the biggest surprises and much more. We recorded that discussion, and will post it on All Songs Considered for you to hear on Monday, Dec. 8.

Though we talked for more than two hours -- I know, we're dorks -- we didn't have enough time to cover everything. We had planned to talk about the trends we saw emerging this year, but never got to it. I know that Stephen saw 2008 as a year of getting back to basics. He saw less innovation and more tradition: music crafted with classic building blocks, like solid harmonies, simple guitar and drum lines, and so on. Bob saw it as a year in which the lines between artist and audience became more blurred than ever. He points to Brian Eno's "Bloom" application for the iPhone and iPod that allows you to collaborate virtually with Eno to create dreamy ambient music.

For me, 2008 was the year of vinyl. I recently asked you to send in photos of your own vinyl collections, and we got some great pics. We've created a group on Flickr where you can view those photos and add your own.

All Songs Considered listener Robert Clark poses with part of his impressive vinyl collection.

I've mentioned before that reports show sales of vinyl rising dramatically, but anecdotally I can say that record labels sent us more promo copies of new albums on vinyl this year than any year before (in recent history). I'm certain that we're bound to see more and more vinyl arriving in the mail.

Feel free to post your own photos to the All Songs Flickr page (you can also email them to us if you prefer), and check back on Monday the 8th to hear our (highly pared down) discussion of the year in music. Also, don't forget to vote for your Top 10 albums in our annual listener poll. Results of that poll will go up Dec. 15.

-- Robin Hilton

2:20 PM ET | 12- 5-2008 | permalink

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Be Like Lil' Wayne

by Lil' Bob

I'm not one to dress up. I wear the same clothes to work as I did to the Emmy awards.
My clothes are mostly dark, no patterns. My only accessories are hats and my glasses. I don't like Halloween and never go to costume parties.

But thanks to a new app for my iPod touch, I'm decked out like Lil' Wayne:

The program is called, appropriately enough, Be Like Lil' Wayne. It just makes me laugh out loud.

Here's how you can be like Lil' Wayne too: If you have an iPhone or iPod Touch, just go the App Store and download the program. Take a picture of yourself, or use one you already have, then drag all the Lil' Wayne accessories onto the photo. There's all the necessary bling, along with tattoos and dreadlocks. (I went with the tear tattoos). You can also resize all the accessories and adjust them to fit the photo.

Now I've got serious street cred.

Be like Lil' Wayne and send us your photos. We've just created a new photo blog at Flickr where you can upload the pics for everyone to see:

http://www.flickr.com/groups/allsongsphotoblog

-- Bob Boilen

9:22 AM ET | 12- 5-2008 | permalink

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