New Directions In Music: 2020

A review of some of the stories, profiles, and reviews NDIM has offered readers in this long day's journey into night.

This year was an unusual one pretty much whoever you were and whatever you did. Here at NDIM, I worked on writing the best pieces I could on music both old and new. I want to thank everyone who has contributed to the success of NDIM by reading our blog and signing up for our newsletter. There has been solid growth in our readership over the past year, and that is due to readers like you not only continuing to read NDIM, but also letting others know about it.

In the early months of 2021 the NDIM newsletter will begin to offer a paid subscription in addition to the current free weekly newsletter. Let me emphasize: there will continue to be a free subscription and a weekly newsletter, and you won't need to do anything to continue receiving it. Paid subscriptions will offer, for a small monthly subscription fee, additional newsletters in the form of additional new music recommendations, information encountered as I research book projects (currently two in process), or more in-depth information about topics covered in the free newsletter. I would ask that you consider the possibility of a paid subscription in the future if you are interested in the work I publish and would like to contribute to helping NDIM grow and find ways to support music listeners and creators. Further information to follow. 

This week's newsletter is a recap of some of the significant stories I have brought you this year. From the continued popularity (don't call it a comeback) of vinyl to a look at the recording and history of many records, to the passing of a slew of musicians, composers, and others in the industry, I've worked to bring thoughtful insights to you each week together with links to other good writing about music that I've discovered. 

We kicked the year off by talking about our connection to some of the first records that we owned and about the Spiritual Energy of the Record Shop. We compiled this list of films about experimental music that you can view free on YouTube. 

I started to write about records that I would pick up in stores or online, usually at a low price, and these pieces vary quite a bit in how they are written and what they cover. My piece on Roberta Flack'sQuiet Fire, for example, talks a lot about the music on the record and how it fits into the arc of her career, while Warren Zevon's Bad Luck Streak is less about one album (Bad Luck Streak In Dancing School) as it is about Zevon's often troubling life and career. Iggy Pop's The Idiot: Berlin as a State of Mind began life as a pitch for a 33 1/3 book about The Idiot that I decided would retread too much material from that series' entry on Low. I wrote about Bob James' album Three and how the keyboard player's first three records became a hotbed of hip hop samples for performers and producers who followed. 

I looked at two records that have long been fascinating to me and which had a great deal of influence over artists, composers, and producers going forward: Mike Oldfield's instrumental suiteTubular Bells and Oxygene by French composer and electronic music pioneer Jean-Michel Jarre. I wrote about Bowie's Scary Monsters at 40 and delved into neo-soul with pieces about the work of Cassandra Wilson and Marc Anthony Thompson's Chocolate Genius Inc. 

NDIM opened its ECM page with a series of legacy reviews as well as an individual artist page devoted to Keith Jarrett. We also started the New Music of Note format for the last newsletter of each month, focusing on new releases by a variety of artists from across the globe. 

We lost a lot of music artists over this past year for a variety of reasons. I wrote about my own experience with COVID-19 and watching the parade of musical tributes and the death of John Prine and Ellis Marsalis. Others that I wrote about who passed away this year include Florian Schneider of Kraftwerk, Dave Greenfield of The Stranglers, guitarist Eddie Van Halen, Harold Budd, and Stanley Cowell. 

I've been interested in compilation albums for some time, and there are so many compilation series that one could collect or write about. I have written about Do It Now, the first compilation album I owned. I've also written two pieces about albums in the Warner Brothers Loss Leader series--The Big Ball and Troublemakers. You can expect more coverage of this series as well as other compilations in the coming year.

Leaving you this week with a track from Spirituals & Dedications a 2002 release by Canadian saxophonist/flutist Jane Bunnett. Also featured on the track are Kieran Overs (b), Mark McLean (d), and pianist Stanley Cowell. The song is called "Cal Massey" and was composed by Stanley Cowell.

Wishing all my readers a safe, sane, and healthy New Year. I'll see you all in 2021.