Sure, I’ve written about comfort music before but one more time..? After two of the busiest weeks known to man, and a ridiculously busy morning trying to get commercials on the NCAA’s “The First Four” I rushed myself to JFK for a coupla days r&r in Orlando. Settled down in my seat but with my stress levels off the charts the question was, what to listen to?
My decision? The new Kid Cudi, Louis Armstrong late period and the Neil Young at Carnegie Hall gig from January.
Kid Cudi is the ringer here, right? You didn’t se that coming but the album is a soft thudder of dubby bass and melody, it sounds like it is coming from outer space with an echo that works on your subconscious. It is perfect for drifting in gravity less open spaces of your brain. Like indie ambient r&b, Cudi sounds like nobody else in the business, he is a unique sound with a huge cult behind (it is why his albums still chart, since nobody else cares all that much and since Cudi, with the world by the tail five years ago walked away from Rocka Fella because he wouldn’t commercialize his sound for a mass audience.The appeal may be limited but it has the calming effect of large open spaces with nothing in them.
The Neil Young boot (actually it is not a boot, I just taped it during the concert) has the effect of nostalgia that isn’t as well as an acoustic deeply moving and comforting looking back in an earnest timeless fashion with the added attraction of being nostalgia without the bad taste in your mouth of desperation or necessity. In 2012 I watched Neil play a heavy duty no nonsense Crazy Horse gig at MSG and my ears are still ringing, so take it from me folks, he didn’t need to do the Carnegie Hall gigs. Listening to him sing “A Man Needs A Maid” in 2014 takes me back to being a teenager and also, its soft strange beauty puts me at ease. It’s like not all memories end up with a bad ending.
Louis Armstrong sure did have a golden age, 1920s to 1950s -thirty years of pure brilliance. But for comfort I go to his mid-1960s era where age had caught up to him a little, The reason is the Hot Five and Hot Seven recordings demand a response, they excite me so much I can’t drift away to them. But the “Hello Dolly”, “On The Sunny Side Of The Street” “My Buckets Got A Hole In It” good ol’ good ols and easy going beauties that I can drift in comfort to my final destination in a world of peace and happiness. For a little while there is nothing to stress about, just dream a little dream of peace.
