Maria McKee, long a favorite in this household, has a new album slated for release in early 2020, aka the Year of Visual Acuity. Titled La Vita Nuova, it’s available for pre-order on Bandcamp; and the first teaser track, “Effigy of Salt,” is – to my ears, at least – instantly addictive. Stylistically speaking, the song echoes the baroque and operatic rock that percolated throughout her criminally underrated Life Is Sweet and High Dive albums. Lyrically? It’ll make you think.
1) Merle Haggard – “Workin’ Man Blues” (1969)
2) Van Morrison – “I’ve Been Working” (1974)
3) Bob Seger & the Silver Bullet Band – “Feel Like a Number” (1978)
4) Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band – “Factory” (1978)
5) Dolly Parton – “9 to 5” (1980)
6) Donna Summer – “She Works Hard for the Money” (1983)
7) Kathy Mattea – “Eighteen Roses & a Dozen Roses” (1987)
8) Maria McKee – “Wichita Lineman” (1993)
9) Natalie Merchant – “What Side Are You On?” (2003)
10) Kacey Musgraves – “Blowin’ Smoke” (2013)
We finished the second and final season of Joan of Arcadia yesterday. For those of you counting at home, that means we whipped through the 23 Season 1 episodes and 22 Season 2 episodes in exactly 22 days. One of the things I like about the series is that it avoids the typical pitfalls associated with dramas that explore faith and humanity. Within the show, as in real life, faith leads to questions, doubts and realizations, but never easy answers.
One of my favorite moments comes near the end of its run, in the “Common Thread” installment. God commands Joan to return to knitting, a hobby she stopped when she was a kid. As always, there’s far more to the episode than just that; we don’t just see Joan casting on, stitching and purling for the next 40+ minutes. I’ll skip the rest of the story, however, to the moment in question, when Joan gently rebuffs her folks, who are trying to ease her guilt regarding a bad decision made by her former boyfriend, Adam. “I mean, we’re all connected like the scarf. One piece of yarn, if you cut it up into little pieces, it’s useless. You can’t make anything out of it. I am responsible, partly. We all are…for everything that we touch and everything that touches us.”
It’s never us vs. them, as much as we sometimes wish it so. It’s us vs. us.
And, with that, here’s today’s Top 5: Of Questions & Faith (aka Joan of Arcadia, Part II)…
1) Kasey Chambers – “Abraham”
2) Van Morrison – “When Will I Ever Learn to Walk in God”
3) Shelby Lynne & Allison Moorer – “Into My Arms”
4) Bruce Springsteen – “Rocky Ground”
5) Paul Weller – “Can You Heal Us (Holy Man)”
And two bonuses…
6) Natalie Merchant – “I May Know the Word”
7) Maria McKee and Bryan MacLean – “Sweet Dr. Jesus”
(As noted in my first Essentials entry, this is an occasional series in which I spotlight albums that, in my estimation, everyone should experience at least once.)
To my ears and soul, Life Is Sweet is not just one of the greatest lost albums of all time, but one of the greatest, period. It’s glam. It’s rock. It’s operatic. It’s art.
The story behind it: While touring in support of her country-rock classic You Gotta Sin to Get Saved in 1993, one of the members of Maria’s band is said to have given her a mixtape of classic glam and glitter tunes. Maria listened. Loved. Obsessed. And then wrote and recorded a set of songs, released in 1996, that blended those glittery hues of yore with dramatic colors of her own design.
“Scarlover,” the opening track, is a great example. It’s rough, ragged and refined all at the same time, with guitars giving way to strings that give way to guitars, set to Maria’s seemingly stream-of-conscious admission that “ugly inside of me taught me of beauty/I wouldn’t trade that work of art.”
As a whole, the album explores self-doubt, self-loathing and, ultimately, self-acceptance. At times, yes, it’s stasis in darkness (aka Sylvia Plath set to song). More than that, however, it’s Maria McKee unshorn, seemingly exploring her rapid-cycle bipolar disorder in ways that both replicate it and make it relatable. It’s the Bowie homage “Absolutely Barking Stars” with lyrics that delve into yin-yang duality…
…and the dramatic “I’m Not Listening,” in which she attempts to ignore the voices inside her head that are taunting and haunting her.
The utterly catchy “Everybody” explores celebrity and Andy Warhol’s infamous “15 seconds of fame” maxim: “We’ve all been flirting/with the perfect day/when they think we’re perfect/Yeah, but who are they?” There’s also a flat-out incendiary guitar break:
“Carried” is another highlight:
And, of course, there’s the title track, which may well be the greatest song she’s yet written or recorded.
Geffen, her record label, hated the album. AAA radio stations like WXPN, which embraced and promoted the hell out of You Gotta Sin, refused to play it. Some critics slammed it. Some fans did, too. Artistic growth often comes at a price, and in this case the cost was Maria’s major-label career. Life Is Sweet failed to sell, and she left Geffen not long thereafter. The album also fell out of print, and has never been reissued, even digitally. (A true crime against art.)
Twenty-plus years since its release, however, and it sounds as fresh and hauntingly familiar as it did upon first listen. If you like Anna Calvi, Bat for Lashes, and similar dramatic acts, seek it out. You won’t be disappointed.
The track list:
