Almost ten years into the twenty-first century, I decided it’s ok to start thinking of best-of’s for this decade. First up for consideration are musical collaborations. These things are usually boring marketing ploys (Everyone + Sinatra), unnecessary strokes to enormous egos and table scraps for their fans (Plant + Krauss), or cute compilations put out by famous (or famously?) beautiful people (She + Him). I’ll be fair and say that some such efforts produce good tunes or have value simply because they’re weird pairings. Sticking Ol’ Blue Eyes in a sound booth with Bono, for example, is hilarious! But more interesting are collaborations that achieve something beyond kitsch and storied meetings.
To narrow this down a bit and because I’m an indie rock fan, I’m focusing on smaller-label collaborations in which two or more musicians who have other main projects came together for a one-off recording project. So I’m excluding supergroup-type bands like, say, Wolf Parade or Broken Social Scene, who continue to put out material. A few examples that came close but didn’t make the top three are Calexico + Iron and Wine, The Postal Service, and Animal Collective + Vashti Bunyan (a CLOSE number four). You get the idea.
Below are my choices for the top three collaborations to date of the twenty first century, plus streaming selections from all three:
Top three plus streams after the jump.
Third Man Records
Nashville resident Jack White recently gave a physical address to Third Man Records, the imprint on which he releases all his music. He designed the building in downtown Nashville to include a recording studio, a vinyl shop, a darkroom, and a stage. And his newest band, The Dead Weather, featuring the vocal stylings of Allison Mosshart from The Kills, The Raconteurs’ Jack Lawrence on bass, Queens of the Stone Age’s Dean Fertita on guitars, and White on drums, will be releasing their debut on the label in June. They recently hosted a listening party at the studio for family and friends at which the guests were given a 45 of the band’s first single. (You can stream those two songs–one is a Gary Numan cover–on the band’s site and buy them on itunes.)
White claims the label may be interested in recording and expediently pressing vinyl for good local bands.
Rob Wyatt
Bad news for Middle Tennesseans looking for an “edutainment” experience! :( Bible Park USA’s developer, Rob Wyatt, released a statement saying that the Christian theme park was suspending “all further work on the development of the Bible Park USA project in Lebanon, Tennessee, pending the City Council and the Mayor resolving internal political differences over the project.” The Tennessean reported on some of the issues surrounding the city government’s pull-out of the project. One of the main problems, according to city council members, was BPUSA’s unwillingness to disclose financial information. My guess is the Council was unsatisfied with BPUSA’s likely statement that “God will provide.” What’s gonna happen?? Maybe we should look to Kirk Cameron’s inspiring film for answers.