Bonnie Prince Billy

I was reading the best “50 Best Albums of 2006” on PitchforkMedia.com the other day and I noticed that I hadn’t heard of half of the bands on the list. I think the biggest problem with that website is that the people that write for it only know about one type of music and that is Indie Rock/Rock. I rarely see write-ups on hip hop, neo-soul, latin music, jazz or anything else but Indie Rock. They have a very narrow scope when it comes to music and I think they intentionally praise albums that are terrible, in some kind of backwards attempt to be elitist. For example, albums like the Justin Timberlake’s album or other popular releases they constantly reference or name drop like they are the greatest things ever recorded; with the kind of sentiment like, ‘You just don’t know enough about music to get it’. It also bothers me how people treat their reviews like they are the bible, I feel like sometimes it makes people second guess their tastes because they feel embarrassed to like an album that Pitchfork only gave 4 stars, or whatever.
As I was reading the list of greatest albums of 2006, other than noticing that most of them were Indie Rock, or mediocre hip hop (such as Clipse’s “Hell Hath no Fury”), I noticed they left off Bonnie Prince Billy’s last album, “The Letting Go”. I’ve fallen out of touch with most music being made today, but Will Oldham (Bonnie Prince Billy) is definitely someone that I still follow religiously. He pulls off what so many other people fail miserably at as far as singer songwriters go, and that is incorporating folk and country tastefully without it being too hokey. I also love the lyrics which are usually very earthy, dark, and sometimes romantic. What I like about his ‘love songs’ is that they are never cheesy or predicable, the lyrics don’t all rhyme, and they keep his sort of southern gothic touch.
“The Letting Go” isn’t his best album, but it is definitely better than at least 49 of the albums on Pitchfork's list. The downfall of his last album is the female backing vocals, they just overpower his soft cooing style. If you want to hear Will Oldham’s best work, check out the albums “Master and Everyone”, “Superwolf” or “Ease on Down the Road”, and if you’d like to hear his stuff at it’s twangiest, check out his old band Palace. I wanted to post two songs by him, Untitled off of “The Letting Go”, and Daniel which is off of the collaborative album with Tortoise, “The Brave and the Bold”. I can’t find Untitled streaming anywhere on the internet to post, but it is definitely the best track on the new album. It’s a beautiful song with minimal instrumentation and ambient guitar work. Daniel is actually an Elton John cover. It’s probably one of the best covers of any song that I’ve heard. I hope you like it.
Tortoise and Bonnie Prince Billy - Daniel