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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Not your usual Michelle Shocked approach, but good!, April 2, 2002
This review is from: Captain Swing (Audio CD)
Michelle Shocked certainly shocked a lot of fans with this tribute to swing music. While some think her vocal style doesn't fit swing, it's a testament to her voice that she sounds just great here--even if you prefer her on country/folky stuff more than on swing, you have to admit that she sounds wonderful and her joy in the music comes across amply. "God is a Real Estate Developer" is a weirdly titled swing tune that opens the album, and things get even stranger with "On the Greener Side," a samba-influenced tune that somehow reminds me of Simon & Garfunkel's "Cecilia" with its lickety-split beat and hummability. Strange, yes, but this is still great stuff! On "Silent Ways" Shocked harkens back to her bluegrassy roots with a sly, witty song about sex--"loving in a silent way" as opposed to the words her lover pleads for. Shocked manages to convey a smile at her lyrics almost better than any other singer out there today: "When you asked me,
'Michelle, do you love me?'
I didn't know what to say
So I just laid down beside you and
I loved you in a silent way.
And when you asked me to forgive you
For all your cheating days
I just laid down beside you and
Forgave you in a silent way.
Silence is golden
Words are made of lead
And in the alchemy of love
Some things are better left unsaid." "Streetcorner Ambassador" ROCKS with a propulsive beat and Shocked's incisive portrait of what goes on in the streets near her apartment. "Too Little Too Late" provides an aural impression of Shocked lolling atop an upright piano in the middle of a saloon, flicking her feather boa back and forth lazily as she sings. Once again, Shocked includes the lyrics for only some of the songs, not all of them--odd, but what the heck, if you don't mind that, this is a wonderfully strong album and a departure for Shocked. Good for her for having the strength of her convictions to try something a little offbeat.
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10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A musical tour-de-style, June 6, 2004
As music lovers, we all have certain styles or similarities that mark our musical tastes. This was illustrated for me recently when my friend Steve made me a mixed CD that was heavy on multi-part harmony, something I'm not sure Steve even realized when he was selecting favorites to include, but which makes sense as Steve himself is a bass in a local a cappella group called BlueLine. My wife, although she jokes that the only musical instrument she can play is the radio, tends to favor songs that feature a solo piano and even fell for my poor keyboard skills when we were courting. I personally love music with horns, possibly a result of my high school band days when I played both the baritone and trombone. While I like plenty of songs without a brass section, that sound will likely make me pay closer attention to it. Not every song on Michelle Shocked's Captain Swing has horns, but those that do are my favorite moments on this album and also responsible for making this my favorite Shocked album, although I also quite like Short Sharp Shocked and Arkansas Traveler. The inclusion of a brass section also underscores how much of a metamorphoses Shocked went through on her first three albums, from the recorded-on-a-Walkman (and basically released without her permission) The Texas Campfire Tapes to this multitrack, multi-instrument album. That first album, where one can even sometimes hear crickets in the background, was just Shocked's voice and her guitar, recorded live during the Kerrville Folk Festival. Her second album didn't add much in the way of instruments, but Short Sharp Shocked was made in a studio with multiple takes that smoothed out imperfections while maintaining her intimate style. For Captain Swing, the pendulum had swung all the way over into lush production although not so much that it overshadows Shocked's clever songwriting, but does transform her at least somewhat from the doyenne of the piney woods past the "skateboarding punk rocker" into a folky k.d. lang-inspired torch singer. The theme is swing and Shocked is catholic in how she applies it to her songs. She transforms her earlier composition, "(Don't You Mess With) My Little Sister," into a hard-rocking set piece of Bakersfield that wouldn't be out of place on a Dwight Yoakam album. "It Must Be Luff" comes straight out of a dance hall of Basin Street, New Orleans with its combination of tuba bass rhythym, slightly out-of-tune jangly piano, and slide-and-muted trombone. Shocked anticipated the big band revival with "God is a Real Estate Developer," "Too Little Too Late" and "Sleep Keeps Me Awake," while "On the Greener Side" and "Silent Ways" highlight the fast and slow moods of Texas swing. The cool later jazz stylings that combined Glenn Miller with Duke Ellington can be found in "The Cement Lament," with some of the best clarinets you'll ever hear in a rock song; "Streetcorner Ambassador" even makes a play for a modified Miles Davis BeBop groove with its muted trumpet solo and cool jazz rhythm. Even "Looks Like Mona Lisa," where the horns are replaced by a plaintive string part, has at its core a swing bass rhythm part. The subject of the songs match her earlier albums, though: concerns about the homeless and the inner city, memories of growing up in small towns, and satirical takes on life. But more than anything, these songs have a sense of fun to them that was sometimes missing in those first two albums. They are fast and bouncy and funny at times, sometimes so much that you miss the serious message of some of the lyrics. Shocked duplicated some of this chemistry in her next album, Arkansas Traveller, although the musical theme there was less interesting to me as it was based on bluegrass instead of swing.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Just Listen and Enjoy, May 12, 2003
This review is from: Captain Swing (Audio CD)
I had heard of Michelle Shocked but had never heard her until I heard a couple of cuts from this CD on the radio while driving through central Arizona. I liked what I heard so when I got home I sought it out at my favorite music store. It was enjoyed but forgotten until recently when my eye caught the label as I was going through my wall of CDs looking for some stuff I hadn't heard in a while. Despite it being nearly ten years since I bought the CD, I have still not heard any of her other music so I have no points of comparison it. It doesn't matter to me that she is considered a folk/country/bluegrass musician. I like her fine in her guise as a swingmeister. My favorites here are the opening cut God Is A Real Estate Developer, the sexy, slinky and romantic Silent Ways, the bluesy Sleep Keeps Me Awake, Looks Like Mona Lisa, Too Little Too Late, the horn-driven swinger Must Be Luff and an unnamed/unlisted acoustical bonus piece at the end (possibly entitled Russian Roulette) that features some excellent guitar work. There is enough musical variety here to make anyone happy. If you are taken aback because Captain Swing does not sound like the Michelle Shocked you are used to, don't be. Just listen to it and enjoy!
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