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Music: Current count 26298 [26267] rated (+32), 420 [422] unrated (-2).
Skipped Weekend Roundup again. Instead, I cooked up a relatively simple two-dish dinner for my wife's birthday (also my nephew's): a variation on paella valenciana (with chicken, chorizo, sea scallops, shrimp, and a couple lobster tails, but no clams) and a salade niçoise (with canned tuna instead of the now-more-fashionable grilled). For dessert, a flourless chocolate cake with ice cream on the side. Prep took several hours, but it all went fairly leisurely. Good thing, as my back was killing me.
The political news I missed commenting on proved uneventful. Trump and Clinton made small, indecisive steps toward eventual nominations: Trump winning South Carolina with about 35% of the vote, Clinton eeking out another close caucus win in Nevada (52.6% to 47.3%). With the party establishment totally behind Clinton, all she has to do to win is not get beat too bad, which thus far has only happened once in three contests.
Trump, who still alarms his party's establishment, has more of an uphill climb, and with 32.5% of the vote hardly looks inevitable. Still, he could hardly dream of facing a lamer set of opponents. With Bush dropping out -- he got 7.8% of the South Carolina vote, barely edging John Kashich (7.6%) and Ben Carson (7.2%) for 4th place -- the establishment appears to be stuck with Marco Rubio as their standard bearer. I was surprised that Rubio edged Cruz for second place (22.5% to 22.3%), but Rubio got key endorsements and South Carolina Republicans seem to be relatively good at following orders. Rubio also got key endorsements last week in Kansas: Gov. Sam Brownback and Sen. Pat Roberts, both vastly unpopular even among Republicans, as well as neocon Rep. Mike Pompeo. Still, I find it very hard to take Rubio seriously.
Nevada Republicans will caucus on Tuesday, and South Carolina Democrats will vote on Saturday. FiveThirtyEight gives Trump a 64% chance of beating Rubio (25%) and Cruz (10%) in Nevada, and considers Clinton a cinch (>99%) in South Carolina. Their odds greatly exaggerate the voting split: the actual polling averages are 57.5% Clinton, 32.0% Sanders, which is about the flipside of Sanders' margin in New Hampshire. We've been hearing conventional wisdom for weeks now that Sanders will falter once the elections move from "white liberal" states Iowa and New Hampshire to ones that are more "diverse" -- but it now appears that Sanders won a majority of Hispanic voters in Nevada. One link I've been meaning to mention is Matt Karp: Why Bernie Can Win: some things to think about next time you hear we have to all get behind Clinton because she's the "electable" one. On the other hand, see Steve Benen: Sanders' turnout 'revolution' off to an inauspicious start: so far, at least, Democratic Party turnout this year is not up to the levels established in 2008 (and more alarmingly, I suspect, Republican Party turnout is up).
Two more links: Nancy Le Tourneau: Post-Policy Republicans Gave Us Donald Trump, which refers back to her earlier post, GOP Chaos: Post-Truth vs. Post-Policy: Over the last eight years, the Republicans have given up on promoting alternative policies -- partly because Republican think tank proposals, like the health care plan Romney implemented in Massachusetts, could be adopted wholesale by Democrats -- and turned into "the party of no." Actually, it would be more accurate to say that they've turned into extortionists, along the lines of "elect us, or we'll really make you suffer." (Note that the only policies Republicans have been willing to work with Obama on are ones intended to split Obama away from the Democratic base: TPP, offshore oil leases, and more war in the Middle East.)
A large chunk of this week's records, including both A- albums (Beans on Toast and Ursula 1000), came from Ye Wei Blog's 2015 EOY list, the HMs including: Nigel Hall, Abba Gargando, DMX Krew, and No Fun. Actually a pretty diverse group of records (English folk, disco, soul, Timbuktu guitar, electronica, and a garage punk band from Germany. A similar number of lower grades: electronica, alt-rock along a punk-pop axis, Saharan wedding songs. Huge thanks to Jason Gross for digging all these up.
The week's jazz releases include four limited edition LP-only releases that NoBusiness was kind enough to burn on CDR for me. None are great but three would be enjoyed by anyone with an ear for free jazz.
The new Saul Williams comes recommended by Robert Christgau, and that led me to check out some of his back catalog. Can't say as I got much out of any of them, not that they aren't interesting. Maybe it's that I've always had trouble fishing lyrics out of their matrix. Maybe I'm confused by that context. Christgau also provides directions on the proper way to listen to the Hamilton soundtrack. My own approach was to stream the whole thing through once, while referring to the synopsis section of the Wikipedia article on the musical. I was thereby able to follow the plot and check it against my own recollection of the history. But unlike Christgau, I didn't make any extra effort to habituate myself to the music, which struck me as hackneyed and wordy -- a common trait of musical drama. My grade reflected that I was duly impressed, not least with the scholarship, but not much interested in hearing it again: B+(**).
The Catheters came up thanks to a Phil Overeem facebook post. He compared their first album to the Stooges, and as usual he's right -- although I guess I'm less impressed by the accomplishment. Their second album caught Christgau's attention, and we wound up with the same grade.
Never did this before, but here's a link for a Beans on Toast song/video.
Good chance I'll post Rhapsody Streamnotes sometime this week. Currently have 104 albums in the draft file. In any case, it has to come out before the end of the month, which is next Monday. Also working on a books post. Haven't done one of them in quite some time. I've even read a couple of the books I'll be reporting on.
New records rated this week:
Recent reissues, compilations, and vault discoveries rated this week:
Old music rated this week:
Unpacking: Found in the mail last week: