Once upon a time, James Taylor was a solitary troubadour wandering the streets of 1968 London in search of a record deal. Forty-seven years later, Taylor is an institution, a man generations of children have been named for (Taylor Swift, anyone?). He is a musical icon, one of the preeminent standard-bearers for the singer-songwriter genre and arguably its most successful exemplar. <\/p>\n
His deep connection with multiple generations of fans and the fact that he basically stopped making new music 24 years ago\u2014this is just his third album of new songs since 1991\u2019s New Moon Shine<\/i>, and his first in 13 years\u2014make it no surprise that Before This World<\/i> turned out to be his first number one album of his career (if sales data still has any meaning in an era when most \u201cfans\u201d under 35 think music should be free.)<\/p>\n
Taylor\u2019s best albums in the 1970s were captivating in part because they reflected so many contrasting facets of his personality\u2014the starry-eyed romantic; the brutally honest folkie; the fragile, depressed loner; and the fearless, playful raconteur who could move from solo acoustic to a full band workout to snappy funk in the space of three songs. His latter-day output has tended to be more two-dimensional\u2014middle of the road, professional, serious and mostly lacking the sense of adventure that animated the best of his earlier work.<\/p>\n
Before This World<\/i> sees James take on a topic that\u2019s apt to bring on a somber mood in any case\u2014his own mortality. Certainly opening tracks \u201cToday Today Today\u201d and \u201cYou And I Again\u201d both address the desire to seize the moment and live within it in the face of what lies ahead. Here and through most of this album, Taylor deploys his full touring band of seven players and four backing vocalists, which lends the music a fullness that also inevitably distracts from the feature attractions\u2014Taylor\u2019s distinctive tenor voice and expressive acoustic guitar playing. <\/p>\n
It\u2019s perhaps no surprise that a man who\u2019s always seemed slightly out of sync with his times would deliver an ode to the World Champion 2004 Boston Red Sox 11 years after the fact. Truth is, timing aside, \u201cAngels Of Fenway\u201d is a charmer, a regional folk tale given broader appeal by his choice to frame the story around his dying grandmother\u2019s faithful allegiance to the Sox.<\/p>\n
Batting cleanup (as it were), \u201cStretch Of The Highway\u201d is the best tune here and the most reminiscent of Taylor\u2019s classic oeuvre. A love song to the road, \u201cStretch\u201d finds Taylor declaring truths that have been evident to fans for decades: \u201cGrew up some kind of travelin\u2019 man\u2026 My favorite thing is to miss my home when I\u2019m gone.\u201d Alternating between lanky, loose-limbed verses and soaring choruses, \u201cStretch\u201d even edges towards playful funk as he appends each chorus with the kicker \u201c\u2026when I\u2019m gone.\u201d<\/p>\n
(Of course, I can already imagine Taylor\u2019s reference in \u201cStretch\u201d to \u201cfirst-class poontang\u201d drawing prim objections from the same delicate-sensibility crowd who cringed when he spoke honestly of his own \u201cfucked-up family\u201d in 1997\u2019s \u201cEnough To Be On Your Way,\u201d a song about his older brother\u2019s death from alcohol and drug addiction. Sorry, but life isn’t a Disney movie.)<\/p>\n
The rest of the album is pleasant enough listening, but feels somewhere between familiar and predictable. In the middle section, you get an ode to solitude and the simple life (\u201cMontana,\u201d a location-specific rewrite of \u201cCountry Road\u201d), a new entry in JT\u2019s long line of tunes about fighting addiction (\u201cWatchin\u2019 Over Me\u201d), and another song about being captivated by Latin music (\u201cSnowtime,\u201d which moves the setting for \u201cOnly A Dream In Rio\u201d to Toronto while name-checking \u201cThe Frozen Man\u201d).<\/p>\n
The title track finds Taylor returning to the subject of mortality, an earnest, at times achingly pretty tune featuring guest appearances by both Sting and Yo-yo Ma. It\u2019s a meditation on the meaning of a human life measured against the scope of history and the universe, and how infinitely small we are (see also: \u201cThere We Are\u201d). After an instrumental bridge that borrows a few chords from Taylor\u2019s own classic songbook, the track segues into the lilting celebration \u201cJolly Springtime,\u201d a rather old-fashioned tune about seizing the moment and celebrating the circle of life.\u00a0\u00a0 <\/p>\n
The one real outlier here, \u201cFar Afghanistan\u201d offers a geopolitical history lesson with some excellent lines and observations; it\u2019s well-crafted but feels just a little bit done. Closing out the album, \u201cWild Mountain Thyme\u201d is a traditional song featuring a stripped-down arrangement with wife Caroline and son Henry on background vocals, that\u2019s pleasant and resonant in that familiar and comfortable JT way.<\/p>\n
Not that Taylor has ever been a rocker, but there\u2019s nothing here that even approaches the punchy, upbeat folk-rock of \u201cYour Smiling Face\u201d or \u201cGot To Stop Thinkin\u2019 \u2018Bout That,\u201d let alone his downright exuberant 1975 cover of Marvin Gaye\u2019s \u201cHow Sweet It Is (To Be Loved by You).\u201d Other than \u201cAngels Of Fenway\u201d and \u201cStretch Of The Highway,\u201d pretty much everything here rides the line between serious and somber. <\/p>\n
Taylor\u2019s albums typically benefit from strong production and Before This World<\/i> is no exception. With Dave O\u2019Donnell at the board, the sound is warm and crisp all at once, with great clarity and life to every instrument and James\u2019 wonderful voice at the center of it all. In the end it all feels rather safe and reassuring, and if that\u2019s what you want from a JT album, you\u2019ll likely be quite happy with this one. I just can\u2019t help remembering back to when the man\u2019s musical fire burned a little brighter, and in more colors than you\u2019ll find here.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":32435,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[5945],"rating":[5614],"class_list":["post-44194","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-james-taylor","rating-rating-c-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/44194","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44194"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/44194\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32435"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44194"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=44194"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=44194"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}