Episode 306: Music to Our Ears with Ann Powers
Doree and Elise prepare for the hectic end of the school year. Then, they speak with Ann Powers, NPR’s music critic and author of TRAVELING: On the Path of Joni Mitchell, about not being too young for qigong, Joni Mitchell’s songwriting brilliance, what Taylor Swift’s future albums might sound like, which musicians she’s most excited about right now, and how to listen to music like a music critic.
Photo Credit: Emily April Allen
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Transcript
Doree: Hello and welcome to Forever35, a podcast about the things we do to take care of ourselves. I'm Doree Shafrir.
Elise: And I'm Elise Hu.
Doree: And we are two friends who like to talk a lot about serums.
Elise: We sure are.
Doree: We are. How's it going, Elise?
Elise: Oh man. I am in that end of the school year snowball where there's something every day. And by way of introduction, I have three children. They were all in elementary school. First, Third, fifth grade, and now fifth graders graduate from fifth grade. There's a culmination,
Doree: And then they go to middle school.
Elise: Yes. And so before middle school, there's a whole series of events. They rented out a movie theater. They had a field day. There's a whole culmination ceremony. They have to get culmination outfits.
Doree: Oh, wow. Okay. This is involved.
Elise: And I never had anything like that in fifth grade
Doree: Me either.
Elise: And I don't think it's really necessary because is it a huge rite of passage?
Doree: Well, my son is about to graduate from preschool, which also
Elise: congratulations.
Doree: Also, I feel like when we were growing up was not a thing to have a preschool graduation. So I'm just sort of like, okay. I mean, great. I get it's that it's cute and it's ceremonial and it's a nice sort of marker for them to be like, okay, I'm done with preschool. I'm going to kindergarten. But it's a lot of stuff.
Elise: It's a lot of parental involvement too. So you're running into a lot of parents, and I don't know if you and Kate have already had this conversation about do you become friends with all of the parents of your kids' friends, and how close do you need to be? And in some cases it's a great community. In some cases they're probably not your cup of tea.
Doree: Yeah, totally.
Elise: But then the kids are besties. And then what do you do?
Doree: Yes. I feel like, because I've been with a lot of these same kids and parents for three years now, and it's a small, cozy little preschool community. I have become friends with some of the parents and there's no one I dislike, which is I feel like rare. So even the people that I'm not close with, I am fine seeing them and hanging out with them, but I've definitely become closer with certain people and certain groups of people.
Elise: As Henry gets older and his activities expand and the things that he really cares about and has to commit his time to become greater investments of your time, you're going to end up with the same groups of people intensely. One of my daughters plays sports. And during the soccer season or during the volleyball season, you're around those parents constantly. And I always struggle with how deep my relationships really need to be with these folks. You do see each other so much, so there's a lot of proximity. But should I be inviting you over to my house and should we be having more gatherings and just trying to set that, calibrate that right level of socializing with parents, parents who are friends, not by choice, right? You're friends by circumstance. I really kind of haven't quite figured out.
Doree: Well, I will be looking to you for guidance.
Elise: Oh, great. Great. Well, we'll have to have wider conversations. Listeners, what do you all do? We want to know
Doree: if you were parents, how have you navigated this? But yes, I feel you on the kind of end of the year stuff, so it's a lot. But on a completely different note, we have an amazing guest today who is someone that I have known about, read her stuff, listened to. She's just always been such a giant in this field that I was so excited to get to talk to her.
Elise: She's a pop culture critic, a music expert.
Doree: She pop culture critic. Yes. Did you interface with her at all when you were at NPR? You did?
Elise: Yes. So Ann Powers is her name. She is NPRs music critic and correspondent. And she and I have been on the same podcast together because occasionally I get invited to talk about k-pop or was invited to talk about K-pop, especially when I was abroad. And so I would get to just bask an Ann's deep analysis and insight. She's just like one mic drop after another of insight, which we found also in talking with her.
Doree: Totally. So her official introduction is that she's npr'S music critic and correspondent. And in the decade she has worked with NPR, she has written extensively on music and culture. She's appeared regularly on the all songs considered podcast and news shows, including All Things Considered and Morning Edition. Her books include a memoir, weird Like Us, my Bohemian America, good Booty, love and Sex, black and White Body and Soul in American Music and piece by piece with Tori Amos. And today we're also going to be talking about her new book, traveling on the Path of Joni Mitchell, which there's so much to talk about and she lives in Nashville. And before we get to Ann, I just want to remind everyone also that you can visit our website Forever35podcast.com. We have links to everything we mentioned on the show over there. We're on Instagram @Forever35podcast. We have a Patreon at patreon.com/forever35. There's all kinds of new and exciting things. The Patreon, including we made a PDF of our skincare routines. That is free to anyone who is a paid Patreon supporter. If you are not, it's $5. It's a little more if you buy through the app because of Apple App Store stuff. But if you want to just check out the PDF, you can buy it separately or you can join our Patreon and get it for free. And that is in our Patreon shop, which is a thing that exists. And you can sign up for our newsletter at Forever35podcast.com/newsletter. We also have our favorite products at shopmy.us/forever35. And please call and text us. I just want to emphasize this because we are doing mini eps again, and we want your questions, we want your comments, we want your thoughts and concerns. And that is at (781) 591-0390. That is for voicemails and texts. And you can always also email us at Forever35podcast@gmail.com. And here is Ann. Ann, we are so excited to have you on Forever35. Welcome to the show.
Ann: Thank you so much. It's a thrill to be here with you two.
Doree: We like to start all of our conversations with our guests by asking them about a self-care practice that they have. And this can be kind of very broadly defined. So is there something that comes to mind when you hear the word self care?
Ann: Oh, absolutely. I love to do YouTube videos of Qigong, and I particularly am obsessed with this particular instructor. Her name ISS Gray and Qigong. And she is, I think she is Siberian, but she lives in France. She's very cool. She's beautiful. And just looking at her and hearing her voice heals me. But she has great Qigong videos and I love the way she says, feel your power. Feel your power.
Elise: Yeah, I love that. And so I always see people doing the Tai Chi in the park, and my dad is a big Tai Chi practitioner. But what is the difference between Tai Chi and Qigong?
Ann: Well, Tai Chi is a system where there's a certain number of predetermined steps, and it's actually a martial art. So in fact, when I lived in la I remember I used to go to the South Pasadena y and take Tai Chi from this guy there who had his big claim to fame. He had been in a Geico commercial, so la right, he was playing like a Bruce Lee figure in the Geico commercial. So there's kind of this cult around him at the South Pasadena y because he was
Elise: Because of the Geico commercial.
Ann: Yeah, he was Geico famous, but he
Elise: Probably has a bag card.
Ann: Exactly, exactly. But he taught Tai Chi as a martial art, which I didn't love. He's like, and you're actually hitting people. You're actually, this is when you cut their head off or whatever. But Qigong, it's more like a medical healing practice and a meditation practice. And I guess it's what you do when you are even older and more decrepit than those who do. Those are
Elise: My, I was going to say that the movements actually seem similar because when I imagine Tai Chi, I'm always seeing somebody cut the watermelon or whatever in the air and then pushing force. So I don't quite know how the movements in Qigong would be that different.
Ann: Well, you don't step as much, so you're not stepping backward and forward. You're more just waving your hands around and bending over.
Doree: When did you start and how did you start?
Ann: Well, it was really during the pandemic. So many people was looking for a practice also, I had had this long history with yoga, but I had injured myself quite seriously doing yoga many years ago. I herniated a couple of discs doing yoga. So yeah, I have yoga's like my bad boyfriend. I keep wanting to go back to it, but it's not really safe for me. And then I founds beautiful, young, healing, soothing, refreshing. And that got me doing it on a regular basis.
Elise: You talked about moving around energy, so I was curious how Qigong has maybe influenced or benefited your creative work and your creative output, because you're quite prolific as a writer.
Ann: Well, thank you. Yeah, I wish I could say that I learned from my various meditative practices I've done over the years to be balanced about my creative life and take breaths and take breaks. But Elise, I got to tell you, it is just not true. I mean, I'm like a binger when it comes to work. It's very, my work practice is I wish they were more healthy. I'm just that person who sits there and has to keep going until I feel like I finished something, which is really hard when you're writing a 405 page book. I'll tell you the one thing that helped me more than anything was getting this desk I'm sitting at. It is one of those hydraulic desks that goes up and down. Yeah, that's key. So in that way, the Qigong has benefited me because I'll just be like, at one point I'll be like, oh, I better do some Qigong and then I can just press a button and make it a platform, and then I can watch my Qigong while standing and up and down.
Elise: So you're in the future,
Ann: Deeply recommend hydraulic desk.
Elise: Fantastic. We will leave that in the show notes. We'll put that in the show notes for sure.
Doree: You mentioned your 405 page book.
Ann: I think that's right number, I should look it up, 400 something,
Doree: Which is your new book, traveling on the Path of Joni Mitchell. So we'd like to talk a little bit about the book and for the benefit of our listeners who probably have not had a chance to read the book yet, but also just to expand on some stuff that you've talked about, we'd love to hear, first of all, why Joni Mitchell and how did you initially conceive of the book? Did you want to do it as a biography, but she didn't cooperate or were you always thinking you were going to work around her? Or what was the thought process behind that?
Ann: I suppose I was someone whose name came to mind to certain editors when they had the thought, oh, we need a book, a new book on Joni Mitchell. So she is of course, a titan in popular music. And if we must categorize musicians by gender, I think many people would say she's the greatest woman songwriter, whoever lived or whatever. So someone came to me, an editor named Denise Oswald, and she said, Hey, I just want to read you on Joni. Would you consider doing a Joni project? And at first, I have to say, and I say this in the book, I said, I don't know. I was resistant because I would be scaling a mountain trying to understand this life. And secondly, Doree, as you alluded to, I'm not really a biographer. That's not what I normally do. I've written different kinds of books, memoir, cultural criticism, histories, but a straight ahead biography wasn't really on my slate of what I wanted to do. But then as I considered and pondered and really came to terms with how significant Joni's story is in terms of understanding the way that popular music has shaped our consciousness and been shaped by the past 50 years of popular culture and society, I came to realize, okay, I can do this. And the way I'm going to do this is by really foregrounding my mixed feelings about my subject, but also my process of coming to realize her significance in very specific ways over time. And to answer your question about did I consider doing more in a more official or authorized biography, not really. There was a point where I did send an one email out there into the ether. I talked to a lot of other people who were close to Joni or worked with Joni or part of her life story. But ultimately, and I did send out that one email saying, well, she's interested. But even as I pushed send on that email, I was thinking to myself, I don't really want to do this. Because once you have with someone this massively influential and massively beloved who's such a big personality, once you get in the space of like, okay, we're going to have a new interview or new interviews with her center, this project, it takes over. I wanted to be able to have a little distance. And in creating that distance, I found the structure of my book too. This idea that I'm following her on her path. She's always a little bit ahead of me. And what I'm trying to do is just make clear some brush away so I can see the story.
Elise: I was going to say, one of the things I really enjoy about the book, Ann, is that you did talk to her contemporaries. So you did get to speak to many of her lovers and collaborators.
Ann: Collaborators, yeah.
Elise: Yes. And that was really interesting. But one of the sort of tensions that you get at is her own narrative has kind of calcified over time and the way that she might present herself to you now and her memories are actually different than what the historical record shows. And so you were able to tease that difference apart very effectively and then offer kind of new insight and interpretation. So readers or listeners, if you haven't gotten to read the book yet, and most of you haven't, I think that is a really special part of this particular take on Joni Mitchell because there have been, as you note in the book, many other Joni Mitchell books already, or she has been parts of other collections. And so what do you feel like you were able to discover about her or how were you able to interpret her that is different than what's already out there?
Ann: Well, one, I think that one thing I hope I accomplished is sort of, I don't want to remove her from her pedestal. And the journey of the book is one where I think I come eventually to the place where I have to say, yeah, she is a genius. She does deserve the status, all the status she deserves, all of the adulation she has. But what happens when we think of her in these different contexts and really focus on her as a young artist who is trying to make their way but hasn't quite established herself. And then as a collaborator and someone who is part of a scene in a community and trying to figure out how to stand on the same ground as people, most of the men, and then as a band leader, then as a partner in a marriage that was also creative collaboration then as a kind of mother figure to a new generation. So always, I think we talk about Joni Mitchell so often as a singular figure, as a solitary figure, as an unassailable genius. And I just wanted to put her in the mix with other people and with historical events and other films and books and self-help literature and all the things that were happening that she borrowed from and influenced.
Elise: Okay, let's take a break and we will be right back.
Doree: Where do you kind of hear the influence of Joni Mitchell the most in today's music and artists?
Ann: Well, I mean, I think right now we're living in a moment when the influence is very evident because we're in this incredible renaissance for singer-songwriters, especially women. And I was reflecting just the other day, I was listening to the new record by Waxahatchee, Katie Crutchfield, which is called Tiger's Blood. And think about how even just this year there's been such, I mean, it's insane. It feels like every week there's another incredible record by a woman singer songwriter that record the hooray for the riff-Raff record by Linda Sagara, Brittany Howard's records, St. Vincent is Back. It's just like endless. All these women auteurs. And I think she, Joani really set the template for that role, even if sometimes maybe younger women are like, oh God, everybody thinks Joni's the most influential. But honestly, most do acknowledge that. I mean, we could talk about boy genius here. We could talk about Phoebe Bridgers and how that kind of personal intimate songwriting that is very much about gender dynamics and relationships, and both calls the writer herself on the table and says, here's my process, here's my anxieties, here are my neuroses. And also allows for the writer to be an observer and call out what's happening, the power dynamics in situations. Well, so much of that comes from Joanie. I don't think she's the sole originator of it, but her style, her approach is just everywhere now and really never faded even in those years when she was a bit in retreat.
Elise: The gender dynamics part is fascinating to me because it continues to have ripple effects. And there is a theme in the book about how all the male artists of her era, like David Crosby, like Graham Nash, like James Taylor, when you spoke to them, they said she was the best musician of their generation. But then crucially, they only came to that realization way later, which kind of echoes
Ann: convenience. Convenience,
Elise: how society, right. Conveniently, it's like, oh, but in retrospect, yeah. So she wasn't invited to be part of Crosby Stills and Nash. Right,
Ann: Exactly.
Elise: And it echoes how often society can view women artists. We get appreciated, but way later.
Ann: Yeah, no, it's very true.
Elise: So does it matter that women get their due this way, that the realization ends up taking a long time?
Ann: I definitely think it matters for the livelihood and just the human life of these artists. I mean, it's not like Joanie didn't get accolades from the very beginning of her career. And that is actually an argument I make in the book is, well, people talk about her as if she has is only now getting her flowers, but in fact, she's had flowers. She practically grew up in a garden or whatever. She's had flowers from the beginning that said Praise for her was all as qualified and praise for those around her. Other women in the seam were even more qualified. Okay, well, she's the best woman, not just the best. And I think that's, it's only one word, but that word changes everything. You don't say, Bob Dylan is the best male songwriter or whatever,
Elise: though we should probably say that. Yeah,
Ann: Exactly.
Elise: He's good for a boy.
Ann: Yeah, he's good for a boy. And by the way, blood on the tracks, he lays it right out there that he was totally influenced by Joni's Blue. That song tangled up in blue. Gee, what does he mean by being tangled up in blue? It was Joni. And he is admitted that. So it's gratifying to see how all these guys who always respected her, but are falling over themselves now to say she was the best. She was the best of us. And David Crosby and his, I interviewed him not long before he passed away, and I think he was definitely in a kind of atonement phase and was extremely eager to put her up on the throne.
Doree: How interesting.
Ann: And he had learned, and he had learned a lesson, the most powerful thing he said to me was, at that time, I didn't think I could be in a band with a woman. And when he said that to me, he was actually in a band, one of his last bands that had two women in it. So he admitted it was his loss to not be able to envision being a true collaborator with a woman.
Elise: Can I just follow up on that because we should point out that Joni Mitchell herself tended to only name men.
Ann: It's true
Elise: As her peers and influences. Yes. And then you end up analyzing the reasons why women choose to join Boys Clubs. It makes sense that women prefer to join boys clubs in highly competitive fields because they're almost always boys clubs. And then you do it for power, but then you trade the possibility of forging closer relationships with other women. So just to bring it to today and Doree's question about female artists today, do you feel that in 2024 in culture, women artists have more options now in terms of how to empower themselves and have a foothold that's on equal footing?
Ann: Elise, I think it comes down to something fairly simple, which is numbers. And I don't think I would've said that 10 years ago, 20 years ago. And there's much more sophisticated ways to analyze why we inhabit the roles we inhabit and how we inhabit those roles. But ultimately, what I've seen in the past, I don't know, five, 10 years, especially in just the past few years, is as certain scenes or communities tip toward, or even numbers as you see women not only upfront with an all male band behind them, but touring with women in their band or I mentioned Boy genius, three women together, three women songwriters standing up there together and really emphasizing the power in that dynamic and that relationship. And also as you see more women behind the scenes in executive roles in the music industry or as engineers, producers, all of those different roles, that is what's really changing things. It's just the basic fact that the Homosocial dynamic, the boys club, it didn't allow for truly raise consciousness because why would they bother? I hate to say that that sounds kind of cold and I don't know. But it's hard to change. It's hard to change your habits of thinking and what really changes it is having a person in front of you. I feel exactly the same way about diversity, racial diversity, and just having not just white people in your band, not just white people in your newsroom or whatever. That's the only thing that ultimately forces this change.
Elise: Yeah, you kind of have to see it.
Doree: Can we switch gears just a tiny bit, a related gear, but I wanted to talk a little bit about Taylor Swift because
Ann: Oh, related.
Elise: It's totally related
Doree: Because I was reading your review of tortured poets department and you write that she is part of an established and respected tradition that includes Joni Mitchell.
Ann: Yes.
Doree: And I'd love to hear a little bit more about how you see Taylor Swift kind of engaging with this tradition.
Ann: Yeah. Well, Joanie herself, of course, a while back, a good while back now, famously rejected the idea of Taylor Swift playing her in a movie. She didn't feel, I guess she didn't feel Taylor was up to snuff or whatever, however that was many years ago. We don't know what Joni would think now, but I think Joni's issuing that judgment probably led to a widespread opinion or feeling that, okay, we shouldn't make that comparison. That comparison is problematic. And certain things are very different about Taylor and Joanie. For one thing, the way the lyrics they write, they are both conversational. They are both aiming to be poetic as well. But I think Taylor writes in kind of a voice of a common woman much more, whereas Joani is like an herb Bohemian, she's her voice.
Elise: I don't hear Joni Mitchell. I don't hear Joni Mitchell inserting Grand theft auto into her lyrics.
Ann: It's interesting though, because that kind of stumbling attempt or one that people think of as a stumbling attempt of Taylor to insert a little pop culture into her song. I mean, Joanie did similar things in some ways when she was writing, say, the songs on Hissing of Summer lawns where she's painting portraits of the Hollywood elite and sort of invoking the Novo ish of the 1970s. I mean, she definitely used those kinds of details in her songwriting from time to time. But I do think that Taylor tends toward a more, I think Taylor has an idea or a sense of what her voice is as a common voice, as a relatable voice, let's say in a way that Joanie Mitchell never worried about being relatable. In fact, quite the opposite. She was interested in relating to herself and to her peers and being a great artist. Whereas with Taylor, I think she always is identifying with her audience in a different way. But I will say that on torture poets department, I think we can see how she's telling a story of a certain kind of relationship or a few relationships and whether or not a lot of people thought, oh, why is she so adolescent that she's expressing this deep desire that's thrown her off kilter, but the intensity with which she writes about falling off kilter, like losing her footing, that's very joni. I mean, that might be one of the most joni things she's ever done, because we hear that on albums like Jira or Blue in a different way, but this expressing the most unflattering aspects of desire, it's something they both have done in their songs.
Elise: Yeah. Maddie Healy is like Joni's, Leonard Cohen about
Ann: Maybe her James, so I don't know. Oh my God.
Elise: Or her, James Taylor. Yeah. Yeah,
Ann: Maybe you're right. Maybe her Lenny though, because
Elise: Leonard Cohen. Cohen, because you write about how Leonard Cohen, they had such a short, fleeting relationship, and yet it inspired so much art.
Ann: True.
Elise: And that's how I feel about Matty Healey. It's like, wait, were they even together? I feel like they were together for a blink, But it's half of tortured poets department.
Ann: But I have to admit that just I'll be parasocial for a minute and say, I'm glad that she had that fling, if this is what came of it. Because frankly, I don't find all of her boyfriends that interesting. So at least the bad boy gave her a kind of a new vocabulary to play around with. It's not just another prince. I don't mean Prince the great musician. I mean, you be the prince and I be the princess. It's like we have the trouble boy and the trouble boy let her somewhere. Interesting. In my opinion,
Elise: I like message people.
Doree: This is an impossible question. This is an impossible question to answer, but I'm going to ask you anyway, because Curious just to hear your thought process about it, but what does Taylor write about? What does she sing about 10 years from now?
Ann: Yeah, that's a good question. Well, yeah, man, that is hard. That is a hard thing to predict in some ways. I don't want to cast her in a future that may never come to me. I think a lot of us expect she's going to make some babies and we're going to get her mother albums, but it's not really my place or my right to speculate on that. And I've always said, I was on Sam Sanders podcast a while back, and I was saying that I think one reason why people have trouble with Taylor is because they can't perceive of her as an adult because she doesn't have children. So I dunno, let's think of it as a kind of sliding doors situation, like that Gwyneth Paltrow movie or whatever, Where she's on the subway or off the subway. So say she does marry her football player, have some kids. Then we have new stories for her to tell. And as someone who seems very driven, and I don't know her by the way, like Mariah Carey qualification, I don't know her, but so I'm not speaking from personal experience, but from her work, she seems like someone who is not at all hesitant to disclose her private life. So let's say that does extend and she feels comfortable writing about her children, something that not every musician does, but say she does. So then who knows what format, what musical setting she'll think will be, right. Maybe she goes back to kind of a country template. I don't know. But I expect we'd be hearing about marriage, we'd be hearing about her thoughts on child rearing. I don't know, something like that in her songs, but maybe she goes in a different direction later days, Travis, and then we have new adventures. And as a selfish consumer, I might be interested in that path. I mean, I wish her, well, I want her to find happiness, but I'd be just as interested if she took us someplace we absolutely couldn't expect. I mean, one thing I'll say about Taylor is that I think she is a genuine studio rat. I think that is something she shares with Joani Mitchell. She actually loves to be in the studio making music. It's not just the desire to dominate Spotify that causes her to record so many songs. She actually likes it in there. So I think people are like, oh God, her relationship with Jack Antonoff so boring now, whatever. Well, she is going to find a new way to innovate her sound. She's going to find a new path with that, because that's what she does. She's a musician above all. And I wouldn't mind if she tried something completely different. I don't know,
Elise: EDM,
Ann: jazz, she can't really do jazz. I don't know. Maybe
Doree: Mean there was the whole Lady Gaga, Tony Bennett thing. Maybe she will go in that direction. We dunno.
Ann: Yeah, I don't know. I mean, she could also, maybe she'll write a book. I don't know. Maybe she'll take her narratives into a new medium. I kind of doubt that, but Well, you never know. You never know.
Doree: You never know.
Ann: It could happen. Taylor, I'm available as a ghostwriter anyway. I didn't say that. Kidding, kidding.
Elise: You don't want to turn it down before it comes to you.
Doree: So we're just going to take a short break and we will be right back.
Elise: Ann, who else are you excited about? Who are the musicians that you want to shout out? You've name checked several already in the course of this conversation, but we want to know.
Ann: Yeah. Wow. Yeah, I'll go back and say, I've been listening to that Waxahatchee record, Tiger's Blood a lot this week, and just Katie Crutchfield, she has been making records for quite a while under this name. She's made a lot of different kind of records. She started as a sort of bedroom o tour. Her early records are kind of rough, very indie. But in recent years, she's sort of found this groove within with a kind of Americana sound country roots ish. And she is just such a masterful songwriter expressing what it is to be an artist today. And I think this record, Tiger's Blood does that so beautifully. She really captures the ambivalence that she feels about the cost of the creative process, the kinds of relationships that she has forged as an artist and as a woman making music, but also the different kinds of characters she meets, not all of whom are savory. It's just a great listen on that level. So I'm hyping that record this week. I do have a playlist on a certain streaming service, which you can find out there. You can decide which one I'm on. But anyway, it's called Sounds for 2024, and it's four hours long so far, and it's just like my favorite tracks from this year.
Elise: Okay, we'll share that.
Ann: I'm trying. Yeah, I think it's a bang up here for mainstream pop too. I mean, we've had Cowboy Carter, we've had Taylor's record. Billy Eilish record is really great.
Elise: I Love Billy Eli's record.
Ann: Yeah, it's so good. I like everyone else. Love Espresso. The Sabrina Carpenter song.
Elise: Yes. Yeah, let's put a pause in that because we actually have a question that sort of alludes to this later, but we want to cover a few more things with you first.
Ann: Well, I live in Nashville and it's an interesting time to be here watching the effects of Beyonce's Cow Carter. And also though I have to say what was happening before Cowboy Carter ever came out was that this shift was happening in Nashville music. People like Holly g and TAnnr who run the Black Opry, which is this incredible organization that presents black singer songwriters or people like Reese Palmer and Ko Marx and Mickey Guyton, Willie Jones, all these artists who are bringing different stories to country. But I'm quite fond of Shabuzi who's had his breakthrough now. So Shabuzi is a featured player on Cowboy Carter. He is on several songs. He's from Virginia, I think his family is Nigerian, forgive me if I've got that wrong. But he's from Virginia and he's been making this kind of dank, I don't know, like tangled version of hip hop meeting country for a while. And he is had this breakthrough hit with the song, a bar song, tipsy very fun song. And now he's released a whole record on the strength of that single, which hit the top one, top 10. It's a huge hit in the country charts, which is kind of unheard of a true marriage of hip hop and country. So I'm excited that things like that are happening. I'm always thrilled to hear new voices in genres that really need them, and country really does. All of us who are music critics for a living, we all have our special artists who we love and we don't understand why they're not at massive super global superstars, whatever. So I want to pick up the songwriter from Oregon. Her name is Anna tl, and I discovered her several years ago. She has a very delicate voice and just as an amazing songwriter writing about those moments in your life where everything changes maybe on a grand scale, maybe on a tiny scale, but she is so good at expressing and capturing those junctures in our lives and in everyday people's lives. A beautiful songwriter and her voice, if you've ever heard of the Mcal Sisters or Iris Dement, she has one of those kinds of voices who, I don't know, kind of birdlike or something, but she's been expanding her sound. When she started out, she was pretty folky. And I first heard a song called Alleyway that she did on several albums back that was told from the point of view of a woman who had had a brief relationship and become pregnant and was sort of, this gives up to her child for adoption and the song is addressed to her lover and sort of like, well, we don't know anything about where she is and we don't really know where we are anymore as a couple such a poignant song. And as an adoptive mother, I was super moved by it, and then I just got hooked into her storytelling. And her new record is called Living Thing, and she's been changing and expanding her sound to be more pop, adding in more layers of synths and stuff, but still that level of poignancy and power to her songwriting. And she has a song on this record called Kindness of a Liar, that's one of my favorite songs of the year where she's just kind of talking about how when you're in a toxic relationship, sometimes the deceptions can feel kinder than the reality. It's just that kind of emotional intelligence. She's just so rich in that. So that's my secret superstar anl.
Elise: And you're really bringing it back full circle too, bringing up a child up for adoption because Joni Michelle.
Ann: Oh yeah, the Joni Connection.
Elise: That's right, yes. There's a Joni connection all as well. I don't even know if that was intentional.
Ann: Yeah, No, it wasn't actually. And I don't know her, and I don't think Anna's song is autobiographical, but it's interesting with Joni about Calor and her daughter because she rarely wrote and virtually never spoke about that experience until much later in life when she and Calor were reunited in the nineties. But of course, famously there is the song Little Green, which is on blue, which in hindsight to virtually everyone is so clearly about the process of entrusting a child for adoption. But I will say, I've read all the reviews of Blue from the vintage reviews and people just, they didn't get it, just missed it. It's kind of wild. And it is a testimony to the need for women to tell their stories, to tell their stories that aren't officially in the history books or officially in our master narratives, because unless we tell those stories, they're not audible, they're not legible. And even sometimes when we do, they're not. So you have to tell them more than once.
Elise: We also need, well-developed listeners and ears and people like you, music critics, thank you to interpret and hear things. And so that's actually my question for you, because I've always wanted to better hone my own ear and develop kind of how I evaluate art, whether it's music or visual arts or performing arts. You do this for a living. You are a celebrated arts critic, so how do we as laypeople who don't do this for a living, how do we better listen to or understand or interpret the artistic creations that we come across?
Ann: That's a beautiful question. Thank you for asking that question. I think it's a crucial question for our time, actually, because my answer is also an answer to the question, how do we live a richer life? And my answer is simply take the time. Take the time. When I think about how I became a critic, I go all the way back to my teenage years, and I grew up in Seattle. I moved to San Francisco when I was 19, and when I was 1921, I was hanging out with a lot of aspiring poets and art history students. And I mean, the amount of time we spent just hanging out at the San Francisco Art Museum, I'm not kidding you. We went every week and just, I had one friend, my friend Kaka, and she is like, let's just go sit with the rothkos. Let's just go sit and look at the paintings and seriously just sit there and contemplate one painting for a while. The same way that I would listen to albums at that time, and I feel a bit like a Luddite saying this, but just actually spend time listening to an album all the way through. Back to your friend Billy Eilish Elise. I think she was hoping that people would do that with her album. And we already see lunch has jumped out. It's a big single, and I love it. I think that's a great summer song. It's rivaling espresso as we're just getting all the food groups here, espresso, lunch, et cetera. But why not actually do what our artists are asking us to do, which is spend some time with the work, and that's the number one thing. And then don't be intimidated by the work, and don't be intimidated by the myriad ridiculous amount of opinion out there on the internet. Your opinion is as valid as anyone else's. That was a lesson. It took me a long time to learn, even though I'm definitely someone who compulsively shares their opinion, but I think you gain authority through the confidence of both actually learning whatever it is you want to have authority over. So spending the time and then realizing that even if your view is contrarian, even if it's different than what the established literati, literati believe it's valid.
Elise: Love that.
Doree: Before we wrap, we just wanted to ask you what you think the Song of the Summer is
Elise: You kind of already brought it up, right?
Ann: Well, it's so funny because I did a little segment on this for NPR. Yeah. I mean, it was also the Song of the Spring, but I mean, how can it not be espresso?
Elise: That's why, See, I feel like espresso peaked too early, so this is what I wanted to debate with you.
Ann: Yeah, no, no. Let's debate it. Let's debate it because I could see you definitely standing up for something like Tommy Richmond Million Dollar Baby, which is making big TikTok inroads right now,
Elise: Or birds of a feather
Ann: Or Birds of a feather that one could
Elise: That's coming up now. So I'm sort of wondering if Espresso peaked too early to be a song of a summer, but how did we decide too?
Ann: Because to me, it's so much about, first of all, it's disco. It's like got that Euro disco thing going on that just puts me in a little dress dancing on the beach or something. It's just like you feel that in that song, and it's just made for everything. We think of that summer's about it's made for windows down and for being at the beach or at the mall or wherever. It's just fun. I still think it, it's a pretty strong contender. Even if it did peak, I don't know. It's such an earworm. It is. I can't get it out of my head.
Elise: Alright, you heard it here. Ann Powers says it's espresso.
Ann: I'm so excited about her record. I just have to say, Sabrina Carpenter just announced her new record, short and sweet. I'll be very excited to hear the whole thing.
Doree: I'm excited for it too. So are we, and where can our listeners find you if they want to listen to your podcast, read your work, et cetera?
Ann: Well, I'm a critic and correspondent for NPR music, so you can find my writing on the web at npr.org/music. You can also find my criticism in the weekly newsletter. I've been writing the Saturday newsletter. I've been writing little essays for that newsletter. I'm often on the podcasts, all songs considered new music Friday podcasts, or I'm on the radio sometimes. But most importantly, I suggest you buy my book Traveling on the Path of Joni Mitchell. Yes,
Elise: I'm holding it up right now.
Ann: It has a beautiful cover, and somehow if you're overseas, the English edition has another beautiful cover and two Ls in the word travel
Doree: L you get an extra L to let them all.
Elise: Yeah.
Doree: Thank you so much, Ann. It was such a pleasure to get to talk to you.
Ann: Oh, well I really enjoyed this wonderful questions and I love what you guys are doing, so thanks so much.
Doree: Thank you so much.
Elise: Thanks Ann.
Doree: Ann is a smart lady.
Elise: She is. And I love her taste and the way she thinks about culture and how to consume culture.
Doree: Totally, yes. Thank you, Ann.
Elise: Thank you, Ann.
Doree: Alright, so last week we kind of wondered aloud what we should do with the end of the show, whether people still wanted us to do intentions, whether there was something else you wanted us to do. And it seemed like people wanted us to keep intentions, so we're going to keep intentions going. And my intention this week is kind of related to something we talked about at the top of the show, which is all this end of school year stuff. Henry's graduation is this week, and my intention to just, I want to be there for him and support him and be happy for him and and also just enjoy the moment without kind of stressing too much about what's to come Because It's going to be lot of change
Elise: It goes so fast.
Doree: Yeah, It goes by so fast. There's going to be a lot of change coming up in the next few weeks and months, but I just want to enjoy this particular moment. And so that is my intention for the week. What about you, Elise?
Elise: That's a great intention. Mine is related. I guess I will sort of echo what you're saying as an overall intention, but for me it's one-on-one time with my children, Especially during this time of year, get so caught up in all the various activities that we do and supporting each other because they have their choir concerts, their dance recitals, their last sports games, and we often are showing up as a full unit, a full family unit, or the siblings are having to support their other siblings. And I can tell, especially with my middle child who believes herself to be a disenfranchised middle child that she just craves just time. Just time with me. Just some mommy daughter time. And so I actually do have to be very intentional about carving that out. And it can be 15 minutes. It can be just like a ketchup. Yesterday she really wanted to go get a milkshake at Chick-fil-A and I was like, we don't have time. We have to get back. I have to bathe Luna, her younger sister. And she was like, I just want to go get a milkshake with just you. And so it actually really inspired my intention for this week, which is I've got to carve out time to do one thing with each kid that's just theirs.
Doree: Oh, that's really nice. That's really nice. Okay. I love that. Alright everyone, this is also just a reminder that Forever35 is hosted and produced by me, Doree Shafrir and Elise Hu, and produced and edited by Sam Junio. Sami Reed is our project manager and our network partner is Acast. Thanks everyone.
Elise: Thank you all. Bye.