The first country record I ever bought was Merle Haggard's 16 Biggest Hits. Splattered into a harrowing dustbowl of depravity, deprivation, and deliverance, I quickly found myself placing it on that hallowed shelf of "My Ten Favorite Records." The following year, I played it for some country aficionados who proudly informed me that these were miserably smooth 1994 re-recordings of Haggard's work in the 60s. I sought out a different collection, realized my error, agreed that 16 Biggest Hits was indeed not far from a travesty, and learned that, though my country naiveté, I had deceived myself. I bring this up for a few reasons:
Greatest Palace Music is the long-awaited album of sauntering, weightlifting, sugar-coated covers of Will Oldham's work as Palace. The tracklist was selected via fan poll. The cover is a bizarre, expressionist jumble of lakes and lacerated rainbows. The players include such legendary Nashville muscle as Hargus "Pig" Robbins and Eddie Bayers. Its renditions are often syrupy, bombastic, truckin'-through-McDonalds, barrel-hoppin' blitzes, delivered in a voice that creaks and secretes sincerity. And it does this even as it seems to revel in mocking, I-can't-believe-you-morons-are-actually-listening-to-this production that mechanically smoothes out any soulful, or even human, perturbations with the slightest chance of sneaking through the sheen.
I fancy myself of average intellect and, frankly, the album is entirely bewildering. It's perhaps the most entertaining and thought-provoking album released so far this year. And one of the worst. Thankfully, its allure is easily experienced without ever having to actually listen to it. It's as much of a concept album and process work as any German micro-improv-musique-concrete release in print these days, and it should simply be framed and given a state-sponsored museum tour. The enjoyment it doles out is entirely extramusical, deriving from its packaging, its contributors, Nashville history, Oldham's interviews pertaining to it, its place in his discography, and his intent, whatever that may have been. Greatest Palace Music is almost uniformly tedious, uneventful, dispassionate, and overambitious when it comes to multi-tracking, and underambitious when it comes to arrangements and instrumentation.
Except that, at the same time, it never feels anything but essential. Its paradox of earnestness and pranking is relentless, jarring, and (unintentionally?) amusing. And though none of us are in a position to guess Oldham's intent, one hypothesis might be that the album was intended to befuddle, muddle, and generally piss off listeners' expectations; and, therefore, if you indeed detest it (as you probably should), you're actually one of its biggest advocates. Maleficent and resentful hatred should greet this album, and if it does, well, we've got something of a classic on our hands.
Unfortunately, through some trick of fate, this mischievous and contradictory art took the form of music (at least superficially), and I am a music critic.
The standard procedure now would be to contrast these new versions with the original Palace hits, which might be impossible. Murmurs around my Internet database suggest that "now we can finally find out if Oldham's songwriting skills stand up without the stark atmospherics." Well, based on Greatest Palace Music, they absolutely collapse. "New Partner", probably the greatest moment on Viva Last Blues, and one of the best recordings of Oldham's career, is sieved through jingoistic guitar that veers to the brink of schmaltz and back again. Elated vocals bounce down a wedding-march keyboard. The background vocals are resigned and remote. And when Oldham sings, "You're always on my mind," his voice is so unconvincingly impermeable and tuneless that it lacks any of its previous resonance. Oldham's delivery doesn't imply his usual trepidation and reluctance before death or love, but rather echoes the way people sound when they're waiting in line.
Albums like Days in the Wake or I See a Darkness were propelled by hobbling, fitful marches, and smothered by brazen minor chord blasts. And there are moments on Greatest Palace Music ("You Will Miss Me When I Burn", "The Brute Choir") of stark emotion; gaps and holes occasionally filled with light; a fragmented voice grafted onto the back of Oldham's haggard head; where even the slide solo is condensed and whimpering. But, for the most part, the shambling, stately pallbearer pace is replaced with a bouncing, undeviating, and totally inappropriate luster.
"Gulf Shores" climbs toward a swarm of overlapping voices in perfect harmony, robotically in sync. On "Pushkin", Oldham preaches The Word with a shell-shocked, Appalachian puberty that caricatures itself, and holds its springing slow-jazz drabness in contempt. It's not just polished; it's fabricated, deceitful, condescending, belittling. It's a trick upon the audience and the band itself.
Why would anyone inflict these cruel shenanigans upon an unsuspecting audience? How could it possibly affect or motivate its listeners? By making this album, it feels as if Oldham is scorning me, a longtime fan, personally. It's ceaselessly mediocre, and it actually physically hurts me to know that Oldham has backpedaled, knowingly and irrationally, against his own genius. Yet, it's precisely in the listener's painful struggle-- the reaction to the artist's self-annihilation, devastating arrogance, and backstabbing repugnance-- that this record finds its wisdom and radiance.
