First Thought Fridays is a (mostly) weekly column offering quick-hit takes on some of the albums released this week, serving up first impressions, favorite or least favorite songs, and whether or not they’re worth a second listen. Check back for more each Friday night or Saturday morning.
Only three albums this week, but in my defense, the new release calendar was pretty light this week and I picked two things that were very, very long. What I did pick, though, was pretty great…read on to find out what and why! A programming note: I will be taking next week off of the column for Thanksgiving but should be right back to it on December 5. Until then, here’s what I listened to this week, in the order in which I listened to ‘em:
The Beatles, Anthology 4 (Apple): Celebrating the 30th anniversary of the original Anthology series as well as the Beatles Anthology TV series (recently remastered and posted to Disney +), the Beatles once again return to the well for a fourth collection of alternate and early takes of their catalog. A lot of diehard Beatleologists are upset about the track list for this release, which contains 13 never-before-heard tracks but another 23 tracks culled from the expanded editions of the Beatles’ studio albums released over the last few years. The logic behind this release is also a little flawed in that Anthology 1 through 3 covered the entire history of the Beatles in chronological order so why does volume 4 cover the exact same territory?
I’m not here to litigate the decision-making process, though—I’d much rather talk about what is here, because what’s here is pretty great. Anthology 4 features 36 tracks over 2 CDs or 3 LPs: disc 1 takes us from the very beginning through Magical Mystery Tour, disc 2 throws a bone at “Hey Bulldog” from Yellow Submarine then dives deep into the White Album, Let It Be, and Abbey Road. There’s a fly-on-the-wall element as you get a lot of before- and after-song banter and early takes that dissolve into fits of laughter. The Beatles’ personalities are as magnetic as their music so it’s fun to get to spend time with them. One funny moment in particular starts when the band is having issues with getting a guitar to play properly so they do a test-run through “Baby, You’re a Rich Man” with just piano, drums, and vocals. When asked if they need anything, Paul loudly, and repeatedly, requests some cannabis, then, remembering the tape is rolling, jokes “We’ll have that tape in the high court tomorrow!” There’s a ton of John and Paul songs, not nearly enough George and Ringo, though we do hear Ringo playing the first verse and a half of “Octopus’s Garden” for George, who immediately starts playing along and riffing on the embryonic composition; it’s the set’s coolest moment.
Other highlights: the first take of George’s “I Need You” is so much better than the version on Help!, more relaxed and loose and without that super-square organ tacked on; all it needs is some backup vocal harmonies to sweeten it and it’d be perfect. The first take of “In My Life” is rawer and more personal, and while I never liked George Martin’s harpsichord-sounding piano solo on the album version, the instrumental bit in that spot of the song proves that it needed something there. “Strawberry Fields Forever” appears in a pleasantly chaotic, percussion-forward early version. There are also a few early instrumental takes that reveal the instrumentation in interesting ways: the guitars in “Nowhere Man” chime so much like a Byrds song that you expect “Turn Turn Turn” to break out at any moment, “The Fool on the Hill” becomes hauntingly cinematic, and a symphony-forward version of “I Am the Walrus” sounds downright woozy.
Last but not least, the three reunion tunes show back up at the end of the collection, with John Lennon’s original demo vocals and guitar for “Free as a Bird” and “Real Love” cleaned up using the same machine learning technology used for “Now and Then” in 2023. “Free as a Bird” sees the most improvement, with Lennon’s high, now-clean vocal making it sound almost like a Flaming Lips outtake. “Real Love” doesn’t change as drastically, but it remains the best, and most Beatlesque, of the Threetles recordings. Will I Listen Again?: Are you kidding? Of course I will.
Meredith Adelaide, To Believe I’m the Sun (self-released): Pacific Northwest-based singer-songwriter (and sometime-actress) Meredith Adelaide’s debut album offers up proof positive that simplicity doesn’t have to equal boring. Over 22 minutes, Adelaide offers up eight songs based almost exclusively on warm acoustic guitar strums (if there’s a percussion instrument on this thing, I can’t find it), but she keeps you captivated all the same due to her impeccable vocal phrasing, sounding haunting and brittle as an icy lake on “One Foot Out,” mischievous on “Guard Dog,” and angelic on “Lights On.” “Lost (Whistling)” pairs the strums with a high, clean-picked lead guitar (plus the titular whistling) that makes the song sound downright Sufjanesque with its brief but effective 98-second runtime. A wonderfully autumnal set of songs. Will I Listen Again?: Yes.
De La Soul, Cabin in the Sky (Mass Appeal): Alt-hip-hop legends De La Soul return with their first album in nine years. It’s been a period of triumphs (successfully regaining the rights to their catalog after a lengthy dispute with their old label) and tragedies (founding member Dave Jolicoeur, a.k.a. Trugoy the Dove, a.k.a. Dave, died in 2023), but somehow, they rose above it all and crafted an impressive comeback. Six tracks feature Dave alongside his longtime cohorts Posdnuos and Maseo, and the trio are joined by an impressive guestlist including Black Thought, Killer Mike, Nas, Common, Slick Rick, among many others.
I may lose my hipster card for admitting this, but I don’t know De La Soul well enough to compare and contrast this album to their back catalog. But I can say it’s been a long time since I’ve heard a new hip-hop album that scratched my old school hip-hop itch as well as this one does, packed as it is with jazz-inspired beats, smooth but dexterous raps, and lyrics that ping-pong between witty and insightful. It’s tough to make a throwback album that doesn’t sound tired and rote, but this one succeeds.
That said, it does indulge in a few typically ‘90s excesses—at 70 minutes it’s probably at least 10 minutes too long, and scattered throughout are unfunny skits that could/should have been left on the cutting room floor. (I don’t know that I can think of an album that I liked as much as this one that started with something I hate as much as the first track, over three minutes of interminable tedium as the normally amazing Giancarlo Esposito takes roll call of all of the album’s guest stars.) Once you get past that, though, the actual songs are pretty unassailable. Favorite tracks: “Just How It Is (Sometimes)” featuring Jay Pharoah and Gareth Donkin; “Day in the Sun (Gettin’ wit U)” featuring Q-Tip and Yummy Bingham; “Run It Back” featuring Nas; “Believe (In Him)” featuring STOUT, K. Butler & the Collective; and “Yours” featuring Common and Slick Rick. Will I Listen Again?: Hell yeah.
