As I have read through Howard Sounes’ excellent Bob Dylan biography, Down the Highway, I have found myself compelled to listen to and explore all facets of Dylan’s catalog. Easy enough (and pleasant enough) to do with the canon, and certainly so with his more recent work, but what about that soft, saggy middle?

I came to Dylan, like many probably did, with Time Out of Mind. Yes, I had some of the early classics, but they were just that: classics. I didn’t consider him a valid, contemporary artist. Rather, he was a bona fide member of the oldies circuit who kept cranking out albums because he didn’t know any better. But with Time Out of Mind, I realized there was more – much, much more – to this artist.

It’s a daunting task, trying to keep up with Dylan. I filled in holes as I was compelled by outside influences. Reading about his Christian phase led me to Slow Train Coming, Saved and Shot of Love. The Bootleg series entry on the Rolling Thunder Revue led me to Desire. But there were several albums that I simply had ignored, from Knocked Out Loaded through Under the Red Sky. Oh Mercy doesn’t really belong on this list, as I bought the boxed set of SACD reissues several years ago that included it, and I fell in love with it.

What remains are three albums –Knocked Out Loaded, Down in the Groove and Under the Red Sky. They are pretty universally panned, and even charitable fans have a hard time being nice to more than a song or two on each. Why are these so troubled? Reading Sounes’ book, you could point to personal problems, drinking, financial woes or any number of issues. But to me it seems that a lack of band cohesion might be at least partly to blame.

I hit upon this while scrolling through the credits on Down in the Groove at bobdylan.com. I noticed that the bass on one song was played by Kip Winger. For those who don’t know, he is the titular leader of the hair metal band Winger. Why was Winger in the studio that day? I’m sure there’s a logical explanation, but that doesn’t make it any less strange that he joined Eric Clapton, Ron Wood, Mitchell Froom and others on “Had a Dream About You, Baby.”

Looking through the credits for those three albums, I was struck by how completely random some of the band configurations were. Dylan long has benefitted from throwing curve balls – changing keys, altering lyrics, etc. I’m sure the presence of some of these folks brought a spark to the proceedings. But there’s also something to be said for assembling a whipsmart band to tear through a batch of songs and provide a common thread through them.

What follows is a list of the eight songs that have the strangest batch of performers in Dylan’s catalog… according to me. Others, I’m very sure, would have differing opinions.

Under The Red Sky

“Wiggle Wiggle”: Bob Dylan – guitar, vocals; Slash – guitar; David Lindley – guitar; Jamie Muhoberac – organ; Randy Jackson – bass; Kenny Aronoff – drums

“Born In Time”: Bob Dylan – accordion, vocals; David Crosby – background vocals; Bruce Hornsby – piano; Robben Ford – guitar; Randy Jackson – bass; Kenny Aronoff – Drums; Paulinho Da Costa – percussion

“2 X 2″: Bob Dylan – acoustic guitar, vocals; David Crosby – background vocals; Elton John – piano; David Lindley – bouzouki; Randy Jackson – bass; Kenny Aronoff – Drums; Paulinho Da Costa – percussion

Down In The Groove

“Sally Sue Brown”: Bob Dylan – vocals, guitar; Steve Jones – guitar; Myron Grombacher – drums; Paul Simonon – bass; Kevin Savigar – keyboards; Madelyn Quebec – vocals; Bobby King, Willie Green – background vocals

“Had A Dream About You, Baby”: Bob Dylan – vocals, guitar; Eric Clapton – guitar; Ron Wood – bass; Kip Winger – bass; Beau Hill – keyboards; Mitchell Froom – keyboards; Henry Spinetti – drums

Knocked Out Loaded

“You Wanna Ramble”: Bob Dylan – guitar; T. Bone Burnett – guitar; James Jamerson Jr. – bass; Al Kooper – keyboards; Raymond Lee Pounds – drums; Carol Dennis, Madelyn Quebec, Muffy Hendrix, Annette May Thomas – background vocals

“Maybe Someday”: Bob Dylan – guitar; Mike Campbell – guitar; Howie Epstein – bass; Don Heffington – drums; Steve Douglas – saxophone; Steve Madaio – trumpet; Annette May Thomas, Carol Dennis, Madelyn Quebec, Elisecia Wright, Queen Esther Marrow, Peggi Blu –background vocals

“Under Your Spell”: Bob Dylan – guitar; Dave Stewart – guitar; Clem Burke – drums; Patrick Seymour – keyboards; John McKenzie – bass; Muffy Hendrix, Carol Dennis, Queen Esther Marrow, Elisecia Wright, Madelyn Quebec – background vocals

Talking with a friend about the new Jayhawks album, Mockingbird Time, we lamented that while it sounded good — and certainly like a Jayhawks record should — the songs weren’t memorable. It has surface appeal, but it lacked the depth that would make either of us pull it off the shelf after the newness wore off.

That conversation led me to give the album a few more spins, and I’ll admit that it is starting to grow on me. I don’t hear anything as soaring as “Waiting for the Sun,” as beautiful as “Ain’t No End” or as timeless as “Blue.” But what I do hear is a very good album that will continue to offer rewards. It sounds less like a comeback and more like a solid mid-period album from a band that has long since found its groove.

If you’ll indulge a bit of lyrical psychoanalysis, I’d argue that this is exactly what the band had in mind.

A mockingbird is known for its ability to sound like other birds. It can’t be a coincidence that this band, named for a bird, has named its comeback album Mockingbird Time. After flirting with glam rock and then breezy California pop, the band has returned to the sound that earned it fans in the first place: a mix of country harmonies and classic rock. This, then, is the band’s attempt to mimic the sound of its younger self.

To a point, that is. On the title track, Mark Olson sings, “Yesterday is gone like the wind, like the wind it is gone.” OK, so we may want the Jayhawks to recapture the magic of the Hollywood Town Hall era, but that time is past.  Olson goes on to sing, “I want to make something for you that brings you joy.” That’s easy enough. Just harmonize with Gary Louris and you’ll put a smile on our faces.

The song isn’t really about this, of course. At least not on the surface. He’s singing to a loved one, noting the “color in the sky that’s in your eyes,” remarking on the moment when “we see each other alone.” But the subtext can easily be read as a commentary on the band and this re-emergence.

On the bridge, Olson, the prodigal singer-songwriter, tackles his return to the fold head-on: “Mockingbird time, I’ve really gone back. You’re all that I have.” His wander into the desert, literally and figuratively, yielded some interest albums that I’ll never play again. It was time for him to return to what he does best, and where he does it best. Time to start sounding like a Jayhawk again, to go back. With his marriage to Victoria Williams now a memory, his solo career one long unsuccessful attempt to shed his past, that past is all that he has left.

The result is an album that caps a real return for Olson. His last two solo albums were the best things he did post-Jayhawks, and his duo album with Louris in 2008 showed the magic between the two musically remained. Now, with the rest of the band back in the fold, they have created something that feels like a Jayhawks record yet doesn’t sound like a natural progression. It is an earthier album, like something Louris and Olson would have helmed between Blue Earth and Hollywood Town Hall. It lacks the confident swagger of HTH and the polish of Tomorrow the Green Grass. It is a modest record. The band is no longer swinging for the fences, content to get on base with a single… without recording anything that comes close to being a single.

It long has been fashionable among rock snobs to declare that R.E.M.’s period of relevance ended somewhere around 1987′s Document; a charitable few give the band a few more years, declaring it was Bill Berry’s departure in 1996. Anyone who compares the five albums the band made after his exit with the 10 that came before would be hard pressed to argue that the band’s music was as vital, on the whole, as it once was.

Dismissing the ludicrous notion that albums like Out of Time and Automatic for the People somehow aren’t worthy of inclusion in the band’s canon, it still is shortsighted and spiteful to suggest that R.E.M. did nothing after 1996 of merit. The band’s low-key announcement on Wednesday that it had broken up will surely bring floods of re-evaluation, but here is a simple fact: though flawed, the five albums the band made after Berry’s departure include more keepers than most bands record in a lifetime.

If forced to create an R.E.M. best-of from those five albums, today mine would look something like this:

Up: At My Most Beautiful, You’re In the Air, Daysleeper
Reveal: Imitation of Life, Saturn Return, Beat a Drum
Around the Sun: Leaving New York,  I Wanted to Be Wrong
Accelerate: Living Well Is the Best Revenge, Until the Day Is Done
Collapse Into Now: Discoverer, Uberlin, Oh My Heart, Every Day is Yours to Win

I’d choose any of their first eight albums (save for Green) over this mix if selecting some R.E.M. to play, but this would win out over the career-spanning greatest hits of many other bands.

Were these latter-day albums occasionally misguided? Certainly. I’d argue that Up is a classic on par with anything the band created outside the first four classics. The rest are unquestionably flawed. But anyone who considers himself a fan of the band would find something to like on any of them. Yes, the band was foundering, unsure what it meant to be a Berry-less trio in an era when electronics and post-ironic posturing were popular. But traces of what made the band special reveal themselves everywhere, from Stipe’s inventive melodies to Buck’s chiming drone to Mill’s soaring counter-melodies.

On the band’s last two albums, it seemed to retrench. Well, it didn’t seem to — it flat out did. After casting about for a post-Berry sound, it returned to the template for what it did with him in the fold, first with the sub-Lifes Rich Pageant sound of Accelerate, then with the late-period pastiche of Collapse Into Now. Despite the diminished quality of imitation, these were hopeful signs for those of us who stuck with the band. After exploring the various corners of its sound and then rediscovering what it did best, it seemed reasonable to expect future music that finally reconciled the two and pushed the band toward something both grounded and new.

But with Wednesday’s announcement, we’ll be left to imagine… or will we? The cynic would suggest that the band, disillusioned by the collective yawn that greeted its last two albums — this despite massive self-promotion in the form of a near-constant online presence in the months leading up to the release of each — has decided to test the maxim “how can we miss you if you won’t go away?” Seeing the career boost afforded bands like the Pixies, Pavement and Guided by Voices, groups that returned from decade-plus hiatuses to crowds considerably larger than they had left behind, must have made an impression on R.E.M. If the band had made good on its promise to split if any one member departed, then returned 15 years later with Collapse Into Now, it would have been massive. Rather than accuse the band of being uninspired old farts without an original idea, critics would have lauded them for recapturing and then updating their classic sound.

So, a prediction: R.E.M., with Bill Berry in tow, will return in 2020 with a critically acclaimed album and a (gulp!) 40th anniversary tour. A fella can dream, can’t he?

So this all started innocently enough. Most every day I post a “song of the day” on Blip.fm, and broadcast it to Twitter and Facebook. A couple of weeks ago, I posted a great live version of Matthew Ryan’s “Guilty,” the lead track on his first album. I wrote this:

“SOTD: Matthew Ryan – Guilty. With MR’s new album out, I went back to revisit his first. Anger w/guitars replaced by resignation and drum machines. http://blip.fm/~16kmew”

I’m friends with Ryan on Facebook, so he saw the post and responded with this:

“Surprised you hear resignation on the new album John.”

I countered with, “Ah, the perils of fitting a coherent thought into Blip.fm’s 140-character limit. The larger point was that you seem to have made the shift many so-called ‘Angry Young Men’ have, resigning yourself to the fact that things are the way they are and learning to cope with the aftermath (both personally and globally) rather than rail against it. Regardless, I love the new stuff as well as the old (though I do love it when you fire up the electric guitar).”

To Matthew’s credit, he responded, “Let’s discuss this!”

We took the conversation private, if only so that we wouldn’t be hampered by Facebook’s own limitations on length, with the idea of posting the entire conversation here. I typically conduct Q&As in lazy fashion, sending a batch of questions, getting responses and then running the results. Having already been burned by using shorthand to get a point across, I decided that something more organic and reactive was needed. Matthew agreed, and what follows is our conversation.

Before we get into it, let me thank Matthew publicly. Few artists have the guts to discuss their work so openly and candidly. The result is a conversation that I hope opens people up to what is not only one of Matthew’s best albums, but one of the best albums of the year, I Recall Standing As Though Nothing Could Fall.

TIRBD: I have come to realize that I am a music listener first, a lyrics/vocals listener a distant second. I can listen to a song for years without really paying attention to everything going on lyrically, only to be surprised when it finally registers. If something doesn’t grab me musically — a hook, a beat, a feel — it’s lost to me. I can think of one act whose lyrics alienated me after the music hooked me: Fountains of Wayne, a band I once loved, and whose music is right in my wheelhouse — well-crafted power pop with hooks galore — but whose lyrics I find too cute to the point that they’re now cloying.

So, I came to your music because of, well, the music. Your first two albums were a visceral rush; yes, the angry young man thing. I heard defiance, a simmering rage, some self-loathing. And again, this was largely divorced from the lyrics. It was the sound of the music that conveyed this, the medium as message, I suppose. Subsequent works seemed more resigned, more jaded, but also, as you have pointed out, perhaps cautiously optimistic.

Spending a lot of time with the new album on headphones, the songs have opened up lyrically for me, and what I took for resignation and frustration on the surface comes across now as a guarded sense of hope. It’s as if you are more hopeful than you think you have the right to be, and you’ve undercut yourself — consciously or not — but conveying these lyrics on a bed of melancholy only occasionally shot through with the verve that suggests conviction. There is doubt here, again more in the feel of the album than in the words.

I don’t mean to suggest that this is a failing on your part; far from it. Rather, it’s a way to make the songs more complex, more resonant. They can mean one thing today, another tomorrow. The result is probably your most finely crafted, textured album of your career.

MR: I’ve often wished I approached what I did when writing and recording in a more Amish light so to speak. Simpler. Because what I’m often trying to communicate is complex. Not that it isn’t direct, because it is. I admire what Justin Townes Earle has done. And I love what Gillian Welch does with Dave Rawlings. The Gaslight Anthem, Frightened Rabbit. These are all some fairly recent things that I like as well. And they all communicate directly from a point of view.

But I guess in my work I’m looking for our humanity in what feels like a chaos of sorts. Again, both in the intimacies of our lives and in the larger plots of social and literal upheavals. A lot of the characters I write about are both heroic and sometimes complicit in the wrong turns we take. But above all they persevere because I guess in my heart of hearts I believe that we are good engines.

The music that I’ve been laying my stories over for the last few years is intentional. And I believe I do it to symbolize the numbing beauty of the information age and how it surrounds (particularly) us in western culture. These are very new challenges to our humanity. New technologies always ease things for us, but they also confront, change and challenge us in ways we rarely expect. The explosion of media, information and speed in our culture has made for a fascinating landscape. Both dangerous and incredibly useful. But as always, we’re still human.

I guess in short, what you may have initially taken as resignation is in my mind what the act of perseverance sounds like. It’s an inch-by-inch reclamation of intimacy with the self in a blizzard.

I’m all for simple, but complexity is what keeps people coming back, be it musical, lyrical or otherwise. I love the idea of you trying to convey the “numbing beauty of the information age” in your music. That would certainly explain my takeaway of resignation.

That word, resignation, seems to be our flashpoint, the unfortunate choice when trying to sum up your recent work in a word. Are you familiar with Greg Brown? He’s an Eastern Iowan, like me, writing often about the Midwest. He is singing more directly, but gets at some of what you’re talking about. It’s less resignation than a warning: This is how it is now, and in some cases it’s exactly what you wanted. Good luck. The best is “Your Town Now” (http://youtu.be/tDLn29ByeoY).

And yes, perseverance is a much better word. It doesn’t connote giving up. Perhaps an acceptance that things are the way they are, but not assuming (or allowing) it will always be thus.

Greg Brown is one of my favorite writers. I swear I can hear shadows of his song “Brand New ’64 Dodge” in the melody of the song I keep mentioning, “This Is the Hill.” I’m not afraid to admit my influences and they range from dirty soil gravel like Mr. Brown’s and Bob Dylan’s to the ethereal beauty of Eno and The Blue Nile to the melancholy of early Sinatra and Joy Division; to the grand fists of The Clash and U2. All of it leans to define our humanity’s ability to remain a glowing hopeful heart vs. all the things that undermine and oppress. We are living in uncertain times with a confluence of technology and philosophies seemingly determined to tear us apart and isolate us. I am committed to be part of something that glues us back together and gives us maybe just a glimpse of our skin in all the flash and quickness. I believe that’s an important part of my occupation.

Much of I Recall Standing As Though Nothing Could Fall is trying to communicate with the generations younger than us, John. I wrote the songs with them in mind. Some are even talking just directly to them. I hope some of them hear it. It’s understandable that it overwhelms us at our age. Every generation is and should be challenged by the ideas, culture and dreams of the generation behind it. But today there is something more troubling going on. And I worry how young people will respond, or how they feel about what they see and experience. They’re marketed to in ways we never experienced. Or at least by the time the flood started, we we’re old enough to discern. The disinformation via outlets is constant. I’m not saying they can’t find their truths and their happiness. But it sure seems a higher wall to climb these days. All of this and I haven’t mentioned the political landscape and the friction between philosophies and the debates over global issues and climate change and water and capitalism and unions and farming and food and pollution and security and work and religion and on and on and on. Geez, most peculiar times.

This leads perfectly into a topic I’ve wanted to cover: the evolution of the sound/style of your music. You began as a pretty straightforward guitar-bass-drums guy, and then introduced more textures with subsequent albums. Did that feel like a natural evolution, using the sounds you needed to properly convey the songs the way you wanted them to sound? I wonder too if it had anything to do with moving to a smaller label and doing things more on your own. It’s easier to use a drum machine than to book studio time and line up a drummer, I would imagine.

Then, as you’ve moved more fully into your current sound, which blends folk, rock and electronics rather seamlessly, do you embrace that as a better way to communicate with the younger generation?

That’s an interesting question and I want to try and answer it as honestly as I can. I wouldn’t say it’s been a necessarily conscious decision. More like a series of trees lying over the road that lead me to take several turns to get where I was headed. And I promise you, the sound will change again. I’m still searching.

But from there to here… I guess the first thing that I noticed when touring with May Day was that the room was full of men. And at that time, they were generally older than me. It was kind of weird, ya know? I wanted to reach all people. All races, nationalities and sexes. So that kind of put me off a little. Not that I have anything against men. Just, you know, diversity is a sign of real communication.

Second, and I don’t mean this creepily, I felt like there was some sex missing in a good bit of my earlier records. Though East Autumn Grin started to rub up against something. Pun kind of intended. But that would be my one complaint about the Alt Country/Americana scene that I came up in, the music generally has no sex. I know how this sounds. But real sex operates on a very primal level. Sex is part of Rock ‘n’ Roll. It’s essential to it actually. So that led me to want to understand feel and groove a little better. I actually experimented quite a bit with that on an album that never came out between East Autumn Grin and Concussion. If that album had come out, none of what I’m doing now would be a surprise. It was very ambient and beat driven and yes, even in 2000 I had one of the songs remixed by a NYC DJ whose name escapes me. I thought the emergence of house and techno was exciting because it was all about sex and freedom. Yes, it was formulaic and they had no songs, but they presented a degree of liberty and rage that rock music wasn’t really dealing in.

God, I’m going on and on. But I also grew up loving Eno and Joy Division as much as I love Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen. So honestly, these were all elements I wanted to welcome and hopefully help to redefine what a singer/songwriter can be. Because to be blunt, I love songs but the production for a lot of singer/songwriter stuff bore me to tears. It has no cinema. The good stuff always has cinema. Whether it’s produced into to it, or it’s just there by some magical means. Nick Drake had cinema. It wasn’t insert white guy here. He was special.

The other reasons were utilitarian. Particularly after I left the majors. The budgets were such that I couldn’t fully cast my records in the way I could on A&M. And that led to just accepting at times what I felt were performances or approaches on songs that weren’t quite right. There are few things worse for a songwriter than feeling that you did a disservice to a song. It’s hard enough to get a song heard, let alone if it’s wearing a funny hat and has got a wedgie because that day in the studio was clown car day. So I concluded that it’s unfair to hold others responsible for what imagination or my mouth seems unable to communicate. They weren’t getting paid enough to be put through too many paces. So I decided I would take the responsibility on myself and do the very best I could to get the music from inside my head to some recorded medium. Lately that’s a computer and some dented mics. And it’s been a very exciting journey into the unknown for me. These albums have been real exploratory and visceral challenges. I’m just as proud of them as I am of my big budget albums, partially because I shaped them with my own hands. This process is more like painting than being in a street gang. But like I said, that’s changing again. I feel a more gang approach guitar oriented album coming very soon. The idea is exciting me again. And that’s only when you should do something creative, when it excites you.

“This Is the Hill” is obviously a very hopeful track and clearly means a lot to you. Why is it a bonus track and not on the album proper? It fits with other tracks thematically (“I Want Peace,” “I Still Believe In You”).

“This Is the Hill” was intended as a postscript to the album, almost a summation or a provocation of sorts for a solution to the themes, troubles and heartaches on I Recall Standing As Though Nothing Could Fall. This album is looking at the small in us to find the big so to speak.

My writing over the years has changed from introspection and probably a fair amount of self-obsessed to a wider screen. There are some lines in a song called “We Will Not Be Lovers” by The Waterboys that have always stuck with me, and I’m pretty sure altered how I view us, all of us.

“Now the world is full of trouble, and everyone is scared. Landlords are frowning and cupboards are bare. And people are scrambling like dogs for a share. It’s cruel and it’s hard but it’s nothing compared to what we do to each other.”

Those lines kill me. They ring truer to me now than when I first heard them. The macro is found in the micro and vice versa. “This Is the Hill” traces a similar line, it is far from resigned. In fact it’s frustrated and disgusted. Many of the songs on I Recall Standing As Though Nothing Could Fall are tricky, they look like one thing, but they’re about something else. For instance, “I Still Believe In You” could be taken about two people, maybe lovers. But, it can also be about the minutia that separates up from our dreams. YOU in that song could be the dream itself, or YOU could be all of us, and our ability to preoccupy ourselves with diversion and entertainment while on many levels checking-out on the real plots in our lives as individuals and collectively.

listening to the 25th anniversary reissue of R.E.M.’s Lifes Rich Pageant didn’t spark the kind of nostalgia I perhaps expected, and if I think about it, that’s not a surprise.

Nostalgia comes from remembering the past. But with Lifes Rich Pageant, I’ve never allowed it to gather dust, to fall out of rotation. It might go a couple of months here or there, but it’s the R.E.M. album I come back to most often. That stems in part from the fact that it was the first I heard around the time of its release.  A stash of records left home one summer by a friend’s older college brother coupled with my box of Maxell XLIIs  meant that I discovered R.E.M. and a lot of other great music midway through high school, and never looked back.

One reason I return to this album again and again is that it is the most fun the band ever had. I love the three albums that precede it, and will readily admit that all three are artistically superior. But this one, particularly coming after the dour Fables of the Reconstruction, lets it all hang out.

So, with no real revelations to be had from the album itself, I looked instead to the disc of demos that accompanied it. There, one realizes that the album could have been very different.

I’ve always been a fan of the band’s earliest, pre-Chronic Town music. One of my favorite R.E.M. albums has always been the bootleg So Much Younger Then, which collects a dozen songs from an early set at Tyrone’s in Athens. I’ve since digitally collected several bootlegs that capture the same handful of shows, always hoping to discover one more early gem.

The band has let some of these songs leak out previously. “All the Right Friends” ended up on the soundtrack to Cameron Crowe’s “Vanilla Sky,” “Mystery to Me” was on the band’s double-disc IRS Years best-of, and “Permanent Vacation” was on a live iTunes collection a few years back. But with this demo disc, the best contemporaneous collection of these songs is now available. Early staples like “Wait” and “Mystery to Me” can now be added to the official canon.

These songs were demoed for Lifes Rich Pageant but ultimately left by the wayside. Can’t say I blame the band. I could do without “Underneath the Bunker,” but that’s the only thing I’d ever think of leaving off the finished album.  I have advocated for the band to get Bill Berry back in the saddle and spend an afternoon cutting a fanclub-only release of those early tracks, but I’m confident the drips and drabs of these archival releases is the closest I’ll get to that.

CONTEST: I have two copies of Everyone Loves You When You’re Dead to give away. To enter, leave a comment with the name of your favorite rock writer or favorite profile of an artist, and let us know why. I’ll draw two names at random on July 8.

Before reading Everyone Loves You When You’re Dead, my previous experience with Neil Strauss was limited. I knew that he had written for several publications, and that he had written books about Motley Crue, Jenna Jameson and pickup artists. His work for the former didn’t catch my eye in such a way that made me seek out his work the way I do that of folks like Greil Marcus or Ben Ratliff. And his work on the latter probably steered me the other direction. Strauss had cast his lot with those on the sleaze end of the spectrum, so I didn’t look to him for serious journalism.

The litany of names on the cover of his book made me curious enough to ask  the folks at !t Books for a review copy. When you’re promised interviews with R.E.M., Radiohead, Loretta Lynn, Johnny Cash, etc., it’s clear you’ll probably find something of interest. What I did not expect to do was read this cover to cover, nor did I expect to take away true insights. I did both, and in doing so, quickly realized that this is the best book about music I have read in years.

Why? Well, as Strauss tells it, it is because he did this right, which means that before he had done it wrong. As he writes in the introduction, once the interview is done, the writer is pressed by deadlines, the stylistic constraints of the publication and the whims of the editors. The real person gets lost.

He went back to the 3,000 interviews he has conducted and “searched for the truth or essence behind each person, story or experience. Often it came from something I had previously ignored: An uncomfortable silent, a small misunderstanding or a scattered thought that had been compressed into a soundbite.”

That might sound strange; isn’t that what profile writers try to do the first time around? Yes, that’s the idea every writer subscribes to, but it doesn’t happen very often. As you’ll find while reading this book, these are the snippets that get left behind when the narrative is crafted, the rough edges. For the most part, these feel like the rare moments when these artists were real. An interview is a dance, with the subjects working hard to put forth the version of themselves they want people to see, and the writers working hard to penetrate that shell.

The fascinating thing is to see Strauss, who I associate with caddish behavior if for no other reason than the company he keeps, being a sympathetic ear. If these transcriptions are truly accurate, then he is among the most gifted interviewers I’ve read, able to show true empathy and understanding. His genuine interest and positively gentle approach (or so I assume; it’s hard to fully glean that from words on the page) cause these artists to let down their defenses are share genuine thoughts and feelings.

As if that wasn’t enough, Strauss also won me over with the book’s format. It seemed too clever by half at first blush, interview snippets broken up throughout the book, ostensibly grouped in thematic bunches. But it works. You’ll get two pages of an interview with Robert Plant and Jimmy Page where they discuss the co-opting of their sound by artists like Lenny Kravitz, followed immediately by two pages of Kravitz expressing disbelief that anyone could hear Led Zeppelin in his music. All of the material from one interview may be spread over half a dozen snippets peppered throughout this 500-page tome, but as you pick up the rhythm of Strauss’ organization, you’ll find yourself surfing through this effortlessly, marveling at the connections being made from one artist to the next.

Even the index is entertaining, as Strauss eschews the typical listing of famous names to instead include entries for “Best car wash in L.A.” and “Guys who say they are never going to date models or actresses but then end up engaged to one.”

At the outset I said I didn’t seek out Strauss’ work the way I did my favorite writers and critics. With Everyone Loves You When You’re Dead, Strauss has vaulted to the top of that list. The interesting thing will be, now that he knows the right way to do things, will his profiles reflect it?

It’s funny; the term “singer-songwriter” is casually tossed around to indicate a certain sound, as if a guy singing his own songs sounds just like another doing the same thing. I’ve been guilty as much as anyone, falling back on the shorthand when searching for a way to describe something. Thing is, most people probably conjure something specific when they hear the term, something quiet, introspective. Maybe just a singer and a sensitively plucked acoustic guitar.

That serves as the base for one of two artists with new albums out now. Peter Bradley Adams is a quiet, introspective performer. His songs are sweet — sometimes falling toward the bitter end of that sweetness scale — and rarely rise above a polite decibel level. The other artist, Chris Velan, is positively raucous in comparison. Of course, that means he’s not terrible raucous at all, but his album is a spirited affair, a jaunty collection of songs that shake, shimmy and occasionally swagger.

So, why write about both of these guys at the same time? They have the same publicist who sent their albums for review at roughly the same time, and they were released around the same time. But the real reason is to point out the limitations of the “singer-songwriter” tag. These two would fit comfortably together on a bill, but no one would suggest that they sound alike.

Adams has the higher profile of the two, having been part of the acclaimed duo Eastmountainsouth. His new album, Between Us, is his fourth under his own name, and it ranks among his best. Adams moved from Nashville to New York between his last release and this one, and whilie there is nothing harried or urban about it, you can hear a change in songs. I might be reading into this, but there seems to be a longing here, a sense of loneliness that can only be experienced by someone isolated in a sea of people.

That solitude is conveyed in understated, gorgeous fashion. Adams is often joined by female vocalists here, including his former Eastmountainsouth mate Kate Maslich-Bode and Crooked Still’s Aoife O’Donovan. The only drawback is that there is a sameness in tone here. It would be nice to hear Adams tackle something with a backbeat, but he does what he does very well, so it’s understandable that he would want to stick with that.

Velan, in comparison, mixes things up. His fourth album, Fables for Fighters, is a spirited affair. The disc opens with the bouncy “Any Number of Ways,” a tune built on ukelele and handclaps.  That segues into “Oceans Ago,” a tune with the kind of beat I’d like to see Adams attempt. Nothing radical, but one that’ll have your head shaking while you hum along with Velan’s infectious melody.

Attempting to put my finger on the added ingredient in Velan’s sound, I hit upon it when reading a glowing review of his work on Jambase. While there is no aimless noodling here, I can see how Velan’s music would be embraced by jamband fans. His tunes are light and fun and are probably a blast to hear live. Listening, I’m put in the mind of a less-polished Guster fronted by Gary Jules.

Both artists seem to be hitting their stride on these fourth outings. they are very different — Velan offers a Saturday night record, while Adams’ soundtracks the following Sunday morning. Whatever you choose to call them, these two singers of their own songs are worth watching.

Having driven four hours to see them last time, undertaking a one-hour jaunt to catch the Baseball Project was a no-brainer. That first show was so good, it still ranks among my favorite shows two years later.

Last night, the Baseball Project added another show to that list. Improbable as it may seem for someone who has only a passing interest in baseball (the fact that current coverage of my favorite team boasts headlines like “What has happened to the Dodgers?” doesn’t help), I love this band.

Most of that affection comes because of my being a big fan of its two principles: Steve Wynn and Scott McCaughey. I’ve been a fan of McCaughey’s longer, having picked up my first Young Fresh Fellows LP back in ’86, but I’ve become a huge fan of Wynn’s over the past decade. The two together, augmented by the stoic Peter Buck (playing bass in a busman’s holiday of sorts from his other band) and the comely Linda Pitmon (that’s Mrs. Wynn to you), are dynamite. These may be songs about baseball, but they are Wynn and McCaughey songs first, and the tunes found on the band’s two platters (three when you count the limited Broadside Ballads collection) are among the best work either has done.

Thursday night at the Rock Island Brewing Co. in Rock Island, Ill., the band faced a line-up change: Peter Buck was out (benched? on the DL?), and his R.E.M. compatriot Mike Mills was in. Casting no aspersions on Buck, one of my favorite musicians of the past 30 years, Mills more than held his own. Playing his natural instrument (while guitarist Buck is not) and contributing those trademark high harmonies (where Buck doesn’t sing a lick), he brought an added dimension to the sound. Couple that with the addition of a keyboard player this time out, and this was even more musically satisfying than the last time out.

The band stuck to its two officially released albums at the start, opening with “Past Time” from Frozen Ropes and Dying Quails. They also tore through “Ted Fucking Williams,” “Gratitude (For Curt Flood),” “Broken Man,” “Jackie’s Lament,” and “Harvey Haddix” from that first album. The second album, High and Inside, yielded “1976,” “Panda and the Freak,” “Fair Weather Fans” (with a new verse from Mills to sub for Buck’s deadpan shout-out to the Washington Senators), “Don’t Call Them Twinkies,” “Chin Music,” “Ichiro Goes to the Moon” and “The Straw That Stirs the Drink.”

McCaughey only fronted one non-Baseball Project song, ripping through the Minus 5 romp “Aw Shit, Man!” Two, if you count the impromptu cover of Johnny Cash’s “I Still Miss Someone” that came between the set and the encore (“I’m not going off stage,” McCaughey said. “It’s too much work.”). Wynn, in contrast, had a lot more mic time, doing the Dream Syndicate classics “That’s What You Always Say” and “Days of Wine and Roses,” as well as his solo track “Amphetamine.”

The best crowd response, however, came for the millionaire among us. Mills opened the encore with a spirited version of R.E.M.’s “(Don’t Go Back To) Rockville.” The band seemed to be having a lot of fun on the classic, and it was fun to see Mills play the song in the kind of clubs his band left behind a long time ago.

The band stuck around after the show to chat and sign things, and we had long discussions about music, baseball and the incredible response to the band. McCaughey engaged in some analysis of the band members’ first-pitch performance at a number of major and minor league ballgames, and marveled at the spread afforded the band in a luxury suite at three consecutive Milwaukee Brewers games. They’re among the nicest people in rock, and deserve whatever success — or meat and cheese trays — that brings.