Music
V/A
Rogues Gallery: Pirate Ballads, Sea Songs & Chanteys
- Issue 8.35
- Wed, August 30, 2006
GENRE | SEA CHANTEYS
VERDICT | ARRR HIGHEST RECOMMENDATION
LABEL | ANTI-
RELEASE | 8.22.06
ANTI.COM
If there was any doubt that Anti- is one of the most badass labels ever, here’s 43 old sea songs sung by the likes of Nick Cave, Lucinda Williams, Jack Shit, Jolie Holland, Lou Reed, Rufus Wainwright, John C. Reilly, Bryan Ferry, Ralph Steadman, Bono, and, yeah, OK, Sting. Still, the concept is genius (Pirates of the Caribbean director Gore Verbinski and star Johnny Depp pulled it together). Nick Cave’s version of “Fire Down Below” is as sinister as you’d expect, and about 100 times more vulgar; and Three Pruned Men’s “Bully in the Alley”—with the refrain “Help me, Bob, there’s a bully in the alley!”—is completely demented. Other tracks play less on cutlass-hurling, whore-puncturing debauchery, and more on the strangeness and loneliness of a life at sea, like Bill Frisell’s “Spanish Ladies” and Akron/Family’s haunting “One Spring Morning.” Of course, with a collection this size, there are going to be misses—like Loudon Wainwright III’s two offerings, which suggest he doesn’t know what “pirate” means, much less what one’s supposed to sing like—but all in all, Rogues will make you want to grab a parrot, don the eye patch and go blast some holes in the hull of a Duck Boat.
