You know about the whole pride-in-ownership thing that comes when you turn a bunch of people on to a great record? This week’s record on The Philebrity Player was a real get for us, and we’re pleased to show it off in exactly that way. Lots of people already know about M Ward, sure, but we look forward to a day in which he’s the new Ray Charles or Louis Armstrong or Bob Dylan ‚Äî you know, someone whose music belongs to everyone. (Important backstory: Recently, Philebrity and David Dye of WXPN, for a few moments, actually began to pursue the mechanations needed to actually proclaim today “M Ward” day. We were going to give him a key to the city made of gold-wrapped chocolate, and pipe his music through every subway car and urban corridor. Sadly, however, we could not find adequate funding.) So this is the best we can do: Post-War, the new M Ward album, which is sad and funny and beautiful and as classic a set of American music as, say, Workingman’s Dead or What’s Going On? To say the least, we dig it. There is something about this record ‚Äî and the music of M Ward in general ‚Äî that makes you feel like you are standing at the dawn of time itself with the person you love, and the two of you are both laughing your asses off at all of the magnificence and danger you will pass through together. At one point, Ward’s craggy and intimate voice casts off this nugget:

God it’s great to be alive
takes the skin right off my hide
to think I’ll have to give it all up someday.

Maybe we’re not so screwed after all.
Click here to launch M Ward on The Philebrity Player
M Ward: “Chinese Translation” [YouTube]
M Ward: Official Site
Myspace: M Ward
M Ward plays the Theater Of The Living Arts on Saturday, Sept. 16.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 12th, 2006 at 3:57 pm.