La Fin de La Semaine Essay Question: Special "Have You Never Been Mellow?" Edition

From his just released (last week) The Air That Your Breathe, please enjoy friend of PowerPop© and moi Lance Cowan and the album's utterly haunting title track..

...and the equally insinuating...

Those are my two favorites on the record, but trust me -- the rest of the songs are similarly terrific and will get under your skin post-haste.

Attentive readers will recall my raving about Lance's work in these pages previously, but if you missed those here's the backstory. Lance's day job is as Nashville's savviest music publicist. I've known him in that capacity since the '90s, and over the years (both when I was a small bigshot at The Magazine Formerly Known as Stereo Review and, more recently, as a poor scribbler at this here blog) he's hipped me to a lot of great stuff I might otherwise not have heard (thanks, Lance!). Ironically enough, however, I only vaguely knew that he also had an out-of-the-office secret identity as a singer/songwriter.

The new album is very much of a piece with his earlier efforts, which is to say it ain't a rock record of the type that usually is the subject of my postings here. But however you categorize it-- folk/country/Americana/whatever -- it's inarguably wonderful. Lance's songs are literate, melodically memorable, and poignant on subjects both contemporary and historical (like "William Cooper Smith," an old West saga that touches a remarkable number of bases). And as I've noted before they're sung by him in a deeply affecting Bruised Everyman voice that I'd kill to have. I should add that the instrumental backings are sheer understated perfection; the delicate, almost chamber music-ish acoutic guitar and piano interplay on the opening of the title song is the most ineffably lovely listening experience I expect to have in my apartment anytime in the forseeable future.

But enough of my yakking; you can find out more about Lance, and buy the new album (and the two that preceded it) at his official website OVER HERE.

In any event, all of the above leads inevitably and inexorably to the subject of today's business. To wit:

...and your favorite (or least favorite) post-Elvis pop, rock, country or folk album whose arrangements are mostly/largely driven by acoustic instruments is...???

Discuss.

In case you were wondering, my candidate for least favorite is the album this is from.

The aforementioned attentive readers are aware I'm in that weird/tiny critical minority who thinks this is the most soporific and overrated album in music history, but that's a subject for another time. 😎

So alrighty then -- what would YOUR choices be?

And have a great weekend, everybody!!!