Wings For Wheels

The first song of hers I heard was Favorite. It was featured on a Bloodshot Records compilation that I’m pretty sure I bought in early 2001. It wasn’t just the sheer sound of her voice that struck me, but the way, at the end of each verse, she held the note, swooped up and then sunk down into the chorus. That was my introduction to Neko Case.

Still, it took me a few years to hear more from her. Some of my friends whose musical taste I explicitly trust had been telling me about The New Pornographers and their album The Electric Version, so I bought it unheard in 2004. Even without her participation, it would have been a classic piece of power pop, but her co-leads with leader Carl Newman on The Laws Have Changed and Miss Teen Wordpower, and her solo on All For Swinging You Around made it impossible for me to ignore her any longer (it should be pointed out that, in the interim, these friends had also been telling me about her solo work). I picked up their 2000 debut, Mass Romantic, and Twin Cinema as soon as it came out in 2005. Then it was time to delve into her work as a solo artist.

My first stop was her 2000 album Furnace Room Lullaby, her second album. Any hesitation I may have had about buying a record that had such a traditional country sound was wiped away in the three minutes it took to listen to Set Out Running, its opening song. It became even more apparent this was a once-in-a-generation talent.

With each new album, critics have praised her for assuming greater control of her voice. I disagree with that assessment. You only need to listen to the ending of Set Out Running, where she quietly holds a note for five seconds before sliding up an octave into her falsetto to know that she’s always had it. It’s also there in Thrice All American and We’ve Never Met.

What had changed, however, is that she removed the twang from her voice and started writing more melodies for her lower register. That’s why 2002’s Blacklisted is such an important album in her catalog, with I Wish I Was The Moon and Outro With Bees seen as pivotal songs in her development as a songwriter.

But it was the last three records she’s worked on that put her over the top for the Artist Of The Decade award.  Challengers was a change in direction for The New Pornographers. Songs like Adventures In Solitude and Go Places reflected a more mature outlook from Newman, and Case gave the songs a beauty and depth that couldn’t have been achieved if not for the artistic growth of her solo albums.

This is reflected in the two records that bookended Challengers. With eight songs under three minutes, two of which are under two, it could seem like Fox Confessor Brings The Flood is more of a collection of experiments or sketches than fully-formed songs. But Case has simply learned that most difficult of traits as a writer, when to stop writing.  You can’t listen to Margaret vs. Pauline, A Widow’s Toast (1:36), or That Teenage Feeling and come to the conclusion that they’re half-finished.

And it only got better in 2009 with Middle Cyclone, far and away my Album Of The Year. Case uses a lot of nature and animal metaphors, but her singing is even more more direct than usual, especially on the title track, This Tornado Loves You, and The Pharaohs. For all her growth as a songwriter, her gut-wrenchingly beautiful cover of Harry Nilsson’s Don’t Forget Me prove that she is still an incredible interpreter of other people’s material.

With eight excellent albums in ten years, and growth as a writer, singer and performer, Neko Case is Wings For Wheels’ Artist Of The Decade for 2000-09.