Double compilation albums offer a lot of opportunity to find something new, re-visit someone old that you haven't listened to lately or an opportunity to be very disappointed over and over again. Dark Was The Night, the newest release from the Red Hot Organization (that super cool organization that raises money for HIV/AIDS education - www.redhot.org, check them out) offers all three of those things.
Starting off with David Byrne teaming up with the Dirty Projectors it starts off strongly although even Byrne has said that the Dirty Projectors are "completely strange and oddly familiar at the same time". He meant this as a compliment yet it basically sounds like an old Talking Heads song with a woman singing half of it imitating David Byrne. Not bad, just not amazing by any stretch of the imagination. Feist and Ben Gibbard team up for "Train Song" and Feist's peaceful voice teamed with Gibbard and a beautiful guitar riff or two makes this song a really peaceful and pleasant one.
"So Far Around The Bend" by The National rocks out with oboe's and smooth deep vocals. "Tightrope" by Yeasayer rocks the bastard lovechild sound of Rusted Root and Aaron Neville - which sounds better than you might think, shaky voice and all.
The second CD's highlights are Beirut's accordion tinged "Mimizan" and although the singer sounds a little too much of Serj Tankian, the music makes up for it. My Morning Jacket adds more proof that saxophone is not in fact sexy but that if used properly it can make a song more pleasant as in "El Caporal". It is Conor Oberst's duet with Gillan Welch, "Lua" may belong in the Juno soundtrack but it is all sorts of pleasant and lyrically quite clever. There is a reason why Bright Eyes garners more respect than Kimya Dawson - he deserves it.
All in all there are only five or seven real hits on this album and a whole lot of misses (Sufjan Stevens, you are not the Beatles, Cat Power, you are not soulful, and Kevin Drew, you are not clever or enjoyable at all).
All of the proceeds of this double set go to a terrific cause so there really is no reason not to buy it. Even if "Lua" were the only good song it would be completely worth it and fortunately for the Red Hot Organization there are enough hits that this whole album doesn't miss the mark.
