Word: womanities
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...means first coming to terms with the bizarre reality of this album: David Byrne, Fatboy Slim, and a host of guest singers narrating the rise and fall of Imelda Marcos, First Lady of the Philippines from 1965 to 1986. It’s an alt-rock opera about a woman most well known for the appalling excess of her collection of 3,000 designer shoes. As if that weren’t bewildering enough, it fails to cover the most well-known events of its subject’s life; Byrne, the album’s storyteller, omits Marcos?...
...with lyrics to match. Steve Earle, the only male vocalist on the album besides Byrne himself, growls, “There are many ways to win a game / And skill is not enough,” inviting the listener to imagine the pressure put on Marcos as a young woman striving for upward mobility in a society with no semblance of meritocracy...
...most of the sprawling 22-song album it feels like the difficulty of painting a sympathetic portrait of a woman who wants herself referred to as “Love” on her gravestone has been brushed over. But there are exceptions, moments in which Byrne chooses to face Marcos’s dark side: “Order 1081,” for example, describes the declaration of martial law enacted by her husband in 1972. Here Marcos’s character sings “Got to stop all this confusion / Got to wipe away the scar...
...before she dies. Abandoning his swiffer, he rushes to her side—but what begins as a redemptive romantic comedy turns twisted and eerie as soon as Don sets foot in his hometown. Sonny differs greatly from the girl McKay remembers, and seems strangely vital for a dying woman. Her caretakers, live-in nurse Marie (Melissa Leo) and Dr. Lance Pryce (James Rebhorn), are on suspiciously intimate terms with their patient. Remembering their long history together, Sonny asks Don to share her bed, and the two sleep together on his first night back. The following morning Dr. Pryce assaults...
...vocals and guitar, and because of its spare quality, her gorgeous voice and poignant storytelling are able to stand out. The song testifies to Marling’s ability to tell tales well beyond the scope of the average 20-year-old, convincingly recounting the experience of a woman who “found a babe atop a log and all alone / Took him under, took him on.” “Made By Maid” provides a calming respite from the grandeur of the more intense numbers, and impresses with its unadorned elegance...