Pair mines past to stay current

Oberst, Newman both prized singer-songwriters

By PHIL GALLO

CONOR OBERST and Randy Newman don't have much in common musically, but they each have albums being released today. Their bond is methodology, substance and the effect of geography on a life.

Newman, who has dedicated more of his career to film work than to the songs that initially defined him, and Oberst, the leader of indie rock stalwarts Bright Eyes, rarely see their names in the same sentence. But examining their careers as a whole -- on the heels of analyzing the new albums -- shows how the definition of greatness among songwriters has not changed since the arrival of Bob Dylan.

Newman in 1970 and Oberst 30 years later made albums that sounded unique in their eras. Their new albums stay true to the styles of their earliest work and are among the most important released this year, particularly from a songwriter perspective.

Newman's intricately assembled "Harps and Angels" on Nonesuch is politically acid-tongued and emotionally heartfelt; Oberst's self-titled disc for Merge Records is reflective and raw -- he's a pessimist with a twang concerned about the moral decay of contemporary society.

Both songwriters established themselves by dredging up musical styles that were 20 or 30 years old: Newman blended Gershwin, rich orchestrations and New Orleans-flavored twists on rumba and country music; Oberst dove into the mid-1970s rock sound fueled by alcohol, rustic living and endless nights, sounds from the edge of burnout. Oberst's perspective has been Midwestern and, for the new album, he moved to a mystical area in Mexico; Newman's world is, of course, the South and Hollywood.

NEWMAN THRIVES in a world that emphasizes the craft of every element, from the arranging to rhyme schemes to maximizing the effect of his punch-drunk vocals. He elicits chuckles by poking fun at causes, the Supreme Court and evil politicians; his orchestral arrangements bear a complexity not heard elsewhere; and he toys with sentimentality in the wonderful "Potholes," which concerns the unsteadiness of memory lane, as only he can, deflating the heart after pumping it up.

Oberst is all visceral appeal, with a method actor's approach to storytelling. He treats the "Dylan for a new generation" tag as a guidebook and not as an albatross, and the first five tracks have the reclamation feel of Dylan's "Basement Tapes"; the last seven alternate between the urgency and the melodic heft of Dylan's 2001 album "Love and Theft." Like Dylan, Oberst has a Kerouac-like thirst for escape, and the album is bookended by extremes: "Cape Canaveral" reflects on the first flight to the moon; "Milk Thistle" (the title refers to a hangover cure) suggests the escape will be through the bottle.

In between, he looks to the road as a savior; in his Tom Petty-ish "Moab," he declares, "There is nothing that the road cannot heal." Staying in any unfulfilling place, he fears, will damage the soul.

IN THE 40 YEARS since the advent of singers performing their own songs, there are always a handful of songwriters setting the gold standard, the pinnacle of achievement. American music hit a real slump in the '90s, when setting diary entries to melodies was passed off as "confessional" and anyone mining pop or folk-rock that mirrored the '60s or '70s lingered in the underground.

Yet even as the Internet community rushes to proclaim greatness while an act is still trying to figure out how to play its instruments, the long-held theory about the power of three -- the idea that a string of three strong albums elevates an artist -- remains in place. That system for assessing Dylan, Joni Mitchell and John Prine is just as valid for Oberst, Jay-Z and Radiohead.

Oberst's album is his first under his own name since Bright Eyes ascended to head of the indie rock pantheon on the strength of 2000's "Fevers and Mirrors," 2002's "Lifted or The Story Is in the Soil, Keep Your Ear to the Ground" and the idea of releasing two wildly different albums on the same day in 2005. Those albums, the acoustic "I'm Wide Awake It's Morning" and the plugged-in "Digital Ash in a Digital Urn," had an intriguing payoff: The acoustic record earned him fans among old-timers who had heard the name but not the tunes; the youngsters were more keen on the electric record.

Newman's triptych of "12 Songs," "Sail Away" and "Good Ol' Boys," released between, 1970 and '74, set him apart from all other singer-songwriters of the day. "Harps and Angels," more than any other album in his career, returns us to those days of discovery, reminding us once again how singular a voice Newman remains.