The Lillywhite Sessions
Dave Matthews Band
by Keith Roman

Consider what strange and wondrous times we live in. This is especially true in regard to the technology that created the situation that made this review possible. Consider that there are two industries being completely reinvented by digital technology — photography and music. The former has embraced the changes and is morphing to conform to the reality that film cameras will be the stuff of tinkerers and hobbyists within another 10 years. With the mp3 controversy, the latter industry is being dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century, and the big labels are being exposed for the anachronistic dinosaurs they really are. Case in point, The Lillywhite Sessions by the Dave Matthews Band.

Has DMB’s Everyday album left you and your friends sighing a collective “Huh?” yet? Well, Everyday wasn’t the CD the Dave Matthews Band originally planned to release. They initially recorded 13 songs with mega alt-producer Steve Lillywhite. These were the songs they road-tested on their summer tour. Reportedly, some suit at the record company gave the songs a listen, with the bottom line lingering prominently in his consciousness. The appraisal was that, “They weren’t hearing it.” Matthews scrapped the songs and hooked up with megaproducer Russ Ballard, writing the tepid tunes of Everyday in two weeks. The story might have ended there, with Everyday soaring up the charts because it is more indistinguishable from the rest of the fluff on the radio than previous DMB efforts, but someone put the Lillywhite songs out on Napster. Napster has since blocked the songs, but a search under “Lillywhite Sessions” on the Gnutella network quickly reveals their widespread availability.

The “Which is better, Everyday or Lillywhite?” question has been daily fare on the Dave Matthews newsgroup for several weeks. To be fair, I believe the ideal new Dave Matthews release lies somewhere between these two works. If The Lillywhite Sessions had been released instead, people would be saying, “Oh well, more of the same.” The Lillywhite Sessions harken to the passionate songwriting of Under the Table and Dreaming, and not the innovation of Beyond These Crowded Streets. Unlike Everyday, however, The Lillywhite Sessions is more of a group album. DMB’s greatest assets are not to be found in their growling namesake, but rather in the men backing Matthews up — especially Carter Beauford on the kit. All of the trademark excellent musicianship horribly, horribly, horribly missing on Everyday is present in full force on the Lillywhites.

And what of the songwriting? While Everyday drones along at a continuous high-energy pace, The Lillywhite Sessions takes the listener to much higher highs and the lowest of lows. Songs like “Grey Street,” “JTR,” “Grace is Gone,” “Captain” and especially “Bartender” represent some of Matthews’ greatest songwriting, and leave one asking “Every-who?” Songs like “Digging a Ditch,” “Raven” and “Kind Intentions” are at the other end of the spectrum, but likable enough. The rest of the tunes are somewhere in between, and I appreciate them more with each listen. Lyrically, this album is very dark, emerging from Matthews’ period of depression, making it that much more appealing to my artistic soul. Which is better? All I know is there is a set of mp3’s being repeated till the grooves are too worn to play, while I’m not sure where my CD is.

It is the fare of college classes to debate whether glorious Capitalism always produces excellence. If this question should emerge from your professor’s lips, answer by citing two examples in which our economic system values least-common-denominator bilge over excellence: Microsoft Windows and Everyday. Record companies? That sound you hear in the distance is the fat lady singing.