(2019) Joan As Police Woman – Joanthology


Review:
Joan As Police Woman is a phenomenon. She’s one of those artists you’ll most likely have read about in a review for a major release like the Rolling Stone, in which she was described as “slinky” and “funky”, or in the German publication Musikexpress, a German take on the NME for sophisticated music collectors, which described her as a “unique mixture of pop, rock, and digital sounds”. And most likely you will have read those generic descriptions, maybe you’ve read about the roughness she had to endure, maybe you even listened to that one song that was presented in the article, but then, you kind of forgot about her again. Sure, that one song was great, but the generic, almost unexcited description of her music, combined with a name most Europeans won’t connect to the 80s US crime show, probably didn’t tickle your fancy very much. Well, be prepared to question yourself for the rest of your life. Because Joan As Police Woman will release a 3 CD retrospective of her career, and once you put it on, you will never understand how you could lose sight of that incredible artist. And you might question why the descriptions you read of her music were all kind of fitting, yet kind of not. Because Joan As Police Woman, or Joan Wasser, her given name, is not just “pop, rock, and digital sounds”. She’s not just “slinky” or “funky”. She’s absolutely brilliant, with hints of R’n’B, soul, blues, funk, rock, punk, new wave, and everything in between. No two songs sound the same. No exaggeration. They are all unique and different, yet they all are definitely by the same artist. Franz Kafka’s writing was so unique, so indescribable, the German language gave his writing its own adjective: it’s “Kafkaesque”. And maybe that’s what we needed if we wanted to put a label on Joan As Police Woman’s music: a new word. Her music is Joanesque. Brilliantly joanesque. But don’t take my word for it, get your hands on JOANTHOLOGY. On two discs you get every song she recorded, including a cover of Prince’s “Kiss”, and a new song titled “What A World”. On disc 3 you can listen to her “Live at the BBC”, which is also released as a standalone vinyl version. It’s another great compilation we get this year, and it’s a perfect introduction to anybody who was as unaware of her as me. It’s also a great way of hearing some of her harder-to-find songs, and a decent addition to any Sunday listening session.





Tracklist:

Disc1
01 - My Gurl
02 - The Ride
03 - Real Life
04 - Eternal Flame
05 - I Defy
06 - We Don't Own It
07 - Christobel
08 - Honor Wishes
09 - Hard White Wall
10 - Start of My Heart
11 - To America
12 - To Be Lonely
13 - The Magic
14 - Human Condition
15 - Run for Love
16 - Forever and a Year

Disc2
01 - What a World
02 - Flash
03 - Whatever You Like
04 - Holy City
05 - Get Direct
06 - Good Together
07 - Your Song
08 - Myrrhman
09 - Broke Me in Two
10 - Valid Jagger
11 - Steed (For Jean Genet)
12 - Tell Me
13 - Silly Me
14 - Warning Bell
15 - Kiss

Disc3
01 - To Be Loved (BBC Live)
02 - Start of My Heart (BBC Live)
03 - Human Condition (BBC Live)
04 - She Watch Channel Zero (BBC Live)
05 - Sacred Trickster (BBC Live)
06 - Holy City (BBC Live)
07 - The Classic (BBC Live)
08 - Magic Lamp (BBC Live)
09 - Let It Be You (BBC Live)
10 - The Silence (BBC Live)
11 - Damned Devotion (BBC Live)
12 - Steed (For Jean Genet) (BBC Live)


Summary:
Country: USA
Genre: indie-pop, indie-rock


Media Report:
Source: CD
Format: FLAC
Format/Info: Free Lossless Audio Codec, 16-bit PCM
Bit rate mode: Variable
Bit rate: ~ 952-1000 Kbps
Channel(s): 2 channels
Sampling rate: 44.1 KHz
Bit depth: 16 bits