Randy Newman

The Randy Newman Songbook

NONESUCH. CD/DL/LP The ultimate, undiluted concentrate of sweet and sour songwriting genius. Life has never imitated art with such a vengeance as the rise of Donald Trump and the songs of Randy Newman. This re-sequenced vinyl box of all songs on the two alreadyreleased volumes of The Randy Newman Songbook and those on the new third volume, simultaneously released alone on CD and digital, plus four bonus tracks, is a monument not only to his half-century of great songwriting but to this moment in history when all the bad Ameri-karma he’s so drolly, poignantly characterised and set to quavers and crotchets in that time achieves its purest distillation in The Donald’s tilt at the presidency. Of the 56 songs Newman revisits with just voice and piano doing all the work originally outsourced to bands and orchestras, there’s not a duff song or performance. This is the ideal binge listen for when they drop the big one.