Album Club flyer for February
Nearly everyone is familiar with the set up of a book club: a group agrees on a book to read and then gathers a month later to discuss that book after reading it. Apply that same dynamic to a classic record and you have Album Club, one of many monthly programs at Volume Two, the State Street linchpin of both literary and lyrical offerings.
Since August 2022 the queer and feminist-centric group has been gathering once a month to discuss a classic album chosen by the participants. This Monday evening, the platter being served up was Amy Winehouse’s already-classic Back to Black.
Dean Andrade leads and listens.
According to Dean Andrade, its creator and leader, the club was rooted in “very humble beginnings.”
“I was hoping to create an aspect of community based in my own interests,” Andrade said with a smile. A music lover originally from Naugatuck who has lived in New Haven since 2021 — “I graduated from Connecticut College on Thursday and moved to New Haven on Friday,” he said — he decided to “intentionally” choose all female artists as the focus of the club’s album choices.
“There’s less discourse for the artists we’ve covered,” he added. Some of the albums chosen thus far have included Blackout by Britney Spears, Hounds of Love by Kate Bush, and CrazySexyCool by TLC.
Andrade also wanted to make sure the club was democratic in how each album was selected, so each meeting ends with the group voting on which album to listen to and discuss the next month from a list of five to 10 albums curated by Andrade.
Back to Black, the second and final studio album by the late Amy Winehouse, became one of the biggest albums of that decade after its release in 2006. In a nod to that year, Andrade had the Billboard Top 100 of 2006 playlist playing in the background as participants arrived, leading to a spirited discussion of that year in music even before Winehouse’s music was brought up. (Fun fact: the number one song of that year was “Bad Day” by Daniel Powter, which the group concurred did not have the “staying power” of many of the other lower-ranked hits from that year.)
After going over the guidelines for the discussion with the group (“the idea is to have it be a collective,” Andrade told them; “I don’t want it to be like I’m the professor”) it was decided collectively to listen to one track together, even though everyone had already listened to the album multiple times before the gathering. The title song was chosen. With its echoes of old-school soul and lyrics dripping with sadness — “We only said goodbye with words / I died a hundred times / You go back to her and I go back to black” — the song was a fitting one to begin the discussion, and brought a variety of reactions from the small but passionate group of participants. One participant said it was one of their favorites. Another said they were not the biggest fan.
One participant asked what the “black” represented that she was going back to, which led to Andrade sharing some of the background information about Winehouse that he had researched, including her relationship with her boyfriend that inspired the album. “It gets pretty dark,” he noted.
There was also discussion of the “complete self-acceptance” Winehouse seemed to project, even though there was an obvious betrayal.
“There’s a confidence to her singing all the time,” Andrade noted.
The upbeat nature of the music was also discussed; the group found it to be in direct opposition to the lyrics, with one participant likening it to “Faces” by Mac Miller, another singer who died young.
The discussion veered in a variety of directions throughout the hour, including whether or not Winehouse would be relevant today if she was still alive. That became a discussion about fame and the detrimental effects of the music business, which, the group agreed, afflicted way too many performers far too often.
The participants agreed that Back to Black was a record they would go back to, some as a full album and others for certain songs. Andrade offered a final thought that “nothing sounds like her,” adding that she was a “big influence” in terms of “confessional songwriting,” and that she was “more raw” and a “different sound for the decade.” This prompted one of the participants to encourage Andrade to include a playlist from whichever year the album of the month is from at future gatherings. He agreed it would be fun to do again.
Andrade wrapped up the evening with a vote for which album to listen to for next month’s club meet up. Six choices were offered, including Janet Jackson’s Rhythm Nation 1814, Rid of Me by PJ Harvey, and Dangerously in Love by Beyonce, among others. After a bit of discourse and a brief clip of a PJ Harvey song, the group voted for Janet Jackson, who a couple of the participants has never listened to before and were eager to dive into. This reporter must confess that while she did not vote, that album would have been her choice as well. This reporter must also confess that she had such a fun time talking music and more in such a warm and accepting environment where everyone was given ample room to speak and choose that she may be back for that discussion next month.
Album Club is held once a month at Volume Two on either Mondays or Wednesdays from 7 to 8 p.m. More information about future club meetings can be found via Volume Two or by following New Haven Album Club on Eventbrite.