Albums of 2013

An excellent year, as noted below.

• Silver and Gold - Sufjan Stevens
• Beyonce
• Quality Street - Nick Lowe
• Shangri La - Jake Bugg
• Echoes of the Outlaw Roadshow - Counting Crows
• Reflektor - Arcade Fire
• Lightning Bolt - Pearl Jam
• Magpie and the Dandelion - The Avett Brothers
• Days Are Gone - Haim
• Mechanical Bull - Kings of Leon
• The Diving Board - Elton John
• The Last Ship - Sting
• Wise Up Ghost and Other Songs - Elvis Costello/The Roots
• The Electric Lady - Janelle Monae
• Hesitation Marks - Nine Inch Nails
• Another Self Portrait - Bob Dylan
• Invisible Empire/Crescent Moon - KT Tunstall
• The Civil Wars - The Civil Wars
• Southeastern - Jason Isbell
• Yeezus - Kanye West
• Ghost Brothers of Darkland County - Mellencamp, Burnett and King
• Random Access Memories - Daft Punk
• Wrote a Song For Everyone - John Fogerty
• Trouble Will Find Me - The National
• Annie Up - Pistol Annies
• Monomania - Deerhunter
• Modern Vampires of the City - Vampire Weekend
• Same Trailer, Different Park - Kacey Musgraves
• Bankrupt! - Phoenix
• American Kid - Patty Griffin
• Stories Don't End - Dawes
• Jake Bugg - Jake Bugg
• Old Yellow Moon - Emmylou Harris and Rodney Crowell
• The Jazz Age - The Bryan Ferry Orchestra
• Comedown Machine - The Strokes
• Sound City - Real to Reel - Dave Grohl and Friends
• Fade - Yo La Tengo
• Nuggets - Various Artists
• Agnostic Hymns and Stoner Fables - Todd Snider
• Three Chords Good - Graham Parker and the Rumour
• 19 - Adele
• Girl On Fire - Alicia Keys

13 Favorite Albums of 2013

It was a great year for music; at least the music that I like.  In recent years it's been a chore to come up with 10 albums deserving of a Top Ten, but this year I easily could have stretched the list to 20 (maybe even 25).  But it being 2013, I'll settle for 13.

Later on, I'll designate the "honorable mentions" that didn't quite make the list - albums that I enjoyed a great deal, and would likely have cracked the Top Ten in other years.  And just think - in less than two weeks, the new releases by Bruce Springsteen and Rosanne Cash will be out.  Happy New Year indeed!

Without further ado...

13) Magpie and the Dandelion, The Avett Brothers.  I may have underrated "The Carpenter," the brothers' last effort, but this felt like a return to form, with the production slickness turned down just a notch and the quirkiness of the songs a little closer to the Avett standard.

12) The Diving Board, Elton John.  This was the kind of album from a seasoned veteran that makes you wonder, "what the hell have you been doing for the past 25 years?"  Elton was never one for making perfect albums, so the consistency of this is as surprising as it is welcome.  His collaborations with Leon Russell and T-Bone Burnett have clearly reignited his creative engine, and Bernie Taupin provides a strong set of lyrics.

11) Shangri-La, Jake Bugg.  I've written about Bugg on several occasions this year.  Early on, I caught up with his 2012 self-titled release, and in November he came out with this Rick Rubin-produced nugget.  My guess is that he'll be a presence for an entire generation.

10) Hesitation Marks, Nine Inch Nails.  I have to admit that this is the first NIN album I've ever bought, so for me there is no base for comparison. What I heard here impressed me a great deal - slow ones, fast ones, all blanketed under an atmospheric clarity recalling the best of Joy Division or New Order.

9) The Electric Lady, Janelle Monae.  The concept remains odd, and a great deal of the album has a distinct late seventies vibe, but that's part of what makes it so appealing.  I continue to believe, as I did on first listen, that her best work is ahead of her.

8) Fade, Yo La Tengo.  I'd call this the comeback of the year, except that they never really went away - I just drifted away from them.  "Fade" demonstrates why they, a small indie band that much of the country probably knows next to nothing about, have been able to make it work for nearly 25 years.

7) Wrote A Song For Everyone, John Fogerty.  This may sound silly, but what a delightful album.  It's a blessing to the world that Fogerty has fully come to peace with his old (best) songs, to the point where he's able to record a version of "Proud Mary" that owes as much to the Ike and Tina version as Creedence's.  Every time I listen, I have a new favorite song.

6) Reflektor, Arcade Fire.  This could continue to move up over time, but for now this seems about the right spot for it.  Ultimately, it feels like they tried to do a little too much.  But I once felt that way about Talking Heads' "Remain in Light," so only time will tell.

5) American Kid, Patty Griffin.  It's not likely that Griffin will ever top "1000 Kisses," her 2002 masterpiece.  That she could come this close, more than a decade later, is good enough.  At their best, Griffin's songs are a living manifestation of the Bruce Springsteen line, "Take a knife and cut this pain from my heart."

4) Wise Up Ghost and Other Songs, Elvis Costello and The Roots.  Holy crap, Elvis - I honestly didn't think you had it in you.  Credit "Spectacle," credit Questlove, credit the band - whatever, it all works - the album he probably thought he was making back in 1980 when he released "Get Happy."

3) Trouble Will Find Me, The National.  With (what I call) an "atmospheric" band, sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't.  "Trouble Will Find Me" captures a sound, a tone and a mood from the very first chords and maintains it over the course of an entire album.  Hauntingly beautiful from start to finish.

2) Random Access Memories, Daft Punk.  My wife focuses on lyrics a lot more than I do, and she thinks this one suffers from a lack of meaningful content on that side of the equation.  It's a fair point, because this is, pure and simple, a dance album.  But it's a dance album with smarts, one that creates a seamless fusion of the best of 70s disco with the best of modern-day electronica.  Any album that brings together Nile Rodgers and Pharrell Williams has a lot going for it.  But notwithstanding the hit that needs not be named, the album's two triumphs are "Giorgio by Moroder," a tribute/homage to the great seventies producer featuring the man himself, and "Touch," featuring Paul Williams (the short white guy, not the Temptations' bass voice) in a song that by all rights should not work, but does.

1) Modern Vampires of the City, Vampire Weekend.  Rolling Stone picked it #1.  Pitchfork picked it #1.  It's an almost certain lock to top the Pazz & Jop poll.  And it's deserved.  It's as close to a perfect album as has been released in...oh, lets say a decade.  Everything works - the ballads, the fast ones, and everything in-between.  There are a lot of people out there who can't stand this band, and when the album came out, a lot of those people were tweeting things like, "For a band that I hate, this sure is a good album."

It's hard to pick just one song, but if forced by gunpoint, I'd go with "Ya Hey," if nothing else for these lines:

Outside the tents, on the festival grounds
As the air began to cool, and the sun went down
My soul swooned, as I faintly heard the sound
Of you spinning "Israelites"
Into "19th Nervous Breakdown"

Perfect.  Just perfect.



Coming soon - honorable mentions.  Happy New Year, everyone!

Echoes of Crows

I inadvertently left one album off of my late fall roundup, the latest from the erstwhile Counting Crows.

The Crows are a band that seems to be disliked by many, not to mention made fun of - SNL did just that a couple of weeks ago, including a pretty good sendup of Adam Duritz in a sketch about the worst cover songs of all time.  And hey, I'm not here to defend their version of "Big Yellow Taxi," but at the same time have to wonder how many people listened to last year's "Underwater Sunshine," comprised entirely of covers, including several by lesser-known bands who probably appreciated the attention.  It was a great album, quite possibly their best since the famous debut 20 years ago (!).

The new one is a live effort, and it's probably not going to win the band a lot of new fans, but for those who have been around since the beginning, it's well worth seeking out.  The Crows are a great live band, and on "Echoes of the Outlaw Roadshow" they cover most of the various eras of their long career, from "Round Here" (their all-time best song, and with a version that can only be described as epic) and "Rain King" at the beginning to "I Wish I Was A Girl" and "Up All Night" in the middle, and a couple of songs from last year's LP thrown in for good measure.  There are also some new covers, "Girl From the North Country" and "Friend of the Devil."

It's a good mix, from what obviously was a good show.  Adam keeps his histrionic tendencies in check, and the band sounds great.  Here's hoping the next one is just as good.

Fall Albums, Part 2

"Shangri La," Jake Bugg.  Jake Bugg doesn't turn 20 until next February, but with the release of "Shangri La," he's already got two outstanding albums under his belt.  There probably isn't a single track on the new album that equals the amazing "Lightning Bolt," but there are definitely subtle advances, which shouldn't come as a surprise given that Rick Rubin handled the production duties.  The album is more consistent, with the biggest advance coming on the slow to mid-tempo tunes.  The best song on the album just might be "Simple Pleasures," and it's a song I'm not sure he was capable of writing a year ago.  On the debut the slower songs came across as earnest if a bit sappy, while on Shangri La they have as much verve as the fast tunes (of which there are plenty).  In fact, there isn't a weak track on the entire album, and Bugg is beginning to sound like one of those artists who comes across once in a generation.  Right now, the sky is the limit, not unlike a rookie of the year in baseball whose second season is even more impressive than the first.

 

"Reflektor," Arcade Fire.  Right now I'm still having trouble getting my arms around this one.  There's no question that at it's best (the title track, "Normal Person" and "Joan of Arc," for example) this is the most exciting music released all year; however, it's not entirely clear yet whether the entire album meets that lofty standard.  The band deserves a lot of credit for pushing itself out of its comfort zone (although after four albums, it's a little hard to tell exactly what that comfort zone is), but there's something about the entire enterprise that feels a little cold, a little calculated.  The last two Arcade Fire albums were my favorites in the years that they were released, and this one still has a chance, but I'm not quite ready to make that claim yet for "Reflektor."

 

"Lightning Bolt," Pearl Jam.  Solid and dependable, a perfectly fine Pearl Jam album that will satisfy longtime fans but which is unlikely to reach a crossover audience.  A good example of a veteran band doing its job well.

 

"Days Are Gone," Haim.  As they made pretty clear on Saturday Night Live last weekend, Haim is more than a slick pop band, although being a slick pop band would be just fine with me.  Songs like "Falling," "If I Could Change Your Mind" and "Don't Save Me" are about as good and hard-edged as great pop gets.  And this is great pop, catchy and intricate in a way that never comes across as overly sappy.  At times, reminiscent of someone like Todd Rundgren at his best.

 

"Magpie and the Dandelion," The Avett Brothers.  It always worries me when I read that an impending album is comprised of songs that were recorded at the same time as the previous album.  That really worried me in this case, because I was a little disappointed in the "The Carpenter," especially on the heels of the brilliant "I and Love and You."  Fortunately, my worries were unfounded, because "Magpie and the Dandelion" is definitely a return to form, with songs that are true to the "Avett sound" but without the slickness that marred a good part of "Carpenter."  Opening the album with "Open Ended Life" was a masterstroke, because starting off with a fast song reminds people right off the bat that the brothers are about more than just ballads.  And there are plenty of the latter, as well.  Good show.



Fall Albums, Part One

Or, "let's see how all the old white guys are doing this year."

Kings of Leon, Mechanical Bull.  OK, it may be a stretch to call these guys "old," but they've been through a lot, and it's been almost a decade since "Aha Shake Heartbreak" put them on the map.  So if nothing else, they're old souls.

It may be a coincidence that there are songs on the new album titled "Comeback Story" and "Coming Back Again," but you have to wonder.  Their last LP, "Come Around Sundown," was such a desultory affair that to these ears, there was only one memorable song on the entire album.  The boys even bash it a bit in their current RS feature, which makes me wonder who I can write to in order to get my money back.

But all's well that ends well, so I'm happy to say that "Mechanical Bull" is a fine return to form, one of their strongest albums to date and perhaps even better than that.  The band doesn't cover a lot of new ground, they just go back to what they do best, and they do it very well.  Songs like "Rock City," "Don't Matter" and "Family Tree" jump right out of the speakers, with the familiar ringing guitars driving the way.  But there really isn't a weak cut on the entire album, so it's nice to welcome the Followill brothers back to the land of the living.

The Last Ship, Sting.  Caveat emptor: anyone buying this album expecting to hear something that reminds them of classic Sting or The Police needs to do a little research before plunking down the $9.99.  Better yet, I'll lay it out for you.  "The Last Ship" is a throwback to the days of the "concept album," a suite of songs intended for a yet-to-be produced musical about the heyday (and later, decline) of the shipping industry in Sting's homeland.  I wasn't sure if this was going to be my cup of tea, but I'm happy to say that as long as you accept the album for what it is, it's almost entirely successful.  Songs like "The Last Ship," "The Night the Pugilist Learned How To Dance," "What Have We Got?," "I Love Her But She Loves Someone Else," and "So To Speak" lay out the story in fairly easy-to-understand terms, and at times are surprisingly rousing and even moving.  Good show.

Elton John, The Diving Board.  Now, you have to remember that Elton was my first musical hero, to the point where "Honky Chateau" was the first album that I bought with my own money.  So, even though I've bought few of his records in the past three decades, I'm always disposed to like him, and in fact find it hard to understand how anyone could not admire what he's been able to accomplish.

Motivated by the success of "The Union," his 2010 collaboration with (and rescue of) Leon Russell, Elton is clearly trying to put himself back on the artistic map with "The Diving Board."  And the good news is that for the most part, he succeeds - while I'm not sure how much meaning this has at this late date, the new album is clearly his strongest effort in more than 35 years.  Producer T-Bone Burnett keeps things simple, and the sound is about as far from the Gus Dudgeon "throw in the kitchen sink" approach as you can possibly imagine.  At times, it almost sounds like the grandchild of "Honky Chateau," with driving, catchy tunes like "A Town Called Jubilee," "Take This Dirty Water," and "Mexican Vacation."  The ratio of ballads to rockers leans a little more to the former than I'd like, but several of the ballads, particularly the title cut, are among the strongest he's written in years.

So welcome back, Elton.  Very nice to have you back, indeed.

Wise Up Ghost, Elvis Costello and The Roots.  Elvis has certainly come a long way from that infamous night in 1979 when he got ridiculously drunk and, in an effort to be more obnoxious than members of Delaney and Bonnie's band, dropped the n-word on the world in the midst of an incredible monologue about the general worthlessness of American music.  That night impacted his artistic evolution more than one might imagine.  The first album he released following the incident, "Get Happy!," was clearly an attempt (albeit, a mostly successful one) to scream to the world, "I like American Soul Music!"  Right after that, released "Almost Blue," an entire album of country songs, just to hammer down the point that yes, he also liked other, whiter, genres of music from this side of the pond.  Given his efforts over the years, both artistic and otherwise, to support various causes and various diverse musical genres, it's hard to believe, almost 35 years later, that that night ever happened.

So why bring this up in the context of his new album with The Roots?  Because I think that, for the first time, Elvis sounds completely comfortable with the melding of genres, and can now make an album with The Roots, one with a very distinctive "American" sound, and not sound as if he's doing something to make up for past sins.  He can sit across from Questlove, as he does in a photo inside the album cover, and instead of thinking "look at that old white guy, trying to look cool," you think "Yeah, that makes sense.  Right on."

Put another way, "Wise Up Ghost" just might be the album that Elvis wanted "Get Happy!" to be.  It's an unqualified success, with some of the most memorable tunes I've heard from Elvis in many, many years - "Cinco Minutos Con Vos," "Walk Us Uptown," "Sugar Won't Work," "(She Might Be A) Grenade," and a "Pills and Soap" rewrite called  "Stick Out Your Tongue" all crackle with an intensity that reminds one of his first few classic albums.   A definite winner.

Bob Dylan, "The Bootleg Series Vol. 10: Another Self Portrait."  When the original "Self Portrait" was released, I was 10 years old, blissfully unaware of Bob Dylan, except for those handful of songs ("Lay Lady Lay" comes to mind) that a young, impressionable kid might hear on AM radio.  To this day I don't own that Dylan album, scared away (as I'm sure have been many others) by Greil Marcus' now-famous comment about it, "What is this shit?"

Listening to this two-CD set, which I'd say is yet another worthy entry in the Bootleg series, it's almost impossible to reconstruct what led to Marcus' comment, and that led an angry Jon Landau to call up Robert Christgau to suggest that the latter give the album a "D" in his monthly consumer guide (he gave it a C+).  Because all of this music, either alternate versions of songs released during that era, or unreleased songs from that era, sounds pretty damn good, and it fits in right along with all the rest of the great stuff in the bootleg series.

In a master stroke of marketing if nothing else, Columbia hired Marcus to write the liner notes for this edition of the series, and reading them you get the feeling that he recognizes this as well.  And when you think about it, you can begin to understand it.  Dylan had released a series of the greatest rock albums ever released in the mid to late 1960s, but wanted to branch out and try some new things (not unlike what he did when he went with an electric band for the first time).  But the audience, even discerning folks like Marcus and Landau, wanted nothing of it.

Cutting to the chase, if you're a Dylan fan, you should buy this album.  You won't be disappointed.

Electrifying Lady

The album begins with a brief overture, inspired (according to the inscrutable liner notes) "by the idea of Ennio Morricone playing cards with Duke Ellington."  OK, whatever.  A more accurate description would have included John Barry, the great film composer responsible for, among many other accomplishments, the scores for the first couple of decades of James Bond films.  But that matters little because the bottom line is that, on first listen, you couldn't fault someone for thinking, a la Greil Marcus about Dylan in 1970, "what is this sh*t?"

And then, 90 seconds later, comes the sound of one of the nastiest beats and guitar licks you've heard in quite some time, followed by Janelle Monae's strong, confident voice:

I am sharper than a razor
Eyes made of lasers

At that point you stop wondering what it all means; all you know is that you're going to believe anything coming from this young woman's voice.  And after the first chorus, when you think the stakes couldn't possibly be raised any higher, you hear the Purple One himself, contributing both vocal and "background acrobatics" (I think that means guitar solo).  But this isn't the Prince of "Purple Rain," this is a throwback all the way to the Prince of "Dirty Mind," when there was but one thing on that young man's mind, that one thing prompting Robert Christgau to comment, "Mick Jagger might as well fold up his penis and go home."  No doubt about it - you don't need to understand the lyrics to understand that this is a dirty song, both in music and words.  It's called "Givin Em What They Love," and you can almost imagine Monae saying to herself, "Yeah, Robin Thicke, I got your blurred lines right here, buddy."

It's also the best song on the album, and the most exciting, but what makes "The Electric Lady" one of the best albums of the year is that there are quite a few other songs that almost match it in quality and tone.  And if you've seen the clip of Monae performing "Dance Apocalyptic" on Letterman, you know that she's also a performer cut in the James Brown mold, leaving absolutely nothing on the stage.

Throughout the course of the album's 14 songs, Monae manages to evoke memories of Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, Anita Baker, and of course Prince, all the while sounding as if she made all this stuff up herself.  Not every song matches the quality (or the sheer vibrance) of the best songs (the aforementioned two, plus "Q.U.E.E.N.," the title track, "Can't Live Without Your Love," "Dorothy Dandridge Eyes"), but they are never less than interesting, and the "interludes" (which contain the album's narrative, which frankly makes no sense to me) are entertaining if completely nonsensical.

"The Electric Lady" is not a perfect album, and there are times when it seems as if Monae hasn't yet figured out exactly what her strengths and weaknesses are.  It's probably a little long, which hardly makes it unique in this era of hour-plus records.  But these are all minor quibbles, because this also most definitely sounds like a great artist trying to find herself, not unlike Prince back in the late 70s and early 80s.  And if it all comes together someday and she releases her "Purple Rain," well watch out - because that will be truly scary.

American Triumph

If justice were to prevail, Patty Griffin would be a household name in the world of music, and her 2002 masterpiece "1000 Kisses" would be discussed in the same breath as American classics like "The Band," "Blood on the Tracks," and "Nebraska."  In the world in which we live in, as Paul McCartney might say, the story is a little different.  I've no idea how many records she sells - I could be wrong, but I doubt her albums go platinum -  but over the last decade Griffin has comfortably occupied and even solidified a notable position in the Americana genre, admired and even loved by devoted fans but residing just outside the periphery of mainstream stardom.  At this juncture, she's probably better known by many as being the current companion of Robert Plant, with whom she has toured and recorded, filling quite adequately the niche established by Alison Krauss on her album with Plant, "Raising Sand."

Since "1000 Kisses," Griffin has not been terribly prolific - two studio LPs that were good but didn't come close to approaching the greatness of her 2002 triumph, a live recording, and "Downtown Church," a compelling but unusual and somewhat inconsistent concept album incorporating old folk and gospel songs with just a couple of Griffin originals.

That all changes with "American Kid."  It is without question a great album; just how great it is will be determined with time.  It's too early to tell, but I suspect there will come a day when Griffin fans engage in strong but good-natured arguments over whether "1000 Kisses" or "American Kid" is the artist's best - the way that devoted fans to this day discuss if not argue about the relative merits of "Rubber Soul" and "Revolver."

The songs on the new album were inspired by Griffin's father, but they tell a universal story about a man - a kid, really - who goes to war and comes home profoundly changed by the experience.  It is a testament to the album's strength that many of these songs could be talking about veterans in any American war - from the Civil War on down to the recent conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.  The sites may have changed, but the stories remain the same.  Consider these lyrics, from "Not a Bad Man":

I bet you see a stranger
When you look at me
When I look in the mirror
I know that's what I see
I just want a little sleep now
Sleep as silent as the snow
But I am not a bad man
I just wanted you to know

Or these, from "Faithful Son":

Oh, my God
I cry in fear
Afraid you have forgotten me here
Afraid you have forgotten one
Your quiet, dull and faithful son
Who's seen the loneliest of days
And fought the dirtiest of ways
With the main inside
Who would have run away
From the promises I made

The musical approach of the album hearkens back to Griffin's 2002 triumph - for the most part, guitar, bass and percussion, with the occasional banjo or mandolin thrown in for good measure.  And there is also a chilling beauty in many of the songs, particularly two ("Ohio," and "Highway Song") on which the aforementioned Plant sings harmony vocals.

It was too much to ask of Griffin that she replicate the success of "1000 Kisses" on every one of her recordings.  That she has been able to do it at all is reason for jubilation and celebration.  

Not Fade Away: Yo La Tengo

According to Wikipedia, Yo La Tengo formed in 1984, and has been recording albums under that moniker with the same personnel since 1992.  Nearly all of their albums have been critical hits, but for some reason the band has never  penetrated my consciousness with any regularity.  The first album of theirs that I bought was 1990's "Fakebook," an acoustic outing that turned out to be almost entirely different than the rest of their catalog.  I've bought one or two others, including their anthology, but for the most part they've been a band that I respected more than actively enjoyed.

I'm not even sure what possessed me to buy "Fade," their new album released in January.  It may have been some enthusiastic tweets from Michele Catalano, or the A- that Christgau awarded the album on his Expert Witness blog.  But whatever the reason, I'm glad that I did because "Fade" is clearly the record to beat for 2013 album of the year, a consistently strong work that strikes a perfect tone from its very first chords and maintains that tone throughout, when the album fades out behind a "joyful cacophony" of guitar, bass, drums, strings, and horns.

It's a very modest album, reminiscent of Jack White's "Blunderbuss" in that guitarist Ira Kaplan never feels the need to show off his chops in a "listen at me, I'm an underappreciated guitar genius!" kind of way.  The music is beautiful, an atmospheric mix that bands like Grizzly Bear (and even, forgive me, Bon Iver) could only hope to approach on their best days.  The highlights for me are "Ohm," the album's loudest tune that evokes a bit of Arcade Fire, "I'll Be Around" (not the Spinners classic hit, although there is a great video on YouTube of the band covering that song), "Before We Run," the closing song, and most of all "The Point of It," which simply is a gorgeous song.

If there is a better album released this year, that would be a great thing, because the bar set by "Fade" is so high that it would need to be really good.