Favorite Albums of 2009

I should start off by saying that I probably bought fewer albums in 2009 than I have in any year since 1977. And if it wasn't for a certain friend (she knows who she is), I might not have had a favorite album this year. But, here goes:

1. "Oh My God Charlie Darwin," The Low Anthem. I guess I would call this my "Fleet Foxes" of 2009. Beautiful, haunting songs, and then all of a sudden they decide to channel Bob Dylan and Tom Waits. Great stuff.

2. "I and Love and You," The Avett Brothers. Country alt-pop from a couple of guys who have been around for a while, but I'd never heard of. Produced by Rick Rubin, the songs are direct, catchy, and in several instances, thought-provoking. We'll be seeing them in April, when they visit Sacramento.

3. "Wait for Me," Moby. He's done a lot of good stuff since the epochal "Play," but this was the first album since then that made me think that someday, he might match it. "Study War" is as good a song as he's ever recorded.

4. "Cuz I Sed So," New York Dolls. A New York Dolls album produced by Todd Rundgren? The last time that happened, I was 14 years old and still listening to AM radio. I don't know what's gotten into David Johansen - maybe all those years as Buster Poindexter really did re-energize his creative batteries.

5. "The List," Rosanne Cash. "The List," of course, referring to the list of 100 essential songs that her father wrote for her when she joined him on tour back in the 1970s. I'd love to hear more, and I'd love to hear her work with another producer (John Leventhal's work still comes across as too soft to me), but this is just more proof that she's among the best of her generation.

6. "Together Through Life," Bob Dylan. After three consecutive masterpieces, Dylan delivers a solid, very good but not great album. And that's OK - after all, there was a time when a very good album would have been hailed as the next coming.

7. "Working on a Dream," Bruce Springsteen. He never really embraced this on tour, which I think confirms everyone's suspicion (except Rolling Stone, of course, which said that it was his best album since "Born to Run") that is was a throwaway. But think of it as his "Yesterday and Today," and you can enjoy it on its own terms - a fun album, recorded on tour, by an artist who at this point in his life deserves to do whatever he damn well pleases. Docked a notch for "Surprise, Surprise," the worst song he's ever put on an album.

8. "Electric Dirt," Levon Helm. Yeah, there's a lot of old white guys on this list. I should probably do something about that in 2010. But this was really good - way better than anything Robbie Robertson has put out since The Last Waltz.

9. "For Emma, Forever Ago," Bon Iver. Yeah, I know this came out in 2008, but it took me that long to finally "get it." I still think it was a bit overrated, but I've come to enjoy and appreciate it a lot.

10. "Secret, Profane and Sugarcane," Elvis Costello. When he made a country album in 1981, he was laughed out of the building. Now, he's got the chops to pull it off.

The jury's still out on Pearl Jam's "Backspacer" and Neil Young's "Fork in the Road," but they both contain songs that I've actively enjoyed.

And that's all she wrote, folks! In terms of my Top 25 of the Decade, the only ones on this list that could have cracked it were #1, 2, and 3.

Pop Album of the Year?

I've always been a sucker for a good hook, and I've always had a healthy respect for Euro-pop, even if I've never made it a steady diet. So it was probably inevitable that I'd like Wolfgang Amadeus, the new album by the French band Phoenix.

As noted below, this was a purchase by son #2, and I freely confess that I'd never heard of the band until he started talking about them two days ago. But they've been around for a while, and their music demonstrates a confidence that should turn this into a hit, however that is defined in this day and age. I've only given it a handful of listens, but I like it better than anything I've ever heard from Franz Ferdinand, and it sunk in a lot quicker than Vampire Weekend, just to name two bands that Phoenix remind me of.

The key with "hooky albums" is always whether the hooks will retain their power over time. You just never know; sometimes a song that sounds terrific for the first few dozen times becomes incredibly annoying after six months. But right now it feels like these songs have enough sophistication and variety to maintain their appeal - Check back in later, and we'll see for sure.

Favorite song, so far:

Dylan Ups The Ante, Again

With each new Bob Dylan release since 1997’s remarkable Time Out of Mind, the stakes have gotten increasingly higher. Opening up each subsequent record, one had to wonder to themselves - just how long will Dylan’s late career renaissance continue? Will he eventually come crashing down to earth, as he did in the late 1970s? And when those subsequent releases – 2001’s Love and Theft and Modern Times, released in 2006 – were masterpieces at or near the level of Time Out of Mind, it had reached a point where one could almost be forgiven for hoping that Dylan would quit while he was ahead.

But quitting while he was ahead has never been in Bob Dylan’s nature. And after a week of living with Together Through Life, there’s little doubt in my mind that the album belongs in the same rarified air as the three classics which immediately preceded it. In feel and scope, it’s much different – this is one hard-boiled record, one that could easily serve as the soundtrack for a James Ellroy novel. The tone is set from the very first notes of the first song on the album, “Beyond Here Lies Nothin’.” When David Hidalgo’s accordion glides its way into the tune, you can imagine Bucky Bleichert in “The Black Dahlia,” making his way through a mysterious and dangerous Tijuana, in search of his partner Lee Blanchard. Nothing is as it seems, except for the possibility that death could be around every corner.

The album was recorded by members of Dylan’s touring band – George Recile on drums, Tony Garnier on bass, and Donny Herron on a variety of instruments – joined by two well-known guests, the aforementioned Hidalgo (Los Lobos) and Mike Campbell, the great long-time guitarist for Tom Petty. Hidalgo’s accordion drives the music on several tunes, most notably on the album’s closer, “It’s All Good.” This is the song that will be quoted most often, and for good reason – not since Bruce Springsteen’s “Reason to Believe” has a song more accurately depicted what people in this country are feeling at the moment – it’s funny, sardonic and tough as nails:

People in the country, People on the land.
Some of them so sick they can hardly stand.
Everybody would move away if they could
Its hard to believe but its all good.
Yeah... [chuckles]

Mike Campbell fits into the band as if he’s been a member his entire life, and serves as the perfect example of the absolute mastery Dylan has over his music right now. Because this sounds nothing like the Mike Campbell you hear on Tom Petty’s records. As Douglas Brinkley chronicles in an excellent article in the current edition of Rolling Stone, Dylan knows exactly what he is looking for with his current sound, and if that means he is the only person capable of playing the keyboard sound he wants, then so be it – behind the keyboard he will stand.

The sound of Together Through Life is a late-night sound, the sound of a band entirely sure of itself and ready to attack the songs, not just play them. Dylan’s vocals match the ferocity of the playing – he doesn’t sing so much as he growls, but it’s a voice with great power. Listen to him on “It’s All Good,” and compare that to how he sounded 20 years ago on “Everything is Broken” – there’s a weight to the voice now that just wasn’t there on the earlier tune.

There’s not a lot of lightness on the album, but one exception is the music of “If You Ever Go To Houston,” again featuring Hidalgo’s accordion. But then the words kick in, and you know that you’re back in familiar, dangerous territory:

If you ever go to Houston
Better walk right
Keep your hands in your pockets
And your gunbelt tight
You’ll be asking for trouble
If you’re looking for a fight
If you ever got to Houston
Boy, you better walk right

Real light-hearted, eh?

What this album proves, as if there should have been any doubt, is that one should never underestimate Bob Dylan. He’s going to plow new ground for as long as he stands on this Earth, and we should all be thankful that he still has the goods and the chops to pull it off.

U2's Fine Line

I own every album that U2 has recorded, but I wouldn't call myself a passionate fan. I've never seen them live - I'd like to, but at the same time would hesitate shelling out the big bucks that their concert extravaganzas demand these days.

Observers and critics of the band seem to fall into two camps - those who consider "The Joshua Tree" to be their masterwork, and those who prefer the band's more experimental turns on records like "Zooropa" and "Pop." I'm firmly in the former category, and believe that the band is most effective when it stays within the confines of a more mainstream approach. I thought "Zooropa" and "Pop" were self-indulgent and sometimes unlistenable, and off the top of my head not a single track from either one comes to mind.

The album where the band stretched the limits of its ability to greatest effect was "Achtung Baby," and the new album - "No Line on the Horizon" - reminds me in tone and substance of that record. It bends the U2 template, but doesn't break it. There are still songs ("Magnificent") which contain the instantly recognizable guitar chords that are unique to the sound of Edge, but there are also songs ("Fez - Being Born" being a good example) where the band tries some new things, plays around with the song structure, and comes up with something powerful in the process. And then there's "Get On Your Boots," which doesn't really fit in with the rest of the album, as if the boys sat down in the pub one night and said, "by God, we are going to have a hit single!" You're either going to like it or hate it, and I like it.

The production is again by stalwarts Brian Eno and Daniel (called "Danny" on the liner notes) Lanois, with the usual assist from Steve Lillywhite. Eno and Lanois pride themselves on forcing the band out of their comfort zone, and you can hear their influences all over the record. The album's last song even borrows part of a tune from Harold Budd, sometime Eno collaborator, which appeared on "The Pearl" (to this day, my favorite Eno ambient album). Overall, there's no question that the album sounds great.

And then, of course, there is Bono, one of the most recognizable pop stars, for better or worse, on the planet. When Bono sings, you immediately know that you are supposed to listen to the words, that something important is going on. To be perfectly honest, I couldn't care less. You can debate all you want about whether Bono is one of the planet's most notable humanitarians or just a naive political hack, but for this listener his band has always been about the sound.

And this one, although it may not be the greatest album U2 ever made, sounds pretty darn good.

The Last Testament of Johnny Cash

I can't remember when I first noticed "Unearthed," the 5-CD box set released shortly after Johnny Cash's death in 2003. It might have been a mention in Greil Marcus' "Real Life Rock" column, and it might have been during a perusal of the box set aisle at Best Buy. But one thing was certain - once I knew about it, it was only a matter of time before I bought it.

Well, it took a while. A box set of that size doesn't come cheap, and I can attest through five years of looking that the damn thing never goes on sale. Even today, on Amazon.com it is selling for $71. But eventually the watching paid off, and just after the new year I found a used copy on sale for $49.99, right at the moment when I found myself with one last Christmas gift card to spend.

The set is a magnificent testament to the Johnny Cash-Rick Rubin collaboration. If Rubin had done nothing else in his career, he would deserve to be recognized in rock history for rescuing Cash from the syrup and strings that his latter-day producers seemed bound and determined to force him into. The genius of it all is in its simplicity - I'll let Johnny sing whatever comes to mind, every now and then suggest a song that he probably wouldn't discover on his own, and then back him with the basics. And it worked - through four albums (and one released posthumously), the collaboration clicked, and in the last decade of his life Cash may have recorded more great music than he had in the twenty years before that. It's the kind of treatment that all great artists deserve, and we should all be thankful that it was so successful.

The first three discs are "out-takes" from the American Recordings sessions, but only in the sense that they didn't make it onto whichever album was being recorded at the time. There's not much to distinguish the quality of these songs from the quality of those which did end up on the albums, and in some instances it's surprising that the "Unearthed" songs didn't make the final cut. The first disc is all acoustic, just Johnny and his guitar. There isn't a bad song to be found, but the highlights for me are "Long Black Veil," "Banks of the Ohio," and "I'm Goin' to Memphis."

A good portion of Disc two is comprised of songs recorded with Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, and you can feel their enthusiasm on every track. As the extensive liner notes make clear, the band was awed and honored to be in the studio with Johnny, and they do themselves proud. In the notes, Petty himself ventures the opinion that the band never played better. Johnny does an admirable job on two Neil Young classics - "Heart of Gold" and "Pocahontas" - but the real highlights are the songs where Carl Perkins plays guest star ("Everybody's Trying to Be My Baby," and "Brown-Eyed Handsome Man") and an incredible duet with June, "As Long As the Grass Shall Grow."

On the third disc, you can really hear the age show up in Johnny's voice - but that just lends the songs more power and poignancy than they otherwise might have had. On "Wichita Lineman," you can hear him straining to hit the high notes, even though the song is played in a lower pitch than Glen Campbell's original. But it was with the later work that Rubin really proved his mettle as a producer. It's nothing fancy, but it's just the way that he uses single notes on the piano, or chords on the guitar, to emphasize Cash's phrasing. My favorite songs on Disc 3 are "The L&N Don't Stop Here Anymore," "He Stopped Loving Her Today," the aforementioned "Wichita Lineman," and the duet with Joe Strummer, "Redemption Song," about which Greil Marcus wrote:

The weight Cash brings to the very first lines, "Oh pirates, yes they rob I/ Sold I to the merchant ship"-- a physical weight, a moral weight, the weight of age and debilitation -- is so strong it floats the song as if it were itself a ship, sailing no earthly ocean. The reversal of what would be Cash's "me" for Marley's "I" makes a crack in the earth, a man stepping into another time, another place, entering fully into another history. Then Joe Strummer comes in, plainly nervous, rushing the words precisely as he does not on the shivering version of "Redemption Song" on his own posthumous release, Streetcore: He's tight, blank, and the performance never recovers. By the end it's all but dead -- and those first moments will bring you back again and again, trying to make the recording come out differently. Five CDs don't come cheap, but the radio does, and a song like this is what the radio is for: to shock whoever's listening.

The fourth disc is again just Johnny on guitar, singing some of his favorite gospel songs, and it's very powerful - you don't have to be a religious person to enjoy his performances of these classics. The fifth disc is probably the only drawback to the entire enterprise - a "best of" containing songs from the four American Recordings albums. It's mostly a waste, for two reasons: it's highly likely that anyone buying "Unearthed" already owns those albums, and given that, they've quite likely made their own mix-tape of favorites (I know I have). But in the end that's a minor quibble - I can say without reservation that no Cash fan should be without this set in their collection.

Working On A Dream

Some initial thoughts, which I expect to revisit at some point in the future.

• Among his fans, I suspect this will be the most polarizing album of Springsteen’s career. The people who could never come to grips with “Born in the USA” – a bonafide classic that has stood the test of time – are really going to have an problem with this one.

• I never thought I’d live to see the day when a Springsteen song (“Outlaw Pete”) was accused of being a rip-off of a Kiss song. But, since I’m not a Kiss fan and rarely hear a Kiss song outside of those on the radio, I have no idea what they’re talking about.

• In his review of Meat Loaf’s “Bat Out of Hell,” Robert Christgau wrote, “Bruce Springsteen, beware – this is what you've wrought, and it could happen to you.” I have to confess that quote came to mind upon my first listen to “Queen of the Supermarket.” After a couple of listens, I’m feeling better about the song, but not the background vocal during the last verses – which absolutely smacks of Meat Loaf-type hokum.

• There are at least three songs that, upon initial listens, are candidates to become classics: the title tune, “My Lucky Day,” and “The Last Carnival.”

• OK, it must be dealt with – “Surprise, Surprise” may be catchy and all, but so was “Run, Joey, Run.” It may indeed surprise me at some point and work its way into my brain like the termite art that Manny Farber wrote about all those years ago, but what I know right now is that Son #2 gleefully made fun of it when he first heard it, and continued in that vein this morning. And I can’t really answer him, because right now it sounds like the least substantial song he’s ever recorded.

Is this a great album? Clearly not, at least in comparison to classics like “Born to Run,” “Darkness on the Edge of Town,” and “Born in the USA.” But should it be held to that standard? That makes the conversation more interesting. Based on what he’s said about the album, this is the first time Bruce decided to make an album on a whim, just taking the energy from a tour and throwing down some songs without a lot of forethought as to themes, lyrical or musical. Personally, I think that’s great. It’s a challenge to himself, and it’s a challenge to the band, but it’s also a challenge to a group of fans whose expectations sometimes outstrip the ability of Bruce to meet them.

So I’m not surprised that the critical reaction is all over the map. You’ve got everything from the 5-star review in Rolling Stone, to Ann Powers’ slam in the L.A. Times, to the predictable “going to enter a few catch phrases in my trusty “Rip Springsteen a New One” computer program and see what comes out” piece from Jim DeRogatis in the Chicago Sun-Times.

Who knows? Maybe this time, everyone is right.