When should we stop chasing new music? When should we just give up and pretend that everything ended with Def Leppard and get stuck in a continuous loop of hair metal? fn1 You know those people. Their listening habits revolve around the bands they listened to during high school. Years later, they cannot escape the classic rock, the grunge, or the hip hop that defined their golden age of listening. Their soundtrack will always be tied to a particular epoch of their life, and there is simply no reason for them to move on and let anything else crowd out the nostalgia.
Life happens. College, marriages, jobs, kids. No one should expect us to stay up on the latest bands, right? And no one can blame us for going back to our sweet spot because it feels as comfortable as our favorite sweatshirt that really should be sent to goodwill. Anyway, there is too much damn music to wade through, especially in the age of Apple or Spotify with an endless listening library at our fingertips. It is simply too difficult to keep up. Right?
I wonder what would have happened if had I stopped paying attention. In my case, I experienced a two-year hiatus from popular music from 1998 to 2000 while serving as a missionary in South Africa. After coming home, it could have been a clean break for me and an easy excuse to listen, forevermore, to the bands that carried me through high school: Live, Counting Crows, Pearl Jam, Beastie Boys and other stalwarts could have been the soundtrack for the rest of my life. Nothing wrong with that sort of lineup, right?
Okay, it is depressing to think about. "What sort of music do you like?" followed by "Oh, you know, I like [insert bygone era here], I don't really listen to much to new stuff." To imagine a world that stopped with The Eagles, ABBA, AC/DC, or whomever the usual suspect may be is downright sad.
Staying plugged in, if even a little, is invigorating. And it doesn't take much effort. It is the difference between living an aesthetic life with the wind at your face, willing to try new things and hear where the world is (rather than where it was). We should never let go of what came before, of course; it is too vital to our shared history or personal makeup. But we should also keep our eyes ahead and our ears open. We just may find new sights and sounds that augment our lives in uniquely powerful ways.
This year, to name just a few musical moments, we discovered the glorious dislocation in "Daydreaming," the jazzy swagger in "All We Got," the devastated cries of "I Need You," the soaring cultural politics of "St. Augustine," and the prescient death before death in "Lazarus." Yes, even today, there are great songs to savor along our way, and great artists that will never pop up between Styx and Zeppelin on our classic rock station.
fn1 Wait a minute . . . that could be amazing!
December 1, 2016
1. A Moon Shaped Pool / Radiohead
A Moon Shaped Pool may be the most Radiohead-ey thing the quintet has ever released. Spectral, cavernous, and beautiful, the record sounds like what I hear in my head when I think of the band. Perhaps it is the fact that some of the songs have been in gestation for years, including long-time fan favorite "True Love Waits," which here morphs into a perfect piano ballad and serves the role of crushing closer. This is not to say the album does not feel fresh or in-the-moment, especially with exciting instrumental episodes like the savage col legno strings on opener "Burn the Witch," the soft-hewn keys on "Daydreaming," or the gushing electronica and dueling guitars of "Ful Stop." It just feels strangely familiar in all the best of ways.
Radiohead's symphonic record is an easy shorthand. Jonny Greenwood's cinematic arrangements (with strings provided by the London Contemporary Orchestra) cut through many of the tracks in arresting ways. The musicianship is phenomenal, as you would expect, and individual highlights like Yorke's striking piano/keyboard runs, Jonny Greenwood's ridiculous guitar solo (a Radiohead guitar solo!) on "Identikit," or Colin Greenwood's slithery, underpinning bass lines, at this stage in their careers, easily can be taken for granted. But one thing is certain: the band has created something massive sounding and deeply intimate in one fell swoop. "This goes beyond me, beyond you," Yorke sings on "Daydreaming," which seems to capture the record's ethereal quality.
At the turn of the century, the band deconstructed the titanic rock record - their own! - on Kid A and then, after furious political agitation on Hail to the Thief, arced through reinvigorated human drama on In Rainbows. The King of Limbs followed, which felt more like a collection of disparate sonic experiments pulling the band in myriad directions: skittering electronica, haunting acoustic rock, and down-tempo dirges to name a few. A Moon Shaped Pool seems to move beyond any useful narrative. Out past the paranoia or the politics, it settles into the thick of thick things, weighing and considering life's mysteries, resisting at times the nagging sense of dread with something approaching resolve. But how long can the center hold?
If we apply that question to the band, apparently, longer than anyone should expect. Before releasing this record, Thom Yorke privately wondered if anyone cared anymore and lowered his expectations considerably, uncertain how a middle-aged British band would compete in the Insta-disposable, digital musical age. After all, it had been five years since their last record, which is a lifetime in today's hyperactive media consumption. His concerns, of course, were unfounded. A Moon Shaped Pool was met with wide-spread critical acclaim and acceptance. The band, it would seem, is for the ages.
And it's hard to argue otherwise. Radiohead have now released five bona fide classics in three different decades (The Bends, OK Computer, Kid A, In Rainbows, and A Moon Shaped Pool), while interspersing them with one incredible record (Hail to the Thief), one strange but difficult mind-meld of a record (Amnesiac), one understated and underrated record (The King of Limbs), and one solid debut that contains an iconic song that could have initially served as a death knell (Pablo Honey and "Creep"). Another way to appreciate what the band has done can be said like this: Radiohead has experienced creative peaks more than twenty years apart, which far exceeds the time of the relatively short creative range of The Beatles (six years), Led Zeppelin (ten years), and The Smiths (four years). Any fan of rock music knows that bands are not supposed to have this kind of shelf-life.
But Radiohead persists. Is it their ability to experiment and reinvent? Is it the band's tonal breadth or instrumental depth? Is it Yorke's range of vocal styles and lyrical pursuits? Is it their enduring collaborative spirit? Perhaps all of these reasons and more. One critic recently wondered whether the group is the last important band on earth. Having scaled mountains at the height of the record industry and the MTV monoculture and then successfully transitioned into the post-iTunes era, it is a worthy question to consider. The band has bridged a divide that swallowed up most of their initial competitors, and those that crossed over have rarely been this relevant.
Just know this. My first listen to A Moon Shaped Pool came while walking my dog, while the low-hanging clouds of a wet-soaked Mother's Day held in the smell of wet grass in my lungs. Perfect weather to accompany the anticipated release. And I had that giddy moment where just at the midpoint of my first listen, I understood that I was hearing a masterpiece. It is one of the most exciting feelings any music nerd can have during a first touch: self-aware reckoning of a classic before the music has even stopped playing.
2. Coloring Book / Chance the Rapper
Chance the Rapper’s ebullience is contagious. Nothing can keep him down – he will get to that proverbial finish line! – and the Chicago native is not afraid to tell you that his faith in God (and undeserved grace) has much to do with it. When was the last time a popular album embraced genuine religious faith so positively and unabashedly? Listeners can detect no hypocrisy or exaggeration—his spiritual experience, undoubtedly Christian, shapes his aesthetic worldview and is, indeed, embedded within it. The blessings fall from above, hip-hop hymn after hymn.
I'm gone praise Him, praise Him 'til I'm gone.
When the praises go up, the blessings come down.
It seems like blessings keep falling into my lap.
Our brainy and utterly sincere hero is not without his faults. He addresses his impulses and the experiential nature of sin on several tracks: some nights he wants to party, smoke a blunt, or stroll into a record label's lobby and cause some serious problems for the suits who (stupidly) rejected his demo advances. At only 23 years-old, he is engaged in the age-old battle of wanting to sow his oats and do right by his wife, child, family, and friends. Born Chancelor Jonathan Bennett, it is clear he was raised within the black church tradition and hopes to reduce his sinful cycles, understanding that life is better served without such entanglement. His boundless energy and curiosity could be a blessing and burden, although he is not unwilling to seek help and answers from people he trusts, and, yes, the Man upstairs.
The album celebrates and contemplates his successes and failures. It is honest and upbeat, visiting the valley but never straying too long, instead finding ways to climb the mountain, thematically and lyrically. Chance's writing is playful, smart, and funny, and he may be the only person that can pull off lines like "I want to give Satan a swirly!" The spiritual aura that infuses his lyricism is deeply felt, going against the grain of hip-hop's prevailing trends, while also building an entirely new wing on the tradition.
Some of my favorite moments include the jazzy swagger and colliding crescendos in "All We Got," the down-tempo chill and wistfulness of "Summer Friends," the crumbling Jericho horns in "Blessings," the reggae-inflected "Angels" with his lightning fast bars, and the glory hallelujah of "Finish Line/Drown." The pinnacle of the record may be the final song, "Blessings (Reprise)," as Chance pulls everything back, stands under the spotlight, and dishes a vulnerable and pitch-perfect spoken word that captures the bright tones and genuine hope of Coloring Book: "Are you ready for your blessings? Are you ready for your miracle?"
3. Skeleton Tree / Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
The cult-rock icon has always been the
fiercest of artists, independent and unyielding, but was he up to the
difficult task of recording another album in the wake of personal
tragedy? In the new indie film, One More Time with Feeling, the filmmaker follows the studio process for Skeleton Tree, and by all indications, it appears to have been both deeply difficult and cathartic for Cave.
For the uninitiated, it must be said that Skeleton Tree can be a difficult first listen, and it is certainly best suited for the late-night hours. Cave lays bare his soul, no, opens up his ribcage and lays his heart on a table. His lyrics are raw and honest and always acute, spinning intense metaphors into masterful songcraft, while his growling talk-singing reaches into the dark night of his soul and conjures up the new ghosts that circle his homefront.
Opening track “Jesus Alone" plumbs the spiraling abyss with menacing tropes, while Cave calls out into the black in terrifying isolation.
You're an African doctor harvesting tear ducts
You believe in God, but you get no special
Dispensation for this belief now
You're an old man sitting by the fire
You're the mist rolling off the sea
You're a distant memory in the mind of your
Creator, don't you see?
He then turns to his shared experience, as his voice on "Rings of Saturn" deftly maneuvers through spinning synths, hailing a woman of potent capabilities, likely his wife, who, by the end of the song, is
disappearing and further up and spinning out again
Up and further she goes, up and out of bed
Up and out of the bed and down the hall
where she stops for a moment and turns and says
"Are you still here?"
Although a devastating scene, Cave praises her strength and conviction throughout the chorus: "And this is the moment / this is exactly where she is born to be / And this is what she does / and this is what she is."
"Girl in Amber" depicts another phase in his wife's mourning, describing her as a "girl in amber trapped forever, spinning down the hall," who is reeling in confusion over the senseless loss. The phone rings no more, and the desire is to drown in sorrow, "to bleed and don't breathe a word." The song's second verse is tragic poetry.
Just step away and let the world spin
And now in turn, you turn
You kneel, lace up his shoes, your little blue-eyed boy
Take him by his hand, go move and spin him down the hall
I get lucky, I get lucky cause I tried again
I knew the world it would stop spinning now since you've been gone
I used to think that when you died you kind of wandered the world
In a slumber till you crumbled, were absorbed into the earth
Well, I don't think that any more
Cave’s suffering hits its zenith with the desperate grief of “I Need You.” He repeatedly cries out in the barest of anguish: “Nothing really matters when you’re gone. …. I need you!” The backing choir lifts his sadness into something just short of grace, a forlorn cry into the gulf. It is a symbolic release of the tormenting demons from the longest of nights, a solitary attempt at touching the void.
For the uninitiated, it must be said that Skeleton Tree can be a difficult first listen, and it is certainly best suited for the late-night hours. Cave lays bare his soul, no, opens up his ribcage and lays his heart on a table. His lyrics are raw and honest and always acute, spinning intense metaphors into masterful songcraft, while his growling talk-singing reaches into the dark night of his soul and conjures up the new ghosts that circle his homefront.
Opening track “Jesus Alone" plumbs the spiraling abyss with menacing tropes, while Cave calls out into the black in terrifying isolation.
You're an African doctor harvesting tear ducts
You believe in God, but you get no special
Dispensation for this belief now
You're an old man sitting by the fire
You're the mist rolling off the sea
You're a distant memory in the mind of your
Creator, don't you see?
He then turns to his shared experience, as his voice on "Rings of Saturn" deftly maneuvers through spinning synths, hailing a woman of potent capabilities, likely his wife, who, by the end of the song, is
disappearing and further up and spinning out again
Up and further she goes, up and out of bed
Up and out of the bed and down the hall
where she stops for a moment and turns and says
"Are you still here?"
Although a devastating scene, Cave praises her strength and conviction throughout the chorus: "And this is the moment / this is exactly where she is born to be / And this is what she does / and this is what she is."
"Girl in Amber" depicts another phase in his wife's mourning, describing her as a "girl in amber trapped forever, spinning down the hall," who is reeling in confusion over the senseless loss. The phone rings no more, and the desire is to drown in sorrow, "to bleed and don't breathe a word." The song's second verse is tragic poetry.
Just step away and let the world spin
And now in turn, you turn
You kneel, lace up his shoes, your little blue-eyed boy
Take him by his hand, go move and spin him down the hall
I get lucky, I get lucky cause I tried again
I knew the world it would stop spinning now since you've been gone
I used to think that when you died you kind of wandered the world
In a slumber till you crumbled, were absorbed into the earth
Well, I don't think that any more
Cave’s suffering hits its zenith with the desperate grief of “I Need You.” He repeatedly cries out in the barest of anguish: “Nothing really matters when you’re gone. …. I need you!” The backing choir lifts his sadness into something just short of grace, a forlorn cry into the gulf. It is a symbolic release of the tormenting demons from the longest of nights, a solitary attempt at touching the void.
While there are no clear-cut answers in Skeleton Tree's bewildering landscape, dawn finally comes on the beautifully rendered “Distant Sky.” The spare piano ballad, set aloft by Else Torp's superb
voice, is an invitation to move on, depicting the possibility of loving
companionship grasping hands and heading toward the horizon. The song is
gorgeous, wide-lens cinema, evoking cloudless, endless skies, and it is the
first sound of solace on the record, Cave’s turn to the future and a life beyond tragedy.
After such an arduous journey, closer "Skeleton Tree" reaches some measure of acceptance, although it is still couched in the absence of certitude. "And I called out, I called out / Right across the sea / But the echo comes back empty / And nothing is for free." Nevertheless, as the music fades, Cave sings in affirmation: “And it's alright now.” Although perhaps not a signal of redemption, the gentle folk ballad is a source of resolution. Cave stands at the edge of the ocean; whether it’s the site of his precious son’s fall is left unsaid. But the scene is a moving visual, representing the divide between us and our loved ones in the great somewhere. Will we see them again? Cave does not know. But he is facing forward, wind at his face, ready to walk again.
After such an arduous journey, closer "Skeleton Tree" reaches some measure of acceptance, although it is still couched in the absence of certitude. "And I called out, I called out / Right across the sea / But the echo comes back empty / And nothing is for free." Nevertheless, as the music fades, Cave sings in affirmation: “And it's alright now.” Although perhaps not a signal of redemption, the gentle folk ballad is a source of resolution. Cave stands at the edge of the ocean; whether it’s the site of his precious son’s fall is left unsaid. But the scene is a moving visual, representing the divide between us and our loved ones in the great somewhere. Will we see them again? Cave does not know. But he is facing forward, wind at his face, ready to walk again.
4. 22, A Million / Bon Iver
22, A Million sounds like it was birthed in the eye of the zeitgeist. Rather than an exercise in futurism, the record is pop music in the here and now, 2016 reduced to sound. An amalgamation of autotune, R&B, and synth and sample tectonics, it is a gale force wind in the direction of the changing musical landscape, both embracing and subverting larger trends toward arena-pop, EDM, and hip-hop. But there is also a quiet center that the record revolves around, a stillness that is circled and obscured by the maelstrom of emotional deconstruction.
Impressively, in the midst of such upheaval, Bon Iver still manages to retain its sonic essence because the record's lode star is Vernon's heart-on-your-flannel-sleeve crooning. His voice is now among the most distinctive in music, the perfect foil for rappers like Kanye West or radio stompers like Francis and the Lights. Though vocal effects give his timbre recognizable impact, it is also the way Vernon sings that amplifies the emotion, his sudden rises and falls, the falsetto that cuts through and changes the color and shape of a song. It is fair to say that his voice is never overshadowed by the knob-twiddling or cutting-edge production--it is always the beating heart of the record's resonance.
The album art is riddled with pictographic runes and the song names, with titles like "10 dEAThbREasT ⚄ ⚄," are numeric/word codes waiting to be deciphered. The brilliant lyrics, more e.e. cummings than singer-songwriter, seem to convey knowable mysteries. Maybe taken together, they serve as a present-day map pointing to where the head and heart long to meet. Because Vernon seems to find that place with his music over and over and over again.
5. Blackstar / David Bowie
Bowie went out on his own terms. Until the very end of his life, he was stylish, provocative, and engaging; in short, he was a pop artist of the highest order. Although dying of cancer without fanfare, he recorded a brilliant album that fiercely wrestled with his own mortality. His boundless curiosity pushed him to numerous aesthetic transformations over the course of his career, and Blackstar was a fitting sendoff, another chameleon musical effort, this time conjuring up the dark arts of jazz fusion.
Released on his 69th birthday, Blackstar was a knowing farewell. Bowie died two days later. On the towering "Lazarus," Bowie opens with the following lines:
Look up here, I'm in heaven
I've got scars that can't be seen
I've got drama, can't be stolen
Everybody knows me now
The song's nocturnal guitars and downcast saxophones transition into a flurry of defiance, resisting any notion that Bowie, up against the universal change, will be anything other than wholly himself: "Oh, I'll be free / Just like that bluebird / Oh, I'll be free / Ain't that just like me?"
On "I Can't Give Everything Away," Bowie hints at the limitations of mortality against a glorious backdrop of free jazz.
Seeing more and feeling less
Saying no but meaning yes
This is all I ever meant
That's the message that I sent
The song--like "Lazarus" and the title track--is as stunning as any in the Bowie catalog, a grand good-bye to the things of this world with a sweeping, heart-felt gesture to our short-lived season. The chorus is a question, a declaration, and a resignation.
Recorded in secret at New York City's Magic Shop, Blackstar was Bowie's 25th studio album and the only one to top the Billboard 200 in the United States. He tapped long-time producer and collaborator Tony Visconti to helm the project, and their best decision was recruiting a local jazz combo led by Donny McCaslin's brilliant saxophone. (Bowie's long affection for the instrument started when he first learned to play it as a young boy). The experimental exercises give the record a restless feel, as the instruments ricochet and spiral throughout the tracks, sometimes in bewildering paths, as if striving to find some foothold in the waning light. All the while, Bowie's pictorial, cryptic, and trippy writing sends his voice into the gloom, relentlessly emotive and majestic.
The ultimate irony is that this last record reawakened the public's appreciation for Bowie's grand myth-making. Blackstar provided an opportunity for many to explore and reexamine his illustrious output, which is still, to this day, so resoundingly alive. It was the perfect capstone for the narrative arc of his career, a final reassurance that all of his artistry and style was truly the sort of genius seemingly hailed from the great beyond. As the public poured through his life in the immediate aftermath, I was deeply struck by these photos taken by his long-time photographer shortly before his death. He looked rakish and impish in a gloriously cut suit, almost as if his joyful poses were an act of rebellion to father time. What a way to go.
Look up here, I'm in heaven
I've got scars that can't be seen
I've got drama, can't be stolen
Everybody knows me now
The song's nocturnal guitars and downcast saxophones transition into a flurry of defiance, resisting any notion that Bowie, up against the universal change, will be anything other than wholly himself: "Oh, I'll be free / Just like that bluebird / Oh, I'll be free / Ain't that just like me?"
On "I Can't Give Everything Away," Bowie hints at the limitations of mortality against a glorious backdrop of free jazz.
Seeing more and feeling less
Saying no but meaning yes
This is all I ever meant
That's the message that I sent
The song--like "Lazarus" and the title track--is as stunning as any in the Bowie catalog, a grand good-bye to the things of this world with a sweeping, heart-felt gesture to our short-lived season. The chorus is a question, a declaration, and a resignation.
Recorded in secret at New York City's Magic Shop, Blackstar was Bowie's 25th studio album and the only one to top the Billboard 200 in the United States. He tapped long-time producer and collaborator Tony Visconti to helm the project, and their best decision was recruiting a local jazz combo led by Donny McCaslin's brilliant saxophone. (Bowie's long affection for the instrument started when he first learned to play it as a young boy). The experimental exercises give the record a restless feel, as the instruments ricochet and spiral throughout the tracks, sometimes in bewildering paths, as if striving to find some foothold in the waning light. All the while, Bowie's pictorial, cryptic, and trippy writing sends his voice into the gloom, relentlessly emotive and majestic.
The ultimate irony is that this last record reawakened the public's appreciation for Bowie's grand myth-making. Blackstar provided an opportunity for many to explore and reexamine his illustrious output, which is still, to this day, so resoundingly alive. It was the perfect capstone for the narrative arc of his career, a final reassurance that all of his artistry and style was truly the sort of genius seemingly hailed from the great beyond. As the public poured through his life in the immediate aftermath, I was deeply struck by these photos taken by his long-time photographer shortly before his death. He looked rakish and impish in a gloriously cut suit, almost as if his joyful poses were an act of rebellion to father time. What a way to go.
6. Why Are You Ok / Band of Horses
Can home and hearth compete, aesthetically, with the mean streets of the city? Can children coexist with your muse? Can a happy home life encourage, rather than hinder, artistic expression? Why Are You Ok answers in the affirmative. As usual, Bridwell, our favorite tattooed southern hipster, has a voice that gathers and warms the company it keeps, showing no shame in familial longing or contentment. When rock groups lose their edge and abandon dissonance, most critics complain that their time has run its course. But what happens when the songs sound this enjoyable, this inviting, and bear repeated listening as they seep ever deeper into your bones?
7. A Sailor's Guide to Earth / Sturgill Simpson
Though initially hailed as outlaw country's latest incarnation, Simpson moves beyond his excellent debut into surprisingly diverse territory. He produced the record himself and was given creative freedom to spend his Atlantic Records budget, resulting in inspired studio collaborations like jamming with the Dap Kings on "Keep It Between the Lines." A Sailor's Guide is essentially everything you could want in a singer-songwriter album, exquisitely produced and perfectly sequenced, packed with a wide range of approaches that showcase Simpson's progressive sensibilities. His rugged voice, taut lyrics, and classic sense for a bygone Nashville (long taken over by an army of slick and cliche-riddled pop pushers) feels like an achievement worth celebrating.
The opener, "Welcome to Earth (Pollywog)" is a stunner, producing chills in its early crescendo: But the answer was so easy! The song morphs from spare piano to tremolo strings to stage-clearing rock, with the transitions seamlessly executed, jumpstarting the record's emotional gravity. Simpson's response to the birth of his first child is touching, and his powerful baritone holds it all together, never straining to sound bona-fide like too many country music posers.
"Breakers Roar" follows on its heels and is flat-out inspiring on every level. Simpson's brilliant cover of Nirvana's "In Bloom" is arguably the best reinterpretation of the year, turning the song into a vivid portrait of the misunderstood male psyche. (Though selling the kids for food always gets an easy laugh in the record's otherwise earnest context).
Faith in God without being trite. Love of country without being hokey. Loyal to family without being sappy. Simpson covers many of the same topics found on country radio, he just does it much, much better, and the steel guitars and other instruments throughout are, thankfully, more than just slick hood ornaments.
8. Freetown Sound / Blood Orange
On Freetown Sound, Dev Hynes evolves into a post-colonial Prince, imbuing pop music with a unique sense of personal identity, sexuality, and black history, much like the late icon. Cradled in New York City as the son of an immigrant father from Sierra Leone, Hynes, however, is less focused on Prince's funky deconstruction of rock, R&B, and dance music, instead moving into rhythms and lyrics steeped in a decidedly Afro-centric and urban political worldview. With the elegance of a dancer and the voice of a songbird, Blood Orange wants to speak truth to power without losing the deeply personal connections that his music contemplates.
Freetown Sound resonates with themes of love, dislocation, gender, black identity, and personal autonomy, which are teased out in various directions via spoken word, poetry, and Hynes' socially-conscious lyrics. (The album receives an explicit rating for relatively few uses of the n-word). Informed social critics can better discuss the album's significance in this cultural moment, but there is no doubt it is a zeitgeisty touchstone, seamlessly creating an inclusive pop experience without losing any of its socio-political force in the wake of recent police violence and racial unrest. That said, for this listener, it really is Hynes' lush musical world and deft touch with accessible melodies and rhythms, whether they are drowned in 80s synth pop or terraced in contemporary EDM, which elevates his discordant concerns into alluring music that both reinforces and transcends contextual identity politics.
Hynes explores his themes with a compelling cast of female vocalists that features Emporess Of, Carly Rae Jepsen, Zuri Marley, Nelly Furtado, and others. Their performances demonstrate his aesthetic largesse, as they are often found on many of the album's best tracks. "Best to You" is intimate, interpersonal drama driven by one of the best vocals of the year from Emporess Of ("I feel my bones crack in my arms / and I can tell you what you want / but I tell you all the things you like / And if I keep myself away / would you chase in the dead of night?"). "E.V.P." uses 80s saxes, synths, and drum lines, along with New Wave legend Debby Harry, to pen a personal love letter to the city's swirling contradictions. On "But You," Hynes' sincerity swallows up the saccharine chorus as he urges black empowerment and reassurance to others in a universally commanding way: "Teach yourself about your brother / Cause there's no one else but you / You are special in your own way."
Arguably the album's best moment is "Augustine." Named after the Christian philosopher with African experience (he served as Bishop in present-day Algeria), "Augustine" is an ode inspired by an African immigrant's arrival to the Big Apple that transitions to a tale of desperation and grief following the tragic deaths of black youth.
My father was a young man
My mother off the boat
My eyes were fresh at 21
Bruised, but still afloat
Our heads have hit the pavement
Many times before
You stroke his face to soothe him
While knowing that there's more.
The song's gorgeous synths and spare drum kit underscore something timely and timeless, a plea for hope in the midst of heartache, which sounds possible as Hynes' vocals take flight.
9. We Got It From Here . . . Thank You 4 Your Service / A Tribe Called Quest
I only wish I had a bus to be on and a gym to walk into; We Got it From Here makes me want to get pumped for a big game. I guess my early morning old-man workouts at the gym will have to suffice, as the Tribe have carried me on the treadmill for the last month. The beats are dope, the samples are tight, and the guest appearances are almost always superb. The Tribe trade bars with Andre 3000, Kendrick Lamar, Kanye West, and Busta Rhymes (reinvigorated here with his former Native Tongues brethren), while they embrace creative samples from Elton John and guitar pyros from Jack White. Nothing feels forced or belabored: the flow of supple rhymes keeps coming over instrumental terrain that leans old-school and analog but sounds fresh enough to capture an entirely new generation of fans.
The guys spit about everything: politics, race, education, success, and ego. They address the ladies. They hammer Donald Trump. They reference Darth Vader, Chris Paul, Bruce Lee, UFC, Uber, and allegorical subject matter with their usual humor and aplomb. The mic passing is giddy fun, a rap nerd's head-tripping dream, and it is ultimately the greatest pleasure of the album. For all its smarts and topical presence, We Got It From Here is best served as a rapper's delight.
10. Is The Is Are / DIIV
Inspired by late 80s shoegaze and 90s power-pop, Smith worships the woozy guitar lick as he winds his lines through the record, fluid and hypnotic. The lack of dynamic range is purposeful. Smith wants to envelop listeners rather than hit or hook them, producing ribbons of dreamlike texture. With his vocals usually buried deeper in the mix, listeners must dive to uncover their meaning. Their lyrical content, of course, are less important than serving the form and feel of the songs, another sonic element meant to elude listeners for awhile.
Is the Is Are is like a novel that almost reveals itself after chapters weaving through time and space, only to leave its inscrutable meaning forever out of reach. The ideal forms of life cannot be touched, it seems, always just beyond our grasp. After 17-songs, Smith's record sounds like romance slipping through our fingers.
Literary aside: this concept reminded me of that great scene in Conrad's Lord Jim, where the wealthy merchant and "learned collector" Stein attempts to illuminate Jim's fate in life during a conversation with the narrator Marlow. "A man that is born falls into a dream like a man who falls into the sea." Surrounded by "his cabinet of butterflies, beautiful and hovering under the glass of cases of lifeless wings," Stein is forever bedeviled by unfulfilled romance (much like Jim). And like his butterflies, the beauty in life is apparent but the romantic ideal, once pinned down, is forever elusive. Thus, at the end of his conversation with Marlow, Stein "sighed and turned again to the glass case. The frail and beautiful wings quivered faintly, as if his breath had for an instant called back to life that gorgeous object of his dreams."
11. Jesu/Sun Kil Moon
Early in the song, he receives a
piece of ambient music from Justin
but I haven't listened to it yet
Dropped some film off to be developed
that I'm hoping could be right for Jesu/Sun Kil Moon album art.
He is referring to Justin Broadrick, his British collaborator, and the album they made together and that you are now hearing. Later in the song, Koz finally
listens to the ambient piece of music that Justin sent, and its beautiful
I'm going to add vocals to it on Saturday
the day before I leave for Israel.
More events unfold. As the song closes, Koz lies next to his girlfriend:
Hey, I'm 48, and I'm healthy and happy
and both my mom and dad are still alive
and I can see the bridge twinkling like gold out my window . . . .
Everything I have been through
has led me to this beautiful piece of music that I'm listening to
while I'm laying in bed next to
Beautiful You
This metaphysical songwriting, circling back to the ambient music now pouring through your speakers too, is another unique progression in Koz's diaristic narratives, which find a happy home among Broadrick's soundscapes. (As the story goes, Isaac Brock was impressed enough with the track, he told Koz that he should just release the lengthy number as the entire album. Brock provides backing vocals during the song's chorus).
Mark's stream-of-consciousness storytelling illuminates his 2016 collaboration with Jesu, which is Broadrick's moniker under which the critically-acclaimed metalhead explores shoegaze guitars, metallic synthesizers, and ambient drones, allowing him to branch out into various sonic spaces. Broadrick's instrumental beds are an inviting landing place for Koz's vocal workouts, providing a range of stylistic opportunities from industrial guitar squalls to pretty synth runs. Like Koz's superb collaborations with Jimmy LaValle (The Album Leaf) and Desertshore, this pairing produces intriguing results.
The song's subjects, as usual, are as varied as Koz's moods. He frets over the meaning of the word "rekindle," which he heard in a recent documentary film ("Good Morning My Love,"), he frets over a squabble with his girlfriend while reading John Connolly's crime novel ("A Song of Shadows"), he frets over criticisms of his music and ends up reading a fan letter from Singapore ("Last Night I Rocked the Room Like Elvis And Had Them Laughing Like Richard Pryor"), he frets about his father's health and happiness and juxtaposes it with his own chances of fatherhood ("Father's Day"). Amid the fretting, Koz's self-deprecation aims to discover just what makes him happy and sad, and it is the quotidian that draws his keenest observations, as the abstract has no place in a world that is rushing at him with tangible evidence of both the magical and mundane.
It wouldn't be a Sun Kil Moon record without ruminations over death. On "Exodus," Koz reaches out to "all bereaved parents" who have lost children. The song is deeply sincere and sad, set against drifting pianos and synths, and it has become a cathartic sing-along at recent live shows. Named after Mike Tyson's late daughter and inspired by the tragic death of Nick Cave's 15-year old son (who accidentally fell to his death at an England seaside cliff) the song seeks connection through shared grief, another empathetic entry in a catalog filled with emotional stunners.
On "Fragile," easily one of the year's most impressive feats of lyricism, Koz weaves together the death of his childhood friend Christopher in working class Ohio, the recent death of Yes bassist Chris Squire, and Koz's recent cover of Yes' "Onward" for the Italian film Youth. He finds connective tissues between all of these events: from listening to Yes' records as a teenager to seeing Yes in concert in San Francisco to covering Yes for Oscar-winning director Paolo Sorrentino. As if this weren't heady enough, Will Oldham provides backing vocals with lyrics from, what else, Yes' love song "Onward." Under the power of Koz's graceful nylon string guitar, the track is a strange revelation of sorts, and more evidence that he is one of our most gifted songwriters.
12. I Had A Dream That You Were Mine / Hamilton Leithauser & Rostam
Leithauser's sandpaper pipes steal the show as his gruff warble croons and yelps like a bruised and battered Sinatra. Over the years, Leithauser's work with The Walkmen evolved from skittering indie rock to grand statements glorying in domestic contentment. His gravelly vocals and city-lights style initially seemed a strange fit for Rostam's slick musical wizardry from Vampire Weekend's genre-defying productions. But the pairing is a gift.
Rostam's arrangements show a deep knowledge and affection for decades of pop music. His piano-based foundation and choral compositions inform the record with a classic feel, as if these songs were birthed in the same era as the influences they draw from. The record is far from pastiche, however; the songs are transportive and sparkle with fresh vitality.
The many highlights include opening single "1000 Times," the late-night shuffle of "In A Black Out," the woozy bar band country of "Peaceful Morning," and the tipsy guitar and vocals of "When the Truth Is." Straining to see the city in a new light while squinting their eyes from the back of a dusty, late-night watering hole, Leithhauser's and Rostam's disparate styles conjure up an utterly delightful collaboration.
13. Painting of a Panic Attack / Frightened Rabbit
Frightened Rabbit has always depicted northern life in all its broken-hearted, weather-changing, working class glory, and this time, somewhere in the gloom, there is an uplift provided by newfound maturity. The band's underdog charm was always enhanced by its ramshackle sound, but here, while reaching for the back of the room with arena-friendly chops, Hutchison works hard to maintain the band's melancholy edge by way of some of his most focused songwriting.
There is something about Scottish bands that always gets to me: the lovelorn, world-weary, existential sadness that the best have tapped into over the years. Belle & Sebastian, The Cocteau Twins, Mogwai, Idlewild, The Blue Nile and others are no strangers to sad-sack bedfellows like Hutchinson and his bandmates.
14. Away / Okkervil River
Less ragged and spare than its melancholy predecessor, 2007's The Stage Names was full-bodied roots rock, wildly alive, brooding, and majestic. Since then, the Austin outfit's records have been a little uneven, but never lacking in Sheff's literate ambitions. 2016's Away is Okkervil River's best record in years, and it just may be the prettiest collection of songs among the band's roughhewn poetry.
As he approaches 40, Sheff grapples with dreams and regrets against a backdrop of strings, horns, and percussion, with his band's unrequited Americana pushing through with off-kilter melodies. Sheff's relationships are observed with wry judgment, but he leaves most of the skewering to his own doubts and inadequacies. Indeed, there is something hopeful in his confessions here. The music courses with wide-eyed empathy: we will get through this and the lessons will propel us forward, somehow.
The clever video for "Okkervil River R.I.P." was directed by Sheff and displays many of the band's best attributes: humor, pathos, and Spirit combined into beautifully sad sendoffs. Other standouts on Away include the string-riddled lightness of "Call Yourself Renee," the bouncy keyboard rock of "The Industry," the shuffling affirmation of "Judey on a Street," and the rainy-night vibes of "Comes Indiana Through the Smoke."
15. Mangy Love / Cass McCombs
Mangy Love is McCombs' eighth studio album and may be his best music to date. The instrumental flourishes are lush and supple, spinning into strange territories of groovy country, psychedelic folk, and heady soft rock. The compositions are playful and soulful, while the fluid guitars, swerving bass lines, and fulsome horns seemingly contradict his hangman's humor. Because bubbling underneath it all is McCombs' trademark pathos, this time capturing both political and personal unease.
The opening track rolls over its repeated refrain of bum bum bum, underscoring the strangeness of a world constantly at war with itself. McCombs' writing is oblique but politically potent. "Sent a letter to my congressman / The Ku Klux Klan / From my pierced hands / Bum bum bum / They sent me back an Apple phone / A fine-hair comb / And a bell tolled / Bum bum bum." His descriptions are Dylan-esque, and perhaps no song better captured the unnerving election atmosphere that many felt across the country.
"Opposite House" is an all-around glorious track accompanied by Angel Olsen's chorus refrain, as McCombs struggles with the fact that "when it rains inside / there is nowhere to hide / which is why I'm all sunshine." "Laughter is the Best Medicine," with its allusions to "sugar and spice and everything weird," attempts to deal with his seemingly cosmic bad luck.
McComb's lyrics reach confrontational transcendence on "Cry." It is difficult to tell if he is addressing his one-time lover or all of us "lost in bad poetry, lost in logic, lost in a racist bourgeois town."
No more cliche songs
Nothing less than every ounce of your heart
Though horses could easily pull me apart
No rhetoric and no gold for bards
Digging for carrots in the moonlight like an immigrant
Tearing through plastic bags like an addict
You tell me one thing and do the other--that's weird!
Are you still listening?
I can't do nothing for you, can't you see I have no feet?
We're like two peas in a pod--Netflix and die.
Go on and cry!
16. American Band / Drive-By Truckers
On "Guns of Umpqua," one of the year's best tracks, Hood details a veteran's difficult re-entry into civilian life, scrambling for his safety during a mass shooting at Umpqua Community College in Oregon (where Hood recently moved his family). Hood expertly juxtaposes happy scenes from the hero's life with the terrors of that fateful day when nine people lost their lives.
And now we're moving chairs in some panic mode to barricade the doors
As my hear rate surges on adrenaline and nerves, I feel like I've been here before
I made it back from hell's attack in some distant, bloody war
Only to stare down hell back home.
Almost all of the songs on American Band are unflinchingly topical. On "What it Means," Hood's raspy voice is numbed by police violence and the racial fallout that he cannot begin to sum up; on "Surrender Under Protest," Cooley's country drawl praises the Confederate Flag's removal from the courthouse; on "Ramon Casiano" Cooley depicts the current NRA President's controversial shooting of a 15-year old Hispanic boy back in 1931. The record resonates with both unrest and resolve, even if the way forward is unclear.
Ultimately, Hood and Cooley, both middle-aged white guys from Alabama, have no problem speaking up about the complicated problems of our day, even if it means all of us are implicated in some of the messes. They have long written about the South and its characters with sharp observation and empathy; and they have earned the right to rock a wake up call.
17. The Bride / Bat for Lashes
The Bride is theatrical but its fantasy is eerily grounded in realistic personal drama. Khan moves through the heart-wrenching story with her most subtle music to date, although immediate standouts "Joe's Dream" and "Sunday Love" recall the haunting piano/electro-pop perfected on tracks like "Laura" and "Daniel." Her brilliant voice, as always, carries the emotional force of the record, especially on its second side, when her vocals hover over ghostly dirges of self-discovery.
The album's art, lyrics, videos, and live performances enhance its storytelling. Khan supported The Bride by playing a series of intimate shows in chapels throughout the United Kingdom, inviting audience members to dress in formal attire. The D Man would have dressed up, too, needing no excuse to hear one of his favorite sirens do her thing.
18. Eternally Even / Jim James
![Eternally Even [Explicit]](https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51yDUWTfiEL._SS500.jpg)
But the languid grooves are the real story on James' second solo album, a chance for him to lay down his axe and explore his affinity for cosmic soul R&B supported by electric piano, organ drones, and drum beats, with only the occasional guitar flourish to tease out the funk. Eternally Even is a chilled-out foil to MMJ's wide-open stadium rock and the record's cavernous but intimate production allows James' voice to find its soulful fire, urging listeners to make the most of their lives because time is running short.
"Here in Spirit" is a righteous jam that ranks with James' best work. It is the record's thesis statement: "If you don't speak out / we can't hear it / Our love is always here / Here in spirit / And all those who came before / Here in spirit." We are beings of light, James believes, and if we do not open up and share the shine, we will never fill the universe with the same love that created the stars.
19. Light Upon the Lake / Whitney
We saw Whitney open for Wild Nothing at The Loading Dock which, literally, is a small loading dock buried in the city. Their collective musicianship far outclassed the cramped surroundings and it was charming to see how unaffected they were as a group. The wistful horns of "No Woman" transcended time and place and "No Matter Where We Go" bounced its way into endless listens with my car windows down. The whole album washes over you like a summer's day with nowhere to go.
20. Ocean by Ocean / The Boxer Rebellion
Ocean by Ocean is The Boxer Rebellion's fifth studio album and arguably its best collection of post-Ok Computer, post-A Rush of Blood to the Head, post-lots of other records arena pop. If you are a longtime musical Anglophile, say between the ages of 35 to 50, these songs should hit you right in your pleasure zone. Formed in London in 2001, lead singer Nathan Nicholson (originally from Tennessee) answered an online posting for musicians and hooked up with guitarist Todd Howe. Piers Hewitt (drums) and Adam Harrison (bass) followed after they graduated from the London School of Music. Since then, the band has honed its ingratiating sound with guitar arpeggios, synth swells, and Nicholson's lush register, and never have the foursome sounded bigger or better.
Could any one of these songs close a scene in Parenthood or your favorite family drama? Could any one of these songs provide uplift to a feel-good movie trailer? Could any one of these songs soundtrack your road trip optimism? Yes, yes, and yes. And so be it. Music this warm and welcoming should be hailed for what it is and does, period.
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