The Sweet Snob

My teenage friends and I liked Skid Row just fine, but considered them a bit of a corny also-ran compared to the unhinged titans of rock we considered Guns N’ Roses at the time.  They had a hit with cautionary “18 and Life” about a young guy who drunkenly shoots his friend and gets life in prison, and a couple of other minor songs.  They weren’t a laughingstock like Winger or Warrant… my teenage friends and I basically respected them.

We were a little surprised when they took the stage at Alpine Valley and played incredibly energetic versions of all the songs we knew.  Sebastian Bach (born Sebastian Philip Bierk), the lead singer of Skid Row, was in top form and crushed the set.  We couldn’t help but be impressed.  It was the first time I’d ever seen an opening band really impress.  By the end of their set, the crowd was hungry for more, but they were clearly not allowed to overshadow the main event and apologized saying they really couldn’t do an encore and their time was up.  The crowd was disappointed but… hey, Guns N’ Roses.

It was actually a cold late May night.  Alpine Valley is an outdoor venue in southern Wisconsin, and general admission seats past the assigned seats in front have no shelter.  You’re just sitting on the grass in the elements.  As we began the long wait for GNR, it began to drizzle a little.  Axl Rose and company allowed us to wait in the wet cold for a little over THREE HOURS.  We really wished we could have had a longer Skid Row set.

By the time Guns N’ Roses finally came on, after 11pm, we had a long drive home, and we were underwhelmed by the first few songs and joined the slow exodus of soggy people filing home early in the show.  As we left we heard Axl Rose screaming at us, “Where you going, you wusses*?” (* He didn’t say wusses.)

The rumor is that Bach got fired from the band for being unwilling to open for KISS.  Side note: Bach was originally discovered singing at a New Jersey wedding by Jon Bon Jovi’s parents, who told him he should audition for Skid Row.   Skid Row didn’t last long after the night of the show we saw, but Sebastian Bach somehow kept going.  

He joined a rock supergroup with members of The Breeders, Frogs, and Smashing Pumpkins (hilariously called The Last Hard Men) but Atlantic decided not to release their debut album.  He auditioned for the fairly successful supergroup Velvet Revolver, but was rejected because Guns N’ Roses guitarist Slash said, “I love Sebastian, but it, if you can imagine, it sounded sort of like Skid N’ Roses.”  (The lead singer of Slipknot was also considered, but ultimately they went with the lead singer of Stone Temple Pilots.)

Sebastian turned to acting as well.  He played Riff Raff in a production of The Rocky Horror Show and Jesus Christ in a production of Jesus Christ Superstar.  He had a fairly long run on the sitcom Gilmore Girls as the lead guitarist of a band called Hep Alien (the most Girlmore Girls-ey band name I can possibly think of).  He appeared on the show Trailer Park Boys.  

He also appeared in countless reality shows including the VH1 reality show Supergroup (where he formed a super group with Ted Nugent, Scott Ian, Jason Bonham, and Evan Seinfeld and was named Damnocracy… you can not make this stuff up), Celebrity Rap Superstar, Gone Country, and a show called I Married…Sebastian Bach.

Incidentally, Sebastian Bach never stopped recording and releasing solo albums.  Most are forgettable but decent, but 2007’s Angel Down recieved a lot of critical acclaim and I must admit I found some retro pleasure in how hard it rocked.

Why am I telling this story? Well, today vocalist and guitar player Sebastian Bach, formerly of Skid Row, releases his solo album entitled Child Within the Man. Long may you rock, Sebastian Bach!

I wasn’t expecting a 33 minute, single track Paul Simon album contemplating death, but Seven Psalms is definitely worth a listen.

It almost feels like a Sufjan Stevens album: spare, pretty, plaintive, faithful.

I was curious if his wife, Edie Brickell’s voice would appear at all, and, sure enough, in the final half, it does. I’m actually a fan of hers, and she’s continued to make music in the last decade, although none of it has really captured me. It’s nice to see her singing the writing of an ultimately stronger songwriter.

I’ve always had an appreciation for Paul Simon, who has had several eras of relevance: several Simon and Garfunkel albums with several monolithic hits, his fun solo hits from the 60’s and 70’s, the way Graceland was so widely loved and then kind of disdained in later eras for his use of African music, I still remember thinking “You Can Call Me Al” was hilarious when it came out.

People are of course comparing this to recent “final albums” like Bowie’s Blackstar and Cohen’s You Want it Darker. If he actually kicks the bucket in the next few months, the comparisons will be inevitable. In any case, it’s a mellow, humble thing, not a giant, crushing, ambitious work like Blackstar.

It’s definitely unlike any other Paul Simon album though. he says that its 33 minutes are designed to be listened to in one go (which I am currently doing) hence why he smashes every track together into one, and ends it with a gentle harmony with his wife of decades, “Amen”.

I’m finally getting a chance to listen to the new Leslie Feist record, Multitudes.

I’ve long loved Feist, and her first two albums Let It Die and The Reminder are all-time classics in my house. Her songs were always simple, funny, romantic, relatable, and tragic to me.

Her early song “Brandy Alexander”, comparing her FWB to a rich, sweet cocktail made me want to try that cocktail for years, and by the time I had an opportunity I didn’t want to flood my system with all the lactose.

I must admit with each passing Feist album since The Reminder, I have listened less and less thoroughly as they’ve seemed more meditative and their themes less easy to understand.

Feist’s incredible keening voice is like no other, but it was always her funny, relatable songwriting that brought me back. The Fleet Foxes songwriting over the years always kept me coming back, but I always felt like Feist was slipping away from my understanding. The words of her songs never added up to something I’d return to.

Listening to Multitudes I am definitely enjoying it. Its songs are standing out more to me than the songs of Metals and Pleasure, but I’m not quite hearing anything I’d put on the “driving playlist” yet.

It’s definitely worth watching the two great music videos she’s put out in support of the album, especially “Hiding Out in the Open”, where she does some extremely clever green-screen trickery that gets more funny and inventive as the song goes on.

It’s not QUITE as awesome, but the video for “Borrow Trouble” is pretty great as well and has some similar psychedelic trickery and seems recorded in the same studio. The dancing and movements remind a person that she’s steeped in physical performance and once went by “Baby Lap Lap” when she toured with shock electroclash rapper Peaches and performed onstage with hand puppets.

Her “Multitudes Mini-Concert” doesn’t have quite as considered production, but still has a few clever visual ideas and is clearly performed in the same place:

Enjoy!

Revisited Björk’s Volta for the first time since it came out today. I definitely appreciate it more today than when it came out.

By the time it came out I’d been hanging on Björk’s every word for years. I knew every word of every one of her albums. Even though Medulla was a little bit of a rough listen, I really appreciated what she was doing to innovate here.

When Volta came out it seemed like she was a little out of ideas, and just being weird for weirdness’ sake. It was less grounded in traditional music than most of her albums and just felt like a pastiche of some of the weirder and harsher moments in Post and Homogenic. Also, songwriting-wise it just didn’t seem like the ideas were there.

Listening to it now, I can hear the ways it was ahead of its time, and was influential. Now I’ve also listened to MUCH MUCH weirder music than I had in 2007 and it doesn’t sound quite as out there anymore.

Even this dazed article calls it her “weirdest album”, which, was it even in 2017? Even in 2005 she had made the MUCH weirder Drawing Restraint #9. https://dazeddigital.com/music/article/35751/1/bjork-volta-ten-year-retrospective…

I still don’t love it, but I was able to enjoy it this time, instead of completely dismissing it.

I like having a place to send people for music recommendations they might not have heard. This post is the place.

This is a categorized list of 30 albums I really love, that you might not have heard of. If you’ve heard every single one, you can feel free to let me know and I will try and come up with even more obscure suggestions just for you.

I personally recommend every single one of these albums, and have included a mini-review to help you decide if it’s the type of thing you like.

Organized into categories for your listening pleasure:

~ 60’s-70’s ~

1. Stan Getz – Focus: Instead of coasting on the fame of his Bossa Nova megahit album Getz/Gilberto, he did all kinds of other great work. In Focus, Stan commissioned a whole string arrangement, and then improvised saxophone over it the first time he heard it. It’s honestly goddamn thrilling.

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2. The Youngbloods – Elephant Mountain: Youngbloods, the one-hit wonder who did “Come On” (people now, smile on your brother everybody get together try to love one another right now), also did this incredibly beautiful, pastoral rock album with a gorgeous vibe. Very slept on.

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3. Funkadelic – Maggotbrain: Everyone’s heard of this, right? This one’s a “just in case” because it’s so damn good. Starts off with a long “best ever” guitar solo (George Clinton reportedly told Eddie Hazel to play like his momma died), then three ROCK SOLID funk songs that are truly unfuckwithable, then an amazing symphony of noise and destruction. One of the best albums of all time.

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~ hip hop ~

4. P.O.S. – Never Better: Bush-era Minnesota rap, POS was literally never better. Truly dizzying raps and razor sharp wit over beats that slap your mom.

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5. Qwel & Maker – Owl: Totally slept on rock-solid bars on bars on bars 90’s style. Found this on a reddit thread of slept on albums and it’s been a favorite ever since.

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6. Why? – Alopecia: Weird nasally white dude rap but some really classic, quotable unforgettable lyrics and jams

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7. Tierra Whack – Whack World: 15 minutes, 15 incredible 1-minute rap songs. just watch the video:

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~ noise / electronic / ambient ~

8. Four Tet – There is Love in You: Just one of the most beautiful electronic music albums of all time.

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9. Ben Frost – By the Throat: Dark, horror-ambient. Guttural, sinister electronic sounds, but somehow with a sense of humor.

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10. Andy Stott – Luxury Problems: Crunchy ugly-beautiful beats that sound different than anything anyone has ever done.

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11. Untogether – Blue Hawaii: Super etherial beats and fragmented song structure. Gorgeous and haunting.

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12. Weval – Weval: Cool, almost danceable beats, usually with one well-placed vocal sample. I can put it on almost any time.

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~ dream-pop-y ~

13. Youth Lagoon – The Year of Hibernation: Tender yearning personified. One of my favorite bedroom recordings of all time. To me there aren’t even individual songs, just one beautiful mood.

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14. Sunny Day in Glasgow – Sea When Absent: Explosive quiet/loud dynamics and just in general an evolution from Loveless that I think is enjoyable.

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15. The Clientele – Suburban Light: The sunday album you put on when you don’t know what to put on after Blonde? A timeless, hazy gorgeous album that feels like looking out a rain-clouded window.

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16. Real Estate – Real Estate: Also one beautiful mood. I’m honestly misclassifying this as dream pop. It’s more like a kind of dreamy surf rock with singing. Production is a little lo-fi but that only adds to its charm.

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17. Cocteau Twins – Heaven or Las Vegas: Probably part of the early genesis of dream pop. A heedlessly beautiful album that sparkles with actual magic.

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~ country / americana / folky ~

18. Ohio – Over the Rhine: A crushingly beautiful double album. A husband and wife team makes a towering work very few people have heard of.

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19. Neko Case – Furnace Room Lullaby: To me this is the ultimate Neko Case album. An unparalleled vocal powerhouse at the height of her songwriting powers.

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20. M. Ward – Post-War: Songs I’d sing to my kids, if I had any. Timeless.

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~ weird ~

21. kissed her little sister – HIGHandLOW: I think this one is Bandcamp only. A truly weird and hilarious low-fi mix of turntablism and singer-songwriteriness. Truly among the most hidden of gems.

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22. Mr. Bungle – California: A singular album. A bizarre mish-mash of styles roughly based around a kind of demented surf rock. Mike Patton is a genius.

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~ rock / jam ~

23. Plants and Animals – Parc Avenue: A band that never made another masterwork quite like this again. A beautiful journey.

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24. Okkervil River – The Stage Names: Some seriously deep and funny and passionate rock and roll.

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25. The Dodos – Visiter: Gorgeous singing, hilariously touching songs, balls out messy percussion, heart, spirit.

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26. White Denim – Last Days of Summer: White Denim is a crazy experimental Austin rock band that has done a lot of interesting work. For pure pleasure, however, nothing they’ve done is as good as Last Days of Summer. It’s like caramel poured over fresh strawberries and still just enough musically experimental to be amazing.

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~ mellow / soul / chill ~

27. How to Dress Well – Love Remains: Some of the genesis of lo-fi “PBR&B”, but hardly ever done as well. Later this same dude started making very clear recordings, but it’s this early, distorted, hopeless music that made me love him.

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28. Mija – HOW TO MEASURE THE DISTANCE BETWEEN LOVERS: Criminally slept on EP of ethereal electronic / neo-soul.

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~ pop adjacent ~

29. Kelis – Tasty: Everyone knows the song “Milkshake”, but not everyone knows there’s an incredible album built around it, along with an awesome Andre 3000 feature.

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30. Sia – Healing is Difficult: Before Sia even bothered to hide her face, she made this brilliant album. No one has a voice like hers, and no one knows how to make dark, thorny, vulnerable songs like her. This album is a treasure.

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Well, there you go. 30 albums. Surely you haven’t heard every single one?

10. Girlpool: Powerplant

If Cobain was alive today, he’d like Girlpool.  Somewhere West of the Vaselines.  Alternately cooing and shredding.  Song: Soup

9. Alex Cameron: Forced Witness:

Alex Cameron plays a character a little like Tom Waits, but less knowing, more confused, more innocent, more loungey, more uses of the word “pussy”.  Song: Chihuahua

8. Vince Staples – Big Fish Theory

I love Vince Staples.  He took some real chances here and made an actually experimental rap album.  Vince Staples is the king of making songs that aren’t what they seem to be about.  It’s fantastic.  Song: Rain Come Down

7. Lorde – Melodrama

Liability was an anthem for me.  A song where if I played it for friends they’d silently listen with me and then look at me and say, “Ow.”

6. Sheer Mag – Need to Feel Your Love

If this was coming out of my transistor radio while I jumped in the lake in cutoffs, I’d feel like life was good.  Song: Expect the Bayonet

5. Cigarettes After Sex – Cigarettes After Sex

Yeah, it’s what it sounds like.  Sade, Goldfrapp, Everything but the Girl.  That kind of stuff, and very well done.  Song: Each Time You Fall in Love

4. Sampha – Process

A vocalist like no other.  A mix of grief, paranoia, and hope, but with a little grime.  Song: Blood on Me [for beats] and Nobody Knows Me Like The Piano (In My Mother’s Home) [for the pure beauty]

3. Sophia Kennedy – Sophia Kennedy

Vivacious, beautiful, honest, original music.  Great percussion and production, great singing, unorthodox songwriting.  Song: Kimono Hill

2. King Kendrick (Pulitzer Recipient) – DAMN.

Kendrick really knows how to make himself a part of the national conversation, that’s for sure.  Three days after this album came out, I walked by a young girl singing, “They won’t take me out my ELEMENT.” and I thought, that’s right, girl.  Plus a U2 feature?!?!?!  He can write his own rules still.  Song: FEAR.

1. Amber Mark – 3:33

I listened to the 7 songs on this album, and their 4 remixes more than any other music this year.  I honestly can’t explain why it has the hold on me that it does, but there is not one wasted or imperfect second on this album.  I never want to skip anything.  It’s hard to think of what to play after it.  A hopeful album dealing with her mother’s death, handled with such ebullient and lovely energy.  It uplifts me every time.  Song: Monsoon

These were the albums that rocked me this year.  Special thanks to Sean Glenn for his help and free labor with the sweet, sweet day-glo cover graphics.

10. Alabama Shakes – Sound & Color

Alabama Shakes were a damn good blues rock outfit with a unique and androgynous female singer but nothing that would make you drop your drink.  Then they evidently decided to craft something extraordinary.  The guitar sound is luscious and confident, dare I say, stanky?  It’s like Al Green meets Houses of the Holy-era Led Zeppelin?  This album will make your day.

Hard to pick a song since the styles are all over the map, but I’ll pick the mellow and sweet “Guess Who” for it’s utterly delicious guitar sound:

9. Shamir – Ratchet

Shamir has a really fruity countertenor singing voice.  So, growing up in the shitty part of Las Vegas, a few people have had to find out the hard way that he’s a black belt in Tae Kwon Do.  He’s also a black belt in confident brattiness.  At twenty-one, he’s a fully formed artist.

He’s luminous in interviews.  He’s friendly, funny, sweet, and smart.  And his act is dope.  It’s a kind of hybrid modern electronic disco base, and then he sets you down easy with some mellow ballads at the end.  This year it was voted most-likely-to-make-me-stand-up-from-the-computer-chair-and-shake-my-ass.

I will share with you the voted-most-likely-to-make-me-shake-my-ass-in-my-living-room “Call It Off”:

8. Viet Cong – Viet Cong

I don’t know, spend a minute on Wikipedia before you go pick a band name, ok? Viet Cong turned out a really badass psychedelic noise-rock album for a debut album. They’re young guys and the term Viet Cong just sounded cool to them, I’m guessing. So I feel bad for them that the debate about it bit them so hard. It got them some attention but it detracted from the smear of grey, beige, and bright Day-Glo green that make up their music. Their debut is imaginative and powerful. I want to go back and listen to some Velvet Underground and some early Pink Floyd though. The closer, Death, is quite a ride.

Addendum: Evidently they did decide to change their name but the new name is still TBA.

I present the mighty 11-minute epic album closer “Death”:

7. Empress Of – Her

There’s a quiet, self-empowered party happening. You can dance to it but only move your toes and elbows and eyelids. Lorely Rodriguez is doing something special here. She has the vocal timing of a rapper, and she engineered absolutely everything about this album. I feel inspired every time I listen to it.

There’s songs about being surprised that you could let another human being really satisfy you, and there’s songs about not needing anyone else and being devoted to only satisfying yourself. Somehow they go together perfectly on this album.

The effortlessly beautiful and exciting “Standard” is what really does it for me:

6. Jamie XX – In Colour

Jamie XX was already half of one indie-famous band (he gentle, intimate singing of The XX), so it’s almost unfair that he’d come up with a totally different project and have it turn super successful. He’d always been a DJ, and in his live shows he started to develop his own style of dance music that blended turntablism with a variety of hip-hop and dance traditions.

The variety and beauty of this album is overwhelming, and it makes use of the best headphones or speakers you could possibly put it on. It’s an album to soundtrack the best moments in your life, when you just found out something lifechanging and you’re driving up Lake Shore Drive from the south in Chicago to start a new existence and you see the skyline suddenly loom above you.

The song “Gosh” is the song that really made me say, “Oh My Gosh”:

5. Bjork – Vulnicura

I thought Bjork had made her last really incredible album. I was wrong. When I’m prepared for it, I listen to this album, and it blows me away anew each time. I went to see her in concert for the first time on this tour and it’s one of the best shows I’ve been to. She had a line of string musicians on stage, and behind them, a visualization of the incredibly complex electronic drum pulsations that make up the songs. It let you see the inner gears of each song, like a live version of the Song Exploder podcast (a podcast for which artists deconstruct a song and talk about its evolution).

A lot was made of her “diaristic” tone (which is seriously just annoying sexism). I just like to think of this album as a bookend to her 2001 album, Vespertine, on which she tells the story of falling in love with her (at the time soon-to-be) husband, artist Matthew Barney. Two or three albums and children later she’s now telling the story of the dissolution of that relationship–and it is crushing.

I probably only listened to the album 5 total times this year, because that’s all I could handle, but every time I listened to it, I let it wash over me and I was impressed anew.

Here’s the short, emotionally-raw, “History of Touches”:

4. Hop Along – Painted Shut

No one sings like Frances Quinlan. She alternates between a Janice Joplin-like scream-moan, a Tiny Tim-like falsetto, and her regular power-rock chest voice. It’s an impressive toolset and she uses it for telling some killer stories.

Hop Along went from a band I listened to a couple of times and thought of as kind of anonymous rock—to the only band I could listen to for a months. I went and watched every live performance I could find on YouTube because Frances genuinely brings some new type of howl to every vocal performance.

On the most obvious level they’re a modern Philadelphia art-grunge band with an interesting singer. On the next level though, they have a perfect way of burying the lede in every song. The songs all start out a little boring because it’s their way to build up to the payoff. So it’s not like you hear the beginning of a song and think, “Oh, I’m gonna like this!” It’s more like you get to the crescendo and finally realize where it was going all along and you say, “Ohhhhhhhh.” Then you sing that hook to yourself in the shower and you can’t remember what song it went to-even if you listen to the beginning of every song on the album.

In the song “Waitress”, she sings about being a waitress in a diner and seeing someone who probably knew her and “the worst possible version of what I’d done” and then just hangs around long after closing.  “The world’s grown so small and embarrassing” she sings.  Boy do I know that feeling:

3. Vince Staples – Summertime ‘06

“I feel like ‘Fuck Versace’, they rapin’ nigga’s pockets.” said Vince Staples, on his song Lift Me Up. Somebody had to say it.

If you’re not used to listening to rap, and the roughness of its themes sometimes, then this album could be a hard listen. But it’s a worthwhile listen, and an inspiring one.

Vince Staples grew up in the rough neighborhood of Ramona Park in California Over rough, thick, sexy, thrumming beats, Vince tells the stories about growing up there and his lifechanging summer in 2006 when he got more involved in making music than gangs.

Vince’s last album Hell Can Wait, was about being a kid in Ramona Park and had unbelievably creepy and astounding songs like Screen Door, describing what it felt like to be a little kid with drug dealer parents and wondering “Who’s that peepin’ through the screen door?” This guy can tell a story and he tells them with such dark straight-faced dexterity.

So, in Summertime ‘06 he broadens the scope. Ice Cube told similar gang stories, connecting them to political and race realities, but Vince doesn’t try to make it all sound so cool. He’s not selling it as a lifestyle. As an example, the song Jump Off The Roof is one of the best songs on the album. He’s talking in first person about coming off crack cocaine and considering jumping off the roof just to feel alive. It’s an exciting song and I originally thought he was in some way glorifying this nihlistic mentality…until I read in an interview that it’s paraphrased from things his dad said to him while high while he was a kid.

Vince Staples never cracks a smile. He just spits his stories and paints these vivid dark pictures… I’m pretty sure there’s hope in there somewhere, but it’s admittedly buried a little deep.

On three let’s “Jump Off the Roof”:

2. Father John Misty – I Love You, Honeybear

I tried to listen to solo albums released by J. Tillman. Mostly it’s a depressing snooze fest comprised of monotone songs sung in a hushed way to gentle guitar music. That’s why it was so shocking when Father John Misty emerged as if a new man, with his “first” album Fear Fun a few years ago. I guess it’s technically the same human being.

Suddenly there was a howling wolf of a mad lunatic crooner, alternating between full throated singing and the sweetest falsettos behind rich orchestration. Now he’s back with his second album. He’s more in love, and more powerful, and meaner. He’s daring you to guess when he’s in character and when he’s not. I’ve got him figured out, though; he’s both, all the time.

He’s not just a musician. He’s a modern warlock of song. He’s the trickster spirit of the Rat Pack. These two albums are classics and when your kids come across them twenty years from now they’ll ask you you ever heard of him and you’ll smile knowingly.

Lastly, let’s address the charges of misogyny. My guess is that people are talking primarily about the song The Night Josh Tillman Came to our Apartment in which he spits venom (perhaps in a character) about someone he has a great deal of disdain for. It’s all been dismantled in think-pieces far better than I care to, but here’s some good parsing by NPR, The 405, and IndyWeek. I think misogyny is something Josh Tillman is struggling with, and not something he accepts within himself in an unexamined way. Sure there’s mysogyny, but there’s self-hate for it, too, and he’s not sure what to do about it. This his version of the old Nirvana chestnut “Love myself / better than you / I know it’s wrong / but what should I do?”

“Strange Encounter” has everything, soaring vocals, odd guitar, massive orchestration, the whole package:

1. Kendrick Lamar – To Pimp a Butterfly

Yeah, what else could the top spot be? I’ve read so many think-pieces about this album my head spins. Even backlash think-pieces that talk about how weird and difficult, thus, overrated it is. But hey, let’s not kid ourselves, the same think-pieces and praise went to Stevie Wonder’s jazzier, more difficult albums, and that doesn’t change the fact that they’re towering masterpieces on the whole.

Kendrick Lamar is a vocal performer and writer par excellence, with his finger on the pulse of humanity. Sometimes he can be too ham-handed (How Much a Dollar Cost). Sometimes he can be too thorny and abstruse. Fine. No one else came close to reaching so high this year musically, against unbelievably high expectations, and came up with something that everyone had to admit was a stunning statement.

Partially because the video is so good, I think “Alright” is the perfect song to feature:

And last, but not least:

Extremely Honorable Mentions:

U.S. Girls – Half Free: Growling and purring rock that’s a little Liz Phair-ey and all cool.
Pond – Man It Feels Like Space Again: Modern groovy psychadelic rock
Neon Indian – VEGA INTL. Night School: So ugly it’s beautiful synth rock in an 80’s palette
Czarface – Every Hero Needs A Villian: Kaleidoscopic old-school rap done right with enough cleverness in one song to fill out ten albums.
FKA twigs – M3LL155X EP: Something amazing to hold us over until her next album.
Carly Rae Jepsen – E•MO•TION: Tiny, perfect pop jewel.
Joanna Newsom – Divers: Our reigning queen of poetry and world creation graces us with another towering work it will take years to fully parse.
Sufjan Stevens – Carrie & Lowell: Sufjan quietly and meditatively muses on finally losing his addict mother.
I Don’t Like Shit, I Don’t Go Outside – Earl Sweatshirt: A quiet masterpiece of elegant poetic misanthropy.
Young Thug – Barter 6: Whatever Lil’ Wayne did right, Young Thug does better
Natalie Prass – Natalie Prass: Lush orchestration and great songwriting

Stuff I Wish I’d Had Time To Listen To More:

Waxahatchee – Ivy Tripp
Speedy Ortiz – Foil Deer
Surf – Donnie Trumpet & The Social Experiment
Deerhunter – Fading Frontier
Lanal Del Rey – Honeymoon
Blackalicious – Imani Vol. 1

Stuff That’s Very Much Not Here On Purpose:

All The Drake

These are the ten albums that came out in 2014 that I consider essential.  These are the albums that outlined the shape of music for me.  All of them I listened to dozens of times.  Sometimes I just had to go see them do it in person.

I would love for you to get a taste of these albums, and roll them around on your tongue.  It was a good year.

10. The Clientele – Suburban Light

I would have never guessed this album would have been on this list when I first heard it. I would have never guessed it would have edged out a similarly beautiful and gentle album by a band I love, Real Estate. But I have a feeling this album is going to be soundtracking my rainy Tuesday nights for many years to come.

Listen to the infinitely mellow Reflections After Jane:

And the slightly more rocking Joseph Cornell (which makes me sing the line “If we’re on Delancey Street…” every time I walk down Delancey Street:

 

9. Angel Olsen – Burn Your Fire For No Witness

In an interview, the producer said a rough sound was so important to Angel Olsen that they didn’t use any mic that cost more $100. They did a good job. Burn Your Fire For No Witness sounds vital and passionate. Angel’s voice smolders with desperation and feeling. The guitars crunch with sweet menace. A good portion of these songs could fairly be called timeless.

I think the best introduction to the album is its magnificent one-two punch of it’s opening two songs.  First the plaintive Unfucktheworld:

And then the howler Forgiven/Forgotten:

 

8. Run The Jewels – RTJ2

Do me a favor if you like rap. Play the new Wu-Tang album, and make a tic mark every time you hear someone rap something amazing that makes you want to repeat it to another person wide-eyed in amazement that another human being came up with that. Then play RTJ2 right after it and do the same thing. My guess is you’re going to end up with 8000% more tick marks on the RTJ2 side. Listen to two guys who are just realizing they’re getting the first real chance to shine after working at it for 20 years and they’re not going to let this chance slip through their fingers. Hear totally new ways to shit talk. Hear Killer Mike open up the album by squealing, “I’m finna bang this bitch the fuck out!” and then he promptly does.

Even if you don’t like rap, try the relaxed but still great wordplay of All My Life:

And my favorite song on the album is Early, where Killer Mike describes an encounter with police.  It gives me chills:

 

7. Sia – 1000 Forms of Fear

This is not my favorite Sia album. That would be her dark 2001 masterpiece, Healing Is Difficult, a fun, jazzy, dark-pop masterpiece that almost everyone in the world slept on. 1000 Forms of Fear is much more a pop album, with at least one certified major hit in Chandelier. As a part of Sia’s committment to use visual replacements for herself in all of the visual material for this album, an insanely talented 11 year old dancer serves as a stand-in for her in the Chandelier video. The video is a little shocking and you should watch it right now:

That song aside, Sia has a majestic and elastic voice and a unique gift for writing evocative songs. I think my favorite is the smoky torch song Straight for the Knife, which probably could have been rocked by Dusty Springfield:

 

6. Against Me! – Transgender Dysphoria Blues

The Against Me! lead singer used to present as a man. Now she sings and lives as a woman. I have an unprecedented number of people in my life who decided to transition to living as a woman and I’m guessing they all identify with the lyric: “You want them to notice the ragged ends of your summer dress. You want them to see you just like any other girl. They just see a faggot.” Transgender Dysphoria is a term psychologists use to describe someone unhappy with the gender they were assigned. Against Me! tells the story pretty well in the pop-post-punk idiom. These are some thrilling songs.

Unconditional Love reminds us that “Even if your love was unconditional, it still wouldn’t be enough to save me”:

And the title track, Transgender Dysphoria Blues:

 

5. A Sunny Day in Glasgow – Sea When Absent

There’s two particularly thrilling moments for me on Sea When Absent that make it really stand out. One is the first few seconds of the album where a doom-metal crunch fanfare makes you think for one moment that this is going to be a very different kind of album, before the lead singer’s angelic voice and 80’s synth stabs immediately confuse. The other is about 20 seconds into the second song, titled In Love With Useless (The Timeless Geometry in the Tradition of Passing) where the song breaks and she yelps: “Antipsychotics / Sink to the bottom / Dreams that were buried / Comin’ up”. The sample of her singing is proccessed in such a way that the moments of quiet are cut off, like someone talking on a bad cell phone signal. The result is exuberant and actually thrilling. This is a beautiful and exquisitely layered album that sounds like nothing else this year.

Byebye, Big Ocean (The End):

Also this:

In Love With Useless (The Timeless Geometry in the Tradition of Passing):

 

4. Caribou – Our Love

The album starts out with a low-pitched vocal sample of Dan Snaith repeatedly singing, “Can’t do without” about 60 times until another layer of him singing in falsetto, “I can’t do without you” comes in as another layer, and it’s not until almost halfway into the song that the full spectrum of sonic color comes in. Dan Snaith has made several albums as Caribou, each one a new take on his idea of dance music. He’s been more adventurous before, but he’s never made such a consistent and beautiful statement.  If you can, listen to this album on good enough speakers to hear all its amazing studio tricks.

Listen to the mesmerizing album opener Can’t Do Without You:

And the closer, the sonic landscape of Your Love Will Set You Free:

 

3. Cymbals Eat Guitars – LOSE

Joe D’agostino (most Long Island name ever?  probably) opens his song Chambers like this: “The feds closed Silk Road, and I’m out in the cold ’cause I don’t know anyone. Lights out in South Beach, coming up on seven weeks, need a pill to sleep so I drive out to Stapleton, but even I’m not dumb enough to enter The Chambers.”  That’s just one of his vivid stories about his childhood and fairly fucked up adulthood.  I played this album for a friend and she said, “He has such a pretty voice.  Why can’t he sing about something nice?”  In response they sent the following tweet:

@danieltalsky how bout…cupcake? http://t.co/qv5pUip7DI

— Cymbals Eat Guitars (@CYMBLS_EAT_GTRS) November 5, 2014

The aforementioned Chambers:

And a beautiful ballad called Child Bride where he talks about the moment he realized a young friend of his was going to be fucked up for life, and then how he met her years later at a concert and was bragging about how her new girlfriend “turned her on to crack”:

 

2. Flying Lotus – You’re Dead

You ever hear an otherwise good instrumental album ruined by a couple of dunderheaded rap verses that clearly don’t belong there. I sure have. (See the first Burial album and many many more.) That’s not what happens here, however. Kendrick Lamar, Snoop Dogg(!) and a couple other people add perfect meditations on death to Flying Lotus’s expansive compositions. Is this an amazing free Jazz album? A hip hop album? Electronic music by one of the most explosive and inventive electronic music artists? Yes.

If someone showed me an insane audiophile stereo system and said, “What do you want to boom out of this?  You only get one album!”

“You’re dead,” I’d say.

The album plays like one continuous suite, and most of the songs are under two minutes so it’s difficult to pick only a couple of tracks.  Never Catch Me is a great representative track with a good mix of electronic music, jazz, and hip hop, with a great Kendrick Lamar rap about death:

And to show some of the breadth of the album, this later, almost interstitial interlude Turtles:

 

1. FKA twigs – LP1

Most years I agonize about the best album of the year but not this year. I knew months ago that it would be hard for anything to unseat this minimal R&B masterwork. I like my beats and electronic sounds fierce and asymetrical and challenging. FKA twigs ode to sex, alienation, desperation, and fame is lonely and perfect for every moment of its running time. This is the kind of album you want to blast on a good speaker system with plenty of bass, but works on tinny earbuds just fine. The beats clatter and intrude and seduce but her voice floats above it perfectly, with her own dark and beguiling anthems. One of my favorite songs is Video Girl. She was once, a “Video Girl”. She’s an unusual and beautiful woman, with unnaturally full lips and slender form. She danced in other artists videos and became semi-famous a first time that way, but she was determined to be known for her own musical work. So when people approached her on the street, recognizing her from the videos, she’d say, “Yeah, I get that all the time, I know I look like her, but it’s not me.” So the lyric in the song goes, “She’s the girl from the video / you’re lying, you’re lying, you’re lying.” Now when they stop her and say “hey you’re the girl from the video” at least they’re talking about HER videos, which are insane.  Now all we need is a James Blake, FKA Twigs collaboration.

Video Girl is essential:

And Pendulum encapsulates everything I like about the album.  Its etherial textures, odd rhythms, and sincere singing.  When she sings “I’m a sweet little lovemaker” I believe her:

Ok, now it’s time to listen to everyone else’s end of year lists, or listen to all 20 songs as a playlist.

I remember when I first pronounced INXS as “incks” in front of someone in my middle school class and was soundly ridiculed. (It’s pronounced, har har, “In Excess” for anyone still not in the know.) KICK was one of the first cassettes I purchased and I think it holds up well. They were considered pop-pretty-boys but the songwriting and performance is still vital all these years later. If you’re only familiar with the hits, do yourself a favor and get on Spotify (or whatever) and give it a listen.

However, if you already know the album, then you could do worse than to listen to this pretty and understated live cover of THE ENTIRE ALBUM. One of the great things about KICK was Michael Hutchence’s unhinged and sexual performances, but Courtney Barnett does a great job of distilling this into a laid-back wistfulness.  She even does the Bob Dylan ripoff flash cards for Mediate.

Ladies and gentlemen, I present my top 10 albums of 2013, starting with number 10:

10. Daft Punk – Random Access Memories

Hey, I could sure live without hearing “Get Lucky” ever again but this is one amazing album and one amazing experience.  A band that made their fortune on sampling the works of others pulls together an original album with mostly originally performed compositions.  It’s a love song to dance music and it is frequently beautiful.

It’s hard to pick a song, but I lose myself to dance the most in Lose Yourself To Dance:

9. Savages – Silence Yourself

When I needed to feel tough walking down the street this year I listened to City’s Full, which is a woman singing about how she prefers her older female lover to all the “skinny pretty girls”.  Also it shreds.  So does the whole album.

8. Jim James – Regions of Light and Sound of God

Why did I never listen to My Morning Jacket before… oh yeah, the stupid band name. This album made me realize how majestic Jim James is and what a loving songwriter he is.

You could hardly do better than Of The Mother Again:

7. Laura Mvula – Sing To The Moon

A powerful new voice on the music scene making timeless, music like a young, creative Nina Simone.  I wrote more about the album in a recent post.

Green Garden is the stunner:

6. Matthew E. White – Outer Face EP

Another soft voiced guy with super lush arrangements. 5 songs of pure perfection.  I loved his album Big Inner last year, and I’m so glad he decided to cut us off another little slice of his gorgeousness this year.

Listen to his facility with strings and amazing background vocals while he teaches you his Signature Move:

5. Unknown Mortal Orchestra – II [Deluxe Edition]

Who knew these guys had such a beautiful album in them. The acoustic versions in the deluxe edition are at least as good as the originals.

Listen to the watery guitars and super-Beatlesy composition in the album opener From The Sun:

4. Rhye – Woman

The album is called Woman but it’s sung by Mike Milosh. This is the dead sexiest album that came out all year.  Imagine if Sade put out another classic album but a man fronted it.

It’s hard to make a pick for this album but I think I’ll settle on Three Days which is all the time they have with each other:

3. Jon Hopkins – Immunity

Electronic music at its most vital, dynamic, and listenable.  Yes, it sounds like Johns Hopkins, the Baltimore university.  You are the first person to notice.

Open Eye Signal shows his approach to crunchy, delicious sound that makes me want to stand up out of my computer chair:

2. Jonathan Wilson – Fanfare

Gorgeous album straight out of nowhere. I’m proud to put this album on my top 10 in a year when it seems like everyone else slept on it.  Crosby and Stills actually play on the album and that gives you some sense of where it’s coming from.  Some kind of beautiful Steely Dan shit with great songwriting.

The mellow, horse-clop percussion masterpiece Cecil Taylor.  I love the way he sings, “I’m just another heart and set of eyes, looking for a miracle” and all the crazy little details and effects:

1. Chance The Rapper – Acid Rap

This high schooler made the lushest, cleverest, most touching rap album imaginable. Look, if you just can’t handle Chancellor’s voice I assure you it can grow on you. I thought Joey Bada$$ was coming up with amazing lyrics for a 17 year old but he’s got nothing on the twisty, loving wordplay of Chance.

Also, the mixtape is TOTALLY FREE so there’s no reason not to add this album to your collection.  I think his style, his weird sqwawk of an ad-lib, his sweetness, and his clever rhymes are best illustrated by Cocoa Butter Kisses.  My little sister hates it because of the cough noises but I think it’s adorable:

STUFF I HEARD THAT DIDN’T MAKE THIS LIST ON PURPOSE:

Kanye West – Yeezus: Made so many end of year lists but there’s just too many dumb ass lyrics and ok I’ll say it: the music isn’t as innovative as people are saying.

My Bloody Valentine – mbv: Never quite got Loveless, and don’t quite get mbv.

Kurt Vile – Wakin On A Pretty Daze: Dude is starting to put me to sleep.

Janelle Monae – Electric Lady: She’s amazing but something is off about this album.

COMFORT FOOD LIST: (stuff I really enjoyed and listened to a lot but can’t unseat the top ten)

Young Galaxy – Ultramarine: I would never have thought I would have loved these well-crafted pop songs as much as I ended up. They are perfection and all the music videos contrast by being odd and ugly.

Vampire Weekend – Modern Vampires of the City: In which Vampire Weekend prove to the world that they weren’t just a knockoff of the Graceland album and actually make their own singular and beautiful music.

The Belle Game – Ritual. Tradition. Habit.: They call themselves “dark-pop”. For me it’s just like musical comfort food. Passionate singing and jangly rock guitar.

Deerhunter – Monomania: I think I’m finally a Deerhunter fan.

Vondelpark – Seabed: Muaic to make out to as you drift off to sleep with your lover.

Phosphorescent – Muchacho: A wonderful, wonderful album from a great new voice in music.

STUFF I THOUGHT WAS AWESOME BUT JUST DIDN’T GET TO LISTEN TO ENOUGH TO EVALUATE:

Bill Callahan – Dream River

Mikal Cronin – MCII

Waxahatchee – Cerulean Salt

Disclosure – Settle

Ty Segall – Sleeper

Ka – The Night’s Gambit

Oneohtrix Point Never – R Plus Seven

Danny Brown – OLD

Late Addendum: Extra thanks to Sean Glenn for doing the awesome picture frame graphics for all the albums!