The record of the year in my opinion. This is what living in 2012 feels like. The trio of “Shackled and Drawn”, Death to My Hometown,” and “Jack of All Trades” perfectly capture the anger and despair many of feel living in these times. The gospel filled back half reminds us why we keep carrying on. While It can be great to write songs about break-ups and parties, it’s something else to write for the masses and take on a critical moment in history. Recently, Green Day’s American Idiot and Springsteen’s The Rising successfully captured a heightened moment of the present and put it to music. Springsteen’s added another gem to this short list.
Best rock band of the 2010’s in my book. A fantastic follow up to 2010’s rock epic The Monitor. Patrick Shales is well on his way to becoming a punk legend. The scaled back garage sound on this record really makes these songs kick live.
I’ve been a JTE fan for a while now and I think this is his best. The album is a delight from start to finish. The whole thing was recorded live in the Appalachian mountains over the course of a weekend. This is the kind of record that makes a long drive a little shorter and a cold winter night a bit warmer.
A friend of mine from Charleston turned me on to this great duo last winter. When I hard O’ Be Joyful this summer I was hooked. For all you Loretta Lynn, Wanda Jackson, and Nancy Sinatra voice lovers out there.
I picked this one up at B-Side records in September after spending some time browsing the shelves and not knowing what to buy. Neneh Cherry and the Thing’s cover of Suicide’s “Dream Baby Dream” was playing in the system in the store. I found myself listening to this continuously after I got it. More free jazz than pop, this record will creep into your playlist and remain for a long time. It turns out there is still a reason to go to your local record store.
The perfect summer record. These irresistible pop songs make me want to live in California. I probably played this record every day as the days were winding down last June at the end of the school year.
A great record that did not get nearly enough attention. 73 years old and writing some the best rock songs around. Did I mention that rock 'n' roll is alive and well?
Honorable Mention:
Kendrick Lamar – Good Kid, M.A.A.D. City
Old Crow Medicine Show – Carry Me Back
Bobby Womack – The Bravest Man in the Universe
Night Moves – Colored Emotions
The Very Best – mtmtmk
Sharon Van Etten – Tramp
Dirty Projectors – Swing Lo Magellan
Best Collections:
Twin Cities Funk and Soul: Lost R&B Grooves from Minneapolis/St. Paul 1964-1979
What a treat this is. I still struggle to accept that it’s Wee Willie Walker singing and not Sam Cooke on a handful of these tracks.
Billy Bragg and Wilco – The Complete Sessions
Best Concerts:
Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band (Wrigley Field, Xcel Energy Center)
The reinvention of the band in Clarence’s absence is extraordinary. Jake Clemons crushes it. The tributes are perfect. I’m lucky to have been a part of it this fall.
Rock the Garden w/ Howler, Tune-Yards, Doomtree, Trampled by Turtles, The Hold Steady (Walker Art Museum)
My first official day of summer. The festivities began early and ended late. A nice welcome for me living in the Twin Cities just down from my place. See you at next year’s event.
Nick Lowe (First Avenue)
Eef Barzelay and Heligoats (Indie Coffee)
Concerts I Wish That I Had Not Missed:
Billy Bragg at the Barrymore Theater (also Billy Bragg with the Solidarity Singers the day of the show on the Capital lawn).
Three Fridays from now is the apocalypse, so I'm trying to get ahead.
Thankfully, so are Prince Rama. The sister-duo from what - for now - is Brooklyn, have taken it upon themselves to comb the post-apocalyptic soundscape to produce Top 10 Hits of the End of the World. They have conjured recordings from ten post-apocalyptic bands, each of whom adds their biggest post-apocalypse hit to this compilation. Hits offers one cathartic dance-dirge after another, and the artists on this record bear the same relationship to Passion Pit that TV on the Radio does to The Village People. I mean all of this in the most positive way I can about the end of the world; if I survived the apocalypse I would be excited that there was music like this around.
Even so, these songs mostly validate those of us planning for the worst. Cathartic though these dances be, the ended world of Hits does not seem like it offers much opportunity for dance. An Orwellian Black Elk (I'm guessing) greets the listener on the first track. A song determinedly promising, in title and in tenor, "Those Who Live For Love Will Live Forever" ends in terrifying, howling crescendo. A band called Guns of Dubai had a post-apocalypse hit with "Blades of Austerity." Everywhere, one cannot help but imagine a substantial amount of marching. (Except maybe during "So Destroyed" by Rage Peace.)
If I survive to dance my way through Prince Rama's post-apocalyptic desolation it will be because of bands like Cold Specks. I heard this band for the first time last Wednesday. They sound like Mavis Staples listened to some Macy Gray, then asked The National to play behind her with a couple of guys from The Walkmen. The shorter - better - description is their own: "doom soul." My theory is that if exposure therapy works for overcoming fear, the same might be true for overcoming imminent, apocalyptic, doom to one's soul. Needless to say, I Predict a Graceful Expulsionhas become ritual listening around here.
Singer Al Spx drives Cold Specks very close to the droning, hollow dissonance heard in the final days of humanity. Only humanity manages to prevail. Spx leaves you repeating, I am, I am, I am/a goddamn believer. And she reminds us that even doomed, souls love The Fresh Prince.
