(Note – I was planning to do a more elaborate post here, with album covers and Amazon links and all that razzamatazz but I ran out of time. I’m heading to Vietnam in 2 days so it’s either post now or not post at all.)
This is the year that I finally got religious about making sure I had the year of release for stuff in iTunes, just so at the end of the year I could look back and come up with lists like this. This is also the year that I didn’t have that much time to listen to music. This is the first year of my life that I ended up spending more time on old faves than developing new faves. Maybe I’m getting old. Anyway, this isn’t a ten best list but it is the albums that made the deepest impressions on me; the ones I’ve played more than once and will go back to again.
Adele – 21 – This album hit me from the first song, the first play, I knew it was great and everyone I played it to had the same instant reaction. It was so good, I didn’t expect it to have the massive success it did but it’s well deserved. My gf is playing this one non-stop and it’s one of the few albums she’s latched onto that doesn’t make me wince each time I hear it.
Bjork – Biophilia – Sorry, I just don’t get this one. I tried it twice and I won’t say it was painful each time but I just don’t get it.
The Black Keys – El Camino – I confess that I never much cared for these guys despite all the critical praise. That whole guitar/drum/no bass thing just throws me, just as it did with White Stripes. But this album is great – maybe they’ve changed, maybe it’s me, but I’m ready for them now and really enjoy this. Each time I play it, it gets better.
Charles Bradley – No Time For Dreaming – So wait, this guy is 62 years old and this is his debut album? It’s classic 60s soul coming from a singer who throws everything he’s got not just into every song but into every line and phrase. I think this comes from the same people who bring us Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings.
Coldplay – Mylo Xyloto – On many levels I think it’s unfortunate that a whiny pop band seems to be the standard bearer for rock music in 2011. But I give them credit for trying to shake up their sound and move forward at least on some tracks. I wanted to hate this but I couldn’t.
Danger Mouse & Daniele Luppi – Rome – Danger Mouse seems to be the only one out there who changes so much from release to release, who can continue to surprise (aside from Neil Young, I guess) and this is a lovely and unexpected treat, a tribute to Italian movie soundtracks of the 60s.
Elbow – Build a Rocket Boys – Amongst all the shoe-gazer type bands currently popular in England, this one has the songs that are most anthemic.
Frank Zappa – Carnegie Hall – The releases from Zappa’s vaults don’t seem to get much attention. This 4 CD set from the Flo & Eddie era features fine versions of many of my favorite Zappa songs. Hearing them do it live yet again, after not listening to this material for a long time, it continues to impress.
Gregg Allman – Low Country Blues – Maybe not a 5 star album but certainly the best work Allman has done in decades.
Joe Bonamassa – Dust Bowl – He’s been around for awhile but this is the first time I’ve listened to him and I liked what I heard. A blues guitarist a bit more influenced by the pumped up hyped up British blooze of the 70s and 80s, but he’s got the chops.
John Hiatt – Dirty Jeans and Mudslide Hymns – One of our finest songwriters and singers, actually I just about gave up on him after hearing his last album. This is a great return to form that ranks up there with his best work.
Johnny Winter – Roots – all-but-forgotten blues guys doing albums covering standards seems to have been a trend this year and to my ears this was the most successful of that pack. I haven’t listened to Winter in decades and while he never strays far from the popular arrangements of these songs that you all know (or should know), here’s a man who knows how to play.
Kate Bush – 50 Words For Snow – I need to listen to this more. After a long silence, this year brought us Director’s Cut and now this and my initial listens tell me this is splendid and weird and timeless.
Lady Gaga – Born This Way – I like Lady Gaga, I really do. But I didn’t care for this album, despite its massive popularity. Musically she’s treading water though I applaud her politics and ability to control her image.
Levon Helm – Ramble at the Ryman – A live set with a huge number of guest stars, this is the feel good album of the year. I always skip over the Sheryl Crow songs though.
Lonely Island – Turtleneck and Chain – These guys just crack me up. Mostly it’s the videos – the songs are okay taken on their own but the videos really elevate them.
Nick Lowe – The Old Magic – Lowe’s songs are so deceptively straight-forward that you wonder why everyone else doesn’t do records like this. And then the answer comes – very few possess his talent, craftsmanship and dedication.
Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds – Simply not sucking would have been enough; it’s actually quite okay.
Original Broadway Cast – Book of Mormon – We won’t get to see this in Hong Kong until the movie comes out in a few years. Till then all we can do is listen to the album, laugh and think about how these guys manage to take such traditional forms and warp them so deliciously.
Paul Simon – So Beautiful or So What – I love Paul Simon and some people love this album but for me it was more “so what?”
P.J. Harvey – Let England Shake – Another massively successful album that I simply don’t understand.
Robbie Robertson – How to Become Clairvoyant – wow, two albums from former Band members make my list 35 years after The Band broke up. I’ve sort of never forgiven Robertson for not singing like Helm and I’ve never enjoyed his solo albums – until this one, which features some fine songs and even finer playing.
Ry Cooder – Pull Up Some Dust and Sit Down – As a huge fan of Cooder’s 70s output, albums like Into the Purple Valley and Paradise and Lunch, I was thrilled to see him revisit that kind of territory all these years later. The album sounds 100 years old and yet is as topical as the morning’s newspaper. Maybe my pick for album of the year. (Need to listen to Kate Bush more.)
The Tedeschi Trucks Band – Revelator – Wow. Husband and wife finally record together and come up with a winner. Again, it’s got a sort of 70s nostalgia feel to it so maybe that’s why I find is so appealing.
Tom Waits – Bad As Me – Waits has always been a great songwriter and performer but sometimes his albums can be challenging. No one will mistake this album for Top 40 material yet it’s his most consistently accessible work of the past 30 years.
Wilco – The Whole Love – Another album of the year candidate for me, this is perhaps the album that I’ve played most often the past few months.
Further investigation (stuff I’ve listened to once, really like, need to hear more of):
The Boxer Rebellion – The Cold Still
Dawes – Nothing is Wrong
Frank Ocean – nostalgia, ULTRA
Yuck – Yuck
The Joy Formidable – The Big Roar
The Weeknd (not a typo) – House of Balloons
Fred Eaglesmith – 6 Volts
Drake – Take Care
The Roots – Undun
Reissues – The year we went from Deluxe Editions to Super Deluxe Editions; the year that record companies figured out how to get (some of) us to spend $150 buying albums we already own.
Beach Boys – Smile – Finally the original stuff, as close to finished as it’s ever going to be, a 2 CD version for most people and a mega huge (but lovely) boxed set for diehards like me.
U2 – Achtung Baby – The Super Deluxe Edition expands from one CD to 6 CDs and 4 DVDs. (There’s also an Uber Deluxe edition selling for well over $500.) Yet, all this sprawl brings things into clearer focus, which is exactly what something like this is supposed to do.
The Who – Quadrophenia – A little disappointed in the “Director’s Cut” edition – beautiful book, 2 CDs of bonus tracks (Townshend’s demo version of the entire album including songs that didn’t make it) yet greedy bastard that I am, I wanted even more.
Miles Davis – Live in Europe 1967 – not a reissue, a legit release of stuff that’s been circulating on bootlegs for more than 40 years. Incendiary playing.
Willie Dixon – Blues A Dixon – even better than the Chess Box, which I guess is around 20 years old now or more, 3 discs, 65 songs, a history of the most important songwriter in the history of blues, one third of the tracks his versions, the rest covers ranging from Howlin’ Wolf and Muddy Waters to the Rolling Stones, Jeff Beck, Mose Allison, The Animals, Derek & the Dominos, John Mayall, so many more.
I’m sure there’s stuff I’ve left out.
