tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-335409092024-03-07T16:22:02.361-05:00Records I BuyMatthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09684334833086483334noreply@blogger.comBlogger220125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33540909.post-76138527966287088692023-12-31T12:00:00.060-05:002023-12-31T12:00:00.127-05:00RIB's 2023 Album of the Year:Lana Del Rey -- Did you know that there's a tunnel under Ocean Blvd<p><i>(Reprinted from Unwinnable Monthly)</i></p>
<p><b>Lana Del('s) Rey</b></p>
<p>It’s Sunday morning at the 2023 Newport Folk Festival and something isn’t right.</p>
<p>The early birds are perched from the merch tents to the far end of the Museum. It’s well past time for the gates to open, as they always do precisely at 10, each day, each year, so the diehard folkies can flock to the Quad or the Fort to secure their best blanket positions. But this morning, the gates and the guards aren’t budging, and the rumors on the merch side is that it’s all Lana Del Rey’s fault. On the Museum side, those rumors are confirmed as her voice carries over on the bay breeze from the Fort Stage.</p>
<p>The diva, it appears, has the nerve to be sound-checking.</p>
<p>It’s unprecedented. For folkies already perplexed or even peeved by her place in the weekend’s lineup, the delay — which someone squished nearby in the crowd tells us is kind of a trademark of hers — is further proof she has no place here. The spirit of the Folk Fest is all about the music, from the morning sets to the closers, not all about Lana.</p>
<p>Eventually, Lana Del Rey is ready, and, because she says it can, Day 3 begins.</p>
<hr />
<p>Seven hours later, I have had at least five servings of Del’s Lemonade, not exactly the official drink of the Newport Folk Festival but close enough.</p>
<p>So when Lana Del Rey finally takes the stage — after another delay, and to the sounds of screaming fangirls somehow piped through the speakers — I’m sugared up and ready for anything.</p>
<p>I liked Video Games well enough when it first came out, and I’ve been digging her new record, in anticipation of this set. I can’t legitimately call myself a fan. But this evening, I am up for grabs.</p>
<p>Later I’d hear some folkies actually complain about this, but she’s brought a fairly elaborate stage setup — and dancers! This kind of choreography at the Fort is basically unheard of, but it doesn’t feel out of place 24 hours after <a href=“https://unwinnable.com/2023/09/12/the-newport-pork-festival/ “>Jon Batiste barbecued on the same stage</a>. And while it’s not exactly Bob Dylan plugging in his electric guitar, it’s refreshing: Lana sprawled out on a piano; Lana reflected in a mirror as she combs her hair; Lana dragged off the stage at the end by the male members of her dance troupe.</p>
<p>It’s no wonder David Lynch is a fan: Her songs find space to be both artificial and heartfelt. I can’t tell how much of a diva the diva really is. And I love it.</p>
<p><em>I know they think that it took somebody else<br />
To make me beautiful, beautiful<br />
As they intended me to be<br />
But they're wrong<br />
I know they think that it took thousands of people<br />
To put me together again like an experiment<br />
Some big men behind the scenes<br />
Sewing Frankenstein black dreams into my songs<br />
But they're wrong</em></p>
<hr />
<p>That night I drive back from Rhode Island, along back roads that twist and turn in the darkness, roads that are almost pitch black when my brights aren’t on. My wife sleeps next to me in the passenger seat. Lana’s record, “Did you know that there’s a tunnel under Ocean Blvd” — my 2023 Album of the Year, beating out boygenius and Sufjan Stevens — keeps me company, providing the lovely and sometimes surreal soundtrack for the journey.</p>
<p>It might be the perfect way to listen to this record: wired, thrilled by the past three days, running on adrenaline and Del’s, every once in a while taking a sharp turn a little sharper than I’d have liked, imagining the car careening off the guardrail into the woods. Not long after Lana pleads, “fuck me to death, love me until I love myself” and asserts “it’s not about having someone to love me anymore”, there’s her preacher, sounding like he’s being surreptitiously recorded by Lana’s iPhone, imploring us not to live a life of lust, to appreciate the love and the family that we have. Later, she is taken in by candy necklaces even though she knows they’re superficial. And then Lana leaves everything behind because “when you know, you know” — then sings a love song she wrote for her boy Jack Antonoff’s wedding with the same lyric.</p>
<p>You know, twists and turns.</p>
<p>Eventually we get to my parents’ house, turn off the car, and quietly walk inside and upstairs to not wake up the kids. There’s always at least one thing — usually many things — that keeps me coming back to Newport Folk every year. This year there was Lana Del Rey, who for a time seemed determined to keep it from starting. Only to say later playing the Fest was a lifelong dream — and then blowing it up.</p>
<iframe width="400" height="225" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/pYqky795R1s?si=2xuy1w0FJD6w8fbN" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen></iframe>
<h2>Past winners:</h2>
<p>1993: Counting Crows -- August and Everything After<br />
1994: R.E.M. -- Monster<br />
1995: The Innocence Mission -- Glow<br />
1996: Dave Matthews Band -- Crash<br />
1997: U2 -- Pop<br />
1998: R.E.M. -- Up<br />
1999: John Linnell -- State Songs<br />
2000: Radiohead -- Kid A<br />
2001: Bjork -- Vespertine<br />
2002: Wilco -- Yankee Hotel Foxtrot<br />
2003: Bonnie "Prince" Billy -- Master and Everyone<br />
2004: Wilco -- A Ghost is Born<br />
2005: Sufjan Stevens -- Illinois<br />
2006: The Decemberists -- <a href="http://recordsibuy.blogspot.com/2006/12/matty-album-of-year-nos-3-1.html">The Crane Wife</a><br />
2007: Radiohead -- <a href="http://recordsibuy.blogspot.com/2008/01/at-long-lastthe-2007-album-of-year.html">In Rainbows</a><br />
2008: Shearwater -- <a href="http://recordsibuy.blogspot.com/2008/12/ribs-2008-album-of-year-shearwater-rook.html">Rook</a><br />
2009: Animal Collective -- Merriweather Post Pavilion<br />
2010: Laura Veirs -- <a href="http://recordsibuy.blogspot.com/2011/01/ribs-2010-album-of-year-laura-veirs.html">July Flame</a><br />
2011: PJ Harvey -- <a href="http://recordsibuy.blogspot.com/2011/12/ribs-2011-album-of-year-pj-harvey-let.html">Let England Shake</a><br />
2012: Animal Collective -- <a href="http://recordsibuy.blogspot.com/2013/01/ribs-2012-album-of-year-animal.html">Centipede Hz</a><br />
2013: Mogwai -- <a href="http://recordsibuy.blogspot.com/2013/12/ribs-2013-album-of-year-mogwai-les.html">Les Revenants</a><br />
2014: Sun Kil Moon -- <a href="http://recordsibuy.blogspot.com/2015/01/ribs-2014-album-of-year.html">Benji</a><br />
2015: The Tallest Man On Earth -- <a href="http://recordsibuy.blogspot.com/2016/01/ribs-2015-album-of-year-tallest-man-on.html">Dark Bird is Home</a><br />
2016: Bon Iver -- <a href="http://recordsibuy.blogspot.com/2016/12/ribs-2016-album-of-year-bon-iver-22.html">22, A Million</a><br />
2017: Bjork -- <a href="http://recordsibuy.blogspot.com/2017/12/ribs-2017-album-of-year-bjork-utopia.html">Utopia</a><br />
2018: Caamp -- <a href="http://recordsibuy.blogspot.com/2018/12/ribs-2018-album-of-year-caamp-boys.html">Boys</a><br />
2019: The Lumineers -- <a href="http://recordsibuy.blogspot.com/2019/12/ribs-2019-album-of-year-lumineers-iii.html">III</a><br />
2020: Phoebe Bridgers -- <a href="http://recordsibuy.blogspot.com/2020/12/ribs-2020-album-of-year-phoebe-bridgers.html">Punisher</a><br />
2021: Bo Burnham -- <a href="http://recordsibuy.blogspot.com/2021/12/ribs-2021-album-of-year-bo-burnham.html">Inside (The Songs)</a><br />
2022: Sylvan Esso -- <a href="http://recordsibuy.blogspot.com/2022/12/ribs-2022-album-of-year-sylvan-esso-no.html">No Rules Sandy</a></p>
Matthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09684334833086483334noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33540909.post-33023029216054475292023-11-23T14:48:00.003-05:002023-11-23T14:52:08.397-05:00Nominees: 2023 Album of the Year<h2>Nominees</h2>
<p>boygenius -- the record</p>
<p>Lana Del Rey -- Did you know that there's a tunnel under Ocean Blvd</p>
<p>Sufjan Stevens -- Javelin</p>
<p>The Tallest Man on Earth -- Henry St.</p>
<h2>Honorable Mention</h2>
<p>Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit -- Weathervanes</p>
<p>Olivia Chaney -- Six French Songs</p>
<p>Sumbuck -- Lucky</p>Matthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09684334833086483334noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33540909.post-15125073471774486622022-12-31T11:37:00.006-05:002022-12-31T12:20:52.315-05:00RIB's 2022 Album of the Year: Sylvan Esso -- No Rules Sandy<p><i>(Reprinted from Unwinnable Monthly)</i></p>
<p><b>No Rules Newport</b></p>
<p>An undeniable highlight of each summer is Unwinnable’s can’t-miss coverage of <a href="https://unwinnable.com/?tag=newport-folk-festival">the Newport Folk Festival</a>. Yet in 2022, it was nowhere to be found.</p>
<p>Did Unwinnable sit out a year that included legendary surprise performances by both Paul Simon and Joni Mitchell? Did the Rookie of the Year lose a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to dance with the Wife of the Year to Joni’s performance of “Amelia” — which happens to be the Wife of the Year’s name (and his ringtone for her)? Did Unwinnable not shed a single tear during any of this?</p>
<p><img src="https://static.found.ee/user/2692/res-53a0ba78-a77f-4754-9cb5-77bbeb1cbc38-Sylvan-Esso-GIF-downsized-large.gif" style="float: right; height: 200px; margin: 0px 0px 10px 10px; width: 200px;"> No! Unwinnable was there! Unwinnable danced! Unwinnable cried! Unwinnable did not write about it!</p>
<p>It’s time to rectify that. Because something else happened at the most recent NFF — Sylvan Esso debuted their as-yet-to-be-released and previously-unheard album — “No Rules Sandy” — for the first time. They performed it in its entirety, as we danced under a blazing hot sun. And guess what? It's my 2022 Album of the Year.</p>
<p>Amelia is also the name of the voice of Sylvan Esso, Amelia Meath. Leading into her performance I had been wondering why so many musicians insist on dressing in unseasonably warm attire at these shows. Newport is not a place where one would be judged for cargo shorts. And so when Amelia Meath took the stage in a suit jacket and bra, she’d already won me over. When she removed the suit jacket, she became practically heroic.</p>
<p>She needed the fresh air. As I said, it was hot that day. I was covered in dirt from dancing in the dusty ground in front of the Fort stage. Amelia Meath was under cover and clean, but she moved like it was her first and last show, and her husband, bandmate, Nick Sanborn (the Sandy in the album’s title) made his bleeps and bloops with just as much enthusiasm.</p>
<p>I’m a latecomer to Sylvan Esso’s music. I had “Ferris Wheel” on repeat heading into Newport, to the point where my two boys started requesting the “knees are bruised” song in the car. And while there might not be a song on “No Rules Sandy” quite that infectious, many come close — like “Didn’t Care” or “Sunburn” or “Alarm." There’s also arguably my favorite track, or at least the one that initially drew me in, called “Your Reality” which the duo has described as being a mashup of two very different ways of seeing the song. The result is splendid and not only suits the lyrics, but the album itself, a less-than-highly-polished post-pandemic parade of quickly written and recorded songs separated by short in-studio doodles and even a voicemail message from Mom.</p>
<p>The cover, too, is just the track list — black type left-justified on a white background (in iTunes the song titles disappear and reappear on a loop). It’s clear my <a href="https://unwinnable.com/2022/09/09/im-a-record-producer-now/">inaugural recipient of the Executive Producer of the Year Award</a> wasn’t consulted, though perhaps that’s for the best. The mixtape mashup of “No Rules Sandy” doesn’t have the gravitas of the Album of the Year runner-up — Shearwater’s quiet but powerful “The Great Awakening” — but it’s a ton of fun.</p>
<p>Listening to it, Unwinnable is right back at the 2022 Newport Folk Festival. Hearing it for the first time with everyone else. Crying to the "The Sound of Silence." Hugging the wife as a legend performed in front of a crowd for the first time in years, and for the first time at Newport since the 1960s. When it comes to the lineup, or the set lists, there are no rules at Newport. Not for Sylvan Esso last year, and certainly not for the other artists delivering unforgettable surprises.</p>
<p>We didn’t write about it then. Now we have.</p>
<iframe width="400" height="225" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/OS9fluEaqrY" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>
<h2>Past winners:</h2>
<p>1993: Counting Crows -- August and Everything After<br />
1994: R.E.M. -- Monster<br />
1995: The Innocence Mission -- Glow<br />
1996: Dave Matthews Band -- Crash<br />
1997: U2 -- Pop<br />
1998: R.E.M. -- Up<br />
1999: John Linnell -- State Songs<br />
2000: Radiohead -- Kid A<br />
2001: Bjork -- Vespertine<br />
2002: Wilco -- Yankee Hotel Foxtrot<br />
2003: Bonnie "Prince" Billy -- Master and Everyone<br />
2004: Wilco -- A Ghost is Born<br />
2005: Sufjan Stevens -- Illinois<br />
2006: The Decemberists -- <a href="http://recordsibuy.blogspot.com/2006/12/matty-album-of-year-nos-3-1.html">The Crane Wife</a><br />
2007: Radiohead -- <a href="http://recordsibuy.blogspot.com/2008/01/at-long-lastthe-2007-album-of-year.html">In Rainbows</a><br />
2008: Shearwater -- <a href="http://recordsibuy.blogspot.com/2008/12/ribs-2008-album-of-year-shearwater-rook.html">Rook</a><br />
2009: Animal Collective -- Merriweather Post Pavilion<br />
2010: Laura Veirs -- <a href="http://recordsibuy.blogspot.com/2011/01/ribs-2010-album-of-year-laura-veirs.html">July Flame</a><br />
2011: PJ Harvey -- <a href="http://recordsibuy.blogspot.com/2011/12/ribs-2011-album-of-year-pj-harvey-let.html">Let England Shake</a><br />
2012: Animal Collective -- <a href="http://recordsibuy.blogspot.com/2013/01/ribs-2012-album-of-year-animal.html">Centipede Hz</a><br />
2013: Mogwai -- <a href="http://recordsibuy.blogspot.com/2013/12/ribs-2013-album-of-year-mogwai-les.html">Les Revenants</a><br />
2014: Sun Kil Moon -- <a href="http://recordsibuy.blogspot.com/2015/01/ribs-2014-album-of-year.html">Benji</a><br />
2015: The Tallest Man On Earth -- <a href="http://recordsibuy.blogspot.com/2016/01/ribs-2015-album-of-year-tallest-man-on.html">Dark Bird is Home</a><br />
2016: Bon Iver -- <a href="http://recordsibuy.blogspot.com/2016/12/ribs-2016-album-of-year-bon-iver-22.html">22, A Million</a><br />
2017: Bjork -- <a href="http://recordsibuy.blogspot.com/2017/12/ribs-2017-album-of-year-bjork-utopia.html">Utopia</a><br />
2018: Caamp -- <a href="http://recordsibuy.blogspot.com/2018/12/ribs-2018-album-of-year-caamp-boys.html">Boys</a><br />
2019: The Lumineers -- <a href="http://recordsibuy.blogspot.com/2019/12/ribs-2019-album-of-year-lumineers-iii.html">III</a><br />
2020: Phoebe Bridgers -- <a href="http://recordsibuy.blogspot.com/2020/12/ribs-2020-album-of-year-phoebe-bridgers.html">Punisher</a><br />
2021: Bo Burnham -- <a href="http://recordsibuy.blogspot.com/2021/12/ribs-2021-album-of-year-bo-burnham.html">Inside (The Songs)</a></p>Matthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09684334833086483334noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33540909.post-45374033907886478452022-11-25T10:08:00.006-05:002022-11-25T10:35:03.519-05:00Nominees: 2022 Album of the Year<p>Happy (belated) Turkey Day. Here goes!</p>
<p><b>Nominees</b></p>
<p>Anais Mitchell — Anais Mitchell<br />
Bjork — Fossora<br />
Hurray for the Riff Raff — LIFE ON EARTH<br />
<a href="https://unwinnable.com/2022/09/09/im-a-record-producer-now/">Shearwater — The Great Awakening</a><br />
Sylvan Esso — No Rules Sandy<br />
Warpaint — Radiate Like This</p>
<b>Honorable Mention</b></p>
<p>Alvvays — Blue Rev<br />
Arny Margret — Intertwined (EP)<br />
Big Thief — Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You<br />
Bonnie Light Horseman — Rolling Golden Holy<br />
Caamp — Lavender Days<br />
Goose — Dripfield<br />
Sharon Van Etten — We’ve Been Going About This All Wrong<br />
Taj Mahal & Ry Cooder — Get On Board</p>
<p><b>I Can’t In Good Conscience</b></p>
<p><a href="https://pitchfork.com/news/fifth-person-details-arcade-fire-frontman-win-butlers-allegedly-manipulative-toxic-behavior/">Arcade Fire — WE</a></p>
Matthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09684334833086483334noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33540909.post-31020502761583616842021-12-27T12:00:00.055-05:002021-12-27T12:00:00.193-05:00RIB's 2021 Album of the Year:Bo Burnham -- Inside (The Songs)<div style="text-align: left;"><p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>(Reprinted from <a href="https://unwinnable.com/">Unwinnable Monthly</a>)</i></span></p><p><b style="font-family: inherit;">It’s a beautiful year to stay Inside</b></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;">I’ve been wanting to write about Bo Burnham’s “Inside” for months. But I couldn’t quite figure out what to say about it. It’s more performance art than a comedy special, and every time I breathlessly recommend it, I get the sense people aren’t entirely eager to fill a bowl with Bugles for 75 minutes of sometimes zany but increasingly dark songs by a privileged white dude — “self-aware about being a douchebag … but self-awareness absolves no one” — on the pandemic, depression, aging, race, climate change, the evils of the Internet, and basically just the whole fucking world falling apart around us. We have long been wanting nothing more than to throw open our doors and breathe fresh air again. Meanwhile, Burnham sings, “It’s a beautiful day to stay inside.”</span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;">But now I have my excuse. It’s December, and every December — as my reader knows — I use this space to write about my Album of the Year, something I’ve been naming for nearly 30 years now. In those 30 years, the closest to a “comedy” record winning was John Linnell’s 1999 “State Songs.” But when I listen to this year’s runner-up — Lucy Dacus’ brilliant “Home Video” — it fills me with intense sadness. I needed a little more to laugh about. “Inside (The Songs)” though, well, it hits so many different notes, all of which in some form or another capture the time in which it was written, recorded and filmed — by Burham, alone in a room. (A room, recently discovered by internet sleuths, in the “A Nightmare on Elm Street” house.) And while it sometimes flirts with being an extended Weird Al video or a vanity project, it ultimately becomes something much more. Five years from now, much of the novelty likely will have worn off; I might not want to listen to songs about FaceTiming my mom, the joys of sexting or white women’s Instagram posts anymore, but those tracks, front-loaded at the top of the show, serve more like appetizers. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://music.apple.com/us/album/inside-the-songs/1571419211"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgacvqIjXb1wIc0kro96mi_FKMHjDYMpLNUEkywSLRHWIadUkmahVscQ0xP9aR9VNLTSqUONpDI16ChN6X-gk3cbCkA_r_nrrHxRTZRhjlnx3eAoOnaMi15T1fUadiML_Yw6x2WJq3JzYDcewfrUTfMD25dRy2Z-VxvzWKHqKUxlzd_WAM5gC4" style="float: right; height: 200px; margin: 0px 0px 10px 10px; width: 200px;" /></a> As the music continues, and gets darker and more complex, the more it feels like it’s actually — surprise! — an Album of the Year contender. Ultimately, I realized, it isn’t just a contender, but my winner.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;">If I hadn’t decided that already, it was cemented further when last year’s Album of the Year-winning artist, Phoebe Bridgers, released a cover of Burnham’s “That Funny Feeling” for charity. Not only did her understated cover version work outside the context of Burham’s record, but her tacit endorsement of “Inside” — and the anthemic quality the song takes on when she performs it live, the audience singing along — validated what I already believed: that this record is more than just the sum of its jokes.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;">The second track, “Comedy,” is a tongue-in-cheek, self-effacing take on the futility of what Burham is trying to accomplish. “Healing the world through comedy — making a literal difference, metaphorically.” In the bridge of the same song: “If you wake up in a house that's full of smoke/Don't panic/Call me and I'll tell you a joke/If you see white men dressed in white cloaks/Don't panic/Call me and I'll tell you a joke/Oh, shit/Should I be joking at a time like this?”</span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;">But it ultimately becomes clear that he isn’t just joking at a time like this. “30” has him despondently watching a digital alarm clock strike midnight as it becomes his 30th birthday. “Shit” is a club track that parodies pop hits about happiness designed to make you dance and morphs them into a song about depression, turning top 40 tropes on their head. “Welcome to the Internet” laments a carnival world of technology where we are inundated with “a little bit of everything all of time” and where “apathy’s a tragedy and boredom is a crime.”</span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;">“That Funny Feeling” is about that world ending, and it feels like complete non-fiction. Yes, it has playful rhymes in it, but the lines that stick out are profound: “The whole world at your fingertips, the ocean at your door” and “Twenty-thousand years of this, seven more to go” — which build up to an outro of: “Hey, what can you say?/We were overdue/But it'll be over soon.” In this context, it might not always be comical, but it’s almost comforting. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;">And there’s then “Goodbye” — the climactic song before the special’s last over-the-credits tune, the comparatively hopeful “Any Day Now” — in which some of the earlier motifs return, and he promises to “never go outside again.”</span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;">There is also a challenge to his audience, even though he immediately undercuts it: “Hey, here’s a fun idea/how about I sit on the couch/and watch you next time?/I want to hear you tell a joke/when no one’s laughing in the background.” It’s at once a riff on one of the show’s key themes — that the outside world exists only as a mine for material to take home, alone, and share online — but also seems to herald the end of comedy as we know it. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;">After the song, in the special, Burnham’s door opens, and he is blinded by light as he steps outside. Birds chirp. But the light is revealed to be a spotlight and it’s nighttime. An unseen crowd applauds. And then: The crowd begins to laugh uproariously as he turns around and tries, in vain, to rip the now-locked door open and get back inside. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;">For a beat, right before the words “the end” appear on the screen, we see him inside again, watching this play out, projected onto his wall. We see his bearded face up close. He looks deadly serious. And then ... he smiles.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></p></div>
<iframe width="400" height="225" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ObOqq1knVxs" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>
<h2>Past winners:</h2>
<p>1993: Counting Crows -- August and Everything After<br />
1994: R.E.M. -- Monster<br />
1995: The Innocence Mission -- Glow<br />
1996: Dave Matthews Band -- Crash<br />
1997: U2 -- Pop<br />
1998: R.E.M. -- Up<br />
1999: John Linnell -- State Songs<br />
2000: Radiohead -- Kid A<br />
2001: Bjork -- Vespertine<br />
2002: Wilco -- Yankee Hotel Foxtrot<br />
2003: Bonnie "Prince" Billy -- Master and Everyone<br />
2004: Wilco -- A Ghost is Born<br />
2005: Sufjan Stevens -- Illinois<br />
2006: The Decemberists -- <a href="http://recordsibuy.blogspot.com/2006/12/matty-album-of-year-nos-3-1.html">The Crane Wife</a><br />
2007: Radiohead -- <a href="http://recordsibuy.blogspot.com/2008/01/at-long-lastthe-2007-album-of-year.html">In Rainbows</a><br />
2008: Shearwater -- <a href="http://recordsibuy.blogspot.com/2008/12/ribs-2008-album-of-year-shearwater-rook.html">Rook</a><br />
2009: Animal Collective -- Merriweather Post Pavilion<br />
2010: Laura Veirs -- <a href="http://recordsibuy.blogspot.com/2011/01/ribs-2010-album-of-year-laura-veirs.html">July Flame</a><br />
2011: PJ Harvey -- <a href="http://recordsibuy.blogspot.com/2011/12/ribs-2011-album-of-year-pj-harvey-let.html">Let England Shake</a><br />
2012: Animal Collective -- <a href="http://recordsibuy.blogspot.com/2013/01/ribs-2012-album-of-year-animal.html">Centipede Hz</a><br />
2013: Mogwai -- <a href="http://recordsibuy.blogspot.com/2013/12/ribs-2013-album-of-year-mogwai-les.html">Les Revenants</a><br />
2014: Sun Kil Moon -- <a href="http://recordsibuy.blogspot.com/2015/01/ribs-2014-album-of-year.html">Benji</a><br />
2015: The Tallest Man On Earth -- <a href="http://recordsibuy.blogspot.com/2016/01/ribs-2015-album-of-year-tallest-man-on.html">Dark Bird is Home</a><br />
2016: Bon Iver -- <a href="http://recordsibuy.blogspot.com/2016/12/ribs-2016-album-of-year-bon-iver-22.html">22, A Million</a><br />
2017: Bjork -- <a href="http://recordsibuy.blogspot.com/2017/12/ribs-2017-album-of-year-bjork-utopia.html">Utopia</a><br />
2018: Caamp -- <a href="http://recordsibuy.blogspot.com/2018/12/ribs-2018-album-of-year-caamp-boys.html">Boys</a><br />
2019: The Lumineers -- <a href="http://recordsibuy.blogspot.com/2019/12/ribs-2019-album-of-year-lumineers-iii.html">III</a><br />
2020: Phoebe Bridgers -- <a href="http://recordsibuy.blogspot.com/2020/12/ribs-2020-album-of-year-phoebe-bridgers.html">Punisher</a></p>
Matthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09684334833086483334noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33540909.post-61880171953133656332021-11-26T14:10:00.005-05:002021-11-26T14:13:15.887-05:00Nominees: 2021 Album of the Year<p>A day late but here we go: RIB’s 2021 Album of the Year nominees!</p><p>NOMINEES</p><p>Billie Eilish — Happier Than Ever</p><p>Bo Burnham — Inside (The Songs)</p><p>Charlie Parr — Last of the Better Days Ahead</p><p>Jimbo Mathus and Andrew Bird — These 13</p><p>Lucy Dacus — Home Video</p><p>Matt Sweeney and Bonnie “Prince” Billy — Superwolves </p><p>Middle Kids — Today We’re the Greatest</p><p>HONORABLE MENTIONS</p><p>Karen Peris — A Song is Way Above the Lawn</p><p>Various Artists — I’ll Be Your Mirror (A Tribute to the Velvet Underground & Nico)</p><p>The Weather Station — Ignorance</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Matthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09684334833086483334noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33540909.post-86518533774315316272020-12-28T09:00:00.023-05:002020-12-28T09:00:02.842-05:00RIB's 2020 Album of the Year:Phoebe Bridgers -- Punisher<h2>365 Days of Halloween</h2>
<p>Practically every time we saw Phoebe Bridgers in 2020, she was wearing a full-body skeleton costume. </p>
<p>On her album cover. In her videos. In her remote appearances on late-night television. In her one-off performances — one of the worthiest among them a quiet cover of Radiohead’s “Fake Plastic Trees” recorded in a London church. In each case, she’s sporting a classic black suit of white skeleton bones, marking this time of perpetual Halloween. </p>
<p>In her video for “I Know The End,” she’s wearing the skeleton suit while nearly drowning in a bathtub. At one point, she climbs out of the water and steps dripping wet into a locker room — where in each locker hangs the same skeleton suit, one after another after another. She has, it seems, an endless supply.</p>
<p><a href="https://music.apple.com/us/album/punisher/1504699857"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaI-6pOe67dDkp10CgQ41M0wjt_YghyELwLb-1f_RAUiRoBiTM0VmxwC_4TtaTkHIVCTuIB8F6q_lIGZmLsj5_q7XEjsRdQYs0oDT5HZtaSr1tCgXKJlOdpZg6F8aOpYTREEhq1g/s0/Punisher+_Phoebe+Bridgers.jpg" style="float: right; height: 200px; margin: 0px 0px 10px 10px; width: 200px;" /></a>“I Know The End” is the stunning finale of Phoebe Bridgers’ sophomore solo album “Punisher” — my 28th annual Album of the Year. “Punisher” was released amid a deadly, incompetently mismanaged pandemic and raging civil unrest over the continuing murder of Blacks by an out-of-control police force. Its original release date was discarded in deference to Juneteenth. </p>
<p>Though “Punisher” was written and recorded in 2018 and 2019, its mix of hope, sadness, irony and a lingering sense of dread feels inspired by current events — even as they are still unfolding today.</p>
<p>Those of us quarantined at home have watched helplessly as the body count grows, hoping it won’t take us, too — or our parents or grandparents. That it won’t keep our children out of school any longer or force us out of our jobs. The only thing we’ve prayed to lose this year is our psychopathic president. </p>
<p>So Bridgers’ Halloween fashion, all things considered, made a ton of sense — even down to simply wearing the same comfy outfit every day. Why change your pants for a Zoom call, why do laundry, why try to put a fresh scent and unwrinkled polish on what for many was the worst year in America they’d ever seen?</p>
<p>Make no mistake, “Punisher” is a record worthy of any year. “DVD Menu” starts it with an orchestral foreshadowing, only to be reprised at the end of the record, bringing the haunting full circle. “Garden Song” has one of the most sublimely lo-fi guitar hooks you’ll hear, a pulsing heartbeat from under a blanket of snow. “Kyoto” (like other tracks on “Punisher”) touches on the ludicrousness of being a touring musician — how finding yourself in an alien land, far from the comfort of your bedroom is not always all it’s cracked up to be. “I wanted to see the world / Then I flew over the ocean / And I changed my mind.” Later, in “Chinese Satellite” Bridgers sings, “I've been running around in circles / Pretending to be myself / Why would somebody do this on purpose / When they could do something else?” Heard in 2020, traveling the world, performing songs over and over — as absurd and as strange a calling as it might be — seems very much worth doing on purpose, especially when you can’t do it anymore. </p>
<p>The title track — an ode to the late Elliot Smith — is both a song about fan obsession and an earnest tribute to a dead musician. A love song to a dead person you admire works anytime; it especially works now. There is also, fittingly, a song called “Halloween,” which features a purposely tasteless joke about living near a hospital, and sucks the joy from the holiday by focusing its limited powers on trying to conjure one final flicker out of a dying relationship.</p>
<p>There’s so much more to love on “Punisher,” but let’s go back to the finale: “I Know the End” contains the most telling and memorable moment on the record. As the album approaches its climax, Bridgers is riding down the highway in her car, screaming along to an “America First rap country song” with her windows rolled down. Bridgers sings:</p>
<p><em>The billboard said “The End Is Near”<br />
I turned around, there was nothing there<br />
Yeah, I guess the end is here</em></p>
<p>Yes, this might sound tongue-in-cheek — a wink-wink chem trails reference and an earnest wish to be whisked away by aliens from earlier in the record is also consistent with surviving our time of alternative facts and unending conspiracy theories. But the record never faces fear more head-on than as the song and album concludes with a chorus of voices singing “The end is here” in unison as the “DVD Menu” reprise swells beneath.</p>
<p>As you listen, you are free to choose whether to laugh or scream along with her. She does both in the closing seconds. Vaccines are coming but we’re still dying, and in numbers greater than before. We’ve elected a new president for 2021 but the current one’s dangerous mental health issues will continue to poison the country for the foreseeable future. Which is why — even on the best days of this Halloween year — it’s hard to deny what we’ve all wondered sometimes: Maybe the end really <em>is</em> here.</p>
<iframe width="400" height="225" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/WJ9-xN6dCW4" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>
<h2>Past winners:</h2>
<p>1993: Counting Crows -- August and Everything After<br />
1994: R.E.M. -- Monster<br />
1995: The Innocence Mission -- Glow<br />
1996: Dave Matthews Band -- Crash<br />
1997: U2 -- Pop<br />
1998: R.E.M. -- Up<br />
1999: John Linnell -- State Songs<br />
2000: Radiohead -- Kid A<br />
2001: Bjork -- Vespertine<br />
2002: Wilco -- Yankee Hotel Foxtrot<br />
2003: Bonnie "Prince" Billy -- Master and Everyone<br />
2004: Wilco -- A Ghost is Born<br />
2005: Sufjan Stevens -- Illinois<br />
2006: The Decemberists -- <a href="http://recordsibuy.blogspot.com/2006/12/matty-album-of-year-nos-3-1.html">The Crane Wife</a><br />
2007: Radiohead -- <a href="http://recordsibuy.blogspot.com/2008/01/at-long-lastthe-2007-album-of-year.html">In Rainbows</a><br />
2008: Shearwater -- <a href="http://recordsibuy.blogspot.com/2008/12/ribs-2008-album-of-year-shearwater-rook.html">Rook</a><br />
2009: Animal Collective -- Merriweather Post Pavilion<br />
2010: Laura Veirs -- <a href="http://recordsibuy.blogspot.com/2011/01/ribs-2010-album-of-year-laura-veirs.html">July Flame</a><br />
2011: PJ Harvey -- <a href="http://recordsibuy.blogspot.com/2011/12/ribs-2011-album-of-year-pj-harvey-let.html">Let England Shake</a><br />
2012: Animal Collective -- <a href="http://recordsibuy.blogspot.com/2013/01/ribs-2012-album-of-year-animal.html">Centipede Hz</a><br />
2013: Mogwai -- <a href="http://recordsibuy.blogspot.com/2013/12/ribs-2013-album-of-year-mogwai-les.html">Les Revenants</a><br />
2014: Sun Kil Moon -- <a href="http://recordsibuy.blogspot.com/2015/01/ribs-2014-album-of-year.html">Benji</a><br />
2015: The Tallest Man On Earth -- <a href="http://recordsibuy.blogspot.com/2016/01/ribs-2015-album-of-year-tallest-man-on.html">Dark Bird is Home</a><br />
2016: Bon Iver -- <a href="http://recordsibuy.blogspot.com/2016/12/ribs-2016-album-of-year-bon-iver-22.html">22, A Million</a><br />
2017: Bjork -- <a href="http://recordsibuy.blogspot.com/2017/12/ribs-2017-album-of-year-bjork-utopia.html">Utopia</a><br />
2018: Caamp -- <a href="http://recordsibuy.blogspot.com/2018/12/ribs-2018-album-of-year-caamp-boys.html">Boys</a><br />
2019: The Lumineers -- <a href="http://recordsibuy.blogspot.com/2019/12/ribs-2019-album-of-year-lumineers-iii.html">III</a></p>
Matthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09684334833086483334noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33540909.post-58219959774446120852020-11-26T06:50:00.011-05:002020-12-04T20:44:28.091-05:00Nominees: 2020 Album of the Year<p>Gobble gobble.</p>
<p>Your 2020 Album of the Year nominees and honorable mentions:</p><h2>Nominees</h2><p>Bob Dylan — Rough and Rowdy Ways<br />Bonny Light Horseman — Bonny Light Horseman<br />Fiona Apple — Fetch the Bolt Cutters<br />The Innocence Mission — See You Tomorrow<br />Loma — Don’t Shy Away<br />Phoebe Bridgers — Punisher</p><h2>Honorable Mention</h2><p>Adrianne Lenker — songs<br />Jonathan Meiburg — Mangled Classics<br />Laura Marling — Song for our Daughter<br />Laura Veirs — My Echo<br />Michaela Hrabánková and Doležal Quartet -- Mysliveček's Oboe Quintets and String Quartets<br />Sturgill Simpson — Cuttin’ Grass — Vol. 1 (Butcher Shoppe Sessions)<br />Waxahatchee — Saint Cloud</p>Matthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09684334833086483334noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33540909.post-45114188034824022672019-12-27T12:00:00.000-05:002019-12-27T12:00:01.055-05:00RIB's 2019 Album of the Year:The Lumineers -- III
<p><b>It's Us or Them</b></p>
<p>There is a moment in The Lumineers’ reputation-redefining record, <em>III</em>, when the second and third generation of a drug-addled family pass a hitchhiker on the side of the road. </p>
<p>“You never give a hitcher a ride,” Jimmy Sparks warns his son, Junior, “‘cause it's us or them.”</p>
<p>Jimmy is a product of his alcohol-soaked mother, Gloria. He’s a wreck. All of the pivotal moments of his life seem to happen at 3 a.m. This one’s no exception. </p>
<p><a href="https://music.apple.com/us/album/iii/1458176610"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7PKVHIX6tIR2On6reFTPAcXOmP1E4uTrb30-Wri10Fts7jubguBrgkuVEXCXF_J03p_2nlz1g0EdSQBmfl3zKpG5mIZV-U7wroqIAjkj4AacXLF68x6FIPXyvjHgYoA_UH6xEMw/s1600/lum111.jpg" style="float: right; height: 200px; margin: 0 0 10px 10px; width: 200px;" /></a>And it’s 3 a.m. again, 20 years later, when Junior reaches his own crossroads. He’s driving alone, the sense from the record that he could still break free, could still snap off his branch of the family tree. He sees, on his way home from his graveyard shift, a beat-up barefoot man at the side of the road. It’s his father, in the latest mess of his own making. </p>
<p>“His old man waved his hands with tears in his eyes / But Jimmy's son just sped up and remembered daddy's advice / No, you don't ever give a hitcher a ride, 'cause it's us or them / ‘Cause it's me or him”</p>
<p>It’s not entirely clear from the song or from the video — one of a series of short films that add a whole other layer to <em>III’</em>’s storytelling — whether Junior recognizes his father or not in that moment. But the lesson seems to be different somehow, not about the dangers of strangers or worse, the pervasive Sparks family selfishness. Instead it seems like healthy self-preservation. Maybe Junior is going to make it out after all.</p>
<p><em>III</em> is a stunning record with beauty and tragedy and hope — and hooks. It raises The Lumineers — that previously rather disposable toe-tappin’ “Hey Ho” band from Ramsey, New Jersey, one Pitchfork would hardly lower itself to cover — to another level. They were decent but never this good before, and might never be this good again. </p>
<p>In 2019, though, they delivered. The Lumineers’ third record, <em>III</em>, is my 27th annual Album of the Year. </p>
<p>The Lumineers had a ton of competition worth mentioning. Big Thief’s weird and wonderful <em>U.F.O.F.</em> might have cruised to a victory in some other years — and, admittedly, is probably the better record from an objective standpoint. Objective obschmective. The Highwomen’s debut made it possible I’d actually pick an all-female country supergroup. Last year’s winner, Caamp, released a more than fine follow up. Previous winner The Tallest Man on Earth dropped another great one. There was also Sharon Van Etten, Yola, Chromatics and my favorite new artist this year, Jade Bird. And Todd Snider’s <em>Cash Cabin Sessions, Vol. 3</em> is a delightful mix of humor, melancholy and modern politics. </p>
<p>Of all things, it was a random Twitter post by a Twin Peaks connection that alerted me to The Lumineers’ new one. I’d seen them perform years ago at the Newport Folk Festival and I own their first album, but they never made much of an impression on me. I had no intention of following their career further. Which was why her tweet spoke to me:</p>
<p>“I’ve honestly never been that into this band but this album and its subsequent music videos is amazing,” Melanie Mullen wrote.</p>
<p>I was feeling adventurous, so I gave another shot to what I had concluded was just another ubiquitous MOR rock-folk-Americana fusion band in the vein of the dreaded Mumford and Sons. </p>
<p>But all I needed to do was listen to a brief preview clip of the album’s opening track, “Donna,” and I knew something was different. </p>
<p>As I said to my wife, “You don’t start a concept album with a song this good unless you can back it up.”</p>
<p>They backed it up. </p>
<p>“Donna” is the first of a three-part opening short story about Junior’s grandmother, Gloria. It’s followed by “Life in the City” and “Gloria,” making up the album’s first of three acts, the latter two songs more upbeat musically but certainly not lyrically, painting a picture of an alcoholic mother and the suffering she inflicts on herself and others. It’s not a 2019 story of opioid abuse, but it resonates all the more for it timelessness. And the film clips that accompany the record, by director Kevin Phillips, underscore her tragedy. By the end of her vignette, she’s passing out drunk while holding an infant and then running across a barren field from the scene of a brutal car crash, her bleeding husband left in the passenger seat, yet it’s almost impossible not to sing along as the album’s first single plays around her. That dissonance, like a good Radiohead song, gives “Gloria” all the more power. </p>
<p>Act 2 jumps forward in time to Gloria’s grandson. “It Wasn’t Easy to Be Happy For You” is an identifiable song about a teenage breakup — no history of family addiction needed. When you add the video, though, it becomes particularly poignant. We see a beautiful young girl enchanting Junior on the roof of his car and, later, in the front seat. She’s exciting, provocative. You can feel the limitless possibilities she represents to a young man who doesn’t seem to have all that many. Then she opens the door and saunters her way out of the car into the great wide open. Junior tries to follow her. But the camera pans and, like magic, she’s already gone. </p>
<p>Junior’s mother has also left her father and the next two songs unpack that dynamic, before the record rolls back a generation to his father, Jimmy Sparks, a prison guard trapped in a cell mostly of his own making, his only joy keeping others in their metal cages. It’s even darker than what we’ve heard so far, and brings us to the 3 a.m. moments in the car and elsewhere. </p>
<p>The record, which is a tight 10 songs and 38 minutes long, lands its finish. The chorus on “Salt and the Sea” — a song that shares a little part of its soul with another cleansing cinematic album-closer, “Love Reign O'er Me” — hints at reconciliation with the refrain, “I'll be your friend // In the daylight again,” but of course it’s not nearly as simple as that.</p>
<p>With the family history the Sparks have, it can’t be.</p>
<iframe width="400" height="225" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/videoseries?list=PLYZV5yv29IU25TBxCYiRs70ISWBZfvlGM" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>
<h2>Past winners:</h2>
<p>1993: Counting Crows -- August and Everything After<br />
1994: R.E.M. -- Monster<br />
1995: The Innocence Mission -- Glow<br />
1996: Dave Matthews Band -- Crash<br />
1997: U2 -- Pop<br />
1998: R.E.M. -- Up<br />
1999: John Linnell -- State Songs<br />
2000: Radiohead -- Kid A<br />
2001: Bjork -- Vespertine<br />
2002: Wilco -- Yankee Hotel Foxtrot<br />
2003: Bonnie "Prince" Billy -- Master and Everyone<br />
2004: Wilco -- A Ghost is Born<br />
2005: Sufjan Stevens -- Illinois<br />
2006: The Decemberists -- <a href="http://recordsibuy.blogspot.com/2006/12/matty-album-of-year-nos-3-1.html">The Crane Wife</a><br />
2007: Radiohead -- <a href="http://recordsibuy.blogspot.com/2008/01/at-long-lastthe-2007-album-of-year.html">In Rainbows</a><br />
2008: Shearwater -- <a href="http://recordsibuy.blogspot.com/2008/12/ribs-2008-album-of-year-shearwater-rook.html">Rook</a><br />
2009: Animal Collective -- Merriweather Post Pavilion<br />
2010: Laura Veirs -- <a href="http://recordsibuy.blogspot.com/2011/01/ribs-2010-album-of-year-laura-veirs.html">July Flame</a><br />
2011: PJ Harvey -- <a href="http://recordsibuy.blogspot.com/2011/12/ribs-2011-album-of-year-pj-harvey-let.html">Let England Shake</a><br />
2012: Animal Collective -- <a href="http://recordsibuy.blogspot.com/2013/01/ribs-2012-album-of-year-animal.html">Centipede Hz</a><br />
2013: Mogwai -- <a href="http://recordsibuy.blogspot.com/2013/12/ribs-2013-album-of-year-mogwai-les.html">Les Revenants</a><br />
2014: Sun Kil Moon -- <a href="http://recordsibuy.blogspot.com/2015/01/ribs-2014-album-of-year.html">Benji</a><br />
2015: The Tallest Man On Earth -- <a href="http://recordsibuy.blogspot.com/2016/01/ribs-2015-album-of-year-tallest-man-on.html">Dark Bird is Home</a><br />
2016: Bon Iver -- <a href="http://recordsibuy.blogspot.com/2016/12/ribs-2016-album-of-year-bon-iver-22.html">22, A Million</a><br />
2017: Bjork -- <a href="http://recordsibuy.blogspot.com/2017/12/ribs-2017-album-of-year-bjork-utopia.html">Utopia</a><br />
2018: Caamp -- <a href="http://recordsibuy.blogspot.com/2018/12/ribs-2018-album-of-year-caamp-boys.html">Boys</a></p>
Matthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09684334833086483334noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33540909.post-50786366741023245512019-11-28T12:00:00.000-05:002019-11-28T12:00:02.986-05:00Nominees: 2019 Album of the Year<iframe width="400" height="225" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/RtsgjQEXtdY" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>
<p>Gobble gobble.</p>
<p>So many amazing albums, so little time.</p>
<p>Here are your nominees for the 2019 RIB Album of the Year.</p><br />
<h3>Nominees</h3><br />
<p>
Big Thief -- U.F.O.F.<br /><br />
Jade Bird -- Jade Bird<br /><br />
Caamp -- By & By<br /><br />
Chromatics -- Closer To Grey<br /><br />
The Highwomen -- The Highwomen<br /><br />
The Lumineers -- III<br /><br />
The Tallest Man on Earth -- I Love You. It's a Fever Dream.<br /><br />
Todd Snider -- Cash Cabin Sessions, Vol. 3<br /><br />
Sharon Van Etten -- Remind Me Tomorrow<br /><br />
Yola -- Walk Through Fire
</p><br />
<h3>Honorable Mention</h3><br />
<p>
Better Oblivion Community Center -- Better Oblivion Community Center<br /><br />
Andrew Bird -- My Finest Work Yet<br /><br />
Bill Callahan -- Shepherd in a Sheepskin Vest<br /><br />
Leonard Cohen -- Thanks For The Dance<br /><br />
Bob Dylan -- Travelin' Thru (Bootleg Series Vol. 15)<br /><br />
Julia Jacklin -- Crushing<br /><br />
Charlie Parr -- Charlie Parr<br /><br />
Prince -- Originals<br /><br />
R.E.M. -- Monster (25th anniversary)<br /><br />
Maggie Rogers -- Heard It in a Past Life
</p>
<iframe width="400" height="225" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/vq4zT0cF7XY" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>Matthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09684334833086483334noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33540909.post-45327841188797859952018-12-28T12:00:00.000-05:002018-12-28T12:00:01.064-05:00RIB's 2018 Album of the Year: Caamp -- Boys<p><b>2018 and Everything After</b></p>
<p>For a quarter-century, “August and Everything After” has been a symbol of the unbreakable bond I share with my oldest friend. Shawn and I met a decade before the record was released, as 4-year-olds running around an apartment complex in upstate New York, but we were traveling together in Colorado when the Counting Crows debut was the rage. I recommended he pick it up. He did.</p>
<p><a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/boys-side-a-ep/1350457662"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhr-qGHNdgvzEIHNT1dRDsxih93kLMITEJAdmjfk_DfCoyOeiHvQD3KPkWaed68JvJlF8_ER1ahddt__vlj7H97J4kULpmFTwyhGqG6Hef4HdrBaKS1QiEhyphenhyphensPmrx4Q4c2Ds5If6A/s1600/https---images.genius.com-e10fbfb6fb2d2d467ceba0dc8b7ca8f1.640x640x1.jpg" style="float: right; height: 200px; margin: 0 0 10px 10px; width: 200px;" /></a><a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/boys-side-b-ep/1410192343"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZnz7gBSpPK_QIQ8eHcTgGfdRPcES2IbA68uOw38aZ6FXjA3BIEzQw3lCWl7gMecPG0D2Z5NGf3fMP5ECxE_RK4Q_cP3gkuSKw2LB0EbJ1g5d72cS-Hfl5hgR9ld_cmj5MEhLSrg/s1600/51fJrX6FVCL._SS500.jpg" style="float: right; height: 200px; margin: 0 0 10px 10px; width: 200px;" /></a>Fast forward nearly another decade, and we’re in a biker bar in Hagerstown, Maryland. We’re hiking the Appalachian Trail, and they’ve let us set up our tents in the grass outside. Beer and bar snacks never taste better than when you’ve been trudging up and down mountains in the summer heat for days on end. Music never sounds better. </p>
<p>One of us found “August and Everything After” on the jukebox. It’s likely a bit apocryphal, a shared myth we like to repeat, but I swear we played the whole damn album. “I know every single word,” one of us said, and, as the story goes, we proved it. Whether it was the whole album, or half, or just a couple songs, we belted it all out, not missing a beat.</p>
<p>We were 23 and singing along to my first Album of the Year; “August and Everything After” was the very reason I decided, as a 15-year-old in 1993, to start naming an Album of the Year each winter. I needed a way to name how special it was to me. </p>
<p>When I turned 40 this summer, we went to Nashville to celebrate. We played “Anna Begins” in the wee hours of the morning at the house a group of us had rented for the occasion. But Shawn and I had a new record to bond over, too, to sing along with in Music City, a record I’d discovered that had immediately made me think of Shawn. He was on assignment in Honduras when I sent it to him.</p>
<p>He loved it. I loved it. We love it.</p>
<p>And so my Album of the Year comes full circle. Twenty-five years later, Caamp’s “Boys” — a record that screams Shawn to me — is my 2018 Album of the Year. </p>
<p>Caamp, who I saw this summer at the Newport Folk Festival, are a group of 20-something lifelong friends, but I swear they didn’t look a day over 15, at least not banjo player/backup singer Evan Westfall. They were the first act of the day, and don’t play with the gravitas <a href=“https://unwinnable.com/2018/09/14/cheap-wine/“ target=“_blank”>of a guy like Charlie Parr</a>, or the inventiveness of Loma, whose debut record is my Album of the Year runner-up, but they play music that strips away cynicism. Songs for the morning, to open the window curtains to. Songs about new love and enduring friendship.</p>
<p>Some years I feel like quoting lyrics endlessly in these columns. And I could do that. It’s certainly deserving. But this time, there’s only one line I feel like repeating, a line that brings me back to bars with Shawn, or in the woods, or in canoes, dealing with broken hearts and family hardships, or even to a tiny mound of dirt near a fence corner that seemed so big to us as kids we called it Memory Hill and invented a million games to play on it. </p>
<p>“Don’t let yourself go crazy, you’re good for another round,” is the line. “It’s only love — and it hurts.”</p>
<p>It’s a song of comfort. It’s a song called “Song for a Friend.”</p>
<p>The old magic never dies.</p>
<iframe width="400" height="225" src="https://youtu.be/8rip_h9TVaY" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
<h2>Past winners:</h2>
<p>1993: Counting Crows -- August and Everything After<br />
1994: R.E.M. -- Monster<br />
1995: The Innocence Mission -- Glow<br />
1996: Dave Matthews Band -- Crash<br />
1997: U2 -- Pop<br />
1998: R.E.M. -- Up<br />
1999: John Linnell -- State Songs<br />
2000: Radiohead -- Kid A<br />
2001: Bjork -- Vespertine<br />
2002: Wilco -- Yankee Hotel Foxtrot<br />
2003: Bonnie "Prince" Billy -- Master and Everyone<br />
2004: Wilco -- A Ghost is Born<br />
2005: Sufjan Stevens -- Illinois<br />
2006: The Decemberists -- <a href="http://recordsibuy.blogspot.com/2006/12/matty-album-of-year-nos-3-1.html">The Crane Wife</a><br />
2007: Radiohead -- <a href="http://recordsibuy.blogspot.com/2008/01/at-long-lastthe-2007-album-of-year.html">In Rainbows</a><br />
2008: Shearwater -- <a href="http://recordsibuy.blogspot.com/2008/12/ribs-2008-album-of-year-shearwater-rook.html">Rook</a><br />
2009: Animal Collective -- Merriweather Post Pavilion<br />
2010: Laura Veirs -- <a href="http://recordsibuy.blogspot.com/2011/01/ribs-2010-album-of-year-laura-veirs.html">July Flame</a><br />
2011: PJ Harvey -- <a href="http://recordsibuy.blogspot.com/2011/12/ribs-2011-album-of-year-pj-harvey-let.html">Let England Shake</a><br />
2012: Animal Collective -- <a href="http://recordsibuy.blogspot.com/2013/01/ribs-2012-album-of-year-animal.html">Centipede Hz</a><br />
2013: Mogwai -- <a href="http://recordsibuy.blogspot.com/2013/12/ribs-2013-album-of-year-mogwai-les.html">Les Revenants</a><br />
2014: Sun Kil Moon -- <a href="http://recordsibuy.blogspot.com/2015/01/ribs-2014-album-of-year.html">Benji</a><br />
2015: The Tallest Man On Earth -- <a href="http://recordsibuy.blogspot.com/2016/01/ribs-2015-album-of-year-tallest-man-on.html">Dark Bird is Home</a><br />
2016: Bon Iver -- <a href="http://recordsibuy.blogspot.com/2016/12/ribs-2016-album-of-year-bon-iver-22.html">22, A Million</a><br />
2017: Bjork -- <a href="http://recordsibuy.blogspot.com/2017/12/ribs-2017-album-of-year-bjork-utopia.html">Utopia</a></p>Matthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09684334833086483334noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33540909.post-8257086527271224322018-11-22T12:00:00.000-05:002018-11-22T12:00:08.584-05:00Nominees: 2018 Album of the Year<p>And the nominees are ...</p>
<br />
<p>Caamp -- Boys<br />
First Aid Kit -- Ruins<br />
The Innocence Mission -- Sun on the Square<br />
John Prine -- The Tree of Forgiveness<br />
Laura Gibson -- Goners<br />
Laura Veirs -- The Lookout<br />
Loma -- Loma<br />
Olivia Chaney -- Shelter</p>
<br />
<p><b>Honorable mentions</b></p>
<br />
<p>Arthur Buck -- Arthur Buck<br />
Colter Wall -- Songs of the Plains<br />
Johnny Jewel -- Themes For Television<br />
Boygenius<br />
Thought Gang -- Thought Gang</p>Matthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09684334833086483334noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33540909.post-45148065224942013742017-12-29T12:00:00.000-05:002017-12-29T12:00:20.602-05:00RIB's 2017 Album of the Year: Bjork -- Utopia<p>No piece of art meant more to me this year — or, arguably, any recent year — than the return of “Twin Peaks.”</p>
<p>That includes the music — spread over three records, it’s a treasure trove of score and songs and sound effects, from Angelo Badalamenti, Dean Hurley and David Lynch to Nine Inch Nails, Sharon Van Etten and Eddie Vedder.</p>
<p><a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/utopia/1301580609"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiydFUDrURRDd6QUGi6CHcaaF95XJfj0gNdaIkH-7X2oa0CVixb0lYtd3Z0rueGe4-wruM1OxjejVnMSA70T9C71uVg5Ead3JN3gSQh9Jjlebzk01f_2et2Yvy2CVMQwKZDSTVX1g/s1600/Utopia_Bj%25C3%25B6rk.jpg" style="float: right; height: 200px; margin: 0 0 10px 10px; width: 200px;" /></a>Taken as a whole, it’s my soundtrack of 2017. </p>
<p>But it isn’t my Album of the Year. </p>
<p>When I started my award a quarter century ago — yes, this is my 25th(!) winner — I set two basic rules for myself I reserve the right to change on a whim but have stuck with ever since anyway:</p>
<ol><li>The record must be released during the calendar year.</li>
<li>It must be made up of original recordings — covers, for sure, but not old material or compilations that include the prerecorded work of others.</li></ol>
<p>There was a lot of that in the music of “Twin Peaks.” But because it was curated so well, I was ready to throw those rules right out the window — until the week of Thanksgiving.</p>
<p>That’s when I took a brand new record with me to Mexico City, and during a fabulous family vacation that took us from Frida Kahlo’s house to the top of the Pyramid of the Sun in Teotihuacan, I fell asleep each night to Bjork’s “Utopia.”</p>
<p>I’ve been falling asleep to my 2017 Album of the Year nearly every night since. </p>
<p>It’s been 16 years since I loved a Bjork record like this. “Vespertine” was my top record of 2001, when I’d listen to it sitting in the window of my apartment in Prague, or riding the tram across the Vlatava, watching the snow fall. And <em>hearing</em> the snow fall — in particular the sound of boots making tracks in the soft, thick powder — through my headphones.</p>
<p>On “Utopia,” there are growling wolverines and the bitter leftovers from an devastating divorce. But similar in some ways to “Vespertine,” which wraps you in the warmth of winter, this record is blanketed with tropical birdsongs and flutes; where “Vespertine” sings of secret loves and hidden places, “Utopia” explores sex and romance through the swapping of mp3s and the swiping of apps. Where “Vespertine” pleads for a do-over on its most powerful track, “Undo,” a choir-filled prayer for a new beginning, “Utopia” carefully plots out its do-over, point by point — exploring the messy details of it, from the excitement and fear of letting yourself be vulnerable again to keeping your children from the emotional “luggage” of a custody battle to moments of #MeToo-like empowerment in rejecting the sins of fathers, passed down through generations, to protect our daughters — culminating in a pair of songs as moving as any in Bjork’s incomparable catalogue.</p>
<p>“Music loves too. I am here to defend it,” Bjork states on “Saint,” her voice low in the mix as the swirling sounds overpower her words and attempt to leap from the speakers to form tangible objects in the air. The song distills much of what has come before — the sweetness of “two music nerds obsessing” as they fall in love to a song to the expression of pain and regret in “Sue Me” and “Tabula Rasa,” not to mention Bjork’s previous record, “Vulnicura,” filled with raw anger still being worked out in verse.</p>
<p>At the end of the opening track of one of my Album of the Year runners-up, Mount Eerie’s “A Crow Looked At Me,” Phil Elverum laments the loss of his wife Geneviève Castrée, from pancreatic cancer — leaving behind their 1-year-old daughter -- by asserting that, in the face of real death, all poetry and art loses its meaning. Of course, he’s making a record about death, which neatly contradicts what he says. Bjork’s “I am here to defend it” is more bold — a mission statement from an artist who’s had more time to mourn, and is a little more ready to reconnect to life and love.</p>
<p>Bjork didn’t play The Roadhouse on “Twin Peaks.” But the unique and at times surreal world of this record draws you in. And in the same way Lynch embraces the comic and the dramatic in the same moments, so does “Utopia.” The epic, nearly 10-minute “Body Memory” explores her deep relationship to nature, but starts off both by making fun of it and exalting it:</p>
<p><i>First snow of winter <br />
I'm walking hills and valleys<br />
Adore this mystical fog!<br />
This fucking mist!<br />
These cliffs are just showing off!</p>
<p>Then the body memory kicks in<br />
I mime my home mountains<br />
The moss that I'm made of<br />
I redeem myself</i></p>
<p>And then there’s the stuff that maybe just works on that “Twin Peaks” plane only for me, but is no less a part of the record’s story in my mind. When Björk sings, “Hold fort for love” on the closing track, “Future Forever,” it’s again the proclamation of a survivor, coming back to life after a loss — or a “Losss,” spelled with three s’s in the title of the astounding Track 8. But when I mishear the lyric, over and over, in Bjork’s Icelandic accent as “Hold <em>fart</em> for love,” the humor does nothing to diminish it. Nor do the bird sounds all over the record — lush and exotic, yes, but still I imagine what it would be like to be surrounded by so many flying creatures, and all the bird shit that would surely land on me.</p>
<p>But that’s love, isn’t it? Opening your heart, getting betrayed, getting shat on, and then, sometimes, at least in those early days of courtship, holding in your gas to make her love you more than you think you might deserve.</p>
<p>On the 2017 Album of the Year, that love — old and new, flourishing and foundering — extends well beyond mere romance.</p>
<p>”Utopia, it isn’t elsewhere,” Bjork sings, as she both laments the state of our planet and longs for better. “It’s here.” Despite another bleak year — after all the shit we’ve been through politically or professionally or personally — it’s here. It’s just that more than ever, we‘re on our own to fight for it.</p>
<iframe width="400" height="225" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/PHWAZNkqwN4" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
<h2>Past winners:</h2>
<p>1993: Counting Crows -- August and Everything After<br />
1994: R.E.M. -- Monster<br />
1995: The Innocence Mission -- Glow<br />
1996: Dave Matthews Band -- Crash<br />
1997: U2 -- Pop<br />
1998: R.E.M. -- Up<br />
1999: John Linnell -- State Songs<br />
2000: Radiohead -- Kid A<br />
2001: Bjork -- Vespertine<br />
2002: Wilco -- Yankee Hotel Foxtrot<br />
2003: Bonnie "Prince" Billy -- Master and Everyone<br />
2004: Wilco -- A Ghost is Born<br />
2005: Sufjan Stevens -- Illinois<br />
2006: The Decemberists -- <a href="http://recordsibuy.blogspot.com/2006/12/matty-album-of-year-nos-3-1.html">The Crane Wife</a><br />
2007: Radiohead -- <a href="http://recordsibuy.blogspot.com/2008/01/at-long-lastthe-2007-album-of-year.html">In Rainbows</a><br />
2008: Shearwater -- <a href="http://recordsibuy.blogspot.com/2008/12/ribs-2008-album-of-year-shearwater-rook.html">Rook</a><br />
2009: Animal Collective -- Merriweather Post Pavilion<br />
2010: Laura Veirs -- <a href="http://recordsibuy.blogspot.com/2011/01/ribs-2010-album-of-year-laura-veirs.html">July Flame</a><br />
2011: PJ Harvey -- <a href="http://recordsibuy.blogspot.com/2011/12/ribs-2011-album-of-year-pj-harvey-let.html">Let England Shake</a><br />
2012: Animal Collective -- <a href="http://recordsibuy.blogspot.com/2013/01/ribs-2012-album-of-year-animal.html">Centipede Hz</a><br />
2013: Mogwai -- <a href="http://recordsibuy.blogspot.com/2013/12/ribs-2013-album-of-year-mogwai-les.html">Les Revenants</a><br />
2014: Sun Kil Moon -- <a href="http://recordsibuy.blogspot.com/2015/01/ribs-2014-album-of-year.html">Benji</a><br />
2015: The Tallest Man On Earth -- <a href="http://recordsibuy.blogspot.com/2016/01/ribs-2015-album-of-year-tallest-man-on.html">Dark Bird is Home</a><br />
2016: Bon Iver -- <a href="http://recordsibuy.blogspot.com/2016/12/ribs-2016-album-of-year-bon-iver-22.html">22, A Million</a></p>Matthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09684334833086483334noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33540909.post-88136537542287586622017-11-28T22:23:00.000-05:002017-12-20T09:32:24.260-05:00Nominees: 2017 Album of the Year<p>I was in Mexico City over Thanksgiving and didn't set this up to post in advance. So here goes, better late than never.</p>
<p>The nominees for my ***25th*** Album of the Year are ...</p>
<br /><br />
<p align="center">***</p>
<br />
<h3>Angelo Badalamenti/Dean Hurley/Various — The Music of Twin Peaks (three albums, one joint nomination)</h3>
<p>So this might seem like a copout, or an unfair advantage, but trust me, it’s neither. The music of Twin Peaks was the soundtrack of much of my summer, and some of the older pieces in this collection are part of the soundtrack of my life. Mostly what makes this three-pronged TP attack a nominee is the simple fact that there was no more important piece of art to me this year than Season 3 of the greatest television show ever, and one of its grounding elements was the sound design (done by David Lynch himself) and the Roadhouse performances at the end of nearly every part. It was the best concert of 2017 you couldn’t attend in person but felt no less real — and often far more surreal. It was the music event of the year, and it takes three records to cover the full breadth of it — from those dreamy or disturbing Bang Bang Bar acts to the perfect placement of old or reimagined tunes to the buzzing electricity of Dean Hurley’s sound effects to Angelo Badalamenti’s compositions — some familiar, some new — that continued to set the incomparable tone of Twin Peaks.</p>
<iframe width="400" height="225" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/IGUboLZx3Tk" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
<br /><br />
<p align="center">***</p>
<br />
<h3>Bjork — Utopia </h3>
<p>I’ve had various levels of interest in Bjork’s work since her masterpiece — 2001 Album of the Year winner Vespertine. This is the most excited I’ve been about a new Bjork record in years. Sure, she doesn’t really do hooks anymore, and her vocals are often too low in the mix, but the songs here explode, and the lyrics are profoundly moving — Utopia feels like a latter-day Vespertine, with the thick blanket of snow replaced by a tropical island filled with exotic birds and flutes.</p>
<iframe width="400" height="225" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/PHWAZNkqwN4" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
<br /><br />
<p align="center">***</p>
<br />
<h3>Hurray For The Riff Raff — The Navigator</h3>
<p>This is the record that turned HFTRR from a strong folk act to an “Important Band”. A drama told in music — but not a musical — it spins the story (one quite personal to lead singer Alynda Segarra) about growing up Puerto Rican in the Bronx. Although the elements for a record this strong had been there, the transformation is nothing short of astounding. As a Bronx-born white dude who grew up in suburban privilege, I have a hard time singing along without at least a tinge of embarrassment and shame. Which I think is at least part of the point.</p>
<iframe width="400" height="225" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/TqfxkKR7y98" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
<br /><br />
<p align="center">***</p>
<br />
<h3>Laura Marling — Semper Femina</h3>
<p>One of the better live shows I saw this year (a surprise from Amelia!), Laura Marling is just one of the best songwriters there is right now. I find these songs a lot more subtle, less bitter, less defiant, than her last Album of the Year nominee, Short Movie, but they’re all memorable and if anything show off her range. “I was wild once,” she speak-sings, and it seems to make sense as some rumination and reflection on the brief but fiery film that preceded it. </p>
<iframe width="400" height="225" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/dipGQQ8O1Gs" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
<br /><br />
<p align="center">***</p>
<br />
<h3>Mount Eerie — A Crow Looked At Me</h3>
<p>This is a record so hauntingly beautiful it’s hard to listen to. Phil Elverum faces the death of his wife, musician Geneviève Castrée, from pancreatic cancer — leaving behind their 1-year-old daughter — with a low-fi and direct and personal and poetic set of vignettes about picking up the pieces and moving on, without ever forgetting. The record is both a profound work of art, and a rejection of the meaning and power of art in the face of death.</p>
<iframe width="400" height="225" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/H2R2Ck8qKWM" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
<br /><br />
<p align="center">***</p>
<br />
<h3>Offa Rex — The Queen of Hearts</h3>
<p>Olivia Chaney gave me my favorite concert memory — really, memories — of the year, which I’ve written about at length in Unwinnable Monthly. And sure, that helps make this record more special to me. But it would have been right in this space regardless. It’s a collection of ancient folk ballads I wasn’t — save for one more recent tune — acquainted with, but Chaney and The Decemberists deliver them so expertly and beautifully, I’m thrilled this is how I heard them for the first time.</p>
<iframe width="400" height="225" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/OPSO-u4fdB0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
<br /><br />
<p align="center">***</p>
<br />
<h3>Tift Merritt — Stitch of the World</h3>
<p>Like HFTRR and Offa Rex, Tift Merritt is a cherished Newport Folk Festival discovery, who gave Amelia and me our wedding song. We also saw her perform this set of new songs in a brilliant show at City Winery. There are instant Merritt standards — most of the record, in fact — and Icarus ranks among the absolute best songs of her career. </p>
<iframe width="400" height="225" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/KBdRF9LT4I8" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
<br /><br />
<p align="center">***</p>
<br />
<h3>Hon. Mention</h3>
<p>Aimee Mann — Mental Illness<br />
Big Thief — Capacity<br />
Broken Social Scene — Hug of Thunder<br />
Daniel Hart — A Ghost Story (Original Soundtrack)<br />
Feist — Pleasure<br />
Fever Ray — Plunge<br />
Filthy Friends — Invitation <br />
Groundhog Day: The Musical (Original Cast Recording)<br />
The Innocence Mission — The Snow on Pi Day<br />
Iron & Wine — Beast Epic<br />
John Maus — Screen Memories <br />
Sharon Van Etten — (It Was) Because I Was In Love<br />
Willie Watson — Folksinger, Vol. 2</p>Matthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09684334833086483334noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33540909.post-10361541768109290632016-12-31T12:00:00.000-05:002016-12-31T12:00:00.193-05:00RIB's 2016 Album of the Year: Bon Iver -- 22, A Million<p>This year, a great year for new music and an absolutely awful year for just about everything else, my Album of the Year pick came down to a final three artists: Radiohead. Leonard Cohen. Bon Iver.</p>
<p>(You can read more about what informed that choice <a href="http://www.unwinnable.com/2016/12/27/the-song-doesnt-remain-the-same/">here</a>.)</p>
<p>The muse of Radiohead's "A Moon Shaped Pool" is Rachel Owen, Thom Yorke's partner -- and later wife -- of 23 years, a relationship that produced two children, and ended last year. The record is a post-postmortem on their love affair, at times angry or foreboding, but mostly resigned, restrained, and beautiful. On Sunday, Dec. 18, 2016, amid 365 days of death and destruction, Rachel Owen died of cancer. She was 48.</p>
<p><a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/22-a-million/id1141107722"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4Z_VDEjfzfVJRZKyWhpO0FaPgDE7irbzDRUpzRXp22JX5IrYteg5lAK9iceSwRihhgg9rLxQl-5Wg-c4i3dbrkQQqGbl_9Dtf792XTuYn4HGouIovnoK-mI1DjQzwiLiVyCHNOQ/s1600/51503315.jpeg" style="float: right; height: 200px; margin: 0 0 10px 10px; width: 200px;" /></a>The day before the worst news of 2016 happened (hint: a Tuesday night in November), Leonard Cohen died. He left us with a final work worthy of a canon of music that has and will stand the test of time. His voice on "You Want It Darker" is deeper and, yes, darker than ever; his words as poetic and meaningful.</p>
<p>There is loss, too, in Bon Iver's "22, A Million" -- though it's buried a bit in numerology and vocal effects and his sometimes inscrutable lyrics. But there's a reason, for me, Justin Vernon's first missive in five years rises above the pack to win my 2016 Album of Year: hope.</p>
<p>It seems, at the end of such a brutal year, that we don't have much of it right now. <a href="http://www.unwinnable.com/2016/05/09/true-love-fades/">I wrote at length</a> about how the acceptance in Radiohead's "True Love Waits" made it finally ready to be put to tape, and to close "A Moon Shaped Pool." No longer a live take -- a desperate, pathetic plea to a leaving lover, sang over an acoustic guitar strummed so hard it could shred fingers -- it's now a recording of quiet acceptance, with no catharsis, no dramatic flourish at the end. It's just a goodbye, long after all the goodbyes have been said.</p>
<p>A breaking heart, though, is different than a broken heart. It's far more painful in the moment, yes, but then the feeling hasn't turned empty yet. The hole is forming, but it's more a fresh, gaping wound than a crater, covered in several layers of thick gray moon dust, too deep to ascend.</p>
<p>So when Thom Yorke sings, "Please, don't leave. Don't leave," on the album version of "True Love Waits," he's talking to a ghost. It's harrowing and beautiful in its own right.</p>
<p>But when Justin Vernon, on "715 Creeks", sings, "Turn around, you're my A-team. Turn around now, you're my A-team. Goddamn turn around now, you're my A-team," his voice digitally manipulated so it forms tendrils around itself, it's heart wrenching. The moment is unfurling in real time. Will his A-team turn around? It might. And it might not.</p>
<p>It's the last words of the song, so we never know. The mystery is unsolved. The yearning continues.</p>
<p>"It might be over soon," Bon Iver's record warns you on its opening track. But maybe it won't be.</p>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlIi9uH2Xk6ygfIh-5kmnWo-X8v6QemyhsYIlQI_UYBkMuy97Zkzjde1rfR9u1hkVDGBrOOprWwplxxpOoKiy_qFo0h7u7TLH_S0PH5PqbL3meASY6kxbA57GOV9329Wdnsl6I7Q/s1600/IMG_4402.JPG" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" width="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlIi9uH2Xk6ygfIh-5kmnWo-X8v6QemyhsYIlQI_UYBkMuy97Zkzjde1rfR9u1hkVDGBrOOprWwplxxpOoKiy_qFo0h7u7TLH_S0PH5PqbL3meASY6kxbA57GOV9329Wdnsl6I7Q/s1600/IMG_4402.JPG" /></a>
<p>There is so much wisdom on the Radiohead record -- one of the best of the band's career, a record which might have won easily another year, and was the front-runner most of this one -- and on Leonard Cohen's, a spiritual incarnation of so much secular import, but they hit the intellect for me more now than they do the heart. Right now, I need the heart. I need room to believe. It's why "Glass Eyes" is probably the best Radiohead song this year -- maybe there's hope in the woods, if you only get off the train from the city and walk.</p>
<p>Bon Iver's record is full of heart. It takes the cabin in the woods intimacy of "For Emma, Forever Ago" and mixes in the richness of production that helped define "Bon Iver" to find a home in the center. It's the band's finest record yet; far from perfect, meandering in some places, but peppered with moments that grab on tight. I didn't know I needed it, or even wanted it, until I heard it. It's warm and inviting, even amid the mystery of the coded song titles and the artwork, littered with symbols, that could very well turn some away -- and kept me at a distance at first, too. It has a sense of humor, too, at one point rhyming "quandary" with "waundry" in an off-hand manner in the midst of a much deeper sentiment.</p>
<p>But the two lyrics on "22, A Million," I find most compelling come on the final track, "00000 Million":</p>
<p>"I worried bout rain and I worried bout lightning/But I watched them off, to the light of the morning"</p>
<p>Bon Iver's darkness yields to the dawn; it's not Radiohead's darkness, which is at worst the sun covered over by a spaceship in your darkest hour, at best the glassy-eyed light of a dreary, cloudy day, or Leonard Cohen's darkness, the moment the flame is extinguished.</p>
<p>And then there are the final words of the song, and indeed the final words of the record:</p>
<p>"Well it harms it harms me it harms, I'll let it in"</p>
<p>The takeaway? Hope that comes out of hurt takes work. It's time to feel it, let it in, and get going.</p>
<iframe width="400" height="225" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/0FqojM1TYqo" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
<h2>Past winners:</h2>
<p>1993: Counting Crows -- August and Everything After<br />
1994: R.E.M. -- Monster<br />
1995: The Innocence Mission -- Glow<br />
1996: Dave Matthews Band -- Crash<br />
1997: U2 -- Pop<br />
1998: R.E.M. -- Up<br />
1999: John Linnell -- State Songs<br />
2000: Radiohead -- Kid A<br />
2001: Bjork -- Vespertine<br />
2002: Wilco -- Yankee Hotel Foxtrot<br />
2003: Bonnie "Prince" Billy -- Master and Everyone<br />
2004: Wilco -- A Ghost is Born<br />
2005: Sufjan Stevens -- Illinois<br />
2006: The Decemberists -- <a href="http://recordsibuy.blogspot.com/2006/12/matty-album-of-year-nos-3-1.html">The Crane Wife</a><br />
2007: Radiohead -- <a href="http://recordsibuy.blogspot.com/2008/01/at-long-lastthe-2007-album-of-year.html">In Rainbows</a><br />
2008: Shearwater -- <a href="http://recordsibuy.blogspot.com/2008/12/ribs-2008-album-of-year-shearwater-rook.html">Rook</a><br />
2009: Animal Collective -- Merriweather Post Pavilion<br />
2010: Laura Veirs -- <a href="http://recordsibuy.blogspot.com/2011/01/ribs-2010-album-of-year-laura-veirs.html">July Flame</a><br />
2011: PJ Harvey -- <a href="http://recordsibuy.blogspot.com/2011/12/ribs-2011-album-of-year-pj-harvey-let.html">Let England Shake</a><br />
2012: Animal Collective -- <a href="http://recordsibuy.blogspot.com/2013/01/ribs-2012-album-of-year-animal.html">Centipede Hz</a><br />
2013: Mogwai -- <a href="http://recordsibuy.blogspot.com/2013/12/ribs-2013-album-of-year-mogwai-les.html">Les Revenants</a><br />
2014: Sun Kil Moon -- <a href="http://recordsibuy.blogspot.com/2015/01/ribs-2014-album-of-year.html">Benji</a><br />
2015: The Tallest Man On Earth -- <a href="http://recordsibuy.blogspot.com/2016/01/ribs-2015-album-of-year-tallest-man-on.html">Dark Bird is Home</a></p>Matthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09684334833086483334noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33540909.post-24701867277773856592016-11-24T12:00:00.000-05:002016-11-28T13:22:21.254-05:00Nominees: 2016 Album of the Year<p>Happy Turkey Time! If all goes to plan, this should auto-post while I am happily enjoying a trip to Iceland with the family. (I am, however, writing it more than a month in advance, on a sleepless night -- so *fingers crossed*.)</p>
<p>Anyway ... say it with me: It's been an awesome year for music. Three former winners are up for the award this year, and many of the honorable mentions might have been nominees in past years. I have so much to choose from, they're all so different, and -- though no one ever believes me when I say it -- I have no idea which one I'm gonna pick.</p>
<p>So let's get right to it. Here (with admittedly brief descriptions; I said it was a sleepless night, but now all of a sudden I'm getting kinda drowsy) are my 2016 Album of the Year nominees -- in the usual iTunes alphabetical order:</p>
<br />
<p align="center">***</p>
<br />
<h2>THE AMAZING - AMBULANCE</h2>
<a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/ambulance/id1113151906"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;width: 200px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKH9tcjLAR3zBBYe1zfqKMRZwtw5GFNXu6qyJbu4sI7Akj1rkjWf6v61ksB9D7b4kURGsIc4djO4iVfQRv3Ra7-vmZaNaYyCEXq2jhVFfab97uNLb1pkpbuAvGPGHv9x-IXehP9g/s1600/The-Amazing-Ambulance-640x640.jpg" border="0"/></a><p>There's that cliche about books and their covers, but I saw the cover of this record -- a black cloud descending down a flight of stairs (see right) -- and I was sold. (Technically, I finished the glowing review I was reading before I downloaded it, but you get the idea.)</p>
<p>The Amazing is a Swedish band I had never heard of before I stumbled upon this album. I tweeted that the band is a sort of Mark Kozelek-meets-The War On Drugs, which of course is a physics puzzle because those two very much have met -- and were repulsed by each other. Which I guess is too bad, because The Amazing sound ... well ... amazing.</p>
<iframe width="400" height="225" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/JeSqVrueOrA" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
<br /><br />
<p align="center">***</p>
<br />
<h2>BASIA BULAT - GOOD ADVICE</h2>
<a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/good-advice/id1051406549"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;width: 200px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh41CUiNT4a603WAXuq-FYO8dnLYHw3nCMk0pskAtZLg3ccI8uvKObsfFcr68cd5TMwKqLcPaatKeYal83nOS0t1wIoFL7J_wuIoVVXG0-XYz6WTIFE9yzXe43920RZpZep0CTKFA/s1600/BasiaBulatGoodAdvice.jpeg" border="0"/></a><p>Canadian Basia Bulat was one of my annual Newport Folk Festival discoveries, but like one notable previous folk-fest find, Tift Merritt, I actually missed her performance -- hearing a bit of it on the radio in the car as we parked, and then listening to the very end of her set wafting over the walls of The Fort as we walked toward the front gate.</p>
<p>Unlike Tift Merritt, I didn't find myself hanging out with her briefly outside the Museum Stage. But I hope that, like Tift Merritt, I get to see her several times at folk festivals of the future and otherwise.</p>
<iframe width="400" height="225" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/uJcDqCbthK4" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
<br /><br />
<p align="center">***</p>
<br />
<h2>BON IVER - 22, A MILLION</h2>
<a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/22-a-million/id1141107722"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;width: 200px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4Z_VDEjfzfVJRZKyWhpO0FaPgDE7irbzDRUpzRXp22JX5IrYteg5lAK9iceSwRihhgg9rLxQl-5Wg-c4i3dbrkQQqGbl_9Dtf792XTuYn4HGouIovnoK-mI1DjQzwiLiVyCHNOQ/s1600/51503315.jpeg" border="0"/></a><p>I really didn't think I needed another Bon Iver record. And then I heard this one.</p>
<p>Look, the album titles are weird. And with my limited listening time these days, there is so much more to unpack that I haven't yet (but plan to). But the way Justin Vernon mixes in his little electronica dabbling with his soulful voice -- and even a saxophone -- is entrancing. Listen to the song below, and you might understand why I keep hitting repeat.</p>
<iframe width="400" height="225" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ISCEilPMNak" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
<br /><br />
<p align="center">***</p>
<br />
<h2>case/lang/veirs -- case/lang/veirs</h2>
<a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/case-lang-veirs/id1085710125"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;width: 200px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDyPLq9E9DKObclJiS_obmjx6sJAgUzKMSZgOm0fdSLYtYY2T4wteDdcAw7qB2v7Ve_ABmYy7j9lO3STazXqqWEjqeOBeEPWpTamWFREDrqKyiDtCWjDy2oYZ77-aaMbqVeSRZzg/s1600/-images-uploads-album-caselangveirs_1_sq-672394aa0f7f40821e63732d3c09b428d11f4905-s300-c85.jpg" border="0"/></a><p>Unlike Basia Bulat, I got to see case/lang/veirs perform at the Newport Folk Festival -- and it was awesome. k.d lang's voice filled the summer air as Neko Case and 2010 Album of the Year winner Laura Veirs dropped to her knees on stage with her guitar in mock rock-goddess pose.</p>
<p>The record is a perfect mix of the three songwriters and voices. Veirs is my favorite of the three, but some of the best songs on here are from the others, like Case's Delirium and lang's Honey and Smoke and Why Do We Fight -- although they all are served by the harmonies they make together. Of course, I love me some Laura, which makes the song below one of the ones I keep returning to the most.</p>
<iframe width="400" height="225" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/U-LARx-gEpc" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
<br /><br />
<p align="center">***</p>
<br />
<h2>KANYE WEST - THE LIFE OF PABLO</h2>
<img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;width: 200px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYpX_1v9hC4g9c56-Ee99oRmGF09R_llNKwTYMeImGdMUixEHtqT3tfDcDFi1esL5MyI03RsvV1DFuCJHglIb16YHfiIp02q_xsdXIS8Cq2w9mtDWU5DxlrT7f1P42ZayC1coJOg/s1600/kanye-west-the-life-of-pablo-tlop-" border="0"/><p>I have no idea how the version I have differs from the final version, or if there is a final version, but this record really didn't need any tinkering IMO (but what do I know -- the video below is different from what I've been listening to, and it's awesome).</p>
<p>All of the many sides of Kanye can be found on this record -- musical prodigy, asshole, salesman, showman, sincere, insincere, dark, vulgar, you name it. It all works together to paint the picture of a complicated, thrilling, frustrating and confounding genius.</p>
<iframe width="400" height="225" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/LsA84bXrBZw" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
<br /><br />
<p align="center">***</p>
<br />
<h2>LAURA GIBSON - EMPIRE BUILDER</h2>
<a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/empire-builder/id1074055704"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;width: 200px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXViC0sseQtDfBAGbJNBpwAjpbvQN1Naz5upENrcADs3eX0QTOPZ1Wk98xSqWMENYSw3vfREgTxIrQ8FI3nAo8wRVxpkSETsiQDB6EgWtCiRc2ZlborfNzQDNPuuXS5Rc1k5oVqA/s1600/wp-1461795869013.jpg" border="0"/></a><p>She may never get a Nobel Prize for Literature (go Bob!), but Laura Gibson is a poet who happens to set her words to music.</p>
<p>Just listen to the song below. Listen to the lyrics with your eyes closed as she sings, or read them as the video plays. Nothing I could write in this space could approach them.</p>
<iframe width="400" height="225" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/VMamoan2JwA" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
<br /><br />
<p align="center">***</p>
<br />
<h2>LEONARD COHEN - YOU WANT IT DARKER</h2>
<a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/you-want-it-darker/id1154144036"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;width: 200px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDOT3XyTUEhiH_xHzsDcNGRAe4IBMC0m-erIBSQ4lUBNgCZR-ec9FLFU-XZdnbcIVzIDpbcNeYoG0DqapLH95Ypr8_BFOGIOoEO1knZNPRQvInqfMduffUGgl1EX3ziMsfEY_Scw/s1600/YrtApkP.jpg" border="0"/></a><p>(Late-breaking edit on this one.) We lost Leonard Cohen the same week America lost an election. The video below -- though not a song from his last album, or even his own performance of it -- shows how much we still need letters from L. Cohen.</p>
<p>And we do have one last missive in You Want It Darker.</p>
<p>From Treaty, an instant Cohen classic: "I heard the snake was baffled by his sin/He shed his scales to find the snake within/But born again is born without a skin/The poison enters into everything."</p>
<p>He was a giant. Good thing he'll never really leave us.</p>
<iframe width="400" height="225" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/BG-_ZDrypec" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
<br /><br />
<p align="center">***</p>
<br />
<h2>RADIOHEAD - A MOON SHAPED POOL</h2>
<a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/a-moon-shaped-pool/id1111577743"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;width: 200px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieCaJjhZVhiZiH1TSbvLT6wEut5XstbxpwSVcRCW1ydBkff0A6E6eTP58dkIk7DDUwqDC9tRHnSX8YRhEBmCR5WXldSTn8aM3RX2Nfrjfut75En8nq_qklMR4liTTvERhsQghGcQ/s1600/A_Moon_Shaped_Pool.jpg" border="0"/></a><p>Radiohead has already won Album of the Year twice -- a win this year would separate it from fellow two-time winners R.E.M., Wilco and Animal Collective. Is Radiohead better than those other bands? Obviously, I'll likely never put any band past R.E.M., but Radiohead is a notch above the other two.</p>
<p>If Radiohead does win, I'll have to come up with some new things to say about the band, and this particular record, but for now I feel like I've said most of what needs to be said <a href="http://www.unwinnable.com/2016/05/09/true-love-fades/" target="_blank">right here</a>.</p>
<iframe width="400" height="225" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/TTAU7lLDZYU" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
<br /><br />
<p align="center">***</p>
<br />
<h2>SHEARWATER - JET PLANE AND OXBOW</h2>
<a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/jet-plane-and-oxbow/id1046121766"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;width: 200px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJ0w7Yh9J8ZgraVBf3WJombopAiS-mV5sPK73qz6KSCpfoGDVVMKSdxEAR5o8FL5y5Y2o5Ii23-YiHcuLqdN7ubgt7SPrut1Eaaan4CAjcXe1r3WzXLavKHg-z4MMqJhC_LEB9Kg/s1600/homepage_large.b0ed6446.jpg" border="0"/></a><p>It's time to finally stop asking where Thor and Kimberly are; this band is basically unrecognizable -- except for lead singer Jonathan Meiburg, who in recent years has taken Shearwater from mysterious and beautiful to poppy and political.</p>
<p>It works. This album rocks; it's catchy and fun but still smart; and it has perhaps the most uplifting song of the year -- the song of the spring, at any rate -- Pale Kings. But if you haven't heard Jet Plane and Oxbow yet, start with the first single, embedded below.</p>
<iframe width="400" height="225" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/h2QQAvRjHh0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
<br /><br />
<p align="center">***</p>
<br />
<h2>WARPAINT - HEADS UP</h2>
<a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/heads-up/id1136068048"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;width: 200px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxbbu294LTvhjTLfy31QprxSmkDfjPB1K6zanmrBRS1GCNfpAygVyBdVlWUhrUGv8-gIrRtuEaXSDM7fqbAg_xQZYJVg8W5SmP0b7MnCNUavdKoON3Ot5f3OvqT9yZYhJFZ4JPzA/s1600/headsup.jpg" border="0"/></a><p>I've been madly in love with this band from the moment I first saw the video for Elephants while randomly flipping channels one day seven years ago.</p>
<p>Their last album, which was self-titled, narrowly missed out on Album of the Year. I'm not sure if the band will ever quite reach those heights again, but I'm digging this new joint at the moment. Don't forget -- it's still October for me. I have to live with this one a bit longer, but it's on heavy rotation at the moment, as the days get shorter and Halloween approaches.</p>
<iframe width="400" height="225" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/oOfah_QyUkI" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
<br /><br />
<p align="center">***</p>
<br />
<h4>HONORABLE MENTIONS</h4>
<p><em>Also in iTunes alphabetical order:</em></p>
<p>Andrew Bird -- Are You Serious</p>
<p>Angel Olsen -- MY WOMAN</p>
<p>Animal Collective -- Painting With</p>
<p>Anna Meredith -- Varmints</p>
<p>Cross Record -- Wabi-Sabi</p>
<p>Daughter -- Not To Disappear</p>
<p>David Bowie -- Blackstar</p>
<p>Gillian Welch -- Boots No. 1: The Official Revival Bootleg</p>
<p>Ingrid Michaelson -- It Doesn't Have To Make Sense</p>
<p>John Prine -- For Better, or Worse</p>
<p>Mike Mills -- Concerto for Violin, Rock Band, and String Orchestra</p>
<p>Mogwai -- Atomic</p>
<p>Okkervil River -- Away</p>
<p>Savages -- Adore Life</p>
<p>Violent Femmes -- We Can Do Anything</p>Matthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09684334833086483334noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33540909.post-81651287333407875032016-01-01T00:00:00.000-05:002016-01-01T10:27:53.104-05:00RIB's 2015 Album of the Year: The Tallest Man on Earth -- Dark Bird is Home<p><i>Blurb reprinted from <a href="http://www.unwinnable.com/2015/12/29/best-music-2015/">here</a>.</i></p>
<p><a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/dark-bird-is-home/id960850982"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;width: 200px; height: 200px;" src="http://www.unwinnable.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/tmoeeee.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5574373254432756242" /></a>Swedish guitar-picker Kristian Matsson, AKA The Tallest Man on Earth, often writes songs about being a traveler in solitude, but on his new record he’s added a backing band to his caravan, including Bon Iver’s Mike Noyce. And while that full-band sound might qualify as “going electric,” Matsson’s acoustic guitar has always had plenty of its own voltage. Ironically, this record, thematically, though far from cloistered – songs like “Little Nowhere Towns” and the standout “Seventeen” definitely have that open-road mix of hopefulness and weariness – there’s a lot less of that thrill of the chase which helped characterize past albums like “The Wild Hunt.” Matsson, who sings about a traveler coming home in “Slow Dance,” ends the record with the title track, in which a dying man sings to his lover as he enters into the afterlife. At one point – earlier on the record in “Sagres” – he laments “all this fucking doubt”; by the end of “Dark Bird is Home”, though, he’s crystal clear: “I thought that this would last for a million years/But now I need to go/Oh, fuck.” It’s the realization that another strange and extraordinary journey has come to an end, and a new one is ready to begin.</p>
<iframe width="400" height="225" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/lI7J018XGiY" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
<h2>Past winners:</h2>
<p>1993: Counting Crows -- August and Everything After<br />
1994: R.E.M. -- Monster<br />
1995: The Innocence Mission -- Glow<br />
1996: Dave Matthews Band -- Crash<br />
1997: U2 -- Pop<br />
1998: R.E.M. -- Up<br />
1999: John Linnell -- State Songs<br />
2000: Radiohead -- Kid A<br />
2001: Bjork -- Vespertine<br />
2002: Wilco -- Yankee Hotel Foxtrot<br />
2003: Bonnie "Prince" Billy -- Master and Everyone<br />
2004: Wilco -- A Ghost is Born<br />
2005: Sufjan Stevens -- Illinois<br />
<a href="http://recordsibuy.blogspot.com/2006/12/matty-album-of-year-nos-3-1.html">2006: The Decemberists -- The Crane Wife</a><br />
<a href="http://recordsibuy.blogspot.com/2008/01/at-long-lastthe-2007-album-of-year.html">2007: Radiohead -- In Rainbows</a><br />
<a href="http://recordsibuy.blogspot.com/2008/12/ribs-2008-album-of-year-shearwater-rook.html">2008: Shearwater -- Rook</a><br />
2009: Animal Collective -- Merriweather Post Pavilion<br />
<a href="http://recordsibuy.blogspot.com/2011/01/ribs-2010-album-of-year-laura-veirs.html">2010: Laura Veirs -- July Flame</a><br />
<a href="http://recordsibuy.blogspot.com/2011/12/ribs-2011-album-of-year-pj-harvey-let.html">2011: PJ Harvey -- Let England Shake</a><br />
<a href="http://recordsibuy.blogspot.com/2013/01/ribs-2012-album-of-year-animal.html">2012: Animal Collective -- Centipede Hz</a><br />
<a href="http://recordsibuy.blogspot.com/2013/12/ribs-2013-album-of-year-mogwai-les.html">2013: Mogwai -- Les Revenants</a><br />
<a href="http://recordsibuy.blogspot.com/2015/01/ribs-2014-album-of-year.html">2014: Sun Kil Moon -- Benji</a></p>Matthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09684334833086483334noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33540909.post-81404569405689958972015-11-28T10:35:00.000-05:002015-11-28T10:50:38.924-05:00Nominees: 2015 Album of the YearI'm not giving up this tradition, which dates back to my teens, but having a kid this year has not only limited my listening time, but made me completely forget to post this on Thanksgiving, as is the tradition. (Thanks Amelia for the reminders!)<div><br></div><div>Anyway, busy weekend (wedding, moving), so let's do this:
</div><div><br></div><div>The <span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Light', HelveticaNeue-Light, helvetica, arial, sans-serif;">2015 Album of the Year nominees are ...</span></div><div><div><br></div><div>NOMINEES</div><div><br></div><div>Frank Turner -- Positive Songs for Negative People</div><div><br></div><div>The Innocence Mission -- Hello I Feel The Same</div><div><br></div><div>Laura Marling -- Short Movie</div><div><br></div><div>Sufjan Stevens -- Carrie & Lowell</div><div><br></div><div>The Tallest Man on Earth -- Dark Bird is Home</div><div><br></div><div><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Light', HelveticaNeue-Light, helvetica, arial, sans-serif;">HONORABLE MENTIONS</span></div><div><br></div><div>Adele -- 25</div><div><br></div><div>Bob Dylan -- Shadows in the Night</div><div><br></div><div>Courtney Barnett -- Sometimes I Sit and Think, Sometimes I Just Sit</div><div><br></div><div>Deradoorian -- The Expanding Flower Planet</div><div><br></div><div>Elle King -- Love Stuff</div><div><br></div><div>Joanna Newsom -- Divers</div><div><br></div><div>Panda Bear -- Panda Bear Meets The Grim Reaper</div><div><br></div><div>Sleater-Kinney -- No Cities To Love</div></div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><br></div>Matthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09684334833086483334noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33540909.post-11418163421028578092015-02-03T20:28:00.002-05:002015-02-03T20:29:21.727-05:00Records I Will Someday Buy: The music behind the worst album covers ever<iframe width="400" height="225" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/-jaHEa5omWE" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>Matthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09684334833086483334noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33540909.post-52075365381247212412015-01-10T12:38:00.002-05:002015-01-10T12:38:23.109-05:00RIB's 2014 Album of the Year<a href="http://www.unwinnable.com/2015/01/09/unwinnable-weekly-issue-twenty-seven/#.VLFjPMZH2is">Read all about it</a>.Matthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09684334833086483334noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33540909.post-1086653961228296142014-12-31T01:51:00.000-05:002014-12-31T01:52:09.913-05:00Michael Stipe -- New Test Leper (Live at Webster Hall, 12/30/2014)Watch the whole thing. Full screen. In HD. With the volume up.
<iframe width="400" height="225" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/poHK11ig7Mg" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>Matthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09684334833086483334noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33540909.post-12896341493417929022014-11-27T12:00:00.000-05:002015-01-11T12:49:33.576-05:00Nominees: 2014 Album of the Year<p>Happy Turkey Day! As you read this, I am on a beach in Jamaica, enjoying my honeymoon (as I <i>write</i> this, however, it's freezing cold out in New York and I haven't even packed yet because I have three more days of work before I leave).</p>
<p>Anyway, since I couldn't leave the world waiting until next week ... here are my 2014 Album of the Year nominees, in iTunes alphabetical order. Hooray!</p>
<br />
<p align="center">***</p>
<br />
<h2>DEATH VESSEL -- ISLAND INTERVALS</h2>
<a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/island-intervals/id761513404"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;width: 200px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEix2JGyAW0GQGOdAXJTISGg4sO_kYblmIsCyQvAps5gOS3O-dhUgLFLleVUv8jU4LcjUUbD4nOp2mJm6lmzlfzKMmtujTBDOCZGdd-IagjZgwxN57pmi2ba81z8GytSjURMWLsiqw/s1600/deathvessel.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5574373254432756242" /></a><p>Death Vessel is the first of several Newport Folk Festival discoveries this year, although we arrived too late at Fort Adams to see them. I'll have to settle for my memories of their opening set (for Shearwater) at the Bell House earlier in the year, which won me over.</p>
<p>Death Vessel is the American Sigur Ros; they've toured with the band and, in fact, the album was recorded in Reykjavik with Jonsi -- who sings on it, too. It's a little twee at times, and although the Rhode Island outfit, headed by Joel Thibodeau, isn't quite as good as Sigur Ros, Island Intervals contains some of my favorite songs of the year. Triangulated Heart was first to make me a fan -- I snatched their Brooklyn set list and it's the third song, marked simply, △ ♡ -- and it's followed on the record by the infectious Mercury Dime and the Jonsi-infused Ilsa Drown.</p>
<p>You probably have to be in the right mood to listen to Island Intervals. Watch the video below; by the end, you'll have more of an opinion as to whether Death Vessel is charming or cloying. The band is both at times, I admit, but I've mostly been sold on the former. </p>
<iframe width="400" height="225" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/vHz2eGHC_yM" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
<br /><br />
<p align="center">***</p>
<br />
<h2>FIRST AID KIT -- STAY GOLD</h2>
<a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/stay-gold/id845312934"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;width: 200px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMTIQTlHrfgxjq4qffjVGX68gIR-pLcTgdFQK2vuHndoDDuy8tW5vDw0GnYZ0Ouxv0bHA3RtThjq0p04LL27OLCeTKON56Gla-LioM5tQahmgXXY5XKehwAN6eUNdpKK5RCjGvRg/s1600/01a72c9a.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5574373254432756242" /></a><p>The album's title (and the title track) is inspired by the Robert Frost poem, Nothing Gold Can Stay:</p>
<p>Nature’s first green is gold,<br />
Her hardest hue to hold. <br />
Her early leaf’s a flower; <br />
But only so an hour. <br />
Then leaf subsides to leaf. <br />
So Eden sank to grief, <br />
So dawn goes down to day. <br />
Nothing gold can stay.</p>
<p>I enjoyed First Aid Kit's previous record, but this one tops it, imo, and the title track is a perfect reason why: a melancholy song you can sing along to. Same goes for much of the rest of the album. Which is all I ever really ask for from music.</p>
<iframe width="400" height="225" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/DKL4X0PZz7M" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
<br /><br />
<p align="center">***</p>
<br />
<h2>HURRAY FOR THE RIFF RAFF -- SMALL TOWN HEROES</h2>
<a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/small-town-heroes/id766149877"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;width: 200px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFoGyGkTV_2vWxDHGBe1_7C5HsJP6jWknTgzLek0fmE3mzAzmviU_ZZJpZOA2Idx8xB4LeWQkjOHZHbrlncHEr8j6vDhACDhHWmFGSJuUQkAr-opUdg_u0GsohgnRWgNYoOJHhSQ/s1600/91Q+K9O2WsL._SL1500_.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5574373254432756242" /></a><p>Alynda Lee Segarra is gorgeous. She's Puerto Rican and from the Bronx -- both of which surprised me, having heard the album before reading up on her -- who landed in New Orleans. When her band showed up on the Newport Folk Festival lineup, I checked out her music to get me primed for her set.</p>
<p>So glad I did. The album is wonderful, full of songs that long for home while stuck behind car crashes in Germany, songs set in the Blue Ridge Mountains and San Francisco Bay and Big Easy bars on Monday nights -- songs that feel like old friends after just a play or two.</p>
<p>If I say any more about Segarra, well, my marriage may come to an end before it's had much of a chance to start. So just watch the video or Spotify them or something. It's 25 degrees out, and my palms are getting sweaty.</p>
<iframe width="400" height="225" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/bMtwjaNuQ8w" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
<br /><br />
<p align="center">***</p>
<br />
<h2>MOGWAI -- RAVE TAPES</h2>
<a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/rave-tapes/id742963291"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;width: 200px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXJ-keIDjpo1lFJoqFnWI40qswUZEN_WvPYscHhHA9hIddweaNPZUtl2CsAv4cRa8MWE5Hww9Z-9PgZgPXOjFTex-DpMqo-b4CG3PsL2WwgWA3b3wYwodE9_-q6woOFOd3ndjMPg/s1600/13905.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5574373254432756242" /></a><p>Mogwai, live, assaults your ears. My memory of the band from 2014 will be my head getting blasted in by them at Terminal 5. Great show, if you didn't end up bleeding from your skull or falling into a seizure. (I avoided both, but only by retreating to the rooftop bar; Terminal 5 staff were ducking for cover in all directions, fingers in their ears.)</p>
<p>Mogwai won my 2013 Album of the Year with <a href="http://recordsibuy.blogspot.com/2013/12/ribs-2013-album-of-year-mogwai-les.html" target="_blank">one of the greatest soundtracks of all time</a>. Rave Tapes can't -- and doesn't -- match it, but once again, Mogwai paints sound pictures that are worth a thousand words. </p>
<p>As usual, each song is so strong you forget you're listening to instrumentals; Rave Tapes is another great album from one of the world's elite bands. This one has been on repeat all year long.</p>
<iframe width="400" height="225" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/sZ5nEuG-CRc" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
<br /><br />
<p align="center">***</p>
<br />
<h2>SHARON VAN ETTEN -- ARE WE THERE</h2>
<a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/are-we-there/id820969262"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;width: 200px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyNXL9aUNihueiDPZzYDaGQWW4Et4lLiN8uvPtn9PQCgdsUmWwNgD_QAC_iOwDMIXr5JFuIl7HP07FLzEGTPrIL1yOgAanuGbIWjKWMh8Vi6dvlVF2snsjFYsYThOkA29-uIqyHw/s1600/3c9d7884.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5574373254432756242" /></a><p>My wife tells me Sharon Van Etten finally broke up with the dude who inspired these songs (and presumably, the songs on her last record, another Album of the Year nominee). Thank goodness. I mean, the dude might have helped give us some great art, but the pain is almost too hard to listen to, let alone to bear.</p>
<p>Just listen to the song titles: Your Love Is Killing Me. I Love You But I'm Lost. Break Me. Nothing Will Change. And the lyrics: "I washed your dishes, but I shit in your bathroom."</p>
<p>Or this:</p>
<p>Break my legs so I won't walk to you<br />
Cut my tongue so I can't talk to you<br />
Burn my skin so I can't feel you<br />
Stab my eyes so I can't see<br />
You like it when I let you walk over me<br />
You tell me that you like it<br />
Your love is killing me</p>
<p>We saw her live; she's quite charming and even clumsy and ditzy. On these albums, she is raw power and pain. Maybe her next record will bring out her happier, loopier side. In the meantime, we have an amazing document of love going very, very wrong.</p>
<iframe width="400" height="225" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/nyuPWHwZru0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
<br /><br />
<p align="center">***</p>
<br />
<h2>SUN KIL MOON -- BENJI</h2>
<a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/benji/id795192449"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;width: 200px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLPPT3T7pawe5RSORwugNnGcRrXp4POUKSWwDk4ddVNajuYwIt1ehnlNBQL9s2AU7rLwRWwOn3-0oSpalB_-5U7DZm4G1IiAOeFazFYJetEqGq3FV5a0RwFy0ImUeEuO1VcQGIgA/s1600/12003-benji.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5574373254432756242" /></a><p>So Mark Kozelek's feuds with "hillbilly" concertgoers and The War on Drugs gave us <a href="http://pitchfork.com/news/56989-here-it-is-mark-kozeleks-song-called-war-on-drugs-suck-my-cock/" target="_blank">a pretty hilarious song</a>, but it grew old and sort of left a bad taste in what should have been a purely triumphant year -- not only is Benji a great album, but Kozelek's Christmas album, which just came out, could become a staple if I can listen to it without all the irony.</p>
<p>Benji is packed with songs about death; I think Pitchfork compared its rambling lyrical style with boxing -- jabbing and weaving and ducking and blocking -- which is a sport Kozelek loves and even mentions on the record. I've enjoyed Sun Kil Moon's music for some time -- and was thrilled to see him at Newport -- but, to me, this is the best thing he's ever done.</p>
<p>Yes, that's (Album of the Year winner) Will Oldham singing backing vocals on Carissa. And to top it off, I danced with my mom to I Can't Live Without My Mother's Love at my wedding. Hard to beat.</p>
<iframe width="400" height="300" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/GBNdOTu2Wn0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
<br /><br />
<p align="center">***</p>
<br />
<h2>U2 -- SONGS OF INNOCENCE</h2>
<a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/songs-of-innocence/id915794155"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;width: 200px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLCjHZl95I8P4XtA-WdMed_VnBSy1JR9YNYM80ARdTQ3j2x8Eji68qTuC1qzor41-DnkwePlCSQ27FBTOC4lL5H5VhmGJLagbIGyedVZKIVzH6uF8PmhUBJ0qCQuJ134YbTlmtkA/s1600/738aa476.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5574373254432756242" /></a><p>It's become hip to hate on U2. It's been deserved much of the time, but not now. Songs of Innocence is a great album, their best in at least 15 years.</p>
<p>Was putting the song on every iPod, iPhone, iPad and iTunes account in the known universe a douchebag move? Of course it was. But don't let this get lost in the furor: U2 had the balls to do it. It's free. And it's damn good.</p>
<p>This album is U2 without some of the less palatable excesses. Bono sounds great; The Edge crunches his guitars; and the songs are personal, mostly about growing up in Dublin, so even when the lyrics are a bit generic (long a Bono staple), they still resonate. Sometimes it's OK to be a jealous R.E.M. fan.</p>
<iframe width="400" height="225" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/LF0rKW1DEMo" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
<br /><br />
<p align="center">***</p>
<br />
<h2>THE WAR ON DRUGS -- LOST IN THE DREAM</h2>
<a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/lost-in-the-dream/id765568650"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;width: 200px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpgqIbU34IQZGQ69cB5nZf8iMBAUO2N4Jz1GGhxrCAg_w9nUPRcwQJ4ZS5cuhsFmTZa5zqeuh99IgLLqtPGHkBJNBVMejxgT1h4TrCL8GIYKUnp53t-9bWqv8f8BbN90wU8GzcAA/s1600/41f440f9.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5574373254432756242" /></a><p>If I had to choose sides, I'd pick Mark Kozelek's.</p>
<p>Still, I love Mark Knopfler. And he sounds like he's playing on this album, even though he isn't, making a song like An Ocean in Between the Waves one of the best songs of the year.</p>
<p>Bridge and tunnel people, apparently, love them some War on Drugs. They're pretty beloved by the hipsters, too. While it annoys me that this album gets praised while Songs of Innocence gets bashed -- I think you either like both, or don't like both -- I won't hold it against them.</p>
<iframe width="400" height="225" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/1LmX5c7HoUw" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
<br /><br />
<p align="center">***</p>
<br />
<h2>WARPAINT -- WARPAINT</h2>
<a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/warpaint/id725462668"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;width: 200px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigDoKIkRCTkJstf5xphNmHolAc4Zj_AUUAHaAPjc7NuNBpiX7yklDItoEQPnEcKsL2VJJ3iOUDWzVAEPtXRZdhSCVzrlni2_CAATqYWbUniGd8aJoUWzLxyPxrc2SdtbgxMegB3A/s1600/Warpaint_-_Warpaint_album.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5574373254432756242" /></a><p>I had the pleasure of seeing Warpaint twice this year, once at Webster Hall and a second, even better show, outdoors in Prospect Park. They were awesome. This record is their best yet.</p>
<p>From Intro -- with its stomping drums and its apology and its restart and its seamless flow into Keep It Healthy -- to songs like Disco//Heavy and Drive, which seduce you slowly, Warpaint's self-titled gem doesn't seem to have the hooks to make them a mainstream success. But they're intoxicating and mysterious -- I get swept away by their guitar work, live and on tape - and they've made possibly the best record of 2014.</p>
<iframe width="400" height="225" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/ie6plcFQ330" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
<br /><br />
<p align="center">***</p>
<br />
<h4>HONORABLE MENTIONS</h4>
<p><em>Also in iTunes alphabetical order:</em></p>
<p>Leif Vollebekk -- North Americana</p>
<p>Peter Buck -- I Am Back To Blow Your Mind Once Again</p>
<p>Primus -- Primus & the Chocolate Factory with the Fungi Ensemble</p>
<p>R.E.M. -- Unplugged 1991/2001</p>
<p>Shearwater -- Missing Islands (Demos & Outtakes 2007-2012)</p>
<p>Sinoia Caves -- Beyond the Black Rainbow (OST)</p>
<p>"Weird Al" Yankovic -- Mandatory Fun</p>
<p>Willie Watson -- Folk Singer, Vol. 1</p>Matthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09684334833086483334noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33540909.post-17306347169388636682013-12-30T09:00:00.000-05:002013-12-30T11:08:55.859-05:00RIB's 2013 Album of the Year: Mogwai -- Les Revenants<p>It's fitting in a time of sudden loss and slow recovery that my Album of the Year is the ghostly soundtrack to a French television drama about the dead coming back to life.</p>
<p>It's also appropriate in a year when words could only do so much — and nearly always failed — that my Album of the Year is almost entirely instrumental.</p>
<a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/les-revenants/id598687974"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;width: 200px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVQp7SOanmSqu5_YK2WFFLguj_cJLDGlPAMkPlXhZb2InW8OtKXASw8GBwDuZUfApDqvW-BD2Y1_MdjdNg83f5B7U6KJCB9VJRmWJpkj4XmTpYzltuQb4C0lpwsjA-XSOD4idUNg/s400/mogwai-les-revenants.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5574373254432756242" /></a><p>The walking dead of <em>Les Revenants</em> -- the French show that provides the title and inspiration for Mogwai's remarkable record -- are not zombies; they are everyday people who don't know they’re dead. In the opening scenes of the pilot -- the only part of the show I've seen, lacking an English subtitled version -- a school bus full of children careens off the side of a mountain road.</p>
<p>After the Mogwai-driven opening credits roll, a schoolgirl, Camille, climbs over the guardrail, back onto the road, and breathlessly makes her way back home -- where her mother, hearing sounds from the kitchen downstairs, watches as her dead daughter fixes herself a snack.</p>
<p>That's all I know about the show, which is set in a mysterious town that has drawn comparisons to Twin Peaks, to which I am an outspoken devotee.</p>
<p>So I don't quite know how each Mogwai track pairs with the visuals and the plot lines and the characters. All I can judge the record on is the music itself:</p>
<p>Beautiful. Haunting. Hopeful. Restrained.</p>
<p>Most of all, there is that restraint. Never does a song swell to the heights of "Death is the Road to Awe" -- the climax of <em>The Fountain</em> soundtrack that Mogwai recorded with Clint Mansell and Kronos Quartet.</p>
<p>But while that could sometimes make Mogwai's record less immediate than this year's runners-up -- the throbbing pop of Chvrches' <em>The Bones of What You Believe</em>, the raw indie rock power of Savages' <em>Silence Yourself</em>, the emotionally and racially charged vanity of Kanye West's <em>Yeezus</em>, the anachronistic but pure throw-your-head-back-and-dance pulse of Daft Punk's <em>Random Access Memories</em>, the instant familiarity of Laura Veirs' <em>Warp and Weft</em>, and even the quiet catchiness of Yo La Tengo’s <em>Fade</em> -- it didn't keep it from sticking with me as the months turned from cold to warm to hot to (prematurely) cold again.</p>
<p>Any or all of the runners-up could have been a fine choice for Album of the Year. But none of them truly fit. My Unwinnable readers already know what has defined my year, so I won’t go into it again (<a href="http://www.unwinnable.com/2013/09/03/i-still-believe-in-happy-endings/" target="_blank">newbies click here</a>). Perhaps it’s the fact that those records are packed with words and ideas and messages that make it impossible to pin them down as emblematic of a year so jumbled with emotion. There is no chorus or couplet that wraps up 2013 in a nice, tidy bow.</p>
<p>There is only the mournful sound of Mogwai.</p>
<p>And then there's Track 13 -- "What Are They Doing In Heaven Today?" -- the album's lone vocal cut, a well-worn tune attributed to 1920s Texan gospel singer Washington Phillips. </p>
<p>It may not be "Get Lucky" or "Blood on the Leaves" or "We Sink" or "She Will", but it may be the only song in a year of great songs that really had something to say to my soul:</p>
<p><em>What are they doing in heaven today,<br />
Where sin and sorrow are all done away?<br />
Peace abounds like a river, they say.<br />
What are they doing there now?</p>
<p>I'm thinking of friends whom I used to know,<br />
Who lived and suffered in this world below<br />
But they've gone off to heaven, but I want to know<br />
What are they doing there now?</p>
<p>Oh, what are they doing in heaven today,<br />
Where sin and sorrow are all done away?<br />
Peace abounds like a river, they say.<br />
But what are they doing there now?</p>
<p>There's some whose hearts were burdened with care<br />
They paid for their moment to fighting and tears<br />
But they clung to the cross with trembling and fear<br />
But what are they doing there now?</p>
<p>Oh, what are they doing in heaven today,<br />
Where sin and sorrow are all done away?<br />
Peace abounds like a river, they say.<br />
But what are they doing there now?</p>
<p>And there's some whose bodies were full of disease<br />
Physicians and doctors couldn't give them much ease<br />
But they suffered 'til death brought a final release<br />
But what are they doing there now?</p>
<p>Oh, what are they doing in heaven today,<br />
Where sin and sorrow are all done away?<br />
Peace abounds like a river, they say.<br />
But what are they doing there now?</p>
<p>There's some who were poor and often despised<br />
They looked up to heaven with tear-blinded eyes<br />
While people were heedless and deaf to their cries<br />
But what are they doing there now?</em></p>
<p>For an agnostic, I've had more reason to wonder about heaven than ever before.</p>
<p>In other words: Goodbye, 2013.</p>
<p>And here's a prayer for next year, too.</p>
<p><em>This post is running simultaneously at <a href="http://www.unwinnable.com/2013/12/30/my-2013-soundtrack/">Unwinnable.com</a>.</em></p>
<iframe width="400" height="225" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/7Y2SuJnXYo0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
<h4>ALBUMS OF THE YEAR, 1993-2013</h4>
<p>1993: Counting Crows -- August and Everything After<br />
1994: R.E.M. -- Monster<br />
1995: The Innocence Mission -- Glow<br />
1996: Dave Matthews Band -- Crash<br />
1997: U2 -- Pop<br />
1998: R.E.M. -- Up<br />
1999: John Linnell -- State Songs<br />
2000: Radiohead -- Kid A<br />
2001: Bjork -- Vespertine<br />
2002: Wilco -- Yankee Hotel Foxtrot<br />
2003: Bonnie "Prince" Billy -- Master and Everyone<br />
2004: Wilco -- A Ghost is Born<br />
2005: Sufjan Stevens -- Illinois<br />
<a href="http://recordsibuy.blogspot.com/2006/12/matty-album-of-year-nos-3-1.html">2006: The Decemberists -- The Crane Wife</a><br />
<a href="http://recordsibuy.blogspot.com/2008/01/at-long-lastthe-2007-album-of-year.html">2007: Radiohead -- In Rainbows</a><br />
<a href="http://recordsibuy.blogspot.com/2008/12/ribs-2008-album-of-year-shearwater-rook.html">2008: Shearwater -- Rook</a><br />
2009: Animal Collective -- Merriweather Post Pavilion<br />
<a href="http://recordsibuy.blogspot.com/2011/01/ribs-2010-album-of-year-laura-veirs.html">2010: Laura Veirs -- July Flame</a><br />
<a href="http://recordsibuy.blogspot.com/2011/12/ribs-2011-album-of-year-pj-harvey-let.html">2011: PJ Harvey -- Let England Shake</a><br />
<a href="http://recordsibuy.blogspot.com/2013/01/ribs-2012-album-of-year-animal.html">2012: Animal Collective -- Centipede Hz</a><br />
2013: Mogwai -- Les Revenants</p>Matthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09684334833086483334noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33540909.post-89129187198274997252013-11-28T09:00:00.000-05:002013-11-28T09:21:22.998-05:00Nominees: 2013 Album of the Year<p>I'm working today, so I'll keep it short and sweet.</p>
<p>Here are the nominees for the 2013 Album of the Year (in iTunes alphabetical order, as usual):</p>
<br />
<p align="center">***</p>
<br />
<h2>CHVRCHES -- THE BONES OF WHAT YOU BELIEVE</h2>
<a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/the-bones-of-what-you-believe/id688732033"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;width: 200px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpeFndpq3UYkRydVW7aEd01_g4pFubdXmRaSoj8I_XEMq5eyLm8CImJgdHjiFG9qlfocFFF-rL0NL-_Brlu2xEUiIsT7DI52mtVu3mzz03pNx5Om2fpwe2_4nZ0yRfU37TqJ3EeA/s640/chvrch.jpeg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5574373254432756242" /></a><p>I'm starting to embrace pop more in my old age; or maybe pop has suddenly become all indie and cool again?</p>
<p>Doesn't matter. I did a lot of dancing on the way to work this year, and Chvrches -- one of two Scottish bands to earn a nomination in 2013 -- had a lot to do with it.</p>
<p>"Recover" ranks among my songs of the year; I've had it since their EP was released and it's been the soundtrack, in part, to some pretty hard times. A few of the other tracks on the album proper -- like "Tether" and "We Sink" -- had I had them sooner, might have provided a similar function. And they still may.</p>
<p>Synth pop about battling depression/obsession/addiction and relationship turmoil? That gets me on the dance floor.</p>
<p>Play it at your weddings.</p>
<iframe width="400" height="225" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/JyqemIbjcfg" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
<br /><br />
<p align="center">***</p>
<br />
<h2>DAFT PUNK -- RANDOM ACCESS MEMORIES</h2>
<a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/random-access-memories/id617154241"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;width: 200px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhupLZKHfh2jdpI8pjVWd6x14dJXMooW-bpHT6zulwJgvBMCVCcGy41GJWu1YbkHtk0P1hbiL_RvJYy1ScoWNlaGwE1hJGj8qSJAEAth8Z1GJA27Jaw1ewMuIXdLBRLLJd5Sob-aA/s640/daft.jpeg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5574373254432756242" /></a><p>Did I mention I danced a lot this year?</p>
<p>"Get Lucky" was arguably the song of the summer (I called it, Amelia!) but the song that stole my heart (and got me to buy this album the day of its release) is "Doin' It Right", which features Panda Bear from two-time Album of the Year winners Animal Collective.</p>
<p>I think it was Amelia who quipped that I like songs that repeat the same thing over and over and over and over again -- although if it wasn't her, my work colleague Jeff has heard me singing enough made-up songs to know that it's <em>sometimes</em> my jam -- and I'm pretty sure she was referencing this song when she said it.</p>
<p>Maybe it's only robotic Kraftwerk-like voices or members of AC who can get away with it.</p>
<p>And me. At least until Jeff strangles me at my desk.</p>
<iframe width="400" height="225" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/RA5PRj7KPkE" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
<br /><br />
<p align="center">***</p>
<br />
<h2>KANYE WEST -- YEEZUS</h2>
<a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/yeezus/id662392801"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;width: 200px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhup0ZSv3M8rF0B2w1rrPOVaAa9SKMiE9DYryDFhX-kOp-ObVjueU09SP35B11XkHCKngqWyItATFpmWmkF0xEOD2ia4l0MDRs5ofpoE0dnYYilEzi5mQQzkWJN2gurw4CgdWfFPg/s640/yeezus.jpeg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5574373254432756242" /></a><p>Kanye West finished second in the Album of the Year race a few years back, and he'll finish high in the rankings again this time around.</p>
<p>I'm gonna say the same thing I always say: Kanye West is a douchebag. But you shouldn't like his music <em>despite</em> that fact; you have to, at least in part, like it <em>because</em> of it.</p>
<p>"I Am a God (feat. God)" is perhaps the perfect example; Kanye is brazen enough to call himself a God, but also self-conscious and smart enough to undercut his message with the sounds of screaming and panting as he runs away from his own demons.</p>
<p>Is <em>Yeezus</em> as good as <em>My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy</em>? Probably not. But when a song like "Blood on the Leaves" is playing, I find it hard to believe there is a better hip-hop album out there, period.</p>
<iframe width="400" height="225" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/6BKGp1XqddM" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
<br /><br />
<p align="center">***</p>
<br />
<h2>LAURA VEIRS -- WARP AND WEFT</h2>
<a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/warp-and-weft/id665109160"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;width: 200px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHVO2nBSMvsaTYdQW5yvxDpbYCo60I97ZTcHZFdltEGgAmWeUtk4k02z1QBA7rXbAJMy_v7dfwvJ5xdAszz9hK_cKSPWBD-c3L4E-FVssGiEHyPGuZEuFdiHJ8QpcKyKyTQtutUA/s640/warp.jpeg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5574373254432756242" /></a><p>There are miles between Kanye West and Laura Veirs. But they live together harmoniously in my music collection, and for that I am thankful.</p>
<p>In fact, it was Veirs who beat out Kanye for Album of the Year with her previous release, <em>July Flame</em>, which remains one of my favorite albums of all time. I didn't expect her to top it, but apart from a track or two, this is as satisfying a follow-up as I could have hoped for.</p>
<p>There are songs on this album that sweep me away. "Sun Song" is a Vitamin D pill. "Ten Bridges" is the first light at the end of a wicked storm, the smell of ozone still in the air. And "White Cherry" is a world of its own, with a line I've employed as a musical mantra for months:</p>
<p>"Even in the lean times, I take pleasure in the wind chimes."</p>
<iframe width="400" height="225" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/6P8mfvCGKyg" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
<br /><br />
<p align="center">***</p>
<br />
<h2>MOGWAI -- LES REVENANTS</h2>
<a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/les-revenants/id598687974"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;width: 200px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVQp7SOanmSqu5_YK2WFFLguj_cJLDGlPAMkPlXhZb2InW8OtKXASw8GBwDuZUfApDqvW-BD2Y1_MdjdNg83f5B7U6KJCB9VJRmWJpkj4XmTpYzltuQb4C0lpwsjA-XSOD4idUNg/s400/mogwai-les-revenants.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5574373254432756242" /></a><p>Mogwai's soundtrack for a French TV show I've never seen has followed me around all year long.</p>
<p>None of the music here contains the climax that "Death is the Road to Awe" has on the soundtrack to <em>The Fountain</em>, but the subtle beauty of each song seems to suit the subject matter of the TV show -- a small, Twin Peaks-like town where the dead come back to life.</p>
<p>But these dead aren't zombies; they're regular, everyday people who never realized they'd died. It's a less morbid, less blood-splattered, less edge-of-your-seat sort of drama. Or at least it is based on Mogwai's soundtrack, which ranges between hazy despair and comforting, if not revelatory, beauty.</p>
<p>If the show's anywhere as good as its soundtrack, may it come to Netflix asap. In the meantime, this has been one of the most-spun soundtracks to my 2013:</p>
<p>A confounding mix of loss and a prayer for renewal.</p>
<iframe width="400" height="225" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/7Y2SuJnXYo0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
<br /><br />
<p align="center">***</p>
<br />
<h2>SAVAGES -- SILENCE YOURSELF</h2>
<a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/silence-yourself/id614945667"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;width: 200px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4m8SzumYP3YcMpdwXIIAZ_C5Eekmk5JlirTKdjBcXtXFywiFHbZAjKoEPVSaVzpcFL7CpBO1hr9J2hyphenhyphenwig-8wuuRTuPihkNdEwPOcNN3NqiEvf1u72_PLUYSxTXkvQqwL3D16Og/s640/savages.jpeg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5574373254432756242" /></a><p>I can't remember the last time a single guitar riff was enough to earn a record an Album of the Year nomination.</p>
<p>But it happened with Savages.</p>
<p>Pop open your Spotify (or just watch the video below) and blast "She Will" at near-maximum volume. Man, what a song.</p>
<p>Of course, I'm exaggerating a little. "City's Full" and "Shut Up" and "No Face" and "I Am Here" are among my other favorites in this PJ Harvey/Patti Smith-style rock debut that just crackles out of your speakers.</p>
<p>I've never seen them live, but I just had to copy this from Wikipedia: "The New Musical Express described their performances as 'frottage-inducingly intense affairs.'"</p>
<p>I can definitely believe it.</p>
<iframe width="400" height="225" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/kim-REn8ecg" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
<br /><br />
<p align="center">***</p>
<br />
<h2>YO LA TENGO -- FADE</h2>
<a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/fade/id579062959"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;width: 200px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5yihGoOM0InU-MUdWCW9KRZz0ubHZEFG6O6gX5Nwdhhuo6a1zKBs1CSB84BprcLmvh0pF0kXzR_orIv50hFSQnFSOmPwL4u4jJkMetyqV598B0zFce8NsbsLwYdLSQMCAdXuulw/s640/fade.jpeg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5574373254432756242" /></a><p>Yo La Tengo is old favorite band that I thought had dropped out of my consciousness, especially after I escaped Hoboken. (Even now, their music brings back bad memories.)</p>
<p>But this album is as fresh as if it was YLT's debut, and still as familiar as an old, well-worn baseball glove. "I'll Be Around" is my love song of the year, hands down. "Ohm" is Yo La Tengo's mission statement, expressed anew. "Is That Enough" and "The Point of It" are everything that's always been so lovable about this band.</p>
<p><em>Fade</em> is as great an album as you'll ever hear from an act that's set to celebrate its 30th birthday next year.</p>
<p>What more could you ask for?</p>
<iframe width="400" height="225" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/KJyjzHIgqr4" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
<br /><br />
<p align="center">***</p>
<br />
<h4>HONORABLE MENTIONS</h4>
<p><em>Also in iTunes alphabetical order:</em></p>
<p>Atoms for Peace -- Amok</p>
<p>Bill Callahan -- Dream River</p>
<p>Bonnie "Prince" Billy & Dawn McCarthy -- What The Brothers Sang</p>
<p>Bookhouse -- Ghostwood</p>
<p>Caveman -- Caveman</p>
<p>David Bowie -- The Next Day</p>
<p>Karl Blau -- Shading Stump</p>
<p>My Bloody Valentine -- m b v</p>
<p>Rogue Wave -- Nightingale Floors</p>
<p>Shearwater -- Fellow Travelers</p>
<p>Various -- Son of Rogues Gallery (Pirate Ballads, Sea Songs and Chanteys)</p>Matthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09684334833086483334noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33540909.post-74041514766974048742013-01-01T19:03:00.000-05:002013-01-01T19:32:34.986-05:00RIB's 2012 Album of the Year Animal Collective -- Centipede Hz<p>The Album of the Year Award turns 20 today.</p>
<p><em>Twenty</em>.</p>
<p>That number, 20 -- five more than my age when I started doing this -- shocked my friend Steph when I told her the other night over Ukrainian food that 19 Album of the Year Awards had already been handed out, and that the 20th was days away. She's known me for all but the first of them, so you can't fault her if the news made her feel a little bit old.</p>
<p>For me, though, the winner of the 20th Album of the Year Award, for all its faults, has done the opposite:</p>
<p>It's made me feel young.</p>
<p><a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/centipede-hz/id543644813"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;width: 200px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhT1M-PQf0wHSLOgB-bCn8WHnd0UNTr99CbqHl59_tXctwUz46ETgnzTx-s_Y48qK6kyKicSREkODSOLQY0UND21xirYoske5X-GOZcA9Kw0pfU_PCwl00r72u6SUq8XqnpMTbMZw/s400/Centipede+Hz.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5574373254432756242" /></a>Animal Collective's Centipede Hz -- the band's second Album of the Year winner, following its previous release, Merriweather Post Pavilion -- pumped me full of adrenaline this year. It reminded me of why I love music. <a href="http://www.unwinnable.com/2012/09/17/rookie-of-the-year-sometimes-it-wont-come-so-easy/" target="_blank">It made me want to run</a>.</p>
<p>And while the album missed many year-end lists -- Pitchfork left it out of its Top 50, instead including it on its Worst Album Covers list -- I liked it for the same reasons some others didn't, which are the same reasons I have come to love records for the past 20 years:</p>
<p>Centipede Hz is weird. It's hard to swallow. It's ugly at times. It's not as accessible or as charming as the band's last record, the one everyone agreed to love.</p>
<p>Centipede Hz is more than just those things, though. It's also thrilling, daring and brash -- and less repetitive than that last record.</p>
<p>There are personal reasons I love it, too. The day it came out, I ran through Astoria Park in the rain listening to it, a spontaneous run (I hadn't run in years) inspired by the record -- especially track two, Today's Supernatural, which against stiff competition may also be my song of the year.</p>
<p>That night I had a first (OK Cupid) date with a girl named Amelia Page. After four months, the things that remind me of her are now indelible.</p>
<p>It's an unfair advantage, surely, but there you have it.</p>
<p>I've spent a lot of time writing and talking about Centipede Hz, and I could say a lot more here. But, partly due to laziness and partly due to a lack of time, I will leave it with this not-so simple, and increasingly long, list:</p>
<h4>ALBUMS OF THE YEAR, 1993-2012</h4>
<p>1993: Counting Crows -- August and Everything After<br />
1994: R.E.M. -- Monster<br />
1995: The Innocence Mission -- Glow<br />
1996: Dave Matthews Band -- Crash<br />
1997: U2 -- Pop<br />
1998: R.E.M. -- Up<br />
1999: John Linnell -- State Songs<br />
2000: Radiohead -- Kid A<br />
2001: Bjork -- Vespertine<br />
2002: Wilco -- Yankee Hotel Foxtrot<br />
2003: Bonnie "Prince" Billy -- Master and Everyone<br />
2004: Wilco -- A Ghost is Born<br />
2005: Sufjan Stevens -- Illinois<br />
<a href="http://recordsibuy.blogspot.com/2006/12/matty-album-of-year-nos-3-1.html">2006: The Decemberists -- The Crane Wife</a><br />
<a href="http://recordsibuy.blogspot.com/2008/01/at-long-lastthe-2007-album-of-year.html">2007: Radiohead -- In Rainbows</a><br />
<a href="http://recordsibuy.blogspot.com/2008/12/ribs-2008-album-of-year-shearwater-rook.html">2008: Shearwater -- Rook</a><br />
2009: Animal Collective -- Merriweather Post Pavilion<br />
<a href="http://recordsibuy.blogspot.com/2011/01/ribs-2010-album-of-year-laura-veirs.html">2010: Laura Veirs -- July Flame</a><br />
<a href="http://recordsibuy.blogspot.com/2011/12/ribs-2011-album-of-year-pj-harvey-let.html">2011: PJ Harvey -- Let England Shake</a><br />
2012: Animal Collective -- Centipede Hz</p>
<p><i>(2012's runners-up: 2. Sharon Van Etten -- Tramp; 3. Of Monsters and Men -- My Head is an Animal; 4. Shearwater -- Animal Joy; <a href="http://recordsibuy.blogspot.com/2012/11/nominees-2012-album-of-year.html">full nominees list here</a>)</i></p>
<iframe width="400" height="225" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/47xbkT3calM" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>Matthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09684334833086483334noreply@blogger.com0