You did all you could: April 2017 music diary

Before we return to the current century, some thoughts related to the last one: I've now read both Brian Wilson and Mike Love's new autobiographies -- Wilson's is unexpectedly delightful, Love's predictably dire but not without interest -- and my brief thoughts have been added to the Beach Boys overview page. Also, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that I did indeed listen to all of the newly issued Sgt. Pepper material; you'll be hearing more about it when I get my Beatles project off the ground in the next few months, but for now, the remix is decent apart from a few curious choices, and the outtakes are fun to hear once (nothing truly revelatory) except for the "Strawberry Fields Forever" material, most of which has been booted but almost all of which is sublime. I have another announcement I thought I'd be ready to make but I'm not, so instead here's another post that was supposed to be ready in two weeks but took three and a half. I'm so good at this.

Mount Eerie: A Crow Looked at Me (PW Elverum & Sun) [c]
If there's a delicate way of saying this, I can't think of it: I don't think that this album should exist, at least not for you and me to hear. Last July Geneviève Castrée did of pancreatic cancer. She was the wife of musician Phil Elverum, a.k.a. Mount Eerie, and his widely acclaimed new album (even Danny Brown tweeted about being moved to tears by it) is a song cycle -- in his usual hushed acoustic style, only more so -- about his grief and attempts to cope with the aftermath of his loss. Being deeply in love with someone for more than eight years myself, I cannot fathom the pain he is enduring at this moment, no matter how intimately he chooses to document it here, and my heart sincerely goes out to him. But when I listen to this I can't escape the sensation that it's something I have no business hearing... moreover, something that has no business being fawned over, celebrated, analyzed, as it simply is not built for such treatment. Nick Cave's album Skeleton Tree that still ached with the loss of his teenage son had a complicated genesis and was filtered through a sense of abstraction, duty, distraction. Elverum confronts the agony head-on, which is something that often must be done, but for anyone but him and his family, friends or therapists to engage with these highly specific and personal non-songs -- they are absolutely not songs, just strummed chords with Mark Kozelek-like diary entries floating above them -- feels exploitative, and frankly I'm suspicious of any audience member fetishizing it in the same way I'm suspicious of the mythology drawn around, say, Brian and Dennis Wilson's coked-out piano tapes. The artist's therapy or the artist's lowest ebb or most human, vulnerable moment shouldn't be in the world for us to look at it, to judge as a constructed artistic work. He says it himself at the outset: "death is real, someone's there and then they're not / it's not for singing about, it's not for making into art." He's right, and this isn't art, it's the selling -- perhaps by outside pressure, who's to say? -- of private bereavement, and it's a terrible experience: how does the publication, for Pitchfork and Spotify's benefit, of a verse about his wife's final bloody tissues benefit his well-being? And I must admit that in a selfish sense, I also find it gauche: how do you judge this on its own merit without sounding like an asshole? You can't, and that's the problem.

Bob Dylan: Triplicate (Columbia) [c]
Once and for all: your voice becomes beloved, an addiction, a passion, because of the words that you sing (the ones that you just accepted a Nobel Prize for) and the idiosyncrasies it adds to them. It has nothing to add to standards made famous by technically stronger voices. We hear past or through the voice to hear the words, your words, but that gives no compelling reason to hear you slathering it -- more weakly and less in tune than ever -- over the songs of others, apart from an extremely misguided brand of nostalgia. This was true in the early 1990s. It is true now. And a triple-record set of it is more than a joke, which is what your last two albums (and that Christmas nonsense, for that matter) were; it's obscenely unnecessary. I would honestly prefer it if you and Brian both just left pop standards, blues standards, jazz standards, Gershwin standards, Disney standards, showtunes, whatever alone and went gently, quietly into the night until you had something interesting to say. Said with love but also with genuine irritation, because you don't seem to realize that those of us who think your work is important enough to belong in a canon have to actually listen to this shit.

Aimee Mann: Mental Illness (Superego)
Mann in the 2010s is remarkably similar to Mann in the 1980s and 1990s: sings well, is a competent strummer, is totally boring but impossible to find offensive.

Arca (XL) [c]
Number of seconds it takes for each track on this album to become intolerably annoying (please note that this is not a measurement of when each cut's first annoying thing happens, merely a judgment of when the steady accumulation of irritation pushes one over the edge): 1) 50. 2) 20. 3) 7. 4) 43. 5) 8. 6) 12. 7) 19. 8) 28. 9) 0 -- or 23, if we're being very generous. 10) 62 (nice job!). 11) 14. 12) 16. 13) 17. Average: 25, meaning that the ideal Arca experience would be those faded-out samples they used to post on CDNow.

Diet Cig: Swear I'm Good at This (Frenchkiss) [r]
Alex Luciano's voice is a soft but demanding whine, her guitar playing a helicopter propeller that defies the tentative insecurity she writes about; but the attraction on this delightful New York punk duo's first album is really the way those lilting, nagging, slightly grating (in a way that she knows, expertly, how to use) vocals meld with lyrics that some may find trite, that others -- like me -- will find disarmingly honest and probing. For instance, "it's hard to be a punk while wearing a skirt" sounds like a charming but empty motivational poster except that Luciano melds it into a desperate confession and rallying cry -- and precedes it, crucially, with "my stomach hurts." And there are other narratives of post-adolescent misery that you may pretend are the mutterings of the Entitled Millennial personified, but the great fact of being part of this generation is the loneliness that sometimes feels inherited; mixed in with observational tales of fucking a guy with the same name and wanting to go back to being a kid with cake and ice cream on one's birthday, there's "Bite Back," wherein "I'm so lonely in this big city / and everybody's so damn busy" is repeated until it becomes funny, repeated until it becomes powerful, repeated until it becomes an act of protest, repeated until it becomes radical self-preservation.

The New Pornographers: Whiteout Conditions (Concord) [r]
Unless you count the surplus of low-energy ballads on Challengers, the New Pornographers' seventh album is their first major break away from the formula that's generated all of their previous output (it's also their first album as labelmates to Paul McCartney). That's because Dan Bejar is gone -- maybe permanently, who can say? -- and the sound has fully surrendered to a flaunting of Carl Newman's record-collector credentials. There's initially intrigue in the way the title track smudges its pursuit of pleasure, but its fusion of Newman's usual stilted XTC-like writing fused with widescreen Arcade Fire theatrics -- though with complex, unpredictable chords and notes that never ring out with the winning simplicity of real pop or arena rock, for better or worse -- sets the stage for everything that follows. In other words, it's every previous New Pornographers album but more so, and as preoccupied with its indulgent definitions of pleasure as Newman's solo records. It never soars like their best work, no matter how Neko Case's full-throated vocal on "This Is the World of the Theater" may try to get there, and the absence of Bejar's tension-cutting contributions makes the record feel as much like an out-of-control roller coaster as a Cars greatest-hits album. Newman's no creative force to dismiss -- he has never sung with more confidence and infectious enthusiasm, even if his lyrics remain minefields of repetitive nonsense as always -- but (apart from the nicely economical "Clockwise") these songs manage to feel too long even with none of them far exceeding four and a half minutes. Bejar's worse off on his own as Destroyer, running toward accidental self-mockery when unchecked; but so is Newman, whose songs eventually feel computer-generated.

Father John Misty: Pure Comedy (Sub Pop) [NO]
Like Mount Eerie, Josh Tillman is a songwriter who doesn't write music, whose post-Fleet Foxes career (ugh, imagine that as the sad defining line in your resumé, no wonder he's such a miserable sack of shit) implies he neither knows nor cares what that means, and if you challenge him on it he can always pretend he's no longer Josh or Joshua or J. but Father John Misty, the persona he pretends to adopt when he sings his alternately deplorable and laughably preachy polemics hummed and barked over skeletal chords and schlocky mid-'70s AM radio arrangements. His favored use for the Misty name is to proudly wave his own self-indulgence like a flag while beating himself with it, presumably in the interest of gaining credit for honesty... while still hiding behind the risk-free cruel detachment of an internet dirtbag living in the post-apocalyptic universe of Fahrenheit 451 or The Lobster. He's Conor Oberst with slower music except he thinks his unfiltered thought processes make him a rock star megagod, a maddeningly boring version of a hair metal guy who loathes his audience, a fucking Tim Heidecker character. It doesn't scare him to lay anything bare because none of this matters to him except that he's being told his hot shit, or as he puts it, "I've got the world by the balls, am I supposed to behave?" (and if you think Tillman has earned Kendrick Lamar's right to tell everyone else to sit down, compare the sales figures of this album and DAMN.). In short, this is just like the last record, which included a song about choking a woman in bed because he hated her "soulful affectation," except it now includes a Very Important Public Service Announcement about religion, and I'm so glad he's chosen to grace us with his insights: "They get terribly upset / when you question their sacred texts / written by woman-hating epileptics [...] and how's this for irony, their idea of being free is a prison of beliefs!" Basically Misty is the stereotype of every smug, entitled white male personified; he's the most obnoxious musician alive in America today, bar none.

Khalid: American Teen (RCA)
Teens! We love 'em, right? This 19 year-old Texan -- he sounds it too, introducing a rural drawl into his anthemic R&B -- senses something universal in stories of trying to get the weed smell out of his car, but his songs are catchy and deeply uninteresting runs through a world that seems to be explored in shorthand. In fact, it often feels like post-adolescent life defined by writers, producers, executives old enough to remember the month in which Khalid was born, because that's what it is. The kid's trying -- I like "8TEEN" -- but he's drowned out by synergy.

Gas: Narkopop (Kompakt) [r]
Wolfgang Voigt's acid-stoked ambient goes back decades now, and he's something of an expert at filling up a quiet, tense room -- his lengthy return (78:39) feels far shorter than it is. It's a little scary sometimes and never either wholly sumptuous or repellent.

Kendrick Lamar: DAMN. (Interscope) [hr]
A three-year gap ensued after the near-masterpiece good kid, m.A.A.d city, but DAMN. in turn marks three consecutive years with a major new project from Lamar, probably at the moment the most beloved male performer of popular music in the country, and the rock star upon whom all eyes and ears are most universally cast right now. DAMN. is a more erratic collection in terms of its consistency than the supposed throwaway LP untitled unmastered., and its rundown of post-fame pratfalls, doubts and modest boasts and self-assessment with shades of Biblical apocalypse doesn't have the conceptual death of To Pimp a Butterfly, but it's his first album since Section.80 that, for all its consternation about stardom and the maddening state of the country, is equally concerned with delivering the goods for his increasingly huge audience. It's yet another gathering of incredibly evocative performances, hooks, features and ideas -- inventively produced too. All the tracks are immediate, coming faster and lingering longer than any previous apart from "King Kunta." It's easier to pick out the moments you want to hold permanently at your side than it was on his other records, and this time they are mostly not moments but songs -- the two trap singles produced by Mike Will, the Marvin Gaye-like BadBadNotGood collaboration "LUST." and the glorious Alchemist production "FEAR." -- with the exception of the moment-defining finale of "BLOOD.," a ghostly "The Gift"-like narrative about an unprompted murder, when a sample of two FNC pundits decrying the lyrics of the BLM anthem "Alright" dissolves into Lamar's undaunted freak-flag intro to "DNA." The only misstep is an exceedingly ordinary love song (entitled "LOVE.") with a guest vocal from the anonymous Zacari Pacaldo. There's something uncommonly comforting about an artist as trusted and righteous as Lamar serving commentary about the last few months in our lives -- "We all woke up, tryin' to tune to the daily news / looking for confirmation hoping election wasn't true / all of us worried, all of us buried and the feeling's deep / none of us married to his proposal, makes us feel cheap / still and sad, distraught and mad, tell the neighbor about it / bet they agree, parade the streets with your voice proudly / time passing, things change / revertin' back to our daily programs, stick in our ways" -- mirroring Kate Tempest's prediction of this narrative in "Tunnel Vision," but because of said daily programs, the words that sing out with the most power are those in which Lamar tries to process everything that's happened to him personally and gives conflicted perspective: "I feel like the whole world want me to pray for 'em / But who the fuck prayin' for me?"

Robyn Hitchcock (Yep Roc) [r]
It's almost never acknowledged what a versatile singer Hitchcock is; from Underwater Moonlight right up to this third album for Yep Roc, he can fill in almost any of your blanks from the scope of new wave, British Invasion and power pop influences that define him. Here he's John Cale, here Tom Petty, here Ray Davies, and always with a wit and a sweet lilt whose irresistibility defies his reputation as an off-center quack. There's no song here to match "The Ghost in You" from 2014, his strongest composition in decades, but it's more consistently appealing than The Man Upstairs and the stirring lullaby "1970 in Aspic" will remind you why you care what he's up to.

Ibibio Sound Machine: Uyai (Merge) [hr]
Props to Merge, newly down an Arcade Fire and several Spoons, for replacing them with a Nigerian-by-way-of-London musical collective whose output is all but unclassifiable; cathartic opener "Give Me a Reason" is as beholden to techno and funk as it is to West African polyrhythms, and this cornucopia of influences, beautifully redefining the narrative of what comprises folk music from the ground up, continues throughout to make this an engaging modern example of traditionalism shot through with pleasure and paranoia, a welcome return to worldbeat aspirations without the soul-crushing commercial imperative. Singer Eno Williams, her voice ice and fire, is a master storyteller and raconteur, and a disco superstar (see "The Pot Is on Fire"). An undeniable thrill, the party record of 2017.

Valerie June: The Order of Time (Concord) [hr]
Why did you first come to love Americana, or alt-country or alt-folk or whatever the vogue term is, when you came across it? Presumably because it was music that could sound both sophisticated and comfortably effortless; folk embraces the strange individual quirk in its mainstream while other genres place it on the fringes. But like country music itself, this world is now dominated by what Thom Yorke called "fridge buzz," a deadening obligation for a certain sound and feeling above all else that has gradually rendered several careers, frankly, pointless -- listen to Great Lake Swimmers' catalog, album by album, for a depressing example. So far, however, Memphis singer-songwriter Valerie June has pushed against the coffee bar NPR morass (though no doubt they are more than happy to embrace her) to write and produce material that feels entirely divorced from time (its central preoccupation) and from outside motivations. This succeeds beautifully; it's unspeakably moving, lovely music that will make you want to shut out and forget everything else. June's stunning, unique vocals are a Daniel Johnston-style attack on radio dross with their Billie Holiday-Joanna Newsom cadences, and the songs are ethereal, immediate, monochromatic, relaxed and warm without a trace of constraint to their lovely spareness. The first two cuts will convince you -- they seem, lyrically and musically, far older than June's 35 years -- and while "Shakedown" and "Got Soul" need their complete context to achieve their proper roles as climactic triumphs, you won't need any setup to fall into the quiet bliss of "Two Hearts" and "Slip Slide on By."

***

ALSO RECOMMENDED:
Karriem Riggins: Headnod Suite (Stones Throw): nearly thirty breakdowns from Detroit-born jazz/hip hop drummer-producer, not Donuts but fun
Oddisee: The Iceberg (Mello Music): twelve good and true moments-in-time of consciousness
Anohni: Paradise (Secretly Canadian EP): I didn't write in for track seven but maybe I should

ALSO RECOMMENDED FOR THE AMBIENT FILES: (in addition to Gas' Narkopop above)
Sherwood & Pinch: Man vs. Sofa (On-U)

FURTHER INVESTIGATION TO COME:
* Freddie Gibbs: You Only Live 2wice
* Charly Bliss: Guppy
Jacques Greene: Feel Infinite
Kelly Lee Owens
Spiral Stairs: Doris & the Daggers
Hauschka: What If
Saltland: A Common Truth
Lydia Ainsworth: Darling of the Afterglow
Orchestra Baobob: Tribute to Ndiouga Dieng
Goldfrapp: Silver Eye
Les Amazones D'Afrique: Republique Amazone
Rodney Crowell: Close Ties
IFE: IIII + IIII
Joey Bada$$: All-Amerikkkan Bada$$
Yorkston/Thorne/Khan: Neuk Wight Delhi All Stars
Actress: AZD

REJECTS:
Stormzy: Gang Signs & Prayer [NYIM]
Hurray for the Riff Raff: The Navigator [NYIM]
Laetitia Sadier Source Ensemble: Find Me Finding You [NYIM]
Creeper: Eternity, in Your Arms
Craig Finn: We All Want the Same Things
The Moonlandingz: Interplanetary Class Classics
The Jesus and Mary Chain: Damage and Joy
Jake Xerxes Fussell: What in the Natural World
British Sea Power: Let the Dancers Inherit the Party
Pharmakon: Contact [NYIM]
Mastodon: Emperor of Sand
Pile: A Hairshirt of Purpose
Leela James: Did It for Love [NYIM]
Happyness: Write In
Ulver: The Assassination of Julius Caesar
Andrew Combs: Canyons of My Mind
Timber Timbre: Sincerely, Future Pollution
Wire: Silver/Lead
Future Islands: The Far Field
Jeb Loy Nichols: Country Hustle
Fionn Regan: The Meetings of the Waters
Part Chimp: Iv
Woods: Love Is Love
Ron Sexsmith: The Last Rider
Tara Jane O'Neil [NYIM]
Joe Goddard: Electric Lines
Angaleena Presley: Wrangled
Ray Davies: Americana

OLD RECORDS RATED (NOT REVIEWED) THIS MONTH:
The Avett Brothers: Mignonette (Ramseur 2004) [-]

Are secrets still a thing?: March 2017 music diary

Something I forgot to share last month -- in April we saw Kate Tempest in Washington and I wrote a little bit about it here. Onward.

Dirty Projectors (Domino) [NO]
The line between this joyless bunch and Gentle Giant was never as thick as we pretended when hordes of indie rock critics were going through their extremely unfortunate Grizzly Bear-Bon Iver phase, but even I was surprised by how violent a reaction this record elicited from me. Holy fucking shit this is bad, guys. The bridge in the first song is the worst thing I've ever heard, and I've heard First Love and Country Love. Remember the little man in Edward G. Robinson's chest or stomach or whatever who told him which insurance claims not to approve in Double Indemnity? The same little man suddenly appeared in my body and begged me, demanded that I turn this off, made threats against me if I wouldn't. I pressed on anyway so I could tell you that this twiddly, trebly, cutesy, aimlessly overstuffed music is probably the best case ever made that the collapse of all markets -- indeed, of the planet itself -- is a good thing.

Rhiannon Giddens: Freedom Highway (Nonesuch)
Giddens is a gifted musician with a great voice, but all of her recorded output to date has been politely boring and blandly produced, and this is no better; it lifts up occasionally with some of the covers, like Mississippi John Hurt's "The Angels Laid Him Away" and the version of the Staple Singers' peerless title cut, but even those can't come out from underneath the overly slick sonics, which make the record seem indistinguishable from virtually all modern roots music.

The Feelies: In Between (Bar/None)
The Clean and Yo La Tengo and the Bats and R.E.M. and Antietam and god knows who else wouldn't exist without the Feelies. Bands like Real Estate wouldn't exist without the Clean and Yo La Tengo and the Bats and R.E.M. and Antietam. Now, in 2017, the Feelies sound clean, relaxing, carefully atmospheric, ineffectual. In other words the Feelies have turned into, well, Real Estate.

Crystal Fairy (Ipecac) [r]
A supergroup comprised of members from the Melvins and At the Drive-In plus engagingly gritty singer Teri Gender Bender -- who sounds a little like Donita Sparks and a lot like Karen O -- make a lot of noise and end up with an unpretentious and engaging hybrid of hyperactive post-punk and crunchy '70s metal. Bender really holds it together with her tireless, confrontational singing, and for a few minutes a rock band just sounds like a rock band and it's actually an okay thing.

Visible Cloaks: Reassemblage (Rvng Intl.) [r]
If the influence of Music from the Hearts of Space on modern electronic music hadn't already been clear, prepare to get centered with this duo from Portland. These tracks are so peaceful they're almost startling, in the sense that if you close your eyes you'd swear you were in a very clean waiting room somewhere or getting a massage; the pair started out mimicking Japanese ambient on a number of underground releases. This proper debut incorporates the irresistible sound of vintage MIDI sequencing and is as likely as not to improve your evening.

Grandaddy: Last Place (Columbia) [c]
Sophtware Slump was one of the last CDs I remember being enthusiastically shared among friends on burned discs in high school; I remember little of it except that it seemed inoffensive and nondescript. I should probably have listened to it again before trying to review the California band's reunion record, but I'm not getting paid enough to delve into the genesis of such a dishwater dull recording. Grandaddy are somewhere in the vicinity of Spoon and latter-day Wilco: despite technical slickness and occasional charm, finding the space in the heart to be passionate about their music is beyond me, and even by those standards this particular record is hard to put up with. But people are excited they're back, so what can you say? Lyrically it's another divorce album, with such chasms prompting as always a sudden need for catharsis that seems to have resulted directly in the band's revival by chief proprietor Jason Lytle. But the music has the slick bloodlessness that suggests a tired, desperate over-eagerness to please; even though only one song is totally embarrassing ("Check Injin," strong evidence that Decca's Dick Rowe was right all along), listening to the whole album is like eating plain bread for an hour.

Blanck Mass: World Eater (Sacred Bones) [r]
Electronic project of Benjamin John Power from Fuck Buttons is somewhat more interesting than that band's aggressive droning, though this record is equally bombastic and quickly proclaims itself ideally positioned as film score music. I dunno, if you put it on while you're cleaning or something I imagine it would be a stronger motivator than pure ambient -- think Mogwai, Explosions in the Sky, or Shadow Morton if he scored spaghetti westerns.

Thundercat: Drunk (Brainfeeder)
Skilled session bassist and producer Stephen Bruner has built up an impressive resumé over the past decade by working with virtually everyone in the Los Angeles hip hop scene as well as the likes of Shabazz Palaces, Suicidal Tendencies and Erykah Badu. This is his third solo record but the first to become a significant crossover hit; while his voice, instrumental talent and ambitious sonic artistry evoke memories of Stevie Wonder, he's yet again done in by ordinary writing, facile lyrics and a tendency to paper over his ideas with bad jokes -- the same sort of stuff that has made Frank Ocean's albums so frustrating, so if by your standards that's excellent company to be in, or if you think the "friend zone" is a credible concept (Ben Folds take note: I've found your next cutesy "ironic" cover), you may appreciate this. Maybe Thundercat has ideas worth exploring, maybe not, but the way to find out is not to playfully deflect any attempt to take them seriously.

Vagabon: Infinite Worlds (Father/Daughter) [r]
Hailing from Cameroon via New York City, Laetitia Tamko is a freak-folkie somewhat in the tradition of Frankie Cosmos, Kimya Dawson and Jeff Mangum but with a refreshing musical eclecticism alien to the foundations of that movement. Tamko's vocals evoke the beautiful shouted naivete of Doug Martsch and Kathleen Hanna without seeming indebted to any specific predecessor, and while her songs are only sporadically memorable, she knows how to push them away from singer-songwriter convention and to leave an impression with a variance of style that ranges from the confessional to the explosive to pure avant sound collage.

The Magnetic Fields: 50 Song Memoir (Nonesuch) [r]
Stephin Merritt's best album 69 Love Songs might have been a gimmick, but it was also inspired and witty in a manner that was completely unforced. His attempt to recapture that energy, by writing a song dedicated to each year of his life to this point, is run aground by the feeling that he's structuring it this way out of a sense of obligation. Such an obsessive commitment to concept also destroys the possibility of coherent pacing, much as his original plan to arrange 69LS alphabetically would have. In fairness, almost every song on this quintuple album (!) is a complete thought -- no "Punk Love," no "World Love," not even a "Boa Constrictor" -- and the mediocrity of some of the melodies and the occasionally haphazard production is likely meant to call attention to the often brilliant lyrics, but it sadly has the opposite effect most of the time. And it seems as though Merritt's childhood, adolescence and twenties inspire a far more varied litany of textures than his evidently calmer adulthood, which is why the last two discs of soppy, meandering ballads could try the patience of even his most dedicated fan. But perhaps the biggest mark against this 150-minute collection is that its songs are sung exclusively by Merritt; on several of them he stretches that monotone like never before, but the presence of various guest singers on 69 and other Magnetic Fields records has been an indispensable element of their appeal historically. I could run down my objections to the individual cuts but it's easier to tell you which ones are keepers: the adorably melodramatic "'68: A Cat Called Dionysus," the eerily relatable "'70: They're Killing Children Over There," gorgeous reverse-protest apathy song "'74 No," the cruel stepfather revenge "'77: Life Ain't All Bad," the Byrds nod "'79: Rock 'n' Roll Will Ruin Your Life," the anthemic instant classic and best song on the record "'83: Foxx and I," the communal AIDS lament "'85: Why I Am Not a Teenager," the synth lust piece "'87: At the Pyramid," the second best song on the record "'92: Weird Diseases," the effectively lyrical pop "'94: Haven't Got a Penny," and the impeccably sarcastic "California Girls" sequel "'08: Surfin'." The message is that Merritt's not a bad musical theater composer. He's just a better synthpop composer, and an LP of between ten and twenty songs would have been a far more consistently rewarding use of his energy.

Laura Marling: Semper Femina (More Alarming)
British singer-songwriter's impressively fierce, guttural vocals survey friendship and lonerism with smart if passive lyrics, but the only unqualified score is the magnificent "Always This Way," which captures grief against a driving, teasing backdrop. This is Marling's sixth album; she's massively celebrated in England, and her previous work is probably worth a closer look than I can give it at the moment.

The Shins: Heartworms (Sony) [r]
The Shins haven't been a "band" in nearly a decade, but they weren't a real band when they made their reputation-creating Oh, Inverted World either. James Mercer's once-infallible capacity for crafting an endless stream of hooks and impeccable pop songs is no longer with him, but his reversion to minimalist bedroom pop without the distraction of Danger Mouse (even though "Perfect World" is the best song he's written since 2007) or the array of guests on Port of Morrow does plenty to recover some of the goodwill lost during the long stretches of downtime that resulted from his dismissal of the rest of the group. Like Inverted, this is pretty and at times irresistibly catchy, even if it verges much more often on irritating than he ever used to, and even though it's never incisive or cutting in precisely the way that the three Sub Pop albums were, making them still among the most indispensable examples of modern American guitar pop. Basically, if Mercer retired the Shins name and called this "Wings" or something you'd be really floored by how much fun you're going to have listening to it.

Jay Som: Everybody Works (Polyvinyl) [r]
Oakland's Melina Duterte has a voice that absolutely soars in its best moments, and she gets an equally lyrical, expressive sound from her electric guitar -- a wonderful relief from miles upon miles of acclaimed singer-songwriter records out this year that are acoustic or electronic-based, good as some of them are. Her second album under the Jay Som title is a promising gem indeed, though its two peak moments stand so far above the rest of the material that it's an easy bet record number three will be the triumph. Some of the rest of the perfectly agreeable tunes here were largely improvised, so it's remarkable how easy on the ear they turn out to be (see "One More Time, Please") but the wonderful "The Bus Song" is the anthemic rock track of the year so far, and the title cut is the perfect gesture of solidarity with a world that lives paycheck to paycheck to keep its head above water.

Conor Oberst: Salutations (Nonesuch)
Oberst was exactly on the precipice between navel-gaze and catchy dad-rock that made perfect sense on his last album, a precarious situation he promptly ruins on his follow-up, which tells us stories about divorce and health paranoia right down to the systolic/diastolic blood pressure numbers, but give it up for the fact that unlike Mark Kozelek, Oberst isn't necessarily telling us about his own blood pressure; and unlike Father John Misty, he doesn't then sing about fondling the doctor who measured it. Fun drinking game: knock one back every time Oberst drops a famous person's name -- he could fill a Sgt. Pepper LP cover with the cast he conjures up, including but not limited to Sam Peckinpah, the Dalai Lama, Patti Smith, Lou Reed, Patty Hearst, Robin Williams, Oliver Sacks, Christopher Hitchens and Heinrich Himmler.

Spoon: Hot Thoughts (Matador) [r]
Read my review from last time and just paste it here, it's the same thing they did! Actually that's unfair -- Spoon is a really good group of players and their music is punchy, precise and instantly appealing, I just don't have a damn thing to tell you about it. It's dancier than any of their music since their first couple of Merge albums, but they seem reluctant to label it such. It's allegedly political. Listen to it. You'll like it.

Depeche Mode: Spirit (Columbia) [hr]
It's got nothing to do with Dave Gahan's genuinely hilarious reaction to his long left-leaning ("the grabbing hands grab all they can") band being ignorantly co-opted by a Nazi that their ferociously angry new album is their best since Playing the Angel, but it makes it an even more joyous occasion to hear just how good it is. The shot in the arm might come from their latest production savior (James Ford from Simian Mobile Disco), or from the emphatic and mobilized and energized mood they seem to be in, or from Gahan and Martin Gore singing with more focus and passion than they have in years, or it could just be that their newest crop of songs just happens to be unusually inspired, top-tier material. Gahan continues to contribute some of the band's best latter-day hooks ("No More"), Gore proves himself more than capable of getting a feel for the boisterous, tempestuous room on "Going Backwards" and the single "Where's the Revolution," and the procession of anthems -- peaking with the tremendous "So Much Love" -- is Rose Bowl-worthy. The time was right for Depeche Mode to remind us how fucking great they are, and I'm thrilled that we're all in sync with them again; by so openly rebuking the fringe insanity of their most questionable follower they've renewed their vows with the rest of us, and having loved them since I was a teenager I feel proud of the association, and when Gore becomes the first rock star (to my knowledge) to announce "we're fucked," I'm both deflated and ecstatic over the honesty, because I really trust that he means it and that deep down he's right in the mire with us.

Loyle Carner: Yesterday's Gone (Virgin) [hr]
The debut of this south London rapper (who's collaborated with Kate Tempest, which I swear I didn't know till just now) entrances immediately with its laid-back, tough-minded charm and only grows more addictive thanks to its lush, jazzy production, Carner's versatility and flow as a rapper and vocalist see us through several top-of-the-line hooks (especially the instant earworm "NO CD," at least in part an anti-shuffle anthem that touchingly betrays the auteur's affection for '90s hip hop), plus a closing suite of songs dedicated to his long-suffering mum, including her own poetic contributions, that will put something in your eye. Carner's lyrical style is openly awkward and confessional, honest about disadvantage and disability, which runs ragged in an interesting way against his smooth, quick-witted phrasing, with a cappella interludes and scattered moments when he slips into an unexpectedly lovely singing voice. In much the same way, the producers' varying stylistic choices somehow add up to a well-sequenced and complete portrait of the artist that can incorporate the catchy, guitar-driven "Stars and Shards" as easily as the throwback stoned vibe of "Ain't Nothing Changed." It's an album that, for all its eclecticism, demands to be heard complete and in sequence, and with the undivided attention you'd afford a Kendrick Lamar or Gil Scott-Heron... or some old Jay-Zs, couple ODBs.

London O'Connor: O∆ (s/r) [hr]
This exuberantly uncategorizable California singer-rapper-producer has it out for the net and for social networks but the suburban malaise he brilliantly articlates on this brief, stunning debut could just as easily be a narration of 1990s or 1980s or 1970s boredom, probably earlier if we wanted except that then we'd never get to hear music that so defies any notion of organization or prettified slickness. O'Connor's minimalist vocals vacillate between a breathless whisper and an atonal wail, and when he strips everything but himself away there's a world of feeling and Jonathan Richman-scale paranoia in his dry monotone; his maximalist synthesizer lines invite primal identification and also seem as keyed to post-adolescent turmoil as a Ronettes record. He's funny, he's fine if you can take or leave what he's doing, he's distinctive and instantly impossible to shake, he hates your guts and wishes people still hung out, and if his earnest narrative of not wanting to end up like the cranky oatmeal-eating uncle on the couch asking about the "music thing" just to make small talk is more superhero origin story than full-on exploration of the alienation really at the core of that encounter, try this impeccable couplet that seems more salient every time you hear it: "All my friends are on the net and all my friends are in the net / and all of us are out of it and none of us are into it."

ALSO RECOMMENDED:
- American Wrestlers: Goodbye Terrible Youth (Fat Possum): studio-based full-band followup to St. Louis singer-songwriter Gary McClure's home recorded project, this has an engaging post-punk nightclub intensity despite its more plaintive, wide-eyed emotional base and a few hooks that soar ["Terrible Youth" / "Real People"]
- Tinariwen: Elwan (Anti-)
- Madness: Can't Touch Us Now (Universal): if every revivalist throwback record any older-gen band made brought back the old times, the old times I never even thought I liked all that much, so effortlessly...
- Lee Fields & the Expressions: Special Night (Big Crown) ["Never Be Another You" / "Special Night"]
- Dawn Richard: Redemption (Local Action) ["Voices" / "Tyrants"]
- Denzel Curry: Imperial (Loma Vista): brutal hip hop (originally out last year but under my radar) with fellow Floridian Ronny J producing and a small, solid group of guests ["Zenith" / "Pure Enough" / "Story: No Title"]
- Teen Daze: Themes for Dying Earth (Flora): if Real Estate hadn't started sounding like presliced yellow American cheese
- Molly Burch: Please Be Mine (Captured Tracks): slightly solid, slightly edgy, slightly soulful
- PVT: New Spirit (felte): Yeasayer meets Underworld meets idk ["Morning Mist, Rock Island Bend"]
- Jesca Hoop: Memories Are Now (Sub Pop): folkie starts out with a bang and ends up resting on her laurels for a bit but her voice is "different" and the songs go somewhere

RECOMMENDED FOR THE AMBIENT FILES:
A new subset for the "also recommended" section. I use ambient and electronic music constantly in my day to day life even if it doesn't directly move me; in fact I think it's very often not the point to find such music novel or entertaining. (Some of what's listed here will be anyway, though more often I will tend to use it because it recedes -- and because excessive familiarity will make it less effective in this regard, I rotate the stuff constantly.) As both someone who appreciates something that just subtly harnesses a mood, keeps things calm or adds to atmosphere and as someone who once lamented the seemingly infinite amounts of electronica and techno music I'd never be able to afford that seemed so cool and would be so fun to use to make dubs and that sort of thing, I feel a duty to recommend the current records I've addded to the library of this kind of thing even if I don't really have much to say about them individually. Obviously if an ambient, electronic or instrumental record really strikes me as special you'll hear more detail about it.
- Romare: Love Songs, Pt. 2 (Ninja Tune)
- Bonobo: Migration (Ninja Tune)
- FaltyDL: Heaven Is for Quitters (Beat)
- Steve Hauschildt: Strands (Kranky): the most bare and minimal of the lot
- Loscil: Monument Builders (Kranky)
- Simian Mobile Disco: Welcome to Sideways (Delicacies): far from ambient, but a great motivator, especially the megamix version
- Brian Eno: Reflection (Warp): father of the genre is still its most assured and reliable practitioner
- William Basinksi: A Shadow in Time (2062): this is especially strong, lush and enveloping if that's what you're needing at the moment
- Moire: No Future (Ghostly): conspicuous consumption, Big Beat idiomatic indulgence

FURTHER INVESTIGATION TO COME:
* Stormzy: Gang Signs & Prayer
* Ibibio Sound Machine: Uyai
* Valerie June: The Order of Time
Sherwood & Pinch: Man vs. Sofa
Karriem Riggins: Headnod Suite
Hurray for the Riff Raff: The Navigator
Oddisee: The Iceberg
Anohni: Paradise EP

REJECTS:
Foxygen: Hang
Lowly: Heba
Hope Sandoval & the Warm Inventions: Until the Hunter
Jim James: Eternally Even
Martha Wainwright: Goodnight City [NYIM]
Emeli Sande: Long Live the Angels
Austra: Future Politics
Rose Elinor Dougall: Stellular [NYIM]
Moon Duo: Occult Architecture, Vol. 1
Dutch Uncles: Big Balloon
All Them Witches: Sleeping Through the War
Acceptance: Colliding by Design
Old 97's: Graveyard Whistling [sorry, guys :( ]
Peter Silberman: Impermanence
Xiu Xiu: Forget [though, as usual, if you think of it as a comedy act it's sublime]
Six Organs of Admittance: Burning the Threshold [NYIM]
Pissed Jeans: Why Love Now
Los Campesinos!: Sick Scenes
Alasdair Roberts: Pangs [NYIM]
Holly Macve: Golden Eagle [NYIM]
Why?: Moh Lhean
Temples: Volcano [NYIM]
Nadia Reid: Preservation [NYIM]
Spectres: Condition
Murs: Captain California
Pulled Apart by Horses: The Haze
Real Estate: In Mind
Sorority Noise: You're Not as __ as You Think
Tove Lo: Lady Wood [NYIM]

ORPHAN TUNES
Martha Wainwright "Take the Reins" [Goodnight City]
Austra "Future Politics" [Future Politics]

OLD GRADES CHANGED THIS MONTH:
The Mountain Goats: All Hail West Texas (Emperor Jones 2002): [r]->[hr]
The Mountain Goats: We Shall All Be Healed (4AD 2004): [r]->[hr]
New Order: Low-Life (Factory 1985): [r]->[hr]

OLD RECORDS RATED (NOT REVIEWED) THIS MONTH:
Love Is All: Nine Times That Same Song (What's Your Rupture? 2006): [hr]
Love Is All: A Hundrd Things Keep Me Up at Night (What's Your Rupture? 2008): [hr]

Rage feels like therapy: February 2017 music diary

It's another year of cranky album reviews that you can tell are by me and me alone because I somehow mention Tracey Thorn three times in them.

***

Run the Jewels 3 (Mass Appeal) [hr]
Nobody but these two is liable to arouse suspicion with a whopping two years between albums, but there's no loss of momentum to be heard on these 14 searing cuts, hitting as hard as ever with the maturity and effortlessness that only a truly solid partnership can bring. You can be forgiven for having little call to distinguish between the three albums El-P and Killer Mike have released under this name; they're essentially one long attack divided into thirds, and if they seem a little madder as time goes on it's mostly the result of an accelerating disappointment we can all understand. Moreover, the choice of guests is masterful apart from an errant Zack de la Rocha, with welcome interjections from Tunde Adebimpe, Trina and Danny Brown. El-P lends his most irresistibly earth-shaking beats to "Legend Has It," "Hey Kids" and "Panther Like a Panther," all unstoppable monsters, but Mike as usual is the man with the uncompromising, unhesitant truth. He starts "2100" by worrying about the pending holocaust, then lays it down, the battle scars of 2016 on all of us unmissable even if he wrote these words beforehand: "I refuse to kill another human being in the name of a government / Cause I don't study war no more, I don't hate the poor no more."

The Flaming Lips: Oczy Mlody (Warner Bros.) [hr]
Every good Flaming Lips song released in the current decade has been a dirge. Everyone knows this, including -- apparently -- the Flaming Lips. But whereas The Terror went too far with this theory by melding their once-distinctive sound into a flattened, interminable slog, and their work with Miley Cyrus seems to have hinged upon a "weird for weird's sake" sensibility that has its novelty but quickly wears thin, their latest album hedges its bets in the best way by burying surprisingly credible dream pop in its bubbling ambient grooves. So while the record makes an initially good impression as one of the best in their long sporadic series of indulgent psychedelic-electronic soundscapes, it keeps you coming back because there is music, hooks even, buried within it, like Forever Changes hiding in a Tim Hecker release. The songs never assert themselves strongly but they're in there, which threatens to make this -- while too low-key to be the group's best effort -- perhaps their most addictive album. Proofs of life: "There Should Be Unicorns," "Sunrise," "The Castle."

The xx: I See You (Young Turks) [r]
Contrarian here: Coexist was terrific, intimate, hushed, romantic. This is Jamie xx dicking around as usual with Sim and Croft as his capable vocal agents, singing beautifully but matched with often bizarrely incongruous electronic and dance music. The sound never coalesces the way that, say, Ben Watt's production used to behind Tracey Thorn's voice, with the rather irritating single "On Hold" and its busy hip hop-infected Hall & Oates sampling something that would have been much more at home on Jamie's solo record In Colour. That said, most of the new songs are well-written and lovely, especially "I Dare You," and I still enjoy this, I just don't find it as magic as its predecessor, which everyone else hated, so... you know.

SOHN: Rennen (4AD) [r]
SOHN's underrated debut Tremors was one of the best of the mid-'10s crop of blue-eyed electro-R&B albums; the follow-up is four minutes shorter but feels half an hour longer. It opens gorgeously with a procession of irresistible melodies, strong beats and radio-worthy hooks but the entire second half apart from the lovely, Perfume Genius-like title cut is meandering and repetitive, basically everything the hip record store clerk in your life accused the first record of being. As so often with promising artists' sophomore records, this might have worked better as an EP, but don't deny yourself the pleasures of its four-track opening rush, especially "Conrad" and "Signal."

Allison Crutchfield: Tourist in This Town (Merge) [r]
Crutchfield is a singer-songwriter, born in Birmingham (with her twin sister, Katie Crutchfield a.k.a. Waxahatchee) and based in Philadelphia, formerly of Swearin' -- a band that also included her former boyfriend and whose breakup inspired much of this raucous, emotionally thorny if carefully performed album. The sound is the grab-bag of influences you'd expect for someone of Crutchfield's generation working within this confessional mode, with the strong presence of new wave synthesizers, traditional Americana song forms and the wordy, wizened speak-singing of Loudon Wainwright or Frankie Cosmos. It's all sharp and pleasingly catchy, and kind of comes and goes. But then you read the words, which are so easy to miss while it's all playing so effortlessly, and holy shit: "Go out and kill some memories." "We sleep in the same bed at the opposite times." "Was this based in love or was it based in admiration? Was it mutual respect or was it the mutual frustration? Was it the great moonlight that night in July? Just remembering the heat's enough to make me cry." "The things you used to hate about me are all heightened now." "I'm figuring out how to not always apologize just cause I'm the one who's always so upset." "Maybe you would be proud, I speak out so loud, but I'm still so self-conscious." "I know you're different now, and I'm still tragically sentimental. But the words I sing don't intoxicate you, they're not even true. Like how I remember making you tea on the last morning we shared, or how more than anything I just wish I didn't care." This stuff is raw, and familiar: forget Vunicura, the cycle of doubt and loathing and confusion that follows the demise of a relationship hasn't been so nakedly, fearlessly captured on a rock record since probably Beulah's Yoko; the challenge of trying and failing to move on and the absolute loneliness of coping not brought out so painfully since Tracey Thorn wrote "Single." But the melodies and vocals can't seem to give full justice to the power of the lyrics; they're like a secret, like she doesn't really want you to parse them out. And maybe that too is finally appropriate.

Ty Segall (Drag City) [r]
Give it up to this guy for sticking to what he knows. Distorted guitars, solid melodies, you only say "so what" because you already know what's coming.

Mark Eitzel: Hey Mr. Ferryman (Merge) [c]
Mindnumbingly boring song cycle from the chief singer-songwriter of former indie darlings American Music Club, about whom I confess I know nothing, but whatever led Eitzel to be once named the best songwriter in the country by Rolling Stone, he's proven no more capable of retaining it than most everyone else who seemed very cool in 1991. I promise I'll listen to one of the old AMC albums -- my knowledge of early '90s indie is a huge gap -- but I must remark that the only appealing song here cribs its hook from the Magnetic Fields, about whom I do know something.

Elbow: Little Fictions (Concord) [NO]
Guy Garvey and Elbow's brand of mediocrity is quite different from the mediocrity of, hmm, Ryan Adams or Frank Ocean or Allison Crutchfield or Win Butler, all of whom have released middling and space-filling music and all of whom nevertheless seem like people who work hard and do their best for their faithful; Elbow, the Mercury Prize-winning Ramsbottom quartet that's been foisting their specific brand of carefully engineered apathy upon the world and the waiting earbuds of various lowly, resentful, mature adults for nearly two decades, does not work for a living. They are not paid to make music any more than Donald Trump is paid or expected to make policy decisions. Elbow is a manmade construct built to faintly and none too enthusiastically push buttons that in some pre-zombie state a large group of people wanted pushed; if Coldplay's music is the half-hearted memory of a memory, Elbow's is the memory of a memory of a memory at best, and at worst a group of nefarious robots' best approximation of what they read in a sensitive teenager's diary about why they enjoyed a Suede concert -- I say "nefarious" because this is part of a plot to make us all calmly accept that it's come to this, even though really it hasn't. But we're all busy and may not have time to verify as such, especially if we're using something like this to try to close our eyes tight and flash back to adolescence. Even if bottom-tier power ballad rock & roll is your sole lifeline to sanity, then jesus ball-crushing christ at least Future Islands are risky and human in their indulgences; at least Chris Martin's written a few songs with hooks, melodies, some sort of actual appeal, and moreover my sources verify that he must have had sex at least twice; at least the most one-dimensional song Bob Segar ever records won't sound this dead-eyed and disaffected. There's no point anymore in pretending this is anything but insipid, colorless trash; whatever goodwill they might glean for generating nostalgia for Britpop groups that actually had some sort of a personality, their work remains the most grating and watery variety of weakly played lifestyle music and there was a time it seemed gauche to fault someone for being dull, but y'know the thing is I never want this Five for Fighting-esque bilge piped into my ears again so goodbye.

Sampha: Process (Young Turks)
Sequencer-oriented singer-songwriter from London lights some incense and drones on into that good night; you can almost feel your opening-act impatience building. As background noise, it's fine.

Surfer Blood: Snowdonia (Joyful Noise) [r]
Modern indie's weirdest, most uncomfortable drama continues with Surfer Blood's first album without guitarist Thomas Fekete (dead of cancer at just 27), whose distinctive tones defined the band's sound and were their saving grace at even their darkest time. In addition, their fourth full-length record recruits new bassist Lindsey Mills, who also contributes backing vocals, so to say the least, the band sounds a bit different. Despite the losses and the attendant controversy, the progression is mostly a positive one and feels like a reasonable approximation of where the group was inevitably headed without the temporary Warner Bros. distraction. The songs are longer, more ornate, and more casually beautiful than ever, and as on the underrated 1000 Palms there's every indication that John Paul Pitts -- who sang "I'm too young to be defeated" just seven fucking years ago before he proceeded to engineer that defeat himself -- has acquired something like humility; without indulging in his own grievances the way he did on Pythons, his lyrics grapple with death and loss without surrendering to it. The music is expansive and smart but never over-indulgent, detailed but never slick, using the band's best song "Anchorage" as its starting point and making the best of the absence of the guitarist who made that track such a propulsive masterpiece. In some universe Pitts' stubborn refusal to hang this thing up is a lingering thread of his adolescent violence, but if this band's incremental evolution into hard-working pop masters presses on like it has, the reward of a career full of immersive music may outpace the reward of the most morbidly fascinating story in modern guitar music.

The Menzingers: After the Party (Epitaph)
This Scranton punk band's been paying their dues for a long while now; I remember wandering around during a performance of theirs nearly a decade ago and thinking that they outran most of their national-touring peers in enthusiasm if nothing else. Assuming you can best past your prejudices -- which is perhaps insurmountably difficult if you're as sick of modern groups that sound like this as I am -- their songs are solid, the lyrics resonant and thoughtful, and the band's distinctiveness manages to peek out. I say this with full honesty: I expected to hate this but my head ends up bobbing on almost every cut. If this is your sort of thing, I bet there aren't many albums out now you'll be bound to love more.

Lupe Fiasco: Drogas Light (Thirty Tigers) [r]
There are times that you could seriously mistake Lupe Fiasco's sixth record as the work of someone who doesn't approach every project with approximately 70 tons of baggage, and for the first half or so (with solid guest shots from Ty Dolla $ign and Rick Ross) this sounds like real hip hop circa 2017; you have to keep looking at the screen to remind yourself who it is. He's still kind of a dummy, and the more he lets little parts of his persona slip back in, the more you recall how charming Kanye West's tone-deaf cluelessness is by comparison. But the emancipation from Atlantic really has been a godsend for Lupe, at least musically; this bangs (check out "Jump") and even at its weakest never strains credibility the way everything else he's done since The Cool has.

Julie Byrne: Not Even Happiness (Basin Rock)
What's the difference between acoustic-based singer-songwriter Byrne, hailing from western New York state and whose second album this supposedly is, and a Lyla Foy or a Kristian Matsson or a Meg Baird? They're all nice people with guitars and the music is pleasant, even (at the right time) reassuring. To remind myself I played a little of Foy's already unjustly forgotten Mirrors the Sky and you know, it's the emperor of all clichés to talk about the medium not being the message but good lord, the difference between a song ("No Secrets") that immediately hurls you around the room and one that flies out of your memory the moment it ends is stark no matter who's playing it, when or how. Byrne's record is mundane, tonally consistent, perfectly straightforwawrd. It might even be what you're looking for in a certain kind of scenario. But should generic indie folk really be striving for the same goals as ambient music?

Priests: Nothing Feels Natural (Young Turks)
Bubblegum DC-area post-punk is flatly produced, its hard-won sarcasm hard to trust as more than a stylistic affectation, but it also feels unfair to judge a debut album in the context of stuff like Savages, who put most of their resources on the "post," and even Iceage, ditto "punk." (God forbid we bring up Sheer Mag or Terry Malts, who have "songs.") Protest music is of course a necessity in this moment, but there already was no shortage of it, and this is too much of a compromise between L7 and Joy Division to hang anything on, though it's not impossible that the boredom could alleviate when they have less to prove.

Migos: Culture (Quality Control) [c]
Unimaginative sophomore album from mysteriously acclaimed Atlanta trap trio sounds ancient already, though "Bad and Boujee" struck some sort of a chord that sold them lots of album-equivalent units and got overly kind writeups across the meme-addled universe. The group's widely celebrated sense of freewheeling fun seems tied to their admittedly tireless penchant for goofy adlibs; theirs is an album of novelty songs and not even entertaining enough to keep one's attention for half its excessive length. More groundless hype for us to look back on in despair.

Jens Lekman: Life Will See You Now (Secretly Canadian)
Fourth album (since 2004) by Swedish singer-songwriter who writes verses, not songs, with slick adult contemporary production, a superficial love of stylistic pastiche, and some scattered moments of sly wit. He gets compared to Stuart Murdoch but knows more about human emotions and less about record collecting, more about quality control and less about melody than Stephin Merritt. It's been over a decade since I last sampled Lekman's work but my impressions are similar enough that I figure his progress has been incremental, apart from an apparent sideline into mournful breakup-lamenting on his prior record. This is OK. One of the songs contains Tracey Thorn. I don't really get it and never have -- as with a lot of wordy pop from Game Theory to Bright Eyes, lyrics wedged painfully into tunes, my brain doesn't handle this style very well -- but at least he's writing about other people now (though it's... something that he had to be commissioned specifically to consider doing so) and he does indeed write better lyrics than lots of people with better voices who write better songs.

***

FURTHER INVESTIGATION TO COME
* American Wrestlers: Goodbye Terrible Youth
* Romare: Love Songs, Pt. 2
* Bonobo: Migration
* Foxygen: Hang
* Loyle Carner: Yesterday's Gone
* Lowly: Heba
* Jesca Hoop: Memories Are Now
* Tinariwen: Elwan
* London O'Connor: Circle/Triangle
FaltyDL: Heaven Is for Quitters
Madness: Can't Touch Us Now
Tove Lo: Lady Wood
Steve Hauschildt: Strands
Hope Sandoval & the Warm Inventions: Until the Hunter
Jim James: Eternally Even
Lee Fields & the Expressions: Special Night
Martha Wainwright: Goodnight City
Emeli Sande: Long Live the Angels
Loscil: Monument Builders
Simian Mobile Disco: Welcome to Sideways
Dawn Richard: Redemption
Brian Eno: Reflection
Austra: Future Politics
William Basinksi: A Shadow in Time
Rose Elinor Dougall: Stellular
Denzel Curry: Imperial
Moon Duo: Occult Architecture, Vol. 1
Teen Daze: Themes for Dying Earth
Molly Burch: Please Be Mine
Moire: No Future
PVT: New Spirit
Dutch Uncles: Big Balloon

REJECTS
Marching Church: Telling It Like It Is
Frank Iero and the Patience: Parachutes [NYIM]
Esben and the Witch: Older Terrors
Shirley Collins: Lodestar [NYIM]
Kristin Hersh: Wyatt at the Coyote Palace
Sad13: Slugger
Bruno Mars: 24K Magic
Miranda Lambert: The Weight of These Wings [NYIM]
Justice: Woman
Devonwho: Luz
Childish Gambino: Awaken, My Love!
John Legend: Darkness and Light
Pete Rock & Smoke DZA: Don't Smoke Rock
Tech N9ne: The Storm
Dropkick Murphys: 11 Short Stories of Pain & Glory
Mick Harvey: Intoxicated Woman [NYIM]
AFI: AFI (The Blood Album)
Michael Chapman: 50 [NYIM]
Throwing Snow: Embers
Gabriel Garzon-Montano: Jardin [NYIM]
Emptyset: Borders
Tift Merritt: Stitch of the World
Sacred Paws: Strike a Match [NYIM]
Piano Magic: Closure
James Johnston: The Starless Room
Cloud Nothings: Life Without Sound [NYIM]
Delbert McClinton & Self-Made Men: Prick of the Litter [NYIM]
Eliza Carthy: Big Machine
Duke Garwood: Garden of Ashes
The Sadies: Northern Passages
Chuck Prophet: Bobby Fuller Died for Your Sins
Bing & Ruth: No Home of the Mind [NYIM]
Meat Wave: The Incessant
Son Volt: Notes of Blue [NYIM]
Ryan Adams: Prisoner
Lawrence English: Cruel Optimism
Nikki Lane: Highway Queen

******

The List of Lists 2016

Being all about economy and the environment these days, I'll recycle my introduction from last year: For the uninitiated: this is the annual post in which I dump part of my reserve of meaningless ranked lists and usually create a few new ones for the occasion. It normally is posted at the end of December but I put it off in order to stay on top of current work. These are meant to be fun and subjective and frivolous, and some are obviously more thoughtful than others, some are not particularly broad-minded, but hey, they might be a kick to peruse. In that spirit, onward.

Also want to mention that the archival yearly lists were all made in 2009 and we're reaching the point when they're less and less reflective of my current tastes, though I still sort of stand by them. I'm not changing them now because I don't want to waste the ones I haven't posted yet and would like to keep track of how my thoughts change over time. A whole new set will be crafted for the 2020s.

THE TEN GREAT BOXES
New list, briefly resurrecting the now-dormant CD boxed set industry to fill you in on which ones were/are actually valuable. Some are even streaming now, or at least very cheap on Amazon. This is the only "tie" you'll ever see here, much less a five-way tie, but it illustrates how confused the boxed set idea really was in the CD period. James Brown is on top because it's the best greatest hits collection you'll ever encounter and a pretty much perfect listening experience. Charlie Parker and Billie Holiday on top because they're superb archival sets of the best music ever recorded in America. Phil Spector is on top because the box fills a need never properly addressed by any other release. And the Beatles are on top because they're the Beatles, and because it's the most convenient way to hear almost their entire body of work the way it was actually heard at the time, and with very few exceptions, the way it became internationally beloved (strangely, the mono versions aren't streaming yet). There are a few big ones I haven't heard like Yoko Ono's and Roy Orbison's and the various Miles Davis session boxes; we'll tackle more of them in the Essentials posts that will resume hopefully later in the spring. A fond parting word also to the Police boxed set, Message in a Box, that I loved so much when I was 13.

1. James Brown: Star Time (Polydor 1991)
1. Charlie Parker: Complete Dial Sessions (Jazz Classics 1996)
1. Billie Holiday: Lady Day - The Master Takes and Singles (Columbia 2007)
1. Phil Spector: Back to Mono (Abkco 1991)
1. The Beatles: The Beatles in Mono (Apple 2009)
6. The Everly Brothers: Heartaches and Harmonies (Rhino 1994)
7. Howlin' Wolf: The Chess Box (MCA 1991)
8. The Carter Family: In the Shadow of Clinch Mountain (Bear Family 2000)
9. Bill Monroe and His Bluegrass Boys: The Music of Bill Monroe (MCA 1994)
10. Patsy Cline: The Patsy Cline Collection (MCA 1991)
... and the honorable mentions:
Little Richard: The Specialty Sessions (Specialty 1989)
Chuck Berry: The Chess Years (Charly 1991) [the complete UK-issued collection of his work for the label, not the more compromised Chess Box]
Charlie Parker: Complete Savoy Sessions (Savoy 1988)
Thelonious Monk: The Complete Blue Note Recordings (Blue Note 1994)
Fats Domino: Walking to New Orleans (Capitol 2002)
Frank Sinatra: Best of the Columbia Years (Columbia 1995)
The Beach Boys: Good Vibrations: Thirty Years of the Beach Boys (Capitol 1993)
The Velvet Underground: Peel Slowly and See (Polydor 1995)
Eddie Cochran: The Eddie Cochran Story (Liberty 2009)
Sam Cooke: The Man Who Invented Soul (RCA 2000)
The Beach Boys: The Pet Sounds Sessions (Capitol 1997)
Doc Watson: The Vanguard Years (Vanguard 1995)
The Velvet Underground: The Singles 1966-69 (Sundazed 2009) [vinyl only]

1956 SONGS
Brand new list for this terrific, transformative, head-spinning year; I expect in future lists we will track rock & roll history up through '61 then roll back to cover the genre's origins in the 1952-55 period. This could just as well be labeled "1956 singles" because all but two of these were 45s at some point, including the tracks noted from Elvis Presley's debut album. The sole exceptions are from Miles Davis' Relaxin' and Gene Vincent's Bluejean Bop!. To create this list I worked both from my own knowledge of rock & roll, pop, country, R&B and lounge then filled in some gaps with various historical sources and online lists, especially regarding doo wop and rockabilly. I'm sure I've missed some big titles, but I've tried to represent everything I could. (In this case "represent" is the accurate word; almost everything on the R&B charts this year was at least interesting if not outright compelling. If you go deep you'll find some ordinary records but very few bad ones.) Discovered some major stuff by doing this, which is one reason I look forward to the List of Lists every year and don't ever intend to skip it. Top forty-one songs I've listed here are all masterpieces. Maybe more than that.

Sources of mild chronological controversy: Johnny Cash's "Folsom Prison Blues" (December 1955), Chuck Berry's "No Money Down" (half my sources cite 1955, the others '56, which is when it charted), Ruth Brown's "Lucky Lips" (a hell of a song but unfortunately it's from 1957, despite several lists claiming the contrary), and the Del-Vikings' or Dell Vikings' "Come Go with Me," a regional hit this year and a national one the next. I decided to let that one slide; a year later, when Paul McCartney would hear John Lennon's voice for the first time, he was covering this song.

1. Etta James "Tough Lover" (Modern)
2. Carl Perkins "Sure to Fall" (Sun)
3. Chuck Berry "Too Much Monkey Business" (Chess)
4. Little Richard "Rip It Up" (Specialty)
5. Chuck Berry "Brown Eyed Handsome Man" (Chess)
6. Gene Vincent "Who Slapped John?" (Capitol)
7. Little Richard "Slippin' and Slidin'" (Specialty)
8. Screamin' Jay Hawkins "I Put a Spell on You" (OKeh)
9. Elvis Presley "Heartbreak Hotel" (RCA)
10. Mickey & Sylvia "Love Is Strange" (Groove)
11. The Johnny Burnette Trio "The Train Kept A-Rollin'" (Coral)
12. Bo Diddley "Who Do You Love?" (Checker)
13. Ann Cole "Got My Mo-Jo Working (But It Just Won't Work on You)" (Baton)
14. Gene Vincent "Bluejean Bop" (Capitol)
15. Ray Charles "Lonely Avenue" (Atlantic)
16. Johnny Cash and the Tennessee Two "There You Go" (Sun)
17. Little Willie John "Fever" (King)
18. Chuck Berry "You Can't Catch Me" (Chess)
19. Little Richard "Ready Teddy" (Specialty)
20. Elvis Presley "Don't Be Cruel" (RCA)
21. Little Richard "Long Tall Sally" (Specialty)
22. Wanda Jackson "Hot Dog! That Made Him Mad" (Capitol)
23. Sanford Clark "The Fool" (MCI)
24. Howlin' Wolf "Smokestack Lightnin'" (Chess)
25. Johnny Cash and the Tennessee Two "I Walk the Line" (Sun)
26. Chuck Berry "Roll Over Beethoven" (Chess)
27. The Johnny Burnette Trio "Honey Hush" (Coral)
28. Gene Vincent and His Blue Caps "Be-Bop-A-Lula" (Capitol)
29. James Brown and the Famous Flames "Please, Please, Please" (Federal)
30. Elvis Presley "Blue Moon" (RCA)
31. Clarence "Frogman" Henry "Ain't Got No Home" (Argo)
32. Fats Domino "Blueberry Hill" (Imperial)
33. Carl Perkins "Blue Suede Shoes" (Sun)
34. Jimmy Reed "You've Got Me Dizzy" (Vee Jay)
35. Johnny Cash and the Tennessee Two "Get Rhythm" (Sun)
36. Little Richard "Heeby-Jeebies" (Specialty)
37. The Staple Singers "Uncloudy Day" (Vee Jay)
38. Wanda Jackson "I Gotta Know" (Capitol)
39. The Coasters "One Kiss Led to Another" (Atco)
40. Gene Vincent and His Blue Caps "Woman Love" (Capitol)
41. Elvis Presley "Hound Dog" (RCA)
42. The Coasters "Down in Mexico" (Atco)
43. The Chips "Rubber Biscuit" (Josie)
44. Carl Perkins "Boppin' the Blues" (Sun)
45. Fats Domino "I'm in Love Again" (Imperial)
46. Elvis Presley "Tryin' to Get to You" (RCA)
47. Etta James "Good Lookin'" (Modern)
48. Frank Sinatra "Too Marvelous for Words" (Capitol)
49. Little Richard "The Girl Can't Help It" (Specialty)
50. Fats Domino "Blue Monday" (Imperial)
51. The Cadets "Stranded in the Jungle" (Modern)
52. Warren Smith "Black Jack David" (Sun)
53. Elvis Presley "My Baby Left Me" (RCA)
54. The Del-Vikings "Come Go with Me" (Dot)
55. Shirley & Lee "I Feel Good" (Aladdin)
56. Big Joe Turner "Lipstick, Powder and Paint" (Atlantic)
57. Patsy Cline "I've Loved and Lost Again" (Decca)
58. Ray Charles "Hallelujah I Love Her So" (Atlantic)
59. Howlin' Wolf "I Asked for Water" (Chess)
60. Miles Davis Quintet "If I Were a Bell" (Prestige LP)
61. Otis Rush "I Can't Quit You Baby" (Cobra)
62. Shirley and Lee "Let the Good Times Roll" (Aladdin)
63. Roy Orbison "Ooby Dooby" (Sun)
64. Bill Haley and His Comets "See You Later Alligator" (Decca)
65. Jesse Belvin "Goodnight My Love" (Modern)
66. The Cleftones "Little Girl of Mine" (Gee)
67. Bo Diddley "Diddy Wah Diddy" (Checker)
68. Barbara Pittman "I Need a Man" (Sun)
69. Valentines "The Woo Woo Train" (Rama)
70. Big Joe Turner "Corrine, Corrina" (Decca)
71. Bob "Froggy" Landers "Cherokee Dance" (Specialty)
72. Screamin' Jay Hawkins "Little Demon" (OKeh)
73. Bill Doggett "Honky Tonk" (King)
74. LaVern Baker "Jim Dandy" (Atlantic)
75. Fats Domino "My Blue Heaven" (Imperial)
76. The Five Satins "In the Still of the Night" (Ember)
77. Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers "Why Do Fools Fall in Love?" (Gee)
78. The Drifters "I Gotta Get Myself a Woman" (Atlantic)
79. Willows "Church Bells May Ring" (Melba)
80. Muddy Waters "Forty Days and Forty Nights" (Chess)
81. Carl Perkins "Matchbox" (Sun)
82. LaVern Baker "Tra La La" (Atlantic)
83. The Drifters "Ruby Baby" (Atlantic)
84. Johnny Burnette and the Rock 'n' Roll Trio "Tear It Up" (Coral)
85. Gene Vincent and His Blue Caps "Wedding Bells (Are Breaking Up That Old Gang of Mine)" (Capitol LP)
86. Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers "Who Can Explain?" (Gee)
87. Ray Charles "Drown in My Own Tears" (Atlantic)
88. Six Teens "A Casual Look" (Flip)
89. Carl Perkins "Honey Don't" (Sun)
90. Gene Vincent and His Blue Caps "Race with the Devil" (Capitol)
91. LaVern Baker "I Can't Love You Enough" (Atlantic)
92. The Platters "(You've Got) The Magic Touch" (Mercury)
93. Hal Willis "My Pink Cadillac" (Atlantic)
94. Chuck Willis "It's Too Late" (Atlantic)
95. Sonny Burgess "Red Headed Woman" (Sun)
96. The "5" Royales "I Could Love You" (King)
97. Big Maybelle "Candy" (Savoy)
98. The Moonglows "See Saw" (Chess)
99. Ray Price "Crazy Arms" (Columbia)
100. Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers "I Want You to Be My Girl" (Gee)
101. Little Richard "She's Got It" (Specialty)
102. The Flamingos "A Kiss from Your Lips" (Chess)
103. Frank Sinatra "(How Little It Matters) How Little We Know" (Capitol)
104. Earl Bostic "Harlem Nocturne" (King)
105. Elvis Presley "Blue Suede Shoes" (RCA)
106. Chuck Willis "Whatcha Gonna Do When Your Baby Leaves You" (Atlantic)
107. Muddy Waters "Don't Go No Farther" (Chess)
108. Joe Clay "Duck Tail" (Vik)
109. Fats Domino "When My Dreamboat Comes Home" (Imperial)
110. The Clovers "Love, Love, Love" (Atlantic)
111. Buddy Knox with the Rhythm Orchids "Party Doll" (Roulette)
112. Clyde McPhatter "Treasure of Love" (Atlantic)
113. The Platters "My Prayer" (Mercury)
114. Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers "I'm Not a Juvenile Delinquent" (Gee)
115. Carl Perkins "Dixie Fried" (Sun)
116. The Cleftones "Can't We Be Sweethearts" (Gee)
117. Charlie Feathers "One Hand Loose" (King)
118. Chuck Berry "Havana Moon" (Chess)
119. Les Baxter and His Chorus and Orchestra "The Poor People of Paris" (Capitol)
120. Jimmy Reed "Ain't That Lovin' You Baby" (Vee Jay)
121. Slim Rhodes "Take and Give" (Sun)
122. The Cadillacs "Betty My Love" (Josie)
123. Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers "I Promise to Remember" (Gee)
124. Smiley Lewis "One Night" (Imperial)
125. Sil Austin "Slow Walk" (Mercury)
126. The Teen Queens "Eddie My Love" (RPM)
127. Johnnie Ray "I Want to Be Loved (But Only by You)" (Columbia)
128. Clyde McPhatter "Without Love (There Is Nothing)" (Atlantic)
129. The Dells "Oh What a Nite" (Vee Jay)
130. Elvis Presley "Love Me Tender" (RCA)
131. Frank Sinatra "I've Got You Under My Skin" (Capitol)
132. Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers "The ABC's of Love" (Gee)
133. Count Basie Big Band "April in Paris" (Clef)
134. Brenda Lee "Jambalaya (On the Bayou)" (Decca)
135. The Channels "The Closer You Are" (Whrilin Disc)
136. The Clovers "Devil or Angel" (Atlantic)
137. B.B. King and His Orchestra "Sweet Little Angel" (RPM)
138. Harry Belafonte "Day-O (The Banana Boat Song)" (RCA)
139. Elvis Presley "I'm Gonna Sit Right Down and Cry (Over You)" (RCA)
140. Frank Sinatra "Hey! Jealous Lover" (Capitol)
+
Elvis Presley "Love Me" (RCA)
The Cadillacs "You Are" (Josie)
Doris Day "Que Sera, Sera" (Columbia)
Jim Lowe "The Green Door" (Dot)
Tennessee Ernie Ford "That's All" (Capitol)
Eddie Fisher "Cindy, Oh Cindy" (RCA)

1966 ALBUMS
Errata: One of the best album years ever obviously; though the Remains' record is an admirable example of the album as greatest hits collection, with the CD bonus tracks included (under the Barry and the Remains title), it could maybe stand to be below Redding and the Stones. Otherwise hard to argue with this. Note that I strenuously urge you to regard the vinyl version of the Monk album as just a preview for the extraordinary CD version (also streaming); for the same reason, avoid the American truncation of Revolver at all costs, especially with it now inexplicably available on CD. On the other hand I prefer the American Aftermath, though both are good; and I include both variants of the Yardbirds' album here. The Real Folk Blues is technically a compilation but many discographies file it as an album because it's the first LP appearance of nearly all of its tracks and I'm not opposed to any opportunity to bring up Howlin' Wolf, who should be everyone's introduction to the blues.

1. The Beach Boys: Pet Sounds (Capitol) A+
2. Thelonious Monk: Straight, No Chaser (Columbia) A+
3. Howlin' Wolf: The Real Folk Blues (Chess) A+
4. The Beatles: Revolver (Parlophone) A+
5. The Kinks: Face to Face (Pye) A+
6. Miles Davis: Miles Smiles (Columbia) A+
7. Bob Dylan: Blonde on Blonde (Columbia) A+
8. Love (Elektra) A
9. The Byrds: Fifth Dimension (Columbia) A
10. The Remains (Epic) A
11. The Otis Redding Dictionary of Soul (Volt) A
12. The Rolling Stones: Aftermath (London) A
13. The Yardbirds: Roger the Engineer/Over Under Sideways Down (Columbia/Epic) A-
14. Buffalo Springfield (Atco) A-
15. The Exciting Wilson Pickett (Atlantic) A-
16. Them Again (Parrot) A-
17. John Lee Hooker: It Serves You Right to Suffer (Impulse!) A-
18. The Psychedelic Sounds of the 13th Floor Elevators (International Artists) A-
19. The Seeds: A Web of Sound (GNP Crescendo)
20. Hums of the Lovin' Spoonful (Kama Sutra)

1976 ALBUMS
Errata: I expect Station to Station isn't higher because of how much I hate "Golden Years"; damn the consensus, I Want You is a bit too low as well, but I can't argue with any of these records really, they're all terrific. The only problem with this list really is that it's much too short. Need to work harder on that backlog.

1. Stevie Wonder: Songs in the Key of Life (Tamla) A+
2. Parliament: Mothership Connection (Casablanca) A+
3. Ramones (Sire) A+
4. The Flamin' Groovies: Shake Some Action (Sire) A+
5. Patti Smith: Radio Ethiopia (Arista) A
6. Labelle: Chameleon (Epic) A
7. David Bowie: Station to Station (RCA) A
8. Funkadelic: Hardcore Jollies (Warner Bros.) A-
9. Blondie (Chrysalis) A-
10. Marvin Gaye: I Want You (Tamla) A-
+
Burning Spear: Man in the Hills (Island)
Parliament: Clones of Dr. Funkenstein (Casablanca)

1986 ALBUMS
Errata: The Smithereens and Loudon Wainwright have floated downward in my estimation since I started all this, but otherwise this looks fine to me, with Please and Control ideally in the top ten in place of Especially for You and the Mantronix album. When you really think about what Pet Shop Boys have achieved over thirty years it's staggering. Pageant is my favorite R.E.M. album these days, which is neat because my favorite R.E.M. song shows up in a different list below. Incidentally, on a recent New Order binge I realized I included Republic on these lists when I likely meant to include Low-Life, a correction I'll be sure to verify and make on the 2.0 version of all this.

1. R.E.M.: Lifes Rich Pageant (I.R.S.) A+
2. XTC: Skylarking (Geffen) A+
3. Run-DMC: Raising Hell (Profile) A+
4. The Go-Betweens: Liberty Belle and the Black Diamond Express (Big Time) A+
5. Peter Gabriel: So (Geffen) A
6. Depeche Mode: Black Celebration (Sire) A
7. The Smithereens: Especially for You (Engima) A-
8. New Order: Brotherhood (Qwest) A-
9. Mantronix: Music Madness (Sleeping Bag) A-
10. Paul Simon: Graceland (Warner Bros.) A-
11. Pet Shop Boys: Please (EMI America) A-
12. Janet Jackson: Control (A&M) A-
13. The Saints: All Fools Day (TVT) A-
14. Loudon Wainwright III: More Love Songs (Rounder) A-
15. Miles Davis: Tutu (Warner Bros.) A-

1996 ALBUMS
Errata: Uh... actually I agree with this pretty much to the letter. Switch #4 and #5 maybe? Also it remains to be seen if Eels will survive The Great 2020 Purge, I very seldom listen to them/him anymore... but who knows! Looking at Pazz & Jop to get ideas for the song list below I was thrilled to see how highly Walking Wounded placed -- it's one of those albums that sometimes makes me feel very lonely.

1. The Fugees: The Score (Columbia) A+
2. R.E.M.: New Adventures in Hi-Fi (Warner Bros.) A+
3. Pet Shop Boys: Bilingual (Atlantic) A+
4. Belle & Sebastian: If You're Feeling Sinister (Jeepster/Matador) A
5. Everything But the Girl: Walking Wounded (Atlantic) A
6. The Cardigans: First Band on the Moon (Mercury) A
7. Outkast: ATLiens (Arista) A-
8. Nas: It Was Written (Columbia) A-
9. Olivia Tremor Control: Dusk at Cubist Castle (Elephant 6) A-
10. Lightning Seeds: Dizzy Heights (Epic) A-
11. The Roots: Illadelph Halflife (Geffen) A-
12. Lou Reed: Set the Twilight Reeling (Sire) A-
13. A Tribe Called Quest: Beats, Rhymes and Life (Jive) A-
14. Patti Smith: Gone Again (Arista) A-
15. Neutral Milk Hotel: On Avery Island (Merge) A-
16. Lush: Lovelife (4AD) A-
17. eels: Beautiful Freak (Dreamworks) A-
18. De La Soul: Stakes Is High (Tommy Boy) A-
19. Asylum Street Spankers: Spanks for the Memories (Spanks-A-Lot) A-
20. Wilco: Being There (Reprise)

1996 SONGS
Brand new list, with twenty truly great songs and many other fine cuts. A combination of (a) research specifically for this post on the charts, the favorites, the big ones plus supplemental reading on electronica and trip-hop (big year for this), R&B/hip hop (great year for this) and indie/alternative (very bad year for this); and (b) what I remembered from sixth and seventh grade, a period when I had the radio on often but no cable -- which explains a few former blind spots -- and was transitioning between a love of mainstream alternative rock and Britpop into slightly older stuff, particularly U2. It also was in February or March '96 that I bought my first R.E.M. album, and while it was a few years before they became a full-on obsession, I became enough of a fan to get their tenth album as soon as it released; it took a bit to grow on me but remains a favorite, and contains my all-time favorite song of theirs (also the first single released from it), which tops this list. This also was the year I first heard Pet Shop Boys; a song from Bilingual got some airplay on the alternative station and I loved it, and loved the music video "Single-Bilingual" (issued in November; it reminded me of two other favorite clips, Radiohead's "Just" and Cake's "The Distance," which I've fallen out of love with and isn't here, but the video's still pretty great) even more. By this time my sister had temporarily moved back in with us and, bemused by my enthusiasm for what I thought was a relatively new band, showed me gobs of MTV footage from the 1986-88 period, and I was pretty quickly on board. Anyway, sorry for the tangent.

Rules for this list: If it was a single, it can be included, hence all the EBTG stuff; only one "album track" per album. Release date controversies abound in this period. I tried to treat it as if it was in real-time; if a song was originally released in 1995 but I'd have been unlikely to hear it until '96, it's here. If it was a single in 1997 but it's on a 1996 album by an artist who's important to me, here it is. Fiona Apple's 1997 singles and hits are here for this reason, and though I'm not so much into them anymore, so are Counting Crows'. Mariah Carey's "Always Be My Baby" from her '95 album Daydream should probably be 1995 by any logical measure but I'm sorry, my memories of playing Sega while listening to that song in '96 are too cherished. OMC and Spice Girls didn't make it to America in 1996 but it would seem a bit gauche to retroactively ignore their two great singles here for this reason. (Other Spice Girls hits would count for the following year.) But that still leaves several borderline selections that I'll mention here in case I forget someday when I do this for the years on either side: Alanis Morrissette's "Head Over Feet," "Ironic" and "You Learn"; Michael Jackson's "Stranger in Moscow" (probably in the top five if I felt it qualified, but the album was '95 and the U.S. single was '97) and "They Don't Care About Us"; Blur's "Charmless Man"; Pulp's "Common People"; and R.E.M.'s masterful cover of "Wall of Death," a b-side this summer but actually issued on a Richard Thompson tribute album two years earlier.

1. R.E.M. ft. Patti Smith "E-Bow the Letter" [New Adventures in Hi-Fi + single]
2. Everything But the Girl "Mirrorball" [Walking Wounded]
3. Nas ft. Lauryn Hill "If I Ruled the World (Imagine That)" [It Was Written + single]
4. The Fugees "Killing Me Softly" {Roberta Flack cover} [The Score + single]
5. Keith Sweat "Twisted" [s/t]
6. Pet Shop Boys "A Red Letter Day" [Bilingual + '97 single]
7. Ginuwine "Pony" [The Bachelor]
8. En Vogue "Don't Let Go (Love)" [EV3]
9. The Cardigans "Lovefool" [First Band on the Moon + single]
10. The Fugees "Ready or Not" [The Score + single]
11. Everything But the Girl "Single" [Walking Wounded + single]
12. R.E.M. "Electrolite" [New Adventures in Hi-Fi + '97 single]
13. Mariah Carey "Always Be My Baby" [Daydream]
14. Outkast "ATLiens" [ATLiens + single]
15. The Fugees "Fu-Gee-La" [The Score + single]
16. Pet Shop Boys "Up Against It" [Bilingual]
17. The Chemical Brothers ft. Noel Gallagher "Setting Sun" [Dig Your Own Hole (1997)]
18. Belle & Sebastian "If You're Feeling Sinister" [If You're Feeling Sinister]
19. R.E.M. "Leave" [New Adventures in Hi-Fi]
20. Everything But the Girl "Wrong" [Walking Wounded + single]
21. Busta Rhymes "Woo-Hah!! Got You All in Check" [The Coming]
22. Everything But the Girl "Before Today" [Walking Wounded + '97 single]
23. Autechre "We R Are Why" [mail-order 12"]
24. Aaliyah ft. Timbaland, Missy Elliott and Ginuwine "One in a Million" {remix} [12" single]
25. Duncan Sheik "Barely Breathing" [s/t]
26. Beck "Where It's At" [Odelay + single]
27. OMC "How Bizarre" [How Bizarre]
28. Spice Girls "Wannabe" [Spice + single]
29. Primitive Radio Gods "Standing Outside a Broken Phone Booth with Money in My Hand" [Rocket]
30. Tracy Chapman "Give Me One Reason" [New Beginning]
31. Jewel "You Were Meant for Me" [Pieces of You (1995)]
32. Aphex Twin "Girl/Boy" [The Richard D. James Album]
33. The Roots ft. Raphael Saadiq "What They Do" [Illadelph Halflife + single]
34. Nas "I Gave You Power" [It Was Written]
35. Bone-Thugs-N-Harmony "Tha Crossroads" [E. 1999 Eternal]
36. Orbital "The Box Parts I & II" [In Sides]
37. La Bouche "Sweet Dreams" [Sweet Dreams]
38. Fiona Apple "Sleep to Dream" [Tidal + single]
39. Pet Shop Boys "Se A Vida E (That's the Way Life Is)" [Bilingual + single]
40. LL Cool J "Doin' It" [Mr. Smith]
41. Keith Sweat ft. Athena Cage "Nobody" [s/t]
42. DJ Shadow "Stem" [Endtroducing...]
43. Stone Temple Pilots "Lady Picture Show" [Tiny Music]
44. Neutral Milk Hotel "Naomi" [On Avery Island]
45. Lightning Seeds "Imaginary Friends" [Dizzy Heights]
46. The Fugees "How Many Mics" [The Score]
47. Thievery Corporation "The Foundation" [Sounds from the Thievery Hi-Fi]
48. Sneaker Pimps "6 Underground" [Becoming X]
49. Outkast "Elevators (Me & You)" [ATLiens + single]
50. De La Soul "Stakes Is High" [Stakes Is High]
51. Pet Shop Boys "Single" [Bilingual + single]
52. Fiona Apple "Shadowboxer" [Tidal + single]
53. Brandy "Sittin' Up in My Room" [Waiting to Exhale OST]
54. The Charlatans UK "One to Another" [Tellin' Stories]
55. A Tribe Called Quest "Motivators" [Beats, Rhymes & Life]
56. The Fugees "No Woman, No Cry" {Bob Marley & the Wailers cover} [The Score + single]
57. Olivia Tremor Control "No Growing (Exegesis)" [Dusk at Cubist Castle]
58. The Roots "Clones" [Illadelph Halflife]
59. Quad City DJs "C'mon N Ride It (The Train)" [Get on Up and Dance]
60. Hooverphonic "2 Wicky" [A New Stereophonic Sound Spectacular (1997)]
61. Lush "Ladykillers" [LoveLife + single]
62. Lightning Seeds "Ready or Not" [Dizzy Heights + single]
63. The Cardigans "Your New Cuckoo" [First Band on the Moon]
64. Pet Shop Boys "Before" [Bilingual + single]
65. Fiona Apple "Criminal" [Tidal + '97 single]
66. Everything But the Girl "Walking Wounded" [Walking Wounded + single]
67. Toni Braxton "You're Makin' Me High" [Secrets]
68. Outkast "Two Dope Boyz (In a Cadillac)" [ATLiens]
69. Alice in Chains "Heaven Beside You" [s/t + single]
70. Beck "Jack-ass" [Odelay]
71. Wilco "Far, Far Away" [Being There]
72. Pet Shop Boys "How I Learned to Hate Rock & Roll" [b-side]
73. Lush "Runaway" [LoveLife]
74. Belle & Sebastian "The State I Am In" [Tigermilk]
75. D'Angelo "Lady" [Brown Sugar]
76. Boards of Canada "Chinook" [Boc Maxima]
77. Asylum Street Spankers "Shave 'Em Dry" {Lucille Bogan cover} [Spanks for the Memories]
78. Maxwell "Ascension (Don't Ever Wonder)" [Maxwell's Urban Hang Suite]
79. Radiohead "Talk Show Host" [b-side + Romeo + Juliet OST]
80. Yo La Tengo "Blue-Green Arrow" [non-album single]
81. Jodeci "Get on Up" [The Show, the After Party, the Hotel]
82. Backstreet Boys "Quit Playing Games (With My Heart)" [s/t]
83. Counting Crows "Monkey" [Recovering the Satellites]
84. Lightning Seeds "You Showed Me" {Turtles cover} [Dizzy Heights + '97 single]
85. Lou Reed "NYC Man" [Set the Twilight Reeling]
86. R.E.M. "Bittersweet Me" [New Adventures in Hi-Fi + single]
87. The Bluetones "Slight Return" [Expecting to Fly + single]
88. My Bloody Valentine "Map Ref 41°N 93°W" {Wire cover} [Whore: Various Artists Play Wire]
89. *NSYNC "I Want You Back" [s/t]
90. eels "Novocaine for the Soul" [Beautiful Freak + single]
91. Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds ft. PJ Harvey "Henry Lee" [Murder Ballads]
92. Gin Blossoms "Follow You Down" [Congratulations, I'm Sorry]
93. Counting Crows "A Long December" [Recovering the Satellites + '97 single]
94. Patti Smith "Summer Cannibals" [Gone Again]
95. eels "Not Ready Yet" [Beautiful Freak]
96. Fiona Apple "Never Is a Promise" [Tidal]
97. The Cardigans "Been It" [First Band on the Moon + single]
98. Nas "Street Dreams" [It Was Written + single]
99. A Tribe Called Quest ft. Tammy Lucas "1nce Again" [Beats, Rhymes & Life + single]
100. My Bloody Valentine "Incidental One" [Offbeat: A Red Hot Soundtrip]
+
Lightning Seeds "What If..." [Dizzy Heights + single]
Garbage "#1 Crush" [Romeo + Juliet OST]
Alice in Chains "Over Now" [s/t + single]
Lightning Seeds "Sugar Coated Iceberg" [Dizzy Heights + '97 single]
Yo La Tengo "Wig Out with Charlie Dapper" [b-side]


2006 ALBUMS
Errata: Actually not unhappy with this. The J. Dilla and Kaki King albums I didn't discover until running this blog so their placement is a best guess. The YLT is one of the few albums of modern vintage I knew was a masterpiece pretty much right away. Joanna Newsom should obviously be above the Decemberists, and Hot Chip probably should be as well, with both Mates of State and Lupe Fiasco needing to be moved several spaces lower. The top six are all wonderful records I still listen to regularly and I believe they have aged extremely well. A Hundred Miles Off is one of the most underrated rock albums of the last ten years. I even stand by the Muse album as being a genuine blast, even though it's now been a long time since I was able to listen to them without chuckling. (They are, like Ben Folds Five, a leftover passion from high school.) Finally, seeing Get Lonely reminds me that it and Heretic Pride, two of the first Mountain Goats releases I heard in full, belong on these lists far less than All Hail West Texas (2002) and We Shall All Be Healed (2003), neither of which are currently on my countdowns for those years, a problem I'll correct in the next run. My excuse is that I was only just learning about Darnielle when I made these lists. For the record my '06 top ten in "real time" (it's dated April 2007, so I guess my new habits are old) was YLT, TVOTR, Cat Power, Walkmen, Roots, Mates of State, Lupe, Muse, B&S, and a Madonna album from 2005 that I apparently thought was newer. (Concurrent singles list reminds me that I called it early on Rihanna being awesome.)

1. Yo La Tengo: I Am Not Afraid of You and I Will Beat Your Ass (Matador) A+
2. J Dilla: Donuts (Stones Throw) A+
3. TV on the Radio: Return to Cookie Mountain (Interscope) A
4. Belle & Sebastian: The Life Pursuit (Matador) A
5. Cat Power: The Greatest (Matador) A
6. Camera Obscura: Let's Get Out of This Country (Merge) A
7. The Decemberists: The Crane Wife (Capitol) A-
8. Mates of State: Bring It Back (Barsuk) A-
9. The Roots: Game Theory (Def Jam) A-
10. Lupe Fiasco: Food & Liquor (Atlantic) A-
11. Joanna Newsom: Ys (Drag City) A-
12. Hot Chip: The Warning (astralwerks) A-
13. Kaki King: ...Until We Felt Red (Velour) A-
14. Casiotone for the Painfully Alone: Etiquette (Tomlab) A-
15. M. Ward: Post-War (Merge) A-
16. Yeah Yeah Yeahs: Show Your Bones (Interscope) A-
17. The Walkmen: A Hundred Miles Off (Record Collection) A-
18. Alexi Murdoch: Time Without Consequence (Zero Summer) A-
19. The Mountain Goats: Get Lonely (4AD) A-
20. Muse: Black Holes and Revelations (Warner Bros.) A-
+
Old Crow Medicine Show: Big Iron World (Nettwerk)
Gossip: Standing in the Way of Control (Kill Rock Stars)

******

I hope you've enjoyed another year of intense if succinct and perpetually late coverage of new music. How the timeline for 2017 works depends on how quickly I'm able to make up lost time, but once everything's running properly I should be able to integrate supplemental projects with my regular work here much more capably than I did in '16. Hoping to get Beatles and possibly Dylan explored here before snow hits the ground again, but no promises.