More music from the year that concludes the first quarter of the 21st Century...
22. Jason Isbell – Foxes In The Snow
A new Jason Isbell LP would generally achieve a higher
placing in my end of year countdown, but he left his backing band the 400 Unit
in the pub for this one, offering up a one-man acoustic set instead. Like many
Americana artists, the temptation to “do a Nebraska” must always be tackled…
and as you’d expect from Isbell, this is another fine collection of subtle
country storytelling… but it could have done with a little more oomph in
places. Get the band back out of the pub next time.
Cory Hanson is the lead singer of LA-based psychedelic rock
band WAND… but in his spare time, he makes solo records which veer more into
70s singer-songwriter territory, and comparisons have been made to Randy Newman
(him again! – see #25) and Todd Rundgren. There’s a lot of piano on this
record, which always suits me, and some quirky lyrical diversions, such as
Hanson’s tribute to Lou Reed, which is keen to remind us that Lou was “a tai
chi master”.
What I like most about Hanson’s songs though is the way he
half-reveals a story, and leaves the listener to make up the rest. A bit like
Michael Stipe, in a way…
I just wanna leave this town And say so long, fool I just need a steering wheel To hold on to All the standup comics Burn out on the evening train All the jokers on their horses Laughing in the rain Why so serious? You've got no sense of humor No this ain't funny to me I heard the rumors you bit her leg And stumbled into the sеa
20. Hayes Carll – We’re Only Human
In the year we lost Todd Snider, there’s some
consolation that we still have Hayes Carll, who ploughs a similar furrow of
wry, witty, down-home hippy liberal hokum. The song that most exemplifies that
on his latest release is this one…
I love the story about him hating his neighbour till she
gave him some apples. Todd would be proud – and so would John Prine.
And more than ever, right now, we need artists who still
dare to write songs like this…
The man on the TV keeps makin' strange faces Folks flyin' rockets to far away places The world's gettin' turned on by assholes and racists And it's all for the progress of man
I fell down a Slady rabbit hole earlier this week after
discovering the world’s leading female Slade tribute band, led by Gobby Holder
and Davina Hill, naturally. This was the one that lured me in…
But then I discovered they write their own material too…
If it's December, it must be time to start counting down my favourite records of the year. You know the drill...
25. Wet Leg – moisturizer
At the beginning of the year, I had this pegged as one of my
most anticipated releases of 2025… so what went wrong? Weight of expectation? A
concerted effort to go more mainstream? Rhian Teasdale’s clear desire to
recreate herself as some kind of sexy femme-rock icon? (See how she’s
changed.)
(Small m) moisturizer
is far from a disaster, but it’s not as smart as it thinks it is – songs named
after davina mccall, pokemon and mangetout promise more than they deliver, and
the consistent lack of capital letters just smacks this English teacher as
trying too hard. When it works – as on the thrilling lead single Catch These
Fists – there’s still hope to be had… but there’s nothing as strong or as joyously witty as Chaise
Longue or even Wet Dream… and at times, it comes dangerously close to sounding
like Republica. Still, maybe that’s what the kids are looking for these days. I
very much doubt Rhian and Hester are interested in the opinions of a weird 53
year old blogger as long as they can keep selling out the arenas…
Formerly half of Flight of the Conchords, Bret McKenzie
released his debut solo album Songs Without Jokes back in 2022, and it was a
moderate favourite of mine for its Randy Newman-flavoured observation
songwriting. Having been a huge Conchords fan, all it needed to lift it to the
next level was… a few more jokes.
Well, they’re still largely absent on his follow-up record,
but I continue to dig the profoundly 70s vibe – more debts to Newman, and the
occasional steal from Stealer’s Wheel…
A new discovery from Leeds, which gets them extra marks, and this went down well with Brian, CC and The Swede, so I figured I
better squeeze it into my countdown. Nervous Twitch are partying like it’s 1979 – and there’s everything right about that. Further
investigation reveals this isn’t actually their debut – they’ve been bashing
away at this malarkey for quite some time. Further investigation required…
Soldiers from the US Air Force based in Thailand during the Viet Nam war, and the first Americans to ever record in Bangkok. I suppose that was preferable to hunting Charlie in the jungles.
Dutch soul band from the late 60s who were originally called Pepper & Soul until lead singer Johnny Pepper left the group… at which point they became Pepper & Salt. Don’t ask me. They later changed their name to Post Scriptum and went all prog.
Cheryl "Salt" James met Sandra "Pepa" Denton while studying nursing at Queensborough Community College in Brooklyn in 1985. Soon after they hooked up with student producer Hurby Luv Bug and 16 year old DJ Spinderella… and then they really started to Push It.
No idea what to make of this except that it was released as a Limited Edition single sided C20 cassette in 2007 on the Scumbag Relations “Record Label”. Imagine you’d just got a Bontempi keyboard for Christmas and you recorded the first time you played it and sold a copy to each of your mates… and that’s me being kind.
Considering the many, many promising tracks I fail to locate on the tube of you while compiling this feature… like these guys, for example…
…well, the fact that someone saw fit to upload 10 minutes of this baloney says a lot about human beings.
German a capella group active in the past ten years who youtube reliably informs me have released a lot more music than you (or discogs) would imagine…
And finally, an 80s-influenced trio from France, doing it all out of their garage, though they seem to have practiced their instruments a bit more than the Scumbag guy did.
If anyone's wondering what's happened to The Cancel Culture Club, we will be back a little later this month with two festive offerings... possibly our last, for reasons I'll discuss more later.
In the meantime, in a belated follow-up to the first edition of that series, when we discussed Gary Puckett's Young Girl, here are a couple of tunes celebrating the virtues of older woman.
First, from his excellent 2025 album Only Frozen Sky Anyway, here's Jonathan Richman with a tale about being a lovestruck teenager obsessed with a "slightly older girl"...
And secondly, also from this year, and sadly from what turned out to be his final album, here's the late great Todd Snider again with a sentiment that many of his male rock star contemporaries might do well to take note of...
