And then I realised I’d left someone out. Don’t tell Ernie,
you know what a stickler he is for numerical accuracy. Fortunately the Maths
teacher doesn’t seem to care. Maybe he’s used to English teachers who can’t
count.
Anyway, Otis Gibbs released a new album this year, and a
fine collection of tunes it is too – as expected from Americana wordsmith and
youtube rock ‘n’ roll folklore collector, Mr. Gibbs. I wasn’t able to buy the
CD this time round because it’s only available from his website, and the cost
of postage from the US is now more expensive than the CD itself. I blame Trump,
and I’m sure Otis does too.
13. Brian Bilston & The Catenary Wires - Sounds Made By
Humans
I’d expected this might end up in a higher position on my
year end chart, because when I first heard the collaboration between “The
Banksy of Poetry” and the artists formerly known as Talulah Gosh (among other
things), I couldn’t stop listening to it. It is, without a shadow of a doubt,
the most immediate record of the year, for its winning combination of
Bilston’s witty, vaguely misanthropic middle-aged carping and the warm indie
magpiery (yes, I said magpiery, I made that word up myself – figure it out) of
Rob and Emilia.
Why it didn’t end up Top 10 is perhaps because after a while
it started to wear on me, and I began to realise it didn’t have the longevity
of comparable discs – say the new album by Half Man Half Biscuit or anything by
Simon Armitage’s bands Lyr or the Scaremongers. (Plus, the BB poem/song To Do List… well,
it’s a direct steal from
our sainted Poet Laureate, and that began to niggle me a bit.)
Still lots to enjoy here then, but without the longevity I’d
expected when I was lauding it earlier in the year.
12. Eric Church - Evangeline vs. The Machine
The latest record from Eric Church continues his move away
from his Waylon-esque outlaw roots into far more soulful territory. And I’ve
always been a sucker for Country Got Soul. Evangeline vs. The Machine is a concept
album, apparently, meaning that the songs all merge into one another and
there’s some kind of link going on behind the scenes, but much as I love a good
overriding narrative, I’ve yet to grasp the one at work here.
Despite that, this is a rollicking good record, one that
takes great pleasure in stealing lines and, indeed, whole concepts from the
classic country and rock songbook. There are gleeful references to the work of
Bob Seger, Tom Petty, ACDC, Johnny Cash andParadise By The Dashboard Light (not Eric’s first dalliance with
Steinman)… plus a glorious reimagining of The Devil Went Down To Georgia for
the 21st Century, which might well be a subtle dig at the Orange
Oligarch,
Mr. Happy, Mr. Tickle, Mr. Silly, Mr. Topsy-Turvy... when Roger Hargreaves created this Mr. Men, I think these might be some of the characters he rejected...
Rol: I need to write a blog post for tomorrow but am completely blank. Any ideas?
Ben: I was thinking the other day about when is it enough with the softness of toilet roll? There was an ad for some that said it was the latest in softness technology. But at what point does it stop making a difference? Scented toilet paper gives you ass cancer so they stopped doing that. As long as it's not the single ply tracing paper in offices and schools, does it really need to be improved?
It's not a lifestyle choice, it's a functional tool.
Like they've been saying that it's the latest and best toilet roll for a good 50 years or so. When do we complete toilet roll?
Then just stick Rollin by Limp Bizkit at the end.
I don't think you take my blog very seriously.
(Very seriously?
Ugh
Awful grammar.)
Not necessarily for a blog post but it's a genuine thought I had the other day.
I'd rather play something by Lou Rawls.
Or attach John Rawls' A Theory of Justice as a PDF?
Michael Sandell does a good intro lecture on Rawls' ideas, there should be a YouTube video of that. Stick that on the end.
Bring it back highbrow...
You just want to kill my stats dead. I'd rather stick this...
How about a blogpost on the January feeling...?
But how it feels different and it's too weird not hating your life now your job has changed.
Too long to write. I've gone with your toilet roll musings because it's late and I want to go read my book.
I wrote about the first song I heard from this album waaaay back in January.
Then in October, after living with the two albums above throughout the summer, I wrote about them a whole lot more.
I think I've probably said everything I have to, except that I feel like I've been listening to Eric Church all year, and I have no desire to quit any time soon.
The two tracks featured in the posts above both came from Heart. So here's one from the Soul disc...
A couple of weeks back, during my doctor-supported Covid recovery, I took an early morning walk around Castle Hill. I say early morning, but it wasn't exactly the crack of dawn. It was just after dropping Sam off at Breakfast Club (with Ally Sheedy & Molly Ringwald), the time when I would normally be driving to work.
The sense of freedom was incredible. Partly because I wasn't going to The Bad Place, but also because I wasn't tied to any timetable at all. I didn't have anywhere that I had to be or anything I had to do. Ironically, I didn't have the energy for a long walk, but what I managed felt incredible.
My final week in The Bad Place begins today. I'm only in three days: Monday, Tuesday, Thursday... and then, at last, I'm free. And while that freedom involves swapping one institution for another, it already feels like the different between Alcatraz and a Scandinavian Open Prison.
Earlier this year, Eric Church released a triple album. And we can probably all count the number of truly great triple albums on the fingers of one thumb (69 Love Songs by The Magnetic Fields)...
Church's triple album, Heart & Soul, wasn't released as such though. There were two CDs - one called Heart and one called Soul, reminiscent of the release of Guns n' Roses' Use Your Illusion I & II (or Bruce's ill-remembered early 90s combo, Human Touch & Lucky Town). Because you can charge more for two discs released on the same day than you can for a double CD case. The third part of the album (called, believe it or not, &) was only available to subscribers to Church's "fan club", The Church Choir. I checked, and that was beyond my means... though I don't object to artists releasing "subscriber only content" if it's a way of rewarding fans who are actually willing to still pay for their music rather than stream it for free.
The whole package felt like Church attempting to go even more mainstream than before. He's walked a fine line in the past between keeping country radio happy and upholding the "outlaw" tradition of more honest, less polished country stars like Waylon and Kris. Mixing country, pop, rock and southern soul, this could well have been the point where I lost interest in Church... but damn, there are some great tracks on this collection. Thirty years ago, a lot of these songs would have been chart hits. They're timeless (despite contemporary production) pop songs. Yet they still have edge where it's appropriate (as demonstrated on the lead single, Stick That In Your Country Song, which I featured here some months ago).
I doubt any of the above has convinced you to check out these records. You're all too cool. So it won't make any difference when I tell you that on a couple of tracks (particularly the one below), Church even channels the ghost of Jim Steinman.
As Alyson observed last week, my blogging time has been rather curtailed at the moment by work and lockdown pressures. A member of staff at my workplace died of covid last week. Not someone I knew, but still. Despite that, our department has a Quality Review this week.
I'll pause while you take those two facts in, compare them, and scream at the screen. Or maybe that's just me.
Still, I think what we need right now is some more Positive Songs For Negative Times.
Here's Eric Church, the place where outlaw country collides with rock in the best possible way these days. I would declare this the first great single of 2021, except it's another 2020 latecomer... from way back in July, so I don't know how I missed it back then. Oh, wait, maybe I do...
I think Eric's plea here is for songwriters to write more about the world around them. To be honest, I'm not sure I want to hear anymore about the world around me right now. I come to music for escapism. The last refuge.
(Turns out this is one of the first songs Eric has ever recorded that he didn't write. And there's quite an interesting story behind it if you have the time.)
Still, it's great to hear him belt out, "Stick that in your country song!" with an angry snarl. (Wait till it gets going, you'll see what I mean.) I'm just leeching off his energy for a while...
It's been a fine year for new music, so as well as my Top 18 countdown, I also wanted to shine a light on some of the tunes that didn't make my final list. Here's ten great country songs I discovered this year...
With splashes of pop and even disco on her most recent album, there's a sense that Kacey hankers after following Taylor Swift to the dark side. She can still write a great song though.
Their latest album was pretty good, though I didn't love it half as much as their last one. This is from the follow-up EP, and suggests they're heading back to top form.
With his last couple of albums, Eric Church would have easily made it into my favourites of the year list. His latest record, Desperate Man, plays it a little safe and leaves the Waylon-esque outlaw stuff on the back-burner. Still some fine tunes on it though.
Dave Giles calls himself "an American artist from London", and to be fair, this was recorded in Nashville. Sounds more like Nick Lowe meets Frank Turner to me. Classic songwriting.
They call it Americana, but The Nude Party owe as much to the Stones and 60s garage rock. Whatever label you hang on it, this is a smashing pop song destined to put a grin on your face. The rest of the album is similarly fun. More here.
1. Ashley McBride - A Little Dive Bar In Dahlonega
You know how some of the best indie music is written for outcasts and losers, those down on their look and living on lonely desperation? So is some of the best country music. This is one of my songs of the year - kinda like a country version of Drugstore's Say Hello.
Stay tuned for more great country and Americana music as I continue my 2018 countdown.
It's Oh So Quiet on a Sunday morning while we're all waiting for the answers to Saturday Snapshots.
Apparently yesterday's featured some tough ones... well, they all seemed easy enough to me. (But then, they come from my record collection.)
Very close match between Lynchie & Charity Chic, both getting three full correct answers, though Lynchie also gets a quarter point for #7, making him the winner. Martin mopped up the last two, but George deserves extra credit for #5.
10. The Boss finds religion with well stirred rice.
1. Reverse double bottom to a school on a French hill.
Look how short those beards are!
Reverse bottom for Top.
The bottom letter of the alphabet is Z.
A school on a hill would be Grange Hill.
In French, that might be...
Possibly Maybe more Saturday Snapshots next week... well, no we'll definitely have something extra special next week for our fiftieth anniversary edition. Don't miss it!
6. Eric Church (featuring Merle Haggard) - Pledge Allegiance To The Hag
There is a great tradition in contemporary country music of songs about how no one understands us, everybody looks down on us, how we have to stick together to protect country from those who look down their noses on it, how we must stay unashamedly, resolutely COUNTRY! Seriously, I can't think of any other genre of music with more songs expressing a communal chip on the shoulder: goth, emo, indie, rap... country beats them all. Being a little bit country myself (hey, I grew up on a farm!) AND from the half of my country which is traditionally looked down on by the other half (in America, it's the South, in Britain it's the North), I can understand this. But I can also understand how it might be a little off-putting to country newbies to keep coming up against songs which won't let you embrace them unless your neck is red.
On first listen, Eric Church's Pledge Allegiance To The Hag sounds like just another celebration of all things provincial. But Church is smarter than that and uses the template to say much bigger things about belonging, mortality and his hero... Merle Haggard.
Haggard was yet another of 2016's legendary music business losses. His death probably went unnoticed by most people in the UK where he's hardly a household name, but in large parts of America he'll have been mourned more than Bowie, Prince and George put together. Church's song was recorded ten years before Merle's death, but the verse Merle sings hits a lot harder now...
One of these days when my time has come You can take me back to where I'm from Put me on a westbound train An' ship me off in the pourin' rain Don't cry for me when I'm gone Just put a quarter in the jukebox an' sing me back home
If you were never into country music, this isn't the one to convert you, but it's one of the songs I'm listening to this month, and that's why it's here...
This week's post is dedicated to all regular readers of this blog, and to music bloggers everywhere. I thank you for your time and your patronage. And I want you to know: I share your pain.
I guess it looks as if you're reorganizing your records. What is this though? Chronological?
Geeky acoustic whimsy from this Devine New York singer songwriter's 2006 album Circle Gets The Square; it sets the tone quite nicely for this week's list...
So I'm starting up a Boys' Club For guys with record collections And the girls they hurt to get them...
Shame there's only a lo fi live version on youtube, the studio recording is much better.
Here's one that will sort the Men from the Musos. Originally by Larry John McNally - his version is slightly more cred, but a lot less of a guilty pleasure - Rod pops it up with the Temptations on backing vocals and manages to create the best record of his post-70s heyday. Being pretty creaky myself, I always think of this as a pretty recent entry in the newly knighted Sir Rodney's discography, although it's now 25 years old. According to iffypedia, however, it did at the time mark his 30th year in the music biz since he first auditioned (for Joe Meek - who wasn't particularly impressed!) back in 1961.
Bring over your old Motown records Put the speakers in the window and we'll go On the roof and listen to the Miracles Echo through the alley down below...
If anyone ever asks you what the early 90s looked liked: show them this video.
If you're an avid record collector, Matt Berninger has some advice that will chill you to the bone...
Throw from your window your record collection They all run together and never make sense, but that's how we like it, and that's all we want Something to cry for and something to hunt
An amusing story told from the perspective of a guy who works in a record store, doting over the pretty city girl who's running her bony fingers through his 45s...
I ain't too good at saying things But I could tape you certain songs...
A shame young men don't woo this way anymore. Not that it was ever a great success for me, but I enjoyed giving it a shot.
Ironically, this was released as a vinyl-only b-side for Record Store Day.
Todd Snider has a very big record collection - and he takes it everywhere with him. Even on a plane. (Can someone please buy him an mp3 player?)
I got all of Booker T's, Tom T. Hall's
Bobby Bare, Belafonte and the New York Dolls
Billy Joe, Jimmy Croce, Kiss, Crosby Stills and Nash
John, June and Roseanne Cash
I got Forbert, Fromholtz, Stevie Ray
T-Birds, Yardbirds, Sam and Dave
And as some of y'all mighta guessed already
I got piles and piles and piles of...
Good to see Ms. Bailey Rae back (at last) with her third album, released just a few weeks ago... and on my list. This is the record that got her noticed in the first place, 10 years ago, and it still sounds fresh and beautiful today.
In the holy trinity of contemporary country stars (wherein Blake Shelton is the sparkly eyed pretty boy beloved of the tabloids, Brad Paisley is the honourable family man and class clown, and Eric Church is the dangerous bad boy tamed by a good woman), Church is winning out for me at the moment. I'm sure that'll change as sure as one of the other two brings out a new record, but I'm so enamoured with Mr. Church's last one, Mr. Misunderstood, they're both gonna have to work extra hard to make me put that aside. It's only ten tracks long, but so many great albums know that less is more.
I guess I really oughta call and thank you
I rediscovered Red Headed Stranger
Got down with old James Brown
And found New Grass Revival
If you find your way back, I owe you a beer
For my record year
Record Year has to put up a fight - on most other albums it would be the standout track. Simply put, it's about a guy who gets dumped by a girl... and retreats to his record collection for comfort. What is it John Cusack said at the start of Hi Fidelity...?
What came first, the music or the misery? People worry about kids
playing with guns, or watching violent videos, that some sort of culture
of violence will take them over. Nobody worries about kids listening to
thousands, literally thousands of songs about heartbreak, rejection,
pain, misery and loss. Did I listen to pop music because I was
miserable? Or was I miserable because I listened to pop music?
True blues from Billy (the only blue this Righteous Red ever gets) when he's forced to sell his vinyl...
I'm down but I'm not out Lord, I'm hurting Somebody owns all my albums now They probably don't even wonder how My name got written on the sleeves...
Imagine buying a load of second hand records only to find them all signed by Billy Bragg!
Although the story's a little bit different, this song always reminds me of this classic deleted scene from the aforementioned Hi Fidelity.
1. The Mystery Jets - Greatest Hits
In my Top Ten Divorce Songs a couple of weeks back, Number One with a bullet was Lloyd Cole's Half of Everything, about a couple dividing up their belongings after a break-up. This is the record collection version of that story... see how many great old albums you can identify in The Mystery Jets' finest hour...
You can take The Lexicon of Love away
But I'm keeping Remain in Light
You can take away It's A Shame About Ray
But I'm holding on to Country Life
Well you can keep No Need To Argue and I'll keep The Aeroplane Over The Sea
But hold on to The Boy With The Arab Strap
'Cause I'm holding on to Village Green
I often feel misunderstood. I reckon this blog is very misunderstood. We try our best, but it's so easy to sow the seeds of misunderstanding wherever we go. This week - ten songs that feel the same.
Special mention to 60s psych-rockers The Misunderstood.
It all goes back to Madonna. If Lady Gaga is David Lynch Madonna, then Pink Alecia Beth Moore is Riot Grrrl Madonna. To be honest, this isn't one of P!nk's best - it's pretty average pop-filler material, although it was the title track of her second album. It does sum up her character quite well... but she'd record far better pop songs as time went by.
Yes! It's been far too long since I managed to find room for a decent slice of poodle rock on this blog. It's always good to piss off the musos (then again, maybe that's why I have so few readers... do they misunderstand me?)
This is pretty sedate and serious compared to the Crüe's usual excesses, perhaps because it comes from the era when regular lead singer Vince Neal had buggered off to go and play with race cars. His (as it turned out, temporary) replacement was John Corabi, a man who obviously took things a little more seriously. Or maybe the record company were just trying to reposition the band to capitalise on the success of Guns 'n' Roses at the time. I don't claim to be a poodle rock expert, but I don't mind a little mosh now and again.
2007
single from this extermely under-appreciated indie band ("psych pop", according
to iffypedia) made of up Brighton brothers Alex & Thomas White.
Sunshiny guitar music that's always worth a spin.
Here's an interesting one, as Jeff Tweedy takes on the perspective of a disgruntled fan, still bitter over the break-up of Tweedy's previous band, Uncle Tupelo. According to what I read on t'internet, anyway. It's all a bit vague to me, just what Jeff is whinging about. Good song though.
Before Roger McGuinn took over (with a little help from Bob Dylan), Gene Clark was the lead singer and songwriter of The Byrds. Later, he released a number of unsuccessful solo albums which would become far more influential and critically acclaimed after his death. Clark always claimed the album this song comes from, 1974's No Other, was his masterpiece. Forty years later, the likes of Fleet Foxes and Grizzly Bear would surely agree.
Great lost Motown nugget, co-written by Stevie Wonder (he also plays drums). The Contours are more well-known for their earlier smash Do You Love Me? (which, if you're my age, you'll probably have encountered first on the soundtrack to Dirty Dancing). The lead vocal is performed by Levi Stubbs' brother Joe, having replaced original singer Billy Gordon. He only lasted one song though before Dennis Edwards of the Temptations took over. Although Joe Stubbs' doesn't quite have his brother's pipes, I still think this sounds like prime Motown - it could well have been a Four Tops song.
I kind of cocked up my Best Albums of 2015 countdown by including Eric Church's The Outsiders, which it later turned out had been released the year before. This, however, is the title track from the album Eric actually did release last year (he's a prolific bugger)... and damn, if it isn't even better.
Mr. Misunderstood starts out as a song about not being into the same music as your mates... something I presume most of the regular readers of this blog have experienced at one point or other in their lives.
Now, your buddies get their rocks off on Top 40 radio
But you love your daddy's vinyl, old-time rock and roll
Elvis Costello, Ray Wylie Hubbard, and think Jeff Tweedy is one bad mother
Mr. Misunderstood, Mr. Misunderstood
(And now I have to go out and find me some Ray Wylie Hubbard.)
Typically for an Eric Church record, though, it then goes on to tell a much bigger story (which is probably why I like Church so much - he does love words, and he ain't afraid to use them).
I saw Richard Thompson play live a few years back and I was mesmerised: he may well be the greatest guitar player I've ever seen up-close. But it wasn't the fretwork that originally made me fall for him, it was the dark yet heartfelt lyrics, of which this is prime example. Here he misreads a polite brush-off as an encouraging come-on... and by god, if we haven't all been there.
She was laughing as she brushed my cheek "Why don't you call me, angel, maybe next week Promise now, cross your heart and hope to die".
But I misunderstood, but I misunderstood, but I misunderstood I thought she was saying good luck, she was saying good bye...
If the synthy 90s mix from the video doesn't quite push your buttons, try the rawer live version from a few years back. Shivers.
1. Elvis Costello - Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood
Originally recorded by Nina Simone in 1964 (and you've got to go some to beat her version), then perhaps most memorably by The Animals a few years later. The disco version recorded by Santa Esmerelda & Leroy Gomez that Quentin Tarantino appropriated for one of the Kill Bill soundtracks is also pretty cool (as you'll see above, they win top prize in the record cover contest). Most recently recorded by Lana Del Rey, a contemporary artist I used to have a lot of time for (the Chris Isaak Madonna?)... until she revealed herself to be a one-trick pony.
So why does Elvis Costello's 1986 cover from King of America take the crown for me? It's the voice. And the conviction. I believe every word he sings. Plus, I was a teenage Elvis Costello fan, and the records of your youth stay with you to your grave...
Baby, do you understand me now?
Sometimes I feel a little mad.
But don't you know that no one alive can always be an angel?
When things go wrong, I seem to be bad.
But I'm just a soul whose intentions are good:
Oh Lord! Please don't let me be misunderstood...
Which is your most misunderstood record? No prizes for saying 'Born In The USA' or 'The One I Love' by REM... that's an entirely different Top Ten.
It's the time of year when everybody has to compile lists... for once, it's not just me.
2015 has been a fine year in music... if you know where to look. I've no idea what's happening in the mainstream anymore, and I've no idea what the musos will pick for their end of year lists. But it was easy enough to work out My Top Ten Albums of 2015.
Before I get onto those, here are a few also rans. Many fine records, worthy of note, if you're into this kind of thing...
Paul Heaton's long-awaited reunion with his former Beautiful South chanteuse easily made my Top Ten last year, so I'm not really sure why its follow-up barely scraped into this year's Twenty. I've been a Heato fan since the Housemartins, and while he rarely puts a foot wrong, this one didn't quite do it for me. He's long made a career contrasting catchy, upbeat, Radio 2 friendly melodies with arch, cynically caustic lyrics... that's exactly why I love him. However, Wisdom, Laughter & Lines occasionally felt like a step too far: the tunes just a little too perky, the lyrics just a little too wilfully obnoxious. It's most noticeable on Heatongrad, which frankly sounds like Chas 'n' Dave singing NWA. Ironically, the best song on here is the mock-Morrissey tune, Horse & Groom. Well, if Moz is too busy writing crap novels and sacking his record company to put out a new record, perhaps Heato can fill his old rival's shoes...
I still need to listen to this one a bit more, but what I've heard so far has convinced me this Elastica-esque four piece have a bright future. If indie guitar bands have any future at all, that is. Reminds me very much of the music I listened to twenty years ago, without being too derivative. A lot will be written about them by the cooler sections of the music press in the year end lists, so go read those guys if you want to know more. I'm just gonna turn them up and party like it's 1993.
Now that Taylor Swift's gone all pop, Nashville needed another young female singer songwriter to carry her baton, and Kacey Musgraves seems made to order. Although this is her second mainstream album, she had self-released three before signing to a major label and at 27, she's actually 2 years older than Taylor. She's also much more of a rebel - her songs tend to be more outspoken, referencing drugs and teenage pregnancy while taking potshots at beauty pageants and the male-dominated music industry. She also sounds a lot more traditional country than many of her peers, with steel guitar, banjo and mandolin to the forefront.
Top Track: Family Is Family 17. Idlewild - Everything Ever Written
Idlewild were always one of my favourite post-Britpop guitar bands, but I'd long since given up hope of hearing anything new from Roddy Woomble and the boys.
Their first album in six years then was a welcome surprise, filled with the kind of tuneful and heartfelt Scottish indie anthems that made them 'famous' (and more of Woomble's fascinatingly evocative lyrics). The stand-out track was the album closer, Utopia, a haunting piano-based melody that promises much for the future path of this band... if they choose to follow it.
16. Public Service Broadcasting - The Race For Space
The second full PSB record is an elegy to the space race, and if anything is going to bring home to you how much of that is now ancient history - in an era where the most interstellar excitement we can get is the Mars Rover - this will do it.
As on their previous releases, PSB have raided the archives of the British Film Institute to provide the "lyrics" of their tracks. Rather than the old Public Information Films that made up much of the their last LP, they've used instead old news reports and actual recordings from the NASA control room.
The album sets its stall with JFK's inspirational speech about going into space "not because <it's> easy but because <it's> hard". After that we cross to the Soviet Union where the signal from Sputnik is used as the basis for a powerful piece of electronica, followed by a jazzy celebration of the world's first superstar cosmonaut, Yuri Gagarin.
There's a massive shift in tone on track 4, built around a news report on the death of the Apollo 1 crew and backed by static and moody Vangelis-synths. It's a moving piece, so hard to listen to the band have refused to play it live, but it seems necessary to remember the lows as well as the high of the quest for space.
It's fair to say the second half of the record isn't quite as strong - though I have to applaud PSB for not going the obvious route and using Neil Armstrong's famous moon landing speech (or maybe they just couldn't afford it). However, while the first PSB record felt like a greatest hits collection with its magpie's eye and eclectic subject matter, here I found one subject (even one as vast as space travel) struggled to fill a whole album. It's still an extremely inspiring, affecting and, ultimately, sad listening experience... one that makes you long for the new hopes JFK outlined in his speech... while wondering whether we'll ever see those days again.
My love affair with contemporary country grew deeper this year, even though none of my favourites (Brad Paisley, Blake Shelton, Lucinda Williams) released any new material. The one album I listened to more than probably any other this year was Shelton's ultra-catchy Bringing Back The Sunshine, but as that was released in 2014 it was ineligible for consideration in this list.
Anyway, I'd just about given up on anyone but Kacey Musgraves representing country here (there is, arguably, a country record in my Top Ten... but I'm the one arguing it's more a rock album) when Eric Church popped up with The Outsiders. I'd encountered Church before when he brought out his heart-punchingly catchy Springsteen tribute in 2011, but this was the first time he won me over with an entire album. He very much sees himself as the bad boy of 21st Century Nashville, and that's something he plays up more than ever before on this record, which - like Johnny and Waylon - finds the down 'n' and dirty ditch where country meets rock 'n' roll... and then kicks up a dust storm there. Especially on tracks like The Outsiders, Devil Devil and Dark Side. Most impressive of all though is his mission statement song, That's Damned Rock 'n' Roll, wherein he name-drops Hendrix, Joplin, The Clash and Nirvana...
It ain't a needle in a vein
It ain't backstage sex
It ain't lines of cocaine on a private jet
It ain't havin' a posse full of hangers-on following you around
It ain't long hair, tattoos, playin' too loud
Naw
It ain't a middle finger on a T-shirt, the establishment's tryin' to sell
It's a guy with the balls to tell the establishment to go to hell
It ain't about the money you make, when a record gets sold
It's about doin' it for nothin', 'cause it lives in your soul
That's damn rock and roll
Elsewhere, Church wants to have his cake and eat it. Roller Coaster Ride is as shamelessly poppy as anything Shelton's put out, while Talladega recalls the sweet sunset nostalgia of Springsteen (the song, if not the artist). Both are great songs, but they feel a little out of place on a record that's otherwise trying so hard to build a rebellious reputation.
There's no denying the fact that Brandon Flowers really, really, really wants to be a pop star. It's not enough being the lead singer of one of the biggest alt-pop bands of the 21st Century, he wants to be Bruce Springsteen too. Not the young and hip Born To Run Bruce or the old, respected Statesman of Rock Bruce we know today. No, Brandon wants to be Born In The USA-era Bruce. With a bit of Raspberry Beret-era Prince and True Blue-era Madonna thrown in. He wants to be a global megastar, a household name, a pop star of the kind they don't make any more... hell, the kind they haven't really made since 1985.
That's why he released his second solo album album, a record accompanied by the boast that "every song is a single". And to a large extent, he's telling the truth. Every track here is as shamelessly insincere and gloriously overblown and ridiculously catchy as the very best pop songs of my youth (though it turns out Brandon is 9 years younger than me, so why exactly he's so enamoured of my 13th year on the planet - when he would only have been 4 - I have no idea). But time has moved on, and the days of the global megastar are gone (Adele excepted), so The Desired Effect probably didn't have the desired effect for Brandon. For me, it worked just fine. Even the track where he steals the tune of Jimmy Sommerville's Smalltown Boy, almost as though he's being forced to admit his own failures. Still, while most of today's pop stars are lying in the gutters... Brandon keeps reaching for the stars.
Josh Tillman isn't the only singing drummer to make my end of year list in 2015, though he certainly is the strangest. Plus, he's written probably my favourite opening verse this year on the eponymously crafty Top Track below...
Oh, I just love the kind of woman who can walk over a man
I mean like a god damn marching band
She says, like literally, music is the air she breathes
And the malaprops make me want to fucking scream
I wonder if she even knows what that word means
Well, it's literally not that...
That's the kind of distinctively sarcastic lyric you'll find me praising very soon on this year's winning album, so I'm not sure exactly why Father John only made it to Number 13... except that I didn't fall for I Love You, Honeybear quite as much as I did for its predecessor, Fear Fun. And it didn't stay with me in the car as long as any of the records that follow. Maybe it's one to revisit in the New Year...
For the first time in forever I laid the needle down inside the groove For the first time in forever I held my breath, waiting for side two...
I'd just about given up on Mercury Rev. In fact, I didn't think I'd even bought their last album, 2008's Snowflake Midnight, although it turns out it did make its way into my collection somehow. Listening to it now, it confirms my growing problem with the band: they'd just become too twee. Too mystical and airy-fairy hippy-shit. Too bollocks.
Bands crash and people cry,
Everyone here is really shook
Trying hard, the kids can't shake it
You can't fool ol' Peter Hook
They really want to but they just can't fake it,
Trying hard to look old and worn
Facebook butterflies flap their wings and
Suddenly a Brooklyn band is born
So I wasn't holding out much hope for The Light In You, and with a track-list including Queen of Swans, Amelie, Sunflower and Moth Light, it seemed my prejudices were about to be confirmed. What a relief then to find them returning to form with the kind of upbeat, singalong, life-affirming alt-pop songs that made Deserter's Songs and All Is Dream such wonderful records.
A new Indelicates album is always a source of great excitement in this house. This is the band who, with their debut single, created - if not my favourite song of the 21st Century, then certainly the one against which I measure all others. "I love it... but do I love it as much as We Hate The Kids?" The answer is invariably no.
Five albums in and things have changed a lot for Simon and Julia Indelicate. They're no longer the darlings of the blogosphere, as they were back in 2006/7. Those kids they hate won't ever hear their music nowadays... and neither will many other people, save the devoted few. They're not cool anymore (where they ever?) and despite running their own record label, and recently becoming parents, you get the feeling time has passed The Indelicates by. Which is one of the greatest tragedies in "popular" music, if you ask me. But you didn't, did you?
All that said, there's really nothing to stop them making their latest album another (totally unhip) concept album, based around a mind-stretching sci-fi story about "the singularity, virtual realities and the generation stuck between space ages". If nobody's listening, you can be true to yourself and do whatever you like: and thus is true art born.
Anyway, I've listened to this record quite a bit and while I don't quite agree with the band's pronouncement that it's their best yet (if I did, it'd be Number 1, not Number 11), it's certainly their most varied and experimental (the video below is "an immersive 360 degree spherical video" - which is kind of like watching a pop video on google earth... and just as annoying). While their last concept album, 2011's excellent David Koresh Superstar, shared Trey Parker and Matt Stone's unabashed loved of huge American musicals (along with a splash of the South Park boys' irreverent humour), this one goes for broke with earthy folk songs, lush piano instrumentals and (as on previous records) huge rock numbers that sit firmly in the Venn diagram intersection between Bertolt Brecht, Carter USM and Jim Steinman. Beyond the moments which echo Public Service Broadcasting's lamentation for the death of the space race, I've no idea what any of this is truly about, but it is the most honest and individual record you'll hear all year, completely unconcerned with the vagaries of fashion. A lot is written these days about the death of indie, but that's just hogwash. The true spirit of indie will live on as long as the Indelicates are making their own music their own way.
So, those were the records that would have been my favourites this year... if not for ten other, slightly better releases. I'll begin revealing what they were in just a couple of days...
Sometimes I pick a topic that, for one reason or another, fills the Top Ten with music of one particular genre, or era. Most of this week's list comes from the 60s and 70s... which suggests it's no longer seen as politically correct to write about bad women. Which is nonsense, considering some of the misogynistic crap that gets on the airwaves these days. (Although it'd be just as sexist to stop writing songs about bad women - since true equality comes from seeing the bad and the good in everyone.)
Oh, and in case you were wondering where all the bad girls are... They'll get their turn one day.
Originally recorded in the early 1930s, though it wasn't widely known until its re-release in the late 60s (shortly before James's death in 1969) and, no, I didn't discover it until I read / saw Ghost World. I guess the blues don't get much more authentic than this. But I'm not going to pretend to be an expert.
Cher had three US Number One Hits in the 70s, though only Gypsies, Tramps & Thieves was an international success.The second #1 was Half-Breed, in which she portrayed a woman outcast for being half white, half Cherokee. (The video for that, from The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour, is hilariously wrong in a Parks & Recreation-style way.) And then came Dark Lady, in which Cher returned to her Gypsy roots with a watered-down version of Redbone's The Witch Queen of New Orleans (which I'm saving for my Top Ten Voodoo Songs, in case you were wondering why I hadn't found room for it here). It was 25 years before she had another Number One record... you know, the one that gave us Auto-Tune. Don't hate her for that.
By the way, Cher is 69 this year. Isn't it time she started putting some clothes on?
The only contemporary record on the list this week, this is from Eric Church's latest album, The Outsiders, and it's an eight minute epic. Think you know what modern country music sounds like? Think again...
Oh, and the Devil in question...? Her name is Nashville.
Lou Rawls has one of my favourite voices in soul music . Don't go searching for the lyrics online though - every lyrics site I checked had confused this song with another Evil Woman we'll meet a little bit further down this list. Which only goes to show that all those sites steal content from each other and don't bother to check its veracity.
Lou's song is actually a cover of Evil Woman by Spooky Tooth, a cool slice of laidback 60s psychedelia. Cool... but not Lou.
OK, you have every right to hate me for this... like I care what you think. This is one of Cliff's three biggest selling singles; I was four when it came out and my mum listened to a lot of Radio 2. Plus, I prefer it to the Marty Robbins track of the same name. Just.
If you don't like Cliff's version, I suggest you listen to the one by Krystine Sparkle (the song's co-writer). I can guarantee you'll go back to Cliff. Alternatively, check out the versions by All About Eve, Hayseed Dixie or Cradle of Filth. Something for everybody.
Also, if it wasn't for Devil Woman, we wouldn't ever have had...
You may be more familiar with the Black Sabbath version, but this is the original from a year earlier (1969). Ozzy's is heavier but it doesn't have a trumpet solo.
While we're on the subject of Black Sabbath, I suppose I should also offer Lady Evil for your consideration.
It's good to see Jeff Lynne getting some respect again this year - proof positive that if you stick around long enough, even the muso-snobs will come around to the fact that you're a national treasure. Not heard the new ELO album yet (beyond the typically Lennon-esque single), but this is one of their very best. Love that opening...
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