Imaginary Life – Worriers – Indie rockers who have managed an album brimming with tunes and hooks and smarts and shenanigans; just past her first decade in the business, Lauren Denitzio has emerged as a major songwriter
A beautiful evening with beautiful songs by a man at the peak of his powers at 67 years of age. Given all the ways James Taylor’s life might have gone, his brother Alex, sweet baby James pop, died of a drug overdose decades ago, that James could have lived through it all and reached this place better than ever? It is a testament
Sure, this is all over the damn place but that’s because there is no centrifugal force in pop, it is all on the fringes with pop EDM , country and hip hop vying for the charts and EDM winning by a hair. Later on I’ll figure favorites among the favorites but in pure pop for now people form? The Weeknd is unbeatable.
Desire – Dej Loaf – Not only is this very sexy, and very smart, it rhymes hard, the beat is perfect, it is the best woman rap around headlining her new EP it is a self-portrait and a dream of the future. Trill chill, indeed
A better month for songs than I thought when you consider two of the weeks were more or less wash outs. Two absolute revelations, Alice Glass and Dej Loaf, who have nothing in common except extreme originality. I have heard nothing quite like them and I like Dej now the way I liked Nicki Minaj circa “Monster ergo very very much. One more name: Daniel Romanov: he sounds like other people, but in a very good way.
The Most Lamentable Tragedy Of – Titus Andronicus – Whatever doubts you may have about this 29 song rock opera song cycle detailing the ebb and flow of manic depression, if only for its sheer audacity you will hear nothing more important this year. Plus, cmon, what price “Dimed Out”? It dimes out and then some.
Fatal Flaw – Titus Andronicus – As we get closer to the release of The Most Lamentable Tragedy, it becomes clear there is a whole lot of baggage to go along with Patrick Stickles epic disaster disaster, sort of “Inside Outside” for solipsistic egomaniacs. And with songs as great as this, a flat out masterpiece and one of his greatest Stickles’ songs of all time, I could care less.
Live is where he comes into his own as a no nonsense UK rocker who has a better feel for harmolodics then you might imagine, everything here is about arranging a sound where nothing sticks out and nothing goes under, just like Be Here Now taught us, it is like a mountain that is all peak.
Unlike most months you can think of, June belonged to two songs, Dawes “All Your Favorite Bands” and Titus Andronicus’ “Fatal Flaw”. The former is easily their best song, a genius benediction to a former love and the latter was so good it made the brilliant “Dimed Out” sound like an also ran. If these don’t end up in the top five singles of the year, I assure they will be in the top ten.
Before This World – James Taylor – A late career masterpiece by Sweet Baby James Uncle, songs as sweet and strong as memory and as strong and lasting as this exact moment, as though before this world there was this world and just this world was then and now.
L$D – A$AP Rocky – As in love, sex and drugs, this is a hallucination of a mood song, though well tinged by weed as well, so everything drags behind the beat and the sex is wet and exciting but slow and druggy.
Azealia Banks – May 11th – Irving Plaza – This is it folks, in the battle of the women rappers (not to mention men rappers) we have a winner. Banks does everything she said she would, dances, raps, boogies down, takes us on. Pump-parrrrump-pa-rrum-pump
There are at least four songs here that sound major to me, Jason Isbell and Titus Andronicus at the top of the list and A$AP Rocky and ZZ Ward not far behind, so if this doesn’t feel like big time pop moment month, it isn’t because of the best, it is because of everything else. Two of my favorite songs this year, by Daytripper and Charlie Funk, aint even out yet. For Daytripper, God knows when she’ll get around to it
California Nights – Best Coast – My favorite of their three albums is a collection of LA inky blue mood music which merges with Bethany’s weed inspired drowsiness and builds into symphonic OKness.
Old Rock N Roll – Young Fathers – The Scottish Nigerian trio suggest here something that is just about self-evident, “I’m tired of playing the good black, I’m trying to have to hold back”. Which makes sense but not as much as Young Fathers equating racism with money and power. Which is where the real stuff is.
Sufjan Stevens – Beacon Theatre – April 11th – With the album of the year under Sufjan’s belt, here he was performing it live on stage and you could have heard a pin drop, a magnificent performance of (mostly) an album that changes what the term “confessional” means
In which the songs catch up with the year, 63 songs, three from Brian Wilson alone, on an album that isn’t as good as its best moments and whose best moments are among the best of the year. And Young Fathers, who are as good as their best moments and who I still expect to crack the US in some form or the other.
Carrie And Lowell – Sufjan Stevens – His mother left Sufjan when he was three maybe four, and again, and again, and then she died, and left Stevens to deal with it by writing the most equisitely beautiful album of this or many years.
Joan Of Arc – Madonna – An impossibly fragile madge, shows her heart is going up in flames as scumbugs like your truly put her through the ringer for being a middle aged diva well past her prime. Which she might well be, but you can’t tell from this song
Laura, Alisson, Madonna and Brandi all got two songs on this list, and that is while I was making a concerted effort not to get more than one song off an album. A very strong month for songs, although not for albums. I would love to see Alisson live again, but she doesn’t appear to be playing roud are way.
Up Above My Head – Rhiannon Giddens – Her achievement on this is not to iprove on Sister Rosetta Tharpe, neigh on impossible, but to sing it beautiful and to make make some of its heaven Rhiannon’s very own
On Friday, February 12th, 2012, I witnessed Aretha Franklin honor her recently deceased Goddaughter Whitney Houston at Radio City Music Hall, part pop manifesto, part revival meeting, the queen of soul sublimated her pain in song and worship. It was the best show I’ve seen this century. And D’Angelo at the Apollo was the second best show I’ve seen this century.
If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late – Drake – Remix tape? I prefer it to his last album, though it has no “Hold On, We’re Going Home” or the single that won him a punk from Diddy and a Grammy. Any album with songs as good as “Legend” and “Jungle” needs no caveats at all.
February was a come down afre a terrific January, the difference between the two wasn’t quantity (even though the first two weeks of January were dead so really, January had a lot more good songs, but quality. I’m not certain where to put D’Angelo in the great scheme of things but even if “really Love” was released 2014, for me it is a February song. So not a great February…
I thought these indie rockers from Cincinatti were great at the time and I thought they were greater when I thought back on it. Essentially, they are a midwestern Shellshag who didn’t make it through the long run as a couple have lived to explain the pitfalls and disasters of romantic love and this night played em down to the ground.
As a lyricist Pete wetnz is a child of his emo rock urges, the strange drawn out song titles that turn and move in ways you don’t expect. Except it never quite manages to pay off well enough. Except this on does, a masterpiece of lost love which uses Judy Jetson’s mobility as a future history of a disappeared love.
17 albums isn’t bad for January, last year there where only 13 albums on my best of list at this point. Also, the rate of excellence is through the roof. Especially hip hop where from Lupe Fiasco to Joey BadA$$ and beyond it is on. Top of the heep i a huge album by David Bronson. A deal changer.
I hope to be a little more discriminating in 2015, and weeded this list down from 60 songs. I also want to be more careful, my consumer bound. I plan three lists. One, best songs of the year, two best songs of the month and three very best songs of the year. Say the top thirty or so. The deside is not to have the unwieldy lists of last to as much a dregree as possible. This is (more or less) in order but my Top 20 is in definitive order
