Numbskull – Wesley Wolfe – Art pop masterpiece about dealing with lowered expectations and doing it yourself and really not compromising too much on the road to eternity.Maybe a coming of age or maybe a dealing with it.
Can the Hank Williams album be considered new? If it can it would knock off every single thing on this list but a sixty year old recording… Kenny is the clear winner but Conor, I am wondering if I underestimate him because well because I am a little bored of his schtick by now. Certainly, except for the bridge, “Zig Zag” is a good as it gets.
Good Vibrations – Todd Rundgren – From 1976 where the often woolly Todd does an astonishing act of replication with the excitations that was one of Brian Wilson’s most intricate and highly arranged pies of progressive pop. An act of, well, complete strangeness and the better for it – A
Former blues boy wonder still forging a career with this home town set on a new label. The Stevie ray Vaughn “House Is A Rockin'” is superb and nothing here doesn’t work: Albert Kind, Muddy Waters, Freddie King, BB King -these are very powerful blues that aims at nothing else and hits its mark unerringly. A great set of songs – ALBUM OF THE WEEK – A
Yes, I know, I haven’t been crazy about the Conor Oberst songs I’ve heard off Upside Down Mountain and I do remember giving Coldplay an almost positive review once upon a time this week, but Conor has a history (Wide Awake was my fave album of the 00s) and I really believe once you get deep inside the album it will all make sense.
