Hello Again, Dear Reader!
Reader, can I call you Reader? 2015 was a year, you see, where we were all so innocent (not really) and things were so much simpler (or more complicated) and we hadn't yet entered the hellscape of a Bowie-less world (and other such disappointing developments of 2016). 2016 is modern music, current music, in 2018. But 2015 is the end of an era.
Another randomly sorted list of things. Well the sorting is more or less similar to release date, in that my stuff is sorted by quarter. So alphabetically by album, but divided by quarter. That's how I've been doing this thing for a while now.
Most notably these items:
I guess I'll just happen to start off with what is likely #1 album of the year for me. It was for a lot of people I think. Sufjan Stevens' devastating Carrie & Lowell. Sad sad songs about a mother or the idea of a mother or something, of confusion and growing up. The thing that was most striking listening to this album now was that in the time since, I have seen him live twice, and he's put out a live album and a kind of remix mixtape thingy. New and exciting interpretations of these songs that I love. And then you come back to the original takes, the spare arrangements of this album and it just makes it hit that much harder.
Sufjan Stevens "Blue Bucket of Gold"
Belle & Sebastian seemed to be trying to shed their twee image once and for all with Girls in Peacetime Want to Dance. (Aww, remember peacetime but not really peacetime, let's not romanticize that time too much now?) Not that they'd been particularly twee for some time by now, but this one had moments where they just straight up played dance pop. Good times. This was also the album that I finally saw them on tour for, and it was a show at Red Rocks with the Colorado Symphony Orchestra. Which was awesome. Charles Bradley opened for that show, which was about as amazing as you could want. But I'm talking about Belle & Sebastian. They are a perennial favorite.
That reminds me of something I wanted to talk about for 2015. Not that it was some great revelation, but 2015 really seemed to mark the point where I spent most of my new music budget on those perennial favorites, regardless of what all the cool new critics were saying was cool and new. I still checked out a few new critical darlings probably, but I'm getting older and only have so much time and I know what I like. (Breaking the format of going in that order now to talk about things). Bands like The Go! Team, Modest Mouse, The Mountain Goats (though they keep changing things up and putting out albums about wrestling and whatnot), Calexico, Jim O'Rourke, Hot Chip, Built to Spill, Battles, Wilco, !!! and Mercury Rev didn't get a ton of critical attention but they are part of the class of bands/musicians that I feel like will never let me down and put out solid B+ albums on a regular basis forever.
I'm going to talk about Sleater-Kinney separately here because No Cities to Love did not feel like a band that has put out a bunch of albums. And it was something of a reunion. But it has such freshness about it. The Woods probably would have counted in that other category, but No Cities to Love sounds almost like a debut album with its energy levels and complete awesomeness (though with some veteran musicians at the top of their game).
Courtney Barnett sure is a fresh voice in this world, isn't she? She seems to share a lot of DNA with Jonathan Richman, from the high level of wit in the lyrics (with a good amount of heart) to the speak-sing vocals to the long album titles (Sometimes I Sit and Think, and Sometimes I Just Sit). I just thoroughly enjoy just sitting and listening to her music.
The other highly regarded album of the year shortlister was of course Kendrick Lamar, whose To Pimp a Butterfly was some next level stuff, particularly in the mainstreamish line he tows. All of the Thundercat jazzy stuff, recurring motifs, thoughtful interludes and bursts of creative energy, it really is something special. I remember in 2015 I thought it was a good album but that it didn't have enough songs that could qualify as straight-up songs to quite stick with me. The revisit I just did with this project changed my mind though, as things do. Everything had stuck into my mind and unearthing that was really cool.
There was another very special record that I insisted on listening to twice (as I put it in a Facebook post, revisiting 2015 requires listening to it more than once), and that was E-mo-tion by Carly Rae Jepsen, and I don't even care what that looks like. Yes, she is hipster-approved pop, so it's not like I'm super courageous to be declaring my love for it, but damn does it sound good. To sing along to, to exercise to, to let it just dig into your brain and hum it all day. You gotta listen to it more than once.
Carly Rae Jepsen "Run Away With Me"
My final major highlight, from the final quarter of 2015, was Art Angels by Grimes. At first I was skeptical when this great experimental producer/musician went all-out pop, but it is so infectious that I don't mind. And there are still interludes and postludes and odd song structures that prove her avant bonefides and keep me wanting more and more.
Other highly notable items
- THEESatisfaction - EarthEE - Bold, engaging, I think it matches the last album in terms of quality. they will be missed!
- Father John Misty probably counts as someone who was new and cool with critics even though he came from the world of Fleet Foxes (who were still relatively new compared to those 20 year old bands). I Love You, Honeybear is a pretty great record. I like his ranty old man character he takes on.
- John Carpenter's Lost Themes is an awesome collection of jams.
- The Sonics came back after forever and put out This Is the Sonics, which is a title that reminds me of their album titles from the 60s. Lots of fun garage rock as one might expect from the almighty Sonics.
- I picked up Apocalypse, Girl by Jenny Hval because I apparently had money to burn at the record store (and the cover amused me, and it was on the reliable Sacred Bones records, and I looked it up really quick and it had good reviews, and I like nordic stuff in general). But was I ever glad I did. This album sounds great on headphones, reminds me of Laurie Anderson or something.
- Downtown Boys are real good.
- Old reliable Kermit Ruffins put out a hashtag album called #imsoneworleans and I don't even care. The music's great so whatever!
- Desaparecidos came back so I'm sure everything was going fine politics-wise.
- Vince Staples deserves more than a bullet point for his double album but I'm neglectful.
- Georia Anne Muldrow actually rapped on her album A Thoughtiverse Unmarred. And I dig it quite a bit!
- Both Beach House albums made for some good headphone listening.
- CHVRCHES are real good too y'all. More of that pop music.
- MEOW THE JEWELS.
- One tragedy of this strategy was that the really dense albums I couldn't give enough time in 2015 didn't get any less dense, so they still didn't get enough attention on revisit. Remind me to give The Most Lamentable Tragedy by Titus Andronicus a lot more attention in the near future (and yes, I know they have a new one coming out!)
- Dilly Dally is a very interesting band that I'm hoping to hear more from soon.
Next Time:
I feel like 2016 was pretty epic, if nothing else. Many terrible things happened. Lots of great music came out though. Bowie of course, De La Soul, Danny Brown, Frank Ocean, Blood Orange, The Falcon, Open Mike Eagle, Run The Jewels, Solange, Nick Cave, A Tribe Called Quest, Avalanches, Leonard Cohen, Bon Iver, et al.
