1001 Albums: #49 - The Sonics - Here are the Sonics

The Sonics - Here are the Sonics
Etiquette, 1965

Listening to this is like looking at the packet of seeds that says PUNK ROCK at the hardware store. You can tell these hastily recorded tunes and covers crawled out of a Seattle garage and the raw energy is something you can't teach. This is pure sonic chaos, and that's the best compliment I can give it. The covers--like their dirtied up "Do You Love Me"--are fun but the originals are where this record really signs. "The Witch" is unlike anything else I have heard from the time. "Strychnine" and "Psycho" are also excellent, but "The Witch" is where it's at. It sounds like it wants to hurt you with its lurching guitars, sore-throat vocals, and clumsy rapid-fire vocals. 

1001 Albums: #48 - Jerry Lee Lewis - Live at the Star Club, Hamburg

Jerry Lee Lewis - Live at the Star Club, Hamburg
Phillips, 1965

I'm starting to feel like the 1960s just got the live album. Listening to another live album that feels like the most exemplary offering from an artist (see previously: Sam Cooke, James Brown), it took me back to my high school days listening to Blink-182's Live album The Mark, Tom, and Travis Tour. I only bring up Blink-182 because Jerry Lee Lewis' rawness here feels on par with the dick and fart jokes of the Blink boys (I attended the KC show on that tour and it remains one of the defining moments of my life). The book rightly points out how the band can barely keep up with Jerry here, and there's a lightning-in-a-bottle energy here that you can't deny (despite being able to deny Jerry Lee Lewis in the "marrying his 13 year old cousin" part of his life, Jesus). Weirdly, he sells "Your Cheating Heart" better than Buck Owens probably could. 

1001 Albums: #47 - Buck Owens and His Buckaroos - I've Got the Tiger by the Tail

Buck Owens and His Buckaroos - I've Got the Tiger by the Tail
Capitol, 1965

Ah yes, the Bakersfield Sound. My immediate reaction was revulsion, but once that Telecaster really kicks in on "Let the Sad Times Roll On" I'm coming around. Just a kiss of the Telecaster there, but it really opens up going forward. As a lifelong Fender player (first out of necessity, second out of principle), I dig. I've always wanted a Telecaster, but that's beside the point. The thing is, Buck Owens comes across as a little too slick for country and western (I mean, listen to any other version of "Streets of Laredo" from Marty Robbins to Johnny Cash to Joan freakin' Baez, they just sell it better). That said, when Owens isn't trying to play a cowboy, the results are a helluva lot better. The lovelorn "Cryin' Time" was my favorite of the lot. I guess for me Buck's heart just isn't in it the way I want it to be for this vintage country music. The music itself is crisp and better recorded than anything else in the genre, and maybe I just need a little more stank on my country music. Who knows! I'm the first to admit when I'm wrong, and maybe I'm wrong on this one.

1001 Albums: #46 - The Rolling Stones - The Rolling Stones

The Rolling Stones - The Rolling Stones
Decca, 1964

The first song that comes up when you open the Rolling Stones' discography on Spotify is the 2021 reissue of Tattoo You. I inadvertently started playing that album, the pure stadium rock of "Start Me Up" coming through the speakers. I scrolled alllllllll the way down to the bottom and put on their eponymous debut and man alive, the cover of "Route 66" that starts things off sounds fully tepid in comparison. Which is to say, like the Beatles, the Stones had to figure some things out and this early in their career, it's better to just get something down on tape and keep on moving. There are a couple originals here, and the rest are blues tunes with a little stank on them (a stank that would soon define the band). 

1001 Albums: #45 - Dusty Springfield - A Girl Called Dusty

Dusty Springfield - A Girl Called Dusty
Philips, 1964

You'd think going from the pure soul of Solomon Burke to the blue-eyed soul of Dusty Springfield would produce a sort of audio whiplash, but the thing is, Dusty can hang. The songs are all over the place but Dusty is at her best when she's covering the Supremes and the Shirelles (though her version of Gene Pitney's "Twenty-Four Hours From Tulsa" was my favorite here). Growing up on Oldies, I'd be shocked if I hadn't heard Dusty Springfield before, but I couldn't name a single song. Fixed! 

1001 Albums: #44 - Solomon Burke - Rock n' Soul

Solomon Burke - Rock n' Soul
Atlantic, 1964

"Cry to Me" is my wife's favorite song, and for that reason the incredibly ratty and scratched Solomon Burke greatest hits album in my record collection is on the DO NOT PURGE list. That said, I'd only purge it due to the poor quality of the physical media, because the record itself is can't miss. It just doesn't get much better than Solomon Burke on this record. It's what you think of when you think about soul, and if Aretha is the queen, maybe Solomon is the king (I'm sure that reads as shots fired in some circles, but Burke does namedrop Sam Cooke and Ray Charles on "Can't Nobody Love You" so maybe it's more like, what, a panel of Kings? A committe?). 

Now listen

Sam bought you cake and ice cream

And he called you cherry pie

Ray Charles called you his sunshine

But you never mind

I love it. I could listen to this all day and will certainly be adding this to the dinnertime rotation. 

1001 Albums: #43 - Jacques Brel - Olympia 64

Jacques Brel - Olympia 64
Barclay, 1964

For years I had a Jacques Brel live record in my collection, and I can't remember for the life of me why I bought it. I think maybe Zach Condon from Beirut mentioned him in an interview when I was big into Gulag Orkestar (hard to say, but the influence is there annnnd, boom goes the dynamite). What I love about Brel is the way he throws himself entirely into each song. His energy is borderline psychotic, and despite the anachronism of this mid-century French pop music, that energy is undeniable. 

1001 Albums: #42 - The Beatles - A Hard Day's Night

The Beatles - A Hard Day's Night
Parlophone, 1964

Oh look, the Beatles. This is a marked improvement on the cover-heavy With the Beatles, but that makes sense considering the Beatles' career lasted a whopping seven years. I mean I guess that's why the Beatles are the Beatles, the amount of ground they were able to cover in such a microscopic amount of time. I mean I've had favorite bands who release an album once every seven years. Jesus. Now, are all the songs here no doubters as they are on the later albums? Well, no. But, you can hear the band tightening up in real time. This is like watching one of those animations of human evolution from the primordial stew to the atomic age. 

1001 Albums: #41 - Stan Getz and Joao Gilberto - Getz/Gilberty

Stan Getz and Joao Gilberto - Getz/Gilberto
Verve, 1963

I know this is a (dated) classic, but the story of Astrud Gilberto being thrust into vocal duties on the inescapable "The Girl from Ipanema" because the producer wanted one of the verses on that track sung in english and Joao couldn't speak English deserves its spot in music lore. You can trace those low-key, borderline mysterious vocals all the way up to present day (not to mention launching her own solo career). One of those happy accidents born of necessity (or a producer's whim for the US market). Either way, that track only feels hack now because it's so frequently used as a punchline. Outside of that unfortunate overuse, this album is a lovely blend of Latin American rhythms and American jazz.

1001 Albums: #40 - James Brown - Live at the Apollo

James Brown - Live at the Apollo
King, 1963

It's always nice to hear the wife ask what it is I'm listening to, but given that 1960s soul is in her wheelhouse, I wasn't surprised (more on that when we cover Solomon Burke in a few). The result? I got to keep this one on during dinner. It's hard to think of a record that is more of a crowd pleaser than this one. As we saw with Sam Cooke's Live at the Harlem Square Club, there really isn't a better genre suited to the live treatment than soul. Hence, Live at the Apollo isn't just one of the greatest live albums of all time, but one of the most iconic records in any genre, anywhere. This is pure, uncut joy poured over you by the Hardest Working Man in Show Business. There's something about the women screaming in the album's quiet moments that perfectly captures what music can do to an otherwise sane and rational person. Great music can drive you absolutely insane, and if you haven't felt that before, I suggest you keep going to shows until you find it. 

1001 Albums: #39 - Charles Mingus - The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady

Charles Mingus - The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady
Impulse!, 1963

Welcome to the latest installment of "Jazz is None of My Business," I'm your host, Ian, a sheltered indie rock kid who approaches these wild jazz records with a real sense of awe and wonder but zero context. The write-up in the book has a great opening line: "Start with the liner notes, which were penned by Charles Mingus' psychologist, and it is clear that this is no typical modern jazz album." I threw this on at top volume while cooking dinner and subsequently doing the dishes to avoid a particularly scream-happy pair of children and simply replaced one cacophony for another (though Mingus' had a bit more order to the 3 and 7 year old arguing over which Netflix show to watch...). This is my first real run through the jazz greats outside of Coltrane, and while it is entirely out of my comfort zone as a music listener, I get pumped every time I see Mingus or Monk or Miles pop up in the book. 

My Favorite Albums of 2021

Albums

In the intervening years since my college radio station days, I've done my best to keep up with new music despite the fact that my listening habits get more and more insular. This year, the dam finally broke and most of the new stuff I listened too was just to fill out the discographies of bands I already love. That is, when I wasn't with my wife and daughters, in which case we listened to a ton of Taylor Swift, Billie Eilish, Kacey Musgraves, and Lorde (which, sure it's part Stockholm Syndrome, but I'm old enough to quit lying to myself about the forlorn concept of "guilty pleasures" and that stuff needs representation here. Well, that and I wouldn't be able to cobble together a Top 10 Albums list without it). 

10. Kacey Musgraves - star-crossed 

I was a late comer to Golden Hour, but the year after it was released I can't think of an album we listened to more as a family on car trips. It felt like it was always playing, and mercifully that's one of those albums you can't really play out. Like its predecessor, Musgraves' Blood on the Tracks has too many B-sides on the album proper but the songs that work ("Justified," "Camera Roll," "Good Wife," "Breadwinner") are outstanding. It never quite hits the highs of Golden Hour but there is an unrefined rawness to this album that you don't really get from the album art and promotional material. There are flaws, sure, but this feels like an artist making an album they had to make as quickly as possible to capture the moment, and I can get behind that.

9. Billie Eilish - Happier Than Ever

This one is way too overstuffed but I appreciate that Billie and Finneas skyrocketed to success and rather than turning into the fame skid and making a soulless pop record dug further into the off-kilter pop that made them their nut. It's a good sign, and the way the title track breaks down and shifts gears and explodes into teenage anger and resentment is one of my favorite things I heard all year.  

8. Guided by Voices - It's Not Them. It Couldn't Be Them. It is Them!

When GBV reunited in 2010, well, that feeling of elation is something I've only ever felt at the birth of my children, marrying my sweetheart, and winning fantasy football championships. Jenny and I drove up to Minneapolis to see them at First Avenue on that reunion tour (I still have the Classic Lineup in the Coca-Cola font T-Shirt from that show, two (let's face it, three) sizes too small now, but I keep it around because I want to be buried in it). Their first reunion album--2012's Let's Go Eat the Factory--felt like wish-fulfillment at first, but as the years wore on and GBV released more albums than they did in their original run, it started to feel like GBV had just morphed into Bob Pollard's solo stuff. Which, to be fair, I love in spurts, but there's just way too much of it for me to keep up with (see: the fact that I had to pad my year end list with mainstream pop records). That said, the second GBV release from 2021 feels like a proper GBV record, and while I'm still gonna spend more time listening to Alien Lanes and the like, it's nice to know Bobby P can still bust out the good weirdness when he wants to. 

7. Laura Stevenson - Laura Stevenson

I feel like this one should be higher, I just didn't spend enough time with it. Used to be I had the jump on any album coming from one of my favorite artists, but now I have to stumble upon them. Stevenson's songwriting just gets more and more intense as her career rolls on and I won't be surprised if this one slots in high on my Best of the Decade list with a few dozen more listens. 

6. The Mountain Goats - Dark in Here

At the beginning of each year I start a Google Doc for this list. I usually start a sub-list of albums I'm looking forward to just so they don't fall of my radar. I also make a 10-1 list in descending order and pop "The Mountain Goats" in at #5 whether or not John Darnielle has announced a new record or not. If they've got one, it's going to end up on the list. Sometimes at the top--as was the case with 2015's Beat the Champ--but usually in the middle somewhere. Always a solid role player. Dark in Here is another one of those. A few incredible tunes to pop into my Best of the Mountain Goats playlist ("The Slow Parts of Death Metal Albums," "Mobile," "Dark in Here," "Arguing With the Ghost of Peter Laughner About His Coney Island Baby Review") and generally just fine listening. 

5. Matthew Milia - Keego Harbor

As Frontier Ruckus' thematically broaden from the 90s upbringing opus Eternity of Dimming (still one of my favorite records of all time), frontman Matthew Milia's solo records are digging deeper into the that nostalgia that is on my precise wavelength (i.e. The longing for the smell of a Blockbuster Video on a Friday night, or whatever). 

4. Courtney Barnett - Things Take Time, Take Time

While I didn't love Barnett's collaboration with Kurt Vile--2017's Lotta Sea Lice--his influence has clearly rubbed off on her and while the general consensus on this record has been ho-hum, I love it. Especially when it's at its most exhausted, like the standout single "Rae Street," in which Barnett sits in pandemic-induced isolation staring out her window and commenting on the mundane happenings down on the street. Feels like 2021 in a nutshell. 

3. The Hold Steady - Open Door Policy

After spending the 2010s moving away from the bar band aesthetic that made them their nut, it finally feels like the Hold Steady are getting back to basics. That's not to say they're reverting to the brashness of Separation Sunday, but it feels like they're growing. Open Door Policy feels like a new phase of the Hold Steady that incorporates everything they've done up til now, aided especially by Craig Finn's growth as a songwriter on his solo albums, each one better than the last. Things still occasionally get druggy and desperate, but things don't get as ugly as they used to for THS characters. In my favorite song on the album--"Heavy Covenant"--a weary traveler details the etiquette for scoring drugs on a business trip ("I palmed him almost 40 bucks/Then I asked about the other stuff"). Despite the shady business, there's almost something...sweet about the whole thing. A lonely person making a connection in our disconnected world. That's a key theme for The Hold Steady at this juncture in their career, and I'm here for it.  

2. Low - HEY WHAT

In an effort to hear more albums from 2021 in the 11th hour, I made a sprawling Spotify playlist full of songs from albums I missed. The process involves me putting the thing on shuffle whenever I can and seeing what grabs me. The first song that came up was "Days Like These" and it stopped me in my tracks. I've been a Low fan since college, but haven't been keeping up on their evolution since 2007's Drums and Guns (still one of my all time favorites). I knew things got weird, incorporating more electronic, drone, and experimental elements, but the thing that makes Low Low is still at the beating heart of their music. The window dressing is different--and in the case of HEY WHAT, fascinating and infinitely compelling--but the through line is as clear as ever. There's something hymnal about this record that makes every track feel like a little rapture. 

1. Bo Burnham - Inside

I always thought Bo Burnham was a hack. I didn't get his brand of musical comedy. The shtick just wasn't my thing. But then I listened to one of his episodes of Pete Holmes' "You Made it Weird" podcast and was like, "Oh." And I saw his directorial debut Eighth Grade and was like, "OH!" And then I saw his turn as the pseudo love interest in Promising Young Woman where he's pitch perfectly cast as the "Nice Guy (who is actually not so nice)" and was like, "Oh, I love this guy." So I was primed for Inside. And yet I was not primed for it to takeover my headspace in 2021. There are going to be college classes about "Pandemic Art" in 20 years, and Inside will be on the syllabus. This "comedy special" is just Burnham locked in his guest house with a bunch of instruments and film equipment. The initial impression is that he's going to create something out of nothing. It's going to be a movie about The Process. There are funny bits up front: a song about the stereotypical Instagram accounts of white women, the struggles of sexting, Jeff Bezos, etc. But when Burnham's character has a full on meltdown halfway through it casts the whole performance in a new light. What started as a comedy special has morphed into a dissection of art, comedy, and reckoning with one's career. It captures the hopeless exhaustion of living in lockdown and being forced to do that aforementioned reckoning. Wondering if the random shit he is throwing together in this room is any good and soldiering on regardless. The end result is a neurotic movie musical whose soundtrack I listened to ad nauseum because it made me feel better about everything. The songs are catchy as hell and frequently hilarious, but you get to the stripped down acoustic number "That Funny Feeling" with its gentle depiction of our current apocalypse and it's just like, goddamn. Ya got me. 

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