The Best Album of 2015 . . .

. . . is . . . 

(Drum Roll)

Sometimes I Sit and Think, And Sometimes I Just Sit - Courtney Barnett

I'm 53. It's rare I hear anything I've not heard before. Rarer still that I like it. Think Violent Femmes, They Might Be Giants, Frank Zappa (over & over again).

Barnett fit that bill for me this year. Not only is this album fresh, it's a damn fun album with surprising twists in phrasing, melody, and lyrics at every turn. This is exactly what I went looking for a couple years ago. (For those of you that don't know, this whole project started after I was unable to even name 10 albums in 2013, let alone have a Top Ten). 

Good new music is a little harder to find than it was in the days when KGGO or KSHE just spun "In Through the Out Door", but it's worth the work. Not just new wine in old bottles, it's albums like this that give me hope that music is not just auto-tune, sampling, and marketing.

Side 1, Track 1

Here's to a great 2015 and high hopes for 2016!

Recaping the list:

  2. Short Movie - Laura Marling

  3. The Epic - Kamasi Washington 

  4. Loyalty - The Weather Station

  5. Sonic Soul Surfer - Seasick Steve  

  6. The Longest River - Olivia Chaney 

  7. What a Terrible World, What a Beautiful World - The Decemberists 

  8. Faith in the Future - Craig Finn 

  9. Sound and Color - Alabama Shakes 

10. Fast Forward - Joe Jackson 

Honorable Mention:

Acorn Man - Wild Billy Childish & CTMF
Blackbirds - Gretchen Peters
Don't Lose This - Pops Staples
From Here - Stick in the Wheel 
Live at the Music Hall - Phosphorescent
No Cities to Love - Sleater-Kinney
Sing Into My Mouth - Iron & Wine and Bill Bridwell
Ten - Darrell Scott
Wolves - American Aquarium
Worthy - Bettye Lavette

And the Best of the Rest in 2015:

3 - honeyhoney

Absent Fathers - Justin Townes Earle

Act IV: Rebirth in Reprise - The Dear Hunter

Africa Express Presents . . . Terry Riley's in C Mali - Africa Express

Ashes and Dust - Warren Haynes

At Least For Now - Benjamin Clementine

Ba Power - Bassekou Kouyate & Ngoni Ba

Bad Magic - Motorhead

Bashed Out - This is the Kit

Berlin - Kadavar

Boys - Crocodiles

Can't Forget - Leonard Cohen

Carousel One - Ron Sexsmith

Cemetery Highrise Slum -Creepoid

Club Meds - Dan Mangan

Constant Bop - Bop English

Cosmetics - Diamond Rugs

Didn't It Rain - Amy Helm

Duets: Reworking the Catalog - Van Morrison

Everybody's a Good Dog - Diane Coffee

Faulty Superheros - Robert Pollard

Find a Way to Care - John Mayall

Fish - Michael Chapman

For Use & Delight - Promised Land Sound

Gandadiko - Samba Toure

Gates of Gold - Los Lobos

High on Tulsa Heat - John Moreland

Hollywood Vampires - Hollywood Vampires

How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful - Florence + The Machine

I Sell the Circus - Wicked Ricky

If I Should Go Before You - City & Colour

If I Was - The Staves

III - Follakzoid

Innocence & Decadence - Graveyard

Into the Deep - Galactic

It's Great to Be Alive - Drive-By Truckers

Joy of Living: A Tribute to Ewan MacColl - Various Artists

Kintsugi - Death Cab for Cutie

Moonbuilding 2703 AD - The Orb

Music in Exile - Songhoy Blues

Never Were the Way She Was - Colin Stetson

Ol' Glory - JJ Grey & Mofro

Out Calls Only - Donald Cumming

Perpetual Motion People - Ezra Furman

Poison Season - Destroyer

Royal Albert Hall (Live) - Eels

Silver Liner - Ethan Johns

Silver Season - Israel Nash

Slow Gum - Fraser A.Gorman

Something More Than Free - Jason Isbell

Songs to Play - Robert Forster

Soul Food - The Word

St. Germain - St. Germain

Still - Richard Thompson

Sun Coming Down - Ought

Tales from Wyoming - Teenage Bottlerocket

Tell Me I'm Pretty - Cage the Elephant

Tender Gold & Gentle Blue - Red River Dialect

Terraplane - Steve Earle

The Bad Plus Joshua Redman - The Bad Plus

The Joy of Waiting - Sara Lowes

The Traveling Kind - Emmylou Harris and Rodney Crowell

This Is the Sonics - The Sonics

Uncovered - Shawn Colvin

Uptown Special - Mark Ronson

Vestiges & Claws - Jose Gonzales

Welcome Back to Milk- Du Blonde

Works for Tomorrow - Eleventh Dream Day

Zero - The Rezillos

Zipper Down - Eagles of Death Metal

And if you want all these albums on one handy Spotify playlist, here you go:

The Best Albums of 2015 - Part 3

Just to bring you up-to-date:

For tracks from Part 1, click here - Part 2, here

Just a list person?

10. Fast Forward - Joe Jackson
  9. Sound and Color - Alabama Shakes
  8. Faith in the Future - Craig Finn
  7. What a Terrible World, What a Beautiful World - The Decemberists
  6. The Longest River - Olivia Chaney
  5. Sonic Soul Surfer - Seasick Steve

And on with the show . . .

4. Loyalty - The Weather Station

The Weather Station is Toronto singer/songwriter Tamara Lindeman. This is her third album. Forgive yourself if you immediately think of fellow Canadian Joni Mitchell as you listen to the title cut:



3. The Epic - Kamasi Washington

As much as I like jazz, it's pretty rare that a jazz album makes the Top Ten for me. It's equally rare a jazz album finds itself at the top of mainstream polls, but my Top Ten is not the only one I've seen The Epic pop up on.

I'm surprised Washington can walk with balls this big.

A 3-CD package, called The Epic no less, sets you up for some serious piss-taking if you miss your mark.

Washington does not miss. Tight arrangements, great solo work, cosmic cover, righteous 'fro, and even 70's-era jazz vocals reminiscent of Gayle Moran and Maynard's "Mister Mellow"; this is Epic.





2. Short Movie - Laura Marling

Another favorite of mainstream (i.e. real) critics (as is my #1 pick), Laura Marling comes across as the long-lost love child of Chrissie Hynde and Nick Drake on this album.





Tomorrow we unveil my favorite album of the year along with all the runners-up and a link to my Best of 2015 Spotify playlist.

The Best Albums of 2015 - Part 2

RIP Lemmy. The last Motorhead album made the big list of 2015, just not the Top Ten.

For tracks from Part 1, click here:

If you're just into the list aspect, so far it's:

10. Fast Forward - Joe Jackson
  9. Sound and Color - Alabama Shakes
  8. Faith in the Future - Craig Finn

 Moving swiftly on:

7. - What a Terrible World, What a Beautiful World - The Decemberists

I got to them live at the Peabody shortly after this came out. Ever since The Hazards of Love, I've been expecting another monumental prog-rock concept album. Instead we just get album after album after EP of individual gems of songs. Boo-hoo.

As Colin Meloy explains here, sorry - not sorry:



6. - The Longest River - Olivia Chaney

It's hard not to mention any clear-voiced British folk songstress without summoning the ghost of Sandy Denny and Chaney is no exception. Like Denny, her phrasing, especially what she does within a note, demands you listen to every word and her voice makes you more than a little sad when it stops



5. - Sonic Soul Surfer - Seasick Steve

The very definition of chooglin', these last two albums couldn't be more different. A big thanks to Jim Krizan for introducing me to Seasick Steve. Where have you been all my life!

Leaving home to be a hobo, hanging out with Joni Mitchell, busking around the world with a three-string guitar and a stomp-box, Steve has enjoyed a renaissance in the last decade or so.

PS: One of the best of that tricky sub-genre: the puppet music video.



 Tune in tomorrow for tracks 4 through 2!

The Best Albums of 2015 - Part 1

Same rules as last year: by 'Best' I mean 'the one's I like the most' - just the ones I liked to hear over & over this year. No Greatest Hits, no 'remasters'. Cover albums are OK as are live albums (though neither made the cut).

Dylan's Bootleg Series, Vol. 12 was a tough call as it is a great listen, but the idea is to capture the creativity of 2015.

For a full explanation, see last year's introduction.

This was the Year of the Woman and no, I don't mean Taylor Swift or Adele or any Barbie Doll with auto-tune. There were no female artists in the Best of 2014 (there was, however, one transgender-led band), but 2015 sports four (five if you think Alabama Shakes is basically Brittany Howard - the main argument against that thesis is the fact that her other project, Thunderbitch, did not make the cut at all; it sounded, shall we say, better in the conception than the execution).

So with all due apologies to Casey Kasem:

10. Fast Forward - Joe Jackson

One of only two acts on the list active when I was in high school (hell, of the solo artists, only three were alive when I was in high school), Jackson's latest release is as hip and observant as anything he's released. Now facing the generational battle from the other side, the title cut is a modern take on Neil Young's 'Old Man':



9. Sound and Color

Damn! What a voice Brittany Howard has. And with Blake Mills's production, it shines, moans, squeals and blasts like a cannon. Musically, this is what 'Some Girls' would have sounded like if Mick Jagger knew shit about singing:




8. Faith in the Future

The Hold Steady just missed the #1 spot last year and front-man Craig Finn's solo effort this year hit the Top Ten. With a voice that will never be on par with, say, the aforementioned Ms. Howard, it is no less distinctive and just as suited to the story being told and the music surrounding it.



Come back tomorrow for 7 through 5.