#28 on the 2021 Bacon Top 31 — Damien Jurado
The Monster Who Hated Pennsylvania by Damien Jurado
Damien Jurado, a formerly Seattle-based singer/songwriter with the voice of an angel and the poetic genius of Donne, is becoming an official card-carrying member of the Bacon Top 31 Five Timer’s Club. His four previous appearances on the Top 31 have all fallen in the top 5 (#5 in 2018, #2 in 2016, and #5 in 2012) or would have if I hadn’t accidentally excluded him from the running in 2014.
You might look at the placement of this, his twentieth (yes 20th!) solo album, all the way back at #28 as some sort of downfall, and you’d be flat out wrong. Sometimes Jurado’s albums feature prominently in my year, and sometimes they don’t. This just happened to be a year that I wanted to listen to more raucous music, I guess (the same can probably be said for the SUFJAN STEVENS placement at #29 yesterday). Jurado did feature prominently in my year, but not in a recorded way – he performed at a lightly-populated, socially-distanced auditorium early in the year, and I was one of the lucky ones to get to see him. It was my and my wife’s first live show since Covid began, over a year prior. In the end, we only saw two shows all year, so choosing Jurado as one of those shows tells you how important he is to me.
Go back and read my previous entries on Jurado, and you’ll see love letter after love letter to him and his work. He is a joy to listen to, and we’re all very lucky to have him performing for us.
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29. A Beginner’s Mind by Sufjan Stevens and Angelo De Augustine
30. Where the End Begins by Knathan Ryan
31. Private Space by Durand Jones & The Indications
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