#16 on the 2021 Bacon Top 31 — Elbow

Flying Dream 1 by Elbow

Here we are at the midway point. I find an odd sense of beauty that #16 on the Bacon Top 31 always appears on the 16th of the month. This tends to be an inflection point in the countdown — from here on, the quality of the music starts to blend together, each album likely the top of someone else’s list.

The new Elbow album is perfect for #16. Elbow is known for their bombast. Intimate, closely held lows are met with full, orchestral crescendos. But not Flying Dream 1. This is a quiet album, not unlike a meditation. It’s 45 minutes of “Lippy Kids” (“Lippy Kids” is the choral backbone of their phenomenal 2011 album Build a Rocket Boys! and the song never breaks a sweat). It’s gorgeous and lush in all the right ways, and never calls attention to yourself.

The album was produced remotely while everyone was in lockdown in 2020, with the band sharing files back and forth, building the structure for each one. When people could once again convene in small, in-person groups, the band took on a residency at Theatre Royal in Brighton to put the final touches on the album. Utilizing the natural resonance of the theater, the resulting sound is wonderfully warm. You can get a good sense of the place in the three videos the band has released for the album. First, in “Six Words” featured above, as well as the videos for the title track and for “The Seldom Seen Kid” (not the title track from their 2008 album, but about the same subject as that album: the late Manchester musician Bryan Glancy).

Elbow have been playing together for over 30 years, and have been producing great music for two-thirds of that time. I didn’t start listening to the band until I acquired their Mercury-prize winning 2008 album The Seldom Seen Kid. Every studio album they’ve produced since then has appeared on the Bacon Top 31, first with Build a Rocket Boys! (#5 in 2011), The Take Off and Landing of Everything (#2 in 2014), Little Fictions (#1 in 2017!), and Giants of All Sizes, came in at #8 in 2019. You could throw the songs from all those albums and Flying Dream 1 into a hopper, pull out any ten songs, and it would hold together as a complete album. Without knowing the albums intimately you wouldn’t be able to tell what year the songs are from.

It’s quite the achievement to have such consistency for so long. With the exception of swapping out drummers in 2016 (Richard Jump out, Alex Reeves in), the same four-piece lineup has remained for all thirty years: Guy Garvey (lead vocals, guitar), Craig Potter (keyboards), Mark Potter (guitar) and Pete Turner (bass). You’d be hard-pressed to find that level of consistency anywhere. Sure, bands survive that long. But to continue to put out record after record of great-sounding, uniquely-their-own music — its unheard of.

If you’re unfamiliar with Elbow, please crawl out from under that rock. Pick up any of Elbow’s last six studio albums, put on some headphones, and let Calgon take you away. Seriously – go do it right now.

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17. Screen Violence by Chvrches
18. Blue Weekend by Wolf Alice
19. Mainly Gestalt Pornography by Pearly Gate Music
20. Peace Or Love by Kings of Convenience
21. These 13 by Jimbo Mathus & Andrew Bird
22. Mr. Corman: Season 1 by Nathan Johnson
23. Home Video by Lucy Dacus
24. I’ll Be Your Mirror: A Tribute to The Velvet Underground & Nico by Various Artists
25. Siamese Dream by Fruit Bats
26. NINE by Sault
27. Observatory by Aeon Station
28. The Monster Who Hated Pennsylvania by Damien Jurado
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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All albums in their entirety.

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A single song selection pulled from each album.

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#8 on the 2019 Bacon Top 31 — Elbow

Giants of All Sizes by Elbow

From one former #1 (Bon Iver, just seen at #9) to another, this time the venerable British masters Elbow. Unlike Bon Iver, I did not learn about Elbow until well into their musical careers, picking them up on the heels of their fantastic fourth album, 2008’s The Seldom Seen Kid. Every album they’ve released since then has appeared on the Top 31. Even though this new one, their eighth, is appearing in the lofty slot of #8 in this year’s Top 31, that represents a downward slide from all previous Top 31 appearances: Build a Rocket Boys! was #5 in 2011, The Takeoff and Landing of Everything just missed being #1 in 2014, and they quickly recovered with their #1 album Little Fictions in 2017. An outstanding showing overall.

Giants of All Sizes is a bit different from previous efforts, and that may account for their slip here in 2019. Little Fictions took the #1 spot based on its connection to my personal life that year. It featured songs that felt like they were speaking directly to me. Giants of All Sizes evokes a wide variety of new styles and influences for the band, but it doesn’t have that same feeling of connectedness for me. The first time you hear Elbow, your instinct is to compare them to Peter Gabriel, as lead singer Guy Garvey’s voice is Gabriel’s vocal doppelgänger. On top of that, the band’s production sits squarely in the same neighborhood as Gabriel’s later work (1986’s So and after). Outside of that, Giants sounds a bit like The Beatles at times (check out “”).

The lyrics of this album are decidedly darker than past albums — a purposeful slant, as three key figures in the band’s orbit all died during the production of the album (including Garvey’s father). But that doesn’t diminish the sweeping orchestral arrangements and slow builds, which have become Elbow’s signature over their 23 years of existence. If you’ve not listened to Elbow in the past, pick a spot anywhere and dive in. Giants is a perfectly fine spot to get your first taste, but be sure to move onto any of the last three albums. Elbow is consistently great, something that’s surprisingly hard to say about a lot of artists these days.

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9. i,i by Bon Iver
10. Kiwanuka by Michael Kiwanuka
11. The Destroyer (Parts 1 + 2) by TR/ST
12. When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? by Billie Eilish
13. Cheap Queen by King Princess
14. Anima by Thom Yorke
15. Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost Parts 1 + 2 by Foals
16. Gallipoli by Beirut
17. My Finest Work Yet by Andrew Bird
18. Four of Arrows by Great Grandpa
19. Designer by Aldous Harding
20. Norman Fucking Rockwell! by Lana Del Rey
21. Our Pathetic Age by DJ Shadow
22. Juice B Crypts by Battles
23. Pony by Orville Peck
24. Hyperspace by Beck
25. Eraserland by Strand of Oaks
26. Dogrel by Fontaines DC
27. You’re the Man by Marvin Gaye
28. Big Wows by Stealing Sheep
29. 1000 gecs by 100 gecs
30. In the Morse Code of Brake Lights by The New Pornographers
31. Radiant Dawn by Operators

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2009-2018 Top 31s

#15 on the 2019 Bacon Top 31 — Foals

Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost Parts 1 + 2 by Foals

We’re officially into the top half of the 2019 Top 31, and it’s with a new spin on what qualifies as an “album”. I’ve always been ok with putting double albums on the Top 31 (just look at DJ Shadow back at #21). But the latest from Foals, Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost was released in two distinct parts, months apart from each other. Does that mean it’s now two albums, and should therefore be considered separately? Wikipedia thinks so. But I’m not as strict as the Wikipedia community, and I’ve decided that, yes, both parts of the album can qualify as one “album”. In fact, I’d go so far as to say multiple releases by the same artist in the same year can qualify as a single “album” as it pertains to the Top 31. I guess that means I’m no longer charting albums, but instead the entirety of output from an artist within a single year. So be it. It won’t be the last time we encounter this within this Top 31, either.

Foals are an exceedingly popular band that you’ve never heard of They’ve been around since 2005. They hail from Oxford, England (where another band you’ve never heard of called Radiohead also hail from). And they’ve only released five albums in that time (or six, if you count Everything as two albums), nearly all to great acclaim — in England. They just haven’t had the promotion and adoration here that they’ve experienced in their home country.

While I’ve heard of the Foals name for a few years now, I can’t say I’ve ever actively listened to them before 2019. And I’m so glad I did. Part 1 of Everything is really what won me over, and specifically the song “Exits,” which is featured in the above video (starring Isaac Hempstead-Wright, aka Bran Stark). It’s one hell of a banger. This song is quite typical, I’ve found, of the band’s sound in general. It’s a very English sound. Good use of keyboards, guitars, swelling crescendos, evocative of bands that I used to love eons ago, like Placebo or, more currently, Elbow (when they’re particularly loud). Lead singer Yannis Philippakis’s voice is on the higher register, but it’s always projected fully — not dainty and removed, but entirely present and loud, but never screechy.

The band also appears to have a bit of humor as well. The name of these albums was joyously cribbed from the memific Nintendo Wii ’Quit Screen’ message: “Anything not saved will be lost.” Regardless of its source, that’s a pretty fun thing to name your album after.

These albums slay. There’s just no other way to put it. Put both of them on, back to back, and get fully immersed in what the band has to offer. I’m compelled (but have yet to do so) to listen to their older work. I’ll be sure to report back once I do.

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16. Gallipoli by Beirut
17. My Finest Work Yet by Andrew Bird
18. Four of Arrows by Great Grandpa
19. Designer by Aldous Harding
20. Norman Fucking Rockwell! by Lana Del Rey
21. Our Pathetic Age by DJ Shadow
22. Juice B Crypts by Battles
23. Pony by Orville Peck
24. Hyperspace by Beck
25. Eraserland by Strand of Oaks
26. Dogrel by Fontaines DC
27. You’re the Man by Marvin Gaye
28. Big Wows by Stealing Sheep
29. 1000 gecs by 100 gecs
30. In the Morse Code of Brake Lights by The New Pornographers
31. Radiant Dawn by Operators

Subscribe to the 2019 Bacon Top 31 Apple Music playlist
2009-2018 Top 31s

#1 on the 2017 Bacon Top 31

Little Fictions by Elbow

Here we are at the #1 album for 2017, Elbow’s absolutely stellar Little Fictions. The Top 31 is my way of trying to capture my year in music — what I was listening to, what I was enjoying. As the soundtrack to my life, the Top 31 is always influenced by the events from the year, but that’s not to say the events we all felt in 2017 are what drove my musical tastes. Ask anyone I consider a friend, they would probably say that 2017 was a shitty year for Americans. Over the year I grew more and more terrified by what is happening in our country, politically. But in my personal life, my year was far from shitty. It was quite glorious, in fact: I moved in with my girlfriend at the beginning of the year, and then we got pregnant shortly thereafter. We followed that by getting married in August and then the birth of our lovely daughter in October (if I had a Top Songs of All Time countdown, “Under Pressure” by Queen and David Bowie would be #1 for 2017). That’s a lot of awesomeness to cram into one year.

Following me along throughout all of those experiences was this fantastic album by Elbow. For those of you that don’t know, Elbow is a band out of a small town outside of Manchester, England called Ramsbottom. While the band has been playing music together since 1990, they didn’t become “Elbow” until 1997 (which was still 21 years ago — and aside from drummer Richard Jupp leaving the band in 2016, replaced by session drummer Alex Reeves, they’ve performed with the same lineup for that entire time). Little Fictions is their seventh album in that span. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed every release they’ve put out, and their last two albums were featured prominently on the Top 31s in their respective years (The Take Off and Landing of Everything was #2 in 2014; Build a Rocket Boys! was #5 in 2011).

I can’t talk highly enough about this band. Guy Garvey’s voice is like butter (and to unaccustomed ears, he sounds a lot like Peter Gabriel). The rest of the band (brothers Craig (keyboards) and Mark Potter (guitar), along with Pete Turner (bass)) put together one solid rock n roll hit after another. Often quiet, with key moments of electric bombast, the band manages crescendo like no other. And each album is every bit as good as the last. It’s an amazing feat.

This album — THIS ALBUM — may be the best yet. But that may also be how this album is tied to my experiences over the year. The first song on the album, “Magnificent (She Says),” featured in the video above, is Garvey’s response to how terrible 2016 was. He says in this video regarding the song that he needed a way to process all the shit that had happened. So he chose to look at it from the perspective of a wide-eyed little girl, full of innocence and love.

And there she stands
Throwing both her arms around the world
The world that doesn’t even know
How much it needs this little girl

It’s all gonna be magnificent, she says
It’s all gonna be magnificent

Glorious. Did I mention I now have a daughter, born only in October? And then there’s the second song, “Gentle Storm”:

Counting down, now the clocks reset when I met you
Do we start a new life?
Yours and my spit-shone restless hearts, they were meant to
Beat one time, share one fate
From this day

Gentle storm
Rage away
And fall in love with me
Fall in love with me
Fall in love with me
Everyday

Gobstopping. Did I mention I got married in August? Be sure to check out the video for that song, which features Benedict Cumberbatch.

From there, the album just continues unabated on its ascendance to greatness. “All Disco” sums up music and life nicely, the title from a quote by Frank Black (“whatever music you love, it’s all disco”). There’s a nice docu-video featuring that song. The last song on the album, “Kindling,” is a slow and quiet outro for the album that primes you for the replay you have inevitably already set up. There’s a great little acoustic alt-version of that song featuring a duet between Garvey and John Grant.

The penultimate song on the album, the title song “Little Fictions,” is an 8+ minute orchestral dream. Put on headphones and play it loud. The song starts with dissonant chords on a piano interplaying with a programmatic drum beat. Enter Garvey, singing about what feels like jabs in a relationship that has passed its due date. The chorus comes in:

We protect our little fictions
Like it’s all we are
Little wilderness mementos
But there’s only you and me here
Fire breathing
Hold tight
Waiting for the original miracle

And with that the song keeps building to one hell of a climax, violins and violence raging and building to the lyrical reveal: “Love is the original miracle.” Whether or not the couple in the song reconciles their differences is unclear, but you’ll most certainly feel spent at the end of it.

I can’t get enough of this band and this album. I want everyone to love them as I do. Give it a few listens. Put it on in the background, or play it loud in the fore. It will fill you with warmth and envelope you with joy.

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2. Half-Light by Rostam
3. Everything Now by Arcade Fire
4. Sleep Well Beast by The National
5. Soul of a Woman by Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings
6. Relaxer by Alt-J
7. Hot Thoughts by Spoon
8. Colors by Beck
9. Mental Illness by Aimee Mann
10. The Wild by The Rural Alberta Advantage
11. american dream by LCD Soundsystem
12. Crack-Up by Fleet Foxes
13. Famous Last Words by The True Loves
14. Cry Cry Cry by Wolf Parade
15. Pure Comedy by Father John Misty
16. Shake the Shudder by !!!
17. La La Land (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) by La La Land
18. The Underside of Power by Algiers
19. What Now by Sylvan Esso
20. 50 Song Memoir by The Magnetic Fields
21. Plunge by Fever Ray
22. DAMN. by Kendrick Lamar
23. Capacity by Big Thief
24. The Tourist by Clap Your Hands Say Yeah
25. CCFX EP by CCFX
26. Woodstock by Portugal. The Man
27. MASSEDUCTION by St. Vincent
28. On the Spot by Hot 8 Brass Band
29. A Deeper Understanding by The War on Drugs
30. Planetarium by Sufjan Stevens, Nico Muhly, Bryce Dessner, & James McAlister
31. A Moment Apart by Odesza

Subscribe to the 2017 Top 31 Apple Music playlist
2009-2016 Top 31s

Elbow — Gentle Storm

New Elbow, people. Their new album, Little Fictions, came out on February 3, and it’s everything you’d ever want in an Elbow album.

Look for the Benedict Cumberbatch cameo in the video, above. (Plus they’re coming to Seattle in November!)

#2 on the 2014 Bacon Top 31

The Take Off and Landing of Everything by Elbow

Deciding which band would take the number one spot and which band would be relegated to number two this year was particularly difficult. I love the band at #2: Manchester, England’s Elbow. And their 2014 album, The Take Off and Landing of Everything — their sixth — is by far my favorite of all their recordings. Even when I started writing this review, I waffled, thinking, “Maybe the band at #1 should be #2 and this album should be #1.” Talk to me tomorrow, or next week, or next month, and I might actually regret having not made this album #1. But here we are, at #2, which is a perfectly fine place for any band to be.

This band, and this album, are all about subtlety. Sure, there are plenty of bombastic moments, full of horns, strings, and keyboards. But it’s the quieter moments, of which there are many, that move this album to the near-top of the list. There’s the lazy beat of “This World Blue,” which hesitates for what feels like an eternity two minutes into the song (at 2:05, specifically), and then again at 4:29. Only then does the full sound of the song hit you, and there’s nearly 3 minutes of song left to go.

And then there’s “Fly Boy Blue/Lunette,” which I posted the video for way back in January. There’s that seminal moment, 3 minutes and 7 seconds into the song, when the key changes, the timing changes, and it becomes a completely different song yet somehow, impossibly, holds together.

Take “My Sad Captains,” which is featured in the video above. At six minutes, it comes in just over the average of all the songs on the album (that average being 5 minutes, 43.5 seconds across all 10 songs), and yet you want it to go on longer. It’s slow, methodical, and beautiful in its telling of “missing my friends that have dropped out of the drinking culture that we all met in, or moved away, or died,” as lead singer/lyricist Guy Garvey said in an interview in Q magazine back in February 2014. If you’re over 35, you’ve experienced that sort of life change, and the song just resonates unbelievably well.

There are quite a few videos the band has created for this album. In addition to “Fly Boy Blue/Lunette” and “My Sad Captains” (above), three other videos can be found:

• “New York Morning”
• “Real Life (Angel)”
• “Charge”

A couple friends and I had a little Memorial Day Weekend adventure this year to make sure we were able to see Elbow in concert. The band was coming through town to play Sasquatch, and there was no way we were going to be able to go there. So instead we bought tickets for the band’s Vancouver, BC performance at the Commodore Ballroom. It was worth the trip. Garvey is a consummate showman, crooning and gesturing to the crowd, working the stage, bringing us all along with him. There were no horns touring with the band, which was a little bit of a letdown, but the rest of the band was able to fill in those missing parts from the new album, substituting in keyboards and guitars. The Commodore is a great space, similar in layout to the Showbox Market, but a bit larger. It was the perfect spot for the band.

This album is gorgeous from start to finish, and I could be quite happy if I only had this one album to listen to for the rest of my days. If you’ve not heard of Elbow before, your first reaction will be “Damn, they sound so much like Peter Gabriel,” and you could be forgiven for thinking that. But that feeling dies pretty quickly as you start to identify these songs as Elbow songs. The Take Off and Landing of Everything is a great place to start your new obsession. Then move onto The Seldom Seen Kid, their Mercury-prize winning, platinum-selling 2008 album. Then branch out from there. 2011’s Build a Rocket Boys! was ranked on the Top 31 at #5 in 2011. Leaders of the Free World, from 2005, is phenomenal as well. SO MUCH GOOD MUSIC. And it’s all there for the taking. Hop to it.

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3. They Want My Soul by Spoon
4. Are We There by Sharon Van Etten
5. And The War Came by Shakey Graves
6. Nicky Nack by tUnE-yArDs
7. Not Art by Big Scary
8. The Cautionary Tales of Mark Oliver Everett by Eels
9. Owl John by Owl John
10. LP1 by FKA Twigs
11. Black Hours by Hamilton Leithauser
12. Give the People What They Want by Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings
13. Lost in the Dream by The War On Drugs
14. Warpaint by Warpaint
15. Heal by Strand of Oaks
16. Stay Gold by First Aid Kit
17. This is All Yours by ∆
18. Brill Bruisers by The New Pornographers
19. Only Run by Clap Your Hands Say Yeah
20. Augustines by Augustines
21. El Pintor by Interpol
22. I Never Learn by Lykke Li
23. Tomorrow’s Modern Boxes by Thom Yorke
24. The Voyager by Jenny Lewis
25. Voices by Phantogram
26. Morning Phase by Beck
27. Hungry Ghosts by OK Go
28. Run the Jewels 2 by Run the Jewels
29. Cosmos by Yellow Ostrich
30. Teeth Dreams by The Hold Steady
31. With Light & With Love by Woods

2009-2013 Top 31s

Elbow — Fly Boy Blue / Lunette

Great new video from longtime fave Elbow. The band’s sixth full-length, beautifully titled The Take Off And Landing Of Everything, comes out in March.