Starting up this review, the first thought I had was “it wouldn’t be a Top 31 if a Spencer Krug or Dan Boeckner band wasn’t on it.” While that’s not entirely true, with the latest Wolf Parade album here at #26, these two men have now appeared on 66% of my Top 31s: three times combined as Wolf Parade (#17 in 2010, #14 in 2017, and now Thin Mind in 2020; Krug thrice as Moonface (#27 in 2011, #23 in 2013, #31 in 2018); and Boeckner twice (with The Divine Fits at #11 in 2012 and The Operators at #31 just last year). The men are prolific at making great rock music.

Thin Mind is Wolf Parade’s fifth LP, and they continue to build upon the same formula that brought them to mass stardom with Apologies to Queen Mary back in 2005. There isn’t much “new” about this new album — it’s still unmistakably them, thanks to the unique vocals from Krug and Boeckner. According to the album description by their label, the always-great Seattle-based Sub Pop Records, the subject matter of this collection of songs is all about how “…the way that being around too much tech has made our focus thin” according to Krug, but I would never know it. My love of Wolf Parade is purely about the music and the voices-as-instruments of the two lead singers. The same guitar-driven hooks dominate, the bouncy Modest Mouse-like choruses get you banging your head in just the right way.

Wolf Parade was prominently on my brain in 2020 not just because of this great new album. They were also one of the last bands I saw live (February 11, 2020) before our ability to gather anywhere in public dried up thanks to Covid-19 lockdowns. The band always puts on a stellar live show, and while I was sadly missing watching live performances throughout the remainder of the year, the memory of that show, on The Showbox stage, has helped carry me through the drought. Putting the album on in my house takes me back there, every time.

Even though you weren’t there with me, maybe the album can do the same for you. Put it on, close your eyes, and imagine you’re standing on the upper level of The Showbox, ear-plugged, just to the left of the sound board, with a great view over the heads of the crowd on the floor. Now lean back and enjoy the experience. Soon we’ll get to go back there in person.

__________________________________________

1. Saint Cloud by Waxahatchee
2. Fetch The Bolt Cutters by Fiona Apple
3. Punisher by Phoebe Bridgers
4. folklore + evermore by Taylor Swift
5. Untitled (Black Is) + Untitled (Rise) by Sault
6. RTJ4 by Run The Jewels
7. Shore by Fleet Foxes
8. Serpentine Prison by Matt Berninger
9. The Ascension by Sufjan Stevens
10. Making a Door Less Open by Car Seat Headrest
11. Dreamland by Glass Animals
12. A Hero’s Death by Fontaines D.C.
13. Song Machine, Season One: Strange Timez by Gorillaz
14. Mordechai + Texas Sun EP by Khruangbin
15. Introduction, Presence by Nation of Language
16. Free Love by Sylvan Esso
17. Miss Anthropocene by Grimes
18. 3.15.20 by Childish Gambino
19. Women In Music Pt. III by HAIM
20. The Third Mind by The Third Mind
21. Superstar by Caroline Rose
22. Impossible Weight by Deep Sea Diver
23. We Will Always Love You by The Avalanches
24. Ultra Mono by IDLES
25. Visions of Bodies Being Burned by clipping.
26. Thin Mind by Wolf Parade
27. The Loves of Your Life by Hamilton Leithauser
28. Palo Alto (Live) by Thelonious Monk
29. color theory by Soccer Mommy
30. Fall to Pieces by Tricky
31. Quarantine Casanova by Chromeo

Subscribe to the 2020 Bacon Top 31 playlist: Apple Music / Spotify
All Top 31s

Happy new year, and new decade! I honestly can’t believe it’s already 2020. It seems not that long ago we were all frightened about what Y2K would bring when that clock struck 12:00 — that was 20 years ago! Everyone knows that time speeds up as we get older (due to your personal experiences growing less and less unique the more you experience throuhgout your lifetime). It’s just a small but significant part of being human.

The same is true of music: the older we get, the smaller our individual world of undiscovered music gets. Happily, a huge amount of new music is dumped into the world every year, making it impossible to ever feel that you’ve heard it all, even if what you believe constitutes “good” music gets narrower as you age. That’s just the result of your tastes being refined, your knowledge of musical theory (whether studied in classrooms or absorbed through audio osmosis — audsmosis?) expanded, and the avenues through which and opportunities to hear new music dwindled.

As we get older, it would be very easy to stop listening to new music. I’m sure a lot of friends that are my age or older have done just that, content in the 40+ years of music they’ve added to their collections. I purposefully push against that friction; much like a daily crossword is meant to keep the brain functioning better well into old age, I believe a continuous, healthy dose of new music helps to keep those neurons firing at a youthful clip.

The Top 31 is my own personal battle against the inevitable atrophying of my brain. Because I know I’ll be cataloging things at the end of the year, it pushes me to want to always first check Apple Music’s “New Music” category when I’m putting on something to listen to. Most of the music I find in there is not great, but if I’m compelled to listen to something more than once, it gets added to my library and is easily found in my “Recently Added” category. 95% of the time, when I want to hear something, I start there.

But listening to new music for most of my available music-listening time has a downside, too: forgetfulness. I couldn’t possibly recall what new music I was listening to a month ago, let alone five or more years ago. And that’s where the Bacon Review Top 31 comes in. This 2019 Top 31 is my eleventh countdown. That’s 11 years, each with 31 albums of history, available for review at my fingertips. Looking for an older album to listen to but not sure where to start? Look back at the 2013 countdown (for instance) and pick something great that you’d forgotten about.

As every year nears its end, I toy with the idea of stopping the countdown. It’s a hefty chunk of work, it puts an added burden on me and my family throughout the month of January, and I could easily just leave it all behind. But then I remember past years, and how happy it makes me feel when a friend of mine tells me they’ve enjoyed listening to something that they first read about here. That alone is motivation enough to keep going. And so here we are, a brand new decade, and another year’s full of music to recap. Let’s dive in with #31:

Radiant Dawn by Operators

I’ve always fallen on the Spencer Krug (#27 in 2011, #23 in 2013, and #31 in 2018) side of the Wolf Parade (#17 in 2010 and #14 in 2017) fence, but Dan Boeckner, former lead singer of the Handsome Furs, former co-lead of the Divine Fits (#11 in 2012), and current lead of Operators, has been a quiet force of musical output for 20 years now.

I’m fairly certain that Operators should still be considered a “side project,” (to Wolf Parade’s “main project”), but that doesn’t mean Operators music is any less brilliant. Close your eyes and listen — you’d be hard pressed to guess that this isn’t just another Wolf Parade album. Boeckner, like his Wolf Parade co-leader Krug, is a Canadian singer/songwriter with an insatiable appetite for creating new music. Over the past 20 years, Boeckner has released 17 different EPs and albums, under five different monikers. His voice, affected and unmistakably his, is like a strong sour ale: an acquired taste.

If you’ve liked Wolf Parade, Divine Fits, Handsome Furs, or even Operators’ previous output (this is the 2nd full-length release from the project — the first was 2016’s Blue Wave), then there’s no reason for you to not like this album.

__________________________________________

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

#26 on the 2020 Bacon Top 31 — Wolf Parade

#31 on the 2019 Bacon Top 31 — Operators