It‘s been nearly three years since Daughter released their phenomenal album If You Leave (my #11 in 2013). Their new album, Not To Disappear, won’t come out until January 15, 2016, but you can get a little taste of it via the beautiful video above. The video does a good job of conveying the feeling that comes from listening to this melancholy band. I couldn’t be more excited for the new album to come out.
It began yesterday, with a strange Instagram post by Decemberists’ lead singer, Colin Meloy, an animation that featured what appeared to be a religious revival of sorts, with Meloy as the lead evangelist. Underneath, the caption read:
"YOU" ARE ETERNAL CALL 971-23-ALIVE
So this morning, when I came across the post, and without any other information, I called the number. The recording on the other end began with a small clip from the song “Cavalry Captain,” from the band’s 2015 release What a Terrible World, What a Beautiful World, and then the voice of Meloy posing as “CM,” an evangelist with a message of love and finding your place in the universe. At the end of the recording, the listener was told to “to leave their most ardent wishes” after the tone.
Then later in the morning came the email from the Decemberists’ mailing list, with the same text as was spoken by Meloy in the phone recording. All of this seemed like a strangely timed release of even stranger material, promoting a record that’s already quite a few months old. But then I found the hook, in the caption for the video above, which reads:
We are all Decemberists. Please join us. Call 971-23-ALIVE to find your place in the universe. #Decemberism New EP 'Florasongs' available now.
So there you have it. A bizarre, excessive marketing push for a new EP from your favorite baroque pop band out of Portland, OR. Hop to it.
Nobody does tongue-in-cheek snark quite like Josh Tillman. It starts with his stage name, Father John Misty, which everyone can agree is so ridiculous it’s funny. His live show is 100% camp, strutting around the stage like an over-acted lounge singer, full of swoon-inducing goading and exaggerated emotion. And then there’s his songs. Musically, they’re fairly straightforward indie-folk-rock standards. But once you start hearing the lyrics, the snark comes out. He has a general hatred for anything and everything around him. He doesn’t pull any punches, and that’s a lot of the reason why I like him so much.
For instance, yesterday, with Ryan Adams’s attention-grabbing release of his cover of Taylor Swift’s 1989, Tillman took Adams to task, releasing a couple of covers of Taylor Swift himself, billed as covers of Ryan Adams’s covers, but resembling nothing of the Ryan Adams versions, and everything of what it would sound like if Lou Reed had covered Taylor Swift. Confused yet? You can listen here, even though Tillman himself has removed his covers from where he originally posted them.
Now that you‘ve got the back story, listen to the song above, “The Night Josh Tillman Came To Our Apartment,” from Tillman’s February 2015 album I Love You, Honeybear. The album is pretty great all around, as good as 2012’s Fear Fun. The lyrices of this song are particularly snarky, and my favorite line on the entire album comes 30 seconds into the song, when Tillman sings
She says, like literally, music is the air she breathes
And the malaprops make me want to fucking scream
I wonder if she even knows what that word means
Well, it's literally not that
The of the song is full of gems just like that. Give it a listen, then buy the album. You won’t regret it.
Say what you want about Macklemore. You either love him or you hate him. But there’s no denying that he and Ryan Lewis know how to create a hit song. I’ve now listened to the song above, “Downtown,” twice, and already that chorus (sung by Foxy Shazam’s Eric Nally) is on constant repeat in my head.
It’s been three years since M&RL released their platinum-selling, independently released, mega-hit album The Heist. On August 5th they released their first new recording since that album, “Growing Up,” which is one of their more touchy-feely songs, all about Macklemore’s soon-to-be-born child. (Macklemore and his wife had a baby girl, Sloane, back in May, after “Growing Up” was written and recorded.)
And now here’s sure to be the first hit from their new as-yet-unnamed new album. There’s a lot I don’t care for in “Downtown.” Macklemore is definitely pushing the envelope of his good-boy image with some of the lyrics within (nobody needs to hear about his or anybody’s scrotum, for instance). But the production, that chorus, the prog-rock way the song bounces from one stanza to the next (is this a new genre of music, Prog Hip Hop?) — I love it. It blends old school hip hop (yes that’s Kool Moe Dee, Melle Mel and Grandmaster Caz you see there), over-the-top orchestration (a la Queen, or more recently, fun.), a touch of Seattle (Hi Junior!) and a little West Side Story. Filmed in Spokane, “Downtown” gets me moving in my seat. As soon as it finishes I want to start it over again.
I can’t wait to see what the rest of the album has to offer, whenever it comes out.
My seven year old son pointed me to this video. I didn’t even know he knew what music videos were, but here he is, pointing me to a video of a song I knew but didn’t know he knew. Parenthood is awesome.
So, here’s a video created for Adult Swim’s show Off The Air, one of the many truly bizarre animated wonders that fills the late-night Cartoon Network timeslot. The video features nine different animators (Jake Fried, Chad Vangaalen, Dimitri Stankowicz, Colin White, Taras Hrabowsky, Anthony Schepperd, Masanobu Hiraoka, Caleb Wood, KOKOFreakbean), each with a unique style, illustrating a portion of the excellent Dan Deacon song “When I Was Done Dying.” I’d first heard the song on KEXP earlier this year, which prompted me to download the album. It’s great, and this video just makes it all the more interesting.
This is apparently not the first time Deacon has teamed up with Off The Air’s director/editor Dave Hughes. The entire second season of the show is a long-form music video for 22 minutes from Deacon’s 2012 album America. The song featured above is from Deacon’s 2015 album Glass Riffer.
My love of electronic music has waned since its heyday in the mid-90s (back when we called it “techno”), but there are a few acts from that time that still get me excited when they release a new album. The Chemical Brothers are one such act, and they’ve just released their eigth studio album, Born in the Echoes.
I’m only just now listening to it for the first time, but if the rest of the album is as good as “Go” (don’t judge a song by its video), then it’s definitely going to be one of the year’s best. In addition to Q-Tip (from A Tribe Called Quest), Beck and Annie Clark (aka St. Vincent) make notable appearances on the album.
In the 90s (when I was a poor college student) I would have had to wait until I found this album in the used-CD bins at the local record shop, to which every trip meant leaving with a stack of new music in my hot little hands. Nowadays the equivalent is a flurry of album purchases on a single day, monthly or so. It’s not the same, and I long for the days of rifling through the used sections, but who has room or need for all that plastic? Not me. But a new Chemical Brothers album? Hell yes.
I’ve already watched this video from Japan’s Ladybaby three times, and I’m destined to go a few more times before burning out on it. It’s bizarre, unexpected, and compelling.
Ladybaby is apparently a project started by the man in the group, known as Lady Beard. In his former life, Lady Beard was a professional wrestler in Australia, but has been living and performing in Japan for the last two years. This is the only song by Ladybaby to date, but the single for “Japan Manju” comes out July 29 and will be backed by another song, “ULTRA ☆ LUCKY.” No idea where it will go from here.
Here’s a brand new video from my #1 album of 2014, Mended With Gold from The Rural Alberta Advantage. This band can really do no wrong, and this video is no different. Young interracial love is captured in a dream-like bedroom while the band performs off to the side. A great song, an interesting video, from one of my favorite bands. Enjoy!
When Blur released their fantastic first album, Leisure, I was 17, and I was addicted to MTV’s alternative-music video show 120 Minutes (they brought it back! Who knew?) (incidentally: HOLY CRAP). I would record the show every week and devour it throughout the week until the next episode came out. Blur’s first hits, “She’s So High” and “There’s No Other Way,” hooked me instantly, and I’ve been a fan of the band ever since.
They’ve had their ups and downs. I’ve always kept an ear on lead singer Damon Albarn’s many side projects. But it’s been a long time since Blur has released any new music, and even longer since they produced anything that was worth repeated listening.
I’m happy to report their first album in 12 years, The Magic Whip, is exactly that. It’s good. It’s classic Blur. While there isn’t a “Tender” (what is up with this “official video” version of the song — blech), “Girls & Boys,” or “Song 2,” this album is solid from start to finish. Give it a few listens before moving on — I assure you it will hook you, too.
I first fell in love with Courtney Barnett when she opened for Sharon van Etten at the Neptune last July. I reviewed that show for The Sun Break, and I had this to say about Ms. Barnett:
I had not done my homework, and came into the set totally unprepared for the onslaught I experienced. Barnett, from Melbourne, Australia, is an absolute joy to watch perform, playing her left-handed guitar (labeled “when i was an alien”) without a pick. She wore her guitar with the strap hung around her neck like a necklace, allowing the guitar more freedom to move about.
I’ve been listening to Barnett’s recorded music for the last 12 hours, and the disparity heard between the live performance and the studio recordings is large. That’s not to say that either is bad or incorrect. On the contrary, they both stand out in their own ways. The recorded works would best be described as “singer/songwriter.” Not necessarily understated, but not rocking either. Liz Phair-style sparseness, with jangly guitar and garage-style drums allows Barnett’s doubled-up voice on the recordings to shine through.
Up to that point, the extent of her recorded music was a double EP. Her full-length debut, Sometimes I Sit And Think, And Sometimes I Just Sit, came out March 23. I just downloaded it, and I’m diving in. And thank you to Mr. Defective Yeti, Matthew Baldwin, for reminding me that I’m not an airline pilot or heart surgeon.
Believe it or not, Belle and Sebastian has been around for twenty years. The band formed in 1996 with neither a Belle nor a Sebastian in the band, which remains true to this day. That was the year they recorded and released their first two (beautiful) albums Tigermilk and If You’re Feeling Sinister. This past January, the band released their ninth studio album, Girls in Peacetime Want to Dance.
I’ve been listening to this album for a couple months now and it’s really grown on me — the first Belle and Sebastian album to win me over in a very long time. It’s a departure from the late 90s / early oughts B&S albums I learned to love, but if you’ve liked more recent Belle and Sebastian, then this album will feel just right. A little more disco, a little more dancey, new Belle and Sebastian is more upbeat and exciting than the melancholy music you may have first heard from them nearly two decades ago.
The song above, “Nobody’s Empire,” isn’t the best song on the album, but it’s a good example of what you can expect. Plus, it’s fun to watch actress Tamzin Merchant lip sync to Stuart Murdoch’s lyrics. Definitely check out the rest of the album. It’s worth it. And if you’re able, get tickets to see them at the Paramount tonight. It‘s going to be great.
I am way out of touch on the movements of Snoop Dogg, apparently, as I’ve just learned he’s released an album every one or two years since 1993. He’s now poised to release his thirteenth album, BUSH, due to hit the proverbial shelves on May 12.
“Peaches N Cream” is the first single from the Pharrell Williams-produced album, and it is funky. Snoop’s style of rap is very distinctive, but when it’s thrown on top of Pharrell’s well-produced dance beats and Charlie Wilson’s backup vocals, it transcends into greatness.
The above video is the fantastic lyric video that was released last week, directed by special-effects wizards Wolf & Crow. And just yesterday they released another video for the song, this time featuring Snoop, Pharrell and Wilson, in a trippy, funked-out visual feast.
I don’t know if I’ll ever feel comfortable singing the words “Damn her ass is so big,” but I’ll be damned if I don’t thoroughly enjoy this song.
I’m not sure how Sukierae, the new album from Jeff Tweedy (of Wilco) and his son Spencer (from their new duo, simply called Tweedy), released last September, went unnoticed. But what’s done is done.
Check out the insanely star-studded video, for the song “Low Key” directed by TV’s Ron Swanson (the everyman’s man Nick Offerman). Low key is about how exciting the song gets, so the title is apropos. The video is fun, and the song isn’t exactly off-putting, either, so I’ll happily put it up on the Bacon Review.
Watch for guest appearances by Melissa McCarthy, Conan O'Brien and Andy Richter, Mavis Staples, Steve Albini, Chance the Rapper and Wilco drummer Glenn Kotche, as well as bit parts by always-scary Michael Shannon and always-funny John Hodgman, among many many others.
Here’s a kooky video from a new band out of Sweden, Amason. Amason formed in 2012 as a side project for members of other well-known Swedish bands, Miike Snow and Dungen. After releasing a few singles and an EP throughout 2013 and 2014, the band’s excellent debut album, Sky City, came out last month. Check it out.
(The above video is NSFW) My well-documented love for indie-rock bands from Canada is growing. Viet Cong, from Calgary, sound a bit derivative at times, but overall they’re putting enough “new” into their work to warrant some attention. The song above, “Continentaly Shelf,” is from the band’s self-titled debut album, which came out on January 20. This song sounds so much like Spencer Krug, I looked into it. (Nope, that’s Matt Flegel on vocals. But Viet Cong and Moonface are on the same label, the fantastic Jagjaguwar out of Bloomington, Indiana) Not sure if that’s a positive or a negative for you (it is a positive in my book), but give them a listen. Their use of computer-generated fuzz throughout the seven-song album was surprisingly soothing, given the harshness of the sound. I’m curious if you agree.
I can’t get this song out of my head. It’s been stuck there for a week now. It took a little while for me to discover it, and then for it to plant itself deep in my brain, as it’s the final song on the brand new album from The Decemberists, What A Terrible World, What A Beautiful World. But it‘s also the best song on the fantastic new album from these Portland indie-rock stars. The album comes out Tuesday, January 20.
One question about the video: where are the string performers? There’s clearly at least one cello prominently playing throughout the song, and at the very end of the song, what sounds like a full string quartet comes in to fill out the song. Let’s see the string players!
Brothers and Sisters of the Eternal Son by Damien Jurado
Sometimes my systems fail me. I rely heavily on technology to keep me on top of my ever-expanding music collection. I utilize a smart playlist in iTunes that automatically collects only albums from the current year, and I tend to listen to things only found in that playlist as the year goes on. I do go back and listen to older things, quite often in fact, but when I’m looking for something quickly, it’s to the “2014” playlist I go. Soon it will be the 2015 playlist.
This is problematic for two reasons:
I clearly need a better system, as an album that I thoroughly enjoyed listening to in the first couple months of the year (and was released on January 21, 2014) disappeared from my view as the year progressed, and didn’t make it into the Top 31 due to a technical glitch (it was mislabeled as a 2013 album in my iTunes). I only discovered it was missing because I found the album mentioned in a friend’s Top 10 for 2014. That album is Brothers and Sisters of the Eternal Son by Seattle’s own Damien Jurado, and it is fantastic. Leaving it off the Top 31 is a huge oversight, and I am frustrated by my own technological downfall.
You’ll remember Jurado from his 2012 album, Maraqopa, which was my #5 album that year. In that review, I wrote:
I wouldn’t be surprised if you haven’t heard of Jurado — he’s been making music in Seattle for [now 19] years, but his following over that time has not remained consistent, and he’s generally played venues smaller than the 1,100-person Showbox Market every time he’s played. Up until Maraqopa, I would have defined him as your typical indie folk singer/songwriter. Most if not all of his albums are quite enjoyable, but they’re fleeting. The music doesn’t hook you.
Maraqopa is different. Maraqopa intrigues right from the first note. It’s hard for me to put my finger on why this album is so much better than all his previous albums. It’s definitely more psychedelic, with off-kilter sounds, distant echoes and frayed edges. But there are also blended harmonies, intimate pauses, put together in this intricately layered tapestry of sound. Jurado’s voice remains as it always has, evoking thoughts of early Neil Young, but this time, along with the beautiful orchestration, there are hints of Nick Drake, as if he were haunting the recording studio when the album was being put to tape.
Brothers and Sisters of the Eternal Son is a companion album to Maraqopa, in both tone and story. “[Maraqopa] was based on a dream I had about a guy who disappears,” Jurado said in the trailer he created for the new album back in 2013. “He leaves the house with no form of identification or anything and he decides he just wants to disappear. This new record is sort of a sequel to Maraqopa… it is about a guy who disappears on a search, if you will, for himself and never goes home.”
J Tillman (aka Father John Misty) wrote an essay about the new album for Spin Magazine that’s also worth reading. It starts with “Damien is out of his goddamn mind” and gets better from there.
This album is every bit as good as Maraqopa, and I probably would have ranked it in the Top 10 if I’d continued listening to it throughout the year. Technology. Ugh. For all the efficiencies it allows, it introduces new hurdles and gaps that leave me wanting. Perhaps it’s time for a reduction in reliance on technology. Even so, happy new year, and enjoy this album. It’s worth getting both this and Maraqopa if you haven’t yet. Do it now.
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1. Mended With Gold by The Rural Alberta Advantage
2. The Take Off and Landing of Everything by Elbow
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
Mended With Gold by The Rural Alberta Advantage
My choice for #1 this year has no doubt flummoxed a few of you, and is completely obvious to a few more. The Rural Alberta Advantage are a polarizing kind of group, one that I’ve loved for the entirety of their short musical careers, and one I am continually surprised by their rather meager following. This trio from Toronto is consistently great, as evidenced by all three of their full-length records having been placed in my Top 10 for each of the years they came out. (Their debut, Hometowns, was #6 in 2009, and their 2011 album, Departing, was my #2 that year.)
Even though their name is unnecessarily complex, the songs that The Rural Alberta Advantage play are simple. The lyrics tend not to be obtuse in their telling of loss, love and life. The chord structures chosen by lead singer/songwriter/guitarist Nils Edenloff are basic. The keyboards played and background vocals sung by Amy Cole are straightforward. But just because something lacks surprise doesn’t mean it’s not fantastic. Sometimes expected, tried and true is exactly what is needed. And that’s what the RAA have given us with this album.
There is one surprise in the band: drummer Paul Banwatt. I could write an entirely different post just about his drumming on all three of the band’s albums. With Mended With Gold, the RAA nicely modified the levels of each player to showcase their strengths. There are multiple opportunities for Banwatt to blow us away with his frenetic percussion and Cole to shine as her voice rings clear as a bell when paired with Edenloff’s nasal lead vocal.
One could argue that the RAA’s new album, Mended With Gold, isn’t as good as the critically-acclaimed 2014 output from, say, The War on Drugs (my #13), or Run the Jewels (my #28), and according to KEXP listeners and Pitchfork writers, who respectively ranked those bands as their #1 albums of the year, you’d be right. From what I can tell, The Rural Alberta Advantage didn’t make any other countdown’s #1 slot, and it looks as if they didn’t make many year-end countdowns at all.
And that’s not to say those other countdowns are wrong. The Bacon Top 31 isn’t a compilation of opinions. It’s my opinion, and mine alone. And I’m not judging albums on technical merit or the place they hold in the echelon of all recorded music. A lot goes into what makes a #1 album for me, and the decision to put this album at #1 was not easy (as you could tell by my review of Elbow’s brilliant album at #2). It just shows that the RAA’s amazing Mended With Gold played a bigger role — the biggest role — for me this year. That’s it. Nothing scientific here. In the future, when I look back on 2014, Mended With Gold will be the album I remember as the soundtrack for the year.
I listened to this album, and the band’s other two albums, a lot in 2014. It’s been a very up and down year for me, personally, and the liveliness of the RAA catalog has stuck with me and helped me through it all. These songs were never background material — they were always front and center, demanding my attention and distracting me when I wanted it most.
The band played the Croc this year, back in October, to their first ever sold-out show in Seattle, and I was there. The set they played matched closely with the two previous times I’d seen the band, and the new songs from Mended With Gold fit right in. This new album is the RAA’s best yet, as the strength of the new songs when paired with the older songs clearly showed during their set.
And there we have it, my Top 31 albums of 2014. Now having compiled this list for 6 years, I feel I’m finding my groove. I’m always thinking about the list throughout the year (I’m already listening to things that will definitely be on the 2015 list). And by the time November rolls around I start shaping the list, questioning what will be in the Top 10. This year was no different than previous years, in that things continued to move up and down as the month of December crept on. And the Top 5 were shuffling around right up until I posted tUnE-yArDs at #6.
It’s always fun trying to look at these albums objectively, picking apart exactly what it is that draws me to them. That’s really why I elect to write about each album. It gives me perspective, on music, and on the year. So here’s to another year of great music. I hope you’ve enjoyed listening as much as I have.
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2. The Take Off and Landing of Everything by Elbow
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
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:
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
They Want My Soul by Spoon
And now for a band that has been in near-constant rotation since the early 2000s, but has never appeared in full here in the Top 31. The band’s lead singer, Britt Daniel, showed up as part of Divine Fits at #11 in 2012, but this is the first time Spoon has made the cut. They are still in the running for my Top 10 Albums of the Oughts, and excepting a goose-egg of an album in 2010 (Transference, which didn’t even make the Top 31 that year), Spoon has been amazing for the better part of two decades.
I hold the band’s 4th album, 2002’s Kill the Moonlight as my favorite of the bunch, but Girls Can Tell, Gimme Fiction, and Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga are all bunched up as a close second-favorite. Given enough time, 2014’s They Want My Soul, the band’s eighth album, could damn well prove to be their best. It is solid from start to finish, and harkens back to their early-2000s heyday. The band has remained fairly static since that time, with Daniel on guitars and lead vocals, Jim Eno on drums, and Eric Harvey on keyboards and guitars. A couple of other guys fill out the current lineup, Rob Pope on bass and Alex Fischel on additional keyboards and guitars. The original lineup formed in Austin back in 1993, and only Daniel and Eno have remained with the band in that time.
If you’re not familiar with Spoon, please crawl out from under that rock you’re currently stuck beneath and educate yourself. They play guitar-heavy indie rock. These are intelligent songs, sometimes noisy, sometimes a little psychedelic, but almost always brilliant. “Knock Knock Knock” is my favorite from the album, and in August I linked to a live performance of the song they did at KEXP that you simply must see to believe. My second favorite, “Do You,” was posted here back in September. “Inside Out,” the video shown above, isn’t the best song on the album, but it’s a damn fine song and gives you an idea just how good this album is.
If you’ve liked Spoon in the past, you will love this album. If you’re not familiar with Spoon, this album is an excellent way to fall in love with the band I’ve loved for a very long time. Either way, buy it now. You won’t regret it.
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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