My 2013 Top Ten Albums:
The Final Countdown

Last day of the year. The wrapping paper's all gone into the trash compactor, the needles are already dropping from the tree, and even the dog doesn't want what's left of the turkey carcass. You're grudgingly facing the forced hilarity of the evening ahead, and the hangover that may come with it.  The holiday spirit tank has almost run out of gas.

But damn it, you didn't get enough new CDs this year, and maybe you're thinking about going into a record shop -- or failing that, on line -- to treat yourself to the tunes YOU want.  So here's a little shopping guide.

A few things to note: This list is in no particular order, other than the order I wrote these posts in. (Click on the titles to go to my reviews.)  Having culled these 10 albums from the barrage of new releases, I couldn't discriminate any further.  I apologize in advance to Kasey Kasem (I almost wrote, "the ghost of Kasey Kasem," but I see he's still alive), who always delivered a definitive #1 song on the New Year's Eve "Kasey's Coast-to-Coast" countdown I listened to so ardently as a pre-teen.

Looking back on my choices, I notice a significant tilt towards twang. (Say that three times, fast.) I used to declare, growing up in Indianapolis, how much I hated country music. Well, I still don't like mainstream commercial country music, but I can't deny my fondness for Americana, roots, whatever you like to call it. So be it.

As for the rest -- I think you'll find almost no overlap between this and Amazon Top 100 albums of 2013, or iTunes's Top 100 album picks of the year, or the New York Times' Best of 2013 list. But then, that's why you need this list instead.

The Wood Brothers -- Muse
Listen to Muse

The Avett Brothers -- Magpie and the Dandelion
Listen to Magpie and the Dandelion

Amos Lee -- Mountains of Sorrow, Rivers of Song
Listen to Mountains of Sorrow, Rivers of Song

Robyn Hitchcock -- Love From London
Listen to Love from London

Chris Stamey -- Lovesick Blues
Listen to Lovesick Blues

Greg Trooper -- Incident on Willow Street
Listen to Incident on Willow Street

Arcade Fire -- Reflektor
Listen to Reflektor

The Mavericks -- In Time
Listen to In Time

Willie Nile -- American Ride
Listen to American Ride

Billy Bragg -- Tooth & Nail
Listen to Tooth & Nail

And a VERY HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

My 2013 Top Ten Albums

Billy Bragg -- Tooth & Nail

"Chasing Rainbows"

Here are some things I know about Billy Bragg:

• His first band, Riff Raff, skidded into the early British punk scene inspired by the Clash.
• He's such a folkie that Woody Guthrie's daughter invited him to join Wilco on the Guthrie homage album Mermaid Avenue.
• His politics are to the left of mine -- way to the left -- and he often puts that to music.
• His broad Essex accent reminds me of Ian Dury. (I love being reminded of Ian Dury.)
• His 1996 album William Bloke is one of my favorite album titles of all time.
• His song "Northern Industrial Town" is haunting political commentary. (Listen to it, Nick.)
• His song "Must I Paint You a Picture?" is one of the tenderest love songs ever written.
• He cusses in songs almost as much as Ben Folds does.

In other words, you don't know exactly what you're getting with a new Billy Bragg album -- but you do know that it'll be interesting. As I've said before, here and here...

So I ordered up Tooth & Nail without even listening to any of the tracks -- and man, am I pleased.

We find Billy in full lonesome Americana mode here, dubbing himself  "The Sherpa of Heartbreak" (okay, a little irony there), and throwing in slide guitar, mandolins, Dobro (thank the Lord for Greg Leisz), honkytonk piano, even some Ramblin' Jack-style whistling. He was serious enough to hire the estimable producer Joe Henry to get the roots sound right, and to co-write a couple songs. Oh, and throw in a Woody Guthrie cover ("I Ain't Got No Home) while they were at it. Yes, there's a package.

Did I say "Americana"?  How about full-on country?

 

 

Like a lot of classic country songs, this song is built around upending a cliché: "If you go chasing rainbows," he warns his woman, "You're bound to end up getting wet." Chasing a rainbow is an exercise in futility; she ought to know better. But what are those rainbows she's chasing?  

 

"The wheels have come off again," he says with a rumpled shrug, "And the fault is all mine." At least he's honest enough to admit it. Honest...and maybe a little obtuse. "And there was I thinking / We were doing just fine."  But he's committed to the relationship, and begging for a second chance: "Please don't let my complacent mind / Belie my loving heart."  "Complacent" isn't a word you'll often hear in country music; there's the wordsmith Brit glinting through. But in such a matter, these finely graded shades of emotion are necessary. Surely complacency is a minor sin, for which he should be forgiven.

 

In verse 2, he shifts the ground, but only ever so slightly. "You've shot me down again / From out of the blue" (tiny jab there -- will she notice?)  "Guess there was something / that I was supposed to do." This reminds me of Nick Lowe's "Sensitive Man," the guy pleading ignorance as a way of subtly shifting blame, and Billy spells it out even further: "Well there's just no way that every day / I'll reach your high bench mark." Is that "high benchmark," or the mark of a "high bench," as in a courtroom? Either way, he's undermining her standards.   

 

It's surprising that  more songs haven't been written about this particular battleground in the eternal war of the sexes. All too often we ladies do expect you guys to be mind-readers, effortlessly intuiting our needs, and some of you -- notice I didn't say "all of you," though I'm tempted to -- are simply retarded in that respect. Thanks for reminding us, Billy.

 

Because love isn't that easy. "I know you think if I just tried / We would never fight at all," he tells us in the bridge, sketching the perfect storybook version of love that we girls long for.  (Are we wrong?) Billy's more of a realist: "But I know there will still be days / Into which some rain must fall." And after getting wet in the rain, what do you get? Rainbows, as that pay-off refrain reminds us.

 

Without that easygoing country lope, the plangent Dobro, Billy wouldn't sound quite as earnestly contrite -- the masculine pushback of this song would have more of a bite. But durn it all, he does feel sorry, and woeful about the way she's freezing him out.  The complacent mind may have written the song, but it's the loving heart singing it -- and it's a pretty winning apology. I'd take him back -- what about you, girls? 

WEDNESDAY SHUFFLE

Okay, so it's late AGAIN. But give me a break -- I was out listening to rock and roll all evening. Hey, I have my priorities straight!

1. "Cruel To Be Kind" / Marshall Crenshaw
From Labour of Love: The Music of Nick Lowe (2001)
Too perfect -- because it was Marshall Crenshaw I went out to see tonight, at a Gulf Coast benefit tribute concert to Alex Chilton (how's that for mashing together causes?). I'll say this right now: I prefer Marshall's version of Nick's big hit record to Nick's own -- MC just nails the plaintive, wounded, clueless quality of Nick's persona here. He just sounds like a guy who'd let this chick walk all over him, and then buy her excuses.

2. "I Take It On Home" / Charlie Rich
From Behind Closed Doors (1973)
Another country artist I just don't know enough about. I grew up knowing his two big hits, the coy "Behind Closed Doors" and the smarmy "Most Beautiful Girl in the World," so I never gave him a chance. I recently started to trawl through his back catalog, however, and -- HELLO! This song is even on the same album as those two; it was written by Kenny O'Dell, who also penned "Behind Closed Doors." Go figure. It's a honey.

3. "Summer Song" / Chad and Jeremy
From Yesterday's Gone (1964)
Mushy sentimental pop-folk -- but it was British mushy pop-folk, which made it all okay to my little pre-teen heart in 1964. These guys were so darn cute . . .

4. "Wonderful Feeling" / Lulu and Alan Price
From Shout!: The Decca Years (compilation)
Now here's some sassy British pop, circa 1964, with the gritty edge of Lulu's powerful girl voice matched by Alan Price's own Geordie gruffness. Alan had quit the Animals by then and was forging a more mainstream pop course with the Alan Price Set; how perfect to match him up with Lulu, who was treading her own fine line between pop and R&B. Alan wrote this song; produced the track, too. It's completely infectious pop, swinging horn section and all.

5. "Jenny Wren" / Paul McCartney
From Chaos and Creation in the Backyard (2005)
Paul trying to find his inner folkie. I've got to love it, because it's Paul (who by the way tonight received the Gershwin Award for Contemporary Music at the White House -- toss it in the drawer with all the other citations and medals, Pauly!). If I didn't harbor a sneaking suspicion he was just trying to re-do "Mother Nature's Son" . . .

6. "Moving the Goalposts" / Billy Bragg
From Don't Try This At Home (1991)
I feel a Billy Bragg post coming on. Bragg's deft political satire (which comes off extra-spiky in those Cockney vowels) sometimes overshadows his brilliant relationship songs. Here we've got both in one song, as he name-checks Gennady Gerasimov (former Soviet ambassador to Afghanistan), then side shifts into a tender, and incredibly sexy, depiction of him and his girl, occupying new territory in their own love affair. He draws this little vignette with so few details; we have to connect the dots . . . but it's all there. Stunning, really.

7. "It's Not Hard" / Alan Price
From Based on a True Story (2002)
And now here's Alan Price much later in his career -- on this obscure self-released album that contains some of his finest stuff in years. Who knew?

8. "Now's the Time" / Brinsley Schwarz
From The New Favourites of Brinsley Schwarz (1974)
Because there always must be something by Nick Lowe, even if it's a completely callow throwaway track -- not even a Nick composition, but an old Hollies song, written by' Graham Nash and Gene Clarke, issued as the B-side to their 1963 hit "Stay." Nick's not even singing the lead (is that Ian Gomm instead? or Brinsley?). And yet it's on my iTunes, and it's adorable.

9. "Holly Would" / Jackie DeShannon
From Laurel Canyon (1969)
Did I download this track because it has my name in it? Oh, probably. A little character study of a sort of free spirit, very post-Summer of Love Southern California.

10. "A Slow Song" / Joe Jackson
From Night and Day (1982)
There are only a few albums that I have loaded in their entirety onto my iTunes. (Make that only a few non-Nick Lowe albums.) Night and Day is one of them. I just love how desperately Joe throws his earnest, cracking voice into this plaintive waltz. This entire album seems to me to dance on the knife edge of a love affair that could go down the tubes at any minute. So why not dance real close while you still can?

“Love Gets Dangerous” / Billy Bragg

28 DAYS OF LOVE SONGS

Now here’s one for all the adulterers in the audience (you know who you are). This is from Billy Bragg’s Back to Basics album, a stripped-down DIY effort that’s most just him and a frantically strummed electric guitar. Once upon a time, when Billy was just a busker around London, this was his sound; the Essex accent, the slightly mumbled vocals, all make him sound like the guy next door -- and apparently the guy next door is screwing his neighbor's wife.

The lyrics come in nervous monotonic spurts: “The love of a woman / A fear of the phone / A secret message to a happy home” – he’s looking furtively over his shoulder the whole time. Melody? there's no more than about four notes in this tune, jerking spasmodically back and forth. “I’ve never been so scared / I never knew you cared”—that sums up the warring impulses that rage in this claustrophobic, anxious, adrenaline burst of a song.

He doubles his vocals for the chorus, which hammers away repeatedly at the overriding theme: "Love gets dangerous, dangerous." As the voices split into harmonies, it's like a yelp of fear, over that jittery guitar. I picture this guy jiggling his foot, unable to sit down, craving the thrill and about ready to pee in his pants for fear he'll get caught. Caught up in the danger, he can't reflect on the nature of love; he doesn't even have breathing room to tell us the story of how they met or where they meet. (Okay, later he says, "When we meet in the street / My terror is complete" -- oh yes, that really illuminates things.)

"There’s a fear that comes from being in danger," he muses in verse two, "Being in love with a total stranger." Well, you don't have to be cheating on somebody to dread pinning your fate on someone you don't really know. But when the fabric of your life is also at stake -- when you're "Putting our futures in jeopardy" -- then that stranger is even more risky. "When love is a secret, fear is the key," he adds, and I wonder -- isn't that at least half the attraction for him?

After all, in verse three he doesn't have much good to say about love -- it's a "drug that threatens to take my life" ; also, "Lust is a cancer, love is a vice." (Don't you go getting all mushy on us here, Billy.) "When she holds me I understand / Respect and fear go hand in hand" -- nothing about passion, about the way she looks or how she kisses, about dreams of happiness ever after. Nope, all those pop-song cliches are irrelevant to what Billy's about here.

Does this song make me want to have an affair? Hardly -- at least not on any rational level. It's just that...well, there's something so juicy about that vibrating guitar, the insistent offbeat rhythms, the vulnerable offkey vocals. At least these people are doing something exciting. It makes contentment and happy-ever-after seem distinctly second-rate.

Love Gets Dangerous sample

"She's Got A New Spell" / Billy Bragg

I mostly know Billy Bragg because he's on the Yep Roc label, same as Nick Lowe -- from time to time I check out their other artists, and I've never been disappointed. I downloaded several of Billy's tracks onto my iPod a few months ago, and every time this one comes up on the shuffle, it stops me in my tracks; I just have to listen and grin. Billy's as famous for his leftist politics as for his quirky folk-punk music, but this track (from his 1987 album Worker's Playtime) isn't topical. I like his political stuff just fine -- it's intelligent and passionate -- but when you come right down to it, this is the song that gets me going.

It starts off with a jangly electric guitar intro, something bouncy and retro that I could imagine in a song by the Turtles, or Tommy James & the Shondells. Then Billy bursts in, in his nasal Essex accent: "What is that sound? / Where is it coming from? / All around / What are you running from?" It's not so much tuneful as talky, and he sounds agitated, or paranoid -- or could it be he's just in love, hmmmm?

Well . . .maybe, maybe not. It's often said that a beautiful woman is "spellbinding" or "bewitching," but the distress in Billy's strained voice suggests he's not just being metaphorical when he says, "That's how I know / That she's got a new spell." Though the arrangement's still perky, the melody light-hearted, in the next verse he's even more baffled and disoriented: "What's going down / Who's moved this room from round me? / Where has it gone? / I fear this night will drown me / So I lie awake all night." I'm guessing he's swirling around in the hormonal rush of new love, but that's not how he sees it: "One minute she says / She's gone to get the cat in/ The next thing I know/ She's mumbling in Latin". Yikes! By now it's funny, and we're laughing along with him, and maybe at him, too, as he scratches his head and looks perplexed.

In the third verse, he turns all poetic on us, and it's totally disarming: "She cut the stars out of the sky / And baked them in a pie / She stole the scene and scenery / The script and the machinery." He's gobsmacked, there's no other word for it, and I for one am charmed. He's Darrin Stevens, she's Samantha, and so long as the beat is this good, he might as well dance to it, doncha think? I know he's got me dancing, all right.

www.billybragg.co.uk