My 2011 Holiday Album Buying Guide

Always a bit bogus, these year-end "best of" lists. To start with, they're based on a completely false premise: Who says you have to stick to 2011 releases when buying holiday presents for your nearest and dearest?  Still, there's something about a glossy new CD under the Christmas tree that's very alluring . It says, "I know you love music, and you're probably just as lost as I am in finding really worthwhile new stuff. So here are the newest tunes you've been too busy tweeting and Facebooking to learn about..."

In no particular order:

John Hiatt:  Dirty Jeans and Mudslide Hymns:  Hiatt's best work in years -- a searing suite of vignettes about the forgotten 99% and the dying American Dream. It starts out with a howl of frustration ("Damn This Town") and ends up with two unflinchingly poignant elegies ("Adios To California" and "When New York Had Her Heart Broke"). Unpreachy, authentic, and full of rockin' righteous rage.    

The Wood Brothers: Smoke Ring Halo: This brother act side-project for Oliver and Chris Wood has turned into something bigger than the both of them, situated at a country crossroads where jazz and bluegrass and Southern rock come to share a drink, swap tall tales, and eventually bay at the moon.  There's a sort of rumpled ease about this album that belies their incredible musicianship; I love it when guys this good don't take themselves too seriously.  Buy, buy, buy.

Black Keys: El Camino: How good are these guys! Their trademark sound -- pulsating R&B-flavored rock, with a gritty low-fi edge -- just makes me bliss out.  It's a recent release, so I'm still wandering around inside its sound, but expect a blog post soon. And as the sticker on the cover insists (yes, I still buy physical product), this album should be played LOUD.

Nick Lowe:The Old Magic: Nick. Magic. And, yes, old, at least as in retro-styled.  Nick's suave songwriting is as usual right on the mark, working that familiar territory of letdown, loss, and heartbreak (that voodoo that Nick does so well), but the more I listen, the more I'm impressed by the richness of Nick's vocals, ripening as never before in this crooner groove. Just because these songs are instantly enjoyable doesn't mean they don't grow on you. The more I listen, the more I . . . well, I was already in love, but this just twists the knife.      

Fleet Foxes: Helplessness Blues: No sophomore slump for these guys -- their second effort takes those haunting reverbed harmonies to a new trippy level. It's more ambitious and less spare than their debut album, as Robin Pecknold and company take a step or two away from their folky roots, but never fear, that melodic gorgeousness is still in full flower.  

Nikki Jean: Pennies in a Jar: A great discovery, this album by Philly-based singer-songwriter Nikki Jean reminds you why you first fell in love with pop music. Not the yippy cheesy kind, but the classics, written by the great master pop songwriters who co-wrote these songs with Nikki.  Cool concept: cooler album.

Fountains of Wayne: Sky Full of Holes:  Four years since Traffic and Weather,  FoW's first entry on the YepRoc label was worth the wait. Thirteen finely crafted short stories in song, with wistfulness and whimsy in equal measures; you'll laugh, you'll cry, and you'll definitely want to sing along. 

Fionn Regan: 100 Acres of Sycamore: The Irish have always been great poets; singer-songwriter Fionn Regan just sets his to music, that's all.  Wonderful folk-inflected music with a bit of Brechtian cabaret thrown in.  I loved his first album End of History, and this follow-up is just as whimsical and existential.  It takes a listen or two, but then it gets under your skin, like a long draught of Jameson's on a chilly autumn night.

The Jayhawks: Mockingbird Time: The long-awaited Jayhawks reunion album (has it really been eight years since Rainy Day Music?).  The good news is: It's a Jayhawks album, and it picks up right where they left off.  Did you expect new frontiers?  Even Mark and Gary's wonderful 2009 duo album Ready For the Flood stuck to the brand: rich harmonies, melodic hooks, laidback tempos, and more than a touch of twang. Why tamper with a sound -- and a sensibility -- this soul-satisfying?

Foster and Lloyd: It's Already Tomorrow: Waiting eight years is nothing -- try waiting 21 years for Radney Foster and Bill Lloyd to record together again. (Not that I haven' t been perfectly happy, mind you, with Bill Lloyd's somewhat more pop-oriented solo stuff in the meantime.) But this reunion album is a gem, with tuneful, well-honed songwriting. It stays on the right side of the border between Americana and country music; just enough twiddle and twang but never a trace of cornpone.   

HONORABLE MENTIONS: Albums I thoroughly enjoy by artists I love, though not groundbreaking efforts:
Keb' Mo': The Reflection
Ron Sexsmith: Long Player, Late Bloomer
The Decemberists:  The King Is Dead
Death Cab for Cutie: Codes and Keys

RETROSPECTIVES:
Ben Folds: The Best Imitation of Myself: Love, love, LOVE Ben Folds; this 3-disc retrospective is packed with rarities, live tracks, and a sampler of Folds' most memorable tunes.   

Various Artists: Rave On: A Tribute to Buddy Holly: How could this not be a treat, with such talents as Nick Lowe, The Black Keys, Zooey Deschanel, Cee Lo Green, Patti Smith, and My Morning Jacket on board?

Only a few shopping days left until Christmas -- what are you waiting for?  And if you just happen to pick up a few of these for yourself...well, I won't tell.

My Holiday Album Buying Guide

Nothing I like better Christmas morning than to find neat little 5-by-6-inch wrapped rectangles under the tree.  (Used to be 12-by-12-inch -- but there, I'm dating myself.)  And if you're like me, you don't want to leave the selection of your new holiday tunes up to chance and the questionable tastes of your friends and family -- you want a readymade list of excellent new CDs to request ahead of time. Why, you might even want a list of CDs to buy for other people, while we're at it! Normally I'm not much of a list-maker -- well, not like Uncle E, at least -- but as a public service, herewith is my end-of-year round-up . . . .

1. Imaginary Television
Graham Parker 

I  love this record for many reasons, but mostly because it's the album that got me back into Graham Parker, launching a months-long voyage of discovery.

I first blogged about the track "Always Greener"...


2.  Lonely Avenue

 Ben Folds and Nick Hornby

 Well, technically it's just Ben Folds -- British novelist Nick Hornby
 doesn't perform on the records, he just contributed the lyrics.  Just.

Check out my blog post on "Belinda."

3.  No Better Than This
John Mellencamp 

I won't defend every record John Mellencamp's ever made -- I'll just say that this stripped-down, acoustic, monoaural, back-to-the-roots effort may be the finest thing he's ever done.

Here's my take on "Love At First Sight."

4. The Grand Theater, Volume One
The Old 97s

This Austin-based outfit definitely keeps the alt in alt-country, and I have never yet heard a track by these guys that I didn't like.  This new album is just insanely smart and funny and fun to listen to.

Check out "A State of Texas"... 


5. My Dinosaur Life
Motion City Soundtrack

Neurotic emo-pop is so not my thing -- so why I'm such a fan of this band?  Witty little portraits of slacker angst, amped up with tons o' melody and a mosh-pit tempo.

Exhibit A: "Skin and Bones"

6.  A Word to the Wise
Bill Kirchen

Now for something completely different -- the rumpled musings of veteran musicmaker Bill Kirchen, accompanied by an amazing set of equally experienced guest stars. 

Take a spin with "Shelly's Winter Love" and you'll see what I mean...

7.  ContraVampire Weekend

Okay, so those duelling Subaru and Hilfiger commercials have pretty much ruined the perky world-pop charm of "Holiday." Nevertheless, the fresh sound and lively indie energy of this young band started 2010 out on a very high note for me, and I still grin when any of this album's song rotate up on my shuffle.

Here's where I started, with  . . . yes, I'm afraid it was "Holiday".  But maybe someday we'll be able to enjoy it again!

8. The 88
The 88

I'll admit that Ray Davies' seal of approval gave this L.A. band a huge boost in my estimation.  But there's nothing not to like about this tight, melodic album, which takes pop music back from the schlockmeisters and gives it a good name again. Sorry, I never got around to posting here about this album, but I did review it for Blogcritics.

9. Junky Star
Ryan Bingham and the Dead Horses

Bingham's work on the Crazy Heart soundtrack vaulted him onto my alt-country playlist; this album proved to me that was no fluke.  I've only started listening to this one -- haven' t done a blog post on it yet -- but trust me, there are plenty of dark, nuanced, twangy pleasures to be found here. Townes Van Zant would approve, I suspect.

10. Propellor TimeRobyn Hitchcock and the Venus 3

I want to resist -- but I can't.  If Robyn Hitchcock's peculiar psych-folk-punk music is a minority taste, then count me in that minority.  The odder his lyrics get, the more off-kilter the melodies become, the happier I am.Inexplicably, I never got around to reviewing any tracks from this album; in lieu of that, may I provide a link to the weird and wonderful video for "Ordinary Millionaire".


11. Brothers
The Black Keys

So who says we have to quit at 10? If we did, I wouldn't be able to mention this album -- another fairly new acquisition that I haven't yet written about -- a deeply, deeply funky artifact by a duo that look like standard-issue Williamsburg hipsters.  Go figure.  All I know is, these tracks put me in a souled-out trance, putting the hip in hypnotic.

12. Soulsville
Huey Lewis & the News

Let's make it an even dozen, then, and throw in my old boyfriend Huey Lewis, who delivers a heartfelt tribute to the vintage soul numbers that inspired his own career. A guilty pleasure, perhaps, but it is full of that patented Huey Lewis genial charm, and if it's not a groundbreaking, it is listenable as hell.

I did blog about this one, homing in on "Respect Yourself."


Still got room for a few more stocking stuffers?  Let's throw in Jon Lindsay's Escape From Plaza-Midwoodand Edward O'Connell's Our Little Secret, my two great slush-pile finds of the year.  Of course we're already looking forward to 2011 for the US release of Ray Davies' See My Friends and Greg Trooper's Upside-Down Town (no Amazon link yet but I'll keep you posted). The music never ends!