My Favorite Albums of 2014

The Voyager / Jenny Lewis

Maybe it's a girl thing, but I drag my feet when it comes to Jenny Lewis.  (Note that this is the LAST post in my Favorite Albums of 2014.) She's like the cool girl that everyone else in school adores -- not the homecoming queen, but the smart pretty one with quirky fashion sense. (If this were Heathers, she'd be Winona Ryder.)  And, face it, I'm jealous of her indie It Girl status.

And yet, when I finally sit down and listen to her albums, her songs get stuck in my head, and the lyrics eerily reflect my own outlook on life.  She spins a world in which everything is tentative, provisional, unreliable, a worldview perfectly reflected by her wary, waifish voice.

I might as well give into it. This is her third album, and I've liked every single one of them.  Who am I kidding?

 From what I can tell, Jenny Lewis is not the kind of chick that men ignore. Yet here she is, clinging to a relationship in which she does NOT have the upper hand ("bet you tell her I'm crazy") and slowly coming to the realization that the Other Woman's strength is precisely that she is not quite such as handful as our girl Jenny.

"She's not me / She's easy" -- maybe for you guys, that's an easy equation to work out.  But for me and my (intentionally or not ) complicated female friends, watching this play out is HARD. I've been there; I've done that. But in the long run....

I love how the harmonies bloom on significant syllables, how the sophisticated guitar line weaves in and out like a watchful friend.  It's a world of maybes, couldas, possiblies, and the song has just the right amount of doubt hanging it all out to show.

One of the reasons I hate year-end "best of" lists is that, sometimes, it takes a while for a song or an album to worm into your brain. This Jenny Lewis album is like that.  The more I listen, the more I . . . well, like isn't the word. Absorb, maybe, or eventually click into the mindset of it.

Unfortunately, we live in a crowded musical universe where everybody's jostling for clicks, hits, downloads. Jenny Lewis's Indie It Girl profile may help her here; I'm willing to bet that there are another three or four unheralded singer-songwriters that I'll never know about that I would have loved, whose work will never percolate to the top.

But that's no reason not to finally admit it:  Okay, Jenny Lewis. You're now officially one of My Girls.

ROAD TRIP!!!

...but alas, the other passengers in the car needed to sleep, make phone calls and work on their laptops while we drove. So I spent eight hours in the car AND DID NOT GET TO LISTEN TO MY IPOD PLAYLISTS AS I HAD PLANNED!!

Needless to say I am pouting about this, big time. Because I am JUST THAT PETTY, when provoked.

So all I had were the tunes in my head, which for whatever reason produced this random playlist.

OneRepublic / "Counting Stars"

Look, I'm not saying I like this song. But as current pop earworms go, it's pretty earwormy. My 19-year-old daughter (whom we just took back to college -- hence the long drive) makes me listen to pop stations when we ride in the car together, as we did earlier this week.  I find this song much less offensive than others. (How's that for damning with faint praise?)

Jenny Lewis / "Rise Up With Fists!"

The leap from OneRepublic to Indie It Girl Jenny Lewis makes sense only in some convoluted fold of my gray matter. (Probably because 3 weeks ago I was reading that she released a new album, The Voyager, and I'm still dithering about whether or not to buy it). I guess my problem is that I keep wanting her to be Jill Sobule and she just isn't as loveable as Jill. But then, who is?


John Hiatt / "She Loves the Jerk"

Maybe in the car I was beginning to think too much about the fact that I have this new John Hiatt album on that iPod, which I haven't yet been able to listen to properly. But out of nowhere, this early Hiatt gem planted itself in my cerebral cortex, and it lodged there for at least 150 miles. Which is a good thing in my book.

The deep, deep songcraft here slays me every time. Simple plot: Guy loves girl, who loves another guy, but spends hours on the phone confiding in the first guy, who we can all see is better for her . . . yadda yadda yadda. But seriously, how could you not love lines like, "'Well you married the wrong guy,' is all I ever say / But she'll never let him go /He's a no-good so-and-so, / Though she knows it will never work, she loves the jerk." And so the dance goes on.

Jill Sobule / "The Guy Who Doesn't Get It"

And then, because of Jenny, it did eventually come back to Jill.  And if things landed on this song in particular -- well, remember, it was a long drive and OTHER PEOPLE IN THE CAR WOULDN'T LET ME LISTEN TO MY IPOD. In such situations, I find my girlfriend Jill to be a great comforter.

This is the first song that hooked me on her incredible body of work, for which I shall forever be grateful, as I explain here.

WEDNESDAY SHUFFLE

An eclectic bunch of tunes for the end of summer [sigh] . . . .

1. "When I Live My Dream" / David Bowie
From David Bowie (1967)
Before he was Ziggy Stardust, Bowie's first album featured a quirky mix of songs like this Anthony Newley knock-off. (Pizzicato strings! A triangle!) Insurance, just in case the rock-and-roll thing didn't pan out, you know...

2. "The Sun Ain't Gonna Shine Anymore" / The Walker Brothers
From Portrait (1966)
A trio from California, none of them really brothers, who found success by moving to the UK in 1965 -- payback for the British Invasion, I guess. Their first hit was Bacharach & David's "Make It Easy On Yourself" (remember the Jerry Butler version?); this single got a little more airplay in the States and cracked the top 20. I love how they copied that Righteous Brothers white-soul sound perfectly, all echo and back-up choirs and manly harmonies. "The sun ain't gonna shine anymore / The moon ain't gonna rise in the skies / The tears are always clouding your eyes" -- tear those heart-strings!

3. "You're Telling Me" / Alan Price
From Between Today and Yesterday (1974)
After O Lucky Man!, where could Alan Price go? Well, it took him a while -- the record company rejected his first try, Savaloy Dip (a long-lost album, until my friend Tony discovered a carton of 8-track tapes in a record warehouse's dumpster). But undaunted, Price bounced back with this masterpiece LP, perhaps best known for the UK hit "Jarrow Song." This song is the highlight of side 2, the "today" side, where Price finally unleashes the brooding, bluesy organ riffs we've been waiting for. "My friends all tell me, 'you should be happy, / You have more than many others in this town.' / But I can see now, just what they mean now, / They're my friends until my money lets them down." Yup, that's the cynical Alan Price we know and love.

4. "He's Evil" / The Kinks
From Preservation Act 2 (1974)
Another favorite album from 1974 -- totally different, of course, with Ray Davies leading the Kinks deep into campy musical theater. Dig the finger-wagging back-up choir in this snappy character sketch of dastardly Mr. Flash, the villain of this dystopian fable. Over and over, building to the finish, "He's evil (he's evil) / He's evil (he's evil) / He's evil, he's evil, he's evil." Get the picture? Yes, we see.

5. "What Good Am I Without You?" / Kim Weston & Marvin Gaye
From Take Two (1966)
Classic Motown duet -- what a groove these two hit together. . . .

6. "Am I Wrong" / Keb' Mo'
From Keb' Mo (1994)
Just Keb' and his steel guitar, with handclaps and a few grunts providing snappy percussion -- and it's divine. How can he be wrong, falling in love with her, when her other man was out there cheatin' and lyin' and steppin' all over her? Sexiest line: "Just want to make a home for you, baby / And all of your children too."

7. "You Are What You Love" / Jenny Lewis & The Watson Twins
From Rabbit Fur Coat (2005)
Jenny's spunky, tuneful first solo album, her breakaway from Rilo Kiley, was so good. . . .what's happened since?

8. "Ain't That Loving You" / Sir Douglas Quintet
From Soul Jam (2000 -- compilation)
South Side Chicago blues, filtered through Texas. You may know this old chestnut by Deadric Malone -- alias Houston black record producer Don Robey -- from the Grateful Dead's version, or Buddy Guy's. (Elvis Presley's was a different song -- man, this stuff gets confusing.) But man oh man, did Doug Sahm have a great voice -- I could listen to him sing the Yellow Pages and I'd be happy.

9. "These Roads Don't Move" / Jay Farrar & Benjamin Gibbard
From Big Sur (2009)
Wonder what Kerouac would've thought of Jay and Ben turning his prose into Americana music?

10. "What Is Wrong, What Is Right?" / Herman's Hermits
From Very Best of Herman's Hermits (compilation)
This 1966 B-side proves that there was more to Herman's Hermits than the teen fan mags ever let us know -- just as I always suspected!

WEDNESDAY SHUFFLE

Funny thing about my iPod -- almost all the songs on it have some subtle Nick Lowe connection. Just for fun, let's see if I can do Six Degrees of Nick Lowe for everything that shuffles up today.

1. "This Boy" / The Beatles
From Past Masters, Vol. 1 (compilation)
Okay, I'll admit, I was a Beatle fan LONG before I ever heard of Nick Lowe. (Flash to the instrumental version of this song, in A Hard Day's Night, when Ringo is wandering around down the docklands, communing with the street urchins.) But Nick's first band Kippington Lodge recorded several Beatles covers, and then Brinsley Schwarz toured with ex-Beatle Paul McCartney's band Wings. I think it's safe to say Nick was a Beatle fan as a teenager. With lush harmonies and a fox-trot tempo, this song sounds to me like a bid to charm our parents, so they'd let us listen to the frantic rock & rollers. But you know what? Even when they were trying to do schlock the Beatles could do no wrong.

2. "String Pull Job" / John Hiatt
From Two Bit Monsters (1980)
Obvious Nick link, since Nick produced and played bass on Hiatt's breakthrough album Bring the Family, then joined him in the band Little Village. (Even though I knew Hiatt as a kid, growing up in the same neighborhood, it was the Nick link that finally led me to Hiatt's grown-up music [smacks self on forehead].) But here's a bonus connection -- listen to this song's jerky tempo, the brittle grating guitar, the hostile lyrics ("She's doing that jerk, she's pulling it tight-err..."). During this period, Hiatt styled his music to fit being marketed as "the American Elvis Costello" -- and we all know that Nick was Elvis's first producer.

3. "Trouble in Mind" / Merle Haggard
From Down Every Road (compilation)
Here's a 180-degree turn from Hiatt's edgy early days, closer in spirit to Hiatt's current alt.country sound. A shuffling two-step full of twang, with a fiddle solo in the first break, honkytonk piano in the second, and Merle's dreamy vocals. Far from his outlaw image, here Merle sounds positively laidback -- even though his life's going wrong, he seems to know it'll all straighten out some day. Nick Lowe connection? Well, Nick just recorded this Merle Haggard song on Bill Kirchen's latest album.

4. "Baby My Heart" / Bobby Fuller Four
From Never To Be Forgotten: The Mustang Years (compilation)
Clean, uncomplicated rock & roll, circa 1966, with crunchy guitars, strict time cymbals, and loads of reverb on Fuller's boyish vocals. "You gotta baby my heart / Treat it gentle and kind . . . " IMHO, Bobby Fuller was the missing link between Ricky Nelson and fellow Texan Doug Sahm -- if only he hadn't died young in a tragic car crash! In the liner notes to Nick Lowe's Wilderness Years CD, he sets up his song "I Don't Want the Night to End" thusly: "With the ghost of Bobby Fuller riding shotgun, this one composed in the back of a Queensgate-bound mini-cab sometime in 1977."

5. "Run" / Vampire Weekend
From Contra (2009)
The diametric opposite to Bobby Fuller -- jump forward 40 years, to East Coast privileged smart kids with a knack for complex rhythms and world-beat sounds. Dig those layered keyboards, alternately stabbing and shimmering, laid over a slapping drum track. Textures like crazy, from the anxious tension of the verse to the waterfall of sound in the chorus, to the poppy syncopation of the bridge "(honey it's you /oo / oo / And a battery radio)"... I am coming up empty on any Nick Lowe connection for this one, I have to admit.

6. "That's Not the Way That It's Done" / Minus 5
From Down With Wilco (2003)
Several members of this band are also in the Venus 3, musical collaborators of Nick's label-mate and sometime opening act Robyn Hitchcock. I love the slightly boozy, woozy good-times vibe of this band. Picture graying beards and flannel shirts, with a sweetly snarky sense of humor. All he's trying to do is put her in the mood for love...

7. "Black Lincoln Continental" / Nick Lowe
From Pinker and Prouder Than Previous
Yippee!! Graham Parker's rockabilly romp, as faithfully rendered by Nick Lowe on one of his most obscure and underrated LPs. Grrrr-EAT organ counterpoint by Paul Carrack. This track is so adorable I could eat it up. (Sorry, Graham, but I actually think I prefer Nick's version...)

8. "Sing A Song For Them" / Jenny Lewis
From Acid Tongue (2008)
I loved Jenny's autobiographical, country-inflected debut album; I never warmed to this self-consciously poetical second one, despite all the guest artists -- INCLUDING the aforementioned Nick Lowe colleague Elvis Costello. (Though getting Elvis Costello to sing on one track of your album is apparently not that difficult these days.)

9. "Pistol on the Shelf" / Eggs Over Easy
From Good 'N' Cheap
Ah, the band that gave birth to pub rock and inspired Nick's band Brinsley Schwarz -- a bunch of American visitors to London, led by the much beloved Austin DeLone (that's him on the piano), who later played in the Moonlighters with the aforementioned Bill Kirchen. Mellow, mellow, MELLOW country-rock, with not a jot of angst.

10. "Ordinary Millionaire" / Robyn Hitchcock & the Venus 3
From Propellor Time (2010)
Speak of the devil! Keep this on the Q.T., but some days I'm nearly as besotted with Robyn Hitchcock as I am with Nick Lowe, though it was the Nick connection that first led to Robyn. I never 100% know what's going on in an RH song -- it seems like there's always a little novel hidden in it, which only Robyn has read -- but this one sounds like a love affair running aground on mistrust and thwarted ego. "I don't know where you've gone from me / I know you don't belong to me / I only know you're there." But man oh man, the sinuous melody, the fluid rhythms, the shifting key changes -- I'm hyp-mo-tized!

“You Are What You Love” / Jenny Lewis & the Watson Twins

Jenny Lewis has one of those little-girl voices, like Jill Sobule, that’s deceptive – when you listen to the words of her songs there’s nothing little-girly about her at all. In fact, she’s downright snarky and dangerous. What’s most dangerous about Jenny Lewis is that men don’t fool her, and she doesn’t fool herself. There’s nothing scarier in the realm of love than a woman with no illusions. Am I right, guys?

This track is from Jenny’s 2006 album, Rabbit Fur Coat (her first solo album after leaving the band Rilo Kiley), and it’s full of wry, sharp, I-know-who-I-am-by-now songs. Like Billy Bragg in yesterday’s song, she’s playing with metaphors, but she’s got a whole grabbag of them, anything that could be called an “illusion”: ghosts, mirrors, art forgery, a woman being sawed in half, a rabbit pulled from a hat.

She hustles smartly through the lyrics, not bothering even with rhyme, as if she’s got too much to say to dress it up. And sure, the beat is brisk and cheery, with a snappy drumbeat and sparkly electric piano and lulling guitar strums, but that’s an illusion too: Throughout the song she describes nothing but a relationship in crisis. She’s looking for “invisible reasons to fall out of love and run screaming from our home”; “More and more we’re suffering / Not nobody, not a thousand beers / Will keep us from feeling all alone”; she refers to the “heart attacks I’m convinced I have / Every morning upon waking” -- none of this looks good.

The echo-chamber effect gives her voice a chilling sort of hollowness, despite its whispery girlish intimacy. And sure, she’s on the doorstep, begging to be taken back, she’s hashing things out for hours on the phone, but she’ll coolly admit she’s an expert liar – “I’m fraudulent, a thief at best / A coward who paints a bullshit canvas.” Late in the song, she softly sneaks in her partner’s name – “Tim” – as if she’s past caring about changing names to protect the innocent.

All of which brings us down to the refrain of this song, which is like a Zen koan, with more layers of truth than an onion: “You are what you love / Not what loves you back.” Amazing, what that has to say about the human heart’s infinite capacity for yearning and self-deception. It makes me think of the Mamas and the Papas (who’ve been on my mind all day, since reading Denny Doherty’s obit this morning) -- Cass loved Denny, but Denny loved Michelle, who was married to John, and nobody was happy. What’s even worse is how we hang in there, trying to force the person we love into somebody who will love us back, and refusing to surrender to the person who does love us.

So why does this song make me grin and feel charged up? Maybe it’s because it’s so refreshing to finally hear someone call a spade a spade, and not try to pretend that things are any different than they are. “I’m in love with tricks,” Jenny admits at the end of the song, “So pull another rabbit out of your hat.” We all know there’s no rabbit in that hat, but still we stare at the stage, hoping the magician will pull it off. Even the girl with no illusions.