Year-End Round-Up: Part 1

Alright, so clearly this blog will not be regularly updated. (Damn you, social and academic commitments!) But the end of December is like Christmas time to a music blogger (cough, cough); it's a chance to prove your music knowledge to a bunch of anonymous strangers by giddily posting lists of songs and albums that nobody else listened to this year.

I've got a few lists in mind this year, starting with this one: Albums Not Released 2007 That I Loved This Year. Some were new to me this year; others I've had for a while, but it took until this year for me to fall in love with them. Of course, all are highly recommended.


10. Here Come the Warm Jets, Brian Eno (1974): I can't recall what prompted me to get my hands on Eno's '70s albums, but I'm glad I did. As long as we're talking Eno, I recommend this Lester Bangs-penned piece on Eno, written in 1979, but not published until 2003: "Brian Eno: A Sandbox in Alphaville."



9. Kings of the Wild Frontier, Adam & the Ants (1980): I'm still tracking down albums that I learned about through Simon Reynolds' amazing Rip It Up and Start Again: Post-Punk 1978-1984 -- and I read it a year-and-a-half ago. It's funny: the image I once had of these post-punk/New Wave acts, gleaned only through alt-rock radio's "Flashback Lunchbox" hours, is completely different from the one I have from actually listening to these artists' albums. Side A of Kings of the Wild Frontier could whip most anything released this year, or any other year. The lesson: Radio blows. Go out and get the album. Key track

8. Dirty Mind, Prince (1980): Before he was a keyboard-confounding symbol, a movie star or a fan-suing douchetard, Prince was just a dude who mixed funk, soul, R&B and New Wave together better than anyone else has done before or since. This album kicked off his amazing run of albums in the '80s, and at lean, mean 30 minutes, it has a breeziness not found on his hour-plus epics, 1983's 1999 and 1987's Sign 'O' The Times. Also, once you've heard "When You Were Mine," I dare you not to play it four more times in a row.


7. Birth, School, Work, Death, The Godfathers (1988): The Godfathers' fate must be chalked up to bad timing: they missed the Britpunk explosion by 10 years, and precipitated the '90s Britrock scene by a half-dozen years; they were a band without a flag. Oasis, Blur, Arctic Monkeys, every other British guitar band fawned over by N.M.E.: the Godfathers are, uh, godfathers to the whole bloody lot of 'em. This album's opening 1-2 punch of the title track and "If I Only Had Time" leave me wondering how and why these guys haven't attained even footnote status in rock history.


6. Only A Lad, Oingo Boingo (1981): Like many others this year, I first heard the title track to this album on Guitar Hero Encore: Rocks the '80s. Some friends and I used to go to "Guitar Hero Night" at a local bar, and I would anger the other bar patrons by constantly playing the "wimpy" New Wave tracks. I'm sorry, but there's nothing wimpy about the song -- read the lyrics: it's "Jeremy" for the 1980s -- or the rest of this album, which is perfect for days when I want to listen to herky-jerky New Wave, but I don't want to listen to DEVO or the first B-52s album.

5. Cosmo's Factory, Creedence Clearwater Revival (1970): I dusted off my CCR records after the Steve Hyden of The Onion's AV Club proclaimed Cosmo's Factory's opening track, "Ramble Tamble," the "most rockin' song of all time." I can't say I agree with him -- my vote goes to the Faces' "Stay With Me" -- but man oh man is this album fantastic. Like the Adam Ant case above, after years of hearing Creedence songs on the radio, it's refreshing to hear them in their original context. How I didn't get a speeding ticket this year while listening to "Ramble Tamble," "Travelin' Band" or "Up Around the Bend" in the car is beyond me. God must be a Creedence fan. Best moment on the album: "You can ponder perpetual motion."

4. Double Nickels on the Dime, Minutemen (1984): I've had this album for years, too, but it took a reading of Michael Azerrad's '80s indie rock report Our Band Could Be Your Life to make this record click for me. With 40+ songs and a decided political bent, Double Nickels seems like an intimidating listen on paper, but tunes like "Corona" (a.k.a. the Jackass theme song), "Jesus & Tequila" and "This Ain't No Picnic" are plenty accessible. I'm also willing to nudge this album ahead of Husker Du's Zen Arcade in the battle for the "Best Double Album Of 1984." This album gets bonus points for being the perfect length for the car ride between Boston and my folks' house in Connecticut. (Also recommended: Michael Fournier's 33-1/3 book series entry on Double Nickels on the Dime)

3. Sandinista!, The Clash (1980): There's always one thing I think when I listen to Sandinista! (and Double Nickels, for that matter): Boy, they don't make 'em like they used to. I parked myself on a park bench one Sunday afternoon this summer and devoured the album in one sitting. What the hell fueled this stuffed-to-the-gills 3-LP set? Musical overexuberance? Hubris? There's so much happening in this album, it never fails to set my brain on fire: "Hitsville U.K." "When Ivan Meets G.I. Joe." "The Leader." "Police On My Back." "Lose This Skin." Hell, I'm getting goosebumps just typing the song titles. (Especially "Lose This Skin." That song's has been haunting me ever since I first heard it.) This album gets unfairly maligned for its adventurism (go check the conflicted 3-star Amazon reviews), and the Clash themselves retreated (1982's Combat Rock), then imploded (1985's Cut the Crap) on their next two albums, but with Sandinista!, the Clash showed that punk could be whatever the hell you wanted it to be.

2. Exile on Main Street, Rolling Stones (1972): This was another album I've had for ages that I didn't get around to fully appreciating until this year. Yes, I know it's heresy that it took me this long to come around to Exile. Better late than never, I suppose. Enough has been written about this album that I'll only embarrass myself by trying to add to the canon, but I will say this: No lyric ever written, by any songwriter, has ever topped this gem from opening track "Rocks Off": "Sunshine bores the daylights out of me."

1. The Devil You Know, Todd Snider (2006): Checking back through my files, I didn't get my hands on a copy of this album until December '06 (though it was released in August of that year). Had I spent more time with this record, it would have easily taken every slot on my Best Albums of 2006 list. Alright, so that's a little hyperbolic -- but not by much. It's albums like this that remind me why I subscribe to No Depression. There's just so many honest slices of life in the songs collected here: criminals, prostitutes, drunks, drywall-hangers, George W. Bush (whom Snider absolutely eviscerates on "You Got Away With It (A Tale Of Two Fraternity Brothers")), and I'll be damned if there was a more rockin' song than the title track released in 2006. Just... wow. Get your hands on a copy of this one.

"Looking For A Job," Todd Snider