2017 Year-End Round Up

Mark it down: 2017 is the year I went full Dad Rock… a feat all the more impressive considering I don’t have children. I dug all these albums, and my listening habits remained as wide-ranging and catholic as ever, but damned if most of what I ended up gravitating to this year was heavy (even by my standards!) on guitar-indie/Americana/No Depression stuff. Folks like Jason Isbell, Margo Price and Hurray for the Riff Raff’s Alynda Segarra delivered heartfelt missives from the frontlines of 2017, and if the other albums here weren’t quite as resonant, they nevertheless provided a welcome respite from the madness outside my headphones. 


 

MY TOP 25 ALBUMS OF 2017
25 Tomorrow Forever, Matthew Sweet (Honeycomb Hideout)
24 Waiting On A Song, Dan Auerbach (Easy Eye Sound)
23 Chills & Fever, Samantha Fish (Ruf Records)
22 Life Will See You Now, Jens Lekman (Secretly Canadian)
21 Life Without Sound, Cloud Nothings (Carpark)
20 Big Bad Luv, John Moreland (4AD)
19 The Lucky Ones Forget, Craig Brown Band (Third Man)
18 Hot Thoughts, Spoon (Matador)
17 August By Cake, Guided By Voices (Guided by Voices Inc.)
16 The Navigator, Hurray for the Riff Raff (ATO)
15 Need To Feel Your Love, Sheer Mag (Wilsuns Recording Company)
14 The World’s Best American Band, White Reaper (Polyvinyl)
13 Guppy, Charly Bliss (Barsuk)
12 London Southern, Jim Lauderdale (Sky Crunch)
11 Adios, Cory Branan (Bloodshot)
10 Near to the Wild Heart of Life, Japandroids (Anti-)
09 Bobby Fuller Died For Your Sins, Chuck Prophet (Yep Roc)
08 Poor David’s Almanack, David Rawlings (Acony)
07 A Deeper Understanding, War on Drugs (Atlantic)
06 Coco Hames, Coco Hames (Merge)
05 All American Made, Margo Price (Third Man)
04 Sidelong, Sarah Shook & the Disarmers (Bloodshot)
03 Anything Could Happen, Bash & Pop (Fat Possum)
02 So You Wannabe An Outlaw, Steve Earle (Warner Brothers)
01 The Nashville Sound, Jason Isbell & the 400 Unit (Southeastern)

 

THE YEAR IN MUSIC BOOKS READ (* = recommended / % = avoid)

• Won’t Get Fooled Again: The Who From Lighthouse to Quadrophenia, Richie Unterberger (*)
• The History of Rock ‘n’ Roll in Ten Songs, Greil Marcus
• What You Want Is In The Limo, Michael Walker
• Document and Eyewitness: An Intimate History of Rough Trade, Neil Taylor
• By The Time We Got To Woodstock: The Great Rock ‘n’ Roll Revolution of 1969, Bruce Pollock (%)
• Beatles ‘66: The Revolutionary Year, Steve Turner (*)
• Altamont: The Rolling Stones, the Hells Angels & the Inside Story of Rock’s Darkest Day, Joel Selvin (*)
• Beatles Vs. Stones, John McMillian
• Every Song Ever: Twenty Ways To Listen In An Age of Musical Plenty, Ben Ratliff
• Your Favorite Band Is Killing Me, Steven Hyden (*)
• Never A Dull Moment: 1971 - The Year That Rock Exploded, David Hepworth
• Illmatic, Matthew Gasteier (33-⅓ Books) (%)
• When Surface Was Depth, Michael Bracewell
• And The Ass Saw The Angel, Nick Cave
• How To Listen To Jazz, Ted Gioia
• Revolution in the Head: The Beatles’ Records & the Sixties, Ian MacDonald
• Some Girls, Cyrus R.K. Patell (33-⅓ Books)
• And Party Every Day: The Inside Story of Casablanca Records, Larry Harris
• The Show That Never Ends: The Rise and Fall of Prog Rock, David Weigel (*)
• Mind the Bollocks: A Riotous Rant Through The Ridiculousness of Rock ‘n’ Roll, Johnny Sharp
• Rock and Roll Will Save Your Life, Steve Almond (*)
• Highway 61 Revisited, Mark Polizzotti (33-⅓ Books)
• OK Computer, Dai Griffiths (33-⅓ Books) (%)
• Pet Sounds, Jim Fusilli (33-⅓ Books)
• I Shot a Man in Reno: A History of Death by Murder, Suicide, Fire, Flood, Drugs, Disease and General Misadventure, as Related in Popular Song, Graeme Thomson
• Blissed Out: The Raptures of Rock, Simon Reynolds
• Cranked Up Really High: Genre Theory & Punk Rock, Stewart Home (*)
• Rock and the Pop Narcotic (Revised Edition), Joe Carducci (*)
• Dreaming the Beatles: The Love Story of One Band and the Whole World, Rob Sheffield (*)
• Present Tense: Rock & Roll and Culture, Anthony Decurtis, ed.

NON-2017 (RE-) DISCOVERIES
Curtis!, Curtis Mayfield (Curtom, 1970)
Ain’t That Good News, Sam Cooke (RCA Victor, 1964)
Gospel Train, Sister Rosetta Tharpe (Mercury, 1956)
Country Life, Roxy Music (Island, 1974)

“Jesus Is Getting Us Ready For That Great Day,” Luther Magby (American Primitive, Volume 1): Buried deep in the bowels of the American Primitive anthology comes this gem, recorded in 1926, but damned if it doesn’t sound like it was recorded 2000 years ago or 2000 years in the future; I just can’t tell. There’s something wholly atemporal about Magby’s verse-closing delivery of “Who shall be able to stand?” that stops me cold every time I hear the song  Best I can tell, Magby’s recorded output consists solely of this song and “Blessed Are The Poor In Spirit,” though Allmusic claims he worked the gospel fair circuit into the 2000s (!).  

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“True Sadness,” The Avett Brothers (live on A Prairie Home Companion, February 18, 2017): If Jason Isbell’s “Hope the High Road” was the year’s optimistic song, this was its unflinching twin, as Seth Avett pretty much nailed the prevailing mood of Life In These United States, circa 2017: “'Cause I still wake up shaken by dreams / And I hate to say it but the way it seems / Is that no one is fine / Take the time to peel a few layers / And you will find / True sadness”. Toss in a bridge about the objectification of women, note that it was performed on a radio show once hosted by Garrison Keillor, marvel at the performance the entire band… this version of this song has haunted me for months, in all the best ways.

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Smokey Robinson & the Miracles: Smokey and co have filled my ‘60s playlists for ages, but it wasn’t until Robinson won the 2016 Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for Popular song (and this piece at Deadspin) that I finally roused myself to properly explore the man’s handiwork. To the delight of children and housewives everywhere, I ended up listening to the 2008 anthology, The Definitive Collection, the most, because it had all my faves in one place: viz. “(Come ‘Round Here) I’m The One You Need”, “More Love” (that arrangement!), “Special Occasion”. Now to listen to the actual Motown albums. 

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Blue Note/Prestige albums: The wife and I were looking for ways to wind down at night sans TV/cell phones, and jazz -- especially when informed by the Penguin Guide to Jazz: Core Collection -- proved to be a great way to end a long day. Deeper dives into Coltrane and Monk have since followed. 

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First wave ska: Staying at an all-inclusive, child-free resort in Jamaica is the diametric opposite of going native, but I tried to atone by listening to early ‘60s offerings from the Skatalites, Prince Buster, Desmond Dekker, Lord Creator, Byron Lee & the Dragonaires, the Maytals, Laurel Aitken, Derrick Morgan and Justin Hinds, all of which were a welcome antidote to the ‘80s hair metal blasted poolside for the benefit of the Sunburned Ugly Americans, and “One Love” everywhere else. To these ears, it wasn’t too far removed from New Orleans R&B being crafted 1,000 miles away… and yes, it provided a fine soundtrack to my daily afternoon Red Stripe(s).

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Halloween music: What started as innocent musical dabbling last year bloomed into all-out mania this year. For the entire month of October, when I wasn’t listening to the two-disc ‘30s and ‘40s Era Halloween anthology, I was spinning this Spotify playlist, which celebrated the goofier (but no less worthy!) ‘50s and ‘60s Halloween tunesmiths (e.g., Gene Moss & Fred Rice, Bobby “Boris” Pickett, Don Hinson & the Rigamorticians, and, of course, John Zacherle). Then, still not sated by the holiday, I penned 4,000 words about my favorite H’ween tune, Zacherle’s “Dinner With Drac”. At this rate, next year’s Halloween season will run from Labor Day to Thanksgiving.

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Xmas music: My other seasonal hobby-turned-problem. A deep dive this year into the online world of xmas music turned my 2016-created, sensibly-sized Spotify playlist into a hulking, tinsel-bedecked behemoth groaning with over 100 albums, heavy on the ‘50s/’60s/’70s C&W and R&B, with offerings from the likes of Mahalia Jackson, Buck Owens, Huey “Piano” Smith, Jackie Wilson, Hank Thompson, but also some modern classics from Bob Dylan, Sharon Jones, and the BellRays. I also eBayed myself a dozen favorites on vinyl, including Jimmy Smith’s Christmas Cookin’, Kay Martin & her Body Guards’ I Know What He Wants For Christmas… But I Don’t Know How To Wrap It!, and Harry “The Hipster” Gibson’s Harry the Hipster Digs Christmas. Is this music an escape from the horrors of the everyday world? My never-ending search for musical novelty? Something to look forward to at the end of the year? Let’s save those questions for therapy; all I know is I genuinely love this music and look forward to November 15 every year when I can justify starting to listen to these songs. No novelty garbage, nothing too boring or tasteful. Let’s end on this question: Which holiday album better cover best sums up your 2017?