I usually wait until concrete release dates are announced before listing an album in these previews, but in the last few days, a number of artists have made announcements worth noting.
Tokyo Jihen, News, April 8
I didn’t think I would miss Tokyo Jihen, but I realized I did when their reunion was announced.
Gaytheist, How Long Have I Been on Fire, April 10
I like Gaytheist, but I don’t follow them as closely as I do other bands. So it’s an automated announcement from Bandcamp that informed me of this release.
Roberta Flack, First Take (Deluxe Edition), April 10
Roberta Flack’s debut album turns 50. “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face” was No. 1 on the week I was born.
Rufus Wainwright, Unfollow the Rules, April 24
When was the last time Rufus Wainwright did a rock album? Right around the time I moved to Seattle in 2012.
Sam Smith, To Die For, May 1
I enjoyed The Thrill of It All more than In the Lonely Hour, so I’m hoping this next album continues that trajectory.
Jason Isbell and 400 Unit, Reunions, May 15
The Nashville Sound was good, but it didn’t monopolize my attention the way Southeastern or Something More than Free did. So my anticipation for this album is a bit on the cool side.
Midnight Oil, The Markarrata Project, Summer 2020 Midnight Oil, TBD, Late 2020
I think I’m more excited over another tour than I am about the new album and EP. At the same time, things are so fucked up that Midnight Oil is the right band for these times.
Janet Jackson, Black Diamond, TBD
Aside from the title, details are scant about the next Janet album, but she’s already announced a tour.
A decade ago, I wrote a series of entries ranking my favorite albums from 1985 to 2004. My collection has expanded greatly since then, particularly in the last five years. So I wanted to see what has changed in 10 years.
What I find most remarkable about the 2012 list is the number of albums listed under honorable mentions. The revised list has culled a lot of those titles. I probably listed so many because I didn’t feel passionate enough about any of them.
Solange, True
Santigold, Master of My Make-Believe
Jeremy Denk, Ligeti/Beethoven
… And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead, Lost Songs
Frank Ocean, channel ORANGE
Cody Chesnutt, Landing on a Hundred
ASIAN KUNG-FU GENERATION, Landmark
ZAZEN BOYS, Stories
Tokyo Jihen, Shinyawaku
Duran Duran, A Diamond in the Mind
Other favorites from the year:
Scissor Sisters, Magic Hour
Roomful of Teeth, Roomful of Teeth
Gossip, A Joyful Noise
Tokyo Jihen, Tokyo Collection
TOUMING MAGAZINE, TOUMING MAGAZINE FOREVER
OBLIVION DUST, 9 Gates of Bipolar
Gaytheist, Stealth Beats
Cody ChesnuTT dislodges Scissor Sisters from the original list, and Frank Ocean jumps up a few spots. Otherwise, there are no remarkable changes.
If anything, 2012 has turned out to be something of a dud year. When I review my purchases in subsequent years, 2012 releases are scant, and most of the albums I bought that year only garner no more than a 3-star rating.
A decade ago, I wrote a series of entries ranking my favorite albums from 1985 to 2004. My collection has expanded greatly since then, particularly in the last five years. So I wanted to see what has changed in 10 years.
2015 started strong with the return of Sleater-Kinney, and it stayed strong all the way through the release of the Hamilton cast recording. That said, the list goes through quite a number of changes, consolidating some stragglers and bouncing a few titles off.
Lin-Manuel Miranda, Hamilton: An American Musical
Kendrick Lamar, To Pimp a Butterfly
Sleater-Kinney, No Cities to Love
Jason Isbell, Something More Than Free
Torche, Restarter
Björk, Vulnicura
Deebs and Jarell Perry, Shift
Steve Grand, All-American Boy
Janet Jackson, Unbreakable
Gaytheist/Rabbits, Gay*Bits
Other favorites from the year:
Software Giant, We Are Overcome
Miguel, Wildheart
Madonna, Rebel Heart
Duran Duran, Paper Gods
Enya, Dark Sky Island
The Weeknd, Beauty Behind the Madness
Courtney Barnett, Sometimes I Sit and Think, and Sometimes I Just Sit
ASIAN KUNG-FU GENERATION, Wonder Future
Andrew Norman, Play
Troye Sivan, Blue Neighborhood
The Favorite 10 sees one title switched out — Gaytheist and Rabbit’s split EP for Miguel’s Wildheart. Father John Misty, Takaakira Goto, Seattle Symphony and Kronos Quartet make way for Andrew Norman, Troye Sivan and Software Giant.
Eight years into 2010s, 2015 is so far turning out to be my favorite year for the decade. The hierarchy of the list gives a false sense of preference — some of the albums outside of the Favorite 10 got as much play time as those at the top of the list.
Duran Duran and Enya could have occupied spots in the Favorite 10 if the field weren’t so crowded.
A decade ago, I wrote a series of entries ranking my favorite albums from 1985 to 2004. My collection has expanded greatly since then, particularly in the last five years. So I wanted to see what has changed in 10 years.
Do I have new favorites? Which ones have fallen out of favor? This time around, we’ll cover a greater span of time from as recently as last year, all the way to 1978!
This most recent decade won’t see much in the way of significant revisions, as I explore deeper into catalog releases than following new artists. Wouldn’t it be odd if I discover new artists from 2017 five years from now? Probably not.
Jason Isbell’s previous two albums ranked high on the Favorite Edition lists of 2013 and 2015, but The Nashville Sound had a tenuous grip on its position in the 2017 list. The late discovery of Sampha and Eluvium gave Isbell the final nudge.
Anne Dudley took up Eluvium’s vacated spot, nearly knocking Living Colour off.
Brandon Stansell makes his first appearance on the list. Stansell performed at the Concert for Love and Acceptance, hosted by Ty Herndon. Like Herndon, Stansell is a country artist, although he’s starting his career out of the closet.
2017 was a rather active year in music, but when it came to new releases, I opted to leave a lot of stuff on the shelf. A decade ago, new albums by Arcade Fire and Grizzly Bear would have been breathlessly awaited. I don’t get the sense either had much staying power beyond their release dates.
As a result, I ended up purchasing a total of 34 new titles, approximately 7 percent of my total buying activity. The remaining purchases? Catalog and reissues. This list, in other words, comes from a small pool of albums.
Onitsuka Chihiro, Syndrome
Royal Wood, Ghost Light
RADWIMPS, Your name.
Sam Smith, The Thrill of It All
Sam Amidon, The Following Mountain
Kronos Quartet, Folk Songs
Gaytheist, Let’s Jam Again Soon
Living Colour, Shade
Jason Isbell and 400 Unit, The Nashville Sound
Renée Fleming, Distant Light
Sam Smith and Living Colour are the big changes from the mid-year list. The Thrill of It All isn’t as weird as I hoped it could be, but it’s a more appealing album than Smith’s debut.
Shade is the perfect soundtrack for the frustration of living under the current administration. Pre-release press mention the blues as a springboard for the album, but really, Living Colour transform the blues in ways that are nigh unrecognizable.
Other favorites from the year:
Eluvium, Shuffle Drone: I hate both the repeat and shuffle buttons on my playback mechanisms. That said, Matthew Cooper deserves mad props for creating an album that puts both buttons to excellent use.
Sampha, Process: I admit I didn’t listen to this album till a few weeks ago, once it started showing up on year-end favorite lists.
David Rawlings, Poor David’s Almanack: My long-simmering discovery of Gillian Welch will have to wait for another entry, but it’s the reason David Rawlings shows up here.
Shiina Ringo, Gyakuyunyuu ~Kuukoukyoku~: Part of me misses the rocking Ringo-chan of the early 2000s, but then hearing these songs side-by-side with the artists who recorded them first deepens my appreciation for her.
Sufjan Stevens / Nico Muhly / Bryce Dessner / James McAlister, Planetarium: It helps to have heard this album with a laser light show.
The Drums, Abysmal Thoughts: Jonny Pierce takes over the show.
Cocco, Cocco 20 Shuunen Kinen Special Live at Nippon Budokan ~Ichi no Kan x Ni no Kan~: The live performances don’t stray too far from what’s heard in the studio, but Cocco’s voice doesn’t seem to have aged a bit.
Duran Duran, Thanksgiving Live at Pleasure Island: If you’re a fan of the seriously-underrated Medazzaland, this live album is a must-have.
I usually publish this entry at the start of July. Unfortunately, all the releases in which I’m most interested came out in June, and I didn’t want to make hasty judgements. So I held off till I had a few weeks to live with these latecomers.
Labels, why did you all wait till the middle of the year? Couldn’t you have spread some of this joy over the previous 6 months?
Onitsuka Chihiro, Syndrome: This album really recaptures the sound and mood of her debut album.
Royal Wood, Ghost Light: This album was released in 2016 but limited to Canada. So I’m calling it a 2017 album because of its worldwide release in January. The Burning Bright is so far Wood’s best album, but Ghost Light isn’t a slump for a follow-up.
Renée Fleming, Distant Light: I’m not sure Fleming’s sound suits Samuel Barber’s Knoxville 1915, but the orchestral arrangements of Björk songs works really well.
RADWIMPS, Kimi no Na wa: I’m pretty much throwing this soundtrack on the list because the movie was amazing, and it’s impossible to hear “Katawaredoki” without tearing up. (You just have to watch the movie to understand.) The English version of the songs came out really well.
Sam Amidon, The Following Mountain: Amidon does some strange things with traditional material, but this time around he writes his own songs and lets his jazz side out a bit more.
Kronos Quartet, Folk Songs: Kronos takes a back seat to the singers — who include Amidon, Olivia Chaney, Rhiannon Giddens and Natalie Merchant — but these arrangements of mostly traditional songs are far from genteel.
Jason Isbell and 400 Unit, The Nashville Sound: Isbell is the kind of songwriter whose music continues to play in your head after it’s finished on the player.
Gaytheist, Let’s Jam Again Soon: Oh, it’s loud!
Sufjan Stevens / Nico Muhly / Bryce Dessner / James McAlister, Planetarium: I don’t know if this album needs to be 75 minutes long, but it’s a fascinating listen nonetheless.
As it often happens when compiling the year-end favorite list, a few discoveries don’t reveal themselves till after deadline. At this point, none of these albums pose a threat to anything on the 2015 list, but that may change.
Software Giant, We Are Overcome
I thought Chicago singer-songwriter Dylan Rice had fallen off a corner of the earth. He released his second solo album in 2010, then seemingly disappeared. As it turned out, he joined a band in 2013, which then went on to unleash its debut album We Are Overcome in 2015.
Billing itself as “Less Claypool sitting in with Kraftwerk”, Software Giant reminds me more of the grunge jazz of Wayne Horvitz’s early ’90s outfit Pigpen. The music is a bit too human for its mechanistic aspirations — Morrissey singing with New Order is another description — but we can forgive the band for having a live drummer instead of a machine. Rice has the kind of gorgeous croon that makes me wish he were more prolific.
The Weeknd, Beauty Behind the Madness
PBR&B is a pretty awful term, but it’s succinct in describing the kind of R&B music that appeal to rockist snobs such as myself.
Various recommendations led me to the Weeknd. Beauty Behind the Madness has slowly seeped into my consciousness. I find myself humming portions of the album during those rare moments when no music is playing on my devices.
Gaytheist/Rabbits, Gay*Bits
The collaborative approach to this split album works incredibly well. Rather than devote one side to each band, Gaytheist and Rabbits exchange songs and band members throughout. It ends up sounding like the work of one unit, a true case of the sum being greater than the parts.
Andrew Norman, Play, Boston Modern Orchestra Project
Ask yourself what an orchestra would sound like performing Naked City’s Torture Garden.
![[Judy Tenuta - Buy This, Pigs!]](https://musicwhore.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/JudyTenutaBuyThisPigs3032946K40_f.jpg)
![[Gaytheist - How Long Have I Been on Fire?]](https://musicwhore.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/GaytheistHowLongHaveIBe2333937MKP_f-300x300.jpg)
![[Tokyo Jihen - News]](https://musicwhore.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/TokyoJihenNews-300x300.jpg)
![[Cody ChesnuTT - Landing on a Hundred]](https://musicwhore.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/CodyChesnuTTLandingOnAH58620_f-300x300.jpg)
![[Gaytheist / Rabbits - Gay*Bits]](https://musicwhore.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/GaytheistRabbitsGayBits14329923YW_f-300x300.jpg)
![[Sampha - Process]](https://musicwhore.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/SamphaProcess2017176371_f-300x296.jpg)
![[Living Colour - Shade]](https://musicwhore.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/living-colour-shade-300x300.jpg)
![[Onitsuka Chihiro - Syndrome]](https://musicwhore.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/onitsuka-chihiro-syndrome-300x297.jpg)
![[Software Giant - We Are Overcome]](https://musicwhore.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/SoftwareGiantWeAreOverco143137OCB5_f-300x300.jpg)