I don’t know if Taylor Swift has a Dirty Computer or Karuki Zaamen Kuri no Hana in her, but it feels like she’s tip-toeing in that direction. I doubt she’d ever go fully weird because her branding is too big to fail.
Judy Tenuta, Buy This, Pigs!
I’ve known about Judy Tenuta since high school, but my media consumption somehow managed never to cross paths with her stand-up. YouTube has since rectified that, and upon hearing the news of her passing, I felt compelled to seek out her comedy debut album, which has so far never been reissued on CD or fully digitized on a streaming platform.
Huey Lewis and the News, Picture This
Sports is the 800-pound gorilla in the Huey Lewis and the News oeuvre, but Picture This is no slouch either. I rather thank it’s been unfairly overshadowed by its immediate descendant.
Hajime Chitose, Shima Kyora Umui
It’s taken me 20 years to purchase an actual physical copy of this album. Hajime’s major label career has mostly ignored these earlier youthful recordings, but they’re super informative on her singing style, let alone how well she adapted it to a pop setting.
Royal Wood, What Tomorrow Brings
Wood calls this album the first he’s didn’t abandon, paraphrasing the quote: “Art is never finished, only abandoned.” It definitely shows. He makes some slight but adventurous tweaks to his sound, incorporating more synths and drum machines without losing his folk crooner vibe.
Miami Sound Machine, Primitive Love
The singles from this album were ubiquitous at the time, which dissuaded both my brother and me from staking claim on it. Enough time has passed to reveal those singles to be incredibly durable and fitting well with the album on the whole.
The Dismemberment Plan, Emergency & I
You kinda need to have this album if you remotely like Changes.
It’s nice to see international artists make their catalogs available through streaming services. I don’t think I’ve had to go to the Evil Sharing Networks for active Japanese artists in a while. I haven’t really followed LOVE PSYCHEDELICO lately, but at least now, I can listen to this new album on release day.
Björk, Fossora, Sept. 30
The singles released ahead of this album seem to indicate Björk has gone back to the kind of beats she was making on Volta. I’m digging this low winds sound.
Darren Hayes, Homosexual, Oct. 7
I like the frankness of this album title.
easy life, MAYBE IN ANOTHER LIFE, Oct. 7
OK, I admit I got into this band because of the skeletons commercial for Kia. I’m ignoring the singles and waiting for release day to listen to the new material. I’m still enjoying the previous album, life’s a beach, way too much right now.
Robin Holcomb, One Way or Another, Vol. 1, Oct. 14
The last time Robin Holcomb recorded a singer-songwriter album was 20 years ago with her final Nonesuch album, The Big Time. This new album is just her and a piano.
Royal Wood, What Tomorrow Brings, Nov. 4
I can’t say I got into Royal Wood’s previous album, but the singles he’s released ahead of this album sound vastly different from what he’s done before. He’s gotten into beats and synths but in a way that enhances folk singer croon.
Luke Evans, A Song for You, Nov. 4
Luke Evans had some interesting song choices on his debut album. This follow-up doesn’t have many songs I immediately recognize, but given that he covers R.E.M., Donny Hathaway, Simon and Garfunkel and a traditional song in Welsh, he makes another set of bold choices. This album also contains two new songs Evans co-wrote.
Guns N’ Roses, Use Your Illusion I (Deluxe Edition), Nov. 25 Guns N’ Roses, Use Your Illusion II (Deluxe Edition), Nov. 25
Really, Use Your Illusion II is the album worth exploring, but I’m willing to throw in Use Your Illusion I out of due diligence.
Vinyl
Caitlin Cary, While You Weren’t Looking, Sept. 30
Any interest I had in Whiskeytown is all about Caitlin Cary and not one whit about Ryan Adams.
Beyoncé, RENAISSANCE, Oct. 7
I’m no acolyte of Beyoncé by any stretch of the imagination, but the queerness of this album is unmistakable.
Duran Duran, Medazzaland, Oct. 14
A loss of momentum on the heels of the highly successful The Wedding Album fated this album to obscurity. At the time, I thought the brilliance of this album would win out and prove the ambivalent mainstream audience wrong. I’m not so sure anymore. This album is so fiercely original that it may have been greeted with hostility than with a collective meh. A quarter century later, we get to revisit this album.
ASIAN KUNG-FU GENERATION, Planet Folks, Oct. 26
How much did I not get into AKFG’s previous album Hometown? I didn’t bother to snap up the vinyl pressing before it went out of print. Planet Folks is not as good as World World World or Landmark, but I like it enough to place a preorder for this vinyl release.
Duran Duran, All You Need Is Now, Nov. 11 Duran Duran, Astronaut, Nov. 11 Duran Duran, Red Carpet Massacre, Nov. 11
In addition to CD reissues back in August, three albums from Duran Duran’s third decade get vinyl reissues under the RSD Essentials series. I’m sorry to see Pop Trash not included in this set. It’s better than Astronaut and Red Carpet Massacre but still not really the band’s best. To be honest, any album in this set other than All You Need Is Now is really stretching the “essentials” descriptor.
Duran Duran, FUTURE PAST (Complete Deluxe Edition), Nov. 25
The original vinyl release of FUTURE PAST had fewer tracks than the CD, so this reissue includes additional tracks and the non-album single “Five Years”, which is a David Bowie cover.
BONNIE PINK, Blue Jam, Nov. 3 BONNIE PINK, Heaven’s Kitchen, Nov. 3 BONNIE PINK, evil and flowers, Nov. 3 UA, Are U Romantic?, Nov. 3 Hajime Chitose, “Wadatsumi no Ki”, Dec. 3 Quruli, “WORLD’S END SUPERNOVA”, Dec. 3
To confuse matters, Japan has it’s own commercial holiday to celebrate vinyl called Record Day, which is not to be confused with Record Store Day Japan, the spring event with its own set of domestic reissues. Unlike RSD, Record Day doesn’t restrict availability to brick and mortar stores. The main event happens Nov. 3, with a spillover day on Dec. 3. I’m skipping the BONNIE PINK reissues, but I’ve already pre-ordered UA, Hajime Chitose and Quruli.
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.
As I mentioned in the original entry for the 2001 list, 75 percent of the year was actually really decent, especially where music was concerned. The Favorite 10 from that year remains unchanged.
AJICO, Fukamidori
fra-foa, Chuu no Fuchi
Quruli, Team Rock
eX-Girl, Back to the Mono Kero
ACO, Material
the brilliant green, Los Angeles
Cocco, Sangrose
Res, How I Do
Utada Hikaru, Distance
Onitsuka Chihiro, Insomnia
Other favorites from the year:
Hajime Chitose, Kotonoha
MONO, Under the Pipal Tree
Fugazi, The Argument
Low, Things We Lost in the Fire
Death Cab for Cutie, The Photo Album
bloodthirsty butchers, Yamane
Kicell, Yume
Shea Seger, The May Street Project
Rufus Wainwright, Poses
Semisonic, All About Chemistry
Missy Elliott, Miss E … So Addictive
Gillian Welch, Time (The Revelator)
The Shins, Oh, Inverted World!
soulsberry, The end of vacation
Sigur Rós, Agætis Byrjun
Guided By Voices, Isolation Drills
Like 2002 and 2003, the extended list for 2001 overruns with quality stuff, and I’ve only added to it.
I got Gillian Welch’s Hell Among the Yearlings as part of a gift bag from a Waterloo Records holiday party. I didn’t get around to listening to it till about 15 years later, and I had to play catch-up.
I’ve known about Low for years, but I didn’t hear them till MONO shared a bill with them in concert.
The annual Friends of the Library Book Sale hooked me up with Fugazi’s End Hits for $1, so I sought out The Argument to round out my collection. I vaguely remember the news of Fugazi’s hiatus upsetting my Waterloo coworkers. I hadn’t yet jumped on the bandwagon.
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.
… And You Will Know Us by the Trail Of Dead, Source Code and Tags
Kronos Quartet, Nuevo
The Streets, Original Pirate Material
Hajime Chitose, Hainumikaze
NUMBER GIRL, NUM-HEAVYMETALLIC
Quruli, THE WORLD IS MINE
Zoobombs, love is funky
Hatakeyama Miyuki, Diving into your mind
Patty Griffin, 1,000 Kisses
Other favorites from the year:
UA, Dorobou
Queens of the Stone Age, Songs for the Deaf
Damien Jurado and Gathered In Song, I Break Chairs
Pedro the Lion, Control
Wilco, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
Missy Elliott, Under Construction
The Decemberists, Castaways and Cutouts
Sonic Youth, Murray Street
Sleater-Kinney, One Beat
Kylie Minogue, Fever
The Roots, Phrenology
ISIS, Oceanic
The White Stripes, White Blood Cells
The Hives, Veni Vidi Vicious
Catilin Cary, While You Weren’t Looking
BUGY CRAXONE, Northern Hymns
N.E.R.D., In Search Of …
The Books, Thought for Food
Nappy Roots, Watermelon, Chicken & Gritz
Minako, Suck It till Your Life Ends mata wa Shine Made Sono Mama Yatte Iro
The Flaming Lips, Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robot
Shiratori Maika, Hanazono
The Back Horn, Shinzou Orchestra
Joan Jeanrenaud, Metamorphosis
I picked up Original Pirate Material for $1 at Lifelong Thrift Shop, and now I understand why it was all over the place in 2002. I couldn’t open a music magazine without seeing Mike Skinner mentioned in it. I’m pretty sure the sample of Dvorak’s Symphony No. 9 sealed my admiration for the album.
THE WORLD IS MINE is something of a mea culpa. At the time of its release, I recognized the album as being Quruli’s most complex, but I just couldn’t get into it. I probably felt that it didn’t go far enough if it was going to be ambitious.
Well, the joke’s on me. I listened to it again before its reissue on vinyl, and I really dug it, much more than Antenna, which I praised effusively at the time. So it knocked Minako’s one and only album off the Favorite 10. UA also had to make room for the Streets.
The extended list includes albums I originally dismissed: Murray Street by Sonic Youth and One Beat by Sleater-Kinney.
I remember stocking Nappy Roots during my shifts at Waterloo Records and wondering what the big deal was. A $1 copy from Lifelong Thrift Shop 16 years later educated me. I probably wouldn’t have been exposed to Nappy Roots, The Decemberists or ISIS without having worked at Waterloo.
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.
At the time, SLOTH LOVE CHUNKS edged Utada Hikaru for the top spot of 2006, but Ultra Blue has proven far more durable. This list has gone through quite a number of changes.
Utada Hikaru, Ultra Blue
SLOTH LOVE CHUNKS, Shikakui Vision
VOLA & THE ORIENTAL MACHINE, Waiting for My Food
Furukawa Miki, Mirrors
Tokyo Jihen, Otona (Adult)
Gnarls Barkley, St. Elsewhere
Boris, Pink
The Roots, Game Theory
Lorraine Hunt-Lieberson, Neruda Songs
Nick Lachey, What’s Left of Me
Other favorites of the year:
ACO, mask
J Dilla, Donuts
Hajime Chitose, Hanadairo
Now It’s Overhead, Dark Light Days
Envy, Insomniac Doze
The Gossip, Standing in the Way of Control
ASIAN KUNG-FU GENERATION, Fan Club
I’ve known about Boris for as long as I’ve been following Japanese music, but I never made time for them until I picked up Pink at Goodwill for $2. Well, hell …
I wouldn’t have listened to the Roots or J Dilla at the time. Hip-hop had diversified to have its own underground, and that was just so much history that I wasn’t willing to unpack. I’ve only started exploring hip-hop with any seriousness in the last year.
Lorraine Hunt-Lieberson was quite the late discovery. I didn’t pick up Neruda Songs till 2008, but it quickly became a favorite, dislodging Ex-Boyfriends completely off the list.
When I was first introduced to ASIAN KUNG-FU GENERATION, I dismissed them as “eastern youth lite”. The joke was on me — I don’t even own an eastern youth album anymore, and I’ve purchased ASIAN KUNG-FU GENERATION on vinyl.
![[Kronos Quartet Performs Philip Glass]](https://musicwhore.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/KronosQuartetPhilipGlass321584_f.jpg)
![[Taylor Swift - Midnights]](https://musicwhore.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/TaylorSwiftMidnights2022305009_f.jpg)
![[Quruli - WORLD'S END SUPERNOVA]](https://musicwhore.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/2022301928WSAE_f.jpg)
![[Hajime Chitose - Shima Kyora Umui]](https://musicwhore.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/HajimeChitoseShimaKyoraUmui.jpg)
![[Judy Tenuta - Buy This, Pigs!]](https://musicwhore.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/JudyTenutaBuyThisPigs3032946K40_f.jpg)
![[Hajime Chitose - Hajime Uta]](https://musicwhore.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/HajimeChitoseHajimeUta-300x296.jpg)
![[Fugazi - The Argument]](https://musicwhore.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/FugaziTheArgument2001185734_f-300x300.jpg)
![[Quruli - THE WORLD IS MINE]](https://musicwhore.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/QuruliTheWorldIsMine-300x265.jpg)
![[BORIS - PINK]](https://musicwhore.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/BorisPink2006191101_f-300x300.jpg)