Unlike 2018’s Both Directions at Once, this album is not so much lost as unreleased. Coltrane recorded a soundtrack for the film Le chat dans le sac, but most of the sessions were not used in the final cut.
Sturgill Simpson, Sound and Fury, Sept. 27
Judging by the first single, I don’t think this album can be called “country.” The fact it will be accompanied by an anime film is about as far from country as anyone gets.
BBMAK, Powerstation, Oct. 11
Finally! A date! Albeit for the digital release. I don’t need an autographed copy of the CD, which is available for pre-order on the band’s site. I’m hoping a normal, vanilla pre-order will be available. Soon.
Jason Isbell and 400 Unit, Jason Isbell and 400 Unit, Oct. 18
I remember when I was really getting into Southeastern, I tried listening to Isbell’s previous albums. At the time, I didn’t really warm up to Sirens in the Ditch or the self-titled album with 400 Unit. I think enough time has passed since then to revisit what I passed over. Also arriving on the same date is Here We Rest. Both albums have been remixed and remastered.
Michael Kiwanuka, Kiwanuka, Oct. 27
I picked up Michael Kiwanuka’s debut, Home Again, from Goodwill for $1.99. I liked it enough to pick up Love & Hate at full price.
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.
The further we get from the present day, the more we’ll find retroactive changes to the Favorite Edition lists. The 2007 list sees a lot of shifting in the Favorite 10, and a number of retroactive additions.
Explosions in the Sky, All of a Sudden I Miss Everyone
UA, Golden green
The Dead Betties, Nightmare Sequence
Björk, Volta
unkie, the Price of Fame
Nico Muhly, Speaks Volumes
Stephen Sondheim, Company (2006 Cast Recording)
Once, Music from the Motion Picture
Sasagawa Miwa, Mayoi Naku
Tokyo Jihen, Goraku (Variety)
Other favorites from the year:
Synapse/Elliott Cole, The Oracle Hysterical
Tommy heavenly6, Heavy Starry Heavenly
Kawai Kenji, Seirei no Moribito
Office, A Night at the Ritz
M.I.A., Kala
The National, Boxer
Band of Horses, Cease to Begin
Jason Isbell, Sirens of the Ditch
The cast recording for 2006 production of Company gets a retroactive boost, missing the Favorite 10 the first time out. A PBS broadcast of the revival directed by John Doyle went a long way in raising its ranking.
I didn’t discover the Dead Betties till a year and some change after the release of Nightmare Sequence, and it would have shot up to the Favorite 10 had I known about it. The album doesn’t lose its punch more than a decade on.
Rufus Wainwright’s Release the Stars and Smashing Pumpkins’ Zeitgeist fall of the list entirely. I think those albums earned their place on the Favorite 10 because I was not paying attention to what was happening in 2007, if the expanded list is any indication.
I’m not sure I actually like The National, but I remember catching the band’s appearance on Live from the Artists Den and thinking Matt Berninger was a tall drink of water. Boxer is rather fine album, nonetheless.
I would not have picked up Band of Horses without Renée Fleming. I get them mixed up with the Band of Heathens and Band of Skulls.
I didn’t actually like Sirens of the Ditch the first time I listened to it. I was just starting to explore Jason Isbell’s work after hearing Southeastern, and I wanted everything to sound like it. I had no context about his work with Drive-By Truckers. Sirens of the Ditch is closer to his work with the Truckers than his more recent albums, and that understanding goes a long way to building appreciation for his solo debut.
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.
Spotify finally arrived in the US in 2011, and at the time, digital releases meant iTunes downloads. Vinyl album releases still came with CDs to go with them.
Like 2012, the 2011 Favorite Edition doesn’t alter the original list very much, and releases from that year haven’t really made its way into my collection since then.
Duran Duran, All You Need Is Now
Kuriyama Chiaki, CIRCUS
Chiara String Quartet, Jefferson Freidmann: String Quartets Nos. 2 and 3
SuiseiNoboAz, THE (OVERUSED) END OF THE WORLD and I MISS YOU MUH-FUH
MO’SOME TONEBENDER, MO’SOME TONEBENDER
Matt Alber, Constant Crows
James Blake, James Blake
Steve Reich, WTC 9/11 / Mallet Quartet / Dance Patterns
Jason Isbell and 400 Unit, Here We Rest
Frank Ocean, nostalgia, ULTRA
Other favorites from the year:
Edwin Outwater, From Here On Out (Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony)
Kronos Quartet / Kimmo Pohjonen / Samuli Kosminen, Uniko
NOW Ensemble, Awake
The Decemberists, The King Is Dead
itsnotyouitsme, Everybody’s Pain Is Magnificent
John Lunn, Downton Abbey
Death Cab for Cutie, Codes and Keys
Abigail Washburn, City of Refuge
Jason Isbell and Frank Ocean are retroactive additions. I wouldn’t have been aware of either artist before 2011. nostalgia, ULTRA is probably Ocean’s best album, and Here We Rest shows Isbell prepared for the breakthrough of Southeastern two years later.
Kronos Quartet and The Decemberists get bumped from the Favorite 10 as a result.
Edwin Outwater is a late discovery but also emblematic of the music I was exploring at the time. His album with the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony is about as literal as you can get with the term “indie classical”.
2011 was also the final year I lived in Austin, Texas. I didn’t get around to posting the year-end list till March 2012 because I was busy with my move to Seattle in January.
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.
I relaunched this site in early 2014 to focus more on discovering catalog music than newer artists. As a result, I didn’t get a chance to revise the Favorite Edition 2013 list after I discovered a number of critical favorites.
Jason Isbell, Southeastern
Jarell Perry, Simple Things
Patty Griffin, Silver Bell
Sam Amidon, Bright Sunny South
James Blake, Overgrown
Sigur Rós, Kveikur
Hem, Departure and Farewell
Blood Orange, Cupid Deluxe
Emmylou Harris and Rodney Crowell, Old Yellow Moon
LEO Imai, Made from Nothing
Other favorites from the year:
Rhye, Woman
Kanye West, Yeezus
Johnny Hates Jazz, Magnetized
TV Mania, Bored with the Internet and Prozac?
Ty Herndon, Lies I Told Myself
Res, Refried Mac
Janelle Monáe, The Electric Lady
Jason Isbell had caught my eye with the stark but stunning cover of Southeastern, but I didn’t follow up on that fascination till well into 2014. Nor did I make the connection between Blood Orange and Solange till after 2013 had passed.
Isbell and Blood Orange bumped Johnny Hates Jazz and TV Mania, while Rhye and Kanye West nearly crack the Favorite 10.
I dug The College Dropout, but West can teach Billy Corgan lessons in being insufferable. Yeezus, though, sounded like an indie rock record, so I could overlook the man and focus on the art. I wouldn’t cut him that slack nowadays.
Ty Herndon came out of the closet in 2014, and he was cute enough for me to take a listen to his greatest hits collection, This Is Ty Herndon. I ended up liking it more than I expected, mostly because I really can’t stand country radio.
Lies I Told Myself shows up on this list because it sounds way more confident than anything on This Is Ty Herndon.
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.
A few titles didn’t get included in the last round-up of new releases, and the release schedule for late autumn hasn’t quite yet coalesced. So this list is thinner than I prefer.
Perfume, Future Pop, Aug. 15
We probably reached peak Perfume two albums ago, if the cool reception to COSMIC EXPLORER is any indication. Imaginative videos can’t quite make up for the weakness of the last few singles, but will either stop me from placing a pre-order? Unlikely.
Blood Orange, Negro Swan, Aug. 24
How did I miss news about a new album by Dev Hynes?
Oh, he announced it when my mom was in town and caught the flu, about a week before I would become briefly unemployed. Has it really been two years since the release of Freetown Sound?
Mandy Barnett, Strange Conversation, Sept. 21
I’ve Got a Right to Cry is a classic album that has been relegated to bargain bins and thrift store shelves. The Owen Bradley-produced album probably did too good of a job calling up the ghost of Patsy Cline, whom Barnett has portrayed on stage.
Barnett recently did a duet with Kenny Chesney, which … whatever. But I would still check out this album because I’ve Got a Right to Cry is an album that just doesn’t wear out, even after nearly two decades.
Jason Isbell and 400 Unit, Live from the Nyman, Oct. 19
It’s easy to marvel at how effortlessly it seems Jason Isbell spins his tales, but when he shreds on stage, it’s a sight to behold.
Fastball, All the Pain Money Can Buy (Deluxe Edition), Nov. 9
Oh, hey, it looks like part of my wish is coming true — All the Pain Money Can Buy is headed for a vinyl release, albeit saddled with bonus material for its 20th anniversary, which I’m pretty sure I’ll be getting anyway.
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