Last year, new releases made up 7 percent of my music purchases. This year, that number ticks up to … 8 percent. For a while there, I didn’t know if I would find enough titles to make a Favorite 10, but I did.
Parquet Courts, Wide Awake!: When you visit multiple record stores and ask what is playing, you probably ought to buy that album if the answer is the same at each store.
Janelle Monáe, Dirty Computer: I also liked the Emotion Picture that accompanied the release of this album.
Christine and the Queens, Chris: Those dance moves!
Various Artists, Adam to Eve no Ringo: I didn’t realize the cover of “Sid to Hakuchuumu” was by MIKA, the singer “discovered” by Perez Hilton. MIKA’s circumspection about his sexuality drew a lot of attention and some controversy. I checked out his music as a result of the brouhaha and found little that was remarkable. That said, he nails the French interpretation of this very Ringo track.
Steve Grand, Not the End of Me: I don’t know if it’s intentional, but I hear a bit of Matt Alber’s swoon on some of the quieter moments on this album.
Kronos Quartet and Laurie Anderson, Landfall: Take all the swagger and posturing out of hip-hop, and it would probably sound a lot like Laurie Anderson.
Seattle Symphony with Roomful of Teeth, Berio: Sinfonia: This piece was awesome to hear live.
Nico Muhly & Thomas Bartlett, Peter Pears: Ceremonial Balinese Music: Oddly enough, I found a recording of Colin McPhee performing his gamelan transcriptions with Benjamin Britten, and I kind of wish Muhly and Bartlett had also done the unpublished scores.
Yore, EP1: Recent press seems to obscure the fact Yore released music under his own name, so we’ll stick with that preference and just mention this EP finds him moving in a direction more akin to Cocteau Twins or even Utada Hikaru.
Utada Hikaru, Hatsukoi:Her sound has gotten darker since her comeback.
Other favorites from the year:
John Coltrane, Both Directions at Once
Leo Imai, VLP
Mikami Chisako, I AM Ready!
Craig Armstrong, Sun on You
Tracey Thorn, Record
Renee Fleming, Broadway
Igor Stravisnky, Chant Funebre / Le Sacre du Printemps
Eponymous 4, Travis
OK, I’m being a bit cheeky including my own album, Travis, on this list. I finished recording it in 2016, so I’d been sitting on it for more than a year. In all that time, I’ve not gotten sick of hearing it day in and day out, and when I compare it with other albums I’ve recorded, it sounds like a proper, professional work.
So yeah, I think my album is one of the best to be released in 2018. You can check it out at the Eponymous 4 Bandcamp store.
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 Favorite Edition 2008 spurred this exercise to revisit lists from 10 years ago. While the Favorite 10 has only one change, the other favorites include a number of new discoveries.
Santigold, Santigold
MASS OF THE FERMENTING DREGS, MASS OF THE FERMENTING DREGS
The Magnetic Fields, Distortion
Emmylou Harris, All I Intended to Be
ASIAN KUNG-FU GENERATION, World World World
Girl Talk, Feed the Animals
Sam Amidon, All Is Well
Leo Imai, Fix Neon
Nico Muhly, Mothertongue
Spangle call Lilli line, ISOLATION
Other favorites from the year:
Matt Alber, Hide Nothing
ZAZEN BOYS, ZAZEN BOYS 4
Utada Hikaru, HEART STATION
Perfume, GAME
Jennifer Koh, String Poetic
Janelle Monáe, Metropolis: The Chase Suite
Chris Walla, Field Manual
It took me a year and a half to get around to Santigold. I’m not sure why I hadn’t, and I can’t remember what finally spurred me to do so. I’m just glad I did. Chris Walla, unfortunately, must make way.
Perfume, Jennifer Koh and Janelle Monáe are retroactive entries, replacing hey willpower, Bob Mould and VOLA AND THE ORIENTAL MACHINE.
I must have really been tough on Utada Hikaru’s HEART STATION — it didn’t even rank at the time.
Competition for this list was tough. Matt Alber and ZAZEN BOYS could have squeezed into the Favorite 10, and even Janet Jackson and R.E.M. turned out some decent work that year. The cup runneth over.
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 2009 list went through a revision, and subsequent discoveries from the year weren’t moving enough to dislodge anything.
… And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead, The Century of Self
LEO Imai, LASER RAIN
Van Tomiko, Van.
Alarm Will Sound, a/rhythmia
Onitsuka Chihiro, DOROTHY
Shiina Ringo, Sanmon Gossip
Tomosaka Rie, Toridori.
mono, Hymn to the Immortal Wind
Wendy & Lisa, White Flags of Winter Chimneys
Sacha Sacket, Hermitage
Other favorites from the year:
Office, Mecca
Kronos Quartet, Floodplain
The Bad Plus joined by Wendy Lewis, For All I Care
Utada, This Is the One
In explaining the dearth of new releases on this list, I mentioned that I spent more time listening to catalog music, but like 2012 and 2011, I haven’t picked any more titles from 2009 in the 9 years that have passed.
It makes me think it wasn’t a terribly interesting time for discovery.
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.
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.
I started a new job on May 21, and I’m still getting adjusted to a new routine. I’m not ready to say the hiatus has ended just yet, but I can say new entries should resume before the end of summer. Till then, here’s a preview of upcoming releases.
Emmylou Harris, Ballad of Sally Rose (Deluxe Edition), June 1
I have listened to a lot of Emmylou Harris, and I can say this album is my least favorite. But its underdog status makes me curious about what didn’t make the album. Also, the current CD pressings sound awful, and I hope the remastering rectifies that.
Clannad, Turas 1980, June 8
This live album contains songs never recorded in the studio by the band.
Utada Hikaru, Hatsukoi, June 27
In retrospect, Fantôme was something of a downer. The singles preceding the release of Hatsukoi indicate a bouncier direction. Utada comes full circle title-wise — hatsukoi is the Japanese translation of “first love”.
Guns N’ Roses, Appetite for Destruction (Deluxe Edition), June 29
This album hadn’t already received a deluxe edition treatment? I’m not shelling out for anything more than the 2-disc edition.
Leo IMAI, V L P, July 11
I really enjoyed Film Scum, and it’s too bad the full album was only available at his live shows. I look forward to this album nonetheless.
Vinyl
Anne Dudley, Anne Dudley Plays the Art of Noise, June 22
This album receives a physical release in the UK and a digital release in the US. I was impatient and got the Japanese release last year, and Dudley employs some real studio wizardry to interpret the Art of Noise acoustically.
Fishbone, The Reality of My Surroundings, July 13
Trips to Goodwill have allowed me to rediscover this band.
It was bound to happen — an influx of Christmas gift money allows me to explore more albums after the year-end post goes online. None of these albums would knock off anything in the final list, but they’re definitely worthy of some belated consideration.
Anne Dudley, Anne Dudley Plays the Art of Noise
Anne Dudley, Gary Langan and J.J. Jeczalik rebooted the post-Trevor Horn version of the Art of Noise to reissue In Visible Silence. In the midst of it, Dudley released her own interpretations of Art of Noise tracks using mostly piano and percussion with some clever arrangements. The album was released in Japan, and the band hinted it would eventually see a US/UK release. I was not patient, and I think Art of Noise fans are missing out.
Dudley strips away the obfuscating aspects of the original Art of Noise tracks to bring out their musicality. On “Legs”, the croaking bass line turns into clusters that lose none of the original’s percussiveness. Added bonus: she covers the Buggles’ “Video Killed the Radio Star.”
Onitsuka Chihiro, Tiny Screams
I actually listened to Tiny Screams when it came out (via the Evil Sharing Networks) and vowed to get my own copy when the Christmas money came. The more I listened to it, the more I favored it over Cocco’s four-disc live extravaganza. The barebones arrangements of the original recordings somehow get stripped even further and become more intense (“BORDERLINE”).
R.E.M., Automatic for the People (Deluxe Edition)
I’ve already gone on record about my ambivalence toward Automatic for the People. I wasn’t inclined to get the deluxe edition of the album till I heard its companion live disc playing in-store at Easy Street Music. The playlist mixes just the correct amount of new material with familiar, throwing in a surprise on occasion. If anything, I’ve played the live disc — R.E.M.’s only concert in 1992 to promote the album — more times than I have the remastered album.
Leo Imai, Film Music EP
OK, I need to follow Leo Imai on some sort of social media site. Last I paid attention, Imai released his third solo album, Made from Nothing, in 2013. Since then, he formed another group, Metafive, and now he’s released an album of film music. The Film Music EP is available in the US through online services, but the full Film Music album is available only at live shows.
Imai has grown bolder as a writer. The four instrumentals on Film Music EP refract the influence of his KIMONOS bandmate Mukai Shuutoku, but “Videotape” shows Imai can be catchy when he wants to be.
![[bloodthirsty butchers - Mikansei]](https://musicwhore.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/bloodthirstybutchers2259980YGNY_f.jpg)
![[Parquet Courts - Wide Awake!]](https://musicwhore.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/ParquetCourtsWideAwake191304_f-300x268.jpg)
![[Santigold - Santigold]](https://musicwhore.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/SantigoldSantigold200852394_f-300x300.jpg)
![[Alarm Will Sound - a/rhythmia]](https://musicwhore.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/AlarmWillSoundarhythmia522852FED_f-300x300.jpg)
![[Blood Orange - Cupid Deluxe]](https://musicwhore.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/BloodOrangeCupidDeluxe2110207_f-300x300.jpg)
![[Sampha - Process]](https://musicwhore.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/SamphaProcess2017176371_f-300x296.jpg)
![[Leo Imai - VLP]](https://musicwhore.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/LEOVLP2018190382SX1A_f-300x300.jpg)
![[Utada Hikaru - Hatsukoi]](https://musicwhore.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/utada-hikaru-hatsukoi-1-300x298.jpg)
![[Frank Ocean - nostalgia, ULTRA]](https://musicwhore.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/FrankOceannostalgiaULTRA184346_f-300x242.jpg)
![[Anne Dudley - Plays the Art of Noise]](https://musicwhore.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/anne-dudley-plays-the-art-of-noise-300x300.jpg)