Swing Out Sister, Blue Mood, Breakout and Beyond: The Early Years, Aug. 12
This 8-disc boxed set covers Swing Out Sister’s first three albums, supplementing them with B-sides, remixes and a live album. I like two of the three albums from that era — It’s Better to Travel and Kaleidoscope World — so I’m curious but not entirely tempted.
R.E.M., Chronic Town EP, Aug. 19
This 40th anniversary edition would be the first time the Chronic Town EP is released as its own separate CD. It was previously released as part of Dead Letter Office, a compilation of B-sides and rare tracks. I have to admit I didn’t find Dead Letter Office compelling, save for the Chronic Town tracks. So I welcome this reissue.
Madonna, Finally Enough Love: 50 Number Ones, Aug. 19
Madonna returns to Warner Bros., bringing along the albums she recorded during her time away from the label. This compilation of remixes marks the new business arrangement.
Blondie, Against the Odds: 1974-1982, Aug. 26
Blondie has always struck me as a band for which I am the target market, but I own only Parallel Lines and The Best of Blondie. This boxed set includes all six studio albums, plus a few extra discs of rarities. I’ve been on a boxed set kick lately, so … sure why not?
Santigold, Spirituals, Sept. 9
Santigold releases her first full album since 99 Cents, which was released in 2016, and I Don’t Want: The Gold Fire Sessions, a mixed tape released in 2018. It’s also the first release of her own label, Little Jerk Records.
Death Cab for Cutie, Asphalt Meadows, Sept. 16
I passed on Death Cab’s previous album, Thank You for Today. Given the band’s Pacific Northwest roots, they’re still something of a big deal in the area, but I do find myself reacting to this album news similar to a non-Duranie learning about a new Duran Duran album.
Steve Reich, Runner / Music for Ensemble and Orchestra, Sept. 30
Runner would be the second Steve Reich release on Nonesuch in 2022. I can’t say Reich / Richter really grabbed my attention. Nonesuch hinted that a boxed set similar to John Adams’ Collected Works is in the works for Reich.
Charlie Puth, CHARLIE, Oct. 7
I still can’t believe a Subway commercial got me into Charlie Puth.
Christine and the Queens, Redcar les adorables etoiles, Oct. 28
TIL the translation of this album title is “Redcar the adorable star”, and Redcar is an alter ego of Christine.
Vinyl
David Bowie, Earthlng, Aug. 12
I hadn’t yet done a deep dive into the works of David Bowie when this album was reissued for Record Store Day. So yes, I missed out. But I bided my time. For a figure as large as Bowie, these things don’t stay out of print forever.
Moby, Everything Is Wrong, Aug. 12
Moby is reissuing a number of early albums on colored vinyl, and while I like Everything Is Wrong, I’m more of a fan of Animal Rights. So I was a bit surprised to see Animal Rights was left out. Then I visited Moby’s online store and discovered it still sold the 2016 reissue of Animal Rights. Yeah, I ordered it. And yeah, I’m probably going to pick this one up as well.
… And You Will Us Know By the Trail of Dead, IX, Sept. 9
Music on Vinyl reissues are always hit or miss when it comes to availability in the US.
No doubt this documentary soundtrack is not going to depart greatly from MONO’s already cinematic sound.
Prince and the Revolution, Live, June 28
Is it awful for me to be more interested in the Revolution than Prince himself?
Steve Reich, Reich/Richter, June 10
Will we get a full effect of this score without the visual component that goes along with it?
John Adams, Collected Works, July 1
I already have Earbox. I shouldn’t need this boxed set, and yet …
Wilco, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, Sept. 16
Who would have though an album rejected by one Warner label, then streamed on the Internet before being picked up by another Warner label, would necessitate a lavish boxed set 20 years later?
Vinyl
Soundtrack, Bubblegum Crisis, Vols. 1-8, June 29
Bubblegum Crisis was a pretty awesome cyberpunk series that set the bar for awesome anime theme songs, but the scores for these eight episodes were no slouch.
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.
Our retrospective ends at 1978 because my collection starts thinning out at this point. I was 6 years old at the time and just starting to become aware of songs on the radio. Of course, nothing on this list would have appealed to 6-year-old me.
Steve Reich, Music for 18 Musicians
Brian Eno, Ambient 1: Music for Airports
Kate Bush, The Kick Inside
Emmylou Harris, Quarter Moon in a Ten Cent Town
Blondie, Parallel Lines
Andrew Lloyd Webber, Variations
Andy Gibb, Shadow Dancing
Willie Nelson, Stardust
Kate Bush, Lionheart
The Police, Outlandos d’Amour
Other favorites from the year:
Clannad, In Concert
Rap Reiplinger, Poi Dog
I loved Blondie’s “Heart of Glass”, but when my dad saw her perform on Solid Gold, he hated her on sight. “She looks drugged,” he would complain, so I wasn’t allowed to listen to Blondie. That didn’t stop my brother from picking up the 7-inch singles for “The Tide Is High” and “Rapture.”
I can only imagine what dad would have said if he saw Kate Bush dancing in “Wuthering Heights.”
If any album on this list would have appealed to 6-year-old me, it would be Rap Reiplinger’s Poi Dog. Local radio played Reiplinger’s skits regularly, and I enjoyed hearing “Room Service” over and over again.
I didn’t realize those skits were available on an album. I thought only radio could broadcast them, so it wasn’t until Poi Dog was reissued on CD in 1992 that I could relive that thrill.
Reiplinger forged the Honolulu stand-up comic scene, and it died when he did in 1984. Or maybe it was the humorlessness of the 1980s.
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.
It shouldn’t be a surprise the largest expansion in my collection focuses on the late 1980s, i.e. my high school years. The Favorite 10 list from these years won’t see much change, as 1989 demonstrates, but the expanded lists risk becoming ridiculously long.
The B-52’s, Cosmic Thing
Camper Van Beethoven, Key Lime Pie
Julee Cruise, Floating Into the Night
Faith No More, The Real Thing
Steve Reich, Different Trains/Electric Counterpoint
Fugazi, 13 Songs
Emmylou Harris, Bluebird
Tears for Fears, The Seeds of Love
Madonna, Like a Prayer
Janet Jackson, Rhythm Nation 1814
Other favorites from the year:
The Replacements, Don’t Tell a Soul
Hoodoo Gurus, Magnum Cum Louder
All About Eve, Scarlet and Other Stories
XTC, Oranges and Lemons
De La Soul, 3 Feet High and Rising
Nirvana, Bleach
Pixies, Doolittle
Wayne Horvitz / The President, Bring Yr Camera
John Zorn, Spy Vs. Spy
Bulgarian State Radio and Television Female Vocal Choir, Le Mystère de Voix Bulgares, Vol. 2
Nakamori Akina, CRUISE
Depeche Mode, 101
Fugazi displaces The Replacements, who made a shot for the charts by cleaning up their sound.
I saw this ad in Pulse magazine and scoffed at it:
Today, I nod my head and say, “Yeah, that’s about right.” But it took 30 years before I had enough life experience to understand how breathtaking 3 Feet High and Rising is.
Nevermind introduced me to Nirvana like the rest of the world, but I prefer Bleach.
The events in Nakamori Akina’s life at the time CRUISE was released overshadowed the maturity of the album. It’s not ground-breaking the way Fushigi is, but it’s an album that could have only been recorded after it.
I saw Depeche Mode in concert in 2017, and 101 ruined my experience of it. I had been listening to 101 in the weeks leading up to the concert, and understandably, the band stacked the set list more toward recent work than “the hits”.
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.
![[Emerson String Quartet - The New Complete Recordings on Deutsche Grammophon]](https://musicwhore.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/EmersonStringQuartetTheN312838UWDA_f.jpg)
![[Soundtrack - TV Anime BLEACH]](https://musicwhore.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/TVAnimationBLEACH.jpg)
![[Huey Lewis and the News - Picture This]](https://musicwhore.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/HueyLewisTheNewsPictur38712_f.jpg)
![[Charlie Puth - CHARLIE]](https://musicwhore.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/charlie-puth-charlie.jpg)
![[Cracker - Cracker]](https://musicwhore.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/CrackerCracker1992285520_f.jpeg)
![[Soundtrack - Bubblegum Crisis]](https://musicwhore.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/SoundtrackBubblegumCrisisVol1.jpg)
![[Riz Ahmed - The Long Goodbye]](https://musicwhore.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/RizAhmedTheLongGoodbye262258VF3P_f.jpg)
![[Blondie - Parallel Lines]](https://musicwhore.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/BlondieParallelLines1978160432_f-300x300.jpeg)
![[De La Soul - 3 Feet And and Rising]](https://musicwhore.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/DeLaSoul3FeetHighandR68692_f-300x298.jpg)
![[I came in for U2. I came out with De La Soul]](https://musicwhore.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/de-la-soul-ad.jpg)
![[Edwin Outwater - From Here on Out]](https://musicwhore.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/EdwinOutwaterFromHereOn57867DBVJ_f-300x300.jpg)