Keepers 2014

My lists grow shorter each year - or at least it seems to (last year's was pretty short as well, but that had more to do with a glut of unfinished trip blogs I had to post first).

Blame the record collection - I am more likely to buy the missing Doors record or a treasured reissue than an album from a new up and comer. It's a function of growing old, I suppose.

Robert Plant sprinkled world music and electronic touches into his latest solo album. The Foo Fighters shot high and made another Foo Fighters record (not a bad thing - at least they didn't write each song in the style native to the cities where they recorded them). The same goes for the New Pornographers; Neko Case continues to offer fare different from her solo work, but some of the other members write the same song ad nauseum. Still, it's hard to beat Champions of Red Wine and War on the East Coast. Phantom Radio and No Bells on Sunday proves Mark Lanegan is still Mark Lanegan.

I don't have the cash to chase every last hot artist these days, so my purchases often stick with what I can afford. For the first time, I've broken out some songs that eclipse their albums. Apologies for the lack of female artists; the slight was not intentional.

2014 Keepers

Eno & Hyde, High Life
This second collaboration with Underworld singer/guitarist Karl Hyde and the legendary Brian Eno hits on everything I want from a collaboration between the two. Across these epic songs (four of the seven tracks pass the seven-minute mark), intricate guitars and electronic flourishes mix effortlessly. The jangly guitar riff that dominates the opener, Return, gives the album a warmth often lost in electronic music. It's followed closely by the jagged riffs and bleeps of DBF. I don't see High Life getting stale anytime soon.

J. Mascis, Tied to a Star
I just can't keep this guy off the list, can I? Skeptical as I might have been, Mascis' acoustic turn goes smoothly and nothing feels gimmicky here. Even as guitar rock has fallen into twilight, Mascis continues to shred anything with six strings, plugged or unplugged.

TV on the Radio, "Happy Idiot"
They have moved on from the mad inventiveness of Return to Cookie Mountain and their Love-meets My-Bloody-Valentine innovations, but TVOTR still has its moments. This was the best one in years, an infectious, punk-tinged single. Catchy despite its bleak post-breakup landscape, it's massive jolt from feeling of cruise control sometimes radiated by TVOTR's songs. New album Seeds has a handful of decent tracks, but you'll skip to this one and soon find it on repeat.

Beck, "Blue Moon"
Too much of Morning Phase rehashes Sea Change for me. You can argue that point. I just find Phase to drenched in certain effects and moods that hearken back to Sea Change. That record ranks among Beck's best and when needed, I will just revisit it (or the Serge Gainsbourg sound he ripped off wholesale, but you get my point). This song stands on its own.  Blame the mandolin if you must. But it's hard to shake the line "Cut me down in size so I can fit inside."

Tweedy, Sukierae
Jeff Tweedy and son Spencer conjure up the lo-fi brilliance of Skip Spence's Oar, banging out 20 tracks without a dull moment or clunker in the mix. From leaning on puns (Please Don't Let Me be So Understood) to going tender (Nobody Dies Anymore),  these songs alternately pummel and soothe.These aren't Wilco leftovers; Tweedy cooks up a whole new dish here.

The Drive-By Truckers, English Oceans
For the first time, Mike Cooley and Patterson Hood split the songwriting credits evenly, and it shows. The bandmates write differently. Cooley's bigger presence pushes the record into fresh territory. At times it feels like they are challenging each other, with the songwriting stakes rising with each track.  They start with some of their standard Southern rockers then branch out. Halfway through the album we reach Natural Light, which could pass for an Exile on Main Street outtake. Album closer Grand Canyon might be the Georgia band's greatest epic yet. 

Best Tom Waits Cover(s)
"The Donkey Kong Variations"
Some call it heresy. I couldn't stop listening to this full-album reimagining of Tom Waits' Mule Variations made solely with 8-bit devices. Each songs becomes the theme to a video-game level, with a tiny, digital Tom Waits roaming the simple landscape, leaping adversaries and collecting treasures (seriously, try it). The bleeps and buzzes somehow retain the poignancy of Hold On and House Where Nobody Lives. Get Behind the Mule is still ominous.

Best Classical
Bloch Piano Quintets No. 1 and 2
This wasn't a find, it was a revelation. Nancy and I saw Vanderbilt's Blair String Quartet perform the first quintet in March as the first half of the quartet's final performance with its first violinist  for the past four decades.

Once you've heard Quintet No. 1, this brooding, cinematic piece won't soon fade from memory. Quintet No. 2 comes off a little lighter, but only slightly. Live we got to hear it performed by one of the country's best string quartets with an assist from a former student now teaching at Yale. The Portland String Quartet skillfully performs both on a recent recording I bought soon after.

Best Crate Find(s)
Bob Dylan, Blood on the Tracks
This might seem a cop-out, but one of the greatest musical crimes in the late 20th were the awful transfers of many records to CDs. Bob Dylan's catalogue was treated as badly as the Beatles. In my years of crate-digging, I've waited patiently for a nice copy of Blood on the Tracks. Few records need to be experienced as vinyl as much as this Dylan masterpiece. The warmth is apparent from the first notes. Instruments that go unheard on the CD and digital versions pop from the speakers. The emotion and fragility of the record has never felt as prominent.

The crates were kind this year with nice copies of important collection omissions appearing regularly. I found numbers from Sandy Denny (Sandy), REM (Reckoning, Life's Rich Pageant), the Doors (Waiting for the Sun, Morrison Hotel), Cream (Disraeli Gears).

As for reissues, if they destroyed every CD copy and we were only left with 180-gram vinyl of Johnny Cash's American Recordings, it would be a better world. On the record, you hear his fingers slide from chord to chord, and can almost hear the cushions on Rick Rubin's couch back in 1994.