The list grows smaller each year, undoubtedly due to it growing harder for me to follow the glut of new releases. I look at year-end lists. Not only have I not heard 95 percent of the albums, but I have also not heard of 90 percent of the artists on most of them. My listening habits have drifted further than the mainstream, and I just don’t absorb new music the way I used to.
We can’t all be critics and surfers of the cutting edge until the bitter end, can we? In fairness, there are new albums from Snail Mail, Courtney Barnett and Aimee Mann that I have not heard yet. Maybe in 2022, I will have words for them.
Of course there are albums that define 2021. Not all these are new. Sometimes you experience music years after its release. What matters is the music that stays with you.
The Weather Station, Ignorance
Tamara Lindemann and company punch it up a notch on this stellar album. The band’s sound is fuller, escaping the minimalism of their early records without any drastic changes. Robber made the list last year, and it please me to find the whole record worthy of its initial single.
Kamasi Washington, My Friend of Misery
It’s hard being the least-heralded song on one of the best-selling records of all time. But that’s My Friend of Misery with Metallica's self-titled album. I always liked the deep cut, but you’d be hard-pressed to find people who even remember it on the album.With Kamasi Washington's version, all that changes. Washington brings the song unprecedented prominence through The Blacklist, a 30th anniversary album with dozens of covers from Black Album tracks, more Black Album than anyone reasonably needs. But if you picked up that completely upends the formula, it’s My Friend of Misery. Unrecognizable as a Metallica song, it stays dark and becomes even more apocalyptic in Washington’s able hands.
A recent release of a benefit for Muscle Shoals theater where the band cut its teeth, Drive-By Truckers songwriters and the band’s more famous alum Isbell essentially trade acoustic versions of their songs for two and a half hours. It isn’t DBT; in the moment this concert might be better, a unique night of music and the best of three strong but different songwriters.
Julien Baker, Little Oblivions
Take me out of Nashville and suddenly Nashville singer-songwriters returned to my radar. The mix of Baker’s vulnerable voice, piano and industrial background noise has powered me through many a drive I 2021. The opener, Hardline, lays out its melody with brutal force, while the arrangements of Relative Fiction could pass for an OK Computer B-side.
Robert Plant and Alison Krauss, Raise the Roof
Fourteen years after Raising Sand, the pair rejoin for another strong set of songs that doesn’t sounds like anyone else. Raise the Roof is not a mere sequel. While it brings back produce T Bone Burnett and virtually the same lineup of backing musicians, the music is sparer and swampier Despite its name, Raise the Roof sounds more like a soulful twilight jam on the front porch. Krauss' legendary fiddle pops in as necessary, and Plant's voice maintains a sweetness into his 70s.
The Mountain Goats, All Hail West Texas and Beat the Champ
For years I found John Darnielle’s band impenetrable due to the mass of releases. When it comes to overly prolific rock bands, Guided by Voices already has me hooked.
But after a deep-dive prior to their Colorado Springs show, I found these two stuck with me. The first is Darnielle’s home recordings on a boombox that include wondrous numbers like The Best Ever Death Metal Band in Denton and Fault Lines. Everyone song on Beat the Champ ties into professional wrestling, building songs about terminology (Heel Turn, Foreign Object) and about wrestlers themselves (The Legend of Chavo Guererro).
Reissues
I have never been a big electric blues guy, but the sheer power of a Black man and an acoustic guitar can always rattle me to the core. Son House stands as chief among those that do. Welcoming one of his late-career albums onto might record player was long overdue.
Bill Withers, Just As I Am
Withers wrote some of the most popular R&B songs of the 70s and 80s but until he passed in March 2020, I didn’t know much about him beyond Lean on Me. Then I discovered Just As I Am, and wondered how I had done without his music. This top-notch collection of soulful folks tunes headlined by Ain’t No Sunshine, which became my immediate favorite. Not a bad song on this one, and most of Withers’ songs sound like standards the moments you first hear them, especially Grandma’s Hands. He also turned the Beatles' Let it Be into a gospel track. Plus, I just like the cover of Withers with his lunch pail, walking out of his aircraft factory job before his success made him a full-time musician.
Now if I just find a copy of Still Bill, its successor.
The Band, Stage Fright (50th Anniversary Edition)
I thought The Band more or less ended after the first two albums, two all-time classics. Then I happened to check out Stage Fright, which rewrote my view entirely. Stage Fright might be less epic but there’s not a dud on this album.
I don’t know what compelled me to believe The Band stopped making strong records after their self-titled album. But here lies Stage Fright, a worthy, lower-stake successor to the first two. Robby Robertson slightly edited the track listing for the 50th anniversary, but it doesn’t really change what’s there. The Shape I’m In still boasts a strong lead vocal from Richard Manuel over some blistering instrument passages. I doubt that next year I'll be praising Cahoots, their fourth record and first bomb. Besides, I'll still be humming songs from Stage Fright.
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