2019 Keepers

In a year of transition, new music played a strong role, stronger after I migrated from Nashville to Colorado.  Grizzly Bear's Colorado takes me back to the two-day drive. I spent a lot of hours consuming classical on drives into the mountains, Wyoming and South Dakota. I tried new material where I could and leaned on some old favorites with new tricks.

As always, there was more More Mark Lanegan, this time a record that could have been plucked from the 1980s. A new album pairing Calexico and Iron &Wine doesn't come close to the heights of 2005's stellar In the Reins EP. The National's album of duets with female singers was an interesting concept and frequently gets played in the car, but a Keeper? I'm not sure yet. I'm settled on the list below for 2019.

Steve Gunn, The Unseen In Between
Released in 2018, I bought it just over the line into 2019, but one record always arrives too late for the previous year’s list. With the guitar solo becoming an endangered species, Gunn’s intricate songs breathe fresh air into indie songwriting. Having seen him live twice -opening for Lee Renaldo and headlining The Basement supporting this album – Gunn has grown as a songwriter, his lyrics growing as intricate and evolved as his guitar passages.

Weyes Blood, Titanic Rising
Despite harkening to the singer-songwriter classics of the 1970s, Weyes Blood finds home at the end of the 20-teens with the timeless tunes of Natalie Mering. It’s hard to miss the influence of Joni Mitchell, Carole King or Karen Carpenter, but Mering takes that brand of songwriting into new territory.

Sturgill Simpson, Sound & Fury
In a few albums, Simpson has come a long way. At first, I thought he sounded like a Merle Haggard cover artist, but Sound & Fury is 40 minutes of relentless 70s-tinged Southern rock that still feels modern. Along with a bonkers anime synced to the album on Netflix, the album cruises with the windows down, demanding the volume at maximum. There’s a funky disco bass under it all that I can’t shake.

Purple Mountains, Purple Mountains
Having caught up on the Silver Jews during David Berman’s musical hiatus, I eagerly awaited his return through Purple Mountains. Less than a month after the record dropped, Berman killed himself put the lyrics in a new, sadder context. I have not listened to Purple Mountains much since he died, but that’s only because it hits that much harder. The weary detachment of Margaritas at the Mall still cracks me up. It’s open and confessional, and while I try not to read this as the last cry of a struggling man, it’s almost impossible to avoid that subtext. Nights that Won’t Happen is a meditation and life and dying, and I keep coming back to “All the suffering gets done by the ones we leave behind” and wonder about Berman.  His way with lyrics and shape sense of humor will be missed, although this last statement was a clear high point.

Wilco, Ode to Joy
The Jeff Tweedy hot streak continues with an sparse album in which his band members drop in at the best possible moment – see Nels Cline on Love is Everywhere (Beware). The personal, upfront approach of his solo records WARM and Warmer carriers over to his main band to great effect .Wilco songs have rarely been this open and emotional.

Angel Olsen, All Mirror
If Angel Olsen keeps evolving record to record, she’s going to be a mainstay on my lists. Originally conceived as an all-acoustic effort, Olsen rerecorded the entire record with a 12-piece orchestra. The songs still manage to be sparse when necessary, and Olsen wisely takes her songwriting in fresh directions after 2016’s My Woman. Definitely an album that requires multiple listens, the chances that Olsen took offer continued rewards. The one-two punch of New Love Cassette and Spring play best on a turntable. What It Is moves from claustrophobic to epic in a few bars of music.

Thom Yorke, ANIMA
ANIMA has supplanted Eraser as my favorite Yorke solo album – if it doesn’t do that for you, it will complete blot out the forgettable Tomorrow’s Modern Boxes. Yorke’s solo work has grown significantly. Dawn Chorus, which manages to sound minimal and epic simultaneously, is one of those mythic Radiohead “lost” tracks which finally gains form and fits seamlessly into ANIMA. The track I cannot shake is Twist, which is a journey of several movements ending with dark piano notes while Yorke moans wordlessly. Runwayaway’s jangly guitar introduction gradually shifts into plunked keys and a backdrop of cello and rough beats.

Best Single 
Paul McCartney, Home Tonight/In a Hurry
Two songs, eight minutes of music on a colorful Record Store Day 45, demonstrate the Beatle’s castoffs outpace most musician’s best efforts. These songs might as well be leftover tracks from later Beatle records, not Egypt Station, his most recent solo record. Released as a double-A-side, both songs are catchy as hell and signal McCartney has no need to slow down. Plus, In a Hurry has some excellent cello in the mix.

Best Reissue 
The Beatles, Abbey Road 50th Anniversary Deluxe Edition
Did I need it? Not until I heard this new edition and its revelatory remastering led by Giles Martin, son of Beatles producer George Martin. Instruments on these amazing songs all along suddenly pop out of the new mix. Just 10 years after the entire Beatles catalogue got remastered, these new version announces itself as the ultimate take on Abbey Road. The extras stick with you as well, including different forms of the Medley on side two, early takes of I Want You (She’s So Heavy) and the orchestra track from Something. From that perspective, an already great record – maybe the greatest final effort of any rock group – can grow even greater.

Best Crate Finds
Gordon Lightfoot, Gord's Gold and Summertime Dream
These might be common, but finding good used copies proved tough. After years of passing on terrible copies of these records, I finally found suitable copies for $4 and $5, respectively. Gord's Gold is an essential compilation, which found the singer rerecording early tracks in his mid-70s style. It works. While I can quibble with the absence of The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, Gord's Gold preceded Summertime Dream by a year, and his tale of the doomed Great Lakes ore vessel hadn't been recorded yet. I spent a lot of time with these records this summer, and expect them to come back out when the weather turns to spring.