I agree that I never wind up liking him as much as I "should" given how much I like Americana and some of his direct contemporaries in unconventional country. I think this album's a bit less stiff sounding than some of his others, but it's still a "kinda-like-not-love" situation.
Mystic Familiar has a few bops and the rest sounds fine...but it's just another Dan Deacon album, IMO. Middle of my list.
RTJ4 is exactly what it should be and no way did anybody outdo Waxahatchee at that game so far this year.
I think it's been a really strong year for three types of music:
- warm electronic, micro-house leaning music (Four Tet, Caribou, etc)
- rap (RtJ, Boldy, Gibbs, Jay Electro, the EPs from Conway & Simz, the best Shabazz album since Black Up, Purple Moonlight Pages, etc)
and here comes the unhip one,
- vintage rock artists (Strokes, Pearl Jam, Greg Dulli, Malkmus, Lanegan, and even Phish had a legit solid studio album)
Sixteen Oceans, yes! I took until 2020 to really get into Four Tet, I think the album is brilliant and a perfect salve for this shit year....and it's showing up on basically zero lists. I like the Caribou album a lot, too, but I think Sixteen Oceans is the well superior album.
I wish I felt that way about the Cornershop because I really like the band, even as spotty as their catalog has ultimately wound up (7th Time = brilliant; Handcream & Woman's Gotta Have it = about half excellent, half forgettable; Double O Groove = cool as Hell; the rest - meh with some cool highlights sprinkled around).
England is a Garden feels underbaked or un-inspired, and songs rely way too much on endless repetition of short refrains ("The Holy Name" is the biggest offender on repetition, but I like that one and it's kind of the point on that; "I'm a Wooden Soldier" is the WORST offender). I'll take the good songs ("Slingshot" definitely has the magic) and be grateful, but it's definitely another I'll just cherry pick a few highlights from and forget the rest.
Yeah it's good and I really like four or five songs off of it. It's on my list comewhere, but definitely not Top 10. Which, for Tame Impala, is a failure based on how I ranked his previous albums.
I wouldn't go as far as to say every song on The New Abnormal is a banger, but the majority are. It will definitely be on my list when I finish reading these comments and post it. We discussed it ad nauseum up to and through the album's release, but I'd have it as my #4 Strokes album - behind the first two and, more controversially, Angles, and well ahead of First Impressions and Comedown Machine (which seems to be the new one that people are favorably re-assessing).
I definitely don't hear The Slow Rush as darker than Currents. TSL is all about finding balance and being kinda content, Currents is a breakup album.
I tried out the Dua Lipa and Charli XCX albums this year because I don't want to be an aging crank who dismisses all things poptimist. The Dua album did absolutely zero for me despite the fact that I had thought its writeups made it sound promising. I thought "well shit, I guess this kind of thing just really isn't for me". But the Charli XCX one is actually pretty good. It still sounds like music made for a teenage girl and I don't know how much I'll ever internalize it, but it's a pretty cool album that would make my list, too.
Nice write up blurb for Agitprop Alterna, Ryan. That one kept growing on me the more I realized it's not just one or two ideas being flogged across an album.
I'm checking out the Yaeji album (finally) and the Chubby and the Gang based on this list.
Ugh, I wish I hadn't even looked at the Paste one. There's some stuff I like on there, of course, but in addition to my issues with their lists themselves for the last year or two, I really just don't like their write-ups.
Just to use the first example I encountered on this new list - they wind up ragging on The Strokes & The New Abnormal almost as much as they praise the album, even ending on a negative note. If they're so unenthused about it why not pick a different fucking album? Could their entire staff only not come up with 25 albums they genuinely like?
Depending on how far back you've gone with Built to Spill's catalog, you've probably heard them cover him before - "Some Things Last a Long Time", which they have a pretty devastating version of on The Normal Years is a Johnston song.
He's definitely one of those guys who successfully and interestingly pulls of releasing something totally different each time out, so far. I can't wait to watch this and eventually hear the album.
Go with the Flow
God is in the Radio
If Only
Burn the Witch
Sick, Sick, Sick
If I Had a Tail
Feet Don't Fail Me
1. Better Living Through Chemistry
2. No One Knows
3. Into the Fade
4. A Song for the Dead
5. Go With the Flow
6. If I Had A Tail
7. If Only
8. Feet Don't Fail Me
9. Sick, Sick, Sick
10. ...Millionaire/God is in the Radio/Burn the Witch/Go with the Flow
Everyone seems to like ...Like Clockwork. I guess the added personal element - Homme is laid up from an injury and all in his feelings and bitter - connected for some people who resisted other post-SftD works.
I love the maligned Era Vulgaris, the beloved ...Like Clockwork, and the mixed-reception Villains. None of them touches SftD, which is Top 10 of the 2Ks for me, but I think at least some of them are as good as or better than this.
"Leg of Lamb", "Autopilot", "Quick and to the Pointless", "Tension Head", and even "Monsters in the Parasol" are all fine, but none of them is much special to me, so that's why I score this below their top tier.
Top 10 Lanegan songs off the top of my head, no order:
- "Song for the Dead"
- "Into the Fade"
- "Skeletal History" from Hear Comes That Weird Chill
- "Strange Religion" and "Like Little Willie John" both from Bubblegum,
- "Harborview Hospital" from Blues Funeral (easily his most slept-on piece of brilliance...devestating without laying in the heavy gloom and doom)
- "She Done Too Much" from Field Songs (short but effective)
- "Caught Between" & "Alice Says" from Screaming Trees' Uncle Anesthesia
- "Sworn and Broken" from ST's Dust. Or "Number 9" from Twilight Singers' AMAZING Blackberry Belle.
Did I miss stuff? Of course! I haven't spent much time with Whiskey for the Holy Ghost for years, for one thing. But the guy's catalog, all projects considered, is just stupifyingly deep.
SftD is definitely the better album (and THAT is an odyssey!). But I love me some Rate R, all the same.
Lanegan's performance on "Into the Fade" is fantastic - somehow gravely and silk smooth at the same time, a perfect, soulful hard rock croon.
"Lost Art" is such an easy-sounding but lovable jam, and "Better Living Through Chemistry" is a third track that easily remains among the band's career highlights.
Yeah Ozcy Mlody was the last one I listened to, crazy they've had that many since. I thought that was their best since Embryonic, not that it was a masterpiece or anything. Saw them on that tour. "Do Glowy" was my favorite on there.
Maybe. I don't always like some of the stuff he has to say, so he loses content points....but at the same time, his flow is un-fucking-stoppable, hard hitting, and endlessly fun to listen to.
I'm most excited to hear St Cloud, too. Not only is it my favorite, but maybe this will scratch the itch I've had from missing the chance to see so many favorite artists tour their strong new material that's dropped in the last few months.
RIP. I wasn't familiar with him beyond his playing on those classics, but even that alone is enough - he played with perfection on one of the most immortal albums in the history of music. Respect.
I turned 36 last month and adore Lonerism and Currents. I remember thinking they were someone I didn't need to care about based on their name of all things when I first heard of them, but after a week or two of Lonerism hype I caved and was pretty near blown away. Instant new favorite band.
I never liked My Chemical or Panic, though, that's for sure. To wrap up your references, I didn't get into SP really until Adore-era, but I immediately went back to the rest of their catalog and they became "that band" for me in my teenage years.
Wow, fun coincidence, I listened to it straight through yesterday for the first time in I don't know how long, and never once thought it had an anniversary coming soon! I got into them with Lonerism, so I don't have any first-wave memories of this, but you can bet I hunted it down quick after I had digested Lonerism a bit. I do think comes up a tad short of their middle two albums, but it is an excellent album that surprised me with how many quality jams it had. Also, very iconic opening chords.
Given the choice, I wish he still injected a little guitar muscle into his new music, sure - but how cool is it that the guy who made this debut album ten years ago was headlining a day of Coachella in the 2019 musical climate?
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