Tuesday, December 29, 2015

2015 Music: The Top Ten Albums

Last year, I managed to write a little bit about every new album I listened to in 2014. That's not happening for 2015, because I don't feel like doing a top 55 list. But after casting a wide net (Thanks, Wikipedia!) and giving every one of those 55 multiple chances, I'm pretty solid with a top ten. Well, not quite. The EP at number 11 needs to make this post somehow. What the hell, let's just make it a top 10 and a half this year...

10.5. Birdcloud- Tetnis

...Because there's no way I could leave Birdcloud off this list. Sure, Tetnis is only six songs and about 15 minutes of music. It's also true that neither band member is an especially good singer. But there used to be a void in my life, and Birdcloud filled it. Profane, trashy, twangy, sexy grrl-country about interracial dating, female wet dreams, public binge drinking, and innovative ways to ingest cocaine is something I never have to be without again. And for that, I am eternally grateful. Highlights: No Worries; Boy; I Like Black Guys.

10. Third Eye Blind- Dopamine

As I recently wrote, Third Eye Blind is a nostalgia band for me and all their other fans. I was 15 when they hit it big, but that's not the only reason. So much of their music, even dating back to the first album, is about wanting to go back. With "Dopamine" rumored to be the last Third Eye Blind album, it's to be expected that Stephan Jenkins would indulge his Jay Gatsby persona and give it a good sendoff. "Dopamine" unfortunately lack the barely-self-aware melancholy that made the first two albums so effective. Most of the new stuff comes off as a genre-sampling, vacant, whiny mess. But Jenkins, one of the most baffling, confounding songwriters I have ever explored, still manages to hit a few home runs amidst all the strikeouts. "Dopamine" contains three of the best songs, by anyone, of the year. It also has nine pieces of hot garbage. What can you do with that? I guess I rank it tenth. Highlights: Shipboard Cook; Dopamine; Everything is Easy.

9. Ash- Kablammo!

This is the first band on this list that I discovered on Wikipedia's "new 2015 albums" page, but they won't be the last. Turns out Ash, a Northern Irish alt-rock trio, had been making music for over 20 years before I ever heard of them. I liked "Kablammo!" immediately because it reminded me of Weezer, but with more depth. I kept listening to it all year because it doesn't have a bad song on it. Not everything has to be life-changing, open to interpretation, and worthy of dissection. Sometimes a good rock record is just that, and that's enough. Highlights: Machinery; Let's Ride; Go! Fight! Win!.

8. The Wonder Years- No Closer to Heaven

I badly wanted The Wonder Years' follow-up to 2013's "The Greatest Generation" to be another masterpiece, because if it was, it would be easy to put them at the top of some hierarchy that exists only in my head. Sadly, I have to be aware of nuance here, because "No Closer to Heaven" isn't a masterpiece. Musically, it's right on par with the band's previous work. The verses still sound right at home in a tiny punk club, and the choruses still belong in stadiums. Frontman Dan Campbell's voice is still perfect for his "today-I-learned" lyrics. It also gets profound, if not as often as "The Greatest Generation", where every single song was an epiphany. "No Closer to Heaven" focuses more on social issues than internal ones, but it still gives us gems like "We're no saviors if we can't save our brothers", "John Wayne with a God complex tells me to buy a gun/ like shooting a teenage kid is gonna solve any problems", and, most poignantly, "You were the one thing I got right". Even if it wasn't love at first listen this time, The Wonder Years still ooze wisdom and sincerity, and I'm still into that. Even if I like it better when they don't get their lyrics from progressive news websites. Highlights: Cardinals; Cigarettes & Saints; Thanks For the Ride.

7. Idlewild- Everything Ever Written

As I wrote in my third concerts post, the return of Idlewild was my single most anticipated musical moment of 2015. Like The Wonder Years, it's hard to write about because of the comparisons my brain makes on its own, but unlike The Wonder Years, Idlewild's legacy brings a decade's worth of brilliant albums instead of just one. After their five-year hiatus, 2015 finds Roddy Woomble and friends continuing a progression away from raging guitar rock and toward quiet contemplative alt-folk. This isn't altogether a bad thing. Roddy is monk-caliber at quiet contemplation, and the combination of his voice and his lyrics will always amaze me. Plus, I still get one headbanging song, "On Another Planet", so hey, better than nothing. The downside is, I have Roddy's solo career to fill my need for sincere Scotsmen with stunningly beautiful souls singing Americana-style music. I want Idlewild to take advantage of their instruments that need to be plugged in, otherwise what was the point of reuniting the band? Even if it's a natural and straight-line progression from "Make Another World" to "Post-Electric Blues" to "Everything Ever Written", I can't pretend I'm fine with the new one not sounding like Idlewild. Roddy also loses significant points for ripping off Michael Sembello's "Maniac" on "Left Like Roses" in a pretty noticeable and unavoidable way. That's why this album lands outside of the top five. Highlights: Radium Girl; On Another Planet; Utopia.

6. Sleater-Kinney- No Cities to Love

By the time I discovered Sleater-Kinney, they had already been broken up for five years, and I consumed their music without context. That led to some weird preferences- Give me "Dig Me Out", "Call the Doctor", or "All Hands on the Bad One" any day, but you can keep the rest. I'm happy to report that their reunion album, "No Cities to Love", is nearly everything I hoped it would be. It doesn't try to get art-rocky, and it's not raw to the point of unlistenability. It's just ten sweet riffs with scream-along choruses and the weird but addictive vocal combination of Carrie Brownstein and Corin Tucker. I would have liked a new introspective quiet song to go along with my favorites "Buy Her Candy", "Leave You Behind", and "The Swimmer", but instead we get a half hour of pure straightforward rock. Ten basic, essential, and most importantly new Sleater-Kinney songs. I'll take it and like it. Highlights: Hey Darling; Surface Envy; Bury Our Friends.

5. Veruca Salt- Ghost Notes

If Idlewild's resurrection was my most-anticipated music of 2015, the return of Veruca Salt's original lineup for their first new album in 18 years was a close second. While "reunited 90's icon of radio-friendly girl-rock" didn't have the same cache for me that "Roddy's back in Idlewild?!" had, I will say that Veruca Salt delivered on my expectations and then some. What impressed me most about "Ghost Notes" is that it feels like they bottled all the momentum they had after "Volcano Girls" became huge, stuck it in the back of a freezer, and broke it out almost two decades later. Nina and Louise still harmonize magically, they still walk that hyper-expressive sexy-confident-powerful-girly-vulnerable-all-at-the-same-time line that made their earlier stuff so successful, and they still write big rock-out hooks that sound even better now that they're not being drowned out by countless 90's bands trying to do the exact same thing. But the nicest thing I can say about "Ghost Notes" is the simple fact that it's my favorite Veruca Salt album. There was a conscious need to stuff as many singles on "American Thighs" as possible, and then there was some filler. "Eight Arms to Hold You" was uneven and edgy in all the wrong places. "IV" doesn't count. "Ghost Notes" replaces all that mess with a security and confidence in who Veruca Salt is. There was no pressure involved in the making of this album, and it shows. Instead of writing songs for the radio, they could write them for themselves and their fans, and that led to an album where the songs all get to be great in their own way, not just the way Q101 would want. Highlights: Laughing in the Sugar Bowl; Prince of Wales; Come Clean, Dark Thing.

4. Frank Turner- Positive Songs for Negative People

Frank Turner was my big musical discovery for 2015, like Against Me! and The Gaslight Anthem in 2014 and 2013, respectively. He's folk-punk, which puts his music right in the middle of my happy place, but there's a lot of cleverness and thoughtfulness in his music that makes each of his albums worth revisiting. I spent the first half of the year obsessing over "Tape Deck Heart" and how it motivated me. The second half of the year brought me "Positive Songs for Negative People", and I embraced that too. It's a little bit lighter and poppier than his previous stuff. "Out of Breath" and "Josephine" still rock reasonably hard, but you'll struggle to find anything punk about "Get Better", "The Next Storm", and the rest. That doesn't make these songs any less brilliant, though. Frank Turner is a narrative songwriter, driven by self-awareness and a constant need for self-improvement. Much of his lyrical content is about hating his own flaws and attacking them relentlessly, and that means I find "Positive Songs" inspiring from beginning to end. Like a self-help book for crowd surfers. Or cult literature for people with tattoos. Highlights: Love Forty Down, Demons, The Next Storm.


3. The Front Bottoms- Back On Top

Here's the second band on the list I discovered because of Wikipedia. "Back on Top" is the band's first album on a major label, which their fan base didn't like too much, but I can only speak to The Front Bottoms I know. They're a rock quartet from New Jersey, and they combine often hilarious lyrics with a few moments of insight, some gleefully delivered horrible lines ("Our love's the only thing that could matter/ Take me up and up and up like a ladder." What the hell?) and an occasional horn section or rap interlude. Needless to say, this was one of the biggest musical surprises of 2015 for me and every time I drafted this list, I just kept moving it up. Even including the two albums yet to come, I don't think I had as much fun listening to anything else this year. Just listen to "The Plan (Fuck Jobs)" or the spoken monologue on "Plastic Flowers" and try not to laugh out loud. But then there's "West Virginia" and "Cough it Out", which are just sad, revealing songs. I feel like I understand this band less and less the more I listen to them. I think I would like to see them live twenty times or so, and maybe then I can decide. Highlights: Plastic Flowers; 2YL; Laugh Till I Cry.

2. CHVRCHES- Every Open Eye

CHVRCHES broke out pretty big two years ago, but I valued that album mostly for the one song, "The Mother We Share". "Every Open Eye" takes the magic from that song, and applies it to fourteen tracks. While the songs are all kind of similar to each other- and after the best five or so, become interchangeable- the lyrics are better than the usual pop nonsense, and Lauren Mayberry's voice is perfect. The result is an irresistibly bright and shiny album that is nothing like anything else on this list. Hell, the last time I rated an electronic album this highly it was 2004 and I was hypnotized by The Postal Service, and I'll take Lauren Mayberry over The Postal Service's Ben Gibbard any day. When I decided this year I was going to have ten different bands/artists in my top ten songs, the hardest cut was which of three CHVRCHES songs was going to make the list. They're all so. Freaking. Good. Highlights: Make Them Gold; Never Ending Circles; Bow Down.

1. Dead Sara- Pleasure to Meet You

2015's best album comes from another band I found on Wikipedia, so thanks again for that, Wikipedia. Dead Sara is a quartet from Los Angeles, with a calling card of Emily Armstrong's raspy, rangy, incredible vocals. The album's center is a sort of blues-rock, but individual songs take it in any direction you could want- "Radio One Two" is a punk song. "Something Good" is blues. "Lovesick" is metal. "Mr. Mr." is a soul song. "For You I Am" is one of the best torch songs I've ever heard. Dead Sara made a rock record that touches so many sub-genres of rock, but holds together as a coherent whole because they're just a damn good band. The track that puts "Pleasure to Meet You" over the top isn't even my favorite song from the album. It's just the most interesting. "Greaser" takes Old Crow Medicine Show, Janis Joplin, and alt-rock guitars, throws them all in a blender, and adds the most incredible vocals I heard all year to make some kind of Americana blues-rock monster. If 2015 showed us one thing, it's that the old guard of rock goddesses aren't dead, but Emily Armstrong is the future. I for one welcome our new Californian overlords. Highlights: Radio One Two; Lovesick; For You I Am

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