Jesse Malin Photo Credit: Gus Philippas

These are my top 10 songs and albums of 2021, and discovery of the year, as compiled for the WFUV post, The Best of 2021 Staff Picks.

Top 10 Songs

1 Wolf Alice: Smile
2 Wet Leg: Chaise Lounge
3 Spoon: The Hardest Cut
4 My Morning Jacket: Love Love Love
5 Amythyst Kiah: Black Myself
6 The Marias: Hush
7 Jack White: Taking Me Back
8 Sunflower Bean: Baby Don’t Cry
9 St Vincent: Pay Your Way in Pain
10 Parquet Courts: Walking at a Downtown Pace

Top 10 Albums

1 Jesse Malin: Sad and Beautiful World
2 The Hold Steady: Open Door Policy
3 Courtney Barnett: Things Take Time, Take Time
4 Sleater Kinney: Path to Wellness
5 Durand Jones & The Indications: Private Space
6 TTB: Layla Revisited (Live at Locken) feat Trey Anastasio
7 Jon Batiste: We Are
8 Arlo Parks: Collapsed in Sunbeams
9 Christone Ingram: 662
10 The War on Drugs – I Don’t Live Here Anymore

Discovery of the Year

Durand Jones & The Indications

These are my top 10 songs and albums of 2020, and breakthrough artist, as compiled for the WFUV post, The Best of 2020 Staff Picks.

Top 10 Songs

1. Elvis Costello, “No Flag”
2. Pearl Jam, “Dance of the Clairvoyants”
3. Janelle Monáe, “Turntables”
4. Nicole Atkins, “Domino”
5. The Strokes, “Bad Decisions”
6. Jesse Malin, “Todd Youth”
7. Low Cut Connie, “Private Lives”
8. This Is the Kit, “This Is What You Did”
9. beabadoobee, “Care”
10. Bully, “Every Tradition”

Top 10 Albums

1. Fiona Apple, Fetch the Bolt Cutters
2. Gorillaz, Song Machine, Season One: Strange Timez
3. Nada Surf, Never Not Together
4. The Pretenders, Hate for Sale
5. Bob Dylan, Rough and Rowdy Ways
6. Chicano Batman, Invisible People
7. Kathleen Edwards, Total Freedom
8. Lucinda Williams, Good Souls Better Angels
9. X, Alphabetland
10. Thao & the Get Down Stay Down, Temple

Discovery of the Year

beabadoobee

I guess that’s my favorite picture of the year.  Walking like a zombie with Rod Argent and Colin Blunstone of The Zombies!

2015 In Review: Top 10 Albums, Songs & Concerts – Happy New Year!

Before the lists, here’s 3 more of my fave pix from the past 12 months.  Warren Haynes, Me & Brian Ritchie and Gordon Gano of the Violent Femmes, and Albert Hammond Jr…

If you only listen to one record from 2014, make it the Most Messed Up one by Old 97’s!  Flashback to their show in August and revel in songs from the numero uno el disco of the year…perfect warm-up for New Year’s Eve.

The fabulous Alynda Lee Segarra and Hurray For The Riff Raff snare the deuce with their album, Small Town Heroes.  Get a taste of it with this performance footage shot in January along with remarks from the aforementioned Alynda.

The Kooks fourth album Listen surprised me – not because I like it so much which I expected to because I was on board with the first three – but why I did, which I couldn’t have seen coming.  The songs that made me a fan of these guys like Always Where I Need To Be and Shine On were hitting me as power pop with inescapable melodies, chiming guitars, and the singing of Luke Pritchard, one of the most appealing voices in rock.

Listen had all those elements but, as Luke explained in two (one for NY1, one for WFUV) interviews, its X-factor is the dance-ability factor brought by new drummer Alexis Nunez who was wearing his ‘Real Men Love Disco’ T-shirt during the band’s show at The Paramount in Huntington.  Westside is one of my favorite songs of the year and a great example of the bobbing head/happy feet that a lot of this record creates.  There’s also convincing nods to funk and gospel that take us to some new places.  The opening track I thought was sure to wink at T-Rex but Luke disabused me of that notion although he got why I thought that as you could draw a parallel to the backing vocals in that to Marc Bolan’s Children of the Revolution.  Get a taste of the Paramount show and choice remarks from Luke in the attached Sound Advice video which first aired in October.

If you like what you see there, please continue to the WFUV site for video of the two songs that The Kooks performed live in the studio.  That is also where the more expansive interview (audio only) lives. Luke spoke about how the record came together and offered insight into specific tracks like the very personal (and amazing) song See Me Now which is one of the two songs you can watch.

I first heard Eric Johnson’s guitar playing when his debut album Tones came out in the mid 1980s. I had never heard anything like it. Nobody had heard anything like it! Since then whenever the Austin native put out something new, I felt I owed it to myself to hear it. He’s made many rewarding albums that (reflecting his attention to detail in the studio) generally appear about every four years – like the Olympics. This year Johnson, whose records are generally filed under rock, teamed up with Mike Stern, a guitarist originally out of Boston whose discs are found in the jazz section. While Eric was making Tones, Mike was on his second tour of duty with Miles Davis. (His brief digression about Miles in this interview is priceless.) Even if Miles wasn’t on it, the list of guys he has played with would still be stunning: Jaco Pastorius, the Brecker brothers, Bela Fleck, Jack DeJohnette, and Kenny Garrett to name just a few. Stern’s discography captures him sparkling in a variety of contexts; mostly as a bandleader but also as a band member, with that litany of fantastic players.

Both Johnson and Stern have a wheelbarrow full of awards and have received countless accolades from not only the music press but, tellingly, from fellow musicians.

The album Eric Johnson and Mike Stern made together called Eclectic has, as Eric put it when we spoke last month before their gig at Webster Hall, a 1+1=3 thing going. With the 1’s being Johnson and Stern, you can imagine how amazing that 3 is. Don’t imagine it though, watch the video! It features conversation and performance not included in the 2 minute Sound Advice report last month and it covers how they got together as well as their approach to sharing sonic spaces. Their North American tour continues through the middle of February 2015.

Follow the link to hear songs from Spoon’s eighth studio album played live and a conversation with the fab Alisa Ali and enjoy a flashback to the fellas at Governors Ball (as well as The Strokes) in this video…

Here’s a peek back to Robert Plant’s killer show at BAM in September.  The mighty re-arranger never fails to satisfy.  Zeppelin?  We don’t need no stinkin’ Zeppelin!

Jack White is the 21st century riff-meister!  Here’s a flashback to his Governors Ball performance in June – About 100 seconds of the instrumental track High Ball Stepper from Lazaretto.