Taylor Swift – 1989
Ex Hex – Rips
Parquet Courts – Sunbathing Animal
Sharon Van Etten – Are We There
Old 97s – Most Messed Up
The Both – Self Titled
The Hold Steady – Teeth Dreams
Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks – Wig Out At Jagbags
The Rural Alberta Advantage – Mended With Gold
Cheap Girls – Famous Graves
Buy New or Used via Amazon Rent via iTunes [?] Reverend Horton Heat: REV (Victory) I’m so glad that they went back to their crazed Rockabilly sound. There’s still a couple slower toe tappers with that country twang but they are damn good as well. It’s their best since Full Custom Gospel Sounds back in 1993. Buy New or Used via Amazon Rent via iTunes [?] OFF!: Wasted Years (Vice) This is about as riff-driven a disc as you can get. I loved First Four EP’s but this…
Doug Paisley – Strong Feelings
Hollie Cook – Twice
Ty Segall – Manipulator
Tommy Guererro – Perpetuum
Sturgill Simpson – Metamodern…
Sleaford Mods – Divide and Exit
No chops, No solos. Only the barest rudiments of “musicality”. And most of all, no space. Just a soundscape filled with life. And the things that make you shake your head, anger you, frustrate you and make you laugh.
It was a year of continuous change, but also of hopeful permanence. We started the year in a small rental in Reading, Vermont and ended it in our rambling new home in Grafton, New Hampshire. In between, moving and madness. At journey’s end, we found the home of our dreams, a historic colonial, with barns, land, and forest. We’ve just ordered our seeds and are planning the vegetable garden. The cycle of life continues. Of course, one needs a soundtrack for all this change, and 2014 certainly provided it. Tops of the Pops Buy New or Used via Amazon…
1. Old 97’s – Most Messed Up. 22 years into their career, Rhett Miller and the boys produce one of their most raucous albums. ‘Mats bassist Tommy Stinson sits in on “Intervention” which poses the question: “He’s mystified why we’re so lame, but if he wakes up dead will he feel the same?” Lots of stompy, Hank Williams inspired honky tonk fun.
Gazelle Twin ~ Unflesh (Anti Ghost Moon Ray/Last Gang)
Something bad happened to Elizabeth Bernholz between 2011’s The Entire City and 2014’s Unflesh. The details are foggy, but hints can be gleaned from interviews and the way the artist performs hunched over with her face obscured by a hoodie (and replaced on the album cover by a slab of meat). The suffering has made her an astonishing artist; she’s channeled her pain into genius.
1. Ty Segall/Manipulator (Drop the needle, and commence the abuse. This relentless rush of punk rock hits hard, and hammers it home. He digs the power chord; he digs the shimmy-shake. He’s jacked up on the Who, Bowie and T. Rex, but he is his own best bro, and nobody tries harder. Man of the year Ty Segall is pulsing, electric, aflame.)
if we had all died in a Koch-ian fossil fuck in twentyfourteen, here’s what I woulda been singin’ or listenin’ to when the flashpoint came. Buy New or Used via Amazon Rent via iTunes [?] 1) Bob Dylan and The Band – The Basement Tapes Complete Collectors, myself included, have had these dark, surreal cosmic jokes and murder ballads in bootleg form for, oh I dunno, eight hundred years? To have them all in one place, with thirty newly discovered tracks from a tape Garth Hudson sold off is just bonus. Buy New…
Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks – Wig Out at Jag Bags
The lyrical play, song craft and guitar wizardry is at an all-time high on this his fourth outing with the Jicks. How can one not chuckle with a song title like “Cinnamon and Lesbians”? Aside from Jeff Tweedy, I’d be hard pressed to find someone from the 90s this consistently great.
From our Beloved Fearless Leader: To the POmpous and OPinionated: Do NOT think because I’m a week late in getting this out that the deadline is going to be a week later. Get that out of your head. Now. If you’re getting one of these for the first time, POOP is our annual exercise in self-importance wherein we compile “Best Of 2014′ lists, to be published in a print edition as well as online. A refresher about the rules and deadlines is in order: Limit yourself to what would be 2 sides of 8×11 paper. Leave a slight margin so…
Dear POOPster: I know you’ve been waiting with bad breath for the front-page POOP analysis and tabulation. So on this occasion, the 27th annual foray into the realm of the POmpous and the OPinionated, I present to you the combined musings of pretty much the same gaggle of blowhards, 28 of them to be exact. For reasons that both escape and annoy me, we are once again an almost entirely male sampling of swillmeisters; it’s getting right testosterony up in here. Talk about fitting the record geek profile. . . Anyway, to the Price-Waterhouse stuff. As usual, I’ve attempted to…
Wow, I really cut it down to the wire this year. Tons of great music, but the thought of actually sitting down and typing it all up seems daunting. Some of my favorites put out solid new releases and there were plenty of new artists to hold my attention for years to come. Buy New or Used via Amazon 1. Mayer Hawthorne – Where Does This Door Go I feel like a bit of a sellout putting this at the top of my list this year. But if I am to be honest, it was my most played release. Buy…
TOP 13 FOR ’13 Buy New or Used via Amazon 1. Superchunk – I Hate Music Buy New or Used via Amazon 2. Neko Case – The Worse Things Get… Buy New or Used via Amazon 3. Petra Haden – Goes To The Movies Buy New or Used via Amazon 4. Saturday Looks Good To Me – One Kiss Ends It All Buy Newor Used via Amazon 5. Haim – Days Are Gone Buy New or used via Amazon 6. Diarrhea Planet – I’m Rich Beyond Your Wildest Dreams Buy New or Used via Amazon 7. William Tyler – Impossible…
Sonically a great year for live gigs, but not so for new music recordings, if you ask me. And the greatest of all gigs was the two week performance by the 17-year cicadas. Talk about the latest buzz. Looking forward to the return gig in 2030. So, you may ask, if I wasn’t that excited about that many new releases this year, why do I POOP? Because I can POOP old stuff – reissues, archive recordings and so forth. After all, if the Grammy academy can give their biggest awards to collaboration between Chic and The Residents a/k/a Daft Punk,…
1. Nightmares For A Week — Civilian War Local heroes deliver their best yet, bringing a nuance and rootsy depth to their usual winning sing/shout along choruses and melodic muscle. “Bloodshot Monday” is by far the song I played the most this year. 2. Superchunk — I Hate Music I grew up with these guys from a “slack mother fucker” to my forties, where my couch looks as good on a Saturday night as the local used to, both a beacon. Whatever, they still sound terrific and “Me and You and Jackie Mitoo” is an all time great song. 3….
2013 was so full of shit! Here’s what’s been prairie doggin’: ALBUMS Buy New or Used via Amazon 1. Autre Ne Veut – Anxiety Autre Ne Veut translates in English to “I want no other” and this album made me forget about anything else I had heard in 2013 for a good month. It only takes one listen to become enamoured by Ashin’s emotional masterpiece. Buy Newor Used via Amazon 2 . Haim – Days Are Gone Gotta love the “bass face”. These sisters write some catchy pop songs. Hits, people, hits. Danielle’s stuttery, hiccupy vocals remind me of Michael…
My Third POOP DISC-CLAIMER (disc-lamer?): All through the year, I was convinced there were some really strong records and easy POOP choices for 2013. Only when I actually compiled my list did I realize that 11 out of my Top 20 picks were in some way direct throwbacks to music originally produced many years ago. More and more I find the output of the young whippersnapper artists increasingly eclipsed by artists or music, uh, of a certain age. I’m growing ever closer to throwing down a “Hey, you kids, get off my lawn.” Buy Newor Used via Amazon 1 –…
Buy New Or Used via Amazon 1. DROPKICK MURPHYS- Signed and Sealed in Blood: As much as it pains me to admit it, this was Boston’s year in more ways than one and that includes Fenway’s house band. Their most consistent work to date. Buy New or Used via Amazon 2. DAVID BOWIE- The Next Day: The soundtrack to my first half of the year. The “not quite dying” theme of the title track had particular resonance for what was going on at the time. Buy New or Used via Amazon; 3. JASON ISBELL- Southeastern: The best songwriter and storyteller…
Buy New or Used via Amazon 1. Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds: Push The Sky Away Buy New or Used via Amazon 2. Phosphorescent: Muchacho Buy New or Used via Amazon 3. Bombino: Nomad Buy New or Used via Amazon 4. Kurt Vile: Wakin’ On A Pretty Daze Buy New or Used via Amazon 5. Mark Lanegan: Imitations Buy New or Used via Amazon 6. John Murry: The Graceless Age Buy New or Used via Amazon 7. Heliocentrics: 13 Degrees Of Reality Buy New or Used via Amazon 8. Wooden Shjips: Back To Land Buy New or Used via…