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Music For Adults:
2006 Top Picks |
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The Year in Music 2006
The annual recap of the 25 best albums of the year By David Shasha
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As we move further and further into the iPod age, an age where commercial considerations have served to restructure and refocus the artistic experience of individuals, giving them far greater latitude and autonomy than they ever had before and limiting the power of the creative artist to bring his participant along for the ride, the quality of our music suffers. |
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Artists today, musical and otherwise, are struggling to maintain their ability to be heard in a world where what is the same is what is available. Artists these days have to work doubly hard to produce their work in a world of endless choices and conformist attitudes.
This year gave us a group of iconoclastic artists who bucked the trends and produced music that did not much sound like who they were in the past or took chances with their image and their profile in ways that were invigorating; precisely the opposite
thing from the mundane conservatism of the vast bulk of popular music here in the US. Bruce Springsteen and the
Dixie Chicks took on their constituencies by doing things that were not expected.
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TOP 25 ALBUMS OF 2006
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“Taking the Long Way”
(Columbia)
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“We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions”
(Columbia)
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“These Days”
(MCA)
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“Pretty Little Head”
(Sony/BMG)
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“Stadium Arcadium”
(Warner Brothers)
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Springsteen followed his "The Rising," a record that already expanded his traditional sound by bringing in new elements and sounds, with a project that completely defied expectations. "The Seeger Sessions" took some old Lefty songs and reinvigorated them with old-time arrangements and a vast panoply of
instruments like banjo, tuba and fiddle. The result was a project of rare beauty and intensity. The Dixie
Chicks ran afoul of Country orthodoxy and
Red
State values and went back to the drawing board to take control of their music and, like The Jayhawks, reinvent themselves by infusing more Pop values into their
work. "Taking the Long Way" not only proved to be a tremendously emotional work, but, like Death Cab for Cutie's "Plans" last year, served to raise again the banner of Tin Pan Alley. Thus was created a splendid pop masterpiece in the vein of Fleetwood Mac's "Rumors" and the Beatles' "Rubber Soul" - the sound of a group finding their voices while marking their debt to tradition.
Vince Gill, the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Hem all took their basic sound and played their music with a commitment and an intensity that bespoke the quality of discipline and dedication
rather than conformism and mechanical copy. |
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Gill and the Peppers are very successful genre-based artists who did not need to take any chances, and yet they produced their most visionary and deeply-realized work to date; work that reflects a sobriety and passion that is anything but iPod-like. In the past both artists did mediocre work which did not do justice to their talents, and this year they just broke out of their commercially-induced rut to produce lasting and significant music.
Hem is an emerging group that is classicist in the very best sense of the word; infusing their modern Country-Pop with the values of Bacharach-David and Irving Berlin, the group quietly produced memorable music that was but little heard.
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6) Hem
Lite-rock with a country twist |
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“Funnel Cloud”
(Nettwork)
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“The Tragic Treasury: Songs from A Series of Unfortunate Events” (Nonesuch)
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“The Avalanche”
(Asthmatic Kitty)
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‘Reckless Kelly was Here’
(Sugarhill)
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“Fox Confessor
Brings the Flood”
(Anti-) |
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Nellie McKay is a maverick who could not really find her way amidst the cacophony of MTV and the deleterious iPods. Her double CD "Pretty Little Head," originally rejected by her label, was a triumph of wild Pop formalism in the guise of singer-songwriter intensity. She brings to mind the figure of Judee Sill, whose lost works were re-released this year - figures like the late Nick Drake and Tim
Buckley who knowingly followed the muse wherever it took them. A truly independent movement has been enriched by the continued success, relatively speaking, of Sufjan Stevens, Stephin Merritt - whose Gothic
Archies project returned him to the plaintive beauty of his very best work - and Austin bar-band extraordinaire Reckless Kelly who have all nurtured small but loyal followings and make music that is precise and exacting when it comes to genre and deeply fulfilling as a way of life.
The more "posh" singer-songwriters emerged as a factor this year and it was a mixed bag. I have great affection for the recordings by the great Neko Case, Teddy Thompson, Mindy Smith and Linda Ronstadt, all of which fused melodic skill with a plaintiveness and respect for traditional values that elevated them from the pack.
Though I include CDs by Jenny Lewis and Beth Orton, a number of other CDs were left out - from Rosanne Cash, Cat Power and Shawn Mullins which were all okay, but developed too much of a Starbucks/Barnes and Noble-like bland sensibility. |
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This movement includes many other performers who all struggle to distinguish their work but who in the end sell themselves based on a certain comforting sound. Rock and Roll is a dying art, represented on the list by the Peppers, Reckless Kelly, The Sadies and Sonic Youth, all of whom revel in the sounds of the past and never really come up with new tricks - but whose studiousness
compensates for innovation in a time when Rock pleasures are few and far between, having been co-opted by the Whine Rock genre of Coldplay and Radiohead imitators and the detritus of Hip Hop and Gangsta Rap. The CDs by these groups represent a classicist approach to Rock music that is all that we now have. |
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The Decembrists and Lambchop, the latter veterans and the former relative newcomers, have developed a post-Rock indie seriousness that is uneven but restores the idea of the concept album as a going concern. The Decembrists did the better job of it, as they came up with a cache of tunes that often must compete with their
more indulgent moments while Lambchop try to be a more cerebral version of what Hem does better. Linda Ronstadt and Ralph Stanley
lovingly re-worked the old genres, Cajun and
Bluegrass respectively, in ways that lend a dignified yet listenable stateliness to their efforts. Their CDs are lessons to a new generation that never turn stuffy or turgid.
CDs from Matthew Sweet and Susanna Hoffs, The Wreckers and The Little Willies, the latter featuring Norah Jones in her first "human" performances, are easy-going exercises through classic styles of Pop and
Country that entertain more than inspire while Gnarls Barkley was my only acceptable foray into Hip Hop, a genre that has become deadeningly static and deathly dangerous in a cultural sense.
Top 10 Re-Issued
Albums of 2006
The review of re-issued CDs reflects the genius of a past that I continue to explore through my own purchases of older vinyl records on CD. The Byrds can now rest easy along with the Beach Boys that they were the best that American Rock music had to offer. “There is a Season” shows the band in all its phases and marks the Byrds as an American classic.
The Decembrists and Lambchop, the latter veterans and the former relative newcomers, have developed a post-Rock indie seriousness that is uneven but restores the idea of the concept album as a going concern. The Decembrists did the better job of it, as they came up with a cache of tunes that often must compete with their more indulgent moments while Lambchop try to be a more cerebral version of what Hem does better. Linda Ronstadt and Ralph Stanley lovingly re-worked the old genres, Cajun and
Bluegrass respectively, in ways that lend a dignified yet listenable stateliness to their efforts. Their CDs are lessons to a new generation that never turn stuffy or turgid. CDs from Matthew Sweet and Susanna Hoffs, The Wreckers and The Little Willies, the latter featuring Norah Jones in her first "human" performances, are easy-going exercises through classic styles of
Pop and Country that entertain more than inspire while Gnarls Barkley was my only acceptable foray into Hip Hop, a genre that has become deadeningly static and deathly dangerous in a cultural sense. The figure of Judee Sill which I have already mentioned earlier shows us the wide range of possibility in American songwriting that has been lost to us.
Eschewing electricity for string sections and acoustic guitars, Sill was the first release on David Geffen's Asylum record label and paved the way for Joni Mitchell and Tim Buckley’s brilliant innovations. |
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13) The Sadies
Alternative Country-Rock-Indie
“In Concert”
(Yep Roc)
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14) Mindy Smith
Spiritual, Alternative Country
“Long Island
Shores”
(Vanguard)
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16) Hem
Country Rock
“No Word from Tom”
(Nettwork)
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18) Ralph Stanley
Classic Country “A Distant Land to Roam: Songs of the Carter Family”
(Columbia)
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19) Lambchop
Southern Rock “Damaged”
(Merge)
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23) The Wreckers
Pop Country “Stand Still, Look Pretty”
(Maverick)
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Her work is something that makes us rethink the 1960s and find its eccentricities just as we have with Skip Spence's "Oar" and Gene Clark’s “No Other.”
The list is rounded
off with 90s alt-rock from the Replacement and Old 97s and the brilliant 80s post-punk experiments of the Pet Shop Boys, Simple Minds and Heaven 17 which remapped the possibilities of Pop music and continue to inspire and awaken us from our apathy and stupor.
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Top 10
Re-issued Albums of 2006
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1) The Byrds
Classic Rock
“There is a Season”
(Columbia)
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2) Johnny Cash
Country
“Live at San Quentin: Complete Concert”
(Sony/Legacy)
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4) Dwight Yoakam
Classic Country
“Guitars, Cadillac's, Etc., Etc.”
(Rhino)
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5) Judee Sill
Folk
“Abracadabra: The Asylum Years”
(Rhino)
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6) Heaven 17
British Alternative “Penthouse and Pavement”
(EMI)
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9) The Replacements
Punk-Grunge-Rock “Don’t You Know Who I Think I Was? The Best of The Replacements”
(Rhino)
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10) Old 97's
Southern Rock “Hit By a Train: The Best of Old 97s”
(Rhino)
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In the end, I have struggled to continue to expand my musical horizons and look for artists and CDs that are
committed to providing listeners with passion and intelligence and not succumbing to the easy seduction of MTV and iPods. Here is some music that still looks to challenge its listeners and not pander to them; music that needs time and patience to be understood and appreciated. In a day and age when people do not want to exert themselves, all too many artists have taken the easy way - reminding us of the revolutionary aspect to the title track of the Dixie Chicks album which might well serve as the mark of what music means these days -
and given the people what they want. Special mention must be made to the continuing triumph of the great Brian Wilson, a genius still performing, whose November concert of "Pet Sounds" and old classics was an evening that I will never
forget; a moment in my cultural life that truly brought to mind and soul what I most love and revere about music and culture.
Wilson has struggled for his art and been beaten and brutalized along the way. To see him as he is now, a man independent and humbly accepting the well-deserved accolades for his genius, is an inspiration to those of us who continue to struggle to have our voices heard and appreciated.
On the other hand, rather than saying that the artist will be primary and his vision central to our aesthetic life, many artists simply cater to the common denominator and take no chances. At their best, writers and performers like Nellie McKay and Sufjan Stevens have emerged
over the past couple of years to join veterans like Springsteen, the Dixie Chicks and Stephin Merritt proving that taking the long road is something vital to our cultural world. |
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Artists like the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Vince Gill have re-emerged by energizing their art and producing recordings that transcend their past work and buck the trend of homogeneity that has sapped the creative life
of music in our time.
It is thanks to restless artists who care about making music fresh and inspiring that we continue to have CDs that are not pablum and that force listeners to step out of themselves in order to grow and develop their sensibilities as consumers of culture. In a time when the consumer has dwarfed the artist, the knowledge that there remain artists who take
their own personal visions and talents seriously is something that we must applaud and admire. |
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