I knew I’d get tagged by some chum sooner or later. There’s another one of those “10 Records That Changed Your Life” Facebook memes going around, and the pleasure of getting pinged was inevitable.
Here’s the thing: For me and my friends music serves as a sacred text, an aural gnostic gospel. It’s our common cup, the shared sacrament that allows us — the awkward and anxious and out-of-sorts — to take a beat and find longed-for communion.
Most of y’all chose to post up an adolescent flash-back list, a look over the shoulder at those formative, wonder years when every riff was new and ear-shaking. Sadly, the novelty wears off for most of us somewhere in our twenties. After that life gets too busy to just curl up and listen in the dark, memorizing clandestine lyric sheets by flashlight. Eventually, everyone over thirty lets that dirty lie slip their lips: “There’s just no good music these days.”
Bullshit.
To prove my fellow old men wrong, here are ten albums that got my attention since I crossed over the third decade divide — The Great Three-Oh — that demarcation of trustworthiness declared by hirsute hippies who feared for the future and viewed the past as prison.
Not all of these records come from new artists. Because that’s another lie I’d like to dispel: that vital art can only bloom from bright young things. Yes, that does happen, and the kids have an urgent knack for catching fresh sounds and pinning them up on the signs of the times. But creation is life, and life doesn’t die with your first mortgage payment, nor need inspiration expire with your third record. Talent is as talent does.
Flipping through my record collection is weird these days. “Record Collection” is the actual name I’ve given to a folder on my hard-drive, to my somewhat curated assortment of Mp3’s where I try to sift and sort the stuff that I want to hold on to. Spotify is cool and all, but I want my copy of the record, not the version some entertainment conglomerate has decided is best suited for streaming. If you’re not a nerd, that probably makes little sense. But geeks like me know that various masters have been released, some with different tracks, bonus tracks, missing tracks. Sometimes the re-mixing and re-working is a happy corrective to a flawed product. Sometimes it just kinda ruins it.
And a list of ten will never do justice to all of the tracks I’ve been rocking for the last decade and a half. So I’ll try to circle back to the “changed your life” part of the challenge. If I can’t find some evidence that an album left a mark on my heart (and not just another dent in my eardrums) it’s gotta go. If you’ve read this blog for a bit some of this will be redundant. I know I’ve highlighted a few of these before. But here you go…in no particular order:
The Hold Steady: Boys and Girls in America — Every time I hear a new one from Craig Finn & his crew I have to ask myself: How many fuckups can one guy know? The Hold Steady is something of a late-period Gen X take on the E Street Band. It’s big honest rock ‘n roll, fronted by a guy who tries to shoehorn more words than he should into the four-chord confines of a bar-room band. And just as the more you dig into Bruce, the more you hear the Dylan in him, the more you dig into Craig Finn, the more you hear the bearded Beat poet, still storming the streets, looking for an angry fix.
Yes, there’s a nostalgic hook in the The Hold Steady. I’ll cop to that. There’s a lot of looking back, smiling on memories of massive nights. But as the beat goes on, the bleary mornings take over. All that living free turns to living meager, and the hand-to-mouth cycle shifts from fun to grim survival. Not everyone makes it through, but failure makes for good material. Unfortunately, The Hold Steady still has a lot to write about.
Tegan & Sara: Heartthrob — This sister act’s been on my radar for a long, long time. I coulda had a great “saw them before they were big!” story, but I missed my chance. They were the opener for the opener on a Neil Young bill one summer’s night, but we were in no mood to rush the tailgate for an unknown “Canadian Folk Duo.” Then one rainy day a year or so later — over-worked, stressed-out, fat, miserable — I heard them sing “I wouldn’t like me if I met me.” That line cut me right down the middle, and I knew something had to change. Like most of the artists I’m listing, they’ve got a few albums that deserve your time, but I’m going to pick 2013’s Heartthrob. On this one they doubled-down on all of the 80s pop-rock that snaked through their early tracks, went all in on dance-beats and retro-synths, and shouted out a timeless teen-angst-ridden, rainbow-flag-wavin’, ten-track celebration.
Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeroes: Here — They’ll be best remembered — if at all — as a one-hit wonder who sang us “Home.” And yes, that’s a great tune. It fit right in with all of the folk-rock bands that crowd-shouted “Hey!” to the beat of sing-along choruses back around 2010. Mumford & Sons, Of Monsters & Men, The Lumineers, etc., you know ’em. I had a love/hate relationship with most of that stuff: loved it because I’d jammed through a few folk-rock revivals by then; hated it because I was well-aware that folk-rock revivals seem to come around in ten year intervals. Nothing new under the sun and all that. That being said, Alex “Edward Sharpe” Ebert is a weird cat. I liked his previous post-punk revival project Ima Robot and knew of his Golden-Globe-winning soundtrack work. On Here, he leads his Magnetic Zeroes hippie collective like a lost prophet, enlisting them to musically mid-wife his theological hopes and dreams. As he sings, “Reaching for Heaven is what I’m on Earth to do.” Sounds like a mantra to me.
Father John Misty: The Demos — “Everytime I climb the riser to drum I’m reminded of what a songwriting failure I’ve become.” The Demos is a little fan-club-only release of tunes that wound up on Father John’s first album, Fear Fun. There’s also one additional track, “Nothing Hurts Worse,” quoted above, wherein he sings of the it-ain’t-good-enough feeling that dogged him for years, leading up to his reincarnation as “Father John Misty.”
Now, Josh Tillman had pretty good run already. He put a few albums out, both under his name and the abbreviated sobriquet J. Tillman. The drum riser he was climbing was with the Fleet Foxes: not a bad day job for an aspiring rockstar. But yeah, just because you’re getting by and ducking backstage hi-fives doesn’t mean you’re satisfied. When you know you should be doing something more with your life, plan-B just doesn’t cut it. Mr. Tillman eventually found his muse, sweating his way through a few more fantastic releases. Though he strikes an insouciant pose, it’s been a struggle. But I hope he keeps it up. We could use more of his weary commentary during these unprecedented days. He also snagged a supportive wife along the way. That should help.
Jason Isbell & The 400 Unit: Live From The Ryman — Some of my favorite records are live albums. Sure, studio wizardry is wonderful fun, but when a band can set up anytime, anywhere and tear through a set…well, that separates the men from the boys. A live album can pull out the emotions you might have missed, reminds you of the songs your memory skipped. Knocking it out in a legendary venue like Nashville’s Ryman Theater is a recipe for making magic. There’s been enough ink spilled on Jason Isbell by now — he’s been called “one of the best songwriters working today” so many times that it’s a cliche — so I’ll skip that bit of the review. Just put this on, cue up “Elephant” and try not to cry.
David Bazan: Curse Your Branches — Speaking of bands I missed the first-time round, David Bazan’s Pedro The Lion wouldn’t find a spot in my heart until he was well done with the project. I thought he’d quit rock ‘n roll entirely when Curse Your Branches popped up and knocked me over. Turns out this guy’s a lifer who’ll play anywhere and everywhere, including your living room, if you can move a few tickets. He’s master of honest imagery, sculpting lyrics that would be too on-the-nose in the hands of a lesser man. The title cut’s a metaphor of faith lost: He’s an autumnal leaf, now adrift, a little miffed at the branch that bore him, only to watch him fall.
Jonathan Wilson: Gentle Spirit Long drives on empty roads do me good. There’s a lot of them out here, and I try to take advantage whenever I can. Still, it took a while to trust that the GPS isn’t glitching out when it crackles to life and commands: “Turn left on the forlorn gravel road.” But now I feel fearless heading down dirt tracks that point to a hopeful nowhere. Our forefather’s built a grid out here, and you can count the miles against the crossroads. Any of Jonathan Wilson’s last few releases will do just fine on a road trip, but Gentle Spirit is the kind of record that you can put on repeat, forgetting where you started, and pause whenever life tells you to turn the key and call it good for the night.
Sturgill Simpson: A Sailor’s Guide To Earth — Any of Sturgill’s last three releases could find a place on this list, but A Sailor’s Guide is my favorite of the bunch. On the preceding album he wrestled with faith and psychedelics through the thick-jawed Appalachian accent I grew to love (and often cop) from my Southern Ohia friends. On the next one he pulled in his Pacific Navy-stationed appreciation for apocalyptic anime. But in the middle he wrote a loveletter to his new-born baby boy. He set the poetry to horn-driven Memphis soul, and cut it with a Kurt Cobain cover that nudged the sincerity out of Nirvana’s “In Bloom.” What could be better than that?
LCD Soundsystem: Electric Lady Sessions — After calling it quits once or twice, James Murphy brought his band into Manhattan’s hallowed Electric Lady(land) Studios for a few days, tracking a mostly-live rehash of some of their best stuff with a few covers mixed in. The result was a tight, amped-up coda to an unexpectedly brilliant project born of aughties indifference. I was late to the LCD party, half-listening to their ascent, finally getting it when I watched their Madison Square Garden farewell miles away in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. By then I was well aware that I was “losing my edge,” that the kids were “coming up from behind.” I was swearing to anyone who would listen that “I was there! I was there!” But alas nobody, no one, out here cared.
Chris Pureka: Back In The Ring — I stumbled into this one, heading down one dark night to our local record store/all-ages club. It’s called Total Drag and it’s a total bonus to our town. They sell the vinyl, the current hipster accoutrement, those old-timey discs that look awesome and sound…well, they sound as good as your setup will allow. (I know you’re listening to these recommendations on tinny little bluetooth speakers, right? Don’t get me started.) Anyway, I don’t know who I was supposed to see that night. I have a vague notion of some sort of well-intentioned folk collective headlining. But the lovely Chris Pureka opened, just her and her buddy on electric, re-purposing Americana without all of the irritating nostalgia, singing out about the struggle to keep on keeping on. We all chatted a bit after the show. I brought a disc home and kept it close for a few months. After a few punches have landed, sometimes songs are the friends you need, to shove you back in the ring, and get you gloved-up for another round.
Sun Kil Moon: Benji — Where to start with this guy? He seems to blow out an album every few months, flitting between brilliance and blather with acrobatic agility. Life being short, just grab Benji and call it good, ok? Benji knocked me out when I heard it. It was the night I turned 40, coming home well-worn from a holiday party, bedraggled and nostalgic. I’d heard much ado about this album from friends back in Ohio: It’s a song cycle about growing up around Akron, a topic I know all too well. So sometime past midnight, once the wife and kids were deep asleep, I put on my headphones in the dark and fell headfirst into Mark Kozelek’s adolescent regrets and tales of Dead Ohioans. And somehow that put everything right, at least for one night.
Give a listen to the first track, Carissa, wherein he awakes to the fearful portent of “so many 330 area code calls.” That’ll be me one of these days. Good to know I won’t be alone.
Blackberry Smoke: The Whippoorwill — It’s Sunday morning & Saturday night. From the start, that’s been the soul-tearing tension in Rock ‘n Roll music. Jerry Lee, Little Richard, Johnny Cash, Elvis Presley. All the greats were raised up playing gospel backup for Pentacostal preachers or picking out tunes from their mother’s hymnbooks.
Blackberry Smoke’s Charlie Starr decided to dispense with the struggle, merging it all into one. Instead of shifting gears between the pious and the profane, he looks for a little heaven on earth, wrapping his songs of weekend rapture in Charismatic tongues. I met him once in a locker room while ZZ Top’s hits pounded through the cinderblock wall. I wish I’d listened in a little closer a little sooner. I’d have cornered him with questions about his churchboy past…and probably made a major nuisance of myself as well. So maybe it’s all good anyway.
Yeah, I know in some quarters it’s considered nigh-on treason to get within six-feet of southern pride these days. But there’s a one-of-a-kind culture that was born out of those swamps and hollows, and it’s neither black nor white, neither cleansed of sin nor begging your forgiveness. It’s just part of life in complicated America. So I keep coming back to Blackberry Smoke. They find the joy in it, graced with glorious guitar. Give a listen to Six Ways To Sunday and see what I mean.
Wait? Was that twelve? I knew this would be a tricky one. Don’t box me in, baby. I could go on…
