Best Of

So, for those who have been reading my stuff for a while, this has been a rough few years. I’ve fought cancer, sepsis, and a pulmonary embolism. I’ve spent a lot of time in the hospital. What that means is out of the reviews I did manage for the Teeming Horde of DV Fans, a lot of them were older albums I was comfortable with. (And then there was the Kate Bush Artist Spotlight That Wasn’t An Artist Spotlight, for which I still owe Jason one review.) Because of that, I can’t come up with ten new albums for an…

A great year for new music in my opinion, and a return to seeing live music for myself, i.e Jawbreaker/Smoking Popes/Dillinger 4, and Hanson/Allen, Mack, Myers & Moore (the latter being an evening for my wife), trimming it down to 10 for 2022 was no easy task, but here they are, in no particular order.despAIR Jordan – Before Your Wings Gave OutI'll forever be a sucker for modern bands who don't hide their influences from ’80s post-punk and shoegaze, and this Denver outfit are doing it better than just about anyone. They don't shy away from post-rock and psychedelic moments,…

The year 2022 was a great year for veterans like Bonnie Raitt, Dolly Parton, Madonna, and Judy Collins, who made some of their best music in their later careers. Superstars like Harry Styles and Megan Thee Stallion each made a bid for legendary status with excellent releases, building on the successes of their relatively young careers. It’s been yet another challenging year, in what feels like a challenging era (seriously, since 2016, we’ve been cursed to be living in interesting times), music has been a source of escapism and fun in the face of some grim headlines. Though some artists…

Twenty twenty-two was a year when it seemed like chaos reigned pretty much everywhere, and we were all spun in circles by the lingering uncertainty we’re forced to wade through every day. In the midst of it all, music once again proved to offer so much: a salve for the soul, a source of insight, a reason to dance. And while there wasn’t that one singular album that carried me through the year like there sometimes is, my Best Of 2022 list quickly filled up with an abundance of high-quality material. In that regard, one program note: several albums I…

It was a year that started out in WTF mode and only got stranger. Musically, it was all over the map as artists emerged from a year of lockdown and socio-political turmoil with albums that either embraced or chose to ignore such concerns. Both approaches yielded surprising and sometimes spectacular results. As someone who produced a book this year that felt bracingly personal, I can only tip my hat to the musical brothers and sisters who found their songs and played them out loud.Wait, What? AwardPeter Frampton Band – Frampton Forgets The WordsAn aging former teen idol singer-songwriter with a…

I found 2021 to be a fantastic year for music. Perhaps a silver lining due to the pandemic, plenty of musicians spent considerable time crafting new records – many of which were artists or bands who were dormant for many years. Sadly, there was no new music from The Weakerthans or Banner Pilot, though. Here are my 10 favorites from the year, in no particular order, although I could have easily found 20 great albums from 2021 to blather on about...Too Much Joy – Mistakes Were MadeThe New York alt-rockers end their 25 year hiatus with a post-punk, New Wave,…

In many ways, 2021 can be seen as transitional. The year began at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, as both the nation and the world battled a new wave of infections that triggered a second round of lockdowns, leaving millions of people feeling less than optimistic about the future. As the winter months wore on, traces of hope in the form of the new vaccines broke through an otherwise pervasive feeling of gloom, so that by the time spring started in the Northern Hemisphere, normalcy, once again, began to feel attainable.  This reigning sense of optimism lingered through the…

In the middle of a year that redefined the term “rolling disaster,” the world’s musical artists came through in a big way. Yes, by and large 2020 suuuuuuuucked—but the music didn’t. To the contrary, a number of artists stepped up to deliver some of their most pointed and poignant work ever, a testament to the power of music to engage and inspire, and the power of artists to transmute human experience into stories rich with meaning and resonance. Context Matters Award The Chicks – GaslighterThis long-awaited, somewhat uneven return might not make my top five albums of the year, but…

I was pleasantly surprised by the amount of great music that came out in 2020. I was also able to spend much more time listening to music this year than in previous years. Of course, when your work closes down for four months, that helps quite a bit. Here's my most visited albums from the year in no particular order, except Bob Mould; I played that one the most by far and consider it the best record of the year.Bob Mould – Blue HeartsToday's political climate has given Mould plenty of fodder for his bristling guitar-fueled anthems, where the intensity…

It’s been a year of losses, the profound ones and the small ones. It’s been a year of narrowing, of redistributing the weight of our lives. It was the year my dog and cat became my most valuable colleagues (and at the very least, it’s been the best year of their furry little existences). A year of long walks, finding pleasure and presence in the way the light refracted on the Hudson River, letting the water work its magic. I spent three months watching a family of ducklings in the pond near my apartment, counting the nine tiny puffs of…