It was a surprisingly good year for music lovers, with the ladies leading the way with some major rock ‘n’ roll. For my money, Wild Flag’s debut was the year’s best, with discs by Lydia Loveless, Le Butcherettes, Imelda May, the Dum Dum Girls and Lucinda Williams also ranking high on my list.
A) With Ashes & Fire, Ryan Adams issues one of his most satisfying solo efforts.
B) Black Keys rock out on a great follow to Brothers — El Camino.
C) Consistency, the hallmark of Wilco, the Feelies and Cake, each of which released another top-notch disc in careers that feature no clinkers.
D) Disappointing at best, R.E.M. releases a yeomen-like, but unfullfilling disc; Lady Gaga issues a weak effort that contains a few good songs; the Amy Winehouse vault is opened with some good covers and unnecessary originals; while The Strokes and P.J. Harvey release their worst efforts. Other disappointments included Steve Earle (good but not great, not up to earlier standards), the Jayhawks and The Cars (some good singles, but mostly a disc that begs the question, “Why come back?”).
E) Emptying the vaults has become a great way for rockers like the Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen and Elvis Costello (not to mention the jazz greats) to remind the world what made them great — and make them and their record companies some cold, hard cash.
F) “Forget You,” or something like that, an unforgettable single by the unforgettable Cee Lo Green.
G) Good-bye to R.E.M. When the Athens band called it quits earlier this year it marked the end of a long and illustrious career. (Unfortunately, it ended with the mediocre Collapse into Now, a disappointing follow to the brilliant Accelerate.)
H) Happy as hell that the Feelies came back.
I) If imitation is, indeed, the sincerest form of flattery, then R.E.M. should find the Decemberists’ The King is Dead.
J) Garland Jeffreys returned with a great, though under-the-radar gem, The King of In Between.
K) Killer debut by The Civil Wars with Barton Hollow.
L) Lulu, as in a lulu of a terrible album by Lou Reed and Metallica. Even with The Raven, the pretentious attempt to set Edgar Allen Poe, in the discussion, Lulu stands as the worst album of Lou’s career and one of the worst ever recorded.
M) Crazy music from Mariachi El Bronx.
N) New finds: Several established bands made it onto my playlist for the first time, making me wonder why I hadn’t heard them before — Dawes, the aforementioned Mariachi El Bronx,
O) Old guys make good music. Both Paul Simon and Tom Waits release great albums. As always.
P) Protest: Iraqi-American folk-rapper protest singer Stephan Said’s disc, Difrent, was a great find to be sure.
Q) Quiet folkies The Fleet Foxes step it up on their sophomore set.
R) “Rolling in the Deep” helps make Adele’s 21 a powerful follow, if not quite as good as her debut disc 19.
S) Super group Superheavy offers a super heavy set.
T) Take a moment to remember Charlie Louvin, John Barry, Don Kirschner, Nick Ashford, Jerry Leiber, Amy Winehouse, Phoebe Snow, Gerry Rafferty, Poly Styrene, Gil Scott-Heron and the Big Man, Clarence Clemons.
U) Undun is another great hip-hop record by The Roots.
V) Variety and eclectic virtuosity — hallmarks of the latest Van Hunt disc.
W) Women of rock, I salute you. As I said, it was the year of the rock ‘n’ roll woman with the top discs — Wild Flag’s self-titled debute, Le Butcherettes’ Sin Sin Sin and records by the Dum Dum Girls, Lydia Loveless, Lucinda Williams, Imelda May and Ida Maria — dominating the year’s releases.
X) X frontman John Doe releases a Keeper of an album.
Y) “You are a Tourist” was a great lead-off single from Death Cab for Cutie’s great album Codes & Keys.
Z) Z, as in the letter that represents sleep in the comics, is as good a way to end this and to offer a sum-up of the generic pop that still rules the airwaves. With so much good music out there, it is sad to see so much with so little value dominating radio and the video screen.
Hank Kalet 