« * "these are hard times, these are precious times...." | Main | * Robert Plant & Alison Krauss, slight return »

* Half of 2008, in song

Half-year top-albums roundups have always struck me as not quite worth the bother, as it often seems a stretch to try to spotlight ten (or twenty, or whatever number) releases worthy of the kind of year-end-list status that a half-year list is supposed to emulate.

On the other hand, one thing I routinely do throughout the course of the year is to drag specific songs that have really connected with me into a "potential best-of-the-year" iTunes playlist, to help in making a year-end compilation when that time comes. And when opening the field up to specific tracks rather than whole albums, it's somewhat easier to get a quantitative sample that's maybe worth addressing at the mid-year point.

So, with that in mind, here's a look at what songs populate my work-in-progress "2008 Best" playlist so far, just past the halfway point of the year. They're not "ranked" in any order; when I get around to making a year-end disc, it's always sequenced according to artistic and sonic segues, not a "#1 thru #20" sort of stacking. It's too early to figure out what the order might be, so consider this just what the present playlist might sound like in shuffle-mode:

"Always A Friend", Alejandro Escovedo. Hard not to include a song that Bruce Springteen & the E Street Band already took the trouble to learn, a couple months before it even came out. I'd hesitate to call Escovedo's new Real Animal his finest album, but I don't hesitate for a moment in declaring this to be the best "single" he's ever recorded.

"Antarctica", Weepies. In terms of acoustic-based pop, nobody (with the possible exception of Hem) is making more radiant and engaging music at present. Deb Talan possesses one of those just flat beautiful voices; the harmonies and production touches from her husband Steve Tannen help make "Antarctica" as airy and sweeping as its namesake landscape.

"I'll Be Your Mirror", Mike And Ruthy. Another husband-wife duo covers the Velvet Underground on a modest side-project album released during a hiatus from their band the Mammals. Their rendition is simple and folksy, highlighted by the endearing sweetness of Ruth Ungar's voice and Mike Merenda's varied guitar accents.

"Oil Man's War", Kathleen Edwards. The title suggests this song as being more political than it actually is; really it's just the latest in Edwards' series of finely-detailed character-portrait song-stories, along the lines of "Six O'Clock" news or "In State" from her first couple of albums. Yes, there's a certain amount of anti-war sentiment -- though the narrative sounds more like someone fleeing the Vietnam draft days, rather than the Bush-era misadventures -- but ultimately this is simply a story about two people escaping, together, expressed with Edwards' typical emotional urgency.

"Supernatural Superserious", R.E.M. I'd read something in advance of the release of Accelerate which suggested that R.E.M.'s new record really benefited from a re-emphasizing of bassist Mike Mills' backing vocals, and I'd concur that's a big part of what makes this song stand out. Whereas Michael Stipe's voice has somewhat oddly become less appealing over the years (his softer tones frequently seem to have been traded for more hard edges), Mills' voice makes a real difference in turning up the more melodic qualities of R.E.M.'s music, even when he's singing harmony.

"In The Night", Basia Bulat. I'll be surprised if this Canadian artist is not significantly wider-known a couple years from now than she is today; she's already up-and-coming, but she seems fully capable of luring in, say, the million or so folks who were attracted to 10,000 Maniacs. You can hear it in songs such as this, an instantly catchy number that spotlights Bulat's terrific voice and her skill for propulsive arrangements. It helps that she's capable of being quite creative without taking herself too seriously, as this video for the song demonstrates.

"Chip Of A Star", Chatham County Line. There's just something so sprightly about Chandler Holt's simple little banjo riff that kicks off the song, and the joy in singer Dave Wilson's voice as he reaches for the high notes in this heartfelt love song, and the way pedal steel player Greg Readling propels the melody off into the sunset as the song fades out -- it all adds up to one of the most memorable, stuck-in-your-head songs of the year.

"Overture", Abigail Washburn & the Sparrow Quartet. Choosing this track -- which leads off the group's self-titled album -- is kind of a copout, as it essentially summarizes all the songs that follow, with abbreviated passages and snippets and references to the rest of the album's content. Yet it's a fascinating way to get a sense of not only what the full record is like, but also just how versatile these enormously talented musicians are.

"Wrong Guy", Mando Saenz. This is one of two big surprises for me on the playlist, in that I'd heard Saenz's previous work and always felt it to be decent but rarely moving. This track, on the other hand, is nothing but moving -- it's emotional, melodic, graceful, bracing, somehow both calming and on-edge at the same time. Saenz proves himself to be a first-rate singer here, and the interwoven instrumental support is a perfectly steady and rolling accompaniment for the spell he casts with his voice.

"Lonesome Joe", Whipsaws. This is the other big surprise -- a band I'd never even heard of till Tim Easton mentioned a few months back that he was bringing these guys down from Alaska to be his backing band at SXSW. Turns out they're pretty good in their own right, too -- but this song is more than that; it's a damn near perfect ballad. Singer Evan Phillips tells the story of a man the band met in a bar one night who shared his tales of down-and-out life and loss; the mournful pedal steel accents make all the difference.

"Color Of A Lonely Heart Is Blue", Old 97's. It's probably not fair to primary songwriter Rhett Miller that I keep gravitating toward secondary songwriter Murry Hammond's comparatively fewer contributions to the band's albums -- especially since Miller wrote some really great songs on the latest 97's disc, Blame It On Gravity -- but there's just a trance-like magic to this one that can't be denied. For six minutes, Ken Bethea's guitars wend and weave around the beguiling melody; there's a subtle but significant piano running beneath everything that brings it all home.

"Monument Valley", Drive-By Truckers. Quite a few songs from the Truckers' latest, Brighter Than Creation's Dark, probably coulda been contenders, but it's the closing track that keeps making me hit "repeat." The way Patterson Hood and Shonna Tucker's voices meld is a thing of beauty, and Hood's lyrics are typically world-weary and wise: "When the dust all settles and the story is told/History is made by the side of the road."

"I'll Come Knockin'", Walter Hyatt. This one has enormous sentimental value to me. Lyle Lovett covered this song on Step Inside This House in 1998, two years after Hyatt died in the Valujet plane crash in Florida. Hyatt's old Uncle Walt's Band mate Champ Hood (who died of cancer in 2001) unearthed it after Hyatt's death, as Hood explained to me in an e-mail in 1998: "That song goes way back to '71 or '72. Uncle Walt's Band demoed in Nashville around that time. I rediscovered it on about the only reel-to-reel tape that I own. We used to perform it, but it eventually 'slid' out of the repertoire as new stuff came in." Lovett's version is among the best things he's ever recorded; for Hyatt's own version to finally surface on the posthumous collection Some Unfinished Business, Volume One was something special.

"Those Days Are Gone, And My Heart Is Breaking", Barton Carroll. Another mild surprise; Carroll made a name for himself as a sideman with the likes of Crooked Fingers and Azure Ray, but proves himself to be a solo singer-songwriter well worth watching on his disc The Lost One. This tune's a sort of rambling tale set to steady acoustic picking, but Carroll's keen writing makes it easy to crawl inside the song's central character.

"Lloyd's Mom", Tres Chicas. This one's on a benefit compilation album called Musicians For Minneapolis, and is the first recorded evidence of a song the group has been performing live for around a year now. It's one of the best things they've written, largely because of how well it utilizes the voices of all three singers -- Caitlin Cary, Lynn Blakey and Tonya Lamm -- as well as the inclusion of a sparkling piano solo by backing member Sara Bell.

"State Fair", Drunk Stuntmen. Oftentimes I'll close a year-end disc with an instrumental, and this one would have to be a prime contender for the 2008 version. It's the title track of the Stuntmen's latest release, and while it seems sorta out-of-place for them -- Steve Sanderson's vocals are such a central part of the band's identity -- it's just a beautifully played piece that conveys its emotions and dynamics artfully, without a need for words. It's deep, and dark, yet hope shines out between the cracks of that darkness.

adios,
peter

Posted by peter on July 8, 2008 11:27 AM | Permalink