Adrian Whitehead is Gear.

---

I seem to be posting a lot about very, very poppish stuff, so if this is overkill I can only beg forgiveness for now...

...but if you happen to love absolutely gloriously executed pop-rock craftsmanship and brilliant songwriting, let me tell you about an Ozzie named Adrian Whitehead. Far too many singers who can do a fey vocal quaver and saccharine harmony get a free pass from critics and fans who buy into it and wonder why the marginally talented slobs they're championing never get any recognition. I'm guessing they also wonder why albums by such non-talents become forgettable so fast.

It's all about the songs. A lot of people can sing like Brendan Benson, maybe...but very few can write a hook like "Cold Hands Warm Heart" or "I'm Easy".

Which brings me back to Adrian Whitehead. No idea who the bloke is. No idea where he cobbled together a recording budget to put his debut album "One Small Stepping Man" together with either, but the production here is stellar (strings, a variety of keys, and even a sax). No idea where he learned to write and arrange and sing songs like these either...but what a stunning record he's made.

You can listen to the whole album right here.

My favorite tracks are the first two, "Caitlin's '60's Pop Song" and "Saving Caroline". The former song he says he wrote to entertain his 8-year old niece to make her smile after a funeral for their great-grandfather. How sweet is that? The latter song starts off sounding like vintage Styx(!), but again finds a groove that belongs solely to Adrian Whitehead. I also dig "You Are The Sun" and "Ways Of Man" a lot. "Elle" is five minutes of exquisitely gorgeous piano (best one-note piano song in a while) and strings, and "Better Man" has the most gobsmacking hook on the whole disc. What you'll notice about all the songs is that they never go just where you think they're going; Whitehead knows exactly what he's doing, and half the joy of this disc is listening along to hear just exactly what unexpected turn he's going to take his melody line, and where he's going to extract a hook from playing the "wrong" chord or notes.

This has been in my heavy rotation now for over a week. Give it a shot, lemme know what you think.

There's A Reason George Martin Was The 5th Beatle

As we head into Derby Week (bummer of a post position, Brownie), tonight's blog post has me recalling something the ever-astute Marc Attenberg told me years ago about handicapping horse races: the worst guys to ask for 'capping wisdom are the trainers and jockeys. Why? I could speculate a few reasons, but to me the main one is easy to pick out. I think trainers and jocks are lousy at sizing up a race because perhaps they're too close to the subject to form objective theses on the subject at hand.

Which brings us to what I want to yammer on about tonight: earlier this month UNI/Polydor re-issued the seminal and only record (to date) released by Liverpool's legendary The La's. It arrives as a double-cd package with the original as-released album remastered, and then a variety of different mixes with different producers of the songs on that original album. Of special interest is the inclusion of the "Mike Hedges Album", allegedly the version of the debut album that La's frontman and creative force Lee Mavers was happiest with.

Before going forward, I suppose there might be someone out there unfamiliar with the turbulent history of The La's and their only album. As the story goes, Mavers had a precise and certain La's "sound" in his head. Signed to the ultra-hip Go! Discs, the label forked out a lot of money to hook the band up with in-demand producer Steve Lillywhite. Mavers was upset with the production and would later claim the band deliberately played poorly in the recording sessions, in hopes that the material would never be released in that state. The La's subsequently went through a series of producers (including John Leckie) re-recording the album before a frustrated record label had Lillywhite piece together as coherent a record as he could for release from the initial sessions. Mavers was livid with the label and refused to release another album until the debut could be recorded properly with the songs sounding on record the way they did in his head.

Yeah, good luck with that Lee. Allegedly of all the producers who took a stab at The La's back in the day, the guy who came closest to capturing the sound that Mavers wanted was Mike Hedges (who'd later work with U2 and Radiohead, among others). The inclusion of the Hedges version of the debut on The La's Deluxe Edition, then, would seem to be a pretty important occurrence for fans of the band...

...and yet, having listened and re-listened to the Hedges versions of the songs...not so much. There are discoveries to be made on this double-disc set to be sure, but the most major of these is that Steve Lillywhite is one hell of a great producer. Lillywhite's versions of these songs just seem far, far, FAR superior to anyone else's. Obviously, the bias of having heard only those versions for the last 18 years is part of it. But even trying empirically and objectively to find brilliant bits of the songs as recorded by Hedges, Leckie, or Gary Crowley, it seems clear that Lillywhite was head and shoulders beyond his peers here. The other versions plod with a sort of deliberateness and hesitancy that make the songs sound positively dull. The myriad versions of the hit "There She Goes" are really jarring; the signature guitar riff on the song sounds fluid and loose in the original, but the differnt versions on the re-issue sound like first-year guitar students picking out the riff by sight-reading a tablature chart. Lillywhite's versions practically leap out of the speakers by comparison; taken side-by-side in this format it ends up being like watching the "Wizard Of Oz", where everyone else is black and white and the original version is glorious technicolor.

As such, I'm going to express a bit of pop music blasphemy: Lee Mavers was wrong, wrong, wrong. If the Hedges version of his songs were the one closest to what he wanted, then Mavers was a talent lacking in perspective. Which brings us back to the horse racing analogy at the beginning of this post (yeah, I'd almost forgotten it too). When you're in a band, I think that like horse trainers and races, you're too close to the subject sometimes to be able to think critically and have accurate notions of what works and what doesn't. Hey, the guys in Nirvana were sick and tired of playing "that stupid riff" that became "Smells Like Teen Spirit". Eric Clapton fled The Yardbirds partly because he couldn't stand playing the four-chord strum of "For Your Love", which sounded boring to him. Hell, take a look at the post-1969 solo careers of The Beatles; on their own it became clear that John, Paul, and George sure seemed to need the critical and editorial ear of George Martin to help them tell the difference between what worked and what didn't.

Sadly then if over the years you've built in your mind a sort of altar to someone really getting The La's sound "right" in the studio and laid hopes on hearing the same, I've got news for you. Seems as if Steve Lillywhite had it right all along, and had a better feel for The La's sound than the band themselves. Unless you're a completist or contrarian, there's no reason to throw over your old La's CD for this new version.

Crash Into June.

June 10th is looking like a treee-mendous day for new releases. As mentioned elsewhere, The Telepathic Butterflies emerge from 3 years of silence with a new disc, and samples available at their myspace page and on the Rainbow Quartz page sound pretty good.

...and then there's this, posted last week on Sloan's official site:

Sloan have completed work on their ninth studio album, "Parallel Play", which is due to be released on June 10th. In Canada, the album will be available on Sloan's own murderecords, distributed by Red Ink Music. In the USA, we are once again working with our friends at Yep Roc Records.

The album was recorded this winter at Sloan's studio space and features 13 new songs.

We will soon have news about our summer and fall tour plans. We'll also have some brand new audio and video posted before long, so be sure to check regularly for updates.

The good folks at Yep-Roc have the whole freakin' album streaming right here. Impressions later, but my first take is that there's more Patrick Pentland on this disc than on Never Hear The End Of It...and more Patrick Pentland is always a good thing.

Oh....and then I note that the long-anticipated new disc by The Modfather is due to drop on June 24th. Too. Much. Great. Music.

Just to get clear on terminology...

...a band was recently recommended to me using the phrase "sort of freak folk, sort of classic rock, with some world music thrown in."

That sounds like the most dreadful, non-rock horribleness ever released, frankly. Those are not points to sell me, or anyone who loves music, on a band. Those descriptors suggest music that would make me want to beat the performers of same with my shoe.

I see on another blog that an adoring listener of this same band has described them thusly: "Reference points as broad as The Go Team and Phish". That doesn't just sound bad. That sounds positively toxic. The only way this band could further fail the Ben Troxel Rock Test is if they performed in costumes. There's a picture of this Band I Will Not Name at the blog describing them as a cross between two terrible non-rock bands, and slap my ass and call me Ginger, but there they are in costumes. Yikes.

If it is any consolation, I did manage to make it through about 18 seconds of two different songs before I gave up. Never say I didn't try.

(File under Curmudgeonly Posts Made Before Second Cup Of Coffee)

I Know How To Ask For More Lemons...

...and "mas papas fritas, por favor" I can do in two different accents, but beyond that my restaurant-learned Spanish is pretty awful. Not that I'm at all good with foreign languages. I struggle enough with my mother tongue; people who are effortlessly bilingual fascinate me.

But I'm digressing. I have a sudden interest in non-restaurant Spanish all of a sudden.

Here's the deal: it will surprise few of you reading this that I'm a pop knob at heart. I unabashedly heart the Fab Four, prefer the Buzzcocks and Undertones to The Clash, and think "Box Elder" is far and away the best song on Westing By Sextant and Musket. The flip side of that, though, is that for the last 20 years I've been acutely aware of just how much utter shite there is out there masquerading as melodic rock and roll. Honestly, I can take about 30 seconds of most "power pop" stuff before my teeth ache from the cotton candy-ness of it all. That's why bands like The Blakes or Novillero (message to Winnipeg: please tell me Novillero hasn't broken up?) rock me so hard--they get that hooks are good, but by themselves they're like whipped cream without the pumpkin pie. They're chili and cheese without the dog.

I also learned while playing a college radio show and working at Euclid Records that playing one favorite song of mine after another bored me to tears inside of 15 minutes. My favorite radio shows (and music discoveries) were when I busted myself out of my comfort zone. That's how I discovered and/or learned to love stuff like Sparklehorse or People Under The Stairs or The Grifters or Silkworm.

And so for the last month or so, I've been listening to a ton of music that falls way outside my usual interests. Underground hiphop and electronica. Metal. Lots of metal. Indie rock with no discernible music structure to it. Experimental guitar stuff and even some found sound noodling that didn't have me lunging for the eject button.

I have eaten my musical vegetables, in other words.

And so now we get back to my interest in Espanol. I just stumbled across a double CD retrospective by a band called Ross. I know zilch about them, except for on first listen I immediately figured the singer had a non-American accent and, thanks to a cover of Teenage Fanclub's sublime "Verisimilitude" pegged them as Scots or Geordies from the North of England. Nope. Finally tracked down their Myspace page (try finding out info on a band called "Ross"; if they'd called themselves "Jack" I'd have had an easier time of it) and it turns out they're from Murcia, Spain. Which means that while their songs are all in English, all web infos about 'em are in Spanish. Since none of the information or bio on the band involves lemons, fish, potatoes, or the words "hot" and "cold", I've got nothing really to tell you about them, other than it seems as if Ross's career ran from 1992 to 2002, and after a long hibernation they seem to be doing live shows and stuff.

Nowlemmetellyawhat: Ross is one of the sweetest, most wonderful music discoveries I've made in a long, long time. This double CD retrospective contains 44 songs and clocks in at well over 2 hours of tuneage. It has all the easy stuff for poppish, Beatle-influenced bands to do: chiming guitars played through AC30 amps, sweet Lennonish vocals and gorgeous (but not overdone) harmonies. Thing is, there are thousands of bands able to muster that start, but most of these bands are utterly terrible. These Spanish fellows don't fall into that trap. In fact, they manage to take that start and take it to some wonderfully unexpected places.

I've now spun through the two discs in this collection, and I'm utterly stunned at the fact that these guys managed to come up with 44 gorgeous pop songs that never induce listener fatigue (I got to the end last night and punched up disc one again immediately). They manage that with some incredible songwriting craftsmanship--the melodies here twist and turn and go in all sorts of unexpected places with a seeming effortlessness. Thanks to the mixed recording heritage of these tracks, there are moments of lo-fi majesty, and plenty of Teenage Symphonies To God, as they say.

The disc is called "A Collection For Enemies & Friends, 1992-2002". You'll have to hunt for an online shop to import it if you don't have a buddy stationed at a military base in Europe to pick you up a copy. This is a double CD worth jumping through some hoops for, though.

Let me play you a couple of reasons why:

"Starships-Supersonic Spacewalk"
"Sugar"
"Chroneman"

Here's their Myspace site, if you speak the language.

Ever fallen in love....

....with something you shouldn't have fallen in love with?

Yeah, Pete, I sympathize. I spent the better part of six months ignoring and/or feigning hatred/outrage for the buzzband flavor o' the month, NYC's own Vampire Weekend. Morton had hepped me to the Weekend back in August or July of last year, and I think I gave "Mansard Roof" all of 40 seconds before I recoiled in horror and decided that this was not my thing, as they say. I think it was an expectations thing: you hear "Vampire Weekend" as a band name and I dunno...I was expecting cave teen stomp-a-billy, or at worst really shitty goth revivalism (note to college freshmen intent on forming bands after flunking out this semester: we are not now, nor will we ever be, in need of a Mission UK or Sisters Of Mercy revival so just don't, ok?) Instead, "Mansard Roof" bubbles out like the Mark Mothersbaugh soundtrack to some Wes Anderson pirate movie (now that, we could use...)

I could've left it at that, except for Sirius radio. One of the coolest gadgets I've seen recently is the Sirius Stiletto 2 portable satellite radio. I got one for Christmas, and it is a slick piece of hardware, managing to do all those cool satellite radio things, along with a lot of mp3 storage in a package the size of a small iPod. Last week I was walking home from a buddy's house after an evening of beer and poker, and it was after midnight, the stars were out, a beautiful, balmy early spring night. I don't even remember which Sirius station I had on the Stiletto, but I heard this song that seemed to effortlessly mix early Israelites-style reggae with a dash of Graceland-ish African feel, as well as that sort of dreamy Mothersbaugh-ish soundtrack shimmer. The song was "Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa", and in the setting I heard it in, it was absolutely perfect.

And that's how it started. I got home and decided to give Vampire Weekend a good solid chance, and this time I noticed how cool songs like "Mansard Roof" and "Oxford Comma" really were. I noticed that "A-Punk" defies you to not fall under the spell of its tricky rhythms. I noticed especially that "Bryn" might be one of the most touching and gorgeous love songs I've heard in a while. What I also noticed is that this CD isn't a bunch of hyper-precious refrigerator-art pretense; these fellows can write a terrific song and a wonderful melody hook, and manage to deliver it in a way that, lord help me, makes the heart feel glad.

So yeah, here I am buying into something that a month ago I would've told you was pure fraud. I can't help it and I can't deny it. Listening to Vampire Weekend makes me happy. There is a sense of joy and wonder shot through these songs that once taken root inside will possess you.

Here, have some video:

Best Albums of 2007 (Numbers 2 and 1!)

2. The Stabilisers, Wanna Do The Wild Plastic Brane Thing
The Stabilisers first properly-released stateside album ended up in my hands about 2 weeks after I'd fallen under the spell of their labelmates, The Len Price 3. "Oh great, another Medway band on Little Steven's record label". At risk of feeling my tastes in music to be too easily pigeonholed, I had every expectations of hating this.

And so yeah, I had it on shuffle, and "She Wants It All The Time" was the first Stabilisers song I'd ever heard, and I found myself thinking "Yeah, I loved that guitar riff back when Stiff Little Fingers and The Buzzcocks did it a thousand times 30 years ago..." But wait a minute here. "She Wants It" suddenly kicks in with a middle 8, and then they do a key change, and then there's a stop/start...huh. One of the ways a lot of mediocre punk rock loses me is that most punk bands come up with a stomping riff and that's all they can manage in a song. But here's The Stabilisers writing 3 minute songs that never quite go where you expect them to, with dynamics and a pulse that seemingly no one else is able to.

One of the reasons I have so little patience for bands that have a sound that recalls some other, earlier rock and roll predecessor is that the new bands always seem to get the sound right, but not the rest. Hell, give any guitarist a Rickenbacker plugged into an AC-30 amp turned up too high, and they'll sound awesome. Sadly, too many bands get that part down, and that's good enough for them. Bands that get the sound and the fury and the verve and the spirit and the content all nailed are precious and few; The Exploding Hearts managed all that, but their tragic end pretty much left no one else as good on the scene to pick up for 'em.

Until now. The Stabilisers just completely fucking get it. They get it all. They seem to have grasped with full mind and soul what it was that made The Jam, The Buzzcocks, and The Undertones so amazingly brilliant and beloved, and then they've made an album here that doesn't imitate those artists, but rather taps into that same mystical kick-ass rock and roll magic their forebears also drew upon. You can try to play "spot the influence" on individual Stabilisers songs, but that's a loser's game. For one thing, you're going to miss out on valuable pogo-ing time. For another, just when you think you've got 'em nailed down, they'll throw you completely off your mark with dramatic chord or key or dynamic change that defies such eggheaded knobbish analysis.

What all of that means is, don't get hung up on the academics on Wanna Do, even though for the rock historian and theorist there's a lot there to love. Instead, just crank this record as loud as your landlord will possibly let you (ok, headphones if you gotta) and let yourself fall under the spell of riff-rockers like "Wanna" and "Born To Kiss Arse", or let yourself be rocked into next week by an anthem like the near-perfect "Belinda" or the amazing "The Way She Is" or shake your ass to rumble of "Problem Child" and "My Latest Obsession". You'll marvel at the fact that if The Stabilisers were a lesser band, this riff-heavy rock would get sludgy and gludgy and too heavy to be so much goddamned fun, and you might not even care that the reason it doesn't grind down is that bassist/lead singer Jon Bott turns in one of the landmark performances in the recent history of that instrument by blending with drummer Francis Braithwaite to keep these songs nimble and angular and on the move.

What The Stabilisers do on Wanna Do The Wild Plastic Brane Love Thing seems deceptively easy, but it isn't, because there are a thousand lesser lights out there who'd kill to be able to claim this disc as their own. The Stabilisers are the original article, a damn near perfect distillation of everything that is great and timeless about rock and roll rolled up into one 13 song testament.

"Belinda"(Video)
"Wanna"(Video)
"Problem Child"
"The Way She Is"
"Latest Obsession"

1. The Blakes, S/T
Like this is a surprise, huh? Anyone attempting to engage me in a conversation about music since May or so has had to endure me yammering on and on about how freaking GREAT The Blakes are. I'm gonna try to tell you why, and I might get wordy.

You can start by mentioning the timeless sound they've cooked up. Garnet Keim manages guitar lines that sound as if he's working over influences from '50's rockabilly, Dave Davies, the Velvets, Johnny Thunders, and even a little Peter Buck thrown in. His brother Snow compliments him ably with nimble, twisting basslines, and a more understated vocal counterpoint to Garnet's rawer, more immediate vocal style. The not-so-secret weapon of The Blakes though is drummer Bob Husak. He plays with a Moon-like ferocity but an Al Jackson-like discipline (those unfamiliar with Stax records can substitute "Charlie Watts" if you like). In other words, he can go nuts with all sorts of original fills, but then find the pocket with a popping snare that dares your body to resist the whipcrack beat.

All that goodness makes for a good band. The Blakes, though, are a great band--in fact, they might be the greatest rock and roll band on the planet right now. So what else is there? There are songs, yo. The expanded, Light In The Attic Records version of this album (a few self-released copies were distributed by the band last year) opens with a headlong rush of seven songs that stand as seven of the best rock and roll songs you're likely to hear this year....and they just fly off this record, one after another. The amazing thing is, there's so much variation in those seven tunes that it's almost as if these fellows showing off. "Two Times" opens the disc with a blazing blast of rock and soul fury, with Garnet Keim in full on wildman vocal mode (note to Allmusic's clueless reviewer--Garnet's voice is pitch perfect for this; anyone can lend full, raw vocal power to a song and not carry the tune, but Keim sounds like a 20 year old Mick Jagger on speed here, and--this is important--he's always on-key and in service to the song). "Don't Bother Me" is more of a tension-builder, showing off a bit of debt to the postpunks of the '80's. "Magoo" rolls with a barrelhouse magic that betrays a freakbeat moddish influence. "Modern Man" is an absolute stunner, with Keim playing an infectious riff over a Stooge-y guitar storm. The majestic "Run" adds a nifty wobbly '80's new wave keyboard and shows that these fellas listened to New Order's Low-Life back in the day (imagine "Love Vigilantes" as interpreted by Johnny Thunders & the Heartbreakers.) "Commit" is another stunner, and maybe the best single song on the record thanks to Snow Keim's bass work in the choruses, taking the tune in a completely unexpected melodic direction. "Don't Want That Now" sounds like a modern update of some long lost Animals classic...

...and then the listless "Lintwalk" breaks the spell a bit. Hey, even Albert Pujols strikes out every once in a while. Thankfully, Snow's "Vampire" gets things back on track with a song that sounds like nothing so much as The Grifters covering some Cure classic. They follow that with the anthemic, fist-pumping "Lie Next To Me"; if I was in The Strokes, I'd end my career right now, because in 2:47, "Lie Next To Me" does everything that band has ever tried to do over the course of seven years, and does it ten times better. "Pistol Grip" and "Picture" are both fine songs, and the band ends things with a flourish with the elliptical "Streets", a song awash in weird guitar textures and postpunk attitude...until the chorus comes in and suddenly it turns into a "We Gotta Get Outta This Place" raveup stomp.

The neatest trick The Blakes turn is managing to be so multifaceted. If you need a hooky melody, few pure-pop guitar bands can match "Commit" or "Run". If you need the punk, "Lie Next To Me" and "Two Times" are the obvious choices, but the whole disc is shot through with a punk-ish DIY energy and rawness that infuses even the introspective moments of this self-titled gem with a gritty toughness that runs far past any trends or poses.

Above all though, this is as much a soul record as it is a rock record. Arrange these songs a little differently, and you can imagine Otis or James Brown belting them out. It has that verve and edge of danger to it, shot through with a relentless beat that invites dancing more than moshing. The Blakes might be one of the most important rock and roll bands in the world, and this record suggests an almost limitless potential. Get on this bandwagon now, because this could be one helluva run.

"Modern Man"
"Two Times"
"Don't Bother Me"
"Lie Next To Me"
"Run"

Best Albums of 2007 (4 and 3!)

4. Sloan, Never Hear The End Of It.
(Penalized 3 slots by being released in Canada and Europe in October of 2006, but not in the US 'til 2007.)
Get me wound up about Canadian rock band Sloan, and I'm likely to babble your ear off until you're sorry you asked. Suffice it to say that Sloan might be the greatest rock band Americans have never heard of, an anonymous bunch of good-hearted lads who in the Great White North are arena-rocking superstars. I would happily admit that they might be my favorite band on the planet right now.

...and over their last two discs up until Never Hear The End Of It, I was sort of having to tell myself "Self, those Sloan boys are running out of gas, and quickly." I'd find maybe one or two songs on those previous Sloan albums to embrace, and the rest was just filler. When I heard that they were coming back from a 2-year break from releasing new music with the 23-song opus here, I was more than a bit skeptical.

Putting the band on a temporary hiatus to raise families and bask in a career well-done did these fellows good. In particular, drummer Andrew Scott emerges from a dry spell to be primary songwriter on a solid chunk of the disc. Guitarist Jay Ferguson also deserves kudos for writing his best songs in nearly a decade ("Who Taught You To Live Like That" especially). If bassist (and Sloan's heart and soul) Chris Murphy and guitarist Patrick Pentland have stepped back a bit, to be sure they provide two of the albums highest high points--Murphy on "Live The Life You're Dreaming Of" and Pentland on the arena-shaking "Ill-Placed Trust". To be sure, there are a few moments in this double-cd that don't quite click (not sure what they were thinking with "Golden Eyes") but that's just quibbling really. Never Hear The End Of It is a stunning, brilliant high-water mark for the band, and hence for guitar-based rock in general.

"I've Gotta Try"(Video, and yes drummer Andrew Scott is playing guitar and singing while bassist Chris Murphy is on drums...They do that a lot.)
"Set In Motion"
"Who Taught You To Live Like That?"
The whole album is streamed here. Try "Fading Into Obscurity", "Ana Lucia", "Someone I Can Be True With" (pay special attention to the lyrics in the second chorus if you want to laugh your ass off), "Live The Life You're Dreaming Of" and "Ill-Placed Trust" to start with.

3. Grand Champeen, Dial T For This.
So yeah, an Austin band of critic's darlings made a tremendous guitar rock album this year drawing on a variety of genre-bending idioms and playing havoc with listener's expectations...

....but I ain't talking about Spoon. Grand Champeen pretty much out-Spooned Spoon in every way imaginable this year on Dial T, and if this wonderful disc had come out just about any other year, it'd be numero uno.

Champeen has always been dogged by comparisons to legendary indie rockers Superchunk, and listening to GC's prior output, I suppose that's a fair criticism. Spending over two years in the recording process, this 2007 effort is a quantum leap forward for them. Shedding the sloppy production of previous albums, Dial T For This spins out like a 13-song tour through guitar-based indie rock of the last 20 years. Starting with the Spoon-ish nod of "What It Beats" and "Different Sort Of Story", they recall The Jayhawks and Replacements within "Nice Of You To Join Us", while melding Superchunk to Cheap Trick on "Wounded Eye". The keyboard flourishes that carry "Cities On The Plain" recall legends like The Great Plains and Get Smart, while "To The Ides" (perhaps the best song on the disc) opens with a Game Theory feel before turning into a vintage (circa 1987) Soul Asylum-flavored romp.

Grand Champeen are the kind of band the world needs more of; they play with a wide-eyed joyful sincerity that slays just about everyone else doing the rock and roll thing. These guys have made an incadescent, thrilling, joyride of a rock and roll record with Dial T For This.

"To The Ides"
"Wounded Eye"
"Cities On The Plain"
"Songs You Want To Hear"

Best Albums of 2007 (7 through 5!)

7. Richard Hawley, Lady's Bridge.
I'm baffled; I don't know how Richard Hawley does it. He makes 3 records and an ep, and somehow manages to make each one better than the amazing record that preceded it. His 2006 disc, Cole's Corner was just a landmark achievement in music, so how do you follow it? You put out a record in 2007 that is every bit that former disc's equal, if not better.

Like Cole's Corner, the title of Hawley's 2007 album refers to a location in his native Sheffield in England. In this case, Lady's Bridge is the bridge that separated the middle and upper-class sections of that city from the working class and poor (where Hawley hailed from). That's one of the main themes that runs through the record, along with the familiar terrain of love and loss and redemption.

Hawley is another tough artist for me to rate, so I always over-penalize him. There's literally no one else out there who sounds remotely like him. His ability to effortlessly blend styles and idioms from Elvis to Buddy Holly to Frank Sinatra to Roy Orbison and make it all his own is remarkable (his rather stunning voice doesn't hurt matters, obviously.) Honestly, the only musical comparison I have for Hawley is the Chairman himself. Sinatra had an amazing run of records in the middle of the 1960's and created this incredibly enduring block of music that will survive for as long as folks have ears for popular music. Hawley is in that same company; by my count he's released about 40 songs in his solo career, and there isn't a clunker in the lot of them. I have this nagging feeling that in 25 years, folks will be discussing Mr. Hawley as one of the most important artists of the 21st century. No need to wait that long to find that out for yourself.

"Tonight The Streets Are Ours"
"The Sun Refused To Shine"
"Valentine"(Video)

6. The Len Price 3, Rentacrowd.
So I'm watching latenight cable a few months ago, not really paying attention whatsoever...and there's this ad for Southern Comfort liquor that comes on. Whatever, right? Except there's an amazing song in the commercial that sounds like The Pretty Things, circa 1967, except it isn't them. A little google-fu reveals that the band with the song in the commercial is called the Len Price 3.

After picking up and giving the record a whole lot of spins, I realized that this was gonna be a fairly divisive pick for my best-of list. Let's face it, these guys ought to be sending royalties to The Who, The Creation, and The Action. There's nothing original about them, really, except the originality to choose really kick-ass influences. For some folks, they'll hear a Len Price 3 song and think "This is too retro/unhip/derivative" and they'll skulk off to listen to their indie rock and miss the whole point.

For other folks though, this album will be bliss. You know who you are--you're the one whose pulse quickens when you hear the opening guitar chord of "The Kids Are Alright". You're the one who was nearly frugging in the aisle of the theater the first time you saw Rushmore and heard "Making Time". You're the guy who sees a band with a Rickenbacker guitar and Danelectro bass and knows that you can give yourself over to them utterly, and that said band won't disappoint.

So yeah, it'd be easy (and rather missing the point) to dismiss The Len Price 3 as some version of The Rutles focused on The Who. I'm here to tell you that these three blokes write incredibly infectious, instantly memorable rock and roll songs with a timeless quality about them. If they occasionally do rip off their forebears (and yeah, the title track could be sued for sounding too much like "Substitute"), they redeem themselves by coming up with brilliant original songs like "Sailor's Sweetheart", or "Julia Jones" or "No Good" or "Turn It Around" that are thoroughly unique creations that stand on their own. (One listening tip: the album has a very trebly mix; to get the full wonderfulness of the Len Price 3 to come over, play this record freaking loud!)

"Julia Jones"
"If I Ain't Got You"
"With Your Love"(Video)
"Sailor's Sweetheart"(Video)
"Rentacrowd"(Video; warned you about that whole "Substitute" thing...)

5. The Dexateens, Hardwire Healing
From what I gather, The Dexateens have always sort of lived in the shadow of like-minded Alabamans The Drive By Truckers--the former as sort of the rowdy, devil-take-us snotty little brothers of the latter. I'd heard the previous Dexateens album a few times and while it was kinda fun, I thought it was kinda forgettable.

Color me impressed then by Hardwire Healing. Possessing just the right amount of their previous piss and vinegar, but abetted by a batch of killer songs and genius co-production of ex-Sugar drummer David Barbe and DB Trucker Patterson Hood...well this is a monster of a record, out-striping Jack White while tapping into a sensibility somewhere between Skynyrd, Exile-era Rolling Stones, and The Black Crowes. These Tuscaloosa lads can roar and stomp like the furies on songs like "Naked Ground" and "Makers Mound", but they can also handle a deft and perfect melody like on the transcendent "Neil Armstrong".

...and then there's "Nadine". Nothing on the record up to the point of this song (it's track 10 of 12) prepares the senses for this sucker, perhaps the most nakedly beautiful song anyone recorded this year. It'll rip your guts out, so just be ready for it. Right after "Nadine", though, these fellas come up with what might be the niftiest song on their record with "Outside The Loop". Showing a dynamic sense that they never foreshadowed before this disc showed up, they make "Loop" into a funky tour-de-force of rhythmic flow and dynamic grooves that sounds, god help me, like the kind of song Mick and Keith used to write in the early '70's...only the Dexateens make it completely their own.

I'm sure it'll draw the ire of the numerous fans of the Drive By Truckers, but with Hardwire Healing, their upstart apprentices have made a record the former band would die for. The student has become the teacher, and all that mumbo-jumbo; The Dexateens are one of the great bands in the country right now.

"Neil Armstrong"
"Naked Ground"
"Outside The Loop"
"Nadine"

Best Albums of 2007 (10 through 8!)

10. Wilco, Sky Blue Sky.
Color me a bit stunned by the number of folks out there who not only missed the point of this album, but who also missed the context. Throughout his career, Wilco frontman Jeff Tweedy has shown a rather graceful ability to have his music informed by his influences without standing totally beholden to them. As such, Tweedy's done the punk thing, the noise thing, the Petty thing, the Neil Young thing...

...so why is it particularly surprising that he's decided to do a Dylan meets Astral Weeks thing with Sky Blue Sky? I suppose the real surprise is that he didn't do this album sooner--but then I suppose you can argue that the musical strengths of his current band made it a little more possible for it to happen now.

Getting the sound nailed would matter little if Tweedy's songs were as week as the songs on Ghost, but this disc finds him returning to the fine form of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot and Summerteeth. "Either Way" opens the album with a beautiful acoustic hymn with a lovely guitar figure that recalls Emmit Rhodes' "Lullabye". "Side With The Seeds" will make you think of George Harrison's "Oh Darling", without necessarily sounding all that much like that song, and "Please Be Patient With Me" is one of the most heartfelt songs in the Wilco catalog. If Sky Blue Sky isn't perfect (there are a few patches where things are just too delicate and precious for a Wilco album), it shows the band ably working their way out of the corner that Ghost had painted them into.

"Either Way"
"Side With The Seeds"
"Please Be Patient With Me"


9. Future Clouds & Radar, S/T
It hardly seems as if a decade has really gone by (and indeed, really it's only been 10 years...)since Cotton Mather's too-brilliant-for-words CD Kon-Tiki established Robert Harrison (the group's frontman) as one of the most gifted and original indie-pop songwriting craftsmen on the planet. Cotton Mather never really got off the ground--despite Kon-Tiki being recognized and hailed universally (and despite Noel Gallagher proclaiming it the record of the decade before enlisting Cotton Mather on a UK tour to open for Oasis). The band members split after a 2001 disc got zero distribution. Shortly thereafter, Harrison suffered a debilitating back injury that left him bedridden for a year.

During his convalescence, Harrison's daughter gave her pop a ukelele (a guitar was too heavy for him to hold) and legend has it that Harrison wrote a gajillion songs on it. Fully recovered now and ready to record, Harrison put together a new band, Future Clouds & Radar, and recorded this self-titled debut double CD--27 songs in all. Proclaiming that with this new disc, he wanted to try something different than his approach with Cotton Mather, Future Clouds And Radar ends up all over the map when taken on the whole...

....but frankly, the damn thing works more often than not, and even when it fails, it fails not for a lack of ideas, but rather perhaps just failed execution. And when it works? I've listed a lot of songs in this list to get to this record, but there is a moment on FC&R's "Hurricane Judy" that wins that song the best song of the year award. You can't miss it--just after the first chorus, Harrison pops a guitar figure in place of the second verse that sounds like a solo played by that other guy named Harrison...and then when we finally get back to the vocals, they're punctuated by a blatting, wonderful horn (fake horn?) section that will have your mind's eye seeing Yellow Submarines floating down Penny Lane to Strawberry Fields. Harrison can't seem to help his vocal resemblance to John Lennon, so rather than run away from it, he uses it as a strength on a song like the slick but winning "You Will Be Loved" which will give you a good idea what kind of song John would've written had he lived into this decade.

To be sure, there's a ton of electronic experimental noodling all over this CD, but much of the time it works ("This Is Only A Book" and "Drugstore Bust"). There's a part of me that thinks that this wonderful double-cd would've worked better had about 12 songs been trimmed from it...but on the other hand, I'm left exquisitely happy that a fellow like Robert Harrison is willing to share even his interesting failures with the rest of the class.

"Hurricane Judy"
"Drugstore Bust"
"Green Mountain Clover"(Video; gorgeous heart-tugging song alert.)
"This Is Really A Book"(Video)
"Holy Janet Comes On Waves"(Video)
"Build Havana"(Video)

8. The Bees, Octopus.
I'll come totally clean on this: I may have dramatically over or underrated this record; I honestly can't get remotely close to objectivity on it. More than any other disc this year, Octopus invariably put me into a gloriously happy mood, and while that isn't particularly edgy or hip...it's something worth saluting, right?

The Bees (or Band Of Bees as they're known in the States) are a group of multi-instrumentalists who are probably have better record collections than I do. They certainly have a grasp of various rock and soul genres, and manage to bring 'em all to the party on this wonderful, silly, giddy record. There's the gut-bucket slide guitar on the jugband opener "Who Cares What The Question Is", and then the rustic Byrds-y harmonies and swirl of "Love In The Harbour...which gives way to the old-school Jamaican rhythms of "Left Foot Stepdown" on into the funky Ides of March horns and soul stomp of "Got To Let Go", which takes us right into the Sam Cooke-sounding "Listening Man".

That five song opening salvo is just awe-inspiring, and it makes the second half of Octopus all the more disappointing. As much as I'd like silly songs like "The Ocularist" and "End Of The Street" to work, they just end up being jarring and taking you out of the glory of this disc. Even with those distractions though, Octopus's high points are so ridiculously high and wonderful that it spots this disc in the top ten for the year. The Bees sell a ton of records in England. There's a reason. This is the happiest, sunniest disc of the year.

"Got To Let Go"
"Left Foot Stepdown"
"Listening Man"(Video that will be impossible to resist smiling ear to ear at by the end of)
"Who Cares What The Question Is?"(Video)

Best Albums of 2007 (15 through 11)

15. Grant Lee Phillips, Strangelet.
Well, this album was a relief. After the nonstop boredom of his countrified, folkish, plodding new wave covers disc last year, I had grave fears for Mr. Phillips, wondering if he'd emptied his tank of creativity. While I've greatly enjoyed a couple of his solo discs (Virginia Creeper and Mobilize), I have to confess that I hadn't enjoyed any of them as much as I'd enjoyed any of his work as the frontman of the too-wonderful Grant Lee Buffalo.

And along comes Strangelet, and it is easily my favorite thing GLP has done since Jubilee, the final Buffalo album. Back from a hiatus are the sweeping, gorgeous melodies that float along with Phillips' swooping, dramatic vocals. At times on this disc, Phillips taps into a new influence for him, sounding almost like John Lennon covering the best songs Marc Bolan never wrote. For the first time in his solo career, Strangelet also has a Phillips song that may be as good or better than anything he did in a group setting, the sublime "Dream In Color", one of 2007's best songs. If the entire album can't quite live up to the languid sweep of that song, that's more a testament to how good that tune is, and rest assured that songs like "Runaway" and "Chain Lightning" get very close to matching it.

Dream In Color
"Soft Asylum (No Way Out)"(Video)
"Raise The Spirit"(Video)
"Same Blue Devils"(Video)

14. Son Volt, The Search.
There is so much right, so much glorious goodness going on with the second album of Jay Farrar's revamped and re-tooled Son Volt that it hurts that the weakness here lies in an area that used to be on of the former Uncle Tupelo guitarist's greatest strengths.

But first the good, and there's lots of that. The first thing is Farrar's voice. Somewhere in the earlier incarnation of Son Volt (after the terrific debut album) and continuing through his mixed-bag solo albums, Farrar's vocals seemed to be heading to a gravelly Dylan/Waits destination, but without managing the emotion that either of those two antecedents could pull. On The Search, Farrar sings as if he's just discovered that he possessed one of the most expressive vocal instruments of the last 20 years; on the layered, mournful opening "Slow Hearse" he's almost in falsetto(!); on "Methamphetamine" and the title track, he lets his voice go where the song takes it, even if it means singing at the top of his range. More good comes in with the second song, and it'll hit you right upside the head. With horns blatting in the background like some erstwhile Beulah song is kicking off, "The Picture" sounds like no other Jay Farrar song in his catalog. Farrar spends much of The Search taking some real chances with the arrangements and production, and even if some of it doesn't work, you'll appreciate the obvious effort he put into moving himself forward artistically.

With all that said, this disc would be a sure-fire top tenner for me, except for, well, the lyrics. That's the real puzzler for me, because this is the same Jay Farrar who tossed off with seeming ease lines about hometown, sametown blues, who wrote about only circumstances and differences that get in the way, and the wind taking your troubles away. Farrar has exhibited an amazing gift for subtlety, for a few words saying more than many ever could, for being something of a laconic genius at letting what was unsaid say as much as what was left in. Sadly, Farrar has let go of that gift here, and on much of The Search, Farrar delivers lines that sound like the work of bad coffee shop poets or overeducated hiphop MC's, trying to pack a hundred pounds of message into songs that strain with their weight and hyper-gravitas. That much of the album is a rant against the war and the current state of our political leadership only makes things sound even more awkward, as the songs are given a treacly feeling that they neither need nor want. (Hey, I think the President sucks and the war is awful, too, but if you're going to write a song to that effect, you'd better be subtle and funny and have a unique angle to get at; I don't want an album that sounds like a Dailykos diary set to roots music yo.)

All of that makes it sound as if The Search isn't an absolutely worthwhile disc, and it shouldn't. This album is a snarling monster of anger and hope, and it works on so many levels that perhaps I'm just being too nit-picky and looking for it to do things it shouldn't have to. Put this sucker in the CD player, hit repeat, and it'll make a latenight road trip fly right on by.

"Methamphetamine"
"The Search"
The Son Volt Website, where you can hear "The Picture" and "Circadian Rhythm"

13. Glossary, The Better Angels Of Our Nature.
Look, I blew it. I missed out on hearing Glossary's stupendous 2006 album For What I Don't Become until March of this past year, and over the course of dozens of listens, I realized that it was one of the best two or three discs that came out last year. I was determined not to make that same mistake this year.

Glossary hails from Murfreesboro, TN, and they wouldn't have it any other way. I gather they're something of an "occasional" band, with everyone having real jobs and families and such; when they get together to play music as a group, it's more than just "band practice" or playing a gig...it's a chance to hang out with dear friends and do something these folks truly, truly love. That sensibility comes roaring out of the speakers as soon as you put TBAOON on to listen. What you hear is a band committed to what they do, which is making art for art's sake; they play magnificently as a band because they genuinely are thrilled to be doing what they're doing.

Too many bands doing the alt-country/Americana thing tend to write mournful, sad songs about dead-end lives and looking for meaning in worthless jobs and loveless relationships. Glossary sets themselves apart from all that by writing songs that even when filled to brimming with sadness have a redemptive, hopeful quality to them; as such, Glossary live gigs tend to be foot-stompin' glorious tent revivals where no one in the band or audience goes home feeling unrocked.

If TBAOON isn't quite as good as For What i Don't Become, it still serves up a heapin' helpin' of the year's most memorable songs. "Gasoline Soaked Heart" is an absolutely gorgeous duet sung by Kneiser and his wife Kelly, and the album-closing "Blood On The Knobs" is as magnificent a statement of purpose as any band has ever written. Glossary also beat Radiohead to the "free distribution" model by offering up this disc in its entirety (in four different audio formats, no less) for free download from their website (and unlike Radiohead, you can still grab it all now.) Whoever said "the best things in life are free" must've had Glossary in mind.

"Shout It From The Rooftops"
"Gasoline Soaked Heart"
"Blood On The Knobs"
The Whole album available in *.zip format, 320 kps mp3.

12. Tom Stevens, Home.
I'm guessing the set containing "people who remember who Tom Stevens is" is getting awfully small in 2007. Stevens joined the legendary Long Ryders (who pre-dated the whole alt-country thing by 5-10 years or so) during the recording of that band's legendary Native Sons lp in 1983, and immediately became that band's "secret weapon". Every Long Ryders album going forward would have one or two Tom Stevens-penned songs on it (the rest were by frontman Sid Griffin or guitarist Steven McCarthy), and like the Ryders' version of George Harrison, Stevens always threatened to steal the show from his more prolific bandmates by writing and singing better than them in his brief chance at the limelight.

Stevens has been pretty much out of the music loop since the Ryders called it a day in 1987. He self-released a couple of solo discs 10 years ago, but that was it. All of that makes Home all the more this year's head-scratching "where the HELL has THIS talent been hiding" disc so remarkable. One might suppose that this record is drenched in familiar Americana "No Depression" motifs. One would assume wrong. Stevens is well-versed in a variety of rock idioms, and seems to be able to find his muse where Gram Parsons, Lou Reed, and Alex Chilton all hang out to shoot the breeze. The album-opening "Ghost Train" starts off with an effects-drenched guitar strum and an echoing, Duane Eddy guitar riff, while Stevens sings in an almost hushed, dreampop tone. On "Death Wish", he comes up with a song that sounds like Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers covering something from an early Mark Lanegan solo record. "In The Basement" is a scorching miracle of a countrified rock, opening with a searing Parsons-esque slide guitar figure and then breaking out a perfectly-placed banjo in the verse. To prove he isn't a one-trick pony on the slide, on "Away From The Great Cold City", he damn near sounds like he's starting an April Wine tune before swinging into the gorgeous verse. None of that quite prepares the senses for the surreal, almost psychedelic swirl of "Flying Out Of London In The Rain" which is absolutely one of the most stirring and flat-out gorgeous songs of 2007.

A couple of final notes on this. I think Stevens plays all the instruments here, and that is no mean feat. Usually in such one-man-band settings, you can hear deficiencies on one instrument or another, but here Stevens plays some amazing guitar figures, tosses off brilliant basslines, and even rips through the drum sections as if any of those instruments were his "natural" choice. Another note: there's a lot of reasons to be cynical and pissy about the state of popular music nowadays. Then a guy like Tom Stevens records an absolutely breathtaking album like Home in his...well, home, and it reminds you that the best thing about rock music is it's accessibility and populism. Tom Stevens would've recorded these songs, and they'd exist whether any of us heard 'em or not. But now you know they're out there, and if you hear something you like, paypal him a few bucks and support a guy who is truly doing things the right way.

"Flying Out Of London In The Rain" (video)
Tom's Myspace page where you can hear "Death Wish", "Ghost Train", "Belladonna", and "Flame Turns To Blue"
A rather low-fi 2-minute clip of "In The Basement", because that song is so damned good.

11. Everybody Else, S/T
Let's inventory what we have with this Los Angeles trio: three prettyboys, playing crunchy 3-minute pop songs that sound like vintage Cheap Trick fighting The Plimsouls over Jesse's Girl, and a fanbase that seems to skew heavily towards the 17-year-old female demographic (yeah, no chance that ANYONE reading this is ever going to see these guys live, because that would be the creepiest damned thing I can possibly think of.)

Before you write them and me off completely, hear me out on these guys. First off, the name is cribbed from the oft-recorded Kinks chestnut, "I'm Not Like Everybody Else". Frontman Carrick Gerety (a Harvard--yeah, THAT Harvard--grad) isn't some snot-nosed teen, either; he's a thirty-year-old who had Pavement's Steve Malkmus write liner notes for albums his previous band, the Push Kings. Drummer Mikey McCormack is another scene veteran, and his old band, The Waking Hours, were terrific back in the day.

So yeah, if Everybody Else is sort of marketed as a post-tweener version of Hanson, I suppose you do what you've gotta do when you're in a band and have bills to pay. I could bore the teenyboppers in the audience by mentioning that Gerety's scratchy delivery on songs like "Meat Market" and "Faker" sound like The Scruffs, or that a song like "Born To Do" he neatly channels Emitt Rhodes. I could really induce yawns by mentioning that "Rich Girls, Poor Girls" sounds like the best song Rick Springfield never got around to releasing.

What makes this album so special is that it has a very superficial appeal that seems to click with a wider audience...but if you're a music geek, there are layers and layers here just waiting to be peeled away. In the end, it give Everybody Else a rather unique appeal, as their songs sound tremendously comfortable and familiar without ever shamelessly appropriating and imitating their influences.

"Meat Market"
"Makeup"
The whole album is available to hear at the band's Myspace page. Link not intended to encourage any of you dirty old men to engage in online stalking of adolescent Japanese girls.

Best Albums of 2007! (20 through 16...)

20. Film School, Hideout.
You think you had a lousy 2006? Check out the doozy of a year Film School frontman Greg Bertens had: after the year opened auspiciously with influential indie-major label Beggars Banquet releasing Film School's self-titled second album, the embarked on a US tour to support it. After a show in Ohio, Bertens was mugged and beaten outside the club. Two days later in Philadelphia, thieves made off with the band's van and all their music gear.

The strain was too much for Bertens, and he dissolved the band to clear his own head. It must've worked, because Film School's 2007 release, Hideout, builds on all the promise the band ever had, and delivers an album I never thought they had in 'em. Film School play unabashed shoe-gazer dreampop music; one listen and you're transported to the land of My Bloody Valentine's woozy, swirling guitars and laconic if androgynous vocals. Yes, I know: lots of bands are doing that. What separates Hideout and Film School from the pack of shoegazer revivalists is that Bertens has an impressive batch of songs--if they aren't as good as Kevin Shields' takes on the genre, they're at least in the same ballpark, which is no mean feat and thus makes Film School a band to watch and embrace. "Go Down Together", in fact, is the equal of anything in the MBV catalogue (and one of the best songs of the year), and "Two Kinds" and "Capitalized I" aren't far behind.

"Go Down Together"
"Two Kinds"
"Dear Me"

19. Grand Atlantic, This Is...
In their native Australia, Grand Atlantic's brand of instantly-winning radio-friendly (if radio didn't suck) guitar rock has already gifted them with a couple of hits from their debut disc. Here in the States? Yeah, welcome to Anonymityville, fellas.

Still, this is a band to keep an eye on. With a huge sound that falls somewhere between Oasis, Cheap Trick, and Sloan, Grand Atlantic spends most of This Is trying on a variety of musical hats, from quiet, Wilson Brothers/Left Banke-y pop of "Prelude" and "Wonderful Tragedy" to bracing straightahead rockers like "Coolite" (great opening lines? Try "You, you're my Penny Lane...") or "Smoke And Mirrors". Grand Atlantic spend much of their debut showing off a craftsmanship that elevates what could have been an utterly derivative and dull affair into one of the most exciting guitar rock discs of the year.

"Coolite" (video)
"Wonderful Tragedy"(video)
"Smoke And Mirrors" (video)

18. The Ponys, Turn The Lights Out.
I love The Ponys, I hate The Ponys, I love The Ponys...depending on which song from Turn The Lights Out is playing, my feelings toward this Chicago band changes. At various times I had this disc ranked as high as #3 on my list...and as low as being one of the year's great disappointments. So yeah, they've gotta be doing something right, huh?

When The Ponys are on, they've found a sound that sounds something like a more focused, less-drug addled Brian Jonestown Massacre with a jagged postpunk bent to their songs. When they're not so on, they're indulging their worst indie-rock "aw shucks" tendencies and thus making a statement rather than actually rocking out. At their best, Ponys songs like "1209 Seminary" and "Double Vision" manage to walk the thin line between their two more indulgent sides and result in some of the most exciting and visionary rock recorded this year. Let's Turn The Lights Out if nothing else shows The Ponys have it within them to be a landmark band cut from the same cloth as The Pixies, if they want it.

"1209 Seminary"
"Double Vision"
"Maybe I'll Try"

17. Robert Plant and Alison Krauss, Raising Sand.
Perhaps you young'ns are too wee to remember, but back when I was in high school Robert Plant released two decently-received post-Zep solo albums that did reasonably well in sales and even yielded a couple of hits. The other thing those discs (and his work as the voice behind the Honeydrippers) revealed was that Robert Plant's voice was all but shot. Drenched in reverb, echo, and multitracked to the point of being unrecognizable, it was all a far cry from the wailing, shrieking, Zeppelin front man of "Whole Lotta Love".

So if you're waiting for me to say "Robert Plant's voice is back!" keep dreaming--although it is obvious he's taking much better care of that instrument over the last few decades and hasn't sounded this good since In Through The Out Door. Instead, by turning to a rootsy Americana setting and by collaborating with Alison Krauss, Plant has found a perfect vehicle and collaborator for what his voice can still do, and as such he reveals himself to still be one of the best vocalists in rock in the last 40 years. Together the two take off on a batch of songs drawn from American myth, whether they're swampy chestnuts like "Rich Woman" or the Everly Brother's rollicking "Gone Gone Gone (Done Moved On)", as well as a passel of newer songs (a wonderful unrecorded--new?--Zeppelin song called "Please Read The Letter" and Sam Phillips' gorgeous winder "Sister Rosetta Goes Before Us" with Krauss singing lead).

The only thing keeping this glorious album in the bottom half of my Top 20 is T-Bone Burnett's production. After hearing the glorious abandon of "Gone Gone Gone", you'll find yourself hoping and praying that at some point Krauss will decide to start sawing the hell out of her fiddle and that Plant will take a foot-stomping Appalachian melody and just rock the holy hell out of it...but Burnett and his hyper glossy faux-"old-timey" prodcution hovers over the whole enterprise like a fire extinguisher trying to keep two combustible artists from bursting into a bonfire.

The entire album can be streamed from the control in the upper left of the site here.
"Gone Gone Gone (Done Moved On)"
"Please Read The Letter"
"Rich Woman"

16. Great Northern, Trading Twilight For Daylight
If earlier on this list we hailed the return of shoegaze, with Great Northern's Trading Twilight For Daylight we can hail the return of dreampop to something other than the retro paint by numbers attempts of other bands. Using an almost 4AD-ish sound as a springboard, Great Northern's principle songwriters/singers, Solon Bixler and Rachel Stolte manage to update that sound and give it a unique footing with their own voice.

Huh. That's a lot of cross-referencing of obscure musical genres for one paragraph, so let's try again: this is an entire album of songs that sound as if they could've been played over the closing credits of a Tim Burton movie, or would serve as the perfect soundtrack to a book of Neil Gaiman short stories. Songs like "Our Bleeding Hearts", "Middle" and especially the stirring "Home" unfurl like mini-symphonies, self-contained movie soundtracks that never want for lack of visual imagery. If the band has a weak spot, it is their inability to not take themselves too seriously. Whimsical ethereality in art is a delicate balance, as Burton, Gaiman, and Lewis Carroll could tell you; get too serious about it, and you'll crush it. In other words, I'd hate to see these folks end up as insufferable as The Decemberists. For now, make some darjeeling, grab a copy of "Stardust", and enjoy this delicate little miracle of a snowflake of an album.

"Our Bleeding Hearts"
"The Middle"
"Home"
Video for "Home"