Some Albums Through The Third Quarter of 2010

[koganbot]

Wrote this album wrap-up in response to Greg over on my singles thread, so might as well give it its own post. I've let album-listening slide, so I need to do lots of exploring. These are my top five:

Ke$ha's Animal: her vision or shtick is up my alley, and is pretending to come from an alley, but her lyrics could use stronger, more original

Comments

[chuckeddy]

Radar Favourites is a weird and uncommonly warm-sounding Henry Cow/This Heat-related prog/fusion/experimental rock reissue from 1974 that came in the mailbox one day -- a real stretch, in other words, and I don't think I can even otherwise justify it being so high on that list except that I listen to it in the background a lot. (Can barely say anything else about it, regardless, and it has not even a remote shot at my Top 10.)

I'm counting Everett's barely distributed 2009 album as 2010, which is when it got issued on a bigger label with more distibution when I'd never heard of it before, by exactly the same logic as I counted Jamey Johnson's barely distributed 2007 album as 2008, when ditto. (Well, I guess Johnson's was inititally digital only, and Everett's may have been existed physically in its original form -- I've never seen a copy of the alleged 2009 version -- but they were both new to me in the year I voted for them. Though then again, so were a few hundred old '70s and '80s vinyl LPs I paid $1 for this year, but there's no way they came out in 2010. And Jace's, for all intents, still strikes me as new music.)

Am surprised you've heard the Coati Mundi, which I'm pretty sure just came out this week (unless you got sent an advance, just like I did, or downloaded it.) And though I probably mentioned Luther Lackey on Rolling Country, I don't think I ever mentioned the other two (though all three are marketed under the umbrella of "Southern Soul," even though Bigg Robb is from Cincinnati, used to be in Zapp, and sounds like it.)

Pretty sure Kenny Chesney's album will climb before now and the year's end; could place Top 10. Should've listed it higher.

And I'm not even sure I'd call four songs on that Chely Wright album "great," now that I think about it, though "Notes To The Coroner," "Snow Globe," and "Damn Liar" certainly come close. (Maybe "That Train" or "Object Of Your Rejection," too. I love the idea of "Like Me," but whenever I actually listen to it, it's too quiet to really connect somehow. As are other tracks.)

My own CD player got stuck a couple weeks ago, so now I've got the spare portable in my office, not even hooked to speakers. Was actually wondering whether you still had a working player.

[chuckeddy]

Actually, come to think of it, I think Coati Mundi's full album comes out next week. (3-song EP was late 2009.)

And I obviously didn't mean to imply that I voted for $1 vinyl albums this year, even though that's sort of what I said. (Haven't voted for the Jace Everett, or anything else, yet either, obviously. But I'm pretty sure you knew what I meant.)

[koganbot]

Yeah, I was sent an advance of the Coati Mundi. I like it on one listen but nothing jumped out at me as not sounding like all the other stuff on the album, though that's probably my fault not the album's, and anyway I was doing the dishes when "listening."

Maybe I will count the Everett (didn't realize it got picked up by another label). If I like Davey Boy Smith's Best Of The Wiley Zip File I'll count that, and I suppose that we could count the Seger for the same reason except that you can actually go to a Davey Boy Smith site on the Web and download from there, and when Wiley released all those tracks for free I'm sure he was possibly expecting and hoping that people'd create their own version. (Just dl'd the Davey Boy Smith and haven't heard it yet.)

[chuckeddy]

And "a few hundred" $1 LPs is an exagerration. I hope. (If not, I'm clearly spending beyond my means. But I have definitely bought a few. Spent more time listening to old music this year than any year in long, long time. One side effect of having a turntable in the living room, I guess.)