Top 20 albums

Dad’s Top Discs of 2023

~ Randy Blazak ~ 1 Comment

December 19, 2023

2023 A.D. will always be the first (and only?) year that my daughter saw new releases from the Beatles and the Stones in the same year. The thrill of taking her to the record store to get the new Rolling Stones album and ask for the “new single by the Beatles” created great memories for both of us. Obviously, for us Beatle freaks, the release of “Now and Then” in November was the musical highlight of the year. Cozy proclaimed it her “favorite song of all time” and I devoted an episode of my YouTube channel to it. I’ll never forget first hearing John’s AI cleaned up voice singing, “I know it’s true.” Chills to have the Fab Four together one last time.

There wasn’t a massive concert binge this year. The highlights were taking Cozy and her friend to see Ringo Starr in Bend in June and the brilliant DakhaBrakha show at Revolution Hall in August. Most of the live music was enjoyed at small local Portland venues, like Mississippi Studios, No Fun, and Turn, Turn, Turn (which is sadly closing at the end of year). I am looking forward to shows at the new Doug Fir in 2024.

2023 was year I really utilized Spotify to do some deep dives. Long chronologies of Brian Eno and explorations of Ethiopian jazz, the thrill of having an ever expanding universe of music was like my teenage dream manifest. I used Spotify to make probably hundreds of playlists (I currently have 925 playlists on the platform) and even used it to DJ a loft party in the East Village in New York in February. Its ease of use certainly cut into my album purchases in 2023.

Most of my vinyl purchases (Did I even buy a CD in 23?) were old jazz sides from the numerous little record stores that keep popping up in my neighborhood. I did listen to a lot of albums, especially by Taylor Swift (Sorry, not sorry.) 2023 was the year I became a fan, especially of her brilliant 2022 release, Midnights. I finally got it. And it gave me a fun way to connect with my students, dropping TS lyrics in the middle of lectures. The album that dominated the year (and my car radio) was the Barbie soundtrack. It exploded into the music world much the way the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack did in 1977. Some of the hype of 2023, I just didn’t get. Boygenius I thought was a snooze fest. And, even though I’ve been massive fans in the past, releases by PJ Harvey, Yo La Tengo, and Sufjan Stevens didn’t catch my attention (but I did dig that one new Paramore song, “This is Why”).

So here is my annual Top 20. Not necessarily the 20 best releases of 2023, but the albums I spent a lot of time on and really lived in. At the top of the list is a Brooklyn band called Geese. Their album, 3D Country (released in June) was the most wide open (in the style of John Spencer Blues Explosion) and yet diverse album of the year. Their track, “I See Myself” wormed its way into my soul and I’m sure made it on to many mixtapes of young hipsters in love. Besides the Stones, some old favorites showed up, including Dolly Parton and her  “rock” album (worth it for her environmental anthem, “World On Fire”) and Dexy’s Midnight Runners and their feminist manifesto, Feminine Divine.

Here we go.

  1. Geese – 3D Country
  2. Rolling Stones – Hackney Diamonds
  3. The New Pornographers – Continue as a Guest
  4. Olivia Rodrigo – Guts 
  5. The National – First Two Pages of Frankenstein
  6. Taylor Swift – 1989 (Taylor’s Version) 
  7. Lana Del Rey – Did You Know That There’s a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd
  8. Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit – Weathervanes 
  9. John Cale – Mercy 
  10. Blur – The Ballad of Darren 
  11. Anohni (Antony & the Johnsons) – My Back Was a Bridge For You to Cross
  12. Fred Again and Brian Eno – Secret Life
  13. Dexys – Feminine Devine 
  14. Dolly Parton – Rockstar 
  15. Bob Dylan – Shadow Kingdom
  16. The Kills – God Games
  17. Quasi – Breaking the Balls of History 
  18. Ryuichi Sakamoto – 12
  19. Black Thought – Glorious Game
  20. Brad Mehldau – Your Mother Should Know: Brad Mehldau Plays The Beatles

Honorable mention for albums from Rhiannon Giddens, PIL, Rancid, The Zombies, Rufus Wainwright, Bad Bunny, and Metallica. I still need to listen to that new Wilco album. (And this week the ANOHNI album is my favorite.)

Dad’s Top Discs of 2022

~ Randy Blazak ~ 1 Comment

December 14, 2022

I’m not sure if there has been a musical theme this year. I’ve spent a lot of the year listening to Polish and Ukrainian music during and following my trip into the war zone. Replaying “Szal Niebieskich Cial” by Maanam in my Krakow hotel room, waiting for my ride to Auschwitz, or blasting “Бабушка” by the Russian rap artist L-Jane as we sped towards Lviv with the smoke from Russian rocket attacks in front us will always be powerful musical memories.

The best concert of the year was easily the DhakaBrakha show in Beaverton on September 30. The Ukrainian band enchanted us and compelled us to act. Their other-worldly sounds had Andi squeezing my arm and me in tears thinking of the people I left behind there. The images behind the quartet conveyed that this was more than just a concert. It was a desperate plea for global action. In Beaverton.

Like last year, I was devoted to making endless playlists on Spotify. This included 35 playlists for Andi while she was living in her apartment, with titles like, “Tied to the Whipping Post” and “So It’s Come to This, Barry Manilow.” Andi’s back home but we’re still not back together, so I will step up my playlist game in 2023.

As part of my Spotify playlist obsession, at the end of each month, I listened to at least one song of the 100 to 200 albums that were released that month (thanks to Wikipedia), making a playlist representing that month’s music. So I have quite literally listened to at least one song from each major release in 2022. That’s a lot of K-Pop and death metal. But it gave me a good overview of the year and lots of new discoveries, like Norway’s Blood Command. While I was looking for love lost songs, I found plenty of punk and metal albums that gave me the energy to swim forward.

So here is my annual “Top 20” list. Maybe not the twenty best albums, but the albums I enjoyed the most this year. The top three reflect the diversity on the list. Wet Leg’s debut album brought me back to the clever wordplay that I loved in 80s new wave music. The Smile’s A Light for Attraction Attention is essentially a Radiohead album and it transported me the to the ambient beep bop boop that helped be drift off on those endlessly lonely nights. At the top of the pile is the New Jersey punk band, Titus Andronicus. Their sweeping opus, The Will to Live, was joyous, earnest, and empowering. I played “I’m Screwed” a thousand times, always at full volume. It’s exactly what I needed to survive 2022.

The rest of the list has some old friends, like Harry Styles and Miranda Lambert, and releases I just lost myself in, like Soli’s beautiful tribute to Miriam Makeba. Giles Martin’s remix of The Beatles’ Revolver was orgasmic, especially when experienced with a gummy or two. I’m sure 2023 will have some favorite artists I don’t yet know exist. No doubt I will be listening to more music with my daughter who will turn nine in nine months. But here’s my soundtrack this year that has been like no other.

1. Titus Andronicus – The Will to Live

2. The Smile – A Light for Attraction Attention

3. Wet Leg – Wet Leg

4.  Blood Command  – Praise Armageddonism

5. Harry Styles – Harry’s House

6. The Linda Lindas – Growing Up

7. Somi – Zenzile: The Reimagination of Miriam Makeba

8. The Beatles – Revolver Super Deluxe Edition

9. Adrian Quesada – Jaguar Sound

10. Todd Rundgren – Down with the Ship

11. Viagra Boys – Cave World

12. Rosalía – Motomami

13. Natalia Lafourcade – De Todas las Flores

14. Drive-By-Truckers – Welcome to Club XIII

15. Miranda Labert – Palomino

16. Bebehoven – Light Moving Time

17. Big Thief – Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You

18. Beyoncé – Renaissance

19. Father John Misty – Chloe and the Next 20th Century

20. Various Artists – Elvis (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)

Dad’s Top 20 Discs of 2021

~ Randy Blazak ~ 1 Comment

December 27, 2021

Looking back at this entry from a year ago, I thought 2021 was going to kick off the new “Roaring 20’s.” Instead the year was hammered by Delta and Omicron variants, record inflation, and a broken supply chain. There was still a ton of great music that slipped out, and a return of live music. (Favorite show: The Monkee’s Mickey Dolenz and Mike Nesmith shortly before Nesmith’s sad death on December 10.)

Most of my musical consumption this year came from making playlists on Spotify, especially when I was laid low by COVID in August. (The fever sent me on a Steely Dan bender for some reason.) Spotify gave me a great musical project source thanks to my University of Oregon students. As an extra credit assignment, I created a “Race & Ethnicity Mix Tape” playlist. They submitted songs of racial consciousness and healing and we ended up with 229 tunes. Thanks to my Gen Z students, several artists were new to me. (Joey Bada$$ was popular in the mix.)

The musical highlight of the year was definitely the long-awaited release of Peter Jackson’s 8-hour Beatle documentary, Get Back, airing on Disney+ over the Thanksgiving holiday. Insight into the Beatles’ process and a chance to re-write the Let It Be record made it endlessly engrossing. Filmed the same year, 1969, Summer of Soul (on Netflix) gave a brilliant look at a Harlem black music festival that was overlooked by history as Woodstock hogged the limelight.

This year’s top album pics are not necessarily the best selling or most critically-acclaimed releases of 2021. I’m sure Tyler, The Creator’s Call Me If You Get Lost is amazing and I’ll dive into Adele’s 30 and Kasey Musgraves’ Star-Crossed when I’m not quite as melancholy (i.e., living it). These are the albums that brought me joy and repeated listenings in ’21. I recognize that three of these artists, Wanda Jackson, Charles Lloyd, and Ringo Starr, are in their 80s. Paul McCartney turns 80 in June and Tony Allen would be 80 but died last year at 79. They demonstrate the longevity of creativity, and are balanced out by teenagers Olivia Rodrigo and Young Thug (who recently turned 20).

The top spot is reserved for The Beatles (surprise, surprise). The 5-disc “Super Deluxe” release of 1970’s Let It Be (remixed by Beatles producer George Martin’s son Giles) provided endless moments of Beatle discovery from the vaults, including a Fab Four version of George Harrison’s “All Things Must Pass.” The packaging was stellar and stood as likely the last gift of unheard Beatle music for fans. The “in the room” outtakes served as a perfect soundtrack to the Get Back film.

  1. The Beatles – Let It Be Super Deluxe Edition
  2. Aida Victoria – A Southern Gothic
  3. Tony Allen – There Is No End
  4. Oliva Rodrigo – Sour
  5. Lana Del Rey – Blue Bannisters
  6. Paul McCartney – McCartney III Imagined
  7. Jason Isbell – Georgia Blue
  8. Young Thug – Punk
  9. Susanna Hoffs – Bright Lights
  10. Charles Loyd & the Marvels – Tone Poem
  11. Sleater-Kinney – Path of Wellness
  12. Neil Young – Barn
  13. Halsey – If Can’t Have Love, I Want Power
  14. Illuminati Hotties – Let Me Do One More
  15. Jasmine Sullivan – Heaux Tales
  16. Cheap Trick – In Another World
  17. Bomba Estéreo – Deja
  18. Ringo Starr – Zoom In/Change the World EPs
  19. Various Artists – PDX Pop Now Vol. 18
  20. Wanda Jackson – Encore

Dad’s Top 20 Discs of 2020

~ Randy Blazak ~ 2 Comments

December 28, 2020

My joke about this year has been that 2020 will make 1968 look like 1954, but without the soundtrack. That’s not quite true. There has been a lot of great music this year, including full albums recorded while on lockdown (or “rockdown,” as Paul McCartney called it). Unfortunately, a lot of us where not in the mood to search out new music this year, especially when all live shows were cancelled. I found my muse in creating numerous Spotify playlists, like chronologies of Prince and The Kinks. My music highlight of the year was Beyoncé’s musical film, Black is King, released during the summer. Visually stunning and perfectly timely as the streets were filled with Black Lives Matter protestors.

The truth is that my most listened to album in 2020 was released in the summer of 2019. Lana del Rey’s Norman Fucking Rockwell was on repeat play through the year. It’s 67 and a half minutes of epic soundscape offered endless layers of discovery. Like an arthouse film that reveals a different interpretation with each viewing, Norman Fucking Rockwell was an expansive chasm of wordplay and music pulled from the dreamworld.

Similarly, some of my favorite albums of 2020 came out at the very end of 2019 (Harry Styles, The Who).  Others were the casualties of COVID (Toots Hibbert, RIP) or commenting on the meaning of it (Bob Dylan’s sweeping tome). The death of George Floyd gave us the most clear musical moment, including powerful releases from Run the Jewels and Black Thought. But nothing sounded more like 2020 than the third album by the British band Sault. Untitled (Black Is) brought the themes of being locked down and tearing down racism into a hypnotic swirl that was both backward and forward looking. I didn’t quite get the Taylor Swift album but the Sault album seemed to be the right album at the right time.

Flipping back through the new music I dug in 2020, here’s my top 20 albums of the year. I expect that, with massive vaccinations, 2021 will kick off our swinging ‘20s.

1. Sault – Untitled (Black Is)

2. Bob Dylan – Rough and Rowdy Ways

3. Harry Styles – Fine Line

4. Black Thought – Streams of Thought, Vol. 3: Cane & Able

5. Drive-by Truckers – The Unraveling

6. The Who – Who

7. Paul McCartney – McCartney III

8. Shelby Lynne – Shelby Lynne

9. Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit – Reunions

10. Fiona Apple – Fetch the Bolt Cutters 

11. Bruce Springsteen – Letter to You

12. Paul Weller – On Sunset

13. Run the Jewels – RTJ4

14. Toots and the Maytals – Got to Be Tough

15. Lido Pimienta  – Miss Columbia

16. Various Artists – PDX Pop Now Vol.  17

17. Pearl Jam – Gigaton

18.  Haim – Women in Music Pt. III

19. Waxahatchee – Saint Cloud 

20. Neil Young – Homegrown

And a special mention of The Chicks “March, March” single, which gave us the most needed video of the year, and Megan Thee Stallion’s “Savage,” which the girls in the neighborhood mimed endlessly this summer.

Dad’s Top 10 Favorite New LPs of 2018

~ Randy Blazak ~ 2 Comments

December 20, 2018

Does the music of 2018 sound any different than the music of 2008? I’m just asking. The top three albums of ’08 were Lil Wayne’s The Carter III, Coldplay’s Viva la Vida, and Taylor Swift’s Fearless. The music of 1978 (Best selling LP: soundtrack to Saturday Night Fever) was light years from records of 1968 (Top seller: Are You Experienced? by the Jimi Hendrix Experience). Is new music new in any way? I mean there’s good stuff but it seems like we’re in a stylistic holding pattern. Maybe I’m just getting old and don’t know where to look. Other than Greta Van Fleet (who sound more 1968 than 2018), there wasn’t any new music that I went apeshit over.

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This was a great year to pick up vinyl but my long-standing tradition of weekly record shopping went right out the window as the finances tightened.  The high point was buying vinyl all over the world, including New York, London, Leeds, Oslo, Chicago, Washington DC, and even Abu Dhabi. All of it ended up on Andrea and my new YouTube channel, Vinyl Fetish. The channel gave us a great opportunity to talk about our favorite records, often after a night out on the town. There was more vinyl consumed than CDs this year, but most of it was old jazz sides.

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We also really dialed back the live shows. There was a point in my life when I saw live music six nights a week. (The seventh night was cheap beer night at the Stein Club in Atlanta.) Between the traveling, the budget, and the fact that our babysitter went and had a baby of her own, there weren’t too many nights rocking out. But some of the highlights were seeing Mexican greats Café Tacuba in Portland and jazz legend McCoy Tyner at Blue Note in Greenwich Village. We saw the great Bowie tribute band, Bowievision, twice. One of my most blissed-out moments was seeing the classic ska band, The Dekkertones, in a London pub full of skinheads. Yes, I skanked.

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Regardless of all the new music I missed in 2018, the top two are albums I played to absolute death. The first was the “new” John Coltrane album, Both Directions at Once. The tracks were unreleased gems from 1963 that were found on a shelf somewhere and turned into an album by his son Ravi. The pure thrill of  hearing a new Coltrane album full of brilliant improvisation by his greatest quartet (including McCoy Tyner) was beyond measure. The packaging on Trane’s old Impulse! label was top notch. And my video review did pretty well, too!

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The other was Paul McCartney’s Egypt Station. I’ve bought each new McCartney album on the day of its release since Wings’ London Town (Friday, March 31, 1978). Some have been brilliant. Paul at age 76 is still brilliant. Like all his albums, I was unsure at first listen but it just grew and grew on me and I’m still not tired of playing it. His epic tune “Despite Repeated Warnings” (in the vein of “Band of the Run”) is the perfect take-down of Trump (“Take away the keys and lock him up”) and an affirmation of the will of the people (“Yes, we can do it!”). When most geezers are making peace with their maker, Paul is firing on all cylinders, creating an album were each song is chocked full of insight and tasty treats. I just wish he didn’t feel the need to take the act on the road again with the same old band and a voice that is no longer built for three-hour concerts. You’re good, Paulie. The studio is your domain. Show the kids how it’s done.

So I didn’t have enough this year for a Top 20, but here are ten albums I absolutely loved this year.

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  1. Paul McCartney – Egypt Station
  2. John Coltrane – Both Directions at Once: The Lost Album
  3. Paul Weller – True Meanings
  4. Kacey Musgraves – Golden Hour
  5. Greta Van Fleet – Anthem of the Peaceful Army
  6. Janelle Monae – Dirty Computer
  7. Bruebeck Brothers Quartet – Timeline
  8. Pistol Annies – Interstate Gospel
  9. Darling Machines – Darling Machines
  10. Father John Misty – God’s Favorite Customer

And it’s next on my “To Buy” list so I fully anticipate that Elvis Costello’s Look Now belongs on that list somewhere. Here’s to a better income in 2019 and the joy of purchasing more new music. And to something interesting happening.

 

 

 

 

Dad’s Top 20 Favorite New Spins of 2017

~ Randy Blazak ~ 1 Comment

December 21, 2017

Speaking

This has been a weird year for music for me. The budget tightened as Cozy got bigger and the sabbatical cushion got smaller. Weekly trips to Music Millennium were replaced by lots of speaking engagements and news interviews about the rise of fascism in Trump’s America. I buried my ears in old John Coltrane albums as I read Ascension: John Coltrane and His Quest by Eric Nisenson. I spent a lot more listening time in 1964 than 2017, perhaps as an escape from the endless bad news of America going into the ditch. Just turn on KMHD radio and forget about the train wrecks (both literal and not) for a moment.

In my book, The Mission of the Sacred Heart, I posit a theory about the music of the seventh year of each decade. There is one pop album and one underground album that truly defines the decade. 1967: The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s and The Velvet Underground & Nico, 1977: Saturday Night Fever and the Sex Pistols’ Never Mind the Bullocks, 1987: U2’s The Joshua Tree and Public Enemy’s Yo! Bum Rush the Show, 1997: The Spice Girl’s debut and Radiohead’s OK, Computer. The theory sort of falls apart with the death of the album in the 2000s. (You could make the case that 2007 fell to Kanye West and the White Stripes). But what will it be for 2017? It wasn’t exactly the Summer of Love 2.0. It may take years to figure out how we survived a year without a new Beyoncé album.

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We did make it to a few great shows this year. Paul Weller in Seattle was probably my favorite and Solange in Portland was pretty epic. Beck and Spoon on the Portland Waterfront were mass entertaining. Runaway Lita Ford rocked Dante’s and getting to sing with Drivin’ N’ Cryin in Marietta, Georgia was a hoot. (Kevn Kinney introduced me as “Randy Blazak from U2!”)  Herb Albert gave a master class in pop history at the Aladdin and Sting and Michael Kiwanuka brought some neo-soul to town. Bomba Estereo and Y La Bamba covered our Latin fixes. We had a great night with Shannon & the Clams and Portland garage kings The Shivas. However, I missed a ton of great gigs, choosing stay home and sing Frozen songs with Cozy.

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I missed a lot of great music this year. I hear both the War on Drugs and Roger Waters have brilliant new albums out.. I know everyone has Kendrick Lamar’s DAMN at the top of their year-end polls. I loved his last one but I’m just tired of rap albums where every other word is “bitch.” It shows a lack of imagination, no matter how brilliant your commentary might be. The anti-Trump music is finally coming out. Jason Isbell’s “White Man’s World” is a chilling take on election day and I must have played “Fuck Donald Trump” by YG a hundred times on the binks jukebox. Maybe 2018 will be our 1968. You say you want a revolution? Well, you know. Is it streaming?

So this isn’t the best new albums of the year, just the ones I enjoyed the most, while Andrea painted and Cozy built increasingly impressive towers of blocks. I’ve already written about my complete submission to the joyous Harry Styles album, so it should be of no surprise that it tops my heart’s charts. We lost some greats, like Chuck Berry and Sharon Jones, and some old friends returned to remind us that, despite our foray into the Upside Down, great music will always sustain us.

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  1. Harry Styles – Harry Styles
  2. Sharon Jones & the Dap Kings – Soul of a Woman
  3. Childish Gambino – Awaken, My Love!
  4. U2 – Songs of Experience
  5. SZA – Cntrl
  6. Sleater-Kinney – Live in Paris
  7. Tim Darcy – Saturday Night
  8. Jason Isbell & the 400 Unit – The Nashville Sound
  9. Dhani Harrison – In///Parallel
  10. Ringo Starr – Give More Love
  11. Paul Weller – A Kind Revolution
  12. Algiers – The Underside of Power
  13. Father John Misty – Pure Comedy
  14. Drivin N Cryin – Mystery Road Expanded Edition
  15. Portugal, The Man – Woodstock
  16. Chuck Berry – Chuck
  17. Cheap Trick – We’re All Alright 
  18. Waterboys – Out of this Blue
  19. Big Thief – Capacity 
  20. Dream Syndicate – How Did I Find Myself Here?

And Special Portland Topper:  Jared Mees –  Life is Long Besides being a perfect album, it gave me the theme song for my podcast, Recovering Asshole.

Father Randy’s Top 20 LPs for 2016: Back to Vinyl

~ Randy Blazak ~ 2 Comments

December 27, 2016

Near the end of my tenure at Portland State University, the provost instituted her “challenge,” called reTHINK PSU, designed to encourage the growth of the use of technology to expand the university . She invited a speaker to get the faculty onboard the move to online education. He repeated the Nathan Harden line, that in fifty years half the brick and mortar colleges and universities in the country would be history, replaced by websites (probably run by some kid in India). The message was get on the train or get left at the station. He tried to make the point by claiming that CD technology had replaced vinyl records, so get ready for college professors to go the way of the Foghat album.

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Ironically I was listening to this talk sitting in my office in Cramer Hall as it streamed on the university server. If I had been in the room, I would have jumped up to say that CDs sales were tanking, but vinyl was making a massive comeback, growing even faster than downloads and streaming music. Fortune magazine reported in April that vinyl album sales were at a 28-year high. Turns our kids want their Taylor Swift on wax (and their teachers in the goddamn classroom). Sometimes the old way is the best.

I say this because I really fell off my hipness high horse this year. The arrival of the baby in 2014 got me out of the cavalcade of live shows and endless hours in record stores. In 2016, between a rampaging toddler, the effort to return to work, busting Trump’s tiny balls, and finishing my new novel, The Dream Police, I just abdicated my staples for side-lined music aficionadodom. My favorite podcasts,  All Songs Considered, Sound Opinions, and Alt Latino, went un-downloaded. Our local weeklies, Willamette Week and The Portland Mercury, remained in their boxes on NE Alberta Street. An occasional breeze or hip kid would blow in to let me know what was up, but I missed so much. Did you know that Radiohead put out an awesome album in 2016? Of course you did.

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Where I kept things real was on the vinyl front. A large chunk of the new releases I bought this year were on vinyl (including a bootleg vinyl release of Frank Ocean’s long-awaited follow up to the brilliant 2012 release, Orange). I couldn’t stop buying vinyl, at Amoeba Music in LA and Peaches in New Orleans, and a dozen record stores in Portland. Old, new, kids’ records, 45’s, and even Herb Albert and the Tijuana Brass from the 50 cent bin at Everyday Music. Solange just sounded better on vinyl and Bowie had to be experienced deep in the ruts. The ghost is the grooves, not the machine.

Andrea and I took our love of LPs into the sharing economy. Our basement just became an AirBNB called the Alberta Vinyl Den. Each guest lets me know his or her music tastes when they make a booking and I stock the room with a dozen albums from my massive collection. So guests get to feel like they are staying in the record store of their dreams, complete with a turntable and a refrigerator full of beer.

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2016 was a still a great year for music. With the blessing of babysitters we did manage to see some great shows, including some true classics; Patti Smith, Paul McCartney, Brian Wilson, Bruce Springsteen, and the Electric Light Orchestra at the Hollywood Bowl (a double bucket list item). We saw some good world music, like Bomba Estereo and Bombino. We saw a wildly drunken gig by Greasy Alice in New Orleans and caught a show by old friend Chris Robinson that took us down a rabbit hole. I just caught Georgia underground pioneers Pylon at Mississippi Studios. (Last time I saw them was at the Agora Ballroom in 1983.) Earlier in the year we caught a barely attended show there by Sir Paul’s son, James McCartney and got to chat after the gig. Other than the Cuban band we saw every Sunday during our summer on Isla Mujeres, I think my favorite show of 2016 was Father John Misty at Edgefield in the pouring rain surrounded by a thousand other dudes with beards. It was perfectly Portland.

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So here is my Top 20 favorite albums of 2016, recognizing that I’m surely missing a ton I will discover in 2017 or 2027. (Nick Cave’s new one? Someone said it was killer.) I really think we’ll be talking about the Beyoncé and Solange albums 50 years from now.  A serious thanks to the gang at Music Millennium for pointing me in the right direction on some good stuff.

  1. David Bowie – Blackstar
  2. Beyoncé – Lemonade
  3. Y La Bamba – Ojos del Sol
  4. Solange – A Seat at the Table
  5. Drive-By-Truckers – American Band
  6. Miranda Lambert – The Weight of These Wings
  7. Michael Kiwanuka – Love & Hate
  8. Frank Ocean – blond
  9. Rolling Stones – Blue & Lonesome
  10. Bombino – Azel
  11. Patti Smith – Horses: Live at Electric Ladyland Studios
  12. The Beatles – Live at Hollywood Bowl
  13. Bob Dylan – Fallen Angels
  14. Carla Morrison – Amor Supremo
  15. The Bangles – Ladies and Gentlemen…
  16. A Tribe Called Quest  – We got it from Here… Thank You 4 Your Service
  17. Sturgill Simpson – A Sailor’s Guide To Earth
  18. Chris Robley – The Great Make Believe
  19. Ages and Ages – Something to Ruin
  20. Cheap Trick – Bang, Zoom, Crazy… Hello

Here’s to more music on vinyl in 2017. And more professors in classrooms.

Dad’s Favorite Discs 2015

~ Randy Blazak ~ 8 Comments

December 28, 2015

SaturnspatternDespite the fact, now that The Beatles are streaming on Spotify, there is a whole new generation of kids that will never listen to Rubber Soul straight through, I’m still a firm believer in the album format. Artists like Kendrick Lamar can have a complete musical vision that can’t be represented by one track. Some, like Bjork, will actually wrap it in some wonderful album artwork. And some will release a set of songs that you just can’t stop playing. For me that was the 9 track album a hero of mine from my teenage days, Paul Weller. Andrea and I both played the hell out of it and it will still be on heavy rotation in the new year.

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It was hard to hang out in record stores this year with a wild monkey living in our casa. I even fell behind on my three favorite music podcasts (Sound Opinions, All Songs Considered, and Alt Latino). Most of the year was spent watching Cozy transform from a baby into a toddler, and on planes and writing my ass off. But there was still plenty of music in the house and the one thing we learned in 2015 is that Cozy Valentina loves to dance, especially to hip hop and Latin music. And she likes record stores, too.

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The six weeks we spent in Mexico helped to infuse her with her native rhythms. Our weekly “Sunday Funday” fix of Cuban music on the beach and the endless playing of Osmani Garcia and Pitbull’s single, “Taxi,” had her up on her feet and shaking her diaper. The other day I was playing some dreary Bob Dylan and she figured out how to get the CD out of the stereo and replace it with a Bomba Estero disc. She hit play, climbed on the table and danced. She’s mama’s girl.

VAN

There was a great theme of classic jazz this year. The amazing DJs on KMHD got me through the ups and downs of 2015. They provided much of the soundtrack while I worked on my new novel, The Dream Police. The year culminated with a show at the Village Vanguard in New York City a few weeks ago. The Christian McBride Trio provided an evening of bliss in the world’s most historic jazz cellar.

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We actually did manage to get out and see some shows this year thanks to some much appreciated babysitting. We went to see Patti Smith, Algiers, Madonna, Genders, Emily Kinney, La Santa Cecilia and Paul Weller. Andrea made it to shows by Sleater-Kinney and Elle King. And Cozy went to her first two concerts with us this year, U2 in Vancouver and then The Waterboys in Portland.

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As I predicted, I bought a lot less music in 2015 (and a lot more diapers). But here are 20 releases from 2015 I really enjoyed. I’ve been a Paul Weller fan since he was in The Jam in the late 1970s and I think his latest is one of the best things he’s ever done. Seeing him play these songs at the Wonder Ballroom in October was beyond thrilling. And I have to say how excited I was about a new ELO album. It may really just be a Jeff Lynne album but it captures what was great about the group in the seventies; the music that inspired my last book.

  1. Paul Weller – Saturns Patterns
  2. Jeff Lynne’s ELO – Alone in the Universe
  3. Courtney Barnett – Sometimes I Sit and Think, and Sometimes I Just Sit
  4. Algiers – Algiers
  5. The Waterboys – Modern Blues
  6. Bomba Estereo – Amanecer
  7. Sleater Kinney – No Cities to Love
  8. Kacey Musgraves – Pageant Material
  9. The Decemberists – What a Terrible World, What a Beautiful World
  10. D’Angelo and the Vanguard – Black Messiah
  11. Madonna – Rebel Heart
  12. Kendrick Lamar – To Pimp a Butterfly
  13. Bob Dylan – Bootleg Series Vol. 12: The Best of the Cutting Edge
  14. Modest Mouse – Strangers to Ourselves
  15. Keith Richards – Crosseyed Heart
  16. Bjork – Vulnicura
  17. Brian Wilson – No Pier Pressure
  18. Lana Del Rey – Honeymoon
  19. Father John Misty – I Love You, Honeybear
  20. Pete Townshend – Truancy

You can stream tracks here on my Spotify 2015 Top 20 playlist.

Honorable mention: Waxahatchee – Ivy Trip, Bob Dylan – Shadows in the Night, The Flaming Lips – With a Little Help From My Fwends, Ringo Starr – Postcards From Paradise, Protomartyr – The Agent Intellect, Various Artists – PDX Pop Now 2015

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I love year-end lists. They typically serve as shopping lists (or at least streaming). SO much music to catch up on. I bought a Kedrick Lamar track over the summer but the album topped so many year-end lists, I finally purchased the whole thing and now I get it (but it loses points for all the “bitch” talk). It will be on heavy rotation in 2016. But it’s going to have to compete with the new David Bowie album out on January 8. And I know I need to get into Grimes and give that Sujan Stevens album another try. But what all about the great stuff that I’ll be ranking a year from now? When am I going to listen to that?

I have a lot of catching up to do. I’m sure when I get the latest albums by Alabama Shakes, Rudresh Mahanthappa, Dwight Yoakum, and Young Fathers I’ll wish I had listened to them in 2015. Cozy just wants more salsa and hip hop. I’m setting aside some album time when Cozy goes off the college.

Go back 1 year! Dad’s Favorite Discs 2014