Late to the Party

I recently started thinking about which songs and albums were going to grace my year end best of lists, and was struck by how many things I hear this year that I hadn’t heard before, yet were released before 2009. It’s great finding new things—I remember hearing My Morning Jacket for the first time in the Fall of 2005 and the joy that followed in listening to the four albums they had released up to that point. I’m not sure I found anything from the past this year that I’ve enjoyed that much, but I did fill in a few holes in my musical repertoire, and enjoyed doing so.

Chad Van Gaalen-Soft Airplane: I saw Chad open for a band I cannot remember a few years back at the Cat’s Cradle. He was fantastic—great with his songs, and killed a Bruce Springsteen cover (and I’m not a big fan of The Boss, as it were). This album is great, but I was a year late hearing it. While some of it trends electronic, the best are quite folk-oriented and simple. I won’t say that that the record is a hangover cure, but it is comforting to hear his voice simply over a plucked banjo— Sleep all day / just waiting for the sun to set / I hang my clothes / up on the line / and when I die / I’ll hang my head beside the willow tree / when I’m dead / is when I’ll be free. If I didn’t live in a city without trees, I’d sit on my back porch in these late fall afternoons and put this record on. Favorite tracks: Willow Tree, Cries of the Dead, Inside the Molecules.

Al Green-Various: I mean, I knew who Al Green was before this year, but I’d never listened to enough to know what I was missing. His voice isn’t always in front of his songs the way that Otis Redding and Solomon Burke albums seem to be mixed. This means it’s a little less accessible, but when you really turn these tunes up they’re amazing. It’s the first soft music I’ve heard that’s meant to be blasted. Favorite tracks: Call Me, I Can’t Get Next to You, Let’s Stay Together, How Can You Mend a Broken Heart.

The Concretes-Say Something New: Goddamn, I love this song (and mentioned it in an earlier post). I just got their albums and haven’t given them a full listen yet, but I like what I hear so far

Brian Eno-Various: I blame my parents for this. They had this horrific Roxy Music album that I heard before anything else, and I swore off Brian Eno in any form until Lauren sent me a few tracks this year. So he’s begrudgingly on here. Favorite tracks: Baby’s On Fire, Blank Frank, St. Elmo’s Fire.

The Knife-Heartbeats: Still haven’t fully bought into this band, but this song is very, very good. I want to hear someone play this song at their wedding.

Vampire Weekend-Right, so last year I dismissed them. I don’t know, I didn’t give it a full listen, I wasn’t in the mood, I had a headache, whatever. I thought that it just didn’t kick hard enough to be worth my time. My friend Josh couldn’t believe what I had said, and advised me to take another listen, and so I did. Damn, they are pretty fucking good. It’s not the greatest album you’ll ever hear, and you won’t get emotionally invested in it, but it’s light and fun like making out with an 18 year old. Favorite tracks: Oxford Comma, A-Punk, Campus, Walcott.

What did you find recently that you had missed out on before?