Music

2021: Take A Deep Breath, Count With Me

Chris KriofskeLeave a comment

You could be forgiven for thinking of 2021, then labelled a year of “languishing” by the New York Times as one of stasis where music was concerned. We took comfort in artists making unexpected returns—most miraculously, ABBA with their first album in forty years, the patchy but true-to-form Voyage (with its legitimately great single “Don’t Shut Me Down”) but also long-awaited new stuff from Kings of Convenience (after an absence of 12 years), Arab Strap (15), Liz Phair (11), Jose Gonzalez (6) and other acts adhering to the usual 3-5 year cycle between releases, from Aimee Mann and Martha Wainwright to Tori Amos and Twin Shadow.

Fortunately, many of my favorite tracks came from out of the blue: Mia Doi Todd’s loving yet sharp boho paean to the “Music Life”, The Felice Brothers keeping in check with the gallows humor of the times on “Jazz On The Autobahn”, Emm Gryner (with help from Rob Wells) going giddy EDM-pop with “All Love All The Time”, Rufus Wainwright also taking to the dancefloor with his Ampersounds collaboration “Technopera”, The War on Drugs perfecting their anthemic retroisms on “I Don’t Live Here Anymore” and Middle Kids offering up their own anthem for the ages with the bighearted “Stacking Chairs”.

I want to single out three more songs. First and foremost, resembling Jane Siberry speaking/singing over Kaputt-era Destroyer, Cassandra Jenkins’ breakthrough single “Hard Drive” emerged as both a wonder and a turning point. Arriving when I (and many other people) needed it the most, it beautifully conveyed renewal and resilience following such an extreme period of turbulence and loss. 

When I first heard “Chaise Longue”, I immediately pictured Wet Leg as Brit versions of the disaffected teens played by Anya Taylor-Joy and Olivia Cooke in the 2017 film Thoroughbreds. Thankfully, Rhian Teasdale and Hester Chambers were far droller than that, their mostly spoken post-punk a prospect both familiar and, in this climate, totally refreshing. Strung together with quotable, cheeky lyrics (“I went to school, and I got the big D”), their debut single was a gas and a tonic to all of this year’s troubles.

In the past, I’ve casually admired both Sharon Van Etten and Angel Olsen but never would’ve guessed how sinuously their voices would blend together. In this standalone duet, against a Springsteen/Spector-like wall of sound, they sang of a will to survive that many of us could relate to following a year-plus of crisis, heartbreak and uncertainty. “Like I Used To” was both a lament and a promise, the yearning in Van Etten’s and Olsen’s voices deeply resonant as we looked to the future.

2021: Take a Deep Breath, Count With Me

  1. Wet Leg, “Chaise Longue”
  2. Liz Phair, “Spanish Doors”
  3. ABBA, “Don’t Shut Me Down”
  4. Emm Gryner/Rob Wells, “All Love All The Time”
  5. Cassandra Jenkins, “Hard Drive”
  6. Japanese Breakfast, “Be Sweet”
  7. Gruff Rhys, “Mausoleum of My Former Self”
  8. Lindsey Buckingham, “On The Wrong Side”
  9. Rostam, “4 Runner”
  10. Sharon Van Etten & Angel Olsen, “Like I Used To”
  11. Ampersounds feat. Rufus Wainwright, “Technopera”
  12. LUMP, “We Cannot Resist”
  13. Quivers, “Gutters of Love”
  14. Kings of Convenience, “Fever”
  15. Field Music, “No Pressure”
  16. Aimee Mann, “At The Frick Museum”
  17. Mia Doi Todd, “Music Life”
  18. Arlo Parks, “Black Dog”
  19. Yola, “Stand For Myself”
  20. Arab Strap, “Here Comes Comus!”
  21. Julie Doiron, “You Gave Me The Key”
  22. Caroline Polachek, “Bunny Is a Rider”
  23. John Grant, “Billy”
  24. Tori Amos, “Flowers Turn to Gold”
  25. Molly Burch, “Control”
  26. Sufjan Stevens & Angelo De Augustine, “Back To Oz”
  27. Middle Kids, “Stacking Chairs”
  28. The Coral, “Lover Undiscovered”
  29. Virna Lindt, “Once”
  30. Lord Huron, “Not Dead Yet”
  31. The War On Drugs, “I Don’t Live Here Anymore”
  32. Twin Shadow, “Alemania”
  33. Martha Wainwright, “Hole In My Heart”
  34. Pearl Charles, “What I Need”
  35. The Weather Station, “Tried To Tell You”
  36. Another Sky, “It Keeps Coming”
  37. Jose Gonzalez, “Visions”
  38. Saint Etienne, “Penlop”
  39. Fruit Bats, “The Balcony”
  40. The Felice Brothers, “Jazz on the Autobahn”

2020: Follow The Light

Chris KriofskeLeave a comment

What more can one say about this most abnormal year? That, like any other, there was still an abundance of good new music? So many songs did their part in keeping me as sane as they reasonably could: droll, clever wordplay from Rufus Wainwright and The Radio Dept., neo-disco from Kylie Minogue, Dua Lipa, Jessie Ware, Roisin Murphy etc., sharp ‘80s revivalism from Future Islands and Of Monsters and Men and comeback singles from actual ’80s acts like Erasure, Pet Shop Boys, and the Pretenders whose distinct sound proved as durable as the expert pastiche of it A Girl Called Eddy essayed on “Someone’s Gonna Break Your Heart” (this artist picked a heck of a time to finally release a follow up to her 2004 self-titled debut.)

Still, Covid unquestionably cast a pall over so much, from surprise early drops of long-awaited albums from Fiona Apple, Fleet Foxes and Owen Pallett to records from this period that can’t help but feel like remnants of it. The acclaimed but incredibly anxiety-ridden music Apple put out seemed almost too prescient for such a stressful time while Phoebe Bridgers’ melancholic, quietly apocalyptic sketches (I nearly included “I Know The End” instead of what remains her most crystalline melody) ended up a definitive shared musical experience for indie-pop listeners of that time. Personally, I was even more enthralled by such left-field discoveries as Kate NV’s loopy, experimental Russo-pop and Shamir’s unprecedented hybrid of The Who as if fronted by Tiny Tim.

Three more singles that kept me afloat, in the order of first hearing them: U.S. Girls’ obscenely catchy and tongue-twisting “4 American Dollars” (all together now: “I don’t believe in pennies, and nickels, and dimes, and dollars, and pesos, and pounds, and rupees, and yen, and rubles, no dinero”), Christine and the Queens’ triumphant and euphoric title track to their La Vita Nuova EP and, with help from vocalist Leon Bridges, The Avalanches’ “Interstellar Love”: wrapped around an ingenious sample of the Alan Parson Project’s “Eye In The Sky”, it was, if not exactly the sort of the magic this group trafficked in on Since I Left You twenty years before, just as effective as that touchstone of 21st century pop.

2020: Follow The Light

  1. Haim, “The Steps”
  2. Kylie Minogue, “Magic”
  3. Jessie Ware, “Save A Kiss”
  4. A Girl Called Eddy, “Someone’s Gonna Break Your Heart”
  5. Lianne La Havas, “Can’t Fight”
  6. Perfume Genius, “On The Floor”
  7. Pet Shop Boys, “Will-O-The-Wisp”
  8. Erasure, “Nerves of Steel”
  9. Real Estate feat. Sylvan Esso, “Paper Cup”
  10. Waxahatchee, “Lilacs”
  11. Laura Marling, “Held Down”
  12. Ivan & Alyosha, “Wired”
  13. Rufus Wainwright, “You Ain’t Big”
  14. Ben Watt, “Figures In The Landscape”
  15. Future Islands, “For Sure”
  16. The Radio Dept., “You Fear The Wrong Thing Baby”
  17. Katie Pruitt, “Expectations”
  18. Troye Sivan, “Easy”
  19. The Avalanches feat. Leon Bridges, “Interstellar Love”
  20. U.S. Girls, “4 American Dollars”
  21. Calexico, “Hear The Bells”
  22. Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever, “She’s There”
  23. Fiona Apple, “Cosmonauts”
  24. Destroyer, “It Just Doesn’t Happen”
  25. Phoebe Bridgers, “Chinese Satellite”
  26. Kate NV, “Plans”
  27. Pretenders, “The Buzz”
  28. Dubstar, “Hygiene Strip”
  29. Washed Out, “Too Late”
  30. Nicole Atkins, “Forever”
  31. Fleet Foxes, “Sunblind”
  32. Shamir, “Diet”
  33. Dua Lipa, “Physical”
  34. The Beths, “Jump Rope Glazers”
  35. Sylvan Esso, “Runaway”
  36. Cut Copy, “Like Breaking Glass”
  37. Owen Pallett, “A Bloody Morning”
  38. Christine and The Queens feat. Caroline Polachek, “La Vita Nuova”
  39. Roisin Murphy, “Something More”
  40. Of Monsters and Men, “Visitor”

2019: Could This Be… A Forgery?

Chris KriofskeLeave a comment

I tend to romanticize 2019 as a more innocent time, but that’s a trap—even without the global pandemic-to-come, the world was still a mess and I dealt with both civic and personal issues by seeking stimulation and comfort in film, books and music, just as I always had (and continue to do so in an ever-messy world.)

The first two tracks below are my favorites, both by new artists and completely out of left-field: Orville Peck, a queer, fringe-masked Canadian cowboy crooner, and Kelsey Lu, a Charlotte-born, African-American freak-folk original. Peck’s vocal on “Dead of Night” blatantly recalls Roy Orbison, Morrissey and Chris Isaak but when he shifts into his higher register on the chorus, it gives me chills like nothing Roy or few things Chris ever did (and like the Moz hasn’t in decades.) “Poor Fake”, on the other hand, instantly achieves soulful dancefloor splendor when the beat kicks in at 0:34 and approaches Kate Bush-levels of delightful eccentricity in its subject matter (counterfeit art) and bonkers spoken-word section. Peck’s gone on to semi-stardom, recording a duets album this year with the likes of Beck, Kylie Minogue and Willie Nelson; at this writing, I’m still waiting for a follow-up from Lu.

Other discoveries this year: Cate Le Bon’s pleasant/peculiar Avant-pop where at times her vocal recalls no one so much as Patti Smith (!); Weyes Blood’s own brand of Avant-pop, as if Aimee Mann and Brian Eno had a daughter; Steve Lacy’s Prince-meets-Daryl Hall comedown; Maggie Rogers’ compulsively singable declaration of desire; Yola’s retro baroque complete-with-harpsichord-soul (“Faraway Look”, an inspired choice to conclude the rebooted, fourth season of Veronica Mars) and Aussie Alex Lahey’s triumphant power-pop complete with a Clarence Clemons-esque sax solo.

Albums that nearly made my 2019 top ten (Vampire Weekend, Hot Chip, The Divine Comedy) are represented by their best songs, as are spottier full-lengths that were slight let-downs (Jenny Lewis, Marina (now “and the Diamonds”-free, somewhat to her detriment), Carly Rae Jepsen, The New Pornographers.) Also, more tracks not attached to an album at all: Sufjan Stevens’ released-for-Pride-month chillout anthem, an orphaned Florence + The Machine song preferable to anything on the previous year’s High As Hope and another delirious disco epic from Roisin Murphy.

Also, I was delighted to rediscover a few songs I hadn’t listened to much since then: Robert Forster’s consideration of his own status as a semi-semi-popular artist, a track from a reformed, older-and-wiser Dream Syndicate and a lovely, final sigh from the now-defunct Chromatics. 

2019: Could This Be… A Forgery?

  1. Orville Peck, “Dead Of Night”
  2. Kelsey Lu, “Poor Fake”
  3. Jenny Lewis, “Wasted Youth”
  4. Tegan and Sara, “Hold My Breath Until I Die”
  5. Robert Forster, “No Fame”
  6. Bat For Lashes, “Kids In The Dark”
  7. Steve Lacy “Hate CD”
  8. Deerhunter, “What Happens To People?”
  9. Marina, “Handmade Heaven”
  10. Andrew Bird, “Manifest”
  11. Vampire Weekend, “This Life”
  12. Belle & Sebastian, “Sister Buddha”
  13. Cate Le Bon, “Home To You”
  14. Raphael Saadiq, “This World Is Drunk”
  15. DIIV, “Skin Game”
  16. Of Monsters and Men, “Wild Roses”
  17. Calexico/Iron & Wine, “Midnight Sun”
  18. Roisin Murphy, “Narcissus”
  19. Carly Rae Jepsen, “Want You In My Room”
  20. Lana Del Rey, “Norman Fucking Rockwell”
  21. Cigarettes After Sex, “Heavenly”
  22. Chromatics, “You’re No Good”
  23. The New Pornographers, “Falling Down The Stairs Of Your Smile”
  24. Guster, “Don’t Go”
  25. Holy Ghost!, “Anxious”
  26. The Divine Comedy, “Absolutely Obsolete”
  27. Weyes Blood, “Everyday”
  28. The Mountain Goats, “Younger”
  29. Hot Chip, “Spell”
  30. Yola, “Faraway Look”
  31. Alex Lahey, “Don’t Be So Hard On Yourself”
  32. Florence + The Machine, “Moderation”
  33. The Dream Syndicate, “Bullet Holes”
  34. Maggie Rogers, “Burning”
  35. Sufjan Stevens, “Love Yourself”
  36. Michael Kiwanuka, “Piano Joint (This Kind of Love)”
  37. Sharon Van Etten, “Seventeen”
  38. Charly Bliss, “Chatroom”
  39. Imperial Teen, “How To Say Goodbye”
  40. The National, “Light Years”

2018: This Gorgeous Mess

Chris KriofskeLeave a comment

Emm Gryner and Tracey Thorn are as good as any bookends to summarize my musical tastes: in 2018, the former offered yet another in a decades-spanning string of brilliant pop singles, “Imagination” tapping into the neo-psychedelic wonder of Wendy and Lisa (or, to cite someone less cool, prime Bangles); the latter, ex-(and future!) Everything But The Girl vocalist capping off her solo career-to-date with the sort of epiphany all too rare in modern pop: “Someone’s singing and I realize it’s me,” she discovers while spending an evening with friends, drinking, dancing and thriving on the “Dancefloor”.

Plenty of great, late-career triumphs this year: Neneh Cherry, Inara George (of The Bird and The Bee), Robyn’s return, Sam Phillips applying her timelessness to an ever-relevant problem, Chaka Khan still very much the dancing queen, even Paul Frickin’ McCartney, still good for one great song per LP. Some nifty discoveries too, like Tracyanne & Danny (first overheard in a Pier One Imports!), an isolated track from former Vampire Weekend member Rostam, queer odes to losing one’s virginity both jaunty (Ezra Furman) and euphoric (Troye Sivan), crisp, ‘80s-revival jangle-pop from (take a deep breath) Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever and sharp ’90s-revival alt-rock from the awesomely-named The Beths.

An earlier version of this playlist spotlighted Eleanor Friedberger’s “Make Me A Song” with its simple, indelible hook of “I could love you more” and I could easily do the same for my favorite Lana Del Rey track, dropped nearly a year before it resurfaced on her 2019 album (also my favorite of hers.) However, I can’t deny Twin Shadow’s “Too Many Colors”, an alternate universe number one hit buoyed by a killer hook and a sparkling arrangement. The man also known as George Lewis, Jr. has since branched out into other sounds and influences (reggae in particular on Twin Shadow’s self-titled 2021 LP); I don’t blame him since “Too Many Colors” is a perfect distillation of his previous retro synth-pop aesthetic.

2018: This Gorgeous Mess

  1. Emm Gryner, “Imagination”
  2. Lana Del Rey, “Mariners Apartment Complex”
  3. Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever, “Talking Straight”
  4. Kacey Musgraves, “High Horse”
  5. Sam Phillips, “American Landfill Kings”
  6. Eleanor Friedberger, “Make Me A Song”
  7. Neneh Cherry, “Kong”
  8. Chaka Khan, “Like Sugar”
  9. Inara George, “Slow Dance”
  10. St. Vincent, “Fast Slow Disco”
  11. Christine and The Queens, “The Walker”
  12. Troye Sivan, “Bloom”
  13. Paul McCartney, “Dominoes”
  14. LUMP, “Curse of the Contemporary”
  15. Amen Dunes, “Believe”
  16. Sunflower Bean, “I Was a Fool”
  17. Jessie Ware, “Overtime”
  18. First Aid Kit, “It’s A Shame”
  19. Janelle Monae, “Make Me Feel”
  20. Gruff Rhys, “Frontier Man”
  21. Twin Shadow, “Too Many Colors”
  22. Florence + The Machine, “Patricia”
  23. Calexico, “Music Box”
  24. Rostam, “In A River”
  25. Natalie Prass, “The Fire”
  26. Lake Street Dive, “Shame, Shame, Shame”
  27. Metric, “Now and Never Now”
  28. The Beths, “Not Running”
  29. Lord Huron, “The Balancer’s Eye”
  30. Ezra Furman, “I Lost My Innocence”
  31. Field Music, “Daylight Savings”
  32. Robyn, “Ever Again”
  33. Neko Case, “Bad Luck”
  34. The Decemberists, “Once In My Life”
  35. Tracyanne & Danny, “Cellophane Girl”
  36. Tracey Thorn, “Dancefloor”

2017: It’s Been A Long, Hard Year

Chris KriofskeLeave a comment

In 2017, for the first time as an adult, I suddenly lost two close friends (one to a heart attack, the other, cancer.) “Try Harder” by Mavis Staples offered some solace. Repeatedly wailing “Don’t do me no good to pretend / I’m as good as I can be,” over a primal, guttural guitar riff, Staples’ (then 78!) catharsis inspired me to keep moving forward in the midst of personal loss (and it must be said, national unrest.) So did Iron & Wine’s slow-building “Call It Dreaming”, The War on Drugs’ shimmering, better-with-every-year “Pain” and Alison Moyet’s declarative late anthem “The Rarest Birds”.

For the first time, I’ve gone up to forty tracks because I just couldn’t leave anything out: not the topical, propulsive anthem from the ever-unpredictable Canadian All-Star indie collective Broken Social Scene (with Metric’s Emily Haines on vocals), Alvvays crafting their own kind of lithe post-punk, Tori Amos proving as durable as ever with a seven-minute walk into the deep dark forest, a gem from Slowdive’s surprisingly durable self-titled reunion album or a song from another British group’s own reunion album, The Clientele’s Music For The Age Of Miracles. I had never knowingly listened to the latter until “Lunar Days” once popped up on shuffle on Spotify; I immediately fell for it and now count them among my favorite bands.

As for Jens Lekman (from whom the world is still waiting for a real follow-up album): only he would ever write a song about a man at a bar showing off a 3-D model of a tumor surgically removed from his back to his friend and a waitress or render it both so jubilant and melancholy, inserting almost ridiculously bubbly “doo-doo-doo’s” within a blue-eyed funk/disco arrangement. And there’s something in the way he sings the lyric I’ve co-opted for this playlist’s title that nearly destroys me every time I hear it.

2017: It’s Been A Long, Hard Year

  1. Iron & Wine, “Call It Dreaming”
  2. The National, “The System Only Dreams In Total Darkness”
  3. Laura Marling, “Soothing”
  4. The Clientele, “Lunar Days”
  5. Grizzly Bear, “Losing All Sense”
  6. Lindsey Buckingham & Christine McVie, “Sleeping Around The Corner”
  7. Perfume Genius, “Wreath”
  8. The War On Drugs, “Pain”
  9. Jessie Ware, “Your Domino”
  10. Sylvan Esso, “Die Young”
  11. Waxahatchee, “Never Been Wrong”
  12. Ted Leo, “Used To Believe”
  13. Charlotte Gainsbourg, “Deadly Valentine”
  14. Carly Rae Jepsen, “Cut To The Feeling”
  15. Tennis, “My Emotions Are Blinding”
  16. Goldfrapp, “Tigerman”
  17. Mavis Staples, “Try Harder”
  18. Aimee Mann, “Patient Zero”
  19. Lana Del Rey, “Love”
  20. Saint Etienne, “Magpie Eyes”
  21. Alvvays, “Plimsoll Punks”
  22. St. Vincent, “MASSeduction”
  23. The xx, “Replica”
  24. Slowdive, “Sugar For The Pill”
  25. Stars, “We Called It Love”
  26. Spoon, “Tear It Down”
  27. Tori Amos, “Reindeer King”
  28. Sufjan Stevens, “Mystery Of Love”
  29. Joe Goddard feat. SLO, “Music Is The Answer”
  30. Lorde, “Perfect Places”
  31. Sparks, “Edith Piaf (Said It Better Than Me)”
  32. The Mountain Goats, “Rain In Soho”
  33. Chromatics, “Shadow”
  34. Nicole Atkins, “If I Could”
  35. Alison Moyet, “The Rarest Birds”
  36. Cigarettes After Sex, “Apocalypse”
  37. Jens Lekman, “Evening Prayer”
  38. Haim, “Little Of Your Love”
  39. Broken Social Scene, “Protest Song”
  40. Destroyer, “Le Regle du Jeu”

2016: I Would Rather Stay Awake

Chris KriofskeLeave a comment

We begin with the lead single from Leonard Cohen’s final album (to be released in his lifetime) which at the time summed up this cursed year aptly; we conclude with a meditative Velvet Underground cover that ended up Brian Eno’s first solo vocal track in over a decade. The year itself started with David Bowie’s death, infamously days after releasing his final album, represented here by “Lazarus” where he ponders his mortality with a directness almost revelatory coming from such an icon; many more high-profile deaths followed, from Prince to George Michael to Sharon Jones (here covering Greg Allman for a car commercial, a definitive version of that song) and Cohen himself.

Compared to 2015, this wasn’t as great a year for albums (except for this one) or singles. While long-awaited records like Tegan and Sara’s Love You to Death or Junior Boys’ Big Black Coat felt a little underwhelming in lieu of what came before from each duo, I played the heck out of both “U-Turn” and “Baby Give Up On It”. The Bastille single ended up as much of an earworm as “Pompeii” was a few years before. The Florence + The Machine song, a soundtrack cut, certainly didn’t feel like filler or a leftover from How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful. Underworld returned with an album that often resembled little of they’d done before while still fully sounding like themselves.

Elsewhere, veterans from Ben Watt and Wilco to Pet Shop Boys and Andrew Bird caught my ear alongside newer acts such as Mitski, Michael Kiwanuka (one of the few singer-songwriters who meshes well with producer Danger Mouse) and The 1975, the latter epitomizing an audaciousness sorely missing in a lot of modern pop (even if it doesn’t always yield positive results.) I’ve chosen to highlight the last song on cult British brother duo Field Music’s fine album Commontime. A lullaby of sorts, rich with ambiguity (it could conceivably be sung to either a child or a romantic partner), it promotes empathy and generosity, the act of putting others first while still reveling in the joy it brings to you both–a feeling its melody practically radiates. Eight years on (and on the heels of another likely contentious election), I’d rather remember 2016 for signs of life than an excess of death.

2016: I Would Rather Stay Awake

  1. Leonard Cohen, “You Want it Darker”
  2. Santigold, “Rendezvous Girl”
  3. Michael Kiwanuka, “One More Night”
  4. The Radio Dept., “Committed to the Cause”
  5. The Avalanches, “If I Were a Folkstar”
  6. Martha Wainwright, “Traveller”
  7. Ben Watt, “Between Two Fires”
  8. Whitney, “No Matter Where We Go”
  9. Parquet Courts, “Berlin Got Blurry”
  10. Bastille, “Good Grief”
  11. KT Tunstall, “Turned a Light On”
  12. Corinne Bailey Rae, “Stop Where You Are”
  13. Pet Shop Boys, “Burn”
  14. The Divine Comedy, “To The Rescue”
  15. John K. Samson, “Prayer For Ruby Elm”
  16. Florence + The Machine, “Wish That You Were Here”
  17. The 1975, “Somebody Else”
  18. Wilco, “Someone to Lose”
  19. Andrew Bird, “Truth Lies Low”
  20. Roisin Murphy, “Ten Miles High”
  21. Junior Boys, “Baby Give Up On It”
  22. Eleanor Friedberger, “Because I Asked You”
  23. case/lang/veirs, “Best Kept Secret”
  24. David Bowie, “Lazarus”
  25. Tegan and Sara, “U-Turn”
  26. PJ Harvey, “The Wheel”
  27. Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings, “Midnight Rider”
  28. Field Music, “Stay Awake”
  29. Lake Street Drive, “Call Off Your Dogs”
  30. Mitski, “Fireworks”
  31. Bat For Lashes, “Joe’s Dream”
  32. Underworld, “I Exhale”
  33. Brian Eno, “Fickle Sun (iii) I’m Set Free”

2015: There’s Beauty In Every Stumble

Chris KriofskeLeave a comment

A standout year for new music—I know, every year produces its share of great songs, but 2015 was for me another 1992 or 2004. I even sent out an annual mix CD to friends, something I hadn’t done since 2010 (and haven’t again at this writing.) The first half of this playlist mostly replicates that mix: a parade of perennials (Marling, Cracknell, Gryner, Sufjan, Metric, etc.) with a few one-offs and some newbies woven in (Vampire Weekend’s bassist’s side project Baio; Courtney Barnett cannily channeling The New Pornographers while still sounding like her eccentric self.)

The remaining songs are split between good stuff I couldn’t originally fit on an 80-minute CD (Grace Potter’s disco-rock extravaganza, Deerhunter’s cheeriest moment by far, the first good Madonna song in a decade) and, as always, gems I didn’t encounter until the following year or two: Susanne Sundfor’s superior Swedish synth-pop, Grimes’ ethereal, electro-sigh (still best in its “demo” form), Natalie Prass’ classy, out-of-time balladry, and of course, Carly Rae Jepsen’s blissfully, self-assuredly perfect and sophisticated teen-pop.

Mid-decade was a wonderful time for female-driven, left-of-center pop: Marina and the Diamonds referencing Kate Bush at her bubbliest, Florence + The Machine applying their power source to an irresistible Motown stomp, Christine and The Queens effortlessly inserting a rapid rap in French into their song’s bridge, Romy adding warmth and composure to her bandmate in The xx’s sampledelic anthem.

“Nobody’s Empire” deservedly leads off this selection. Released two months before my 40th birthday, hearing it was a shock in that, nearly two decades after If You’re Feeling Sinister, Stuart Murdoch showed he was still capable of greatness: the chiming piano hook, the melody’s immediacy, the organic build-up in the choruses that eventually soar with heavenly choral arrangements worthy of ABBA. He hasn’t come close to topping it since; that as of this writing he’s just published his first novel which is named after it tells you even he recognizes how special it is.

2015: There’s Beauty In Every Stumble

  1. Belle and Sebastian, “Nobody’s Empire”
  2. Marina and the Diamonds, “I’m A Ruin”
  3. Florence + The Machine, “Queen of Peace”
  4. Destroyer, “Times Square”
  5. Laura Marling, “False Hope”
  6. Baio, “Sister of Pearl”
  7. Calexico, “Miles From The Sea”
  8. Robert Forster, “A Poet Walks”
  9. Sarah Cracknell, “Hearts Are For Breaking”
  10. Twin Shadow, “When The Lights Turn Out”
  11. Emm Gryner, “The Race”
  12. Jose Gonzalez, “Let It Carry You”
  13. Roisin Murphy, “Unputdownable”
  14. Sufjan Stevens, “Fourth of July”
  15. Metric, “Fortunes”
  16. Courtney Barnett, “Elevator Operator”
  17. Hot Chip, “Dark Night”
  18. Jamie xx/Romy, “Loud Places”
  19. Susanne Sundfor, “Fade Away”
  20. Lianne La Havas, “Tokyo”
  21. Carly Rae Jepsen, “Boy Problems”
  22. Grimes, “Realiti (Demo)”
  23. Grace Potter, “Alive Tonight”
  24. Deerhunter, “Breaker”
  25. Natalie Prass, “Why Don’t You Believe In Me”
  26. Beirut, “Perth”
  27. Tanlines, “Pieces”
  28. Jason Isbell, “The Life You Chose”
  29. Madonna, “Joan of Arc”
  30. Lord Huron, “The Night We Met”
  31. FFS, “Piss Off”
  32. Christine and The Queens, “Tilted”
  33. The Radio Dept., “This Repeated Sodomy”
  34. Ivan & Alyosha, “It’s All Just Pretend”
  35. Years & Years, “Shine”
  36. Tracey Thorn, “Let Me In”

2014: Just Some Kid From Boston

Chris KriofskeLeave a comment

Look at all the great tracks from this year: Cibo Matto’s (artistically) triumphant return (not to mention Ben Watt’s, and Erasure’s, and Tori Amos’ and even Suzanne Vega’s!), sterling debuts from Betty Who, Lake Street Dive, Alvvays and Sylvan Esso, breakthroughs from Perfume Genius and Owen Pallett, best-songs-yet from Jessie Ware and Lykke Li, a spooky Lana Del Rey gem and even a collaboration from two of my fave artists (The Both = Aimee Mann + Ted Leo) with a leadoff single about my hometown.

However, it’s difficult to predict where an artist’s career will go on the basis of one good song. Future Islands’ monumental, Letterman-impressing leap forward created a template they’d return to again and again (with diminishing results unfortunately, apart from the occasional great single), while slacker extraordinaire Mac DeMarco and Todd Terje (with his splendid Robert Palmer cover aided by an aged Bryan Ferry) have put out little of interest to me since (in the latter’s case, he has barely put out anything, period.) On the other hand, Super Furry Animals frontman Gruff Rhys seemed to crack the code on “American Interior” and his album of the same name while building upon it artfully with each of his subsequent releases, as did Nicole Atkins, whose “Girl You Look Amazing” is catchy fun further deepened by the genre experiments on her next two pretty great albums.

Still, while many of these remain on heavy rotation ten years on at this writing, “Late Bloomer” from Jenny Lewis’ The Voyager endures most convincingly. Clocking in at over five minutes, it’s almost a throwback to classic folk-rock story songs like “Maggie May” or “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” but filtered through Lewis’ delicately puckish demeanor; it also sports a melody so inviting and generous I’m surprised the song isn’t more of a standard a decade later.

2014: Just Some Kid From Boston

  1. Future Islands, “Seasons (Waiting On You)”
  2. The New Pornographers, “Champions of Red Wine”
  3. Betty Who, “Somebody Loves You”
  4. Cibo Matto, “10th Floor Ghost Girl”
  5. Mac DeMarco, “Salad Days”
  6. Gruff Rhys, “American Interior”
  7. Perfume Genius, “Queen”
  8. Lykke Li, “Gunshot”
  9. Lake Street Dive, “Bad Self Portraits”
  10. Jill Sobule, “Wedding Ring”
  11. Ben Watt, “Forget”
  12. St. Vincent, “Digital Witness”
  13. Nicole Atkins, “Girl You Look Amazing”
  14. Suzanne Vega, “I Never Wear White”
  15. Stars, “From The Night”
  16. Erasure, “Reason”
  17. First Aid Kit, “My Silver Lining”
  18. Tori Amos, “Trouble’s Lament”
  19. Lana Del Rey, “West Coast”
  20. Sylvan Esso, “Coffee”
  21. Owen Pallett, “The Riverbed”
  22. Leonard Cohen, “Almost Like The Blues”
  23. The War On Drugs, “Under The Pressure”
  24. Spoon, “Inside Out”
  25. Todd Terje with Bryan Ferry, “Johnny and Mary”
  26. Alvvays, “Archie, Marry Me”
  27. La Roux, “Kiss and Not Tell”
  28. Jessie Ware, “Tough Love”
  29. Clean Bandit with Jess Glynne, “Rather Be”
  30. The Both, “Milwaukee”
  31. Broken Bells, “Control”
  32. Jenny Lewis, “Late Bloomer”
  33. Damon Albarn, “Heavy Seas of Love”
  34. Royksopp, “I Had This Thing”
  35. Emm Gryner, “End Of Me”

2013: Love Me While It’s Still A Crime

Chris KriofskeLeave a comment

Between the Boston Marathon Bombing in April, a trip to Cuba (via a rare opportunity through work) in December and my getting married in September, this was an exceptionally busy year, though as always I still made time for music. Random Access Memories was easily my favorite LP of the year, but Heartthrob, Tegan and Sara’s aim-for-the-fences dance pop effort wasn’t far behind. While I don’t return to it as frequently today, leadoff track “Closer” is the first song that comes to mind when I think about 2013.

I also recall Haim’s Fleetwood Mac-goodness, Eleanor Friedberger’s disarming ode to being clumsy in love, unusually strong comeback singles from Alison Moyet, Pet Shop Boys and Paul McCartney(!), the loveliest Vampire Weekend song to date (though the later “Harmony Hall” gives it a run for its money), the most blissful melody you’ll ever hear from Washed Out, the year’s best, most idiosyncratic actual number-one hit (“Royals”), a choice cut from Goldfrapp’s better-with-each-year, atypically pastoral Tales Of Us, a Sam Phillips song as classic as anything on Martinis and Bikinis and Laura Marling convincingly staking her claim as a “Master Hunter”. 

This was also a time when happily anonymous pop singles (Atlas Genius, Fitz and the Tantrums, Capital Cities) carried the same weight for me as more eccentric and/or distinct declarations from Jessy Lanza, Sky Ferreira and London Grammar (both with and without Disclosure) and I’m not sure I could make the same claim a decade-plus later.

Speaking of eccentric/distinct, on my first listen of John Grant’s “GMF”, I couldn’t believe what I was hearing (the title is a NSFW acronym), but I knew it was a superb, self-deprecating anthem for the ages before it was over.

2013: Love Me While It’s Still a Crime

  1. Tegan and Sara, “Closer”
  2. Bastille, “Pompeii”
  3. Haim, “If I Could Change Your Mind”
  4. Daft Punk feat. Julian Casablancas, “Instant Crush”
  5. John Grant, “GMF”
  6. Disclosure feat. London Grammar, “Help Me Lose My Mind”
  7. Goldfrapp, “Drew”
  8. Jessy Lanza, “Keep Moving”
  9. Cut Copy, “In Memory Capsule”
  10. Sky Ferreira, “I Blame Myself”
  11. Eleanor Friedberger, “When I Knew”
  12. Alison Moyet, “Love Reign Supreme”
  13. Atlas Genius, “Electric”
  14. Camera Obscura, “This is Love (Feels Alright)”
  15. Pet Shop Boys feat. Example, “Thursday”
  16. Iron & Wine, “The Desert Babbler”
  17. Emma Louise, “Boy”
  18. Neko Case, “Man”
  19. Mavis Staples, “I Like The Things About Me”
  20. Fitz and The Tantrums, “Out Of My League”
  21. Janelle Monae, “We Were Rock and Roll”
  22. Lordes, “Royals”
  23. Paul McCartney, “Queenie Eye”
  24. Jason Isbell, “Traveling Alone”
  25. Yo La Tengo, “Is That Enough”
  26. Washed Out, “All I Know”
  27. Sam Phillips, “You Know I Won’t”
  28. Laura Marling, “Master Hunter”
  29. Yeah Yeah Yeahs, “Mosquito”
  30. Capital Cities, “Safe and Sound”
  31. Holy Ghost!, “Bridge and Tunnel”
  32. Vienna Teng feat. Glen Phillips, “Landsailor”
  33. Vampire Weekend, “Step”
  34. David Bowie, “Valentine’s Day”
  35. Florence + The Machine, “Over The Love”
  36. London Grammar, “Strong”

2012: My Life Has Just Begun!

Chris KriofskeLeave a comment

Many of these tracks were culled from two Spotify playlists originally posted at the end of said year: Someone Who Looks Smashing In Athletic Wear (a lyric from Sinead O’Connor’s ferocious (and not currently streaming) cover of John Grant’s “Queen of Denmark”) and You Enjoy Sucking On Dreams (a lyric from “Serpents”, the first Sharon Van Etten song I ever heard.)

Scanning my music library, I came up with a dozen more tracks I encountered in subsequent years (some of ’em in 2013, like “I’m Getting Ready” and “The Diaz Brothers”) and also made a few substitutions (“Sovereign Light Cafe” a more enduring Keane song than “On The Road”; Of Monsters and Men’s “Dirty Paws” one of my favorite songs ever as opposed to the merely catchy “Mountain Sound”) and a handful of subtractions (Deep Sea Arcade, The Shins, Regina Spektor)—by limiting this to three dozen tracks, process of elimination inevitably sets in (although I now fully, properly appreciate “Call Me Maybe”.)

Looking over what’s left, I sense a lack of cynicism and weariness I’ve cultivated in the years since—to me, this looks like an utopian ideal of an annual mix: career highlights from Saint Etienne and Stars (both of whom I saw in concert that year), great returns from such veterans as Aimee Mann, Dr. John, Leonard Cohen and Patti Smith and an excess of “rock” songs one can easily dance to, including Django Django’s Beach-Boys-on-Mars aesthetic, both Wainwright siblings (relatively) letting loose and Diamond Rings’ queered-up postpunk (which Marc Campbell at the time lovingly referred to as “Boy Division”.)

A few oddities here have continued to age beautifully: Claudia Brucken’s late-period Bowie cover, Fiona Apple’s round-robin that spectacularly closed out her fourth album and a cheeky, sublime novelty from The Ting Tings’s flop follow-up LP to their 2008 hit debut: “Next time I’m gonna get it right / I’m gonna paint my face like the Guggenheim,” yelps Katie White, incessantly. Fun fact: for a long time, I thought she was singing “play my bass at” instead of “paint my face like”; either way, it’s glorious gibberish.

2012: My Life Has Just Begun!

  1. Saint Etienne, “Tonight”
  2. Carly Rae Jepsen, “Call Me Maybe”
  3. Tanlines, “All Of Me”
  4. The Magnetic Fields, “Andrew In Drag”
  5. Django Django, “Default”
  6. Diamond Rings, “Runaway Love”
  7. Stars, “Hold On When You Get Love And Let Go When You Give It”
  8. Jens Lekman, “Some Dandruff On Your Shoulder”
  9. Jessie Ware, “Wildest Moments”
  10. Rufus Wainwright, “Bitter Tears”
  11. The Ting Tings, “Guggenheim”
  12. Hot Chip, “These Chains”
  13. Aimee Mann, “Labrador”
  14. Imperial Teen, “Out From Inside”
  15. Twin Shadow, “Run My Heart”
  16. Martha Wainwright, “I Wanna Make An Arrest”
  17. Leonard Cohen, “Darkness”
  18. Fiona Apple, “Hot Knife”
  19. Calexico, “Splitter”
  20. Sharon Van Etten, “Serpents”
  21. Gossip, “Move In The Right Direction”
  22. Dr. John, “Revolution”
  23. The Gaslight Anthem, “Here Comes My Man”
  24. Keane, “Sovereign Light Cafe”
  25. Bat For Lashes, “Laura”
  26. Michael Kiwanuka, “I’m Getting Ready”
  27. Ben Folds Five, “The Sound Of The Life Of The Mind”
  28. Patti Smith, “April Fool”
  29. The Mountain Goats, “The Diaz Brothers”
  30. Bettye LaVette, “Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere”
  31. David Byrne and St. Vincent, “Optimist”
  32. Of Monsters and Men, “Dirty Paws”
  33. A Fine Frenzy, “Now Is The Start”
  34. Field Music, “(I Keep Thinking About) A New Thing”
  35. Claudia Brucken, “Everyone Says ‘Hi’”
  36. Beth Orton, “Mystery”