Music

1975: Such A Crazy High

Chris KriofskeLeave a comment

I’ve often heard my birth year described as the absolute nadir of the 1970s: after all, the year’s top-selling US single was The Captain and Tennille’s “Love Will Keep Us Together”, as deathless an encapsulation of mid-seventies kitsch as one could imagine. Easy listening, in addition to prog-rock and earnest singer/songwriter stuff seemed to dominate. Punk and new wave were still a year or two off from creating seismic change (in the UK, at least.)

Still, scanning through this year’s number-one singles, look beyond the likes of Olivia Newton John, John Denver, Barry Manilow, etc. and you’ll find imperial phase Elton John (for good (“Philadelphia Freedom”) and for ill (his pointless Beatles cover)), Earth, Wind and Fire (somehow their only Hot 100 number-one) and even David Bowie (with help from arguably the coolest Beatle.)

You also have The Bee Gees thrillingly reinventing themselves with “Jive Talkin’”, reflecting how disco, not yet entirely dominant, started seeping into the mainstream. This mix’s first third is made for dancing, bouncing between instrumental funk (Average White Band–the number one song when I was born), orchestral splendor (ELO) and pure camp (Disco Tex and His Sex-O-Lettes). It shows how disco gradually spread across the globe, from Philly (The Spinners) to Miami (KC and the Sunshine Band) and over to Munich, with Silver Convention’s remedial but transcendent simplicity setting the stage for Donna Summer’s 16-minute-long orgasmic aria, truly like nothing preceding it in the clubs or on the charts.

Perhaps another innovative single, 10cc’s “I’m Not In Love” evokes the era more vividly, its watery electric piano and overdubbed expressionist vocals suffusing the air like pea soup; both its era-specificity and peculiarity anticipate the weird assortment of songs that follow. On one hand, the artists everyone knows: Fleetwood Mac, Paul Simon, Heart, Steely Dan (albeit with an (admittedly catchy) album track about a pedophile!); on the other, the cultish stuff my contemporaries will lionize decades later—Sparks, Roxy Music, The Rocky Horror Picture Show and even some proto-punk/new wave stuff like Patti Smith and Brian Eno.

Going forward, these annual playlists will feature at least thirty songs and occasionally a few more if I can’t justify leaving anything off.

1975: Such A Crazy High

  1. Average White Band, “Pick Up The Pieces”
  2. Silver Convention, “Fly Robin Fly”
  3. Earth, Wind & Fire, “Shining Star”
  4. LaBelle, “Lady Marmalade”
  5. Bee Gees, “Jive Talkin’”
  6. Disco Tex and His Sex-O-lettes, “Get Dancin’ (Part 1)”
  7. KC & The Sunshine Band, “That’s The Way (I Like It)”
  8. Donna Summer, “Love To Love You Baby”
  9. Electric Light Orchestra, “Evil Woman”
  10. The Spinners, “They Just Can’t Stop It The (Games People Play)”
  11. Dionne Warwick, “Once You Hit The Road”
  12. Elton John, “Philadelphia Freedom”
  13. Shirley & Company, “Shame, Shame, Shame”
  14. David Bowie, “Fame”
  15. 10cc, “I’m Not In Love”
  16. War, “Low Rider”
  17. Paul Simon, “50 Ways To Leave Your Lover”
  18. ABBA, “Hey, Hey Helen”
  19. Joni Mitchell, “Edith and the Kingpin”
  20. Fleetwood Mac, “Say You Love Me”
  21. Tim Curry, “Sweet Transvestite”
  22. Sparks, “Looks, Looks, Looks”
  23. Teach In, “Ding-A-Dong”
  24. Pink Floyd, “Wish You Were Here”
  25. Steely Dan, “Everyone’s Gone To The Movies”
  26. Patti Smith, “Gloria: In Excelsis Deo”
  27. Brian Eno, “The Big Ship”
  28. Heart, “Crazy On You”
  29. Roxy Music, “Just Another High”
  30. Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel, “Make Me Smile (Come Up and See Me)”
  31. Queen, “Bohemian Rhapsody”

1970-74: Keep On Keepin’ On

Chris KriofskeLeave a comment

When asking what the absolute worst era for music actually was, most Boomers and Gen-X-ers will probably answer the 1970s and the early 70s in particular. A time immediately predating me, I have no authority on what it was really like or how things turned so… brown coming out of the comparatively Day-Glo 1960s. Browsing through a list of the era’s number one hits, one finds support to back up this notion: “Tie A Yellow Ribbon ‘Round the Ole Oak Tree”, “The Candy Man”, “My Ding-A-Ling”—all easy targets for sure, but don’t forget when bad hits happened to good people like Paul McCartney’s putrid “My Love”. On the other hand, “It’s Too Late”, “You’re So Vain”, “Papa Was a Rollin’ Stone” and Macca’s own “Band On The Run” also topped the charts. No matter the era or the year (as we’ll see here), there was always plenty of excellent pop music to go with all the bad stuff.

Scan through the following list of fifty songs and you’ll see there’s a lot going on: the golden age of the singer/songwriter with figures as disparate as Randy Newman, Todd Rundgren and Cat Stevens; the last great gasps of Top 40 AM radio (The Fortunes, George Baker Selection); truly new sounds from other lands (CAN’s krautrock, the peculiar, Polish vocalese of the Novi Singers); psychedelic hangovers (the Martyn’s, Linda Perhacs); perennial, titanic figures at their peaks (Stevie Wonder, Van Morrison, Elton John, Paul Simon); UK glam-pop (T. Rex, Sweet) and UK art-rock (Pink Floyd, Roxy Music and their ex-member Brian Eno.)

Arguably, the creative leaps in music made by African-American artists most crucially defines this period. While Dionne Warwick and James Brown each push their aesthetic (baroque pop-soul and relentless funk, respectively) as far as they reasonably can, an upstart such as Gil Scott-Heron heavily anticipates hip-hop, another like Bill Withers writes songs rivaling Newman’s own and Curtis Mayfield, a relative veteran redefines the times by singing explicitly of them. The Pointer Sisters recontextualize the past for the present, The Fifth Dimension convey how sophisticated the latter could be and Barry White and Gladys Knight & The Pips thrillingly look ahead towards what would later become disco.

All that and novelties (Redbone), Broadway (Pippin), the rock movie musical (Paul Williams, more convincing there than as a singer-songwriter) and of course, the inaugural international smash from Eurovision-winning ABBA, whom we’ll see plenty of in the next couple of years. We officially begin next week with 1975!

1970-74: Keep On Keepin’ On

  1. Al Stewart, “A Small Fruit Song”
  2. Rodriguez, “Crucify Your Mind”
  3. Novi Singers, “Torpedo”
  4. John Martyn & Beverly Martyn, “Auntie Aviator”
  5. George Baker Selection, “Little Green Bag”
  6. Tom Jones, “Daughter of Darkness”
  7. Linda Perhacs, “Parallelograms”
  8. Van Morrison, “Into The Mystic”
  9. George Harrison, “What Is Life”
  10. Randy Newman, “Have You Seen My Baby?”
  11. Cat Stevens, “Don’t Be Shy”
  12. Harry Nilsson, “Jump Into The Fire”
  13. Redbone, “The Witch Queen Of New Orleans”
  14. Gil Scott-Heron, “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised”
  15. Bill Withers, “Harlem”
  16. Serge Gainsbourg, “Melody”
  17. Dionne Warwick, “Amanda”
  18. James Brown, “Hot Pants”
  19. The Fortunes, “Here Comes That Rainy Day Feeling Again”
  20. The Who, “My Wife”
  21. Ben Vereen/Pippin Original Cast, “Magic To Do”
  22. Big Star, “The Ballad of El Goodo”
  23. CAN, “Spoon”
  24. Carly Simon, “You’re So Vain”
  25. Curtis Mayfield, “Superfly”
  26. The Fifth Dimension, “(Last Night) I Didn’t Get To Sleep At All”
  27. Paul Simon, “Mother and Child Reunion”
  28. Lou Reed, “Satellite of Love”
  29. T. Rex, “Telegram Sam”
  30. Todd Rundgren, “I Saw The Light”
  31. Barry White, “I’m Gonna Love You Just A Little More Babe”
  32. Bryan Ferry, “A Hard Rain A-Gonna Fall”
  33. Elton John, “Grey Seal”
  34. Gladys Knight & The Pips, “I’ve Got To Use My Imagination”
  35. Sweet, “Little Willy”
  36. The Pointer Sisters, “Yes We Can Can”
  37. Stevie Wonder, “Don’t You Worry ‘Bout A Thing”
  38. John Cale, “Paris 1919”
  39. Pink Floyd, “The Great Gig In The Sky”
  40. Al Green, “Here I Am (Come and Take Me)”
  41. ABBA, “Waterloo”
  42. Brian Eno, “Mother Whale Eyeless”
  43. Steely Dan, “Any Major Dude Will Tell You”
  44. Richard & Linda Thompson, “I Want to See The Bright Lights Tonight”
  45. Kiki Dee, “I’ve Got The Music In Me”
  46. Leonard Cohen, “Who By Fire”
  47. Sparks, “Hasta Manana, Monsieur”
  48. The Staple Singers, “City In The Sky”
  49. Roxy Music, “Prairie Rose”
  50. Paul Williams, “The Hell Of It”

1965-69: Watch Out, The World’s Behind You

Chris KriofskeLeave a comment

Throughout this blog, I’ve posted annual playlists, at first in accordance with my 100 Albums project (from 1990-on), then rather haphazardly filling in the gaps. Last year, I deleted them all; in 2024, I’ll be posting new, improved versions of them every Sunday in chronological order from my birth year (1975) until the present.

I originally intended to go all the way back to 1965 when the Beatles’ influence fully gelled and pop music evolved into something that one could easily differentiate from early rock and roll, doo-wop, and everything else that came before. Instead, I’m sticking with my own timeline, but preceding it with two playlists each covering a five-year period featuring roughly ten songs from every year (again, in chronological order.)

I’m uncertain as to how comprehensively one can sum up a single year in ten songs, so the only ground rule I implemented below was one song per artist. I’ve selected beloved tracks from all-time favorites (Dionne Warwick, Nina Simone, The Velvet Underground, Stevie Wonder), glorious one-shots (We Five, The Darlettes, Margo Guryan, Mason Williams) and songs that more or less begat seismic shifts in what pop music could be (James Brown’s rhythm-forward soul, The Mothers of Invention practically inventing psych-rock and The Beatles perfecting it, Desmond Dekker importing first-wave ska to the rest of the world.) Subsequent playlists will see examples of all three categories.

Over this particular five-year period, one can detect some evolving trends: although both were ostensibly conceived of as mood-music, there’s a world of difference between something like “Spanish Flea” and “69 année érotique”; similarly, The Miracles and The Supremes represent one golden mean of soul-pop, while Sly & The Family Stone and Dusty Springfield (in Memphis) each exemplify vastly different ones. In later years, there’s as much of a push to innovate via prog (“One Way Glass”), tropicália (“A Minha Menina”) and whatever swamp-rock “Gris Gris Gumbo Ya Ya” is as there’s one to comfort via the good ol’ bubblegum of “Sugar Sugar” and “Quick Joey Small”. Still, 1969’s “Space Oddity” is deliberately placed at the end as a bridge between explaining what the 1960s did to pop culture and anticipating what the next decade might achieve.

Check back next week for a companion playlist for 1970-74!

1965-69: Watch Out, The World’s Behind You

  1. Marvin Gaye, “Ain’t That Peculiar”
  2. James Brown, “Papa’s Got a Brand-New Bag”
  3. Dionne Warwick, “Are You There (With Another Girl)”
  4. Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass, “Spanish Flea”
  5. Tom Lehrer, “The Vatican Rag”
  6. We Five, “You Were On My Mind”
  7. Smokey Robinson & The Miracles, “The Tracks of My Tears”
  8. The Darlettes, “Lost”
  9. Unit 4 + 2, “Concrete & Clay”
  10. Vince Guaraldi Trio, “Linus and Lucy”
  11. The Mothers of Invention, “Hungry Freaks, Daddy”
  12. The Beatles, “She Said She Said”
  13. Lou Christie, “Trapeze”
  14. Nancy Sinatra, “These Boots Are Made For Walkin’”
  15. The Rolling Stones, “Under My Thumb”
  16. Nina Simone, “Four Women”
  17. Simon & Garfunkel, “A Hazy Shade of Winter”
  18. The Supremes, “Love Is Like An Itching In My Heart”
  19. The Temptations, “(I Know) I’m Losing You”
  20. Norma Tanega, “You’re Dead”
  21. Cat Stevens, “Matthew & Son”
  22. The Free Design, “I Found Love”
  23. The Kinks, “Waterloo Sunset”
  24. The Monkees, “For Pete’s Sake”
  25. Scott Walker, “Montague Terrace (In Blue)”
  26. The Who, “Pictures of Lily”
  27. Lulu, “To Sir With Love”
  28. The Velvet Underground, “Sunday Morning”
  29. The Zombies, “This Will Be Our Year”
  30. Dr. John, “Gris-Gris Gumbo Ya Ya”
  31. Kasenetz-Katz Singing Orchestral Circus, “Quick Joey Small (Run Joey Run)”
  32. Lalo Schifrin, “Bride Of the Wind”
  33. Laura Nyro, “Eli’s Comin’”
  34. Leonard Cohen, “Winter Lady”
  35. Margo Guryan, “What Can I Give You”
  36. Bobbie Gentry, “Casket Vignette”
  37. Os Mutantes, “A Minha Menina”
  38. Sly & The Family Stone, “M’Lady”
  39. The Association, “Everything That Touches You”
  40. Van Morrison, “The Way Young Lovers Do”
  41. Mason Williams, “Classical Gas”
  42. Desmond Dekker, “Israelites”
  43. The Archies, “Sugar, Sugar”
  44. Stevie Wonder, “My Cherie Amour”
  45. Dusty Springfield, “Don’t Forget About Me”
  46. Manfred Mann Chapter Three, “One Way Glass”
  47. Serge Gainsbourg, “69 année érotique”
  48. Donovan with Jeff Beck, “Barabajagal”
  49. Nick Drake, “Cello Song”
  50. David Bowie, “Space Oddity”

Best Albums of 2023: # 5 – 1

Chris KriofskeLeave a comment

5. Emm Gryner, Business & Pleasure

Gryner purposely set out to make a “Yacht-Rock”-inspired record and fully understood the assignment, working with veterans of the constituted-after-the-fact genre (more of a feeling, really) and constructing songs harkening back to another era while somehow remaining contemporary in their outlook (more like timeless, actually.) So, if “Loose Wig” and “Burn The Boats” recall Steely Dan, and “Jack” is in sync with Toto and “The Chance” references Christopher Cross’ “Ride Like The Wind”, her resilience and the newfound joy her craft exudes prevents them from serving as mere homages; as a matter-of-fact, they also sound like Emm Gryner songs—melodic, inviting, yearning and effervescent.

4. Romy, Mid-Air

I was hoping for a good debut solo album from this vocalist of The xx but honestly wasn’t expecting one this good: diving headfirst into electronic dance music (particularly diva house), she manages to sound cool, calm and collected as ever while simultaneously like she’s having the time of her life. Full of paeans to same-sex lust and love, it also liberates her from her past poker-faced ambiguity. On “Enjoy Your Life”, she turns a basic three-word cliche into a code to live by and in turn, a means of salvation, while on the insistent “She’s On My Mind”, her declarations of desire blossom, build and gradually turn euphoric.

3. The Clientele, I Am Not There Anymore

I fell in love with this mostly-active-in-the-00’s indie British trio on their 2017 return, Music For The Age of Miracles, which became of one my favorites of that decade. On this follow up, they reprise their trademark autumnal chamber pop but suffuse it with more instrumental segues and spoken-word tone poems and even some subtle electronics. Stunning opener “Fables Of The Silverlink” serves as an overture with melodies and motifs reappearing throughout the rest of the album, which soon emerges as a complex, hour-long song cycle about childhood memory and infringing mortality. If that sounds intimidating and arty, it’s just as often embracing as on the crisp, clear pop of “Blue Over Blue” or the absorbing, Middle Eastern-accented “Dying In May”. 

2. Everything But The Girl, Fuse

Sonically, this picks right up where their last record, 1999’s Temperamental left off, but only to a point. In the interim, Ben Watt and Tracey Thorn both released multiple solo efforts, some of them pretty accomplished ones, so it follows that this return conveys maturity and wisdom gleaned since then. Although predominantly electronic, these ten songs are encouragingly evolutionary, alternating bangers like “Nothing Left To Lose” and “Caution to The Wind” with more atmospheric, delicate stuff such as “Run A Red Light” with its enthralling sense of space and reverberating piano chords.  Thorn’s vocals are also occasionally adjusted and enhanced, revealing new shadings as applied to lyrics charting the passage of time and a tenuous future—perhaps, not so tenuous; is this the beginning of a superb second act?

1. Corinne Bailey Rae, Black Rainbows

Best known for her 2006 hit “Put Your Records On”, this Brit’s released only three more albums since that year’s self-titled debut; each one has revealed depth and exhibited growth beyond that pleasant single but her first effort in seven years is something else. Expertly swerving between genres and tones, it’s a tour de force whether essaying Afro-futurism (“Earthlings” beats early Janelle Monae at her own game), heavy, insistent thrash rock (!) (“Erasure”, “New York Transit Queen”), Laura Nyro-esque balladry (!!) (“Peach Velvet Sky”), creeping exotica that turns on a dime into Prince-worthy psychedelia (“He Will Follow You With His Eyes”) or a heady, multipart groove workout (“Put It Down”). Inspired by her residency at Chicago’s Stony Island Arts Bank, Black Rainbows is unwavering in ambition and breathtaking in scope. Although very much its own thing, taking it all in, I can’t help but compare it to another groundbreaking fourth album by one of my favorite artists (whom I could even imagine covering the crystalline “Red Horse”.)

Best Albums of 2023: # 10 – 6

Chris KriofskeLeave a comment

10. Sparks, The Girl Is Crying In Her Latte

If ever an act was perfectly positioned for a victory lap, it’s the venerable duo of Russell and Ron Mael, more in the spotlight than ever thanks to Edgar Wright’s documentary about them and their divisive musical film Annette. It also doesn’t hurt that this delectably-titled 25th (!) studio album catalogs all of their strengths while continuing to reveal new hues in their art-pop palette, including the anthemic (and typically snarky) “Nothing As Is Good As They Say It Is” and also “It Doesn’t Have To Be That Way”, a lovely summation of the brothers’ philosophy without the snark. Maybe their best since Lil’ Beethoven?

9. Robert Forster, The Candle and The Flame

Forster’s fourth album since Grant McLennan (his partner in The Go-Betweens) passed is his quietest and most domestic-focused, even if all of it apart from opener “She’s A Fighter” preceded his wife’s cancer diagnosis (update: she’s still fighting it.) One expects such maturity and taking stock from a 65-year-old, although Forster was already doing so (rather brilliantly) nearly twenty years ago on Oceans Apart. These nine observations are all of a piece, but “Tender Years” is the key: “See how far we’ve come”, he poignantly sings, and he’s earned the gravitas for it to really mean something.

8. Slowdive, everything is alive

After a solid, self-titled reunion album six years ago, this iconic 90s shoegaze band is consistent as ever but with a hunger to reassess and evolve. The dominance of electronics (nearly half the songs are built on synth riffs) sets it apart from all their past work without obscuring the elements that made them Slowdive. Those tired of waiting for another Cure album may find “kisses” a more-than-adequate substitute; still, alternating the poppier stuff with a pastoral instrumental (“prayer remembered”) and slow-building, eventually shimmering rave-ups like “shanty” and “the slab”, they prove nearly as vital in 2023 as they did with 1993’s Souvlaki.

7. Christine and The Queens, Paranoia, Angels, True Love

Leave it to this oddball to attempt an honest-to-god triple album in the streaming era (although at 97 minutes, it could’ve been a double). Having come out as trans-masculine last year, Chris (formerly Héloïse Letissier) nearly goes for broke with an Angels In America-inspired concept LP about shifting identities, spiritual yearning and god knows what else. He seems determined not to repeat himself and everything from the discordant, eleven-minute “Track 10” (actually Track 7) to the lovely, simple “Flowery Days” not only suggests new, intriguing directions but a passion for development and growth which, four albums in, is timed just right.

6. Jessie Ware, That! Feels Good!

I don’t envy Ware the task of having to follow up the exceptional What’s Your Pleasure?; her fifth album is more a lateral move than any attempt to top it. Leaning further into the hedonistic pleasures of disco and dancefloor soul, it may come off as a little expedient at times—little here matches last year’s glorious, pre-album single “Free Yourself”, although the samba-inflected “Begin Again” comes close. Regardless, Ware’s effusiveness nearly saves the day whether she’s indulging in a parade of double-entendres (“Shake The Bottle”) or easing on down the road towards some kind of unabashed bliss (“These Lips”, “Hello Love”).

Best Albums of 2023: # 15 – 11

Chris KriofskeLeave a comment

15. Jamila Woods, Water Made Us

The succinct, Neneh Cherry-worthy “Tiny Garden” is one of this year’s best singles, but Woods’ third album offers a lot more to love. Reallocating her focus from the cultural essaying of 2019’s LEGACY! LEGACY! towards the intimacy and fragility of relationships, she tempers her alternative R&B/folk with nifty poetic interludes (“I Miss All My Exes”, “Let The Cards Fall”) and simple hooks that exude restraint but also undeniable pleasure (“Practice”, “Boomerang”). While not necessarily an innovator nor yet an icon, her natural talent and deeply felt point of view are in ample supply.

14. The Tubs, Dead Meat

For sure, the vocalist bears a heavy resemblance to Richard Thompson but within thirty seconds of rousing opener “Illusion pt. II” it’s obvious this foursome is no mere homage or tribute act; their welcoming melodies, intricate guitar lines and rarely obvious chord changes all sound effortless like good pop music should but seldom does. I suppose one could argue the originality of things like the spiky riffs of “Sniveller” which conjure up postpunk to a degree bands like Franz Ferdinand have been trading in for decades now, but that doesn’t render it any less of a thrill to hear.

13. Sufjan Stevens, Javelin

Not a return-to-form in the style of Carrie and Lowell, just as that record wasn’t one in relation to Seven Swans. Apart from the uninspired, simplistic lyrics of 2020’s The Ascension, he has never been one to rest on his laurels; what makes Javelin so intriguing is in how it resolutely sounds like a Sufjan Stevens LP while also a push forward to reassess and explore what that means in 2023 (and beyond.) Knowledge that it’s a tribute to a recently deceased partner adds unignorable context but even without that news, this shows him refusing to be complacent and remaining engaged with wherever his muse(s) take him.

12. Alex Lahey, The Answer Is Always Yes

What can you do after two ten-track, near-perfect power/punk-pop albums? Logically, you’d shoot for a third, but on her first release in four years, this Aussie singer/songwriter takes a slightly different approach, opting for more looseness and impulsivity on introspective, pandemic-era observations like “Permanent” and “The Sky is Melting”. Rest assured, she still brings the hooks (the latter’s ascendant chorus is one of her best) and her never-wavering sense of economy, but from “Good Time” to “Shit Talkin’”, she’s refining her craft while never obscuring a sense of who she is, which is no small feat.

11. Mitski, The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We

She nearly turned into a more elusive Pat Benatar over her increasingly slick past two records (note: this was not a good thing), so her about-face here is a bit of a relief. It also reminds me of the similar shift Sam Phillips made on Fan Dance two decades ago but far less minimalist, employing choirs and strings, pedal steel guitar and more atmosphere than those last two albums together offered. “My Love Mine All Mine” is one of the least likely fueled-by-Tik Tok crossover hits and that it could’ve easily happened to any of these 11 tracks reveals this collection’s consistency.

Best Albums of 2023: # 20 – 16

Chris KriofskeLeave a comment

20. Yves Tumor, Praise a Lord Who Chews but Which Does Not Consume; (Or Simply, Hot Between Worlds)

According to my Spotify “Wrapped” for this year, my favorite genre was “Art Pop”; thus, it seems right to kick this countdown off with something fully of that description, near Fiona Apple-length LP title and all. I highlighted effusive single “Echolalia” in my mid-year report, but Sean Lee Bowie’s fifth album under this moniker is often as catchy as it weird, spiced with vintage samples, shape-shifting song structures and in “Operator”, a cheerleader chant previously adopted/rendered demented by Faith No More three decades ago (and in this artist’s hands, just as effectively today.)

19. Meg Baird, Furling

I felt moved to hear this after Dusted Magazine praised it mid-year and opener “Ashes, Ashes” registered with me in no time. A languorous six-minute comedown of wordless sighs over a piano-and-rhythm-with-vibes vamp, it’s a perfect mood-setter for this gentle, gauzy, occasionally devastating folk opus. Like The Sundays’ Harriet Wheeler, Baird’s breathiness and cheery but sustaining high tone contrast skillfully with the minor chord progressions and pastoral acoustic settings. An affable companion to my top album of last year, Beth Orton’s Weather Alive.

18. Paul Simon, Seven Psalms

Five years into his retirement from touring, octogenarian Simon made an unexpected return with a record unlike anything else he’s done: a 33-minute song cycle inspired by the Book of Psalms featuring seven movements and released both physically and digitally as one unbroken track. Potentially a challenging listen for those looking for another addition to the man’s voluminous songbook, it’s also a reminder of his innate talent, with both words and music continually revealing nuance and something approaching enlightenment on each listen. If this proves his final word, it’s one of his most profound.

17. The National, Laugh Track

I am among those wondering why these Dad Rock Gods opted to put out two albums six months apart this year instead one killer release. First Two Pages of Frankenstein hit my honorable mentions list (“Tropic Morning News” might end up their deserved legacy hit) but I’ve come to prefer Laugh Track for being a bit roomier and also a whole lot more ambitious. The seven-minute “Space Invader” with its thunderous coda is the peak, but diversions on either side of it (a Bon Iver duet; scrappy, improvised closer “Smoke Detector”) make the case that these are much better than mere leftovers.

16. Meshell Ndegeocello, The Omnichord Real Book

Thirty years on from her debut album (and nearly ten since her last set of original songs), Ndegeocello returns with a lengthy, typically genre-averse collection. Although the titular electronic instrument is present throughout, it is but one ingredient in a blend of soul, funk, jazz, folk and rock that no matter how spacy or boundary pushing rarely drifts off into the ether or loses focus. She’s endured as an artist not only for her capacity to explore but also for her ability to connect, a distinction that often separates a legend from a flash-in-the-pan.

Best Albums of 2023: Honorable Mentions

Chris KriofskeLeave a comment

Regarding my favorite music this year, I’m counting down a Top 20 Albums list (instead of my usual Top 10 or 15) over the next few days. I wouldn’t say that I was necessarily more engaged with new music compared to past years, but I can’t deny the effort I put into looking for it. Spotify provides numerous paths towards finding it (particularly through its personalized “Discover Weekly” playlists) and naturally not everything clicks (I made it one-and-a-half songs through that much-praised Wednesday album before moving on.) To stumble upon a great new song/album or for longtime artists to seemingly emerge with one out of the blue is what keeps me stimulated and also motivated in the pursuit of more.

Here are some albums that didn’t make my Top 20 but are still worth further delving into (with a few footnotes):

  • Boygenius, The Record
  • Caroline Polachek, Desire, I Want To Turn Into You
  • The Coral, Sea of Mirrors*
  • Depeche Mode, Memento Mori**
  • Fever Ray, Radical Romantics
  • Jake Shears, Last Man Dancing
  • Jungle, Volcano
  • Kara Jackson, Why Does The Earth Give Us People To Love?*
  • Kate NV, WOW
  • Kylie Minogue, Tension
  • MAN ON MAN, Provincetown
  • Metric, Formentera II
  • The National, First Two Pages of Frankenstein
  • Peter Gabriel, i/o***
  • PJ Harvey, I Inside The Old Year Dying
  • Shamir, Homo Anxietatem
  • Troye Sivan, Something To Give Each Other
  • US Girls, Bless This Mess

*Seriously considered placing these two in the Top 20.

**Entirely, unexpectedly their best in over two decades for what it’s worth.

***This came out on 12/1, so I may need more time to absorb it (even if it was released track-by-track throughout the year.)

Mix: Elevator To The Moon

Chris KriofskeLeave a comment

In midlife, I find myself more receptive to aesthetics I would have deemed inconceivable in my youth: adventurous cuisines and libations (the twenty-year-old me would’ve shuddered at a sushi dinner or a glass of rye whiskey), facial hair as an attractive feature (though not necessarily on myself) and most of all, music deemed seriously unhip by my peers. I mean, at 21, I listened to Dionne Warwick as often as I did Blur or XTC but in the past few years, I’ve had a newfound craving for mid-20th century instrumental Lounge and Exotica, not to mention that terminal scourge of a genre, Easy Listening.

I wonder if it’s an attempt to return to early childhood. At that impressionable age, I’d often find solace in WEZW (“E-Z 104 FM” (actually 103.7)), Milwaukee’s own easy listening station. A few years back, I came across a recording from it circa June 1980 on YouTube and with it, a flood of long-dormant memories. My parents would play it in the car (not as often as their beloved “Mix” station WMYX, which unlike WEZW is still on the air) and I’d occasionally hear it out in the wild (mostly at barber shops, doctors’ waiting rooms, even in the principal’s office once when I was sick in fourth grade.) It was practically a staple all through December when it would (mostly) switch over to a holiday music format.

Last year, I began compiling a Spotify playlist called “Elevator to Bliss”, generally adding tracks via the app’s “Let’s Find Something For Your Playlist” algorithm. Whittled down from 50-odd tracks and retitled to fit its space-age vibes (in many senses of the term), some of the thirty selections below might’ve appeared on WEZW back in the day, but not all. As one digs deeper into the notion of “Elevator Music” (Joseph Lanza’s book of the same name is an enlightening resource), one excavates genres upon subgenres. Often, what separates the (mildly) stimulating from the merely soothing comes down to a matter of personal taste; this is the sort of playlist that is also effective when left on shuffle. However, I’ve attempted a trajectory of sorts, beginning and ending with different versions of the same tune, exhibiting how easily an instrumental shlock hit can be gently repurposed as sci-fi camp (by Mr. Spock, no less!)

In between those alternate-world bookends sits a cornucopia of film music from renown masters (John Barry, Henry Mancini, Lalo Schifrin) and more cultish figures (Riz Ortolani, Sven Liabek, Carlos Rustichelli) along with a few selections from the early 70s (themes from Airport and Klute) that anticipate primetime soap opera scores from later in that decade. Cool Jazz is also represented with vibraphonist Cal Tjader rubbing shoulders against Bossa Nova king Antonio Carlos Jobin and flautist Herbie Mann. If we’re including the 70s, we have to make room for some instrumental funk (Charles Stepney) and such genre-bending oddities as Michel Polnareff’s “Voyages” and Alain Tew’s spare but sex-x-y “The Fence”.

I turn to this playlist when I want to zone out to instrumental music, whether while writing, working, walking or drifting off to sleep. Still, it’s not exactly the same as background or ambient noise. I no longer believe in “guilty pleasures”—all that matters to me these days is how pleasing I find the music; this playlist does the job.

Haunted Jukebox Mix #7: Elevator To The Moon

Mix: Feels Like Summer (2003)

Chris KriofskeLeave a comment

Twenty summers ago, I made my last ever mixtape—that is, a music mix on a C-90 cassette as opposed to a blank compact disc. A few months earlier, I had acquired my very first laptop computer (dude, I got a Dell) which allowed me to make the move from analog to digital.

By late July 2003, I had a few mix CDs under my belt but circumstance gave me an excuse to make one more mixtape. In my hometown of Milwaukee, I met up with my parents (who then lived in Iowa) for three nights; then, I spent another six nights with my friend Laura, a Chicago native whom I met as a student at Marquette University some years before. I’d moved to Boston shortly after graduation but she stayed on. Between her job at a nursery and other family commitments, I was left alone roughly half of that time to apartment-sit, see other old friends and explore the city I’d left behind. Laura lived on the East Side just off Oakland Ave and I had a blast visiting all the old haunts, from the Oriental and Downer Theatres to Bradford Beach, Atomic Records and even Klode Park out in Whitefish Bay.

With ample time on my hands, I curated a mixtape for Laura as a thankful gesture for putting me up. I had brought an entire Case Logic 128-capacity CD wallet with me stuffed with all-time faves, recent purchases and a few discs I had to review for Splendid!, a music website I wrote for at the time; I may have also schlepped a blank tape with me purposely for this task. Laura was (and continues to be) a friend I make mixes for on an annual basis, going all the way back to our senior year at MU when we first bonded as friends and I crafted her a tape she dubbed the “Kriofske Mix” (a moniker I lent to two of my (now former) blogs.)

Revisiting this mix two decades on, I feel transported back to my late 20’s, an primordial era where I apparently thought nothing of including two songs by Ani DiFranco, two tracks from the Punch-Drunk Love soundtrack, an album cut from The White Stripes’ then-new Elephant (my #2 album of that year, I haven’t listened to it in at least 15) and the gauzy opener from Blur’s then-new Think Thank (also not heard in full in a long, long time.) I had also recently gotten into The Go-Betweens, The New Pornographers and Mary Lou Lord—hearing what I selected from each again reminds me what it was like to discover an artist one connected with so instantly you’d rush out and devour their back catalog piece by piece depending on what you could find in (for me, mostly used) record stores.

Among these twenty tracks, six are from albums I reviewed for Splendid! Required to write about everything from obnoxious prog-rock to near-ambient mood music, they’re scattered across that range: Paul Brill’s genre-expanding take on Americana, Natacha Atlas doing the same for world music (and sounding entirely different), Northern State (a clever and disarmingly low-fi distaff Beastie Boys), two cuts from a compilation for a record label helmed by a member of the Cocteau Twins (including the title track above) and an a capella cover of a Pixies song on TV On The Radio’s debut EP, so new-sounding and exceptional I wasn’t surprised by the mass-acclaim their second LP Return To Cookie Mountain received three years later.

True to titular form, there’s a loose and fairly obvious summer theme going on here. My favorite section is the last five songs—“You Had Time” sets the pensive, reflective mood (much better than the other DiFranco selection, anyway) and Jeff Buckley’s dreamy, ethereal cover of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” (which I listened to about 100 times that summer) runs with it, sustained by another old-school Stuart Murdoch reverie. Somehow, the contrasting tones of Shelley Duvall and Tunde Adebimpe just fit right in. I often cringe at mixes I made decades ago, but at least the last quarter of this one hit nicely when I revisited it a few weeks back, walking under the overgrow trees of the Commonwealth Mall on an idyllic mid-summer late afternoon.

Haunted Jukebox Mix #6: Feels Like Summer (2003)