Mavis Staples Try Harder

2017: It’s Been A Long, Hard Year

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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”

Best Songs of the ’10s: #10-1

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10. The Radio Dept., “Committed To The Cause”
These Swedes almost always appear blissfully out of time—when first hearing “Pulling Our Weight” in Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette, I assumed it was from 1983, not 2003. So it goes with this unlikely swirl of early ‘90s Madchester dance-rock (with a smidge of Toto!), which lyrically at least remains the most timely and prescient tune of 2016.

9. Daft Punk feat. Julian Casablancas, “Instant Crush”
An instant standout from Random Access Memories, not only for DP’s deepest dive into New Wave, but also for its robot-voiced utilization of The Strokes’ lead singer, of all people. Blame the melody or chord changes, but I have a far stronger emotional reaction to Casablanca’s voice when it’s masked like this. Should’ve been the album’s second single instead of “Lose Yourself To Dance”.

8. Twin Shadow, “Too Many Colors”
George Lewis Jr.’s 1980s-inspired project produced a great run of singles across this decade; my favorite is this track from 2018’s Caer—a soulful/electro combo that I never would’ve thought feasible (at least outside of Alison Moyet.) Still, it all comes together beautifully, from its bell-like flourishes and unstoppable chorus to Lewis’ impassioned vocal.

7. Iron & Wine, “Call It Dreaming”
After a series of ever-more lushly produced albums that bent his folk-pop as far as it could in that direction, Sam Beam returned to form with this straightforward but effective tune. Organically building from lone acoustic-guitar-and-vocal to a full-bodied arrangement, it ends up resounding like a beating heart that has gradually expanded until it’s all you can hear, and it’s everything.

6. Belle & Sebastian, “Nobody’s Empire”
At his peak, Stuart Murdoch sang, “Nobody writes them like they used to / So it may as well be me”; nearly two decades on, he’s still at it on a single as good as anything from If You’re Feeling Sinister, only with the added musical prowess and wisdom gleaned from twenty years of struggle and exhilaration. The song’s gorgeous, chiming hook gives me hope that he’ll keep writing ‘em well into this new decade and beyond.

5. Saint Etienne, “Tonight”
What a way to return after a seven-year hiatus—the central song on an album about loving pop music, it’s an ideal three-minute encapsulation of this veteran trio’s inclusive approach and aesthetic. Early in their careers, the inimitable Sarah Cracknell and her mates invited listeners to “Join Our Club”, but you see, they’ve always been fans as well: “I can hardly wait,” she sings, and her joy is just infectious.

4. Robyn, “Dancing On My Own”
Considering that it never even made the Billboard Hot 100, I’m thrilled to see this song popping up on so many end-of-decade lists. Regarding vulnerable yet defiant crying-on-the-dancefloor anthems, this is easily one of the all-time best for how the groove steamrolls along while also never obscuring the infinite shades of pain and perseverance in Robyn’s bruised but luminous performance.

3. Jens Lekman, “Evening Prayer”
Only Lekman 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; only he could make it both so jubilant and melancholy, inserting almost ridiculously bubbly “doo-doo-doo’s” within a blue-eyed soul arrangement. And there’s something in the way he sings, “It’s been a long, hard year” that nearly destroys me every time I hear it.

2. Mavis Staples, “Try Harder”
Sometimes, the simplest songs are the most effective: twelve-bar blues progression, guttural, insistent one-riff guitar, and a 78-year-old vocalist sounding nearly as robust as she did at half that age. With production support from improbable kindred spirit Jeff Tweedy, Staples is no one’s idea of an old fogey—especially when she repeats the key lyric, “Don’t do me no good to pretend / I’m as good as I could be.”

1. Destroyer, “Kaputt”
Kaputt the album cracked my top five of the decade, but it might not have without its monumental title-track centerpiece, which I knew was something extraordinary from my first listen nine years ago this month. You can liken Dan Bejar’s slight effervescence here to any number of signifiers (yacht rock, synth-pop, etc.), but in the end, “Kaputt” subsists in its very own universe, that incessant dit-dit-dit sequencer noise guiding an evocative quest through time and memory whose precise sound is an impeccable match for Bejar’s acquired-taste vocals. “All sounds like a dream to me” indeed.

Best Tracks of 2017 # 10-6

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10. Mavis Staples, “Try Harder”
On her third collaboration with Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy, she’s now making music as relevant as the protest gospel-soul she pioneered nearly 50 years ago with The Staples Singers. Built on an insistent, guttural guitar riff, it’s no exaggeration to say that “Try Harder” is right up there with “Respect Yourself”, especially when she sings, “Don’t do me no good to pretend,” again and again, laying bare the wisdom of acknowledging evil in order to combat it.

9. Lana Del Rey, “Love”
Despite having put out four albums in six years, Rey is still more of a singles artist—I can imagine her eventual hits comp will be all-time, with this arresting ballad as just one of its crown jewels. Taking aural inspiration from Phil Spector, crossed with her usual Angelo Badalamenti-isms (would it have been too on-the-nose for her to have appeared on Twin Peaks: The Return?), her declaration here “to be young, and in love” is deeply felt and understood.

8. Waxahatchee, “Never Been Wrong”
Right off the bat this has an agreeable Pixies/Breeders vibe that never quits; I also hear a little vintage Matthew Sweet and maybe some Jill Sobule, too. Fortunately, Katie Crutchfield transcends any hint of ’90s pastiche, as moving beyond her previously low-fi aesthetic for full bells-and-whistles production only further fortifies the strength of her words and melodies.

7. Stars, “We Called It Love”
This highlight from Fluorescent Light is almost Stars-by-numbers at first—another catchy mid-tempo gem to surely take its place on a killer compilation one day. However, after a few plays, all its little nuances begin to surface, and then crystalize to the point where the song, with its observation, “I don’t believe people ever change,” freshly resonates.

6. Sufjan Stevens, “Mystery of Love”
From the Call Me By Your Name soundtrack (which I have yet to see—it opens in Boston on the 22nd), musically this could’ve easily fit on Carrie and Lowell, but not tonally. After absorbing that album’s raw grieving and immense loss, it’s almost cathartic to hear Stevens sing a gentle, spiritual, and altogether happy love song again. It emits a rare sense of wonder that I always seek (but not often find) in the art I consume.