Albums of the Year, 2014

I wrote in a previous post that, of late, I’ve been immersed in a deep dive of the past year’s best music in order to anoint my “Album of the Year” – a highly coveted award, I hasten to add. Past winners have included Sid & Susie, Susanna Hoffs, Juliana Hatfield, Neil Young, Steve Earle, Natalie Merchant, Tift Merritt, Paul Simon and Rosanne Cash. The selection process itself is fairly straightforward: I review all that I’ve purchased; and re-listen to those I deem worthy. But now, with 2014 fading fast to black, and as I reflect yet again on all that has passed, I wonder why I bothered.

Sometimes you just know – call it love at first listen. The first notes of the first song seep from the speakers with the grace of an Audrey Hepburn or the grit of a Humphrey Bogart and, well, that’s that. Without listening to the rest, you know that this is it, the one, the set of music that will fill the soundtrack of your life not just for the foreseeable future, but for the rest of it. The way it works with me is quite simple: When the album comes to an end, I play it again. And, as Denny Laine once sang with Wings, again and again and again, after that.

I’m being a tad hyperbolic, of course. Inevitably, another album comes along – think of it as the seven-week itch. Yet, the best albums draw us back, time and again, for the rest of our lives. When I look over my Album of the Year selections, for instance, I’m amazed at how many I still play on a regular, or semi-regular, basis. Natalie Merchant’s Tigerlily, my No. 1 pick for 1995, has been in constant rotation since we saw her in concert in July. And I re-ripped my twin picks for 1985, Lone Justice’s self-titled debut and the Long Ryders’ rollicking State of Our Union, just last weekend and loaded the FLAC files onto my Pono player. They still sound remarkably fresh.

Anyway, any year that sees not one, but two Neil Young releases is a good year for music. The first, A Letter Home, was a very cool collection of covers that he recorded in Jack White’s old-time recording booth. It’s intimate, touching and slightly surreal, akin to a dispatch from the past to the present – or vice versa. The second, Storytone, features Neil, backed by an orchestra, singing from the heart. It was the lesser of the two, in my opinion, but still strong enough to be mentioned here. Call them the Fourth and Fifth Runners-up.

Natalie Merchant’s self-titled album is my No. 3 for the year. I reviewed it before, so shall not dwell on it here. However, the more I listen to it, the more I love it – and I’ve listened to it a lot. “Ladybird” is amazing.

The final runner-up: Rumer’s Into Colour, which was released in England in early November. It’s a heartfelt, at times sublime set that conjures the glorious adult pop of the ‘60s and ‘70s – think the Fifth Dimension, Dionne Warwick and the Carpenters, with a dash of Laura Nyro and TSOP tossed in for good measure. I plan to review it in-depth upon its U.S. release in February, but for now here’s “Reach Out,” one of the stand-out tracks:

And, finally, the Old Grey Cat’s Album of the Year for 2014 should shock absolutely no one. From the moment I clicked on the YouTube video for “Cedar Lane,” which First Aid Kit posted a week or so before the release of Stay Gold, I knew. The song is familiar yet new, somewhat akin to a vintage coat purchased in a secondhand store. It’s comfortable. Stirring. Mesmerizing. The same holds true for Stay Gold as a whole.

I reviewed the album in July, so won’t do so again. But I will add this addendum to my initial thoughts: It’s grown stronger with each listen, and I’ve listened to it at least two hundred times over the past six months. In fact, my only knock against it is the same knock I have against much new music: The dynamic range is flattened out, so the highs and lows are neither high nor low. I’d love to hear them as nature intended – well, I did when I saw them at my Concert of the Year, but hopefully you know what I mean.

Other favorite concerts of 2014: the Bangles, Natalie, Neil and Jackson Browne. Stevie Wonder and Aretha Franklin were fun, too. And, with that… Happy New Year!