Jay-Z “Magna Carta…Holy Grail”
2013 is peak Jay Z. Blue Ivy is born. Barrack Obama is elected President. He launches Roc Nation Sports. He has more number one albums than any solo artist in the history of music. He is a mega-brand. His city is number one. His wife is number one. He has all the chips. He can go huge. Maybe too huge.
Meat Loaf “Bat Out of Hell II: Back into Hell”
When I was older than a teenager but younger than a man, I was living in the wilds of Connecticut, adrift. I had lost my girl. I went home to my shack down by the docks. I drilled two small holes into the corner of two cassettes: “Bat out of Hell” and “Born to Run.” I tied a ribbon to unite them. I called them “the sisters” for their spiritual connection to the drama of youth. In my car, one tape would play, the other would dangle. Switch. Repeat. This should be a lie, but it’s not.
Morrissey “You Are The Quarry”
After the somewhat ignorable “Maladjusted” from 1997, Morrissey would wait seven years before returning with “You Are The Quarry.” In the interim, he would move to Los Angeles, very reluctantly resolve a lawsuit with his former drummer and, most notably, search in vain for a new record deal. By 2004, though, much of this would be behind him. He signed a deal with a new label and had a suitcase full of heartache and venom to offer up to his long suffering fans.
James Brown “Gravity”
“Turn Me Loose, I’m Dr. Feelgood” is the rare moment from 1986’s “Gravity” that sounds like James Brown is at the wheel. It’s a breathless Funk workout, with Maceo Parker dizzyingly frolicking on sax and a breakneck percussion track. It’s by far the best track from an ill-conceived, Rocky-inspired gimmick record. It was also the Godfather of Soul’s last trip to the Pop charts.
John Cale “Artificial Intelligence”
If you found yourself in New York City at Danceteria at 2am in the early 1980s, almost anything was possible. You might have fallen in love. You might have seen Madonna. However, if you were forty two year old John Cale at the club that night, you might have composed an entire concept album in your head. And you might have rushed back to your Soho loft and shit it out, along with the coke and booze and whatever else was rotting inside you.
Dave Davies “Chosen People”
Having one of the greatest songwriters of your time as your older brother can’t have been easy when you’re trying to create your own work. The first two Dave Davies solo albums are rough and heavy responses to brother Ray’s melodic instincts. Dave’s voice is mostly screaming. 1983s “Chosen People,” however, is a much more varied and measured affair that withstands his reedy voice, studio magic and the whole alien abduction thing.
Robert Plant “Now and Zen”
1988s “Now and Zen,” Plant’s fourth solo album, promised to be different from the first three. He was even reuniting with Jimmy Page for two songs. Fans were all worked up in a lather at the promise of a “return to form.” Many presumed that Page had gotten the experiments out of his system and was read to have sex with the Marshall amps again. Unfortunately for those die hards, what Page released was instead a weird, great late 80s, New Wave artifact.
Marvin Gaye “Midnight Love”
Was anyone ever as talented as this man? As perfect looking? As able to ooze sex, class and charm? Whatever political message he had, this guy always wanted to liberate your undies from you as part of the campaign. And, as the decades changed, he kept unbuttoning another button on his sexuality. “Sexual Healing” was the last button. Now he’s in your bed. Anyone even vaguely interest in sex loved it. Even ferns liked it and they reproduce with spores.
Steve Perry “For the Love of Strange Medicine”
Steve Perry was bruised after Journey. But, in 1994, at the age of forty five, and nearly a decade in hibernation, he managed to release “For The Love of Strange Medicine.” For anyone wondering if he was OK after all that time, the clues would be scant. The Voice was still there, but the Man was missing. Not only does Perry not write about the personal on “Strange Medicine,” he sounds mired in a state of arrested development.
Garth Brooks “Man Against Machine”
Garth Brooks is daringly, offensively not not likable. It’s an extraordinary accomplishment. If it is all a facade -- the humility, the charm, the open mind, the family values, the charity -- then it is the greatest long con in the history of the world. “Man Against Machine,” from 2014, was his first album in nearly thirteen years. It was a monumental event. And if Garth Brooks’ retirement plan was to spend over a decade crafting an album that quite literally every single American human could project themselves into, he nailed it.
Robbie Robertson “Robbie Robertson”
Having a weak singing voice is a problem. In karaoke it can be tolerated with alcohol. But as a recording artist, you have a situation. There are many imperfect voices out there —Tom Waits, Bob Dylan, Kris Kristofferson. But they offer something in return that the shiny voices lack: character and authenticity. Robertson’s voice has none of those things. It is strained and airy at its comfortable register. And when it drops down for something of weight, it sounds like Cookie Monster.
Paul Weller “Heliocentric”
In the 80s, people would often say that Bruce Springsteen was not a massive star outside of the US. Paul Weller is a fair English corollary for The Boss. Weller fronted two massive English bands, The Jam and The Style Council. He played to massive crowds on his home turf. On the other hand, there are many cities in America where Paul Weller might not sell out a large room. Plenty of Americans know of The Jam (“they had that song in Billy Elliot, right?”). But only the true American Anglophile are fluent in Weller’s exemplary solo career.
Lionel Richie “Louder Than Words”
Featuring sixty four musicians and thirty five producers, Lionel Richie’s “Louder Than Words” took a decade to make. What finally arrived was a meticulously average Contemporary R&B album from a well above average singer. It was an elaborate costume that Richie seemed compelled to uncomfortably try on. It didn’t fit. But, alas, he sounded patiently pleasant as ever, he avoided the pressure to rap and there’s no autotune.
Neil Young “Trans”
As “Trans” boots up “Computer Age,” you have one of the great musical WTF moments of popular music. But once you adjust to the idea this is all going to sound like “Tron” looks, it can be pretty fun. The opener swings a bit more than some of the other robo-farting to come. In fact, it sounds like a theme song for the best cyber-cop on the force. It has what’s missing from most of the experiments that follow: a groove.
Frank Sinatra “A Man Alone: The Words and Music of Rod McKuen”
It was 1969 and it was not an easy time to be a crooner. Sinatra wasn’t going to pick up a guitar and change his beat. Thrashing about for the answer, he made a big band recording of Simon and Garfunkel’s “Mrs Robinson” that sounds about as desperate to connect as you think. As part of that thrashing, Sinatra scanned the landscape for anyone else that resembled what he did that was still considered cool. It was then that Sinatra met Rod McKuen at a party.
Craig Finn “I Need a New War”
Craig Finn was always a writer first, singer next and, vaguely, finally a musician. But the guy is both smart and clever and he is evidently committed to learning. So, I had faith his music would get somewhere. “I Need a New War” mostly validates my faith. The songs are not uniformly compelling on their own, but it is a genuine master class in a certain middle-aged, poignant weariness. “I Need a New War” replaces the drunk, Brooklyn gusto of The Hold Steady with an Upstate sobriety and poignancy.
Prince “The Rainbow Children”
The title track song is a warning shot across your bow. It’s about as commercially inaccessible as you can get from a guy who made a hit for the Bangles. You want this album? This is not your momma’s Prince. Where did this all come from? What genre is this? Some of these songs will straddle the line between “Jazz-inspired” and “noodling,” but you can’t say this forty four year old was out of ideas.
Alex Chilton “A Man Called Destruction”
What. The. Fuck. Happened? After decades of searching for answers, I’m ready to admit it: we got it all wrong. Having revisited Alex Chilton’s 1995 solo “apex” “A Man Called Destruction,” it’s finally, sadly clear to me that all of the glimmers and all of the clues we imagined in his solo music were simply our Big Star projections. Alex Chilton was not a tortured genius. No. He was just a talented, depressed, beat up guy who never found that great gift that he may not have even had to begin with.
Tom Petty “Wildflowers”
A model middle aged album: leaner, cleaner, wiser, wearier. I feel like I’m driving around Gainsville in this album, and I leave town changed; more connected to summer nights, broken skylines, listening to the radio, something fading, stumbling into a bar I don’t belong in, finding a girl and escaping into a field, giggling, wondering later if I’m wasting it all.
David Crosby “Oh Yes I Can”
On his first solo album in almost twenty years, Crosby managed to sound quite vital on 1989s “Oh Yes I Can.” “Vital” as in “healthy,” rather than “essential.” There’s a big difference. His life story has been rich and compelling. He has been a cautionary tale and an inspirational voice. But, stripped of the counterculture and of his greatest collaborators, Croz ends up sounding like the guy playing on the small stage at a farmers market.