Front Burner 2021

 My 20 (or 21) Favorite Albums of 2021

We spent all of this year with the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic, partially because we spent all of this year surrounded by many of the same selfish, ignorant people who refuse to get vaccinated, wear simple cloth masks in public, or even try to socially distance themselves from others. At least here in the midwest, it feels like half the population has gone mad and decided to ignore scientists and health professionals. It reminds me of the zombie movies where people make the dumbest moves despite all the evidence and then wonder why society is crumbling before their eyes. 

However, like last year, there was still plenty of good music released, it helped as a balm for the soul, and I'm here to tell you about what I felt was the best of it. As usual, this post is going to be limited to pop and rock, but I'll likely make a separate list of at least ten of my favorite jazz and other more instrumental albums. 

  

For various reasons I won't go into here, I'm avoiding reissues, compilations, live albums, and so on in my Top 10. Those ten slots are reserved strictly for new music recorded and originally released in 2021. Slots #11-21 are open to anything that was released this year.

Without further adieu, here are my 20 (well, 21) favorite albums of 2021, ranked from #21 to #1... 

21 • Inhaler — It Won't Always Be Like This

I'm sneaking in a 21st entry here because these are releases from 2021, of course. This album feels like the right fit for the 21st entry because I didn't discover it until the year was almost over. However, I'm playing the heck out of it right now and really enjoying it. The band is fronted by Elijah Hewson, son of a guy named Paul Hewson, otherwise known as Bono from U2.

  

20 • Sophia Kennedy — Monsters

The sense of experimentation on this album reminds me of many of the female artists (Kate Bush, Björk, Laurie Anderson, etc.) that I love so much. She has a background in film and film music and it shows. These songs are cinematic in the stories they tell and the way they tell them.

 

19 • Ryley Walker — Course In Fable

One of at least three great releases that Ryley was involved with this year. This one is probably the most accessible, but they're all worth your time if you are similarly attracted to this guy's many talents.

18 • Various — The Problem of Leisure: A Celebration of Andy Gill and Gang of Four

Andy Gill was the co-founder and lead guitarist of one of my favorite post-punk bands of the late 70s and early 80s, Gang of Four. He died in February of 2020 and this tribute album started to take shape shortly afterward. It includes songs covered by artists from seven different countries and four continents, a testament to the breadth and scale of Andy Gill's influence.

17 • Ezra Furman — Sex Education: Songs from Season 3

Ezra's been providing music for the Netflix comedy-drama Sex Education since its inception. The tunes are a combination of music from his back catalog and music written specifically for the show. Last year, his full album of music from the show was my #12 album of the year. This 5-song EP of songs from the third season of the show was an unexpected but pleasant surprise.

16 • The Fratellis — Half Drunk Under A Full Moon

This fun band from Glasgow, Scotland has had albums in the running for my year-end lists in the past, but I'm pretty sure this is the first time they've actually made it on to one. There are so many catchy tunes here, even my very pop-oriented wife took to this one when she heard it.

15 • Marianne Faithfull — The Montreux Years (live)

A glorious collection of 14 songs recorded during five performances at the Montreux Jazz Festival from 1995 to 2009. This is a fantastic showcase for the inimitable talents of the one and only Marianne Faithfull. The track list reads like a best-of but the performances are delightfully unique and personal.

14 • Jason Isbell & The 400 Unit — Georgia Blue

An album of songs by artists from Georgia that run the gamut of musical styles. Some of the songs "work" better than others, but there are no clunkers here. The range of what's being covered here speaks to the band's talent and versatility. Quite a few musical guests helping them out, too.

13 • Cassandra Jenkins — An Overview of Phenomenal Nature

By far, the quietest album in my entire list this year. In fact, Cassandra's vocals here could best be described as "whispered" although they demand more attention than that might imply. I think it has a lot to do with Jenkins' style and her way with words.

12 • Art d'Ecco — In Standard Definition

The last thing I expected to discover in the year 2021 is a good glam rock album, and yet this is exactly that. I had never heard of Art d'Ecco until I heard a track from this in a mix, but it hit me right away. Turns out he has two previous albums out. According to its creator, this one is "a concept album about entertainment". He has since released a cover of The Jam's "That's Entertainment" that would have fit perfectly with these other great tunes.

11 • Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band — The 1979 Legendary No Nukes Concert (live)

Springsteen was one of numerous artists who took part in a series of five concerts organized by Musicians United for Safe Energy (MUSE) founded by Jackson Browne, partially as a response to the Three Mile Island nuclear accident in March of 1979. These concerts were all held at Madison Square Garden in NYC in September of 1979. A 3-LP compilation from these shows was released in November of that year and included only two tracks from the Springsteen show - both covers. Of course, 1979 was the pinnacle of what many Springsteen fans (including yours truly) feel were the greatest years of his career. To finally be able to hear a good recording of his entire concert is a definite treat.

 

stock promotional photo for the 2CD/DVD version

 

★ ★ ★  The Top 10  ★ ★ ★

As mentioned at the onset... reissues, compilations, live albums, and so on were intentionally excluded from my Top 10. The following ten slots are reserved strictly for new music strictly recorded and released in 2021. 

 

10 • St. Vincent — Daddy’s Home

Annie Clark's father was recently released from prison. That appears to be ground zero for this album, heavily steeped in 70s imagery and sounds that presumably recall the music he introduced her to as a child. It took me a while to understand where the album was coming from (thanks again, Jason!) but now that I get it I love it.

9 • Kacey Musgraves — Star-Crossed

It's no secret that this is Kacey's breakup album. That fact alone started me building a wall in front of it. I'm not terribly surprised that she won me over in the end but, honestly, so much of this album makes me sad. I often just feel like I want to give her a big, sympathetic hug when I listen to it. Regardless, she examines what seems like every aspect of her relationship and its eventual demise, creating her own kind of concept album about the ins and outs of human connection.

8 • Olivia Rodrigo — SOUR

Olivia Rodrigo is 18 years old and, not surprisingly, writes songs about teenage relationships and teenage concerns. As someone who is 40 years older, this shouldn't interest me much. However, Rodrigo has insight that is well beyond her years and a sense of sincerity in her writing and singing that pulled me in and made me care. Add to that her powerful voice and impressive range, and I found myself loving this album more each time I listened to it.

7 • Del Amitri — Fatal Mistakes

My favorite Scottish pop band returns with their first studio album in 18 years and it does NOT disappoint. Justin Currie, in particular, is still a master at crafting pop songs with acerbic bite. He has released (excellent) solo albums in the interim, but it’s great to hear him back with guitarist Ian Hardie at his side.

6 • Desperate Journalist — Maximum Sorrow!

This band's second album, Grow Up, was my introduction to their post-punk sound. That one ended up in my Top 10 of 2017, coming in at a very similar position to this one if I remember correctly. Their last album didn't do as much for me but the singles released in advance of Maximum Sorrow! album had me very excited. When the album finally dropped, I was over the moon. I'd say, without reservation, that it has become my favorite album in their catalog.

5 • Gary Numan — Intruder

Numan has been a creative musical adventurer for over 40 years now. This latest album is dark and brooding and, while that has indeed been his trademark for a while now, he continues to manage to do it well without it sounding like a caricature of himself. He also manages to write albums full of genuine emotion (besides anger) and places them squarely within an industrial musical landscape. What this guy does he does really, really well.

4 • Dry Cleaning — New Long Leg

Imagine Laurie Anderson with a British accent fronting early Pretenders. The contrast between Florence Shaw's deadpan vocal delivery and the electric, post-punk sonics shouldn’t work, and yet somehow it does. And then some. It's a witty, weird, and wonderful record.

3 • The Tragically Hip — Saskadelphia

When The Tragically Hip were recording their third album, 1991’s brilliant 'Road Apples’, they wanted to make it a double album. The band's label balked, so they whittled it down to a single LP. This 6-song EP represents the first official release of some of the songs that got cut, clearly indicating that the label made a huge mistake. There isn’t even a mediocre track here, and it’s so great to hear more new music from a time in their career when they were absolutely on fire.

 

Saskadelphia - my #1 album in June

  

2 • Halsey — If I Can't Have Love, I Want Power

Halsey's 'Manic' ranked pretty highly for me (also #2) in 2020. Now, she goes into full collaboration mode with Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross and just blows the doors off the already high expectations I had. Reported to be an album influenced by her pregnancy and birth of her first child, none of that appears blatant to me. Instead, the Halsey/Reznor/Ross team creates the most lyrically and sonically interesting album of her career so far.

1 • James — All the Colours of You

The last five plus years have been pretty rough on all of us. This album touches on all the crap we’ve been through and, somehow, emerges hopeful and full of light. I’ve probably listened to this album more than any other this year because it leaves me the feeling that we're going to be okay every time I play it.

My #2 in June became my #1 by the end of the year

Enough words... Want to listen?

I've put together a Spotify playlist with a couple sample tracks from each of these albums. If you're interested in hearing some of this music, check this out!

 

 

You like jazz?

Hey! I listen to jazz as well, at least enough to warrant a separate list. 

Check out my Top 10 jazz albums of 2021 here. 

(TBA)

Looking for even more great music?

Since 2014, I have been contributing my Top 10 to Bret Helm's Life On This Planet blog. He and his partner Sarah do a fantastic job with it, supplementing their lists with those of numerous friends around the globe. Please click on the link below to take you over to this year's Best of 2021 blog post...

Life On This Planet - Best Albums of 2021

Pride of Cleveland

Among the musical artifacts that I've collected from my youth, growing up in the suburbs of Cleveland, I am proud to own a copy of this great compilation of local bands. 

Cover art by David Helton

The front cover art by David Helton featured the WMMS buzzard tending bar, while names of the bands appearing on the record were written as labels on some of the bottles. The back cover featured details about almost everything you would ever want to know about the songs and artists who made them.

click the photo to enlarge

Pride of Cleveland (BR-101-3) was the third release on the new (at the time) and short lived Buzzard Record & Filmworks label. Released in 1980, the LP was a 10-track compilation of Cleveland bands, most of whom were active in the local bar scene at the time. It represented an interesting and fairly well rounded mix of the Cleveland music scene by the end of the 70s.

From the lower left corner of the back of the record sleeve

 

The album itself was compiled to benefit the WMMS Music Scholarship Program at Cleveland State University, and anyone who was listening to the station at the time will recognize many of the names credited above. I remember being so excited to see this label on a record, believing that the Cleveland startup would one day blossom into a major label. Unfortunately, it never did, but I still think those Buzzard labels are cool!

Some closer details about the songs on each side. 

(You should be able to click on any photo here to enlarge it.)

It's not clear when the CD reissue of this was released, but it was likely in the late 80s when CDs started to completely overtake vinyl. The single card insert of the CD was simply the front and back of the original LP, shrunken down to CD size. The back of the CD indicated the addition of a "bonus track" from The Euclid Beach Band. Also worth noting is that the Love Affair track, "Mama Sez" was replaced with Wild Giraffes' "Burning Love" at track #9. If anyone knows any more detail about the story of this reissue, please post a comment below!

As far as I know, this CD was considered the fourth and final release on Buzzard Record & Filmworks, now a subsidiary of Esquire Records, who apparently decided not to continue with the Buzzard name.

The Rise and Fall of Rockpile

There once was a great band called Rockpile, who existed for years until they put out a record under their own name, after which they kind of fell apart. Having fallen in love with that record in high school, I was fascinated when I learned that the guys had been a fully functioning, recording band for four or five previous albums. I'll do my best to tell this tale quickly for those who don't already know the details.

Rockpile, from the inner gatefold of Seconds of Pleasure (1980)

Nick Lowe wrote the song, "(What's So Funny 'bout) Peace, Love, and Understanding", which was later a pretty big hit for Elvis Costello & The Attractions, when he was in a short-lived band called Brinsley Schwarz. Brinsley Schwarz broke up in 1975, and Lowe started working with Dave Edmunds on Edmunds' second album, Subtle As A Flying Mallet. 1975 was also the year that Stiff Records was born, and Lowe was the first artist ever signed to Stiff. 

 Edmunds, on the other hand, stiffed Stiff and signed with Led Zeppelin's Swan Song label in 1976 after Robert Plant was supposedly impressed with some of Edmunds' music. Edmunds had been working with a drummer named Terry Williams and, in 1977, brought in a rhythm guitarist / vocalist by the name of Billy Bremner. By Edmunds' fourth record, Tracks On Wax 4 (1978) the band that would come to be known as Rockpile had formed. 

Dave Edmunds - vocals and guitar

Nick Lowe - vocals and bass

Billy Bremner - vocals and guitar

Terry Williams - drums

The band then set up in London's Eden Studios to simultaneously record what would become two fairly popular albums from 1979; Nick Lowe's Labour of Lust and Dave Edmunds' Repeat When Necessary. Lowe also married Carlene Carter in 1979. (Carter is the daughter of June Carter Cash and Carl Smith, making her stepdaughter of the great Johnny Cash.) In fact, video footage from Nick & Carlene's wedding was used to make Lowe's promotional video for the single, "Cruel To Be Kind." 

(photographs are of records from my collection, flaws and all)

By 1980, the guys were recording Edmunds' album, Twangin' (to complete his contract with Swan Song) and were the core band used to record Carlene Carter's Musical Shapes. By this time, Rockpile had been a working, recording band for five years and as many albums without a single one being credited to that name! 

Dave Edmunds' Twangin'... (1980)

Carlene Carter's Musical Shapes (1980)

A close-up of that promo strip

In the fall of 1980, the guys finally released an album under the name Rockpile called, Seconds of Pleasure, a title that Edmunds jokes "is an indication of Nick's sex life". The album was released on Columbia -- not Stiff or Swan Song -- and came complete with initial U.S. tour dates printed on the back of the record sleeve. This would be the band's first tour as headliners. 

The boys are officially Rockpile now!

A rather unique variation on the Columbia label

 

Initial U.S. tour dates printed on the back of the album sleeve

By all accounts, the tour was going well. In February of 1981 (40 years ago as of this blog post) Rockpile was on the cover of both CREEM and Trouser Press magazines. The articles inside contained glowing reviews of the shows and interviews that revealed no signs of the trouble that lied just briefly ahead.

February 1981 issues of Trouser Press and CREEM

The start of the Trouser Press article (Feb. 1981)

The start of the CREEM article (Feb. 1981)

Rockpile did not make it to the end of 1981 as a band. They broke up about the time I graduated from high school. The most common story has to do with strained relationships between Dave Edmunds and Stiff Records' co-founder Jake Riviera, to whom Nick Lowe remained faithful. Whatever the reasons, though, they sure went out with a bang. They gave us one damn fine rock record and, if you look closely, six altogether. 

Although my own concert "career" started in the spring of 1979, I never managed to see Rockpile perform live. To this day it is one of my big concert regrets. Some of the shows are now legendary.

Still gets time on the turntable, 40 years on. Such a great record!

Talkin' Anesthesia Blues

Waking up from anesthesia is not, apparently, the time to wax philosophical. 

 

... or is it?

 

I should warn you that this post reveals at least one fact about me that (a) most people do not know, and (b) might alter some folks' opinions of me. If you know me and prefer to think of me exactly the way you know me at this very moment in time, please read no further.

 

 ★  ★  ★  ★  ★  ★  ★  ★  ★  ★

 

I had to have a tooth extracted on Monday. It had been a problem for far too long, was party to a lingering infection, and was even the subject of a root canal a year or so ago. We don't know why, but the infection never fully went away. A recent flare-up moved the recommended treatment options to the extraction column. oh yay.

That extraction was Monday and, as it was the first tooth I ever had to have pulled, to say I was nervous about it would be an understatement. The part of this story that prompted a post here, though, is my experience after it was all over, coming off the anesthesia.

 

Everything that happened between waking up in the chair and sitting down in the passenger seat of my wife's car is pretty much a blur to me. Due to COVID-19 restrictions, she had to wait outside in the car. The dental assistant (nurse? -- I'm assuming she assisted with oral surgery) was the only person I remember talking to me, helping me ease out of the chair, and walking me out of the office by holding my arm. The dentist and anesthesiologist had hightailed it outta there by that time. My mask had already magically reappeared on my face before any of that. I have only the vaguest of memories talking to the assistant on the way out but, like trying to remember the details of a dream the next morning, I had no recollection of what was discussed by the time my brain was fully functional.

Much later in the day, when I started to think about the 30 minute drive back home, I realized that I could only remember bits and pieces of it. I decided to ask my wife about some of the details of that drive and our conversation, and relaying the story had us both cracking up.

Apparently, one of the first things that I said to my dear wife when I got in the car was, 

 

"I'm pretty sure I told that nurse that I used to do a lot of drugs, and that those drugs were more fun than this." 

 

I am left to simply imagine how the nurse reacted to this revelation. Although, if she's been assisting in dental surgeries for a while now, I'm sure she's heard some pretty doozy shit from the mouths of people coming off anesthesia.

The drug talk didn't end there, though. I recall making all these observations (a word that will gain relevance in a moment) about traffic. There seemed to be twice as many cars, twice as many lanes, and twice as many traffic lights as there were on the way TO the appointment just couple hours before! I must have realized that I was essentially seeing double because I started describing all these phenomena to my poor wife in at least partially excited detail... Excited that I was seeing it but also somehow excited that I knew it wasn't real. 

All this got me started talking more about the drugs of my youth. I said, 

 "Acid always made me feel like my observations and intellectual acuity were enhanced, but this drug makes me feel stupid. This is a stupid drug."

 

We both got a chuckle out of this for two reasons. (1) Here I am lamenting the lack of "observations" when it seemed ALL I WAS DOING was making observations the whole way home. (2) I called it a "stupid drug" but still somehow managed to put together a cogent and grammatically correct sentence using words like "intellectual acuity" while coming down from it. 

This led to a discussion (albeit VERY one-sided) about why some people seemed to be prone to bad acid trips while others (like me) felt every trip was a wildly entertaining adventure. To quote my wife at the end of the stories she was regaling, 

 

"There was a lot of talking."

 

I fully acknowledge that there are psychological and/or neurological reasons why someone might have a bad acid trip. Without knowing much of the science behind it, I suspect that people who are already anxious, stressed, or generally harboring dark thoughts tend to have bad acid trips. However, that bit I wrote above about being excited about my visions on the way home because I knew they weren't real sent me off on a diatribe about how this also related to acid trips. My feeling is that many people who had bad trips must have felt that what they were experiencing was real – and that has every potential to make it scary. I've always been thankful that, as psychedelic as things ever got for me, I always held on to at least some sense that what I was experiencing wasn’t real. 

 

All this from anesthesia! To wax philosophical or not?