FAVES
Partly as a joke and partly as the price of admission for an online discussion, I started compiling lists of my favorite new releases in 1999. Although my participation in the discussion ended years ago, I keep making the lists. Some of my best friends receive compilations of tracks from those CDs in late December (or early January) each year. Periodically, I’ll post my musings about what I’ve been hearing on the Musings page. What you see below are the best-of lists for the last three years. To see others, use the More… link to the right.
- 2012
- Fiona Apple, The Idler Wheel Is Wiser…
- Jessica Bailiff, At the Down-turned Jagged Rim of the Sky
- Bat for Lashes, The Haunted Man
- Beach House, Bloom
- Paul Buchanan, Mid Air
- Cody Chesnutt, Landing on a Hundred
- Cold Specks, I Predict a Graceful Expulsion
- Ravi Coltrane, Spirit Fiction
- Shawn Colvin, All Fall Down
- Mark Eitzel, Don’t Be a Stranger
- Grizzly Bear, Shields
- Robert Hood, Motor: Nightime World 3
- Hanne Hukkelberg, Featherbrain
- Kendrick Lamar, good kid, m.A.A.d city
- Jeff Parker, Bright Light in Winter
- El Perro del Mar, Pale Fire
- Beth Orton, Sugaring Season
- Songs of Green Pheasant, Soft Wounds
- Andy Stott, Luxury Problems
- Sweet Billy Pilgrim, Crown and Treaty
- Tame Impala, Lonerism
- Paul Weller, Sonik Kicks
- Bobby Womack, The Bravest Man in the Universe
PERMALINK |
- 2011
- Atlas Sound, Parallax
- Björk, Biophilia
- Lindsey Buckingham, Seeds We Sow
- Richard Buckner, Our Blood
- Kate Bush, 50 Words for Snow
- Elbow, Build a Rocket Boys!
- Feist, Metals
- Fleet Foxes, Helplessness Blues
- Gang Gang Dance, Eye Contact
- PJ Harvey, Let England Shake
- Joe Henry, Reverie
- Van Hunt, What Were You Hoping For?
- Low, C’mon
- Nick Lowe, The Old Magic
- Cass McCombs, Wit’s End
- Me’shell Ndegéocello, Weather
- Panda Bear, Tomboy
- Phaedra, The Sea
- The Roots, Undun
- St. Vincent, Strange Mercy
- Twilight Singers, Dynamite Steps
- Gillian Welch, The Harrow and the Harvest
PERMALINK |
- 2010
- Ólöf Arnalds, Innundir Skinni
- Aloe Blacc, Good Things
- Black Dub, Black Dub
- Scott Colley, Empire
- Crowded House, Intriguer
- Danger Mouse and Mark Linkous, Dark Night of the Soul
- Deerhunter, Halcyon Digest
- Flying Lotus, Cosmogramma
- Gorillaz, Plastic Beach
- Grinderman, Grinderman 2
- Ray LaMontagne and the Pariah Dogs, God Willin’ and the Creek Don’t Rise
- Brad Laner, Natural Selections
- Massive Attack, Heligoland
- Menomena, Mines
- Janelle Monáe, The ArchAndroid
- Toshimaru Nakamura, Egrets
- Joanna Newsom, Have One on Me
- Kurt Rosenwinkel and OJM, Our Secret World
- Sun Kil Moon, Admiral Fell Promises
- Tracey Thorn, Love and Its Opposite
- Henry Threadgill Zooid, This Brings Us To, Vol. II
PERMALINK |
- 2009
- Animal Collective, Merriweather Post Pavilion
- Atlas Sound, Logos
- Califone, All My Friends Are Funeral Singers
- Vic Chesnutt, At the Cut
- The Dirty Projectors, Bitte Orca
- Steve Earle, Townes
- Fly, Sky and Country
- Grizzly Bear, Veckatimest
- Joe Henry, Blood from Stars
- Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit, Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit
- Will Johnson, Vultures Await
- The Kilimanjaro Darkjazz Ensemble, Here Be Dragons
- Natalia Lafourcade, Hu Hu Hu
- Cass McCombs, Catacombs
- Maxwell, BLACKsummers’night
- Rose Melberg, Homemade Ship
- Múm, Sing Along to Songs You Don’t Know
- Hope Sandoval and the Warm Inventions, Through the Devil Softly
- Lhasa de Sela, Lhasa
- Oumou Sangaré, Seya
- St. Vincent, Actor
- Sweet Billy Pilgrim, Twice Born Men
- David Sylvian, Manafon
- M. Ward, Hold Time
PERMALINK |
- 2008
- American Music Club, The Golden Age
- Erykah Badu, New Amerykah, Part 1 (4th World War)
- Brazilian Girls, New York City
- Brian Blade and the Fellowship Band, Season of Changes
- Calexico, Carried to Dust
- Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Dig, Lazarus, Dig
- Thomas Feiner and Anywhen, The Opiates (Revised)
- Fleet Foxes, Fleet Foxes
- Flying Lotus, Los Angeles
- Gang Gang Dance, Saint Dymphna
- Emmylou Harris, All I Intended to Be
- Steve Jansen, Slope
- Kings of Leon, Only by the Night
- Jenny Lewis, Acid Tongue
- Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks, Real Emotional Trash
- Juana Molina, Un Día
- My Brightest Diamond, A Thousand Shark’s Teeth
- Sam Phillips, Don’t Do Anything
- Portishead, Third
- The Roots, Rising Down
- Santogold, Santogold
- South San Gabriel, Dual Hawks
- TV on the Radio, Dear Science
- Wire, Object 47