I’m a big nerd who reads too much. Don’t take any of this too seriously.
All in music
For the past 40 years and change, Lucinda Williams has been responsible for some of the most progressive, empathetic music to come out of country music. A critically-acclaimed but commercially underappreciated artist, she enters her eighth decade with a surprisingly diverse discography that traverses just about every corner the genre.
A one-of-a-kind artist who, at 63, gives you the feeling that he still hasn’t quite peaked. Nobody conjures feeling quite like Nick Cave.
More than most years, 2020 left me plenty of time to catch up on old music I either hadn’t heard before or hadn’t quite clicked with me yet. Here are 10 songs, albums, and artists that stood out to me in the past twelve months.
American Head, The Flaming Lips’ 16th(!) studio album, is a timely reminder that America’s weirdest psych rockers are more than bubble-bound festival mainstays. Forming in Oklahoma in the mid-80s and zagging from generic garage rock to 90s alt heroes to indie rock godfathers, the Wayne Coyne-led band has outlasted its peers and covered more stylistic ground successfully than any other band I can think of in the last 30 years. At their late-90s/early-00s peak, the Lips full-hearted symphonies paved the way for Obama-era optimism. In the band’s darker moments, though, the Fearless Freaks show that we’ve got plenty to be afraid of, finding ways to channel anxiety and violence in ways that resound more in 2020 than upon their initial release.
When people talk about the best MCs of all-time, why isn’t Missy’s name near the top of the list? She’s a triple-threat, rapping, singing and producing across some of the best records of the 90s and 00s. The sound she pioneered with production partner Timbaland—a hiccuping, spacey counterpart to the sample-heavy East and the G-funk West—laid out a blueprint for modern R&B that’s still being followed today.
