Can this year’s list of my favorite albums top last year’s? I’ll try, of course. But let’s face it. At the very least, it’s going to be tough to better last year’s No. 1, a goddamn avant-garde powwow album. (That album is The Bomb. If you haven’t checked it out yet, get to it.)
As always, I’ll just remind you that I’m particularly drawn to rootsy styles like folk, alt-country, and Americana. You can take the boy out of Oklahoma, but you can’t take Oklahoma out of the boy, y’know? Or something.
10. Drayton Farley’s Twenty on High – Understandably, I suppose, I can’t listen to Twenty on High without thinking of the great Jason Isbell. Both singer-songwriters grew up in Alabama, and their phrasings are similar. Strikingly. For that matter, Sadler Vaden, a member of Isbell’s band, produced Twenty on High. “A smart ass might say something along the lines of how Drayton Farley’s full studio debut is the best album Jason Isbell has released since Southeastern,” said Saving Country Music. Heh. But Farley’s songs are not Isbell’s, and they’re downright absorbing in their right. I’m particularly drawn to “The Alabama Moon” (which has, of all things, a cool Oklahoma twist) and “Norfolk Blues.” P.S. Farley is young, and he’ll probably find a path that isn’t so Isbell-like.
9. Tough Country by The Panhandlers – The Panhandlers are a Red Dirt supergroup, consisting of Josh Abbott, John Baumann, William Clark Green, and Cleto Cordero. Each is an accomplished songwriter, and Tough Country features joint and solo writing. These are stories about life somewhere west of Lubbock, about people forgotten by country radio. I’m partial to Josh Abbott’s “The Corner Comedian,” about a particular kind of homelessness; “West Texas Is the Best Texas” (duh); and the title track, which, hey, manages to rhyme “prickly pear” with “Frigidaire.” But my favorite track is the group’s take on “Santa Fe,” a shrewd Guy Clark song about a couple deciding to give their relationship another (one-last?) go (in, of course, New Mexico).
8. Together Through the Dark, Slaid Cleaves – I’ve admired Slaid Cleaves for a long time, but I’ve never really been a fan. That changed, finally, with Together Through the Dark. “Through the Dark” opens the album, and Cleaves’s forever-boyish voice immediately draws you in. That track is a love song, but it’s no cliché. The lyrics reveal something wise: how a mature, comfortable relationship can get you through life’s storms. If you know anything about Cleaves, you know he’s a songwriter’s songwriter. “Through the Dark” reflects that from the start (“dark clouds gather on the Western range; this time it feels like more than just another cold, hard rain”). Each song on Together is smart, though. I’m particularly drawn to “Puncher’s Chance,” about a certain kind of (male?) aging, and “Next Heartbreak,” which is about grief and survival and, well, a lot more. Just listen, ok?
7. Endurance by Josiah and the Bonnevilles – Josiah is Josiah Leming, and he’s an indie folk singer. (There really aren’t any Bonnevilles anymore. Or we’re all Bonnevilles. Or something.) Leming has been trying to build a music career for a long time—he even had a long-ago brush with American Idol—but the world is finally taking notice. I’m drawn to Leming’s songs about Appalachia (e.g., “Another Day at the Factory”). But it’s really his distinctive vocals that keep calling to me. And Endurance is downright full of those vocals, on hummable songs. One of the highlights of my 2024 will, I’m sure, be seeing Josiah and the Bonnevilles in concert. Woo hoo! Until then, I’ll be putting songs like “Burn” and “Basic Channels” on repeat.
6. Weathervanes, Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit – I referred to Isbell above, and I quoted someone else mentioning Southeastern, Isbell’s solo breakthrough—and best—album. Weathervanes isn’t quite another Southeastern, but it sure isn’t far off. Each song is a compelling short story, the kind that quickly pulls you in and just won’t let go. Take, for instance, “King of Oklahoma,” which sets the listener in the world of an injured, broke, drug-addicted construction worker. It’s a gut punch, over and over, to hear how the protagonist’s wife, who once treated him like royalty (“she used to wake me up with coffee every morning”), is “going back to Bixby, tired of trying to fix me.” Also check out: “Death Wish” and “Cast Iron Skillet.”
5. Broken Branches by Karim Sulayman and Sean Shibe – And for something completely different, may I suggest this collection of songs from tenor Sulayman and guitarist Shibe? These are songs that wrestle (in complex ways) with cross-cultural tensions and influences, with Orientalism, with the nature of East and West. You could spend a lot of time with this album—and you should. But it’s not only thought-provoking. It’s beautiful! Sulayman’s voice is über-appealing, and Shibe is a master.
4. Jarak Qaribak, Dudu Tassa & Jonny Greenwood – Wait—this entry, too, may continue on the theme of East-West relations. Hmm. I guess there’s no more important conversation right now…. Anyway, Jarak Qaribak (Your Neighbor Is Your Friend) is a collaboration between Israeli musician Tassa and Radiohead guitarist Greenwood. The album consists of love songs from around the Middle East, and Tassa and Greenwood are joined on nearly every track by a different vocalist from the region. I’m particularly fond of “Ashufak Shay,” which features Lebanese vocalist Rashid Al-Najjar, but the entire album is lovely. And funky and fresh-sounding, too.
3. Damir Imamovic’s The World and All That It Holds – Imamovic is a Bosnian singer and master of sevdalinka, the region’s folk tradition of songs of love and longing. The World was written as a companion to Aleksandar Hemon’s novel of the same name. I haven’t gotten around to the novel yet—I will, I swear!—but these songs convey the story of two male soldiers, one Jewish and one Muslim, who fall in love during World War I. Swoon. Imamovic’s vocals works so well with both the sevdalinka and Sephardic elements of the song cycle. It may be just No. 3 on this year’s list, but The World is highly, highly recommended. Perhaps start with “Sinoc (Last Night),” “Osmane,” or “Snijeg Pade (The Snow Has Fallen),” which, I gather, has become a Balkan Pride anthem. Swoon again.
2. Logan Ledger’s Golden State – Every story about Logan Ledger mentions how his debut album, highly expected, dropped just as the pandemic stopped everything in 2020. That album didn’t turn as many heads as it should’ve, obviously. Somehow or other, though, Ledger didn’t succumb to bitterness; instead, he produced a second brilliant album. Damn. Golden State is, of course, focused on California. Or, at least, the idea of California. It’s a California where Ledger’s smooth, classic-country vocals make sense, a California of old-school psychedelia, a California of some 1970s outlaw country masterpiece. Did I say masterpiece? Yeah, I did. From start to finish. Get this album now. Highlights: “All the Wine in California,” “Some Misty Morning” (featuring Erin Rae), and the title track.
1. Nothing’s Gonna Stand in My Way Again, Lydia Loveless – I ranked Loveless’s Indestructible Machine as the No. 5 album of an entire decade. So, erm, I’m pretty sold on their voice, which I’ve described as “Loretta Lynn . . . gone (cow)punk.” Like much of their post-Machine work, this outing is more rock than Miss Loretta, but that’s no criticism. Not really, anyway. That shift has allowed me, sorta, to focus more on the songcraft. And here the songs are smaaaaart, even when they’re about particular neuroses I don’t happen to share (believe me, I have enough of my own). For instance, although I don’t relate to the self-destructive impulses (“Every time I go to the airport, I try to miss my flight”) that animate a song like “Runaway,” I sure do take notice. And, hell, “Sex and Money,” with its hard-driving message about (the futility of) unrelenting ambition, is a contender for song of the year. And that’s just two of the album’s songs. You’ll want to pay close attention, too, to “French Restaurant” and “Toothache,” which each offer new angles on the ever-relatable heartbreak anthem.
Honorable Mentions: I Saw the Arkansas, Dylan Earl; Olivia Rodrigo’s GUTS; Stories from a Rock n Roll Heart, Lucinda Williams; Iris Dement’s Workin’ on a World; Coyote by Dylan LeBlanc; My Love of Country, Teddy Thompson; Zach Bryan, Zach Bryan; Christian Kjellvander’s Hold Your Love Still; Angels in Science Fiction, St. Paul & the Broken Bones; BC Camplight’s The Last Rotation of Earth; Book of Fools, Mipso; Beirut’s Hadsel; Return to Archive, Matmos; and Empire Electric, No-No Boy.