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| Kansas City's New Baboons top Henry Lipput's 2015 list. |
BETTER LATE THAN NEVER (AGAIN): MY TOP TEN (PLUS ONE) FAVORITE ALBUMS OF 2015
By Henry Lipput
I usually wait until the end of the year before I put together a list of my favorite albums, but this one took a little longer. In the past few years, because of finances or not having heard enough music to justify a longer list, I’ve only had five albums on a best-of list. 2015 was different, and so it’s taken a little longer to pick the ones I liked best and to finalize an order -- especially with the last five. I’ve also added an 11th album that reflects my missing the boat on having heard it when it was originally released.
So here’s my Top 10 from 2015. They include two debuts, some artists who have been around for a while and continue to produce fine work, and a couple of artists who have not released an album for a while but put out really good stuff last year. This list also includes a song from each of these albums that I’ll be putting on my personal 2015 compilation CD.
1. New Baboons, New Baboons
New Baboons are a self-proclaimed rock and roll band from Kansas City, Missouri, and this album is their self-titled debut. A major touchstone for the New Baboons' release is the Velvet Underground, especially that band’s Loaded album. On the first New Baboons song “Sci-fi Runaway” they lift the guitar riff from “Rock & Roll,” and “Dress” has a very VU guitar opening and a Lou Reed-style lead vocal. There’s also some garage rock as well as pure pop. The album is lo-fi, incredibly melodic, and it’s my favorite album of 2015.
Song on the compilation CD: “Velcro Underground”
2. Robert Forster, Songs To Play
Robert Forster, along with Grant McLennan, formed The Go-Betweens in Brisbane, Australia, in 1978. That band ended its run with the untimely death of McLennan in 2006. Forster’s new album, Songs To Play, is the first since his terrific solo disc, The Evangelist, from 2008. He is a master lyricist and storyteller and he has provided us with more literate (not to mention tuneful) songs on the new disc including “Let Me Imagine You,” “And I Knew” (classic Forster), and the gorgeous “Turn On The Rain.”
Song on the compilation CD: “I’m So Happy For You”
3. Ron Sexsmith, Carousel One
In an interview last spring with The National Post, a Canadian newspaper -- not long after his new album had been released -- Ron Sexsmith came close to apologizing for being an “old-fashioned” songwriter: “There’s a new kind of songwriter and I feel like I’m making antique tables and chairs. I really like melody, structure and lyrics that make sense.” To paraphrase that old song, “If being an old-fashioned songwriter is wrong, why are all these people on my Top 10 list?”
Sexsmith is a major talent, and Carousel One is another example of his ability with tunes and words. Although not as well known outside of Canada as he should be, fans like Paul McCartney and Elvis Costello have put the word out about Ron. Speaking of McCartney, Sexsmith has a melodic gift that is the near-equal of Macca’s.
Highlights on the new album include the countrified “Loving You” (with a hint of “Lay Lady Lay”), the bluesy “Getaway Car” with Allen Toussaint piano stylings, and the rocking “Can’t Get My Act Together.”
So why didn’t I review this album when it came out? I’ve reviewed at least three of Ron’s albums in the past and I felt I had nothing left to say except that it was really good. In putting this appreciation together I realized I had a lot to say which is why it goes on a little longer that the others.
Song on the CD compilation: “Sure As The Sky”
4. Marshall Crenshaw, #392: The EP Collection
For the past few years, Crenshaw has been putting out a series of limited-edition vinyl EPs, taking that path rather than releasing albums. But at some point he realized the EPs had enough material to, after all, make an album. #392: The EP Collection is made up of songs mostly taken from the EPs -- six originals, six covers, and two bonus songs. Crenshaw is one of the best guitarists in the business and he brings out his axe and plugs it in for “Red Wine,” “Stranger And Stranger,” and “I Don’t See You Laughing Now.” Covers on the new album include a straight-faced, faithful “(They Long To Be) Close To You” with a piano intro that may very well have you expecting Karen Carpenter to start singing instead of Crenshaw. The Jeff Lynne song “No Time” has a really cool Mellotron that gives it a nice “Strawberry Fields Forever” vibe.
Song on the CD compilation: “Red Wine”
5. The Chills, Silver Bullets
Silver Bullets is the first album by The Chills since 1996’s fine Sunburnt disc. Hailing from New Zealand, the band had a brief moment of international success in the early 90s with albums like Submarine Bells and Soft Bomb and videos on MTV -- mostly on 120 Minutes -- for the songs “Heavenly Pop Hit” and “Soft Bomb.” Martin Phillipps, songwriter and lead vocalist for the band, spoke in an interview with Uncut Magazine about the illness and changes in the record industry that kept him from making new music for so long. He’s had a long time to think about things and there are songs on Silver Bullets that deal with political, economic, and environmental issues. But these songs still have the sound that AllMusic.com has described as “bright, guitar-fueled indie pop.” And Phillipps’ unique guitar sound rings through the songs and it’s a joy to hear again.
Song on the CD compilation: “Molten Gold”
6. Dick Diver, Melbourne, Florida
Australia’s Dick Diver have been around for a while but I just discovered them last year. To my ears they’ve been influenced by two of my favorite bands, one also from Australia (the Go-Betweens -- no longer around and greatly missed) and another from Canada (Stars). With their new album, Melbourne, Florida, Dick Diver have taken these influences and created a sound all their own. There’s no break between the opener, the rocking “Waste The Alphabet” (with a swell Byrdsy Rickenbacker solo -- there‘s a lot of good guitar work going on in this album) and the next song “The Year In Pictures” (horns really add a lot to the band’s overall sound). The horn-heavy “Leftovers” features drummer Steph Hughes in a solo turn as does the ballad-y “View From A Shakey Ladder.”
Song on the CD compilation: “Waste The Alphabet”
7. Kalle Mattson, Avalanche
Kalle Mattson, from Ontario, is the only artist that’s a holdover from last year’s list. His new album, Avalanche, has many elements of last year’s release, Someday, The Moon Will Be Gold, but some new things as well. But that’s why you continue to like stuff by an artist, right? Because their new music has a sound that you’ve already liked. Mattson can have epic opening tracks (like the new album’s “Avalanche”) and then segue into a kind of new (for him) sounding song like the pop fest “Lost Love.” Other songs on the new album such as “Left Behind” and “A Long Time Ago” highlight his well-honed singer-songwriter side. It’s a short album (only six songs) with the closing track being the tuneful, acoustic “Baby Blue” (and then it’s all over). (Sorry. I couldn’t help making the Dylan reference.)
Song on the CD compilation: “Lost Love”
8. Mini-Mekons and Robbie Fulks, Jura
I’ve never heard much from the country singer-songwriter Robbie Fulks so the draw here was The Mekons, or rather, The Mini-Mekons, a group made up of select members of this legendary band. The Mekons started out as a punk band in England in the late 70s and have moved around the musical map since then. They pretty much invented alt-country with their 1985 album Fear And Whiskey (a song from around that same period “Beaten And Broken” is redone by Fulks and company on Jura). The Mekons can also be a great rock and roll band as they showed on 1988’s terrific Rock’N’Roll disc. There are a lot of songs on Jura about the sea: “An Incident Off St. Kitt’s,” “Land Ahoy!” “Last Fish In The Sea” has swell harmonica playing. And we get the first of a couple of wonderful solo vocal turns by the great Mekons’ member Sally Timms on “Shine On Silver Seas.”
Jura is the first time I’ve seen a record company not only release an album as a limited-edition disc on Record Store Day but also make it available as a digital-only download. It would be nice if more companies took Bloodshot Record’s lead and let fans get music this way if they can’t make it to their local record store on that special day.
Song on the CD compilation: "Last Fish in the Sea" (not available online as far as I can tell, so...)
9. Hurricane #1, Find What You Love And Let It Kill You
If Hurricane #1 sounds a bit like the Britpop bands of the 90s it’s because they were around back then too. Their new album is the first in 16 years.
The band released two albums -- Hurricane #1 in 1997 and Only The Strongest Will Survive in 1999. At their peak, they had seven top 40 hits and both of their albums went top 20 in England. The band broke up after the second album when guitarist Andy Bell (formerly with the shoegazing legends Ride) left to join Oasis. The new line-up for Hurricane #1 includes lead singer and songwriter Alex Lowe from the original lineup, Brazilian brothers Carlo and Lucas Mariani on guitar and bass, and Chris Campbell on drums.
“Think Of The Sunshine” is a great pop song that also has a terrific Indian-influenced, trippy coda with a backwards guitar played by former band mate Andy Bell. “Has It Begun (Imitating Life)” is a wonderful song with horns that add another color to Lowe’s musical palette and it contains a distinctive guitar sound that recalls the solo work of George Harrison. “Round In Circles” is a marvelous acoustic number that could have had a place on an early Byrds album (it’s a song that Gene Clark never wrote).
Song on the CD compilation: “Think of the Sunshine”
10. Tacoma Narrows, Good Mourning
Tacoma Narrows are a five-piece based in New York. This, their debut album, was funded by a Kickstarter campaign and released last November in a release party at Rockwood Music Hall in Lower Manhattan. There’s a lot of great picking and strumming as well as humor in the songs written by Cheny Munson; it‘s bluegrass with a New York sensibility. I especially liked the line in “Fugitive Love” about “packing up your mom’s Subaru” to get ready for making a run for it. One of my favorite musical moments is the raucous guitar breakout in the middle of “Life And Love.” Other highlights include “This Is How It Starts,” “Avenue“ (in which the drummer get to show his stuff), and “Cloud Song“ (a little like Talking Heads and more fine guitar work and some more mandolin).
Song on the CD compilation: “This Is How It Starts”
FIRST ANNUAL MISSED THE BOAT AWARD: Lloyd Cole, Standards
This album came out in Europe in 2013 and was released in the US in 2014. Why didn’t I buy it until I went to see Lloyd in a wonderful solo acoustic concert in the summer of 2015? I really have no excuse. It’s a great album and, when I had been on my musical game (as I too often think I am), I would have bought it when it came out -- perhaps even paid extra for an import which I have in the past -- and it would have been at the top of my best-of list for either 2013 or 2014.
Standards is a return to the sound of Cole's first self-titled solo album from 1990. Bringing back Fred Maher on drums and Matthew Sweet on bass, Cole rocks on “Women’s Studies,” “Period Piece,” and “Opposites Day.” The lovely “Blue Like Mars” recalls Lloyd Cole’s “No Blue Skies” and “It’s Late” is another example of occasional country stylings.
Song on the CD compilation: “Women’s Studies”
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