All Songs Considered Year in Review
While we're mulling our musical choices for 2008, it's fun to listen to what the likes of Bob Boilen, Carrie Brownstein and Tom Monk were listening to this year. Sure, it's more "Some Songs Considered by the Bicoastal Rock Criterati" - in the same way that Ira Glass's NPR show should really be called "This Boho Jewish Gay Greenwich Village Life." So no jazz or country or hip hop but a whole load of beardy folk rock.Still, like most of these "year in review" projects, you'll always come across at least one gem that you slept on during the year.
Download it from iTunes.
posted by The Blue Devil @ 10:21 AM
6 Comments:
Thanks Bob, This is one of the podcasts I gave up because I wasn't able to keep up. I'll pick this one up.
It's well worth it. They're totally loving the Fleet Foxes and TV on the Radio. Not a sniff of any Black music, though. I wonder how many hostile emails they get from the hip hop nation.
As I started thinking about my favorite music of the year, I came up with the following list. These are not the best songs from an artistic standpoint, or even great performances in some cases. They're songs that made me stop in my tracks to listen. Every time.
Top 10 Music Tracks
10. “The Night I Punched Russell Crowe” by Gaelic Storm (not a great song, but funny as hell)
9. “I’m Still a Guy” by Brad Paisley (ditto)
8. “Party Town” by Marcia Ball
7. “Josephine” by Eric Lindell
6. “If You Should Ever Fall on Hard Times” by The Iguanas
5. “It All Comes Down to You” by Dan Tyminski
4. “Where’s the Music” by Medeski, Martin and Wood (“Let’s Go Everywhere” is an outstanding kids’ CD – one of the only ones I can stomach, which is good because my kids play it constantly)
3. “Get Out There and Dance” by Tim O’Brien
2. :”Please Read the Letter” by Alison Krauss and Robert Plant
1. “American Tune” -- the Paul Simon gem as performed by Darrell Scott. His performance wipes me out every single time I hear it.
Top 5 Concerts of the Year
5. “Hodie” by Vaughn Williams, as performed by the Chorus of Westerly (In the interest of full disclosure, I am a member of the Chorus. Even so, we nailed it!)
4. Beausoleil at the Narrows Center for the Arts, Fall River, MA
3. John Hiatt at the Newport Summer Music Festival, Newport, RI
2. Tim O’Brien at the Narrows Center for the Arts, Fall River, MA
1. Alison Krauss and Robert Plant at Mohegan Sun, Uncasville, CT – Our heads were spinning hours after leaving the venue. What an amazing performance by all involved. I’ve been an Alison Krauss fan for a long, long time. When I first heard that she and Robert Plant were making an album I just scratched my head and thought “huh?”. But what an amazing interplay of talent. Alison can hit the high notes that Plant can’t anymore -grin- but they weave their voices so seamlessly that it was halfway through the concert before we realized what was going on. Spot on and a classic, timeless effort.
Betsy, I've seen Tim O'Brien several times because he shows up at this festival outside of Washington yearly with...Darrell Scott.
I love his record "Red on Blonde" and that song ... song that nobody knows.
Who'd have thought that Plant/Krauss would have produced such a great colabo. That's a top record for sure. I bet they were dynamite live.
And my wife Melanie is a fan of long standing for Beausoleil. When I met her, she had five lps, and one of them was Beausoleil.
Nice picks. If we lived closer, I'd definitely tag along to your shows.
The Krauss/Plant show was also great for people watching -- especially the rabid Zeppelin fans in the front rows who slowly stopped yelling and just sat in stunned rapture. "Fortune Teller" was high point of the show for that - the whole arena just went silent. Wicked awesome show.
I have a Gator friend who saw Krauss and Plant at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage festival last spring. Apparently they did several Zep tunes, which surprised me. But, as you can imagine, there was not a dry eye in the place when they did "When the Levee Breaks." Wow!
Post a Comment
<< Home