April Album Avalanche
I listened to 30 albums this month. Here's my favorite 5. Also this month is the first time I've given an album an F! It's a big deal!
Hey, I’m Matt and this is the monthly album round-up. Recently someone pointed out that once they started following more than a dozen or so substacks they lost track of who is who and the frustration of trying to remember when there’s no introduction made it less likely they’d stick around and read. So hi it’s me the guy you probably found on Instagram who you’ve seen get increasingly frustrated by the way Indie guys sing. What you’ll get here is the top five albums I listened to, my favorite one that I bought in the once popular and now once again popular Long Play (LP) record format, and an all-time favorite album recommendation from yours truly.
We’re a quarter into this year! I’ve heard that weather has been weird for everybody, so here in Utah we had the biggest snow year in recorded history. Just piles of it. April began with blizzards. It’s been incredibly pleasant the last couple weeks, though, and finally feels like spring. We’re all hoping the snow doesn’t melt too fast and we don’t have too bad of flooding. At least in my town things are holding up OK.
Past me, the one who would be gearing up for a field season as a biologist, would have been dreading getting out there in these conditions. It’s going to be muddy, and there will be lots of standing water, and that standing water will mean mosquitos. And yes, there will also be wildflower super blooms and amphibians in the desert where they usually have no business hanging out so if you’re one of those biologists who will be getting out there, you’re in for some treats among the horrors.
It’s weird marking time by albums. As of this writing I’ve listened to 127. Almost all of them twice. Some, because they’ve become part of my regular rotation, I’ve probably put in a dozen listens. With few exceptions, I’ve appreciated almost every one even if I ultimately found it not for me. I’m not a doctor or anything and wouldn’t recommend listening to music instead of working with a therapist, but, in the words of The Violent Femmes in their classic song 36-24-36, “it’s done a world of good for my mental health.”
Let’s get to them (first I need to check old posts to see what I call these sections)
Oh yeah, it’s
TOP FIVE BANGERS
April was a real good month for music! I don’t count albums I’d already heard before and revisited, but I don’t know if you really need to tell me that Red (Taylor’s Version) is good. Have you heard of Dark Side of the Moon, by Pink Floyd? You probably should hear it.
Out of 30 albums that were new to me, these are the ones that really stood out.
Stevie Wonder - Innervisions
So this is about the perfect case for why I did this in the first place, because I would have never listened to this album just on my own and in just the 18 days of my life after I did have been richer for it. My process is that I listen to an album once, then read the wikipedia article about it, then listen again. Hearing it and all the wild musical stuff going on, including the funkiest bass-lines I’ve ever heard, and then finding out that Wonder did all of it more or less by himself was astonishing. Everyone should be listening to this, and often.
Kate Bush - Hounds of Love
I am not immune to the whims of the internet. So I was also swept up into the “Running Up That Hill” tidal wave that swept the nation after it saved (spoiler sort of) Stranger Things Max from Stranger Things Vecna. I should have known who Kate Bush was before that. She was in my musical wheelhouse. I didn’t. I blame the patriarchy. But like a lot of other folks, I lightly dabbled in the rest of her catalog to find out if there was other gold in it. I did it the wrong way, though, looking at just the top 5 on spotify. The right way, it turns out, was just to listen to Hounds of Love back to back like 4 times. This is an incredible, epic-sounding album and remedying past me’s oversight was a joy.
Beastie Boys - Paul’s Boutique
Another miss. Another gaping hole in my musical knowledge. I didn’t even know this existed even when I was calling myself a Beastie Boys fan in high school. When I disclosed this fact to people on Instagram, they were astonished. But listen. It was a commercial failure when it came out. At the time, I was 10. The album that put Beastie Boys on my radar aside from the kind of simple rock bangers you hear on the radio from License to Ill was Ill Communications. Paul’s Boutique didn’t reach platinum status until 1999, when the music world decided it was one of the greatest albums ever recorded. When that happened I was living in Mexico as a Mormon missionary who was only allowed to listen to movie soundtracks. Like, cut a guy a break. Anyway that’s a lot of text that doesn’t say why I thought it was good. Here’s why it’s good: it’s Beastie Boys and the Dust Brothers making an album together.
Esperanza Spalding - Radio Music Society
I couldn’t get to all of the hugely impactful albums to me this month but it was kind of amazing how many of them all seemed to educate me in preparation for Esperanza Spalding. This month I listened to Miles Davis, and James Brown, and Stevie Wonder, and Salt-N-Pepa. Somehow all of that is in Radio Music Society and more. It’s generations of influences like gospel, soul, and jazz, but it’s also so modern and beautiful. I found every second of it thrilling. I’m told that no two Esperanza Spalding albums sound alike; I’m very excited to see what else she does.
Brandi Carlile - The Firewatcher’s Daughter
I don’t know why I take things like this so seriously but it has brought on genuine anxiety in my as I try to decide which is my “favorite.” In February I was introduced to Brandi Carlile through way of The Highwomen. That group and album was astonishing and stunning to me but it met the buzzsaw which was Metric’s Art of Doubt. Many other months it would have easily been my top album. I’ve listened to a lot of Carlile since. So when I agonized between The Firewatcher’s Daughter and Radio Music Society, I took into account the greater influence she has had on this self-imposed album a day challenge. I am such a fan now and this album is so gorgeous and I need Brandi Carlile in my record collection. And now she is.
HOWIE’S ALBUM RECOMMENDATION
So this was my first Record Store Day since getting a turntable and it was wild. I didn’t know this was a thing last year this time and this year I was standing in line at the tiny little record store in my town with one grail in mind: Hello, by Poe. And Hello is good. It’s not the one I want to talk about, though. That one is Haunted. A lot of people don’t know who Poe is these days, and that’s a bummer. In one of the saddest stories in the music industry, the merger between Time Warner and AOL occurred just after Haunted released. Even though it was climbing the charts and had hits, one record label had distribution rights to Poe and another owned the rights to her music. The label that had the rights to distribute her music would not be able to profit off of any of her past and future catalog. So they stopped trying. Poe would fight for 10 years just to be able to play her music.
Haunted is so good. Poe used recordings of her then recently deceased father to introduce songs, sometimes creating conversations with him with recordings of her own child and adult voice. And then there’s the songs. I always write these posts while listening to my recommendation of the month and these soundscapes are incredible. “Wild,” has always been my favorite. But it’s hard to pick a favorite when everything is so good. The way the album flows together with soundscapes and the quotes and is so cohesive. The last track is so lovely and heartbreaking, it always always makes me cry. The tiny child voice saying, “It’s ok, you can go now.” OMG.
I want more people to listen to it.
Anyway here’s the final list of albums and letter grades. The Joy Formidable is highlighted because it was album number 100!
Hey all I have been listening to one album a day all year. I’m up to 127 albums! Anyway, this is the monthly roundup. I picked my favorite five, and bought the record of my favorite thanks to subscribers. Yay!
Def gonna pick up The Firewatcher's Daughter! Was waiting on your thoughts.