Oh great, another political singer-songwriter, right? And it’s only a slight ideological reassurance that before her seventhish album, she was most known for a Tumblr post on “casual love,” in which she updated Arthur Lee’s “I could be in love with almost everyone,” rendered hopelessly naive upon Nixon’s election, with an assertion that one could love-not-sex (not that there’s anything etc.) multiply and joyfully if the stakes were lowered. Which is true! And still hard! But she makes her radicalism (“you’re just a Democrat, I’m a revolutionary”) so bloody reasonable that it resonates even with a milquetoast succdem (who admittedly wants a wealth tax to happen) like me. If her foregrounded desires catch attention, the arrangements, which swing easy even when they aren’t ripping off “East St. Louis Toodle-Oo,” should keep you around. And having had an even worse late 2016 than most of us, her response — doubling down on becoming John Prine, but with Marxism — isn’t exactly what I would’ve done, given her wit and talents, it seems, again, reasonable.
Grade: A (“That Boy”, “Moustache”, “American Kid”)
King of the Road: A Tribute to Roger Miller
The most personally useful tribute album I’ve heard. I’d previously enjoyed a dozen Miller credits, but this expands his canon to around 30, with the variety hour-and-a-half feel making this an easier listen than Miller comps a fraction of its length. The show runs like clockwork: it hardly matters than Jamey Johnson and Emmylou Harris fail their dexterity check when they get the hook within three minutes. It’s not surprising that big names with pop leanings (Paisley, Nelson, most delightful Musgraves since she put her same trailer up for sale or rent) are among the savviest performers, but Toad the Wet Sprocket? Huey Lewis? And if the overcrowded final singalong through Miller’s greatest hit makes you feel like a roller skater in a buffalo herd, it’s trivial for digital listeners to substitute the original.
Grade: A MINUS (Kacey Musgraves, “Kansas City Star”; Cake, “Reincarnation”; Dwight Yoakam, “It Only Hurts Me When I Cry”)
The Bottle Rockets: South Broadway Athletic Club (2015)
Once a band ahead of their time, somehow the times getting worse has made them seem more contemporary. The re-recorded The Brooklyn Side outtake “Building Chryslers” remains progressive in an era when Super Bowl ads feature workers saying “neoliberalism destroyed my community, but at least I have a job at the Kia factory!” Instead, characters take pleasure in anything but work: doing nothing is fine, sure, but real affection is reserved for romantic partners and dogs. The songs are clear, Brian Hennenman got a sitar at some point, and drummer Mark Ortmann remains a round wheel. Sometimes it’s just that simple.
Grade: A MINUS (“Dog”, “Big Fat Nuthin’”, “Building Chryslers”)
Eric Church: Desperate Man
His singing rises to match the best production Jay Joyce has given him — literally, as his voice gets higher and lonesomer, floating above so many kinds of echoing guitar and a touch of Hammond. His writing is good enough: does it matter what “Benedictine baby, Chartreuse snake old lady” means if he enjoys singing it enough to repeat it? His brave if mild criticism of the NRA doesn’t yet convince me that his politics are any good. But I’ll agree that drinking is a reasonable response to the last couple of years, and if he’d like I’ll take a shot with him and try to convince him that “academic minds” have something to say about the humanities.
Grade: B PLUS (“Desperate Man”, “The Snake”, “Higher Wire”)
Brandi Carlile: By the Way, I Forgive You
When our most heterosexual great rock critic declined to convert to Carlile’s convictions, I think the beliefs he was referring to were schlock belting and Christianity, which makes it surprising he liked this at all. His top pick and mine is a motherhood-as-countercultural-identity song that would seem in his wheelhouse except for the Protestant values — the kid is called Evangeline, and yes, that’s Carlile’s IRL daughter’s name. Those agnostic-curious about schlock belting might find the limitation is, and who could’ve seen this coming, Dave Cobb, who when she really goes for it, seems to think he’s producing Sleigh Bells. But inspired by her depiction of a Christianity recognizes the value of a religion centered on forgiveness and the difficulty mere humans often have in living up to it, I’ll can’t promise I’ll try to forgive him, but I’ll try to try.
Grade: B PLUS (“Mother”, “The Joke”, “Sugartooth”)
HONORABLE MENTIONS
The Paranoid Style: Rock & Roll Just Can’t Recall + 3
Great EP whose greatness isn’t increased by adding three good-fine-whatever extras, but positive-sum change is overrated (“Rock & Roll Just Can’t Recall”, “National Sunday Law”, “Always Say Never Again”)
Rayland Baxter: Wide Awake
It’s neat people are still making fake Beatles albums fifty years on, though as usual this has more Paul than John, since bridges and infrastructure are easier to imitate than personality (“Hey Larocco”, “Strange American Dream”, “Everything to Me”)
John Mayer: The Search for Everything
Warmer and more wistful than one would expect a fortyish guy with a track called “Emoji of a Wave” to be, you’d only have to be a little in love with him to believe his next change will be for the better; he’s not so convinced (“Love on the Weekend”, “In the Blood”)
Amanda Anne Platt & the Honeycutters
Sturdy Americana: some nice pedal steel that doesn’t sound like everyone else’s pedal steel, some reasonably sensible long-term relationship songs, and some less sensible ain’t-rural-Indiana-great songs that they’re just cosmopolitan enough to allow you to read ironically (“Late Summer’s Child”, “Eden”)
Rich Krueger: Nowthen
Buttigieg-approvable Dave Matthews record topped by the tale of Catholic Klan-sympathizer “Don,” which is sure to be Pazzed by literary snobs who still go ga-ga over unreliable narrators and meta-schtick… oh shit, it me (“Don”, “Kenny’s (It’s Always Christmas in This Bar)”)
