Top 12 Albums of 2014: Jenny Lewis — The Voyager
Let’s be honest, 2014 was the Year of Jenny Lewis. (“Mmm, no. Pretty sure 2014 was the Year of Taylor Swift.” — everyone, including the New York Times.) Last year, I feared that the only creative output we’d ever see from her again was creepy Instagram videos. (Side note: I like the creepy Instagram videos.)
By the end of this year, I’d seen her in concert four times after a four-year gap, bought and loved a widely praised and popular new album plus a minty green Record Store Day single, and had some delightful and most unexpected little fan experiences. (I’ll spare everyone the Halloween costume Instagram story and the stage bouquet story… for now.) Arguably, I even paid a little more attention than usual to releases from several artists that wound up on this list (Ryan Adams, Beck, First Aid Kit) because of their involvement with this album.
Anyway, The Voyager. It’s rare to find an album that you immediately love and then continue to love as you repeatedly listen to the point of hearing stray song fragments soundtrack your dreams. I reached that aural saturation point, backed off briefly, and dove back in — all before it was even officially released, thanks to the wondrous NPR First Listen feature.
My creative writing college professor used to instruct us to write stories about “the human condition.” That’s easy, right? What story isn’t about the human condition? Doing it well is extremely difficult, we learned as the semester went on. These songs are about the human condition. Honest, vivid, painful, funny, specific, nuanced, and evocative.
One bonus that really works to propel the narratives — and gives the writing even more interest — is the variable, progressive choruses (if there’s a more technical term for that, someone please let me know) on nearly every song. As in, each time the chorus comes up, it uses the same rhyme but has new lines or a small new twist to reflect a new chapter that’s unfolded in the story. Not an unprecedented tool, but can’t think of many other albums that use it so consistently and skillfully.
The lyrics would be compelling as printed words on a page, but they’re also set to catchy pop melodies and an easygoing yet confident sound that’s a little bit sweet, a little bit classic (hello, lovely organ), and a lot of California — a perfect sonic equivalent of the spacey, dreamy rainbow Candyland (or 1990s Lisa Frank binders, take your pick) world unfurled on stage each night during the album tour. It’s a world that I’m grateful we were all invited to this year.
Note 1: This Top 12 list is not ranked. It’s generally a good idea to have 2014 coverage be published in 2014. Before Christmas, even. If I had to rank these, we wouldn’t be done until next August.
Note 2: More on the “Put Your Money Where Your Typing Is” selection methodology here. Short version: These are the 12 albums I bought on CD/vinyl/both this year.
