A list of the top ten albums this year
By: Hank Kalet
Summer’s here both literally and figuratively and, as Martha and the Vandellas sang more than 40 years ago, "the time is right for dancing in the streets."
And you can’t dance if you’re not listening to music.
Summer also is the time when I try to offer my own set of musical recommendations a Top 10 list for the year so far. What follows is just that, my favorite albums so far:
1. Wilco, "Sky Blue Sky" (Nonesuch):
Everything I thought I knew about Wilco’s latest disc was wrong. And nearly everything that has been written about it was wrong, as well. The disc has been lauded as the band’s "Harvest," a quiet pause in a career of restless experimentalism. On first listen, the disc might seem to be just that, a perfectly conceived, if traditional rock record.
It’s true that the disc lacks the feedback and layered electronic noise of "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot" and "A Ghost is Born," but it’s far from middle-of-the-road. Jeff Tweedy’s vocals, spinning tales of loss and regret, is wrapped in simpler folk-rock arrangements than the band’s previous discs, cut hard by angular guitar, horns and swirling keyboards.
2. Son Volt, "The Search" (Legacy):
While Jeff Tweedy tames Wilco’s experimental urges, his former Uncle Tupelo bandmate Jay Farrar was allowing himself to expand his band’s sonic landscape. The result is "The Search," a shimmering follow to 2005’s "Okemah and the Melody of Riot."
This is an album of twisting, intertwined guitars, sweeping keyboards and a horn section that acts as an exclamation point on the disc’s best tune the powerful "The Picture."
Listening to "Search" and "Sky Blue Sky" in succession, it’s hard to understand why Uncle Tupelo split up; both Farrar and Tweedy finally arriving at the same place at the same time.
3. Lucinda Williams, "West" (New West):
Lucinda Williams’ discs always come at me in waves. There is the initial reaction to her seemingly effortless songwriting, her innate understanding of pop, country and blues forms, her willingness to tease around and blur the edges. This disc, like all of her previous work, breaks no new ground yet, like all of her discs, it injects a sense of freshness and urgency into the medium.
Williams is pop/country poet but not in the Lou Reed, Patti Smith or Bob Dylan molds. She is literate without being consciously literary, accumulating detail and sound washing the dishes, listening to Hank Williams, driving the coast road. The lyrics on "West" are less specific than earlier work, but their sparseness is set within a haunting production that underscores their vulnerability. And at the same time, it is a hopeful disc in many ways one in which the damage wrought by the past is accepted and love is possible.
4. The White Stripes, "Icky Thump" (Warner Bros.):
My knees buckled when I heard the guitars. The band’s last album, "Get Behind Me Satan," was piano based, building on the explorations begun with "Elephant."
And while guitars are the driving force here, this is not a step backward in any way. It is eclectic (echoes of Sixties folk, Latin and Eastern sounds permeate, all filtered through feedback and Jack White’s distorted sense of the blues) and massive and should easily fill the arenas the band will be headlining for the first time on their latest tour.
5. Fountains of Wayne, "Traffic and Weather" (Virgin):
Any disc that opens with a pop-rock song as perfectly constructed as "Somebody to Love" a song with a lyrical structure borrowed from The Beatles’ "Eleanor Rigby" and laced with satiric detail must be listened to.
6. Arctic Monkeys, "Favourite Worst Nightmare" (Domino):
The cheeky Brits, whose first disc not only lived up to its extreme hype but may have made the initial claims seem understated, issue a more mature, yet still fresh and energetic sophomore disc a remarkable feat when so many similar bands failed on the follow through.
7. Art Brut, "It’s a Bit Complicated" (Downtown):
I’m still laughing at this British quintet’s first disc, "Bang Bang Rock and Roll" one long, high-concept joke about the pop charts, the formation of the band and some odd bits about Italian terrorists. Disc two at least from what I can tell from a single listen online Tuesday night builds upon this template, with the same high-concept weirdness, thrashing guitars and punky power-pop presence, with a bit of horns tossed in for good measure.
8. The Fratellis, "Costello Music" (Interscope):
Their first single is probably best known as an Apple iPod commercial and that’s fine. Anything to get a little notoriety for a band that could be Scottish cousins to the Arctic Monkeys or the now-defunct Libertines or the distant cousins of T-Rex and the early Kinks.
9. Gina Villalobos, "Miles Away" (Face West):
Gina Villalobos is in the Lucinda Williams vein, though not on the same level, with a little of the new Dixie Chicks and early Sheryl Crow tossed in. Musically, she moves along the seem between rock and country big electric guitars, some pedal steel, a bit of shimmer. She’s not going to be the next big thing, but she’s worth a listen ("Face in the Sheets" is worth the purchase by itself).
10. Ansty McClain and the Trailer Park Troubadours, "Trailercana" (DPR):
Maybe the year’s funniest musical album so far, a country record that makes fun of all the country cliches and all of the people who make fun of country music. Musically, though, this disc is dead-on serious and flawless, weaving bits of country, roots rock, folk, Texas swing, varying tempos, spinning to the edge of control, but never losing it.
Hank Kalet is managing editor of the South Brunswick Post and The Cranbury Press. His e-mail is [email protected] and his blog, Channel Surfing, can be found at www.kaletblog.com.

