As my faithful readers will readily attest to, I love to talk about the music I have been listening to and enjoying. I don’t consider myself some sort of great music critic or elitist but I definitely have strong opinions that I’m not afraid to share with whoever will listen. I think this makes me more of a ‘blowhard’ than an ‘elitist.’ Oh well.
On that note, I have been taking a look at the music I have really enjoyed over the last couple of years and decided to blog about my findings in the ever-popular list format.
Specifically, a top ten list of my favorite albums released since Jan. 1, 2006.
An important caveat: This list is not meant to be read through the eyes of music criticism so much as personal opinion. I love these albums and they were my favorites for possibly completely subjective reasons,.. and I may or may not make any attempt to tell you why they should be objectively lauded.
Lastly, I would love to hear your list or alternate opinions/choices. Tell me why I’m full of it about Radiohead or why I totally missed the boat on Springsteen’s ‘Magic’ (yep, not on my list). The list will count down from number 10 with a new album each day.. Here we go!
10: Neon Bible (The Arcade Fire)
9: April (Sun Kil Moon)
8: Raising Sand (Robert Plant & Allison Kraus)
7: Modern Times (Bob Dylan)
6: Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers and Bastards (Tom Waits)
5) The Trumpet Child (Over The Rhine)
When I was younger, my musically-inclined older cousin Josh used to make me mix tapes (than later, cds) exposing me to various kinds of music that burst through my bubble of contemporary Christian drivel and succeeded in blowing my mind on more than one occasion. One such occasion was a mix cd (that I still have) which had four Over the Rhine songs interspersed throughout the playlist: ‘Latter Days’, ‘Anyway’, ‘Rhapsodie’ and ‘Little Genius.’ Truth be told, I was instantly addicted to Over the Rhine’s music. Later mixes would bring me ‘Ohio’, ‘Jesus in New Orleans’, ‘All I Need Is Everything, ‘Happy with Myself’ and much, much more. The thing is, I never actually went out and purchased one of their albums until 2003, when I bought the double-disc ‘Ohio’ from Best Buy.
The phrase ‘watershed moment’ gets overused, but it’s wholly appropriate in this instance. In a moment, all of those old songs and memories came flooding back and I felt like Karin and Linford had been my long lost relatives, finally come home from a long and tiring journey. I backtracked through ‘Films for Radio’ and the inestimably special ‘Good Dog Bad Dog’ all the way to ‘Eve’, ‘Patience’, ‘Amateur Shortwave Radio’ and the haunting ‘Till We Have Faces.’ Imagine a paleontologist discovering not only a new species of dinosaur, but a living specimen. This is the nearest analogy I can think of to explain how I felt.
A couple of years later, Over the Rhine debuted ‘Drunkard’s Prayer’ and I was floored. Unequivocally intimate. Outrageously delicate. It grabbed me by the scruff of my musical neck and shook me out of my doldrums. If I was compiling a list that looked at the best albums since Jan. 1st 2005, ‘Drunkard’s Prayer’ would be number 1 without any debate (sorry Sufjan’s ‘Illinois’).
Last summer, ‘The Trumpet Child’ debuted with a lot of fanfare and well-deserved hype. The album’s strengths, though, also expose its weaknesses (if 5th place can be considered a ‘weakness’). Nearly every style of Over the Rhine is represented here and represented well: Alt-Country? ‘If A Song Could Be President.’ Blues? ‘I Don’t Wanna Waste Your Time.’ Piano ballads? ‘The Trumpet Child.’ Raucous porch-playing? ‘Who’m I Kiddin’ But Me.’ Jazz? ‘Let’s Spend the Day in Bed.’ Pop? ‘Entertaining Thoughts.’ I could go on. The songs on this album are incredibly faithful and substantive representations of Over the Rhine’s musical heritage, influence and journey thus far. HOWEVER,.. the album as a whole suffers because it lacks a coherent theme and a consistent message. That criticism is quite literally the only one I can level against this record, but it is a significant one.
If you want to hear some incredible individual songs by one of the most talented bands performing today, go buy this album. If you want to hear a fantastic, coherent album, go purchase ‘Drunkard’s Prayer’, ‘Ohio’ or ‘Good Dog Bad Dog.’ If you want my opinion, get all of them and sort it out later.
