The Grammys have had their say, and to no one's surprise they mostly got the year in music wrong. The BC Magazine music editors have come together to help get you headed in the right direction. Ignore the Grammys, buy these records instead!
Josh Hathaway: Peter Karp - Shadows and Cracks
This is probably the least suspense-filled choice of the entire group because I announced my choice when I interviewed the man behind it on the B-Sides Concept Album program for BlogTalk Radio. What can I say about this album that I haven't said before throughout the past year (BC Magazine review/Fanboy)? Plenty!
Shadows and Cracks is such a versatile record that it's impossible not to love. This is the album you start with tomorrow when you get showered in gift cards by all the people in your life. Karp has crafted a record that blends influences and styles with songwriting good enough to stand next to Dylan, Dixon, Lennon, Waits, Prine, and Hiatt.
It's high praise, but I mean every word of it. Consider this: everyone I've turned on to this album has liked it. You will, too. Essential is not a strong enough word. Fuckin' well mandatory comes closest.
Connie Phillips: Paul McCartney – Memory Almost Full
It's not a well kept secret. There's a special place in my heart for pop music and another corner reserved for anything retro. Memory Almost Full, released June 4, isn’t what I'd call a throwback, not in the least. It did, however, have some very familiar threads running through it. Like an evening with an old friend, or a cozy sweater, it felt warm and familiar. These songs came from the same place inside McCartney his earlier tunes with The Beatles and Wings did and six months later, I still pop the CD in, or call it up on the iPod.
When the CD was released in June, I wrote a sneak peek article and much of what I said then still holds true. From the light airy feel of "Dance Tonight" and "That Was Me" to the more surreal "The End of The End" and "Feet in the Clouds," the album has remained a staple in my collection.
Article comments
1 - Josh
Glen, I can't tell you how close it was between Peter Karp and Springsteen for my album of the year. I love them both.
Connie, I like MAF, but I think I like Chaos and Creation better.
2 - A.L. Harper
You know, so many of the Best Of lists that I have read this year, I haven't heard of a single person on the list. And other than my own contribution, and Springsteen of course, the same holds true here.
3 - El Bicho
A.L., Paul McCartney used to be in a band called Wings in the '70s.
4 - Glen Boyd
Connie,
I came soooo close to including MAF on my own list. Just the other night, I watched a McCartney concert from Paris on the A&E cable channel that included songs from this album and was reminded of just how catchy his new songs like "Everybody Dance" and "That Was Me" really are. I'm really glad somebody (in this case Connie) included this album because it deserves to be here.
(On a side note to Josh...I'm curious if you got a chance to hear that full band version of The Promise yet...)
-Glen
5 - A.L. Harper
Thanks Bicho... I've never heard of him. Was Wings big? Any hits he may have written I would have heard of? *laugh*
I didn't see McCartney on this list... Duh!
6 - Hal
nice comment on A Fine Frenzy
happy new year
HC
7 - Josh Hathaway
I'm working on a piece for Fanboy about my discovery of A Fine Frenzy. It's a wonderful record, kids.