By this time of the year, the Grammy Awards would usually have been in the books. Due to covid, the awards show was cancelled, but then rescheduled in mid-January with Sunday, April 3rd as its new date.
Although this roundup is not a replacement for the show, we present a handful of 2021 releases that, for the most part, seemed to have gotten lost in the year-end glut of critic’s faves and popular releases. One or two of the releases here maybe did get some of the attention they deserved but these are personal favorites, and all except the last LP, are reviewed here from the vinyl releases.
My Morning Jacket quickly followed up its Waterfalls II, which was released in 2020 with an excellent new self-titled album on ATO late last year. Available as a double-album gatefold package that comes with a large circular poster, it features one album in blue marble and the other in orange marble and both of which are 180-gram pressings. Thankfully, it wasn’t a full five-year wait for this new release, as it was with Waterfalls II, after Waterfalls I had come out in 2015.
The group’s gripping, dreamy, timeless and almost retro sound remains intact, as it balances rural, roots rock with trippy jams. As always, the heart of the group revolves around the pleading, emotional, heartfelt and engaging lead vocals of Jim James. There are some interesting influences this time out, including electric Neil Young on “Never in the Real World,” the loungy side of the Mark Almond Band on “Least Expected,” and even a ’70s LA rock vibe on the album’s finale “I Never Could Get Enough.” This album is yet another step for the group toward being one of the best, if not the best American band on the scene today. B+
Dean Wareham has quietly built for himself one of the most enduring and still relevant musical careers of any artist to first emerge in the 1980s. His time as the leader and founder of both Galaxie 500 and Luna alone guarantees him musical immortality, as one of the true heirs to the Lou Reed/Velvet Underground school. However, unlike some from that rarified club, he is worthy of the lineage, has gone on to make his own sounds in four distinct musical configurations and shows no signs of slowing down.
Galaxie 500 began in 1987, made only three studio albums, and dissolved in 1990. Roughly 10 years after the formation of Luna, in 2003, Wareham started recording with Britta Phillips as part of the duo Dean and Britta. He has also released two solo outings, including an EP in 2013 and a self-titled, debut full-length album in 2014 and made the one-off Dean Wareham Vs. Cheval Sombre in 2018. On top of all that, he and Phillips have done extensive soundtrack work, including for The Squid and the Whale.
As good as his previous solo album was, his latest album I Have Nothing to Say to the Mayor of L.A. (Double Feature), on red vinyl, in a poly-lined sleeve, is one of his best works ever. Obviously influenced by the pandemic and reflective of both political anger and disillusionment with the record business, Wareham quietly makes his point with an album of mostly self-penned songs of subtle introspection, but with healthy doses of self-effacing humor.
There are also some wonderful covers, including one from the short lived, obscure Boston ’60s psychedelic band Lazy Smoke (“Under Skys”) and a spot-on cover of “Duchess” by Scott Walker, an artist Wareham seems born to interpret. This is an album that reminds one how potent the New York music scene once was. Although Wareham cut his teeth in the hometown of his college alma mater Harvard, for decades he has made New York his home. This may be the last great New York underground rock album one is likely to ever hear. A
Sting’s two most recent albums were a collaboration with Shaggy (44/876) and an album of newly recorded versions of some of his older songs (My Songs). It’s been five years since he released an album of all new material. His new album, The Bridge (Interscope/ A&M/ Cherrytree) is pressed on 180-gram vinyl, comes in a gatefold jacket and includes a four-page insert with lyrics, credits, and revealing, insightful, fulsome and personal liner notes by Sting.
Sting doesn’t so much sound like he’s looking back on his life on this new album as beginning to sum up what he’s learned and use that knowledge to forge ahead. Touches of jazz and world music bolster mostly acoustic based music on a very subtle album filled with simple melodies and Sting’s singular, still strong vocal style. Anyone who loved Sting’s best solo work or more personal work with The Police who is looking to know where Sting is at in the early 2020s will love this album, and hopefully we’ll have another album of all new music without so long a wait. B
Jackson Browne returns with his first album in six years, Downhill from Everywhere, his fourth of the new century and his third studio album on his own label Inside Recordings. It is also one of the best albums Browne has done in years and comes close to his best or most commercial works of the ’70s and early ’80s.
It has all the hallmarks of his signature brand of singer-songwriter rock. There are echoes of the sound Browne made in his early years, with Greg Leisz, currently with the Eagles, handling pedal steel and lap steel, and recalling the distinctive sound David Lindley created for Browne’s albums during his heyday. There are also touches of reggae on “Love Is Love” and Latin sounds on “The Dreamer,” and the closing track, “A Song for Barcelona,” is a gem. Browne collaborates on songwriting (Val McCallum, Steve McEwan, David Belle, Jeff Young, Eugene Rodriquez, Maurico Lewak) and shares vocals with artists (Jeff Young, Chavonne Stewart, Althea Mills, DeAnte Duckett) that are not household names, but who add greatly to this excellent album. B+
Like Paul McCartney and several other artists, Elton John busied himself during the lockdown periods of the pandemic to make music. His new release, The Lockdown Sessions (Mercury/ Rocket Records/ EMI), is a sixteen-song release available as a vinyl double-album in a gatefold jacket on blue vinyl.
It’s his first album since 2016 and features collaborations with a wide variety of musical artists from multiple generations. John is one of the few artists who can effectively make music with artists who are his contemporaries while also faithfully working with newer artists. While most of the tracks here find John singing duets, there are several tracks, with multiple artists including the multi-generational/multi-genre collaboration with Miley Cyrus, WATT, Yo-Yo Ma, Robert Trujillo, and Chad Smith on “Nothing Else Matters.”
John saves most of the duets for his contemporaries, such as Stevie Wonder (“Finish Line”), Stevie Nicks (“Stolen Car”), and the late Glen Campbell (“I’m Not Gonna Miss You”) for the end of the album. There are collaborations with artists from the ’90s, including Eddie Vedder (“E-Ticket”) and on “The Pink Phantom,” John is joined by Damon Albarn’s band Gorillaz, who are also joined by 6LACK. In addition to Brandi Carlile, John is met by some of today’s big names in pop and rap including Dua Lipa, Nicki Minaj, Young Thug, Lil Nas X and others. Few artists who first emerged in the 1960s could so easily and naturally work with such a wide cast of musicians, and the making of this album was time well-spent. B
It’s hard to believe it’s been 14 years since the debut album from the seemingly improbable collaboration of Robert Plant and Alison Krauss, Raising Sand. The album paired the former frontman of English rock group Led Zeppelin with Krauss, a purveyor of new American bluegrass and folk, who, in addition to her solo albums, recorded with Union Station and the Cox Family. She was 36 and Plant was nearly 60 when the album, which won the Grammy for album of the year, was released.
It’s hard to tell why this worthy follow-up, Raise the Roof (Rounder/ Concord), took so long to happen, and while it hasn’t created the buzz the debut generated, it’s just as good. Marc Ribot, Dennis Crouch, and Jay Bellerose, who played on the first album, return to create the base of the acoustic, atmospheric musical backdrop for the interplay of the voices of Plant and Krauss. T-Bone Burnett returns as producer and also plays on the album. David Hidalgo from Los Lobos joins for this follow-up, along with the likes of Bill Frisell, Buddy Miller, Colin Linden, Stuart Duncan, and Alison’s brother Vicktor Krauss.
There are three songwriters covered here who were also covered on the first release; the Everly Brothers (“The Price of Love”) and Allen Toussaint (“Trouble with My Lover”). This album features more covers of songwriters of a more recent vintage and who are perhaps fairly obscure, but songs from such forgotten blues artists from nearly 100 years ago, like Geeshie Wiley (“Last Kind Words Blues”) are also included. Other notable artists covered are Bert Jansch (“It Don’t Bother Me”) and Merle Haggard (“Going Where the Lonely Go”). There is also one song written by Plant and Burnett (“High and Lonesome”). “Can’t Let Go,” written by Randy Weeks, will be familiar to those who know the Lucinda Williams version. There are few collaborations that seem so unlikely, yet as successful as this one, and it’s a treat to get a second album. B
