First Aid Kit's new album "Ruins" is truly great IMO. Released just this week. Country/folk music isn't usually my cup of tea, but this one floats my boat. Solid songwriting and brilliant musicianship IMO.
I would add though.... A part of the reason music has taken a back seat is the greed of the music industry. They promoted the synthetic computer generated crap to mainstream because it was profitable and controllable. The 99 cent song for instance destroyed mainstream album quality. It lowered musical taste, education and recognition of quality. Music became less important because the quality became less. Sure the non mainstream has wonderful quality. But its called Mainstream for a reason. The masses are even less appreciative, less educated when music is involved. The masses are like kids who eat candy because its good, not realizing the lack of substance. Mainstream went from a 3 course meal with steak to Cake to just cheap poisonous candy. Everyone is dumbed down and cant even recognize the green beans or asparagus. They just want their gummy worms. I long for when average everyday people had a little chicken and greens with their pie. You talke ot a group now and if music is in the background its a giant commercial. Its club music with zero meaning. Most all of it is here today gone tomorrow. I remember some of the best pieces of steak I ever had. It had substanance. It was memorable. I cant even remember eating a gummy worm.
Actually, speaking for myself, it's been rather informative. Quite a few have posted newer albums that I may just have to check out. That's always a good thing in my eyes.
I don't really want to get into this subject, I don't think the OP intended it to go in this direction and there are way too many other threads for this discussion, so I'll just acknowledge that I've always been a bit on the outskirts of the mainstream and never really felt much affinity to what was popular, though I don't feel your disdain for people that do have a more mainstream taste in music. There have been occasional moments in history when most of the music world shared a common view, in fact last year was probably one of them since Kendrick Lamar and Lorde and some others topped both the mainstream and critics charts, and were even popular around here. But for the most part, I don't listen to much popular music. Been listening to the really nice French shoegaze band Dead Horse One and their 2014 Without Love We Perish album today, don't know if it's truly great, but seems to spend a lot of time on my table. Fun record.
I heard this recently and indeed liked it. Definitely one of those albums that perfectly fits my example of a modern album I can easily enjoy, yet can't envision myself being immersed in in the same way I would be with an album like "Sketches Of Spain", where I'm seeking out multiple pressings and finding new subtleties decades later. I do enjoy it though.
Alejandro Escovedo - A Man Under The Influence (2001) I'd join the poster above me and add the live Replacements album.
Hard to argue against Blackstar but I'd have to give strong consideration to either Wilco title Yankee Hotel Foxtrot or A Ghost Is Born ( depending on my mood)
those are great - I went for Lust for Life although Ultraviolence is for sure greater, Lust is still great!!
I don't know how you manage to listen to all this music, but I really admire your posts and how you keep recommending new albums. Even though our taste in music is a bit different, I often check your albums..
This is honestly a really hard one for me to answer considering that I've heard albums that came out in the past 10 to 20 years that I can see holding up incredibly well decades from now.
Thanks, it probably seems like I listen to more than I do because I have a tendency to toss out recommendations or words about something I've played recently in many of my posts, and they are usually more on the eclectic side since that's the side of music that I generally come here to read and talk about. But I know many people around here who listen to far more than I do. I tend to binge on some of my favorite records and play them a lot, and so that spills over into many of my posts here. And I do really love that Dead Horse One record
Yes. I'll add Black Messiah by D'Angelo. It was mythical prior to release and lived up to the hype. It also gets better with repeat listens and is as well written as any album I can remember.
"The Age Of Understatement" - The Last Shadow Puppets (2007) "Fleet Foxes" (2008) "Americana" - Ray Davies (2017)
Started and finished with 2017 and the winner is Laura Marling's -Semper Femina but then I realised Jake Xerxes Fussell's - What In The Natural World, was released 21 days later.