Jeff Katz/Music

2011 – A Different Kind

of Top Ten List

By Jeff Katz

They’re all around you. On TV, in magazines, on the radio and in your daily paper. You love them, you hate them. They are the end of the year top ten lists. Whether you’re a movie, or a book, or a celebrity sex tape, you will be ranked. Does the #8 “Year’s Stupidest Criminal” wish he made it higher up the list? Hard to know.

Top songs and albums are, in my role as music editor, my bag, but I got to thinking. Is it so important what was the best music released this year? Isn’t that initial listen the most important thing? What makes 2011 releases so special? And while I spent my college years running the SUNY-Binghamton record store, Slipped Disc, and getting into heavy duty debates over who heard the first Violent Femmes album first, a serious jockeying for position on the “in the know” pecking order, I realize now that those to-dos meant squat. Being a hipster leads nowhere.

Is the person who bought their first Beatles 45 in Liverpool in 1963 so much better than the one who bought theirs a year later at Korvettes in New York? Did our hypothetical 1963 Liverpudlian love that record any more than a random Brooklynite in 1964? Pushing it further, did that 1964 teeny bopper derive any more pleasure than I did when I bought Something New back in 1979, completing my Beatle collection? How about the kid who discovers the Beatles right now, in 2011 through the life-changing remasters of 2009? Joy is joy – doesn’t matter one whit if the first time your hear a song is the year it came out, or decades later.

So here’s my Top Ten list of 2011, a two-fisted list of old and new. What they share is that they all came to my attention these past 12 months.

10 – Art Garfunkel – Breakaway (1975)

His is a lesser light, who rode a genius’ coattails (see that genius’ latest further down the list). There’s no two ways about it. Handsome? Yeech. Charismatic? Please. His voice is that of a true castrato and his lack of balls came through during his solo career. Yet, after watching the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Concert DVD (I was actually there!), I pulled out my copy of Angel Clare. “Garfunkel,” as he was billed on his premiere solo disc, shoulda been “& Garfunkel.” I liked some of his solo hits – “Wonderful World,” “Breakaway,” and Jimmy Webb’s “All I Know.” So I figured if I saw Artie’s ‘70’s LPs used, I’d buy them. Not a few days later I was at Last Vestige in Albany and there was most of his catalog at three bucks a pop.

Breakaway is surprisingly good and effective. The title track shines, and I was tickled to hear Garfunkel tackle, in English, my favorite Jobim tune, “Aguas de Marco.” There’s also the single from the short-lived Simon & Garfunkel, “My Little Town.” All in all, Garfunkel’s fey voice is put to fine use.

9 – Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds (2011)

Despite their penchant for ripping off Beatle riffs, and Gary Glitter riffs, and everyone else’s riffs, I loved Oasis. Or maybe it was because of their plagiaristic “homages.” Either way, they made me happy. Yet their breakup didn’t bother me one bit, most likely because recent albums kinda sucked. Liam Gallagher’s first effort post-split, with his group Beady Eye, was predictably weak. Liam was the lesser of the two Gallagher brothers – his voice way too whiny, his songwriting talent non-existent. All hopes rested in big brother Noel’s debut.

He delivers with a strong set. “The Death of Me and You” is forceful and poignant in light of the band and family rift, and “(I Wanna Live in a Dream in My) Record Machine” stays on your mind. Who uses the term “record machine”? Eddie Cochran in “Twenty Flight Rock,” the tune Paul McCartney played for John Lennon and gained entry into The Quarrymen. And so the stealing continues, but it’s good fun.

8 – Syl Johnson – Complete Mythology (2010)

This monstrous box set of, to me, an unknown soul singer, became an obsession after seeing the still grinding Johnson at Wilco’s Solid Sound Festival this summer. The package is a beauty, with an exceptionally written booklet, five LPs with original covers, and a sweet portfolio of four CDs.

Granted, there’s a lot of repetition here – backing tracks used over and over in different incarnations, phrases used again and again in a number of songs – but I didn’t know the guy and a full scale immersion into his canon was a tremendously enjoyable experience. Syl is best known for the Wu-Tang’s sampling of “Different Strokes,” but he’s got a lot more where that came from. Plus, any catalog that has multiple songs about short dresses, hot pants and the power they contain is worth your time.

7 – Paul McCartney and Elvis Costello – The McCartney/McManus Collaboration (1998)

The songwriting summit of McCartney and Costello was much in the news in the late ‘80’s. “Ah,” pundits cried knowingly, “Elvis will provided the hard edge that Macca’s been without since he and John Lennon broke up.” It didn’t turn out quite that way. Much of what came out on Paul’s Flowers in the Dirt and Off the Ground    and Elvis’ Spike andMighty Like a Rose was soft. It was, on the whole, very good stuff, but it was soft. There was a higher brand of wit and emotion in their product – “Don’t Be Careless Love,” “Mistress and Maid,” “Veronica,” So Like Candy” – but, of course, it was never possible to recreate Lennon-McCartney in McCartney/McManus.

Or was it? Turns out there was one song that was inexplicably left off all the albums that contained parts of the team’s effort: “Tommy’s Coming Home.” It’s a beautiful tale of a girl waiting for her dead soldier boy to come home. The lyrics are superbly realistic and imagistic; the two voices soar in and around each other. It is one of the best songs in either artist’s solo career and it’s contained on this album.

6 – Eilen Jewell – Queen of The Minor Key (2011)

How great is Eilen Jewell? Even Tom Hanks is on this hard-drivin’, genre-bustin’ pixie’s bandwagon. Her latest turned the heat up during an already steaming early summer. Queen runs the gamut of styles; the opening and closing swamp-twang instrumentals surround an abundant sampling of traditional country, rockabilly, honky tonk, forlorn ballads, torch songs and the occasional 1950s’ guttural sax. Jewell embraces it all with style and energy, and, regardless of song type, pure authenticity. Maybe that makes her hard to peg but it’s the key to her wonderfulness. And it’s all delivered with a healthy amount of enjoyment and humor. Each song is a highlight, not a bit of filler in the mix.

Her band, a band she’s managed to keep together since 2006, cooks. The big star, the main man, is guitarist Jerry Miller. He’s Duane Eddy, Link Wray and James Burton rolled into one. (Note: Eilen Jewell’s Miller is not the same Jerry Miller of Moby Grape, the height of the Haight-Ashbury bands that came out of late 1960s’ San Francisco. Regardless of what you may read on the Internet, it’s not the same guy). Eilen Jewell is a turbocharged kewpie doll. Don’t be fooled by her innocent looks or you’ll be left behind. Queen is a good place to start.

5 – Emitt Rhodes – Emitt Rhodes (1970)

I’m a late-comer to the cult of Emitt. I knew his tune “Live,” which was covered by the Bangles, but I didn’t know him, or his one-album band, The Merry-Go-Round. I do now.

On a sweltering July day I journeyed to New Paltz and Rhino Records. There, waiting for me, was Rhodes’ debut. From the first spin I was in love. Rhodes is a McCartney clone and one can overlook how wonderful that can be. Sometimes we forget just how large McCartney looms  as a melody maker; Rhodes was heavily under his spell. Like his musical hero, Emitt plays all the instruments as he laid down the tracks in his home studio. These are pearls, each and every one, Like the aforementioned Oasis, there are snatches of familiarity, but Rhodes is more his own man than either Gallagher. Emitt Rhodes was the album I listened to the most this year.

4 – The Baseball Project – Vol. 2, High and Inside (2011)

Like a typical Yankee pennant winner made up of high priced superstars, The Baseball Project brought big guns together to win it all. After their debut album, Scott McCaughey (Young Fresh Fellows), Steve Wynn (Dream Syndicate), Linda Pitmon (Golden Smog) and Peter Buck (R.E.M.) went their separate ways, but came back this year with a new collection, Vol. 2, High and Inside.

The thirteen tracks cover a wide range of baseball history — Tony Conigliaro’s lost possibilities, the travails of the ’86 Red Sox, the death of quirky phenom Mark “The Bird” Fidrych, to name a few — and travels through straight ahead indie rock, to surf music, to Steely Dan inspired rock. Bemoaning the early death of “The Bird” in the opening number “1976,” Wynn sings “What does it say for the rest of us when our heroes die and leave us alone?” That’s deep stuff. “Here Lies Carl Mays” closes the album. Yankee Mays, whose pitch killed Indians shortstop Ray Chapman in 1920, croons from the grave, defending his career and expressing the remorse he never showed in real life. It’s a beautiful song about the curves life throws and how we are often left futilely explaining our actions to no one. Sad and touching, it’s the epitome of what The Baseball Project does well, presenting universal emotions disguised in a sports song.

3 – Doug Dillard & Gene Clark - The Fantastic Expedition of Dillard & Clark (1968)

Sundazed Music can always be counted on for quality reissues. They have beautiful taste and that was made clear with their three Gene Clark reissues of 2011. Clark, the most-forgotten but  most important of The Byrds, was returned to the pedestal he should always rest upon. For me, Fantastic Expedition was at the top of that trio.

The soft, often quaking, depth of Gene Clark’s voice on the lead track “Out On the Side” will break your heart. But this opener is a head fake, a rock song that serves as an amuse-bouche for an eight-course bluegrass feast. “Train Leaves Here This Morning” is bittersweet wonder, redone years later to much lesser affect on The Eagles’ first album. The country pickin’ gospel of “Git It on Brother” is a rollicking hoot and the only non-Clark penned tune. (Gene wrote or co-wrote every entry except this Lester Flatt number). From start to finish it is a wonderful record.

2 - Paul Simon  –  So Beautiful or So What (2011)

I’ll admit that I am predisposed to like a new Paul Simon album. From the get-go, Simon’s solo work left Simon & Garfunkel in the dust and, among his peers (McCartney, Dylan to name two), Simon’s solo work has been an unparalleled run of excellence.

So Beautiful is ridiculously good, bouncing effortlessly from the seriousness of Iraq and life after death to the goofiness of the secret of existence contained in an old Gene Vincent tune. “The Afterlife” is as funny a take on eternity as Albert Brooks’ Defending Your Life, and it’s only 3:40!  “Dazzling Blue” is an amalgam of Simon’s solo styles. Over tabla and clay pots, Simon strums a tale of a leisurely drive out to Montauk. It’s followed by “Rewrite,” where Simon thanks the Lord for interceding as he revises his work and his life, accompanied by djembe, glass harp and bass talking drum, in another fusing of the exotic with the common.

So Beautiful or So What mixes the best of Paul Simon; super melodies over solid beats, with words that’ll make you smile as you think. So, where does So Beautiful or So What sit among Paul Simon’s 12 studio albums? Classic.

1 – Liam Finn – FOMO (2011)

As with Syl Johnson, my Liam Finn focus began at Solid Sound. I’d heard of him, the offspring of Tim Finn, the effortless popsmith of Split Enz, The Finn Brothers and, for a short time, Crowded House. This apple is so close to the tree that it never fell off.

Liam’s songs are a life force, powerfully driving. From “Neurotic World” to “Jump Your Bones,” FOMO will move you. The drum and bass pulsate in a distinctive way. Finn’s voice floats lightly, though not weakly, above the music. Like his father before him, Liam has as many hooks as a tackle shop, but the best song of the bunch is “Cold Feet.” It was my favorite song of the year, the one I turned to most often. My #1 song belongs on my #1 album.

Happy New Year!