As I have mentioned before, I get to vote in the recently-defunct Village Voice‘s Pazz & Jop poll. However, I’m probably more careful when I vote in a similar poll offered up by Brad Luen for the Facebook music-nut group Expert Witness. I have to live with those motherfuckers on a daily basis! And it’s a tough room! This year, there is some kidding-on-the-square about my albums list (which is different from my Pazz & Jop list; BTW, you get 100 points to distribute across your Top 10, with no more than 30 and no less than 5 for each item), but most telling is I actually submitted a singles ballot. I am an album dude, but this year I really leaned into some smashing songs. For what it’s worth, here’s my lists, and I checked them thrice:
Albums
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Tracey Thorn: Record (30)
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Rosalía: El Mal Querer (25)
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CupcaKe: Ephorize (10)
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Bettye LaVette: Things Have Changed (5)
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Elza Soares: Deus É Mulher (5)
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Noname: Room 25 (5)
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Pistol Annies: Interstate Gospel (5)
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Tierra Whack: Whack World (5)
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Mary Gauthier: Rifles & Rosary Beads (5)
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Janelle Monáe: Dirty Computer (5)
Singles
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Rosalía: “Malamente”*
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Tracey Thorn: “Sister”
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JLin: “The Abyss of Doubt”
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CupcakKe: “Duck Duck Goose”
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Swamp Dogg: “I’ll Pretend”
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John Prine: “When I Get to Heaven”
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Pistol Annies: “Got My Name Changed Back”
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Parquet Courts: “Almost Had to Start a Fight”
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Robyn: “Between the Lines”
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Rosalía: “Baghdad”
On to the new year, though it’s included little new music. I’ve been on Louisiana kick.
Travailler, C’est Trop Dur: The Lyrical Legacy of Caesar Vincent
Hadn’t heard of Vincent, whose very lyrical compositions are interpreted here by a range of Cajun all-stars (ex. Zachary Richard, David Doucet, Steve Riley). The songs are in French, but that doesn’t mean you won’t feel them, and I’d happily argue this is the best truly country music we have.
Jourdan Thibodeaux et Les Rôdailleurs; Boue, Bocane, Et Bouteilles
This youngster sings in a pleasingly grizzled baritone, plays a killer fiddle (as he must), fronts a racially integrated Cajun band (still a bit rare), and features a Savoy (of the Louisianan royal music family) on guitar dirtying things up a bit. I love it when youngsters mess with folk forms.
Sean Ardoin: Kreole Rock and Soul
Member of another Louisianan royal music family, this time of the zydeco persuasion, Ardoin does some messing around of his own, striving to live up to the title and winning three falls out of five. Winners: “Kick Rocks,” “Abracadabra” (yes, that one). Losers: “Just What I Needed” (yes, that one), and possibly the worst song I have ever heard from a Louisiana artist, “You Complete Me.”
Chubby Carrier and the Bayou Swamp Band: Black Pot
Chubby plays it safe here, but if he and his band were playing these songs at the Mid-City Rock ‘n’ Bowl, you’d never sit down. The title cut’s a dance-floor killer; the closing cut is the sweetest paean to home in zydeco history; in between is competence-plus, community, and commitment.
Joe McPhee and Mats Gustafsson: Brace for Impact
It took 10 years for this meeting of two free jazz masters to come to light, and it might be one of the best of the year in spite of its vintage. They are master listeners, too, not just in a studio but across decades and an ocean: Poughkeepsian McPhee’s 79 going on 30, Mats, a Swede living in Austria, is 54. If you’d like to hear how a jazz composition can be built out of thin air, quick thinking, and imagination, you might as well start here.
Dabke–Sounds of the Syrian Houran
Dabke, an Arab music played at weddings and other celebrations, has a head-spinning number of variations. According to the Wikipedia entry on the style, there are either 2, 6, or 19 types. This motorvating compilation ranges across several of them–you might even call it a dabke Nuggets. Just trying to sell you on trying it, folks!
Rosalía: El Mal Querer
Let it be understood that the frequency with which this Catalonian-cum-Barcelonan powerhouse has appeared here simply testifies to her power. Her voice is intense, alluring, frightening, multi-faceted–and it brings out the Arabic roots of the music that’s been her life, and with which she happily experiments: flamenco. Producer El Guincho deepens the allure and broadens her appeal with savvy settings; if you want to hear her more sparely adorned, check out her debut (more on that later). She is going to be huge, and I may have to finally learn to at least hear Spanish to keep up.
Wire: Pink Flag
Even they have never recorded (again) anything quite like this 21-song, 37-minute voyage into alienation and paranoia. But again it must be said: sometimes paranoids are right. Drowning in the big swim, discerning strange things that aren’t quite right, witnessing murder, looting, and rape, 1-2 hating you, creating a field day for the Sunday papers, they take a moment to expose their hearts when their shades get broken, along with their fleeting love.
Living To Listen 