On the whole, I’d say these songs are a hopeful bunch, rooted in the possibility of muddling through somehow and reclaiming a semblance of fellowship, cohesion, progress, and well-being. Perhaps 2022 will deliver on that promise.
What can one say about 2020 other than, “Good riddance”? I can think of one thing: There was some damn good music released this year. Is it because 2020 was a particularly fruitful year, with talented artists who had nothing else to do but write and record new music?
Fourteen of the 30 tracks below are either by a female solo artist, a band with a frontwoman, a male-female duo, someone who doesn’t subscribe to binary gender identifiers, or a Canadian indie-supergroup prominently featuring Neko Case.
“Everything, everything, everything, everything, everything is awful!!!”
That, my friends, was 2018, in all its mortifying, capricious, senseless absurdity. I can think of no better soundtrack.
Even the shittiest of years can produce moments of musical transcendence. The tumult of 1968 gave us Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison, Sweetheart of the…
The past year was nothing if not a “low-flying panic attack” … .
Ha! You thought this blog was done for. Surprise! I’m back. (Fair warning, though: There might not be another post until New Year’s Eve 2016.…
I basically haven’t posted anything new to this blog since my 2013 year-end roundup. It’s been a busy year full of new challenges and responsibilities,…
Once again, I’m turning this in a few days past deadline. No matter! It’s still not too late to celebrate 2013, which in my musical…
Weird, right? The year’s already half over. I say this every July, but this year really and truly has been zipping by even faster than…