{"id":3290,"date":"2022-12-31T01:04:50","date_gmt":"2022-12-31T09:04:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/billchapin.net\/allthecitylights\/?p=3290"},"modified":"2022-12-31T12:08:22","modified_gmt":"2022-12-31T20:08:22","slug":"rankstravaganza-five-great-2022-albums-two-eps-by-oakland-east-bay-musicians","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/billchapin.net\/allthecitylights\/2022\/12\/rankstravaganza-five-great-2022-albums-two-eps-by-oakland-east-bay-musicians\/","title":{"rendered":"Rankstravaganza: Five Great 2022 Albums (+ Two EPs) by Oakland\/East Bay Musicians"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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OK, so I ran the numbers, and a full 40 percent of the albums I listened to this year\u2014really<\/em> listened to, like more than once\u2014were by East Bay-based groups and songwriters. This is not meant to be a brag. I think what I’m trying to say is that the City of Oakland is full of great music just waiting to be discovered, and seeking it out is a rewarding listening experience that can easily take up two-fifths of your commute and\/or dishwashing time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There’s a great diversity to the music, too, one that mirrors the region itself. The albums that follow hew close to my personal preferences\u2014we’re heavy on retro soul and guitar-driven pop-rock, surprise surprise\u2014but a brief perusal of Bandcamp’s Oakland location filter reveals a lot of chill hip-hop, not-chill metal, experimental ambient music, and unclassifiable weirdness. But if you need a place to start, you could do worse that these five full-length releases and two EPs:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

5. Feel Like Going Home, <\/em>Miko Marks<\/a> & the Resurrectors<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n
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\"Miko<\/a>
Photo by Amanda Lopez, via Facebook<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

I first came across Miko Marks in 2019 with this fantastic jam about roller skating around Lake Merritt<\/a>. Everything I read about the Flint native, however, kept referring to her as a country singer, which threw me for a loop. “Are there two<\/em> singers named Miko Marks out there?” I wondered. Of course there’s no reason a black singer from Oakland can’t make a one-off bouncy R&B anthem while also positioning herself for a breakthrough into the country music industry (and it speaks to our culture’s insistence on keeping people in specific genre buckets that this seems at all odd).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fast forward three years, and Marks has made impressive progress toward making that breakthrough. She toured with the Black Opry Revue<\/a>. She was named a member of CMT’s Next Women of Country Music Class of 2022<\/a>. And her third album in two years made Rolling Stone’s <\/em>list of The 25 Best Country and Americana Albums of 2022<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Feel Like Going Home <\/em>doesn’t sound much like what’s getting airplay on country radio nowadays. It’s more like what was coming out of Muscle Shoals 50 years ago. It’s a collection of immaculately produced country-soul with full gospel-choir arrangements, smoking guitar solos, and Marks belting out lyrics that walk the line between vaguely religious and preaching justice and community. <\/p>\n\n\n\n