Top 10 From the Heartland...

A fine year for music, IMHO...

2 Cd’s that did not quality as new but blew my mind: Neil Young & Crazy Horse, “Live at the Fillmore, 1971” & Tom Waits “Orphans”

Honorable mention because they were damn good in a fantastic year for new releases:

Long Winters – Putting the Days to Bed
Neil Young – Living With War (Raw)
Hank Williams III – Straight to Hell


The Official Top 10

10) Built to Spill – You In Reverse – Crazy Horse like jams. The songs never feel as long as they actually are.

9) The Subways – Young For Eternity – High energy Brit-rock. Punkish at times, but they pull off a couple of acoustic numbers as well.

8) NY Dolls – One Day It Will Please Us… – A boatload of fun. My most unlikely purchase of the year, coming a few weeks after I trashed their debut for the group listening.

7) Todd Snider – The Devil You Know – Yeah, it’s no “East Nashville Skyline”, but it still is excellent. Rocks a little harder than past efforts and still has the great Snider wit and eye for detail.

6) Bruce Springsteen – The Seeger Sessions – The only thing more unlikely than Bruce doing a Pete Seeger covers disc is that said disc is the best album he’s released since “Tunnel of Love”. Raucous, joyful and fun. Go figure….

5) Ray Davies – Other People’s Lives – What a nice surprise to have new material from Mr. Davies. I have a feeling we’ll be getting even better stuff from him now that he is back in the game.

4) Drive By Truckers- A Blessing and a Curse – A telling sign when a band can release what is generally considered to be their “worst” effort, and it still outshines 90% of what is out there. They took their shot at mainstream and missed. Still a damn fine disc.

3) The Hold Steady – Boys and Girls in America – Springsteen meets the Replacements, but Springsteen never rocked this hard, and the Replacements were never this disciplined. At least a dozen lines that are Dylan-esque in brilliance.

2) The Drams – Jubilee Dive – Alt country with great hooks and pop flourishes. Makes the demise of Slobberbone a little more palatable.

1) Bob Dylan – Modern Times – What to say? Dylan’s “cowboy band” rocks loose and hard when needed and pulls back when they should. Dylan’s lyrics are insightful, playful and astoundingly comprehendible. There is no reason to expect work of this quality from Dylan at this point, but his last 3 releases are as good as any 3 in his career. A disc that continues to get better every time I listen to it.

Most anticipated 2007 releases:
Wilco, Two Cow Garage, Randy Newman