music-and-concert-reviews-you-wont-see-anywhere-else
#28 album of 2013 – Guilty by Babe the Blue Ox
Artist: Babe the Blue Ox
Album: Guilty
Babe the Blue Ox were an interesting 1990s rock trio from New York City that I liked even before they recorded their masterpiece, and then in 1998 they did, and then they stopped making new songs together for fifteen years, though I believe they still played concerts every New Year’s Eve. Tim Thomas played strong, angular guitar riffs and sang (with limited melodic range) sometimes in a theatrically gruff, sultry […]
#29 album of 2013 – Same Trailer, Different Park by Kacey Musgraves
Artist: Kacey Musgraves
Album: Same Trailer, Different Park
Kacey Musgraves’s debut Same Trailer, Different Park is my favorite country music album in a decade or so. Its status at #29 on this list qualifies that enthusiasm, I realize, but it’s real enthusiasm: she’s a talented songwriter who sings with a forceful, flexible alto drawl. Same Trailer is at least my favorite country record since Son Volt’s Okemah and the Melody of Riot (2005), if that isn’t too […]
#30 album of 2013 – MGMT by MGMT
Artist: MGMT
Album: MGMT (Self-Titled)
In 2008, MGMT debuted as an arty pop band produced by go-to psychedeli-pop producer Dave Fridmann. They scored three hit singles (Time to Pretend, Kids, Electric Feel), and while I wasn’t taken with them in general, I voted Time to Pretend as my favorite single of 2008. Huge-sounding and pretty and minor-key, it plans out a life, starting from “I’m feeling rough, I’m feeling raw, I’m in the prime of my life/ […]