THE BEST ALBUMS OF 2021

THE BEST ALBUMS OF 2021 

FLOATING POINTS AND PHAROAH SANDERS -- Promises 

THE CORAL -- Coral Island 

C. TANGANA -- El Madrileño 

ROBERT PLANT AND ALISON KRAUSS -- Raise The Roof 

BRANDI CARLILE -- In These Silent Days 

AIMEE MANN -- Queen Of The Summer Hotels 

JOHN MAYER -- Sob Rock 

ALLISON RUSSELL -- Outside Child  

CHEAP TRICK -- In Another World 

THE JOHN SALLY RIDE -- Now Is Not A Good Time 

JEREMIAH FRAITES -- Piano Piano 

DORI FREEMAN -- Ten Thousand Roses 

JUSTIN BIEBER -- Justice 

MIRANDA LAMBERT, JACK INGRAM, JON RANDALL -- The Marfa Tapes

CARÍN LEON -- Inédito 

BILLIE EILISH -- Happier Than Ever 

IKE REILLY -- Because The Angels 

ALICIA  KEYS -- Keys

MICKY DOLENZ -- Dolenz Sings Nesmith 

ASHE -- Ashlyn 

EMILE MOSSERI -- Minari soundtrack 

LINDSEY BUCKINGHAM -- Lindsey Buckingham  

NATALIA LAFOURCADE -- Un Canto por México, Vol. II  

LORD HURON -- Long Lost 

SAULT -- Nine 

CARLY PEARCE -- 29: Written In Stone  

MON LAFERTE -- Seis 

POKEY LAFARGE -- In The Blossom Of Their Shade 

ST. VINCENT -- Daddy's Home 

BOB DYLAN -- Shadow Kingdom 

WILLIAM TYLER -- First Cow soundtrack 

AROOJ AFTAB -- Vulture Prince  

SELF ESTEEM -- Prioritize Pleasure 

LUCY DACUS -- Home Video

NICK CAVE AND WARREN ELLIS -- Carnage  

MANDY BARNETT -- Every Star Above 

RODRIGO AMARANTE -- Drama 

COURTNEY BARNETT -- Things Take Time, Take Time  

COLIN HAY -- I Just Don't Know What To Do With Myself  

THE FLATLANDERS -- Treasure of Love  

ABBA -- Voyage 

The year 2021 would be the year I WOULDN'T stay on top of new releases. No, I would spend 2021 focusing on the many, many great albums already out there in the world. I would binge listen to some favorite artists like Tom Petty and Kate Bush, I would dive deep into stuff I wanted to know better (like Brazilian music) and just enjoy myself. Why try and keep up with the flood of new albums? I'm not getting any younger and isn't it time I re-listened to Frank Sinatra and Bob Dylan and Miles Davis after a good long break? 

Naturally, 2021 became the year I listened to MORE new music than ever before. Oh well, maybe 2022! Here are some of the fresh albums I listened to the most this year. If you've enjoyed any of these acts in the past, chances are their new album will please. If you like the genre, some of the albums here are worth a try. And let me know what albums I missed! This isn't my final judgement, just a rough first draft. I keep adding and subtracting and rejiggering these lists pretty much forever. If you want some ideas of classic albums worth checking out, here's a list of my favorite album of the year, from 1924 (Duke Ellington!) to the present...and then a list of dozens more, year by year. 

THE BEST ALBUMS OF 2021 (a breakdown) 

1-10

FLOATING POINTS AND PHAROAH SANDERS -- Promises 

My favorite album of the year is usually the one I listened to the most. But many years, that's not so clear and then I think, "Which album will win over the most people?" I imagine if anyone checks out an album I mention, it will probably be the one at the top. And if that craps out for them, they'll go no further. So sure, sometimes when wavering between two or three great albums, I might choose the equally great one that's less challenging. Not this year! It's my first instrumental album to top the charts since Bill Evans delivered my favorite two albums of 1961: Sunday at the Village Vanguard and Waltz For Debby. This time it's an unlikely collaboration between Floating Points aka Sam Shepherd, a British deejay and electronic music producer and Pharoah Sanders, the great jazz saxophonist. Shepherd produced an orchestral piece performed by the London Symphony, an ebb and flow of a piece indebted to Philip Glass but with its own hypnotic pull. And Sanders seemingly stood near by, every once in a while stepping up to deliver improvised solos of majestic command and searching passion before stepping back again, biding his time until he felt moved to strike again. If you've any taste for classical music or the ambient pleasures of Brian Eno or film scores or jazz or just feeling adventurous, dive in. If that's not your cup of tea, may I recommend a nostalgic concept album from the British rock band The Coral? 

THE CORAL -- Coral Island 

The Coral is a UK band that's never made much of a mark in the US. But like Prefab Sprout and Supergrass and others, they loom large in my imagination. After years of ups and downs, this psychedelic/Nuggets style group has produced the best album of its career. Coral Island is an easy to take concept album built around an almost mythical seaside down that attracts tourists and then falls into a slumber during the off season. Think Coney Island. I say mythical because the Coral Island seems to be the final resting place for all the punters and dodgy acts who plied their wares at such resorts. Spoken word tracks set the mood (they're delivered by the grandfather of two key members with casual charm) and the songs just take off. If you're scared by concept albums, not to worry. It's a very loose one with no storyline or the such. it just creates a world in which these songs exist. Think the characters and detail of the Kinks matched with the sing-along pub-house punch of Madness. 

C. TANGANA -- El Madrileño 

It's always a little scary when a friend recommends an album very strongly. You better like this, is the unspoken threat! So when Luis told me I had to check out El Madrileño, I did what I usually did -- promised I would SOME DAY but I was really busy and who knew when that might be. Put it off and maybe they'll forget they recommended it and not demand a review. Then I listened to it the next day and...whew! It's sensational. C. Tangana is a Spanish rapper who on this album fully blossoms into an artist of the first order. One comparison that springs to mind is Beck, who seemed to have a limited range with his official label Mellow Gold and then suddenly out sprang the masterpiece Odelay. This album is that good, a mind-blowing mix of all sorts of genres like flamenco, pop, bachata, hip-hop, rumba and numerous others I don't know well enough to identify. It's infectious, fun and world-beating stuff. 

ROBERT PLANT AND ALISON KRAUSS -- Raise The Roof 

Fourteen (!) years ago, the perhaps unlikely duo of Alison Kraus (bluegrass superstar) and Robert Plant (wandering minstrel and one-time rock god) collaborated on a duets album with the dependable T. Bone Burnett producing. The result was Raising Sand, a marvel of a work that gathered relatively obscure songs, let their voices intertwine gloriously and resulted in a brooding masterpiece that sold millions (well, a million+ though if you'd asked I would have guessed at least three million in the US alone) and deservedly won Album Of The Year at the Grammys. It was one of those minor miracles and an attempt to duplicate it fell flat and they all walked away. Eventually someone thought, well surely, we could try again now? They could, they did and the result is thrillingly just as good. It's the same formula: great songs, great singers, great musicians and the dependable T. Bone twirling the knobs. Lightning struck twice. Very NPR, as my taste increasingly tends. But if you heard the original or something in this description appeals, you won't be disappointed. Submissions are now being accepted for the title to the third album. Raising Sand. Raise The Roof. Raise The Bar? Raising Hope? Raising Spirits?  

BRANDI CARLILE -- In These Silent Days 

Like Rufus Wainwright, Brandi Carlile has fallen deep under the spell of Joni Mitchell. Since only Bob Dylan and the Beatles can match her lyric for lyric and melody for melody at her best, that's reasonable. performing the album Blue in its entirely has had a profound, welcome effect on Carlile. She's followed her stunning, hard-to-follow album By The Way, I Forgive You with this stunner that broadens her sound beautifully. You can hear Mitchell in the instrumentation, the melodies the very way Carlile sings and breathes. But it's not imitation, it's inspiration. I've gone from "how can she top that?" to "I can't wait to hear what she does next." 

AIMEE MANN -- Queen Of The Summer Hotels 

Here is my rundown of Aimee Mann's solo career: 

Whatever *** 1/2
I'm With Stupid *** 1/2
Bachelor No. 2 *** 1/2
Lost In Space ***
The Forgotten Arm ***
Drifter In The Snow *** 1/2 
@#%&*! Smilers *** 
Charmer ***
Mental Illness *** 1/2 

Queens Of The Summer Hotel *** 1/2 

Clearly, I'm a fan. Few acts have been as consistently good to great as she has for the past 30 years. Toss in her work with Til Tuesday and you can make that almost 40 years. Mann's latest collection of ruminative, sneakily catchy songs is a new peak. They come from a musical she's been working on inspired by the memoir Girl, Interrupted. That explains some of the shorter numbers that feel like connective tissue for a show and which seemed atypical on first listen. Before knowing their origin, I thought, "A 90 second song? Huh." It all works, from the delicious lyrics about the bummer of being a Kennedy when you could have been a Roosevelt to the music that digs in and stays there. Nothing perks one up quite like knowing you're not alone and that's the power of her openness here about mental health, personal struggles and how being vulnerable about it is a source of strength. What a talent. 

JOHN MAYER -- Sob Rock  

John Mayer is a gunslinger of a guitarist, ranging from pop to a power trio to the blues to the Grateful Dead and back again. None of it thrilled me until he lighted on a Laurel Canyon vibe with Born and Raised and Paradise Valley. I was ready for a trilogy but Mayer detoured into a breakup album and then announced this poser of an album, a "tribute" or perhaps spoof of 80s music. From the spot-on cover to the synth-y sound (he even got Greg Phillinganes on keyboards), it has the aura of the faux 1980s pop single created for the Hugh Grant comedy Music and Lyrics rather than a serious album. It's just too spot-on. Except...I keep playing it. And playing it. And yes, it's a spot-on 1980s album. But it's a good spot-on 1980s album. I still want that Laurel Canyon follow-up and I pray he doesn't go for a 1990s alternative rock vibe on his next album but damned it if doesn't work. 

ALLISON RUSSELL -- Outside Child  

This may be her solo debut, but Russell has a lifetime of other bands to her credit. She also has a lifetime of pain and promise to share and it's on display here. The Canadian songstress sings in English and French right on the first track, just to show her bonafides. But the music -- already nominated for a Grammy -- owes as much to the wide open spaces and country vibe of Neil Young as it does to the confessional lyricism of Leonard Cohen and Joni Mitchell. Confident, assured, it's the debut of someone who has seen it all and is ready to be seen for herself. Finally. 

CHEAP TRICK -- In Another World 

THE JOHN SALLY RIDE -- Now Is Not A Good Time 

Power pop rockers The John Sally Ride are onto their third album already and I'm going to stop waiting for them to miss a beat. Here they've added guitarist Joe Pampel to the mix just when I worried they might repeat themselves. Instead, the arrangements are bolder than ever, the playing tighter than ever and the songs as self-deprecating as ever. It's...muscular, which is not something I ever imagined from them. I saw The John Sally Ride on a double bill with Weezer or Marshall Crenshaw, acts too clever to get the girl but they put on a good show. Now I see them sharing a bill with Cheap Trick and holding their own musically. That band, Cheap Trick, is doing what it does but every few albums they do it so forcefully and so well, you have to just bow down to their greatness. Both albums have been on repeat for ages and I haven't tired of either yet. Rock and roll is the eternal flame and these acts keep it burning. 

11-20 

JEREMIAH FRAITES -- Piano Piano 

When I listened to the instrumental album Piano Piano I had no clue who recommended it, how it got onto my radar or what it might contain. Was Fraites an avant-garde composer, an ambient producer, a classical pianist gone rogue? No, he's a co-founder of The Lumineers and Fraites has labored on this collection of tunes for a decade now. Well, it's utterly beguiling and if you told me it was by an avant-garde composer or an ambient producer or a classical pianist gone rogue I'd believe you and say, "Cool." Like William Tyler (see below), Fraites needs to be drawn into scoring a film. 

DORI FREEMAN -- Ten Thousand Roses 

After three marvelous albums with producer/artist Teddy Thompson, Dori Freeman is spreading her wings. Gone is the old-timey, mountain music vibe her songs and singing and Appalachian roots so naturally pointed towards. In its place is a surprisingly robust sound I would never have expected from her. But the songs are sturdy enough to support it and Freeman sounds like she's having a blast. Another great collection of songs, beautifully sung and delivered to the world. They sneak up on you. Play an album of hers once and you think, "That's good." Play it a second and a third time and you substitute "good" with "great." If she can afford a bigger band on the road, now is definitely the time to catch her in concert. She should have made her Grand Ole Opry debut about three albums ago. Think Rosanne Cash, Dolly Parton, Alison Krauss...you get the idea. 

JUSTIN BIEBER -- Justice 

One word I wouldn't normally associate with Justin Bieber is discipline. But that's precisely what this album offers. It features 16 tracks (including one clip of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., more on that later) and the songs are almost all 3 minutes or shorter, with just a few hitting 3:18 in length. They are tight, excellent pop songs (I mean r&b!) and they deliver. It's very, very good from start to finish and easily his best album. Crowded with guests like Daniel Caesar and Chance The Rapper, it's his show from start to finish with the other artists joining in because they're right for those songs, not just to pad the guest list. It took a village of songwriters to deliver it, but Bieber clearly knew what he wanted here. However, the album is called Justice and includes clips from MLK and that's just batshit crazy when absolutely none of the songs -- none -- have anything to do with social justice. At one point, Bieber even segues from King discussing the importance of having something to die for to his undying love for his baby. While normally one would say you should skip a pop song and just listen to King, in this case the most respectful thing you can do is ignore the title, skip over the ill-considered clips, just assume they were well-intentioned and get back to jamming to "Peaches." 

MIRANDA LAMBERT, JACK INGRAM, JON RANDALL -- The Marfa Tapes 

From the album cover and the casual, recorded on a boom box in the middle of nowhere sonics of this album, I believed Miranda Lambert, Jack Ingram and Jon Randall were in a ghost town called Marfa to get away from it all and record these songs together. Well, they were pretty isolated. It's just that Marfa is a middle-of-nowhere ghost town with less than 2000 people, but also an art collective with a super cool feel to it. So yeah, they got away from it all but there's also lots of minimalist art, the Marfa lights and much more. I guess it would be like recording an album at Dia Beacon in New York, which actually is a great idea too. So putting that disconnect aside, how is the damn album? It's great and exactly what you would expect if three friends went to the middle of nowhere (ignoring the hippies and artists) and traded songs back and forth around a campfire. Casual, charming, sincere, funny and boy do you wish you could have been there with them. Lambert has been one of the best country acts of the past decade, whether solo, with the Pistol Annies or whatever you call this collective here. And I'm still pissed she didn't make it to the finals of Nashville Star. She wuz robbed!

CARÍN LEON -- Inédito  

The brilliant album by C. Tangana featured a lot of other artists collaborating with him in one way or another and I tried to explore them all. One of the happier finds was Carín Leon, a Mexican artist who has some hugely popular singles like "El Toxico" and "Tu." He's a member of  the band Grupo Arranke but also turns out solo albums at a ferocious clip. To my ignorant ears, Inédito sounds very traditional, but I gather he's blurring the lines between all sorts of regional genres, grabbing what he wants to make a song work. So it's traditional and cheeky at the same time. All I know is Leon's got a marvelous tenor voice and the melodies come pouring out of him and I want more. 

BILLIE EILISH -- Happier Than Ever 

This is the "fame sucks" album and usually it's the album about fame being a bore that actually sucks. Not here, perhaps because Eilish doesn't seem surprised by the fact of fame not being all that cool. Plus the soundscape is so personal and intimate it doesn't feel like she's onstage moaning to the world about the burden of fame, but sharing her thoughts with you and you alone. Which is precisely what made her special in the first place. 

IKE REILLY -- Because The Angels 

Remind me to take a road trip back to my stomping ground of Champaign-Urbana, Illinois. (I lived there briefly years ago.) Then I should take a right and head north towards Chicago, go right past it and end up in Libertyville, the hometown of Marlon Brando, Tom Morello of Rage Against The Machine and the ornery Ike Reilly. He's got his own recording studio, his own band, his own label, his own family, heck his own life up there. And Reilly pounds out rock and roll records with consistent pleasure, music that's a cross between the rangy Americana of John Hiatt and a tent revival meeting. It's joyous, communal, filled with telling details and above all fun. I really like his albums but boy do I want to see Ike Reilly perform in concert. 

ALICIA  KEYS -- Keys 

Alicia Keys hosted the Grammys like a loving Earth Mother and while that's definitely not my preferred mode (I prefer cynical sophisticates), I have to admit her passion and openness won me over. Here she is doing what Alicia Keys does -- a clutch of new, personal, positive songs. The album is a complex offering with the new songs delivered in her usual manner of piano-based pop/soul. And then they're repackaged and done all over again, sonically remixed and reimagined by producer Mike WiLL Made-It. I've been so pleasantly pleased by hearing her do her thing that I haven't actually ventured into the album make-over yet. Why mess with a good thing? 

MICKY DOLENZ -- Dolenz Sings Nesmith 

To recap: I believed the Monkees were an under-appreciated band, thanks to great singles provided to them by Brill Building greats like Neil Diamond. Then they got full of themselves, took control, delivered their own music and it all fell apart. Buy a greatest hits set and you've got what you need. Then the entire world decided they were under-appreciated, MTV spun their silly show again and the Monkees almost became over-appreciated. Those singles -- "Last Train To Clarksville," "I'm A Believer," et al -- really are great. But then of course they got too big for their britches, took creative control and it all fell apart. Then finally, thanks to streaming and the fact that you can listen to most anything without spending $15 on a CD and hoping for the best, I actually LISTENED to the Monkees albums. Turns out the albums just got better and better and when the lads took over creative control they flourished like never before. Those singles are still great, but it's the albums they made after everyone stopped listening that are actually the best. Decades later, they reunited (again!) and -- irony of ironies -- outside songwriters led by the late, desperately missed Adam Schlesinger offered up a batch of marvelous tunes (only three of 13 include contributions from band-members) and lo and behold it's the best album of their career. Anyway, Michael Nesmith was fading fast, they defied the pandemic to do one more tour, it proved a triumph and now here's Micky Dolenz offering up a marvelous tribute album to the songs of Nesmith that's as good as anything else they've done. Coming out just as Nesmith died, it's undeniably moving in that context. Years from now, the context will fade and it will just remain wholly satisfying. Apparently, I've got solo Nesmith to explore and it won't surprise me if Nesmith's next album proves even more genius and he writes and records the whole damn thing alone. What a long, strange.... 

ASHE -- Ashlyn 

This list is filled with excellent debut/breakthroughs by female acts, starting with Allison Russell and including Carly Pearce, Self Esteem, Lucy Dacus, Arooj Aftab and right here, Ashe. You know Ashe has her head on straight when you discover she changed the spelling of her name by adding an "e" in tribute to Carole King. And that sort of confessional, pop-pure songwriting is exactly what she delivers. It's greate. 

21-30

EMILE MOSSERI -- Minari soundtrack 

One of the best films of the year gets a soundtrack release with some lovely, delicate instrumentals courtesy of Emile Mosseri of the band The Dig. Film composing was perhaps his side project but with great work on The Last Black Man In San Francisco, Kajillionaire and now Minari, I think it's the band that may soon seem like the side project. Stands beautifully on its own, but do watch the movie. 

LINDSEY BUCKINGHAM -- Lindsey Buckingham  

Sometimes the best revenge is a great album. 

NATALIA LAFOURCADE -- Un Canto por México, Vol. II  

Lafourcade follows up her Latin Grammy winning charity album Un Canto por México with an equally strong Vol. II. Like Leon above, she embraces traditional music of Mexico but is unafraid to recombine it in challenging and fruitful ways, managing the trick of pleasing the parents but remaining cool enough for the kids. 

LORD HURON -- Long Lost  

I never quite got a handle on Lord Huron, but their new album stopped me dead in my tracks. Beautiful, moody rock and roll with a folkie flare and a sense of space in their sound, a sort of wide, lonesome, widescreen bit of Americana that hits me in my sweet spot. 

SAULT -- Nine 

The latest offering from the somewhat mysterious collective of musicians delivering impassioned protest music of the best sort. It's not quite as on-target as their others, but it's still a strong bit of uplift for the people it's written for (not me!), a CNN for black folk the way Public Enemy once saw itself. On the other hand, like a Mission: Impossible reel-to-reel offering it was designed to self-destruct in five seconds. Yes, after a few months it disappeared from streaming services so if you can't track down a CD or vinyl, you're out of luck. I do not want to encourage such shenanigans -- why make an album disappear except for those with deep pockets -- while still respecting the artistic impulse. (Hey, it did make me listen but quick to the album when it dropped.) Still, let's not make this a habit. 

CARLY PEARCE -- 29: Written In Stone  

From Marvin Gaye to Bob Dylan, the divorce album is right up there with the death album in terms o inspiration. Mind you, it can often be self-serving or tiresome. (We get it;  they were jerks!) But Carly Pearce has a blast with hers, expanding a great EP into a great album filled with put-downs and my-life-is-getting-SO-much-better songs that you can't help rooting her on. A country talent to keep an eye on. 

MON LAFERTE -- Seis 

Speaking of break-up albums, Mon Laferte had a doozy with her live-in-the-studio album Norma. A Chilean singer based in Mexico, she's followed that up four years later with two albums, 1940 Carmen and Seis, the one that captured my attention. Seis is -- like the new music of C. Tangana, Carìn Leon, Natalia Lafourcade and others -- a brash, fresh, updating and embracing of the rich musical genres of her adopted home Mexico, the boleros and cumbias and so on.  Like the others, it's an album you want to blast out of your car speakers as you cruise down the highway just a little too fast. 

POKEY LAFARGE -- In The Blossom Of Their Shade  

Okay, so Pokey LaFarge is not some unknown act from the 1930s whose music is being reissued and remastered in pristine form, a heretofore unknown purveyor of Americana in the broadest sense of the word, that jambalaya of blues and dixieland and jazz and folk and what have you. Nope, Pokey LaForge is a new kid relatively speaking who loves all that stuff and delivers his own fine originals with such conviction you'll be paying him a compliment by assuming they're covers from way back and asking "who wrote that?" Think Randy Newman and Van Dyke Parks but bluesier and with more muscle. 

ST. VINCENT -- Daddy's Home  

From creepy abductions to full-throated abandon to pensive interludes, this is St. Vincent sans the intellectual reserve. She lets it all hang out from the droll album title and its naughty cover image to the raunchy, in-your-face sound I was not expecting from her. Ever. 

BOB DYLAN -- Shadow Kingdom 

So Bob Dylan offers up a livestream of himself in concert, sort of. Except it's not a live concert, it's Bob Dylan on a set pretending to be performing in some antique French cabaret with a cast of actors peppering the audience, all of them dressed to the nines and smoking and drinking up a storm to the point of parody while Dylan stands on stage backed by a band wearing masks as they should in this COVID era. He's not singing, mind you, he's lip syncing to pre-recorded music and doing a very poor job of it. Which is all to the good: I don't want to live in a world where Bob Dylan is a good lip syncer. Toss all that aside and what we have is a studio recording of Bob Dylan singing Bob Dylan. It's a dream set list of Dylan covering mostly older tunes and while he happily reimagines them it's only with the purpose of finding new meaning, not obscuring his greatness out of boredom. I paid crazy money (by my standards) to have brief access to the concert film and mostly ignored the visuals while loving the actual performances. This is a concert of my dreams: great, nuanced, fresh versions of "Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues," "Pledging My Time," "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue" and others. Now if they'd just release it as an album! Like Sault's Nine,  this was a blink-and-you-missed-it affair. But since I can't imagine it won't become available as an album some day, I'm letting you know now it's worth your time. 

31-41 

WILLIAM TYLER -- First Cow soundtrack 

William Tyler was born to score films. His instrumental albums seem tailor made for the job and doubtless someone has used them in trailers or as temp tracks. Now finally he's taken the plunge with the film First. Cow. The focus of creating music for a film proves just the perfect framing device and Tyler came up with some of his best work yet. Good film, too. 

LUCY DACUS -- Home Video

SELF ESTEEM -- Prioritize Pleasure 

AROOJ AFTAB -- Vulture Prince  

Three more very strong breakthroughs from female acts. Aftab is by far the most left-field, though her Pakistani background and NPR-friendly (that's a compliment) embrace of everything from Sufi-ism to jazz to classical to pop had everyone from Obama to Rolling Stone singing her praises. Her third album is her best yet and hopefully a sign of stylistically embracing a broader sound and wider audience than ever. Self Esteem (awesome stage name!) is working in a pop/r& b vein. I was put off for ages by the Britney Spears-like album cover and never bothered. Once I did I was delighted she does indeed prioritize pleasure with some excellent, empowering, yes-I'm-a-sexy-woman lyrics and durable melodies. Good stuff. Best of all is Lucy Dacus, who finally charted on the Billboard Top 200 with her third album Home Video. Right in the Brandi Carlile, Miranda Lambert vein of singer-songwriters, Dacus is sharp, self-aware and continues to get better and better. 

NICK CAVE AND WARREN ELLIS -- Carnage  

I feel a genuine connection with Nick Cave. Why? Because I read his newsletter The Red Hand Files. As nutty as that sounds, his heartfelt, thoughtful responses to questions from fans (questions that range from the meaning of life and thoughts of suicide to demanding he perform in their town, right now!) are so well considered and open that I've fallen hard for the guy. He's touring with Warren Ellis, sharing their latest collaboration, a collection of songs for isolation, when the world needs a human touch more than ever. Simple, spare, beautiful, like much of his work, whether it's clothed in the thrashing noise of his band Bad Seeds or presented with just Nick and a piano. 

MANDY BARNETT -- Every Star Above 

Mandy Barnett is an old school singer, rooted in country music. She's as much Peggy Lee as Patsy Cline and has an album of Christmas music and now standards to prove it. Here Barnett collaborated with the arranger and composer Sammy Nistico. No, I'd never heard of him either, but I have albums with his name on it. Nistico worked a lot a latter day Count Basie Orchestra, also crossing paths with Bing Crosby, Sarah Vaughan. He was also a prolific composer turning out music popular with school groups and big bands. Toss in TV work (Mission: Impossible, M*A*S*H, The Mod Squad), jingles and working with arranger Billy May to re-arrange and re-record literally hundreds of big band classics for Time-Life and Nistico is a sneakily prominent guy. I've no idea how Barnett hooked up with him, but this album proves his swan song (coming  out just weeks after he died) and a lovely one it is. She sings familiar songs like "I Get Along Without You Very Well" and "But Beautiful" and Nistico's arrangements support and urge her on nicely. I'd say they fall between the brassy pushiness of May and the sometimes invisible support of Nelson Riddle (arrangements so good you almost don't notice them at first). To my ear, Barnett comes into her own with this album and the period-perfect album cover is the icing on top. Linda Ronstadt blossomed into an excellent big band singer after three albums with Riddle. But when he died she didn't have the heart to continue and moved on to other genres. Here's hoping Barnett honors Nistico but taking what he taught her and developing it even more with other arrangers. 

RODRIGO AMARANTE -- Drama 

Like many, I first became aware of Brazilian artist Rodrigo Amarante via his theme song for the Netflix series Narcos. I had a lot of catching up to do, thanks to his collaborations with Los Hermanos, where he grew from background singer to major songwriter. That led to Orquestra Imperial, with the son of Caetano Veloso on vocals; film scoring; the trio Little Joy with the drummer from The Strokes (!) and finally solo work. Still, after 20 years in the business this is only his second solo album. It's bursting with creativity, flitting from bossa rock (or whatever you want to call it) to vaguely "traditional" sounding songs to stuff uniquely his own. Funny infectious, vulnerable, Drama feels like Rodrigo Amarante establishing his musical identity once and for all. 

COURTNEY BARNETT -- Things Take Time, Take Time  

I keep using the word "funny"when appropriate because "funny" is a very under-appreciated part of music. Critics are suspicious of funny. It's much better to be po-faced and sad. But humor can be found in a lot of great art, even the really serious ones and rock n roll is no exception. Courtney Barnett is very funny indeed. She has a deadpan delivery, hilariously convoluted lyrics and guitar playing that toys with time in a way that lets her jokes land in an off-kilter way. She's confessional and observational and a songwriter's songwriter, of course, not a stand-up act with a guitar for flavor, like Jerry Van Dyke and his banjo. When she first came on the scene, I was wary of the hype and the style. Surely this would wear thin quick if Barnett didn't widen her sonic palate? Well she hasn't particularly changed anything and the albums keep coming and they're still really, really good. And funny. People seem to have moved on. If you don't give them something to talk about or do a duet with Drake or something, what are they supposed to say? What can they offer as a hook? Another very good album from Barnett, just what you'd expect? How's that gonna gain attention? Well, Things Take Time, Take Time is another very good album from Courtney Barnett, just what you'd expect. That's good enough for me. 

COLIN HAY -- I Just Don't Know What To Do With Myself  

Forty years after Men at Work burst onto the world scene with their blockbuster album Business As Usual, frontman Colin Hays continues his wandering troubadour ways with an album of covers. I've dipped into his solo work over the years and it's always been pretty good. (To be fair, he's delivered a lot more than I've given a fair listen to.) But that voice! It's a charmer and filled with soul and proves just the thing to enliven a clutch of songs by others. "Many Rivers To Cross," "Waterloo Sunset," "Across The Universe." None of the choices surprise. None of the arrangements or performances reveal unexpected layers of these pop standards. But it's awfully enjoyable and I've decided to prioritize pleasure. I can't pinpoint what makes it so agreeable and pleasant (damning words of praise) but damnit that's what this is. Yet another act I want to see in concert. 

THE FLATLANDERS -- Treasure of Love  

A great bunch of guys (Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Butch Hancock, Joe Ely) with good to great solo albums to their credit. As their aborted debut had it, more a legend than a band. But fifty years (!) after their first recording sessions and twelve years after their last release, the Flatlanders have put out their best album since that Rounder compilation let everyone hear what the fuss was about. Americana done right. 

ABBA -- Voyage 

The only ABBA album I ever owned was ABBA Gold. That's one of the greatest Greatest Hits albums in history and an essential part of any pop collection. I unwittingly loved ABBA before ABBA was cool, mostly because I was too uncool to realize you shouldn't really like ABBA. But the mixed reviews I read led me to believe their studio albums contained great singles but never enjoyed sustained excellence. Naturally, I wasn't expecting new music from ABBA and I wasn't chomping at the bit for new music because after so many years, why mess with a legacy? Then Voyage arrived and I was inexplicably excited, dove in and found it pitch perfect. They weren't desperately trying to recapture their youth (the songs are definitely the songs of adults), but it's still ABBA by god and that's pretty catchy and awesome whether they're 27 or 77 years old. From then intentionally inspiring "I Still Have Faith In You" to the should-be-disastrous-but-actually-lovely anthem "Ode To Freedom" this is an album I played a lot. Toss in the killer Christmas song "...Little Things" which makes me tear up every time when the kids chorus of all things kicks in and you've got a winner. Now the thought of seeing their holograms perform the hits in London actually seems like a pretty awesome idea. now if I could just figure out whether to sing the lyrics or the background chorus of "Take a chance" in their hit "Take A Chance On Me" instead of impossibly trying to do both at the same time, I'd be a happy man.