Monthly Report: May 2023 Albums
1. Aminé & Kaytranada - Katraminé
It's been 7 years since Aminé's only real hit, "Caroline," but I feel like he's managed to build an impressive career as the kind of major label cult artist that's increasingly rare in hip hop, mostly by making better and better albums. When Drake and Beyonce made house music-influenced albums last year, a lot of people who only know the name of one dance producer kept saying they should've worked with Kaytranada seemingly just to be hip, but I like the bleary midtempo beats Kaytranada tends to make when he does work with rappers and R&B singers. So far my favorite tracks are probably
"Master P" and "STFU3." Here's the 2023 albums Spotify playlist that I try to fill with every new record I listen to thoughout the year.
2. Bailen - Tired Hearts
I loved the 2019 debut album by twin brothers David and Daniel Bailen and sister Julia Bailen, and so far their second album hasn't hit me quite as hard, but it's excellent in mostly the same way, with a bit more of a sleek modern sensibility coming in, in a good way, on the single "Call It Like It Is." I can tell the album is a grower, though, because the second half is stronger than the first, "Love You Blind" is the really stunning song on here for me, and the closer "Hiding" is great too.
3. The Lemon Twigs - Everything Harmony
Like Bailen, The Lemon Twigs are a band of siblings born in the '90s whose music is heavily indebted to the '70s. When I interviewed Brian D'Addario about their 2021 album Songs For The General Public, he said, "When we first started using that title, it was initially for a pretty different set of songs that were more acoustic." And it definitely appears that Everything Harmony is that mellower set of songs they decided to sit on for a couple years, and I'm glad they came back to them, it's a beautiful record. They kind of pull back on glam/garage influences, although even the most rocking track, "What You Were Doing," has sort of a gentle Big Star vibe to it, I love that one. Everything Harmony was their first top 10 album on the UK indie chart, it would kinda make sense to me if they became big in England and if this was the album that led to that.
4. Paul Simon - Seven Psalms
There are a decent number of artists from the '60s that are still alive and still occasionally making pretty good albums, but Paul Simon's 2016 album Stranger To Stranger was particularly remarkable, I think one of the best albums a legend has made over the age of 70. Simon retired from touring a few years ago and I wondered if Stranger To Stranger would be his final collection of new songs, but I'm grateful that ideas for Seven Psalms starting coming to him in dreams and he's given us another unique, memorable album. Seven Psalms is a 33-minute song cycle that all runs together as one continuous track like Prince's Lovesexy, which I think is a little unnecessary, he could've broken this up into 7 discrete tracks, but I can respect the vision. I roll my eyes a little bit at the lyrics referencing COVID, but mostly this is a fascinating, eerily beautiful album that's a little different from anything he's made before.
5. Fred Again.. & Brian Eno - Secret Life
I'm not too tapped into the EDM scene outside of what makes it into the mainstream, so I'd never heard of British producer Fred Again.. before he teamed up with two pretty huge names, Skrillex and Four Tet, a few weeks ago to fill in after Frank Ocean dropped out of Coachella's second weekend. But apparently Fred Again.. has been in the mix for the last decade, collaborating with big dance names and working on giant pop songs by Ed Sheeran and others. And he's also a longtime protege of Brian Eno, and they just released an album together that's pretty cool, some of the kind of ambient soundscape stuff Eno pretty much invented in the '70s with some minimal vocals by Fred Again.., a very sparse, moody, affecting record.
6. So Nice Yesterday - Chant EP
So Nice Yesterday are one of the most unique groups in Baltimore, and it's been a few years since Berko Lover and Thom Castles released new music together. So I was happy to hear this new 5-song collection, which has a bit more jazz and reggae in its sound than their previous stuff.
7. Justin Moore - Stray Dog
I've been praising Justin Moore as one of contemporary country music's greatest vocalists for a decade now, and while he's never quite ascended to A-list status, he's been on a good run the last few years with four consecutive #1 radio hits. So I'm kind of frustrated that it feels like Moore's label has been shrinking his albums down, in multiple senses: his last two albums each had only 8 songs and ran under 28 minutes, and got so little advance publicity that they charted way lower than his previous albums despite aforementioned radio hits. Moore is still making excellent music -- "Better Slow" and "Stray Dogs" are as good as anything he's done -- but I'd prefer if this was longer, and Big Machine needs to stop treating him like an afterthought.
8. Sparks - The Girl Is Crying In Her Latte
I wouldn't say I'm quite a Sparks superfan now, but I've spent a lot of the past year catching up on a bunch their many many albums. And while I wouldn't rate The Girl Is Crying In Her Latte as one of their best, and find its sound a little claustrophobic and harsh at times, I love that this strange and resilient band is bigger and more beloved than ever right now. "When You Leave" is probably my favorite track.
9. Megan Moroney - Lucky
A very solid debut album that makes good on the promise of "Tennessee Orange" and really confirms that I thoroughly enjoy the sound of Megan Moroney's voice, she never does anything fancy vocally but she has a great sense of what serves the song and has a really charmingly expressive Georgia twang. "Another On The Way" and "Lucky" are my early favorites on the album.
10. The Jonas Brothers - The Album
Seeing Bailen, The Lemon Twigs, Sparks and The Jonas Brothers all in this post, I guess May was a really good month for sibling bands. I've always found the Jonases, as a group and as solo artists, to be very hit-and-miss, but I think this might be the best front-to-back album they've ever made, don't know why it's not hitting like Happiness Begins did. I have had mixed feelings about Jon Bellion as a writer and producer before, but he definitely did his thing on this album.
The Worst Album of the Month: The Dare - The Sex EP
Every few years, a hyped new indie act becomes "controversial," usually for some inscrutable narcissism-of-small-differences nonsense. So I was prepared to listen to The Dare and be at worst just kind of bored, but no, this stuff is genuinely really noxious and bad. If anything the negative reviews undersold how much The Dare is like 3OH!3 but less subtle and sophisticated.
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on Friday, June 02, 2023 at 9:28 AM.
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