Monthly Report: July 2023 Albums
1. Madeline Kenney - A New Reality Mind
Madeline Kenney recorded with some great musicians and producers and studios on her first three albums, but 2021's COVID lockdown-era Summer Quarter EP was self-produced in her basement in Oakland, and she once again self-produces and plays an even greater share of the instruments on A New Reality Mind herself. It's a breakup record, and a sort of solitary, contemplative headphone album, but really rich and textured, with surprising moments like the drum-loop-and-sax sound of "I Drew A Line" or Kenney's loose, jazzy drumming on "Leaves Me Dry." I think she pulls off a certain Kate Bush/Peter Gabriel art pop vibe better than almost anyone in American indie rock right now. Here's the 2023 albums Spotify playlist that I always update as I listen to new releases.
2. Blur - The Ballad Of Darren
There have been times when I've been vaguely anti-Blur (and I'm still kind of anti-Gorillaz) but I've warmed up to the and over the years, and enjoyed ranking every Blur album for Spin recently. I get the impression that The Ballad Of Darren isn't as warmly received as The Magic Whip was, but I really like it, it's a great-sounding sad album with a couple of uptempo songs early on, "St. Charles Square" and "Barbaric," to liven things up. The 2 bonus tracks on the deluxe edition are good, but I mostly stick with the basic album because I like that it's by far the shortest Blur album and I think "The Heights" is a really perfect album closer.
3. Lori McKenna - 1988
Lori McKenna has written big hits for acts like Carrie Underwood, Tim McGraw, and Little Big Town, but she's also released a dozen solo albums. And while I've only heard the last three, I love the more intimate sound of McKenna singing her most personal songs. "Killing Me" and "Wonder Drug" are the standouts for me so far on 1988.
4. Black Milk - Everybody Good?
Detroit rapper/producer Black Milk has making acclaimed solo albums for over 15 years now, but I keep seeing references to him having new fans or more hype around his new album. I'm not sure if anything happened to really draw people to Black Milk right now or if he's just the next journeyman underground rap guy reaching a tipping point like Roc Marciano or The Alchemist or whatever. But this is a solid album, I love the opening track "God Willing." Phonte really comes in towards the end of the album and steals the spotlight on "No Wish," though, amazing verse.
5. Mahalia - IRL
I've always enjoyed Mahalia Burkmar's singles and last year's Letter To Ur Ex EP, although I'm amused that, like sometime collaborator Ella Mai, I can't really tell she's British from her very conventional American-sounding R&B. And her second album is really solid, "Isn't It Strange" and "Goodbyes" are my favorite tracks so far but the collaborations with JoJo and Joyce Wrice are great too.
6. Nas - Magic 2
Nas and Hit-Boy have made 5 albums together in the last 3 years, and I think this is probably the weakest so far, but it's still pretty good. I'm annoyed that Nas and 50 Cent talked for months about they had a new song together and then 50 had that weak verse on "Office Hours," they let Queens down with that one. "Pistols On Your Album Cover" is cool, I love when Nas gets all nostalgic about BDP and Rakim.
7. Marc Ribot's Ceramic Dog - Connection
I've long been a fan of Marc Ribot's sideman work (Tom Waits, Elvis Costello) and some instrumental albums I've heard like 1998's The Prosthetic Cubans. But I haven't followed his output too closely and didn't know about Ceramic Dog, his band with Shahzad Ismaily and Ches Smith, until they released their recent fifth album. And it's excellent stuff, now I'm starting to catch up on their previous records. Ribot sings on a few tracks but I think the 10-minute instrumental "Order of Protection" with Greg Lewis on organ is my favorite so far.
8. Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross - Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem (Original Score)
Nine Inch Nails are amazing and have probably made more great music in the 21st century than any other big '90s band, and it made me sad to see a recent interview where Trent Reznor sounded unmotivated to do another NIN record any time soon. But I've grown to love the instrumental work and film scores that have become his primary output in recent years, and it's been fun to hear Reznor and Atticus Ross adjust their sound for different projects like the Mank and Soul scores. This album isn't as big a departure, it's mostly just amusing that these brooding soundscapes and badass synth riffs are for an animated Ninja Turtles movie, but it sounds fantastic regardless of why it was made.
9. Carly Rae Jepsen - The Loveliest Time
This is a stupid pet peeve, but I don't really like album sequels or companion albums or trilogies or series, at least outside hip-hop, even Carly Rae Jepsen following Emotion with Emotion: Side B and Dedicated with Dedicated Side B. So I rolled my eyes when it was recently revealed that last year's The Loneliest Time was not a standalone album but part of a duo with the new The Loveliest Time. But I really gained a renewed appreciation for Jepsen's catalog when I made a deep album cuts playlist, and it feels like she played around with sounds really freely on this one, love the hyperactive drums on "Anything To Be With You" and "After Last Night."
10. PJ Harvey - I Inside The Old Year Dying
I haven't heard every PJ Harvey album but am at least pretty well aware that she doesn't stick to one consistent sound. Still, it kind of surprised me just how spare and quiet and almost unsettling I Inside The Old Year Dying was the first time I listened to it. It didn't make a lot of sense to me right away but I'm enjoying giving it time to reveal itself, it's got a really unique texture to it.
The Worst Album of the Month: Taylor Swift - Speak Now (Taylor's Version)
First, let me say that the original Speak Now is a good album, I put it at #5 when I ranked Taylor Swift's albums last year and on many days "The Story of Us" is my favorite song she's ever made. And I always think musicians deserve to own their master recordings, and I hope that Swift's very public fight over Scooter Braun buying her former label and early catalog will teach a generation of musicians not to sign away their masters at the beginning of their careers. All of that being said, I think the exercise of re-recording your own albums as closely to the original as possible is incredibly dull, and I find it kind of off-putting how the Taylor's Version releases have become as big a deal as her actual new albums and have served to pad out her number of #1 albums and other chart stats. Of course, part of the appeal is the previously unheard 'From The Vault' tracks on each Taylor's Version, ostensibly new recordings of outtakes or unfinished songs written alongside the original album (I'll be extra cranky here and say I have my doubts that these are always actual old songs). But Speak Now has the worst vault tracks of any of the three re-recorded albums so far, I was so excited to hear the collaborations with Patrick Stump (billed as all of Fall Out Boy for some reason) and Hayley Williams but they're both pretty lousy songs, a total disappointment, "When Emma Falls In Love" is the only above average track in my opinion. And really, the concept of the original Speak Now does bring out Taylor's worst at times, from the slut-shaming "Better Than Revenge" and the condescending "Innocent" to the vindictive "Mean."
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