Another music post today. I’d intended Summer Vacation to be much more music-centric back in the beginning, but I tend to shy away from those types of posts now because they seem to get less of a reaction. (See how I didn't say anything about music in the post title? If you were duped into clicking the link anyway, my plan worked!) But I figured since nobody is legally obligated to read any of this, and since there have been a couple of people throughout the years who’ve told me later about how I’d introduced them to an artist they didn’t know about, I figure that’s enough reason to continue. So tonight I’ve got a list of my Top 10 albums from 2013 so far, with a brief description of why they made the list. In order of addition to the iTunes library:
*“Driving Toward the Daylight” by Joe Bonamassa. Joe is my biggest discovery of recent. Once a child prodigy of a blues guitarist, he’s matured into a truly impressive musician. He plays a mixture of blue covers and original songs that largely stay true to what people would traditionally think of as blues music but with a heavy infusion of guitar hero rock noise. In addition to his guitar playing, he’s also a pretty darn good singer. I first found him in the rock supergroup Black Country Communion and quickly got pulled in by his playing enough to buy one of his live solo albums. It took me some time to get into it because I’ve never been big on traditional blues, but the live version of his song “Mountain Time” got my attention and I haven’t looked back. This album was the first download of 2013, and the first of his studio albums I bought. Just as much bluesy rock as blues music, although after becoming a fan of his I’m beginning to develop more of an appreciation for blues.
*“All the Wars” by Pineapple Thief. No matter what other types of music I wind up sampling and exploring, a big part of me is always going to drift back to a prog-rock nerd. The complex songwriting, the composition and the virtuosity of the players is usually all it takes to win me over. I found this band by following a chain of “other albums customers have bought” while browsing iTunes and decided the band had a weird enough name they were worth giving a shot.
*“Welcome to Oblivion” by How to Destroy Angels. Kind of an inflammatory band name, but since the driving force behind it is the same guy who was essentially Nine Inch Nails all on his own it isn’t surprising. Dark, moody and electronic with a strong female voice. Pretty cool stuff.
“Dead Sara” by the band of the same name. They were the opening act for Muse when I saw them back in March. Usually the opening act is kind of a joke and the name of the band sure set them up to be one, but I thought their set was interesting enough to preview and then buy the album and it turned out to be one I really like. Very much like a hard rock Grace Potter and the Nocturnals. The live show was okay at best, so I was surprised to find out how much I wound up liking this one.
*“An Acoustic Evening Live at the Vienna Opera House” by Joe Bonamassa. Joe blew me away with his playing on an electric guitar, but this album really raised the bar. It highlights exactly how strong of a singer he is and how versatile of a guitarist he is -- not every player can pull off switching between electric and acoustic and have both sound like what he usually plays. I actually wound up getting this as a Mother’s Day gift after my mom heard a few songs from it at my house and liked it. It’s calm and melodic, and perfect to listen to on a day where you don’t have anything to think about than just being and letting the time comfortably pass by.
*“Sloe Gin” by Joe Bonamassa. I bought this soon after the acoustic one when I read a review of how it was more acoustic-driven than some of his other studio work. It’s actually a pretty solid rock album with acoustic touches to it, so it kind of has the best of both worlds.
*“Such Hot Blood” by the Airborne Toxic Event. This is the third studio album from band I’ve discovered in just the past couple of years. The band is competent and musically interesting, but the songwriting, particularly the lyrics are so literate and layered with subtext it’s hard for me to not be impressed. My one nitpick is how they rely too heavily on some of the alternative music tropes, like repeating lines over and over to build a chorus. This guy has had his heart broken several times over and he is not at all shy about it. You can hear the pain in some of his singing coming from a very real place.
*“Here’s Willy Moon” by Willy Moon. Do you remember that iPod shuffle commercial with all the colorful little iPods bouncing around and multiplying to this song that sounded like an odd hybrid of some kind of old-school soul song set to an overproduced hip-hop beat? I really dug that song -- I’m usually a pushover for percussion-driven songs like that. When I saw the album I figured the rest of it would sound the same way, and it did. Kind of a weird combination, but it works for me.
*“Love Lust Faith + Dreams” by 30 Seconds to Mars. The first two albums by the band were interesting by not great, but the third had some musically thematic quality running through all of the songs that really resonated with me. I don’t know if this one will connect as much as that one did, but so after just a couple of listens I’m really liking it.
*“Seesaw” by Beth Hart and Joe Bonamassa. Beth Hart is a singer that Joe has now collaborated with on two albums. The first one was more straight blues with something of an updated sound, while this one has an added horn section that opens it up to something sounding almost like big band music. It’s not exactly blues, or big band, or rock, and it’s nowhere near as obvious as something like the Brian Setzer Orchestra, but the understated guitar playing serves as a great foil for Beth Hart’s voice. She actually cameoed on the first JB live album I bought; their live version of “I’ll Take Care of You” is all the proof anyone would ever need that these two work well together.
And that’s it for tonight’s token music post. Not many days left in May, and there are still a couple of heavy topics I want to get to before the month runs out. Stay tuned....
