Latest / Listmas Podcast / 01--New Releases from 4/26/24 including Charley Crockett, St. Vincent and Justice

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01--New Releases from 4/26/24 including Charley Crockett, St. Vincent and Justice · Listmas Podcast

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Music.
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Everybody the first listmas podcast i'm
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jason jeffries that's what's up and i am reggie
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worth and we are going to talk about listmas
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today we're going to talk about some great music what's been coming out so far
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in 2024 this most recent week's releases and we'll cover a few things every
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week that have come out prior to uh our recording date today which is may the first 2024 24.
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And Reggie, you joined Listmas after the three OGs that started it a couple years in.
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And so let's talk about the Listmas origin story, and then we'll talk about
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what Listmas is so we can introduce everybody to the concept that we're talking about.
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So Listmas was started by myself, John Zittle, and Mike Ray.
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Every year, I would come up with the best album of the year playlist.
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And we would have people over to our house on New Year's Day when Claire would
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cook kind of a traditional New Year's dinner.
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And I started noticing that everyone would just be tuned in to the countdown
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playlist, especially as it got towards the end.
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And then we just had this idea of like, hey, why don't we compile a bunch of playlists?
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And Mike Ray came up with the name Listmas. Listmas and John Zittle hosted the
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first Listmas and the second, maybe even the third, I don't remember, at his house.
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And it was on from there. So the concept of Listmas is that one takes the best
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albums of the year and we come up with a number.
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It's been 30 last year. We come up with our 30 favorite albums.
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Everyone has their individual lists and then we rank them one to 30.
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And then we send these lists to
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Claire, my wife, and she compiles them and assigns a point total to each.
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The number one album gets 30 points, number two, 29, number three, 28, on down.
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And we each pick a song from.
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From the album to give to her. And then she has some sort of algorithm.
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I don't really understand it, but it's kind of like the person who has an album
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ranked the highest, their song gets chosen.
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Or if there's a tie, I think there's some sort of rotating system or some system
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where if multiple people pick the same song, that gets chosen.
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But anyway, and then we get together on Listmas Day and hilarity ensues.
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And we listen to this mystery countdown.
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Let's say that there's 84 albums from everyone's list. All that we have is a
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blank list, one through 84.
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And we know how many points each one of these blank numbers have gotten.
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And then Claire has made a countdown playlist and we push play and we listen
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to this countdown all the way down.
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And this is just kind of a master compilation of what our group of friends here
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and music appreciators, what we think are the best albums of the year.
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Reggie, do you have anything to add to that? Or what was it like when you You
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jumped in on year three or four, whenever it was.
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Yeah, man, I was super happy to join. I moved to Raleigh, North Carolina from Charleston.
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And for about 12 years before that, I was doing a best of mix.
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So I would compile singles, my favorite singles, and burn them.
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I started burning to CDRs and sending them out to friends and then creating
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playlists on Spotify and Apple Music.
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And so when I was moving to North Carolina and we were able to reconnect,
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I really liked the idea that you have with with the album.
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So it's ecstatic to join the crew and what you guys have going on.
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Yeah, reconnecting is Reggie and I went to high school together or not.
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Well, we kind of like we went to two different high schools in the same area.
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We went to coffee houses together when we were in high school,
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I guess, is the mother, baby.
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Yeah. Mother Earth in Rock Hill, South Carolina. Yeah.
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So Reggie hopped on and then it was myself, Mike Ray, John Zittle, and Reggie.
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And then later, Mark Bedingfield joined.
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He had been observing Listmas for a few years, and then he decided to finally
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jump in and make his own list.
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And then last year, Zach Hall, who had also been to several Listmases in a row,
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jumped in and made his list.
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And this year, 2024 is Listmas 10.
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This is the the 10th year of Whismas ongoing.
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And I'm trying to think of what the champion albums have been in the past.
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I know I have them written down somewhere, but Currents by Tame Impala was one.
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I think A Moon-Shaped Pool by Radiohead was one.
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Prisoner by Ryan Adams.
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Ty Seagal, what was the name of that one? The Ty Seagal album.
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Gosh, who else has won? Lil' Sims. We had Big Thief just a couple years ago.
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Yeah, Big Thief. and jason isbell
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won last year it's for weather veins you
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know it's been it's been great and it's it's interesting
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to see what the master number one album is i think that big thief won last year
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and was only number one on one list i think which was mike's everyone else had
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it probably ranked in the top five or ten so it's consistently in the top tier
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of everyone's list but not.
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Not number one on everyone's and i think that there's
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never been a year when there's been a number one that wasn't somebody's
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number one at least i know the first year that you jumped in reggie ryan adams
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won and that was a bit of an upset because because i think that you you and
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i you were the wild card you and i both had ryan adams number one right and
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lifted him to him and his problematic self to glory.
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But anyway, this is all about the concept of what is a good album.
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We don't really subscribe to the streaming way of listening to music,
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Spotify, Apple Music. I love those services.
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They're cool to have everything at your fingertips all the time.
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So you can find out what albums to go buy and support the artist.
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But I'm not so much about jumping around in singles. I'm about the concept of the album.
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Reggie, what makes a good album?
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Million dollar question, right? I mean, I think the key to a good album for
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me is it's cohesive and that is connected.
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And, you know, you can get tied up where, you know, you're looking for a lot
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of people are looking for a concept album and they go back to,
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you know, Dark Side of the Moon and where it's all interconnected.
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But I think it's more of a cohesiveness that, you know, I'm looking for when I hear album,
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something that breaks through that, you know, in this,
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you know, gig society we're in where attention spans are very,
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very limited to put together an album that can pull a listener in from start
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to finish and have an impact emotionally to them and to connect to them and
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pull them in different directions. and take them on a journey.
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You know, I'm a huge fan of Scott Ballou and his album that he released not too long ago.
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And, you know, I've been reading some articles about him and he's really into film.
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And he sees the medium as the same, music and film, because it's all about telling a story.
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It's all about connecting, you know, the audience to experience, to have that impact.
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So when I think of a great album, I think of OK Computer with Radiohead.
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And when I hear it, the sensations of high school, of being in New York City
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to see them play with spiritual eyes,
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the breakthrough of the death of grunge and what's coming next, it all hits me.
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And every time I hear OK Computer, that hits.
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And so I don't know. It's a magical element that's there with great albums.
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And that's the elusive search that I have.
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That's the alchemy in music that I'm trying to find.
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Yeah, more than any other band, especially rock and roll bands since the mid-90s,
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Radiohead is the master of the album format.
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Whether you like them or not, I don't think that this can really be disputed.
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They tell a story with their albums from beginning to end.
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You get to the end, you've been taken on a journey. You can start the album
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all over again and be taken on the same journey.
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Probably starting with The Bends, into OK Computer, as you mentioned, and then Kid A,
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Amnesiac, killed a thief and rainbows
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king of limbs moon-shaped pool all of these albums take you on a journey they're
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probably most akin to pink floyd who you mentioned earlier you know when i was
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a kid my dad used to drive me around in his truck with the pink floyd dark side
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of the moon cassette playing on repeat you know and i'd ask on he'd be like we're going crazy son.
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Yeah you know he was right we were but you know pink floyd i'm not so much the
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fan of a fan of the wall but it's still a you know it tells a story it's a great
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album a lot of people love it,
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you know let's throw out some examples of great albums in our opinion front
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to back in other Other genres in hip hop, I think of Outkast,
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ATLNs, Equimini, Stankonia,
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The Love Below, and Speakerboxx come to mind.
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Any hip hop albums that you want to throw out there?
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I'll definitely have to say Three Feet and Rising. Well, that one hits hard.
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A lot of the stuff from Tribe, I think, resonates really well.
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And De La Soul. I think they were able to tap into that quite well. Beastie Boys.
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My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy by Kanye West, fantastic album.
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Even Yeezus after that, before things got weird with the Kardashians and all of that.
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We can't leave off Kendrick. Yeah, Kendrick.
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I think that is the last true album that resonates, that start to finish.
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It tells the story. It takes you on a journey. You can keep going back.
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It pulls you into places. It pulls you into new places each time you hear it.
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It's just a genius album yeah absolutely
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maybe some of nasa's albums from recent years jazz
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is a bit more hard to pin down kind of blue i think a lot of people would put
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as their number one all-time album period it's just one of those albums that
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you can always throw on and it sets this certain mood you can see the album
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cover in your head it was the greatest jazz band put together of all time, probably,
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you know, featuring the likes of Miles Davis,
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John Coltrane, etc.
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Bitches Brew, another Miles Davis, John McLaughlin before he went on to the Mahavishnu Orchestra.
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Kamasi Washington's The Epic was a fantastic jazz album that came out around
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the second, first or second year of Lismas.
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It was a three-hour long jazz album that is very much in the vein of John Coltrane
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and the Marsalis guys and a lot of just really great saxophone players.
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What about electronic music?
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Ooh, that's a good one.
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I mean, I think of air like moon safari, you know, that's just the album that
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you can always put on that sets the mood.
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I think of like science fiction by uncle, which was DJ shadow and James Lavelle
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and introducing by DJ shadow as well.
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Daft punk maybe discovery and yeah
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daft punk and sort of the progenitors like the silver apples and some of the
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i don't know if you would consider some of brian eno's stuff electronic you
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know songs in the airport and whatnot but i i think that's sort of more what i go back to and
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craft work is as well yeah what about album like rock and roll albums that don't
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tell a story that aren't these concept albums like pink floyd or radiohead something
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like nevermind by nirvana.
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Yeah, so you don't think Nevermind tells the story?
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I mean, I think that it has a vibe, for sure. I don't think that there's a narrative.
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I don't think there's like a Ziggy Stardust thing going on or anything like that.
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Yeah, it's really pretty juvenile.
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Didn't he just get dumped by the girl in, what was the band? Bikini Kill?
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Yeah. And some pretty heartbreak songs, but you're right.
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It doesn't go too deep. But, you know, with Nevermind, it just hits so hard,
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you know, with Smells Like Teen Spirit and just opening up with the flam and
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then going straight into In Bloom.
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It's much more of a visceral hit.
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You're right. It doesn't really go deep into concepts, but it pulls you deep
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into your soul. You hear it right away.
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What about pop albums? What about like Thriller or like 1989 by Taylor Swift or something like that?
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Yeah. It's a good pop out. I would say my favorite, what I would stick with
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is the Beach Boys with Pet Sounds.
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They took orchestration and made it pop. And if it wasn't for that album, there would be no Sgt.
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Pepper's. And the direction, how influential Pet Sounds was to pop music in
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general. and really the whole psychedelic movement that followed it. And it's so accessible.
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You can listen to it now and it just, it resonates really well.
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Yeah, all of the psychedelic-inspired stuff coming out at the time,
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you know, the White Album, Harry Nilsson, all of that stuff was really cool.
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You know, I'm not going to go down this rabbit hole, but the Beatles,
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man, like, Acid really changed them, right?
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I mean, that's like saying grass is green, I guess.
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But, I mean, it's like if NSYNC became, like, one of the greatest,
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you know, rock and roll bands of all time or something.
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It's just a really weird transition that they went through.
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Yeah what about country what makes a good country album.
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Good country album i i think back
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to whalen and willie and you
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know the outlaw stuff i immediately think back to some outlaw stuff
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but if you look back and johnny cash's
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catalog and like the the
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album that he did bitter tears that is when
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he was trying to get in touch with his his native american
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heritage and you know he goes he
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goes pretty pretty deep into that and there's beautiful songs
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the ballad of ira hayes but there there's there's a consistency with with the
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music and and the tribal feel of just from start to finish that i really i thought
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was interesting for a country singer to to pull that out and and i believe it was 68 69.
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Very very different but it's johnny cash it's
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country yeah in country a
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lot of the good country that's coming out now is more like i don't know alt
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folk americana kind of i mean you know there's good old like honky tonk stuff
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coming out there's a great album that's going to come out in a couple weeks
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here that we'll discuss when it comes out but um you know there's the the you
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know like nick shoulders last year it's just this throwback kind of.
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You know dive bar honky-tonk sound but then there's you
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know jason isbell on acid yeah yeah there's jason
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isbell who you know could very easily be played on rock and roll radio zach
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bryan i think was nominated for best country album and best
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alternative album you know tyler you
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could argue zach bryan is pop
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as well yeah and you have bands like my morning jacket
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when they came out of louisville kentucky were
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very country for their first couple of albums
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wilco you know uncle tupelo splintered
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into sunvolt and wilco and you know talk about a band that
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tells stories with their albums that run of like being
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there into summer teeth into yankee hotel
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foxtrot into a ghost is born into sky
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blue sky i mean that's a legendary run i
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just you know that's five albums in a row that
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are fantastic indeed that's that's
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hard to accomplish well one more genre then we'll then we'll talk about
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then we'll get into what we're actually doing in here what about rhythm
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and blues or like you know there's the blues part
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of that which it's hard to find like a really great blues
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album because most of the classic blues recordings were
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kind of unearthed you know they're like documented from these guys in mississippi
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that didn't have access to recording or a crowd or anything you know when you
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think of robert johnson and moving on through it before the blues moved up to
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chicago and became something different But R&B albums.
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I mean, I'm trying to think of what I think was the last really great front-to-back
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R&B album. I'm thinking of Frank Ocean, maybe.
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Yeah. Yeah, definitely give it to Frank Ocean.
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Duran Jones, the album that he released last year, I think had a lot of soul to it.
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You could categorize it as R&B.
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It had a little bit of a country Americana vibe. But yeah, I think that was a that was a great album.
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Yeah. So now let's get to like, you know, that kind of catches everybody up
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with what the concept of listmas is.
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And look, we're kind of a little bit in the minority here in that Reggie and
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I and our other listmas buddies who will jump onto this podcast at some point in the future.
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Sure we love music we love literature we
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love the arts and we also love sports and
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i think that like one of the first thing that i that i
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saw when we started listmas there was a tweet from nico case before
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twitter was x and nico case she was pissed off because everybody was pitting
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albums against each other in the media i think it was the end of the year and
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all the lists were coming out she's like music is not sports and we're like
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music is sports here at listmas and the thing is is like If we're talking about
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your music, well, first of all, let me backtrack.
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If you are putting your music out there for public consumption,
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if you are writing songs and you're putting yourself out there and your art
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out there, you've already won.
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You're already doing something great. And if we're talking about you,
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you have gotten our attention.
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That being said, this is a competition. Listmas is kind of a competition.
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We're ranking you. We have our favorite albums that we want to win.
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This is a kind of a year long is a 10 year long
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text thread at this juncture you know there
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are politics involved we do try to sway each other's
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opinions of what is a good album and what is a bad album and there is kind of
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a competitive angle here and you know we'll remind folks what we're doing here
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and there but going forward what we're really going to do is talk about the
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albums that come out every week we're going to kind of you know see what we
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think of them where we're at with them.
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And then as the weeks go on, we'll see if our opinions of anything mature and change.
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And as it's May 1st today, as we're recording, this will probably be released
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in a couple of days after this, but...
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We're also, you know, every week we're going to catch ourselves up again and
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talk about the albums that have come out in the first 33% of the year here.
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And it's been a really strong year. The last few years have been really strong years.
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We've had a good run here.
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There have been years, you know, early on when we really had to struggle to come up with 20.
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And now, you know, I'm already making, I'm already cutting albums from the top
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30 that I like. Like, and there's still 66% of the year to go.
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So I kind of want to like build off of what we've been talking about,
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of what makes a good album.
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So before we talk about this last week's releases, I want to bring up a couple
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of releases from early in the year.
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And I know you do too, but kind of to talk about like how we process and digest
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these things and what makes a good album.
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I want to talk about the new Future Islands album and I want to talk about the
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new album by Cloud Nothings. So they're both very good albums.
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Cloud Nothings probably leans more towards the Nirvana side of things.
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The album has a cohesive sound.
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It's all very strong.
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Good harmonies, good guitars.
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There's some songs on there that are probably the best like Deer Hunter sounding
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tracks we're gonna get this year because I don't know when they're gonna put out another album.
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Music.
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And, you know, kind of, gosh, they kind of sound like very inspired or,
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yeah, very inspired by like the very first Foo Fighters album,
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maybe mixed with a little bit of Sunny Day Real Estate, which,
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you know, the first Foo Fighters band had Sunny Day Real Estate's drummer and bass player.
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I think they still have the bass player from Sunny Day Real Estate.
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But it's a great album. Here's the thing. It's 27 minutes long.
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So you know about the time
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that i'm really starting to like get into the groove the album's over
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you know and i understand
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that bands have
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to make their money off of
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selling vinyls now like you can't make money off of selling cds or anything
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like that you're not making any money off of streams at all i don't care how
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like snoop dogg was on there was a video where he was just talking about how
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he reached a billion Spotify streams and that equaled $45,000 or something like that.
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So you're not making any money off that. You're making money off of touring
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or you're making money off of licensing your music to other media,
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or you are making money off of selling vinyls and 27 minutes to 30 something
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odd minutes, maybe, maybe a little approaching 40.
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That's like the sweet spot for a vinyl because anything past that,
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and you have to press two vinyls for your album, which doubles the price of
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kind of what you're paying for.
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And I want to kind of compare that to the Future Islands. And the way that I
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feel about the Future Islands, I love the Future Islands.
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I'm in North Carolina. They're from North Carolina. I saw them when they were
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a band at East Carolina University in Greenville.
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And so, you know, this album that they've put out this year doesn't sound remarkably
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different from their past albums, but I love their past albums.
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When I put on this new one like it gets me pumped up like it gets me going you
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know like the song starts and like you know it kicks into that course where
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it's like dinner night he's like you are all i need.
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It makes me want to do the sam dance and you know punch the
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air and like hit my chest and stuff and it it really gets me going but the thing
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is this album is very long and after about like the seventh at their 8th track
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there's a couple of tracks in there that are kind of like not as great as the
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rest and it takes me out of the whole vibe and then they bring it back so,
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my question Reggie kind of using these two albums as a springboard is like what's
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the good middle ground there do you want to make your album too short so you
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can press a vinyl and leave people kind of wanting for more or do you want to
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put it all out there like the Future Islands and risk like taking people out
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of the vibe with a couple of bummer tracks contracts.
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Yeah, I mean, that Cloud Nothings album, you're right. It hits so hard and great
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album, real, you know, reminiscent of early 90s punk vibe to it as well.
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I think back to my skateboarding days and being at a skate park and throwing
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that on, like it would get me pumped up.
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It would get me pretty psyched up there. Great skin. I like that.
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I like how it's just right at 30 minutes.
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It's almost comparable to when you go to a restaurant and it's some really good food.
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You don't want to have too much of it because if you have leftovers,
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then you're not going to appreciate it as much.
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You want to have that perfect portion.
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To your point with Future Islands, they have that sound that is very distinguished.
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Right when you hear it, you know it's Future Islands. and
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and while it's a great album they they are
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very cohesive maybe maybe too cohesive and it
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just rides the the whole album and and to
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to push it the length i think you're taking
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a risk there but on on the flip side when you have a
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fan base that is just rabid and my my sister
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went and saw them in asheville not too long ago and mentioned
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it was the greatest show greatest live show that she's seen
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just the the pure energy and apparently the family
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was out there they had some of their family members out there and
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it just was a incredible time so you want
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to give the fans what they're paying for and and vinyl's not
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getting any cheaper it's getting more and more expensive so i can
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certainly appreciate these guys saying all right let's you know if if they're
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going to support us if they're going to buy album let's let's give them everything
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we we have right now yeah everything's getting more and more expensive because
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we are letting it get more and more expensive but we don't want to go down that
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rabbit hole so the future islands album is It's called People Who Aren't There Anymore.
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And the Cloud Nothings album is called Final Summer. Both fantastic albums.
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But when you get down to the end of the year and you're putting all these fantastic
26:50
albums against each other, those are two very nitpicky details that matter.
26:56
If the Future Islands had left three songs off of their album,
27:00
they might be my number one album.
27:01
Just because it makes me feel things. you know
27:04
and cloud nothing's you know again great but it kind of goes at this one speed
27:09
and then it's over before you can watch like a cartoon or something so you know
27:15
what what about you reggie what are a couple albums that have already come out
27:20
this year that you kind of want to hash out,
27:23
yeah typically at the beginning of the year it's always slow moving as we know
27:28
in january doesn't see a whole lot of great releases.
27:30
But February, I believe it was the second week of February, granddaddy put out
27:35
an album called Blue Wave.
27:37
Music.
27:57
Essentially, it was all produced and recorded. All the music was performed by
28:03
Jason Lytle, also old school skater.
28:07
There's some old skate footage of him back in the 90s.
28:10
He had a horrible accident, threw his knee out, and skateboarding was going to be his life.
28:16
And when he tore his knee up, that's when he got into music right on.
28:22
And and and so granddaddy from from
28:25
the 90s on they've they've always sort of
28:28
resonated in the background whether it was out
28:31
skating or you know going to shows they've always been there and when i heard
28:37
their release a new album i said wow i haven't heard anything from them and
28:40
looked into it and sure enough it's it's been seven eight years since their
28:44
last album unfortunately jason Mason lost his bass player who has been with
28:50
him since the beginning.
28:51
And he just really wasn't doing a whole lot musically. But I read he was traveling
28:57
in his car and he heard somehow the Tennessee Waltz for the first time ever by Patty Page.
29:03
And it just it hit him like a ton of bricks. And that that Waltz sound,
29:07
that Waltz beat just like it just just stuck with him.
29:11
And that's what this album is all about. The blue wave, supposedly it's blue
29:15
for it's short for bluegrass and then wave just like new wave. It's a blue wave.
29:20
And he's trying to push a new genre, which is like a cosmic country,
29:24
if you will, in Walt's time.
29:26
And it's it's an earworm. I can't get away from it. I don't know what it is
29:31
that keeps drawing me back.
29:33
But I keep finding myself wanting to go back and explore.
29:38
The subject matter is pretty, he has a lot of good humor in it.
29:42
You know, his song about water cooler, where, you know, it's workforce lyrics.
29:49
And then you have the jukebox app, which is like a jukebox song of the 21st century.
29:55
So I really like his themes a whole lot. The reviews aren't all that great when
29:59
I look around. It hasn't gotten a ton of reviews. It's been under the radar.
30:05
And I just think it's supremely underrated right now.
30:09
And I find myself continuing to go back. I don't know what it is about it,
30:13
but I just keep going back and exploring.
30:15
And I think it's this new sound, this blue wave sound that he's forging.
30:19
It's hard to find a new sound now.
30:22
And I think he does a good job with this. And the second album that really resonated
30:27
is Hooray for the Riff Raff.
30:30
Alinda Segarra, their father just passed away and this album was released.
30:38
It just, it hits, it hits really hard. The lyrics are great.
30:43
The musicianship is incredible.
30:45
I remember the first time I saw them was when I lived in New Orleans and they
30:51
were playing Busking on the Street Corner.
30:53
With nothing. They were playing for spare change.
30:56
And to be able to see the level that they've risen to over the years is pretty powerful.
31:04
But I was out there visiting my brother in Colorado and listening to Buffalo
31:09
and just driving around.
31:11
And wow, what a powerful song. And what a great sound they have.
31:16
Very cohesive from start to finish.
31:18
Another one that I just find myself going back to yeah
31:21
two weeks is a long time to kill a buffalo that you
31:25
know that that's a great album i've so not hooray
31:28
for the riffraffs last album but the one before that is
31:32
i think maybe the first one that i got into and that was a really cool
31:35
album the last one i don't think that i had ranked that on my list that year
31:40
i just for whatever reason didn't get into it but this one's great this one's
31:43
you know currently in my my top tier of albums i mean it starts out with that
31:47
just starts out like a classic i'm like you don't have to die if you don't want.
31:52
Music.
32:15
And just like goes from there and like this that's a great first line i don't
32:18
care if you're a novel a movie tv show an album that's the great first line
32:23
like that's how you hook your listeners,
32:25
and it and it really doesn't slow down
32:28
from there we're not going to talk about these albums today but
32:31
i've got that one and you know waxahachie we're
32:35
kind of right in the same place yeah and
32:38
interesting about that hooray for riffraff is the last track
32:42
on it was kiko forever which was
32:45
a voicemail that their dad left them
32:48
before he passed away and it
32:52
was it was out there in the streaming world for
32:55
about a month month and a half and and now it
32:58
has disappeared so uh the the
33:01
question is is kiko forever part of this album or
33:04
not the vinyl release it is not there but.
33:07
It was released and and it's you know about a
33:11
minute and a half voicemail from from their father and
33:14
how it's how the album ended yeah that's a
33:16
weird thing and i want to i want to loop back around to granddaddy
33:19
in a moment but first like that's a weird thing that artists are
33:23
able to do now and i don't really know that we've talked
33:25
about how to how to
33:28
consider these types of things in list miss because like
33:32
kanye west for example like i think his last two
33:35
albums he put out an album this year that we'll talk about some in some
33:38
future week but you know he's been become famous
33:41
for changing his albums like 50 times after they've
33:44
been released and you know j cole
33:48
put out an album with this seven minute long i don't know the media was calling
33:53
it a kendrick lamar diss track but it really i don't think he was really like
33:57
he obviously didn't want to do it i mean even talked in the song about how he
34:00
didn't want to do it and the album is called might delete this And he did delete
34:05
the song. It's no longer a part of the album.
34:08
So, yeah, I mean, these kind of like ever evolving, ever changing albums that
34:14
like, you know, the track list changes or the sequence changes or things get
34:19
deleted after it's released.
34:20
Like, I don't really know how to account for all that.
34:24
Yeah. But, you know, that'll be, I'm sure that'll be a heated discussion at
34:28
some point, but similar to the EP thing that we'll also get into later.
34:33
But let me, Granddaddy, I'm not really that into that one. I mean,
34:38
it's good. Here's the thing, like, I recognize that it's really good.
34:41
And it's kind of like got this also like kind of, it's like a lo-fi emo,
34:47
but like a more like glass half full emo thing going.
34:51
And it's really similar to spiritualize to me with who
34:54
i know you also love who you brought up earlier when you
34:57
were speaking about seeing radiohead at radio city
35:00
music hall and i i don't know i mean i feel like you know
35:04
i feel like it's an album that i'm supposed to like and you
35:08
know i might end up liking it later but you
35:12
know and that's another thing is like there gosh i'm thinking
35:14
back to when like sky blue sky came out from wilco it was
35:17
after a ghost is born the first time i listened to it i thought that album
35:20
sucked and now it's one of my favorites and
35:23
i remember you know being at john's house and
35:26
listening to it and both of
35:29
us just shaking our heads it's somebody i think mike called him
35:32
on his way home he's like what's the wilco album sound like
35:34
man and john's like i don't want to say anything yet because i don't want to
35:37
say anything i'm going to regret in the future like like he already knew but
35:42
you know there's this whole evolution like especially really deep albums really
35:45
layered albums they don't really like show themselves until several listens
35:50
and i don't know if granddaddy's one of them or not i know you really like it though.
35:54
Yeah it's it's it's almost like you have to
35:57
let it marinate a little bit and and that has also
36:00
created a challenge for when we finalize our
36:03
list and and listmas and whether or not if if we finalize the the list in in
36:09
December we might have only had the opportunity to to give a great album a listener
36:15
to where the ones that were released in February we had the opportunity to to
36:20
listen and a dozen times or more.
36:23
And so that definitely presents a challenge when you're trying to rank these for the year.
36:30
And granddaddy, it's not ranked yet.
36:34
And I know you and some of the guys on our Listmas text chain have been talking about the rankings.
36:41
I'm struggling ranking anything right now because like you said,
36:45
there's a ton of stuff out there.
36:46
I'm putting it all together, but there's a lot
36:49
of really good depth in these releases it's
36:52
not a it's not a lot of shallow albums and there's
36:55
a lot to explore in them there's a lot of pretty deep
36:58
themes and just like you were talking about earlier six seven years ago there
37:03
weren't that many albums and and that that's when i was tracking i was tracking
37:07
the albums but i would just pull single songs and i remember thinking wow like
37:11
the world needs to go a little crazy or something to to motivate some
37:16
of these artists and musicians to, to have something to sing about.
37:19
And I think they got plenty to sing about right now. And I, I don't think,
37:23
I don't think music's gonna get anywhere.
37:25
I think it's going to keep going down this, this path.
37:28
And there's going to be some powerful albums released and granddaddy,
37:31
I don't, I don't know what it is. It just keeps pulling me back in though.
37:35
And, and it's outside of it's, it almost is seems to be tapping into,
37:41
you know, my consciousness, my subconscious a little bit and it taps into.
37:47
Memories and sensations that that are from
37:50
another era but it and and i
37:53
don't know i don't know really how to describe it other than
37:55
it just makes me feel good i'm talking about i'll wake up at at you know one
38:00
o'clock in the morning and and not be tired and say i'm just gonna throw on
38:03
the album and just lay there and listen to it and it and it take me to places
38:06
yeah i've got to i've got to keep a list going and i've got to keep tears and
38:12
all that things get lost in the shuffle especially
38:14
when you have these times come up and like, you know, you have like three weeks
38:17
in a row and five or six good albums come out and you know, I'll totally miss
38:22
one, like this Freako album that I'm not going to talk about today, but it's really good.
38:25
And I came out in February and I just listened to it for the first time last week.
38:31
You know, it's weird. I mean, it's impossible to get ahold of everything,
38:35
but that's why there's so many of us talking to each other.
38:37
But now let's get to like the meat of what this podcast is eventually going
38:40
to be every week when we, when we get caught up, et cetera. And that's talking
38:44
about this week's releases.
38:46
So I think there's some good ones that came out this last week.
38:51
I'm kind of focused on three right now, which is Charlie Crockett and St. Vincent and Justice.
38:59
Anything that I'm leaving out that came out that's particularly remarkable at
39:04
the top of your head? Yeah.
39:06
No i i i am i still
39:08
haven't figured out if pearl jam deserves a mention
39:11
or not that didn't come out this week that was last week oh i
39:14
thought we were talking about the last couple weeks we're talking about this
39:17
is just this last week man yeah pearl jam album is great by the way like i just
39:21
listened to it all the way through for the first time last night yeah i would
39:25
just say the the lost lost dog street band yeah i haven't listened to that benjamin
39:29
todd's project is It's definitely worth a listen. What is it?
39:34
What's the genre? It has Americana country vibe, too. You know,
39:39
that popular genre right now.
39:41
Yeah. So I want to talk about Justice, first of all. So Justice,
39:45
you know, I mean, they've been out there for a while.
39:48
I think they popped up right around the time Discovery by Daft Punk became real popular.
39:54
And Justice put out kind of their first album, and it kind of sounded exactly like Daft Punk.
39:59
You know obviously something that was put out to
40:02
capitalize on this sound but they've
40:05
managed to make about a 20 year you know maybe
40:08
20 25 year career out of it so far this
40:12
album is good mike's way into it you know
40:15
and i think that like one thing about
40:19
this album or the two things about this album so
40:23
i can't imagine running around with
40:26
this being like the main album that's on my mind unless
40:29
i'm like taking a lot of ecstasy or something
40:32
or unless like like i'm
40:36
trying to live like the cyberpunk life or something you know
40:40
or like playing a lot of like you know destiny or something but i think that
40:45
when you know there's good stuff tame and paula's got a couple songs on here
40:49
thundercats got a song on here but this kind of begs the question that you know
40:54
comes with a lot of hip-hop albums too is it's like when the best part of your album.
40:59
Is the guest stars on your album like is that a good thing i don't know.
41:05
Yeah, yeah. That's a great question. If you can assemble the right guest,
41:11
I mean, just look at some of the albums that Gorillaz have put out.
41:16
And if it wasn't for the guests, I'm not so sure they would be so legendary.
41:20
Or even Daft Punk's last album, you know, to stay in the genre.
41:24
I mean, Daft Punk's great.
41:25
You know, their last album was definitely big because of Pharrell.
41:29
And, you know, gosh, who else was on that album? I'm kind of spacing a little bit.
41:33
It was, oh, Panda Bear, you know, all these other folks.
41:38
I mean, it was definitely about the guest stars more than it was about the robot DJs.
41:43
But i'm kind of you know another thing though so the team apollo
41:46
songs are good i'm sure it's not really team apollo it's just kevin
41:49
parker but i'm kind of tired of
41:51
of team apollo doing these like dance all
41:54
kind of you know things like i want them to play their guitars again you know
41:59
i mean it's like it's like every song is the same which which is whatever i
42:03
mean it's what's making them money i guess but it's just a shame when you have
42:07
a band of such accomplished musicians that But let's just start writing these
42:11
songs for festivals and such. But I guess that's where the money is. I don't know.
42:15
Indeed. Yeah. So St. Vincent, Reggie's favorite musician.
42:21
What do you think of this album? Have you listened to it? I have not brought
42:25
myself to. Come on, Reggie. Yeah.
42:27
You're doing a podcast now, man. You got to listen to the music.
42:31
Well, yeah, I will dig in. I just have to get the right frame of mind.
42:36
Tell me about it. Reggie hates St. Vincent, you guys. but
42:39
um what's in there you know saint
42:42
vincent annie clark i think she started with polyphonic spree maybe and sushant
42:47
stevens and some others as part of their bands and you know i mean her last
42:54
you know three or four albums have all been numb have all been listmas contenders
42:59
at least until you joined listmas reggie and then you kind of tanked them all.
43:03
But, you know, St. Vincent, she's an incredible show person,
43:06
incredible guitar player, writes great songs. She has the right mentors.
43:11
You know, David Byrne kind of took her under his wing.
43:15
She, you know, very, very much, you know, in the vein of David Bowie and Prince
43:21
and all these things that she's doing.
43:23
I love St. Vincent. There are good things on this album, but this album is just not doing it for me.
43:29
And I think that it's not that the songs are bad. There's a lot of really great stuff on here.
43:33
This album is definitely more, when you get into the meat of it,
43:36
it's more Prince than anything she's done.
43:39
And I'm talking about like late career Prince, you know, post like Diamonds and Pearls.
43:44
But she, you know, this album is incredibly missequenced.
43:49
Like if I wasn't a St. Vincent fan, I would have turned it off halfway through
43:54
the second song because she just starts it with the wrong songs.
43:57
Songs you know the first two songs are these kind of slow meandering things and then the rest of the
44:04
rest of the album is kind of bangers but it just
44:08
takes me it takes me out of it from the very beginning it kind
44:11
of you know what it kind of is huh yeah you know what it kind of
44:14
reminds me of it kind of reminds me of madonna's like
44:18
a prayer album or something you know which it's
44:22
just kind of got that vibe to it which you
44:25
know i know a lot of people like that but i
44:28
liked the stuff that came before that better and i
44:31
think that it's still you know it's still good but like like john zittle i expected
44:37
this to be an album of the year contender and i don't think it is i mean this
44:42
could be one that grows on me but again i think that i think you gotta split those kind of two,
44:50
dirge-like tunes that open it, you got to put those somewhere in the middle of the album,
44:56
instead of opening with them like boom, boom.
45:01
But again, there's good stuff on there, and she certainly doesn't need my help.
45:06
But I don't think she's going to be up there in Lismas where she's used to being.
45:13
What is it about St. Vincent that turns you off in general?
45:17
Yeah, I saw her at Governor's Ball, and it was maybe about 15 years ago.
45:24
So I don't know aligned and what album it was that was released at the time.
45:29
I'm a huge fan of Talking Heads, love David Byrne.
45:32
I remember hearing him talk on NPR and sort of pushing St.
45:37
Vincent, you know, in the early 2000s.
45:40
But when I saw her perform, it just seemed really soulless.
45:44
Like she was an indie rock version of Lady Gaga, very contrived.
45:50
And I just didn't feel any authenticity.
45:53
The artistry was incredible and as a musician, very, very powerful.
45:58
But I felt nothing at all.
46:01
I, you know, walked away from from that performance and everybody was really
46:05
raging and getting into it.
46:07
So just like you were talking about with the Tama Paula, you know,
46:10
they they they found that direction.
46:12
They're targeting that festival vibe. And and that's where they're going.
46:16
I think St. Vincent knows where she's going. She knows who her target audience is.
46:22
And I'm doing theater. I don't I don't go there. she's
46:25
doing theater and you know and that's what you
46:28
know that's what speaks i mean you think about david byrne you
46:31
think about you know david bowie
46:34
who she's obviously very inspired by you
46:37
think about the people she came up with the polyphonic spree and suve
46:40
sean stevens yeah who suve sean stevens just got nominated for
46:43
a tony award i think for illinois i mean yeah
46:47
i mean she's she's she's performing theater even though
46:51
she's a fantastic guitar player but she you know everything is very choreographed
46:56
i've seen her live show and the one that i saw was fantastic but then the tour
46:59
after that that tour she was touring with the live band the tour after that
47:02
she didn't have a band she would just had a screen behind her and pre-recorded
47:06
tracks and it was this weird wow.
47:08
It was like a performance art thing but i don't know yeah i mean you know that's
47:13
an interesting thing though sometimes a band can be amazing and then their live
47:17
performance can just take you out of them forever like i think about when we
47:21
saw big thief at the hopscotch festival and you know We didn't hold this against
47:25
them for too long because they won Listmas a couple years ago.
47:29
That was when their very first album came out. I think Shark Smile was their hit.
47:33
And they came out in front of this festival crowd and did not play Shark Smile
47:37
and played all of these really sad, slow songs. It was just kind of like an FU to the audience.
47:42
Yeah, in the middle of the day, too, right? Yeah, I didn't really understand
47:45
why they did that or what they were doing. Yeah.
47:49
And I'm also thinking, you know, an album we'll talk about in a later episode
47:53
is the Vampire Weekend album.
47:55
I had mentioned on our Listmas thread that not their previous album to this
47:59
one, but the one before that was a great album.
48:01
I mean, it was just like one of the best albums of the year.
48:04
Every song was like expertly crafted. drafted and i think their next show after
48:09
they came to raleigh was bonnaroo and they they just phoned their performance
48:13
and they were just looking forward to the festival you know they just had no.
48:19
Enthusiasm or charisma on the stage at all and i
48:22
was just like what like i didn't even give their next album a chance because
48:25
of that but you know i
48:28
guess i don't know i don't know what i think i think
48:30
it's it's definitely important to tie in you know
48:33
to for artists when they release a good album
48:36
to tie that in with their performances and and that's
48:39
that connection that that doesn't go away and i
48:42
i don't want to keep harp harping back to radiohead but
48:46
that when when i saw them play in in new york and and the majority of what they
48:51
performed was okay computer it just blew my mind and i haven't i mean it was
48:56
too much to to take in and i haven't been able to pull away from it and And
49:01
but to get little pieces of that,
49:03
like I saw Brent Cobb just about a month ago and he performed a lot of stuff
49:07
off his album that he released last year.
49:09
That was, you know, a high, high ranking for us. And and it was a great show.
49:14
And and he was connected to it and it was authentic and he was having fun.
49:20
And I think that's a really, really important element to to tie the listener
49:25
in, you know, Especially a listener that, like you and I, might want to go buy
49:29
the record and hold on to something and then go experience it.
49:34
So they got the physical attribute and then they're able to bring it inside as well.
49:39
And memory is a strange thing, but that doesn't go away.
49:42
Well, Radiohead is a full package. And look, if you're an artist,
49:46
oftentimes you are not...
49:49
You know, unless you're, you know, thinking of visual artists like Basquiat or something.
49:52
Basquiat or Andy Warhol, you know, I mean, they knew they were public figures,
49:57
you know, Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera, like they knew exactly what they were doing.
50:01
But most artists, most writers, most artistic people, like they just want to
50:06
sit in their bedroom and be left the hell alone.
50:08
You know, they don't want, they don't, they don't know what to do when they're
50:12
thrust in front of a bunch of people. But when you get these bands like Radiohead, St.
50:18
Vincent does this too, David Bowie, etc., they are a whole package.
50:23
When they put out an album, it's not just an album. It's a vibe.
50:27
It is a look. It's a color scheme.
50:30
It is a certain batch of catchphrases. I mean, Radiohead has an artist,
50:36
you know, Stanley Donwood is like a member of their band.
50:39
He has been their artist going back to OK Computer, I believe.
50:44
And, you know, they use Nigel Godrich to produce every album, etc.
50:47
I mean, they have a whole thing that goes well beyond the music that they produce
50:55
into this whole, I mean, it's performance art,
50:58
you know, it's just a whole vibe and package that they put out into the world.
51:04
But not everybody's capable of doing all that and
51:07
most new bands especially you don't have money for all that you
51:10
know unless you have friends who are just also brilliant artists who
51:13
are willing to like do something for free for a minute in the you know
51:16
to roll the dice and think it may pay off
51:19
in the future you know or something but
51:22
we'll talk about all that much later we let's talk about the other
51:25
album that came out this week charlie crockett and speaking of vibe he's got
51:30
got a vibe and this album is ten dollar cowboy i told siri to play it when i
51:35
was driving home and siri says ten dollars cowboy which i thought was funny
51:38
i'm gonna let you talk about this album first because because this is like right in your wheelhouse.
51:45
Yeah, well, Charlie's another one of those guys, just like hooray for the riffraff
51:49
that the first time I saw him performing was back when I lived in New Orleans
51:54
and he was over on a street corn on Frenchman Street, you know, and 2008,
51:59
2009 Frenchman.
52:02
There was a lot of good street performances going on.
52:06
And Charlie talks about this album. And it wasn't too long ago when $10 was a whole lot of money.
52:14
And you just feel it from start to finish with it.
52:19
Do you recall what it is? He had a scare a couple of years ago.
52:23
I think something with his heart where a lot of people thought he was going to pass.
52:28
And he was able to get through it. But over the last 10 years,
52:31
he's been incredibly prolific, releasing two albums a year, pushing out a dozen albums.
52:39
But this album in particular, I believe he recorded in a studio in Austin and
52:45
some of his previous albums, like The Valley, he just performed and recorded
52:49
in a barn. And so they're in Ardent Studio in Austin.
52:53
It sounds a lot clearer, but it's real to tape.
52:56
It's live from start to finish. And you can feel it. You can feel the energy of it.
53:02
And Charlie has spent so much time playing on street corners,
53:06
playing in New York, playing in New Orleans, playing all over the world.
53:10
That's what he does best is performing live, performing in the moment.
53:15
And I think this album does a great job capturing that.
53:19
Yeah, there's, you know, a lot of songs on this album about being a down on your luck gambler.
53:26
One of the best lines of the album, I think, is along the lines of I'm not done losing yet.
53:30
Yeah, yeah. He talks about America. He said.
53:33
You know, I'm probably about the most qualified guy to sing a song about America
53:37
right now, considering everywhere I've been traveling the last 10 years and,
53:42
you know, the truck stops and the casinos and the bathrooms that I've written these songs in.
53:47
Yeah apologize to america for
53:50
being a man yeah track one
53:54
of this album is also good it's a great way to kick it off and my you
53:57
know my my only qualm with
54:01
this album i've got this album ranked right now my only
54:04
thing with it and again this is like when you start comparing great
54:08
albums with other great albums like these things come up
54:10
america is a great song but to me it's like
54:13
the exact same song as as the clown
54:16
song from his previous album it's got like the same instrumentation
54:19
same key same kind of arrangement going on
54:23
it's just there's not a lot of differences there and that was the first thing
54:25
when i heard the album i was ready like you guys are sending out texts like
54:28
you know holy shit this is the best you know
54:31
this is album is elite and then track
54:34
two comes on i'm like this sounds exactly like his big
54:37
radio hit from the last album it's almost like you took a repeat my
54:39
numbers kit and just did it again well it's
54:42
almost like what we were talking about earlier with future islands as well you
54:46
know and he's he's been very prolific he's pushing he's pushing a whole lot
54:50
of stuff out there and yeah i think when when you do that you there's a certain
54:55
sound that that might repeat itself a couple times here's the difference to me the difference is.
55:02
That the so the similarities between america
55:05
and the clown it's just like the same arrangement the same everything future
55:11
islands the reason that all of their stuff sounds the same and all of it does
55:15
sound like remarkably the same is because they have no guitar player like they
55:19
have you know they've had the same band since they were kids uh they have drummer bass player,
55:25
keyboard player and there's just not you know for what they're doing there's
55:31
just not a place yeah there's not a lot of places to go man because it's not
55:35
you know i mean i know the keyboard players probably gotten a lot better but
55:38
when they were first starting you probably only do a few things like these kind
55:40
of lush chords and you know the drummer's always like.
55:46
It's like always that beat and the bass player's always some rhythm of like
55:49
eighth notes just i mean they're just like all that they i mean,
55:56
I don't want to say all they are because I don't want to discount what they're
55:58
all doing. But what the Future Islands are, they are a showcase.
56:02
They're a backdrop for Sim.
56:04
You know, they are very much driven by their front man and his charisma and his words.
56:11
You know, they're the classic example of like a band led by a wordsmith who is telling stories.
56:17
Kind of like Leonard Cohen, maybe, to just bring up like a weird comparison.
56:21
Like, you don't think about Leonard Cohen because he has amazing music,
56:25
you know. You're thinking about Leonard Cohen because of the things that he's saying.
56:29
And I think that Sam's like not too far off of that path. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.
56:35
Yeah. Cool. Well, Reggie, we're an hour in, man.
56:38
I think that this is a good first podcast, bringing people up to speed.
56:42
We're looking for sponsors.
56:44
Reggie's got on a 2112 percussion shirt there. I've got on my Music Maker Foundation shirt.
56:49
You know, hopefully some of our friends from School Kids Records will listen to this.
56:54
Nice price records etc we're looking for sponsors
56:57
guys so give us a shout next week there's
57:01
a kamasi washington album coming out i don't know what
57:04
else is coming out but that's going to be enough for me to talk about right there
57:07
i don't know you love kamasi i know we'll be talking deep about that we will
57:12
we will all right reggie well successful first podcast day yeah brother all
57:17
right friends we will see you next week when we talk about kamasi and more in uh drive We're out.
57:26
Music.
57:53
You are everybody. You are everybody.
58:01
You are everybody.
58:07
You are everybody.