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No music genre is particularly easy to define, but “indie folk”
is about as nebulous as they come. It also happens to roughly
encapsulate many of my favorite albums. When I’m splurging on vinyl,
indie folk is likelier to fill in missing albums by Sufjan Stevens, Iron
& Wine and
Father John Misty than
even classic ‘60s soul. In compiling our rankings here, we’ve defined
its era as beginning in 1972 with Nick Drake’s seminal
Pink Moon, being mostly ignored until the mid-’90s with acts like
Elliott Smith and Gillian Welch, and then booming right around the time we launched
Paste
in 2002. In fact, reading through this list is overwhelmingly
nostalgic, as much a time capsule of the writers and editors we’ve
worked with these last 15 years as of the musicians who’ve often graced
the cover and pages (both paper and virtual) of our magazine since its
inception.
Musically, we’re looking at that glorious amalgamation of
tradition folk elements (acoustic instruments and vocal styles) with the
burgeoning indie-rock scene—or, occasionally, electronic elements
applied to folk music. These albums are filled with folky songs that
would be at home on college radio next to post-rock and dance tracks.
There’s overlap with alt-country, coffeehouse singer/songwriters,
orchestral pop and indie rock, but we did our best to grab albums that
felt like “indie folk,” whether the artist was recorded in their bedroom
or released it on a major label. There was plenty of argument among our
staff about who was too hard-rock, too straight alt-country or just
didn’t fit our definitions. But these are the albums our music writers
and editors felt were the very best indie-folk albums ever made. If
you’d like to chime in with your own opinion on what makes an album
“indie folk” or what albums we missed,
visit our Facebook page.
We limited our list to two albums per artist, and even then only noting second albums from a handful of key artists.
Here are the 100 Best Indie Folk Albums of All Time.
100. Stornoway – Beachcomber’s Windowsill (2010)
With bouncy bass lines and bright vocals, British chamber-pop quartet Stornoway recalls all the best qualities of ‘90s
120 Minutes
darlings The Ocean Blue with a chamber-pop/indie-folk twist. The 11
tracks, while not always overflowing with joy, convey a sort of
contentment that you’d expect from four friends enjoying a new chapter
of life that involves playing music for a living. Employing cello,
horns, organ and banjo, songs like “Zorbing” and “I Saw You Blink” beg
for the repeat button. —
Josh Jackson
99. Beirut – No No No (2015)
Beirut may have begun as the solo project of singer/songwriter Zach
Condon, but the musical globetrotter credits the rest of his
now-five-piece band for helping turn the fragments he’d written during
the tumultuous period after 2011’s
The Rip Tide into a cohesive
album. Few bands operate in musical territory all their own, but the way
horns weave through these tender ballads remains unique and gives the
music a distinct bittersweetness as teasingly joyous melodies belie
Condon’s snippets of loneliness and heartache. Every time a song like
“Perth” offers a cheery groove, Condon undercuts it with lyrics like
“You saw me at my worst / Ragged tires burning for miles / I ran until
it hurt.” Condon lost love and then found it while making this record,
but rather than write songs about either, he managed to infuse every
song on the record with bits of both, a beautiful jumble of emotions
that hits you all at once. —
Josh Jackson
98. Sarah Jaffe – Suburban Nature (2008)
Sarah Jaffe
is a lot like her home state of Texas. Wide-open,
humble and matter-of-fact, she crafts beautiful, raw songs that “are
what they are” in the very best way. Playing like a wise, witty diary
entry marked with teardrops, growing pains and effusive honesty, her
debut album,
Suburban Nature, ebbs and flows on a sea of candid
relationship narratives. “Love is interesting, because when two people
come together that way, it can be really hostile and beautiful at the
same time,” she said of the inspiration for the album’s 13 songs, some
of which were written before Jaffe graduated from high school. —
Melanie Gomez
97. Badly Drawn Boy – One Plus One Is One (2004)
The poorly illustrated Damon Gaugh had already proven himself a
masterful arranger, deftly weaving vignettes, tangents, instrumental
interludes and miniature movements into the space of three- to
five-minute pop songs. His fourth release—a much sparer, acoustic
creation—is no less carefully arranged. Nearly all of the 16 songs on
One Plus One Is One
feature ADD-accomodating instrumental and dynamic shifts. Children’s
choirs, café chatter, hand claps, ticking clocks and ambient noise liven
the mix and dispel the feeling of gimmickry. The instrumentation is
remarkably subtle, especially the muted banjo running through “Logic of a
Friend,” and the soft accordion buried in the
Yankee Hotel Foxtrot-ish
outro of the album’s closer, “Holy Grail.” For a collection of
heartfelt, affirming and coolly optimistic songs, the intricate
production is careful enough to propel the music along, rather than bog
it down in a mire of overzealous meddling. —
Josh Jackson
96. Hayes Carll – Lovers and Leavers (2016)
Lovers and Leavers is the finest work of
Hayes Carll’s
career, even if it’s very different from what came before. It’s a
quieter album, recorded mostly with a stripped-down trio—with occasional
splashes of keys and steel added here and there. It’s a more thoughtful
collection—with the choruses more likely to contain epiphanies than
punchlines. Into the spaces where the stomping and joking once were
comes a sobering awareness of the losses that shadow every life. That
consciousness was always lurking in the background of Carll’s songs, but
here it comes into the foreground. On “Sake of the Song,” over an
organ-fueled Memphis blues, he sings: “Hitchhiking, bus riding, rental
cars, living rooms, coffee houses, run-down bars, 10,000 people or alone
under the stars, it’s all for the sake of the song.” As the number
sprawls across a dozen verses, Carll tallies up all the pluses and
minuses of the music life—the “record deals and trained seals” and the
chance to “tell your truth however you choose”—but refuses to conclude
that one outweighs the other. Instead he presents the listener—as he
does on all the album’s songs—with the unsatisfying reality that life is
a package deal, a series of tradeoffs, and leaves us to draw our own
conclusions. —
Geoffrey Himes
95. Loney, dear – Loney, Noir (2007)
While some musicians spend thousands of dollars on fancy
recording studios and renowned producers, Sweden’s Emil Svanängen—aka
Loney, Dear—holes up in his parents’ basement with a computer, a pile of
instruments and a stack of CD-Rs. And while some may label his
baklava-layered masterwork as a cold fusion of
Belle & Sebastian and
Kelley Stultz with a side of Swedish meatball, this is selling his
joyous confessional short “I Am John” is basement-pop perfection.
Somewhere far, far away, Brain Wilson’s muse and Barry Gibb’s voice
coach are jealous. If I had had this track in my eight-track arsenal
during my first co-ed slumber party, I would have been much luckier. If
only sucking helium could make me sound that good. “I am John” was the
close-eyes-shake-head-and-smile song of 2007. —
Jay Sweet
94. Hem – Rabbit Songs (2002)
In a musical landscape populated by artists arming themselves with irony
and attitude, Hem’s nakedly honest approach stands out.
Rabbit Songs, the band’s first effort, made many critics’ best-of-2002 lists, including
Paste’s.
Evidence of how Hem’s music connects so deeply with listeners can be
found in a personal story—that of my first child’s birth. Before heading
to the hospital, my wife and I had the presence of mind to gather up a
few much-loved CDs for the nerve-wracking hours ahead; one of them was
Rabbit Songs.
Dan Messé’s lyrics—delivered by Sally Ellyson’s dulcet voice and backed
by richly intricate arrangements—mine deep veins of heartrending
poignancy. Hem’s songs provoke feelings associated with a father telling
his son to be brave; with committed lovers sharing an embrace in the
darkest hours of the night; with a new child arriving the same day one
receives news of a parent’s passing—or in our case, with the appearance
of our firstborn. —
Reid Davis
93. Middle Brother – Middle Brother (2011)
Very rarely does a supergroup manage to come up with something as good
as the sum of its parts. Just like a movie starring a crowd of A-listers
doesn’t necessarily equal anything Oscar-worthy (we’re looking at you,
Ocean’s 12),
it isn’t a given that a band with three frontmen will be able to
effectively pool its talents. But the men of Middle Brother sound as if
they’ve been playing together for years. John McCauley (Deer Tick), Matt
Vasquez (
Delta Spirit)
and Taylor Goldsmith (Dawes) take turns singing lead, and from the
first harmonies on “Daydreaming” it’s clear that we’ve got a true
collaboration on our hands. At times they sound so in tune with one
another that
Middle Brother starts to feel like a concept album,
like a time capsule crafted by the trio of rock troubadours to document
their rise to fame. We get the sense that in addition to their shared
influences, the members of Middle Brother have plenty of common
experiences in their pasts. —
Bonnie Stiernberg
92. Typhoon – White Lighter (2013)
Recorded on the sprawling Pendarvis Farm, about 30 minutes outside the band’s hometown,
White Lighter
takes the utopian aesthetic of its locale and translates it into music.
The band’s comparatively enormous size—marked by a horn section, string
section and eclectic percussion—naturally exudes a boisterous optimism
and familial charm. However, that positive sound also seems to mask the
album’s dystopian themes. Death is all over
White Lighter, and it’s that combination that makes
White Lighter so entrancing, serving as both a warning and a celebration of mortality. —
Hilary Saunders
91. Julien Baker – Sprained Ankle (2015)
She may be uncomfortable talking about her substance abuse, a near-death
experience and failed relationships, but Memphis singer-songwriter
Julien Baker uses her music as a safe space to examine her past. Baker’s
skill lies in her narrative songwriting, which pierces her experiences
to the bone. Now, sober, having quit even cigarettes, Baker works out
her troubles on
Sprained Ankle, a collection of beautifully
arranged folk songs using mostly her voice, a guitar and reverb. After
playing in a post-rock band in high school, she began to rein in her
demons and write on her own. Out came lyrics about wrapping a car around
a streetlamp, having more whiskey than blood in her veins, time spent
in ambulances, of an unbearable break-up with her girlfriend, and facing
mortality. These songs were more personal than her earlier efforts, and
rather than take a poetic look at her misgivings, Baker is brutally
honest about the ugliness she faced. Her lyrical battles are not only
with herself, but also with God, like Jacob wrestling the angel. —
Roman Gokhman
90. Palehound – Dry Food (2015)
Ellen Kempner’s guitar prowess is Palehound’s staff of light, a
six-stringed burning ember that guides you through her fractured song
structures and doleful take on coming-of-age. That’s the basis of
Dry Food,
an eight-song exploration of Kempner’s mental inner space during the
period of 2013 and ‘14. Complex dynamics keep the tracks from blending
together into a giant collage, like the colorful travel-magazine cutouts
that make up the cover art. The only constants are Kempner’s guitar and
whispering vocals, which draw you into her dark world on tracks like
“Molly,” where her counter-melody guitar riff gets attacked by
fuzzed-out power chords. Kempner’s soft vocals puncture the heart with
earnestness on tracks like “Dry Food” and create distance with the
reverb-soaked “Cinnamon,” where her voice interweaves masterfully with
gently strummed chords.
Dry Food bleeds with emotional truth
through a thorny lineage to Kurt Cobain-esque dissociation and mental
anguish—which is why it was written in isolation, with Kempner playing
all the parts except for drums.
Dry Food seems possessed by the
ghost of Elliott Smith—there are painful reminders all over this record
of what it feels like to be tortured, lonely, abused and
directionless—which can be exhausting through eight sugar-free songs.
Most of Kempner’s lyrics aren’t easy to decipher, either, but combined
with nuanced minor key changes, and juxtaposed with her childlike
falsetto, they remind you of the dark-twinkle in the eyes of Sylvia
Plath, where nothing is as it seems—like daydreaming over magazine
cutouts of paradise, beyond reach. —
Art Tavana
89. The Mountain Goats – Beat the Champ (2015)
John Darnielle—the songwriter, singer, bandleader and driving force of
The Mountain Goats—has a number of somewhat surprising passions. One is
death metal, to which he’s paid homage in several songs, notably the
classic “The Best Ever Death Metal Band Out of Denton.” Another is pro
wrestling, and it’s into this arena that he introduced his record,
Beat the Champ.
That’s right, every single song here is about pro wrestling (albeit
usually of the decidedly minor-league variety). As could be expected,
Darnielle approaches the subject with uncommon sensitivity and insight,
gifting some of his most tender moments of recognition to the perpetual
villains of the melodrama (“Throw my better self overboard / Shoot at
him when he comes up for air”). But in an album full of rip-your-heart
out moments, Darnielle saves the most powder for his ode to a real-life
childhood hero of his, Chavo Guerrero. Anyone familiar with Darnielle’s
childhood (or too many of our own) can’t help but thrill to the sounds
of “I need justice in my life, and here it comes / Look high / It’s my
last hope / Chavo Guerrero / Coming off the top rope.” Fly high, Chavo. —
Michael Dunaway
88. Josh Ritter – So Runs the World Away (2010)
Idaho native and Brooklyn transplant
Josh Ritter hit
a beautiful stride on his sixth album, a soulful combination of
conversational folk ballads and powerful gut punches. Ritter’s the kind
of artist who will always draw comparisons to legends like Bob Dylan and
contemporaries like Ryan Adams—and while
So Runs the World Away
contains a handful of songs that make those comparisons easy, it also
never sways from his unmistakable cadence. He whispers on “The Curse,”
stomps on “The Remnant” and, yes, matter-of-factly evokes Dylan on “Folk
Bloodbath” when he explains with scratchy sincerity, “That’s the sad
thing with life / There’s people always leavin’ just as other folks
arrive.” He’s not the only one channeling the greats, but he does it
better than almost anyone else. —
Jenna Woginrich
87. Feist – Let It Die (2004)
Feist
made her entry into the much-ballyhooed Canadian
Invasion of the ‘00s with this cozy and concertedly atmospheric
major-label debut (the album was originally released in 2004 on Arts
& Crafts). Tapping a fertile market with her pseudo-jazzy
spare/lavish stylings, the album exposed a genuine talent to the wider
herds. In the end, it’s the little touches that make
Let It Die
stand out from the Nic Harcourt-approved female-crooner clutter—the kiss
of nylon guitar strings on “Mushaboom,” the deftly doubled vocals on
“One Evening” and the cute finger snaps and koto twang on the aptly
titled “Leisure Suite.” In a genre where it’s hard to escape producing
mere sonic wallpaper,
Feist generated a dazzling interior constellation for your candlelit, post-midnight ceiling-gazing needs. —
Jeff Leven
86. Lord Huron – Strange Trails (2015)
Lord Huron’s gorgeous sophomore effort,
Strange Trails,
came out in 2015, but its lush, woodsy melodies and genteel vocal
harmonies make it sound like an artifact from the mid-’00s Fleet
Foxes/Band of Horses/M. Ward indie-folk boom. Leaving aside any
release-date cognitive dissonance,
Strange Trails is a pleasure
from beginning to end, with Ben Schneider’s reedy voice leading cuts
both dreamy slow (opener “Love Like Ghosts”) and dance-party fast (the
hand-clapped “Fool for Love”). Even
Netflix teen drama
13 Reasons Why
caught on, with its music supervisor soundtracking an emotionally
pivotal scene to the album’s haunting closer, “The Night We Met.” The
aforementioned “Fool for Love” also closed out the episode with Marnie’s
(ultimately doomed) wedding on
GIRLS. It makes sense that music supervisors keep retreading
Lord Huron’s
Strange Trails. Any romantic could accept it as the soundtrack of their lives. —
Rachel Brodsky
85. Johnny Flynn and The Sussex Wit – A Larum (2008)
English boarding-school alum, former choirboy, and erstwhile Royal Shakespeare Company actor
Johnny Flynn goes
slumming on his debut album, adopting a Dickensian ragamuffin persona
that is so engaging that you quickly forget that he’s never gone
dumpster diving in his life. There are echoes of Trad stalwarts
throughout—Martin Carthy and Mike Waterson in the singing, Bert Jansch
in the supple guitar work—but Flynn is no retro iconoclast, and his
biting social commentary owes more to Billy Bragg than Billy Billington.
The Sussex Wit, Flynn’s backing band, unleashes a frenzied Pogues
approximation behind him.
Alarum (a Shakespearian term for general mayhem) is a fitting title for an impressive debut. —
Andy Whitman
84. Angel Olsen – Burn Your Fire for No Witness (2016)
Angel Olsen’s beautiful, sad and, ultimately, useful sophomore album,
Burn Your Fire for No Witness
is an experience obsessed with heartbreak, and engaging the record with
a heavy heart of your own is excruciating—near-torture. But this is how
Angel Olsen deserves to be absorbed, with empathy—knowing her pain and
resolve and bravery, and using it for your own strength. It’s an album
that tells the world we are not alone. It’s like Olsen was reading the
language of heartbeats and sighed breaths and watery eyes. Closing
number “Windows” asks “Won’t you open a window sometime? What’s so wrong
with the light? Wind in your hair, sun in your eyes.” She so wants to
love and to be loved that it’s as plain and simple as an open window and
the sun shining in, and it confuses and torments her that her object of
desire doesn’t see the world the same way. It’s the tragedy of any love
that doesn’t work, and Olsen seems so willing to give that your heart
can’t help but break for her. Her dry, almost rusty voice is pain made
audible, like this isn’t her first heartbreak, like she’s endured
lifetime after lifetime of them. Olsen shares graciously in her music,
and if you are willing,
Burn a Fire for No Witness will change your world—or, rather, it will change how you see your world. —
Philip Cosores
83. Dawes – Nothing Is Wrong (2011)
Two years after releasing their debut,
North Hills, the men of Dawes hit the road for a long tour. Forced to write in the free time they were afforded, the songs on
Nothing Is Wrong
are marked by the qualities of a band in motion. “These days my friends
don’t seem to know me / Without my suitcase in my hand,” Taylor
Goldsmith sings in the opening track, “Time Spent in Los Angeles.” But
despite the uncertainty and bouts of solitude that often come with life
on the road, Goldsmith seems to find freedom in his travels. “Maybe
cause I come from such an empty-hearted town / Or maybe cause some love
of mine had really let me down,” he says on “If I Wanted Someone.” “But
the only time I am lonely is when others are around / I just never end
up knowing what to say.” Musically, on the other hand, there’s no worry
that Dawes has lost its way. The songwriting and emotion are just as
impressive on
Nothing is Wrong as they were on
North Hills. The influence of the North Hills and Laurel Canyon music scenes are still present as well, right down to
Jackson Browne’s
supporting vocals on “Fire Away.” Two years of fine-tuning their live
sound made all the members of Dawes master musicians not only
individually, but as a collective. Alex Casnoff’s work on the keys
shines on nearly every track; Wylie Gelber maybe one of the most
tasteful bassists ever, and young Griffin Goldsmith’s percussion is rock
steady and incredibly impressive. But it is the sum of all these parts
that makes
Nothing is Wrong something truly special. —
Wyndham Wyath
82. Thao and the Get Down Stay Down – A Man Alive (2016)
Gone are the John Congleton-produced horn arrangements and blues piano of
Thao & The Get Down Stay Down’s excellent previous release,
We The Common. In their place is
tUnE-yArDs’
Merrill Garbus’ electronic organica, which elevates Thao Nguyen’s most
deeply introspective, experimental and well-formed release.
A Man Alive
is a dissection of Thao’s relationship with the father who left her
family when she was young. Under Garbus’s guidance, there’s a newfound
energy here—the tribal drum-laden and arresting vocal layers of
“Meticulous Bird” and “Fool Forever” aren’t a far cry from
tuNe-yArDs’
output. They serve to allow Thao to breathe and flex before embarking
on a number of knee-buckling lyrical trips. When the mish-mash of Garbus
and Thao’s sounds fuse, it can break you to pieces in the most powerful
ways possible. —
Adrian Spinelli
81. Damien Jurado – Maraqopa (2012)
Damien Jurado
wasn’t kidding when he told fans that this release
was going to be unlike anything they’d heard from him before. Fifteen
years and 10 albums into his career, the Seattle singer-songwriter found
his ideal collaborator in producer Richard Swift, who worked with
Jurado on 2010’s excellent
Saint Bartlett. Where once there was
stripped down folk, country and pop rock, Swift helped Jurado flesh out
his sound with breezy bossa nova (“This Time Next Year”), a spooky
children’s choir (“Life Away From the Garden”) and some ‘70s organ work
(“So On, Nevada”). Jurado’s buttery voice, acoustic guitar and
world-weary dissatisfaction remain at the center, supplemented by
everything from seriously funky shredding on “Nothing Is the News” to
seasick Spector psych on “Reel to Reel.”
Maraqopa’s
experimentations aren’t those of a young musician set loose in a studio
full of new toys. Jurado was just hitting his stride. —
Rachel Bailey
80. The Lone Bellow – The Lone Bellow (2013)
It’s hard to believe music rooted in tragedy can sweep listeners along with such potent exuberance, but Brooklyn’s
The Lone Bellow creates
a sweeping country rock that uses the three-part power harmonies of
lead singer/writer Zach Williams, guitarist Brian Elmquist and mandolin
player Kanene Pipkin to set Williams’s songs ablaze in emotion, passion
and the moments when life is at its most extreme. Working with producer
Charlie Peacock, The Lone Bellow figured out a way to harness the
acoustic-rock template mined by Mumford & Sons, The Lumineers and
The Civil Wars, and add a sense of powerful vocal incandescence. If
Fleetwood Mac shimmered more, rocked less and were organic without being
raw, that might suggest the level of evocative language and romance The
Lone Bellow exudes. —
Holly Gleason
79. First Aid Kit – The Lion’s Roar (2012)
Much in the same way the timbre of Swedish sisters Johanna and Klara
Söderbergmakes’ voices make them seem older than their years, the songs
on
The Lions’s Roar seem to be born out of lives lived much
longer than their own. How have these young women had the sorts of life
experiences to write the stories they do? Their songs are filled with
wisdom gained from memories that seem to stretch back a thousand years
or more. These are the words of truly old souls.
The Lion’s Roar
continues much in the same fashion as the folk duo’s first record, but
the material here feels a lot bigger, thanks largely to the use of a
full band featuring the sisters’ father as well as producer Mike Mogis
and Nate Walcott of Bright Eyes. First Aid Kit have never been shy about
their American influences, and their affinity for American folk and
country music is clear on “Emmylou,” a beautiful track featuring swells
of pedal-steel and light taps of wire brushes on the drums. The song is
of course named for
Emmylou Harris,
and brims with the joy and artistry that comes with making music with
someone you love, whether it’s Harris with Graham Parsons or June Carter
with Johnny Cash. It’s the centerpiece of a gorgeous record. —
Wyndham Wyeth
78. Neko Case – Blacklisted (2002)
Neko Case
has always had a strong voice and a knack for giving gritty stories an ethereal bent. On
Blacklisted,
her third album, she handled more songwriting on her own and put a
finer point on both her narratives and her presence as a performer. Her
persona and her music remained dark, mysterious, and a little distant
with her voice wrapped in reverb as if she were calling out from a vast,
empty space. If
Tom Waits is
the drunken dreamer caught in the gutter, Case is the woman who put him
there. And unlike some of her contemporaries, she never gave up on
twang as she developed her own voice. It’s hard to argue that songs like
“I Missed the Point” and “Runnin’ Out of Fools” aren’t firmly rooted in
Patsy Cline country. Still, Case added a few refinements to her
arrangements—the nod to bluegrass on “Things That Scare Me,” the subtle
rhythmic shifts in “Deep Red Bells.” And her lyrics—like the chorus of
“I Wish I Was the Moon” and the imagery of “Deep Red Bells”—are as
beautiful as they are provocative. —
Nick A. Zaino III
77. Bill Callahan – Dream River (2013)
Bill Callahan
has an uncanny ability to make you think about life.
The images are vivid, the language simple, and the metaphors open to
interpretation. His records seem to be made up of a million vivid scenes
that combine for a compelling portrait of the human condition. As
Dream River
progresses, you get a sense of an underlying, almost optimistic love
story, one that’s far from perfect and could be real or a dream. And the
music matches the dreamlike state of the lyrics. Guitars intertwine
softly with slinky bass lines. Flutes chirp like spring birds on
“Javelin Unlanding” and “Summer Painter,” while percussion pitters and
patters throughout. There are more jazz flourishes than country strums,
which adds to the record’s dream sequences. It’s easy to get lost,
especially through
headphones. Callahan has used his art to make sense of the world, and in turn helps us make some sense of it, too. —
Mark Lore
76. Okkervil River – The Silver Gymnasium (2013)
Armed with a distinctive howling tenor, a capacity for incorporating
several influences in the span of a single track and a skill set for
narrating harrowing tales of vice and virtue, Will Sheff has become one
of indie rock’s celebrated literary minds. It’s a trend that continues
on
The Silver Gymnasium. But this time around, Sheff’s theme is
his own past, detailing the people and places he knew while growing up
in Meriden, N.H., in the ‘80s. By romanticizing his experiences of love
and loss, of remembrance and regret, of functioning in the world or
feeling paralyzed by it, Sheff produced a standout collection of sordid
and stinging stories. The songs on
The Silver Gymnasium are
packed full of forbidden love, controlling parents, fizzling
friendships, premature death, prostitutes and drug addicts,
broken-hearted bartenders, car crashes, self-medication, loss of
innocence and clinging to the promise of youth as if your life depended
on it. Sheff’s songs ooze with longing, and they throw you into a world
that is unfamiliar yet immediately recognizable. The album grows on you,
and sooner or later its nostalgia becomes your own—only the names and
places are different. —
Michael Danaher
75. Frank Turner – Poetry of the Deed (2009)
Despite the acoustic guitar,
Frank Turner’s punk roots show on his third solo record,
Poetry of the Deed,
especially when he spits out the title track’s earnest manifesto:
“Pentameter in attack, iambic pulse in the veins, free verse powered of
the street light mains / An Iliad played out without a shadow of doubt
between the end of the club, yeah, and the sun coming out … Enough with
words and technical theses, let’s grab life by the throat and live it to
pieces.” The album is full of vivid, passionate, literate punk tunes,
but its vim and vigor are made all the more refreshing by a sweet and
honest appeal to his parents called “Faithful Son” and a tender love
song called “The Fastest Way Back Home.” —
Josh Jackson
74. Phosphorescent – Here’s to Taking It Easy (2010)
In 2009, Phosphorescent braintrust Matthew Houck released a tribute to
Willie Nelson featuring
11 covers that avoided obvious hits and sentiments. He and his
honky-tonk band obviously learned from that endeavor: The songs on the
gorgeously sadsack follow-up,
Here’s to Taking It Easy, evoke
lost days and lonely nights with keen observations and road-weary
melodies. “Baby, all these cities, ain’t they all startin’ to look all
the same?” Houck laments on the rip-roaring opener “It’s Hard to Be
Humble (When You’re from Alabama),” as the horn section roars ahead with
trucker’s speed and the pedal steel somehow evokes both Junior Brown
and
My Bloody Valentine.
All of Houck’s Southern eccentricities remain gloriously intact, from
his eloquently hangdog vocals to his minimalist songwriting on “Hej, Me
I’m Light.” Best of all is “The Mermaid Parade,” an ode to a bicoastal
break-up that’ll have you shedding a tear in your PBR. —
Stephen M. Deusner
73. Of Monsters And Men – My Head Is an Animal (2011)
Formed in Reykjavík in 2009 out of the remnants of the members’ former solo projects,
Of Monsters and Men became
a local favorite in their home country after winning a nationwide
battle of the bands—Músiktilraunir—in 2010. And the group is at its best
when all six instrumental and singing voices are heard.
On My Head Is an Animal,
Nanna Bryndís and Ragnar “Raggi” Þórhallsson’s harmonies and
alternating vocal leads shine in tunes like opener “Dirty Paws” and
“Mountain Sound.” The instrumentation, which also features melodica,
glockenspiel, accordion and horn flourishes (as exemplified in “Little
Talks” and the outro/reprise of “Lakehouse”) keep the band from genre
pigeonholes. And the members’ excitement—the unbridled joy of just
playing together—that’s felt on each up-tempo song is simply contagious.
—
Hilary Saunders
72. Shovels & Rope – O Be Joyful (2012)
Cary Ann Hearst and Michael Trent are notable singer/songwriters in their own right. Hearst released 2010’s
Are You Ready To Die EP through Filter US Recordings, and landed one of its songs—the brash “Hell’s Bells”—on the
True Blood soundtrack. But together, as
Shovels & Rope,
Hearst and Trent share a remarkable chemistry. Her Wanda Jackson wail
is so brassy and compelling, it’s hard to imagine a complementary foil,
but she finds it in Trent, whose more tempered vocal adds some stability
without dampening the impact. —
Bryan C. Reed
71. Sharon Van Etten – Tramp (2012)
For 47 minutes on her breakout third album,
Sharon Van Etten is
right there with you, whispering her tortured lullabies into your ear
in the most intimate manner. It feels like an artful exchange, a private
conversation between artist and listener. Despite vivid, winding
melodies; transcendent singing; and a who’s who of indie-rock guest
stars (including Beirut’s Zach Condon, The National’s Bryce Dessner and
Wye Oak’s Jenn Wasner), it’s shocking how minimal, how
fragile, these songs are. Though there are dense instrumental textures rumbling in the distance,
Tramp
is built mostly on sparse acoustic guitar. Its revelations are fixed in
that intimacy, that private conversation Van Etten has designed to
share with you, and you alone. —
Ryan Reed
70. The Lumineers – The Lumineers (2012)
The Lumineers’
debut record is instantly gratifying—and not in the hasty, shallow way
often found in pre-fab pop songs. While some records take days or months
to properly digest, there’s an instant connection here, and that
camaraderie is evident both onstage and on the record. Neyla Pekarek’s
graceful strings, the steady roll of Jeremiah Fraites’ on the drums, and
the charming twang of lead singer Wesley Schultz generate a sense of
warmth and candor that the recent folk revival often misses. The rustic
trio marries uplifting jubilee and poetic earnestness with ease. The
foot-stomping single “Ho Hey” builds momentum with a tambourine and
carries the melody with spirited chants and hand claps, a track so
cheerful and exhilarating it seems built for a live stage. The album is
overflowing with upbeat Americana gems, but the real power here is found
in the more somber tunes. Schultz and Fraites formed the band after
Fraites’ younger brother and Schultz’s best friend died of a drug
overdose. The pair picked up the pieces and later found Pekarek and the
formula for The Lumineers. On their debut, they channel those dark and
vulnerable moments in heartfelt highlights throughout. —
Alexandra Fletcher
69. Rosie Thomas – When We Were Small (2001)
It’s hard to fathom that the same label that introduced the
world to Nirvana also brought us Rosie Thomas. Her SubPop debut was a
quiet, sublime album of intimate and earnest songs, but her simple
arrangements of piano and strings received airplay on college radio next
to
Sleater-Kinney and
Blackalicious. Thomas’s soulful voice sounds like a pile of white goose
feathers and satin sheets, somewhere you can curl up and find comfort
and rest. The album opens with the sweet, shuffling “Two Dollar Shoes,” a
guardedly optimistic song of lasting love that transitions into the
somber lament “Farewell,” as Thomas sings, “I was wrong I guess / I was
wrong I confess / I miss the way / I miss the way you sing with me,”
layered over sparse piano. By track three, she’s already building back
into a hopeful and carefree contentedness on the beautiful “Wedding
Day.” The rest of the album bursts with more beautiful sadness—for
losing love in “Lorraine” and “Finish Line,” for missing the joys of
childhood in “I Run,” and for an abused wife in “Charlotte”—with
Thomas’s resolute strength always filtering through. On the closing
track, “Bicycle Tricycle,” she yearns for her tricycle, her
strawberry-red flower dress and her roller skates to protect her from
“every boy that falls in and out of love with me.” The arrangement of
piano, cello, guitar and drums builds and fades and builds and fades, as
audio clips from her childhood reveal the Thomas family gathered in
warm conversation. —
Josh Jackson
68. Red House Painters – Songs for a Blue Guitar (1996)
Before Mark Kozelek performed as
Sun Kil Moon and gained a late-career reputation for mouthing off at unassuming festival bill-sharers (
cough The War On Drugs cough), he fronted San Francisco mope-rock project Red House Painters.
Songs For a Blue Guitar
is a standout, comprising acoustic-led ballads that run the gamut from
somber to upbeat (and always contemplative). Between emotive camp-fire
singalongs (“Have You Forgotten,” “All Mixed Up”) Kozelek hits the
distortion pedal on the propulsive “Long Distance Runaround.”
Songs
is, above all, though, one of Kozelek’s most accessible works (i.e.,
what you’ll like if you’re not here for his rantier, more recent
records), overflowing with memorable couplets like “You are the dark in
my soul / And it’s your love that I steal / And you’re my cuts that
won’t close / And this I’m certain.” It’s rainy-day music at its finest.
—
Rachel Brodsky
67. Andrew Bird – Break It Yourself (2012)
Andrew Bird follows the same definition of “quirky” that people use for
Wes Anderson movies
—his interests are certainly idiosyncratic, but somehow the definition
feels too overreaching, like using Instagram and “hipster” in the same
breath. But his seventh solo album,
Break It Yourself, fits those
dreaded descriptors, from the titles onward. There are references to
Greek mythology, to horrible international tragedies. There’s a fake
palindrome (how meta!). There is, per usual, quite a bit of whistling.
It is, however, a bit more reserved than the earlier Birds. Gone are the
rapturous flourishes of “Fake Palindromes” and even further the weird
but awesome swing revival phase in which he participated as a Squirrel
Nut Zipper. What we’re left with is a guy with a violin, an embouchure
of pure steel, and a set of sweet, gentle jams that will come to you
with good intentions.
Break It Yourself greets its listener like a
friend-turned-lover making the first move: sitting on opposite ends of
the couch, inching closer and putting its arm around you. By the end,
you’re curled up together. —
Lindsaey Eanet
66. The Civil Wars – Barton Hollow (2011)
The Civil Wars
seems like the moniker for a band exploring overt,
loud disagreement. But the longing, melodic chamber-pop and folk from
the duo of John Paul White and Joy Williams puts the emphasis on
“civil”—“courteous or obliging; polite.”
Barton Hollow approaches relationships and life dissatisfactions with a subdued presence reminiscent of Robert Plant and
Alison Krauss’
duets. But the tranquility dissipates as the songs peak, with White and
Williams escalating the volumetric power of their playing and singing,
taking full control of the songs’ directions. They have no problem
transitioning from tempered introspections to fiery declarations, at
times within a single song. War has never been so pleasant. —
Nathan Spicer
65. Iron & Wine – Kiss Each Other Clean (2011)
From the first notes of the fantastic, reverb-soaked “Walking Far From Home,” it’s clear that
Kiss Each Other Clean picks up where 2007’s
The Shepherd’s Dog
left off. Sam Beam takes another step away from his lo-fi origins and
experiments with more layered sounds. But the subtle power of Beam’s
voice never gets drowned out or dominated by the organs, flutes and
percussion. Even with a handful of new elements, the album fit
comfortably into the ever-transforming
Iron & Wine catalog. It may be miles away from the stripped-down beauty of 2002’s
The Creek Drank the Cradle, but it’s the fruition of a series of gutsy moves by an artist who doesn’t need to whisper anymore. —
Bonnie Stiernberg
64. Califone – Roots & Crowns (2005)
This is the Califone album that almost didn’t happen. As the band’s
leader Tim Rutili tells it, he had moved from his longtime home of
Chicago to Los Angeles and was feeling uninspired about writing music.
But upon finding a mix CD that writer Mike McGonigal gave him and
hearing the opening track, Psychic TV’s “The Orchids” (covered by the
band on this album), he was infused with new inspiration and hope. The
music that poured out of him and his bandmates feels as lush and
purposeful as the tune that was
Roots & Crowns’ catalyst but
cut through with Rutili’s experimental leanings. It’s folk music as
filtered through a faltering sampler that keeps spitting out small
intrusions of field recordings and snippets of strings and jangling
percussion. —
Robert Ham
63. Anaïs Mitchell – Hadestown (2010)
A musical for way, way off Broadway,
Anais Mitchell’s
stunning folk opera succeeds on many levels. It’s a brilliant recasting
of the Orpheus and Euridice myth. It’s a pointed political commentary
on what may be the downtrodden, cash-strapped America of 1933, or the
downtrodden, cash-strapped America of 2010. And it features some
wondrous ensemble singing, from Mitchell as Euridice, from Bon Iver’s
Justin Vernon as a seductive Orpheus, from Ani DiFranco as Persephone,
and, most notably, from gruff-voiced folkie Greg Brown, who imbues the
lord of the underworld with both maniacal glee and Dick Cheney’s
calculus of pragmatic death-dealing. —
Andy Whitman
62. Devendra Banhart – Cripple Crow (2005)
For all the instrumental trappings draped atop Devendra Banhart’s songs on
Cripple Crow—electric
guitars, strings, pianos, and drums—it remains Banhart’s stylized
approach that first attracts the ear. His voice—a pinched, warbly, nasal
thing—simultaneously strikes as hyper-affected and unselfconscious (and
might turn a listener off instantly if heard as the former). His songs
glide on an ever-shifting bed of gentle fingerpicked cross-rhythms.
Cripple Crow is stacked—22 tracks across 80 minutes. Banhart seems the kind of prodigious songwriter who effortlessly breathes material.
Cripple Crow
resembles a dream journal of half-remembered morningtime fragments.
When it succeeds, as on the surreal, utopian near-rag of “Some People
Ride the Wave” (“Me, I ride the wave of never-gonna-drown!”) and the
59-second tone poem “Dragonflies,” Banhart taps a magically easygoing
energy that seems drawn from San Francisco in the mid ’60s (or maybe
just the late ’90s). There’s some chaff here, but
Cripple Crow also reveals an embarrassment of riches. —
Jesse Jarnow
61. Seryn – This Is Where We Are (2011)
With mostly acoustic instruments—ukulele, banjo, accordion, violin,
cello and trumpet—and soaring choruses, this Denton, Texas, quintet
builds nearly every song into a joyful crescendo adding voices—and
urgency—as it progresses. That’s never more apparent than on “We Will
All Be Changed,” which gets exponentially better with every decibel you
turn it up. The band went on indefinite hiatus in 2016 after moving to
Nashville, but left behind this near-perfect snapshot of a time when
anything was possible: three multi-instrumentalist buddies living
together in a college town, playing house shows, and figuring out what
was possible in the studio. Their optimism lives on in every vinyl
groove. —
Josh Jackson
60. The Head and the Heart – The Head and the Heart (2009)
Scruffily handsome folkies are a dime a dozen in Seattle. What
differentiates The Head and the Heart from the rest of the
flannel-wearing pack, beyond the band’s unnaturally speedy climb from
dive bars to main-stage festival spots, is its penchant for mixing
rootsy Americana with orchestral, chest-swelling chamber-pop. Violin and
piano help elevate the songs beyond their earthy origins, and
three-part harmonies—anchored by co-frontmen Josiah Johnson and Jonathan
Russell, and boosted by the Cat-Power-gone-Appalachian crooning of
violinist Charity Rose Thielen—sweeten the deal. —
Andrew Leahey
59. The Low Anthem – Oh My God, Charlie Darwin (2008)
Charles Darwin hasn’t taken this much abuse since the days of
William Jennings Bryan. But while creationists fight the theory of
evolution in schools, this Rhode Island band attacks the societal
applications of “survival of the fittest.” “And who could heed the words
of Charlie Darwin,” Ben Knox Miller laments in a lovely, layered
falsetto, “The lords of war just profit from decay.” If
The Low Anthem’s
argument is for community and collaboration, Exhibit A is the gorgeous
chamber folk this trio of multi-instrumentalists crafted on its third
album. Following the path cleared by Nick Drake and Tim Buckley, The Low
Anthem is at its best composing songs fit for a hipster orchestra, with
Knox’s delicate vocals backed by an assortment of quirky
instrumentation. After two tracks of quiet intimacy, the band erupts
into a pair of foot-stompers, grounding an album that otherwise might
get blown away by the slightest breeze. Jack Kerouac-by-way-of-Tom Waits
tune “The Horizon is a Beltway” and the roadhouse rumpus “Home I’ll
Never Be” wouldn’t sound out of place on an Avett Brothers’ record, and
they balance the quieter tracks. Whether soft or loud, these 12 songs
are exquisite. —
Josh Jackson
58. 16 Horsepower – Folklore (2002)
Few albums truly exhibit the inscrutable mystery and inescapable desperation of the world as
Folklore.
Somehow, David Eugene Edwards and his band explored the edges of those
vanished territories of the American folk-music tradition, channeling
the fear of now lost pastorals.The most meditative, haunting release of
16 Horsepower’s Holy Ghost-haunted catalog,
Folklore takes
further the shiver-inducing despondency of past releases, here relying
on droning cellos, wheezy accordions, spindly banjos and Edward’s eerily
double-tracked vocals to create an atmosphere of despair and impending
doom. Stripping away most of the electric guitars and rhythmic drive of
their previous work, the album rarely breaks from the dirge-like
ruminations on God, judgment, love and murder. That only four of the 10
tracks are original doesn’t inhibit the authenticity with which they’re
presented.
Folklore speaks with the earthward metaphors of those
who lived in the shadow of unseen pursuers and confronted their worst
suspicions with music as their weapon. —
Matt Fink
57. Kurt Vile – Wakin on a Pretty Daze (2013)
Kurt Vile
sings his first line some 40 seconds into the first
song of i>Wakin On a Pretty Daze, and the crispness and clarity of
those words let you know that something is different about this album.
While his early releases were more a collage of loose ideas organized
around a singular, murky sound,
Daze presents 11 carefully
composed tracks with beginnings, middles and ends. Vile was always a
contemplative songwriter, but here his lyrics became more ponderous and
worldly rather than navel-gazing. Themes of movement and escape are the
bedrock, providing a calming balance—lyrically, thematically, sonically.
It closes exactly as it begins, with a long, winding, peaceful
melody—one of the prettiest Vile has ever penned. “In the night when all
hibernate, I stay awake, searching the deep, dark depths of my soul,”
he says. He describes his process of finding that one moment, the
“golden” tone. It’s a beautiful song about—what else—the nature of
writing a beautiful song. —
John Hendrickson
56. She & Him – Volume Two (2010)
She & Him’s debut was a simple affair.
Zooey Deschanel’s
homespun grace and M. Ward’s unobtrusive production made for a winning
combination—which means they risked a lot by making a follow-up album as
complex and ambitious as this one. On
Volume Two, swirling
strings and lush backing vocals underscored Deschanel’s increasingly
sophisticated songwriting. She plays the dewy-eyed ingénue a bit too
faithfully at times, but there is no denying her legitimacy as a
tunesmith, divvying her set between bouncy piano-pop, folk-flavored
sing-alongs and orchestral anthems. In lesser hands, the
American Graffiti-styled
themes of star-crossed lovers and summer nights would drown in their
own sincerity. Here, they provide a pleasant escape to a mythical
America of endless horizons and youthful resilience—not such a bad place
to be. —
Matt Fink
55. Father John Misty – I Love You Honeybear (2015)
Josh Tillman’s creative persona feels like a natural extension of his
sprawling and strange backstory: He’s part cultural provocateur, part
hippie-rock satirist, part soulful balladeer. What’s most surprising
about
I Love You, Honeybear is how it balances that cartoonish character with the real-life Tillman.
Honeybear
thrives on the knife’s edge of that enigmatic split personality, as he
attempts to reconcile the love-swept optimist with the world-weary
wise-ass. Fittingly, the LP’s most striking moments meditate on the
sublime and deeply complicated art of sharing life with a single
partner. The title track is an apocalyptic love song submerged in
waltzing, Spector-styled orchestrations—with Tillman embracing his wife,
at peace as they drown. Sonically,
Honeybear finds Tillman in a
ruminative mood, favoring lavish strings, sweeping layers of voices and
acoustic guitars. But he still has a knack for unexpected flourishes,
like the psychedelic guitar solo on “Strange Encounter.” With
I Love You, Honeybear,
Tillman wrestles with a lot of heady subject matter: modern narcissism
(“Bored in the USA”), his tendency to doom personal relationships (“The
Ideal Husband”), the general downfall of mankind (“Holy Shit”). But the
less he strains, the more his songs resonate. On threadbare closer “I
Went to the Store One Day,” his voice skirts into falsetto over hushed
fingerpicking and strings, as he croons about buying a plantation with
his wife and letting the yard grow wild—and how that dream originated
from a chance parking lot hello. —
Ryan Reed
54. Julie Miller – Broken Things (1999)
A little girl voice that hols ages, “Broken Things” offers
redemption as well as deep love for those damaged by life. For Julie
Miller, salvation is always peeking through the cracks of songs. Beyond
the divine, there is the charismatic “I Need You,” the Appalachian dirge
“Orphan Train” and the percussively minor-keyed creeper “Strange
Lover,” an homage to—of all things—cocaine.
Emmylou Harris would
record the shimmering “All My Tears” and Lee Ann Womack would embrace
“Orphan Train” and “I Know Why The River Runs” further broadening
Miller’s reach. But the songwriter with a dexterous voice that does many
things—howl, coo, caress and throttle—remains her own best interpreter.
“I Still Cry,” a straightforward elegy, suggests the way some people
linger in unlikely ways long after they’re gone, with the sorrow
profoundly transparent in her tone, bringing both naked vulnerability
and intuitive playing that exemplifies the best of Americana. —
Holly Gleason
53. Grizzly Bear – Veckatimest (2009)
After spending 2008 opening for Radiohead and appearing on late-night TV shows,
Grizzly Bear was
suddenly ubiquitous—even without a new album to promote. But while they
were on stage they perfected the material that would comprise their
third full-length release, and
Veckatimest sounds like the final
product of a meticulous and exacting evolutionary process—one that adds
depth and color to their swooning chamber pop arrangements, crispness to
their intricate rhythms and intensity to their careful performances.
Their group mind pulsating in unison, the scrappy quartet are wistfully
plaintive on the gorgeously swaying “Two Weeks,” pristinely longing on
the spectral “Dory” and haunting on the darkly lunging “I Live With
You.” But underneath the orchestral flourishes and children’s choirs,
beneath even the frequent textural shifts and melodic detours, are a set
of melodies that find novel ways to cut straight to the listener every
time. —
Matt Fink
52. Courtney Barnett – The Double EP: A Sea of Split Peas (2013)
When it comes to storytelling,
Courtney Barnett is
as clever they come. The Australian singer/songwriter garners her share
of giggles and smirks with songs that tackle subjects as diverse as
amateur gardening (“Avant Gardener”) and drunken dreams where artists
“made their paint using acid wash and lemonade” (“History Eraser”). For
every whimsically stoney lyric on
The Double EP: A Sea of Split Peas,
there are as many moments of sheer shred-ability from Barnett’s
left-handed tail-spins on the guitar. A combination of two earlier EPs,
this was our introduction Barnett’s catchy, endearing musings. She finds
ways to loop guitar solos into poppy verses, yet she avoids extremes.
On “Are You Looking After Yourself,” she opens with a twangy guitar into
her isolated vocals and arrives at a full-on-folk implosion that’s
utterly danceable. She repeats the pattern as it intensifies with the
existential proclamation of “I don’t need to 9-to-5, telling me that I’m
alive!” There’s a confidence in place that make Barnett’s American
debut one of the most flat-out-fun records of the past few years. —
Adrian Spinelli
51. Beirut – The Rip Tide (2011)
Zach Condon’s Beirut is in a funny position. He cut his teeth
on staunchly outsider Balkan folk, but he’s also one of the premier
indie-Billboard crossover successes. His band spans 11 members, but he
primarily composes lighthearted, three-minute pop songs. He’s got all
the trappings of a critic’s darling, but his pedigree never quite
positioned itself in the auteur company of singular songwriters like
Justin Vernon and Will Oldham. With that propulsive buzz, one might have expected
The Rip Tide
to be a towering statement, but that isn’t the case. Not only is it the
shortest item in the Beirut catalog, it’s also the breeziest; sounding
confidently assured in its identity—which unsurprisingly makes it
Condon’s most immediately enjoyable record. —
Luke Winkie
50. Mumford & Sons – Sigh No More (2009)
Sigh No More flutters to life with an apology. In an
ethereal four-part harmony, the British foursome intones Benedict’s line
to Beatrice from
Much Ado About Nothing: “Serve God, love me and
mend,” and then the voices swell in unison: “And I’m sorry.” It’s one
of the only pastoral moments on the band’s hour-long debut LP, but the
sentiment lingers. More than anything else, this is an album bursting at
the seams with gorgeous remorse. The tired snivels of the spindly-armed
strummer have no place here; it’s an amped-up, bass-heavy,
banjo-picking pity party made of the same violent stuff that once
inspired a lusty 17th-century cleric to demand of his deity: “Batter my
heart.” From that first flowery track to “Little Lion Man,” where
frontman Marcus Mumford croaks: “It was not your fault but mine, but it
was your heart on the line,” to “Timshel,” where he laments “Death …
will steal your innocence,” it’s wide-eyed, giddy yawp of an almost
saccharine nature. Lyrical subtlety is not
Mumford & Sons’ strong suit, and it doesn’t matter at all.
Sign No More works because it’s commanding in all aspects of its presentation. —
Rachel Dovey
49. The Sundays – Reading, Writing and Arithmetic (1990)
While Seattle may have been a noisy place in the early ’90s, there were
plenty of pockets of mellow for lovers of independent music, and few as
were as memorable as Harriet Wheeler and David Gavurin’s band from
Bristol, England. With their Smiths-inspired melodies, chiming guitar
lines and the magnetic vocals of Harriet Wheeler, the Sundays created
enough buzz from their first club shows to become quickly involved in a
bidding war among labels, with Rough Trade earning the honors for their
debut,
Reading, Writing and Arithmetic. Nearly three decades later, it remains one of the defining British albums of its era. —
Josh Jackson
48. The Antlers – Burst Apart (2011)
The Antlers’
fourth album showcases a band that had mastered the seductive art of
building quiet texture into a crash of energy, reaching for the stars
with every chance they get. “Putting the Dog to Sleep” might be the best
song Peter Silberman has ever written—like most of his songs, it’s
wrenching, dramatic and ultimately triumphant. He croons like a soul
singer, his voice occasionally cracking under the weight of emotion,
with each of his heavy admissions punctuated with a clashing guitar.
Burst Apart
is a record of big songs from a Brooklyn band good at generating big
songs, but it was just as notable that they could be impressive without
an overarching concept behind them. —
Luke Winkie
47. The Avett Brothers: I and Love and You (2009)
For their artistic breakthrough, these future arena-fillers from
North Carolina polished
their scruffy Americana sound until it gleamed. The result: an
overpowering acoustic album brimming with sadness and soul. “I was
worried that I’d start crying while listening at work, but I waited
until I got home,” a
Paste colleague told me. That’s an
accomplishment. The title track—a meditation on three little words—is a
three-hanky affair unto itself. —
Nick Marino
46. Sufjan Stevens – Carrie & Lowell (2015)
After the brash electronica of 2010’s
Age of Adz,
Sufjan Stevens returned
with a quiet, moody set of songs that, at first blush, conjured his
music from the early 2000s. But there is something fundamentally
different about
Carrie & Lowell. It is urgent and
spontaneous, featuring songs written in a rush of cathartic emotion on
whatever instrument happened to be laying around. No three-minute
orchestral intros to be written or historical facts to be researched
here. It’s more
Elliott Smith’s
XO than
Illinois—and like
XO,
it has its eyes focused squarely on death. It stares straight into the
hospital rooms, regrets, cloudy memories and empty bedrooms—and dares to
sing a quiet, beautiful song about them all. Perhaps that ended up
being more ambitious than another “State Project” album could have ever
been. —
Luke Larsen
45. Midlake – The Trials of Van Occupanther (2006)
After a debut of ’60s psych-pop revivalism dressed up with enough synthesizers and lo-fi sensibility to keep it modern,
Midlake’s second album,
The Trials of Van Occupanther,
pulled up stakes, abandoned its late-’60s fairground, and moved a few
years forward to the far less trod-upon terrain of the early ’70s. The
album explodes with “Roscoe,” a forceful, assured song, unmistakably the
product of countless hours listening to
Neil Young,
but polished to a fine Fleetwood Mac sheen. Next comes the soft-folk
production of “Bandits,” a Nick Drake rip with a twist: singer Tim Smith
makes no attempt to evoke the iconic and oft-copied wispy vocals of
“Pink Moon.” As the album continues, the references start to melt into a
pleasant mélange—CSN harmonies coexist peacefully with orchestral
piano-pop flourishes and Midlake’s synthesized elaborations, all
measured out and stirred together with perfectionist precision. —
Thomas Bartlett
44. tUnE-yArDs – w h o k i l l (2011)
At times, Merrill Garbus is Annie Lennox, and at others, she’s Prince.
One thing’s for sure though—she’s always entertaining, and her
powerhouse voice makes
W H O K I L L one of the must-listens of
the 2010s. She can do ethereal and understated better than most, but
Garbus is truly in her element when she’s belting, her hurricane alto
ripping through a uniquely layered soundscape of ukulele, bass,
saxophone and percussion. On “Killa,” she proudly declares, “I’m a new
kind of woman, I’m a new kind of woman, I’m a don’t-take-shit-from-you
kind of woman.” It’s nearly impossible to listen to a
tUnE-yArDs track and not feel empowered. —
Bonnie Stiernberg
43. Victoria Williams – Loose (1994)
Victoria Williams’s biggest moment in the sun came via 1993’s
Sweet Relief album, where her songs were covered by Lou Reed, Pearl Jam,
Soul Asylum and
The Jayhawks to help raise money for health costs after she was
diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. One of those songs, “Crazy Mary,”
would appear the next year on
Loose, her third and best full-length. On it, Williams also sings a duet with her future husband, The Jayhawks’
Mark Olson,
“When We Sing Together.” There’s a tenderness and fragility to these
tracks that fits perfectly with her idiosyncratic lyrics, filled with an
emotional depth, whether she’s singing about her dog, her grandfather,
her crazy childhood neighbor or her soon-to-be husband—or just letting
you know You R Loved. —
Josh Jackson
42. Band of Horses – Cease to Begin (2007)
“Southern rock” has traditionally evoked muttonchops and the
devil going down to Georgia, but the genre’s tapestry also includes the
kaleidoscopic psychedelia of early R.E.M. and the reverb-limned keening
of
My Morning Jacket.
Band of Horses arrived firmly aligned with the latter camp, but born of
Seattle’s omnipresent rainstorms and attendant coffeehouse culture.
Singer/guitarist Ben Bridwell, a born Southerner, convinced his
bandmates to return to his native South Carolina, a place he fled after
finding himself in a “whole bunch of trouble.” The band’s sophomore
release, the Churchillian-titled
Cease to Begin, marked a new chapter in
Band of Horses’
development, as well as a shift in Bridwell’s writing, veering from the
soft-focus impressionism toward a more narrative-driven style. More
than anything,
Cease to Begin represents the sound of a talented
writer growing more comfortable in his skin and unafraid to name a song
after ex-Seattle Supersonic Detlef Schrempf despite its elegiac,
unrelated subject matter. —
Corey DuBrowa
41. Vic Chestnutt – Is the Actor Happy? (1995)
He was killing himself to live before the notion was a bumper
sticker, and now he’s a legend the wider world never quite found out
about (even though he’s been covered by
Madonna). Chesnutt was a rolling contradiction. His songs scanned like nursery rhymes but stuck—as he sang on “Betty Lonely” from
Is the Actor Happy?, “like a flounder gig”—on polysyllabic turns of phrase that tease the ear as they beg for the
Oxford English Dictionary.
Elegant and ungainly, impish and morbidly depressed, flat-assed drunk
and piercingly sober, his salient obsessions circled around private
peculiarities and public personae, scrawled like graffiti on the wall of
a gas station, glimpsed through the Spanish moss. His wounded warble
was an epic surprise, too: sweeping like
Marvin Gaye, in its way, and teetering with uncertainty—like a bastard Wallenda, who defied gravity out of sheer heart. —
Steve Dollar
40. Carolina Chocolate Drops – Genuine Negro Jig (2010)
The
Carolina Chocolate Drops formed
in 2005 at the Black Banjo Gathering in Boone, N.C., and from that
point forward the young trio was determined to a wider audience that
African-Americans played a huge role in the nation’s stringband
tradition. To do that, they dusted off a musical form seen today as
either a novelty or the exclusive provenance of ethnomusicologists. To
paraphrase Rakim’s immortal words, these Drops ain’t no joke: Their
enthusiasm for the tradition is obvious even as the trio spans from
traditional arrangements (the rollicking fiddle rave-ups “Trouble in
Your Mind” and “Cindy Gal”) to self-penned works (the particularly
terrific “Kissin’ and Cussin’”) and stringband makeovers of modern-day
works (a hip-hop influenced cover of Blu Cantrell’s “Hit ’em Up Style
(Oops!)” and Tom Waits’ “Trampled Rose”). —
Corey DuBrowa
39. The Waterboys – Fisherman’s Blues (1988)
While folk-rock thrived in the U.S. during the 1970s, The Waterboys’
blending of ’80s rock and the Celtic roots of the Irish, Scottish and
English members was refreshing. When
Fisherman’s Blues came out
in 1988, Mike Scott and his very large band had almost completely shed
their arena-rock leanings for a more traditional
tour de force that name-checked
Hank Williams and
quoted William Butler Yeats. Sounding unlike anything that came before,
it filtered old Irish tunes through a decidedly college-rock lens. —
Josh Jackson
38. Calexico – Feast of Wire (2003)
Calexico
co-founders Joey Burns and John Convertino hear the
world differently than most people. Not everyone would have imagined
that surf guitar reverb would sound so at home beneath a blast of
mariachi trumpet. Or that an acoustic Portuguese fado wouldn’t clash
with an electric Norteño rave-up. Or that the lonesome cry of a
pedal-steel guitar could flourish next to a symphony orchestra’s string
section.
Feast of Wire is the Tucson, Ariz., band’s masterwork of
musical alchemy. While their proximity to the Mexican border is still a
strong influence,
Calexico raises
the ante here with more song styles, instruments and collaborators. The
result further proves that variety can provide just the right musical
chemistry. Given the somber nature of some of the subject matter, many
of the songs on
Feast of Wire are unashamedly melancholic. But
all are emphatically vibrant and ultimately spiritually fulfilling
because of the beauty of their construction and the honesty of their
execution. —
John Schacht
37. The Mountain Goats, – The Sunset Tree (2005)
In 2005, John Darnielle and
The Mountain Goats were
on the road when Darnielle learned that his abusive stepfather had
died. When he started to write again, he poured his conflicting mess of
feelings into
The Sunset Tree, recalling how he used to turn up
the “Dance Music” as “my stepfather yells at my mother / Launches a
glass across the room, straight at her head.” Channelling youthful
rebellion and a touch of bitter optimism, Darnielle recalls speeding
away from his “broken house” to distract himself with a mixture of
alcohol and women, sing-screaming, “I AM GONNA MAKE IT THROUGH THIS YEAR
IF IT KILLS ME.” He again imagines a better place on “Hast Thou
Considered the Tetrapod,” remembering how he once woke his stepfather up
and prayed he wouldn’t break his stereo in retribution. In giving
The Sunset Tree
over to this man, Darnielle explores a non-linear, irrational series of
reactions. By letting himself feel, it’s he can be free of them. —
Rachel Brodsky
36. Laura Marling – I Speak Because I Can (2010)
Laura Marling
had just turned 18 when she released her 2008 debut,
Alas, I Cannot Swim,
but it seemed like she’d already lived four or five lifetimes. By then,
she had somehow digested much of British folk music along with her
guitar lessons, in the process becoming world-weary enough to write
lines like “The gods that he believes never fail to disappoint me” and
“Don’t cry child, you’ve got so much more to live for / Don’t cry child,
you’ve got something I would die for.” After touring the globe and
being touted as the young queen of a new-folk revival, Marling made yet
another gorgeous, melancholy, old-souled record. Despite its uncanny
emotional weight,
Alas has its moments of glittering girlishness
and sounds at times like it was recorded in an upstairs bedroom at her
parents’ house.
I Speak Because I Can trades in references to
broken dolls for tales of real live babies found in the forest and the
yearning for a “Tap at My Window,” for the love of a “Rambling Man.”
Backing band
Mumford & Sons provide
dirty-fingernailed accompaniment—banjos, shuddering organ and
occasional brotherly backing vocals—to her blustery voice and
pace-setting guitar. —
Rachael Maddux
35. The Tallest Man on Earth – The Wild Hunt (2010)
Kristian Matsson plays to his strengths on
The Wild Hunt, his
second album. He keeps it simple, finger-picking strings to propel his
gristly vocal melodies, which feel simultaneously cavalier and carefully
wrought. Though his acoustic guitar often thwacks like a snare, his
songs are uncluttered by percussion, harmonized vocals or the orchestral
ornaments that are so prevalent in alt-folk. The clean, galloping
banjos and guitars spotlight Matsson’s pristine snarl, which slips down
into powerful bass notes and reaches up and yelps on key, accentuating
his ambitious, second-language lyrics: “I wasn’t born, I just walked in
one frosty morn / Into the vision of some vacant mind,” he sings on
“Burden of Tomorrow.” If
Sondre Lerche were a bluegrass-loving goblin, he might sound a little like this. —
Brian Howe
34. Laura Veirs – July Flame (2010)
Laura Veirs’s
seventh album, released in the blustery throes of January, takes its
name from a kind of peach that finds its way into farmer’s-market bins
in the hottest weeks of the year—a peach, the story goes, that cured
Veirs of a bout of writer’s block one steamy Portland afternoon. Still,
it’s hard to imagine a better soundtrack to the chilly months of wood
smoke and crackling leaves than this collection of heady, steady,
pensive songs. It’s a feel-good record of the oddest sort, a melancholy
meditation on happiness and its delicate transience—warmer and rootsier
than her earlier work, which had a kind of cautious experimentalism.
July Flame
is carefully composed, ever-deepening, glinting and glowing in new ways
each time it’s played. “And so let us curl up in our burrows with these
songs and our own flickering July flames ’til the green shoots return
and the rivers run full again. “It’s gonna take a long, long time,”
Veirs sings on her resolute final track. “But we’re gonna make something
so fine.” —
Rachael Maddux
33. Fleet Foxes – Helplessness Blues (2011)
After their eponymous debut album earned a well-deserved standing ovation from critics,
Fleet Foxes set the bar high for their sophomore album.
Helplessness Blues
is sweet and comforting at its worst and inspiring at its best. The
foundations of many tracks are similar—the band frequently returns to
the strumming, “ohhs” and “ahhs” that define opener “Montezuma”—but
Fleet Foxes know
how to layer sounds to add depth and make each song distinctive. The
album is often about love — and the emptiness that can accompany its
euphoria. —
Ani Vrabel
32. The Decemberists – The Crane Wife (2006)
This beloved chamber-rock ensemble’s major-label debut topped our year-end list back in 2006. Forget
sexy.
Although people with an affinity for homesick soldiers, star-crossed
lovers and cleaver-wielding gangsters will find plenty to swoon over,
The Decemberists brought
epic
back—and in a big way. A classic Japanese folk tale is retold in the
three-part title track, anchoring a bevy of gorgeous tunes, from the
12-minute prog-folk romp of “The Island” to the post-apocalyptic
singalong of “Sons and Daughters.” Past releases have proven these
fabulous fabulists some of the most innovative, intelligent fledglings
in the indie world. But with
The Crane Wife,
The Decemberists really take flight. —
Rachael Maddux
31. Songs: Ohia – The Magnolia Electric Co. (2003)
From the first swooping notes of “Farewell Transmission,” Jason Molina’s
masterpiece of an album was confirmed. Hailing from the Rust Belt,
Molina expertly blended the aggression of industry with a pastoral calm.
On 2003’s
The Magnolia Electric Co., Jeff Panall’s precise
drumming and Steve Albini’s perfectly balanced engineering reflect the
trends of alternative rock so prevalent in the late ‘90s and early
aughts. Yet, it’s the eerie pedal-steel and warbling organ and Wurlitzer
that linger, making sure that country-esque feeling remains.—
Hilary Saunders
30. Elliott Smith – XO (1998)
Elliot Smith was fresh off an unexpected Oscar nomination for “Miss Misery,” from
Good Will Hunting,
when the major labels came calling. He left Kill Rock Stars for
DreamWorks, but it sure didn’t mean he went “mainstream.” In fact, Smith
went the other way, turning the things you never want to
experience—crippling heartbreak, aching despair, existential dread—into
songs that you constantly want to listen to. Gorgeous, lush
orchestrations, along with Smith’s oh-so-sad words soundtrack the stuff
panic attacks are made of. Everybody doesn’t care. Everybody doesn’t
understand. But
XO sure does. Tragically, Smith would have just one more album in him. —
Jessica Gentile
29. Frightened Rabbit: The Winter of Mixed Drinks (2010)
On
The Winter of Mixed Drinks,
Frightened Rabbit imbue
their songs with sighing keyboards, screaming layers of melodious
distortion, nested rhythms, choral harmonies—all the doodads that rock
bands are liable to employ circa album number three. The arrangements
occasion stirring moments on the epic scale of early U2—this is
burnished, stadium-sized, cloud-cover rock. The change is more one of
scale than style. Hutchison’s earthy, inviting voice cuts through the
vast instrumentation like a ray of sunlight. This is a different sort of
intimacy:
The Winter of Mixed Drinks is less of a breakup record
than a post-breakup record; the more pathetic feelings having hardened
into self-reliant moxie. Hutchison offers the usual wallowing
introspection and off-kilter epiphanies (“She was not the cure for
cancer,” he suddenly gleans midway through the album), but from a
bird’s-eye view. On lead single “Swim Until You Can’t See Land,”, the
singer is a tiny, bobbing speck, way out past the waves, nothing but a
sea of chiming guitars and swooning strings on all sides.
Frightened Rabbit wrings
a winning simplicity from all this august isolation. A cardiac pulse
animates many of the songs, a mightily thwacking unison at the core of
all the kaleidoscopic embellishment. —
Brian Howe
28. M. Ward – Post-War (2006)
Nobody’s ever going to mistake
M. Ward for
the life of the party. Along with his decidedly dour disposition, his
penchant for hushed introspection creates a mix of ambiance and
atmosphere that impacts the music more than the melodies themselves.
While
Post-War affirmed that stance, the occasional hint of
revelry found in “To Go Home,” “Neptune’s Net,” “Chinese Translation”
and “Magic Trick” provided a momentary uptick, enhancing the
accessibility factor with genuine folk finesse. —
Lee Zimmerman
27. Joanna Newsom – Ys (2006)
The expansive lyrical content and layered allusions of
Ys can be
pretty hard to follow. Newsom challenges listeners to keep pace on this
47-minute, five-song set, but it’s pure joy to follow poetry this
cunning and clear.
Van Dyke Parks’
production, complementing Newsom’s own jaunty harp compositions, is
like a film soundtrack—shading the lyrical content with various moods
that range from excitement to confusion to mourning in conjunction with
the story. The record takes on a mythical cast, but if Newsom is
delivering a parable, she leaves it to the listener to determine the
moral of the story. “Sawdust & Diamonds” is just as dense as the
rest of the tracks on the record, but the song has a uniquely visual
quality thanks to its lyrics. And, as in “Monkey & Bear,” there is a
cinematic excitement to the tunes, a sense of adventure and mystery as
the imagery plays on the inner eye. —
Nate Logsdon
26. Phosphorescent – Muchacho (2013)
Muchacho aims big. Like the lacerating kiss-offs in
Blood on the Tracks,
Muchacho’s lyrics map continents of separation and wandering to represent the distance between ex-lovers. Like the panoramic scope of
Joshua Tree,
the album’s sonic textures capture wonder and immensity while keeping
both bootheels on the ground. Like the benders and busts of
Grievous Angel, Muchacho pursues both sin and absolution and offers apology for neither. And like
Robbie Robertson in
his solo debut, Matthew Houck—Phosphorescent’s sole proprietor—adapts
contemporary tools and technology to blend troubadour folk, Nashville
country and Southern rock into a sound that’s fully his own.
Muchacho
recapitulates the moment of love’s collapse and catapults out into the
companionable lonesome that waits. The contours of the physical and
emotional landscape are set by the monumental “Song For Zula”—windswept
by the arid atmospherics of solo Daniel Lanois and solidifying around
adamantine strings, the track cycles the storm-gathering grandeur of
“With or Without You” through the defiant heart of Dixie. Houck works
with elements of sand and soil and gold and steam to cast love in some
comprehensible form of relief. —
Nathan Huffstutter
25. Jens Lekman – Night Falls Over Kortedala (2007)
That string-soaked introduction. That syrupy baritone. A sense of drama
and a sense of humor. “I will never kiss anyone / who doesn’t burn me
like the sun.” From the elaborate construction of
Night Falls Over Kortedala’s
opener, “And I Remember Every Kiss,” it’s clear that Jens Lekman favors
a little pomp and circumstance. But it suits the talented Swede.
Lekman’s always been an excellent songwriter, combining the wit and
charming carelessness of
Jonathan Richman with the alternately lovelorn/loveable aesthetic of Morrissey and Magnetic Fields, and
Kortedala finds the bard’s talent at its most fully-realized, all samples, horns, beats and just a touch of kitschy grandeur. —
Austin L. Ray
24. Akron/Family – Akron/Family (2005)
When Akron/Family emerged from their then-home base of Brooklyn in the
early ’00s, they were caught up, for better or worse, with the wave of
artists getting herded underneath a freak folk/anti-folk banner. Not a
bad spot for them to be when listening to the band’s folding of
psychedelic ambience into their often-hushed, mostly acoustic sound. But
unlike many of their brethren, there was nothing twee or precious about
this group. Under the guiding hand of then-former Swans leader Michael
Gira, the band was able to travel down darker paths and shade their work
with electronics, finding the perfect spaces to let their clattering
percussion drive to the fore. This self-titled debut becomes then a
push-pull between grand gestures and those intimate, close mic’ed vocal
performances that aim to draw you closer. The perfect tension between
the two is palpable and exquisite. —
Robert Ham
23. The Innocence Mission – Glow (1995)
Although
Glow was a slight departure from its dreamier
predecessors, there’s no mistaking Kerin Paris’s unique voice in the
first strains of “Keeping Awake.” That uniqueness extends to her lyrics
and her husband Don’s guitar. The songs are like a modern-day
Diary of Samuel Pepys, snippets of everyday life in America. In the hands of producer Dennis Herring, domesticity never sounded so lovely. ——
Josh Jackson
22. Sun Kil Moon – Ghosts Of The Great Highway (2003)
After six ethereal Red House Painters albums, three solo sets,
an AC/DC cover collection, and an acting role as Stillwater’s bassist
in
Cameron Crowe’s
Almost Famous Mark Kozelek arrived at
Ghosts Of The Great Highway, the surreal metal-meets-Americana bow of his project
Sun Kil Moon.
No one probes the recesses of memory, of lost time and lost
relationships, better than Mark Kozelek. He’s Marcel Proust with a
guitar. Those memories and relationships form the warp and woof of his
worldview, and the tapestry he weaves is stunning in its longing and
beauty. Musically, Kozelek alternates between gentle acoustic picker and
Neil Young Godfather of Grunge mode, unleashing winding electric solos.
But the longing, the yearning, is a constant, and it is a palpable
reminder of why he is one of the most distinctive and worthwhile artists
of the 21st century. —
Tom Lanham & Andy Whitman
21. Damien Rice – O (2003)
O is a stunning document of fragile eloquence that glides
seamlessly from hushed ruminations to cinematic balladry. Artistic
without being pretentious, Rice’s craft is anchored in melody and
articulate arrangements, yet tests the listener’s honesty with dramatic
turns that distinguish the record from other mostly acoustic fare, all
without abandoning its cerebral core. His voice yearns with brittle
emotion on “Amie,” wavers with restraint on “Cold Water” and
“Cannonball,” and soars with theatrics on “Cheers, Darlin” and “Eskimo,”
the epic closer that saunters from coffeehouse to opera house with
moody bravado reminiscent of a toned-down
Rufus Wainwright.
Lyrics soaked in such heart-on-sleeve honesty have the tendency to come
off too contrived, but Rice’s delivery is pure and sincere. And though
songs like “I Remember” weren’t written as duets, the spirited
accompaniment of Lisa Hannigan makes it hard to imagine them otherwise.
The character and chemistry she brings to nearly every
selection—siren-like harmonies here, co-lead vocals there—elevate Rice’s
passionate prose to a lovers’ waltz. —
Jay Moye
20. Belle & Sebastian – If You’re Feeling Sinister (1996)
After a limited-run debut and a handful of singles,
Belle & Sebastian emerged as a fully-formed artistic entity with 1996’s
If You’re Feeling Sinister. Between Stuart Murdoch’s literary story-songs and the band’s sedate and ornate folk-rock instrumentation,
Sinister‘s appeal quickly expanded past twee indie-pop kids and ensnared anybody interested in mature, intelligently crafted pop.
Sinister is still the high water mark for what’s been a brilliant career stretching into the 21st century. —
Garrett Martin
19. Over the Rhine – Ohio (2004)
In the liner notes accompanying
Over the Rhine’s gloriously self-indulgent double-disc,
Ohio,
co-founder Linford Detweiler, writes, “We grew up in small coal mining
towns in the Ohio Valley, listening to music that could have only been
unearthed in America.” The songs here feel gritty and real, unpolished
and perfect. Just like people. All the artifice (both musical and
emotional) has been carefully dismantled, traditional
instruments—upright piano, pedal steel, acoustic guitars—have been
dusted off, arrangements have been simplified, windows into souls have
been propped open a bit wider. In stark contrast, Karin Bergquist’s
voice never felt as undressed and painfully honest as it does in these
songs, as if she’s opened her gut and tugged the melodies out. This
process is partly masochistic, partly exhibitionist, entirely
self-consuming, but such is true art.
Ohio, is more than simply a
dense, rich, vulnerable collection of songs; it’s a dirt-road companion
on that difficult journey inward, upward, homeward. —
Jason Killingsworth
18. The Shins – Chutes Too Narrow (2003)
A long time ago, the notion of this band changing your life was less the stuff of cringe-inducing
Zach Braff screenplays
and more plain truth. Today the idea seems just as unlikely as meeting
your soulmate in a psychiatrist’s waiting room, but by some odd musical
alchemy, all of
Chutes Too Narrow’s unassuming parts—those tweaky guitars, bedroom symphonics and
James Mercer’s
wobbly self-harmonizing—gelled into the kind of album that demands to
be proliferated by forcing headphones upon friends (and, yes, quirky
potential lovers). —
Rachael Maddux
17. The Decemberists – Picaresque (2005)
On
Picaresque, Colin Meloy zeroes in on characters—usually those
struggling in the throes of concealed, unrequited or otherwise ill-fated
love—before shifting his focus to setting. “The Infanta,” all galloping
guitars and pounding drums, contrasts the ornate coronation of a
Portuguese princess with the placid simplicity of her dreams. The quiet
lament “Eli, the Barrow Boy” relates the tale of a heartbroken
ghost—Sisyphus in corduroy pushing his barrow in eternal penance. Meloy
even ventures into an American present as outlandish as his imagined
past. “The Sporting Life”—which interleaves a swinging, jaunty beat with
swelling organ flourishes—relates the humiliation of an injured soccer
player who fails to fulfill his father’s athletic aspirations. The
shimmering, upbeat stomp of “Sixteen Military Wives” conflates the
American invasion of Iraq with
the Academy Awards ceremony. —
Brian Howe
16. Beck – Sea Change (2002)
For a man so used to wearing musical masks, Beck lais himself bare on
Sea Change. It’s the most aching, honest album he’s ever made, a musical breakup memoir on par with
Blood on the Tracks or
Shoot Out the Lights.
To say his heart is on his sleeve here doesn’t capture the emotional
nakedness; his heart is speared on a record spindle, and he lets us
listen. And why wouldn’t we? With a full stock of golden melodies,
crafty string arrangements, and career-best vocal performances, Beck is
maybe the best American songwriter of his generation. —
Steve LaBate
15. Bonnie “Prince” Billy – I See a Darkness (1999)
If
Johnny Cash covered
one of your songs on his final albums, it automatically meant it
embodied some sort of country spirit however musically disguised. Cash,
of course, interpreted the title track from this 1999 record the
following year on
American III: Solitary Man.
I See a Darkness
is dark, yes. It is gothic without being goth. Yet, its confessional
cries and distant, discordant layering (especially on tracks like
“Nomadic Revery (All Around)”) are also subversive in a way that honors
the subgenre. —
Hilary Saunders
14. Patty Griffin – 1000 Kisses (2002)
After showing promise on her sparse mid-’90s debut,
Living With Ghosts, and then delving into more rocking territory with
Flaming Red and then-unreleased
Silver Bell, singer/songwriter
Patty Griffin pared back, recording most of
1000 Kisses
live in the studio and delivering what remains the album of her career.
Her voice flat out slays, its beauty and power on display whether she’s
performing her own compositions or interpreting others’. And the songs
display a mastery that places her alongside Dylan, Cohen, et al. Griffin
mines the mundane and finds the rich meaning in its details. On “Making
Pies,” when she sings, “Did I show you this picture of my nephew /
Taken at his big birthday surprise?”—she transforms clunky conversation
into poetry. —
Tim Regan-Porter
13. Wilco – Being There (1996)
After Uncle Tupelo’s split in 1994, fans turned their attention to Jay Farrar and
Jeff Tweedy’s new groups. And after the success of Son Volt’s debut
Trace the following year (along with the lukewarm critical response to
Wilco’s
AM), it seemed like Farrar had emerged from the break-up the clear victor to those keeping score at home. Enter
Being There.
Wilco’s
1996 double-LP was everything a sophomore effort should be; it saw the
band experimenting beyond their alt-country roots with stellar tracks
like “Misunderstood” and “Hotel Arizona” while simultaneously staying
true to their aesthetic. In short, it was the beginning of the Wilco we
know and love today. —
Bonnie Stiernberg
12. Neko Case – Fox Confessor Brings the Flood (2006)
The guest list for
Neko Case’s
fourth proper studio outing is a good indication of the diversity of
her output. Gracing this project are locals Howe Gelb, and Calexico,
plus out-of-towners Kelly Hogan, Dexter Romweber and Garth Hudson, to
name a few. Case, of course, still approximates a Northwestern Patsy
Cline with a graduate degree, and while the stories she tells are
mournful, her delivery remains buoyant. If an old spiritual (“John Saw
That Number”) doesn’t reveal her hand, you couldn’t be blamed for
thinking Case was working to establish a new kind of magical-realist
gospel, or Optimism Gothic. She delivers a country-noir set that draws
on mythic folk archetypes, providing strange details and raising
intriguing questions with each listen. —
William Bowers
11. Josh Ritter – The Animal Years (2006)
After the latter third of the 20th century became littered
with “new Dylans,” it became obvious that no one could ever fill that
role. So when
Josh Ritter made
his first few strummy, literate records, there were few lofty
expectations to keep him from developing his talent and fanbase. After
three promising albums, the masterpiece arrived. Recorded with producer
Brian Deck, who stretched Ritter’s rootsy folk in more ambitious
directions,
The Animal Years is bookended by a pair of epic
ballads—“Girl in the War” and “Thin Blue Flame”—which helped secure his
place at the table of great songwriters without ever having to live in
anybody’s shadow. —
Josh Jackson
10. Father John Misty – Fear Fun (2012)
Josh Tillman’s first album under the moniker
Father John Misty often recalls his old band, Fleet Foxes. But it also recalls John Denver, Neil Young and, at times,
The
Band. It’s also the best realization of that old, forgotten genre
descriptor “freak folk”—something a little stranger and more imaginative
than his old group, but with the same big-sky atmospherics. Leaving his
given name and self-serious songwriting behind freed Tillman to embrace
his acerbic wit, and a relocation to
Hollywood freed
him to embrace a little more theatricality. The result is a collection
of a dozen clever, gripping songs that haven’t gotten old after
countless listens. —
Josh Jackson
9. The Avett Brothers – Emotionalism (2007)
Much as The Band’s earnest roots rock helped topple nonsensical hippie credos like “Don’t trust anyone over 30,”
The Avett Brothers did their best to combat modern-day hipster detachment and pseudo-coolness with
Emotionalism’s
simple, poetic story-songs and bittersweet, introspective laments. The
album—down to the title itself—is a celebration of unselfconscious
passion. It’s also a huge step forward musically: The relative sonic
polish works magically in contrast to the Avetts’ jagged edge; they go
beyond their core of acoustic guitar, banjo and upright bass (a change
foreshadowed by
Four Thieves Gone’s “Colorshow”), adding piano,
B3, drums, electric guitar and mandolin. The vocals feel more carefully
arranged, relying less on energetic screams and shouts and giving the
melodies room to breathe; and the influences peeking through are more
varied than ever, the music sporadically reminiscent of everything from
Help!-era Beatles to Chopin nocturnes. —
Steve LaBate
8. Bright Eyes – I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning (2005)
With
Wide Awake, the one-time prince of emo finally grew up,
and—as much as any one artist could during a decade of such cultural
fragmentation—became the inadvertent spokesman for his aimless
generation. The poetry of
Conor Oberst’s
lyrics captured the hearts of fellow twentysomethings with their
urgent, exhausted, lovesick and thought-lost wonder. It felt like he was
collectively singing our own minds—asking the big questions,
confronting a culture of fear, searching for new beginnings, wrestling
with God and truth and innocence lost. —
Steve LaBate
7. Bon Iver – For Emma, Forever Ago (2008)
Not since a creek drank a cradle in 2002 had anyone so quietly overtaken the indie-music community as
Justin Vernon did in 2008 with Bon Iver’s
For Emma, Forever Ago.
This lonesome post-break-up album is drenched in the kind of melancholy
that feels a lot like joy, and sounds just as vivd. Rather than
wallowing in loss, Vernon’s otherworldly falsetto and warm acoustic
guitar provide a hopeful contrast to lyrics like “Saw death on a sunny
snow.” It was less like the end of a relationship and more like the
promise of a new beginning.—
Josh Jackson
6. Nick Drake, Pink Moon (1972)
Few albums from the 1970s have aged as well as
Nick Drake’s
final album from 1972, recorded in a pair of post-midnight sessions
with just Drake and producer John Wood. The simplicity of acoustic
guitar, subtle piano and whispered vocals could have been recorded four
decades later—and indeed many more copies of Drake’s albums have sold
since his death in 1974. And, of course, the heartbreak of which he
sings will never become irrelevant. Beauty and melancholy have seldom
meshed so completely as on songs that tackle longing, despair and the
slimmest rays of hope.—
Josh Jackson
5. Gillian Welch – Revival (1996)
Gillian Welch
and her musical partner David Rawlings hail from Los
Angeles and Rhode Island, respectively, but they arrived on the indie
folk scene in 1996 as if they’d just melted out of Depression-era
Appalachian Mountain ice. The tales of moonshiners and brothel girls
matched the old-timey twang of Welch, and didn’t seem forced in the
least. It’s no surprise that a debut like
Revival marked the beginning of a spectacular career. —
Josh Jackson
4. Iron & Wine – Our Endless Numbered Days (2004)
It’s rare that a debut album rolls around as lovely and original as
Iron & Wine’s
The Creek That Drank The Cradle,
but for his sophomore effort, Sam Beam managed to improve upon the
basement-tapes sound of his new Americana without sacrificing its
intimacy. He enlisted producer Brian Deck (
Modest Mouse)
to give musical depth to match the haunting lyrics of songs like
“Sodom, South Georgia,” “Cinder and Smoke” and “Naked as We Came.” —
Josh Jackson
3. Elliott Smith – Either/Or (1997)
Smith’s music consisted of wispy, weary vocals alongside a solitary
acoustic guitar, an all-too-apt representation of his desolate and
twisted emotional states. Although he had a fragile opinion of himself,
one listen to
Either/Or reveals him to be an exceptional talent.
Even as Smith was buckling under the weight of depression and addiction,
the album expanded his sound, intertwining his acoustic foundations
with electric guitars, bass, keyboards and drums—all played by Smith.
Three songs were included in the soundtrack for the Oscar-winning
Good Will Hunting. —
Nathan Spicer
2. Neutral Milk Hotel – In the Aeroplane Over the Sea (1998)
Neutral Milk Hotel
made a timeless record by taking a snapshot of a
reality that never existed. Lyrically, Jeff Mangum imagines ghosts and
circus freaks and Jesus Christ dancing around burning Nazi propaganda,
and the damaged sonic treatment furthers the vision; those horns on
“Holland, 1945” sound like an imaginary Dr. Seuss-drawn instrument
realized. But the most mythical character to develop from
In The Aeroplane Over the Sea
was Mangum himself, who avoided the limelight for a half decade
following the album’s release. When “King Of Carrot Flowers Parts 2 and
3” erupts from an acid-fueled Sunday morning revival into an
otherworldly fuzz-punk song, who isn’t ready to strap on the Nike
Windrunners and follow Jeff Mangum to the gates of Heaven? —
Ryan Wasoba
1. Sufjan Stevens – Illinois (2005)
In 2005, when
Sufjan Stevens released
Illinois,
the second album in his at-least-two-state project, American pride was
sagging, much as it is today. The death toll in Iraq was steadily
climbing, and we still had George W. Bush in charge of it. Meanwhile,
Stevens was beginning to seem brilliant enough to fulfill his ambitious
50-state plan. His music pushed boundaries between pop and classical,
and the emotional weight of his lyrics grounded his feather-light voice.
There was a distinct peculiarity about Illinois and Stevens himself,
who gave his songs titles like “To the Workers of the Rock River Valley
Region, I Have an Idea Concerning Your Predicament.” Critics embraced
the mystery and declared the album a masterpiece. Stevens and his band,
the Illinoisemakers, wore cheerleading costumes onstage to promote the
record, and once its success took them to larger venues, Stevens
switched to giant, colorful bird wings. His band was a spectacle, their
performances magical. Thousands of fans gathered in theaters across the
country to behold this winged creature and rally behind his songs about
America’s heartland. It was a new, weird kind of patriotism. Stevens
collected facts and anecdotes about the great state of Illinois,
stringing them together in ambitious rhyme schemes and wrapping them in
meticulous arrangements. “Decatur, or, Round of Applause for Your
Stepmother” is superficially a song about a city, but beneath the
textbook trivia is Stevens’ story of reconciling with his father’s wife.
The gut-wrenching “Casimir Pulaski Day” is about a friend dying of bone
cancer, and “The Seer’s Tower” looks at idol worship from the
perspective of Chicago’s tallest building. And then there’s “John Wayne
Gacy, Jr.,” the hushed, nightmare-inducing acoustic song about the
rapist and serial killer who preyed on teenaged boys, stashing their
bodies under the floorboards in his Chicago home. “His father was a
drinker and his mother cried in bed / Folding John Wayne’s T-shirts when
the swing set hit his head,” Stevens sang, referencing a true story.
But the song’s conclusion is what got people talking: “And in my best
behavior, I am really just like him,” Stevens half-whispered as the
music quieted behind him. “Look beneath the floorboards for the secrets I
have hid.” It was a startlingly confessional sentiment at the heart of
the best indie-folk album of all time. —
Kate Kiefer
