Music & Concerts
YEAR IN REVIEW 2016: Music
Mould, Beyonce, Ocean, Bowie deliver stellar albums
Beyonce’s ‘Lemonade’ was a seminal album this year. Decades later, it will be seen as a touchstone of the era. (Photo courtesy Parkwood/Columbia)
10. Ray LaMontagne ‘Ouroboros’
Produced by Jim James of My Morning Jacket, Ray LaMontagne’s sixth album is a ‘70s-style throwback to the astral prog-rock of Pink Floyd’s best work. “Ouroboros” is a toker’s opus, an expansive head-trip deep into a world much less tense than our own. The album is meticulously crafted, a slowly swaying melding of piano, guitar and effects, with LaMontagne’s voice floating above like a distant dream. “Ouroboros” is made for late nights, great headphones and allowing the real world to fade into oblivion for a while, where it belongs.
9. Bob Mould ‘Patch the Sky’
Veteran alt-rocker Bob Mould’s latest release is perhaps his tightest since 1992’s landmark album with Sugar, “Copper Blue.” As with Sugar, Mould fronts a blistering power trio that bashes out his tunes with explosive firepower. The vocals are down in the mix, the melodies seeping through a stinging barrage of guitars and a ferocious rhythm section. “Voices in My Head” is the standout cut, but there are no weak links. Lean, mean and sparked with the same fervor that made Hüsker Dü such an influential band, “Patch the Sky” is the latest in Mould’s long string of essential recordings.
8. Pet Shop Boys ‘SUPER’
It seems apt that 30 years since “West End Girls” topped the charts, Pet Shop Boys would deliver one of the finest albums of their career. “SUPER” exhibits Neil Tennant’s whip-smart lyrics spiked with his usual dry wit, and Chris Lowe’s electronic wizardry is as inventive and exciting as ever. “SUPER” mixes retro ‘90s grooves with ultra-modern dancefloor bangers. The highlight is “Twenty-Something,” a piercing commentary on the millennial generation’s restless anxiety over the pressures of trying to keep up with the expectations of an increasingly cynical world beholden to money, status and technology. “SUPER” is smart, edgy, and irrefutable evidence that great pop music has no age limit.
7. Suede ‘Night Thoughts’
The veteran British rockers’ second album since their long hiatus is as good as anything they’ve done, on par with their 1994 masterpiece “Dog Man Star.” Suede has always brought a sense of dark theatricality to their work, but with “Night Thoughts” they up the ante with a full string section bolstering their brooding, cinematic rock. “Night Thoughts” is a work of ambitious grandeur, Brett Anderson’s expressive vocals soaring above a jagged and melancholy foundation.
6. Avalanches ‘Wildflower’
It took 16 years, but the Australian electro-mindbenders Avalanches finally released the follow-up to their classic “Since I Left You” this year. Like their debut, “Wildflower” is a dizzying swirl of samples and electronic effects that whiz in, out and around the listener’s consciousness like lights flashing through a smoky herbal haze. Highlights include the trippy aural excursions “Subway,” “Colours” and the sublime “Sunshine,” a dazzling ray of light that reminds us why we loved Avalanches so much in the first place.
5. Beyoncé ‘Lemonade’
“Lemonade” is a bold and relentlessly innovative fusion of modern R&B/pop with undercurrents of classic soul and gospel slashed with elements spun from a wildly diverse musical palette. Decades from now when listeners point to music that most sharply reflect the turbulent times in which we now exist, “Lemonade” will be at the top of that list. It’s a deeply personal journey that chronicles a complex relationship riven by distrust, rage and anxiety that is echoed in the context of an America roiled by blazing social upheaval.
4. Lucinda Williams ‘The Ghosts of Highway 20’
Interstate 20 stretches from Conway, S.C., to Kent, Texas, running through most of the South. It is indeed a trail through a vast and haunted land wrought by a dark and bloody history, and Lucinda Williams draws on those ghosts for her second two-CD masterpiece in a row, “The Ghosts of Highway 20.” Following 2014’s extraordinary “Down Where the Spirit Meets the Bone,” Williams continues in the same vein with many of the same musicians, including guitar great Bill Frisell. The production is spare and the raw swamp-rock vibe places the listener right alongside the Highway itself. Williams’ writing is masterful and her ability to convey genuine emotion and vulnerability in her well-worn, beautifully rugged voice brings these songs to powerful life.
3. Frank Ocean ‘Blond’
The eagerly awaited follow-up to Frank Ocean’s stellar debut “Channel Orange,” “Blond” doesn’t disappoint. Ocean’s slow-burning, oddly structured compositions fall between the cracks of any traditionally definable genre. “Blond” is built on fragmented dreams, an intimate night of mind travel that’s languid and shrouded in smoke, mellow and contemplative but also immediate and potent. Ocean’s hypnotic tone poems wander in unexpected directions, looping a kaleidoscope of samples and vocal effects with complete disregard for the confining lines of standard pop, R&B or hip-hop. It’s an uncompromising step forward for a gifted artist who will surely continue to surprise.
2. Radiohead ‘A Moon Shaped Pool’
“A Moon Shaped Pool” is Radiohead’s most lushly beautiful and deeply personal album, on par with their very best work. “Burn the Witch,” with its tense paranoia and gripping col legno battuto strings that build to a feverish climax, captures the mood of 2016 as well as any other song this year. “Daydreaming” is a soul-wrenching reverie on the end of a long relationship, which is the overarching thread that ties the album together. It closes with the melancholy “True Love Waits,” Thom Yorke’s forlorn vocal gliding over the sparse electronic accompaniment, pleading, “Don’t leave … just don’t leave.” It seems a futile gesture. “A Moon Shaped Pool” is an album of subtle melodies and intricate arrangements that unfurl majestically, another glistening gem in Radiohead’s already peerless body of work.
1. David Bowie ‘Blackstar’
David Bowie released “Blackstar” on his 69th birthday, and it was immediately hailed as a bold modern classic. It was only two days later, as the world learned of Bowie’s shocking death, that the full context and profound meaning of “Blackstar” became infinitely more clear. Keeping his terminal cancer secret, Bowie and longtime producer Tony Visconti worked with ace jazz musicians that provide a tight and sophisticated canvas for a spacey trip through the chilling final mythologies and expressions of a dying man. “Lazarus,” with its ragged, breathless vocals and wrenching lyrics, remains a painful listen. The grief is still raw. It’s staggering to contemplate the determination and artistic vision that David Bowie possessed to create one last towering masterpiece as those last months and weeks ticked away. He closes with “I Can’t Give Everything Away,” a rueful acknowledgement of what we’ve always known: through his five-decade career, his many personas and an endless inventory of classic songs, we’ve never known exactly where the real David Jones is lurking. The truth is that every album is a facet of a man with many faces. In all its glorious darkness, “Blackstar” is the last puzzle piece, the image complete, the ending to an extraordinary journey finally revealed.
Music & Concerts
Underdog glorious: a personal remembrance of Jill Sobule
Talented singer, songwriter died in house fire on May 1
I’ve always prided myself on being the kind of music consumer who purchased music on impulse. When I stumbled across “Things Here Are Different,” Jill Sobule’s 1990 MCA Records debut album on vinyl in a favorite Chicago record store, I bought it without knowing anything about her. This was at a time when we didn’t have our phones in our pockets to search for information about the artist on the internet. The LP stayed in my collection until, as vinyl was falling out of fashion, I replaced it with a CD a few years later.
Early in my career as an entertainment journalist, I received a promo copy of Jill’s eponymous 1995 Atlantic Records album. That year, Atlantic Records was one of the labels at the forefront of signing and heavily promoting queer artists, including Melissa Ferrick and Extra Fancy, and its roster included the self-titled album by Jill. It was a smart move, as the single “I Kissed A Girl” became a hit on radio and its accompanying video (featuring Fabio!) was in heavy rotation on MTV (when they still played videos).
Unfortunately for Jill, she was a victim of record label missteps. When 1997’s wonderful “Happy Town” failed to repeat the success, Atlantic dumped her. That was Atlantic’s loss, because her next album, the superb “Pink Pearl” contained “Heroes” and “Mexican Wrestler,” two of her most beloved songs. Sadly, Beyond Music, the label that released that album ceased to exist after just a few years. To her credit, the savvy Jill had also started independently releasing music (2004’s “The Folk Years”). That was a smart move because her next major-label release, the brilliant “Underdog Victorious” on Artemis Records, met a similar fate when that label folded.
With her 2009 album “California Years,” Jill launched her own indie label, Pinko Records, on which she would release two more outstanding full-length discs, 2014’s “Dottie’s Charms” (on which she collaborated with some of her favorite writers, including David Hadju, Rick Moody, Mary Jo Salter, and Jonathan Lethem), and 2018’s stunning “Nostalgia Kills.” Jill’s cover of the late Warren Zevon’s “Don’t Let Us Get Sick” on “Nostalgia Kills” was particularly poignant as she had toured with him as an opening act.
Jill was a road warrior, constantly on tour, and her live shows were something to behold. My first interview with Jill took place at the Double Door in Chicago in early August of 1995, when she was the opening act for legendary punk band X. She had thrown her back out the previous day and was diagnosed with a herniated disc. To be comfortable, she was lying down on a fabulous-‘50s sofa. “I feel like I’m at my shrink’s,” she said to me, “Do you want me to talk about my mother?”
That sense of humor, which permeated and enriched her music, was one of many reasons to love Jill. I was privileged to interview her for seven of her albums. Everything you would want to know about her was right there in her honest lyrics, in which she balanced her distinctive brand of humor with serious subject matter. Drawing on her life experiences in songs such as “Bitter,” “Underachiever,” “One of These Days,” “Freshman,” “Jetpack,” “Nothing To Prove,” “Forbidden Thoughts of Youth,” “Island of Lost Things,” “Where Do I Begin,” “Almost Great,” and “Big Shoes,” made her songs as personal as they were universal, elicited genuine affection and concern from her devoted fans.
While she was a consummate songwriter, Jill also felt equally comfortable covering songs made famous by others, including “Just A Little Lovin’” (on the 2000 Dusty Springfield tribute album “Forever Dusty”) and “Stoned Soul Picnic” (from the 1997 Laura Nyro tribute album “Time and Love”). Jill also didn’t shy away from political subject matter in her music with “Resistance Song,” “Soldiers of Christ,” “Attic,” “Heroes,” “Under the Disco Ball,” and the incredible “America Back” as prime examples.
Here’s something else worth mentioning about Jill. She was known for collaboration skills. As a songwriter, she maintained a multi-year creative partnership with Robin Eaton (“I Kissed A Girl” and many others), as well as Richard Barone, the gay frontman of the renowned band The Bongos. Jill’s history with Barone includes performing together at a queer Octoberfest event in Chicago in 1996. Writer and comedian Julie Sweeney, of “SNL” and “Work in Progress” fame was another Chicago collaborator with Sobule (Sweeney lives in a Chicago suburb), where they frequently performed their delightful “The Jill and Julia Show.” John Doe, of the aforementioned band X, also collaborated with Jill in the studio (“Tomorrow Is Breaking” from “Nostalgia Kills”), as well as in live performances.
On a very personal note, in 2019, when I was in the process of arranging a reading at the fabulous NYC gay bookstore Bureau of General Services – Queer Division, I reached out to Jill and asked her if she would like to be on the bill with me. We alternated performing; I would read a couple of poems, and Jill would sing a couple of songs. She even set one of my poems to music, on the spot.
Jill had an abundance of talent, and when she turned her attention to musical theater, it paid off in a big way. Her stage musical “F*ck 7th Grade,” a theatrical piece that seemed like the next logical step in her career, had its premiere at Pittsburgh’s City Theatre in the fall of 2020, during the height of the pandemic. The unique staging (an outdoor drive-in stage at which audience members watched from their cars) was truly inspired. “F*ck 7th Grade” went on to become a New York Times Critic’s pick, as well as earning a Drama Desk nomination.
In honor of the 30th anniversary of Jill’s eponymous 1995 album, reissue label Rhino Records is re-releasing it on red vinyl. Jill and I had been emailing each other to arrange a time for an interview. We even had a date on the books for the third week of May.
When she died in a house fire in Minnesota on May 1 at age 66, Jill received mentions on network and cable news shows. She was showered with attention from major news outlets, including obits in the New York Times and Rolling Stone (but not Pitchfork, who couldn’t be bothered to review her music when she was alive). Is it wrong to think that if she’d gotten this much attention when she was alive she could have been as big as Taylor Swift? I don’t think so.
Music & Concerts
Tom Goss returns with ‘Bear Friends Furever Tour’
Out singer/songwriter to perform at Red Bear Brewing Co.
Singer Tom Goss will bring his “Bear Friends Furever Tour” to D.C. on Sunday, June 8 at 8 p.m. at Red Bear Brewing Co.
Among the songs he will perform will be “Bear Soup,” the fourth installment in his beloved bear song anthology series. Following fan favorites like “Bears,” “Round in All the Right Places,” and “Nerdy Bear,” this high-energy, bass-thumping banger celebrates body positivity, joyful indulgence, and the vibrant spirit of the bear subculture.
For more details, visit Tom Goss’s website.
Aussie pop icon Kylie Minogue brings her acclaimed “Tension” world tour to D.C. next Tuesday at 7:30 p.m. at the Capital One Arena. Tickets are still available at Ticketmaster.
The show features songs spanning her long career, from 1987 debut single, “The Loco-Motion,” to “Padam, Padam” from her album, “Tension.”
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