I’ve kept a Last.fm account since my uni days. It’s truly one of the great holdovers of Web 2.0… a place where you can still find like minds, explore new bands, and give and take recommendations. If you’re looking to move away from Spotify etc. but worry you’ll miss the data collection and yearly summaries, I heartily recommend Last.fm. It has all the charts and infographics a music nerd could possibly want, plus some fun third-party extras:
So now I’ve collected a stack of data on my listening habits I might as well put it to good use! I’ve collated my top 100 most listened to albums of the last decade plus. My only rule: no doubles from a single artist or band… otherwise this would mostly be me discussing the discography and bootlegs of Pixies…
Anyway, let’s get started.
100. Bill Evans – Everybody Digs Bill Evans
Everybody Digs is generally considered a little lesser than Portrait in Jazz, Explorations and the legendary live recordings Waltz for Debby and Sunday at The Village Vanguard which came immediately after it. I’ve written a little about those live albums when I discussed Paul Motian’s Misterioso… I love those records but for Evans, it’s Everybody Digs which I find myself returning to most.
There are two main things I love about the record. Firstly, the way Evans plays when paired with Philly Joe Jones on the drums. On tracks like Minority and Night and Day Evans sounds so futuristic for 1958. Having Philly Joe behind him lets Evans engage in some of his most adventurous and aggressive (in the best way) rhythmic playing. For someone’s whose reputation was for “crystal notes (like) sparkling water cascading down from some clear waterfall” (Miles Davis), Evans is phrasing like a fusion guitarist at points on these tunes. Evans himself even discussed this in interviews: “We had a particular thing going with Paul and Philly and me together as the rhythm section. I play differently with Philly“
Secondly, it is the tone poem Peace Piece. Though some might regard it as a filler on an album which contains incredible ballad playing and the aforementioned burning swing tunes, it was a recording which opened up worlds for me as a young listener. Even now, it only takes a few seconds for me to be transported into the room with Evans himself. The fact that it was somewhat of a ‘mistake’, in the sense that it was meant to be an intro for the tune Some Other Time just added to the mystique of it.
99. Palehound – A Place I’ll Always Go
This was a big record for me when it came out. 2015-19 was a pretty fertile time for introspective, melodic indie music, seeing the arrival of artists like the early Mitski, Big Thief, Girlpool, Jay Som and Alex G’s first bigger label work. The two records which resonated with me the most from this scene were Alex G’s Beach Music and Palehound’s A Place I’ll Always Go.
Lyrically it’s a heavy record, dealing with loss and new love. But what I really enjoy is the lack of melodrama. Instead, Kemper is understated, weaving together evocative sketches and scenes. Turning 21 is a great example, which reads as a letter to friend. Family updates and life events are interwoven with the refrain ‘but you will always be a week away from turning 21′. Suddenly we’re addressing a ghost or a memory on all the things they’ve missed out in, from the big family events to to mundane work updates. I really respect the way Kemper is able to wade into such emotionally turbulent waters without being cloying or resorting to melodrama. The prose is all the more poignant because of its fragmented nature.
What I love most on this record, though, is the meat and potatoes stuff… the melodies, chords, the guitar playing. The songs are steeped in ’90s inflected chord changes and melodies. Kemper cites Elliott Smith, The Breeders, Pixies as influences. She was also mentored by Sadie Dupuis of Speedy Ortiz. As far as I’m concerned those are gold standard influences, but Kemper also has a remarkably distinctive harmonic and melodic sense on this record, one in which she is able to wield some pretty sophisticated tools to write songs which sound effortless.
98. Lee Konitz – Three Guys
I wouldn’t think too many people would cite this as their go-to Lee Konitz record. I came to this delightful record via Paul Motian. At the time Konitz was not someone who I had spent a great deal of time with… but since really connecting with Three Guys, I’ve since come to love a number of albums Konitz features on, from Kenny Wheeler’s Angel Song and Jakob Bro’s Balladeering to Ethan Iverson’s Costumes are Mandatory.
What all of these records have in common is that they are quite late in Konitz’s career… all post-age 70. Jazz records by elder statesmen have always been favourites of mine: be it the 2000s Wayne Shorter Quartet, Motian’s music, the Billy Hart Quartet, Bobo Stenson and more.
Three Guys features Konitz, Steve Swallow on bass and Motian on drums. The sax-bass-drums trio was one Konitz was best known for, with his 1961 album Motion often considered an all-timer. Three Guys caches the trio midway though a European tour, each musician contributing compositions.
I love ’90s Motian so much and he brings a lot of the sound of his other famous trio with Joe Lovano and Bill Frisell to this encounter. Steve Swallow is particularly suited to the chordless trio also, playing some incredibly melodic bass. Konitz is so effective in these settings, with his unique harmonic sense and individual phrasing. For a group of old hands at times playing some decades-old compositions, the music feels so fresh and spontaneous and fun. There’s a levity to this group which I think the wonderfully dated album cover captures.
A highlight for me is the Ornette Coleman-like Ladies’ Wader, which I assume is named after waterproof pants, and Johnny Broken Wing which I’ve touched on in my blog about Motian’s Misterioso album. On the original recording from 1986 it was a melody without chord changes, whereas this time around Swallow augments the piece with gentle triadic bass chords. It’s a nice twist, and perhaps a tribute to Jim Pepper who played the original melody and by this stage had passed away.
97. Paul Dempsey – Strange Loop
Strange Loop might be Paul Dempsey’s most masterful collection of songs. While Something For Kate’s Echolalia may have the most cultural purchase, very much the sound of Australia circa-2001, and Everything Is True perhaps containing his most enduring individual songs, to me Strange Loop is his masterpiece.
He has always been an ideas-oriented songwriter, unusual time signatures, chord changes and odd forms hidden beneath attractive songs about science fiction, existentialism or 21st century subjectivity. For me it’s one thing that places him and his projects head and shoulders above his Australian contemporaries, though it also may have prevented him having the same mainstream or international attention of some.
Amongst these themes is the recurring motif of what I’ll call ‘authenticity’ in the face of the 21st century, postmodern condition and Strange Loop might amount to Dempsey’s final word on the topic. Where the young Dempsey made bleak proclamations like ‘curiosity killed the cat, he’s buried alongside every great mind we never had’ (Whatever You Want from Beautiful Sharks) or a rage against office smalltalk with ‘I don’t want to stand and compute, I want days and weeks to burst out of you… I am listening for dear life’ (Say Something from Echolalia), the mature Dempsey holds onto his optimism dearly… ‘my starry-eyed compass keeps a secret no starry-eyed theory could contain, and a promise she’ll keep until the true sea gathers us up in a tidal wave’ before offering us a classic Dempseyism ‘She makes the ocean seem like a drop in the ocean’. Later on the title track he ruminates on the idea of being seen in your totality, something one can’t help but see as a comment on identity and representation in the 2010s vein, in many ways a warping of the Gen X notion of authenticity which Dempsey seems to cling to: ‘there’s no photogenic feelings, no rich inner life, just a strange loop once, twice, a thousand times removed so… baby, tell me what’s so good about being understood?’
Instrumentally, Dempsey is impressive. From what I can tell he plays everything himself, a skill set he more recently put to use on his excellent collaboration album with Bernard Fanning. His guitar playing takes a noticeable step up in virtuosity even from the later Something For Kate albums, the guitar solo on Hey History (Don’t Go Chaingin’) sounding like Brian May at the peak of his powers. The arrangements often weave vocal melodies, intricate guitar parts and synth lines immaculately, never a moment spared. It’s an album that really rewards repeated listens as you discover new ideas and flourishes each time.
96. Two Inch Astronaut – Foulbrood
I’ve written a little about Two Inch Astronaut before: they were a band I discussed in relation to their Live at WVAU video alongside Grass is Green and Speedy Ortiz.
What first turned me onto Two Inch Astronaut was the excellent Audiotree YouTube channel… I was skimming through the backlogs and simply clicked. The song was Foulbrood, the title track from Two Inch Astronaut’s 2014 album and it was one of those ‘drop everything’ moments.
Foulbrood (the song) has all the elements I love about Foulbrood (the album). Intricate songcraft, intense performances, exciting musical twists and turns wrapped up in an alt rock/post-hardcore package.
The verse of the song would be more than enough as an instrumental track, such is the strength of the rhythm/counter-melodic guitar part. But add to that the super hooky verse melody, the Elliott Smith-like pre chorus and the cathartic chorus and you truly have a stunning piece of music.
As an album I personally find the up-tempo or high energy numbers (Foulbrood, Part of Your Scene, Type Four, Cigarettes Boys and Movies, No Feelings, Whole Crew, Black Moon Nightstick) are the strongest parts. Across all these tunes the band shows incredible flair, from the interplay of guitar and drums, to Sam Rosenberg’s versatile vocals, moving effortlessly from falsetto to screaming. Watching him sing and play these guitar parts in live videos is always super impressive.
Rosenberg would really hone the craft of slower and/or quieter songs on his solo albums as Mister Goblin, the highlight for me being Bunny from 2022.
I also want to shout out Matt Gatwood on drums, who moves easily between punk and post-hardcore without ever sounding like he needs you to notice. His parts are wonderfully integrated into the songs, locked into the strange little turns of the riffs rather than sitting on top of them. It’s only when you listen closely that you realise how much cool stuff is actually going on back there… fills, accents, little rhythmic decisions that might pass you by precisely because they serve the songs so well.
