933. Gold

Gold

Ryan Adams
2001

Tracks
1. New York, New York
2. Firecracker
3. Answering Bell
4. La Cienega Just Smiled
5. The Rescue Blues
6. Somehow, Someday
7. When The Stars Go Blue
8. Nobody Girl
9. Sylvia Plath
10. Enemy Fire
11. Gonna Make You Love Me
12. Wild Flowers
13. Harder Now That It's Over
14. Touch, Feel & Lose
15. Tina Toledo's Street Walkin' Blues
16. Goodnight, Hollywood Blvd.

I watched the music video for "New York, New York," which was apparently filmed four days before 9/11. You can see the World Trade Centers behind him while he plays his guitar...definitely eerie.

Ryan Adams continues to give us quality folk/alternative rock music. "Answering Bell" is the highlight of the album and possesses clear influences harking all the way back to Fairport Convention and Gram Parsons. 

This a little more commercial friendly than Heartbreaker, which might lead some to claim he is selling out. But I really enjoyed it, you have to love an album with a track called "Sylvia Plath."

RATING: 5/5

924. Nixon

Nixon
Lambchop
2000

 

Tracks
1. The Old Gold Shoe
2. Grumpus
3. You Masculine You
4. Up With People
5. Nashville Parent
6. What Else Could It Be
7. The Distance From Here To There
8. The Book I Haven't Read
9. Petrified Florist
10. Butcher Boy

We continue our stream of okay to pretty good albums with Nixon. I don't have much to say about this one. There is not too much to praise, and there's also not too much to complain about. 

The album moves through a satisfying amount of styles, even if the ending went a bit off the rails. But it wasn't particularly memorable either, and I am unsurprised I never heard of Lambchop before.

Preferable to some of the other albums we have been subjected to lately, but not particularly impressive either.

RATING: 3/5

905. Heartbreaker

Heartbreaker
Ryan Adams
2000

Tracks
1. (Argument with David Rawlings Concerning Morrissey)
2. To Be Young (Is to Be Sad, Is to Be High)
3. My Winding Wheel
4. AMY
5. Oh My Sweet Carolina
6. Bartering Lines
7. Call Me On Your Way Back Home
8. Damn, Sam (I Love a Woman That Rains)
9. Come Pick Me Up
10. To Be The One
11. Why Do They Leave?
12. Shakedown on 9th Street
13. Don't Ask For The Water
14. In My Time Of Need
15. Sweet Lil Gal (23rd/1st)

My only experience with Ryan Adams was his cover of Taylor Swift's 1989 album. So all I knew was that the man has good taste. I actually really enjoyed this as well, which shows he has talents beyond covering the best pop album of all time.

Every song was thoughtfully written and genuinely moving; there's not a bad track here. Even the somewhat silly beginning is justified by setting the tone of the album. Adams is clearly serious about creating beautiful arrangements but still has fun and possesses an interesting sense of humor. 

Hey, so far 2000 hasn't been so bad. Maybe the List haters were wrong, or maybe I just supremely jinxed us.

RATING: 5/5

867. Car Wheels on a Gravel Road

Car Wheels on a Gravel Road
Lucinda Williams
1998

Tracks
1. Right In Time
2. Car Wheels On A Gravel Road
3. 2 Kool 2 Be 4-Gotten
4. Drunken Angel
5. Concrete And Barbed Wire
6. Lake Charles
7. Can't Let Go
8. I Lost It
9. Metal Firecracker
10. Greenville
11. Still I Long For Your Kiss
12. Joy
13. Jackson

This is music clearly meant to be blasted with the windows down and the wind blowing through your lovely long hair. Like Sheryl Crow, but more country.

For some people, I'm sure this album has too much of a pop sheen to be worthy of respect. But I enjoyed it. Songs like "Joy" and "Jackson" felt very folksy to me, especially with what she was doing with the vocals.

Maybe not the most memorable album but still fun.

RATING: 4/5

828. Murder Ballads

Murder Ballads
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
1996

Tracks
1. Song Of Joy
2. Stagger Lee
3. Henry Lee
4. Lovely Creature
5. Where The Wild Roses Grow
6. The Curse Of Millhaven
7. The Kindness Of Strangers
8. Crow Jane
9. O'Malley's Bar
10. Death Is Not The End

So Nick Cave is a creepy weirdo, but somehow manages to be likably so. At least he is doing something different.

And that different thing is composing nine songs about horrible murders. He provides plenty of grisly details and tends to revel in the macabre. Then he ends the album with the song "Death Is Not End" which is surprisingly hopeful and sweet. That man has layers. 

There are also some pretty amazing collaborations here. Obviously an album is always improved by the presence of PJ Harvey. The song with Kylie Minogue was excellent as well. Worth listening to, and I'm glad there is more Nick Cave to come.

RATING: 4/5

820. Being There

Being There
Wilco
1996

Tracks
1. Misunderstood
2. Forget The Flowers
3. I Got You (At The End Of The Century)
4. Red Eyed And Blue
5. Was I In Your Dreams
6. Dreamer In My Dreams
7. Lonely One
8. Why Would You Wanna Live
9. Kingpin
10. Someone Else's Song
11. Outta Mind (Outta Sight)
12. Someday Soon
13. Sunken Treasure
14. Say You Miss Me
15. Hotel Arizona
16. What's The World Got In Store
17. Far Far Away
18. Monday

I have my posts labeled by year, genre, and rating. Yes, I realize I should have organized by artist name. But you can't make me go back and change it now, you're not my dad! The point is, I struggled to determine what genre label I should use for this one.

I settled on "alternative country" but I think an argument could be made this was a blues album or some thing of psychedelic rock. I really enjoyed it, with my favorite track being "Lonely One."

This is a fairly long album at 76 minutes, but oddly it didn't drag. Wilco has such a wide variety of styles that the music was constantly changing and evolving into something new. I highly doubt the same will be true of the next album, which is a 72 minute long heavy metal album. Egads.

RATING: 4/5

621. Trinity Session

Trinity Session
Cowboy Junkies
1988

Tracks
1. Mining for Gold
2. Misguided Angel
3. Blue Moon Revisited (Song for Elvis)
4. I Don't Get It
5. I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry
6. To Love Is to Bury
7. 200 More Miles
8. Dreaming My Dreams With You
9. Working on a Building
10. Sweet Jane
11. Postcard Blues
12. Walkin' After Midnight

I wasn't exactly looking forward to this album, because psychedelic country music is about the worst thing I can think of, and this blog post is circa 2020. But this was actually lovely, and a very welcome surprise. 

It's country music but it has been slowed down, probably with the aid of narcotics. The result is a beautiful album that is gloomy in the best way. It felt very raw, and the low production value was a definite plus.

So another album that proves country music can be pretty good, if it is heavily diluted by something else.

RATING: 4/5

553. Fear and Whiskey

Fear and Whiskey
Mekons
1985

Tracks
1. Chivalry
2. Trouble Down South
3. Hard To Be Human Again
4. Darkness And Doubt
5. Psycho Cupid (Danceband On The Edge Of Time)
6. Flitcraft
7. Country
8. Abernant 1984/5
9. Last Dance
10. Lost Highway

Alt-country apparently begins with this album, although any time you cite an album as the beginning of some movement, some angry entity is summoned and cites three albums before that which ACTUALLY started the movement, and then they spit on you for good measure. 

Anyway, it's not a genre I am well-acquainted with, so it's hard to say at this point if I don't like the genre or I just didn't enjoy this album. I like "Darkness and Doubt." It would be a good song to discover a dead body to.

Is it racist that the idea of a group of pasty Englishmen releasing a country album makes me giggle? I hope they try rap next.

RATING: 2/5