Craig Finn “I Need a New War”
Craig Finn was always a writer first, singer next and, vaguely, finally a musician. But the guy is both smart and clever and he is evidently committed to learning. So, I had faith his music would get somewhere. “I Need a New War” mostly validates my faith. The songs are not uniformly compelling on their own, but it is a genuine master class in a certain middle-aged, poignant weariness. “I Need a New War” replaces the drunk, Brooklyn gusto of The Hold Steady with an Upstate sobriety and poignancy.
Prince “The Rainbow Children”
The title track song is a warning shot across your bow. It’s about as commercially inaccessible as you can get from a guy who made a hit for the Bangles. You want this album? This is not your momma’s Prince. Where did this all come from? What genre is this? Some of these songs will straddle the line between “Jazz-inspired” and “noodling,” but you can’t say this forty four year old was out of ideas.
Alex Chilton “A Man Called Destruction”
What. The. Fuck. Happened? After decades of searching for answers, I’m ready to admit it: we got it all wrong. Having revisited Alex Chilton’s 1995 solo “apex” “A Man Called Destruction,” it’s finally, sadly clear to me that all of the glimmers and all of the clues we imagined in his solo music were simply our Big Star projections. Alex Chilton was not a tortured genius. No. He was just a talented, depressed, beat up guy who never found that great gift that he may not have even had to begin with.
Tom Petty “Wildflowers”
A model middle aged album: leaner, cleaner, wiser, wearier. I feel like I’m driving around Gainsville in this album, and I leave town changed; more connected to summer nights, broken skylines, listening to the radio, something fading, stumbling into a bar I don’t belong in, finding a girl and escaping into a field, giggling, wondering later if I’m wasting it all.
David Crosby “Oh Yes I Can”
On his first solo album in almost twenty years, Crosby managed to sound quite vital on 1989s “Oh Yes I Can.” “Vital” as in “healthy,” rather than “essential.” There’s a big difference. His life story has been rich and compelling. He has been a cautionary tale and an inspirational voice. But, stripped of the counterculture and of his greatest collaborators, Croz ends up sounding like the guy playing on the small stage at a farmers market.
Paul Simon “Songs from The Capeman”
Was Paul Simon’s “Songs from The Capeman” a prescient vision of the coming of Lin Manuel Miranda? Was it the Doo-Wop Hamilton that no one could accept because it was written by a middle aged white guy? Or is it one of the great mid-career missteps? Spoiler alert: “The Capeman” is not really like “Hamilton” at all. It’s more like “West Side Story,” but with a long, boring reading section.
Bill Withers “‘Bout Love”
Bill Withers wrote concise songs about simple ideas, added uncomplicated melodies and let his band do their jobs. He simply never wasted a note. By 1978, though, Withers was almost already done with it all. He still had enough cache to make one final record on his own terms. “‘Bout Love” sounds like an artist carefully packing up his desk for an early retirement.
James Taylor “Never Die Young”
James Taylor is more opaque than Prince or Bob Dylan. Is he the genteel, humanist who invented Adult Contemporary music fifty years ago? Or is he an overly-sensitive, over-valued bar singer who succeeded by virtue of his good looks and birthright? By 1988s “Never Die Young,” Taylor had recently re-married and was still very much in the throes of a fledgling sobriety. It was a miracle he was alive, much less a viable recording artist. If ever there was a time reveal his true self, this was not it.
Randy Newman “Land of Dreams”
By the mid-80s, with his soundtrack work increasing, it began to sound like Randy Newman was losing focus — writing and composing for all of the disparate ideas piling up on his mental desk. Some were his own. Some were others’. Some were political. Some were literary. All had characters. Most sounded “personal” but none sounded “autobiographical.” 1988s “Land of Dreams,” like all of his previous albums, is a record about People in America. Unlike his previous albums, however, one of the People on “Land of Dreams” seems to be Randy Newman himself.
Hamilton Leithauser “The Loves of Your Life”
“The Rat” is the actual sound of Lower Manhattan in the early 21st century. Not The Strokes. That’s the cleaned up version. “The Rat,” by The Walkmen, is the secret, frustrated, smart and just a little dangerous New York. And for more than a decade, you got the feeling that the singer in that band was not content just making great music. No. Each time out, Hamilton Leithauser was going for “Like a Rolling Stone.” But, how do you balance that soaring ambition with middle-age, marriage and fatherhood? The answer lies where we find Hamilton Leithauser in 2020 on “The Loves of Your Life.”
Al Green “Lay It Down”
I have found it to be exceedingly difficult to write about Al Green, the singer, without wading into Al Green, the man. Who am I to write about Al Green, a man I have never met, when so much of his popular framing is steeped in racism? Is this essay unnecessary and frivolous? Probably. Is it poorly timed? No doubt. Will I make an earnest go at it anyway? Yes. Because I really want to talk about AI Green’s fairly spectacular 2008 collaboration with ?uestlove, “Lay it Down.” So, here goes.
Joe Strummer and the Mescaleros “Global a Go-Go”
In 1982, he was the man at the front of “The Most Important Band In The World.” To see him then is to have seen someone intent on everything and capable of anything. But, just two years after that, The Clash would release a genuinely terrible final album. By his own account, Joe Strummer simply lost the ability to make The Most Important Music In The World. He kept busy. But, many wondered if their hero had lost the ability to be “Joe Strummer.”
Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds “The Boatman’s Call”
“The Boatman’s Call” is the album wherein Nick Cave ascends from Art Punk poet, to spiritual Folk singer. “Murder Ballads,” considered a career apex at the time, came in 1996. Then, like a drenching storm, “The Boatman’s Call” arrived one year later and the band no longer sounded like it was playing in a back country Aussie church. No -- they sounded like they were playing in Nick Cave’s living room, on Persian rugs, watching the ocean, singing directly to you.
Mark Knopfler “Golden Heart”
By 1996, at age forty-seven, Mark Knopfler had resolved to slow everything down. He just didn’t want to be a Rock star any more. It was all kind of an accident to begin with. So, he disbanded Dire Straits. He wanted a slower, simpler life, befitting his middle age. However, Knopfler had two major problems. The first was that fans and filmmakers still wanted his songs. The second was that songs just poured out from him. So, what do you do when your blessing has become your curse?
Levon Helm “American Son”
Levon Helm already had a lot of miles on him by 1980. Over the ensuing thirty years, he would travel fewer miles, but the wear and tear would still be great. The man who could drum and sing like no other suffered physically, financially and personally. He battled cancer. He battled his bandmate. He settled in Woodstock. Lost in his rich and complex story is “American Son,” the out of print, raucous, joyous, flawed album that is hard to think about but so easy to feel.
Elton John “The One”
In 1992, Elton John was newly sober, pre-Lion King and still writing the preface to his second act. When I hear “The One” I wonder what would have happened if, that year, Sir Elton simply decided to be a songwriter and band leader. What if he wrote the great songs and led the band from his piano, but allowed his friends and admirers lend their voices and vigor? Because, here’s the thing about Reginald, Elton, Captain Fantastic and Sir Elton — they all wrote great songs. But, they just didn’t always know what to do with them.
Lindsey Buckingham “Under the Skin”
Lindsey Buckingham’s fourth solo album opens up in therapy, mid dream interpretation. Under his trademark finger-picking guitar style is a hushed confession about feeling unseen. It’s a great irony considering just how “seen” this musician has been. However, where his bandmate and one-time romantic partner Stevie Nicks conjured her great solo career with a witchy twist of the wrist, Buckingham had more trouble. There was something pent up in him. What was it?
Donald Fagen “Morph the Cat”
I had successfully avoided my Steely Dan reckoning for decades. But, every five years, there would be another drip. A friend would ask my position — pro or con? Another might ask if I’d heard Donald Fagen’s latest solo record. Drip. Drip. It was torture. And so, in 2020, I resolved to kind of, sort of, take on The Dan. I dipped a toe into the cool water of Fagen’s solo album “Morph the Cat.” Everything I feared and hoped for was right there.
Darryl Hall “Three Hearts in the Happy Ending Machine”
Darryl Hall was born to sing. By 1986, much of the world knew this. What we didn’t know is if he could produce hits without John Oates or if he could make a great solo album. That year, the charts were filled with Contemporary Soul and R&B -- Whitney Houston and Lionel Richie. The pop charts in 1986 were not the realm of the young. So, at forty years old, conditions were quite ripe for Darryl Hall’s solo record, “Three Hearts in the Happy Ending Machine.”
Leonard Cohen “Various Positions”
In 1984 Leonard Cohen released “Various Positions.” It was his first album to substantially use the Casio keyboard. It is also the first wherein Jennifer Warnes is billed as “co-singer.” At fifty years old, with Cohen’s voice bottoming out, his soul sounded like it was one hundred. Plus, the curious new sound was greeted with cynicism by Cohen’s label. Turns out, the label was wrong. “Various Positions” not only gave us “Hallelujah,” it also crystallized the sound that would become the hallmark of Cohen’s extraordinary third act.