2015 Bacon Top 31 Album Reviews

#2 on the 2015 Bacon Top 31

Coming Home by Leon Bridges

You’d be forgiven if you thought the album at #2 was recorded in the early sixties and only surfaced this year. Coming Home, Leon Bridges’ debut album, is 60s soul through and through. Bridges, a 26-year-old from Ft. Worth, Texas, is the living definition of “throw back.”

He is the second coming of Sam Cooke and Otis Redding, and I don’t say that lightly. When playing this album for my dad (who lived through the 60s and enjoyed this type of music when it first came out) this past weekend, his reaction was positive. “I’ve always thought bands shouldn’t try to recreate the sound of a different era with new songs,” he said. “You can duplicate the sound, but they’re never successful in making a hit. But this is different. I like this.”

The album is retro to a fault, however. In the 50 years that have transpired since soul music first hit the scene, recording techniques have improved drastically. But Bridges and his recording engineer took the making of Coming Home to the extreme, making it sound like it was recorded on vintage equipment (it may very well have, but I can’t find evidence of that anywhere). The vocals sound tinny, the production a touch unclean, like we’re listening to a reel-to-reel tape rather than crisp digital or warm vinyl.

Even the design of the album cover is historic. Check it out:

#3 on the 2015 Bacon Top 31

My Love Is Cool by Wolf Alice

The band here at #3 on this year’s Top 31 comes with what I feel has had the most success, at least in the musical circles that I frequent. Wolf Alice, from North London, are a heavily-produced foursome led by original founding members Ellie Rowsell on vocals and backup guitar and Joff Oddie on lead guitar and backup vocals. Those two started the band as a duo in 2010, but then it grew to a traditional rock n’ roll foursome in 2012 with the addition of Theo Ellis on bass and Joel Amey on drums.

This album has been a long time coming, as My Love Is Cool is their debut, collecting the best of the songs they’ve been performing since 2012. There’s a lot of references heard throughout this album, spanning the 80s through to today. I can pinpoint sounds that remind me of all of the following: The Breeders, Garbage, Cranberries, Dubstar, Silversun Pickups, Sleigh Bells, and The Runaways. I’m sure there’s more, but that should give you a good sense of what their sound is like. Rock pop, through and through.

And the album has been heavily promoted, too, with no less than six different songs from the 13-song debut getting the video treatment. There’s “You’re A Germ,” above, and these other five videos, all of which are good songs both sonically and visually:

“Fluffy”
“Bros”
“Moaning Lisa Smile”
“Giant Peach”
“Freazy”

Go ahead and watch them all, I’ll wait here until you’re done.

Now then. I know your next move: head to your nearest online or IRL music purveyor and purchase this album. #2 coming tomorrow!

4. Carrie & Lowell by Sufjan Stevens

5. Sometimes I Sit And Think, And Sometimes I Just Sit by Courtney Barnett

6. I Love You, Honeybear by Father John Misty

7. Sound & Color by Alabama Shakes

8. Another Eternity by Purity Ring

9. Girls in Peacetime Want to Dance by Belle and Sebastian

10. Return to the Moon by El Vy

11. Hamilton (Original Broadway Cast Recording) by Lin-Manuel Miranda

12. Art Angels by Grimes

13. The Horse Comanche by Chadwick Stokes

14. Grace Love & the True Loves by Grace Love & the True Loves

15. Shake Shook Shaken by The dø

16. La Di Da Di by Battles

17. Sky City by Amason

18. What a Terrible World, What a Beautiful World by The Decemberists

19. Untethered Moon by Built to Spill

20. Viet Cong by Viet Cong

21. The Magic Whip by Blur

22. Savage Hills Ballroom by Youth Lagoon

23. Not Real by Stealing Sheep

24. Beat the Champ by The Mountain Goats

25. Gliss Riffer by Dan Deacon

26. Dark Bird is Home by The Tallest Man on Earth

27. Gunnera by Pfarmers

28. Swimmer to a Liquid Armchair by Ricked Wickey

29. To Pimp a Butterfly by Kendrick Lamar

30. Live in Seattle by Moufang / Czamanski

31. High by Royal Headache

What is the Bacon Top 31?

Past years’ Top 31s

#4 on the 2015 Bacon Top 31

Carrie & Lowell by Sufjan Stevens

Well look who’s setting a dangerous precedent. The last time Sufjan Stevens was on the Top 31, his album The Age of Adz came in at #3 in 2010. And now, here at #4, that’s really saying something: Legendary; Legacy; I’ll be listening to this artist for the rest of my life. And that really shouldn’t be a surprise, given how enamored I was with his 2005 album Illinois. If this trend holds, he’s going to come out with an amazing album every five years.

If you enjoyed Adz like I did, then Carrie & Lowell will feel like a major departure. It’s more Illinois than Adz, but even with the technological layers of Adz stripped away, Carrie & Lowell is quintessential Sufjan. Made up of almost whispered singing and finger-picking guitar, C&L is quiet to the core. It causes you to lean in, to take a moment and really process what Sufjan is singing about. And that’s when it hits you: he’s singing about mortality, existence, and the human condition, and it’s gorgeous.

According to Pitchfork (who put this album at #6 on the year), “‘Carrie’ is the troubled mother Stevens hardly knew, who died in 2012; ‘Lowell’ is the loving step-father who to this day helps run Stevens’ independent record label.” If you were singing about your recently deceased mother and your widower step-father, you, too, would be feeling a bit existential.

Side note: with five years between each of his last three albums, it’s interesting how it doesn’t feel like that’s how the time has been structured between these great albums. Illinois feels like it’s been with me forever, and Adz feels like I was only hearing it for the first time just last year. I wonder how Carrie & Lowell will feel in five years’ time.

This is a beautiful album. I recommend picking it up and listening with intention (something I rarely do), like reading a good book. I hope it makes you feel every bit as alive as it does me.

5. Sometimes I Sit And Think, And Sometimes I Just Sit by Courtney Barnett

6. I Love You, Honeybear by Father John Misty

7. Sound & Color by Alabama Shakes

8. Another Eternity by Purity Ring

9. Girls in Peacetime Want to Dance by Belle and Sebastian

10. Return to the Moon by El Vy

11. Hamilton (Original Broadway Cast Recording) by Lin-Manuel Miranda

12. Art Angels by Grimes

13. The Horse Comanche by Chadwick Stokes

14. Grace Love & the True Loves by Grace Love & the True Loves

15. Shake Shook Shaken by The dø

16. La Di Da Di by Battles

17. Sky City by Amason

18. What a Terrible World, What a Beautiful World by The Decemberists

19. Untethered Moon by Built to Spill

20. Viet Cong by Viet Cong

21. The Magic Whip by Blur

22. Savage Hills Ballroom by Youth Lagoon

23. Not Real by Stealing Sheep

24. Beat the Champ by The Mountain Goats

25. Gliss Riffer by Dan Deacon

26. Dark Bird is Home by The Tallest Man on Earth

27. Gunnera by Pfarmers

28. Swimmer to a Liquid Armchair by Ricked Wickey

29. To Pimp a Butterfly by Kendrick Lamar

30. Live in Seattle by Moufang / Czamanski

31. High by Royal Headache

What is the Bacon Top 31?

Past years’ Top 31s

#5 on the 2015 Bacon Top 31

Sometimes I Sit And Think, And Sometimes I Just Sit by Courtney Barnett

Much like Royal Headache — who were featured at #31 on the list — Courtney Barnett is Australian and likes to rock. Technically Sometimes I Sit And Think, and Sometimes I Just Sit, is her debut album, even though we’ve been hearing her for at least two years thanks to the good EPs she’s had floating around since 2011.

We’re now in the top five of the countdown, which means you really should buy this album right now. KEXP listeners rated it #1 in 2015. I wanted to, too, but believe it or not, there are four more albums that came out this year that are better than this one.

That said, Sometimes is solid three-part rock & roll from start to finish. When performing live (example here, for KEXP, last year), Barnett sings in a low punk-rock voice, a la (ugh) Courtney Love. But recorded, her voice is a little more clear, with a bit more enunciation, reminding me of a younger PJ Harvey or Liz Phair.

As for songwriting, her lyrics are fantastic. The stories she tells, somehow both deeply personal and universal at the same time, carry you along and remind you of places you’ve been in your own life. At 27, Barnett is wise beyond her years, but it works.

There are many good songs on this album, and there are a few good videos as well. In addition to the great animation for “Dead Fox” above, there’s “Pedestrian at Best,” which I wrote about earlier this year, as wellas videos for two more great songs: “Depreston” and “Nobody Really Cares If You Don’t Go To The Party.” I don’t see how you can draw anything other than the same conclusion I did: this woman kicks ass.