Welcome to the top 25 for 2010 Countdown! Each day we'll countdown, today we continue with number 10, culminating with our (okay, my) numero uno album of the year. When they're handy I'll borrow my earlier reviews from the KC Free Press. Sometimes, I'll need a new review (or revised, actually, from the "R" blog) like this one!
I welcome all comments, criticisms, questions and dialog in general.
25. Jon Langford - Old Devils (Bloodshot)
24. Vaselines - Sex with an X (Sub Pop)
23. Drive-By Truckers - The Big To-Do (ATO)
22. Magnetic Fields - Realism (Nonesuch)
21. Dum Dum Girls - I Will Be (Sub Pop)
20. Peter Case - Wig! (Yep Roc)
19. Bettye Lavette - Interpretations: The British Rock Songbook (Anti-Epitaph)
18. Super Wild Horses - Fifteen (Hovac)
17. Parting Gifts - Strychnine Dandelion (In the Red)
16. No Age - Everything In Between (Sub Pop)
15. The Fall - Your Future Our Clutter (Domino)
14. First Aid Kit - The Big Black and the Blue (Wichita Recordings)
13. Owen Pallett - Heartland (Domino)
12. Mavis Staples - You Are Not Alone (Anti-Epitaph)
10 (tie). J. Roddy Walston and the Business - s/t (Vagrant)10 (tie). Aloe Blacc - Good Things (Stones Throw)
Panamanian born Aloe Blacc brings the skills he developed as a rapper (a decade in the hip-hop duo Emanon) to his second record
as a neo/retro soul singer on the Stones Throw label, and the results are splendid. His vocal influences range from Marvin Gaye to Gil Scott-Heron, but over the course of Good Things Blacc asserts his own soul vision. He may not have the chops of Marvin, but he’s a soulful, supple singer whose hip-hop informed
phrasing gives him a clear identity.
The production by the Stones Throw crew evokes old school, Seventies soul
music, but it’s fresh enough to sound totally contemporary. Leon
Michels, on keys, guitar and sax, knows his Curtis Mayfield, Marvin Gaye
(What’s Goin’ On), and Charles Wright and the 103rd Street Rhythm band -
bringing the funk and enhancing the songs. Nick Movshon’s bass playing is an
encyclopedia of soul and funk bass, endlessly inventive, moving the songs,
sometimes stealing the show by not trying to steal the show.
Blacc’s songs honor his heritage while extending it. If the catchy, arresting
capitalist critique ‘I Need a Dollar’ isn’t an anthem for these times, I don’t
know what is. And “Life So Hard,” with its There’s a Riot Goin’ On vibe isn’t
far behind. Blacc shows his stylistic range with a knowing, nuanced take on
Lou Reed’s ‘Femme Fatale.’ His ‘Mama Hold My Hand’ echoes both Bill Withers
and 2Pac, while standing confidently in their esteemed company.
There’s a not so quiet revolution going on in contemporary rhythm ‘n’ blues.
Singers as diverse as Raphael Saadiq and Eli ‘Paperboy’ Reed, or Mayer
Hawthorne and John Legend are going to the well of classic soul and drawing
waters of melody, invention and humanity that are bringing a genre thirsting for real
human emotion back to life. Good Things absolutely lives up to its name; it’s a fresh,
original collection of songs from a singer-songwriter who understands that modern black
music has to look back in order to move ahead.
Reverberating: 9.0
