The Best of 2018

I once again reviewed the many "Best of 2018" lists from many print and internet sources. I went and listened to samples and found what I found last year: I'm old and no longer musically relevant. But if you don't care for Rap, Hip Hop, Nu Soul, and manufactured Pop product, then maybe you'll like some of these. These are all records that I own, and the list doesn't include lots of great stuff I didn't get a chance to hear. But here they are, my favorites from 2018.

Kelly Willis Back Being Blue
Today's best country singer releases yet another stone classic. Great songs, perfect sympathetic arrangements, solid band, beautiful recording. My vote for record of the year.

Boz Scaggs Out Of The Blues
Scaggs continues to impress with his late-career revitalization. This time he does what he does best: smooth voiced blues and R&B with a solid band behind him and great (mostly) new songs.

Delvon Lamarr Organ Trio Close But No Cigar
Soul-jazz-funk perfection. Brilliant guitarist Jimmy James takes them from very good to excellent. Like Booker T. and the MGs with a large infusion of jazz.

Sloan 12
Canadian Power-popers Sloan continue to make great records twenty-five years in. Nothing fancy, just solid rock and roll songs with a pinch of magic.

Jennifer Warnes Another Time, Another Place
Laid-back beauty. Breathtaking singing. Complementary arrangements. Great songs. Wow.

The Jayhawks Back Roads And Abandoned Motels 
All but two of the songs were written with other artists for various projects. Because of this, the songs are less same-y than most recent Jayhawks fare with Gary Louris doing all the writing. It sounds more like the early years of the band when Mark Olsen shared writing credits.

Robin McKelle Melodic Canvas
Musical chameleon McKelle returns to jazz on this her seventh release. After a career that started with big band jazz and veered into pop and soul, she returns with an intimate jazz recording featuring her own solid songwriting and lovely voice and phrasing.

Kim Richey Edgeland
Always entertaining, Richey gets help from Chuck Profit, Brad Jones, and a stellar supporting cast. None of the all-star help is wasted.

Belly Dove
Twenty years after the break-up they sound like they never left.

JD McPherson Socks
Yes, it's a Christmas record. But McPherson writes a bunch of fun songs and applies the same rockabilly perfection that fills his other records.

Belly Dove 2018

Belly were a fine band that made two excellent records in Star 1993 and King 1995 and then vanished. Tanya Donelly soldiered on as solo artist, and made some good records. But Belly was special. Sweet Ride, a compilation released in 2002, was a splendid swan song.

So now, more than twenty years later, the original line-up reconvenes. There's a fair amount of good news to report, even if this one doesn't quite rise to the level of their 1990s work.

The first four songs hold out the promise of a perfect return to form. Mine kicks things off with big hooks, reverb-drenched vocals, solid guitar and lots of melody. Shiny One keeps it going with razor sharp guitars and a fine arrangement. Human Child is the Big Anthem, and is fine arena rock all the way. The distorted guitars and sunny background vocals of Faceless spell smart music making.

Suffer The Fools and Girl both offer somewhat less magic, and the melodies seem less unique than Donellly's best songs. Then Army Of Clay and Stars Align make a comeback, but not quite all the way. Quicksand is a good ballad with space-y vocals, and Artifact is a strong mid-tempo rocker with steel guitar that's good. But then it ends with not one but two closing ballads, the acoustic Heartstrings and Staryeyed that sound like some of Donelly's recent solo work, but not so much like Belly.

If you'd love to hear that great band from the early nineties again, the first four songs will thrill you. Some of the rest is darn good, and at least two more hearken back to their heyday. So now they've made two and a half great original studio records. Fans will rejoice. The curious should still start with Sweet Ride if you've never heard Belly.

Belly Sweet Ride / The Best Of Belly 2002

Belly was a tease of a band. They released two fine records in Star 1993 and King 1995. Star was a big hit, especially in the U.K., and garnered a Grammy nomination in the U.S. King was every bit as good, rocked a bit harder, and went nowhere. Then the band broke up, and Tanya Donelly, the band's  singer-songwriter, went on to solo work (pre-Belly, she had served in Throwing Muses and The Breeders). Some of that work is good, but Belly was her best effort, and a great band. In 2002, this excellent compilation was released, and it is all the more special because it contains lots of killer single B-sides that owners of the two previous releases have not heard. And they're very much worth hearing, which is not always the case.

This one gives you most of their singles, five b-sides, a live song, a previously unreleased bauble, a Hendrix tribute-record version of Are You Experienced?, and a French language version of Judas My Heart, a fine ballad from King. Eight songs from their two previous records, and eighteen tracks in all. Even if you have the two original releases- no!, make that especially if you have the other two - you need this one. It's also an easy-to-recommend introduction to a great band lots of people missed.

Donelly is a fine writer of both lyrics and very catchy music onto which the band puts a buzz saw edge. I love her voice, so much that I hardly care what she's singing about. It's a blend of sweet young thing and ready to explode angry woman. Her smallish voice can turn suddenly enormous. Same with the arrangements. And they sound like a band with a purpose, and a leader with a clear vision forward.

I don't have an idea what to call them. Alternative? Is that really a genre? Post-punk? Post Grunge? (that couldn't come fast enough). They rock pretty hard. They do some of that soft verse/loud chorus thing that the Seattle grunge bands specialized in. At times they almost sound glam. It's interesting melodic rock and roll with fine songs and cryptic lyrics sung with feeling, all performed by a tight band that presents a unique and unified sound. This was a great band that should have given us a few more records.