We did it, y’all! In celebration of surviving 2021, here is the obligatory list of music that got me through.
- Doc Feldman – “Let Me Love You” (A Healthy Dose of Anxiety)
Doc was a contender for the all-time Adobe & Teardrops top 10. I just love Feldman’s bleak warmth. On A Healthy Dose of Anxiety, Feldman offers a big scoop of ‘70s country groove, giving his spare songs a sense of swagger and humor as Rome burns.
- Maia Sharp – “When the World Doesn’t End” (Mercy Rising)
Warm, intimate, daring, smoky. Sharp brings a relentlessly exploratory approach to her country music, calling to mind the anti-folk of the nineties. Sharp’s songwriting brings us right into the middle of her characters’ interactions; you can practically feel their breath on your skin.
- Ben Trickey — “Glendalough or Chantilly” (We Are Not Lucky We Are Blessed)
As always, I’m blown away by Trickey’s epic, apocalyptic arrangements and tremulous delivery. (Trickey’s 2013 album Rising Waters was on my short-list for the Adobe & Teardrops all-time top 10.) Trickey brings a sense of fragility to Southern gothic, reminiscent of Jason Molina.
- Adeem the Artist — “Fervent For the Hunger” (Cast Iron Pansexual)
Adeem’s got a bombastic online presence and an incredible sense of humor. A stint working as the in-house guitar player for a cruise line will do that to you. This past year has been like a rocket ship for ol’ Deemy – they opened for American Aquarium and I’m hoping that 2022 brings even more incredible opportunities. As uproarious as many of the songs on Cast Iron Pansexual are, I love how Adeem can distill so many beautiful, complex ideas into a few verses.
- Semler — “Prodigal Girl” (Late Bloomer)
Grace Baldridge (aka Semler) is another one with a one-two punch of a year. Baldridge released her diaristic accounts of growing up queer and Christian on Preacher’s Kid earlier this year, then followed it up with the polished Late Bloomer. If Preacher’s Kid focused on youth groups and young crushes, Late Bloomer shows us a path towards coming to terms with life as a queer adult – no matter what flavor of homophobia you grew up with.
- Valerie June – “Why the Bright Stars Glow” (The Moon and Stars: Prescriptions for Dreamers)
Witnessing Valerie June’s performance at Newport Folk Fest a few years ago is one of my top ten live music experiences. Her album, The Moon and the Stars, eloquently captures June’s joie de vivre and radical acceptance. Arriving in spring 2021, the album dominated the Americana charts for weeks. No reason to wonder why – June’s mysticism is tempered by complex but disciplined layers of loops that carry us through a deep exploration of what it means to be human.
- Miko Marks – “Long As I Can See The Light” (Race Records)
Despite everything else, 2021 was Miko Marks’ year – and it was well-deserved. On her EP, which I raved about in No Depression, Marks intentionally blurs the lines of gospel, rock, funk, and soul as a jubilant protest against the music industry’s history of racist marketing. Marks brings a special fire to each of these songs, a rousing reminder that politics don’t have to be serious, and joy doesn’t have to be vapid or fleeting.
- Margo Cilker – “Kevin Johnson” (Pohorylle)
This one slipped totally under my radar until about two weeks ago, and it’s been on non-stop since. Cilker’s got the perfect country music voice: brassy, smooth, full of humor – even on the sad songs. It helps in my book that Cilker brings a rock’n’roll edge to her sound, though the album itself is as country as it gets.
- No-No Boy – “Where the Sand Creek Meets the Arkansas River” (1975)
Julian Saporiti’s concept album about his family’s history becomes a sweeping narrative of the history of Asian Americans in this country. It’s not a happy story. But Saporiti finds joy as much as pain and anguish in stories of Japanese concentration camps in World War II to his mother’s memories of Hanoi before the Vietnam War. 1975 is a masterful album, utilizing roots music to emphatically prove the place Asian Americans have earned in America.
- Aaron Vance – “Five Bucks Says” (Cabin Fever)
I’m beginning to worry that Aaron Vance thinks I’m stalking him, but in a crowded field, Cabin Fever really is my favorite album this year. It’s the perfect marriage of pop country and honky-tonk, serious racial commentary and blue-collar shenanigans, the swagger of rap and the gentle goading of classic country music. Not only is Vance an excellent songwriter and performer, this album is proof of concept that in spite of all the internal feuding about what is and isn’t “country” – and who belongs in the genre – if you do it all exceptionally well, there’s no argument to be had.
I think that following me on Spotify is a thing you can do to make sure you get a new playlist from me every Friday! You can also follow Tuesday Teardrops, a playlist of new and exciting songs that refreshes every — you guessed it — Tuesday! As always, buy music and/or merch directly from the artists because Spotify is a horrible and exploitative platform!
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