January isn’t typically a huge release month in the music industry, meaning the first two weeks of the year didn’t see much. But we’ve still got albums from this month and from 5, 10, 25, 40, and 50 years ago to recommend.
This January
The year started off with a surprise, as LA singer-songwriter Phoebe Bridgers teamed with former Bright Eyes frontman Conor Oberst to release Better Oblivion Community Center, an album that blends their voices and sensibilities perfectly.
While rock operas have always been a thing, and stage musicals slash movie musicals are as popular now as they have ever been, we haven’t seen too many releases like Neyla Pekarek’s Rattlesnake. The album from the former member of the Lumineers is written as a folk-rock opera about Rattlesnake Kate, and sung as if it’s the cast recording to a show, only there is no show.
Sharon Van Etten thought she may leave the music industry for good in the interim between her 2014 album Are We There and this month’s Remind Me Tomorrow. Instead she returned, bringing her New Jersey-bred brand of folksy songwriting into a fused genre piece full of synth and modern sounds.
After scoring decent enough hits with “Alaska” and “On + Off,” Maggie Rogers recorded Heard It In A Past Life and scored an even bigger hit with “Light On.” Working with pop producer Greg Kurstin and a number of other co-writers and producers, Rogers put together her debut for release earlier this month to positive reviews.
Steve Gunn’s The Unseen In Between is a natural evolution of the singer’s career while also simultaneously serving as his most accessible album to date. He has both the jab of a traditional folk singer and the relaxedness of someone like Kurt Vile, who Gunn previously backed on guitar as a member of the Violaters.
Also: Apparently this Weezer cover thing isn’t going away. The band surprise released The Teal Album this month, and while their particular take on these songs is essentially a Rivers Cuomo-led karaoke, it’s not a bad group of songs; Tears for Fears’ “Everybody Wants To Rule the World,” a-ha’s “Take On Me,” Ben E. King’s “Stand By Me,” and of course, the song that started this whole mess, Toto’s “Africa.”
January 2014
Into the Lime, the first and so far only album released by The New Mendicants, made up of Joe Pernice of the Pernice Brothers and Norman Blake of Teenage Fanclub, includes songs written and recorded for use in the soundtrack to the Nick Hornby adaptation A Long Way Down, but ultimately went unused and were folded into a jangly, whimsical, Byrds-style full-length LP.
Writing and performing under the name Dee Dee, Kristin Gundred has released a solo album and three albums with Dum Dum Girls. The last of the latter, Too True, is a fuzzy collection of pop songs full of ’80s influence.
Stephen Malkmus formed the Jicks following the break-up of his seminal ’90s indie rock band Pavement. Wig Out At Jagbags is the group’s sixth album, where Malkmus once again puts his own melodic and off-kilter spin on pop and classic rock.
Against Me!‘s brand of pop-punk has never been my favorite genre, but five years ago, Transgender Dysphoria Blues was a landmark within its community and within the LGBTQ+ community, featuring the coming out of lead singer Laura Jane Grace. It was a bold, 28-minute statement in the punk rock world, which can be particularly masculine, and it still resonates today.
Young the Giant‘s second album, Mind Over Matter, might have taken a few too many steps into trying to make the band arena-ready, but it still has enough of the crunchy coolness leftover from the band’s self-titled debut.
January 2009
The mythos of Bon Iver states that Justin Vernon was sick, holed up in a house in the woods in Wisconsin, and emerged with For Emma, Forever Ago. Just as relevant to the story as that breakthrough success is the EP, Blood Bank, released the next year, made up of leftover songs that were too warm for the collection of frozen indie folk songs on that debut. Read this piece by Stephen Deusner for more on the influence and lasting power of these four songs.
If you were to combine the ’90s alt-rock sensibilities of Switchfoot and the bluegrass-leaning style of Nickel Creek, you’d end up with something like Fiction Family, which makes sense, because the group consists of Switchfoot frontman Jon Foreman and Nickel Creek guitarist Sean Watkins. The band’s first album, Fiction Family, serves as a soothing piece of electrified Americana.
Love, Save the Empty, the debut album from Erin McCarley, a piano-driven singer-songwriter in the style of contemporaries like Sara Bareilles and Regina Spektor, came to us 10 years ago. With it came the establishment of a strong and defined voice within indie alternative pop music.
Bruce Springsteen continued his late career success with Working On A Dream less than two years after Magic. Although the writing falls in line with his ’00s output by leaning less on storytelling and more on the personal, the album and production are reminiscent of his early work.
UK band White Lies have a little bit of ’80s new wave in them and a little bit of modern dance music in them, both of which are on display on their debut, To Lose My Life…
January 1994
Tori Amos broke into the mainstream with her sophomore solo album, Under the Pink, recorded in New Mexico. With a piano and fiercely feminist ideals, Amos wrote beautifully about religion, sexual assault, and other social issues.
Away from her rock group Throwing Muses, Kristin Hersh released a solo debut, Hips and Makers, that was completely raw and personal. The 15 stripped down acoustic songs were produced by Patti Smith Group guitarist Lenny Kaye and given a vocal assist from R.E.M.’s Michael Stipe.
Despite serving as early influencers on grunge music, Meat Puppets were a little more melodic than their peers in the ’90s. Although they were a decade and a half into their careers as a band, the members of Meat Puppets released Too High To Die as just their second album on a major label.
After Screaming Trees and before he joined Queens of the Stone Age, Mark Lanegan released a number of quieter solo albums, of which Whiskey For The Holy Ghost is the second, featuring a toned down, smoky feeling and Lanegan’s Waitsian grumble.
Jonathon Demme’s HIV/AIDS drama Philadelphia cleaned up at the 66th Academy Awards Ceremony, including two nominations and one win for songs on the movies official soundtrack. “Streets of Philadelphia” by Bruce Springsteen and “Philadelphia” by Neil Young were both written for use in the film, and the soundtrack features cuts from Peter Gabriel, Sade, and Indigo Girls.
January 1979
Elvis Costello wrapped up the ’70s with Armed Forces, his third album in as many years. The album concludes one of the best three-album runs to begin a career, and includes classics like “Accidents Will Happen,” “Oliver’s Army,” “Two Little Hitlers,” and depending on what continent you were on at the time, a timeless cover of Brinsley Schwartz’s “(What’s So Funny ‘Bout) Peace, Love, and Understanding.”
Taking a page from Costello’s intelligent, punk rock-leaning new wave, Joe Jackson made his debut with some of his most memorable songs to date on Look Sharp!, including his biggest hit, “Is She Really Going Out With Him?” Look Sharp! was not the last 1979 heard of Jackson, either, as recorded and released the follow-up before the end of the year.
Although English punk band Generation X is best known as the former group of Billy Idol, the band had a successful run of quality albums in the late ’70s through 1981, including their second full-length, Valley of the Dolls. Working with Mott the Hoople’s Ian Hunter, the band recorded their take on rock and roll romanticism just two years before their most successful single, “Dancing With Myself,” and subsequent dissolution.
Sister Sledge, a family group from Philadelphia, was at the forefront of the disco scene in the ’70s, and they reached a peak with their landmark 1979 release, We Are Family, which charted high, has since gone platinum, and includes “He’s the Greatest Dancer” and “We Are Family.”
John Denver is one of those artists with almost as many albums as he’s got years in the industry. His 1979 album, John Denver, contains a live recording of “Berkeley Woman” and a number of other covers. If you’re a fan of Denver’s relaxing style of country pop, this self-titled album, his 13th overall, will keep you on board.
January 1969
By 1969, Neil Young had released an album with The Rockets and three with Buffalo Springfield, but finally stepped out on his own with this self-titled album. Neil Young was first released in late 1968, but then was quickly remixed and re-released by January of the next year. It’s not Young’s strongest work, (with a career of near-50 releases, how could it be?) but it does hint at the strength-of-songwriting to come.
January of 50 years ago saw another huge debut go mostly unnoticed, with Led Zeppelin‘s self-titled album hitting stores following the break-up of The Yardbirds. Led Zeppelin, with “Good Times Bad Times,” “Communication Breakdown,” and “Dazed and Confused,” has since gone platinum eight times and been included on many publications lists of best albums of all time.
Tossed in amongst lesser releases from The Beatles, Johnny Cash, and Aretha Franklin during the first month of 1969 is Scottish folksinger Bert Jansch‘s sixth album, Birthday Blues. Jansch, who died in 2011, was an influential figure in British folk during the ’60s and beyond, and his last album of the decade included standouts “Miss Heather Rosemary Sewell,” “Birthday Blues,” and “Poison.”
Creedence Clearwater Revival was busy in 1969, releasing three of their seven career albums. While things would continue to get even better from the John Fogerty-led swamp rockers from San Francisco, Bayou Country saw the band really finding their sound and perfecting it.
Although Fairport Convention‘s debut album was released in 1968, the band wasn’t really at their best until the addition of singer Sandy Denny and the 1969 album, What We Did On Our Holidays. The album, which features some of the band’s best songs like “Fotheringay” and “Meet on the Ledge,” began their peak with their sophomore album’s blending of their own songwriters voices as well as rearrangement’s of folk classics such as “She Moves Through the Fair” and Bob Dylan’s “I’ll Keep It With Mine.”