Best Records of 2106

Looking back over the last few years, this is the one post that seems to have endured. I do like to share my favorite records in the hopes that more people will listen to them and share their favorites with me. So here we go.

Malibu by Anderson.Paak
Brandon Paak Anderson's second record breaks the sophomore slump myth, in fact it blows it out of the water. This rapper from So Cal is the future of hip hop. He clearly understands how to blend old school R&B and soul with beats that could play on any pop radio station. "Am I Wrong" featuring ScHoolboy Q, is a dance song that I can't get out of my head. There are a ton of collaborators on this record, and Anderson.Paak produced four of the tracks. If you haven't bought his first record Venice yet, get them both.

22, a Million by Bon Iver
I will listen to anything Bon Iver is willing to put out in the world. We had to wait a little while for this one, but it was worth it. Before I first heard the record, I was concerned about all the chatter that was going around Justin Vernon's use of auto tune on this record. My first thought was why would a guy with one of the best voices in the world mess with it, but it works. There are 10 great tracks on this record, but if I had to choose a favorite, it would be "33, God."

Teens of Denial by Car Seat Headrest
Teens of Denial is why pop music is still relevant and makes our life great. Technically this is another sophomore record, but that's only half the story. Car Seat Headrest made several DIY records, and their first Matador record was a "best of" from those efforts. So, while this is their second record on Matador, it's the first one they put together from start to finish. This is a record I could not stop playing when it first came out. The songs are catchy pop songs, but they are also strangely complex, they start as one thing, but take strange twists along the way. Put it on, play it loud.

Lola by Carrie Rodriguez

Carrie Rodriguez is a fiddle playing singer/songwriter from Austin, who first made her name at SXSW in 2001. She has put out 12 records since 2002, and sadly this is the first one I have heard. It is quite a departure from her previous efforts. The songs on Lola are a mix of originals and traditional standards sung in Spanish, English and Spanglish. The record was inspired by her great aunt, Eva Garza, a famous singer San Antonio singer in the 1940's.  While this is quite different from her previous records, hopefully you'll be inspired to go back and check out her back catalog.

Blackstar by David Bowie
One of the biggest losses of 2016 was the death of David Bowie, but at least we got this gem before he left us. Only time will tell where this record ends up in the Bowie cannon, but it's amazing to think that he was still creating work on this level, as he knew the end was near. This is not a record of singles. You need to allow yourself the time to listen to it from start to finish. 

Blonde by Frank Ocean

Christopher Breaux was about to start college at the University of New Orleans (u-no) when hurricane Katrina hit. Instead of waiting for the city to dry out, he moved to LA to pursue his music and so far he has done pretty well. Channel Orange was one of my top records of 2012, and while Blonde may not top that record, it's still pretty damn awesome. It's a little slower and more introspective, but it holds up well over time and is a record that got a lot of play last year.

The Colour in Anything by James Blake

James Blake makes his way to the 'best of' again with his third record The Color in Anything. His debut record made the list in 2011 and Overgrown was a huge favorite in 2013, with the song "Retrograde" getting the nod for song of the year. While this record does not eclipse the work of Overgrown, it has grown on me considerably since the first listen, and I am glad to have more music from Mr. Blake. Coming in at 17 tracks, he has matched the output of his first two records combined.

A Sailors Guide to Earth by Sturgill Simpson

I know we have had this discussion before, but if Sturgill Simpson was the face of country music, you'd love country music. He is an old school, smart singer/songwriter who has nothing to do with the crap coming out of Nashville these days.  This record is a concept album of sorts; it was written for his new-born son as a guide on how to be a man. If I haven't hooked you yet, go to wherever you listen to music and search for Simpson's cover of Nirvana's "In Bloom." If you can't get behind this, then I can't do nothing for you son.

Astronaut Meets Appleman by King Creosote

King Creosote is Scottish singer/songwriter Kenny Anderson, who you have seen in the 'best of' a few times before.  2011's Diamond Mine is still one of my all-time favorite records. Astronaut Meets Appleman is more of what you love from Mr. Anderson. That's not to say he doesn't venture out into new places, but his songwriting and singing is a solid as ever. This record is not as tight as Diamond Mine or 2014's From Scotland With Love, it feels more like a relaxed small venue live set. 

Stranger to Stranger by Paul Simon

I heard an interview with Paul Simon when Stranger to Stranger first came out and he said this is his last record, which I seem to remember him saying after So Beautiful, So What. I hope that is not true, because he's still got it. The opening songs, "Werewolf" and "Wristband" have that classic Simon humor, coupled with a great beat. On the other end of the spectrum, the title song, "Stranger to Stranger" is a beautifully quite Simon masterpiece. I look forward to the next, last record.

Best Records of 2015

Here we go again, my favorite blog post of the year, my favorite records of 2015.  I think it's worth repeating a comment I heard from one of the music shows I listen to, these are my favorite records, not necessarily the most important, or best records of the year. Only time will tell on that measure.

25 by Adele
Let's start with the biggest, and most anticipated record of the year, Adele's 25. I am a huge Adele fan, and while I don't think 25 lived up to her 2011 release, 21, there is still a lot to love here. "Hello" is in the running for song of the year and it's a record that I've enjoyed listening to on repeated visits. I should warn you, I don't listen to commercial radio, so I didn't get hit with her songs a million times. It's why I can enjoy this record and all the songs I still love from 21 without going crazy.



Traveller by Chris Stapleton
Critic Ann Powers is a huge fan of this record, and I first heard it on NPR's All Song's Considered. I had not heard of Chris Stapleton before, but it turns out he has been around a while. He is a well known singer songwriter in Nashville and has penned songs for many well know country stars. He was also in a bluegrass band called SteelHead, before going solo. This is his first solo record. To me it's like that Sturgill Simpson record I loved from last year, country music for people that do not usually like country music (or do not like country music made since the 80's). Stapleton has a great voice, and his songs are instant country classics that take me back to the likes of Willie and Waylon or George Jones.

Black Messiah by D'Angelo
Black Messiah is that record that made me go back and buy all the previous records this artist has ever made. Sadly, this is only D'Angelo's third record in 20 years. His first record Brown Sugar came out in 1995 to huge critical acclaim, and then it was five years until Voodoo was released, all along the way there were rumors that it would be released at any time. Then he didn't disappear entirely, but every year, a story would come out that a new record was on the way. Fifteen years later Black Messiah finally hit the selves. The shorthand description of his music is neo-soul, where hip hop meets old school R&B - think Marvin Gaye meets Prince.

2014 Forest Hills Drive by J. Cole
Technically this is a late 2014 record, but I don't think very many people heard it until 2015. 2104 Forest Hills Drive is J. Cole's childhood address growing up in North Carolina. He is a smart guy who got a scholarship to college, but wanted to pursue music so bad he basically camped outside Jay Z's office until he got an introduction. It paid off as he was the first artist Jay Z signed to his record label. This is his third record; I was not very familiar with his earlier work, but from what I have heard this is by far his most personal record. And that is what drew me in, the stories he tells and honesty he displays are different and very refreshing in todays hip hop world. There is no false bravado here, J Cole put his heart into this record.

Carrie & Lowell by Sufjan Stevens
Sufjan Stevens is a critics darling, every record he puts out gets great reviews, but he doesn't seem to have reached a huge audience yet, maybe this is the record to do it. I think it can also be put in the "long awaited" category, as Stevens put out a record a year from 2000-2010, then took five years to drop Carrie & Lowell. The record is a collection of songs that explore the loss of his mother and stepfather. As heavy as that sounds, the music is not hard to listen to, it is beautiful and moving. It's a record that I kept coming back to, and finding new layers ever time.


Something More Than Free by Jason Isbell
If you have read previous editions of this blog, you will know I gushed over Jason Isbell's 2013 record Southeastern; it was my co-record of the year with James Blake's Overgrown.  Something More than Free is an excellent follow up, it's not as deeply personal, but there are still a lot of great songs. In fact "24 Frames" get's my nod for song of the year, with one if my favorite lyrics of the year: you thought God was a architect/now you know/he's something like a pipe bomb ready to blow.



Sometimes I Sit and Think, and Sometimes I Just Think by Courtney Barnett
Courtney Barnett is from Melbourne, Australia and she does not try to hide her accent. This is her first full length record, I loved her 2013 Double EP Sea of Split Seas, with one of my favorite all time songs, "Avant Gardner," so I was excited to grab this record up and it did not disappoint. It's pretty simple, straight-forward songwriting that reminds me of my favorite 80's musicians.






To Pimp a Butterfly by Kendrick Lamar
Sometimes your favorite records also include the critics choice for best record, and this is the case with Kendrick Lamar's follow up to the excellent, Good Kid, M.A.D.D City,  To Pimp a Butterfly. It's an important record as well as a great record to listen to. "King Kunta" is my favorite song of the year, but "Alright" is the song that had the biggest impact, serving as the sound track for the Black Lives Matter. The record has some dips, but the best songs are better than anything else I have heard this year.



Sprinter by Torres
This is the second record from Mackenzie Scott, who preforms under the name Torres. She has a very powerful voice and there are great musicians and production behind her on this record, as she teamed up with PJ Harvey's crew to create a much fuller sound. That said, I think she owes more to Patti Smith than PJ. There are also a lot of religious overtures that weave their way throughout the record. Bottom line, Scott rocks and you should listen to this record really loud.



Vulnicura by Bjork
Last but certainly not least is the latest release from the enigmatic Bjork, Vulnicura.  I first saw Bjork perform as part of the Sugarcubes back when I was in college, and I would never have guessed that she'd be the one making amazing music almost 30 years later. I don't have all her records, but I the ones I do have I really love, and this is a great addition. If 21 was how Adele does breakup songs, Vulnicura is how Bjok does them. It's an intense record and deserves multiple listenings.

Paris - Places to Eat

I don't want to make this a competition, but if it was, Italy won the eating part of the contest. There are a lot of amazing places to eat in Paris, but they are becoming harder to come by and quite expensive. Gone are the days you can drop in to one of the main street cafes or brassieres and get a great meal. You need to do your homework and a little advance planning if you want to eat well every meal. I would also advise staying away from the big travel sites like TripAdvisor and Yelp as they seem to cater to a pretty mainstream palate. Your first stop should be Paris by Mouth: http://parisbymouth.com. Not only do they have great reviews, they also offer up tours, neighborhood guides, and very helpful notes like: how to avoid tourist trap restaurants near the tourist traps, and restaurants open on Sundays.

Speaking of which Paris is pretty much closed down on Sundays. We found a very nice little bakery right by the house which we enjoyed breakfast all week, until the Saturday, when we found it closed for the weekend. There was also a note on the door saying she'd be closed all of August, another watchout if you plan to come here in the summer. All the Parisians leave for holiday in August, which on some levels is nice, except when they run a restaurant or store you might want to go to.

As I said earlier, we are staying in the Martparnesse area of Paris which is very close to a lot of restaurants in Saint Germain, or the chocolate capitol of Paris. The Left Bank is not super trendy right now, but there are still plenty of good places to eat.  

A must visit is Le Relais de l'Entrecôte: http://www.relaisentrecote.fr, 101 Bd de Montparnasse.  They only have one thing on the menu - Steak-Frites, and they do them the old fashioned way with shoestring frites, and sliced steak. Both are all you can eat for a fixed price. They have a short wine list and several good deserts, but we were not sure exactly what we were ordering as the waitress did not speak english. That said, we were all happy with what showed up.

A dinner cruise on the Seine is also a good idea, the one we did was expensive as it was Bastille Day, but there are much more reasonable alternatives. I saw some smaller boats with what looked like private dinners, I bet those could be great if you get the right chef.

The highlight of our eating trip in Paris was dinner at Le Chateaubriand, 129 ave Parmentier, 75011 Paris. It has been rated as one of the top 50 restaurants in the world for the last few years and it lived up to the billing. I lost count of the number of courses we were served, but it was somewhere in the neighborhood of 10. We also got the wine paring which was a fun adventure. It's hard to tell you what you are going to get, because the menu changes every night, but there will be several appetizers, our most memorable was the cold tomato soup, deep fried veal in tandoori powder, and a shot of ceviche.  For the mains we got two fish dishes, one was tuna on peach which was excellent, and a meat dish which was lamb and eggplant, my least favorite. Then there were two deserts, one was fresh cherries with raw almonds and fermented milk ice cream and the other was their signature desert a caramelized egg yolk on a meringue. The restaurant is small and you need to book three weeks in advance if you want a table in the first seating from 7:30-10 pm., otherwise you can stand in line for the second seating. The menu is set and the price is 70 euros per person for dinner and another 65 if you want the wine pairing. If not, there is a long and very distinguished wine list.

On Sunday when all the restaurants are closed you can hit the markets. This is where Parisians stock up for the week. We luckily had a great one, Marché Biologique Raspail, very close by on the Boulevard Raspail, between the Rue Cherche-Midi and Rue de Rennes. Start out with an onion galettes — shredded onion, potato and cheese (2.50 euros) — frying at one of the dozens of stands then you can load up on bread, cheese, jams and other treats for your picnic in the close by Luxembourg Gardens.

Here some other places we went that were good or interesting:

Cuisine de Bar, 8 rue du Cherche Midi, 75006, a great place for a quick, light lunch. For 15 euros you get soup/salad, a hot or cold tartines – open faced sandwich – on their famous bread, and a glass of wine. 

Pâtisserie / Boulangerie: Gerard Mulot, http://www.gerard-mulot.com/, 76 rue de Seine, Croissants-cakes-lots of good food you can buy for your apartment -salads-quiches- etc.

Les deux Magots, www.lesdeuxmagots.com, 6 Place St Germain des Prés, great old Parisian Brasserie, that is a little touristy now but used to be a very important literally cafe.

Le Dome Cafe - 108 Boulevard du Montparnasse, 75014 Paris, this is an interesting place that is past it's prime, the service is bad, but the food is still good. It is just so old school Paris that you have to love it, the ghosts of Hemingway and other literary giants are all around you.

Paris - Things to Do

We rented a flat for the week in the Martparnasse area of Paris in the 6th arrondissement, very close to the Luxembourg Gardens. It turned out to be a great place, as it was an easy walk or Metro ride to many of the big and not so well known tourist sites. We had a very interesting view from our balcony, where we could see Paris' most famous and infamous towers: the Eiffel Tower, and the big brown building that everyone hates so much they changed the building code to keep all the new buildings under seven stories.

To make this story a little more manageable, I thought I'd break it up into things to see and places to eat, which pretty much sums up Paris.   

Because we are here for a week and both of us have visited Paris before, we took a more measured approach to seeing the sites here in Paris, than in Italy. It felt like one or two big things in a day were enough, excluding the Louvre and Versailles which we have both seen. So, those two things should be top of your list along with the Eiffel Tower if you have never been here.

A great way to get started is at the Arc de Triomphe, this is the monument built to celebrate Napoleon's victories, but it is now an amusing roundabout where you can watch how the French make driving a contact sport. From there you can walk downhill along the Avenue des Champs-Elysées as it turns from super overpriced stores to a tree lined boulevard ending at the Tuileries Gardens.  If it's a hot day, and if you are here in July or August it probably will be, you can grab a chair and take a quick nap in the shade or get a snack at one of the many stands throughout the garden. There are also dozens of old statues and new sculputes in the garden, so it's a easy to spend an hour taking it all in.

If you have eaten a little lunch, you can continue down the road a few steps to the Louvre. The day we were there the line was not too long and it looked like it was moving fast. I prefer to go in the afternoon, but most experts recommend getting there early before it opens so it's not so crowded.

Day two we revisited the Cathedral Notre Dame. Don't be daunted by the very long line, as it moves really fast and it's free to get in. The only problem is there is no shade as you wait in line, so be prepared to get poked by a lot of ladies with umbrellas.  My first thought is that the cathedral seems smaller than I remember, but it is a lot longer than it first appears. While we have seen a lot of churches, you still can't help but be impressed by the stained glass in this building. They also have installed a nice little history lesson with pictures (in English) that shows how the cathedral expanded over the years. After Notre Dame, you can take a nice walk through the Latin Quarter and after lunch take a walk along the Seine River.

Day three we started out at the Rodin Museum, which was under renovation, so we only saw a small part of the works.  As a conciliation, they had a lot of early casts, and behind the scenes pictures of their most famous works on display. The good news is, they did have The Kiss on display and the sculpture garden, which contains The Thinker, was open. The garden is a great place to spend an hour or so relaxing and taking in the art.  They also have a great cafe in the garden if you want to get a light lunch. After the Rodin, we visited the Army Museum and Napoleon’s Tomb, which are close by, and the  answer to the question, what is that large gold dome?  Of course the tomb is so big, not because Napoleon was a big guy (he was not), but because they had to fit his ego in there as well. The Tomb is an amazing site, and it also has the best air conditioning in Paris. At this point we called it a day, but if you are a trooper you'll fit the Orsay Museum in too.

Day four was modern art day. We spent the afternoon in the Musee National d'Art Modern housed in the controversial Centre Pompidou. This is a very unique and much maligned building, every time I have come to Paris I have heard people making fun of it. I think it is beautiful and in a city fully of classic architecture, the museum of modern art had to do something to stand out.  If you go to the museum, you should be prepared to spend several hours there as there is a lot to cover. The good news is there is a nice cafe on the top floor so you can take a break for lunch. There are a temporary exhibits on the top floor and the permanent exhibit is on the fourth floor, arranged chronologically.  On the third floor they have works from the 1990's and 2000's. You'll see everyone from Matisse to Picasso to Jasper Johns, as well as sculptures, furniture, videos and of course paintings.

If you have not gotten your fill of modern art, you should also check out The Louis Vuitton Foundation: http://www.fondationlouisvuitton.fr, they have a very cool Frank Gehry building.

Lastly, we had a few great things right in our neighborhood. The Raspail Market was a great place to grab some food on a Sunday and take a stroll through the Luxembourg Gardens. We were also right next to the Montparnasse Cemetery, although not as famous as Père Lachaise, which has the graves of Oscar Wilde, Edith Paif and Jim Morrison among others, it is still worth visiting. The cemetery received its first ‘lodger’ in 1824, and contains the tombs of playwright Samuel Beckett, photographer Man Ray, philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre and his lover, writer Simone de Beauvoir.