Catching Up: Overlooked Albums and Songs of 2021 (so far)

Rather than compiling a conventional mid-year best-of ranking, I’m acknowledging albums and songs I initially overlooked or previously underappreciated in the first six months of 2021.  Many of the selections are obscure, but millions of people were tuned into songs and albums like “No More Parties” and En Contra De Mi Voluntad long before I caught up.

Top Ten Overlooked and Underappreciated Albums of 2021 (So Far)

1. Marianne Faithfull and Warren Ellis- She Walks in Beauty

Pure poetry.

2. Jaimie Branch- Fly or Die Live

Angry improv.

3. Lambchop- Showtunes

My review.

4. Susan Alcorn, Ingrid Laubrock and Leila Bordeuil- Bird Meets Wire

Hung up.

5. Jimmy Edgar- Cheetah Bend

My review. 

6. La Arrolladora Banda el Limón- En Contra De Mi Voluntad

Stupendous big band.

7. Silicone Prairie- My Life On the Silicone Prairie

Space junk.

8. Michael Wollny- XXXX

Progressive Euro-jazz.

9. Birds of Maya- Valdez

Unfiltered scuzz.

10. Elizabeth Chang- Transformations

Kirchner, Sessions and Schoenberg.

Top Ten Overlooked and Underappreciated Songs of 2021 (So Far)

1. Coi Leray- “No More Parties”

Curfew.

2. Moby, Mark Lanegan and Kris Kristofferson- "The Lonely Night"

Hurt.

3. Celeste- "Tonight Tonight"

Undeniable pop.

4. Karol G and Nathy Peluso- “Gato Malo”

Discussion on the In My Headache podcast.

5. Armand Hammer, the Alchemist and Earl Sweatshirt- "Falling Out of the Sky"

Crash.

6. Roman Alexander and Ashley Cooke- “Between You & Me”

Closing in.

7. Anitta- "Loco"

Crazy-good.

8. Ana Lélia- "Meu Cantinho"

Gentle breeze.

9. Cuee and Joel Leoj- “Ain’t Going Back”

Amen.

10. Sir the Baptist and Anthony Hamilton- "Jesus in the Ghetto"

Can’t tell Him nothing.

My previous monthly rankings of albums, songs, concerts and films are here.

Album Review: Lambchop- Showtunes

Original image by There Stands the Glass.

I was dumbfounded as a child when my dad and grandfather shrugged their shoulders when I’d ask how they acquired minor wounds after finishing a task in a field or garage.  Their inability to recall the cause of the bloodletting struck me as a form of madness.

I get it now.  I’m often unaware of a cut until I spot blood on my clothes.  Scrapes barely register against the gradual acceleration of bodily aches and emotional strain.  Kurt Wagner trots out an apt cliché on the opening track of Lambchop’s Showtunes: “life will be the death of us all.”

The new album sounds like a resigned meditation on the aging process.  Showtunes’ unconventional music and ambiguous lyrics are akin to the literary depictions of akimbo consciousnesses associated with James Joyce and Virginia Woolf.  Accordingly, Wagner and his co-conspirators overlay opera on cabaret and combine electronic gurgles with baroque chamber music.  An overworked hip-hop hype sample introduces a languid meditation on the past.

References to cellist Pablo Casals, Jimmy Webb’s pop hit “By the Time I Get to Phoenix” and the Lord’s Prayer reflect the free association of a lively but aged mind. "The Last Benedict'' is among the songs chronicling an unsettling awareness of decay. We’re all destined to stop bleeding. Showtunes is a cleareyed foreshadowing of the days preceding that inevitable moment.