Music – Page 34 – Jarrett House North

Off to Tanglewood – Wagner’s Die Meistersinger

I’ll be in the Berkshires this week with the Tanglewood Festival Chorus, preparing for a performance of Wagner’s only mature comic opera, Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg. We’ll see some old friends among the soloists–Johan Botha, Matthew Polanzani–and of course Maestro Levine, whom we last sang with in February. Meistersinger is totally different from Boccanegra, and it will be fun to see how Jimmy brings it to life.

This being Boston, of course the chorus will also hold an informal discussion group one evening on Wagner’s antisemitism. So there’s that to look forward to.

But seriously–I can’t wait to get out to Tanglewood, though I’m already missing family. At least it will be a beautiful week.

The Virginia Glee Club disbands — in 1912

gleeclub_1914

This week’s Virginia Glee Club history post comes a little late, but better late than never because it sheds light on an interesting chapter of the Club’s history—its apparent, and apparently intermittent, disappearance in the years between 1905 and 1915. Thanks to a new item that has turned up in Google Books, and which I finally got a photocopy of today, I think we can piece together a fairly decent timeline.

We can piece together the history from a few scraps of evidence. First, UVA historian Philip A. Bruce, who wrote the history of the University’s first hundred years, alluded to the Club’s troubles between 1905 and 1915:

…no play was offered in 1910-11. This fact led to the revival of the Glee Club, an association which had disbanded in 1905. A mass-meeting of all the students interested in music was held; a new vocal and instrumental club organized; and rehearsals at once began. This club was composed of twenty members. It gave two concerts in Cabell Hall and four beyond the precincts. Choruses, quartets, and vocal and instrumental solos, were skilfully rendered. This association failed to re-form in 1912-13 and 1913-14, as the result of the absence of an experienced and attentive director and manager.

We know that the group was still active in the fall of 1905. A letter written on October 29, 1905 by Sue Whitmore, the mother of a University of Virginia student, mentions her enjoyment of hearing the Glee Club perform.

We also know that the Club was around in January 1914, from photographic evidence (above). Then, in 1915, the group was “reorganized” and “trained scientifically” by Professor A. L. Hall-Quest.

But what happened to the group between 1905 and 1914? What did Bruce mean that it “failed to reform”? He laid its failure to succeed on poor leadership, but on what evidence? Here’s where the new discovery sheds some light.

In early October of 1912, the following notice appeared (and was reproduced in the Alumni Bulletin, series 3, vol, 5):

We, the officers of the University of Virginia Glee Club, in consideration of the disadvantageous circumstances under which the afore-mentioned club has operated within the past three years, do officially declare said club disbanded, believing that by so doing an ultimate success may be achieved along another line. (Signed): Roger M. Bone, president, Robert V. Funsten, vice-president, Vaughan Camp, secretary, C.A. McKean, treasurer.

(Thanks to the fine folks at Special Collections for sending me a photocopy of the bulletin.)

So now we have a timeline:

In late 1905 or maybe early 1906, the Glee Club disbands.
In 1910, the Club reforms, responding to a musical vacuum left by the demise of the Arcadians, a musical theatre group, and struggles for a few years with inexperienced musical and logistical leadership.
At the beginning of the third season, in October 1912, the officers of the time disband the group temporarily.
At the beginning of the fall 1913 semester, the group re-forms (though the photo is dated January 1914, the re-formation must have happened in the fall—the odds of getting so many young men into matching suits for an official portrait in less than a month are probably no better then than they are today).
In 1915, the students connect with a professor, A. L. Hall-Quest, who has connections to the Princeton Glee Club tradition and who sets them on a sturdier footing.

Bruce overstated the hiatus by a year, based on the photographic evidence, but otherwise he was right on. The timeline speaks of an organization that was making it, or not, year-to-year, with little to no institutional support. That sort of existence resonates with my memory of the group between 1990 and 1994, with one difference: we had alumni who cared about the group enough to keep it afloat, and the Club guys of the early 20th century did not. There wasn’t a real alumni association, to speak of, until the first World War.

The next question, which will have to wait for another post, is: what happened after Hall-Quest left? He resigned in 1918, and Arthur Fickénscher didn’t take his job at UVa, and the directorship of the group, until sometime in the 1920s. But this answer might have to wait until I can get back to Charlottesville to do some real research.

New mix: september grrls

My latest mix, “september grrls,” did not start out to be (almost) all women artists, but it ended up that way. After strong releases this year from Shannon Worrell, PJ Harvey, Neko Case, and others, plus Kim Gordon’s contributions to the latest Sonic Youth… well, I couldn’t resist. Add to that a few songs that have been kicking around my library forever, waiting for a home, and you’ve got yourself a mix.

This Is What You Do – Gemma Hayes (Hollow of Morning)
Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God) – Kate Bush (Hounds of Love)
Black Hearted Love – PJ Harvey & John Parish (A Woman a Man Walked By)
Iamundernodisguise – School of Seven Bells (Alpinisms)
Song To Bobby – Cat Power (Jukebox)
Jericho – Greta Gaines (Greta Gaines)
Lake Charles Boogie – Nellie Lutcher (Oxford American 2003 Southern Music CD No. 6)
If You’re Ready (Come Go with Me) – The Staple Singers (The Stax Story: Finger-Snappin’ Good [Disc 3])
When the Other Foot Drops, Uncle – Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings (100 Days, 100 Nights)
Diamond Heart – Marissa Nadler (Songs III: Bird On the Water)
If I Can Make You Cry – Shannon Worrell (The Honey Guide)
For Today I Am A Boy – Antony and the Johnsons (I Am A Bird Now)
Massage the History – Sonic Youth (The Eternal)
Crater Lake – Liz Phair (Whip-Smart)
I’m an Animal – Neko Case (Middle Cyclone (Bonus Track Version))
Who Is It (Carry My Joy On the Left, Carry My Pain On the Right) – Björk (Medulla)
The Way I Am (Recorded Live on WERS) – Ingrid Michaelson (Be OK)
Sweet Like You – Shannon Worrell (The Honey Guide)
At Constant Speed – Gemma Hayes (Hollow of Morning)
September Gurls – Big Star (#1 Record – Radio City)

Songs of the University of Virginia: the 1906 songbook

It’s Friday, so it must be time for some Virginia Glee Club history.

Before the first Songs of the University of Virginia album, there was the songbook. Compiled by A. Frederick Wilson in 1906 and featuring a combination of the still familiar (“The Good Old Song,” “Drink To Me Only With Thine Eyes”) and the unfamiliar (“The Orange and the Blue”, “Upidee,” just about anything else), there are some fascinating trends in the music. Certainly lots of drinking songs, two sung fully in Latin, and lots of fight songs where “old Eli” (Yale) and “the tiger” (Princeton) are the opponents.

And there is much that is destined to remain obscure: certainly I can’t imagine how to interpret the song “The Man Who Has Plenty of Good Peanuts,” with its verse “The man who has plenty of Pomp’s peculiar patent perpetual pocket panoramic ponies for passing examinations/And giveth his neighbor none /He shan’t have any of my Pomp’s peculiar patent perpetual pocket panoramic ponies for passing examinations/When his Pomp’s peculiar patent perpetual pocket panoramic ponies for passing examinations are gone.” But with the majority of songs containing four part harmony, and with many fight songs that could be revived, the book is definitely worth a download.

Yes, download–you can get the PDF from Google Books, since the book is out of copyright. So while you’re waiting to purchase the Glee Club‘s new album Songs of the University of Virginia, check out some of the historical precedents.

For incentive, here’s the foreward, in which credit is given to the Virginia Glee Club of the time for keeping the songs alive:

P.S.: This is one of the only sources I’ve seen for sheet music for “Upidee,” one of three songs mentioned as a Virginia favorite in 1871 just before the first appearance of the Glee Club.

eMusic and Sony: the beginning and end of a beautiful thing

There’s a lot to like about the deal that eMusic cut with Sony today. Sony’s back catalogue (200,000 tracks, from albums two years old and older) will be available on eMusic’s monthly subscription plan.

Sort of.

As a consequence of the deal, eMusic’s per track price is going up across its whole catalogue. My subscription, purchased a while ago, was 90 tracks for $19.99. It had gone up to $24.99 for 90 tracks but I was grandfathered in at the old level. The new deal is $19.99 for 50 tracks. For those playing along, that’s an 80% price increase over my original deal. And I can’t buy a 90-track subscription any more. The highest subscription is 75 tracks for $30.99 a month.

Why else, other than the sudden 80% decrease in value of my subscription, do I have a problem with this? Well, for one thing, not everyone will want to download Sony tracks. So the price for every other track in the catalogue just jumped. Thanks a lot, Sony. I’d argue you just single-handedly made it harder for every indie in the eMusic catalogue to make money.

Which, you might suspect, might be the point. eMusic is practically the only place where indies have a voice where they don’t have to compete with the majors for oxygen. Now Sony will try to choke off the oxygen from the indies in their own pool. Not cool.

Friday listen: In My Tribe, 10,000 Maniacs

I wrote a long time ago about getting my Denon DP-45F turntable fixed up, and shortly thereafter hinted that I was about to start ripping my records en masse. Then… well, life intruded. I ripped some Beowulf, early and not-so-early Virginia Glee Club records, and not a whole lot else.

Why? A few reasons. First, time. Where ripping a CD can be done in much less than the time to listen to it, and in the comfort of an armchair, an LP requires at least as much time to rip as to listen to it. Then there’s taking the file, leveling it, splitting the tracks, importing them to iTunes, and then (because of a bug in Amadeus Pro’s lossless AAC files) reimporting them as AAC. So for one record, it takes the evening. And one unsuccessful rip–there was a lot of surface noise on my copy of Peter Gabriel II–put me off the project for a good long while.

And now? I finally got around to ripping my vinyl of 10,000 Maniacs’ early hit In My Tribe, and it was a revelation. The sound from the ripped vinyl was superb, and the music was superb…er. The opening chords of “What’s the Matter Here” were as gripping as the lyrics are depressing; “Hey Jack Kerouac” and “Like the Weather” were similarly moving and dynamic. Listening to the record took me back to when R.E.M. played a lot of 12 string and when indie meant Guadalcanal Diary and the Connells. The second half of the record lags a bit, but the final song, the unpromisingly named “Verdi Cries,” was moving and insightful.

In these recessionary times, there’s something to be said for rediscovering music through vinyl instead of paying to download it again. Even if it takes an evening to get the music on one’s iPod.

Season over

Tonight was the last concert of the regular Symphony Hall season for the Tanglewood Festival Chorus, with our final production of Berlioz’s Te Deum. (For those keeping track at home, that’s two seasons in a row that we’ve closed out with Berlioz, though the Te Deum is a different order of magnitude–literally–from Les Troyens.)

It was a good concert. Before the performance, our Fearless Leader shared a few quick thoughts about our Friday afternoon show, saying, “And second tenors! Your entrance at the beginning had real beauty! For the very first time!” Aside from being a great example of John Oliver’s wit, the comment was also 100% correct. I am slowly realizing that with this chorus I can bring every ounce of my musicianship to every entrance, bring my voice to its limits every time, and it will almost be enough.

One thing I like about how things are going with the TFC is that I still have my voice intact after this concert run. In the past, I would have bellowed my way through a concert and blown out my pipes. There’s something nice about (a) knowing one’s limits and (b) recognizing when you are surrounded by 139 other highly gifted voices that can also help carry intensity and passion in the climactic moments.

The wonderful thing about a TFC season “ending,” of course, is that we never really are done. I’ll be at Tanglewood in July for Wagner’s Die Meistersinger and a reprise of the Brahms Requiem, and we get to start all over again just a few months later. Right now that sounds pretty good. I’m looking forward to the next run already. I haven’t sung Wagner yet.

On the charts and on stage

Billboard Top Classical Charts, 2009-05-02. See #3 and #8.

Last Friday’s Billboard classical chart featured the debut of the two BSO CDs on which I performed, the Brahms Requiem and Ravel Daphnis et Chloé. (A third BSO recording in which I participated, Bolcom’s Symphony No. 8, is only available as a download.) The Ravel was at number 8 on the top 10, and the Brahms was at number 3, behind The Priests and Amore Infinito: Songs inspired by the Poetry of John Paul II (Karol Wojtyla) by Placido Domingo.

The recordings are available digitally or physically from the BSO. I am still trying to see where the discs are distributed–they don’t appear to be on Amazon right now, but they are on CD Baby (Brahms, Ravel) and ArkivMusic (Brahms, Ravel) at the moment. That they are getting this kind of sales traction without Amazon’s presence is kind of impressive to me.

The charts are timely, because the Tanglewood Festival Chorus will be on stage again this week with the BSO, performing the Berlioz “Te Deum” along with the PALS children’s chorus. The work is massive, with two choirs (140 voices in our performance) plus the children, and full orchestra and organ. The BSO’s podcast last week gave a good introduction to the work.

For my preparation, I have been sweating the words. One doesn’t get to sing a Te Deum too often, and I haven’t done one with the TFC and didn’t memorize the traditional text when I last performed one (Arvo Pärt’s Te Deum with the Cascadian Chorale in Bellevue, Washington five years ago). But we have a few more rehearsals this week so I have time to get the text into my head, I think. Should be fun.

BSO: Brahms Requiem recording

I finally got around to ordering copies of the BSO’s Brahms Requiem recording (BSO Classics 0901); thanks to commenter SteelyTom for the prompt. I don’t, alas, have a SuperCD player or even good speakers at my disposal and am listening to it in my car and over headphones. But I’m enjoying it nonetheless.

As I wrote earlier, it’s a marathon of a piece, and the astonishing thing for me listening from the perspective of the audience is how little it sounds like a marathon. The opening is a little tricky: it’s a slow meditative movement, and there are distracting audience noises. But the second movement… I was listening in my car, which has superior sound reproduction (I love my Sennheisers, but with or without noise cancelling they trim off too many high frequencies), to this movement this morning, and had the volume cranked up to hear the quiet opening “Denn Alles Fleisch.” Brahms uses low strings and timpani to set the stage for the first statement of the theme by the chorus, then adds horns and an implacable crescendo underscored by the heartbeat of the timpani. When the chorus enters at forte it’s still a shock, a wall of sound that pushes the listener back, but is totally under control and comes back down to a simmer until it erupts again into another reprise, and then into the first fugue of the work. And I knew what was coming, and I had listened to the radio broadcasts, and I still had tears in my eyes.

I’m not an objective judge of the performance, so I’ll just note that despite some technical glitches, the final movement had me in tears again. Regarding the recording quality, I will say that if the rest of the work sounds like the first and second movements did in my car, this is to be listened to on good speakers turned up, where it will transport you squarely into Symphony Hall. If Maestro Levine’s goal was transparency, he got it: if you close your eyes, you can tell from the stereo imaging that the chorus was arranged soprano, bass, tenor, alto on the risers, and each of the instruments are clearly audible, yet there is still that fine sheen of ambience from the hall that places you precisely in the room. It’s a wonderful recording and a great souvenir for me, and I’m hoping to hear how it affects you.

BSO Classics: the BSO goes private label

The BSO announced yesterday that it was kicking off a series of recordings on its own BSO Classics label. I’m on three out of the four initial recordings as a member of the Tanglewood Festival Chorus: the Brahms Requiem, Bolcom Symphony No. 8, and Ravel’s Daphnis et Chloé. The recordings are available at the BSO’s download store now and will be on iTunes and other services next month.

As any observer of the classical music portion of the recording industry knows, it’s a rough time for classical recordings. The bigs aren’t doing much symphonic music any more, partly owing to fees owed to players unions (though some, like Philadelphia, appear to be working around that with revenue sharing agreements).

So the prospect of an orchestra entirely self-releasing its own material is interesting, to say the least. It will be interesting to see which way the BSO’s hedged bet on digital only releases (two of the recordings are also available on CD) will go.

New mix: Don’t be in love with the autograph

Again, posting the tracklist here because Art of the Mix is gone. I will send this one out, just as soon as I get around to sending the last ones out (yes, I’m aware that I’m about three months behind on that). Here’s, depending on the numbering system, 4.23 or JHNCD0035:

The Arcade Fire, “Neighborhood 1: Tunnels” (Funeral)
My Morning Jacket, “The Way That He Sings” (At Dawn)
Big Star, “She’s a Mover” (Radio City)
J-Live remixed by Steinski, “Them That’s Not (Cash Mix)” (What Does It All Mean?)
Thao, “Bag of Hammers” (We Brave Bee Stings and All)
Van Morrison, “Domino” (His Band and Street Choir)
Sufjan Stevens, “Chicago” (Illinoise)
The Reindeer Section, “Cartwheels” (Son of Evil Reindeer)
The Long Winters, “Blanket Hog” (When I Pretend to Fall)
Cat Power, “Free” (You Are Free)
Vampire Weekend, “One” (Vampire Weekend)
James Brown, “Bring It Up (Hipster’s Avenue)” (Star Time)
Spain, “Dreaming of Love” (The Blue Moods of Spain)
Freakwater, “Out Of This World” (Old Paint)
Sonic Youth, “Rain on Tin” (Murray Street)
Eva Cassidy, “Songbird” (Eva By Heart)
Beck, “Diamond Bollocks” (Mutations)

Friday Random 10: because it’s been too long edition

I put the iPod on shuffle earlier this week and was struck by two things: out of 1500 songs, it came up with two Nick Drake songs off the same album; and there are all kinds of ways to be embarrassed by your musical taste.

Smithereens, “A Girl Like You” (Blown to Smithereens: Best of)
Nick Drake, “Things Behind the Sun” (Pink Moon)
Sonic Youth, “New Hampshire” (Sonic Nurse)
Nick Drake, “Place to Be” (Pink Moon)
Minor Threat, “Look Back and Laugh” (Out of Step)
The Byrds, “You’re Still On My Mind (rehearsal – take #43)” (Sweetheart of the Rodeo)
Marvin Gaye, “You Sure Love to Ball” (Let’s Get It On)
R.E.M., “Driver 8” (Fables of the Reconstruction)
Pete Yorn, “For Nancy” (musicforthemorningafter)
Bob Dylan, “Who Killed Davey Moore?” (The Bootleg Series: Vols. 1-3)

Simon Boccanegra: the restraint of power

The BSO’s run on Verdi’s Simon Boccanegra, in which I’m singing with the Tanglewood Festival Chorus, has been eventful so far. Thursday was opening night, and both José Van Dam and James Morris had bad colds, taking the edge off the extremities of their ranges and generally blunting the dramatic momentum. Add to that the normal panoply of nerves and the show felt … well, not rough exactly, but not great.

What a difference two days make. Just before the opening of Saturday’s performance, the BSO management came out and announced that Morris had a bad cold and was withdrawing; taking his place would be Raymond Aceto, who had sung the relatively minor role of Pietro in rehearsals and opening night. Another singer would fill in Pietro’s role. In the chorus bleachers, I don’t think anyone was surprised that Morris wasn’t in, but there was a certain amount of anticipation for what would come next.

And Aceto’s performance made a world of difference. Where Morris played Fiesco as a menacing but relatively immobile force of nature, Aceto’s performance was resonant and dynamic, his acting vivid, and it sparked something in each of his collaborators. (I learned without surprise afterwards that he had sung the role at least once before, in Houston.) Everything snapped into focus in this production: for the chorus, crisp entrances and clearer diction; for the principals, more dramatic gestures and even better vocal control. Three cheers for Aceto, whose last-minute substitution saved the performance, if not the run.

So much for the performance. The opera itself is still working its way through me. Like a Shakespearian “problem play,” it does not categorize easily. Is it a political drama? Yes, but there’s also a substantial theme of family responsibility. Is it a comedy of mistaken identity? Well, it is right up until it turns tragic. (One backstage wit summarized the plot thus: “Boccanegra is a corsair, Fiesco hates him, Paolo is the bad guy, the tenor’s a bit dim, and the soprano needs to stop keeping secrets.”)

But the center of the play, first expounded in the council chamber scene and then echoed in Boccanegra’s reaction to his assassination, is about the restraint of power. Boccanegra could have set the hounds out and turned the mob on those that kidnapped his daughter and caused chaos in the streets, but instead settles the people and deals with the matter in private. Poisoned, he confronts his old enemy Fiesco and reveals Amelia’s identity, returning her to her family and settling an old grievance, and sets up a peaceful succession.

Is it then a political play? On paper, perhaps–and certainly, in the modern context, the temptation to make explicit parallels with modern history is strong. Ultimately, though, it’s the rediscovered connection between Boccanegra and Amelia that forms the pivot of the work, and for that one can only sit back and listen as the old doge’s love for the dead Maria is given new life in the duet with his daughter.

Hitting the boards again: Verdi, Simon Boccanegra

I’ve been a little busy lately with work and have let my link-posting take over the site. This week I finally got a break to do something a little different again. I’m singing in the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s production of Verdi’s Simon Boccanegra, with James Levine directing and José Van Dam in the title role, with Marcello Giordani and James Morris in key supporting roles.

The last Tanglewood Festival Chorus production I sang in (aside from Holiday Pops) was the Brahms Requiem, and the last opera was Berlioz’s Les Troyens. Needless to say, the Verdi is a different animal from them both–an opera both political and personal, on a much smaller scale than Les Troyens but with its own share of intense moments.

It’s been…interesting preparing this opera with the head cold I have right now. I hope I have a voice by the time the first performance is done tonight.

Favorite albums of 2008

It’s been almost a year since my last “best of” list, so it must be time for another one. Amidst the death spiral of the big music companies, there were a lot of good albums this year, so as before this includes more than a “top 10”:

She & Him, Volume One. Okay, so it’s Zooey Deschanel. But it’s also M. Ward. And the two of them together make some pretty beautiful music. The cover of the Beatles’ “Should’ve Known Better” is one of the nicer surprises on the album, but some of the originals (“Sentimental Heart”) in particular are quite good, and if Zooey’s singing voice is occasionally a little mawkish, her self-harmonies on a few of the tracks are worth the price of admission.

Nada Surf, Lucky. It wouldn’t be a top ten list from me without a Nada Surf album. This one doesn’t reach the heights of The Weight is a Gift or Let Go, but there are gems nonetheless, like the bizarre polka of “Ice on the Wing” and the yearning pull of “Beautiful Beat” and “Are You Lightning?”

My Morning Jacket, Evil Urges. There aren’t enough good Southern fried jam bands led by falsetto vocalists with undeniable funk tendencies in the world, and this is the best of them. I love the two-parter “Touch Me I’m Going to Scream” for the name and the music, and “Highly Suspicious” and “I’m Amazed” combine to ensure that the band will never be mistaken only for a bunch of left-wing Skynyrd impressionists.

Okkervil River, The Stand Ins. This band earns their presence on this list both for this album and their previous, The Stage Names, which I just discovered this year. Hat tip to my college classmate Darius Van Arman of Jagjaguwar for signing these guys.

Gemma Hayes, Hollow of Morning. A welcome return to the US market by the big-voiced wistful Irish vocalist. Her second album was never released stateside–I have yet to hear it–but her first, Night on My Side, was one of my favorites a few years ago. The new album takes the voice to some familiar places but also some quieter ones; Hayes seems both stronger and more fragile after a rough few years, and it makes for gripping listening.

Bon Iver, For Emma, Forever Ago. Hard to avoid this album this year, even if you’re consciously trying to listen to fewer angsty indie rock boy music. This album avoids being only angsty indie rock boy music by dint of its rough isolation and its complete bitter sincerity–a bracingly honest musical statement that can’t be listened to in a noisy room.

David Byrne/Brian Eno, Everything That Happens Will Happen Today. It sure isn’t My Life in the Bush of Ghosts II, and it didn’t have to be. There are some really brilliant songs on the album, David Byrne is in fine voice, and Brian Eno’s musical textures are as squelchy/crunchy/sweeping as ever. So what if Byrne doesn’t touch his guitar nearly enough and Eno’s beats are as white as ever? Well, actually fixing those two things would have made the album a lot better, but it’s still good enough to be on this list.

Elvis Costello and the Imposters, Momofuku. Put Elvis Costello into a room with a solid bunch of musicians and turn on the mikes and this is what you get–a searingly raucous set of new tunes that tear the status quo a new hole and rock their way into your jeans.

The Fireman, Electric Arguments. WTF is Paul McCartney doing on this list? Showing the youngsters how it’s done, mostly–some soaring electric moments, some amazing (but not saccharine) ballads, and a healthy dollop of experimentation. Much nicer than his Starbucks release from last year.

Cat Power, Jukebox. If Chan Marshall keeps releasing records like this, she’ll make a strong case that she’s this generation’s leading interpreter of popular song–an unlikely successor to the likes of Ella Fitzgerald or even Dusty Springfield, but a strong contender nonetheless. As in Springfield’s case, the backing band doesn’t hurt either. Nice slice of Memphis-ized greater and lesser known songs.

Bob Dylan, Tell Tale Signs. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: many artists would kill for songs as strong as the stuff Dylan throws away. Tell Tale Signs is effectively a direct sequel to the first three Bootleg volumes, which covered the period up through the mid-80s, and while it mines leftovers from a far smaller proportion of his sessions (Oh Mercy, Under the Red Sky, World Gone Wrong, Time Out of Mind, Love and Theft, and Modern Times), the result is a compelling set of tracks that prove Dylan’s continued vitality.

Beck, Modern Guilt. After a lightweight party album (Guero) and a disposable “serious” album (The Information), I was skeptical about the new recording, and bringing Danger Mouse to the party felt like a desperate grab for relevance by an artist several albums past his peak. Well, I was wrong–Danger Mouse was an inspired addition to the party (though the one non-DM track, “Chemtrails,” is one of the best on the album), and the album is tighter than anything Beck’s done in years. It hits you in the dance bone and gets out of there in 30 minutes. What more could you ask for?

Radiohead, In Rainbows. The album so nice they released it twice–digitally and physically–and so wonderful that they earned a place on my best list two years in a row. This year’s release of the live recordings of the material on the “Scotch Mist” video podcast gave me renewed appreciation for the soundcraft behind the sonic textures.

Shannon Worrell, The Honey Guide. I’ve written about the album at length, so I’ll just say that (a) there’s a reason that it’s been in my sidebar for months and (b) “If I Can Make You Cry” may be one of the strongest individual songs of the year. Shannon, when are you going to come up to Boston?

Vampire Weekend, Vampire Weekend. A candidate for fun party-music album of the year, this album features a bunch of white kids playing Afropop music and totally pulling it off. That their lyrics are about trust-fund kids from the Cape is a precious conceit, but the songs are fabulous nonetheless.

You can also see the list at Lists of Bests.