Otherwise, this is a gorgeous collection of tunes that I can’t get enough of. I can barely stand to listen to her half ass warble thru an epic song, but it’s at the end so i can just cut it off and not be too damaged by it. Oddly enough, the one you’d think would be the best song of the album ( Ode to Billie Joe sung by Lucinda Williams) is the worst. I’m going to count this as a continuation of my chick-lead albums since it was a) originally by a chick and b) is sung by chicks. This album recreates (somewhat) the 1968 self-written opus from southern belle Bobby Gentry, which was a bit of a commercial flop but is largely regarded as a perfect biopic of southern life along river bottoms and dirt roads before southern rock came around, and even before the reinvention of country music into a mainstream genre. Now, I’m not 100% sure that happens very often, although my top album in 2018 was also somewhat of a remake. I’m breaking some rules with this one as it’s not only a compilation album but also a remake of a previous album. Maybe all these formulaic, rudimentary, derivative crappy pop songs without any depth or meaning or story will once again be pushed aside when real artists rise to the occasion and remind us that someone out there has a story to tell and a craft to show. Maybe it’s just a bad year after yet another bad year ad infinitum and next year it will all turn around and musicians will figure out the age of the album isn’t completely gone. If you asked me to do a top 20, I’m probably going to be running pretty thin towards the end. I pieced together a full top 10 of very good albums, but as I went over my potential contenders, I had half the amount as previous years. I love the puzzle to solve, love to look for the hidden meanings, love to hear a story from “once upon a time” all the way to “ever after”. I like the idea of an artist having a story to tell, and then set it to rhythm and tones and matching chords and composition. I like listening to albums, even if I do it online. But like any good sellout, once the popular ones get a little footing under them, they dunk their heads into the tank just like any other musical artist who gets a wad of cash waved under their nose and suddenly succumbs to whatever all the other people around them are doing. Indies gave it their best shot and really kept the illusion alive for way longer than I thought. It makes me sad to see a huge part of my life dry up so quickly, but the art of building an album from start to scratch (pun intended) doesn’t exist anymore.
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