Monday, August 07, 2006

I Got Nothin' This Morning
So here's a list of 15 great recent rock albums

Yeah yeah yeah, de gustibus non est disputandum, blah blah blah. But I don't read Latin, so I'm going to go out on a limb and vouch for these as objectively great albums. Superb, every one. Guaranteed.

Listed alphabetically.

Ryan Adams -- Cold Roses (2005)

Badly Drawn Boy -- The Hour of Bewilderbeast (2000)

Devendra Banhart -- Cripple Crow (2005)

Caitlyn Cary and Thad Cockrell -- Begonias (2005)

Calexico -- The Black Light (1998)

Cat Power -- The Greatest (2006)

Nick Cave -- Lyre of Orpheus (2004)

Hayden -- Elk-Lake Serenade (2004)

Joe Henry -- Tiny Voices (2003)

Damien Jurado -- On My Way to Absence (2005)

Lambchop -- What Another Man Spills (1998)

Lambchop -- Aw C'mon / No, You C'mon (2004)

Mark Olson -- My Own Joellen (2000)

Various Artists -- Total Lee: The Songs Of Lee Hazlewood (2002)

Paul Westerberg -- Stereo (2002)

I've tried to focus on relatively recent releases, but I've recommended a few earlier albums where I think they're clearly superior to a band's later stuff. While I've listed just an album or two from each Lambchop, Hayden, Calexico and Damien Jurado, I'd feel comfortable recommending pretty much their entire catalogs.

If you'd like to sample anything from this list, just go over to Amazon and listen to the free excerpts they provide toward the bottom of most CD listing pages. That's often a good place to buy, too, from the "new and used" reseller listings.

And for those of you not familiar with All Music Guide, it's a very powerful, free web resource for researching both popular and classical music. I've found it to be valuable for cross-referencing from bands I know I like to ever more of the great music being made today.

What are you listening to that you'd like to share? Please contribute in comments.

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