Denim on Wax's Favorite Albums of 2016

Every year at this time music lovers and fans of any branch of culture get inundated with the barrage of lists. Some people dread this sort of thing, while others crave it. I’m in the latter camp, and I always enjoy sifting through my mind, revisiting music I’ve listened to most of the year, listening even more closely to some music I may not have fully appreciated from the outset but have felt drawn to, etc.

I always hate assigning scores to reviews or pitting one thing I love against another, especially if genre, production, narrative themes or artistic intentions skew from each other or have little to no relativity whatsoever. I also try my hardest to refuse to chime in on what is the best or worst when it comes to these things. (This is why I always designate them as my “favorite” as opposed to “best of”.) My goal is usually to take a few extra moments to appreciate what has stuck out to me personally, what has intoxicated me musically or has engrossed my brain or emotions throughout the year and take note of why I enjoy it so much. Several albums I have enjoyed throughout the year have dominated nearly every poll from every publication, even if I have seemed to have found even more to love in albums that didn’t find much traction elsewhere. I try not to sweat too much about what isn’t on my list and what is on all the others, because we each bring so many unique considerations to any listening experience and we all have varying tastes and sweet spots when it comes down to slipping into the world of a record or stumbling upon an artist new to us.

Simply put, these are the records I’ve turned to time after time throughout this year and plan to revisit as new years keep coming. Many are artists I’ve loved for all of my adult life, some have been in rotation for me even longer than that, while several others were brand new to my ears and make me excited to hear more. Obviously, I can’t listen to any more than what equates to a blip in the sea of music released every year, but I do consciously try to hear as much as one person can as many times as he can to listen with any kind of justice. With that said, I tend to stream as little music as possible and buy as many records as I can with whatever spending money I have from month to month. The vast majority of the albums on this list are records I personally own and putting together a post like this always has an intention of showing even deeper support to the people who have created the music that has kept me company and filled me with varying shades of wonder throughout the year.

I hope you find something to enjoy. Thanks for visiting.

J

 

 

 Drive-By Truckers - American Band

 

 

 

 

 Lydia Loveless- Real

 

 

 

 

Angel Olsen - My Woman

 

 

 

  

Wilco -Schmilco

 

 

 

Courtney Marie Andrews - Honest Life

 

 

 

 

 Hamilton Leithauser + Rostam -

I Had a Dream That You Were Mine

 

 

 

 

Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds - Skeleton Tree

 

 

 

 

Whitney - Light Upon the Lake

 

 

 

 

Fort Frances - Alio

 

 

 

 

Nada Surf - You Know Who You Are

 

 

 

 

 Brian Fallon - Painkillers

 

 

 

 

Beach Slang - A Loud Bash of Teenage Feelings

 

 

 

 

Jeff Rosenstock - worry.

 

 

 

 

The Hotelier - Goodness

 

 

 

 

Pinegrove - Cardinal

 

 

 

 

 Marissa Nadler - Strangers

 

 

 

 

Mitski - Puberty 2

 

 

 

 

Kevin Morby - Singing Saw

 

 

 

 

Andy Shauf - The Party

 

 

 

 

 Explosions in the Sky - The Wilderness

 

 

 

 

Sturgill Simpson - A Sailor's Guide to Earth

 

 

 

 

 

Car Seat Headrest - Teens of Denial

 

 

 

 

 

 Bon Iver - 22, A Million

 

 

 

 

David Bowie - ★

 

 

 

 

A Tribe Called Quest -

We got it from here... Thank You 4 Your Service 

 

 

 

 

 

Leonard Cohen - You Want It Darker 

 

 

 

 

Band of Horses - Why Are You Ok 

 

 

 

 

Okkervil River - Away

 

 

 

 

 

Cymbals Eat Guitars - Pretty Years

 

 

 

 

 

Lucinda Williams - The Ghosts of Highway 20

 

 

 

 

 

Into It. Over It. - Standards

 

 

 

 

American Football - American Football (LP 2)

 

 

 

Robert Ellis - Robert Ellis 

 

 

 

 

Mount Moriah - How to Dance

 

 

 

 

Hiss Golden Messenger - Heart Like a Levee 

 

 

 

 

The Jayhawks - Paging Mr. Proust

 

 

 

 

Robbie Fulks - Upland Stories

 Mike Adams at His Honest Weight - Casino Drone

 

 

 

 

Hayes Carll - Lovers and Leavers

 

 

 

 

Damien Jurado - Visions of Us on the Land

 

 

 

 

Margo Price - Midwest Farmer's Daughter

 

 

 

 

 

Radiohead - A Moon Shaped Pool

 

 

 

 

Freakwater - Scheherazade 

 Twin Peaks - Down in Heaven

 

 

 

Fruit Bats - Absolute Loser

 

Psychic Ills - Inner Journey Out

 

 

 

 

Big Thief - Masterpiece

 

 

 

 

Blind Pilot - And Then Like Lions

 

 

 

 

The I Don't Cares - Wild Stab

 

 

 

 

Al Scorch - Circle Round the Signs

 

 

 

 

Dori Freeman - Dori Freeman

 

 

 

Hinds - Leave Me Alone  

 

 

 

 

Kishi Bashi - Sonderlust

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Preview: Murder By Death at the Vogue Theatre, Indianapolis



Murder By Death (photo credit: Greg Whitaker)

The music of Murder By Death has always struck me as best-suited for autumn, especially here in the Midwest. The swings in tone between fluid, ornate melody and thunderous discord evokes an atmosphere of days shortening, nights encroaching to demarcate boundaries deeper into the mornings and earlier into the quickly-dwindling evenings, the oppressive weight of several months of winter on the horizon.

Murder By Death (originally formed in Bloomington) seems to thrive in this atmosphere, marrying the portentous and the cathartic to chilling effect. Mixing gritty folk and orchestral chamber-rock wrapped around murder ballads, gothic lore and plots of scorched earth between some heaven and some worldly purgatory, they are songs of the nature of man, mostly bleak and draped in poignant flourishes.

And what better night for a Murder By Death show than the lone Saturday night between Halloween and Election Day? Few bands can capture such spirit for a week bookended by a celebration of all things ghoulish and the consuming dread of potential end times quite so majestically. Perhaps, the only way the band could top such ripe fodder for a memorable set would be to perform the set at the Stanley Hotel (home of the infamous Overlook Hotel from Kubrick’s The Shining), which Murder by Death has done annually to rabid fanfare for years now.

The band is currently touring in support of the excellent, seventh full-length album, Big Dark Love (Bloodshot Records), a record I’ve lived with for most of the past two years. In recent weeks, I’ve found myself eagerly revisiting the 2012 knockout, Bitter Drink, Bitter Moon, and Good Morning, Magpie along with MBD’s deep catalog of darkly tinged arrangements and anthems to prepare for the anticipated Indy date.

Even with a stacked roster of solid bets for a Saturday night in Indianapolis (Band of Horses at Old National Centre and Marshall Crenshaw with the Bottle Rockets at the Hi-Fi come to mind, among others), my money is on Murder By Death at the Vogue. Fellow Louisville-based trio Twin Limb will open the show in support.

Tickets for the show are $18.50 in advance or $21 at the door.

Listen:
"Send Me Home" from Big Dark Love



Video:
"Lost River" from Bitter Drink, Bitter Moon