The Best of 2009

I know most Best of the Years are out before the year is even over, but we here at the stately Voices mansion wanted to take our time and make sure that someone didn't slip a great album in at the last minute.  (In other words we're scrambling to try and not be too late in getting this thing up.)

A caveat about this list and best of lists in general.  We can pretend that we think this is the best music of the last year, but what we really mean is that this is the music we liked the most.  Another site or magazine will definitely have a different list, everyone's thoughts are different.  That doesn't mean there wasn't a lot of other good music out there, there was, this was what we found to be the music we listened to the most, that kept finding its way back to our cd players or kept getting hit on our Ipods.

Also we should point out that the point of this site is to highlight those artists that you normally don't see a lot of press for, so our Best of list is going to reflect that.  We run a thin line here between who we think should be featured here and those who appear in the mainstream mags such as Rolling Stone.  We don't want to ignore someone that is making great music just because they had a write up or review in the Stone or Spin, good music is good music.  But you won't see any mention of any acts like Geen Day or U2 who put out music that deserves to be on a Best of list themselves, they will undoubtly find themselves on plenty of such lists for the year.   We want to feature what we consider the Best of that may not get as much attention as we think they deserve.

We'll count down backwards to what we thought the best of the year, just to keep you in suspense.

10.  Some Assembly Required by Assembly of Dust:  A group that has been together for over a decade this roots rock group plays without a lot of flash, but its songs are heartfelt and its emotions sincere.  On this album they gather together a collection of friends and idols such as Bela Fleck, Martin Sexton and Theresa Andersson to help perform the music.

9. Time Stands Still by Chris Smither:  Chris has been performing since the mid-sixties, starting in the New York fold scene with such greats as Eric Von Schmidt.  This is his 13th release and is a stripped down affair, relying on mostly his voice and guitar with quiet help from his bandmates.  This is folk blues at the best.

8.  Middle Cyclone by Neko Case:  This is where the line becomes thin, some people might think Neko has had more than her share of attention.  This album debuted at number three on the charts.  But we love Neko and while she is probably one of the artists here with more recongntion she is still a far cry from being a sure thing.  (We're not sure that makes sense but like we've said before good music is good music and that's the end point of this site.)  Neko has  voice unlike anyone else out there and her writing continues to amaze.  She's moved away from her americana style and is creating her own style.

7.  I and Love and You by Avett Brothers:  This is the major lable debut from the North Carolina brothers.  Rick Rubin produces and while he cleans up their style they still put out a great disc of music.  Pop, bluegrass, punk, whatever the term you want to put to them they put out a great album.

6.  Golden Apples of the Sun by Caroline Herring:  Another singer that's been around for more than a few albums.  She moves away from her country influenced sound to more of a modern feel.  She contributes great original tunes such at "The Dozens" and others about her childhood and upbringing as well as covering songs you wouldn't expect like Cyndi Lauper's "True Colors" but making it her own in doing so.

5. Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit by Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit: In a band of great song writers like the Drive by Truckers Jason still stood out.  This is his release and is better than his solo debut. He writes great story songs and continues the streak here with songs about everday people and their lives.

4. Live at Jazz Fest by John Boutte:  This album is only available through the New Orleans Jazz Fest web page, but is more than worth seeking out.  John has a voice that reminds me of Sam Cooke and is best heard live.  He takes "City of New Orleans" and makes it his song, after hearing his version I can't imagine anyone else doing it as well.  He does a version of Paul Simon's "American Tune" with just Paul Sanchez on guitar that is haunting and beautiful.

3. Written In Chalk by Buddy and Julie Miller:  One of my favorite albums of the year.  Anything this husband and wife does I'm there to listen to.  The song opens with "Ellis County" a song written by Julie about her childhood.  From country to folk to rocking out this song covers it all.

2. Coldwater by Shannon McNally:  This album contains parts of Shannon's unreleased Windswept Moon which we called the best album of the year that it never appeared in but was supposed to.  Like the number one album this is an album made for adult relationships and features her own songs as well as some covers by Bob Dylan and others.  The centerpiece of the album is her own song "Bohemian Wedding Song".  "The battles that you've lost/Are as beautiufl as your victories to me" sums it up for me.

1. The Wreckage by Will Hoge:  Just a little over a year ago Will was seriously injured when a van hit him while driving home from a late night recording session.  Besides just learning how to play again he's had to learn how to walk again.  With the title of this album a lot of people might have assumed it was going to reflect on the accident, but he stays clear of that subject.  What he focuses on here is how two adults can try to live together, love together and what happens when that doesn't happen.  This is most mature work to date and just a remarkable album from the cover to the music itself.

The FTC and Us

Recently the FTC issued some new regulations that have created quite a stir in the blogging world. Basically it said:

The FTC will require that writers on the Web clearly disclose any freebies or payments they get from companies for reviewing their products. The commission also said advertisers featuring testimonials that claim dramatic results cannot hide behind disclaimers that the results aren't typical.

It shouldn't come as a surprise that some of the reviews of the albums on this site have been provided by either the artists in question or their publicity firm or someone else associated with the artist. Actually looking back on most of the reviews I've done so far and the truth is that the majority of these reviews have been on albums I have actually purchased. My last major review was Will Hoge's newest The Wreckage and I brought that album off of Amazon in vinyl form. Still I do have a stack of albums on the side of my desk that have been provided to me free in hopes of a review.

I understand where the FTC is coming from. Lots of sites on the internet talk about products or trips and you as the reader may think they're just talking about something they've recently experience and not have any idea that they are being paid to talk about said product or that trip they recently took. On my personal site altjiranga mitjina I've did Pay Posts, but I always went out of my way to label them as such. If I was getting paid to write about something I made sure that anyone reading the post knew such.

I'm not sure if I've stressed the fact that some of the music on this site comes from people trying to push said artists. I quess I always figured it was a given. But if not I want to make clear that I do recieve free albums and downloads from publicity firms hoping to get the word out on their artist.

Does getting a free album in the mail mean I'm going to feature them on this site or give them a good review? Of course not. If I don't like the artists' music than I'm not going to give them a good review. But you have to remember the point of this site is to help promote artists that need a little extra help, those singers and songwriters and groups that don't have a giant corporation behind them, that don't appear on the late night shows, that don't have the full page ads in the newest issue of Rolling Stone. We're trying to get the word out on these artists.

We made a promise when we started this site and if you go read our Mission statement you'll see it there:

We plan to be positive on this site. Our main goal is the weekly features that showcase a new artist. Inbetween these weekly features we’ll pass along news and tour information, maybe do some album reviews and even a concert review here and there. Our plan is to pass on the good and if we come across things we don’t like we’ll do what our Mom told us when we were kids, “if you can’t say something nice, than don’t say anything at all.”

So just because you don't see us bad mouthing an artist or giving someone's album a bad review doesn't mean we've been bought off. It just means that if we don't like someone's music we'd rather not talk about it on here.

For albums that we review that have been provided to us from an artist or their representative we'll put a disclaimer at the end of the review to let you know. But believe us when we say that it won't effect our words on the music.

But we want to point out that we couldn't do as good a job as we do without these publicists and friends of the artists providing us with their music. We seek out and find a lot of new music that gets passed by, but we've discovered a lot more with the help of these friends of the artists. We would never had discovered such great artists as Nathan Lane, Chris Smither, Nicholas Howard and so many more without the aid of such help. They provide a great help in our mission to discover new music and get the word out there about it.

Video: Chris Smither

This is a video of Chris Smither performing "Train Home." We'll be talking more about the talented Mr. Smither in the future and his wonderful new album Time Stands Still.