Mid-Year 2016: The Best Albums I've Heard So Far

Let's be honest: mid-year lists are kind of superfluous. I expect that my opinions on the records below will continue to shift. Add six months' worth of new releases, and my list come December will almost certainly look nothing like this one does. With that said, I've heard a lot of great albums this year, and I wanted an opportunity to reflect and think about which ones have resonated the most. All 10 of these records (plus the bonus EP) get the highest recommendation from me.

Happy July and happier listening!

1. Parker Millsap - The Very Last Day

With a force-of-nature voice, a sharp talent for storytelling, and more than a bit of wit and charisma, Parker Millsap weaves The Very Last Day into 2016's best album—so far, anyway. He's only 23 years old and this is only his second record, but when you hear him wail on "You Gotta Move" or spin a tale about the homosexual son of a preacher on "Heaven Sent," you might swear he's got twice that many under his belt.
 

2. Sturgill Simpson - A Sailor's Guide to Earth

Sturgill Simpson's breakthrough record, 2014's Metamodern Sounds in Country Music, was an explosion of classic country, tinged with psychedelia. The Kentucky singer/songwriter paints with an even broader brush on the follower up, A Sailor's Guide to Earth—to the point where many of his fans cried betrayal and bitched about it not being "country enough." Fuck that. On this record, "country music" is anything Simpson wants it to be. He pulls in influences from a dozen genres to create a love letter to his new son, from soul to progressive rock to grunge and beyond.

3. Brian Fallon - Painkillers

On his first solo record, the frontman from The Gaslight Anthem opts out of reinventing the wheel. Instead, he surges straight down the center of the highway, writing songs that feature his usual mix of classic rock, folk, Americana, and references to favorite songs and movie stars. If you wanted a more polarizing record in the vein of Gaslight's Get Hurt, you were probably disappointed by Painkillers. This album, though, showcases Brian Fallon as an artist who knows what he does well and is perfectly content to put out a record that emphasizes strength of songwriting craft over surprises. The decision to hold steady pays off, with cuts like "A Wonderful Life," "Rosemary," and "Open All Night" ranking among his best ever.

4. The 1975 - I like it when you sleep…

On their debut, 2013's self-titled album, The 1975 were a pop band willing to draw as much from emo as they were from boy bands. They were unique, but not flamboyantly so. On the follow up, though, these boys from Manchester transform into the most audacious band currently making music. Long ambient interludes transition into straight-up pop jams, while the album's most John Hughes soundtrack-worthy anthem ("This Must Be My Dream") is just two tracks away from a raw acoustic heartbreaker ("Nana"). The record—like its title—is a hair unwieldy, but start combing the tracklist for inessential songs and you'll make an interesting discovery: there aren't any.

5. The Hotelier - Goodness

 

When it comes to scene classics, it's usually not very hard to tell what's going to stand the test of time. From the first time I listened to Goodness, it sounded like something that kids were going to be discovering 10 years down the road, in the same way that they still discover stuff like Clarity. Less catchy and intense than its predecessor, 2014's Home, Like NoPlace Is There, Goodness is also much more life-affirming, trading the dark emotional doldrums of Home for flickers of love, wistful reflection, and uplift. The songs aren't always as striking as the ones from the last album, but some of them—like "Opening Mail for My Grandmother" and "End of Reel"—are as viscerally engaging as anything this band has ever written.

6. Josh Kelley - New Lane Road

To the outside eye, Josh Kelley peaked early in his career, landing a minor hit off his 2003 debut album with "Amazing." Fast-forward 13 years, though, and Kelley is the rare, almost unheard-of artist who is making his best music with his eighth full-length. A collision of pop, soul, country, folk, and even a little bit of gospel, New Lane Road is as instantly timeless as new albums come. Kelley's voice has always been his not-so-secret weapon, so smooth and delicate one minute and full of force the next. Here, he parlays it into more than a few remarkable moments of pathos, with the bookends ("It's Your Move" and "Only God Can Stop Her Now") standing out most clearly.

7. Maren Morris - Hero

The hooks on Maren Morris's major label debut are so huge that it's not hard to see why she is being heralded as the new country "It" girl. On songs like "Sugar," "Rich," and "80s Mercedes," she effortlessly combines wit, sense for melody, and girl power into an irresistible sound that isn't quite pop and isn't quite country. It's on the ballads where Morris really sets herself apart from the crowd, though, with the likes of "I Could Use a Love Song," "I Wish I Was," and the soaring "Once" sounding like iconic classics in the making.

8. Donovan Woods - Hard Settle, Ain't Troubled

Donovan Woods has always been a talented songwriter, but Hard Settle, Ain't Troubled, his fourth full-length, takes his chops to the next level. More experienced as a writer now than he was a few years ago (having landed songs on a few albums by major Nashville country artists), he conveys different kinds of desolation here with an eye for detail and a clear willingness to twist the knife. From the fracturing relationship of "On the Nights You Stay Home" to the universal regret of "The First Time," all the way to the roller coaster of emotions that defines "Leaving Nashville," Woods will break your heart at least half a dozen times on this record.

9. Sister Hazel - Lighter in the Dark

And here I thought I'd outgrown Sister Hazel. One of my favorite bands from childhood, this roots rock act from Gainesville hadn't made a record that resonated with me since 2006's Absolutely. Lighter in the Dark revitalizes their sound, taking the band in the most overtly "country" direction of their career. The result is a bona-fide summer soundtrack, crammed with road-trip-ready anthems ("Fall off the Map," "Run Highway Run"), classic rock throwbacks (the Eagles-flavored "Prettiest Girl at the Dance"), and dusky, lantern-lit ballads ("Ten Candle Days"). Suffice to say I've reached for this album a lot for runs or long drives on sunny days.
 

10. Brandy Clark - Big Day in a Small Town

Brandy Clark's sophomore record is a bit glossier than her debut (2013's 12 Stories), but don't mistake this album as a mainstream sellout maneuver. Clark is still one of the best songwriters in the country music genre, and this record includes at least five of the year's best compositions. Clark can spin a great chorus (the gorgeous and wistful "Homecoming Queen," or the anthem of heartbreak that is "Love Can Go to Hell"), but her secret weapon is the details: the son who can't talk about his late father until after he's had a couple drinks in "Since You've Gone to Heaven," or the single mother in "Three Kids, No Husband" whose only moments to herself come during smoke breaks at work. At her best, Clark's understanding of the beaten and downtrodden is almost Springsteen-level.

EP: Steve Moakler – Steve Moakler

If Steve Moakler's self-titled EP were a few songs longer, I would have been tempted to include it on this list. Moakler's brand of pop country is breezy summertime fare, but his unique voice and his eye for detail elevate his songs above anything and everything on country radio these days. "Summer without Her" is what Dashboard Confessional's Dusk and Summer might have sounded like if Chris Carrabba had taken a more Nashville-driven approach, while "Suitcase" has a hook that should make Moakler famous. Here's hoping that we'll see a full-length before year's end.

Interview: Donovan Woods (February 10th, 2016)

A few weeks ago, I had the chance to speak with Canadian folk singer/songwriter Donovan Woods. We talked about Woods' fantastic new album, Hard Settle, Ain't Troubled, which is officially out today. We also spoke, in detail, about songwriting, co-writing, the idea of capturing a dichotomy of ideas in a single song, American country music, and Donovan's experiences writing songs for Tim McGraw and Lady Antebellum's Charles Kelley.

 

 

You've got a new album coming out in, what is it, two weeks now?

Yeah, I guess two weeks! The 26th, so what's that? Yeah, two weeks.

Anything planned for the day of the release?

I'm going to be on a tour, so I'll be playing in Winnipeg on that night. So it'll just be a show day and then back on the bus, but after this tour is over there'll be a big release party, probably in Toronto, in March I think.

Are you on a solo tour or are you touring with someone right now?

I'm opening for a fellow named Matt Anderson who's a blues artist from Canada. Haven't started yet, starting on Monday going all the way from BC to Halifax in Canada.

In the past few years your songs have appeared on albums by Tim McGraw and then the new one by Charles Kelley. Who else have you written for or written with?

I wrote a song that's on Billy Curington's record, he's a country guy. A bunch of Canadian artists. I written with a lot of Canadian country artists. People that aren't quite famous south of the (Canadian) border, but people that do well on the radio up here. And now I'm starting to write with all types of Nashville artists as well, but nothing...you don't want to talk too much about it, because you never know if the song is going to make the record and you're sort of just waiting in the wings. But all types of people, big and small, which is very lucky.

So how does the experience of writing for other people--and especially since you've been writing with more Nashville artists recently--how did that influence the music that you were making for this new record?

Well this is my first record that's ever had co-writes on it. All three of my other records I wrote entirely by myself. I wrote these songs--five of these songs I wrote by myself and five of them I wrote with other people. So I've never had that before. I never recorded a song under my own name that I recorded with someone else. So that's a new experience. I don't know that two years ago I would have ever said I would have done that, but eventually you find the right people to write with, and then before you know it, you're leaving the room with a song that you might love and you might put on a record. Once you're writing with good people, you end up with good songs. Not surprising! So once that sort of changed, yeah, it was easy to see myself putting a co-written song on a record. And maybe that makes the songs a little bit more...impersonal? I don't know that it does. I'm not sure that it does. I'm not sure what it changes. I think that the best part about co-writing is you get a point of view that you don't have on your own. I don't know, are you a musician?

Yes.

So you know how it is. You sort of play the same thing on the guitar, you sort of do what you do. You have your tricks, and it's really hard to break out of that. You're kind of trained, in a lot of ways. It's hard to break out of your patterns. And lyrically, I'm sure that you know it's kind of the same way: it's hard to break out of the phrasing that you use, and it's nice having another person there to get you outside of that. Then you can make something that's actually new and exciting. Hopefully!

Yeah, definitely! Yeah, when I go to write songs it's always usually like, I start with the same chords and I find myself writing similar melodies so, I can definitely picture--I've never written with another person, at least not yet--but I can imagine.

Yeah, before I done a bit of it, I thought...I couldn't imagine it. It seemed so, like such a crazy idea to me. It's fun now to be a lot more comfortable with it and, yeah, I don't have that problem anymore where I sit down and I play something that's the same when I write with somebody else. The other function of it is that it just gives you an appointment to go do it. But I'm old, I have a whole bunch of responsibilities, so I really need to structure my time in writing. Because if I don't...I have all types of cool stuff in my house! (Laughs) Like, I would go watch TV, you know? I would almost rather do anything, because writing songs is...it's pretty hard! So having a writing appointment is pretty convenient once you're an old dude. I'm not that old, but you know, once you have a whole bunch of responsibilities.

When you sit down to write a song, do you say to yourself "I'm going to look to have this cut by someone else" or do you say "This one's for me," or do you just write the song and see where it goes?

You just write. I mean, the funny part is that any time I've ever sat down thinking "I want to try to write a song for X artist," it never works. It's just...I don't know, you are usually not rewarded by the songwriting gods for doing that, and deservedly so. It just seems to me that sitting down with a good idea and sitting down with someone to try to get that idea to the best place, try to tell a story in the best way you can, try to represent an idea in the best way to can, or like map out a feeling, or...trying to do that accurately is always more rewarding to yourself, at the end of the day, and always more rewarding in that people want to cut it. And the ones that I've had cut we didn't think anybody was going to cut. When we were writing that "Portland, Maine" song that Tim McGraw cut, we didn't think anybody was going to record that. It was too sad! We were like "No one's ever going to like this." We turned it into the publishers, they were like "No one's ever going to cut this." And it made sense, because it was too sad, it was too...sort of a tiny little story, a tiny little narrative. You know, it's not what's on country radio, it's not what country artists are doing right now.

But the ones that you write and feel passionate about tend to be the ones that other people feel passionate about too, so I try to not prescribe anything and just sit down and try to write a good idea. To write a song that I can be proud of and don't have to be ashamed of. Because I've certainly written a lot, and there are songs on the radio in Canada that I'm ashamed of. (Laughs) And the feeling of someone like Charles cutting a song like "Leaving Nashville" and the response that that gets from people is infinitely more rewarding than making some money off a song that you want to blow your brains out when you hear it.

Last year we got two one-off singles from you: we got "Portland, Maine," your version of it, and we got "That Hotel." And neither of those are on this album.

Yeah, well "Portland, Maine" will be like a bonus track: you'll get it when you get the record I guess.

Yeah, I saw that on the iTunes version.

But it's not a real...not really on the record.

Yeah, not on the vinyl.

Oh yeah, that's right.

Was there a specific reason that you decided to leave those two off?

Well, I felt that "That Hotel" was a bit more...I mean, this record is...it wasn't really about me, and I think the ones on this record are...to me, they're about me. And it felt like those two were a little bit not about me. Although, "That Hotel" is...I mean, at the moment, it's becoming more and more about me, but... (Laughs) I also just thought that the mood of it didn't really suit this record. And I like it as a standalone song. I like that it was released as just one sad as hell song. (Laughs) So I didn't want to mess with that. I just thought I would leave it alone and let people enjoy it for what it is.

So speaking of "Leaving Nashville," that song is sort of fascinating to me, because it provides this very sobering view of Nashville—and sort of by extension, a sobering view of the American Dream. What inspired you to write that song? And was it coming from a cynical place or was it more like, this is just how life in this city and trying to be a professional songwriter is?

Yeah, I think that one of the things I'm always trying to do with records and songs is get that dichotomy of experience accurately, just in terms of how bad things can feel good and good things can feel bad. Something can be awful and feel fine at the same time. Both of those thoughts can be present and true simultaneously. So I think that loathing a place and loving a place is an idea that was interesting to me, and that's sort of what I was trying to represent.

I think that, like a lot of places, it was an idea that I'd had for a really long time, and I had pitched it at a couple other writers, and they didn't want to write it with me because they didn't quite understand it. So I took it to Abe [Stoklasa], and Abe understood it immediately. We wrote it in about 30 or 40 minutes. So it resonated with him.

I think the idea, to me, I didn't want it to be cynical. I didn't want to be, like, shitting on Nashville. I think that there's something about that place, and a lot of places in America, that there isn't in Canada. Like, we don't have towns like that in Canada, where it's ruthless and it's like a hustle to get to the top, but that can reward you in such a fantastic way. It can be simultaneously depressing, the bottom of the barrel of these people trying to make money on songs. But at the same time, there's just this fantastic hope, this crackling energy of possibility. And New York is like that. Los Angeles is like that. These towns that can be loathed and loved at the exact same time.

I think that certainly is what Nashville represents to me. There's just so many people there doing exactly what I want to do. Ever since I was a kid, I've wanted to go there and write songs, and the first thing I Googled when I got the internet was Warner Capitol, because I heard that that was a company that paid songwriters just to write songs. So I think there's something about it that I love, and I was just to represent that dichotomy of feeling about that place. Sorry, that's a very long answer!

No, that's great! That's sort of what I got from it, is the dichotomy, so it's cool to hear you explain that.

Yeah, it just felt like it was a good way to represent the feelings of it, you know? Just to list a bunch of really sort of on-the-line can-be-awful things, and then saying it's doesn't matter: you're still never leaving. Ironic for me, because I don't even live there and I leave all the time. (Laughs) It's kind of ironic when all you do is leave!

Yeah, and speaking of irony, that song is also the closer on that Charles Kelley record. Is it ironic to you that this song, where it's like "if it ain't a single it don't me nothing," this was one of the ones that you wrote that another artist ended up picking up and recording?

Yeah, I think it's funny. I don't think it'll be a single! (Laughs) I still don't think it'll be a single. But we also tried to make the song--like, it says "pour out your heart in 3:20"--we also tried to make the song exactly three minutes and 20 seconds. I don't think Charles' version is that exact length. But you know, I think that's part of the appeal of it. I mean, to hear Charles sing "your friends are friends with country stars," to have a country star singing that is...you know, there's something really interesting about it. And it's got layers to it that you can think about. I think that's why it's resonating with people. That's why we liked it when we wrote it. We just thought "Wow, there's a lot of shit in here. There's a lot of stuff going on in this song." I don't think there's much...I don't want to, you know...I love Nashville, but there's not a lot of stuff like that coming out of Nashville. Kacey Musgraves and Chris Stapleton. And Jason Isbell, you could say, is part of Nashville, but in a way he's not. But, there just aren't very many songs that you can live inside. But that's not...not all songs have to be like that, you know? Like, there's value in Luke Bryan. He's really great. Those guys are amazing at what they do. But I love a song that you can get lost in.

Yes. Absolutely. I agree. So, when these artists like Tim and Charles cut your songs, do you meet with them or speak with them? Or do you just get a call from your publisher and it's like "Hey, someone wants this song"? I've always been curious about how that works.

Sometimes it's either one. I mean, the one with Tim, neither of us know--Abe Stoklasa and I wrote that "Portland, Maine" song too--neither of us know Tim. So, yeah, that one was just our publisher calling and saying "He likes it." And I never spoke him at all about it, until briefly later. But it was just that: he said he was gonna cut it, and then we waited around to hear it. And I didn't even hear it until the record came out. And I bought the record the day it came out, went looking for it.

So sometimes it's like that. And other times it's like...Abe knows Charles and has written for him before. Abe wrote a song on Lady Antebellum's last record. The best song on the record. So Abe knew Charles and had a relationship with Charles, and we sent him the work tape of the song. And we never demoed the song, he just cut it off the work tape. So then we were in communication with him about whether he was going to use it and whether he liked it, so we knew he was thinking of putting it on the record. Eventually I heard the studio version, but I heard that a long while ago, before it came out. And I've since written with Charles on a bunch of other songs.

So yeah, it's either/or, and sometimes it's both, you know? A lot of times, cuts in Nashville come from personal relationships with artists, though. The Tim McGraw one, with him completely not knowing us, is pretty rares. It's also pretty rare for him to pick a song from two writers who had never had a cut before. But it happens in all different ways and that's what's so fun about it.

Yeah, that's great. So there's a song in the middle of this record that, when you said "a song you can live inside," it made me think of this. Because this song kind of reminded me of Jason Isbell, actually. But it's "They Don't Make Anything in That Town." And it's really desolate and heartbreaking and pretty much made me stop what I was doing and pay attention because it's that kind of song. What inspired that for you? Is that autobiographical.

Yeah. Thanks, I'm glad that you like that song! Those are stories from my hometown. I don't have that negative feeling of my hometown. I go there pretty frequently. But I feel like it could be pretty hard for some people. But that's sort of just a pastiche of things that I heard about happening in the town, but things that didn't happen to me. But just sort of trying to add up to something that's indicative of a bigger story. That's all I'm trying to do. Pretty depressing, though, that song. Pretty depressing. (Laughs)

Yeah, it's a tough one. (Laughs) I was actually sort of surprised that that one didn't end the record, but then I remembered that "Leaving Nashville" was on here.

Yeah, that was the big argument. I kind of wanted "They Don't Make Anything in That Town" to end the record, but I kind of let my producers...I like to let my producers have a big fan track order, because they've listened to it more than anybody. I just feel like they need a say. I don't know, I feel like every song I've ever written is probably a "last song on the record," to be honest with you, so it never surprises me whichever one gets picked.

Just a lot of sad. Yeah, you gotta end the record sad.

Yeah, I don't know what... (Laughs) Why is that true? I wonder why that's try that it's always sad at the end of the record.

I think it comes from wanting to end on a ballad, and then a lot of ballads are sad.

Yeah, I guess. So many times though, when somebody cuts one of my songs and I see the tracklisting, it's like number 11 or number 10. And then you know, you know they're never singling it. (Laughs)

I mean, with Charles at least, that song was...it wasn't a pre-release thing, but he did the one mic, one take video, so...

Yeah, he did the video for it and all that. Yeah, that song, people will know enough about that song to sort of reach out to hear it, and all the reviews are about it. But you know, you get to wanting to hear yourself...like, I wanna hear my songs on American country radio. I've heard myself in Canada. I've just dreamed of having a song [on American radio]. I think I will eventually, but I don't know if it's that song. That song is pretty sad for the radio.

Yeah, I think if there would be one on hear that I would call a "radio song" for country, it would probably be "The First Time," because that one has a theme that a lot of people can relate to, I think.

Well maybe! Who knows? That one's pretty depressing too, though. (Laughs)

Yeah, but it's depressing in a different way, I guess.

Would you say that working with Nashville artists pushed you toward a more American country sound for this record? Because it sort of feels more Americana to me than your past ones.

Yeah, I always wanted to have those instruments. If I could have afforded them on the last record, I probably would of had them. But having pedal steel and having all different types of players is primarily a function of having a bigger budget for this record. But yeah, I think certainly in the last four years that I've been writing in Nashville, I've come to appreciate country music more than I did. And I always did appreciate it. I grew up in a town where everyone likes country music, so, I was never...I always liked it. But, I think that's probably fair to say.

When you write a song and someone else records it for their record, is there a feeling of awkwardness when you decide to put it on your record too?

Yeah, I don't know. That "Leaving Nashville" song, I just loved it. I think if I didn't know Charles, I would have...I think kind of the courtesy that you're giving another artist is to let them release it first. And that's sort of part of the deal. I wouldn't have released it before him, that's for sure. But to say that is also silly, because my reach is so incredibly small in comparison to him. So if I release it, nobody's going to hear it and if he releases it, everybody's going to hear it. Part of it is just the attention. I wanted to make sure that he was able to release it first and that he got most of the attention for it. But that's a song I love and I definitely want to have it on my record. Charles knows that I'm an artist and he has my records. So there was no weird discussion about it. I said "I'd like to record it too, for my record" and he said "Of course." It's kind of a pretty normal thing in Nashville, so there doesn't have to be too much awkwardness about it.

I think Chris Stapleton said something about it, because he...that "Whiskey and You" song on Traveller, that was a Tim McGraw recording too, back in 2008 or something. And he's like "It's a great song, anyone can record it and it's gonna be new anyway because it's a different interpretation."

That's part of it. That's written in the DNA of Nashville is that a song is a song and you can't keep anybody from cutting it. We've sort of fallen off that in the music industry in that, now we seem to think that everybody should write their own songs. But we used to know that not everybody is capable or even really wants to. But there's really something to be said for amazing song interpreters. But the idea now is that, if you're singing it, you should have written it, which is kind of a new idea, and we're a little bit silly to hold it so dear, you know?

Yeah, definitely. Sort of among the elitists that view country music as "the mainstream stuff" and "everyone else," it's like, "well these guys aren't writing their songs, so is there artistic integrity to that?" But it is kind of a pointless argument, I realize, because most people aren't even going to know.

Most people don't know, and nobody's...it's not a lie, it's not a fraud or anything. I mean, Frank Sinatra didn't write his songs, and everybody likes him. Elvis didn't write all those songs. Even the Beatles sang other peoples' songs early on. But, you know, ever since the Beatles and ever since Bob Dylan, there's sort of a "real artists write and perform their own songs" [belief], and I don't if that's necessarily true. I think we can do ourselves a bit of a disservice. Nobody gives pop people a hard time for doing it. But I think sort of the authenticity of country people is that they wrote these songs and went out and did it. But I don't know. Hearing Charles sing "Leaving Nashville," that's his song. That's his song, you know? There's no argument from about that. He sings it as well as anybody could sing that song. And even Tim singing "Portland, Maine," was like, "Of course he wanted to sing that song." There's a real ability in identifying those songs that you're going to sound good on, and following through with that, and that shouldn't be discounted. It's just bullshit: that's real talent.

And Charles, his version of "Leaving Nashville," he just does some different stuff with the vocals and phrasing, to the point where they're definitely different songs.

Well certainly from mine, they are definitely different songs. Mine is, I think, the saddest version.

Yep, yours is sadder.

But his is...yeah, his is almost defiant. But they're both great. When I heard his, I was over the moon because he really went for it. His felt important, and that's my favorite thing.

I read an interview that said you had the title for this record and you've had it for a bit, and I was wondering what the title means to you and why you decided to choose it.

I always have the title way before the rest of the record. I have the title for the next one all set up too, I think. But I don't know: it was two songs, "Hard Settle" and "Ain't Troubled" were two songs I was working on by myself but never really finished. They just weren't good enough to make it on the record. But to me, it pretty accurately described the first half and the second half. I tried to group the songs in such a way that the first half is "Hard Settle" and the second half is "Ain't Troubled." I just like the way those words sound. I like the dichotomy, that one sounds like a struggle and the other songs like everything's fine. I think, to me, that's the interesting part of life: that people will cope. And I think, to me, it's about coping and feeling like you're not bothered by the hustle, not bothered by the struggle.

Donovan Woods - Hard Settle, Ain't Troubled

Last year, Donovan Woods released two one-off singles in advance of his then-still-unannounced fourth studio album. The first, called "Portland, Maine," had been cut the year previous by none other than country giant Tim McGraw. The second, "That Hotel," hadn't been cut by anyone, but probably should have been. Both songs were easy contenders for the best thing Woods had ever written—an impressive accomplishment, considering the fact that Woods has become one of the best voices in folk music over the past seven or eight years. His 2010 LP, The Widowmaker, remains one of the decade's best releases in the genre, outstanding for its balance of sparse acoustic arrangements and raw, hard-hitting lyrics about lost love.

"Portland, Maine" and "That Hotel" were landmark songs for how they took the breakup song concept and looked at it in entirely new ways. The first expertly chronicled the fatigue and frustration of a long-distance relationship; the latter found its narrator in relationship purgatory, kicked out of the house by his significant other, but not yet given the final "it's over" declaration. In a way, the two songs were polar opposites. The former felt hopeless and resigned, about a couple who were ready to walk away and forget each other for good. The latter resonated with this aching optimism, the hope of a man who didn't know, yet, that his relationship was beyond saving. But both were remarkable pieces of songwriting for how they captured the dirty details of heartbreak. In an age where so many songs chronicle romance and breakups in platitudes and clichés, the characters in these two songs felt as real, organic, and vulnerable as if they were two feet away from you.

Ultimately, Woods chose to leave both "Portland, Maine" and "That Hotel" off his fourth album, titled Hard Settle, Ain't Troubled. However, the songwriting growth exhibited on those two pieces flows through this 10-song collection, Woods' best yet for how it consistently puts you in the world of his characters. "Portland, Maine" was a sea change kind of song for Woods, earning the Canadian singer/songwriter his first cut from a major Nashville artist and also marking one of his first adventures in co-writing. Hard Settle, Ain't Troubled bears the influence of both those experiences. The record is less folk and more Americana, and even ends with a song called "Leaving Nashville" that was recently cut by another major country artist. The album is also the first where Woods didn't write all of the songs himself, opting instead to work with co-writers. As it turns out, both choices were good ones for Woods, allowing him to expand his sound and perspective without losing the pathos and personality of his previous work.

I've often been critical of artists who lean too heavily on co-writers, as I think it can often dilute the authorial voice of an artist's work. But speaking with Woods a few weeks ago, I completely understood why he chose to work with other people for this record, and what it did for him that simply sitting in a room and penning every note and word himself wouldn't have. When you write song after song on your own, it's easy to fall into a rut where you are playing the same things on the guitar, singing the same basic melodies, or even getting repetitious with your storytelling and lyrics. By working with other people for six of these 10 songs, Woods was able to get out of that rut and deliver his most versatile album yet. Those new songwriting perspectives, in addition to the album's lusher instrumental textures—the forlorn fiddles and pedal steel, in particular, complement Woods' gentle vocals perfectly—make Hard Settle, Not Troubled distinct in the Donovan Woods discography.

Most importantly, the co-writers and extra instrumentation don't detract from Woods' authorial voice. On the contrary, while some of these songs have as many as three credited co-writers (in addition to Woods himself), the record still feels distinctly like the work of one artist. This isn't a hodgepodge collection of disconnected singles; instead, it's a thematic record about the struggles that normal people face in their everyday lives, and how those people cope with the challenges and derailments in their lives. In our interview, Woods joked that every song he's ever written could be a closing track on someone else's record, a self-deprecating jab at his preference for writing slow and incredibly sad songs. Most of the tunes on Hard Settle, Ain't Troubled are indeed downers. There's "The First Time," which suggests that you can't ever recapture the euphoria of first love; there's "Between Cities," another song about long distance relationships and how they fall apart; and there's "Leaving Nashville," about the many trials and tribulations that artists face while trying to find their American Dream in Music City.

But fleshing out his sound further and working with other people has also brought a buoyancy to Donovan's music that wasn't there before. Case-in-point is "On the Nights You Stay Home," a catchy, mid-tempo acoustic groover about a recently split couple who can't seem to figure out how to move on without one another. It's the closest Woods has ever come to writing a pop song. Foreboding strings break the surface on the album's skittering opener,"What Kind of Love is That," while the mid-section of "Do I Know Your Name" sparkles with swift acoustic fingerpicking and tinkling pianos in a break that sounds like it belongs on a Sufjan Stevens album. True, Woods' past albums have often been grim and heartbreaking by design, but the sparse arrangements also tended to lock his songs into a sad winterish setting. The more expansive sonic palette that's displayed on Hard Settle, Ain't Troubled makes the songs feel more welcoming and warm—even when, lyrically, they kind of aren't.

It's ultimately the lyrical work that makes Hard Settle, Ain't Troubled stick, though. Like "Portland, Maine" and "That Hotel," the three best songs on this record—"The First Time," "They Don't Make Anything in That Town," and "Leaving Nashville"—capture difficult themes in lyrically unique and interesting ways. These songs are master classes in how, sometimes, the smallest details are the ones that resonate most in a song. "In a tiny bed/When I was a friend of friend/It was all a blur/I can't say I remember it/But it's gotten so good in our minds/We'll never get as high as the first time," Woods sings on "The First Time," looking back on the naïve magic of young love. The Jason Isbell-esque "They Don't Make Anything in That Town," meanwhile, chronicles a pastiche of small town failures and heartbreaks in a way that makes the song feel like a lost Nebraska cut. In particular, the way Donovan brings the death of a friend into the song ("My friend Ryan drove full speed off a road/For him that was it, but his truck got fixed") is crushing. It's the kind of line that stops you in its tracks for how eloquently it communicates both the permanence of death and the way that life must go on—even following the loss of a loved one.

If there's a song here that's destined to skyrocket Donovan Woods into the inner circle of Nashville's most respected songwriters, though, it's "Leaving Nashville." It's a classic song about the American Dream—specifically, about "making it" in a city where literally every person seems to be chasing down the same aspirations of music stardom that you are. "One day you're the king and the next you're not/It's handshakes and whiskey shots, boy/You're throwing up in parking lots all by yourself," Woods sings in the chorus, channeling the whirlwind of promise and adversity that a career in songwriting can bring. The song paints a gritty and sometimes painful picture of being an artist in the modern world, from singing the song that means the most to you (only to find out no one is listening), to being "two weeks from sleeping in your car" but still holding onto hope regardless. The song's refrain says it all: "But I ain't never leaving Nashville." Having a dream for music in this day and age, and making it work, means staying strong and keeping hope, even when things get darkest. And this song, as heartbreaking as it is, ultimately finds a note of uplift by channeling the resilience of a lifelong dream.

"Leaving Nashville" was recently released as the closing track on the debut album from Charles Kelley, one of the singers from pop-country group Lady Antebellum. Charles' version of the song is different than Donovan's—more "defiant," perhaps, as Donovan put it in our interview. But the core of the song—the ache of the melody, the hope and heartbreak of the lyrics, and the almost zeitgeist-channeling nature of the theme—remains the same in both versions. For good reason, "Leaving Nashville" has been the most praised song on the Charles Kelley record. Reviewers, even the ones who don't love the record, have singled it out as an unquestionably great song—due as much to the writing as to Kelley's impassioned performance. With a song like that, it's only a matter of time before Donovan Woods (and Abe Stoklasa, the song's co-writer) are among the most in-demand songwriters in Nashville. Who knows, maybe Woods is the next Chris Stapleton: a songwriter's songwriter who finally gets his big payoff after years of hard work. Even if he doesn't catch a big break, though, Woods is a special talent and Hard Settle, Ain't Troubled is a special album. Don't miss out on this one just because Woods is still flying a bit under the radar.

A Look Back: The Best Music of 2010

2010 was one of the best years of my life. I fell in love, stumbled upon the greatest summer job that I could ever have asked for, and was graced by more unforgettable moments than I could ever fit into the space of this (already lengthy) blog post. As far as music was concerned, I think 2010 was a good year, if not a great one. I spent much of the summer listening to playlists, mixtapes, or older music (the back catalog of number-one-slot-winner Chad Perrone, which includes a few stellar records with his former band Averi, pretty much dominated the first few months), and that meant that, while there were many brilliant life moments for me in 2010, many of them were not actually accompanied by albums on this list. Still, what 2010 lacked in emotional connections, it made up for in pure eclecticism. The slate of records below is the most versatile and illustrious I have ever recorded as my personal favorites: the top ten alone ranges from a complete unknown independent singer/songwriter to the solo record from one of music's most recognizable frontmen, from emo/alternative legends to indie rock superstars, and from a platinum selling pop-country songstress to hip-hop's most flawed and fascinating figure. In other areas, the music that I listened to the most represented a full-bodied enthrallment into the career and work of Bruce Springsteen (who himself re-issued 1978's Darkness on the Edge of Town, with a slew of b-sides), and this list boasts more Boss-indebted acts that I ever again expect to see in a single year. Looking back, there were albums that lost ground, albums that gained it, and records (the top three) that remained as important to me as I expected they would.

1. Chad Perrone - Release

I’ve spent the better part of the past decade looking for music that connects to me in a personal way, music that appeals to my heart first and foremost. It’s obvious that all of my favorite albums are made up of great songs (in my opinion, anyway), but they’ve also played as soundtrack for some pretty unforgettable times of my life, whether they were personal crises or simply the trials of growing up and trying to figure out who I wanted to be. Two summers ago, just as I was falling in love for the first time, this record came into my life. When I had to go back to school and was forced to do the long distance relationship thing (and to work a job I hated during a semester where everything I’d loved about college the year before seemed to evaporate into thin air), this record hit me like a ton of bricks. Perrone sings about getting older, about moving on from things that once meant the world to us, whether they be places or relationships. He sings about love found, lost, broken and unrequited, and he sings about the pain of separation, and all of those things felt comforting to me. When I heard his desperation on “Under Different Circumstances,” it was like I’d written the song myself about my own experiences: I can still feel every single word he belts out in that song, after hundreds of plays. And “Here For Good,” where he writes about his hometown and his friends who he’s had to say goodbye to, that song collided with me in a year where my best friend in the world packed up and moved to New York, where my hometown started to slip away, and where high school seemed no more than a distant memory. As I drove towards Kalamazoo at the end of that summer, it was this record I listened to, and it cut to the core of me. I was driving towards the place that was supposed to be teaching me what I wanted to do with the rest of my life, but I was driving away from the person who I knew I wanted to spend it with with. By the time the heartbreaking “So This Is How It Ends” hit, I was in tears, drowning in uncertainty, despair, and love: every time I listen to this record, that whirlwind of emotions captures me again, somewhere between the tremendous hooks, the heart-on-your-sleeve lyrical content, and Perrone’s unparalleled vocal prowess, and I can’t help but get choked up.

Key Tracks: “Under Different Circumstances,” “The Walking Dead,” “Anything or Anyone”

2. Jimmy Eat World - Invented

It’s still hard for me to separate Invented from the ridiculous anticipation I laid upon it leading up to its release. Jimmy Eat World, perhaps even more than Butch Walker, is a band that I have an idealistic approach to. My most definitive times listening to them undoubtedly came with Futures, a record that changed my life (and some ways, saved it), and every time a new JEW record comes along, I have hopes that it will make me feel the same way I did in the fall of 2004. Invented was the closest they’ve come. It was hyped by some as Futures Part II, and so of course, I had a picture of it in my head that the real thing couldn’t possibly match. I wanted it to be the soundtrack of my life, I wanted it to top Futures, I wanted it to be the record that would skyrocket into my all time top five and the one I’d want to feel again, years after the fact. Invented wasn’t that album, but it was still a damn good one, full of great songs that draw comparisons to every era of the band’s career, and despite the fact that I never had the kind of vast personal connection to it that I formed with Futures, it’s still a record I could listen to on any day and be impressed by. After all, have guitars ever sounded as big as they do on “Evidence”? Has Jim ever been as innovative lyrically as he is on songs like “Cut,” where he sings from a female point of view? And does the one-two punch of “Invented” and “Mixtape” not stand in line with the band’s tradition of closing albums out in epic fashion? All told, this is a truly spectacular album, probably their most consistent to date, and the fact that it doesn’t quite live up to their best work says more about the immense love I have for the band than it does for any weakness in their latter day music.

Key tracks: "Heart is Hard to Find," "Invented," "Mixtape"

3. Butch Walker - I Liked It Better When You Had No Heart

Butch Walker has been my mainstay favorite artist ever since I first heard his 2004 masterpiece Letters, and anytime an album of his turns up, it’s a guaranteed album of the year contender. Since the power-pop infused break-up songs that fueled Letters, Butch has adopted Bowie-esque glam-rock (The Rise & Fall...) and plentiful folk and classic rock influences (2008’s fantastic Sycamore Meadows). In 2010, he made this record, which I now regard as probably his weakest full-length: it still landed in my number three slot. Butch, traditionally a solo writer, turns to his bandmates in The Black Widows (think Tom Petty’s Heartbreakers or Elvis Costello’s Attractions) for inspiration and musical ideas, and the resulting set of songs is both loaded with his fingerprints and strikingly different than anything else he’s done before. The folk influences hang around center stage here, with Butch taking his newly minted backing band into the realms of alt-country (album highlight “Don’t You Think Someone Should Take You Home,” “Canadian Ten”), country-rock rave ups (“She Likes Hair Bands”), and acoustic lullabies (“Be Good Until Then”).  He references Johnny Cash on the raucous “Days/Months/Years,” brings a requisite amount of twang into the near-anthemic opener “Trash Day,” and even did a tongue-in-cheek cover of Taylor Swift’s “You Belong With Me” as a one-off iTunes single around the time this record hit the streets (a “joke” that actually got him – and his banjolin arrangement of the song – on TV with Swift herself during the 2010 Grammy Broadcast). But while his respect for the Nashville-scene runs deep, Walker has never been a single-style kind of guy, and he fills in the corners here with gorgeous splashes of Beatles pop (“Pretty Melody,” “House of Cards”) and stunning explosions of vocal harmony (“Stripped Down Version”) that almost make me want to forget that Butch has made better albums.

Key Tracks: “Don’t You Think Someone Should Take You Home,” “She Likes Hair Bands,” “Days/Months/Years”

4. The Gaslight Anthem - American Slang

After the brilliance of 2008’s The ’59 Sound, it took me a long time to truly appreciate the greatness of American Slang. I can still remember the day it leaked, over a month and a half ahead of it’s June release date, and coinciding perfectly with the final week or two of my freshman year of college. By all means, the themes of youth, fading and lost, should have fit perfectly with my mindset at the time, but as many times as I listened (and I played the album a solid dozen times, front-to-back, on that first day), I couldn’t find the same musical allure that ’59 had; I couldn’t find the desperation that had made “The Backseat” such an indelible closer; and I missed the Springsteen references, the constant worship of one of my all-time musical heroes. I wrote the record off, filed it off as disappointing, as repetitive and a bit boring, and put it away, robbing my summer months of what could have been a truly transcendent soundtrack. Months later, as December descended upon my and I struggled to come up with the initial version of this very list, American Slang came back to me. And for whatever reason, what many had declared a summer album for the ages only clicked with me as I drove through my snow-covered hometown, letting the tremendous guitar hooks of songs like “Orphans” and “Old Haunts” wash over me, glancing out across the ice-covered bay as I drove home with the melancholic strains of “We Did it When We Were Young” serving as soundtrack, or realizing, for the first time, how great it sounded to hear Brian Fallon adopt classic soul and Motown influences like he once adopted the E Street Band (“Bring it On”). Now, two years later, I can put on American Slang for a summer road trip, feel the title track’s hook and guitar lick pour out of my speakers, and know what people meant when they were writing about this record back around release time. That said, this summer album will always hit me the hardest in the winter, when it can really take me back to those days and nights where I first fell in love with it.

Key Tracks: “We Did it When We Were Young,” “American Slang,” “The Queen of Lower Chelsea” 

5. Brandon Flowers - Flamingo

The Killers needed a break after 2008, the year where Day & Age, their third record, inspired everything from viciously hostile critical assessments to a Rolling Stone Readers Poll which named it that best album of the year. My opinion on the album was somewhere in between those two extremes: I was disappointed, but not horribly so. I thought the album was high on style and low on compelling musical ideas, but that it still had some great songs. The band tried to blend the Springsteen-inspired heartland rock of Sam's Town with the synth-heavy, Vegas-centered pop that made Hot Fuss such a smash, but the combination was awkward. They were trying to please everyone, trying to do damage control on frontman Brandon Flowers’ hubristic claim that Sam’s Town would be "one of the greatest records of the last 20 years," and attempting to atone for all of the "sins" that Rolling Stone had cited in their 2.5 star review for that same record. The problem was that the band, Flowers at least, didn’t want to just go back to the successful formula of Hot Fuss: Flowers wanted to explore the Springsteen influence further, and that showed through in the fact that Day & Age’s finest moments (“A Dustland Fairytale,” “This is Your Life”) were essentially an evolution of the Sam’s Town sound. So when his band decided to take their long deserved break, Flowers turned around and made a solo album that is, among other things, his most consistent and concise work to date. There are certainly big moments here, moments like “Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas” and “Crossfire,” where the sound of Dave Keuning’s roaring guitar might have elevated the proceedings even higher. But more often, Flowers veers towards songs that would not have quite worked within the confines of his band, whether he’s re-writing Springsteen’s mournful “Point Blank” (on “Playing With Fire”), spinning subtle yet epic slowburners (“On the Floor”), or bringing in Rilo Kiley’s Jenny Lewis for an effortlessly gorgeous duet (“Hard Enough”).

Key Tracks: “Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas,” “Hard Enough,” “On the Floor” 

6. Cary Brothers - Under Control

When I finally discovered Cary Brothers’ 2007 LP Who You Are in the summer if 2009, it immediately skyrocketed into the upper echelons of my all-time favorite albums list. The songs had a vulnerable and yet powerful atmosphere about them, and they resonated with me so perfectly at the time that, for a few weeks, I listened to nothing else. That set of songs came along a week or so before my family had to put my first dog to sleep: those who have never truly loved a pet will view that statement as trivial, but for me, it was the first experience I'd really had with death. Her name was Jessie, and she'd been there for over 14 years of my life. Needless to say, since that was the summer following my high school graduation, I'd grown up with her. Back when I was a boy, my parents used to joke that Jessie was my "nanny," but she was really just a good friend, a constant companion that I could always count on being there, waiting for me when I got up in the morning or home from school every afternoon. The loss was devastating for me, and the delicate beauty of Who We Are became instrumental in getting me through the grief and onto the next chapter of my life - few albums have ever had a more personal place in my heart. The follow-up is nearly as good, and makes a case for Brothers as one of the best singer-songwriters in the game today. Opener “Ghost Town” rests in an unsettling ambiance of synths and pianos (befitting its title) before launching into a massive chorus, while “Belong,” with its crashing piano chords and an epic, chilling vocal build, positions itself as a unique and deeply expressive love song. “Someday” rests in the same new wavy vein that made “The Last One” such an irresistible number off this album’s predecessor, “Break off the Bow” shows that Brothers can write a hook as well as anyone, and album closer “Can’t Take My Eyes Off Of You” is a haunting acoustic number that makes me want to hit play all over again, every time through. And always, Brothers writes with an honest and entirely palpable emotional strength, giving us songs that sound so autobiographical, so perfectly cinematic, that it feels like they could have soundtracked moments of our lives, even if those moments have already passed.

Key Tracks: “Ghost Town,” “Belong,” “Someday”

7. Taylor Swift - Speak Now

It only took a few short years for Taylor Swift to rise from heartbroken teenager to one of pop music’s most bankable icons. She made the transition on her girl-next-door demeanor, the strongly relatable aspect of her lyrics, and a knack for delivering an infectious mix of pop hooks and country twang that made her a crossover sensation waiting to happen. Swift didn’t escape the voyage unscathed though, battling through cruel encounters (the Kanye West VMA debacle), critical lambasting (comments concerning her performance at the 2010 Grammy Awards, where she also took the top prize), and premature tabloid relationships (an especially doomed fling with John Mayer), all of which threatened to tarnish her spotless, innocent reputation and image. All of those things and more serve as songwriting fuel on Swift’s third full-length, the aptly titled Speak Now, which notched over a million album sales in its first week back in 2010. And while countless music snobs would write Swift off as a bubblegum commercial princess, to do so would ignore the fact that Speak Now is a traditional country music record masquerading as a pop music flagship. The band sounds explosive and organic, the arrangements overflowing and blissful, and the vocal harmonies ring with life. It doesn’t hurt that the songs are incredibly well-executed, or that Taylor, who wrote every word and every indelible hook on the record, sounds more mature, forceful, charismatic, and emotionally centered than ever before. The result is one of the finest pop albums in recent memory, a record that is served equally well by rootsy twang (“Mine” and “Mean”), dance-floor rundowns (“The Story of Us”), rock ‘n’ roll kiss-offs (“Better Than Revenge”), emotional acoustic breakdowns (“Last Kiss”), pure school-girl pop songs ("Sparks Fly"), or pitch-perfect anthems (“Long Live”). Liking Taylor Swift may not be cool, but when the albums sound this good, who the hell even gives a shit?

Key Tracks: “Dear John,” “Last Kiss,” “Long Live” 

8. Kanye West - My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy

Speaking of Mr. West, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy earned rave reviews last year upon its release, along with perfect scores aplenty and album of the year titles across the board. It didn’t get those things because it was a perfect record: there are flaws here, as in any album, and if you look hard enough, you will find them, but you’d be missing the point. Fantasy earned such acclaim because it is a hip hop album for people who both love and hate hip hop, a rap record for people who have never enjoyed more than a few songs in the genre (like myself), and a pop album for an era where the label of “pop music” has been so utterly defaced and slandered that we’ve almost forgotten what it means. It’s all delivered by an artist who’s more of textbook rock star than just about anyone making music today, a guy who combines massive melodic hooks (“Dark Fantasy,” “All of the Lights”), indubitable flow and towering hubris (“Power”), and deeply humanized self-reflection (“Runaway”) to form a sound that nobody can touch. So while I wouldn’t call My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy perfect, it remains a record that defies criticism, one so universally appealing and so easily likable (in complete contrast to it’s creator, a complicated and flawed, but insanely talented individual) that it’s damn near impossible to stop listening to it once you’ve started. 

Key Tracks: "Power," "Runaway," "Lost in the World"

9. Arcade Fire - The Suburbs

The Arcade Fire have always had a taste for the grandiose and the dramatic: how could they not after coming out of the gate with 2004’s Funeral, a loose concept record about life, death, community, and healing that stands as one of the greatest albums in modern music? It also spawned some of the best songs, like the infectious “Rebellion (Lies)” or, especially, the rousing, tearful “Wake Up,” with its expansive “whoa oh” melody and Win Butler’s massively emotional vocal delivery.  The band never quite reach those heights on their third full-length, but they put the same qualities to work elsewhere, constructing a record that aims to be a document of what it is to live, love, and work in the modern middle class. They do it fairly effortlessly throughout, melding Springsteenian lyrical themes with musical ideas that land somewhere between U2-sized stadium-sweep (“City With No Children”) and sunsoaked, California folk (“Wasted Hours,” “Deep Blue”). Themes coalesce on “Suburban War,” the album centerpiece where the tension in the narrative’s love story reaches a breaking point. “Choose your side, I’ll choose my side” Butler sings, as the song reaches its cinematic climax, a battle of instrumental ambition that ranks as one of the most musically striking moments of the year. That same tension returns as the album climbs towards its grand finale on the two-parter that is “Sprawl.” The tracks play out as a conversation between lovers, pitting Butler (“Sprawl I (Flatland)”) against wife and co-vocalist Régine Chassagne in “Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains” as the two come to terms with their struggle. The former piece is a haunting acoustic number, almost harrowing in its grim atmosphere, the latter a disco-charged rave-up, reminiscent of the Bee Gees and Blondie in sound, but aligning more with Springsteen in words. The two singers both come to the same conclusion, that the boundless hope and opportunity of youth is gone, replaced by responsibility, bills to pay, stagnant suburban life, and dreams dead or dying. It plays like a Darkness on the Edge of Town or The River for a new generation, and although Funeral might be the better record, this one is arguably just as resonant. The fact that it picked up a surprise Album of the Year win at the 2011 Grammy Awards was just the cherry on top.

Key Tracks: "City With No Children," "Suburban War," "Sprawl II"

10. Valencia - Dancing With A Ghost

Shane Henderson has always been an immensely personal and visceral songwriter, from the shattering eulogy for a lost love that he delivered on When the Flowers Bloom (with side-project The Promise of Redemption) to the sadly nostalgic summertime hooks he was slinging on Valencia’s sophomore album, We All Need a Reason to Believe. Dancing With A Ghost may not be his best work to date, but it’s hard to find faults in this slick, short and sweet collection of songs that ranked as the best pop-punk album of 2010. Of course, we still get the bouncy, catchy pop-punk tunes that wouldn't have been out of place in some nostalgic teen movie ("Days Go By," "The Way"), but it's Henderson's shots at maturity that really resonate. The band shifts from Springsteenian-sized sweep (the title track) to rapidfire punk-rock ("Stop Searching"), hitting upon gorgeously executed power pop ("Spinning Out") and massive arena-ready anthems ("Losing Sleep") along the way. The latter, recorded at the end of a long studio session, rings the truest, with Henderson shredding what's left of his voice in one of his most powerful performances to date: "So if you checked the weather report, then why the fuck are we driving north?/You know we're headed into the storm to finish what we started," he sings: it's hard not to belt along with him.

Key Tracks: "Spinning Out," "Losing Sleep," "The Way"

11. Donovan Woods - The Widowmaker

Just as every year has its summer soundtrack, every year also has its “winter singer/songwriter" for me: in 2008, it was Bon Iver, in 2009, Michael McDermott, and in 2010, the title belonged to Donovan Woods. One listen to this record will leave no doubt as to why that is, since Woods possesses the kind of warm yet fragile voice that feels so comforting around the holidays. He’s also a damn-good songwriter, showing himself off as equally adept with bitter acoustic rockers ("Won't Come Back") and gorgeous, nostalgic ballads ("No Time Has Passed"). But even beyond the immediate standouts, this record is a profusion of gorgeously subtle melodies, fascinating lyrical perspectives, and the beautiful snowfall of Woods' guitar playing, accented occasionally with icy piano lines ("Jail"), lo-fi production ("Lord, I'm Tryin'"), or any variety of harmonicas, drums, banjos, or other folk music requisites. Due to it's strongly seasonal appeal, The Widowmaker will never be one of my most played records, but when I do throw it in rotation, it captures me completely. 

12. The National - High Violet

Matt Berninger might have the most distinctive voice of anyone in music right now, a dark, deep, charismatic baritone that no one could replicate without sounding like a caricature, and on The National’s fifth full-length, that voice proves to be both their biggest strength and their greatest limitation. There are songs here that Berninger’s voice can’t sell, songs that come across as mediocre or dull on record, but which have reached much greater heights in other hands (“Anyone’s Ghost," a relative throwaway, became unexpectedly haunting when Silver Swans covered it last fall). But when the formula works, the band hits home run after home run. Just listen to the gorgeous indie-pop of songs like “England,” “Runaway,” or “Vanderlyle Crybaby Geeks”, the lo-fi crescendo of opener “Terrible Love”, or the straight-up anthem that is “Bloodbuzz Ohio”. Throughout each style, Beringer sings in a voice that is all at once warm, comforting, richly nostalgic, and deeply sympathetic. He imbues his lyrics (which often discuss the mundane, everyday struggles of normal people) with a knowing and relatable purport, taking us on an emotional journey that constantly stresses to listeners that they are not alone. I think that’s why The National have gained so much respect within the indie community: because more than just about any band out there, they’re a group of down-to-earth, everyday guys who people can see as their friends, their family...or even their self.

Key Tracks: "Terrible Love," "Bloodbuzz Ohio," "England"

13. The Hold Steady - Heaven is Whenever

When the high-rise vocal harmonies explode on staples like “The Weekenders” or “Hurricane J,” this album sounds like summer. Everything else about this band, about Craig Finn’s literate lyricism, about his bellowing vocal style, about the Springsteenian sweep of their earlier records (like 2006's career-defining Boys & Girls in America), or about former member Franz Nicolay’s sorely missed piano lines, it all evaporates under the epic enormity of this album’s best moments. Fans wrote it off and critics gave it a lukewarm response, but in my eyes, summer albums are rarely more palpable or perfect than this one. Just listen to the dusky slide guitar on opener “The Sweet Part of the City, the scorching guitar solo in “Soft in the Center,” the raucous clarinet solo in “Barely Breathing” – and yes, the expansive, anthemic hooks of the two aforementioned staples – and you will understand. These are just a few of the moments here that evoke that summertime atmosphere, that feeling of late night drives, sunset rock festivals, fireworks across the night sky, hangouts with friends, or spontaneous road trips down a sunburned state highway, belting along to your favorite songs. This album seeks to be a companion for each of those situations, and whether or not it’s the best that Finn and The Hold Steady have offered thus far is immaterial for that reason alone.

Key Tracks: "Soft in the Center," "The Weekenders," "Hurricane J"

14. Anberlin - Dark Is The Way, Light Is A Place

Anberlin took a lot of flak on this record, their fifth full-length and their second on a major label. I can recall the initial stream, where many fans immediately pointed out a repetitive musical and lyrical songwriting style that was a vast departure from some of their earlier work (one need look no further than Cities closer “Fin” to know why the criticism was at least somewhat warranted). Despite that, though, Dark is the Way, Light is a Place remains, for me, the best and most consistent album these guys have ever made. Brandon O’Brien mans the boards, bringing a slicker and more poppy studio sheen to the proceedings, but the commercialization suits their interests well, adding a requisite amount of punch to dark rockers like “We Owe This to Ourselves” and “Closer” – both haunting and hard-hitting  – and then giving the album’s highlight (“Impossible”) a U2-esque, stadium-ready atmosphere. The chiming “You Belong Here” is reminiscent of both Coldplay and Clarity-era Jimmy Eat World, with lead vocalist Stephen Christian (always an impressive frontman, both in vocal range and emotional aggression) letting his voice soar on an anthemic chorus. The album, in ten tracks, does what none of Anberlin’s records have ever done before, hitting perfectly consistent ground on a tracklist stacked with memorable moments, from the relationship that shatters on “Art of War” to the rousing percussion build-up of “Pray Tell,” all the way to the tortured slow-burning acoustics of “Down.” Then there’s “Take Me (As You Found Me),” an irresistible love song that recalls ‘90s radio rock ballads to a tee. And while the band has vowed to go back to a more aggressive style with their next album (called Vital, out this October), I’ll merely be hoping for a record with as many soaring hooks and confessional moments as this one.

Key Tracks: "Impossible," "Take Me (As You Found Me)," "Down"

15. Jesse Malin – Love It To Life

I've never felt as strongly about Jesse Malin, a New York-based rocker, as my brother has, and that remained true with the release of his fourth full-length in 2010. While he named this record as the second or third best of the year, I struggled to find the same appeal in it as I had found (after a time) with Glitter in the Gutter or The Fine Art of Self-Destruction. But that's not to say it's not a solid exercise: right from the ringing, Clash-esque guitar that kicks off "Burning the Bowery," this record is a blistering, raucous display of punk-rock attitude and Springsteen storytelling. Malin, with his unique vocal whine and throwback songwriting style, is basically a collision of a dozen different classic rock heroes, from Joe Strummer to Lou Reed, from Mick Jagger to Paul Westerberg, and while his songs aren't as great as they have been in the past (nor is there a Springsteen appearance to spice things up, like there was on Gutter's "Broken Radio), there is still plenty to love here. The wall of sound on "All the Way to Moscow," the ringing, Oasis-esque guitar solo on "St. Mark's Sunset," or the gorgeous melodic elegy of "The Archer" are just a few of the highlights. Occasionally, the muddy production hampers the effectiveness of the music, but for a guy who obviously idolizes bands like The Replacements, it almost feels like that aesthetic might be intentional.

Key Tracks: "Burning the Bowery," "The Archer," "Revelations"

16. The Alternate Routes - Lately

Equal parts Counting Crows and U2, these roots-rock throwback boys have released a trio of records, each with soaring melodies, nostalgic guitar solos, and raucous classic rock energy. Lately might be their best work to date, encompassing everything from bluesy jam band atmospherics ("Love the Way") to lilting folk balladry ("Raincoat"). The arena rock tendencies are probably the most satisfying though: the album opens with a towering intro track, a colossal swell of organ, guitar, and keyboard ambiance that builds until it collapses into album-highlight "Carry Me Home." Vocalist Tim Warren establishes himself as one of the most talented frontmen in the genre here, belting out a gorgeous, towering power-ballad that would be as well fit for stadiums as it is for late-night road trips. And the penultimate number, the shimmering "Two of a Kind," sounds like it could have been penned by Bono, circa The Unforgettable Fire. But even beyond their obvious strengths, the Routes acquit themselves quite well: "Just the Same" sounds like the kind of sunny alt-rock song that would have captivated the airwaves back in 1997 or so, "Tell Me Your Name" boasts an indulgent, shout-along chorus truly meant for a live show, and "Rocking Chair" has the kind of charismatic momentum needed to kick the album into high gear after it's mid-tempo overture. It's not a band or an album many people have taken notice of over the years, but revisiting Lately today, for the first time in months, I love it even more than I did the first time I heard it.

Key Tracks: "Carry Me Home," "Just the Same," "Two of a Kind"

17. Black Lab - Two Strangers

Ever since these '90s one hit wonders made a resounding return with 2005’s See the Sun, a collection of bright pop hooks and tortured moments of heartbreak, Black Lab have been one of the most confusing bands on my "favorite artists" roster. Since that album, they’ve churned out more of my favorite songs than just about anyone, hitting me at the perfect time with classics like “Weightless,” “Mine Again,” “Circus Lights,” and “Remember,” but they've never quite had the consistency with their records to truly become an all-time great. Still Paul Durham, the frontman and brains of the operation, has a knack for baring his soul in immensely catchy pop rock songs, and Two Strangers might be his most accomplished work to date. There’s something about songs like “This Ship Goes Down Deep” and “Love to Love You” that just hits me in the perfect place, whether they’re arousing memories of past summers, or simply connecting themselves to the place and time that I’m in right now. And that’s to say nothing about Durham’s strength as a pop songwriter, which shows itself in spades with nearly every song on this record, from the anguished rockers (“Start a Fire”),  to the yearning power ballads (“Always”), all the way down to the elegiac, acoustic torch songs  (“Say Goodbye”). Perhaps best of all is “The Pain is Gone,” which, despite a common chord progression and a couple lyrical cliches, thrives on the strength of Durham’s utterly passionate delivery. Perhaps that’s why I love these guys so much: even if they’re not the most original or innovative songwriters, they more than make up for that in conviction, and in their best songs, I can always see a piece of myself reflected back at me.

Key Tracks: "This Ship Goes Down Deep," "The Pain is Gone," "Love to Love You"  

18. Sara Bareilles – Kaleidoscope Heart

In 2008, when Bareilles hit the airwaves with the infectious “Love Song,” the hook masked what was, in essence, a fuck you to the singer’s major label. It was a tirade against an overly commercialized system that tried to wrest creative control out of her hands, and rather ironically, it became an almost ubiquitous hit. On the follow-up album, the label hands almost entire creative control over to Bareilles, and the result is a catchy, creative, and endlessly heartfelt collection of songs that expose their songwriter’s quirks and indulgences to a backdrop of slick, bombastic pop production. The hooks are effortless (see the single “King of Anything” or the proper opener “Uncharted”), but the truly breathtaking moments are the ones where Bareilles drops the tempo. Multi-tracked vocals create an expansive a cappella texture on the introductory title track, while “Hold My Heart” displays an achingly gorgeous melody and vocal, and "Basket Case" is a masterclass in acoustic resignation. But the centerpiece is a “Breathe Again,” an expressive piano ballad that feels like it has soundtracked a hundred separate late night drives for me. “Car is parked, bags are packed/But what kind of heart doesn’t look back?/At the comfortable glow from the porch/The one I will still call yours,” she sings at the outset: the imagery is perfect, the sadness palpable, and the nostalgic rivers that it inspires transform it into one of the most personal and powerful “leaving songs” I’ve ever heard.

Key Tracks: "King of Anything," "Basket Case," "Breathe Again"

19. The Tallest Man on Earth – The Wild Hunt

The Tallest Man on Earth (the moniker for Swedish singer-songwriter Kristian Matsson) is just about as no-frills as folk music gets. Throughout the majority of The Wild Hunt, his second LP, Matsson uses little more than his acoustic guitar, his accomplished lyrical ability, and his harsh, yet richly emotional vocal style, but there’s never a moment where the sound doesn’t work. Matsson distinguishes himself among the modern singer-songwriting crowd not by trying anything new, but by looking back: his music evokes the sound and fury of early Dylan records like The Times They Are A-Changin’ and The Freewheeling Bob Dylan, complete with the imperfect vocal whine and sparse, basic production. The result is a record that is predictable, but entrancing, derivative, but fiercely gorgeous. Songs like "Burden of Tomorrow," "King of Spain," and "Thousand Ways" crackle and burn with charisma, passionate energy, and palpable emotion. And when Mattson closes things out with a power ballad of all things ("Kids on the Run"), played on a broken down, out-of-tune piano, it sounds like the guy could actually be the voice of his generation. His 2012 return (There's No Leaving Now) saw him playing it safe and delivering this same brand of pretty folk, but I have hopes that he will realize what he is capable of next time out.

Key Tracks: "A Thousand Ways," "Burden of Tomorrow," "Kids on the Run"

20. I Can Make a Mess Like Nobody's Business  – The World We Know

Ace Enders is a prolific guy: in recent years, The Early November frontman has quietly built up quite the catalog, releasing (at least) one record a year across three or four separate projects. 2010's The World We Know is quite possibly his best work to date, an almost impossibly gorgeous record of tortured break-up songs that, at its best moments, hits with unparalleled emotive force. Opener "Sleep Means Sleeping" finds Enders joined by a haunting female voice, amidst an array of electronic sounds and orchestral sweep, while the dream-pop loops that open "Old Man" indicate the direction of the song, as Enders layers components on top of one another to create a stunning symphony of sound. I remember the first time I heard this record: I was home for a weekend around Easter time in the spring of 2010, and my year had, for the most part, been devoid of new albums or musical discoveries. I checked this out on a whim, and as I made the three hour drive back to school, everything about the record, from the personal power of it, to the all-encompassing production and interconnected flow, hit me like a bomb. "Telling Me Goodbye" hit the hardest: it's a farewell to a loved one, a confession of regret for taking that person for granted, and a stirring, heart-shattering reminder of the brevity of life. Enders gives himself over entirely to the emotional swell, and by the end of the song, I was in tears. The World We Know doesn't quite sustain that force throughout, but when it reaches that level, the inconsistencies just fade away.

Key Tracks: "Old Man," "You're Not So Good At Talking Anymore," "Telling Me Goodbye"

21. Wakey!Wakey! – Almost Everything I Wish I'd Said The Last Time I Saw You

I discovered Michael Grubbs back in the summer of 2008, though I can't exactly recall how I stumbled upon his music. He didn't have an album out at the time, but what was available (a mixtape of covers and a few odd tracks on his Myspace page) was fantastic. The two pieces `that hit me the hardest - a tune called "Brooklyn" and an earnest piano take on Foo Fighters' "Everlong" - made their way onto numerous mixtapes that season, and I made a note to keep an eye out for Grubbs and his Wakey!Wakey! project in following years. When he dropped Almost Everything... in early 2010, I snagged it almost immediately, and I wasn't disappointed. Piano rock doesn't get a lot better than the opener ("Almost Everything," with ringing keyboard licks and a bombastic string arrangement), but that's only the tip of the iceberg for a record that explores surprisingly eclectic territory. Take the breezy island-pop of "Twenty Two," the McCartney-esque slow-burn of "Dance So Good," or the ice-cold grooves of "Feral Love." That same versatility can also prove to be a bit frustrating, but when the album does settle into a groove (the final three tracks), the results are quite pleasant, like on the gorgeous "Light Outside," the yearning "Car Crash," or the jarring, anthemic "Take it Like a Man." It's not an album I revisit much as a whole, and the songs never add up to more than the sum of their (wildly varied) parts, but there are a lot of great moments here.

Key Tracks: "Almost Everything," "Light Outside," "Take it Like a Man"

22. Motion City Soundtrack – My Dinosaur Life

Motion City Soundtrack has a lot of records that are better than this one (including this year's Go, which is on a collision course with my end-of-the-year top ten), but while My Dinosaur Life suffers from inconsistency, occasionally generic modern rock tropes, and numerous grating choruses ("Delirium," "@!#?@!"), frontman Justin Pierre stumbles upon a few of his best songs in the process. "Her Words Destroyed My Planet" is how a modern rock single should sound, while "The Weakends" provides a bruising and scorching finale, "Worker Bee" comes roaring out of the gates with a ferocity that is impossible to forget, and "Pulp Fiction" is about as signature Motion City Soundtrack as songs come. On the whole, My Dinosaur Life is a manifestation of Motion City Soundtrack's more "aggressive" side, and while I prefer their poppier records (again, Go, but also 2007's Even if it Kills Me), the occasional trips to more subdued territory are welcome. Case in point is the existentially ponderous "Skin and Bones" - one of the band's best songs to date, and the highlight of a challenging and confusing, but ultimately rewarding record.

Key Tracks: "Her Words Destroyed My Planet," "Skin and Bones," "The Weakends"

23. Ryan Bingham & The Dead Horses - Junky Star


Country singer/songwriter Ryan Bingham had a big year in 2010. In addition to winning the Academy Award for Best Original Song (for Crazy Heart's "The Weary Kind," which appears as a bonus track here), he wrote and recorded and released his third-full length with celebrated producer T. Bone Burnett. And while Junky Star isn't his best album (that title still belongs to his debut, Mescalito), Bingham is still a troubadour worth watching. His gruff, weather-worn vocals, his deep, storyteller manner of songwriting, and his acoustic/harmonica textures fit very well alongside some of my all time favorite artists - Bruce Springsteen, Will Hoge, Bob Dylan, to name a few - while the other country music legends he cribs from - Hank Williams, especially - are well on display here. Bingham's greatest strength here is the lyrical (take the stunning opener, "The Poet"), but on haunting melodic numbers like "Hallelujah" (NOT a Leonard Cohen cover), or the raucous rockers (like "Depression," whose tempo and mood contrast its title and subject matter), he pens some of his best moments to date. "Direction of the Wind" sounds like it could have been on Blonde on Blonde - right down to the slide guitar intro - and "Lay My Head on the Rail" has a bluegrassy, Appalachian lilt that recalls some of the music Burnett snagged for the O Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack. Meanwhile, the gorgeous "Weary Kind" is as good as it's ever been, conjuring up images of the brilliant Jeff Bridges performance it energized in Crazy Heart. The truth is, nobody is making music quite like this anymore, and even if Bingham has better records (another one, Tomorrowland, drops in a few weeks), something about Junky Star has continued to captivate me over the years.

24. Guster - Easy Wonderful

Ever since they first arrived on the scene in the mid-90s, Guster have had a knack for writing catchy melodies and heartfelt songs that have had no trouble appealing to college radio DJs, frat-boy bros, and folk-pop enthusiasts alike. I first took notice of them when they scored a hit with “Amsterdam” back in 2003 or so, and I even lucked into seeing them live at my only summer at Interlochen Arts Camp. On their sixth full-length studio album, the band taps into the same kind of breezy, summertime pop hooks that have always been their cornerstone. They’ve morphed a bit over the years, shedding some of their acoustic sensibilities, as well as the emphasis placed on their unique percussion (their drummer plays bongos) and their capacity for rich vocal harmonies, but the fact that they are a different band than they once were hardly matters here. Easy Wonderful kicks off with a pair of indelible choruses (“Architects & Engineers” and “Do You Love Me?”) and never lets up. The songs never reach the emotional force of the band’s best work (their 1999 album, Lost and Gone Forever, will always be their magnum opus), and there’s nothing here as good as “Parachute” (the closing number from their debut album of the same name). But a few of these songs could have – and should have – been massive radio hits, and sometimes, a great pop album really is exactly what you need.

Key Tracks: "Architects & Engineers," "Do You Love Me," "On the Ocean"

25. The Morning Of – The Way You Fell In 

While the full record is something I only revisit once in a blue moon, the finest tracks here have become embedded into my summer soundtracks for every year since, and it would be a shame to leave that off this list. The Way You Fell In came into my life in the spring, shortly after my return home from my first year of college. I was searching for a definitive summer soundtrack in these songs, and I almost found it. The duel vocal style (between Justin Wiley and Jessica Leplon) doesn't always work, but when it does, the magic is there, like on the climactic one-two punch of "Bring Me Home" and "Heaven or Hell." Leplon occasionally oversings, and Wiley falls into generic pop-punk tendencies, but each gets one moment of perfection that shows off the massive potential inherent in this band. First is "The Time It Takes To Grow," a wistful farewell to summer love and possibility that rings with a gorgeous, dusky atmosphere. Wiley drops his pop-star charade, exchanging it for a more weathered, folk-driven vocal style, and the result is stunning. "I Know You Know" is almost as good, a crushing vocal tour-de-force from Leplon that makes all of her excesses feel forgivable. Two perfect songs don't make an album, but for this one, surrounded by a bunch of tracks that I like but don't quite love, they were enough to keep me coming back - even when records I liked more back in the day have faded a bit.

Key Tracks: "Jennesea," "The Time it Takes to Grow," "I Know You Know"

The Honorable Mentions

Bruce Springsteen gave fans an embarrassment of riches with The Promise, a collection of b-sides and leftovers from the Darkness on the Edge of Town sessions that stretches on for two discs. Since the songs are way older than the year, I never felt comfortable including it in the body of the list, but with songs as good as the title track or the alternate take of "Racing in the Street," it's easily a highlight of the year.

Hellogoodbye and Steel Train both released exquisitely well-crafted collections of pop-rock. Steel Train's finest songs ("Bullet," "Fall Asleep") landed it on my list the first time around, but I have only revisited the full album once or twice since. I wouldn't have felt right about splitting the two albums up.

Stars and LCD Soundsystem each released inconsistent works that, at their best, could easily have been with the upper echelons of this list. But filler material dictated that I had to leave them off.

I heard Locksley for the first time when they opened for a pair of Butch Walker shows in May of 2010. Their album, called Be In Love, was made up of the same kind of Beatles pop that Butch traded in on his album (see above), and was one of the last records I had to cut from the list.

Kings of Leon lost a lot of their radio appeal with Come Around Sundown, an attempt to return to their roots in southern rock, alt-country, and Eagles-esque Americana that most critics lambasted. But the songs are catchy and soulful, and "Back Down South" might be the best thing they've written.

The Maine released a fun album of throwaway pop music whose finest moments ("Growing Up," "Inside of You," "Saving Grace") became big summer soundtrack staples, but whose whole was less than the sum of its parts.

Ray LaMontagne and Jakob Dylan both released stellar traditional folk albums. I never listened to either enough to merit them a place in the top 25, but perhaps I should make a note to revisit them.

The Rocket Summer released a bloated album of piano-driven rock music. I've never been a big fan of Bryce Avary's voice, but Of Men and Angels is undeniably well-crafted.

Matt White and Maroon 5 were poster-boys for catchy pop melodies and albums with a few emotionally striking moments thrown in for good measure. "Out of Goodbyes" and "Falling in Love (With My Best Friend)" were two of my favorite songs of the year.

And Band of Horses traded a lot of their hipster appeal for alt-country textures on Infinite Arms, but also soundtracked a lot of night drives for me along the way. I can't wait to see what they do or where they go next.