Home
1 Dixie Chicks
Taking the Long Way Open Wide/Columbia
Whatever you think of their best-defense-is-a-good-offense PR front,
you'll find tenderness, doubt, even vulnerability in this portrait of
love amid adversity... along with, yeah, some self-righteous bravado.
Even if it's for the wrong political-statement reasons, the Grammys just
might get it right this year.
2 Lily Allen
Alright, Still Regal
We didn't mind paying hefty import prices to get a jump on the most
exhilarating pop debut in years. Recalling mouthy Blighty lasses from
Kirsty MacColl to Neneh Cherry, Allen arrives armed with a brilliant
arsenal of ska- and hip-hop-influenced hooks...including the verbal left
ones she delivers to exes and unworthy nightclub suitors.
3 The Beatles
LOVE Apple/Capitol
If you really stopped to think about how vastly the Fabs' body of work
outshines anything being created today, you'd cry. Fortunately, the
Martins' fresh pastiches keep you laughing with gleeful surprise.
4 Drive-By Truckers
A Blessing and a Curse New West
Somehow, the DBTs manage to be America's greatest live rock & roll band
while also being major tragedians. ''It's gonna be a world of hurt,'' goes
the mantra-like closing refrain — which doesn't stop 'em from also
asserting that ''it's great to be alive,'' and proving it with rowdy joie
de vivre.
5 Vince Gill
These Days MCA Nashville
It seemed like folly, a four-CD boxed set of all-new material. But
whether Gill's applying his pure tenor to pop balladry, peeling off
blues licks, lifting up bluegrass praises, or burning down the
honky-tonks, his quartet of genre-specific discs proves he's one of the
most talented guys in music, period.
6 Ray Davies
Other People's Lives V2
You expect — and get — hummable drolleries. But the surprise on the Kinks
leader's solo debut is how much more the oft-guarded Davies allows us
into his inner emotional life, that sly red herring of a title
notwithstanding.
7 The Hold Steady
Boys and Girls in America Vagrant
You don't listen to a CD from emo-centric Vagrant and expect to hear
echoes of Thin Lizzy and the E Street Band. But that's what you get with
these guys, who riff on classic rock, reeling through literate tales of
characters undone by drug and/or dating disasters.
8 Lupe Fiasco
Food & Liquor 1st & 15th/Atlantic
Fiasco nearly beats mentor Kanye by deftly fusing orchestrated old-soul
touches to a subversively upbeat flow. He's even made a ''positive
hip-hop'' album that isn't just about how positively wonderful he is.
9 Alan Jackson
Like Red on a Rose Arista Nashville
Producer Alison Krauss has Jackson suddenly sounding more like Gordon
Lightfoot than George Jones, which is perfect casting for this superior
set of lonely-hearted road ballads.
10 Jerry Lee Lewis
Last Man Standing Artists First
If you've struggled through Ray Charles' and Tony Bennett's duets
albums, you might groan at another, except here the selection of
partners, almost all next-generation rockers, makes sense. But Jerry's
the real attraction: They still haven't built a better rock star.
You Might Also Like
- Music Review A Blessing and a Curse | Clark Collis
- Music Review Brighter Than Creation's Dark | Mikael Wood
- Review Decoration Day | Tim Clifford
- Music News 10 Bands On The Brink | Tom Sinclair, Rob Brunner, Evan Serpick
