Top Ten 2020

This is the music, in no particular order, that I've most enjoyed listening to in 2020:

Bruce Springsteen - Letter To You: '... you just need to turn it up really loud on a long, fast drive through a heartbroken summer night to hear Springsteen for the damaged hero he is. But that ensemble euphoria does work best live, when the bass is rattling through the blood and bones of hundreds of collected humans. The live recording of this record really helps deliver that communal feeling. They feel so present and close that listeners might feel they’re violating the pandemic rules. They rollick through the “Janey Needs a Shooter” and the Dylanesque “Song for Orphans”, both of which Springsteen wrote back in 1973. But it’s the new material that really catches fire. The band blaze through “Ghosts” and “Last Man Standing”, with “House of a Thousand Guitars” soaring above the lot. Driven by the supple rise and fall of a hymnal piano melody, the song is a commentary on songwriting. Springsteen, who’s been wonderfully frank about his lifelong struggle with depression, expresses solidarity with other writers “bitter and bored” who “wake in search of the lost chord”. As the champion of the working Americans who’ve been sold out by the Trump presidency, he delivers a verse on “the criminal clown” who has “stolen the throne”. But he offers the communion of music as a way to rise above and beyond material misery.'

Bob Dylan - Rough and Rowdy Ways: '“I sing the songs of experience like William Blake,” Bob Dylan growls, introducing his 39th epistle on the follies, frustrations and secret strengths of a species at war with itself, “I’ve got no apologies to make.” He’s the rebel poet, approaching twilight, laying out generations of hard-earned wisdoms with no punches pulled and no regrets. At 79, following a trio of covers albums of American standards largely associated with Sinatra, you might expect Dylan to make a world-worn and contemplative sort of record, but one that had little left to say. Instead, with ‘Rough And Rowdy Ways’, he’s produced arguably his grandest poetic statement yet, a sweeping panorama of culture, history and philosophy peering back through assassinations, world wars, the births of nations, crusades and Biblical myths in order to plot his place in the great eternal scheme. Rough? Perhaps, but it certainly has the warmth and lustre of the intimate and home-made. And rowdy? Dylan’s sure been rowdier ... Instead he requires of his band just a series of soft and simple canvasses, woven largely from gentle spiritual, lustrous country, Southern blues or gothic Americana – often resembling enclosed, traditionally structured atmospheres rather than songs – onto which he can project his sprawling literary visions of death, degradation and the horrors of history.'

Deacon Blue - City Of Love: 'They continue to conjure anthems that celebrate love, work, faith, hope, going out, and coming home ... we find Ricky Ross writing from a more personal – and maybe more vulnerable – viewpoint than before. City of Love seeks out the quiet moments, far from the bombast. From the solace of shared candle-light (the glorious, Fleetwood Mac-invoking 'In Our Room') to the solitude of nature (the gospel-rock of 'A Walk In The Woods'), it is poignant, pensive, yet never maudlin. If 'Intervals' stunning, astral pop reminds us of the ticking clock ('so little time'), then the swoon-inducing soul of 'Come On In' urges us to make the most of our days, and nights.'

Sufjan Stevens - The Ascension: Stevens 'felt inspired to create a whole record that examined the world he was living in, questioning it when it felt wrong and “exterminating all bullshit“. The sprawling results of this personal interrogation, which play out over a glitchy 80 minutes, serve as a powerful dissection of modern humanity. Filled with universal anguish and anxieties, ‘The Ascension’ ... takes a weary look at the outside world and out comes a deep sigh ... anxious instrumentals echo the album’s uneasy outlook and fear of the future, and when they combine forces it often makes for an astonishing listen. The world is pretty shitty at the moment and it’s easy to feel helpless, but as the horror show that is 2020 continues to rumble on, ‘The Ascension’ is yet another ample soundtrack to rage-dance to.'

Gregory Porter - All Rise: 'It’s not all just about that great voice. Gregory Porter also has a mighty generosity of spirit, plus empathy, warmth and optimism. And he has gathered a superb team around him to make a strong album with plenty of scale and depth ... All these contributions weave around Porter himself and strengthen what he does. The singer has written of “Revival Song”, written in memory of Freddie Gray, the 25-year old who died in police custody in Baliimore in 2015: “It’s about finding your source of strength to bring you back to seeing who you truly are so that you can be restored to the giant that you are.” That is what Gregory Porter, with help from some fine musicians has achieved with All Rise in 2020.'

Michael McDermott - What In The World: 'Chicago born McDermott’s poetic reflections on the parlous predicament of American politics and humanity in general always repay closer investigation, and “What in the World..” must rank as his most compelling offering to date. The Dylanesque title track points an accusing finger at the inhumanities perpetrated by the Trump regime via a tumbling flood of memorable lyrical images, contrasting beautifully with the much more low key charms of “Positively Central Park” and “New York,Texas,” a subdued gem strongly reminiscent of “Nebraska” era Springsteen at his brilliant best.'

Scott Stapp - The Space Between the Shadows: 'This album is powerful, it is beautiful and I can guarantee that every person reading this will be able to relate to the lyrical content throughout…we have all fought our demons to one extent or another but Scott has laid his soul bare and I am sure he is a very different man from the one prior to writing and recording The Space Between the Shadows. The album title tells a story of its own and although this is as dark as hell it is also full of light, hope and redemption. Scott Stapp is back and I lay odds he is better, stronger and much wiser than before.'

Bill Fay - Countless Branches - 'Countless Branches is the third of Fay's later-period albums, following Life Is People (2012) and Who Is the Sender? (2015). It might just be the best, too. It's palatable and concise, comprising ten tracks with bonuses pushing the total to 17. An incorrigible grouch might bridle at these guileless, gently philosophical songs, but they're delivered with such obvious sincerity that the rest of us will be charmed. As ever, Fay focuses on the search for meaning and substance in everyday life.'

Buddy & Judy Miller - 'Breakdown on 20th Avenue South': '... out of the ashes of loss, abandonment and melancholy, the songwriter has emerged like a phoenix for the sizzling Breakdown on 20th Ave. South (New West Records), the couple’s first duet record since 2009’s Written in Chalk. As much a testament to faith and forgiveness as it is a pulsating chronicle of a marriage beset by physical and emotional challenges, the album, which takes its name from the Music Row-adjacent street on which the couple resides in Nashville, ranks among the year’s finest.' 

The Innocence Misson - 'See You Tomorrow': Don Peris says, “There is a longing there to be transformed and a hopeful expectation that it is possible,” he explains. “I find joy, or a similar type of joy, in all of the songs,” he concludes. “A humble recognition of challenges and hardships, the acknowledgment and comfort in knowing that they are both personal and universal, and the expression of light and hope.” 'Focusing on the world that exists within our own heartbeats, The Innocence Mission has created a disc that finds truth in the connections binding us to each other. See You Tomorrow radiates a sense of love and warmth to help us through moments when those same commodities may be in short supply.'

My previous Top Ten's can be found here - 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013 and 2012.

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Bill Fay - Filled With Wonder Once Again.

The 10 albums that I enjoyed most in 2015

Here are the 10 albums (in no particular order) that I've got hold of and enjoyed the most in 2015:

Sid Griffin, writing on 'The Importance of The Basement Tapes,' describes in Biblical terms how the 'beat poetics' of Dylan's political and urban songs 'morphed into whimsy or Biblical-like prophecies'; 'songs derived from old sea shanties, melodic reflections about life's absudities, hard-rockin' and often hilarious fictitious character sketches, musical tributes to past heroes which bordered on pastiche, musical pastiches so authentic they bordered on being tributes, devout spirituals, C&W laments, a new take on blues balladry, and, yes, love in all its guises'

To mark the 50th anniversary of the freedom marches as well as the Staple Singers’ performance at the New Nazareth Church on Chicago’s South Side, their concert has been remastered and restored to its original setlist and runtime. Pops Staples, patriarch, bandleader and musical visionary, had written a song about the freedom marchers called ‘Freedom Highway’ which was debuted at this concert and which became the family’s biggest hit to that date, a pivotal record, connecting gospel music with the struggle for civil rights, that inched them toward the pop mainstream without sacrificing their gospel message for a secular audience.

'The Staple Singers have left an imprint of soulful voices, social activism, religious conviction and danceable “message music.”' 'Pops and the family were rooted in gospel, blues, and "message music" traditions. He sang about darkness, and he sang about light. He's done it again [on 'Somebody Was Watching' from Don't Lose This], and while the song's arrival might be belated by over 15 years, it's a total gift to hear one of the greats completely owning his lane.'

Bill Fay's 'beautifully hymnal fourth studio album' Who is the Sender? 'contains sublime, heartfelt ruminations on nature and the world.' With less light and shade than Life is People but with a more consistently meditative tone, With profound simplicity, like that of Chance in Being There, Fay mourns the inhumanity of our warlike impulses while prayerfully calling for a new world to be manifest.

Carrie and Lowell is a meditation on grief observed that channels the emotional honesty of C. S. Lewis' reflection on his time in the shadowlands. 'I saw intimacy pass by while going about it's business, like something sung and felt by Sufjan Stevens on his new beautiful solitary and rich record filled with faith and disbelief and the resurrection of trust and dreams.'

Carleen Anderson said in an interview for Huffington Post: 'the spiritual element in my life comes from miracles, in the form of love, like my child being born, or the way my grandparents raised me. It's emotional rescue. Love is a miracle, and from that music is made, as is all art.' 'The one piece of music I'm most proud of is probably a gospel song I wrote called 'Salvation Is Free' [Soul Providence, 2005]. It's about how I feel when everything in life is going wrong; it's about finding peace within all that.'

'Look Out Machines! is ... probably [Duke Special's] best, most complete work for a good while ... it’s broad enough to encompass the big issues. ‘Son Of The Left Hand’ is religious guilt with a dash of William Gibson. The title track is big enough to call down the apocalypse, with the help of Shakespeare and Betjeman: “What’s done is done, so drop the bomb”.' ‘God In A Dive’ is the best song I’ve heard for ages, about religious acceptance of one’s own kind. 'In A Dive', he says, concerns 'my living in Belfast and finding beautiful and profound qualities in people in the most unlikely of places.'

'On The Life Pursuit [by Belle & Sebastian], [Stuart] Murdoch treats church almost as a matter of course – yes, he goes to church, doesn’t everybody?! The references are simply there; they don’t attract attention themselves. Christianity (and church) is portrayed as an almost unspoken factor in the everyday lives of real people, one that is in turns pathetic and profound, but a factor nonetheless. In other words, his references ring true.'

Precious Remedies Against Satan’s Devices is the second album by The Welcome Wagon, the musical duo of Vito and Monique Aiuto, a Presbyterian pastor and his wife. 'Vito explains: “This album has a somewhat liturgical structure, ordered loosely like a worship service. It begins with the existential and cosmic dread of ‘I’m Not Fine,’ immediately followed by ‘My God, My God, Parts 1 & 2,’ a prayer that rails against God’s seeming absence from this world and our lives. The words are adapted from the prayer of Jesus while he hung on the cross."'

'"Banga" ... opens with the first of two songs about Europeans’ discovery of the New World. Piano and strings drive the rhapsodic, epistolary "Amerigo." On this and other tracks, [Patti] Smith sings with more depth, timbre and richness than perhaps she ever has ... Writing and art-making are recurrent themes on "Banga." On "Constantine’s Dream," the second track about voyages to America, Smith tackles the very nature of art - and the art of nature. Halfway through the 10-minute opus, painter Piero della Francesca shouts this "Horses"-worthy Patti war cry: "Oh lord let me die on the back of adventure/ With a brush and an eye full of light." ... "Banga" is both a return to form and her best album in many years.'

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Carleen Anderson - Salvation Is Free.

Stevens, de Waal, Stofer, Baldwin, Britton, Rena & Adams

Blackwell, the Arts & Crafts House, currently has two under-stated but wonderful exhibitions of ceramics. Ideas of Order takes a poem by Wallace Stevens’ poem as its starting point in order to juxtapose ‘ideas of order’ in ceramic works by Edmund de Waal and Hans Stofer, while Gordon Baldwin, Alison Britton and Nicholas Rena grapple with ideas of form and function in Traditions of Use:

"‘I placed a jar in Tennessee,
And round it was, upon a hill.
It made the slovenly wilderness
Surround that hill.’

American poet Wallace Stevens’ Anecdote of the Jar begins with an act of deliberate placement which creates new order. ‘Placed’ and out-of-place in the wilderness, the jar of the title domesticates wilderness into a surrounding. Taking Stevens’ poem as its starting point, this display juxtaposes ‘ideas of order’ in ceramic works by makers Edmund de Waal and Hans Stofer.

English novelist AS Byatt recognised affinities between Stevens and Edmund de Waal: ‘The pots give me the same joy Stevens gives me, of recognising the human making of Balzac’s “things”, what Stevens also calls a “blessed rage for order”’. De Waal’s delicate groups of vessels and the cultivated disorder of Stofer’s bowls evoke and question ideas of aesthetic, domestic and social order - and the hierarchies of value that underpin them. The conversation between pieces is shadowed by Blackwell’s history as a house where domestic order and routine labour were inextricable."

Traditions of Use "showcases the work of three leading British ceramic artists who all grapple with ideas of form and function within the wider debate of where contemporary craft stands in today’s art world.

Breaking with the tradition that in ceramics form is all that matters, Gordon Baldwin creates what he terms ‘vessels’ which challenge the concepts of ‘fine art’ and ‘craft.’ So too does renowned ceramicist, writer and critic, Alison Britton, who looks at the connections and disjunctions with ceramic history, painting and sculpture. Nicholas Rena’s sculptural ceramics engage with ideas of containment and emptiness while alluding ‘to traditions of use that are almost lost.’"

The Lakeland Arts Trust also shows work at Blackwell, including earthenware by sculptor and poet Anna Adams, wife of the painter Norman Adams. Lakeland Arts is one of the most significant arts and heritage organisations in the North of England with a national and international reputation for the quality of its historic buildings, museum and gallery collections and programming. It has a diverse portfolio of attractions: Blackwell, Abbot Hall Art Gallery and the Museum of Lakeland Life & Industry in Kendal and the new Windermere Jetty in Bowness.

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Wallace Stevens - The Idea Of Order.

New (and old) music

Bill Fay's 'beautifully hymnal fourth studio album' Who is the Sender? 'contains sublime, heartfelt ruminations on nature and the world.' With less light and shade than Life is People but with a more consistently meditative tone, With profound simplicity, like that of Chance in Being There, Fay mourns the inhumanity of our warlike impulses while prayerfully calling for a new world to be manifest.

Carrie and Lowell is a meditation on grief observed that channels the emotional honesty of C. S. Lewis' reflection on his time in the shadowlands. 'I saw intimacy pass by while going about it's business, like something sung and felt by Sufjan Stevens on his new beautiful solitary and rich record filled with faith and disbelief and the resurrection of trust and dreams.'

To mark the 50th anniversary of the freedom marches as well as the Staple Singers’ performance at the New Nazareth Church on Chicago’s South Side, their concert has been remastered and restored to its original setlist and runtime. Pops Staples, patriarch, bandleader and musical visionary, had written a song about the freedom marchers called ‘Freedom Highway’ which was debuted at this concert and which became the family’s biggest hit to that date, a pivotal record, connecting gospel music with the struggle for civil rights, that inched them toward the pop mainstream without sacrificing their gospel message for a secular audience.

'The Staple Singers have left an imprint of soulful voices, social activism, religious conviction and danceable “message music.”' 'Pops and the family were rooted in gospel, blues, and "message music" traditions. He sang about darkness, and he sang about light. He's done it again [on 'Somebody Was Watching' from Don't Lose This], and while the song's arrival might be belated by over 15 years, it's a total gift to hear one of the greats completely owning his lane.'

I'm also currently discovering the music of Krzysztof Penderecki: 'naturally vibrant, sensual and with a very personal sense of architecture': 'If you simplified the last 100 years of music as a war between the forces of the atonal and the lyrical, Penderecki would be on the front lines of battle. He found fame, around 1960, as a forward-thinking avant-gardist, but later defected to the other side, looking back at the Romantics and even Bach for inspiration ... Much of his music is not for the faint of heart. With its viscerally intense drama (even in his non-stage works), this music occupies a sound world that can often be described as terrifying.' 

'The St. Luke Passion, completed in 1966, was a breakthrough piece for Penderecki, proving he was much more than a trendy avant-gardist ... It was also a major religious statement at a time when, under Soviet rule, the church was officially frowned upon.' 'In his music, Penderecki has approached politics, religion, social injustice and the plight of the common man, both in general terms and by considering specific individuals and events.' 

Arun Rath writes: 'Penderecki is not Jewish — he's not a survivor — but he is Polish. Auschwitz is basically in his backyard. A devout Christian writing authentically liturgical music, Penderecki seems to be wrestling directly with the question of how you can make peace with God after such horrors.'

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The Staple Singers - Freedom Highway.

The 10 albums that I enjoyed most in 2014

Here are the 10 albums (in no particular order) that I've got hold of and enjoyed the most in 2014:

Popular Problems by Leonard Cohen is his best since The Future and, as with that album, deals both explicitly and ambiguously with religious imagery and spiritual reflection: 'Word of Words / And Measure of all Measures / Blessed is the Name / The Name be blessed / Written on my heart / In burning Letters / That's all I know / I cannot read the rest.' ('Born in Chains')

Ricky Ross is in a rich vein of inspiration with The Hipsters in 2012 quickly followed by solo album Trouble Came Looking in 2013 and now A New House. Deacon Blue's best album since under-appreciated classic Whatever You Say, Say Nothing, both albums featuring songs centred on Bethlehem: 'I long to be there / As bright as the sky / At Bethlehem's gate' ('Bethlehem's Gate') and 'You got to go back, gotta go back, gotta go back in time / To Bethlehem / To begin again.' ('Bethlehem begins').

Robert Plant's Lullaby ... and the Ceaseless Roar is a wonderfully original melting pot of blues, country, indie and world influences. Somebody There explores a sense of the sublime: 'When I was a young boy / And time was passing by / Real slow / And all around was wonder / And all around the great unknown / With eyes that slowly opened / I set about the wisdom to know / And living out of language / Before one word I spoke / I heard the call / There is somebody there I know.'

Neil McCormick's initial reaction to U2's Songs of Innocence to me seems fairly accurate: 'I wouldn’t put it on a par with their greatest work - Boy, Joshua Tree, Achtung Baby or even the seamless songs of All That You Can’t Leave Behind ... But ... it certainly does the job it apparently sets out to do, delivering addictive pop rock with hooks, energy, substance and ideas that linger in the mind after you’ve heard them.' 'It is, at heart, a highly personal set of songs' with 'no flag waving anthems, no big social causes.' If there is a moral, he suggests, 'it appears in the coda of Cedarwood Road: “a heart that is broken / is a heart that is open.”'

Dry The River have been described as 'folky gospel music played by a post-punk band' (BBC). Their second album, Alarms in the Heart: 'is bold, expansive, confident and cohesive - an undeniable step up in both diversity and volume from their critically acclaimed debut, Shallow Bed (March 2012). Gethsemane, uncovers the spiritual heart of the record, delivering a Buckley-esque narrative: "Excavating down you'd find the drowning and the drowned /And then there's us, babe."' (Rough Trade)

The first Shovels & Rope album, O’ Be Joyful, is 'a delightful combination of knee-slapping, bordering-on-gospel folk tracks and bluesy guitar-driven rock' (Filter). Husband and wife team, Michael Trent and Cary Ann Hearst, both have solo careers, while Trent is also lead singer of The Films. Together they make: 'Thrilling music rooted in old country with touches of blues and gospel, that can’t help but remind you of Jack and Meg and Johnny and June.' (The Pabst)

The Guardian had an excellent article about the wonderful reissued album Dylan's Gospel: "Conceived by record producer Lou Adler, who admired backing singers so much that he sometimes paid them triple scale, it features 27 vocalists, including [Merry] Clayton, Clydie King, Patrice Holloway, Gloria Jones and Edna Wright, injecting the likes of Chimes of Freedom and Lay Lady Lay with Baptist gusto. It's a righteous, inspiring, beautiful piece of work."

'There are many factors contributing to the uplifting feel of “The Flood and the Mercy,” the second solo effort from ex-Live frontman Ed Kowalczyk. There’s the gently jangling production of Jamie Candiloro; the singer’s spiritual lyrics, rooted in his Christian faith and a synthesis of other beliefs; and the appearance of vocalist Rachael Yamagata and R.E.M. guitarist Peter Buck on three tracks: “Supernatural Fire,” “All That I Wanted” and “Holy Water Tears.” (SF Examiner)

'Scott Stapp’s Proof of Life is a poignant snapshot of the artist, showcasing his journey over the past several years. It doesn’t shy away from encountering the dark places that he’s wandered into, acknowledging those missteps nor does it neglect highlighting the faith-filled elements that have helped to draw the artist back into the light. Proof of Life is an insightful and honest record, capturing Stapp at his best lyrically and musically, proving to be a great listen.' (soul-audio)

Linda Perhacs, says Sufjan Stevens, who released The Soul Of All Natural Things on his Asthmatic Kitty label, “has a prophetic voice that speaks beauty and truth with the kind of confidence and hope that has been lost for decades. There is nothing more real in music today.”

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The Brothers & Sisters - I Shall Be Released.

Xpedition Force (2)

Can you think of a time when you were simply bursting with good news that you had to tell someone else about? That is how the disciples after Jesus was raised from death and after they had been filled with Holy Spirit. There’s a song that by Cat Stevens which says:

“Oh, I can’t keep it in, I’ve gotta let it out,
I’ve got to show the world, world’s got to see,
see all the love, love that’s in me.”

Cat Stevens was singing about his love for another person rather than love for God but the idea is exactly the same. Something had happened to the disciples that was so wonderful that they couldn’t have kept it in even if they’d tried. They had to tell the world and the world had to see the love that God had shown them through Jesus’ death on the cross.

That’s also what God wants for us too. Jesus wants us all to be his disciples, to tell others about him and live the way he told us. You can’t see him but we know he’s near us, giving us strength and courage to talk to others about him. It doesn’t matter if we haven’t know him long or don’t understand everything he did.

To quote another song, this time by Larry Norman:

“When you know a pretty story
you don't let it go unsaid
you tell it to your children
as you tuck them into bed
and when you know a wonderful secret
you tell it to your friends
because a lifetime filled with happiness
is like a street that never ends

Sing that sweet sweet song of salvation
and let your laughter fill the air
sing that sweet sweet song of salvation
and tell the people everywhere
sing that sweet sweet song of salvation
to every man and every nation
sing that sweet sweet song of salvation
and let the people know that Jesus cares.”

When we truly know Jesus’ love and care for us then we are so joyful that the telling of others just overflows from our lives. The key is to know that love deeply, to allow Jesus’ love to flood over us and fill us with his joy and then the telling of what has happened to us comes as naturally as when we share the good news of our love for another person or the birth of our children or any other piece of good news that we simply can’t hold back and simply must share with others.

So let us pray that we will know more of Jesus’ love in our lives today:

Lord Jesus, fill us with an ever deepening awareness of the depth of you love for us. Help to truly appreciate in the very depths of our beings what it meant for you to give your life that we might live. May our lives overflow with your love that the world may see what you have done in us and for us. Amen.

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Larry Norman - Sweet Sweet Song of Salvation.