I am a Barenaked Ladies fan.

I know this is not the most fashionable thing to admit, but I can’t help it. I love this band. I remember first hearing Gordon, while in college, and responding equally to the goofy joy of “If I Had $1,000,000” and “Be My Yoko Ono,” and the more serious leanings of “What a Good Boy” and “The Flag.” Gordon gets a lot of stick, but I think it’s a fun little album, still. (And even now, whenever I say hello to my cat, Kitty, I have to follow it with a high-sung “Hello Kitty, yeah!”)

I followed the Canadian quintet as they rose from obscurity to mild fame to worldwide notoriety, and got better and better with each record. Born on a Pirate Ship contains “The Old Apartment,” yes, but it also has songs about accidental death and suicide and shoe boxes full of lies and people using people and then discarding them. And yes, Stunt has “One Week,” the main evidence for the prosecution that BNL is a novelty act. But it also has catchy little tunes about cross-dressing and auto-erotic asphyxiation and mutual masturbation. There’s some dark, dark stuff etched in these grooves.

I reacted negatively to Kevin Hearn at first – he replaced Andrew Creeggan on keyboards, and brought a more plastic, synthy sound to the mix. But I think he’s been a good fit for the band, and his textures meant a lot to Everything to Everyone, the band’s last great album. There’s some not-quite-funny stuff on it, like “Another Postcard,” but a deepening maturity informs most of it. “Aluminum” and “Unfinished” are examples of the marvelous, shimmering pop on offer here.

So yeah, I’m a Barenaked Ladies fan. Which is why it’s been so sad to watch them fall apart. The double album Barenaked Ladies Are Me/Are Men contained maybe three good songs amongst its 29, and the less said about children’s album Snacktime the better. I think the Ladies had been struggling against their reputation as fun-loving jesters, wanting desperately to be taken seriously as artists and writers of straightforward pop. The problem is, the straightforward pop they wrote was bland and forgettable, and the “fun” stuff sounded forced and phony.

And then Steven Page left. Page is the man with the most distinctive voice, and the one responsible for most of the dark lyrics I’ve liked so much over the years. I understand it was an acrimonious parting, and I imagine it would have to be, to end 20 years of friendship and musical partnership. I don’t think there’s any arguing that Page was at least 50 percent of the soul of this band, and his voice was one of the main things that drew people in.

The remaining Ladies have decided to go on without him, and listening to All in Good Time, their first Page-less album, I can’t help but conclude this was a bad idea. Struggling through this record actually makes me sad, so I don’t really want to dwell on it. Just a few thoughts.

The cover tells the story well. It’s a muted black-and-white shot of the four of them, looking pensive. Other pictures find them with the same sad-sack looks on their faces – there are no smiles here, and it strikes me that these pictures are a long way from the beach-ball fun of Gordon’s cover art. The record itself follows suit. It’s almost entirely straightforward pop-rock, much of it is slow and dreary, and most of the lyrics are about Page, and how angry they are that he left, and how much better they will be without him.

The opener is called “You Run Away.” I’m not sure it gets more obvious than that. The song is relentlessly downbeat, has no chorus, and takes the band’s more mature sound to its depressing extreme. The band does occasionally take the tempo up, but not often, and nothing here could be considered fun. (Except for one misbegotten track, and we’ll get to that in a minute.) Ed Robertson sings lead on most of these tracks, as he should – he’s always been the underrated half of the main BNL songwriting team – but Kevin Hearn and bassist Jim Creeggan take the mic a few times each as well. The result is more disjointed than democratic, alas, and I find myself missing Page’s inimitable voice.

But that’s over, and if there were any chance of reconciliation, this album probably put the last nail in that coffin. In addition to “You Run Away,” in which Robertson says “I tried, but you tried harder, I lied, but you lied smarter,” the band takes aim at Page in “I Have Learned,” and “How Long,” and most pointedly “Golden Boy.” In that one, Robertson urges Page to “hang your hat at someone else’s house.”

If all this woe-is-me rage feels like it might get monotonous, well, it does. Hearn and Creeggan are there to lighten the mood once in a while, and Hearn’s sweet “Watching the Northern Lights” at least ends things on a hopeful note. But the Ladies play everything straight, and write everything as if they’ve decided to become Lifehouse. As boring folk-pop goes, this isn’t awful, but it isn’t memorable either, even if producer Michael Phillip Wojewoda gives everything a rawer, more stripped-back sound.

Are there high points? Sure. These guys are too good at writing catchy pop songs to not let a few slip through. The best of these is “Every Subway Car,” a tale of love and graffiti set to crunchy electric guitars. “Ordinary” is a typical Ed Robertson ballad, but it’s been a while since I’ve heard one of those, and this is a nice one. “The Love We’re In” is a pretty waltz. I also like the buzzing guitars in “Summertime,” although that song isn’t as much of a romp as you’d expect.

Balancing all that off, unfortunately, is “Four Seconds,” the one moment of aren’t-we-zany “fun” on this album, and if the four remaining Ladies want to continue, they should curb this impulse immediately. Over a lame spaghetti Klezmer backdrop, Robertson half-heartedly raps about Bill Monroe and Close Encounters of the Third Kind. I believe it’s drummer Tyler Stewart who has the honor of shouting out the chorus (“One Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi four!”). This should be a hoot, but it’s unspeakably lame, and it stands out as this album’s most painful miscalculation.

But really, my problem with All in Good Time is that it’s the sound of a band I love limping towards the finish line. They make no bones about the difficult struggles they went through to make this thing, and I’m glad they managed it, but the record itself isn’t worth the pain. I had originally written a much snarkier version of this review, but I went with this instead, because this album doesn’t make me angry. It just makes me depressed. There’s virtually nothing here I want to return to, no moment that makes me glad the Ladies have continued on without Page. It just makes me sad to hear them reduced to this. I wanted to love this, but I can’t.

* * * * *

A letter from John Oates to Darryl Hall:

Hall! Hey, it’s Oates!

What’s going on? Not much here. Just got back from walking the dog around the retirement community. Man, this old pup is gonna wear me out before long. Hard to believe we’re in our 60s now, isn’t it? Time takes no time at all. (Hey, that sounds like a song!)

So listen, I’m writing you this because something strange is happening, and I can’t make sense of it on my own. I don’t know if you’ve noticed this, Hall, but… we’re cool again.

No, I promise you, this is true. The kids are singing our songs again. Did you see 500 Days of Summer? I expected just some nice romantic movie, and I’ll tell you, all the time travel tricks and stuff confused me, but my son loved it. So I’m watching this, and halfway through, there’s this dance scene, and guess what song they used? “You Make My Dreams.” I nearly choked on my buttered popcorn, and Aimee had to give me the Heimlich maneuver right there. It was a scene.

But I just couldn’t believe it. I haven’t heard that song in… what, 20 years? If that had been just a one-time thing, I wouldn’t even be writing you, but my son John brought home something else the other day. You’re going to want to sit down for this. It’s an album by two kids calling themselves The Bird and the Bee, and it’s called Interpreting the Masters. And guess who the masters are? Us!

I asked John about it, and he says The Bird and the Bee are cool. The Bird is Inara George, and the Bee is Greg Kurstin, who’s in some band called Geggy Tah. I swear, Hall, the names these kids come up with. What would have been wrong with calling the band George & Kurstin? Nothing, that’s what. But anyway, they’ve made a couple of records, had their songs played in some popular movies, and toured with Lily Allen. They’re cool.

And they like us! They really like us. I was worried about it at first, like maybe they were doing that irony thing people their age like to do. There’s nothing worse than music that winks at you, am I right? Just say something straightforward, write a good hook, and you have a song. I don’t know, I guess I expected this Bird and Bee to think our old stuff was goofy. A song like “Kiss on My List” doesn’t work unless you mean it, you know?

But Hall, you won’t believe this. These versions are great! The Bird and the Bee sound to me like what we thought the future would be in 1970. They’re kind of lounge-y, kind of soul-y, and they do everything with keyboards and drum machines. Inara George has a great voice, like an old-time torch singer. And listen, they do “I Can’t Go for That,” and “Sara Smile,” and “Maneater,” and “She’s Gone,” and “Private Eyes,” and they treat them like their own children.

I don’t know how to say this, exactly. They reinvent these songs, but they treat them with respect at the same time. Even “Maneater,” which even I think is a little silly, they do with style. They love these songs. I think they might love them as much as we do. I teared up a little at “One on One.” They do it so well. Hall, man, you have to hear this.

Another thing, too. The Bird and the Bee seem to have the same arrangement we did, where the pretty one goes out front and sings, and the smart one makes all the music and gets no credit for it. Haha! Just a little joke there. But you know it was all Oates, man. All Oates.

Anyway, Hall, we have that tour starting up soon, and I think we’re gonna see a lot more kids coming out to our shows. So I’m sure you know what I’m thinking. You grow the hair back, and I’ll get my mustache on again, and we’ll do this for real. Hall & Oates, taking on the world again. It’s our time, man. Our time.

Okay, I gotta go get some more Metamucil. But let’s do this.

Later,
Oates

* * * * *

And now, the next installment in my top 20 of the 2000s.

#9. Ben Folds, Rockin’ the Suburbs (2001).

Last week, I mentioned how difficult it was to pick an Aimee Mann album for this list. By contrast, it was all too easy to choose Rockin’ the Suburbs to represent Ben Folds. Of his three solo albums this decade, this is easily the best. Songs for Silverman is good, but a little too sedate, and Way to Normal isn’t as bad as I first thought, but is still his slightest and weakest.

I’ve been a fan of this piano-playing pure-pop genius since the first Ben Folds Five album, way back in 1995. The airwaves were ruled then by angry guitar-mopers whining about their heartbreak and addictions over slow, sludgy, joyless dirges. In the middle of that, here comes this skinny guy from North Carolina who plays piano like Elton John (but 1970s Elton John, not Disney movie Elton John), and has an uncanny knack for dazzling melody. These songs were smart, but they were also a lot of fun, and the playing… man, Folds can play.

The Five made three splendid records before splitting in 2000, and Folds went it alone one year later with Rockin’ the Suburbs. At the time, I was worried about it, but I shouldn’t have been – he just kept on doing what he does, writing fantastic pop songs and playing the hell out of them. Looking back on it now, it’s amazing to me how many stone cold classic songs can be found on this record. “Zak and Sara.” “Still Fighting It.” “Fred Jones Part 2.” The Luckiest.” And of course, the title track. They’re all here.

This is the first and, so far, only album on which Folds played almost all of the instruments, so in a lot of ways, Rockin’ the Suburbs is the most pure record he’s done. It strikes his trademark balance between snark and sentiment, often in the same song. But what he does here better than he’s ever done is tell stories. On Suburbs we’re introduced to a plethora of new Folds characters: Annie, Zak, Sara, Stan, Lisa, Cathy and Lucretia, plus we get a reappearance by Fred Jones (from “Cigarette,” on BFF’s Whatever and Ever Amen album). Over classic pop backdrops, Folds spins these tales, and the people in them seem real.

Then there’s the suburban rage-rocker at the heart of “Rockin’ the Suburbs,” still the finest piece of satire on the whole rap-rock thing I’ve heard. It’s somewhat jarring on this album, since it’s the one piece of unbridled whimsy, but it makes its points well: “I got shit running through my brain, so intense that I can’t explain, all alone in my white-boy pain, shake your booty while the band complains…” It’s this side of Folds that dominated Way to Normal, and his satirical knives were dulled by that point, but here, this song simply rocks.

Most of Suburbs, however, is sweet and sad. In “Annie Waits,” a jilted woman vows never to hang on a man’s call again. “Zak and Sara” details one teen girl’s battle with mental illness, all while her friend plays her favorite song on guitar. I can hardly listen to “Fred Jones,” as it’s about an old newspaper man being shown the door after 25 years. But I still love “The Ascent of Stan,” a rollicking tale of a man who sells out his hippie dreams.

Amidst these stores are two deeply personal songs, among the most beautiful Folds has ever written. “Still Fighting It” is a letter to his son Louis, explaining that it’s “so hard to grow up, but everybody does,” and concluding with a plaintive apology: “You’re so much like me, I’m sorry.” And “The Luckiest” may well be Folds’ prettiest song, a simple declaration of love told in some delightfully off-kilter ways. If he’s written one song that will stand the test of time, it’s probably this one.

But it’s not my favorite. No, my favorite is the forgotten gem at track eight, “Carrying Cathy.” For my money, Folds has never penned a more moving story, and the way he gives the title new meaning and resonance at the end is the mark of a master. It’s this side of Folds that I hope novelist Nick Hornby ignites through their collaboration, Picture Window, slated for later this year. When Folds is on, as he is on “Carrying Cathy,” he is one of the finest songwriters anywhere.

I’ve said it before, but some day, Ben Folds is going to make an inescapably great, absolutely perfect pop album. He hasn’t quite done it yet – a couple of similar-minded popsters actually ranked higher on this list – but Rockin’ the Suburbs is the closest he’s come. And to be honest, he didn’t miss by much here. This album is non-stop wonderful, striking the delicate balance between the silly and heartwarming sides of Folds’ personality. I hope we hear its like from him again.

* * * * *

But wait, there’s more. We’re not quite done yet, because it’s time for the First Quarter Report.

For newbies, every year I keep a running top 10 list, swapping in new albums as they come out. I post the final list in the last weeks of December, but I thought it might be fun to give readers (that’s you guys!) a glimpse of the list in progress throughout the year.

So at the end of each quarter, I reveal what my top 10 list would look like, were I forced to post it then. What follows is the standings at the end of March 2010, and I have to say, this year has been extraordinary so far. I even have a few worthy records that are disqualified from the list: Peter Gabriel’s Scratch My Back and Johnny Cash’s American VI: Ain’t No Grave. Both are covers albums, and therefore ineligible. I have some honorable mentions, too, but I won’t bore you with them. Suffice it to say, if it continues like this, I’ll be a happy (but broke) music fan at the end of the year.

Here’s the list, as it stands right now:

#10. The Magnetic Fields, Realism.
#9. OK Go, Of the Blue Colour of the Sky.
#8. Final Fantasy, Heartland.
#7. Fair, Disappearing World.
#6. Beach House, Teen Dream.
#5. Shearwater, The Golden Archipelago.
#4. Corinne Bailey Rae, The Sea.
#3. BT, These Hopeful Machines.
#2. Yeasayer, Odd Blood.
#1. Joanna Newsom, Have One on Me.

So yeah, 2010, keep it up. I have high hopes for the second quarter, which will see new ones from Rufus Wainwright, Aqualung, the Hold Steady, Minus the Bear, the New Pornographers, Keane, the Dead Weather, the Black Keys, Rooney, Teenage Fanclub, and Okkervil River (backing up Roky Erickson, who is, remarkably, still alive). It looks pretty good all laid out like that, doesn’t it?

Next week, some live albums from Pet Shop Boys, the Weakerthans and Dan Wilson. And probably some thoughts on the 11th Doctor, who makes his debut the day before Easter. Thanks to Mike Lachance for inspiring the Bird and the Bee review.

Leave a comment on my blog at tm3am.blogspot.com. Follow my infrequent twitterings at www.twitter.com/tm3am.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

Alex Chilton was one of those musicians whose influence far outstripped his fame.

When he was 16 years old, he scored a number one hit as the singer of the Box Tops, with a song called “The Letter.” Everyone knows this song: “Lonely days are gone, I’m a-goin’ home, my baby just wrote me a letter…” The Box Tops had other hits, too, including “Neon Rainbow” and “Cry Like a Baby,” but they’ll always be remembered for “The Letter.”

And had Chilton stopped there, news of his death last week at age 59 of a heart attack would still have been important. But he didn’t stop there. In 1971, Chilton formed Big Star, and subsequently made three albums that should be in every pop lover’s collection. All you need to do is listen to the first half of the debut, #1 Record, to hear why. “The Ballad of El Goodo.” “In the Street.” “Thirteen.” “Don’t Lie to Me.” Pure pop classics.

Big Star never got the acclaim they deserved. Their record company, Ardent, even turned down their immense third album, Third/Sister Lovers, citing low sales of the first two. (Oh, and also? Third/Sister Lovers is a crazy, messy, uncommercial thing, the kind no record company thinks they can sell.) But ask any power pop songwriter with an electric guitar for a list of influences, and Chilton will be there. Hell, he was such an influence on Paul Westerberg that the Replacements even named a song after him.

Chilton’s death leaves the pop skyline a little emptier. He may not have been as famous as he should have been, but he was an important figure, a terrific songwriter, and a hero to millions of kids with six-strings and a love of good melody. Rest in peace, Alex.

* * * * *

Every week, I go to my local record store and pick up the new CDs. And every week, I bring the resulting pile into work, and hand them over to our photo editor, a delightful woman named Marianne. She will pore through the stack, picking out the ones she wants to hear, and she’ll often comment on my predilection for “weenie” music. Finally, the other week, she point-blank asked me: “Do you have anything that rocks?”

This one’s for her.

Now, I love me some dreamy, sweet acoustic pop. I also enjoy all kinds of things played on pianos and violins. But never let it be said that I do not also, on occasion, when no one’s looking, like to rock the fuck out. The crushing, all-powerful sound of stomp-stomp-stomp Real Rock gets the blood going like little else, and when I’m done singing my little fairy songs played by chirpy girls on harps, I have been known to indulge in said rock, and also in the roll that often accompanies it. Verily, I tell thee.

It just usually takes more than a good beat and a sloppy six-string to bring me back. The real masters of rock ‘n’ roll play just as well as the artsy folkies I love, only they do it with an energy and an abandon that, when done right, rocks your face off. Their work will stand up to repeat listens, though, even once the initial thrill is gone.

Take Jack White, for instance. It took me a while to get on the White Stripes bandwagon – I still like both of White’s other bands, the Raconteurs and the Dead Weather, better than the one that made him famous. I appreciate White’s explosive talent on the guitar, and I like when he changes things up. The last couple of Stripes albums have been surprisingly diverse.

But I have to admit, I also love it when he goes all rock god on us. The Stripes’ new live album, Under Great White Northern Lights, is an hour of furious abandon and six-string heroics, and should be all the proof anyone needs that Jack White is the living spirit of the ‘70s, when men were judged by the ferocity of their playing, and just how far they were willing to take things on stage. After hearing this, no one can say Jack White holds anything back.

Of course, there are two Whites in the Stripes, and the other has always been more problematic for me. Meg White is an extremely basic drummer, like a less awesome John Bonham in a red and white dress. She essentially provides a powerhouse foundation for White to ramble over, but several times on Northern Lights, she misses beats and nearly throws off the song. What she does, she does well, but there’s no art in her playing, no setting on her internal metronome that isn’t “bash like mad.”

Luckily, the Michigan madman who handles the rest of the music is in fine form here. He’s basically the other three-fourths of Led Zeppelin live – he screams like Robert Plant, wails like Jimmy Page, and plays the organ like John Paul Jones, on ass-kickers like “I’m Slowly Turning Into You.” Jack White is even more unhinged on stage than he is in the studio, and at times it feels like his performance is hanging by a thin wire, ready to tumble into an unpredictable heap.

But he holds it together – the Stripes live are just the right amount of sloppy. They slow it down a couple of times, for “We Are Gonna Be Friends” and their signature cover of Burt Bacharach’s “I Just Don’t Know What to Do With Myself.” For most of this record, though, White is a powerhouse – just listen to closer “Seven Nation Army.” I mean, damn. The Stripes even made me like “Fell in Love With a Girl” for the first time here, by accentuating its bluesy bits, as opposed to its garage-rock ones.

Under Great White Northern Lights is the soundtrack to a documentary of the same name, which I haven’t seen. But it’s on my list. It took 10 years and two other Jack White bands to get me to appreciate the White Stripes, but now that I’m on board, I think this record is an hour of crazy-ass bliss.

Of course, rock bands tend to rock more live, but some of them are able to keep that energy when they get into the studio. That’s actually not an easy thing to do – studio albums are generally recorded in pieces, the drums and bass laid down before the guitars and vocals, and all of it’s done in a sterile little room, with no audience to feed back emotion. That’s why bands like Metallica end up making albums like Load.

Not so New Jersey’s Titus Andronicus. Capturing a live energy is pretty much their reason for being. In fact, their debut album, The Airing of Grievances, offered little else. When I chastised online indie-rock critics for championing some awful, awful stuff a couple of weeks ago, I was thinking of records like The Airing of Grievances, one of the worst pieces of musical shit I have ever heard. Three chords, amateur playing, incoherent screaming, no melody, 8.5 on Pitchfork. Naturally.

But despite that, I was inexplicably drawn to this band’s sophomore effort, The Monitor. Here’s why: it’s a 65-minute rock opera about the Civil War. You know I can’t resist a good rock opera.

Now, truthfully, The Monitor isn’t all about the Civil War. But it uses that conflict as a metaphor throughout, for everyday struggles. (Repeated refrain “the enemy is everywhere” references both the horror of battle and the effort it takes just to get up every day.) The Monitor is, however, a rowdy, emotional freight train of a record, bursting with ambition yet retaining that youthful, dig-my-heart-out-with-a-rusty-spoon feeling of the first album. That is, by the way, a good thing.

Titus lyrically reference their two main musical touchstones here in the first verse of opener “A More Perfect Union”: Bruce Springsteen and Billy Bragg, only louder and faster. Patrick Stickles sounds like a young Conor Oberst – the guy can’t sing, but he makes his spleen-venting work through sheer force of will. The Monitor pretties up its punk with barrelhouse pianos, bagpipes, strings and horns, and songs are interspersed with dramatic readings from speeches by Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis. Five of these 10 songs blow by seven minutes, with the epic closer, “The Battle of Hampton Roads,” stretching to 14.

Yes, the Titus boys have done everything they could to be more ambitious, except for one thing: they didn’t learn any more chords. All of these songs are simple and straightforward, relying on the same three or four chords over and over. And yet, the whole thing is done with such full-blooded abandon, such commitment, and such exuberance that it works anyway. You’ll be shouting along (“It’s still us against them!”) and pounding your fist in the air. Perhaps it’s the band’s use of old-time American music to dress up its Civil War imagery. I don’t know. But it all coheres, in ways I didn’t expect.

The Monitor is an insane album, no doubt, and its dogged simplicity probably grounds it. Whatever makes this record tick, it’s a raw and riveting listen, a nugget of ambition swallowed up by a shit-ton of Real Rock. I can’t explain why I like it as much as I do, but I do. It’s loud, fast, dramatic and widescreen, and it reaches for the sky. All that, and Marianne will probably like it, too.

* * * * *

We’re halfway through my list of the Top 20 Albums of the 2000s, and with this week’s installment, we start the countdown’s home stretch. First, a look back at the first half, the way they do on those “top videos of the week” shows:

#20. Bruce Cockburn, You’ve Never Seen Everything.
#19. Vampire Weekend.
#18. Over the Rhine, Ohio.
#17. The Choir, O How the Mighty Have Fallen.
#16. Aqualung, Memory Man.
#15. Silverchair, Young Modern.
#14. The Decemberists, The Hazards of Love.
#13. Mutemath.
#12. Daniel Amos, Mr. Buechner’s Dream.
#11. Duncan Sheik, Phantom Moon.

And now, onward:

#10. Aimee Mann, The Forgotten Arm (2005).

It was hard to pick an Aimee Mann album for this list. She’s one of my very favorite songwriters, and she’s never failed to earn a spot on my top 10 list. Over the last 10 years, Mann made four fantastic records, starting with Bachelor No. 2 in 2000 and ending with last year’s @#%&*! Smilers. (That’s not counting her wonderful Christmas record, too.) She’s so consistently good that comparing one Mann album against another is a futile gesture. You really should just hear them all.

But I selected The Forgotten Arm for a couple of reasons. For one thing, it’s Mann’s first and only concept album – its 12 tunes tell the tale of John, a Vietnam veteran and boxer, and his inability to connect with Caroline, the love of his life. The two fight and drink and mope and fight some more, and at the end, they realize they don’t fit, even though they love each other. It’s a simple plot, to be certain, but it allows Mann to really get inside these characters. Just about all of her songs are about lost souls fumbling towards any solace they can find, but on The Forgotten Arm, Mann truly delves deep.

For another, she enlisted guitarist Joe Henry to produce this album, one of the few times she’s handed over the reins. Henry finds a more aggressive, more live-sounding tone – the album is actually sloppy, by Mann standards, and the energy level is several notches higher than usual. This is Aimee Mann’s raw rock record, in a way, and it reaches out and grabs you.

But mainly, I’m naming The Forgotten Arm to this list because its songs are perfect. I don’t mean they’re pretty good, or even that they’re great. They’re glittering diamonds of perfection. Even the weaker ones, like “King of the Jailhouse,” are amazing, and the best numbers, like “Going Through the Motions” and “She Really Wants You,” simply cannot be improved. Listening to this album is like taking a four-year graduate-level class in songwriting. Most musicians would sell their souls to be able to write like this.

Mann knows she’s a throwback to an age when melody and craft truly mattered. Her whole style reflects this: The Forgotten Arm is designed like a dimestore novel, with a table of contents, illustrations and a blurb on the back cover. But her work is timeless. These songs will sound as good in 100 years as they do right now. The Forgotten Arm’s characters and story is the closest Mann comes to a gimmick. Her thing is writing perfect songs, and singing them beautifully.

This is a dark and painful album, to be sure. John and Caroline struggle with what they need – drink, drugs, sex, each other – throughout, and the resolution, though gorgeous, is not as hopeful as it may seem. Mann’s worldview can be depressing sometimes, but she makes pain so beautiful, so affecting, that her albums are like little emotional conduits. This record had me in pieces. Just listen to “Video,” or “I Can’t Help You Anymore,” or the closing track, “Beautiful.” The final sentiment is a heartbreaker, and could be sung from either character’s point of view: “I wish you could see it too, how I see you.”

But the final reason this album gets the nod is track eight. “Little Bombs” is my favorite Aimee Mann song, a distillation of everything I love about her. It finds John alone and miserable in his ratty hotel room, contemplating his life over a gorgeous shuffling acoustic backdrop, and his conclusion is shattering: “Life just kind of empties out, less a deluge than a drought…” That’s been Aimee Mann’s view for her entire career: life is a series of meaningless moments, and we’re all stumbling blind, trying to make our way through it.

No songwriter has ever made hopelessness her playground like Mann has, and no one has ever written songs this bleak, and yet this singable and loveable. Mann clearly loves her characters, on this album and others, and empathizes with them, and by the end of The Forgotten Arm, you’ll be right there with her. This is Aimee Mann’s best album of the last 10 years, but the margin is slim – everything she does is wonderful. She’s a national treasure.

As a side note, The Forgotten Arm is named after a boxing term for the punch you don’t see coming. In a way, she’s been writing about that very thing for her entire brilliant career.

* * * * *

Next week, a bunch of stuff, including new ones by Barenaked Ladies and Frightened Rabbit, a live record from Dan Wilson, and a Hall and Oates tribute from The Bird and the Bee. Also, the First Quarter Report on my 2010 top 10 list.

Leave a comment on my blog at tm3am.blogspot.com. Follow my infrequent twitterings at www.twitter.com/tm3am.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

The first Johnny Cash album I heard was At San Quentin.

My father had a copy on vinyl, which I played to death. Lest you think my dad had impeccable musical taste, I should point out that in the 1970s, he had a subscription to the Columbia Record and Tape Club, and would frequently forget to cancel the selection of the month. That meant he got packages in the mail containing records he didn’t order, and didn’t necessarily want. I’ve never managed to find out if the battered copy of At San Quentin was one of those, or an album he purposely bought.

But just like the copies of Led Zeppelin IV and Eat a Peach and Grand Funk Railroad’s Greatest Hits I discovered in my father’s record collection, At San Quentin burned its way into my brain. Who was this crazy man who walked into a prison and sang songs about heinous crimes and glorious redemptions? I loved that deep, powerful voice, and I loved the stories that voice told, particularly “A Boy Named Sue” (which made me feel better about my own unusual name) and “Folsom Prison Blues.”

At that age, I didn’t know anything about Cash, or his life. I just knew these were great songs, sung with authenticity – I thought Johnny himself had shot a man in Reno just to watch him die. Over time, as I learned more about Johnny, my admiration for him only grew. I bought At San Quentin, and At Folsom Prison, and the Love God Murder box set, and loved every note. I had enough respect for him as a person and a performer that I was appalled when he appeared on “The Wanderer,” on U2’s Zooropa album. That just seemed beneath him.

It would be difficult, however, for me to call myself a true Johnny Cash fan. I’ve never felt the need to have every one of his 100 or so albums, and by the time I was 20, I figured I had all the Cash on CD I would ever need. Despite his voice, a world-changing instrument no matter the subject or setting, Cash seemed to me to be an icon of a bygone era, destined to be feted with lavish tributes and spoken of in reverent tones, but rarely listened to. In the mid-‘90s, Cash’s time as an innovative and relevant performer (two adjectives that were very important to me in my 20s) seemed to have passed.

And then came Rick Rubin, and the American Recordings series.

I didn’t hear the first couple of volumes (released in 1994 and 1996) until later, to my shame. In fact, it wasn’t until he covered Nine Inch Nails’ “Hurt,” on the 2002 volume American IV: The Man Comes Around, that I truly delved into these records. But man, once I did, I never looked back. In his final years, Cash found a musical soulmate in Rick Rubin, one who treated him with the dignity he deserved while pushing him to find new territory to explore.

The American series has an easy hook for newbies: Johnny Cash covering the likes of Danzig, Soungarden, Tom Waits, Beck, U2 and Depeche Mode. But that’s only part of the story. The musical selection is wide and varied, dipping back into Cash’s career while unearthing old standards he’d never graced with his voice. It’s remarkable stuff, a late-career renaissance that also gave us a box set of outtakes (Unearthed) and a final album of gospel standards (My Mother’s Hymn Book, recorded by a notably frail and weak Cash shortly before his death in 2003).

Cash could not have found a more reverential and suitable artistic partner for his final years than Rubin, who paired him with some sterling musicians when necessary, and essentially got out of the way whenever possible. The American series most often finds Cash alone with a guitar, offering the most intimate glimpse of That Voice we’ve ever been given. Cash was so thrilled with the results of his collaboration with Rubin that he kept recording with him until he couldn’t anymore. Johnny Cash passed away on September 12, 2003, but before he did, he completed sessions for two final volumes in the American series.

The first, American V: A Hundred Highways, came out in 2006. And now here is the last, the final new Cash album ever, fittingly titled American VI: Ain’t No Grave. And it’s a gorgeous finale, a 32-minute meditation on death and the afterlife, a fitting last act for an American legend. It’s hard for me to believe that this is it, that Johnny’s really and truly gone. But American VI is the sound of him facing down his own mortality with faith and grace, and its place as the capstone to his life and career gives these 10 songs an almost spiritual level of poignancy and power.

These are the songs Cash chose to sing in his final days. The record opens with its title track, written by Claude Ely. “There ain’t no grave can hold my body down,” Cash sings in a voice crippled by age, but still strong and true. The song is one of resurrection, given an air of ghostly menace by the Avett Brothers on banjo and footstomps. Rubin adds organs and bells, giving the whole thing a haunted edge. Cash’s one nod to the modernity of the American series is Sheryl Crow’s “Redemption Day,” proof once again that Cash could elevate any song just by singing it. This is an amazing, spectral rendition.

Over and over again, Cash takes on songs that seem to directly comment on his impending death. Kris Kristofferson’s “For the Good Times” opens with the line “Don’t look so sad, I know it’s over, but life goes on and this old world will keep on turning.” He might as well be serenading his departed love June Carter when he sings “let’s just be glad we had some time together,” and his voice lends a nostalgic sadness to this simple trifle of a song. Tom Paxton’s “Can’t Help But Wonder Where I’m Bound” is the most on-the-nose, the story of a man contemplating the afterlife and weighing the good and bad he’s done.

Cash’s own “1 Corinthians 15:55,” his final composition, seems an answer to that question. “O death, where is thy sting, o grave, where is thy victory,” Cash sings, sounding hopeful and full of faith. Still, he beseeches his lord, “Don’t come too soon for collecting my debt.” It’s the one sign here that Cash may not have been ready to go – the rest of this album finds him looking back comfortably, and offering messages of hope.

Nowhere is this more clear than in the final two tracks. Ed McCurdy’s “Last Night I Had the Strangest Dream” feels like Cash’s last will and testament for the world: “I dreamed the world had all agreed to put an end to war.” In lesser hands, this song is a hippy-dippy peacenik anthem, but when Cash sings it, its vision sounds like the most beautiful thing that could ever be. Cash ends his final album with “Aloha Oe,” the Hawaiian tune recorded by Elvis Presley in 1961. This may seem a strange choice, but Rubin says the decision was Cash’s, and it makes sense once you hear it: the last line on the last Johnny Cash album is “…until we meet again.”

And I’ll admit to tearing up a little at that moment. Not just then, either – this entire album is full of little moments given grand resonance in context. When Cash sings “I Don’t Hurt Anymore,” it’s not just about getting over a breakup, it’s about putting aside fear of death. Bob Nolan’s “Cool Water” is about longing for release. Throughout, Rubin wisely keeps things sparse, Cash’s cracked voice resting on acoustic guitars, pianos and little else. It sounds absolutely beautiful.

Much as I like “Aloha Oe” as the final track, I think there is one song here that embodies this album’s mood of hope and faith: “Satisfied Mind,” originally recorded by Porter Wagoner in 1955, and then by artists as diverse as Bob Dylan and Jeff Buckley. I’m especially moved by the final verse: “When my life has ended, my time has run out, my friends and my loved ones, I’ll leave, there’s no doubt, but one thing’s for certain, when it comes my time, I’ll leave this old world with a satisfied mind…”

I can’t imagine a more perfect sentiment for Johnny Cash to leave us with. I will miss the Man in Black something fierce. Before the American series, I didn’t fully understand just what the world would be losing with Johnny’s death, but this astonishing set of recordings has kindled in me a love of Cash’s music that will stay with me forever. American VI: Ain’t No Grave is a gorgeous, sad and joyous collection, a fitting final goodbye to a man who, even in his last days, fully deserved to be called a legend.

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I’m going to burn through a couple of other new albums quickly now, since there just isn’t time and space to listen to everything and review it as completely as I’d like. The deluge keeps on coming, and I’m trying to keep my head above water, but as 2010 quickly turns into the best year for new music I can remember, it’s getting more difficult.

One of the most talked-about new releases is Plastic Beach, the third album by animated collective Gorillaz. I’m amazed by the off-kilter directions Damon Albarn has taken his career since Blur called it quits, and Gorillaz is one of his most intriguing projects. It’s a collaboration between him and comic book artist Jamie Hewlett, creator of Tank Girl, among others – essentially, Gorillaz is a cartoon band, like Josie and the Pussycats, and Albarn creates the soundtrack to their lives.

He does so with an army of guest stars. Plastic Beach includes a dazzling array of them: Mos Def, soul legend Bobby Womack, Lou Reed, Mark E. Smith of the Fall. Snoop Dogg, and Gruff Rhys of Super Furry Animals. (Yes, Snoop Dogg and Lou Reed are on the same album. The heavens may commence opening, and the rain of blood can begin.) In that sense, this album is no different from the previous two Gorillaz records.

But this one is different. Albarn produced the thing himself, instead of handing the reins to Danger Mouse or Dan the Automator, and the result is a little straighter, a little less fun. Albarn makes up for that with some of his coolest songs yet, including “Rhinestone Eyes” and the wonderful “Superfast Jellyfish,” but those hoping for another non-stop party might be baffled by some of the man’s choices here. Give it time, though, and Plastic Beach reveals itself as a surprisingly artful affair – just check out “On Melancholy Hill,” or the closer, “Pirate Jet.”

Still, the finest song here is the first single, “Stylo.” It feels like soundtrack music to a car chase (a feeling borne out by its video), and includes both Mos Def in fine form, and Bobby Womack blowing minds with his signature wail. It sounds most like the Gorillaz of old, and for all of this album’s artistic growth, I’m hoping for a bit more of that pure fun disposability next time out.

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Speaking of records I was hoping for more from, there’s Broken Bells. This is a team-up between Danger Mouse and James Mercer of the Shins, a pairing rife with possibilities. Mercer’s been MIA for a few years, ever since firing half of his band, and it’s nice to hear his voice again. Danger Mouse, on the other hand, has been ubiquitous, both as one-half of Gnarls Barkley and as a go-to producer for artists like Beck and the Black Keys, with mixed results. I was hoping a collaboration might reinvigorate both.

Instead, we get this, a middling collection of trifles that sound like Shins b-sides, augmented by sometimes interesting, sometimes flat-out annoying electronics. Most of these tracks don’t rise to the level of the first single, “The High Road,” and very few are memorable, the way the best Shins songs can burrow into your head for weeks. I like “Vaporize” quite a bit, with its dirty organ and horn lines. I enjoy “The Ghost Inside,” with its trippy beat and fine keyboard melody. Everything else is pretty and forgettable – even the multi-part suite “Your Head is On Fire” ends up disappointing.

I don’t want to say Broken Bells is bad. It’s just not as good as it should be, given its pedigree. Further listens have deepened my appreciation of meanders like “Sailing to Nowhere” (fitting title, that) and “Mongrel Heart.” But I was hoping for so much more, and it seems Mercer in particular approached this as a side project, rather than a going concern. The songs just aren’t up to snuff, and I hope he’s been saving his good ones for that fourth Shins record.

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I am a huge fan of Wisconsin songwriter Peter Mulvey, one of the music world’s best-kept secrets. His first label, Eastern Front, sent me free copies of his first five releases when I worked at Face Magazine. Most of the free stuff we got ended up in the trash pile after one spin, but Mulvey’s work stuck with me. I was there at Raoul’s Roadside Attraction in Portland the night Mulvey wrote and premiered “The Trouble With Poets,” one of his sharpest signature tunes. I’ve been into the man’s work for 15 years.

But lately it’s been more difficult, as he’s turned into more of a traditional folkie. There’s nothing particularly wrong with Kitchen Radio and The Knuckleball Suite, except they rely on old-time American folk music as their touchstones. Where early Mulvey albums were all over the map, stylistically and lyrically, his last couple of records have focused on aping classic music forms rather than reinventing them. The results have been sweet and charming, but I’ve missed the old fire.

Well, I’m dancing in the streets these days, because Mulvey’s 10th album, Letters From a Flying Machine, is a dazzling return to form. I’m not sure what it is that sets this one above its predecessors, but I love it intensely in a way I haven’t since The Trouble With Poets. For one thing, the old diversity is back, as Mulvey shifts from beautiful acoustic pieces (“Windshield”) to jazzy shuffles (“Some People”) to invigorating percussive workouts (“Dynamite Bill”), never spending too long in one place.

For another, though, Mulvey has created something of a concept album this time out. He’s interspersed his new songs with spoken word pieces (a staple on his early records), in the form of letters written on an airplane to member s of his family. They are delightful little stories, full of insight and grace, and in one instance (“Vlad the Astrophysicist”), they caused me to look at life, the universe and everything in a completely new way. The best music and poetry does this, and Mulvey has always made it look easy.

The lyrics on this album are brilliant as usual. The opening verse of “Kids in the Square” is as perfect a summation of the modern world I’ve heard in some time: “If you’ve got a pretty good idea of what you’re looking for, then you’ve got a pretty good idea of what you’ll find, you don’t have to go very far these days to find yourself a made-up mind…” Mulvey’s one old-time pastiche this time out is “Some People,” but it’s so funny and so incisive that I can’t help singing along. “Some people go to the tavern, some people go to the church, some senators go into airport johns and they get their reputations besmirched, some people go from the altar to leave someone in the lurch, I just go mmm mmm mmm mmm mmm…”

Throughout, whether he’s spinning a beautiful acoustic lament or a dynamic pop tune, Mulvey sounds reinvigorated here. His songs are sharper than they’ve been in years, his voice versatile and commanding as ever, and by the end of the album, when he’s balancing a spoken-word piece about our existential loneliness (“Vlad”) against a lovely song about finding faith in another (“On a Wing and a Prayer”), you’ll feel like he’s worked a particularly fine bit of magic. The truth is, he’s just gotten better at his craft, and on Letters From a Flying Machine, he’s taken his recent work to a new level. For the first time in a while, I’m in love with a Peter Mulvey album, and longing for the next one.

Buy it here.

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And finally, the next installment in my Top 20 of the 2000s. With this one, we’re halfway through the list. Rejoice!

#11. Duncan Sheik, Phantom Moon (2001).

Here’s a story that illustrates just how much Duncan Sheik’s career has changed since this album came out. Late last year, I was visiting friends on the east coast. One of them has a 17-year-old daughter who is hoping to make musical theater her career. The name “Duncan Sheik” elicited squeals of delight from this girl, who only knows him from his Tony award-winning musical Spring Awakening. She’s never heard “Barely Breathing,” or “She Runs Away.” For an entire generation of theater kids, Sheik is a respected composer, and has never been a pop star.

That, to me, is amazing. But then, I have heard “Barely Breathing” and “She Runs Away,” Sheik’s two big hits from 1996. Over and over again, I’ve heard them. They’re certainly not terrible songs, but they were overplayed to death in the late ‘90s, and they were definitely the work of a young, naïve songwriter. Believe me when I say that, as surprised as that young generation of theater kids is that Sheik ever had hits on pop radio, my generation is equally surprised that the writer of “Barely Breathing” now has a Tony.

But if you’re looking for the missing link, the musical work that launched Sheik on his path toward respectability, look no further than Phantom Moon. It’s his first collaboration with Spring Awakening lyricist Steven Sater, and his first album made solely as a work of art instead of as a commercial venture. It’s also strikingly, incredibly beautiful.

I said in 2001 that Phantom Moon is the kind of album that lowers the temperature of any room it’s played in, and I stand by that statement. Sheik is a devoted Nick Drake disciple (just look at this album’s title), and for this record, he wore that influence on his sleeve. Phantom Moon is entirely performed on acoustic instruments, with one notable exception, and the sparse and chilling arrangements do his even tenor a world of good. The record is flush with lovely strings and pianos, and the songs are just flat-out the most gorgeous things Sheik has ever written.

The album is designed like a wave, building and cresting before breaking and receding. It begins with just piano and voice, and ends that way as well, adding instruments through the first half and taking them away through the second. While some of these songs are merely achingly pretty (“The Winds That Blow,” “Sad Stephen’s Song”), some are more dramatic in scope (“Mouth on Fire,” “Lo and Behold”). Throughout, Sheik exhibits a control over his voice and his sound like never before (and, frankly, since). This album is the sound of a true songwriter finding himself.

I mentioned there was one notable exception to the acoustic rule, and it’s smack dab in the middle of the record. “Far Away,” perhaps the prettiest tune here, features graceful electric guitar by Bill Frisell, and it signifies the climax point. From then on, the sound gets softer, the songs more ghostly, until Sheik ends things as he began them, with “The Wilderness.” When it’s over, you’ll feel like you’ve been taken somewhere special, and that’s a feeling only the very best records can give you.

Sheik has made three albums since Phantom Moon, and none have quite captured the magic on display here. I would go so far as to say that Phantom Moon is a once-in-a-lifetime kind of album, and I doubt Sheik will ever equal it. But that’s okay, since very few artists I know have equaled it either. There’s just this certain indefinable quality about it, one that has stayed with me for 10 years, and will likely follow me the rest of my life. It’s that good.

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Next week, Real Rawk with the White Stripes and Titus Andronicus. Leave a comment on my blog at tm3am.blogspot.com. Follow my infrequent twitterings at www.twitter.com/tm3am.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

I’ve been a Peter Gabriel fan for more than 20 years. His music is practically encoded into my DNA.

I was 12 years old when So, his most successful album, was released. Gabriel was one of the first to see the true potential of the music video format – he turned in these marvelous, imaginative, insanely complicated videos for “Sledgehammer” and “Big Time” that knocked 12-year-old me out. (35-year-old me still likes them a lot, too.) I’m not even sure I responded to the music as much as I did the videos, but I had to own So.

Over the next few years, I asked for Gabriel albums as birthday and Christmas presents (this was before I was earning my own money), and soon had the whole set. On cassette, mind you. I didn’t realize how revolutionary much of this music was. All I knew was that “The Rhythm of the Heat” scared the crap out of me, and “Down the Dolce Vita” made me jump around the room, and “Mercy Street” made me cry. My favorite was the third self-titled album, commonly called Melt – the first four albums were simply titled Peter Gabriel, like issues of a magazine – because it creeped me the fuck out. If you also heard “Intruder” at a similar age, you know what I mean.

Now, of course, I know just how important and amazing Peter Gabriel is. He was incorporating music and musicians from around the world before it was fashionable, he wrote about important people and issues, and he never sat still. People consider So a commercial album, but it found Gabriel embracing influences he’d never tried, including Motown soul and funk, and merging them with his literate pop and African world-beat sound. That album has all kinds of dazzling musicians playing on it, from French drummer Manu Katche to Indian violinist L. Shankar to Nile Rodgers, who played with Aretha Franklin and Parliament Funkadelic, among others.

Since then, Gabriel’s output has slowed down, and weakened. Neither Us, from 1992, or Up, from 2002, added much to his legacy, and aside from soundtrack work, that’s been it. But those records were, in their own not-entirely-successful ways, just as adventurous as his early works, and proof that Gabriel still deserves his place as one of the greats. (Okay, “The Barry Williams Show” is one of the worst songs of the decade. But “Growing Up,” “Sky Blue,” “I Grieve” and “Signal to Noise” are pretty wonderful.)

I mention all of this just to get Gabriel’s credentials out there, because without such a firm foundation of brilliant work behind him, his latest project would seem both batty and egotistical. I don’t think it’s either, but I’ll let you be the judge. Gabriel is engaged in a song swap with a dozen artists – he has covered a song by each of them on an album called Scratch My Back, and they’ve all agreed to record one of his songs on an upcoming companion disc called I’ll Scratch Yours. Essentially, in addition to a covers record, Gabriel is assembling a tribute album to himself.

But if anyone has earned the right to do something like this, it’s probably Peter Gabriel. And lest you think this is some sort of quickie cash-in project, I should tell you there are a couple of twists befitting an unpredictable artist of Gabriel’s stature. For one, in addition to the expected group of influences and peers (Paul Simon, the Talking Heads, David Bowie), Gabriel has covered some unexpectedly modern songs from new bands. Elbow. Arcade Fire. Bon Iver. The Magnetic Fields. Regina Spektor. Seriously.

And for another, he’s arranged all of his versions for voice, piano and orchestra. No drums, no guitars, no keyboards. This choice has led some to call Scratch My Back maudlin and morose, but nothing could be further from the truth. Gabriel has found and preserved the hearts of these songs like precious jewels, and cast them in glorious new settings. The orchestral arrangements are astonishing – joyous and full one minute, menacing and sparse the next – and in each case, he’s found a way to make me feel like I’ve never heard these songs before.

Take “The Boy in the Bubble,” Paul Simon’s ode to the wonder and horror of technology. On Graceland (released the same year as So), the song is a januty accordion-fueled hoot, emphasizing the joy in the chorus over the menace of the verses. Gabriel’s is exactly the opposite, a piano dirge that really drives home lyrics like “The bomb in the baby carriage was wired to the radio.” When he gets to the chorus (“These are the days of miracle and wonder, don’t cry, baby, don’t cry…”), it sounds more like a comforting lie than anything else. Gabriel’s take flips the song on its ear, and while it will never replace the original (nor was it intended to), it provides a dark mirror to view it through.

He works similar magic on Arcade Fire’s “My Body is a Cage,” from 2007’s Neon Bible. The original was a blues-inflected lament, one that got lost amid that record’s more ecstatic pomp. For about half of his six-minute version, Gabriel sings the lyric’s mantra of pain over a funereal two-chord piano march, and then he lets the strings explode in a rapturous cry to the heavens. He lets loose vocally here too, giving one of those patented Peter Gabriel howls, and they haven’t lost an ounce of their goose-bump-inducing power. Then – then! – he shifts to a major key and brings in a spectral choir for the final minute, crying “Set my spirit free” as the music evaporates. It’s astonishing, really.

Time has been especially kind to Gabriel’s voice, here as stripped and raw as we’ve ever heard it. He’s said he wanted the singing on Scratch My Back to be as “personal as possible,” and though he sounds as powerful as ever on workouts like Bon Iver’s “Flume” and Regina Spektor’s “Apres Moi,” he lets a weary creakiness into his voice on several songs. His version of Radiohead’s “Street Spirit” personifies this approach, as Gabriel’s falsetto breaks like glass and his voice drips with despair. It’s a challenging listen, and it was clearly meant to be.

But he balances it off with wonderfully romantic takes on Elbow’s “Mirrorball,” the Magnetic Fields’ “The Book of Love,” and Lou Reed’s “The Power of the Heart.” And he plucks a Talking Heads song from near-obscurity and reinvents it: “Listening Wind” comes near the end of the Heads’ 1980 Remain in Light, a forgotten gem, and Gabriel’s foreboding, propulsive string arrangement (created with John Metcalfe) infuses it with new life. It is, perhaps, this record’s finest moment.

I mentioned at the top that I’ve been a Peter Gabriel fan for more than 20 years, and it’s records like this that keep me one. Gabriel has never stopped finding ways to surprise me, and this album certainly qualifies. Gabriel covering Arcade Fire, Bon Iver and other modern artists, with an orchestra? Yeah. But he’s created something magical here, an album of quietly intense melancholy and haunted beauty. I simply can’t stop listening to it, and even if I’ll Scratch Yours is a disaster, I’m beyond glad to have this.

(As a side note, two of the I’ll Scratch Yours tracks have been released – the Magnetic Fields’ odd synth carnival take on “Not One of Us,” and Paul Simon’s acoustic read of “Biko.” They’re both marvelous. I’m hearing, though, that some of the artists are having second thoughts, so we’ll see if this ever comes to fruition. As with all things Gabriel, we live in hope, and we wait.)

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The other two albums on tap this week come courtesy of longtime reader and correspondent Lucas Beeley. He and his brother Steve have turned me on to more than their share of terrific artists, and though I’ve never met either of them, they’ve kept in contact with me for years, offering thoughts and recommendations. I’m grateful for both of them – I’d probably still be ignorant of the two bands that follow, and a whole host of others, without the Beeley brothers. So thanks, guys.

Sticking with the slow and the pretty, then, we have Midlake. What an interesting band. They’ve made three albums with exactly the same lineup, and yet you’d think they were by three different groups. First came the ‘60s-inspired bargain-basement psychedelica of Banman and Silvercork, then the ‘70s-influenced rock of The Trials of Van Occupanther. (Really. That’s the record’s actual name.) Now here’s The Courage of Others, and the band has toned down nearly every other influence except English folk music.

The result, however incongruous, is lovely. Courage is 42 minutes of acoustic guitars, minor keys and haunting melodies. A lot of the songs feature flutes and recorders, played by leader Tim Smith. Now, I don’t mean this as an insult in any way, just as a frame of reference if you’re wondering what this sounds like: imagine if someone made an entire record out of the first four minutes of “Stairway to Heaven.” That’s basically it. (Oh, come on. As overplayed as it is, “Stairway to Heaven” is a pretty fantastic song.)

The problem I have with this album is its unrelenting consistency. The tempos are the same throughout, the minor keys start to blur after a while, and Smith never finds a different tone. One by one, these songs are beautiful – “Winter Dies” has some fine electric guitar moments, the chorus of “Small Mountain” is gorgeous, and “Rulers, Ruling All Things” sends chills. But while I may love this in small doses, it loses me over the course of the disc.

It’s fascinating to me that a band that has hopped styles more in three records than most bands do in ten chose to set such narrow parameters this time out. I don’t want to discourage you from trying this out, because these songs are very pretty, and they’re played very well. I like The Courage of Others, I just wish Midlake had taken a few more musical detours instead of giving us what is, essentially, a 42-minute song that never changes.

Much more successful is Shearwater, whose sixth album The Golden Archipelago is another best-of-the-year candidate in a first quarter chock full of them. Shearwater started as an Okkervil River side project, but now is the musical outlet of Jonathan Meiburg, an avid birdwatcher with a sense of the fragile beauty of nature. He’s dedicated the last three Shearwater albums to this theme, and they form a loose trilogy.

Meiburg cites several influences for Archipelago, the concluding chapter, but I only hear one: Talk Talk. This album is like the second coming of Spirit of Eden – Meiburg’s mid-range vocals sound like Mark Hollis’ more than ever here, and the songs exist on vibe more than anything else. They cast a spell, and then wrap you up in it.

There is one major difference, however: while Hollis and his musicians stretched out over nine-minute pieces, Archipelago is the opposite of sprawling. The whole thing is a scant 38 minutes, and only two songs break the four-minute mark. It is, in many ways, too short, but I only say that because what’s here is so marvelous. Where the previous two Shearwater albums (Palo Santo and Rook) occasionally launched into more standard rock moments, this one ebbs and flows naturally, its unearthly atmosphere never breaking.

That’s not to say the album doesn’t have a pulse. Songs like “Black Eyes” and the rollicking “Corridors” crank up the electric guitars – just check out the awesome circular figure the latter is based on. But like waves receding back into the ocean, each louder moment is met with a fragile and beautiful one. Opener “Meridian” is quiet and supple, and “Hidden Lakes” is gentle and swaying, all piano, cello, chimes and Meiburg’s chilling voice.

The easiest way to describe what this album sounds like is to point you to the front cover. It’s a spacious photograph of a vast seascape, a single boat heading out to an island in the distance. It’s panoramic, widescreen and dramatic, and yet simultaneously peaceful and placid. It’s a snapshot of a long journey ahead, though the waters are calm and the sky is bright. It’s a picture of the enormous and majestic beauty and terror of the world. The music sounds like that.

The Golden Archipelago may be the final chapter of this trilogy, but to my ears, it’s the album on which Meiburg has found his sound. Next time, I hope he stretches out a little more – I wouldn’t have minded if some of these songs, like “Landscape at Speed” and “Castaways,” went on forever. But there is no one else making music quite like this right now, music that quietly surrounds you with as much force as this album does. It is one of the best records of an uncommonly good year so far, but better than that, it promises even better things on the horizon from Shearwater. And better than this will be something indeed.

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Here’s the next installment in my top 20 of the decade. We’re almost halfway through!

#12. Daniel Amos, Mr. Buechner’s Dream (2001).

Here’s another one very few people have heard. I say that with no joy whatsoever. I’m not trying to pump up my cred by praising an obscure band. I’m honestly depressed that only a few thousand people have experienced Terry Taylor’s masterpiece. Had these songs been recorded by Wilco, or some other Americana-flavored million-seller, it would be on many more top 10 lists than this one. But they were recorded by a quartet of relative unknowns from California, a band that, despite having released more than a dozen studio albums over 35 years, languishes in unjust obscurity.

Terry Scott Taylor is one of the best songwriters nobody knows. In spiritual pop circles, he’s an icon, one of the first people to bring a genuine sense of art to the game. He’s had a remarkable career, first guiding Daniel Amos through a stunning run of records in the ‘70s and ‘80s, then forming the sarcastic, biting Swirling Eddies and the rootsy supergroup The Lost Dogs, all while continuing to make challenging, striking music with his main band. He even found time to release four solo albums and two EPs, and score a few video games. The man’s prolific, but consistently brilliant.

As good as albums like Alarma and Doppelganger and Darn Floor Big Bite and Motorcycle are, Mr. Buechner’s Dream may be the best thing Taylor’s ever done. It’s 33 songs, spans more than 100 minutes, and sets all of Taylor’s pet themes – faith, doubt, the pain and beauty of life, and the struggle to describe God in song – to some of the most straightforward, convincingly rocking music of Daniel Amos’ career. These songs are unfailingly melodic and singable, and they pack a punch – the album was produced by the band, and much of it sounds beautifully live.

The songs. The songs! Over 33 tracks, you’d expect some clunkers, but Taylor and company never put a foot wrong. The first disc shares a title with the album, and it’s the more rootsy of the two – 20 songs, most of which buzz by in a blur of stinging guitars. It opens with an exhortation to seize the day (“This is the One”), and Taylor does: “The Author of the Story” is one of his most beautiful tunes, delightfully muddied up by Greg Flesch’s noisy guitar and Tim Chandler’s elastic bass; “Who’s Who Here” knocks its repetitive riff to the ground with a muscular shove; “Faithful Street” brings in the horns for a Beatlesque romp; and “The Staggering Gods” simply rocks.

But there’s much sweetness and subtlety here as well. “Rice Paper Wings” is as fragile as its title, “I Get to Wondering” weaves an acoustic web, and Taylor has rarely written a better hymn than “Joel,” the deceptively noisy tune that closes the disc. Lyrically, the first album is about God and family, but it contains not one cliché – as Taylor himself writes in “Ribbons and Bows,” “There may not ever be anything new here to say, but I’m fond of finding words that say it in a different way.”

Good as the first disc is, I think the second eclipses it. This is the darker half, the more musically adventurous side, and it’s quite a ride. “Easy For You” is a gritty and difficult tale of envy, “Child on a Leash” a yearning cry for completeness, and “So Far So Good” a… well, I’m not sure what this pitch-black and haunting song is about, but it’s terrific. It’s not all shadow – there’s the country-punk “She’s a Hard Drink,” which contains Taylor’s funniest line: “She’s a bad dream, like an adam’s apple on a beauty queen…”

Taylor spends the final third of the album eulogizing old friends who’ve passed, and taking in the wonder of life. “Flash in Your Eyes” is about Gene Eugene, one of the original Lost Dogs, who died in 2000, while the lovely “Steal Away” is about knowing when to leave before the flood. Closer “And So it Goes” is a final toast to “our dear dead dears,” as Taylor once put it on another album, and could also stand as the final glass raised to Daniel Amos itself. As of this writing, Mr. Buechner’s Dream is the final DA record.

That’s a shame, but all in all, this collection would be an incredible way to go out. Buechner’s is an artistic triumph, a remarkably quick 105 minutes full of songs most writers would kill to have in their catalogs. It has a depth and an emotional undercurrent that few records of its length can match, and a lyrical complexity that remains a hallmark of Terry Taylor. I take very good care of my CDs, but my copy of Mr. Buechner’s Dream is battered and worn. I’ve played it to death, and it’s like an old friend now, one I couldn’t imagine the last 10 years without.

This is probably my favorite Terry Taylor album, but they’re all worth hearing. Log onto danielamos.com for more info. Mr. Buechner’s Dream is out of print at the moment, but I suggest Darn Floor Big Bite, Live at Cornerstone 2000 or the latest Swirling Eddies album, The Midget, the Speck and the Molecule, to tide you over until it’s re-pressed. There’s a lot of Terry Taylor music to explore, and if you’ve never heard any of it, I envy you. Get cracking.

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Next week, the last Johnny Cash album, and brief looks at Broken Bells, Frightened Rabbit, Gorillaz and Liars. Leave a comment on my blog at tm3am.blogspot.com. Follow my infrequent twitterings at www.twitter.com/tm3am.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

I’m going to start this column off by saying “I like the long ones,” and let you get all the “that’s what she said” jokes out of your system. “Big 10-Inch Record” jokes should be worked through now as well.

When I say I like the long ones, I mean albums, of course. Always have. There’s nothing wrong with your standard single-CD, 50-minute-long record, and in fact some of my favorites of the past 50 years fit that description. But there’s just something about the lengthier works that piques my interest. For some reason, I consider double and triple albums to be weightier, more important statements than single-disc affairs. Maybe it comes from hearing Tommy and The Wall at a young age, I don’t know.

It’s something of a sickness, though. I will buy double albums from artists I have no interest in otherwise, just to see what they can do across two discs. Case in point: Natalie Merchant is gearing up to release Leave Your Sleep on April 13. I haven’t bought a Merchant album since Ophelia in 1998 (and I didn’t even like that one), but when news broke that Leave Your Sleep would be a double record, I put it on my list. Don’t know why. I’m just more interested.

Ambition always flips my switches, so you’d think I’d be three times as interested in triple albums as in single ones. You’d mostly be right – I’m definitely fascinated by musical works that demand to be spread out over three CDs (or even more). But I’m a little more cautious about them too. I can only think of three triple albums I own off the top of my head – Frank Zappa’s Lather, Prince’s Emancipation, and the Early November’s The Mother, The Mechanic and the Path – and all of them could use a trim. Or, at least, some more solid songs to replace the filler.

Still, I can’t deny the little tingle I get at news of a triple album on the horizon. This week, I have two of them, and they both illuminate the good and bad things about lengthy studio projects. I will readily admit that the sheer size and scope of these records made me want to own them. But as for my experience listening to them? Read on…

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A lot of people thought I was kidding when I named Joanna Newsom’s second album, Ys, the best of 2006. I wasn’t, at all, and in the three-plus years since I first heard it, my appreciation (and often fiercely protective love) of Ys has only deepened. Newsom’s not for everyone – she plays a harp as her primary instrument, she writes long and twisty songs, and her voice… well, I described it in 2006 as akin to a drunken 10-year-old’s, and that still sounds about right to me.

But if you let it, Ys will enchant you. It’s gloriously ambitious – five songs, ranging from seven minutes to 17, and all but one of them accompanied by a full orchestra, arranged by Van Dyke Parks. It’s also determinedly difficult, its songs telling fractured fairy tales and giving astronomy lessons more than forging direct connections. I loved it immediately, but I understand why many were put off. On Ys, Newsom created her own world, and forced you to enter it on her terms. That’s an experience I always enjoy.

You can imagine, then, how my ears perked up when word started tricking out about Have One on Me, Newsom’s third album. It’s 18 songs spread across three discs, totaling 124 minutes. You’d be forgiven for expecting that she’d indulged her orchestral leanings even more this time, and perhaps crafted something impenetrable. Truth be told, I was kind of hoping for that – I had a terrific time deciphering Ys, diving down into its nooks and crannies, and the thought of two hours of music that challenging made me smile.

Newsom is much too savvy for that, though. She’s done something altogether more fascinating: Have One on Me is simultaneously massive and tiny, a sweeping album of fragile little songs. She’s aimed for a mix of Patsy Cline and Joni Mitchell on the bulk of these new tunes. There’s an air of authentic earthiness to the whole thing, which is even more remarkable when you consider that Newsom plays the harp, not traditionally a rootsy instrument.

For an album that lasts more than two hours, Have One on Me is often ghostly and sparse. Many songs here consist of harp, vocals and little else, and when the orchestral arrangements come in, they’re restrained – gone is the epic power of Van Dyke Parks. The emphasis is quite clearly on Newsom’s voice, and I’m not sure how she’s done it, but she’s learned how to harness that instrument – she’s become a singer before our ears. I mentioned Joni Mitchell before, and many of the vocal lines on Have One on Me sound modeled on Mitchell’s, and could even give her a run for her money. Newsom never falters as a vocalist here, yet somehow she’s kept the quirks, the little squeaks and odd timbres, that I love.

It all sounds good, right? Well, not quite. The first time I dove into Have One on Me, I did it all at once, and I would definitely not recommend that experience. By the time it was done, I felt like I’d spent months listening to Newsom – the whole third disc wore me down so much that I couldn’t wait for it to be over. Is it too much of a good thing? I went back over the next few days to find out, and while the album is easier to digest in pieces, it still gets weaker as it goes along.

The biggest shame is that the first disc is the album of the year, no question. Opener “Easy” is a jazz ballad unlike anything Newsom’s ever done. It’s the first of five tunes that find her playing piano, an instrument she dabbled in on her debut, The Milk-Eyed Mender, and she makes it work here. “Easy” sets the tone with its opening lines: “Easy, easy, my man and me, we could rest and remain here easily.” This is an album about love, one that foregoes the stories of monkeys and bears and stuffed animals that populated Ys. Many of her words this time are accessible and relatable.

The first disc is balanced perfectly. The knotty 11-minute title track is followed by “‘81,” a spare and gorgeous ballad, which is then knocked aside by “Good Intentions Paving Company,” a carnival ride of a tune that finds Newsom overdubbing her voice numerous times. “No Provenance” is mid-tempo and lovely – you will be singing the “in your arms” part before it’s over – and perfectly orchestrated, with flutes, oboes, bassoons and bass clarinets.

And then there is “Baby Birch,” on which she perfects a style she stumbles over later. “Baby Birch” is nine minutes long, and designed like a traditional folk song. Its verses are three chords repeated over and over, its chorus picks two of those and plays them again, and its sound is airy and empty – harp and electric guitar and that’s it, until the final minutes. It’s like a Cowboy Junkies song, and it goes on forever, but I love it to bits. Had this stretched-out and repetitive piece been the exception and not the rule on the next two discs, I would have been fine with it.

Unfortunately, as Have One on Me progresses, it gets simpler and duller. I like almost all of the second disc. “In California” hides its repetition well beneath its orchestration, and “Go Long” may be the prettiest four-chord mantra ever, Newsom spinning gossamer webs on three harps. And “Jackrabbits” is wonderful, another harp-vocals piece that will send shivers.

But the rest of the second disc, and most of the third, are sleepers. I’ve tried everything I can do to like “Occident,” and it just isn’t happening. Newsom isn’t as fine a piano player as she is a harpist, and the creaky songwriting stands out on a more typical instrument. “Soft as Chalk” is better, the energetic piano runs and percussion battles showing signs of life. But Newsom quickly snuffs those out with “Esme,” “Autumn” and “Ribbon Bows,” three lengthy slow burns that make up the bulk of disc three.

The nine-minute “Kingfisher” is a miniature masterpiece, sequenced near the end, but closer “Does Not Suffice” lives up to its title, repeating a few boring chords on piano until you’ll want to scream. On my first listen, I couldn’t wait for the third disc to be over. I’ve revisited it in isolation, and like much of it just fine, but it takes a lot of time to appreciate, and even then the sparse, simple songs – all of which hover around the seven-minute mark – are merely pleasant, not revelatory.

You hear this every time an artist releases a sweeping, multi-disc work, but this time I think it’s true: Have One on Me could have benefited from some judicious editing. Take the weakest 40 or 50 minutes off of this thing, and it’s a solid winner. It still wouldn’t be as good as Ys, but it would be a more compact and riveting work. The highs on this album are towering, but they sometimes get lost in the sprawl, and they take time to find and unearth.

Have One on Me is certainly better in smaller chunks, and I understand what Newsom was going for here. This is an album rooted in folk and gospel music, stripped down and natural-sounding. It’s a far cry from the Ren Faire opulence of Ys, and it lives and dies by its performances, which are marvelous. But it doesn’t pluck me from my life and transport me somewhere else. For long stretches of its running time, it remains earthbound. It may still be the best album I’ve heard this year, but it’s a bit of a letdown.

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If you think two hours is too long, try four.

Yes, four hours. 235 minutes and 35 seconds, to be exact. That’s how much time it takes to listen to Sadly, The Past is No Longer What It Was, the new triple album from Leyland Kirby. He’s gone by many names, including the Caretaker and V/Vm, but this is his first release under his own name. (Well, his second two names – his first is James.) It’s also the first thing I’ve heard from him, even though his catalog is vast and expansive. (The last Caretaker release spanned six CDs, so long works are nothing new for him.)

Leyland Kirby is an ambient instrumental artist. That means his music is often formless, built from air and water. Sounds creep in, drone on beautifully, and creep out without stirring up much trouble. Some people find this stuff boring, but I find that putting on ambient music in a darkened room is like flying. I love it – I’d never make a steady diet of it, but it often reaches levels of beauty that more melodic music doesn’t even approach. And there’s a lot of that magic on this record.

But again, I wouldn’t recommend listening to it all at once. I tried, but midway through the third disc I had to shut it off. My head was swimming, the room was refusing to stay solid, and I felt like I had been underwater for three days. There’s just too much here to process, and so much of it is droning and cloud-like, washing over you.

So as I did with Newsom’s record, I digested this one in smaller pieces over the next few days. Taken in smaller bites, it’s pretty amazing. The tracks are evenly divided between piano pieces (heavily reverbed electric piano that sounds like it’s being played by ghosts in a centuries-old house), synth shimmers, and churning noise sculptures. Some of this will lull you to sleep, but some will wake you up screaming. It’s fascinating.

The song titles tell a story of sadness and despair giving way to hope, and the music follows suit. The first two discs are all minor keys, and feature songs with names like “And As I Sat Beside You I Felt the Great Sadness Today” and “Not Even Nostalgia is As Good as It Used to Be.” The third is a journey to a new dawn, as the piano exults in the closing track, called (deep breath) “And at Dawn, Armed With Glowing Patience, We Shall Enter the Cities of Glory.” That’s the one advantage to listening all at once – that journey makes itself plain.

But there’s just too much material here to assess with a couple of listens. This is the type of music that simultaneously demands and resists close attention, the kind of experience that can best be described by impressions and feelings rather than analysis. There’s no reason that this album has to be four hours long, nor that some of its songs need to be 12, 15 or 20 minutes. But the drowning sensation is part of the design, I think.

While I’d never recommend listening to this for fun, Sadly, The Future is No Longer What it Was is one of the best ambient records I’ve ever heard. For most listeners, one disc of this (or even one song) would suffice, but I like the idea of wading through this vast ocean of sound. Unlike Newsom’s record, editing would not have made Sadly any better, or any worse. It would only have made it shorter, and for music like this, which one can dip in and out of like a dream, there’s no such thing as too long.

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And now, the next installment of my Top 20 of the 2000s. After disparaging critics that rave about new bands last week, and essentially saying I like double and triple records more than single discs this week, I’m about to wax ecstatic about a 57-minute debut. The irony is not lost on me.

#13. Mutemath.

I did the Mutemath experience the right way – I saw the New Orleans quartet live first. They were the last show of an otherwise lackluster Cornerstone Festival in 2005, and did their traveling-musical-carnival act. As they jumped all over each other to play the intricate, astounding “Reset,” I knew I’d found a new favorite band.

Shaking with excitement, I bought their Reset EP right there and then, and was disappointed. It was glossy and removed, a far cry from the live explosion I’d just seen. That’s the awful truth of the studio – sometimes it sucks a band dry, draining them of the very things that make them special. Having been signed to Word Records didn’t help, as I’m sure the label pressured the band to give them something fit for goopy Christian radio.

But Mutemath was never that band. True, they grew from the ashes of underrated Christian outfit Earthsuit, but the new sound was darker and more conflicted, adults wrestling with the insanity of the world while trying to stay true to themselves. Over the next year, they fought a legal battle to escape the Christian music ghetto, while finishing and self-releasing their debut record. The clear implication was that this music was too good, too complex and fascinating, to be buried under the expectations of a limited audience. That implication was spot on.

Mutemath is, from the start, an entirely different beast from the EP. Songs stretch to six and seven minutes, soundscapes link interconnected pieces, songs shift and change and live and breathe. There is no sickly radio single – only “Typical” flirts with the mainstream. The rest is dark and beautiful and triumphant, one of the most perfect first albums I’ve heard in many years. And even if they never make another one like it again, I’ll still treasure this one.

Mutemath’s sound is difficult to encapsulate, but try this: imagine if the Police had grown up listening to Radiohead, and had decided not to start sucking after Regatta de Blanc. Singer Paul Meany has a bit of the old, cool Sting to his voice, and he plays a mean electric piano. Guitarist Greg Hill can make his six-string sound like just about anything, and bassist Roy Mitchell-Cardenas switches off between electric, acoustic and synth instruments, based on what the song needs.

But it’s drummer Darren King who is the bedrock of this band. Before taking the stage at every show, he literally duct-tapes his headphone monitors to his head – his playing is so energetic that they wouldn’t stay on otherwise. I have no idea how many drum heads this guy goes through in a month, but he beats the living hell out of them, and his lightning-quick hi-hat work is reminiscent of Stewart Copeland, particularly on Police-pop numbers like “Noticed.”

For all their ear-catching style, it’s the songs that make this album what it is. The furious flurry of “Chaos,” the classic pop of “Noticed,” the supple darkness of “You Are Mine,” the anthemic joy of “Without It.” These are wonderful songs, and nearly all of them tackle big themes. The amazing “Stare at the Sun” is about looking for God and finding no trace. “Chaos” is about holding true to something as the world crumbles around you. “Without It,” the record’s forgotten masterpiece, is about learning to live without the things life takes from you. Closing heartbreaker “Stall Out” sounds like it’s going to end on a down note, until the magnificent coda: “We are still far from over.”

That’s turned out to be true – second album Armistice wasn’t as stunning as the debut, but it was still excellent, and I predict a bright future for this band. You still need to see them live to get the full effect, but the recorded evidence so far paints Mutemath as one of the greatest new bands of the decade. Long may they reign.

Of course, I need to add a caveat – the self-released version of the Mutemath album (you know, the perfect one) is out of print. Mutemath signed to Warner Bros., and put out an inferior re-working with the same title and artwork. The new version shortens songs (by more than a minute in some cases), adds inferior tracks from Reset that screw up the flow, and most damningly, omits “Without It.” It’s still a good record, but if you can somehow find the Teleprompt Records version, that’s the one to get.

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Next week, three of 2010’s most beautiful records so far. The new music just keeps on coming – I’m spending more than $100 on March 9, to get albums from Broken Bells (a collaboration between Danger Mouse and James Mercer of the Shins), Gorillaz, Serj Tankian, Frightened Rabbit, Liars, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Ted Leo, Titus Andronicus, the Knife, and Jimi Hendrix. All in one week. And things show no sign of slowing down from there. I’m excited and exhausted just thinking about it.

Leave a comment on my blog at tm3am.blogspot.com. Follow my infrequent twitterings at www.twitter.com/tm3am.

See you in line Tuesday morning.