Power Pop Plus: A Look Back at 2020.and More
John M. Borack explores some of the best of 2020 and a brand new release from Matthew Sweet
Author:
Sweet s fifteenth solo effort is one of his finest in recent memory. Like Paul McCartney s
III,
Catspaw is a grower rather than an instant knockout: songs such as Give a Little, Challenge the Gods, Come Home, and At a Loss will sneak up on you and provide a guitar-fueled gut punch given half a chance. Speaking of which,
Catspaw is most definitely a full-on guitar record: Sweet handles all the six-string action here and does a helluva job, with the beefy sound harkening back to Richard Lloyd and Robert Quine s work on Sweet s 1990s releases. (Sweet handles all instrumentation himself here, save for longtime cohort Ric Menck s typically rock-steady drums.) Only one of the dozen tunes clocks in at longer than four minutes, and the relative brevity of the songs allows Sweet to say what he has to say, tear through a kickin guita
Hi folks!
Since I have now completed my two countdown radio shows for the Top 50 albums of 2020 see the big takeover “radio” button above to hear one song from each! here is my complete list of the 180 best albums, 100 best archive/retrospective/reissue releases, and 100 best stand-alone singles and EPs of this previous year my best bets on another great year for music, old and new.
And in one of the worst years of our lifetimes, here’s a small tip of my well-worn ballcap in profound gratitude to the artists below, for giving us this music to listen to while stuck at home. Perhaps half the below had already been recorded and was in process before COVID-19 shut us all down, which also curtailed many a scheduled recording session to go with all the cancelled tours.
How pop and jazz wrapped up the past in 16 boxed sets
Cream, Goodbye Tour Live 1968 Polydor; four CDs, 66-page book, $69.98.
by Jon Pareles, Jon Caramanica, Giovanni Russonello and Lindsay Zoladz
NEW YORK
(NYT NEWS SERVICE)
.- Reissues and deluxe editions of albums by PJ Harvey, Lil Peep, Charles Mingus and others provide fresh looks at familiar works, and the creative processes that birthed them.
Neneh Cherry, Raw Like Sushi (30th Anniversary Deluxe Edition)
Virgin/UMC; three CDs, $63.89; three LPs, $75.98
Alive with isolated, collagelike layers and exuberant ad-libs (Now, the tambourine!), Raw Like Sushi, Swedish pop artist and rapper Neneh Cherrys cult classic debut album, is a remixers dream. This 30th-anniversary set contains a vibrant remastered version of the original LP, along with two entire discs of imaginative remixes: Massive Attack transforms the synth ballad Manchild into a snaking, meditative groove, while early hip-hop producer Art
You can
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Brief summary of the year in reissues and vault rediscoveries: There was an avalanche of them, across all genres and all eras. Each promises edification, offering dives into the rich contexts of historically significant records while also being flat-out thrilling listening.
Thanks to the work of sound-obsessed archivists and audio detectives this year, it s now possible to trace John Coltrane s
Giant Steps session in microscopic detail for its 60th Anniversary Deluxe Edition; or revisit some of the unheralded album tracks from John Prine s output in the 1970s (
Crooked Piece of Time); to hear legendary guitarist Duane Allman s last performance before his death (