This year I continued my habit of championing single tracks and making my own mixtapes over full albums. If there was one band or artist that I would prop up as my standout from 2020, it would have to be Drive-By Truckers. Two short albums (18 songs over the 2 albums) that may have been a single album if this were 20 years ago. This aspect of releasing two albums, The New OK & The Unraveling, within the same year was fitting given the mood and immediacy of the songs. Dealing heavily with the trump presidency and the political unrest, Patterson Hood and Mike Cooley address current events with insight and wit.
Some of my favorites
on The New OK
"The New OK"
"The Perilous Night"
"Sea Island Lonely"
on The Unraveling
"Armageddon's Back in Town"
"Thoughts and Prayers"
"21st Century USA"
I also loved Sturgill Simpsons "Cuttin' Grass Vol. 1 & 2" which were basically bluegrass covers of his own songs.
And I listened to quite a bit of Roots Reggae radio this year. Always seems to hit the spot and put me in a good mood and take my mind off of things.
So, some other tracks that I had on repeat. (from great albums for the most part)
Chris Stapleton- "Watch You Burn"
Jason Isbell- "Dreamsicle"
Money Man (feat. Lil Baby) "24"
DaBaby- "Peephole"
Lil Baby- "Low Down"
6LACK- "Float"
Ashley McBryde "One Night Standards"
Jeezy (feat. Tamika Mallory)- "Oh Lord"
Jaguar Dreams- "Dreams"
Post Malone- "Internet"
The Abyssinian Baptist Choir "Said I Wasn't Gonna Tell Nobody"
Sauti Sol- "Suzanna"
Kommanda Obbs- "Mabelebele"
The Swallows' "It Ain't The Meat"
Allman Brothers Band "Little Martha (Live at the The Beacon Theatre)"
Bedouine, Waxahatchee, and Hurray for the Riff Raff- "Thirteen"
Waffle House Records- "There are Raisins in My Toast"
Goodie Mob' "My People"
Katie Pruitt- "Expectations"
And I've mostly been listening to Christmas music since the day after Thanksgiving. My two year old ask to hear the Bruce Springsteen version of "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" about 10 times a day.
Some of my favorite holiday songs this year
George Jones- "My Mom and Santa Claus"
Loretta Lynn- "To Heck With Ole Santa Claus"
Kacey Musgraves- "Ribbons and Bows"
Booker T. & The M.G.'s- "Jingle Bells"
Randy Travis- "Meet Me Under the Mistletoe"
James Brown- "Santa Claus Go Straight To The Ghetto"
Spotify Playlists I loved
Afro Surf Vol 2 by Mami Wata Surf
The Birth of Rhythm & Blues by Spotify
and while we're talking about music, CNN films just released "Jimmy Carter: Rock and Roll President" and it is phenomenal.
Jack, I loved hearing your take on the now fully flexing adult version of the DBT--what a cover for The New OK. And I loved, loved, loved that you made a mixtape for your show Do As You Done. That cover of "Thirteen" is incredible, and I really need to watch the Pres. Carter documentary!
Music has been in a trough and I was about to give up, but new punk came along to restore my faith. Thank you lord for Fontaine’s DC and the Mysterines.
2020 was the year when I began to appreciate jazz, which is some kind of milestone I’m sure. Just easing myself in but so far I’m enjoying Chet Baker, Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker. Jazz provided a good accompaniment for my re visiting of ‘On the Road’.
The Velvets are the standing feature in my life and this year their music felt very close and real because I read VU and Warhol’s diaries again, I worked through an Eddie Sedgwick biography too and I stepped into the Plastic Exploding Inevitable (the recreation of it at the Tate). Reading along made the whole scene seemed very personal, like I know these people (but maybe glad I didn’t). It’s been my year for immersive music, and thinking about my cultural influences, making the connections, looking back on the 20th century and feeling out of step with the present.
The Iggy Confidential show on BBC Radio 6 has been great. If I listen at night I hold the iPad close to my ear, it’s like being a teenager again listening to John Peel on a transistor radio. I actually like to hear music low fi and I like needing to listen hard to the make out the words. Iggy played a recent recording by Shirley Collins now in her eighties.
‘Where the ice goes
I go
Locked in ice half a hundred years’
Iggy wasn’t listening as carefully as me , he didn’t realise that the song is the voice of the little ghost ship. But that’s allowed Iggy, you do a great job - thank you for the show.
I finished my year listening to the Beatles. The Beatles were the soundtrack of my young childhood in Northern England. For me Penny Lane was the lane we took to the swimming pool and Strawberry Fields were the playing fields to one side. I found them both on Google maps recently, the while I know full well that the modern reality will never match my memory - I can’t resist looking. As the old year passed away George’s, ‘Here comes the sun’ was my soundtrack for going forward, bruised and cautious but hopeful that things will be alright. Things will be alright.
Ro, I remember being pleasantly shocked walking into the grand exhibit of Stephen Shore's work at the Met a couple years ago, because it started with the Velvets--what in the world?? I thought. I had no idea he was a young photog poking around the Factory. It's sometimes hard for me to see them as people, and young people (which they were!), making this extraordinary music.
And ah, the Beatles. The great titans of myth, still alive in my heart. I did a chronological listen to their albums in 2019 on a trip from Mississippi to Tennessee, and need to do another.
I haven't heard Iggy's show yet but I feel like the radio shows papa Dylan and Little Steven did were so rich, so filled with love and passion for music, that it would feel like that!
This year I continued my habit of championing single tracks and making my own mixtapes over full albums. If there was one band or artist that I would prop up as my standout from 2020, it would have to be Drive-By Truckers. Two short albums (18 songs over the 2 albums) that may have been a single album if this were 20 years ago. This aspect of releasing two albums, The New OK & The Unraveling, within the same year was fitting given the mood and immediacy of the songs. Dealing heavily with the trump presidency and the political unrest, Patterson Hood and Mike Cooley address current events with insight and wit.
Some of my favorites
on The New OK
"The New OK"
"The Perilous Night"
"Sea Island Lonely"
on The Unraveling
"Armageddon's Back in Town"
"Thoughts and Prayers"
"21st Century USA"
I also loved Sturgill Simpsons "Cuttin' Grass Vol. 1 & 2" which were basically bluegrass covers of his own songs.
And I listened to quite a bit of Roots Reggae radio this year. Always seems to hit the spot and put me in a good mood and take my mind off of things.
So, some other tracks that I had on repeat. (from great albums for the most part)
Chris Stapleton- "Watch You Burn"
Jason Isbell- "Dreamsicle"
Money Man (feat. Lil Baby) "24"
DaBaby- "Peephole"
Lil Baby- "Low Down"
6LACK- "Float"
Ashley McBryde "One Night Standards"
Jeezy (feat. Tamika Mallory)- "Oh Lord"
Jaguar Dreams- "Dreams"
Post Malone- "Internet"
The Abyssinian Baptist Choir "Said I Wasn't Gonna Tell Nobody"
Sauti Sol- "Suzanna"
Kommanda Obbs- "Mabelebele"
The Swallows' "It Ain't The Meat"
Allman Brothers Band "Little Martha (Live at the The Beacon Theatre)"
Bedouine, Waxahatchee, and Hurray for the Riff Raff- "Thirteen"
Waffle House Records- "There are Raisins in My Toast"
Goodie Mob' "My People"
Katie Pruitt- "Expectations"
And I've mostly been listening to Christmas music since the day after Thanksgiving. My two year old ask to hear the Bruce Springsteen version of "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" about 10 times a day.
Some of my favorite holiday songs this year
George Jones- "My Mom and Santa Claus"
Loretta Lynn- "To Heck With Ole Santa Claus"
Kacey Musgraves- "Ribbons and Bows"
Booker T. & The M.G.'s- "Jingle Bells"
Randy Travis- "Meet Me Under the Mistletoe"
James Brown- "Santa Claus Go Straight To The Ghetto"
Spotify Playlists I loved
Afro Surf Vol 2 by Mami Wata Surf
The Birth of Rhythm & Blues by Spotify
and while we're talking about music, CNN films just released "Jimmy Carter: Rock and Roll President" and it is phenomenal.
https://www.cnn.com/videos/us/2020/12/31/jimmy-carter-rock-and-roll-president-cnn-film.cnn
-Jack Deese
Jack, I loved hearing your take on the now fully flexing adult version of the DBT--what a cover for The New OK. And I loved, loved, loved that you made a mixtape for your show Do As You Done. That cover of "Thirteen" is incredible, and I really need to watch the Pres. Carter documentary!
What I listened to this year...
Music has been in a trough and I was about to give up, but new punk came along to restore my faith. Thank you lord for Fontaine’s DC and the Mysterines.
2020 was the year when I began to appreciate jazz, which is some kind of milestone I’m sure. Just easing myself in but so far I’m enjoying Chet Baker, Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker. Jazz provided a good accompaniment for my re visiting of ‘On the Road’.
The Velvets are the standing feature in my life and this year their music felt very close and real because I read VU and Warhol’s diaries again, I worked through an Eddie Sedgwick biography too and I stepped into the Plastic Exploding Inevitable (the recreation of it at the Tate). Reading along made the whole scene seemed very personal, like I know these people (but maybe glad I didn’t). It’s been my year for immersive music, and thinking about my cultural influences, making the connections, looking back on the 20th century and feeling out of step with the present.
The Iggy Confidential show on BBC Radio 6 has been great. If I listen at night I hold the iPad close to my ear, it’s like being a teenager again listening to John Peel on a transistor radio. I actually like to hear music low fi and I like needing to listen hard to the make out the words. Iggy played a recent recording by Shirley Collins now in her eighties.
‘Where the ice goes
I go
Locked in ice half a hundred years’
Iggy wasn’t listening as carefully as me , he didn’t realise that the song is the voice of the little ghost ship. But that’s allowed Iggy, you do a great job - thank you for the show.
I finished my year listening to the Beatles. The Beatles were the soundtrack of my young childhood in Northern England. For me Penny Lane was the lane we took to the swimming pool and Strawberry Fields were the playing fields to one side. I found them both on Google maps recently, the while I know full well that the modern reality will never match my memory - I can’t resist looking. As the old year passed away George’s, ‘Here comes the sun’ was my soundtrack for going forward, bruised and cautious but hopeful that things will be alright. Things will be alright.
Ro, I remember being pleasantly shocked walking into the grand exhibit of Stephen Shore's work at the Met a couple years ago, because it started with the Velvets--what in the world?? I thought. I had no idea he was a young photog poking around the Factory. It's sometimes hard for me to see them as people, and young people (which they were!), making this extraordinary music.
And ah, the Beatles. The great titans of myth, still alive in my heart. I did a chronological listen to their albums in 2019 on a trip from Mississippi to Tennessee, and need to do another.
I haven't heard Iggy's show yet but I feel like the radio shows papa Dylan and Little Steven did were so rich, so filled with love and passion for music, that it would feel like that!