1. Drive-By Truckers, "Go-Go Boots"
Hands down, the album I listened to most this year. The music is a mind-blowing gumbo of country, soul and dirty southern rock, all of it driving the best lyrics I've heard all year. Every track is a master-class in songwriting and musicianship. This will leave you stomping your foot, slapping your knee and with a tear in your beer. And, now that bassist/singer/songwriter Shonna Tucker has left the band, it's a feat that will likely never be repeated.
2. Tom Waits, "Bad As Me"
Welcome back, Uncle Tom, it's been far too long. Rock's great carnival barker returns in a big way with this record that finds him at his bluesy rock best. Yes, the album is a little restrained by his standards, and I could have done with a bit more of the good old weirdness, but the songs are too brilliant to deny -- in fact, there's at least two tunes here ("Last Leaf" and "Hell Broke Luce") that would make my list of all time favorite Waits tracks.
3. Wugazi, "13 Chambers"
This mash-up of Fugazi instrumentation and Wu-Tang vocals is damned genius. Ian McKaye and the RZA working together in perfect digital harmony. Believe it.
4. The Roadside Graves, "We Can Take Care of Ourselves"
Jersey's roots rock kings take on S.E. Hinton, and we all win. This concept album inspired by "The Outsiders" should be required listening -- it's a sophisticated, mature and quietly stunning work by a band that consistently blows minds and breaks hearts. Cheers.
5. Jonathan Coulton, "Artificial Heart"
This geek-friendly singer/songwriter is probably best known for "Still Alive" and "Want You Gone," the tracks he wrote for the smash hit video games "Portal" and "Portal 2," respectively. Both those tracks are here, along with 16 other smart and unbelievably catchy power pop gems that touch on topics as wide-ranging as married life, mustaches, local news anchors and Rick Springfield.
6. Scott H. Biram, "Bad Ingredients"
The perfect bluesman for the 21st century, Biram combines sweet country, hardcore, metal and dirty delta blues into a style that's entirely his own. Long a force to be reckoned with live, "Bad Ingredients" is his best studio album yet.
7. Adele, "Live at the Royal Albert Hall"
She had the biggest-selling record of the year with "21," but Adele has never sounded as brilliant as she does on this live album. She segues so effortlessly from working class NSFW banter to stunning vocals that it left my jaw on the floor.
8. Bon Iver, "Bon Iver"
This album was probably the year's biggest surprise for me. Bon Iver got a lot of folks' attention a few years back with his quiet and folksy debut, but on this record his takes the sonic building blocks of '80s station wagon pop (sweet sax, plenty of synths, reverb-heavy drums) and constructs a weirdly brilliant stunner.
9. Dawes, "Nothing is Wrong"
Remember how a few years ago every band was showing the world their best Bruce Springsteen impression? Well, if "Nothing is Wrong" is any indication, the Boss had better make way for the Pretender -- Dawes seems hell-bound to record the best album Jackson Browne never made, and the resulting LP is like a warm blanket for lovers of folksy-leaning '70s rock. (The fact that Browne shows up for some guest vocals on one of the album's best cuts, "Fire Away," doesn't hurt.)
10. New York Dolls, "Dancing Backward in High Heels"
Special mention: Big Wilson River, "Untitled" (aka "Octopus"): I love this album. It's one of my favorites of the year. It may or may not be better than a couple of records in my top 10. But this band also happens to feature a great friend of mine, and I played a barn-burning show with them at the Asbury Lanes in December, so the journalist in me thought it wouldn't be exactly kosher to include them here. But you can listen to the whole album on Bandcamp, and you really should. It's brilliant work. Cheers friends!
