by Something Else Reviews
Writing can feel akin to tossing a flat rock across the surface of a shimmering river. You never know how far it will go, or just how wide those concentric circles left behind might eventually spread.
Sometimes, the thing just sinks. Like, well, a rock. But other times, these entries take on a life of their own. Those are the moments we’re going to talk about today.
Here’s a look back at the Top 10 Something Else! reviews — based on your page views — from 2010. A pair of rock music’s biggest names pushed onto the list as fans celebrated John Lennon on what would have been his 70th birthday, while Bruce Springsteen put out a massive reissue project exploring one of his most important recordings. A couple of our year-end lists drew wide, diverse audiences. And then there was Prince’s return to the glories of his early-career booty-bumping ways.
Click through the album titles for more on these recordings:
No. 10:
CASSANDRA WILSON, ‘SILVER PONY’ — The album was borne out of time spent back home in the Deep South, shuttling back and forth between Wilson’s birth city of Jackson, Miss., and a house in New Orleans as her mother fought through a final illness. Wilson then embarked on a 13-city European tour, from which several live cuts are included. That adds an undercurrent of homecoming and of sadness, but doesn’t keep Wilson and her intensely talented group of sidemen — notably the rhythm section of drummer Herlin Riley and bassist Reginald Veal, who’ve worked with Wynton and Branford Marsalis — from their appointed duties to swing, to sway, and to surprise.
No. 9:
SOULIVE, ‘RUBBER SOULIVE’ — Playing a bunch of Beatles songs everyone’s heard a billion times without disguising the melodies might sound like a good reason to be critical of Soulive’s latest record. After a while, though, I’ve come to look at Rubber Soulive from a different perspective: in bringing back some of these great tunes, Soulive brought themselves back to their no-frills, greasy early days when they were busting their collective tails to make a name for themselves. That’s the real attractiveness of Rubber Soulive: To hear a band that’s “made it” still performing like they are playing for next week’s groceries. If their mutual admiration for the music John, Paul, George and Ringo was needed to inspire this back-to-basics set, well, that’s all the more better.
No. 8:
2010’S TOP UNSIGNED ACTS; WELL, OK, SOME OF THEM, ANYWAY — Picking the best of 2010’s unsigned treasures is like trying to determine your favorite grain of sand. There are far too many, really, to make any reasonable guess — and the whole time you’re walking around with a bucket in an attempt to actually decide, you keep finding more, you know, sand. So, we’re going to call this the best of the unsigned that I came across over the last calendar year. Sure, the bucket is inarguably filled with an arbitrary collection of sand. But at least it’s all inside the bucket.
No. 7:
BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN, ‘THE PROMISE: HOUSTON ’78 BOOTLEG — While the video quality of this concert isn’t up to the standards today’s pro-shot events, the intensity and pure exuberance of the performance more than makes up for it. From the crackling energy of the opening “Badlands” to the rave-up craziness of “Quarter To Three,” Springsteen was a man on fire. Not long into the set (during “Spirit In The Night”), Bruce and Clarence Clemons wade out into the crowd, making it known that there were no boundaries on the way to rock nirvana, at least not on that night.
No. 6:
SISTER SPARROW, ‘AND THE DIRTY BIRDS’ — Reminds me of that time when I felt compelled to buy every soul and horn-related record I could find, from Tower of Power to James Brown to early Chicago. If you need one song to hear what this band is about, check out “My House.” A slow-building plea for love (“Come on over to my house baby..”), you’ll hear Arleigh Kincheloe’s pleading vocals, a swelling horn section, and some terrific guitar work by Sasha Brown.
No. 5:
ONE TRACK MIND: THE BYRDS, ‘MR TAMBOURINE MAN’ — A Bob Dylan song reimagined into something like the Beach Boys, and also something like the Beatles — and nothing like folk music — propelled the Byrds to their first No. 1. Oh, and started the folk-rock move
ment. Among other things. Dylan talked about jingle-jangle mornings, but the Byrds made them happen in real life.
No. 4:
VARIOUS ARTISTS, ‘JAZZ FAVORITES FOR 2010’ — And to think I almost didn’t listen to my top-rated album, Two Bedroom Apartment. A piece of publicity email (with download link) was forwarded to me and my curmudgeonly, anti-technology self just didn’t feel like downloading anything. But there was just something about that name that made me chuckle at my growsing. It’s a good thing, because Danielle Ate The Sandwich, mostly just a girl and her ukulele, provided me with some of the most fun, endearing, and sincere moments I’ve had this year.
No. 3:
BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN, ‘THE PROMISE: DARKNESS ON THE EDGE OF TOWN REMASTERED’ — Full of subtle improvement, without the addition of unnecessary sonic bombast. Corrections were made exactly where they were needed. On the high end, the sizzle of Max Weinberg’s high hat and that wet sound of the stick on the ride cymbal have greatly improved clarity. We want to hear the crisp attack of those cymbal sounds, with the natural decay that follows. Those elements have been fully restored. On the bottom end, Garry W. Tallent’s bass lines stand out more in the mix. Distinct phrases can now be heard in places where we used to hear “thud, thud, thud.”
No. 2:
PRINCE, ’20TEN’ — He sounds like his old self again. The one you used to go buy. That starts with “Compassion,” this thunderous, ass-shaking opener, in the style of every Prince album that mattered back in the day. In the space of a few minutes, the prickly, sometimes stupifyingly uncommercial Prince has embraced an old-school futurist sound and this jaunty stance that everyone would be forgiven for forgetting. Once upon a time, you’re reminded, nobody was more creative inside the staccato regimen of a drum machine. It sounds, at least to my ear, like Prince is having fun. How long have we been waiting for that?
No. 1:
JOHN LENNON, ‘DOUBLE FANTASY STRIPPED DOWN’ — Considered apart from his murder just weeks later, this comeback album often ended up more gossamer than necessarily great. Lennon was at his zenith a scratched-and-dented treasure, laconic and all edge, and here he seemed to have settled into middle-aged domesticity — both figuratively and, by employing the prevailing pop veneer, literally. That’s perhaps why, at the time, I tended to favor a pair of loose, unfinished posthumous followups, 1983’s “Milk and Honey” and 1986’s “Menlove Ave.” Not anymore. This new edit of “Double Fantasy” claims the fertile middle ground between, fostering a fresh complexity in Lennon’s last studio work — even as it stays true to certain elements of the craftsmanship from before.
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