Think back to 1990, the year before the first Lollapalooza, the year hip-hop went pop via MC Hammer and Vanilla Ice — a year where classic rockers still had such a stranglehold on the mainstream that Paul Simon could appear on Billboard’s Modern Rock Singles chart. It could be said that this was a year of transitions, with rap’s golden age starting to slowly wind down and alt-rock beginning to boil over, but looking back 20 years on, 1990 sure delivers a number of stone-cold classics, whether it’s the Bomb Squad in full flight on Public Enemy’s Fear of a Black Planet, the pristine pure pop of the La’s, the shimmer and roar of Ride’s Nowhere, Neil Young lumbering with Crazy Horse on Ragged Glory, the Breeders’ glorious Pod, or Digital Underground’s inspired funk fantasia Sex Packets — and that’s just a list of albums! AllMusic celebrates all this and much, much more in the 1990 edition of AllMusic Loves.

Read the rest of this entry »

Arriving a year after the British Invasion kick-started and two years before the Summer of Love, 1965 sometimes gets overlooked among the great years of the ’60s, but a convincing case could be made that it showcases how creatively fertile the decade was almost better than any other year. That’s because 1965 isn’t about one style or sound: every genre produced timeless music, whether it was Miles Davis settling into his second classic quintet, Motown’s hit machine not slowing down, Bakersfield electrifying country music, B.B. King captivating at the Regal, or American rock & roll bands pounding out responses to the British Invasion from their own garages while the Who made their debut. And, of course, the Beatles, Bob Dylan, the Rolling Stones, the Beach Boys, and the Byrds all released multiple classic albums, including Rubber Soul, Highway 61 Revisited, Out of Our Heads, Today!, and Mr. Tambourine Man — records that defined just what rock & roll could do. If that doesn’t make a contender for the greatest year of the ’60s, then what does?

Read the rest of this entry »

Appropriately for the final year of the decade, 2009 seemed to be the 2000s in microcosm. Every trend of the past 10 years surfaced over the past 12 months: dance divas with irresistible singles mingled with the electro-pop and art-punk vanguard with Lady Gaga bridging the two extremes, new bands rubbed elbows with veterans who either mounted a comeback or proved the value of consistent work. There was a lot that was twee and precious and not much macho, save for some crackling underground metal and the supergroup Them Crooked Vultures. There were seemingly too many animal bands to count — led, of course, by Animal Collective, the consensus pick for album of the year in many quarters, but followed not far behind by Grizzly Bear, Arctic Monkeys, Bat for Lashes (and, if you’re being generous, a resurgent Black Crowes) — and there was yet another new project from Jack White. In short, 2009 had a little bit of everything of what we loved about the 2000s, and the following lists are what AMG editors loved best over the last year.

Read the rest of this entry »

Matias Aguayo – Ay Ay Ay
Lily Allen – It’s Not Me, It’s You
Animal Collective – Merriweather Post Pavilion
Antipop Consortium – Fluorescent Black
Dan Auerbach – Keep It Hid
Baroness – Blue Record
Bibio – Ambivalence Avenue
The Black Crowes – Before the Frost/Until the Freeze
Bill Callahan – Sometimes I Wish We Were an Eagle
Brandi Carlile – Give Up the Ghost
Julian Casablancas – Phrazes for the Young
Neko Case – Middle Cyclone
Rosanne Cash – The List
Jarvis Cocker – Further Complications
Dälek – Gutter Tactics
Dâm-Funk – Toeachizown
The Dirty Projectors – Bitte Orca
Drake – So Far Gone (Explicit)
The-Dream – Love vs Money
Bob Dylan – Together Through Life
Fever Ray – Fever Ray
The Fiery Furnaces – I’m Going Away
Flaming Lips – Embryonic
Jan Garbarek Group – Dresden: In Concert
Girls – Album
Green Day – 21st Century Breakdown
Grizzly Bear – Veckatimest
Hudson Mohawke – Butter
Shafiq Husayn – Shafiq En’ A-Free-Ka
Japandroids – Post-Nothing
Norah Jones – The Fall
Kid Cudi – Man on the Moon: The End of Day
King Midas Sound – Waiting for You
La Roux – La Roux
Lady Gaga – The Fame Monster
Miranda Lambert – Revolution
Sondre Lerche – Heartbeat Radio
Little Boots – Hands
Madness – The The Liberty of Norton Folgate
Major Lazer – Guns Don’t Kill People… Lazers Do
Manic Street Preachers – Journal for Plague Lovers
Mastodon – Crack the Skye
Maxwell – BLACKsummers’night
Mika – The Boy Who Knew Too Much
Mos Def – The Ecstatic
Os Mutantes – Haih…Ou Amortecedor…
Neon Indian – Psychic Chasms
David “Fathead” Newman – The Blessing
Brad Paisley – American Saturday Night
Pelican – What We All Come to Need
Phoenix – Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix
A Place to Bury Strangers – Exploding Head
Roberto Juan Rodriguez – The First Basket
St. Vincent – Actor
Shakira – She Wolf
Sonic Youth – The Eternal
Sunn 0))) – Monoliths & Dimensions
Super Furry Animals – Dark Days/Light Years
The Swell Season – Strict Joy
David Sylvian – Manafon
Tanya Morgan – Brooklynati
Them Crooked Vultures – Them Crooked Vultures
Allen Toussaint – The Bright Mississippi
Moritz von Oswald Trio – Vertical Ascent
Wale – Attention Deficit
Sara Watkins – Sara Watkins
Weezer – Raditude
Wilco – Wilco (The Album)
The xx – XX
Yeah Yeah Yeahs – It’s Blitz!
Various Artists – 5 Years of Hyperdub

Classical Releases
Gerd Albrecht – Hans Werner Henze: Gogo no eiku
Lief Ove Andsnes – Shadows of Silence
Artemis Quartet – The Piazzolla Project
Cecilia Bartoli, Il Giardino Armonico – Sacrificium
Bartosz Cajler, Symphony Orchestra of the Podlasie Opera and Philharmonic in Bialystok, Marcin Naleçz-Niesiolowski - Alexandre Tansman: Cinq Pièces; Violin Concerto; Suite Baroque
Cinquecento – Jacobus Vaet: Missa Ego flos campi
Dallas Wind Symphony – Lincolnshire Posy: Music for Band by Percy Grainger
Forde Ensemble – Spohr: Double Quartets Nos. 1 & 2
John Eliot Gardiner, Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique – Brahms: Symphony No. 2
Hildegurls – Electric Ordo Virtutum
Paul Hillier – David Lang: The Little Match Girl Passion
Phil Kline – John the Revelator
Gidon Kremer, Martha Argerich - The Berlin Recital
Kronos Quartet – Floodplain
Sir Charles Mackerras, Staatskapelle Dresden, Staatsopernchor Dresden - Schubert: Messe in Es; Mozart: Vesparae Solennes de Confessore
Jun Märkl – Messiaen: Poèmes pour Mi; Les offrandes oubliées; Un sourire
Maki Namekawa & Dennis Russell Davies – Philip Glass: Piano Music
Jonathan Nott, Bamberg Symphony Orchestra – Mahler: Symphony No. 9
Ralf Otto, Mainz Bach Choir – Mozart: Requiem (edited by Robert D. Levin)
Maria João Pires – Chopin
Bente Vist – Per Nøgärd: Seadrift
Xiayin Wang – Scriabin: Piano Music
Alastair Willis, Nashville Symphony Orchestra & Chorus – Maurice Ravel: L’Enfant et les sortilèges; Shéhérazade
Benjamin Zander, Philharmonia Orchestra – Bruckner: Symphony No. 5

We will begin our 2009 blowout very soon — later this week. For now, here is the expanded, remastered, reissued, double-disc-plus-DVD version of The AllMusic Pop Editors’ Favorites of 2008. While the editors’ lists of favorite songs and albums in that feature maxed out at ten, some of the lists in this feature go up to 20, providing a more in-depth look at 2008, a year highlighted by some exceptional album debuts (including the self-titled releases from Santogold, Fleet Foxes, and Vampire Weekend) and adventurous returns (Portishead, Erykah Badu).

Read the rest of this entry »

We covered 2007 in a similar way before — way back in 2007 — but not to this extent. Some of these lists from our editorial staff go up to 20 rather than 10, so there is more Radiohead, Panda Bear, White Stripes, UGK, and probably M.I.A. (There is the exact same amount of Amerie, Frank Zappa, and the National, however.) Consider this the expanded, remastered, reissued version of our two-year-old feature AllMusic Editors Pick Their Top Ten of 2007. The AllMusic Loves series will finish out the decade shortly.

Read the rest of this entry »

Sure, it was only three years ago, but we are still crazy about 2006’s debuts (Lily Allen, Arctic Monkeys, Burial), breakouts (Amy Winehouse, Gnarls Barkley), bold makeovers (Christina Aguilera), and early farewells (J Dilla), not to mention the less eventful but nonetheless excellent releases from the established veterans (Ghostface Killah, Jarvis Cocker, Sonic Youth). Over a couple hundred favorite albums and singles of 2006 are listed by our editors. Maybe you’ll discover, or be reminded of, a few that you missed. The AllMusic Loves series will continue to roll through this first decade of the 2000s during the next few weeks, as we will revisit 2007 and 2008 prior to looking back at 2009.

Read the rest of this entry »

A reader asked in the comments section of AllMusic Loves 2004, our previous feature listing our editors’ favorite releases from a given year, “What next? AllMusic Loves 2005!?!?” Yes, exactly. As we said when we looked back at 2000, we are covering each year of the decade until we reach the end. Having passed the midpoint, we grapple with a year highlighted album-wise by the apex of record-collector rock (LCD Soundsystem’s LCD Soundsystem), thrilling tongue-in-cheek meta-punk (Art Brut’s Bang Bang Rock & Roll), and politicized electro-rooted trunk rattlers (M.I.A.’s Arular). Just as significantly, 2005 featured one of the decade’s oddest smashes in Gwen Stefani’s “Hollaback Girl” and, in Kelly Clarkson’s “Since U Been Gone,” a good old-fashioned anthem. In the case of the latter, guilt lies only in the souls of those who think of it as a mere guilty pleasure.

Read the rest of this entry »