Sturgill Simpson released A Sailor’s Guide to Earth

A Sailor’s Guide to Earth Sturgill Simpson

Released: April 16, 2016 Peak: 3 US, 11 CW, 43 UK, 31 CN, -- AU Sales (in millions): 0.22 US Genre: country

Tracks: Song Title (date of single release, chart peaks) Click for codes to singles charts. Welcome to Earth (Pollywog) Breakers Roar Keep It Between the Lines (1/30/17, --) Sea Stories In Bloom (3/24/16, 48 CW) Brace for Impact (Live a Little) (3/3/16, 23 AA) All Around You Oh Sarah Call to Arms Total Running Time: 38:54

Rating: 4.153 out of 5.00 (average of 33 ratings) Awards: (Click on award to learn more).

About the Album: Sturgill Simpson’s debut album, 2013’s High Top Mountain, suggested his “retro sensibilities…seemed to be rooted solely in outlaw country; he swaggered like the second coming of Waylon Jennings, a man on a mission to restore muscle and drama to country music.” AMG Metamodern Sounds in Country Music, his 2014 sophomore release, “dragged ‘outlaw country’ into modern times with acid-tongued clarity and a world-weary sense of humor.” PF It “was a curve ball revealing just how unorthodox his rulebook was. Sturgill embraced indulgence, pushing new wave, psychedelia, and digital-age saturation, all in an attempt to add the cosmic back into American music.” AMG “Its perspective was so refreshing that other like-minded albums” PF such as Chris Stapleton’s Traveller took off as well. “While Simpson could have easily milked a few records out of that glum sound and guaranteed industry adulations for decades, A Sailor’s Guide to Earth represents a startling change in tone and presents a wealth of rewards for every creative risk.” PF It “is such a rearrangement of Simpson’s sonic universe that any previous categorization now seems out of date.” PF “Instead of…finding a voice in classic country – Simpson himself smirks at the notion that he is a modern Waylon Jennings…Simpson is doing something far more difficult.” PF On the previous album, he tackled a cover of the late-‘80s new wave hit “The Promise” by When in Rome. Here he performs a similarly astonishing “countrypolitan Nirvana cover” PF of In Bloom. This is “an old-fashioned concept album, one that tells a story.” AMG “Simpson draws from his time in the Navy, where he was stationed in Japan, and the record is framed as a sailor’s letter home to his wife and newborn son” PF “telling him how to become a man.” AMG “It’s a deeply personal album” PF “loosely based on a letter his grandfather wrote his grandmother” PF which “displays an artistic growth that defies any sort of easy label” PF “while establishing Simpson as the defining songwriter of his class.” PF Musically, he crafts songs “that veer closer to soul than country.” AMG Simpson is “equally attracted to the symphonic haze of progressive folk and the boundary-blurring soul of Muscle Shoals, using its thick swathes of horns and smears of slide guitar as binding agents.” AMG “The instrumentation on songs like Keep It Between the Lines – much of it provided by Sharon Jones’ backing bad, the Dap-King – is denser, bolder, and more rhythmic than anything Simpson has steered previously.” PF He also makes “room for more contemplative moments like the tender ballad Oh Sarah. On Sea Stories, Simpson shouts “‘Get high, play a little GoldenEye / That old 64!’ like he’s fondly remembering an old Cadillac—while taking a completely different journey.” PF “The result is a beautiful and earnest record.” PF

Resources and Related Links: DMDB encyclopedia entry for Sturgill Simpson AMG All Music Guide review by Stephen Thomas Erlewine PF Pitchfork WK Wikipedia First posted 4/29/2022.

Bon Iver released debut For Emma, Forever Ago

For Emma, Forever Ago Bon Iver

Released: July 8, 2007 Charted: March 8, 2008 Peak: 64 US, 42 UK, -- CN, 32 AU Sales (in millions): 1.0 US, 0.3 UK, 1.3 world (includes US and UK) Genre: folk

Tracks: Flume Lump Sum Skinny Love (4/28/08, --) The Wolves (Act I and II) Blindsided Creature Fear Team For Emma (9/15/08, ---) re: Stacks Total Running Time: 37:11

Rating: 4.169 out of 5.00 (average of 16 ratings) Awards: (Click on award to learn more).

About the Album: For Emma, Forever Ago is “the most unlikely masterpiece…It’s heartbreaking and uplifting at the same time.” FO “It’s one man’s journey from battling back from the brink and always makes for a therapeutic listen.” FO “Justin Vernon didn’t plan on reshaping a generation’s understanding of love-torn folk music” RS’20 when he retreated for nearly four months to his father’s remote hunting cabin in the woods of Wisconsin after breaking up with his girlfriend. It was there that he wrote and recorded most of the songs on “his haunting” AMG “falsetto-laden DIY debut,” RS’20 For Emma, Forever Ago. He “poured his existential crisis into his music and made one of the albums of the decade.” FO “A few parts (horns, drums, and backing vocals) were added in a North Carolina studio, but for the majority of the time it’s just Vernon, his utterly disarming voice, and his enchanting songs. The voice is the first thing you notice. Vernon’s falsetto soars like a hawk and when he adds harmonies and massed backing vocals, it can truly be breathtaking.” AMG “The Wolves (Acts I & II) truly shows what Vernon can do as he croons, swoops, and cajoles his way through an erratic and enchanting melody like Marvin Gaye after a couple trips to the backyard still.” AMG The “heartsick” RS’20 Skinny Love “shows more of his range as he climbs down from the heights of falsetto and shouts out the angry and heartachey words quite convincingly.” AMG “Framing his voice are suitably subdued arrangements built around acoustic guitars and filled out with subtle electric guitars, the occasional light drums, and slide guitar. Vernon has a steady grasp of dynamics too; the ebb and flow of Creature Fear is powerfully dramatic and when the chorus hits it’s hard not to be swept away by the flood of tattered emotion.” AMG “Almost every song has a moment where the emotion peaks and hearts begin to weaken and bend: the beauty of that voice is what pulls you through every time. For Emma captures the sound of broken and quiet isolation, wraps it in a beautiful package, and delivers it to your door with a beating, bruised heart.” AMG What was most surprising is how the music “would reshape the contours of the pop mainstream – from Ed Sheeran and Kanye West to James Blake and Taylor Swift — for years to come.” RS’20 “It’s quite an achievement for a debut and the promise of greatness in the future is high.” AMG Notes: “Wisconsin” was added as an iTunes bonus track.

Resources and Related Links: DMDB encyclopedia entry for Bon Iver AMG All Music Guide review by Tim Sendra FO Far Out (7/16/2021). “The 21 Best Albums of the 21st Century” by Jack Whatley, Joe Taysom, and Tom Taylor RS’20 Rolling Stone (9/22/2020). “The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time” WK Wikipedia First posted 4/27/2022; last updated 4/28/2022.

Bob Dylan released Love and Theft

Love and Theft Bob Dylan

Released: September 11, 2001 Charted: September 29, 2001 Peak: 5 US, 3 UK, 3 CN, 6 AU Sales (in millions): 1.0 US, 0.1 UK, 1.1 world (includes US and UK) Genre: folk rock

Tracks: Tweedle Dee & Tweedle Dum Mississippi Summer Days Bye and Bye Lonesome Day Blues Floater (Too Much to Ask) High Water (For Charley Patton) Moonlight Honest with Me Po’ Boy Cry a While Sugar Baby Total Running Time: 57:25

Rating: 3.882 out of 5.00 (average of 29 ratings) Awards: (Click on award to learn more).

About the Album: “The blood and glory of 1997’s Time Out of Mind” RS’20 “was a legitimate comeback, Bob Dylan's first collection of original songs in nearly ten years and a risky rumination on mortality.” AMG It “was the first Dylan album in years that had to live up to fans’ expectations. He didn’t just exceed them – he blew them up. Dylan sang in the voice of a grizzled drifter who’d visited every nook and cranny of America and gotten chased out of them all.” RS’20 “Its sequel, Love and Theft, is his true return to form, not just his best album since Blood on the Tracks, but the loosest, funniest, warmest record he’s made since The Basement Tapes.” AMG It “was full of corny vaudeville jokes and apocalyptic floods, from the guitar rave” RS’20 of “the fabulously swinging Summer Days” AMG “to the country lilt of Po’ Boy.” RS’20 “There are none of the foreboding, apocalyptic warnings that permeated Time Out of Mind and even underpinned ‘Things Have Changed,’ his Oscar-winning theme to Curtis Hanson's 2000 film Wonder Boys.” AMG “Just as important, Daniel Lanois’ deliberately arty, diffuse production has retreated into the mist, replaced by an uncluttered, resonant production that gives Dylan and his ace backing band room to breathe. And they run wild with that liberty, rocking the house with the grinding Lonesome Day Blues…They’re equally captivating on the slower songs, whether it's the breezily romantic Bye and Bye, the torch song Moonlight, or the epic reflective closer, Sugar Baby.” AMG “Musically, Dylan hasn’t been this natural or vital since he was with the Band, and even then, those records were never as relaxed and easy or even as hard-rocking as these. That alone would make Love and Theft a remarkable achievement, but they're supported by a tremendous set of songs that fully synthesize all the strands in his music, from the folksinger of the early ‘60s, through the absurdist storyteller of the mid-‘60s, through the traditionalist of the early ‘70s, to the grizzled professional of the ‘90s.” AMG “None of this is conscious, it’s all natural. There's an ease to his writing and a swagger to his performance unheard in years – he’s cracking jokes and murmuring wry asides, telling stories, crooning, and swinging. It’s reminiscent of his classic records, but he’s never made a record that’s been such sheer, giddy fun as this, and it stands proudly among his very best albums.” AMG

Resources and Related Links: DMDB encyclopedia entry for Bob Dylan AMG All Music Guide review by Stephen Thomas Erlewine RS’20 Rolling Stone (9/22/2020). “The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time” WK Wikipedia Other Related DMDB Pages: First posted 3/30/2008; last updated 4/27/2022.