Staff Picks for September 2024

The single most influential album of Western songs in post-World War II American music, Gunfighter Ballads and Trail Songs (released 75 years ago this month) touched a whole range of unexpected bases in its own time and has endured extraordinarily well across the ensuing decades.
- Bruce Eder

On this album, which celebrates its 50th anniversary this month, the harsh moments are part of a greater and far more diverse musical universe, they are shards in the prism of the deep and burning soul that these six compositions offer so freely. Of the many recordings Rivers has done, this was the very first to showcase the full range of his many gifts. It is an underrated masterpiece and among the most rewarding and adventurous listening experiences in the history of jazz.
- Thom Jurek

A surprisingly upbeat and poppy album from these twee Glaswegian songsmiths, largely attributable to producer Trevor Horn who helmed classic releases from ABC and Frankie Goes to Hollywood. Where their previous records were intimate masterpieces of warm cardigans and aloof misery, Dear Catastrophe Waitress celebrates with sunny flutes, shining string sections, and odes to Mike Piazza.
- Zac Johnson

Childbirth staked their claim as the world's funniest feminist punk band with 2015's Women's Rights, and like the best jokes, their songs generate the most laughs when they reflect unpleasant (or at least annoying) truths. Neanderthal tech bros, the horrors of dating apps, the indignity of having parents, aggressive fertility, and the profound decadence of self-care are all grist for their lyrical mill, and their no-frills, garage-y rock seriously amplifies the fun.
- Mark Deming

On his third album, released 50 years ago today, Jackson Browne returned to the themes of his debut record (love, loss, identity, apocalypse) and, amazingly, delved even deeper into them. If Browne had seemed to question everything in his first records, here he even questioned himself. It was a lot to put into a pop music album, but Browne stretched the limits of what could be found in what he called "the beauty in songs," just as Bob Dylan had a decade before.
- William Ruhlmann

Tom Harrell's career bloomed in the '90s as the one time Horace Silver trumpeter gained wider appreciation for his extended melodic lines and soft, painterly harmonies. Yet, he was also a gifted composer and arranger, skills he showcased on Art of Rhythm, framing his warm tone with a kaleidoscopic blend of Brazilian, Afro-Cuban and Flamenco sounds.
- Matt Collar

Selecting a great Dwight Yoakam album is as simple as picking any Dwight Yoakam album. His drawling yowl drips with emotion whether on a love song or a lament, highlighted particularly by the anthemic "movin' on" song "Things Change" with its chiming Bakersfield guitars and sing-song choruses.
- Zac Johnson

Randy Newman's songwriting often walks a narrow line between intelligent satire and willful cruelty, and that line was never finer than on the album Good Old Boys, released 50 years ago today. Newman had long displayed a fascination with the American South, and Good Old Boys was a song cycle where he gave free rein to his most imaginative (and venomous) thoughts on the subject.
- Mark Deming

This Return to Forever set, celebrating its 50th anniversary this month, finds guitarist Al DiMeola debuting with the pacesetting fusion quartet, an influential unit that also featured keyboardist Chick Corea, electric bassist Stanley Clarke and drummer Lenny White.
- Scott Yanow

Modern Life Is Rubbish established Blur as the heir to the archly British pop of the Kinks, the Small Faces, and the Jam, but its follow-up, Parklife, revealed the depth of that transformation. Relying more heavily on Ray Davies' seriocomic social commentary, as well as new wave, Parklife runs through the entire history of post-British Invasion Britpop in the course of 16 songs, touching on psychedelia, synth pop, disco, punk, and music hall along the way.
- Stephen Thomas Erlewine

As the sprawling magnitude of its cheeky title suggests, 69 Love Songs, released 25 years ago today, is Stephin Merritt's most ambitious as well as most fully realized work to date, a three-disc epic of classically chiseled pop songs that explore both the promise and pitfalls of modern romance through the jaundiced eye of an irredeemable misanthrope.
- Jason Ankeny

Released 50 years ago today, the follow-up to the breakthrough Headhunters album was virtually as good as its wildly successful predecessor: an earthy, funky, yet often harmonically and rhythmically sophisticated tour de force. This supertight jazz-funk quintet album still sounds invigorating a half-century later.
- Richard S. Ginell

With the post-punk revival showing no signs of slowing down, it's high time to revisit Erase Errata's live-wire take on the style. Dominated by Jenny Hoyston's sharply sneered vocals and Sara Jaffe's careening guitar, the band's 2001 debut album is as volatile and exciting a statement of purpose as you're likely to hear -- and still bristles with a righteous fury and sense of humor 2020s post-punkers would do well to emulate.
- Heather Phares

When they hit the major labels, Urge Overkill followed through on their promise with the blistering Saturation. It's stadium rock by clever post-punkers who are smart enough to not let their carefully crafted image interfere with the music. Every one of the 12 songs is a killer, from the outlandish menace of "Stalker" to the moving ballad "Back on Me," as well as the tongue-in-cheek "Woman 2 Woman" and the radio hit "Sister Havana."
- Stephen Thomas Erlewine

If the Byrds weren't the best American rock group of the 1960s, they were at least in the Top Five, and if you want to chart their progress from folkies dipping their toes into rock & roll to seasoned survivors of pre-Americana country rock, There Is A Season is an excellent beginner's guide. All the hits, rare demos and outtakes, fine live material, and even a DVD of vintage television appearances – this has it all.
- Mark Deming

The music here is not Ellington re-arranged or re-conceived, or an attempt to bring back the big band era. Why Westbrook titled his record is anybody's guess. This music is ingenious. The composer wrote five thematic musical conversations for a large band in the process of creating a new harmonic language.
- Thom Jurek

Fluxion's ambitious double-CD, compiling two Chain Reaction-issued EPs along with previously unreleased material, pushes the limits of dub techno, introducing sounds and rhythms that aren't common within the style. If you've absorbed the Basic Channel discography and Porter Ricks' Biokinetics, this is your next step.
- Paul Simpson