With the end of the decade comes the inevitable Top Ten Albums of the Decade list. As I get older, my selections continue to drift further from the mainstream of popular music. I'm fine with that. The biggest shock here is that, for the first decade in my lifetime, which began in the '60s, there is no Bob Dylan album on my list. Tempest was his only album of new material, and I found it a bit uninspired compared to the trilogy of Time Out of Mind, "Love & Theft," and Modern Times, which had made the years 1997-2006 so exciting for Dylan fans. Leonard Cohen, on the other hand, released four albums in the '10s for the first time since the '70s, and each was brilliant--including the posthumous Thanks for the Dance, which came out just as the decade was coming to an end.
Aside from Cohen, the most exciting artist of the decade for me was Laura Marling, who released five albums in the decade, any of which could have been included on this list. In addition to the one I have chosen, Once I Was An Eagle, I was especially moved by I Speak Because I Can and Semper Femina, and the two Marling shows I saw were spellbinding--especially the one at the Triple Door in downtown Seattle, when she covered Dylan's Blood on the Tracks outtake "Up to Me" (at my request!) and Joni Mitchell's "Both Sides Now," the loveliest version of that oft-sung chestnut I have ever heard.
My other favorite shows of the decade were all by artists on this list: Bruce Springsteen's three hour and forty-five minute show at Key Arena, when he played The River in its entirety; the handful of Gillian Welch and David Rawlings shows I saw at the Moore Theatre, with their amazing songs and harmonies and Rawlings' spine-tingling acoustic guitar work; Emmy the Great's show at the tiny Barboza, downstairs from Neumo's, when she asked me onstage to hold her iPhone so she could read the lyrics while she played my request, "The Hypnotist's Son"; Paul Simon's concert at the club the Showbox, when I stood as close to Simon as Garfunkel used to; and the many Tom Russell and Aoife O'Donovan shows I saw, including a pair of shows Aoife did with her I'm With Her bandmates Sara Watkins and Sarah Jarosz.
All in all it was a great decade to be a music fan, even as the music business always seemed on the verge of disintegration, if press accounts were to be believed. Perhaps, like Mark Twain, reports of its demise have been greatly exaggerated. I hope so. Here, without further ado, are my top ten albums of the decade:
- Popular Problems - Leonard Cohen
- The Harrow and the Harvest - Gillian Welch
- Once I Was An Eagle - Laura Marling
- Stranger to Stranger - Paul Simon
- Western Stars - Bruce Springsteen
- Virtue - Emmy the Great
- Mesabi - Tom Russell
- Fossils - Aoife O'Donovan
- Pure Comedy - Father John Misty
- Stranger in the Alps - Phoebe Bridgers
