Music lover on your gift list? Best 2022 albums, CD sets from Billy Strings to Frank Zappa
It seems like just yesterday you could justifiably complain about how it was too early to hear Christmas music or too soon to plot out battle plans for holiday shopping strategies. After all, it was still September. Christmas was sitting in another century at that point, right?
Well, news flash, it ain’t September anymore. Christmas is now two weekends away and all the gifting that goes with the holiday is now staring you in the face — or, more precisely, the pocketbook.
To ease the inevitable eleventh-hour shopping stress, we offering our annual gift-giving guide of (mostly) newly released music vying for a few of your holiday dollars.
Be it through downloading or streaming, the increasingly scarce physicality of compact discs or the back-from-the-dead glory of the vinyl LP, we offer suggestions here for most any taste and budget.
Here is the music that will sound as good as it looks under any tree or in any stocking:
The Beatles – “Revolver” (Special Edition Super Deluxe)
The latest box set expansion of Beatles albums takes us back to 1966 and what stands to many as the group’s finest hour — although on this lavish five-CD set, that stretches to 2? hours with a gold mine of extras.
It’s a feast — albeit a costly one for Beatles fanatics. For more modestly populated wallets, try the two-CD edition. It gives you Giles Martin’s extraordinary new remix of the original “Revolver” and a full disc of goodies from the box set’s rarities. There are vinyl editions, too — a Beatles for every budget.
Bruce Springsteen – “Only the Strong Survive”
The Boss has been serving up pop-soul covers in his live shows for his entire career, but “Only the Strong Survive” marks the first time he has devoted an entire studio album to them. Admittedly, the idea of an aging rock impresario mining classic R&B is a tired one, but Springsteen goes all out with orchestrations as regal as the Americana soundscapes that draped his brilliant “Western Stars” album from 2019. And at 73, he’s still got the vocal pipes to ignite this sweeping vintage soul serenade.
Billy Strings – “Me/and/Dad”
Americana wunderkind Billy Strings has made no secret of the importance and inspiration stepfather Terry Barber has had on him personally and professionally.
Here, Strings and Barber dig into a hearty batch of bluegrass standards with help from an A-team crew of sidekicks (Jerry Douglas, half of the Del McCoury Band, Michael Cleveland.) What sells “Me/and/Dad,” though, is the obvious and abundant familial reverence Strings and Barber have for each other and for this music. A must-have record.
Benjamin Lackner – “Last Decade”
Never heard of German-American pianist Benjamin Lackner? Until a few weeks ago, neither had I, even though he has been making albums for nearly 20 years. “Last Decade” sends Lackner to the famed European jazz label ECM and teams him with all-star support (Peter Gabriel drummer Manu Katche, Norwegian trumpeter Mathis Eick, both ECM bandleaders.) The result is a record of blissful, nocturnal cool with a piano/trumpet blend that echoes the Miles Davis/Bill Evans hush of the 1959 classic “Kind of Blue.”
Various Artists – “Live Forever: A Tribute to Billy Joe Shaver”
Billy Joe Shaver was the Godfather of outlaw country music, although his songs were so steeped in solid, human storytelling and honky tonk vigor that they stretched far into the Nashville mainstream. That reach is reflected in this tribute set featuring longtime stars (George Strait, cutting up a waltz on “Willy the Wandering Gypsy and Me”) and comparative newcomers (Amanda Shires’ barroom piano-fortified “Honky Tonk Heroes.”) A robust, cheerful Shaver sampler by a pack of grateful outlaws.
Frank Zappa – “Waka/Wazoo”
This is the 10th posthumous collection of predominantly unreleased Zappa music in just over two years, so die-hard fans have had to do some picking and choosing. “Waka/Wazoo,” though, is essential listening. Pulled from 1972 sessions for the albums “Waka Jawaka” and “The Grand Wazoo,” this four CD/single Blu-Ray set focuses on mostly instrumental music made with an expanded, horn-fortified ensemble. The music is animated and accessible and Zappa’s guitarwork, as always, is enchanting.
Tyler Childers – “Can I Take My Hounds to Heaven?”
The newest album offering from the pride of Lawrence County is a triple-disc set that serves up three variations of eight tunes split evenly between Childers originals and traditional fare. That means “Hounds” runs from bare bones Americana to string and brass-infused adventures to wildly imaginative remixes. The themes are spiritual, but this isn’t exactly a gospel record. Kinda makes you wish for a church that would welcome such a mix of musical jubilation and invention, though.
Charles Lloyd – “Trios: Sacred Threads”
For this concluding chapter in his series of trio ensemble recordings, 84-year-old saxophone giant Lloyd offers a beautifully spacious set of meditative works that recalls his early ’70s East-meets-West jazz innovations. Mumbai-born tabla percussionist/vocalist Zakir Hussain and American guitarist Julian Lage (who was in Lexington for an Origin Jazz Series show earlier this week) color the worldly interplay, but it remains the unhurried reflection of Lloyd’s sax and flute leads that unites this stylistic spiritualism.
Kendrick Lamar – “Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers”
Though not a holiday-timed release (it came out in May), Lamar’s fifth album is such a sobering and barrier-breaking work that it serves as necessary listening for any time of year. Lamar goes so far off the hip-hop grid here — as on the beat-free confessional “Mother I Sober” - that his sense of social storytelling becomes genre-less. Seldom polite, often poetic and continually unapologetic in explaining the troubled world Lamar inhabits, “Mr. Morale” is an uneasy triumph of a record.
Various Artists – “Here It Is: A Tribute to Leonard Cohen”
The pop marketplace was getting flooded with Cohen tribute records well before the celebrated songsmith’s passing in 2016. But, doggone it, “Here It Is” turns out to be another necessary edition to the pack. Some of the picks are little dodgy (Iggy Pop doing “You Want It Darker,” for instance). But when “Here It Is” hits the mark, it glows, as in Mavis Staples’ unhurried spiritual take of “If It Be Your Will” and Peter Gabriel’s eerily accurate take on Cohen’s grim vocal whisper for the album’s title tune.
Wilco – “Yankee Hotel Foxtrot”
In 2002, “Yankee Hotel Foxtrot” was the record that forever upped Wilco’s game, shredding its Americana pedigree for a new level of pop music-making. Of course, we’re a little bias around Lexington, as “Foxtrot” was also the first album to welcome University of Kentucky percussion grad Glenn Kotche into Wilco. This anniversary version comes in six different editions. We recommend splurging for the full eight-CD or 11 LP blowout package as it includes a riotous concert performance where Kotche goes wild.
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers – “Live at the Fillmore, 1997”
What would you like for Christmas, kiddo? About a four-hour compendium of Tom Petty concerts from a 1997 residency at the Fillmore in San Francisco, where he and his Heartbreakers dust off not only a tall stack of hits and a total of 35 cover tunes, ranging from an ultra-cool take on Little Richard’s “Lucille” to a sampler of Byrds songs aided by the chief Byrd himself, Roger McQuinn. The mood is loose and fun while the music is profound and flexible, all as great live rock ‘n’ roll should be.
