The Best Albums of 2017

This year's records were so good that even I didn't know which way this was going to go until the bitter end. It seems that real country has a fighting chance, real blues is still alive, and Europe cares deeply about what's going on here in America -- so deeply that their art reflected their concern in unsettling ways.

That said, let's get to it.

9. Midland, On the Rocks: The rap on these guys is that their brand of country has an authenticity problem, which is funny for an industry that bestows its highest accolades on guys who do bad Gregg Allman imitations for millennials.

I hear echoes (no, waves) of Keith Whitley (the really good stuff before he left J.D. Crowe and The New South), Glen Campbell, and George Strait.

If there's routine pop with a twang here, blame it on a record company and a willing producer; you don't sing and pick like this if you want to be the next big thing in bro country. Nashville desperately needs these sounds. If music like this is the way back to real, so be it.

8. The Medlars, The Medlars: The contrast is so jarring it's almost unbearable: a delicate, pastoral setting sketched out with banjo, cello, flute, and doleful horns. And then, that voice -- big, brassy, untutored, and raw, singing the harsh realities and rough-hewn joys of English country life.
The pentatonic scale hasn't had a workout this vigorous since the heyday of traditional bluegrass.

7. Karen and the Sorrows, The Narrow Place: There are echoes here of modern country, and Tom Petty's country rock, circa 1980s. Karen Pittelman's vocals take some getting used to. Even so, she reveals herself to be an able writer of tunes that fogies like me still call "real country music".

If you're in a bluegrass or classic country outfit, and you're not thinking of covering one of these songs, you're doing it wrong.

6. Gregg Allman, Southern Blood: Much was made of the fact that Gregg Allman was dying as he recorded this, his final album. In one sense, this was as it should have been; the physical effort alone made him a tragic, heroic figure.

In another sense, that narrative couldn't have been more wrong. At his best, Gregg Allman always sang this kind of music, with precisely this level of world-weary desperation. If we lost anything when he passed, it was the crucial presence of the down-and-out in popular music.

5. Eric Bibb, Migration Blues: A singer and picker of uncommon subtlety and skill, Eric Bibb grabs a listener's attention from the first hushed and urgent notes. Like all true blues people, he has a heart for the oppressed and forgotten, and he's at his best when he's bringing equally-marginalized music, like blues and gospel, to the fore.

This is the kind of music for which the NEA was founded, and for which, so many plutocrats would like to shut its doors. It's no accident that our country was a lot kinder when music like this actively influenced the music in the Top 40.

4. I'm With Her, Little Lies: Separately, I'm With Her got their start in progressive bluegrass bands like Crooked Still and Nickel Creek, but the drive, instrumentation, intensity, chops, and even some of the repertoire on display here have more in common with high-octane traditional grass.

That said, the trio handles contemporary fare with equal skill. This is a band of tremendous versatility; in that, they remind me of the classic Seldom Scene. Next year promises a full CD from them, and I can't wait.

3. Offa Rex, The Queen of Hearts: Although you'll hear strains of Pentangle, Steeleye Span, and Fairport Convention here, with their debut album, Offa Rex has created a sound that's lush, textured, entirely unique, and instantly identifiable as their own.

A collaboration between American indie faves, The Decemberists, and English folk singer, Olivia Chaney, Rex shines brightest when classically-trained Chaney handles the vocals. Decemberists frontman, Colin Meloy, lacks the diction and drive to pull this singing style off, but makes up the lack with crunchy guitar work that sometimes verges into early Black Sabbath territory. Bonus: A cover of "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face" that restores the song to its folk roots.

2. Brian Owens, Soul of Cash: With this CD, soul crooner, Brian Owens, gives the music of Johnny Cash a stoned soul makeover, and gives us the album the world has been waiting for since 1962, when Ray Charles released Modern Sounds In Country and Western Music.

The songs are entirely familiar, yet completely reconstructed. There's not a predictable moment on the record, so it's impossible to choose highlights. The closing track, initially disappointing because it's not a Cash tune, serves as Owens' raison d'être for anyone who, in these polarized times, wonders why he bothered.

1. Judy Dyble and Andy Lewis, Summer Dancing: It's been said that crisis reveals character, and any casual observer of current events has seen character revealed in surprising ways since Donald Trump became the 45th president of the United States.

What I didn't expect was the way character was revealed in ... home design.

Ikea teamed with Hay Designs for rooms that looked like kindergarten classrooms doing double duty as funeral homes. Liberty of London's noisy-scary florals with their goth backgrounds and muddy, clashing colors brought Maurice Sendak kicking and screaming into the Donald Trump era.

There were black houses, and black rooms -- the kind of places that might have inspired this record of sun-dappled nightmares.

Art is the first world's great escape, but Dyble and Lewis won't stand for it. They insist that adult problems be faced in an adult way, which usually means they're never quite solved.

Yet, in Dyble and Lewis's psychedelic world, as in the real one, dew still sparkles on the grass. The sun still shines. We still get our silly moments after nights without sleep, and those casually-vicious betrayals that add up. All aspiring adults must face the fact that it's never either/or, but both/and -- both climate change and Summer Dancing.