Tag: Bill Callahan

The Top Songs of 2019 (20-16)

There have been a lot of really great songs released in 2019. This year, we will be revealing our top 100 songs five tunes at a time all the way to number one. Here are our picks for 20-16

20. Weyes Blood – Everyday

Titanic Rising is one of the best records of 2019, and the single “Everyday” is sort of Bob Seger meets Enya.

19. Bill Callahan – What Comes After Certainty

If Neil Diamond and Leonard Cohen had a love child that was produced by Rick Rubin, this is the sort of beautiful noise that the offspring would share with the world. Willie’s guitar even makes an out of nowhere appearance on this one.

18. Rodney Crowell – Deep In The Heart of Uncertain Texas

We could have picked any number of tunes for this list from Rodney Crowell’s Texas L.P., but we are contractually obligated to mention Willie Nelson at least one time per post, and the more the better. Here, along with Ronnie Dunn, Willie is in perfect hippy form.

17. Elles Bailey – Road I Call Home

The heir apparent to Bonnie Rait who sounds like she could be the daughter of Melissa Etheridge with better chops, Elles Baily is really coming into her own with her new record, Road I Call Home. The title track shows an artist that, by all rights, should not be as good as she is.

16. Garret T. Capps – Sunday Sun

There is an old school outlaw troubadour ethos that generates through every pore of Garrett T. Capps that draws the line from Hank to Kris to Townes all the way to Garrett T. Capps without missing a beat.

 

The Top Songs of 2019 (80-76)

There have been a lot of really great songs released in 2019. This year, we will be revealing our top 100 songs five tunes at a time all the way to number one. Here are our picks for 80-76.

Go back in time to picks 100-96

Go back in time to picks 95-91

Go back in time to picks 86-90

Go back in time to picks 81-85

80. Marcus King Band – Carolina

Marcus King and his band are one of several new groups that are gaining popularity with their fan forward live shows, superb musicianship, and stellar songwriting. Recorded at RCA’s Studio A in Nashville and produced by producer du-jour Dave Cobb, the six-minute slow roll sort of a song features the soaring vocals and stinging guitar courtesy of the bandleader and namesake, Marcus King.

79. Bill Callahan – What Comes After Certainty

With a voice so low and slow it would make Leonard Cohen proud, this delicate love song sort of strays around to from professing his love to the woman of his dreams all the way to signing Willie’s guitar without The Red Headed Stranger knowing he was doing it and surfing in Kaui on his honeymoon. True love is not magic, it’s certainty.

78.  Billie Eilish – Bad Guy

959,703,699 (make that 959,703,700) plays on Spotify can’t be wrong, can they? The song has an infectious driving down the highway at 120 miles an hour driving beat with a distinct essence of Krautrock wafting in the air. The song is about people that expend a lot of hot air telling you what kind of person they are when, in reality, they are someone totally different. Pretty ambitious for a 17-year-old.

77. Black Keys – Low/High

The Black Keys, Patrick Carney and Dan Auerbach, are back and better than ever. Their latest record, Let’s Rock, very much lives up to its billing, and the best song in this barrel of pickles, “Low/High” is a T-Rex by way of Ty Seagall stomper with a little touch of The Sweet thrown in for good measure.

76. Ex Hex – Rainbow Shiner

While Ex Hex may be somewhat of a supergroup featuring members of Wild Flag, Aquarium, and Fire Tapes, what they really are is one hell of a Rock and Roll Band. “Rainbow Shiner” very well could have been the B side of The Runaway’s “Cherry Bomb” from back in the day.