Hobo Keith 2015: X to get to V

10. Built To Spill – Untethered Moon (April 18)
This one was an IronFish suggestion (surprise). While I’ve enjoyed Built To Spill’s music in the past and dig a few of their albums, I would never call myself a big fan. However, I am a fan of Doug Martsch’s voice and guitar playing, which this album has in spades. There’s something about that combo that just goes so damn well together. The song “Living Zoo” does things to me that shouldn’t be acceptable now that I’m married.  This album loses points for its terrible album cover.

9. Circa Waves – Young Chasers (March 30)
This album is the perfect distillation of The Strokes and Vampire Weekend. One of the rare albums I found out about by hearing a song on the radio. It was EQX so in my defense it was at least an independent radio station…. The album bursts with fun youthful energy and big hooks, which is seemingly harder and harder for me to find these days. The music reminds me of drinking and partying as a teenager, how can I argue with that?






8. Best Coast – California Nights (May 1)

I hadn’t listened to this much after it first came out since I was initially let down by it and wasn’t going to include it on my list. Funny thing happened though when I played it the other day and ended up enjoying it (and least marginally more than originally). I pretty much have to accept at this point Best Coast caught lightning in a bottle with their debut album and the rest are going to be varying degrees of shit. One thing this album does have going for it is a lot of the music sounds like radio 90’s alternative which is something I can generally get behind, even if just for nostalgia sake.








7. Langhorne Slim & The Law – The Spirit Moves (August 7)
This guy went to college with my buddy Krahula and I remember drinking with him in the green room at a show when he was just starting out. He put on a good performance that night and I have always followed his career with mild interest. He generally puts out albums that are half great and half mediocre. I’m happy to say this one is uniformly awesome throughout. Taking his signature low key country folk style and incorporating a bit of a soul vibe for this album is an excellent touch. With a great voice and lyrical style to boot this album is doing it for me. The 4 or so bonus tracks are also worth checking out. Great stuff.




6. Blitzen Trapper – All Across This Land (October 2)
Blitzen Trapper is a band that is consistently good with every album they put out. It’s weird though because I never find myself wanting to go back and listen to a certain song by itself on their albums. It feels like the entire album is one long song depicting whatever their stylistic detour at the given moment is. Solid stuff though as usual, especially since they seem to be at home most when they are tapping into the rustic country/southern rock that they do on All Across This Land.








5. Pearl Charles – Pearl Charles (EP) (July 28)
Taylor made for Hobo Keith. Female singer with a strong voice with music that sounds like it’s from the 1960’s mixed with some country influence. Now I’m just patiently waiting for a full length album.











4. Ryan Adams - 1989 (September 21)
I’ve never been much for the Ryan Adams bandwagon, but Shaffer sold me on this album. Everyone knows this story behind this right? It’s a song for song cover of the Taylor Swift album 1989. Not to mention, it’s one of the most depressing albums I have ever heard (recorded as some kind of therapy after his divorce) its stark quality really gives the melodies a chance to shine. It completely transforms the Taylor Swift album and gives it a strong Springsteen quality which is hard for me to argue with.







3. Springsteen – The Ties That Bind: The River Collection (December 4)
Speaking of Springsteen, The River is one of his best albums. Unfortunately, being that it’s a double album there’s a lot of filler that comes with it ("Cadillac Ranch", I’m looking in your direction) but it’s balanced by some of his all time best songs and performances. This box set collection contains a remastered version of the double disc album, a legit release of the aborted original single album version (that includes a different track listing with alternate versions of the songs on the official album and unreleased songs) in much better sound quality than the previous bootleg I had. THEN a whole other disc of outtakes roughly half of which were released on Springsteen’s Tracks box set from the 90s (which rounded up outtakes from his entire career) but the other half were never before heard. Not to mention a new DVD documentary about the making of the album and a 2 disc DVD of a River era live concert from 1980. Wow. Every other musician could take a master class from Springsteen’s box sets and learn how to round up and properly present a recording time period for a specific album.




2. Dylan – The Bootleg Series Vol. 12: The Cutting Edge 1965-1966 (November 6)
How can I even review this? It’s everything Dylan recorded in 1965 and 1966 at the peak of his powers, straight up transforming popular music and turning it on its head. Maybe if I heard the 2 disc best of, this would be in the #1 spot on my list but I’m talking about the 18 disc version here. Overkill? Yup. But just knowing this exists makes me happy and there’s so much to dig out of here that’s worth your time. It’s a fun archeological experiment. Who cares if they had to release this for some legal loophole? The fans are better off for it.






1. Wavves – V (October 2)
As far as listenability goes, I may have played this more than anything else on this list. It’s a short, concise album (just over 30 minutes) and gets to the point. In may not be the “best” album I heard this year, but it’s the one I’ve enjoyed the most. Wavves has always been a band I liked, but usually only a small handful of songs per album. This one does it for me all the way through. It’s like they sanded down some of their rougher edges and gave their music a more approachable feel. This has almost more of a pop punk vibe then their early 90s sub pop worship. It sounds like if Blink 182 grew up listening to Nirvana rather than some shitty punk band. His lyrics sometimes can get whiny but most of the time it sounds like he’s insulting his girlfriend Bethany aka Best Coast for being a bitch so I can get behind that.
Bonus points for the amazing album cover too.