i AM A DORK. no, like i am strangely nerdy. with that said I have devised a ridiculous (and ridiculously FUN -- for me anyway) Tournament that I will be basically playing by myself with a little help from you who read if you wanna join in. Its really corny, just as a warning. But here goes.
I like singer/songwriter albums. BUT there are such a massive amount of them that I want to hear or maybe heard once and have no good recollection of. I wanted to create a fun way for me to compare and contrast and listen to these main songwriters and albums that I have been meaning to visit or revisit for years in some cases but never got around to.
With that in mind I decided to pick 64 albums by about 58 artists (a few got more than one) that are designated as singer/songwriter of one kind or another. The language is english (i will do a more expansive all language one later, but I thought that as I don't speak portuguese it is unfair to compare one album I can't understand that written words of to an album I understand the written words of if you know what I mean.). I will create a bracket (actually kind of already have) much like the College Basketball bracket we have here in the US each March.
This bracket is broken into 4 "areas" which is based on the year of release. I took 1963 to 2020 plus pre 1963 as its own value. there were 59 values, divided into 4, each group is 15 year span.
So the groups are albums from:
Pre 1963 to 1975
1976 to 1991
1992 to 2006
2006 to present/2020
I found 16 singer songwriter albums from each era that I really want to check out for the first time or check out again after a while and bad recall.
I ranked each group of 16, 1 to 16, based off where they ranked in the RYM singer/songwriter list of albums of their span of years.
I then have a bracket where the 16th album from say 1976 to 1991 based off ranking on RYM will face the #1.
This whole project will entail AT LEAST 126 full album listens. Cuz I will revisit the album each round and I will probably end up listening more than once in some cases.
Some of the albums especially at the top of the brackets are insanely renowned and major blindspots. For example Joanna Newsom's Ys AND Divers is in two seperate brackets. I have heard both albums, but in each case I can say I never clicked with them or haven't listened in so long I don't remember them or both. There are also some seriously obscure albums with less than 150 votes on RYM which have always caught my eye. So those types of albums will face juggernauts from Newsom or Cave etc.
I use apple music and youtube and any hard copy I randomly have (rare) or I try to find a stream online. If I can't find one of these albums anywhere I will have to sub that album out and replace it. I will probably be a dork and pick 2 albums and have them play in a play-in match to decide who is replacing the disqualified album. Super fun, i know.
Now how do I determine who wins? Well, I will try to be objective but no such thing exists if I'm being honest. I will look at lyric quality, music quality and how much the aesthetic of the album works for me. ALSO, this is where you may come in. If I get a couple comments here saying "Man album x is great and I think its much better than album y" and there is some debate I will take that under consideration when announcing the winners. I'll probably post here what the next 2 or 4 albums I'll be listening to are and who they are facing, I'll then go off and do that and then come back with my reviews, my ratings, my comparisons and my vote. But if I have a couple comments or even just one comment from someone who has a clear preference in the intervening time I may use that as a swaying or tiebreaking factor.
I know this is all very very VERY exciting!
I am gonna look online and see if I can find some nice looking way to take my 64 albums and place them on a Bracket. I'll be back later with either a link to that nice looking bracket or I will try to mock up a faux bracket using just this typing.
Okay, let me know what you think.
Or, if no one reads this, I'm sorry about everything Amber. I feel like a fool. _________________ -Ryan
Cool I'm looking forward to your choices.
Can we propose other albums for your list?
Nice!
and, errr, yes? I mean I have the albums picked out based off what I personally haven't heard or have always wanted to hear again. If you nominate an album I have heard or have never had a magnetic draw to, it may be overpowered by the 16 albums on the sub brackets that I picked due to having my attention on for years. There may be crossover however. Also for each group of 16 I typed out easily 20-25 and had to make cuts to the list last minute. If your nominations line up with one of those albums I cut last minute I may include it.
OR! I can take maybe 4 to 8 nominations and create little PLAY-IN matches! That could be fun. So, yeah if you have suggestions, I'm all ears. _________________ -Ryan
Updated on January 9th to reflect the recent changes.
Pre-1963 to 1975 album choices and Seedings
1. Saint Dominic's Preview by Van Morrison (1972)
2. Paris 1919 by John Cale (1973)
3. The Hissing of Summer Lawns by Joni Mitchell (1975)
4. One Year by Colin Blunstone (1971)
5. Teaser and the Firecat by Cat Stevens (1971)
6. Good Old Boys by Randy Newman (1974)
7. Honky-Tonk Man by Steve Young (1975)
8. You Don't Mess Around With Jim by Jim Croce (1972)
9. Old No. 1 by Guy Clark (1975)
10. Paul Simon by Paul Simon (1972)
11. Emmitt Rhodes by Emmitt Rhodes (1970)
12. Beverly Glenn Copeland by Beverly Glenn Copeland (1970)
13. The New Folk Sound of Terry Callier by Terry Callier (1968)
14. Like an Old Fashioned Waltz by Sandy Denny (1973)
15. Take a Picture by Margo Guryan (1968)
16. Since There Were Circles by Bob Lind (1971)
1976 to 1991 album choices and Seedings
1. Songs From Suicide Bridge by David Kauffman and Eric Caboor (1984)
2. Year of the Cat by Al Stewart (1976)
3. Slow Turning by John Hiatt (1988)
4. Night and Day by Joe Jackson (1982)
5. Comedy by Paul Kelly and the Messengers (1991)
6. Miss America by Mary Margaret O'Hara (1988)
7. Lubbock (On Everything) by Terry Riley (1979)
8. Pirates by Rickie Lee Jones (1981)
9. Running on Empty by Jackson Browne (1977)
10. Danger In The Past by Robert Forster (1990)
11. Long Journey by Michael Hurley (1976)
12. Eye by Robyn Hitchcock (1990)
13. Seed of Memory by Terry Reid (1976)
14. Humans by Bruce Cockburn (1980)
15. Solitude Standing by Suzanne Vega (1987)
16. Iron Curtain Innocence by Bobb Trimble (1980)
1992 to 2006 album choices and Seedings
1. Ys by Joanna Newsom (2006)
2. The Boatman's Call by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds (1997)
3. The Sunset Tree by The Mountain Goats (2005)
4. Little Earthquakes by Tori Amos (1992)
5. Still by Nine Inch Nails (2002)
6. Fox Confessor Brings The Flood by Neko Case (2006)
7. A River Ain't Too Much To Love by Smog (2005)
8. You Are Free by Cat Power (2003)
9. Scar by Joe Henry (2001)
10. 99.9 F°by Suzanne Vega (1992)
11. The Poet Game by Greg Brown (1994)
12. Hell Among The Yearlings by Gillian Welch (1998)
13. 1000 Kisses by Patty Griffin (2002)
14. The Transfiguration of Vincent by M. Ward (2003)
15. The Saga of Mayflower May by Marissa Nadler (2005)
16. The World Is Saved by Stina Nordenstam (2004)
2007 to Present album choices and Seedings
1. Divers by Joanna Newsom (2015)
2. Truelove's Gutter by Richard Hawley (2009)
3. Civilians by Joe Henry (2007)
4. All Mirrors by Angel Olsen (2019)
5. Between Daylight and Dark by Mary Gauthier (2007)
6. World Winding Down by Agitated Radio Pilot (2007)
7. 2020 by Richard Dawson (2019)
8. Israel Nash's Rain Plans by Israel Nash (2013)
9. Elephants…Teeth Sinking Into Heart by Rachael Yamagata (2008)
10. Sprained Ankle by Julien Baker (2015)
11. I Speak Because I Can by Laura Marling (2011)
12. Unknown Rooms (A Collection of Acoustic Songs) by Chelsea Wolfe (2012)
13. Give Up The Ghost by Brandi Carlile (2009)
14. Marked For Death by Emma Ruth Rundle (2016)
15. Music For People In Trouble by Susanne Sundfør (2017)
16. Old Chestnut by Ned Collette (2018)
Okay, those are the 64 albums and how they are seeded as of now. The plan (just create more chaos) is to have the inter-era matches occur and then in round 2 I will take the earliest group face the most recent era and have the 2 middle eras face off. Not sure how that will work. Probably won't go through with it if it turns out to be too cray cray _________________ -Ryan
Maybe first on your definition on singer-songwriter: obviously you think that also bands are valid and I can follow you for a few names but NIN ?
And of course not every solo-artist is a singer-songwriter: ex is Bob Mould or Black Francis a singer-songwriter? Are pure C&W artists singer-songwriters?
But I'll start with your first period which is not so much focused on the sixties and mainly on early seventies. There's many artists/albums I haven't even heard of so I'll try to listen to some of them. Of the ones I do know I of course agree with Cat Stevens (but I like Tea For The Tillerman more), Paul Simon, John Cale (there's also Fear and if you take him why not also Lou Reed) and Van Morrison (although I would rather choose Astral Weeks or Moondance) .
And then the ones that I feel are missing from your list and the first name that comes to mind is Leonard Cohen and the second would be Neil Young, both of them with many possible choices for albums. And where is Tom Waits (esp with Closing Time)? I myself wouldn't name Bob Dylan but that's of course also an important missing name. And also American Pie by Don McLean, Marjorie Razorblade by kevin Coyne and Tapestry by Carole King might be a choice.
But I suppose you already considered all these possibilities 😉
and of course already great choices.
mickilennialThe Most Trusted Name in NewsProfile Detroit
Maybe first on your definition on singer-songwriter: obviously you think that also bands are valid and I can follow you for a few names but NIN ?
And of course not every solo-artist is a singer-songwriter: ex is Bob Mould or Black Francis a singer-songwriter? Are pure C&W artists singer-songwriters?
But I'll start with your first period which is not so much focused on the sixties and mainly on early seventies. There's many artists/albums I haven't even heard of so I'll try to listen to some of them. Of the ones I do know I of course agree with Cat Stevens (but I like Tea For The Tillerman more), Paul Simon, John Cale (there's also Fear and if you take him why not also Lou Reed) and Van Morrison (although I would rather choose Astral Weeks or Moondance) .
And then the ones that I feel are missing from your list and the first name that comes to mind is Leonard Cohen and the second would be Neil Young, both of them with many possible choices for albums. And where is Tom Waits (esp with Closing Time)? I myself wouldn't name Bob Dylan but that's of course also an important missing name. And also American Pie by Don McLean, Marjorie Razorblade by kevin Coyne and Tapestry by Carole King might be a choice.
But I suppose you already considered all these possibilities 😉
and of course already great choices.
I think I explained this silly tournament wrong, or poorly. These are the albums I haven't heard or have only heard once a long time ago and which have some allure to me to revisit or to listen the first time. It may be the artists other work, the average score on RYM, the cool title of artist/album, the artwork, the genre descriptions or a mix of them all - but these all at one time or another have made me stop and pause and ALMOST push play. I am a bit of a nut about singer/songwriter albums. Like I made these charts when I was listening to a couple hundred singer songwriter albums in a short time (Repo can attest that back in 2017 i think it was I was actively crazy wild whoa when it comes to just injecting singer/songwriter albums into my veins.)
and also I have this massive singer songwriter project with my top 10 of each year 1965 to 2020 that i probably will never finish and make public. This is not to say I am some authority on this vague as hell "genre" but I am a bit of a fan to say the least. And if there is any album description that is catnip to me its Singer/songwriter - the second that I can get my hands on some such albums released in 2021 i will be a happy manchild.
as for specific artists you mention - in all cases they were thoroughly familiar to me. Dylan and really any dylan album even the shitty ones in the 80s would be unfair (unfair being a silly term for a silly make believe tournament) to include - cuz i love the man so much its a little off-putting lol. Same with Waits, Joni (outside of that onnnneeee last hold out which i haven't heard shockingly enough and included in this), Cohen, etc. Even Van Morrison - the only one of his classic era albums I haven't heard that I am intrigued by is the one included in the list above.
Plus as this is a 64 album tournament, and i have way way more than 64 such albums I am very intrigued by and have caught my eye over the years and the many many hours looking through RYM and Allmusic and acclaimedmusic lists. I had to cut it down. This "tournament" is simply a way to talk about music i am interested in with my friends here and its a way to motivate me to listen to albums. I am a dork when it comes to comparisons, competitions, arbitrary rating systems etc so this is my little gimmick to get a huge swath of those "Someday I definitely will listen" albums actually listened to. And because of the round structure I will even force myself to listen to some albums that win several times and maybe i'll come out of this thing with a half a dozen or more new favorites.
As for the genre, what is it? what's included? Thats the single best and hardest question for me at this time. Only 1 album I went and added to the above list that wasn't tagged "Singer/Songwriter" on RYM and that is that Angel Olsen album from 2019. Why was that not tagged as such? Well I guess i will find out, maybe its not really such an album and much more of a pop album? IDK. David Bowie's albums are almost never refered to as singer songwriter despite him being a singer who write his songs. why? well i think its super arbitrary. as a matter of fact i know it is.
Blues artists who write their own lyrics, they aren't included here. why? Maybe the form or the structure is too alienated from traditional concepts of poetic bard music or something or maybe the blues form isn't considered the same - but if I were to make a songwriter list, Robert Johnson is top 20 easily. Very weird.
Country...some country and folk artists who write their own lyrics aren't designated as singer songwriter - some of willie nelson's best written albums aren't included. why? Again idk. Smokey Robinson and Bill Withers are usually primarily called Soul or R&B and only sometimes in small non-bolded designations called singer songwriter.
Electropop, electronic, and progressive pop legends and funk greats such as Bjork, Kate Bush, Prince, are all missing from any RYM list despite being songwriters and good lyricists who sing. its frustrating.
NIN is an industrial hard rock solo affair - Trent reznor. I stopped listening to his albums after 1999's The Fragile. But apparently, based on descriptions, this album "Still" is a somewhat straightforward acoustic at times singer songwriter album (take a drink every time I say singer songwriter so as not to shorten it to SS and feel uncomfortable lol). This also happens to be an album that shows up every time I search singer songwriter albums on RYM and I have been morbidly curious since I saw this years ago on a list.
etc etc. Its a mess.
I hope that answers some of your questions - also I have heard most of the highly rated Lou Reed albums, he's almost never designated or really never designated as a singer songwriter and i don't know why. Then you get stuff like Neutral Milk Hotel, which its an acoustic based indie rock band with one singer and said singer is the songwriter. Ditto with Wilco, with the 1969 Velvet Underground album that I love, and the list goes on forever.
I've gone on too long.
in closing here is the debatable definition and desciption Rateyourmusic.com gives for "Singer/Songwriter"
"The singer/songwriter genre is rooted in the traditions of the mediaeval bards and troubadours of the 15th & 16th centuries. This style of 'musical storytelling' was championed in the post-war era by Woody Guthrie, Dorival Caymmi and others, usually presented as one man and his guitar. In the US the sound evolved with the American Contemporary Folk scene of the 1950s and early 1960s where artists such as Bob Dylan and Pete Seeger began to write and play their own songs, whilst at the same time artists such as Georges Brassens, Joan Manuel Serrat, Gino Paoli, Víctor Jara and Chico Buarque were developing along similar lines in Europe and Latin America, leading to the development of genres like Liedermacher, Cantautori and Nueva canción and influencing Chanson.
The term singer/songwriter actually arose in the late 1960s / early 1970s to describe a group of artists such as Carole King, Harry Nilsson and Randy Newman who had worked as professional songwriters and had hits recorded by other artists, but who then were able to start singing and recording their own material. Rapidly however the term became co-opted to describe the music being created by the likes of Dylan & Seeger, as well as Jackson Browne, James Taylor, Joni Mitchell and others in the American protest movement of the time and soon spread to cover similar artists working outside America.
The genre's defining qualities include confessional or political lyrics, typically with sparse acoustic accompaniment (acoustic guitar or piano) and an arrangement that relies more on the strength of the song and the performance than on production techniques or musical style. The original artists were rooted in Folk traditions but the genre has evolved to include a much broader range of influences, for example Blues, Lounge, Jazz and even Pop."
Gowi wrote:
no emmylou makes gowi a sad person
haha! I get that! I LOVE Emmylou. Luxury Liner is on my chart, Wrecking Ball and Elite Hotel, and Roses in the Snow, Pieces of the Sky, Quarter Moon in a Ten Cent Town, are perpetually right there in the running. However, as i told dihansse, I explained this silly project poorly and these are albums I am unfamiliar with that have kinda made me pause and almost push play, for in most cases, years. There are a couple Emmylou albums that may qualify - namely, Stumble Into Grace which I have heard once, liked but forgot about and was one of the albums cut from this tournament idea.
With her, or even Gillian Welch who got an album in here, or Ned Collette, etc - I have so much built in love its almost unfair. It'll be tough for me to vote for many albums over even a "lesser" (although I don't know if they are and that's the point) Emmylou, Welch, Collette, etc album.
TL:DR - emmylou is too good and familiar to me to be included here. _________________ -Ryan
maybe when this is done - if I ever do finish it - I will make a massive top 500 singer songwriter albums or something. I don't know. _________________ -Ryan
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