My Album of the Decade

Hello out there readers (I reiterate someone is READING this right?) It has been quite sometime since my last blog post and I would like to say that it was because of the holidays and all the business that it entails but unfortunately that would not be the truth as I have spent most of my time off playing Assassin's Creed 2 on the XBOX. While I did intend to put this blog on the backburner until I got back to Auburn, two events led me to update the blog before the dreaded return to college this Saturday. The first event was an answer to my email from one of my heroes Tom Moon, (check out his blog http://www.1000recordings.com/) who agreed to take a look at the blog and give his expert advice and criticism.

The second event was Josh Ritter's most recent blog post, (you can check out his blog as well at http://www.bookofjubilations.com/) in which he stated:

"I've been busy. My new album is done, and as I write we're just tying up the loose ends and, dotting the t's and crossing the eyes. It's a big, big sounding record and it is a major monkey that we're releasing from its cage over the next several months. My band and I have never worked harder on a record and I think that it's going to show."

It's a wonderful news to usher in the new decade to be sure. During my time off this break I took a look at all the critic's best of 00's lists and made my own personal top ten of the decade list (in no particular order):

• Yankee Hotel Foxtrot by Wilco
• Kid A by Radiohead
• Twentysomething by Jamie Cullum
• The College Dropout by Kanye West
• The Bandwagon by Jason Moran
• American Idiot by Green Day
• Stankonia by OutKast
• Illinoise by Sufjan Stevens
• The Crane Wife by The Decemberists
• The Animal Years by Josh Ritter

The last one was a bit of a surprise to me because when it was released in 2006 it received widespread critical acclaim. But alas when album of the decade lists began to come out it was missing from many or near the bottom. I am here to make my personal case for The Animal Years as the album of the decade.

The album opens up with the hauntingly beautiful ballad "Girl in The War", a song I use to introduce anyone I have ever talked about music or made a mixtape for to introduce them to Josh Ritter. When attempting to explain the beauty of this opening tracks words fail me. It is the ultimate lovers lament, Ritter cast a lover helplessly strugglingly with the loss of his girlfriend to war, desperately turning to religion as his last option. ("But I got a girl in the war Paul, the only thing I know to do is turn up the music and pray that she makes it through"). The lamenting continues on the second track "Wolves" however it takes a lighter tone musically and it's here that Ritter begins to flex his lyrical muscles that has had many people comparing him to Bob Dylan ("Then winter came there was little left between us, skin and bones of love won't make a meal"). Ritter paints the scenery here reminiscent of his Moscow, Idaho hometown as wolves hungrily prey in the dark woods outside his now empty house. Responding to his own howls of loss they take up residence in every corner of the house. As a sufferer of lupophobia this is quite a frightening thing to imagine, Ritter on the other hand, takes a small comfort in their company but his lost lover still haunts him.

It's at this point that Ritter takes the album onto a much broader spectrum, "Monster Ballads" is multi-layered connecting pyramids, riverboats and radio in one epic sweep of storytelling, where Ritter gives a lyrical shout out to one of his heroes Mark Twain ("I was thinking 'bout my river days, I was thinking about me and Jim.") Both men have the perchance for tales of individuals and their adventures but in the end their stories tend to reflect upon America as a whole.(The video above has Josh Ritter accompanied by the Boston Pops Orchestra). "Lillian, Egypt" recounts a silent-movie era romance blossoming to an upbeat melody with a honky tonk-esque piano solo almost breathless from the drama of the love triangle between a movie star actress, her director, and the boy she fled home with.

It is here that "Idaho" arrives with nothing more than Ritter's simple yet ethereal voice as a guide the listener is taken on a journey through Ritter's home state. His Idaho is simple and so are the people who live their lives of quiet desperation. One can almost see the smoke rising from the chimney of an Idaho cabin deep in the Bitterroot Mountains. "In The Dark" is a cavernous metaphorical grab bag with the light brigade, angels, and old loves unearthed as Ritter tries to comfort a friend way in over their head. "One More Mouth" is much of the same as a proud and defiant lover seems to frustrate him at every turn."Good Man" (shown in the video above) is a toe tappingly sweet love song in which Ritter pleads his lover that even though "We both had dry spells and hard times in bad lands", he is still the right man for her. "Best For The Best" follows one mans trek through America from Illinois, to a Riverboat along the Mississippi, to a wrestling arena in a Midwest town but never being able to find peace or happiness (" I spent a few more as the Cario Crown, a heavyweight wrestler in a midwest towns but i was lonesome for a girl who could pin me down").

"Thin Blue Flame" is a nearly ten minute rant filled with both biblical and historical allusions alike, which begins as a small spark but as the music builds it ignites until by the end it is a roaring bonfire as Ritter brings Hamlet, Laurel and Hardy (again), and God (to name a few) into the mix. The listener is shown an apocalyptic world where "beating hearts blossom into walking bombs" and "Wolves are howling at our door singing for vengeance like it's the joy of the Lord". In the end Ritter wakes up to find himself in his own Eden filled with "the ones that I loved and the ones that I missed." This happy ending of sorts follows through in "Here At the Right Time" where Ritter returns from the grand orchestration of "Thin Blue Flame" to a single piano to accompany him. It brings the album full circle as Ritter goes from the agony of seperation the beginning of the album to arriving just when his lover needs him.

This album is a masterpiece of one of the great young singer songwriters of the twenty first century, it is an epic love song not just to a single girl but to America as well and in it are harbored the hopes, fears, and joys of a generation that gained it's voice in the past decade.