ThisSmallPlanet Year In Review: "The Sun Will Rise Again Tomorrow" - Top 10 Albums - The Best Music & Politics of 2017

TOP TEN ALBUMS OF 2017


Courtney Barnett & Kurt Vile Lotta Sea Lice
"Milano" and "Lotta Sea Lice": Two Cool, New Collaborations That Give Hope To Guitar Fans (feat Courtney Barnett, Kurt Vile, Parquet Courts, Karen O, Daniele Luppi)

Parquet Courts, Karen O (Yeah Yeah Yeahs), Daniele Luppi Milano
Best Parquet Courts Original Videos By ThisSmallPlanet & "Milano" and "Lotta Sea Lice": Two Cool, New Collaborations That Give Hope To Guitar Fans (feat Courtney Barnett, Kurt Vile, Parquet Courts, Karen O, Daniele Luppi)

Bonnie "Prince" Billy Wolf Of The Cosmos
"People Living On The Outside..." ThisSmallPlanet Interviews Bonnie "Prince" Billy on his new album, Susanna, and a Divided America in the Age of Trump

Roger Waters Is This The Life We Really Want? Roger Waters earned the wrath of both the American and Israeli far-right forces by taking on Trump and Israeli apartheid against Palestinians (for which he supports a cultural boycott of Israel). Jared Kushner's newspaper-turned-website Observer (formerly The New York Observer) published two articles viciously attacking Waters, without even a disclaimer on the articles explaining the connection between Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner and Observer. Despite Jared being supposedly in charge of making peace between Israel and Palestine, his family has supported some of the most far-right fanatical elements within Israel, namely the fringe of the settler movement  - in short, people who have no interest in making peace with the Palestinians:

Jared Kushner's Observer Takes Two Cheap Shots At Anti-Trump Rocker Roger Waters - Misses Both Times

Noel Gallagher Who Built The Moon? Brother Liam, his former partner in Oasis, also had an album this year As You Were. Both were good but Noel's was better.

Chris Hillman Bidin' My Time (produced by the late Tom Petty, one of his final projects). Chris was the original bass player in The Byrds, was later a multi-instrumentalist (mandolin is a favorite) with Gram Parsons in The Flying Burrito Brothers and Stephen Stills in Manassas, and is still rocking after 50 years in the business. This collection contains great singing and playing, including a heart-felt cover of "She Don't Care About Time" from The Byrds, written by his old pal the late, great Gene Clark.

Mavis Staples feat Jeff Tweedy (of Wilco on guitar/vocals/production) If All I Was Was Black. Mavis, is one of our most unique voices, which belongs in the Smithsonian, an icon of the Civil Rights movement. Tweedy manages to honor her classic sound while giving her a thoroughly modern and contemporary feel. I also like Tweedy's 2017 Together At Last, a solo acoustic retrospective of his career. 

Billy Bragg Bridges Not Walls. Will always have a soft spot in me heart for England's Billy Bragg, if only for Mermaid Avenue, his great 1998 album of Woody Guthrie songs with Wilco and Natalie Merchant. You gotta love Billy for continuing to fight the good fight. I like that in England they regularly interview him about political causes. We could use a few more Billy Bragg's if you ask me. I saw him perform at a Barnes & Noble in New York to promote Mermaid Avenue and I think he performed "There Is Power In A Union", followed by a Guthrie song, a Dylan song, and a Clash song. That pretty much sums it up.

Filthy Friends Invitation feat Sleater-Kinney's Corin Tucker and R.E.M.'s Peter Buck

Talib Kweli Radio Silence

Favorite Anti-Trump Moments:

Eminem at the BET Awards: http://newmusictoday.blogspot.com/2017/10/eninem-anti-trump-rap.html

Todd Rundgren feat Donald Fagen "(The Man In The) Tin Foil Hat": https://newmusictoday.blogspot.com/2017/05/todd-rundgren-trolls-trump-man-in.html

Favorite Posts:

February 1: Milo At Berkeley: Milo Goes To College: Protesters Shut Down Alt-Right Creep Milo In Berkeley! (Videos)

 March 4: Berkeley Anti-Nazi Protest: "That's What Happens To Fascists In Berkeley; They Go Home Bleeding" March 4 Trump Fascists Lose (Again) To Berkeley Activists

December 12: Pavement's Stephen Malkmus Covers “Squidbillies” Theme For Adult Swim + Best ThisSmallPlanet original videos of Malkmus

December 20: "Heather Heyer Way" Honors Protester Killed In Charlottesville

December 21: FREE PUSSY RIOT! Pussy Riot Activist Detained In Moscow

Favorite anniversaries: Sgt. Peppers 40th (anniversary), Barbara Dane's 90th (birthday) - particularly been enjoying Barbara's albums with The Chambers Brothers and Lightnin' Hopkins...

My Favorite Personal Revivals of 2017

Live shows we liked:

Hardly Strictly Bluegrass, San Francisco - Hot Tuna (Jorma & Jack), Conor Oberst "Even Walls Fall Down" (tribute to Tom Petty), Steve Earle & Emmylou Harris "Refugee" (tribute to Tom Petty)

Northern California Autumn Tradition We Missed This Year: The Bridge School Benefit Show (a victim of Neil Young's divorce? Blame it on Daryl Hannah?)

Richard Thompson at the Rio Theater, Santa Cruz, California, especially his touching tribute to Sandy Denny "Who Knows Where The Time Goes"

Artists who passed away 2016/2017 but we still have their music and listened to it a lot in 2017: David Bowie, Leonard Cohen, Prince, Chuck Berry, Fats Domino, Steely Dan's Walter Becker...

More Important Music from 2017:

Jim James Tribute To 2

Blitzen Trapper Wild And Reckless

The Orwells Terrible Human Beings (album) & "Vanilla/What's So Entertaining" (single)

Queens of the Stone Age Villains

Robert Plant Carry Fire

Bob Dylan Trouble No More (The Gospel Years):
 I Hate Dylan's Sinatra But Love His Christian Period! (And I'm Not A Christian)

Son Volt Notes of Blue (album) and Ballymena (EP - outtakes). Son Volt is a vehicle for the music of Jay Farrar, formerly of Uncle Tupelo. I also liked his soundtrack for Big Sur and the New Multitudes project (Woody Guthrie sons with Jim James et al). His old mates from Uncle Tupelo, namely Jeff Tweedy, formed Wilco and have gone on to a larger audience but Jay deserves to be heard too.

Iron & Wine Beast Epic

Sun Kil Moon/Mark Kozelek - Workaholic Of The Year. He had 5 releases this year (6 if you count the Sun Kil Moon double album as two): Common As Light And Love Are Red Valleys Of Blood (Sun Kil Moon double album), Night Talks (Mark Kozelek EP, feat his Leonard Cohen tribute cover "Famous Blue Raincoat"), Yellow Kitchen (Mark Kozelek collaboration with Parquet Court bass player Sean Yeaton), Mark Kozelek With Ben Boye And Jim White (Mark Kozelek With Ben Boye And Jim White), and 30 Seconds To The Decline Of Planet Earth (the second Sun Kil Moon collaboration with Jesu, feat "The Greatest Conversation Ever In The History Of The Universe" where Mark Kozelek nerds out on an imaginary conversation between his heroes Lou Reed and Mohammed Ali).

Foxygen Hang

Conor Oberst Salutations/Ruminations

Mark Lanegan Gargoyle

Taj Mahal and Keb Mo TajMo

Stephen Stills & Judy Collins Everybody Knows Nice covers including "Handle With Care" (The Traveling Wilburys), "Everybody Knows" (Leonard Cohen), "Reason To Believe" (Tim Hardin), and "Who Knows Where The Time Goes" (Sandy Denny/Fairport Convention).

Chuck Prophet Bobby Fuller Died For Your Sins (Good excuse also to check out Bobby Fuller. He popularized the song "I Fought The Law" before his untimely, unsolved murder.)

Spiral Stairs Doris And The Daggers (Stephen Malkmus' partner in Pavement, Scott Kannberg AKA Spiral Stairs)

More favorite posts:
Patti Smith/Bob Dylan: Patti Smith Performs At Dylan's December 10, 2016 Nobel Ceremony "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall"

Jack White Cool, New Jack White: “Servings and Portions from my Boarding House Reach" (Collage of Songs From Forthcoming Album) and Best ThisSmallPlanet.com Videos of Jack White

All-Time Favorite ThisSmallPlanet video: Seasick Steve on Haight St.: