Best Singles of 2015

The infectious stuff I couldn't get enough of in 2015:

The Weekend, I Can't Feel My Face - MJ should sue.

The Chemical Brothers, Wide Open -  Beck's coming with us. Put the top down.

Carly Rae Jepson, Run Away With Me - The "Call Me Maybe" girl could secretly be Grimes.

Boxed In, Mystery - Everybody, double time.

Ryley Walker, Primrose Green - This must have been left off the Dead's "Europe 72."

Eryka Badu, Cel U Lar Device - She's covering Drake's Hotline Bling, but in her Badu way.

City and Color, Lover Come Back - Heartbreak in technicolor.

El Vey, Return to the Moon - Matt Berringer in a rare lighter moment.

Alabama Shakes, Don't Wanna Fight - A nasty little groove with a Stones "Black and Blue" era bite.

Matt Simons, Catch and Release - Pure pop pleasure.

Jamie XX, Loud Places - "I feel music in your heights." The peak.

Best Albums of 2015

In a year of some strikingly original music, the choices seemed somehow easier this year.  My musical DNA is on display in all these albums:  the long shadow of Prince and Sly; the pulse of early electronic sounds by Kraftwerk and Eno; the pounding noise of the Clash and the Ramones;  and the California pop of the Beach Boys and mid-period Fleetwood Mac.  It's all in the mix, made endlessly new to make the world understandable -- and danceable.

In no particular order:

Tame Impala, Currents - An irresistible blend of R&B and electronica proving once again that we're all from somewhere else originally.

Deerhunter, Fading Frontier - The perfect melancholy of the Beach Boys "In My Room," except that now there's weed and the internet in the room.

Sleater-Kinney, No Cities to Love - Hunger makes them modern girls.

Bob Moses, Days Gone By - Like floating on a raft in a swimming pool, McCarron Pool in Brooklyn that is.

Father John Misty, I Love You Honeybear - If this generation has a James Taylor, it might be him.

Lizz Wright, Freedom and Surrender - If this generation has a Roberta Flack, it might be her.

Thundercat, The Beyond/Where the Giants Roam - Sixteen minutes of perfect trip-hop, from the Flying Lotus branch of the tree.

D'Angelo and the Vanguard, Black Messiah - Searing and salving, D'Angelo came blazing back.

Courtney Barnett, Sometimes I Sit and Think, Sometimes I Just Sit - Because the best rock has a sense of humor. 

Jaime XX, Colours - The DJ/producer/percussionist as auteur, visionary as Jimi Hendrix at his peak.  No shit, really.

Stay tuned: best singles of 2015 coming right up.

Sitting In

Ta-Nehisi Coates, Between the World and Me

After it won the National Book Award in November, it can't be news to you that Coates has written a sobering book about what it means to be a Black American in 2015.  It's time to read it.

I devoured it in August in a five hour fever dream and was at a loss.  It's a complex work full of anger and pessimism, a tale of promising lives cut short even when you play by the rules.  Composed as a letter to his 15 year old son, there's not much light and even less hope.  What could I do with this?  "Live with it," turned about to be the answer.

Now with campuses across the country having a noisy conversation about race, Coates' missive offers some much needed perspective about the institutionalized inequality we have yet to address. Don't be making that face.  Listen for a minute.