A Country Boy Can Surmise

Once again, I have two albums as my top album of the year because they are both so masterful that I cannot choose between them: Golden Apples of the Sun by Caroline Herring and Give Up the Ghost by Brandi Carlile. These are the two albums of 2009 that anyone who really loves great music (read: that which is most likely not on contemporary mainstream radio) must buy right now. Last year Caroline Herring topped my list (in a tie with Ben Sollee’s Learning to Bend ) with her album Lantana , a record that I believe to be as packed with as many keen observations about humanity and the Gothic South as the best of Flannery O’Connor or Lucinda Williams. The standout track on that album, “Paper Gown,” a modern murder ballad about Susan Smith, is among the best songs I’ve ever heard in my life . I didn’t think she’d ever be able to outdo herself, but then she goes and records the best album of 2009, and a modern masterpiece: Golden Apples of the Sun . If there was any justice ...

I never understand people who say “There’s just no good music these days.” Obviously they’re not looking in the right place, because there is a wealth of great music. The thing is that the vast majority of it is not being played on the radio, and certainly not on any of the cable music channels like MTV, VH1, or CMT. My college roommate, with whom I have stayed in touch although we hardly ever see each other any more, was telling me the other day that he still listens to Nirvana, U2, and Pearl Jam all the time mainly because he hasn’t grown—musically, at least—since we left college way back in the Gulf War era. Now there’s not a thing wrong with any of those groups, but I quickly went about the business of educating him that there was another way, that there was too much great music out there, just waiting for a listen. In my job as a writer, I travel all over the country, and everywhere I go people ask me things like who my favorite author is (too many to pick, but right now I’d have ...