As always, I will post my accompanying essay tomorrow. Enjoy!
The 35 Best Compilations I Listened to this Year:
Like I teased in July, the compilation list is by far more impressive than the studio album list for the first time ever here at Isaac's Musical Thoughts, so of course I had to put it first! And since it goes first, I split 100 points between the top ten albums (as is tradition) to better highlight my opinion of each with respect to each other. This year, I listened to 105 compilations and exactly a third made the list below. That may seem like a sizeable margin--"really Isaac, one of out every three compilations you listened to was worth recommending?"--but it's not like I was going through mediocre artists who recorded 100 years ago. Artists who are that old and whose legacies remain intact are still remembered for a reason! Below are many of country music's first generation, some of the blues's first generation, and a few country/blues artists from the 1940s/1950s sprinkled in. To help focus on music which I first heard this year, I did not include Elmore James's The Sky Is Crying, which was highlighted on the Half-Year compilation list and would have surely placed high on this list, because I've been listening to Elmore James since 2021. I also moved compilations by 1960s artists to their own separate list, as you'll see after a bit of scrolling.
1. Howlin' Wolf: His Best (1997) 15
2. Various Artists: Anthology of American Folk Music (1952) 13
3. Various Artists: American Epic: The Collection (2017) 13
4. Charlie Poole: Husband and Wife Were Angry One Night (2009) 11
5. Washington Phillips: The Key to the Kingdom (2005) 11
6. Henry Thomas: Texas Worried Blues: Complete Recorded Works 1927-1929 (1989) 10
7. Clarence Ashley: Greenback Dollar: 1929-1933 (2001) 8
8. Sister Rosetta Tharpe: Complete Recorded Works, Vol. 3 (1946-1947) (1998) 7
9. Lightnin' Hopkins: The Complete Aladdin Recordings (1991) 7
10. Patsy Cline: The Definitive Collection (2004) 5
11. Dock Boggs: His Twelve Original Recordings (1983)
12. Moon Mullican: Moonshine Jamboree (1993)
14. Anthology of American Folk Music, Vol. 4 (2000)
15. Grayson & Whitter: The Recordings of Grayson & Whitter (1999)
18. Frank Hutchison: Complete Recorded Works, Vol. 1 (1926-1929) (1997)
19. Cannon's Jug Stompers: The Best of Cannon's Jug Stompers (2001)
20. The Stripling Brothers: Complete Recorded Works, Vol. 1 (1928-1934) (1997)
21. Burnett & Rutherford: Complete Recorded Works, Vol. 1 (1926-1930) (1998)
22. Lowe Stokes: Complete Recorded Works, Vol. 1 (1927-1930) (2000)
23. Arthur Crudup: That's Alright Mama (1992)
24. Don Gibson: RCA Country Legends (2001)
25. Lightnin' Hopkins: Lightnin' and the Blues: The Herald Sessions (2001)
26. Webb Pierce: 20th Century Master - The Millennium Collection: The Best of Webb Pierce (2001)
27. Various Artists: Mountain Music of Kentucky (1996)
28 Earl Johnson: Complete Recorded Works, Vol. 1 (1927) (1997)
29. Patsy Montana: The Best of Patsy Montana (2011)
30. Robert Wilkins: The Original Rolling Stone (1980)
31. Sister Rosetta Tharpe: Complete Recorded Works, Vol. 1 (1938-1941) (1996)
32. Sam McGee: Complete Recorded Works (1926-1934) (1999)
33. Ernest Stoneman: Edison Recordings 1928 (1996)
34. Various Artists: Cajun Dance Party: Fais Do-Do (1994)
35. The Allen Brothers: Complete Recorded Works, Vol. 1 (1927-1930) (2000)
Honorable Mentions:
Here's a few more strong compilations if you want to dig even deeper into the music I've dedicated this year to. Louis Jordan's compilation should probably have made the above list, but--as a jazz album--it was a bit of an out-there listen compared to the rest of the material I concentrated on this year. (Sonny Terry's album review has yet to be posted.)
Barbecue Bob's Chocolate to the Bone (1992)
Bascom Lamar Lunsford's Ballads, Banjo Tunes, and Sacred Songs of Western North Carolina (1996)
Blind Joe Taggart's Complete Recorded Works, Vol. 1 (1926-1928) (1994)
Brownie McGhee's The Folkway Years (1945-1959) (1991)
Darby & Tarlton's On the Banks of a Lonely River (1994)
Eck Robertson's Old-Time Texas Fiddler 1922-1929 (1998)
Hackberry Ramblers' Early Recordings: 1935-1950 (2003)
Kelly Harrell's Complete Recorded Works, Vol. 1 (1925-1926) (1998)
Louis Jordan's Let the Good Times Roll: The Anthology 1938-1954 (1999)
Sam Collins's Jailhouse Blues (1990)
Sonny Boy Williamson I's Sugar Mama (1995)
Sonny Boy Williamson II's His Best (1997)
Sonny Terry's The Folkway Years (1944-1963) (1991)
The 5 Best Compilations from the Album Era I Listened to this Year:
While the other compilation list focuses on artists who recorded before the 1960s, this small list focuses on artists whose music was released during the studio album era we all know today. Although this list is short, the music represented was too good not to share, particularly the first two entries. The Best of The Troggs, collecting essential cut after essential cut, is one of the greatest rock'n'roll albums of all time. The Pleasure Seekers--the all female group from Michigan who trailblazed decadent, guitar crunching hard rock a few years before the Stooges--are one of the most criminally underrated musical artists ever. Because I so easily could have missed them entirely, I consider the Pleasure Seekers to be one of my greatest and luckiest music finds while conducting business on this blog. (Note that John Fahey's The Legend of Blind Joe Death was listed under the studio album list at the half-year, but now I have rightly recategorized it here.)
1. The Troggs: The Best of the Troggs (1994)
2. The Pleasure Seekers: What a Way to Die (2011)
3. John Fahey: The Legend of Blind Joe Death (1996)
4. The New Lost City Ramblers: The Early Years, 1958-1962 (1991)
5. Peter, Paul and Mary: The Very Best of Peter, Paul and Mary (2005)
The 15 Best Studio Albums I Listened to this Year:
Not only is it the first year that the compilation list is more impressive than the studio album list, but this is also by far the shortest and most underwhelming studio album list I've ever assembled. And because the second half of the year saw me even further concentrate on compilations of early American music, this list hardly changed since the Half-Year studio album list I made in the beginning of July. Well, here it is anyway. It still has some strong recommendations, especially the top ten albums. 11 through 15 might only get an honorable mention in past years. And yes, the list could have been a bit better if I included one or two more John Fahey albums, but this list wasn't about to be one third Fahey! That's just not how I roll. (Note that I included Joshua Rifkin's Scott Joplin: Piano Rags in the Half-Year's compilation list, but I have rightly recategorized it here.)
1. John Fahey: Of Rivers and Religion (1972)
2. The Insect Trust: The Insect Trust (1968)
3. B.B. King: Live at the Regal (1965)
4. Sister Rosetta Tharpe: Gospel Train (1956)
5. John Fahey: The Transfiguration of Blind Joe Death (1965)
6. Donovan: Fairytale (1965)
7. Joshua Rifkin: Scott Joplin: Piano Rags (1970)
8. Donovan: What's Bin Did and What's Bin Hid (1965)
9. John Fahey: Death Chants, Breakdowns & Military Waltzes (1963)
10. The Louvin Brothers: The Tragic Songs of Life (1956)
11. Pete Seeger: American Industrial Ballads (1956)
12. The Louvin Brothers: Songs That Tell a Story (1981)
13. Lightnin' Hopkins: Lightnin' Hopkins (1959)
14. Richard and Linda Thompson: Shoot Out the Lights (1982)
15. B.B. King: Singin' the Blues (1957)
Statistics for 2024:
In terms of total albums listened to, this is my worst year since 2019. Part of the reason for the drop off was all the excellent material I listened to. I graded 80% of albums positively (that is, B- or better) and believed just under half (46.5%) were worthy of a recommendation (B+ or higher). Another reason for the low number has to do with how long many of the albums were that I listened to. Anthology of American Folk Music and American Epic: The Collection, two A+'s this year, are 6-LPs and 8-LPs worth of music respectively. If you begin taking this and double albums into account (and many of the compilations this year have enough music to be counted as double albums), we reach 234 albums. This is still a bit short of past years but it's finally in the same ballpark.
Total albums:
185
Number of artists:
106 (1.75 albums per artist)
The grades I gave:
A+: 4 (2.16%)
A: 18 (9.73%)
A-: 31 (16.76%)
B+: 33 (17.84%)
B: 33 (17.84%)
B: 33 (17.84%)
B-: 30 (16.22%)
C+: 16 (8.65%)
C: 16 (8.65%)
C-: 0 (0%)
D+: 1 (0.54%)
Not yet graded: 3 (1.62%)
Album types:
Compilations: 105 (56.76%)
Live: 7 (3.78%)
Studio: 73 (30.46%)
The decades the albums came from:
As I noted for the Half-Year stats, the high volume of retrospective compilations skewed the data for this staple in my yearly reviews. Much of the music I listened to was recorded and released in the 1920s, 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s, but simply looking at when the albums were released, you would get the impression that I was mostly listening to music released in 1990s. Almost all the studio albums I listened to came out in the 1950s (11), 1960s, (45), and 1970s (16).
