Tom Dunne: My six favourite albums of the year so far
Lana del Rey; Radie Peat of Lankum; Willie Nelson - some of Tom Dunne's picks for AOTY 2023 in the first quarter
It’s either already an exceptionally good year for music or my innate optimism is blinding me to reality. Either way, all I know is that, in the first three months of this year many albums have been released that Teenage Tom would have gotten the bus into town for.
Teenage Tom, you’ll be surprised to hear, is alive and well and still available to be summoned forth like one of Linda Blair’s inner demons. He remains opinionated and truculent, moody and untidy. But crucially he is undefeated. He has been proven right, often, and knows it.
Most albums arrive in his inbox on digital wings. They float effortlessly on Bluetooth speakers around the house, get added to playlists and fawned over. But others illicit a different response. Teenage Tom stirs, Teenage Tom, makes a plan.
He needs physical copies of these ones. In an ideal world he’d get the 23 bus into Capel Street. Dublin and pick them up in Murray’s Records on Upper Henry Street. He’d then get the NME in Easons and coffee in Bewleys, preferably with a coffee slice.
Luckily, Adult Tom recognises that Teenage Tom’s world no longer exists. It would be very embarrassing otherwise. But the need to physically own the very best albums remains and these six top the list so far.
The best Irish Record of the Year, I’d wager, at this early point. Critics are currently challenging each other to duels in the quest to write the most fawning review. And it's all merited.
You can talk about this album until you are blue in the face. You can mine previously unmined shafts of language in the quest to find just the right phrase to explain its ethereal magic. But the simple fact remains; just listening to this record from beginning to end is absolutely wonderous. Time stops, the heart calms, everything else is flotsam.
The best International Record of the Year – I’d wager, again, at this early point. The quest to write the most fawning review of this album has in fact turned ugly. As can only happen in our digital / online never sleeps / social media world, rows are breaking out about exactly how much people love this album and whether that love is the right kind.
To be honest its more along the lines of “if you don’t like this record, I will find you and kill you” but at this point in social media history we’re all kind of immune to such stuff. An album that celebrates friendship and love by three people with impeccable music taste. CSN without the 70’s baggage.
Willie’s 150th album. He is 90 at the end of this month. He and Harlan started work as young song writers in the same company in 1960. Harlan wrote I Fall to Pieces for Patsy Cline. Willie then wrote Crazy for her.
It’s good to hear songs like this as people wax lyrically about the earthiness of Lankum, as there is something similar here. These are not sugar-coated love songs, there is something urgent and real in them, lonely and vital.
Lana with various backing vocalists from the 20 Feet from Stardom, Oscar winning documentary from 2013 is the moment here. That track The Grants, where she name checks members of her own family is not dissimilar to the opening track from Boygenius. It too is full of gratitude and love. Excellent.
The former 10,000 Maniacs' singer's first album in nine years. She did not write a song for six years and faced lockdown in a neck brace after back surgery had left her unable to sing. The full story will be with you soon in these pages. It is also an astonishingly beautiful, uplifting album from one of the voices of her generation.
Available at last on vinyl on the 20th anniversary of its first release, this is the album that announced Damien Dempsey to the world. Standouts include Negative Vibes, It’s All Good and Apple of My Eye. It’s hard to believe at this remove that anyone ever doubted. I guess the sold out run at the Abbey Theatre has put the idea that he might not be the real deal to bed, once and for all.
Albums to enjoy, savour and love. And it only April!
