Using a highly scientific formula (read: spreadsheet) concocted back in 2010, the Scene has once again tabulated ballots from our braintrust of ace music writers to compile our annual list of the 10 best local albums of the year. With this year’s bumper crop of releases, many worthy albums landed just outside the Top 10, including Rosanne Cash’s She Remembers Everything, Joshua Hedley’s Mr. Jukebox, Jack White’s Boarding House Reach and Liz Cooper and the Stampede’s Window Flowers. Without further ado, the Top 10.
10. JEFF the Brotherhood, Magick Songs (Dine Alone)
JEFF the Brotherhood’s party rock of yore was fun, but that was then. For their 13th album (that’s not a typo), JEFF co-founders Jake and Jamin Orrall worked hard to break their own mold, recording over several months and adding new members (bassist Jack Lawrence and guitarist Kunal Prakash permanently, and Daddy Issues’ Jenna Moynihan on vocals for the recording and initial tour) as they jammed these dozen songs’ worth of kitchen-sink experimental rock into existence. The expanded band’s October record-release show at The Basement East flowed seamlessly from droning audio ASMR to bone-rattling fuzz massage, affirming the local DIY punk pillars’ metamorphosis into a full-fledged psych-rock juggernaut. CHARLIE ZAILLIAN
9. John Prine, The Tree of Forgiveness (Oh Boy)
It was a bit of a shock to realize that John Prine’s The Tree of Forgiveness is his first new album of original songs since 2005 — it didn’t feel like the revered and frequently touring songwriter’s songwriter had gone anywhere. The 10-song LP, co-written in part with Pat McLaughlin and recorded unfussily at RCA Studio A with producer Dave Cobb, covers the spectrum from goofy to heart-wrenching, frequently within the same song. With the same simple chords and casual brilliance he’s been using for half a century, Prine paints an honest picture of a strange, sad, funny world that you’re less ashamed to be a part of. STEPHEN TRAGESER
8. Pistol Annies, Interstate Gospel (RCA Records Nashville)
“We’re on fire, I think,” sings Miranda Lambert at the opening of “Stop, Drop and Roll One,” a barn-burning ode to creative inspiration and unapologetic indulgences from Pistol Annies’ third album, Interstate Gospel. She’s not wrong. The trio of Lambert, Ashley Monroe and Angaleena Presley isn’t just on fire — they’re carrying the torch for the craft (and the humanism) of country music. In their first collaborative LP since 2013’s Annie Up, the Annies take addiction, divorce and even long lines at the DMV and spin them into some of the most relatable, impeccably honed laugh-till-you-cry (and cry-till-you-laugh) songs of the year, within the genre and beyond. MARISSA R. MOSS
7. Tim Gent, Life Away From Home (self-released)
While Tim Gent describes Life Away From Home as more of a mixtape than a full-on album, the quality of the project’s songs outshines any questions about semantics. Tracks like “The Lingo” and “Fly Away” (the latter of which features Bryant Taylorr) show Gent to be a deft lyricist with a keen ear for infectious hooks. Another Taylorr assist, “Vibin’,” is a radio-ready slow burn with a fiery flow. The Clarksville-born rapper is one of Middle Tennessee’s most exciting young hip-hop artists, and Life Away From Home may well be the release that propels him to a new level of recognition. BRITTNEY McKENNA
6. Liza Anne, Fine But Dying (Arts & Crafts)
Liza Anne built her career atop a solid foundation of smoky folk-pop, so her third LP, Fine But Dying, crashes through longtime listeners’ expectations like a wrecking ball. “Paranoia,” which opens the album, is an emotionally fraught scream into the void. The whole record channels an indie anxiety that feels pretty dang resonant in 2018, a year that’s felt like one long nationwide existential crisis. Fine But Dying’s greatest accomplishment is how it makes those feelings relatable and not isolated to just the singer. We all feel this way, and Fine But Dying is here to give us some catharsis. LANCE CONZETT
5. Soccer Mommy, Clean (Fat Possum)
Sophie Allison put it all on the table with Clean, her official debut LP as Soccer Mommy. It’s no wonder Allison’s project, a favorite of the Nashville underground scene, has achieved such widespread acclaim in this early stage. Hook-driven rock songs and a badass persona make Allison easy to root for and relate to. Reminiscent of Liz Phair’s groundbreaking indie-rock touchstone Exile in Guyville, Clean is a raw, engaging portrait of the young female experience. The anger, ecstasy, shame and revelatory empowerment of being lost but alive has never sounded so lovely or danceable. JACQUELINE ZEISLOFT
4. Amanda Shires, To the Sunset (Silver Knife)
Amanda Shires long ago proved herself as both a lyricist and a musician, showcasing her talents as a songwriter on releases dating back to the Aughts, and performing with the Texas Playboys, Billy Joe Shaver, Jason Isbell and more. With her remarkable latest album To the Sunset, she also establishes herself as having a grand vision for a record. From the first trippy blips of opening stunner “Parking Lot Pirouette” to the final notes of the closing Southern gothic stomp “Wasn’t I Paying Attention,” To the Sunset is a cinematic listen, one with as compelling a narrative, vision and voice as you’ll see on any silver screen. BRITTNEY McKENNA
3. Idle Bloom, Flood the Dial (Budding Romance)
Olivia Scibelli has been making noteworthy contributions to the local rock scene for a while now — as an organizer with the Southern Girls and Tennessee Teens Rock Camps and local DIY venue Drkmttr, not to mention as a dynamo of a frontwoman with indie-rock quartet Idle Bloom. The Bloom’s latest effort, October’s Flood the Dial, is Scibelli & Co.’s richest effort yet, full of enmeshed, twinkling guitars, rich vocal melodies and dynamic, uptempo arrangements. It has been fulfilling to watch this band develop, and Dial feels like, well, a full-bloom Bloom, if you like. Songs like “Exposure,” “Rewired” and “Salt” find the space between grunge, college rock, second-wave emo and shoegaze — reference points include Pixies, Sunny Day Real Estate and The Jesus and Mary Chain, among others. It’s discordant one minute and pretty the next, just the sort of local-rock sleeper that can creep its way into the Top 3 of our Critics’ Poll, right where it belongs. D. PATRICK RODGERS
2. Aaron Lee Tasjan, Karma for Cheap (New West Records)
As unlikely as it may sound, an artist previously known for country-rock pastiches recorded a great power-pop album this year in Nashville, a city not noted for its contributions to the genre. Memphis can claim power poppers Big Star, but Nashville should be proud of guitarist, singer and songwriter Aaron Lee Tasjan, whose full-length Karma for Cheap brilliantly reworks post-Beatles rock. Tasjan’s guitar licks recall everyone from The Records to Chris Bell, and his songs are equally wide-ranging. Tasjan achieves power-pop satori on the Karma track “Set You Free,” which lasts five minutes and could go on forever. EDD HURT
1. Kacey Musgraves, Golden Hour (Mercury)
In a year bereft of good news, Kacey Musgraves’ Golden Hour was a beacon of sweetness and light. An instant-classic pop album with a distinct personal touch, it found Musgraves, who turned 30 this year, reflecting on loves past (“Space Cowboy”) and present (“Butterflies,” “Velvet Elvis”), shouting out her mom (“Mother”) and grandma (“Slow Burn”), contemplating her world but also the world at large (“Oh What a World”), and doing it all with disarming style and grace, compassion and a flair for the poetic. And that isn’t to mention a sense of fun — the astral disco of “High Horse,” for instance, or “Lonely Weekend,” with its wistful vintage Fleetwood Mac vibes. A crystalline marriage of sound and sentiment — co-producers Daniel Tashian and Ian Fitchuk make the whole thing pop without overcooking it — Musgraves’ pop crossover achievement with this record came hard-earned, country purists and mainstream radio be damned. We may not have deserved Golden Hour, but we definitely needed it. CHARLIE ZAILLIAN
