noahglenn.com

Happy new year! I’ve got a few big things coming this year. A new album, a few video/film projects, and some other stuff too new to talk about. Check back regularly! And don’t forget to follow me on twitter @noahmglenn.

I won’t call these “the best” albums of the year. I admit this is nothing more than my opinion on the albums I enjoyed most. I’m sure I missed out on more than a few great albums. I’d love to hear about your favorites – you may help me discover something I missed out on. Here are my favorites:

10. Wilco - The Whole Love

9. The Beastie Boys - Hot Sauce Committee Pt. II

8. Bon Iver - Bon Iver

7. Sandro Perri - Impossible Spaces

6. Lupe Fiasco – Lasers/Friend of the People

5. Bright Eyes – The People’s Key

4. Feist - Metals

3. The Roots - Undun

2. James Blake - James Blake

1. The Beach Boys – The Smile Sessions

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And here are a few others that didn’t quite make my top ten but could easily have tied for number eleven:

• John Vanderslice – White Wilderness
• Mates of State – Mountaintops
• Panda Bear – Tomboy
• Jay-Z & Kanye West – Watch the Throne
• Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr. - It’s a Corporate World
• Danger Mouse & Danielle Lupi – Rome

A Midtown Christmas JamborEve Christmas Eve, 5-7pm Minglewood Hall

Grab a friend, grab an instrument, or grab some mistletoe and join your voices with members of Star and Micey, Jeff Pruitt of JP & The Jackrollers, Evan Nicholson of Rockasaurus Rex, Caleb Sigler, and many other local musicians for an old time, raucous Christmas singalong.

Here’s a short list of some albums released in the last few months that are worth checking out. I’m also working a list of my favorite albums of the year to post soon (some of these may appear there as well).

The Beach Boys – The Smile Sessions

It took over 40 years for these recordings to finally be released. It was worth the wait. This is one of the greatest works in all of pop music history.

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Sandro Perri - Impossible Spaces

I just recently heard about this album through a good friend. I’d never heard of Sandro Perri, and I still know nothing about him, but I’m really impressed with his music.

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Lupe Fiasco – Friend of the People Mixtape

Lupe Fiasco already released a “proper” album early in the year. That album, Lasers, was tied up by his label for way to long, and end then end, Lupe wasn’t quiet about saying that he was unhappy with the way Lasers turned out. I thought it was a good album, but it doesn’t compare to this mixtape he released on Thanksgiving. Friend of the People is my favorite thing he’s put our since his first album, Food and Liquor. That’s saying a lot considering Food and Liquor is is my top 3 hip hop albums of all time.

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The Roots – Undun

There’s some really great music on this album. I’ve only had a chance to listen to it once or twice, but I can already tell it has potential to become one of my favorite hip hop albums ever.

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Girls - Father, Son, Holy Ghost

This one came out back in September, but it slipped past me. After seeing it show up on quite a few end of year lists, I finally took a listen and liked what I heard.

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Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr. - It’s a Corporate World

This is another album that slipped by earlier in the year. It was released in June, but I had never even heard of this artist (not actually part of the Earnhardt family) until this week. This is another one I discovered via an end of year list someone else made.
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I’m already looking forward to a few albums coming out next year – in particular of Montreal and The Explorers Club who both have releases in February.

I’ve been hard at work creating a Christmas gift just for you, and now it’s ready to be unwrapped!

To download a free Christmas EP, click the image above.

This month I’m giving you not one, but three songs to enjoy during the holidays. If you have a problem with the download link above, you can also download it from Bandcamp.

1. Christmas Sweaters
2. O Come, O Come, Emmanuel
3. Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas/Auld Lang Syne

I’m especially excited about the first track, “Christmas Sweaters,” which is the first original Christmas song I’ve ever written. Some of you may recognize the third track as the song I released last Christmas under the title “Have Yourself an Auld Lang Syne.”  It’s a mashup of two holiday classics. That leaves the final song, “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel” which is one of my favorite Christmas hymns.

Download your copy and enjoy it all through the holidays. I recommend listening to it with a big mug of hot cocoa. Have a merry Christmas!

And don’t forget my other music. If you haven’t been following, I’ve posted a new song every month this year, and you can download them all for free. Check the side bar to the right.

Last Tuesday marked the official release of The Beach Boys’ “lost” album, Smile. I grew up hearing the Beach Boys and honestly thinking they were a little cheesy. That was until I heard their 1966 album, Pet Sounds, the summer before my senior year of high school. I fell in love with it, and to this day I still think it’s the most beautiful piece of popular music ever recorded. Nothing else has had as strong an impact of the way I think about and write music as that album.

For anyone unfamiliar with the legend, Smile was supposed to be the follow up to Pet Sounds. The Beach Boys saw themselves as being in a production race with The Beatles – each band trying to top what the other could do. But instead it basically drove Brian Wilson crazy and was eventually shelved without a release. That’s why I was so excited to see it finally released this month. I’ve been listening to it continuously for the last week, and it is every bit as wonderful as I hoped it would be.

Still, the story of Smile will always be a sad one to me. What would have happened if it had been released in 1967 as planned? I feel like it surely would’ve lead to more great music. It would have influenced their peers and even their own future work in ways we can only speculate about now.

If you’ve never heard either Pet Sounds or Smile, I highly suggest you check them out soon. Smile is currently streaming on Spinner. You can also find the full 5-disc Smile Sessions with tons of outtakes and alternate versions of songs on Spotify. And of course, you can always just buy your own copy!

To download a free MP3, click the image above.

This song started as a rhythm that got stuck in my head for several days. When I found a melody that finally seemed to fit, the lyrics were written fairly quickly from there.

Once the song was written, I felt like the second verse seemed to be coming from two different viewpoints. It was like there were two people talking to each other, so I asked my wife, Lindsey, to sing a few of the lines. Lindsey has sung with me in the past, but hasn’t appeared on one of my recordings since my 2006 album, Lafayette & Luxia.

I also realized while mixing this song that it is the first time I have ever chosen to end a song with a fade-out.

The photo for the artwork was taken by my sister, Hannah, at our brother’s wedding in March. Don’t forget to check  out my other downloads! I’ve been doing this every month since January, so there’s a lot to hear. You can find them in the sidebar to the right.

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To download a free MP3, click the image above.

I wrote this song in January planning to release it as February’s download, but I decided it needed some violin (which I can’t play). So it sat on the back burner for most of the year. It finally got its violin part(s) courtesy of Damian Beltsmith (who has also recently played in my live band). I’m really proud of this song and I’m glad to finally post it!

Here are some of my favorite new albums from the last three months. I don’t feel like there’s much I can say about them, because they are all by artists that I’ve been listening to for years. I have have most or all of the albums by these artists, and they’re always consistently good. I would’ve recommended any of these without even hearing a note from the album.

Wilco – The Whole Love

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Mates of State – Mountaintops

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Feist – Metals

 Technically, this album won’t be released until October 4th, but it’s streaming on Feist’s website right now, and I’ve been listening the last couple of days. So far, I think either this or James Blakes’ LP is my favorite album of the year.

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St. Vincent - Strange Mercy

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Fruits Bats - Tripper

This is unrelated to this particular album, but one of my favorite live music experiences came via Fruit Bats. Around 5 years ago, they played a show in my town. I think I was 19 or 20 at the time and didn’t realize the show was 21 and up. The venue was a restaurant, so I showed up early to eat with my girlfriend (now wife) and we got in no problem since it was so early. We stepped out to get some air after eating, and while we were outside they began checking IDs at the door, and wouldn’t let us back in. I spotted Eric Johnson (singer for Fruit Bats) and asked if he could get us in. He had no luck, but to make up for it he grabbed a bandmate, and they opened the back door of their tour van and played us a private concert for about 20 minutes.

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Thanks for reading. Check back on Saturday for a new original song!

A few years ago I recorded an EP for local Memphis band, Roger Mexico. They’re now releasing the recordings as an EP called The Noah Sessions.

The sessions were a part of my senior project for the recording technology program at the University of Memphis. We got together at the University of Memphis Recording Studio over several days during the summer of 2008 to record three songs. The band was finishing up a full length album that was somewhat electronic, and wanted to record a separate EP featuring some of the songs in more of a live band setting.

So we got the whole band together in one big room and recorded drums, bass, piano, and guitar all live. We later overdubbed the vocals and some additional guitar and keyboard parts. I even contributed some backing vocals to the song “Numan.” I finished mixing it that summer and my wife and I designed the cover art for it, using a photo she had taken. It has now sat waiting to be released for several years while the band pursued a few other projects, but I’m excited to see it finally released!

Visit their Bandcamp page to download the EP: http://rogermexico.bandcamp.com/album/the-noah-sessions