Quick Hits, Vol. 45 (Best Coast, Chris Stapleton, Indigo Girls, Dope Soundtrack)

Best Coast - California Nights.  I honestly don't know what it is about Best Coast, but something about their music just clicks in me and opens up new receptors that other music doesn't get to.  2012's The Only Place was one of my favorite albums of that year and still gets a spot in my rotation, it is so good.  And this new album hews to the same formula, beautiful, simple, sunny rock that kicks ass. The killer track off of this album is "California Nights," which is laid back and gorgeous, but still blasts a pretty heavy guitar solo in the middle.

Its got to be the 90's alt nostalgia that makes me love it so much, but this one just builds and builds, while still maintaining that basic sound.  When it kicks in, I just got goose bumps.  "Feeling OK" is another top jam.

Chris Stapleton - Traveller.  For all of the accolades and love being piled onto Sturgill Simpson these days, I think people are missing out on a pretty damn solid running mate here in Stapleton.  His voice and tone are a little more bluesy, but he also cranks out a pretty legit old school country sound, plus some Springsteen-esque tunes as well (see "Fire Away," particularly the intro).  This album is fantastic.  "Whiskey and You," "Daddy Doesn't Pray Anymore," "Fire Away," these are all really great songs.  "Daddy Doesn't Pray" has stuck in my head for days - "guess he finished talkin' to the Lord" gets me. Maybe maudlin, but it is beautiful.  Love that song.  Here is the title song from the album.

Sounds very much like an old Austin staple, someone that would open for Arc Angels, Los Lobos, or Lyle Lovett comfortably on any given night.  I listened to it multiple times while mobile for a few hours the other day, and I love it.  "Whiskey and You" is a killer lover's lament - I can't decide whether that is the best song on this album over "Daddy Doesn't Pray," but either of them are well-written gems.  
"Devil Named Music," a brutal indictment of missing out while out on the road.  "Outlaw State of Mind" and "Might as Well Get Stoned" are the tough guy tunes, but also great.  Now I'm just apparently going to name every song on the album.  He also runs out a cover - "Tennessee Whiskey" - that hews to much to country formula (feels lame to sing "you're as smooth as Tennessee Whiskey, sweet as strawberry wine" after the rest of these great lyrics). And the Willie harmonica on the beauty duet on "More of You" and "Daddy Doesn't Pray." Classic.  Keeping this one around for sure.

As an aside, his Wikipedia page notes that he has had 4 number one tracks for other artists, and "over 150 of Stapleton's songs have appeared on albums by such artists as Adele, Luke Bryan, Tim McGraw, Brad Paisley and Dierks Bentley."  Pretty wild, shows how he has the lyrical chops to fire out this album on his first try.

Indigo Girls - One Lost Day.  Man, back in the early nineties, I love me some Indigo Girls.  Their eponymous album is still a kick ass disc of beautiful harmonies and well crafted song writing.  I stuck with them for an album or two after that, but by 1997's Shaming of the Sun, I'd fallen off the bandwagon.  This, straight up, is not nearly as good as those old albums I loved.  Their voices have aged some and don't have quite the same purity they used to - just a little rougher around the edges. However, it is still a pretty entertaining listen, with some flashes of the old sound in here.  "Come a Long Way" and "Learned it on Me" are the two that stood out.  Here is "Learned it on Me."

Still a good sound, musically, with a lot of the same R.E.M.-esque sounds they boasted back in their heyday.  In the end, I like this disc pretty well.

Dope: Music from the Motion Picture.  I want to see this movie, as it sounds like a fun trip - a nerdy lover of mid-90's hip hop who is trying to survive rough streets.  Sounds like fun. And the soundtrack is super fun as well.  Mostly classic rap tunes - Digible Planets, Nas, Public Enemy, Tribe Called Quest, Digital Underground - but with a few kind of weird other tunes tossed in that were apparently done by Pharrell, in-character, as the characters in the movie who have a band named Awreeoh.  Those tunes are not nearly as good as the classics (and I don't think they are meant to be), but they are kind of fun - they actually sound like a group of kids jamming out with abandon.

"Scenario" is probably the best track on the album, such a tight jam.  There are a few other tracks on this soundtrack that are pretty weak - something called Watch the Duck (which starts as kind of a cool, funky little tune evoking James Brown, until the dumb wubwubwub of dubstep kicks in and then a Ceelo Green tune breaks out for a bit), a Lolawolf tune (who I always confuse with Yellawolf, but this is maybe slightly better than the garbage Yellawolf puts out?), something by a guy named Buddy, and finally a cool tune by Gil Scott-Herron that Kanye sampled back before he became crazy reality show Kanye.  Nice soundtrack though.