Steve Martin & Edie Brickell "Sarah Jane & The Iron Mountain Baby"

"Really?  A banjo record?!?"

I try not to look too hard at the voting for the Top 25 of 2013 while it is in process, so as not to make a big deal of anything, until the full picture has developed.

But I did take one peek this year.

After the voting period was halfway over, "Love Has Come For You" by Steve Martin & Edie Brickell was in the lead.

I was pretty surprised by this.

Albums that make the top of the list are, by nature, consensus records.  A large portion of the audience, with varying musical tastes, must feel connected to the record.

Records with a broad palette of influences do well.  Genre records rarely top the list.

And other than rap music, country music is the genre most often cited as an irritant by our listeners.

There is no getting around it.  "Love Has Come For You" is a banjo record.

Mind you, it's a really delightful, beautiful, warm and inviting banjo record.  But for a prejudiced ear, it's simply a banjo record.  With the banjo up front enough to be an immediate turn off to those who dislike the sound.

Ultimately, a less surprising album (Tedeschi Trucks Band's "Made Up Mind") surged in the voting and became number one.

But it's pretty impressive that a record that could potentially be viewed as niche-y, found such a wide audience.


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Vampire Weekend "Step"

I was super-curious as to how this Vampire Weekend record was going to fare, on the mvyradio Top 25 of 2013 voting.

I get the impression that our audience is split on Vampire Weekend.

Many of our older listeners, and/or folks who tune into mvyradio to hear Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen and The Blues At 8 and such, don't seem too effected by Vampire Weekend.  To some, their inclusion on our playlist may even be a little out of character.

For those who have younger-skewing tastes, or listen because they appreciate our devotion to artists like Peter Gabriel or Robert Plant or Angelique Kidjo who are making multi-layered and multi-cultural records, Vampire Weekend makes sense on MVY.

And those people feel strongly.

So this is not a record like Ray Lamontagne's, which spans a broad swath of demographic.  But it brings out a devoted following.

So how did it fare?

Once you get the logical wrangling out of the way, the answer is fairly obvious.

Vampire Weekend ended up at Number 9 on our list.  It wasn't close to being Number 1 (as it was on many major publication's lists), but it made a strong showing.

Makes sense.


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Bllie Joe Armstrong & Norah Jones "Silver Haired Daddy Of Mine"

So this one garnered a lot of votes on the mvyradio Top 25 of 2013, which I found pretty interesting, since, when we opened the voting in mid-November, the record hadn't even been released yet!

I have often wondered if many of the people who vote are just enjoying the singles we play on the air, and voting on that basis, without hearing the full album.

And though I can offer my opinion that it IS deserving of being in the Top 25 (because I've heard the record), the way the voting went seems to confirm my suspicions.


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Frank Turner "I Still Believe"

While everyone is working and/or revealing their "Top" lists for the year (including MVY), sometimes, your best discoveries of the year are things that didn't actually come out that year.

I knew Frank Turner's name when his album "Tape Deck Heart" came out this year.  I had a vague recollection that I had liked what I heard previously, but MVY hadn't played anything by him and I hadn't listened to deeply.

Clearly, I hadn't listen to deeply.

Because after I was instantly won over by his 2013 single "Recovery," and delved into the album, I happened to be cleaning up in the MVY basement and found an old copy of "England Keep My Bones."

And THAT record hasn't come out of my CD player in a month.

Falling somewhere between Bruce Springsteen and Billy Bragg (with a little bit of Richard Thompson's knack for making original songs sound like ancient traditional tunes on songs like "English Curse), this kind of thing is right up my alley.  It's a shame I missed it the first time around.

But this 2011 release is one of my favorites for 2013.


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Sarah Jarosz "Simple Twist Of Fate"

Every year I entertain the thought of adding some extra categories to the Top 25 on MVY.

We do the Top 25 albums.

And for the last several years, we've done the Top 5 singles of the year.  But I haven't been able to marshal the forces necessary to come up with some other mini-lists, like "Comeback Of The Year" or "Collaboration Of The Year."

On the surface they are great ideas, but it would take more research than I have time for, to put together a candidates list.

One possibility near and dear to my heart, would be "Cover Song Of The Year."

I do a set of Live Acoustic and Cover tunes every day, so I'm always on the hunt.  But the list of possibilities is so broad, I'd hesitate to make a list meant to represent MVY for fear of missing some great cover.

That being said, along with The Slide Brothers doing "Praise You," Sarah Jarosz taking a crack at another Bob Dylan tune is one of my favorite covers of the year.


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Justin Timberlake & Carey Mulligan "500 Miles"

Well, I don't want to give too much away about the mvyradio Top 25 of 2013, but I WILL do a couple of posts, leading up the countdown which will start on Monday.

Every year there are a few surprises on the voting list.  Some more surprising than others.

We did have an internal discussion here at mvyradio about whether or not we should include the "Inside Llewyn Davis" soundtrack on the list.

On the "pro" side, it is a really excellent album.  Typical T Bone Burnett brilliance.

On the "con" side, the album consists mainly of covers and previously released songs.  In the past, we have excluded "covers" albums from the Top 25.

But in this case, the question was moot:  "Inside Llewyn Davis" received ZERO votes from MVY listeners for the Top 25 of 2013.

I find this a bit perplexing, and I don't really have an explanation for it.

We offered "Inside Llewyn Davis" as a gift for a donation to Friends of mvyradio, and it went quickly.  The album---and the movie---are getting rave reviews.  Folks are calling in about the single "Fare Thee Well."  Clearly, people do like this record out there in listener-land.

Zero votes?

I can't explain it.  But you won't hear it on the countdown next week.


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