Still going strong

The Boy Named If 

Elvis Costello & the Imposters

If 2020’s Hey Clockface established that 2018’s Look Now was no latter-day fluke, this year’s model goes both one better. And if Elvis Costello is the Tom Brady of rock ’n’ roll, the Imposters (who are really just the Attractions with Davey Faragher instead of Bruce Thomas on bass) are his Rob Gronkowski, catching whatever he throws their way and running with it for all they’re worth. Pete Thomas’ explosive drumming, Steve Nieve’s careening keys—you almost don’t need to know or care whether Costello’s vaunted wordplay means anything. But parse your way through “Trick Out the Truth” and you’ll sure hope, and maybe believe, that it does.

What Makes It Through 

Sara Groves

The title of the opening number, “Soul of Things,” foreshadows what’s to come: an album’s worth of meditations on the beneath-the-surface vulnerabilities that go ignored because they’re painful to confront and the toll that that ignorance, willful or otherwise, takes on otherwise healthy relationships. The songs “Nothing” and “Deal Breaker” address the topic most directly. “Reach Inside” expands the personal to the political. Soft folk-pop with a sprinkling of contemporary production values (and literary references) helps the medicine go down. The infectiousness of “Remains of the Day” and “Cheshire Cat” prove that Groves still knows the importance of a catchy hook.

Want to Visit My Inner House? 

Jonathan Richman

Just when you want to write Jonathan Richman off for remaining too in touch with his inner child (at 70, no less), he comes up with a song such as “I Had to See the Harm I’d Done Before I Could Change,” as self-aware an exploration of what it means to repent as has ever been set to a simple melody (and even simpler instrumentation) and that only a grown-up could write. And, for all its silly, childlike charm, the song celebrating sweltering weather implicitly undermines climate-change hysteria. For the third album in a row, there’s a Hindu text. For the second album in a row, Jerry Harrison returns to coproduce and play keyboards. The keyboards you might notice.

J 

Jon Troast

The instrumental set up on Troast’s 10th consecutive alphabetically titled five-song EP (only 16 more to go!) includes mandolin, upright bass, and violin, a rootsy combination perfect for these straightforward singalongs extolling the blessedness of life in Christ. “Joy in You,” “My Shield, My Rock and My Defender,” and “What Greater Joy Could I Know” colloquialize psalms, “Lord Have Mercy” vernacularizes the “Kyrie eleison,” and “Just to Have Jesus,” which Rory Feek should seriously consider covering, dramatizes James 1:17. Can you imagine them sung by worship leaders from megachurch stages? Yes, but you can also, and more easily, imagine them sung around a campfire. And therein lies their charm.

Encore

“He loved the way I sang,” wrote Ronnie Spector in her autobiography, “and he knew exactly what to do with my voice. He knew my range. He knew my pitch. He even knew which words sounded best coming out of my mouth.” The “he” to whom she was referring was her producer and first husband, Phil Spector. And, although their marriage proved disastrous, the recordings that they made from 1963 to 1966 would eventually earn Ronnie (as a member of the Ronettes) a place in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.

Ronnie Spector passed away Jan. 12 at 78, half a decade after her escape from Phil’s notoriously maniacal possessiveness established her as a prototypical “survivor.” But, except for her show-stealing cameo on Eddie Money’s 1986 hit “Take Me Home Tonight,” her career never rebounded. No other producer, it seemed, knew exactly what to do with her voice. So it is that 2011’s 18-track Be My Baby: The Very Best of the Ronettes—produced by Phil but released by Sony Legacy—remains her consummate musical testament. —A.O.