Jackson Free Press

In any professional political campaign, ones that raise money, hire campaign staff and build a grass roots operation, there is a meeting that usually happens at the beginning of the campaign, before the candidate has even announced his or her candidacy, which is critical to the success of the campaign. The candidate, the campaign manager and sometimes one or two advisers will sit down in a room, close the door, and then someone in the room, usually the campaign manager, will ask the candidate a difficult but necessary question. “Is there anything we don’t know about you that could have an impact on the campaign?” Or if they are really direct they might just say “tell me about every skeleton you have in your closet. And don’t leave anything out. I want to know if you cheated on your second grade penmanship exam!”

Hello readers. You might remember me from my time at the JFP as the writer of the bi-monthly column “The Key of G,” where I covered local and national music, as well as just musing about different topics related to music in general.

One of the things I liked to do was to make top 10 release lists at the end of the given year. While I did enjoy that, I always felt a little disingenuous, because I don’t listen to that much new music; I spend most of my time digging for and listening to old records. Hence, my top 10 lists would barely be made, as I squeezed in a few listens right at the end of the year to go with the few albums from artists that I always check for. Further, I never kept a running list, so my top 10 would have omissions, on top of my already poor sample size. (For instance, I somehow left Robert Glasper’s “Black Radio” off of last year’s list).

But this year has been different. I made it my mission to listen to as many new releases as possible, and to document them. What I have now is a list of 60 new albums that I have listened to and ranked in order. Mind you, this list is not meant to be definitive; there is a lot that I didn’t listen to for several reasons, mainly just because there isn’t enough time in the day to hear everything. I did listen to almost everything from artists that I am a fan of, which is something I have done a poor job of over the years. I also branched out to some artists I never was a fan of before, even though I knew who they were and ignored them on purpose. The results are fairly predictable. I also discovered some new artists I had never heard of at all, which was quite nice in most instances.

So, over the next several weeks, I am going to present you all with a ranked list of the 60 albums I listened to this year. Again, this list is not intended to be definitive at all; it is just a list of what I listened to, ranked solely by my opinions. I am sure there will be some disagreement and head scratching, but some of you might also see some new things that interest you that you go check out. And that’s what it’s all about anyway. Thanks for reading and indulging my opinions.

Click HERE for 60-51 Click HERE for 50-41 Click HERE for 40-31 Click HERE for 30-21 Click HERE for 20-11

10) Dosh “Milk Money” Dosh, who is from Minneapolis, is a multi-instrumentalist who makes experimental beat driven electronic music, with an organic flair, mostly from the marimba and Rhodes piano he normally plays as part of his live set up. He creates lush songs with the help of an array of samplers and …