While you were decorating for fall and trick-or-treating for Halloween (and listening to WDIY while you did all of that), your on-air hosts at WDIY were putting on quite the show! Check out what was on repeat at WDIY for October, and keep an eye out to see what stays on the list going through the end of 2022.
Feel free to call WDIY's studio line with a request at 610-694-8100 x1 or leave your picks on our Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram pages to hear your favorites.
#10
The Sadies
Colder Streams
Yep Roc Records
July 22, 2022
The 11th full-length studio album for the Canadian alt-country band The Sadies was produced by Arcade Fire's Richard Reed Parry and was the final album with guitarist Dallas Good, who passed away in February 2022. With Dallas’ tragic passing earlier this year from heart complications, it was unclear if the band would ever record again. However, like a phoenix rising from the ashes, Colder Streams is already being pegged as potentially the best album they’ve ever written. Sounding better than a live performance and lyrically profound, and acting as a goodbye letter to a paramount band member, this album will stand as a love letter to their friends from the dearly missed Dallas Good.
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#9
Cristina Vane
Make Myself Me Again
Red Parlor Record
May 20, 2022
Singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Cristina Vane's sophomore album Make Myself Me Again has found the Americana artist back to country music and right back to herself, both musically and personally, after laying down roots in Nashville. Many songs on her new album delve into her personal relationships and share in the woes to find peace and independence in a new town. You can also hear the influence her new hometown has had on her musical stylings with country-inspired melodies and a heavy twang on some of the tracks. She continues to grow into both her own unique sound and a definable genre, and time will tell what inspires and motivates her future records.
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#8
Soccer Mommy
Sometimes, Forever
Loma Vista Recordings
June 24, 2022
Even though this album gained in popularity at WDIY in the fall, Sometimes, Forever is the perfect anti-summer album; her third album is drowning in melancholy, introspection, and doubt that suffocates like hot, endless summer days. The Nashvillee-native Sophie Allison has channeled quintessential 1990s indie rock and blended it with modern internet-driven shoegaze similarly to how other twentysomething femme musicians have (think Phoebe Bridgers and Lucy Dacus, but each with their own twist on it). This is her first collaboration with producer Daniel Lopatin, who also works regularly with The Weeknd and helped with the Uncut Gems soundtrack, and that can be heard best with how busy and dense the music is sonically without being overwhelming.
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#7
Sarah Shook & The Disarmers
Nightroamer
Thirty Tigers
February 18, 2022
A lot has happened in the four-year gap since Sarah Shook and the Disarmers put out their second studio album titled Years; a global pandemic that the band narrowly missed in terms of a recording schedule, a record label change, and Sarah publicly coming out as non-binary (they/them pronouns). The new album focuses more on hope and change and new habits, and definitely blends their hard country sound with more genres this time, like Britpop, disco, and of course, more punk. Shook has also been working on songs for a solo album set to come out later in 2022.
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#6
Father John Misty
Chloë and the Next 20th Century
Sub Pop Records
April 8, 2022
Father John Misty returns with Chloë and The Next 20th Century, his fifth album and first new material since the release of God’s Favorite Customer in 2018. The new edition to his collection was written and recorded August through December 2020. His latest album is a collection of story-song vignettes about a hopeless romantic and his doomed romances with a whole series of women, starting with Chloë.
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#5
Keb’ Mo’
Good to Be
Rounder Records
January 21, 2022
Five-time GRAMMY winner Keb’ Mo’ recently released his newest full-length, Good To Be, in the beginning of 2022 from a very personal place. The album was written between Nashville and his childhood home in Compton, California, which Keb’ recently purchased and renovated. The album release was accompanied by an official video for the title track single, “Good to Be (Home Again),” which was filmed in Mo’s hometown and features the Compton Cowboys.
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#4
Wilco
Cruel Country
dBpm Records
May 27, 2022
The dynamic Chicago rock band Wilco returns with its 12th studio album, but their newest work stands out from the rest as being more experimental and perhaps even cynical in nature. Cruel Country is the band's exploration of the genre they've often been defined by, taking bold risks simply for the sake of taking them. Frontman Jeff Tweedy penned 21 tracks for this beast of a double record, and it’s made almost entirely of live takes created by all six members together in The Loft for the first time since the 2011 release The Whole Love. The lyricism also is tinged with patriotic nostalgia; just as many artists are nowadays, they take a hard look at some of the things plaguing this country and wonder what will come next.
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#3
Delbert McClinton
Outdated Emotion
Hot Shot Records/Thirty Tigers
May 13, 2022
“I’ve always wanted to do an album of the songs that influenced me the most.It’s important music from another time. There is a whole generation, maybe two generations now, who don’t know this music.” Delbert McClinton dedicated his newest 16-song album to the people who inspired him the most. He draws from artists like Hank Williams, Jimmy Reed, Lloyd Price, and Ray Charles, just to name a few, for the purpose and drive behind his 27th studio album to date. Outdated Emotion symbolizes a full-circle moment for the 2020 Grammy Award winner as he reinvents the swing, jazz, blues, and country tunes that have informed his 65-year career.
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#2
Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever
Endless Rooms
Sub Pop
May 6, 2022
Written amid the pandemic and the devastating Australian wildfires, this band’s newest album fixates on class disparities, environmental destruction, and other political statements. However, their musicality has not changed since their origins, so the statements are paired with the usual 1980’s college rock vibes. Most of the album was written in quarantine, but they quickly isolated themselves in a house in Melbourne and started recording as soon as it was deemed safe. While they may not step on the soapbox with this newest work, they do make a well-appreciated effort to make a statement while maintaining their sound.
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#1
Shemekia Copeland
Done Come Too Far
Alligator Records
August 19, 2022
Finding a balance between rage and peace, Done Come Too Far continues Shemekia’s tried and true testimony about the issues that plague our world while celebrating the little things that keep hope alive. With her 10th studio album, she continues the story she began telling in 2019 with America’s Child and in 2020 with Grammy-nominated Uncivil War. She delivers to listeners hard-hitting musical truths through her eyes of a young American Black woman, a mother, and a wife. But she likes to have a good time too, and her music reflects that with her sense of humor also front and center. Guests on the album include Sonny Landreth, Cedric Burnside, Kenny Brown, Charles Hodges, Oliver Wood (of the Wood Brothers), Aaron Lee Tasjan, and Pat Sansone (of Wilco).
