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Grizzlies Draft First Thoughts: Mike Conley Déjà Vu?

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Early in last night’s draft, a friend texted me about the Grizzlies selection of Jaren Jackson Jr. at #4: “I hope Jackson isn’t another Conley — a consolation prize in a three-player draft who takes four years to pay off. I miss those three days when everyone was supposedly down on Doncic.”

If you believe in Luka Doncic, and I think I mostly do, it was disappointing not only to see him taken off the board right ahead of the Grizzlies, but then shipped to division rival Dallas, who picked right after them.

Couldn’t Memphis have made that deal with Atlanta? Assuming they would have wanted to — and we don’t know that — the answer is actually no. Dallas added a first round pick (protected top 5) for next summer. Because of the pick the Grizzlies already owe to Boston, the Grizzlies couldn’t offer a pick until at least 2021, and possibly one whose clock wouldn’t begin until 2023. Blame Jeff Green, for whom the Grizzlies surrendered this pick. Or the executive who surrendered it.

Could the Grizzlies have simply taken Atlanta’s target, Trae Young, at 4 and forced a deal? Who’s to say Atlanta wouldn’t have just made the same deal with Dallas for Jackson, whom the Hawks front office, rather than ownership, was reported to favor?

Let’s not bury the lead: The Hawks basketball people apparently really wanted Jackson at #3, not Young, and not Doncic. Maybe there’s a reason for that?

In the post-draft morning light, the Conley comparison, made ruefully, seems pretty apt.

Both Conley and Jackson were picked fourth overall and both were the first lottery picks after a multi-year playoff run. The first major pieces of a new era.

Both were in fact seen as consolation prizes behind starrier prospects ahead of them (for Conley, it was Greg Oden, Kevin Durant, and Al Horford). Neither was a consensus pick in the eyes of fans. When Conley came off the board, many would have preferred Joakim Noah or Corey Brewer. For Jackson, Trae Young, Mo Bamba, Wendell Carter, and especially Trade Down were perhaps more popular.

Both Conley and Jackson were one-and-done prospects who hadn’t always been considered likely to be, players who arrived in the NBA a little ahead of schedule, at a little higher draft slot than anticipated, and maybe a little before they were/are fully ready.

While playing at opposite ends of the positional spectrum, they are similar types of players: versatile, fundamentally sound two-way players with good instincts, more solid than flashy.

Both were/are smart young men from strong families, each the son of an athlete, each a “junior”: The elder Conley an Olympian, the elder Jackson a 13-year NBA vet.

Like Conley, Jackson isn’t going to show you everything he can be on opening night, or even in his opening season. Here’s hoping his ultimate development is a little less tedious than Conley’s. Here’s hoping it finds a similarly bountiful destination. That Conley pick worked out ok.

In the absence of persuasive trade-down options — and there don’t appear to have really been any — this is the pick I would have made. From my own draft board comments last week:

  1. Jaren Jackson Jr.: The best defensive prospect in the draft, and that end of the floor still exists. Jackson has the length and instincts to be a Defensive Player of the Year candidate down the road, a big man who can blow up pick-and-rolls, switch onto guards and wings, and swat shots at the rim. Offensively, he’s a work in progress, but 40/80 three-point/free-throw shooting is a nice start. There were flashes in college of long off-the-bounce strides from the three-point line to (above) the rim. Here’s betting there’s a lot more of that to come. I think he’s ultimately a center, but foot speed and shooting range give him versatility. I think he can play with Marc Gasol in the short term.

Jackson’s combination of shot-blocking and shooting at a young age is very rare. You can slice those indicators different ways and come up with some narrow and/or impressive lists. How many college freshman have ever averaged 3 blocks a game while shooting better than 35 percent from the three-point line and better than 75 percent from the free-throw line? Jaren Jackson. That’s the list.

Put together some advanced stats indicators on both offensive and defensive impact as a freshman, and it spits out a longer list with some enticing comps. Jackson is easily the most advanced three-point shooter on this list.

Jackson is the very model of a modern major big man. Space the floor, defend the half court from stem to stern, from 1 to 5. That’s what he offers. Will he create a lot of offense for himself with the ball? Maybe not.

He also probably won’t be a major impact player as a rookie, at least in terms of his stat lines. You can take offense at this, but it’s probably accurate:

Does Jackson’s selection run counter to the Grizzlies’ front office and ownership talk of being back in the playoffs next season, of winning 50 games? Yes, and some fans seem angry about that. I’d suggest relief instead. The Grizzlies can use free agency or the trade market to try to shore up their competitive hopes this season. This pick needed to be about the future. They needed to take the best long-term prospect available to them. I believe they did that.

I’m not sure that’s the case with the team’s second-round pick at number 32, where the team took college veteran backup point guard candidate Jevon Carter over some higher-upside candidates (Khyri Thomas, Melvin Frazier, De’Anthony Melton). Carter’s a bulldog but I’m not even sure he was the best backup point guard candidate on the board. Villanova’s Jalen Brunson, a better shooter and passer, went next, again to Dallas. They will make for an interesting comparison this season.

The Grizzlies will introduce Jackson and Carter at 2 p.m. today at FedExForum.

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Grizzlies Draft Watch: Personal player rankings, new assumptions, Pera speaks

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Back when I first wrote on the 2018 draft for The Commercial Appeal, I promised three iterations of a personal draft board, the final one right before the draft. At the time, I didn’t anticipate that I’d be between official writing homes when the time came.

But here we are and so I’ll fulfill that obligation in this space. But first, a couple of related items.

Assumption Adjustments: When I last weighed in, before last week’s vacation, I began with seven then-current assumptions, presented in descending order of certainty. The first five of those still apply, but the squishiest final couple of assumptions now seem to be more in question. Let’s revisit them:

  1. Trading down can’t be discounted but is still unlikely.

  2. Michael Porter is too risky.

Note this recent tweet from ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski:

Maybe Jackson had a great workout in Phoenix. Who knows?  It’s smokescreen season. But what I do believe is that there’s going to be a lot of trade talk at 2-4, and the reason for that is that the draft seems to be settling into a broader second tier of players. My assumption a couple of weeks ago was that DeAndre Ayton would go #1 and the #2/#3 picks would come from a pool of Luka Doncic/Marvin Bagley/Jaren Jackson. At #4, the obvious move for the Grizzlies would be to take the player left, with secondary options taking a risk on Michael Porter or trading down/out.

That’s still the most likely scenario, but now it seems like the group of candidates at 2/3 may be a little larger, with Porter working out and sharing medicals opening the door to him reclaiming his former spot as a top-of-the-draft candidate and the enormous upside of Mo Bamba shifting into the spotlight. There are three picks ahead of the Grizzlies and it looks like there are six possible players for those picks.

The size of that presumed first/second tier (and the chance that some team may add Trae Young or Wendell Carter to it) makes it more likely that someone at 2/3/4 might be able to move down two or three spots and still get what they want. The expectation now is that there will be very little certainty, starting at pick #2, by the time draft night rolls around.

Pera Talks: Grizzlies controlling owner Robert Pera made an unexpected appearance yesterday, conducting an exclusive interview with Chris Vernon on the Grizzlies’ own communications arm. I’m going to forego an annotation here. The newsiest elements were probably Pera’s implication that he’d be a little bit more present/visible now that last season’s ownership uncertainties have been resolved and his confirmation that he has no interest in attempting to relocate a franchise. The latter is unsurprising, but he sounded entirely guileless and honest on the subject. His soundbite about the Grizzlies winning 50 games next season may prove unhelpful, but we’ll revisit that at a later date (and in a different venue).

Most of the conversation was career/personality oriented, and was a reminder that Pera is an interesting and persuasive figure when he emerges. Hopefully we’ll get more not too far down the line, perhaps once this offseason is over and all the legalities of the recent ownership transactions are finalized. And hopefully he’ll be willing to field some more Grizzlies-specific questions from some non-affiliated questioners. We’ll see.

My Draft Board

A few quick notes before the list:

I don’t claim to be a “draft expert,” but the last Grizzlies season went off the rails by January and I shifted into draft scouting mode very early, spending more time on it than I have in years.

Some players on this list — DeAndre Ayton and the Duke/Michigan State/Villanova/Kentucky guys especially — I watched play 10 or so times last season.

Most others I watched two or three times. A few I never got around to seeing (or they weren’t playing) in full game action. Everything is supplemented by stats, scouting reports, conversations with other people trying to figure all of this out, etc.

These rankings are not made with the specifics of the Grizzlies situation in mind. There may be spots where I would veer off my own rankings slightly due to fit issues or the particular place the Grizzlies are in. I made note of that in the player comments, which I tried to keep to 100 words each. I went 30 deep. I divided it into tiers to reflect that not every dip from one player to the next is equal.

The Grizzlies pick at #32, but several of these players will likely be on the board when that pick comes up, so I think a 30 player list covers that pick. 

UPDATE: A final adjustment before the draft. The only change here is moving down Michael Porter based on new information on health concerns.

TIER 1

1. DeAndre Ayton: An old-school franchise center coming into a new-school league. Could be a dominant inside-the-arc scorer and rebounder in short order, but he’s hinted at plentiful growth potential on the perimeter, on both ends of the floor. The question of whether he has the awareness/instincts to be a defensive anchor in the paint is a big one, but it’s a mystery, not a lost cause. The highest floor in the draft. Maybe the highest ceiling too.

TIER 2

2. Luka Doncic: He’s not without concerns. Doncic looks heavy-footed on film and while he may have faced good competition, he has not faced a lot of NBA-level perimeter defenders. I’d feel better if he were a knockdown three-point shooter, but he’s not … yet. How much can size, handle, vision, and court sense (all seemingly positionally elite) make up for these concerns? I think the shooting needs to come, and probably will. On the former? I think he finds a way. Add give-a-damn to his skill set. Tie goes to the perimeter in 2018.

3. Jaren Jackson Jr.: The best defensive prospect in the draft, and that end of the floor still exists. Jackson has the length and instincts to be a Defensive Player of the Year candidate down the road, a big man who can blow up pick-and-rolls, switch onto guards and wings, and swat shots at the rim. Offensively, he’s a work in progress, but 40/80 three-point/free-throw shooting is a nice start. There were flashes in college of long off-the-bounce strides from the three-point line to (above) the rim. Here’s betting there’s a lot more of that to come. I think he’s ultimately a center, but foot speed and shooting range give him versatility. I think he can play with Marc Gasol in the short term.

4. Marvin Bagley Jr.: A board-and-bucket-getter whose offensive game as a shooter/driver/passer should expand. I believe in him on that end of the floor. On defense? To quote President Bartlet quoting Governor Ritchie: Boy … I don’t know. Despite his size in a game growing smaller, I think he’s primarily a 4 in the NBA, not a 5. That means he needs a frontcourt partner that can give him space offensively and protect the paint defensively. The Grizzlies have one, at least for now. For reasons of fit and, even more so, fear of risk, I might move him up one for the Grizzlies. In a vacuum, though, I give Jackson the nod.

TIER 3

5. Wendell Carter Jr.: Sue me, I love skilled bigs. Carter is a basketball player: Long, strong, fundamentally sound on both ends of the floor. He’ll shoot from distance, work on the block, make the right pass, hit the boards, and react well to everything happening around him. I love him. But I also think his middling foot speed and average lift limits his upside. The best player on the board who has no chance of being the best player in the draft. From a Grizzlies perspective, I don’t really think he can play with Marc Gasol.

6. Trae Young: The most important qualities in a point guard today are passing/vision and deep shooting off the dribble. He’s potentially elite on both counts, so I think his massive college numbers are a hint of major NBA upside, not necessarily an NCAA mirage. That said, he’ll likely be a deplorable defender, may struggle to score inside the arc, and I’d worry about this durability at the next level. Probably a non-starter for the Grizzlies given the years left on Mike Conley’s deal.

7. Mohamed Bamba: The Thabeet comps are unfair. He’s a more nimble athlete, has more scoring upside, and seems to have a better head on his shoulders. That said, he’s pretty raw in both skill and body and is locked into one position. He might make a team very happy, but I’d be reluctant to roll the dice higher than this. The lowest ranked player on the list who could be the best player in the draft.

8. Mikal Bridges: Players who took three years to become lottery prospects have a spotty track record. The risk is that Bridges has already topped out, but I believe in him as a high-level three-and-D pro. Think Danny Green but with above-the-rim finishing ability. Those players don’t make All-Star games but they help you rack up wins.

TIER 4

9. Michael Porter Jr.: He pops off the screen in highlight clips in a way that Doncic doesn’t. Nix the Durant comps, but a bigger, better rebounding Jayson Tatum? That’s the upside and it’s #1 pick worthy. But the questions start rather than end with (gulp) back surgery. It’s hard to develop much of a sense of defense and overall feel for a guy who’s never played a healthy game above high school level. Still, health reports seem to be trending in the right direction and his Tremendous Upside Potential (Hubie Brown voice) is such that I’ll put him at the top of this tier. Update: Sketchy new information on health moves him back down.

10. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander: I started watching Kentucky for Kevin Knox and Hamidou Diallo, but the eyes always shifted to the long, slinky kid making things happen with the ball, and he proved to have staying power. As previous Grizzlies draft endorsements of Delon Wright (good call!) and Wade Baldwin (um …) attest, I’ve got a weakness for big point guards once the potential stars are off the board, and so it goes. A plus defender across the backcourt, a potential spot-up threat, and someone who can handle/initiate offense. Profiles as a useful rotation player for anyone and a potential starter with the right (superior) perimeter partners.

11. Kevin Knox: The poor man’s version of Michael Porter, but without the back injury. Could never settle into his NBA role on a mismatched Kentucky squad and was an inconsistent contributor. Only an average freshman three-point shooter (34 percent), but with his form and age, I think he’ll end up a plus shooter relative to his position, which will mostly be a 4. Athletically, I think he’s more of a Morris Twin than the Next Paul George, but those guys are NBA starter level, and I think he will be too.

12. Collin Sexton: A fierce competitor with the ball in his hands, so if he pans out this could undersell him significantly. But where Trae Young excels in the pass/shoot department, Sexton seems more ordinary: Worse than 34 percent from downtown, fewer than 4 assists per game. Is he good enough to be a ball-dominant starter on a decent team? If not, you’re consigning yourself to mediocrity on the ball (which probably means mediocrity in the standings) or you’re consigning him to the bench. He’d probably be pretty good coming off the bench, and at 12 you can draft him for that.

13. Miles Bridges: His bouncy athleticism, defensive willingness, and positional versatility put him in the mix here, but I watched Michigan State a bunch and have some doubts. He was a decent college three-point shooter (36 percent) and his 85 percent free throw shooting is encouraging, but I didn’t see a lot of NBA range in those attempts. More at issue is that his handle looked very shaky. I think he’s more of a small-ball four. He’s physical enough for it, but at not-quite 6’7” that makes him a bench player.

14. Khyri Thomas: The guy I’m highest on relative to all the mocks/rankings out there. Right, he’s already 22 and is only 6’4”. But he’s got length (6’11” wingspan), above-the-rim hops, defensive want-to (two-time Big East Defensive Player of the Year), and a jumper (41 percent from three, nearly 78 percent from the line). Not much of a handle, but in the right setting (say, between Mike Conley and Luka Doncic), I could see him being an NBA starter.

15. Robert Williams: Clint Capela is the right comp, but it’s best case scenario and few players reach their peak outcome. Only 6’9”, but long, strong, and quick off the floor. He’s a center, and while he won’t stretch, he’s not unskilled with the ball. He could be a starter. Docked a little because tie goes to the perimeter.

TIER 5

16. De’Anthony Melton: Rangy, sound, physical backcourt defender who handles/passes well enough to initiate offense. Did the copious skill-development time that came from a year off result in an improved shooting stroke? If so — apparently so? — he could be a Pat Beverly type. If the jumper looked wonky in workouts, I’d move him down several spots. 

17. Lonnie Walker Jr.: At a glance, he looks like a prototype NBA two guard. Big wingspan, glides across the floor, finishes above the rim, and has nice shooting form, including off the dribble and from deep range. Look more closely and it’s more fuzzy. The pretty three-point shot hit net less than 35 percent of the time and maybe he’s a little stiff laterally, maybe a little slow to react off the ball. I’d worry that he looks the part more than he plays it, but there’s NBA starter upside here.

18. Melvin Frazier: Disconcertingly raw for a soon-to-be-22-year-old with three years of college under his belt, but he’s an especially toolsy late-bloomer. At 6’6” with a 7’2” wingspan and twitchy quickness, Frasier is a steal/deflection machine who took a step forward as a shooter last season (39 percent from three). He’s otherwise an adventure with the ball, but there’s considerable 3-and-D potential here.

19. Kevin Huerter: A 6’7” guard who shot better than 40 percent from three and seems to have enough in the skill/athleticism department to not be just a specialist is worth a close look. At this stage, it’s probably worth a pick.

20. Donte Divincenzo: His role at Villanova is probably his role in the NBA if he pans out: Irrational confidence shotmaker off the bench. It wasn’t just the title game; he was dynamite in that role all year. Probably as much tweener as a combo guard, but such a gamer that I believe in him as a second-unit spark plug.

21. Jalen Brunson: He has very little chance of being an NBA starter, but I’m pretty sold on him as a quality backup, where strength and savvy can compensate for limited size and athleticism. He’s an NBA deep shooter off the dribble, puts passes in the right place, and has great presence.

22. Landry Shamet: Not sure why he’s gotten so low on mocks, but he’s one of the best shooters in the draft (44 percent last season, and can shoot NBA range off the dribble) and is a good passer with good size (over 6’5”).

TIER 6

23. Elie Okobo: Late-breaking International Man of Mystery. This is the point in the draft where I’m skeptical enough about what I know of the remaining prospects to take a chance on the mostly unknown and he seems the most promising of that category. All indications suggest a dynamic scorer/shooter in a sturdy 6’3” frame. He might be a tier (or more?) too low here, but I just don’t know enough.

24. Mitchell Robinson: The Hassan Whiteside trajectory reminds us that sometimes a big, long thumper is worth taking a shot on even when surrounded by questions. (Though I’d be reluctant to take a big at #32 for the Grizzlies.)

TIER 7

25. Josh Okogie: Production (18 points per game as an ACC sophomore), length (6’5” with a 7’0” wingspan), shooting (38 percent from three, 82 percent from the line), and athleticism that shows up in the box score (1.8 steals, 1 block) suggest a player worth a shot in the late first.

26. Keita Bates-Diop: Productive as an older college vet but with tweener size/athleticism. For Bates-Diop, though, I think small-ball will be his friend. He’s 6’8” with a 7’3” wingspan, had decent rebounding/block production, and was a gamer. If his 36 percent three-point shooting portends a decent three-point threat at the NBA level, he could be a solid back-up four.

27. Zhaire Smith: He’s got lift, but I wasn’t blown away by his athleticism when I watched him. One of his comps via The Ringer is “Shorter Andre Roberson” and I’m just not that excited by a 6’4” guy with big questions about both his ball handling and shooting, especially when Thomas and Melton offer similarly sized athletic defenders with a little more offensive oomph. There aren’t many Tony Allens in the world.

28. Aaron Holiday: A small guard, but length (6’8” wingspan), production (20 points a game at UCLA), shooting (43 percent from 3 on more than 200 attempts), and pedigree (both older brothers are good pros) suggest he’s a good backup point guard bet.

29. Jacob Evans: Jack-of-all-trades wing. Decent size, decent defender, decent shooter, can handle a little bit for a wing. It seemed like whenever I watched him play my eyes tended to wander more to Landry Shamet or Melvin Frazier, but a solid basketball player, and I’ll trust his nice statistical profile over my eyes a little bit at this stage of the list.

30. Jerome Robinson: Not a point guard, but a shooter (41 percent from three, 200 attempts) with size (6’5”) who can handle a little bit.

 

 

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Personal News

singallkinds11 Comments

Yesterday was my final day at The Commercial Appeal. I’m going to take a little break. But to your regret, relief, or disinterest, Memphis will still have my byline to kick around.

The Commercial Appeal, like all places populated by writers and editors, is full of good people trying to do good work, and quite often succeeding. I have nothing but admiration for my now-former colleagues there and for those who moved on in the years since I arrived. In the absence of another compelling opportunity within this city, I may well have been there as long as they would have had me, though like most Memphians I lament the paper’s shift toward being a corporate cog in a Nashville-centric Tennessee network.

But I was coming up on five years at the kind of place — the traditional daily newspaper — I never really planned on being. I was ready for a change, and I was worn out by the regimented five-days-a-week flow of the The 9:01 column I’d been doing for the past couple of years.

At its increasingly infrequent best, I thought The 9:01 was pretty good, and though it drained me over time, it was definitely good for me. It helped broaden the scope of topics I wrote about and helped fine-tune my voice. I owe an enormous debt of gratitude to former editor Louis Graham, who took an unconventional chance in hiring me from an alt-weekly and who was the primary catalyst for what became The 9:01. Former digital director Danny Bowen came up with the title/time concept, a bit of genius I came to regret on mornings when that deadline loomed too near. Former digital editor Gary Robinson, now living his best life as a retired grandfather, shepherded it to completion in those first few months when I was just getting the hang of it. New editor Mark Russell kept it alive after Graham’s departure. Former (sensing a pattern?) sports editor David Williams and his successor Dave Ammenheuser let me be me — at any length — in my weekly Pick-and-Pop Grizzlies/NBA column.  

Before shifting into a columnist role, I was somehow granted the privilege, as an editor, of directing a staff of John Beifuss, Bob Mehr, Jennifer Biggs, Michael Donahue, and Mark Richens. The first name on that list really threw me for a loop. I was a fan of John’s before I was a friend and a friend before I was an editor. Former features editor Peggy McKenzie was gracious in showing me the ropes.

What’s next?

I can’t say too much at the moment — information will be forthcoming. But I’ll re-emerge later this summer, writing about many of the same topics in many of the same ways, but in different formats and at different frequencies. I love living in Memphis and I love writing about it. I look forward to continuing to do both.

Until then, you can still find me on Twitter at @ChrisHerrington and @HerringtonNBA (though I’m thinking of folding those into one feed) and, when I’m not on vacation, still on the radio at 10 a.m. every weekday on “The Geoff Calkins Show.”

Bruce Springsteen Wrote Freedom Songs
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Bruce Springsteen Wrote Freedom Songs

singallkinds2 Comments

My wife and I road-tripped to Little Rock last weekend to see Waxahatchee, the Alabama-rooted/New York-based indie rock band fronted by Katie Crutchfield.

Waxahatchee’s latest album, Out in the Storm, was one of my very favorites from last year. It tightens Crutchfield’s singer-songwriter tendencies into rock-and-roll. Riffs, beats, and bass lines conspire to elevate a song-cycle about a relationship seen clearly in Crutchfield’s rear-view. It’s half-an-hour long, and nearly a year and dozens of spins later, its tricks still work.

Waxahatchee was playing a double-headliner tour with Hurray for the Riff Raff, a roostier band fronted by Bronx-raised Puerto Rican singer Alynda Segarra. I’d seen Segarra once before, but solo, in an outdoor setting with questionable sound. Waxahatchee was the pull; Hurray for the Riff Raff was a nice bonus.

As it turned out, even making the club a few minutes before 9:30, we missed the first three-or-four songs of Waxahatchee’s middle set. When Crutchfield grew annoyed at the loud talking during her quieter numbers, she pulled the plug on the show a few songs short. It was a disappointment. Hurray for the Riff Raff made it not matter.

IMG_1358

Segarra’s crack band blended Latin rhythms, soul cadences, folk melodies. This is an Americana I want to hear. Her music and stage presence echoed, at various times, Bob Dylan, David Bowie, Debbie Harry.

They played in front of a big banner with the words WE’RE ALL IN THIS TOGETHER and played songs that fit the theme: “Rican Beach,” surveying a theft and devastation grown worse since the song was written. “Hungry Ghost,” dedicated to “all the queers.” “Nothing’s Gonna Change That Girl,” about life impervious to a male gaze. “Living in the City,” a Lou Reed-meets-Woody Guthrie paean-of-sorts to city life. And the closing “Pa’Lante,” both exhortation and comfort, translating as “onward” or “forward.”

In contrast to their tourmates, Hurray for the Riff Raff played this small club in this small city like they were in the midst of a world-altering triumph, and when they bounded back onto the stage for an encore, I wondered how they’d follow themselves.

The first notes were familiar and my immediate thought was don’t be a tease, don’t be a tease.

It wasn’t. They played Bruce Springsteen’s “Dancing in the Dark,” and I’m convinced that of the thousands if not millions of songs known to humankind none would have been as perfect in this moment.

Here they are playing it at another club, on another night:

“Dancing in the Dark” is Springsteen’s most successful single, from his most successful album, 1984’s Born in the USA. And while I’ll argue with anyone that it’s also his best album, it’s not as fashionable a taste today as some of the records that came before. The keyboard riffs and booming drums suggest a specific time, a specific studio-to-radio sound. It’s harder to be romantic about that music than about Born to Run, for instance.

But Hurray for the Riff Raff didn’t play it tongue-in-cheek. They didn’t play it nostalgic. They weren’t amused with themselves. They played it as an anthem that bundled up all of the feelings of their preceding set and launched them skyward, like a shot from a confetti cannon.

“I ain’t nothing but tired/I’m just tired and bored with myself”

“You can’t start a fire/Can’t start a fire without a spark”

“There’s something happening somewhere/Baby, I just know there is”

“You say you gotta stay hungry/Hey, baby, I’m just about starving tonight”

The song is struggle as celebration. Personal as political. Dancing in the dark as an expression of defiance.

My favorite moment of 2018 is likely to remain the sight of Hurray for the Riff Raff’s keyboard player, Sarah Goldstone, bouncing along, playing these don’t-call-them-corny riffs, smiling to herself.

This was the best, most righteous, and most perfect cover I’d heard since … another Bruce Springsteen cover by another contemporary female singer at least partly representing a marginalized community.

Memphis’ Julien Baker covered Springsteen’s “Badlands,” from 1978’s Darkness on the Edge of Town, backstage at the Newport Folk Festival a couple of years ago:

As is common with Baker, she starts tentative and grows, finding herself in the song, talking herself into it, before nearly coming undone at the end, in a final verse that grips you with both hands:

For the ones who had a notion

A notion deep inside

That it ain’t no sin to be glad you’re alive

I wanna find one face that ain’t looking through me

I wanna find one place

I wanna spit in the face of these badlands

Springsteen has long transcended his generation. But his music is still mostly associated with straight white guys like him, like me. Segarra and Baker claim this music. Take it somewhere else.

I used to think “Rosalita” and “Thunder Road” were the best Bruce Springsteen songs. Much like the signature “Born to Run,” they are thrilling, but there’s just so much Bruce Springsteen in them. There’s so much of the moment of their creation in them.

Now I think the best Bruce Springsteen songs are “Dancing in the Dark” and “Badlands.” They are about right now. They are about tomorrow. They are the folk songs that inspired him. They belong fully to anyone who’s singing them, or anyone who’s singing along. They belong to you and to me and to Julien Baker and to Alynda Segarra.

1967 Revisited
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1967 Revisited

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This list (unlike the first one) and others that will (probably? maybe?) follow are the product of a kind of cultural mid-life crisis. Lately, I’ve found myself spending too much time listening to talk radio and podcasts and watching Netflix-y television shows that are rarely quite as good as they’re made out to be.

As a reaction, and because writing about new music is now a very small part of my professional life, I’ve decided to relisten to my record collection, or most of it, filling in the some gaps along the way via Spotify or YouTube or whatever. I’m doing a 50-year stretch of pop music that encompasses what I think of as the album era, which started around 1965, when artists like Bob Dylan (Highway 61 Revisited) and The Beatles (Rubber Soul) changed the conception of the album as a complete work of art, to 2014, to create a tidy half century time span and land amid a moment when technology shifts, for better or worse, are changing the notion of what an album is.

So I’m doing one year at a time, non-chronologically, until I finish them all or decide to stop (you never know). I’m adding a longer singles list and shorter movies list, probably without commentary. Album commentary will be half-formed thoughts and only occasional. When I get to years with records I’ve written about in the past, I may crib from older writing I still agree with and don’t find embarrassing. Future years already planned: 1973, 1988, 1996. After that, I dunno.

On 1967: I decided to start here because the idea came while I was re-reading ‘Nixonland” and a section about Sgt. Pepper’s made me want to re-listen to that album. I came of musical age in the late 1980s and Rolling Stone magazine’s 1987 “100 Best Albums of the Last 20 Years” issue looms very large over my musical education, as it does for pretty much every music writer of my generation that I’ve met. It was an introduction to the classic-rock canon and a kind of checklist. (Shoutout to the old second floor of the Memphis main library, at Peabody and McLean, where I checked out most of the albums from the list.) Sgt. Pepper’s, of course, topped the list. Baby boomer nostalgia was rampant at the time, and Sgt. Pepper’s is a now a generational talisman twice over I’ve been attracted to or repulsed by at various points over the years.

In album terms, I feel like 1967 was not quite as good as it was momentous. Part of that might be that “psychedelic” is among my least favored rock forms. Among some of the Class of 67 psychedelic also-rans that didn’t make this list, I’d rank them, roughly: Cream, 13th Floor Elevators, Youngbloods, Pink Floyd, Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane’s trippier sequel.  The list …

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Top 25 Albums:

  1. Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Heart’s Club Band — The Beatles: I’ve gone back and forth on this over the years, and pulling it out for the first time in a few years was surprised at how fresh it sounds. The further removed from the tyranny of “20 years ago today” baby-boomer nostalgia, the better it sounds, the more timeless its topicality. Not The Greatest Album Ever Made, and probably not the Beatles’ very best. But I’ve come back around to it being pretty great, and just maybe the best of its day. (Order was tough on this top three.) Other than “Within You Without You,” which I would still ditch, and “Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds,” which I wouldn’t, it’s not really all that psychedelic. It renders much of its cohort dated and a little silly by comparison. A generous consideration of a then-exploding generation gap, where studio meticulousness doesn’t dampen humor or musicality. They have empathy for the old. They envision being them one day. Some of them made it.
  2. The Velvet Underground & Nico — The Velvet Underground & Nico: The S&M anthem “Venus in Furs” works because it’s sung and written in a muffled laugh. (Or is that my own?) “Heroin” is about as thrillingly unsettling as recorded music gets. It’s texture and particular beauty stand apart from the rest of the culture of its moment. Do I always play all of the eight-minute noise-freakout outro “European Son” the way I do the next year’s 17-minute “Sister Ray”? I do not, which goes to show that they progressed, I guess. But I’m not sure they made a better record.

  3. Are You Experienced? — The Jimi Hendrix Experience: My first favorite album, as in my favorite album the first time I ever decided to make a list of favorite albums. Now seems ossified, more the idea of an album, but then I put it on and woooshhh. Play loud.

  4. I Never Loved a Man (The Way That I Love You) — Aretha Franklin: Singles and filler, but oh what singles and oh what filler. Title track sounds most shocking. The Ray Charles is better than the Sam Cooke, but the combination is a turf grab.

  5. The Byrds’ Greatest Hits — The Byrds: 11 songs, 4 Dylan covers, all (ok, mostly) chiming perfection. Captures the band and its moment better than any of their studio albums.

  6. Forever Changes — Love: My favorite hippie record.

  7. You Got My Mind Messed Up — James Carr: The peak of Memphis soul, circa 1967, album and single, did not come from Stax.

  8. The Immortal Mississippi John Hurt — Mississippi John Hurt: The calm yin to Howlin’ Wolf’s turbulent yang atop my personal blues pantheon.

  9. The Who Sell Out — The Who: I admire the craft, charm and smarts of this radio-broadcast concept, especially as a juxtaposition to the indulgences that surrounded it, but have never felt the concept quite rewards repeat listening in accordance with its classic status.

  10. Axis: Bold as Love — Jimi Hendrix Experience: Lighter and slighter than the debut, but underscores Hendrix’s poetry and vocal affability in addition to his historic guitar.

  11. Live in London – The Stax/Volt Revue: Better than the more celebrated Otis solo disc with which it shares one song, ceding the spotlight to Sam & Dave.

  12. King & Queen — Otis Redding & Carla Thomas: Lovable lark.

  13. Born Under a Bad Sign — Albert King

  14. Flowers — The Rolling Stones: I love how this was a retrospectively bad year for the Rolling Stones. “Summer of Love” was not their most comfortable milieu, with greatness before and after but not so much here. (Big Between the Buttons fans would argue this point.) My favorite of their three 1967 releases is this singles comp.

  15. Magical Mystery Tour — The Beatles

  16. Buffalo Springfield Again — Buffalo Springfield

  17. Younger Than Yesterday — The Byrds

  18. Wild Honey —  Beach Boys

  19. Live in Europe — Otis Redding

  20. Moby Grape — Moby Grape

  21. Between the Buttons — The Rolling Stones

  22. The Soul of a Bell — William Bell

  23. Safe as Milk — Captain Beefheart

  24. Surrealistic Pillow — Jefferson Airplane

  25. Chuck Berry in Memphis — Chuck Berry

  26. The Doors — The Doors: Do 9th graders still have their minds blown by this? A kind of schlock classic at this point. Silly, but more enduringly enjoyable than many of the year’s alleged cult classics

SINGLES:

  1. “The Dark End of the Street” — James Carr
  2. “Respect” — Aretha Franklin
  3. “Sing Me Back Home” — Merle Haggard
  4. “Tramp” — Otis Redding & Carla Thomas
  5. “Cold Sweat” — James Brown
  6. “Strawberry Fields Forever”/“Penny Lane” — The Beatles
  7. “Soul Man” — Sam & Dave
  8. “I Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You” — Aretha Franklin
  9. “If I Could Build My Whole World Around You” — Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell
  10. “Chain of Fools” — Aretha Franklin
  11. “Waterloo Sunset” — The Kinks
  12. “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman” — Aretha Franklin
  13. “Born Under a Bad Sign” — Albert King
  14. “I Am the Walrus” – The Beatles
  15. “I Second That Emotion” — Smokey & the Miracles
  16. “All You Need is Love” — The Beatles
  17. “When Something is Wrong With My Baby” — Sam & Dave
  18. “I’d Rather Go Blind” — Etta James
  19. “Don’t Hit Me No More” — Mable John
  20. “For What It’s Worth” — Buffalo Springfield
  21. “I Can See For Miles” — The Who
  22. “Your Good Girl’s Gonna Go Bad” – Tammy Wynette
  23. “Cold Hard Facts of Life” — Porter Wagoner
  24. “Higher and Higher” — Jackie Wilson
  25. “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough” — Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell
  26. “I Think We’re Alone Now” – Tommy James & the Shondells
  27. “Purple Haze” — Jimi Hendrix Experience
  28. “Let it Out (Let it All Hang Out)” – The Hombres
  29. “I’m a Believer” — The Monkees
  30. “The Letter” — The Box Tops
  31. “Ode to Billie Joe” — Bobbie Gentry
  32. “Your Precious Love” — Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell
  33. “Nobody But Me” — The Human Beinz
  34. “Soul Finger” — The Bar-Kays
  35. “I’ve Been Lonely Too Long” — The Rascals
  36. “Expressway to Your Heart” — The Soul Survivors
  37. “Groovin’” — The Rascals
  38. “I Was Made to Love Her” — Stevie Wonder
  39. “Jackson” — Johnny and June Carter Cash
  40. “Mercy Mercy Mercy” — Larry Williams and Johnny Watson

MOVIES:

This isn’t a film project, but I’ll throw a Top 5 or Top 10 movies list (depending on how deep my viewing is for a particular year) at the end of these for the hell of it. My sense has never been that the 1960s were a particularly great movie decade, particularly for American movies. I prefer both the 1950s and 1970s. This year, in particular, is lousy with cultural touchstones that either aren’t that good (Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, In the Heat of the Night) or that I feel like might be pretty overrated but would like a re-watch to confirm (Cool Hand Luke, The Graduate). One cultural touchstone of 1967 that is not overrated tops this list:

  1. Bonnie and Clyde (Arthur Penn)
  2. Point Blank (John Boorman)
  3. Playtime (Jacques Tati)
  4. Weekend (Jean-Luc Godard)
  5. Belle de Jour (Luis Bunuel)

Honorable Mention:  The Good, the  Bad and the Ugly (Sergio Leone)