My Finest Work Yet by Andrew Bird

You know I like Andrew Bird. If you didn’t already know, you could have probably guessed. His music is perfectly tailored to my interests: he plays violin (which I played in my younger years) and uses hefty portions of whimsy, whistling and wit to bring all his music to life. I’m pretty sure if you summarized any musical artist as “full of whimsy, whistling and wit” I’d be there in a flash.

“I think you’re getting too predictable,” my lovely wife tells me as she sees me preparing this review. “I have surprises coming, I promise!” But this album, Andrew Bird’s perfectly listenable 12th LP, My Finest Work Yet, is certainly no surprise. And yes, the album is predictable, in both the content on the LP as well as the fact that it lives here in the Top 31. I don’t relish creating a predictable list — I push against it as much as I can, as it’s one of my fears about putting together an annual list — but some level of predictability is unavoidable.

Allow me to expand on that thought for a minute. I strive to listen to new things, to stretch myself and my tastes, but I also like what I like. This list is not “Royal’s list of new bands and albums that you’ve never heard before.” It’s the Bacon Review Top 31 albums of the year. I do take recommendations for things to listen to from people all the time, and there are always things I’ve missed that end up on the list because I heard about it from a friend (see my review of Sufjan Stevens’ Age of Adz, #3 in 2010). In the end, it’s only my personal likes and dislikes that make up the list. I hold no particular musical pedigree, no reason you should value my opinions over your own or someone else’s. But I’m full of opinions, and I like to write, so here we are.

Once again, we’re reading about another Andrew Bird album. Twice before he’s appeared on the Bacon Top 31, first with Noble Beast at #22 in 2009, and then the phenomenal Are You Serious hit #5 in 2016. Bird’s latest, titled My Finest Work Yet, is most certainly not that. And he knows it. “If you really break down what I’m saying, it’s not quite as arrogant as it sounds,” Bird told Apple Music. “I figured people will find it funny, and if they don’t get it, then it’s the power of suggestion.” I fall in the former camp, and think the title is exactly everything it should be, just like the man who said it.

If you’re like me and you like Andrew Bird, you will find nothing outlandish or difficult about this album. It’s the most typical Andrew Bird album you’ll find. It’s not Are You Serious, but it’s better than the five other albums he’s released that didn’t make the Top 31since I’ve been making it.

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18. Four of Arrows by Great Grandpa
19. Designer by Aldous Harding
20. Norman Fucking Rockwell! by Lana Del Rey
21. Our Pathetic Age by DJ Shadow
22. Juice B Crypts by Battles
23. Pony by Orville Peck
24. Hyperspace by Beck
25. Eraserland by Strand of Oaks
26. Dogrel by Fontaines DC
27. You’re the Man by Marvin Gaye
28. Big Wows by Stealing Sheep
29. 1000 gecs by 100 gecs
30. In the Morse Code of Brake Lights by The New Pornographers
31. Radiant Dawn by Operators

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