AOY: Midnight at the Movies

I often find myself defending country music to people. I should just give them a copy of this album. The son of one legend (Steve Earle) and the namesake of another (Townes Van Zandt), Justin Townes Earle has music in his blood. “I am my father’s son,” he sings. “I’ve never known when to shut up.” This is his best album to date. Like an Americana novella, it uses brevity as a source of power. My favorites are the rollicking cover of a rock classic (the Replacements’ “Can’t Hardly Wait”) and a noir vision of a man in and out of sleep in the back seat of a movie theatre.

Even the album cover is perfect. Simple, mysterious, beautifully designed.