Continuing my look at 2004, first by counting down my own top ten albums of that year.

#5 – Loretta Lynn – Van Lear Rose

Today’s selection is appropriately timed, given the passing of country legend Loretta Lynn just three weeks ago at the age of 90.

I know very little about Lynn’s career or her music, and I don’t see a deep dive of her 61 studio albums in my future, but I do own one of her albums, and it’s a beauty.

Van Lear Rose is a collaboration between Lynn and Jack White, who produced the album, co-wrote one track and plays multiple instruments throughout. Lynn wrote every song on the album, a first in her career.

The result is a sonically beautiful, emotionally resonant tour through the then 72-year-old’s life and career. Some songs, like today’s SOTD, are charmingly autobiographical, while others bring new shades to familiar country tropes. Sonically, the whole set respectfully tweaks the formula the coal miner’s daughter has honed over all those years.

Van Lear Rose received massive critical acclaim and became Lynn’s highest-charting album to date on the Billboard 200 (until it was unseated by its follow-up, 2016’s Full Circle).