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Song of the Day #991: ‘Little Lion Man’ – Mumford & Sons

I’ve gotten really bad about posting reviews on this site. I’m finding that if I don’t sit down and force out a review the day after I see a movie, for example, it might take me months to get around to it.

That poses an even bigger problem for albums. I don’t feel ready to review an album until I’ve had a chance to listen to it in full at least four or five times, so any notion of striking while the fire is hot is out the window.

I bought Mumford & Sons’ debut album, Sigh No More, a day or two after their stirring performance at this year’s Grammys. Apparently many other people did the same thing, because the band leaped into the top five on iTunes and Amazon.com and made a great showing on the Billboard charts that week. That’s one of the fun things about the Grammys… the way it can launch a career based on the power of a single performance.

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Song of the Day #990: ‘My Best Friend’s Girl’ – The Cars

I’ve always felt that it’s never too late to become a fan. I discovered Bob Dylan when I was 14 years old, 20 years after his most groundbreaking work. The Smiths had already broken up by the time I got into their music. Brad Paisley had been a country superstar for nearly a decade before I heard a single note.

But in other cases, for reasons I haven’t determined, I believe the chance at fandom passes me by. Had the timing been right, I would have been completely absorbed by a band or artist. But things just didn’t work out the way they could have.

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Song of the Day #989: ‘Song With Rose’ – Elvis Costello

Elvis Costello has collaborated with a boatload of artists over the years. He’s written songs with Paul McCartney, Aimee Mann, Burt Bacharach and Loretta Lynn, to name a few. A few years back, he wrote a song with Kris Kristofferson and Rosanne Cash and the trio planned to cut an album together, though that didn’t come to pass (at least not yet).

I like that an artist as prolific and excellent as Costello makes the time to write with other musicians. He clearly doesn’t need to do it. His muse is on speed, he could write original material from now until the day he dies. But he must get something out of these collaborations — even if it’s just the pleasure of sharing a room with somebody whose work he admires.

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Song of the Day #988: ‘Flutter & Wow’ – Elvis Costello

Despite his forays into jazz and easy listening, every so often Elvis Costello returns to his roots and puts out a good old-fashioned rock-n-roll record. Such was the case with 2008’s Momofuku, his follow-up to the jazz collaboration The River in Reverse.

Named after the inventor of ramen instant noodles, the album was assembled in six days almost on a whim. Costello had been working with Jenny Lewis on her next album, Acid Tongue, when he decided to bring the same players (including two of The Attractions and Ms. Lewis herself) into the studio to cut a batch of songs he’d recently written.

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Song of the Day #987: ‘It Ought to Be Easier’ – Lyle Lovett

So we have reached the final installment in my 20-day series on great albums. Singing us out is Lyle Lovett and his 1996 album The Road to Ensenada.

Lovett’s albums tend to suffer from multiple personality disorder. His influences are so broad and his style so far-reaching that his records often end up as a hodgepodge of great ideas. He dabbles in country, jazz, blues, rock and gospel, making for wonderful songs but schizophrenic albums.

The Road to Ensenada avoids that confusion. It’s a straightforward collection of traditional country and honky-tonk and, though it is less expansive than his earlier work, it remains the best thing he has ever done.

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