5 Beautiful Albums For Your Fall
It’s 50 some odd degrees outside, Starbucks is running out of Pumpkin Spice syrup, you’re dusting off your sweaters, and the sun is setting at 7 pm. These are all classic indicators that fall is, in fact, finally dawning on us (if you live in the Northern Hemisphere)! But what will you be listening to? I’ve compiled five of my favorite fall albums, each ranging in decade, genre, length, etc to make for a well rounded picture of the changing seasons. But feel free to listen to the same fall playlist you’ve been wearing out since 2016 if that’s more your style.
Tapestry by Carole King (1971)
“Tapestry” is an album that needs no introduction, but I’ll try anyway. Carole King’s most widely recognized album to date defined an entire era of pop music during the 70s and for many decades to come. Her classic and perfectly percussive piano style is well loved at every tempo and alongside each accompanying part. You might recognize track 8, “Where You Lead”, from the fall favorite TV classic “Gilmore Girls” or “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman”, popularly performed by Aretha Franklin in 1968. Surrounding these hits still are 10 other displays of King’s artistry, often cinematic and catering to fall feelings of romance, yearning, and melancholy with timeless ease.
Top 3:
Where You Lead
(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman
I Feel the Earth Move
Harvest Moon by Neil Young (1992)
Harmonica, pedal steel, and folktale harmonies are staples of Neil Young’s 19th studio album “Harvest Moon”. It may be a product of digital audio processing, but it was supported by analogue equipment reminiscent of comforting sounds from the 70s, specifically his 1972 record “Harvest”. Each twangy track traces around romantic, worldly, and occasionally heartbreaking characteristics that are reflective of autumn in different ways, even directly referencing the harvest moon (which occurs at the autumnal equinox each year) in its titular track.
Top 3:
Harvest Moon
Unknown Legend
You and Me
So Tonight That I Might See by Mazzy Star (1993)
To write about fall music and not include “Fade Into You” is probably a crime. Thanks to its romantic lyrics and slowburn nature, this single makes its rounds throughout the entire year for some, but heightens in the fall for most. Fans of this single may be strangers to the rest of the album however, missing out on all of the different ways Hope Sandoval’s voice shimmers and cascades like a golden October leaf. In just under an hour, the album spins mysteriously around dream pop melodies with alt rock influences heard distinctively in the duo’s guitar playing.
Top 3:
Fade Into You
Five String Serenade
She’s My Baby
Bedouine (Deluxe) by Bedouine (2017)
Fall can often have us retreating into ourselves and our shells more often than the preceding socialite that is summer. Bedouine understands this feeling, and even embraces it during her self-titled sophomore record: “Leave me alone to the books and the radio snow/ Leave me alone to the charcoal and the dancing shadow” she insists in “Solitary Daughter”. It’s not meant to be a sad thing, it’s something this folk-meets-bossa-nova singer feels right at home with. Alas, she also explores the changing nature of love and life itself throughout, reflective of the ever transforming season and with the fleeting poetry of a true traveler.
Top 3:
One of These Days
Dusty Eyes
Solitary Daughter
Sylvie by Sylvie (2021)
The first word on Sylvie’s debut album is quite literally “autumn”. This opening track, “Falls On Me”, is an ode to being and staying in love. The rest of the record can’t hold this same truth however; its steel guitar adorned hallways also open doors to letting go and being alone, but love is felt throughout nonetheless. Each of the 7 songs with a total of 3 features are criminally underrated fall jams, something like what you might hear on a bumpy hayride, around a campfire, or in the kitchen while a warm apple pie bakes in the oven.
Top 3:
Shooting Star
Stealing Time (ft. Sam Burton)
Further Down the Road (ft. Marina Allen)
If you’re starting to notice a pattern in this list, one of folk nature, it’s because there is one. But this is also the end of that pattern and the end of my list. I hope you find a new seasonal favorite, or maybe reel in the nostalgia of rediscovering a classic!