4. Chris Price, Stop Talking
Rating: 8.8
Somewhere along the line, “singer-songwriter” went from being a job description to being a genre to being a pejorative. Still, it’s the best way to describe Stop Talking, Chris Price’s follow up to his acclaimed 2012 debut Homesick. It’s full up with uncommonly good singing and smart, surprising songwriting. Drawing from a well of pop knowledge, Price constructs melodies that are both sure and unexpected. Every song has a whiff of the familiar, but where an ordinary tune would turn right, Price’s turn left, and just like that, he’s widened the domain of pop songwriting. Most importantly, though, with Stop Talking, Price pushes further and reinvigorates the entire singer-songwriter idiom for the 21st century. —Craig Dorfman