My annual midyear assessment is by no means comprehensive (I can only listen to so much music—not with work, sports and TV) or objective, nor is it reflective of any music outside of that involving guitars, drums and songs in the classic sense. These are simply the albums and tracks that have hooked me more than any others I’ve heard since January 1. In 2013, my two favorite albums—HAIM’s Days Are Gone (Columbia) and the North Mississippi Allstars’ World Boogie Is Coming (Songs of the South)—weren’t released until the second half of the year, but I can’t imagine anything hitting during the rest of 2014 being more transporting than my top three of the first half. I do, however, have high hopes for the upcoming albums from a pair of great American bands a generation apart—Spoon’s They Want My Soul (Loma Vista) and Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers’ Hypnotic Eye (Reprise)—an expectation heightened by the advance tracks from the two LPs I’ve bought (see playlist below). Gotta hand it to the Secretly Canadian/ Jagjaguwar crew for releasing a pair of inspired and critically adored albums in The War on Drugs’ Lost in the Dream and Sharon Van Etten’s Are We There—making the Bloomington, Indiana-based label group the indie of the half year. As for the majors, it’s gotta be Columbia. If you’re so inclined, send me your faves and/or comments: bud.scoppa@hitsmagazine.com.

ESSENTIAL LISTENING
The War on Drugs, Lost in the Dream (Secretly Canadian): On June 21, the summer solstice, the dusk seemed to stretch out for hours. We were in a hilltop home overlooking the San Fernando Valley, and this album unfolded as the sky almost imperceptibly changed colors from gold to silver to deepening shades of blue, and the music changed colors in synchrony. It was one of those experiences in which a moment in time absorbs a piece of music and becomes indelibly connected with it. I’d been listening to various tracks on Lost in the Dream, but until that night I hadn’t experienced the album as a whole. Adam Granduciel’s masterwork references ’70s avatars like Springsteen, Petty, Blood on the Tracks Dylan and Young/Crazy Horse over relentless motorik grooves in ecstatic rockers like "Red Eyes," "Burning" and the seven-minute epic "An Ocean Beneath the Waves," interspersed with stretched-out, rhapsodically atmospheric instrumentals as lush as Roxy Music’s shimmering Avalon. It’s an album you can get lost in, as we discovered that evening. Our host followed it with a record I hadn’t heard before, Croz, which worked perfectly with Lost in the Dream while approaching the expansive beauty of David Crosby’s classic first album, If I Could Only Remember My Name—or so it seemed at the time.

The Black Keys, Turn Blue (Nonesuch): Dan Auerbach and Pat Carney's eighth longplayer, and their third extensive collaboration with Brian "Danger Mouse" Burton, plays out like an ardent love letter to soul music, Motown in particular. The touches are omnipresent: the Marvin Gaye-evoking sultriness of the title track, the Smokey Robinson-infused falsetto purr of the languid "Waiting on Words," the Four Tops-like throbbing urgency of "Year in Review," the summery thrum of Martha & the Vandellas coursing through "Fever," and the pocket symphony "In Time," which comes off like an homage to Norman Whitfield & Barrett Strong’s late-’60s Motown classics with the Temptations. Auerbach’s soulfully kinetic basslines are given newfound prominence, and he shares keyboard duties with Burton, but Turn Blue also contains the most elegant and ecstatic soloing he’s ever laid down in the studio, most prominently the "Layla"-like "Weight of Love," which opens the album and stands as its crowning achievement. If El Camino was the Keys’ catchiest album, Turn Blue turns out to be their sneakiest, subtlest and most seductive.

Beck, Morning Phase (Capitol): Like Lost in the Dream and Turn Blue, Beck’s latest will envelope you in its sustained mood if you let it work its magic. Morning Phase isn’t so much a sequel to his 2002 "sad Beck" classic Sea Change as it is an expressive impulse that grips this multi-leveled artist as he works his way through his by now readily apparent artistic cycles (the album seems to telegraph this notion in its 40-second instrumental prelude "Cycle"). It’s also the year’s most vivid evocation of California—as rooted in Beck’s home turf as was his punchier but similarly affecting Guero, from 2005.

Wye Oak, Shriek (Merge): Following the Baltimore duo’s 2011 indie breakthrough Civilian, singer/guitarist Jenn Wasner switched to bass, while drummer/keyboardist Andy Stack began to experiment with electronics. The resulting sound is a kaleidoscopic fusion of Bacharach, Everything but the Girl and Tears for Fears, with Wasner’s lovely, expressive voice—tailor-made for intimacies—floating in caressing settings that fit her supple alto like a silk glove. The album is filled with enthralling passages: the swinging yin-yang groove of "Before," Wasner’s fuzzed-out basslines burrowing into the cubist electric piano figures of "The Tower," the elegant, "Everybody Wants to Rule the World"-like thrust of "Despicable Animal," the dramatic buildups and delectable payoffs of "Glory" and the title track. Shriek is a sustained act of seduction, a deftly conjoined conjuring of song, rhythm and mood.

Jack White, Lazaretto (Third Man/Columbia): An altogether novel amalgam of personalized roots appropriations ("Three Women"), Frank Gehry-like inventive sonic architecture ("High Ball Stepper," "Lazaretto"), handcrafted aural woodwork ("Temporary Ground," "Just One Drink") and surprisingly forthcoming interior monologues ("Alone in My Home").

Sam Roberts Band, Lo-Fantasy (Paper Bag): Little known outside his home country, where he was once hyped as the Canadian Springsteen, Roberts gained provincial notoriety with his rousing live performances and his 2003 breakthrough album We Were Born in a Flame, introducing a hyper-rhythmic, hook-heavy brand of rock & roll. On Lo-Fantasy, working with English producer Youth, the pint-sized dynamo and his ace band reclaim the molten mojo of their early days, unleashing a nonstop barrage of incantatory, booty-shaking rockers that variously recalls the Kinks ("We’re All in This Together"), Primal Scream ("Metal Skin"), the Clash ("Angola") and U2 ("The Hands of Love"). A bonus disc of pulsing remixes underscores Roberts’ devotion to the almighty groove.

Sharon Van Etten, Are We There (Jagjaguwar): Quite possibly the most critically acclaimed album of the last six months, the New Jersey native’s fourth outing simultaneously reaches inward and stretches upward in a breathtakingly over-the-top manner that brings to mind Jeff Buckley’s Grace. Songs like "Your Love Is Killing Me" and "Every Time the Sun Comes Up" bring a shocking intensity to this brave and wildly original breakup album.

The Strypes, Snapshot (Photo Finish/Island): On which four teenage time travelers from Ireland bridge 1964 and 2014 with passion and the authority of bands three or four times their age. So uncannily authentic that I still can’t believe what I’m hearing. Extra credit for covering Nick Lowe’s "Heart of the City" and making it even more supercharged than the original.

Broken Bells, After the Disco (Columbia): On their second outing, Danger Mouse and the Shins’ James Mercer apply the sounds of their ’80s childhoods to the rarefied chemistry they create together, with rapturous results. The first three tracks on this front-loaded LP are elegantly contoured pieces of aural architecture: "Perfect World" is a pocket symphony for analog synths with two distinct movements, "After the Disco" bounces along with a Daft Punk-like lilt and "Holding On for Life" showcases Mercer’s chromium falsetto as he uncannily impersonates Barry Gibb. Deeper into the record, the duo rocks soulfully on "Control" and "No Matter What You’re Told." But overall, After the Disco is a seamless, silky ribbon of mood music tailor-made for a laid-back Sunday afternoon.

Ray LaMontagne, Supernova (RCA): Since slouching out of the Maine woods a decade ago, LaMontagne has gradually softened his presentation from the primal urgency of his 2004 debut album Trouble to the Laurel Canyon gentility of 2010’s God Willin’ & the Creek Don’t Rise. He’s pulled himself out of this cul de sac by hooking up with the extremely busy Dan Auerbach, who restores the edge to LaMontagne’s signature introspectiveness (apart from the title track, the album’s only lemon). This inventively arranged, impressionistic collection of Syd Barrett-like psychedelia ("Lavender" "Smashing") and rawboned garage rockers ("She’s the One," "Julia"), set off by buoyant cuts recalling Mink DeVille ("Airwaves") and America ("Ojai"), throbs with the fanboy obsessiveness of Bowie’s Pinups.

ALSO WORTH A SPIN
The Old 97’s, Most Messed Up (ATO): Rhett Miller is a sharp-eyed chronicler of the human comedy, and on the band’s tenth studio LP, he throws himself into the role of a young knucklehead with a one-track mind who maneuvers through life by steering with his dick, as the dude’s compadres might say. The song titles telegraph the album’s party-hearty vibe, its dark undercurrent and the shit-kicking performances the Dallas vets deliver: "Let’s Get Drunk & Get It On," "Wheels Off," "Wasted" and the inevitable "Intervention." This detailed study of youthful misadventures gives the 97’s ample opportunity to re-immerse themselves in the punk-fueled exuberance they brought to the alt country movement two decades ago.

Luther Dickinson, Rock ’n Roll Blues (New West): If the North Mississippi Allstars’ inventive 2013 album World Boogie Is Coming was a lavishly detailed aural canvas encompassing the primal panorama of Hill Country blues, this acoustic effort from the band’s singer/guitarist Luther Dickinson more closely resembles a series of tossed-off pencil sketches depicting his place in that rich legacy. On opener "Vandalize," Dickinson recounts his early days as a skateboard punk being gradually sucked into the primitive, haunted surrounding terrain. Using indigenous fife-and-drums blues as the backdrop for the following vignettes, Dickinson puts himself into this ongoing narrative, communing with ghosts from Jimmy Rodgers to Robert Johnson, and eventually bringing past and present together into an immediate, heartfelt document, modest but expertly rendered.

Foster the People, Supermodel (Startime Int’l/Columbia): Mark Foster is a talented maverick who delights in hacking into the mainstream and messing with the conventions of high-end record making. For the follow-up to FTP’s breakthrough 2011 album Torches, Foster once again enlisted Brit hitmaker Paul Epworth (Adele, Florence + the Machine), who’d worked on parts of the previous LP, and the sound they’ve fashioned is glossy and supersaturated while still exhibiting the subversive impulse that yielded the supremely catchy but subtly sinister smash "Pumped Up Kicks." Along the way, these wicked-clever chameleons morph into shapes resembling Phoenix (the sumptuous "Coming of Age"), MGMT (the playfully trippy "Pseudologica Fantastica") and even Jamiroquai (the pumping "Best Friend"), employing state-of-the-art sonics to frame Foster’s barbed observations on present-day existence.

The Both, The Both (SuperEgo): Following two refined, synth-powered solo albums, Aimee Mann has opted to rough up her sound in a collaborative effort with veteran garage rocker Ted Leo, with exhilarating results. The debut LP from The Both, as they’ve tagged the partnership, hearkens back to Mann’s bracing 1990s LPs with producer/multi-instrumentalist Jon Brion, though the feel of the new album is less mannered and more spontaneous, with Mann’s trademark pristine melodies floating over Leo’s rugged, squalling, guitar-driven grooves. The unlikely pairing works precisely because of the contrast between their approaches, as they locate a vibrant middle ground on rawboned yet tuneful rockers like "The Prisoner" and "Milwaukee" and crunchy, dynamic ballads like "No Sir."

The Belle Brigade, Just Because (ATO): Like their friends the Haim sisters, The Belle Brigade’s Barbara and Ethan Gruska are L.A. natives from musical families with an affinity for Fleetwood Mac. If the sunny SoCal folk rock of the band’s 2011 self-titled debut owed a debt to Fleetwood Mac, the darker, quirkier, more sonically adventurous Just Because seems decidedly Tusk-like. On the dusky "Miss You in My Life" and the celestial "Everything for a Stone," the Gruska siblings’ blood harmonies evoke Don and Phil more than Lindsey and Stevie, while Barbara’s treated drum work intensifies the undertows of the urgent rockers "Ashes" and "When Everything Was What It Was". DNA plus inspiration can be a potent combination.

2014 MIDYEAR PLAYLIST: IN OUR PRIME
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, "American Dream Plan B"
Spoon, "Rent I Pay"
Sam Roberts Band, "We’re All in This Together"
The War on Drugs, "Red Eyes"
KONGOS, "I'm Only Joking"
The Black Keys, "10 Lovers"
Jack White, "Just One Drink"
The Strypes, "Hometown Girls"
Big Data, "Dangerous"
Broken Bells, "Control"
Spoon, "Do You"
Wye Oak, "Despicable Animal"
The War on Drugs, "An Ocean Beneath the Waves"
The Black Keys, "Weight of Love"
Sharon Van Etten, "Your Love Is Killing Me"
Beck, "Turn Away"
Ray LaMontagne, "Lavender"
Lana Del Rey, "West Coast"
Todd Terje f/Bryan Ferry, "Johnny and Mary"
First Aid Kit, "My Silver Lining"
Luther Dickinson, "Stone’s Throw"
Jack White, "Temporary Ground"
Led Zeppelin, "Your Time Is Gonna Come"
The Black Keys, "In Our Prime"
The War on Drugs, "Lost in the Dream"
Beck, "Cycle"