Josh Ritter Albums, Ranked
The Best and Worst of One of the Best Songwriters of the 21st Century
Pandora is incredibly quaint by today’s streaming standards, what with its randomized playlists and inability to choose whatever song you want, whenever you want it. But when it first arrived, it was the birth of the streaming revolution. The idea that you could listen to music online without owning it was a brand new idea, and pretty exciting. We might look back on it as a strange artifact, a brief contender before the Spotifys of the world came to dominate that space, but on a Pandora playlist of folky 2000s music, I first discovered the songs of Josh Ritter. I’ve since come to love Ritter’s music deeply, not only listening to all the albums but seeing him in concert many times.
On a lark, I’ve decided to rank all of Josh’s albums from worst to first. So if you’re interested in listening to Josh Ritter for the first time, hopefully this will be your version of that Pandora playlist.
Before ranking the Albums proper, I should say that I’m not including all of Josh’s live albums and EPs. If you’re interested in a live album, I would suggest starting with Live at Iveagh Gardens or In the Dark - Live at Vicar Street, both of which include concert video. On the EPs, there are three that are more than worth your time (and would rank pretty highly if they were included in the album rankings: See Here, I Have Built You A Mansion; Truth is a Dimension (Both Invisible and Blinding); and most especially Bringing in the Darlings, which includes at least two of my top 20 Josh Ritter songs.
Now, on to the Album Rankings!
Fever Breaks (2019)
The only real misfire in the Josh Ritter catalogue, to my ears. Instead of his usual Royal City Band, Ritter recorded the album with Jason Isbell and his backing band the 400 Unit (a great group in their own right), but it just doesn’t gel for me. There are some good songs hiding in there, especially “The Torch Committee,” but it really says something that a song like “Losing Battles” shines much better in an acoustic version released after the album was out than it does in its original form. Not a horrible record, but the least interesting and most ill-fitting Josh Ritter album.
Josh Ritter (2000)
Initially self-released in 1999, this is where it all began, with Ritter aping his influences (especially John Prine) to varying effect. Some of the better songs here are ballads, like “Letter from Omaha,” but there’s also a humorous streak here with songs like the bonus track “Stuck to You” that would reemerge on later releases. It’s a debut that demonstrates Ritter’s capacity to write a song while clearly still searching for his own voice.
Gathering (2017)
Easily the hardest album of Ritter’s for me to rank, because there’s so much to love about it, yet a strangely unfinished quality to some of the ballads leaves it dragging a bit. In particular, the stretch from “When Will I Be Changed” to “Myrna Loy” is four straight downtempo songs, two of which are over 6 minutes and are fairly bereft of dynamic changes. Each of those four songs has appeal on its own, but together it creates this plodding middle section that’s perhaps meant to be hypnotic, but usually leaves me bored and itching to skip forward. And part of why I want to skip forward is that the rest of the songs are so good! Songs like “Showboat,” “Cry Softly,” and “Oh Lord (Part 3)” are Josh Ritter at his most fun and funny, while “Thunderbolt’s Goodnight” is one of his absolute best love ballads. Better sequencing, or cutting 1-2 of those lengthy ballads in the middle, and this album could be a lot higher on my list.
Spectral Lines (2023)
As of this writing, this is Josh’s most recent album, and its low placement on this list should not be seen as a knock on its quality. In fact, the opening stretch of Spectral Lines is not only really strong, but demonstrates Ritter’s ability to move his sound forward in new and exciting ways. The nearly spoken-word “Sawgrass” puts Ritter’s lyrics front-and-center, which is never a bad thing; while “Honey I Do” and “For Your Soul” see Josh and the band moving in a more folk-pop direction that sounds excellent. The knock on the album is that the back half isn’t quite as strong as the first, and begins to sound a little same-y by the end. But the writing remains solid throughout, so it’s a same-ness that’s pleasant to listen to.
Hello Starling (2003)
Josh’s third album contains two of his most enduring songs, the hope-filled “Snow is Gone,” and the song that would count as his biggest hit, if we can use that word, “Kathleen.” Even setting aside those two classics, others like “Bright Smile,” “You Don’t Make It Easy, Babe,” and “California” help demonstrate Ritter’s development of his own unique voice, and “Rainslicker” and “Baby That’s Not All” reveal a new penchant for atmospherics that would pay off over the next few albums. This is the album where Josh Ritter first sounds more like himself than anyone else.
Golden Age of Radio (2002)
Technically his second album, but in many ways his first album released widely acts as a second debut. And it’s quite the introduction, with a bevy of really strong songs that have remained staples in his live show ever since like “Me & Jiggs,” “Harrisburg,” and the title track. While you can still hear his influences loud and clear across the album (“You’ve Got the Moon” might as well be a Nick Drake b-side), the sheer number of quality songs pushes this album up the list.
Sermon on the Rocks (2015)
This probably represents the single biggest change in sound from one album to the next. Where The Beast in its Tracks (on which, more in a moment) was an even more acoustic and raw sound than the folk that had come before it, Sermon on the Rocks represented a turn towards Nashville, with brighter, poppier production on songs like “Where the Night Goes” and “Homecoming” and a turn towards country music on songs like “Young Moses” and “Getting Ready to Get Down.” It’s an album with some fairly big stylistic swings for an artist who had been in one lane for a while, and most of those swings connect in a big way. The only thing keeping this album from achieving perfection is a trio of fairly forgettable filler tracks towards the end of the album (“The Stone,” “A Big Enough Sky” and “Lighthouse Fire”) that makes it drag before the excellent closer. Make this a 10-track album instead of 12, and it might be even higher than it already is on this list.
So Runs the World Away (2010)
We’ve reached the stone-cold classics on this list, the four albums I would consider nearly flawless in Ritter’s catalog. Differentiating between them comes down to really minor differences and personal preference, which makes it a surprise even to me that So Runs the World Away is all the way down at #4. This was the first Josh Ritter album I ever bought, the first one of his that came out after I became a fan, and so it will always hold a special place in my heart. Songs like “Change of Time,” “Southern Pacifica,” “Lark,” and “Lantern” are great mood-setters, while Ritter’s storytelling prowess has never been on better display than with songs like “The Curse,” “Folk Bloodbath,” and “Another New World.” This is probably the moodiest, broodiest Josh Ritter album, full of both bright hope and dark foreboding.
The Beast in Its Tracks (2013)
Unlike Bob Dylan’s Blood on the Tracks, to which it was compared when it was released, The Beast in Its Tracks is less of a divorce album than a healing-after-divorce album. The specter of a former lover is everywhere in these songs; and while there is bitterness (“Evil Eye,” “Nightmares,”) and longing for the past (“In Your Arms Again,” “Third Arm”), the album is much lighter than those themes suggest. Rather than someone writing from the depths of despair, it feels like someone looking back on the past just as something new is beginning, with all the messy emotions that come with that. “New Lover” turns from bitter to joyful and back again, while “Hopeful” begins with a sneer at the words of a former lover until it becomes the refrain of a new one. “Joy to You Baby” is the light at the end of the tunnel, the moment when you are finally able to forgive without forgetting. No divorce album has ever sounded this hopeful.
The Historical Conquests of Josh Ritter (2007)
This is Josh Ritter at his most fun, an energy burst that can’t be resisted. Even the ballads seem to have their tempos taken up a few beats, all of which leads to the feeling of a wild rush that comes and goes far quicker than the actual runtime. Opening track “To the Dogs or Whoever” sets the tone right off the bat with quick, densely allusive lyrics set over rollicking, barn-storming music that seems on the verge of falling apart but never does. The band is incredible throughout - Historical Conquests is the closest thing Ritter has to a straight up rock ‘n’ roll record. When the songs do slow down, we’re treated to maybe Ritter’s greatest song, “The Temptation of Adam,” a ballad about falling in love in a nuclear bunker (trust me, it’s amazing). “Right Moves,” “Real Long Distance,” “Wait for Love” (both of them), and “Next to the Last Romantic,” are other absolutely top-tier songs in an album without a weak one.
The Animal Years (2006)
The serious older brother to Historical Conquests, The Animal Years is a no-filler masterpiece, from the layered, barely-concealed anger in opener “Girl in the War” to the plaintive, resigned-yet-hopeful closer “Here at the Right Time.” Every song in between those is not only perfectly executed but perfectly in place. It’s an album of strange anachronisms - steamboats in “Monster Ballads,” silent movies in “Lilian, Egypt,” Westerns in “Good Man” - but its eye is firmly planted on the present, a decrying of all that America had become by the late Bush years (as normal as those seem now by comparison). Every song adds a layer to the recurring themes that build and build until we arrive at the 9 and a half minute epic “Thin Blue Flame,” where the album coalesces and explodes. If you are only going to listen to one Josh Ritter album, make it this one.