<body><div><figure><img src="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?type=thumbnail_580x000&amp;url=1MB7kl_1GzWJsjM00" alt="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?url=1MB7kl_1GzWJsjM00" width="1200" height="800" ><figcaption>Ella Flores/DAILY</figcaption></figure>Living in Michigan, we are blessed with the four seasons, no matter how unequal they feel. As an apology from the universe for subjecting our state to a seven-month winter, we get to experience a gorgeous, two-second autumn: The world turns orange and chilly, but not too chilly; baked goods and lattes are themed around pumpkins, maple and cinnamon; house parties have bonfires; movie theaters play spooky classics; and our outfits are the cutest they will be all year. To commemorate the best season of the year, The Michigan Daily’s music beat put together a list of their favorite fall albums. From folk to R&amp;B to emo, you can find whatever you’re feeling this fall in one of these records.— Senior Arts Editor Siena Beres and Music Beat Editor Emily Kim can be reached at sberes@umich.edu and kimemily@umich.edu, respectively.Kansas Anymore (The Longest Goodbye) — ROLE MODELFor some people, autumn means more than crunching leaves, pumpkin spice candles and a crisp breeze. The emotions that accompany the changing temperatures are just as significant, and they are perfectly captured in ROLE MODEL’s 2025 deluxe edition album Kansas Anymore (The Longest Goodbye). The album’s lyricism is steeped in nostalgia, loneliness, longing and reflection, themes that naturally align with autumn’s sense of transition. Drawing from Americana, folk-pop and ’70s soft rock, the tracks fuse cozy arrangements with melancholic undertones. ROLE MODEL’s stripped-back vocals and layered harmonies paired with slide guitars and subtle banjo accents create an intimate, conversational atmosphere. In the album’s opener “Writing’s On The Wall,” the upbeat folk-rock instrumentation contrasts with the narrator’s reluctance to accept the end of a relationship. Lyrics such as “Seems like your shoulder / Keeps getting colder / But, babe, I was raised in the cold,” capture the instinct to cling to something even when its fate is inevitable. ROLE MODEL’s biggest hit, “Sally, When The Wine Runs Out,” brings a playful energy to the album, even when singing about “getting lonely as the days get dark.” The warm strumming of acoustic guitar channels the nostalgic feeling of dancing around a kitchen with your closest friends. In contrast, “So Far Gone,” featuring Lizzy McAlpine, embraces a subdued, vulnerable sound, embodying the isolation that comes after a breakup. The pared-down, gentle production with a simple piano and guitar accompaniment highlights the beautiful harmonies and “lonely” ad-libs from McAlpine. “Old Recliners,” a true combination of folk and indie-pop, feels the coziest with its mournful lyrics and soft overlayed harmonies. The closing song, “The Longest Goodbye,” blends country, jazz and indie sounds with plaintive guitar, brass and introspective vocals. As ROLE MODEL sings, “I don’t think I love you anymore,” he brings the album’s central themes of heartbreak and letting go full circle, making Kansas Anymore (The Longest Goodbye) the perfect soundtrack for the fall season — best served with a soft blanket, hot cup of tea and a box of tissues.Daily Arts Contributor Ada Moore can be reached at adamoore@umich.edu. Love Is Overtaking Me — Arthur RussellAs a teenager, Arthur Russell ran away from his small Iowa hometown for a Buddhist commune in California to study cello. While his records often reflect his unconventional lifestyle, Love Is Overtaking Me sounds like the simpler life he left behind. Folksy and Americana-tinged, with a bittersweet singer-songwriter streak, it’s fitting for an autumnal evening romp in your hometown.Russell is best known for his avant-garde cello playing and experiments in jazz-flared disco, but here he takes on a different palette, sounding more like the kid from Iowa he started out as. Famously, Russell edited himself harshly and withheld the majority of his music. Love Is Overtaking Me is no exception to being withheld, as the record was compiled in 2008, 16 years after his death. Despite the tracks being supposed leftovers, many of his arrangements feel heavily deliberated and varied, with touches of cello, cracker-barrel guitar and playful drums giving each track a full and warm shape. Listening through it feels like finding a beat-up shoebox in your attic and discovering perfectly preserved family relics.Even as self-proclaimed sketches, the songs are remarkably finished. Russell is a quietly gripping storyteller on “What It’s Like,” “Close My Eyes” and “Habit of You.” The unvarnished melodies on the title track and “I Couldn’t Say It to Your Face” linger and scratch a particular nostalgic itch. Many of these tracks capture the melancholic hyperawareness of time passing that often accompanies fall, but softened by tender, hopeful lyrics. Though he left Iowa as a teenager, Love Is Overtaking Me is a brief, bittersweet return home to the countryside.Daily Arts Contributor Jesse Perraut can be reached at jperraut@umich.edu. When The Pawn … — Fiona AppleWhen I think of fall, I first think of a red, orange and brown color palette decorating the trees. I think of cider mills, cinnamon donuts and crunchy walks on a damp unpaved trail. Yet, fall is also dark, dreary and the air is filled with haunting memories of a time I can no longer go back to. Those bittersweet buried feelings are exactly what When the Pawn … so magically captures, with Fiona Apple’s deep, melodic voice sending chills down listeners’ spines. The album’s progression mirrors a mountain, with beginning tracks “On The Bound” and “To Your Love” featuring purely the best of Apple’s hauntingly velvet vocals accompanied by blaring minor piano chords accelerating the melody. Apple then swivels into the crisp, fresh autumn air with meticulously staccato trombone and snare beats baselining “Limp” — what most people would align with the season. The record slowly crawls its way back to that ghostly poignant atmosphere with the concluding track “I Know.” The slow, almost jazz-like swing is a mirror to when the leaves finally start falling, the mornings start imprinting frosty bits to car windows and we stare at the first flicks of snow to realize we have made it through without succumbing to the tempting nostalgia.Is it chills from the autumn wind or chills from coming across a place you visited with them last autumn? We’ll never know, and Apple doesn’t know either.Music Beat Editor Emily Kim can be reached at kimemily@umich.edu. What Now — Brittany HowardNo word in the English language reminds me more of fall than the word “crisp.” The fair temperature, fall breeze, the crunchy leaves, the smell of pumpkin spice and apple cider — all of it fits into one texture. And no one’s music feels crisp quite like Brittany Howard’s. Her 2024 album What Now gives me feelings of autumn on both sides of the spectrum. This season can be calm and picturesque, but simultaneously bitter. I’ve experienced just as many beautiful Halloween nights as I have trick-or-treating sessions trudging through sleet. What Now’s guitars are sensitive, but can become crackly and mean when needed. Her voice is as gorgeous as can be, yet she transforms into a raspy powerhouse if the situation calls for it. Still, all of it feels cohesive. The dramatic crescendos and searing guitar chords give the moments of stillness their proper weight. Rather than the album building to a climax, it settles into a tranquil conclusion, as if settling into a wintry hibernation. Even in a chaotic world, Howard remains meditative, colorful and cool, just as any perfect fall should be.Daily Arts Writer Nathaniel Evans can be reached at natevan@umich.edu. Injury Episode — Static DressMy favorite part of fall has always been the dreary rain that comes with it. I’m not much for a sunny day. Alongside the dreariness, I always find myself returning to guitars — the louder the better. Here, we have an album that fits the criteria. Static Dress’s Injury Episode is a full-on mall screamo record, with brief detours in the occasional My Chemical Romance-esque emo-pop. Chugging riffs are en masse, always in tune with vocalist Olli Appleyard’s coarse screamo. Sounds of pattering rain and crackling thunder fill the background, backing the album’s quieter moments, most notably on the interludes prefacing tracks “…hospice” and final track “Treading.” Injury Episode is an album full of Hot Topic realness — in a good way.Anyway, you know how 2000s emo albums would randomly have a one-off acoustic song? The most autumnal moment of Injury Episode is “Adult Diamond,” a shining example of this trope. It’s more comparable to the aforementioned emo-pop, as Appleyard sings of a forlorn relationship that he can only remember in glimpses. There’s a brief moment when all other sound comes to a stop and the thunder heard across the album reappears to rumble for just a moment, as if a harsh thunderstorm has rolled in for the rest. It’s apt weather for emo.Maybe it’s just the changing of the seasons and the beginnings of dreary weather, but as the leaves turn and the skies grow gray, the melancholy of emo begins to make its way to me. I can finally don my all black outfits and dark eye makeup to feel the brisk wind of fall blowing through my hair. But to be honest, it’s not like I ever stopped doing that.Daily Arts Writer Mae Savage can be reached at dmsavage@umich.edu. Lost In The Dream — The War on DrugsJust as fall days seem to blend into one another without a clear end, each track on The War on Drugs’ Lost In The Dream bleeds into the next as if taking the listener on a sonic journey through a shrouded forest with rays of sunlight trickling in through the trees. Truly evocative of the album’s title, the songs are spacey and hazy with guitars that swirl like wet gauze and ring out with an interstellar glow. Any potential story is put aside to prioritize the atmospheric transitions between the songs. This element evokes moments that feel like they could stretch on forever but also reach their end, when you realize, finally, that the leaves are quietly changing around you. It’s good music to let your mind wander to, but it’ll still keep your attention: a synth that is as springy as it is harrowing, an organ that blares like a siren down the street, a piano that stabs a melody, horns that cry a mournful plea — whatever it is, you are drawn back to the soundscape, a wild yet inviting thing. All the while, the drum beats remain supportive — simple yet supplying a gentle lilt. Genres are stitched together from folk to psychedelic rock to piano balladry on this tapestry, blowing in the wind. At heart, the album captures the autumnal hues and the chilly breeze that exist as reminders to reflect, to be present and to start anew once again. Daily Arts Writer Tobin Saxton can be reached at tobinsax@umich.edu. The Velvet Rope — Janet JacksonAutumn is a time of unavoidable change in the world around us, and it has a way of triggering something deeply transformative within individuals as well. Change can be confusing and alienating, and Janet Jackson’s The Velvet Rope is an introspective record about the type of personal growth that is arduous yet essential. The album is defined by its central theme of dismantling the emotional barriers that prevent individuals from sharing their true selves with anybody, including themselves. It’s moody, contemplative and the subject matter — from sexual abuse to homophobia to grief — is challenging. However, the adeptness with which these topics are handled makes for an incredibly rewarding listen. Even when Jackson handles easier-to-stomach topics like sensuality or friendship, they are coupled with feelings of loneliness and loss, making this record far more nuanced than one may expect from a pop star of her stature. Beyond its themes, The Velvet Rope’s dark palette of sound pairs perfectly with the long, gray-skied days of autumn. Jackson has one of the most prolific pop careers in history, and those sensibilities shine through. Almost every song on this album is slickly produced by superstar duo Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, and the record is populated with endlessly hummable hooks that give it an unparalleled replay value for an album of its length. Beneath the highly polished pop, the influences on this album run the gamut from funk to alternative rock to electronica and so on. Even through all of this genre hopping, there is a constant somber atmosphere largely shaped by Jackson’s highly emotive vocal performance, and it is unmistakably dreary. The confluence of deeply personal subject matter and a pensive sonic landscape on The Velvet Rope make it a perfect fall listen. Daily Arts Contributor Chris White can be reached at chriswwh@umich.edu. Shed — Title FightThe factory on the hillside is abandoned. There are piles of trash outside; a sedan and a U-Haul have crashed and caught fire. The trees are dead, and the hawks are circling. But the sky is bright blue, and the grass is bright green. There is life — cats and dogs — meandering through the tipped oil drums and car parts. The cover of Title Fight’s 2011 record Shed, captures the overwhelm of being stuck in between. And what season physically presents transition better than autumn, when the grass is green but the trees are dead?As a band, Title Fight exists in the in-between, too. More thrash-forward than the fourth-wave emo movement they fit into, coming up from the Rust Belt rather than one of the coasts, Title Fight has never fit neatly into a box. In a less than half-hour run-time, Shed manages to capture this in-between-ness. Lyrically, the record is about growing out of a place, physically and mentally. References to Kingston, Pa., and feeling confined — “the mountains surrounding, mark the boundaries you’re not meant to leave” — are contrasted with tracks like “Stab,” wherein the narrator laments coming home on Memorial Day to find an old friend changed. All throughout, the guitars are crunchy and simple, power-chord riffs and bass-doubling take the forefront to create a warm, familiar soundscape. Ned Russin’s vocals are ever earnest, the perfect vehicle for words that are a little juvenile, but oh-so relatable. If you’re pulling on your Doc Martens to trudge through the fallen leaves and looking for a bit of emo-hardcore nostalgia, Shed is the record for you. Fall forces us to reckon with change, and so does Title Fight. Senior Arts Editor Siena Beres can be reached at sberes@umich.edu.</div></body>

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Living in Michigan, we are blessed with the four seasons, no matter how unequal they feel. As an apology from the universe for subjecting our state to a seven-month winter, we get to experience a gorgeous, two-second autumn: The world turns orange and chilly, but not too chilly; baked goods and lattes are themed around pumpkins, maple and cinnamon; house parties have bonfires; movie theaters play spooky classics; and our outfits are the cutest they will be all year.

Eight must-listen fall albums

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Living in Michigan, we are blessed with the four seasons, no matter how unequal they feel. As an apology from the universe for subjecting our state to a se

Eight must-listen fall albums

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