New albums update Big Music with fresh takes on new wave, post-punk, garage punk, and jangle pop.

Coming off the 1986 countdown, it was relatively easy to transition to absorbing new albums because there is now so much music coming out, you can find your desired flavors from any genre. Those craving the romanticism and sweeping grandeur of the mid-80s, sometimes called Big Music, have plenty of choices.

Brigitte Calls Me Baby – Irreversible (ATO)

Chicago based Brigitte Calls Me Baby’s story begins in Port Arthur, TX, where Wes Leavins began performing Elvis impersonations. He was so good he was hired to play Elvis in the Chicago theatre production Million Dollar Quartet in 2016. I remember walking by the theater thinking that would be worth checking out. Baz Luhrman saw him perform and initially had him cast to be the voice of Elvis in his movie, until he learned that Austin Butler could handle the vocals. Leavins contributed some acoustic guitar, and significantly, met producer Dave Cobb, and began working on a solo album. Leavins wisely found a band, and the tracks were used for their first EP and debut album in 2023-24. Many say Leavins sounds like Morrissey, but more accurately, he shares the same influences — Elvis’ resonance, cries and swagger, Frank Sinatra’s breath control and lingering legato, and Roy Orbison’s head-voice lift and dramatic phrasing — all with more precise technical mastery. The jangly post-punk and quirky song titles of The Smiths are certainly an influence along with New Order, The Cure, Tears For Fears, The Maccabees and The Strokes. The mix of elements is just nuanced enough for the band to sound startingly fresh. While their second full-length makes no significant stylistic changes, it does deliver songs strong enough to continue their ascendent arc, with first single “Slumber Party,” and highlights “Truth is Stranger Than Fiction,”  pulsing synths in “These Acts of Which We’re Designed,” and the bouyant “I Can Take the Sun Out of the Sky.” Nearly all the songwriting is consistently top notch, with just one lull, “I Can’t Have You All to Myself,” a dirgey ballad that feels slight. At least at the time of it’s release, this is the best album of the year so far.