Fairytale of New York – The Pogues
Best Christmas song ever. I’m not even going to try to explain it. You all know what makes it good. And if you’ve somehow managed to miss this one over the years, download it instantly and I envy you the chance to hear it for the first time.
Happy Chrismukkah!
A few bits and pieces for a quiet Christmas Eve…
Obama is running says Robert Novak.
I got an invitation to join Christian Bloggers the other day. I think they may have not read my post about “God” very closely.
If you get a chance, check out my two favorite year-end lists at Music For Kids Who Can’t Read Good and Shake Your Fist. I like the former because it’s so similar to mine and the latter because it’s so different. Part of the joy of these lists is discovering new music, but another part of it is simply reading good writers talk about what inspired them. Even if I don’t get the same feeling from the album, just reading about it is a pleasure.
Can you see the sunset from the southside gets an honorable mention for a great list of 50 records, and for being pretty much the only other person in the world who gave The Lawrence Arms some love.
For the bigger picture, as I obliquely mentioned the other day, Heart on a Stick is aggregating the lists. Nothing super unexpected (#1 is TV on the Radio), but it’s interesting to see what rises to the top, as well as the long tail at the bottom.
Favorite Christmas movies? I love It’s a Wonderful Life (the scene when he’s running down the street at the end never fails to get me), and there are many great takes on A Christmas Carol (probably the best of which is Scrooged). Not quite in the same league, but still a classic is A Christmas Story (always referred to me as “Shoot Your Eye Out”). And not really a “Christmas movie” in a traditional sense, but a truly great film is The Lion in Winter. It’s the story of Henry Plantagenet, Eleanor of Aquitaine, and their crazy children with fantastic performances from Peter O’Toole and Katharine Hepburn as Henry and Eleanor.
In TV land, there are the classics: Charlie Brown, The Grinch, Rudolph, Garfield (or is that one unique to my generation?). But even better than all of those are the two Xmas episodes from Futurama.
What do y’all like?
A final thought: I hadn’t really considered it, but you start getting some people with very interesting search terms showing up when you post about a song called “Hardcore Porn.”
Well, I guess I’ve decided that it’s pretty much all-twee-all-the-time for me these days, but I think I’m okay with that. Along those lines, here’s a great Northern Soul twee-pop ditty from the Tacticians:
Don’t let the title fool you. This is nothing more or less than a gem of acoustic indie-pop from the other side of the Atlantic. And while I assume he’s actually saying “Kate,” I choose to interpret the line as “Kade is busy doing hardcore porn.” Which is especially funny if you know Kade.
If you like this one, check out their new single “London’s Alright” at their website, or hear some more songs on their myspace.
Looking back at my list of favorite albums, and exploring the 100s of other lists out there, I decided that I may have the only list on all of the internets which fails to include at least one of: TV on the Radio, Joanna Newsom, The Knife, The Hold Steady, Grizzly Bear, Ghostface Killah, Destroyer, Belle and Sebastian, or Clipse. And there’s a whole second tier of slightly-less-popular albums that didn’t make it either.
I don’t dislike most of these – I just don’t have much interest in them. So I wanted to take a day to ponder why some of these didn’t appeal to me – which is an interesting project for me, if not anyone else. If you don’t care, skip to the bottom for some great Spector-influenced songs. In talking about this, I’ll group the records into general categories that might help explain a little bit.
Records that glorify lifestyles I find distasteful
The Hold Steady – Boys and Girls in America
Clipse – Hell Hath No Fury
Ghostface Killah – Fishscale
I don’t like drugs or alcohol and I don’t particularly like drug and alcohol culture. These artists do. I don’t mean that they uncritically support this stuff, although there is some element of that. It’s just that if they are critical, it is only in the details – they still buy into the general ethos that there is something unutterably cool about violence, addicts, and the general wreckage of human lives. Sure, you’re not supposed to idolize these people, but you are supposed to get off on the catastrophe of it all.
It’s like Fight Club, which wants you to think it’s a progressive movie, but is far too in love with how awesome all the violent scenes are to ever really get around to making an actual point. And when the movie’s over, all you really walk away with is a sense that fascism is kind of sweet.
I happen to like a bunch of the songs on Boys and Girls in America, but I just couldn’t get past this stuff. As for the others, they run into the next problem…
Rap music
Clipse – Hell Hath No Fury
Ghostface Killah – Fishscale
Lupe Fiasco – Food and Liquor
Call me stereotypical white indie boy if you want – you wouldn’t be wrong – but I just don’t like rap. I try. I listened to all of these records. I’m sure they’re very good. I just don’t like them. I don’t know what to tell you…I like melodies.
Electronic records that are really boring
Hot Chip – The Warning
The Knife – Silent Shout
Silent Shout was Pitchfork’s #1 album of the year? Really? I mean, it’s fine and all, but it remains the case that the only song by them I like enough to actually listen to is “Heartbeats.” And I want to say that my problem with Hot Chip is that it’s just the same damn beat over and over and over and over, but then I remember that I’m perfectly fine with that on all kinds of guitar-pop songs. So maybe it’s just that I don’t like this kind music very much either. Meh.
No particular reason at all
Grizzly Bear – Yellow House
TV on the Radio – Return to Cookie Mountain
The Annuals – Be He Me
There’s nothing wrong with these records. I wouldn’t complain if they were on in the background, but I really can’t imagine intentionally listening to them. I know they’re supposed to be complex and interesting and everything, but I just don’t hear it.
I swear that the following has happened at least five times this year: one of my favorite blogs raves about some Annuals song, I download it, get bored about 2/3 of the way through, delete it. Then, someone else whose taste I respect go nuts about them and I wonder if I just missed something the last time. And the cycle repeats itself.
Records that I appreciate artistically, but don’t actually enjoy that much
Joanna Newsom – Ys
Destroyer – Rubies
These are both significant achievements, but that alone isn’t enough. Dostoevsky is undoubtedly a brilliant author but that doesn’t mean when I want to curl up with a book I often choose The Brothers Karamazov.
So what’s the deal? Part of it may simply be that my ever-growing love of twee is completely destroying my patience for music that doesn’t have a pleasant melody. That’s not the most encouraging thing to realize about yourself, but whatever. I’d far rather be happy than right any day.
But this doesn’t mean “seriousness” is a fundamental impediment for me. To return to the Russian author analogy, Anna Karenina is an amazing piece of literature: packed with meaning, illuminating, complex. But it’s also simply a joy to read. That’s why it’s my favorite book.
Still, there’s a final set of records:
Ones that I ought to like more than everyone else
The Pipettes – We Are the Pipettes
Belle and Sebastian – The Life Pursuit
Jenny Lewis and the Watson Twins – Rabbit Fur Coat
There are few things I like more than the 60s girl-group/Phil Spector revival. So I like the Pipettes. But the thing is, I don’t really like them that much. I mean, I bought their record and “Pull Shapes” is a pretty good song, but Camera Obscura wipes the floor with them. Frankly, so do The Havana Guns and The Wilson Hospital and The Revelations and pretty much the whole country of Sweden. And don’t even get me started on Johnny Boy.
If Looks Could Kill – Camera Obscura
You’re the Loser – The Revelations
She Always Goes Down – The Havana Guns
Call Me A.S.A.P. – The Wilson Hospital
You Are the Generation That Bought More Shoes and You Get What You Deserve – Johnny Boy
I’ve commented recently that pretty much my favorite genre of music these days is Belle and Sebastian-esque twee. So how come Belle and Sebastian themselves don’t make the list? It’s not that I totally dislike their new approach (I actually think Dear Catastrophe Waitress is their best album) and I adore “Another Sunny Day,” but none of the other songs really got me. And really, it’s sort of always been the case that I like bands similar to them more than I actually like B&S themselves.
As for Jenny Lewis, give me a break. I love Rilo Kiley and I like Rabbit Fur Coat fine, but let’s not kid ourselves: this is country-lite from a dabbler. How anyone could listen to her, Neko Case, and Rosanne Cash and put this one on top utterly baffles me.
Now that I’ve probably pissed off pretty much everyone, let me make one last comment:
I cannot express how happy I am that the pile of industrial waste released by the Flaming Lips has been mercifully left off almost everyone’s list. Good job forgetting about that one, folks.
Alright, enough complaining for awhile. I’ll be back tomorrow with more songs that make me (and hopefully you) happy.
It was a great year for music with tons of songs that I loved, but these are the ones that really stood above the rest – the ones I listened to obsessively.
Ground rules – only one track per artist (trying to decide which Mates of State track to use was almost impossible), and I didn’t include “You are the Generation That Bought More Shoes,” since it’s been out of many many moons, and it didn’t seem fair to steal the #1 slot from a genuine 2006 song. I also didn’t include tracks leaked from 2007 records. They’ll get their moment in the sun next year.
Since a lot of these were discussed in some detail yesterday on my albums list, I thought I’d do something a little different here. In place of my usual approach of examining the whole track in excruciating detail, I’ll just pinpoint the best moment – the one instant of absolute perfection that truly defines the song.
1. Antarctica – Antarctica Takes It!
The best song of the year, hands down. It’s so good that I’m violating the ground rules on the very first song and refusing to pick a single moment. There’s the first chorus – pure as newfallen snow, the final chorus emerging from the chaos of a squid attack, and any one of many perfect lines (“We heard the weary whales’ tune, and sang along neath the silver moon” or or “on this frosty winedark sea” or “We stole away from the crown of flame, for a cold land without a name”). Choose any second of the song and you won’t be disappointed.
2. Let’s Get Out of This Country – Camera Obscura
0:00 – They sure know how to enter a room! With that drum beat and opening burst, Camera Obscura may have created the single best song to kick off a summer mix in history.
3. State of the Union – David Ford
3:15 – The whole song is a study in layering, but the best moment is right here, as the final stage begins. The fuzzed bass pummels you, and it completes its metamorphosis from quiet folk song to full-fledged sonic onslaught.
4. Are You There Margaret? It’s Me God – The Lawrence Arms
2:56 – This song had the best chorus of the year, but that still wasn’t even the best moment. Instead it’s here, after the final chorus, when you think that the song is starting to fade out but they come back one last time to punch you in the gut. This was my most-listened song of 2006, if not ultimately my #1.
5. Balcony – Birdmonster
4:11 – The single most powerful moment of any song this year, hands down. Really, the entire rest of the song, as good as it is, feels like little more than a set-up for this moment. I spent about an hour an a half in the Mexico City airport this spring with this song on repeat just so I could hear this climax.
6. It’s My Way of Staying Connected – She, Sir
1:00 – Suddenly, you realize you’re sitting on top of a tidal wave.
7. Fidelity – Regina Spektor
2:52 – The instant when the Wright Brothers’ plane took flight, this is what it sounded like in their hearts.
8. Henney Buggy Band – Sufjan Stevens
2:20 – Sufjan providing perfect backing vocals for Sufjan. I’ll ask once again: in what world could this song ever be considered not good enough to make the first string? I mean, seriously.
9. Soft and Warm – Voxtrot
1:55 – They are masters of creating transitions in tone and melody, which makes for countless fine moments – this one just happens to be my favorite.
10. TV – The Headlights
1:17 – Like having your first kiss while whitewater rafting.
11. This Conversation – The Submarines
0:35 – “How will I ever get the sound from you out of my head? I guess that I should only be so lucky” – perhaps the most heartbreaking moment on an album suffused with feelings of loss and hope for redemption.
12. Been Here Before – Jeremy Enigk
1:57 – The organ interlude and the subsequent explosion of the second half, highlighted by that ethereal voice that pierces deep inside you from every angle, fuses together, and unleashes all the fury of an atomic explosion.
13. Another Sunny Day – Belle and Sebastian
2:24 – That’s some good guitarin,’ boy.
14. Freest Man – Tilly and the Wall
2:35 – In a song full of pathos, this is the most honest moment. You want to shake them, you want to hug them, you want to insist that it will be alright, but you just don’t know.
15. Dancing Under the Influence – Bedroom Eyes
2:42 – Handclaps!!
16. Breaking the Ice – Mojave 3
1:01 – I’m such a sucker for descending notes in a chorus. It may be the quickest way to my heart.
17. Kate – Sambassadeur
0:18 and recurring – You get on this Swedish-pop carousel and you just never want to get off. In a year full of great Scandinavian indie-pop was there anything that more perfectly represented it than this riff? I don’t think so.
18. The Quiz – Hello Saferide
1:12 – It starts with a bunch of cutesy questions for a prospective other, but takes a heart-wrenching turn with the question that lays all the rest bare: “and if I fall, would you pick me up?”
19. Fraud in the 80s – Mates of State
0:46 – I would try to explain this but my heart has already melted into a puddle on the floor.
20. Still a Long Way to Go – James Dean Bradfield
2:06 – I love the way the guitar frames the vocals. It’s not intrusive – it just provides this perfect sonic space.
21. Out These Doors Inside – We Will Build
2:23 – Does it count as a chorus on an instrumental? Whatever it is, I love it.
22. Old Dan Tucker – Bruce Springsteen
0:25 – You just want to get up and start dancing around the campfire with them.
23. The Crane Wife 3 – The Decemberists
0:49 – With this little bass line, Colin Meloy and company announced to the world that the switch to a major label was nothing to be feared, and they announced to me that they could still write dream-pop as good as the stuff that made me fall in love with them in the first place.
24. New Years – Asobi Seksu
0:42 – I don’t even want to know what she’s singing. The way that note just faaaaaaaaaaaalls away absolutely tears me apart.
25. Handful of Billions – The Sound Team
5:06 – Would this song be even close to as awesome if they had stopped before this final line? I posit that it would not.
26. When You Were Young – The Killers
2:48 – Say what you will about the rest of Sam’s Town, this song is awesome, especially this part. Yeah, that’s the stuff…
27. I Hate the War – The Ballet
0:49 – “Na na na na na na na na na na I hate the war” – Really, what else is there to say on this subject?
28. LDN – Lily Allen
0:58 – Who knew the best rhyme of the year would be “Tesco” and “al fresco?”
29. I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor – The Arctic Monkeys
1:23 – The song blew up thanks to the chorus, but for my money this little back-and-forth bit is every bit as devastating.
30. This Is Us – Mark Knopfler and Emmylou Harris
1:14 – Mark Knopfler still has the sexiest voice on the planet and he proves it here.
31. Only a Fool – Marit Larsen
1:36 – I love the chorus of this song to death, but it’s got nothing on this instant when it bleeds back into the harmonica and the verse.
32. To Go Home – M. Ward
3:26 – Is it possible for the line “God it’s great to be alive” to sound more genuine than it does right here? No, it is not.
33. Johnny – Bombadil
2:10 – This song is full of fascinating instrumental interludes, but this is the best of them.
34. Thin Blue Flame – Josh Ritter
5:34 – “It’s hell to believe there ain’t a hell of a chance” – One of the most epic moments of the most epic song of the year. He’s right, too.
35. Long Day – The Bittersweets
2:28 – I’m also a sucker for the stripped-down chorus, especially when the singer is Hannah Prater.
36. Catastrophe – Rainer Maria
4:37 – No one can make a post-apocalyptic love song sound better than Caithlin.
37. When I Wake Up – Wintergreen
0:38 – That little pause in the percussion – brilliant!
38. World Spins Madly On – The Weepies
0:18 – “I woke up and wished that I was dead” – the perfect opening to one of the saddest songs of the year.
39. I Can Get Us Out of Here Tonight – Lucero
0:37 – The moment when the Millennium Falcon returns to join the assault on the Death Star.
40. Love You in the Fall – Paul Westerberg
2:08 – That little “ah-ohhh” – vintage Westerberg. It makes the whole song.
After weeks of agonizing (and despite a gnawing fear that tomorrow I will hear a record so good that I’ll feel intense guilt for leaving it off), here’s the list. I know 30 is sort of a weird number, but I really wanted to find a place for a couple of my favorite old-timers, and the line between 30 and everything below is a lot more clear than the one at 25.
I may have put more work into this than I did for my thesis, so I hope you enjoy it.
30. Sound Team – Movie Monster
Sneaking onto the list is the much-discussed recipient of a 3.7 smackdown from Pitchfork. That review wasn’t really wrong, per se, but that doesn’t change the fact that this record is a lot of fun. Plus, the more I hear “Handful of Billions,” the more I think it’s one of the best songs of the year.
Highlights: Handful of Billions, Movie Monster, Afterglow Years
29. Bruce Springsteen – We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions
For the second year in a row, The Boss makes my year-end list, albeit in a low slot. I prefer it when he writes his own songs, but there’s no denying how much fun he seemed to have with this one. That someone of his stature can make a record like this and have it feel so alive says something pretty amazing about the guy. Sure, he isn’t exactly cranking out a Born to Run or Darkness on the Edge of Town every couple years these days, but still, how many people have three records this decade as good as this one, Devils and Dust, and The Rising? Not many.
Highlights: Old Dan Tucker, Mrs. McGrath, Pay Me My Money Down
28. Mark Knopfler and Emmylou Harris – All the Roadrunning
I have a not-so-secret crush on Mark Knopfler and if you toss in some Emmylou Harris, how could I say no? The partnership doesn’t always fit perfectly, but when they click, it’s fantastic.
Highlights: This Is Us, Beachcombing, All the Roadrunning
27. Bedroom Eyes – Embrace In Stereo E.P.
A 4-song EP, but these twee-pop loving Swedes pack a huge punch into a small package. I described their music as “everything a twee song could hope to be” and I’ll stand by it.
Highlights: Dancing Under the Influence, Blueprint for Departure
26. Tilly and the Wall – Bottoms of Barrels
Tap-dancing for percussion, endlessly bright and bubbly tunes…they may have actually transcended cute, but great energy and great songs keep it from ever getting annoying.
Highlights: The Freest Man, Lost Girls, Bad Education
25. Hello Saferide – Would You Let Me Play This EP Ten Times A Day?
Another EP out of Sweden, this one is deeply personal – bedroom music at its best. And unlike most records of this nature, her wry sense of humor, clever references, and jaunty melodies rescue it from being a total drag. “The Quiz” is one of the most beautifully disarming songs of the year, with its list of essential compatibility questions (“do you talk in the middle of Seinfeld?”), and “2006” turns the tradition of New Years resolutions on its head, including the touchingly ironic: “I will learn a new word each day / today’s word is ‘dejected.'” As if that wasn’t enough, “The Best Night of Your Life” includes the line “I came here dressed like Audrey Horne.” Anyone who name-drops characters from Twin Peaks gets serious bonus points in my book.
24. Mojave 3 – Puzzles Like You
Their most upbeat and sunny record yet, with a number of great songs. Still, I can’t help but feel a little disappointment, mostly because the more I listen to the three released demos vs. the final cuts, the worse the finished product sounds. The demos are looser and more carefree, and since that’s pretty much the whole motif for the record, it’s kind of a problem. It just makes me wonder if a version of the whole thing along those lines would better capture its essence. Still, great album as it is.
Highlights: Breaking the Ice (demo), Puzzles Like You, Ghost Ship Waiting
23. Neko Case – Fox Confessor Brings The Flood
I’ve had this one for almost the whole year and as much as I liked it, I never once thought it would make this list. Still, when the time came to justify to myself exactly why, I just couldn’t leave it off. It’s worked its way deep into my subconscious and the more I listen to it, the more I enjoy its subtleties, the fascinating lyrics, and of course her voice. Good lord can the woman sing! Highs, lows, wrapping itself around notes, slithering through chord changes, and soaring into the endless infinity. I like Jenny Lewis just fine but the people ranking Rabbit Fur Coat ahead of this one and hyping her voice over Neko Case’s need to get their ears checked.
Highlights: Hold On, Hold On, The Needle Has Landed, Maybe Sparrow
22. Dan Bern – Breathe
Dan Bern gets more personal and turns in one of the best records of his career. Only a fantastic effort from Josh Ritter keeps this from taking the “best coffeehouse record of the year” title. And, as always, he channels the early Dylan better than Dylan himself.
Highlights: Breathe, Visit in My Dream, Trudy, Past Belief
21. I’m From Barcelona – Let Me Introduce My Friends
The Swedish Polyphonic Spree, except with better beats and not, y’know, crazy. They do their very best to prove that sometimes more really is more. I don’t even KNOW 29 Swedish people.
Highlights: This Boy, Oversleeping, Chicken Pox
20. Band of Horses – Everything All The Time
Once I thought this was the best album of the year. At this point, I’m just sick of people talking about how much they love “The Funeral.” More tellingly, the only times I’ve listened to this record in the last 3 months were to review it for this project. None of this is to say it’s bad – it’s just not as good as I’d hoped. I wanted Band of Horses to be the heir to Carissa’s Wierd so I anointed them right away, and it didn’t hurt that “The Funeral” is a killer song. But in retrospect, while this wins the “best southern rock plus reverb” title, it’s got a little too much filler and not enough “wow” moments to keep me truly excited.
Highlights: The Funeral, St. Augustine, Great Salt Lake
19. The Bittersweets – The Life You Always Wanted
I reviewed this one a little over a week ago, so I’m lacking the critical distance needed to come up with something new to say. So instead I’ll just quote that review: “Crisp melodies with jangly guitars and songs about love, long nights on highways, and hope for forgiveness. Most of them are quick-paced and light on their feet, but they toss in a couple slower numbers to give you a change of scenery. And if they don’t delve too far into the deeper meanings of life, that simplicity is part of the charm.”
Highlights: Long Day, Adam, Houston
18. Josh Ritter – The Animal Years
This is Josh Ritter’s breakout album. Most songs hold to the traditional singer-songwriter line, which he can do as well as anyone. “Good Man,” for example, is would be sure to make the crowds swoon in any coffeehouse across America. But what makes this album great are those moments when he really lets himself loose. “Thin Blue Flame” is 10 minutes of fire and brimstone, tempered by a hopeless idealism, and “Girl in the War” dabbles in Biblical metaphors to tell an anti-war story untrammeled by the usual cliches. A dull set of 3 songs in the middle is all that drags it down a bit, but apart from that, this is one of the strongest folk-influenced records of recent memory.
Highlights: Thin Blue Flame, Good Man, Girl in the War
17. Jeremy Enigk – World Waits
Jeremy Enigk sounds older, wiser, more world-weary, but also has a new sense of optimism tempered by the fire. It doesn’t quite match up to his best work, but neither is it close to his worst. His voice, haunting as ever, if a little more crackly, is still the hook, and he works the loud/soft dynamic to great effect, but in his best moments is able to take this motif in directions previously unheard, such as on the stellar “Been Here Before.”
Highlights: Been Here Before, World Waits, Cannons
16. Damnwells – Air Stereo
You like Paul Westerberg? If so, you’ll probably like this record, too. It occasionally dips too much into the alt-country-cliché grab-bag, but more often than not the flourishes are deftly done. It’s solid from top to bottom, with 6 or 7 different songs that still vie for a spot as my favorite from week to week.
Highlights: Louisville and Golden Days are my favorites right now, but you could really pick a song at random and not be disappointed.
15. Rosanne Cash – Black Cadillac
While Johnny Cash built a career on the deep, dark parts of the human psyche, I’m not sure he ever delved into them with as much care or as much love as his daughter does on this record. It’s harrowing, with her heart hanging on a thread so weak so can’t believe it doesn’t snap. But fragility is undergirded by a stubborn embrace of love. However, this love is the not the fanciful “puppies and flowers” variety but is lined with steel.
Highlights: Dreams Are Not My Home, I Was Watching You, Black Cadillac
14. Rainer Maria – Catastrophe Keeps Us Together
It doesn’t have the one song that catches your heart on fire like some of their previous albums, but neither does it have any of their weaknesses. This is just an record full of sometimes tender, often bitter, occasionally wry, and always emotionally rich songs from a band carefully balancing between their emo-roots and the singer-songwriter core inside Caithlin DeMarrais. And it is a fitting swansong to their turbulent career.
Highlights: Catastrophe, Clear and True
13. Sufjan Stevens – The Avalanche: Outtakes and Extras from the Illinois Album
Fresh off dominating the field with the #1 record of 2005, Sufjan released this album of Illinois outtakes and extras. Which invites a serious question: how insanely talented is Sufjan that his outtakes almost crack the top 10? And can you even imagine a world where he just never got around to releasing “The Henney Buggy Band?” It would be like The Beatles just leaving “I’m Looking Through You” to sit in the Abbey Road archives. It has a lot more misses than Illinois, of course – I didn’t really need one remake of “Chicago” much less three, and most of the rest are clearly second tier material – but second-tier Sufjan is still pretty darn good.
Highlights: The Henney Buggy Band, The Mistress Witch From McClure, The Perpetual Self, or “What Would Saul Alinsky Do?”
12. Birdmonster – No Midnight
These guys have been one of the most divisive bands of 2006, a focal point of the backlash against blog buzz bands. Now, it’s not entirely unfair – if you’re looking for innovation, you’d better go elsewhere. And, while I happen to enjoy it, their music isn’t really “better” in any objective sense than dozens of other bands out there with the same equally obvious influences. But who cares? They rock my socks off and that’s good enough for me.
Highlights: Balcony, All the Holes in the Wall, Sparrow
11. She, Sir – Who Can’t Say Yes
One of my best (and truest) pieces of writing on this blog was my first response to “It’s My Way of Staying Connected” back in July. Rather than trying to grasp the ineffable twice, I’ll just quote it:
“Shades of My Bloody Valentine, Mogwai, and pretty much any other band known for creating layers of sound, but there’s something beyond that. This is not your typical fare; this is what would’ve happened if shoegaze was around when Bach was growing up. “Intricately crafted” doesn’t even begin to describe it. Every sound has its counterpoint, every note is in place. You can almost hear the mathematical precision. But it is not cold or lifeless. It reminds me of a quote attributed to Douglas Adams: “Mozart tells us what it’s like to be human, Beethoven tells us what it’s like to be Beethoven, and Bach tells us what it’s like to be the universe.” Seriously. That’s the kind of music we’re talking about here.”
The other songs can’t quite live up, but there was no reason to expect them to. Instead of attempting to capture pure magic in a bottle a second time, they set a more modest goal of developing the components, broadening them, and building outwards from the basic structure with “It’s My Way of Staying Connected” as a focal point.
Highlights: It’s My Way of Staying Connected, I Love You, Blowtorch Eyes, You Can’t Change a Thing
10. Headlights – Kill Them With Kindness
I’m such a sucker for this kind of music: pretty female vocals over some amalgamation of New Wave, shoegaze, and rock and roll. The best New Pornographers songs (the ones with Neko Case, basically) have it. So do Stars and Broken Social Scene. And The Headlights have it in spades. If you’ve ever been bowling, you’ll have seen when someone hits a perfect strike: one second the pins are just standing there, the next there’s this crash and it looks like they’ve spontaneously erupted. That’s what this record reminds me of.
Highlights: TV, Put Us Back Together, Words Make You Tired
9. Voxtrot – Mothers, Sisters, Daughters, and Wives
The last EP on the list. It’s only five songs, but they are five fantastic songs. It’s easy to rag on blog buzz bands, but if they were all as good as Voxtrot, there would be nothing to complain about. “Soft and Warm,” in particular, verges on the Platonic ideal of indie pop. Go ahead, try and name a better one.
Highlights: Soft and Warm, Mothers, Sisters, Daughters and Wives, Rise Up in the Dirt
8. Asobi Seksu – Citrus
You can’t talk about Asobi Seksu without bringing up “shoegaze” but it feels wholly inadequate. It’s like trying to describe Audrey Hepburn by talking about the color of her hair. At its best, Citrus is the aural equivalent of the Mandlebrot set, with tiny flashes that on closer examination explode into entire universes of endless complexity. It’s chaos without madness, structure without reason, joy pursued with reckless abandon.
A rock skims across a perfectly still pond – the ripples expand slowly until they hit each other and suddenly there are peaks and valleys, cascades and eruptions. Elsewhere, a blade of feedback slashes through you, the wall of sound rises impossibly high before it smashes itself into a million fragments, and her voice envelops you like a caress.
And for some reason, I can’t help but picture the band as Anime superheroes with this as their theme music. Give it a listen, and by the time you’re through with “New Years” and “Thursday,” you’ll know exactly what I mean.
Shoegaze has never been this fun.
Highlights: New Years, Goodbye, Mizu Asobi, Thursday…okay, the whole thing
7. Decemberists – The Crane Wife
For 25 minutes, the Decemberists recall every bit of the dreamy pop landscape which made Castaways and Cutouts one of my favorite albums of all-time. On top of that landscape, they apply thick dabs of lovelorn soul searching (The Crane Wife 3), bright splotches of a pop West Side Story (O Valencia), gauzy strands of an ill-fated Civil War love (Yankee Bayonet), and the broad swoops of proto-prog rock (The Island). And the final two tracks are just as good, including an absolutely stunning build-up in “The Crane Wife 1 and 2” and a rousing send-off in “Sons and Daughters.” But the middle…yuck: two disco-synth-heavy-metal piles of flaming poop and two Decemberists-by-numbers folk songs that bore me to tears.
It’s really too bad. This is the first Decemberists record since Castaways that’s truly excited me, with four or five songs that I like more than anything from Her Majesty or Picaresque (as much as I enjoyed those records). With a middle as strong as the bookends, The Crane Wife could have been the best of the year.
Highlights: The Crane Wife 3, Sons and Daughters, The Crane Wife 1 and 2, O Valencia, Yankee Bayonet
6. Johnny Boy – Johnny Boy
I’m cheating a little to even rank this album. While it wasn’t released until 2006, the two best songs (“You Are the Generation That Bought More Shoes and You Get What You Deserve” and “Johnny Boy Theme”) have been out for years. The former might just be my all-time favorite song and the latter sits comfortably in the top 50. The newer material that’s actually unique to 2006 is solid (with “College” and “Fifteen Minutes” capturing a spark of what made the singles great, if not more than that) but unspectacular. Without the two big-hitters, it wouldn’t sniff the list.
Still, the songs were only singles before 2006 (and difficult to come by, too), and this gives me another chance to stress just how essential it is that you experience “You Are the Generation…”
Highlights: You Are the Generation That Bought More Shoes and You Get What You Deserve, Johnny Boy Theme, College
5. Mates of State – Bring It Back
They finally made the record they’ve always been capable of, building beautifully layered pop songs to make your heart go boom without losing any of the DIY charm of a boy and a girl with a drum set and an organ. This is the perfect record for driving around all summer with the windows down and the stereo on repeat.
Highlights: Fraud in the 80s, Beautiful Dreamer, For the Actor
4. Lawrence Arms – Oh! Calcutta!
This album is so good that I hesitate to call it punk for fear it will create associations with A New Found Glory and Gap commercials. So let me be more specific: Oh! Calcutta! channels seething tensions into music so devastating that it’s being investigated by the IAEA, occasionally letting loose a chorus that reminds you what a pure joy it is to be alive. It’s chaotic and beautiful, hardcore and honest, a 36-minute firestorm filled to the brim with emotions so genuine you can feel them in your gut. It’s the best punk record since London Calling. Yeah, that’s right, I said it. This is the real deal.
Highlights: Are You There Margaret, It’s Me God, Great Lakes/Great Escapes, Beyond the Embarrassing Style, The Rabbit and the Rooster, and the whole rest of the album
3. Camera Obscura – Let’s Get Out Of This Country
Camera Obscura come into their own with this record, distilling all the best components of the girl groups of the 50s and 60s, Belle and Sebastian, and the sensitive folk-singer. The conventional wisdom holds that 2006 lacked any stunning albums, which might be true. But if Let’s Get Out of This Country isn’t stunning, it’s something far better: simply beautiful. I recognize that some of my other favorite albums might not appeal to everyone, but I really can’t understand someone unable to find something to love here.
Highlights: Let’s Get Out of This Country, If Looks Could Kill, Lloyd I’m Ready to Be Heartbroken
2. Antarctica Takes It! – The Penguin League
As bright and bubbly as any twee record and with lyrics every bit as intriguing as the Decemberists (heck, as intriguing as a great Ray Bradbury short story) – in another year, this could easily have been my #1. It’s about as lo-fi as it gets but the lack of production only heightens its resonance. In fact, this record serves as the incontrovertible proof that the essence of transcendent music is often its simplicity. You let down all the barriers and all that’s left is the exuberance of the song.
As I wrote back in October: “this record is the shy and unassuming girl with pigtails and glasses who sits in the corner quietly reading a Harry Potter book, but who still manages to far outshine a crowded room full of beauty queens, intellectual superstars, and aspiring hipsters.”
Embrace it. Strip all the pretense, suspend your disbelief, and discover a record that really can change your life.
Highlights: Antarctica, The Song is You, Circuits
1. Submarines – Declare A New State!
This has been my favorite album of the year since the first day I heard it. It’s not big on scope or ambition, isn’t particularly innovative musically or lyrically, and the backstory is almost too cute for words (boy and girl move to LA, break up, write songs about how they still love each other, get back together, get married, and turn the songs into an album). So why is it #1? Because ultimately I like music that makes me feel good, and nothing makes me feel better than this record. And it’s really not even close.
Grand themes, complicated chord progressions, inpenetrable literary allusions: all these things have a place. But there is another kind of magic in simplicity and a hopeless romanticism. It’s often far too easy to embrace cynicism and maintain ironic detachment, but incredibly difficult to open yourself up, risk the cliches, and express the most basic elements of life: love, loss, pain, and hope for tomorrow. Declare a New State! takes the risk, shares something truly intimate, and reminds us all that even some of the most painful stories do have happy endings. And I love them for it.
Highlights: Every single song, but especially This Conversation and Peace and Hate
And that’s the show. If you made it this far, thanks for reading. And check back later this week for my list of favorite songs and other assorted year-end tidbits.
Time for some more political talk while I’m finishing up my year-end lists.
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First, in an interesting development, the second person pronoun is Time’s Person of the Year. I don’t know about that. You is good, but I’ve always been more partial to We.
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2008 Watch: Bayh is out, Warner may not be, Edwards (who rubs me the wrong way for some reason) is in, and so is Richardson (who I like a lot, actually). As for the un-entered frontrunners, a Newsweek poll has Clinton beating all GOP challengers, and Obama is a superstar.
Just to give you an idea about how deep the love is running these days, here’s a quote from John Dickerson’s Slate piece on Obama’s trip to New Hampshire: “Brenda Bladen was trying to explain why she liked Barack Obama so much—he was authentic, selfless, and inspirational. He was restoring her faith in politics. ‘I’m not comparing him to Jesus Christ but … ‘ she said, before talking about the senator’s humble beginnings.”
Yeesh. Not a bad person to almost be compared to.
When You Were Young – The Killers
(Get it? He doesn’t look a thing like Jesus…)
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Speaking of Obama and John Dickerson, here’s a plug for my favorite podcast: Slate’s Political Gabfest (RSS ∙ iTunes) with John Dickerson, Emily Bazelon, and David Plotz. It’s usually very informative and invariably entertaining. The highlight this week was Bazelon discussing Obama’s appearance finishing her thoughts with: “and then he has this amazing glinting smile…and you just want to eat him for breakfast.” The thing is, I totally understand.
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Now that he’s had time to study the Iraq Study Group report, Bush will soon be announcing his new plan to…send more troops. Remember that “thumping” Bush took in the midterms? Apparently he doesn’t.
And where are these extra troops going to come from, exactly? According to Colin Powell: “There are really no additional troops. All we would be doing is keeping some of the troops who were there there longer and escalating or accelerating the arrival of other troops.” The military is already close to the breaking point, but Bush and the neocons won’t be the ones who suffer, it’ll be the tin soldiers on the ground who are asked to die some more for their political ambitions.
Tin Soldiers – Mighty Mighty Bosstones
The original by Stiff Little Fingers is good, but the Bosstones’ cover pummels the senses like almost nothing I’ve ever heard.
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Drastically switching musical gears, but continuing on the subject of the war, here’s the Simon and Garfunkel take on Silent Night, appropriate given the season, I think. I never fail to get chills from this song, most often as the volume rises and the newscaster gets to “…chanting anti-war slogans.”
7 O’Clock News/Silent Night – Simon and Garfunkel
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Speaking of Vietnam, the neocons are hyping the new counter-insurgency plan by likening it to our efforts in the Vietnam War:
“The Keane-Kagan plan is not revolutionary. Rather, it is an application of a counterinsurgency approach that has proved to be effective elsewhere, notably in Vietnam. There, Gen. Creighton Abrams cleared out the Viet Cong so successfully that the South Vietnamese government took control of the country.”
I don’t even know where to begin. In what crazy alternate universe did the US military “clear out” the Viet Cong? Is it the same one where Richard Nixon is a beloved American hero and I’m dating Tara from Buffy the Vampire Slayer (who is no longer fictional nor a lesbian)?
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And, because I worry sometimes that I spend too much time complaining about the state of politics in the US, here’s one reminder that things could be a lot worse:
“Lawmakers in Nigeria are debating a bill that would ban same-sex marriage and any form of association among gays, even sharing a meal at a restaurant.”
It’s an annoying country sometimes, but there sure are a lot of reasons to be glad I live here.
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Finally, from the Right Wing Watch, on the list of things too funny to invent: Soy Makes You Gay. Now, I’m strongly pro-soy and pro-gay, but I never really thought that eating one would make me the other. Shows how much I know…
Continuing on the path of albums not quite good enough to crack my year-end list, today’s entry is Rebels, Rogues, and Sworn Brothers by Lucero. Calling to mind the best of the Drive-By Truckers, this is southern roots-rock like it was meant to be done.
This track is the clear highlight: ragged, driving, and powerful enough to shake you to the bones. I know the cool thing these days is to praise The Hold Steady for bringing rock back to its roots, but this song could kick the ass of any song on Boys and Girls in America, and still have enough energy to beat up Ryan Adams just for kicks.
Unfortunately, the rest of the album fails to match up to this promise, with a few too many consecutive gritty rockers that fail to distinguish themselves in the second half.
Still, none of them are bad, and they do set the stage for the somber two-punch finale of “On the Way Back Home” and “She Wake When She Dreams.” The former gives the album its climax, with a slow start that erupts into a ragged burst of fire, and the latter provides the requisite tender denouement.
On these softer numbers, I can’t help but think of Shane MacGowan of the Pogues. There’s a lot of space between the American South and Ireland, but it just goes to show that drunken bawlers are the same the world ’round.
Tomorrow I’ll talk about politics and then get to the really important stuff on Wednesday, with the first installment of my year-end lists.
200th post today. Pretty exciting, no?
All kinds of folks have decided on Post-War, the newest record from M. Ward, as their favorite record of the year. This doesn’t totally surprise me. It’s not really my thing – there’s only so much “country boy and the dusty blues” I can handle before I get exhausted – but there’s no denying the talent that went into this record or the passion it exhumes.
Easily my favorite from the record, and among my favorites of the year, this song is an example of everything going right. While his voice gets in the way for me on some songs, here it is a perfect vessel, and it doesn’t hurt that Neko Case joins him to provide perfectly placed backing vocals.
The best moment is at the very end: the driving force of the music fades and the urgency is quelled, and his voice returns, no less potent if more tender for a final refrain: “God it’s great to be alive. Takes the skin right off my hide, to think I’ll have to give it all up someday.” It turns what was already a great song into a transcendence of time and space. Well…time, not space. But you get the idea. If every song on the record had the power of this one, it would indeed be one of my favorites for the year.
Any other song could certainly challenge for second-best, but this one is my favorite. A tribute to a fallen soldier which manages to, in less than three minutes, range from reminiscence to despondency to triumphalism, paying homage to those that have been lost.
Another good album that wasn’t quite good enough to make my year-end list is The Gold Record from Bouncing Souls. These New Jersey boys have been around forever playing the punk proteges of Bruce Springsteen and everything that has made them among the finest of the elder statesmen of modern punk rock is on display on this album.
Two of the strongest songs are covers, which could be a sign of weak songwriting, but I think is more indicative of the strength of their musicianship. “Lean on Sheena” in particular is bounce-off-the-walls fun and a substantial improvement on the (already solid) original. And while I slightly prefer Dar Williams’ cover “Better Things” to theirs, that’s not really much of a slam against them: I mean, it’s Dar Williams.
Other highlights include the requisite ode to busting out of Asbury and growing up in “So Jersey,” the anthemic “Sounds of the City,” and “For All the Unheard” which shakes things up a bit to close the record on a climactic note.
Still, given how much I’ve been talking about Iraq recently, I thought it was worth calling specific attention to this song. It’s easy to get preachy talking about the war, even if what you’re saying is important and true. Recognizing this, they choose not to write a polemic themselves, but instead simply set to music the words of a soldier in the US military. Speaking for others is always a dangerous game, but they give it a thoughtful and heartfelt treatment.
