Heartache With Hard Work

Two of my favorite things in the world are Monty Python and The Beatles. There are a number of interesting connections between the two: both were incredibly groundbreaking groups in the late 60s from England, they were big fans of each other, Ringo made a cameo appearance on an episode, and George Harrison launched a film company (Handmade Films) solely to enable the Pythons to make “Life of Brian.” I could go on, but I think you get the point.

Anyway, among the many interesting connectors, one of my favorites is Neil Innes. You know Sir Robin’s minstrel in “Monty Python and the Holy Grail?” That’s him. He also played with Monty Python on tour a fair amount, and even wrote a couple sketches with them. And, along with Eric Idle, he developed the movie “The Rutles,” a satire/homage to The Beatles, that follows the career of the pre-fab four. It’s definitely one of the funniest music-related movies of all-time, parodying many of the big moments in Beatles history.

On top of that, it had a great pseudo-Beatles soundtrack recorded by Innes.

Another Day

This is my favorite song from the soundtrack. It doesn’t feel quite as overwhelmingly reminiscent of The Beatles as some of the other songs (one of which was even pulled from the film because they were worried it sounded too similar to “Get Back”), but it definitely has a Beatles vibe. Maybe a darker “Martha My Dear.” It’s a very simple and short song, but hauntingly beautiful. For a joke album, Innes clearly put a lot of work into making genuinely good music. I think it just shows how awesome The Beatles are that their spoofers can write songs that are among my all-time favorites.

Cheese and Onions

This song, a take-off on “A Day in the Life,” actually surfaced in the early 80s in a number of places with people claiming it was a lost demo of John Lennon’s. The mistake is understandable. His voice is eerily similar to Lennon’s on this track, and the lyics (goofy and weird) and psychedelic swirlings definitely suggest him as well. It’s also just a great little song, something that Lennon probably wouldn’t have been ashamed to have had in his catalog. My favorite part is the Day in the Life-esque buildup that is broken by a single piano note lasting about 2 seconds. Contrasted with the majestic fade-out of the original, it’s pretty funny.

I’m The Urban Spaceman

Still want some more Beatles connections? Well, alright. Innes’ original claim to fame is through The Bonzo Dog (Doo-Dah) Band, a late-60s post-art school, post-jazz, post-psychedelia group, and they scored a minor hit in 1967 with this song, which was produced by, guess who, Paul McCartney under the pseudonym “Apollo C. Vermouth.” I may write about the Bonzos in more detail later, since they were pretty darn interesting in their own right, but this song will serve as something to whet your appetite until then.

Oh, and as a final note, if you’ve ever wondered how Death Cab got their name, “Death Cab for Cutie” is an Elvis-spoof song by The Bonzo Dog Band.

I was a little too young to really get into grunge, and my punk phase didn’t last all that long, but I still do enjoy bands that let it all hang out, play loud, play wild, and usually finish up their songs about 2 minutes and 20 seconds after they started. The Thermals are probably my favorite example of that genre.

I saw them back in early 2003, before their first album was even released, in one of their very first shows when they were opening for Death Cab. It was one of those instances where you momentarily forget that you even came to the show to see someone else. Even that early in their career they were a very tight band, walking the fine line between the controlled anarchy of punk and just flailing about with quite a bit of skill.

It’s punk music without all the trappings about “what does it mean to be punk? What’s authentically punk” and all that garbage. They don’t care about whether other people validate them; they’re just rocking because it’s fun and what the hell else is there to do? Their music is pretty simple: three chords, dirty guitars, lo-fi production, and a lot of attitude. Though, to be fair, it’s been mixed by Chris Walla (of Death Cab), meaning it’s designed to sound more lo-fi than it actually is. But whatever, they sound great live just thrashing about on the stage and the recordings do a good job of matching up to that.

No Culture Icons
Everything I wrote above applies to this song. It begins with him singing over fuzzed out guitars “hardly art, hardly starving, hardly art, hardly garbage” with a delightful sneer, and then the drums kick in. The verse and chorus repeat themselves, and before you know it the song is over and you want to listen to it again. The song is a swipe at pretentiousness. It’s a typical punk sentiment: tear down the structures of society and culture and just let the basic ideals shine through. It’s clear they find nothing wrong with those who want to create something – it’s those who want to turn art into a product for consumption that frustrate them. It just seems to miss the point.

Back to Gray
This is definitely my favorite of their songs. It’s a little less representative, since it’s probably a bit more melodic than the rest of their stuff. It’s still very clearly The Thermals, but it reveals that underneath the chaos of their other songs, their basic mastery of songwriting. It’s like Guided by Voices at their best, without the Pollard drunken stupor.

Top of the Earth
This is from their second album, which was mildly disappointing. It wasn’t terrible or anything, but it was pretty much just More Parts Per Million, version 2.0, and not quite as good. Still an enjoyable listen, but if you want to try out something by them, stick with the first album. I do like this song quite a bit, though. Clocking in at less than a minute, it condenses what other bands would spread over three or four minutes into its essence. Like “So Much Beauty in Dirt” by Modest Mouse, it’s a song about the moments in your life that just make sense, brief and fleeting. They’re over before you know it, and so is the song.

I figure everyone knows the background on Stuart Murdoch and Co. so I won’t go into that. However, given the news that Mike Piazza has signed a deal with the San Diego Padres and the era of “Piazza, New York Catcher” is officially over, I thought today would be a good day to talk about a couple of my favorite songs by Belle and Sebastian.

Piazza, New York Catcher
This is my favorite song by them. It’s got a great tune, the loping/dancing singing, and lyrics that are a lot of fun. On top of all of that, it’s about baseball, which I love, and is an ode to Mike Piazza, who just might be the best catcher ever to play the game of baseball (Josh Gibson and Johnny Bench being the other candidates). So that’s pretty neat.

Another Sunny Day
This is not my second-favorite B&S song, but it’s my favorite that I’ve heard so far from their new album, so I thought it was worth posting. I have read a couple reviews complaining about the new album being a little too poppy, but if this is a representative example, I say it’s all good. They could go on forever making the same twee-folk, hushed voice, too-pretty-for-words albums and we would still love them, but mixing up the sound a little bit can be a good thing sometimes.

Catch the Wind by Donovan
I’ve never been able to get over just how much Belle and Sebastian remind me of Donovan. So, while I’m talking about them, I thought I’d mention my favorite song by him for those who may only know about him through “Mellow Yellow” or “Sunshine Superman.” He had a lot of the psychedelic thing going on, but in my opinion, his best work was when he just played the straight-up folk singer. The title of this song evokes the sound quite well – it’s ephemeral and beautiful. It’s best to just let it wash over you and not try to grasp it. It’s probably my favorite song about unrequited love ever.

Everybody has that one band that they were really into early in high school – they’re from your area, hyped locally but never made it big, despite being “so much better than all that mainstream stuff,” and most likely they broke up after a couple albums. And you’ve always hoped they would get back together, maybe catch lightning in a jar again.

For me, that band is Super Deluxe. They were briefly popular enough to have a couple songs (“She Came On” and “Famous”) from their first album played on The End (107.7 – the big alternative station back the heyday of Seattle-rock) in 1995. And, they had a great Christmas song (“All I wanted was a skateboard but all I got was this stupid sweater…”). This was right as I was getting into modern music (after a few years of thinking that everything worth listening to had already been made in the 60s), and I liked “She Came On” so much that after hearing it once or twice, I bought Famous the next time I was at a record store.

I was hoping it would be decent, but not expecting too much, and was shocked to discover that it quickly became one of my favorite albums. Power pop with the emphasis on power. But also with the emphasis on pop. Big hooks, jangly guitars, a little bit of the Seattle alternative edge, but also just a lot of Big Star. Smart lyrics and great tunes.

A few months later, a track recorded in their basement that was on the B-side of the “She Came On” single started getting some airplay. It quickly shot to the top of the request list on The End and was comfortably #1 on the People’s Choice countdown for something like a month and a half. The song was “Years Ago” and I firmly believe that if it had come out a decade later, it would have been snapped up by the OC or something and Super Deluxe would be a household name. Unfortunately, this was the mid-90s and they never really made it beyond being a Seattle phenomenon.

The released a second album, Via Satellite, which was every bit as good as the first. I tracked down a 45-only copy of one single. I listened to the local-music show on Saturday night for months with my hand poised, ready to hit record if the demo version of “Suicide Doll” came on. Plus, they were the first concert I ever went to on my own (the summer I was 15), and I saw them a couple more times at Bumbershoot. My first love in music has always been and will always be the Beatles, but for a while there, Super Deluxe was really giving them a run for their money. But then, as all things must pass, they broke up.

Every once in a while, I’d hear from a friend who lived in Seattle, or read in the Stranger, that Braden Blake (the lead singer) was playing a solo show, or had some art thing in Eastern Washington, or other rumors, but I had pretty much given up on ever getting any more Super Deluxe.

So I was amazed to discover last year that they had re-formed, had an EP and were coming out with an album. Plus, Braden Blake had recently released a solo album. Will wonders never cease?

Sadly, like many dreams realized, the reality is not as good as the imagination. Not to say the new stuff is bad, it isn’t. But it doesn’t have the same magic for me as their earlier work. It may be more about me, and where I’m at now, than it is about them. I’m just not ready to be wowed by them the same was I used to be.

So I’m happy to buy their new stuff, listen to it, and hopefully get a chance to see them live again. But it’s also a sort of metaphysical let-down. It all makes me wonder if maybe it was for the best that the Beatles never got back together. The Beatles were a once-in-a-millennium convergence of talent, music, social changes, magic, and mystery. If they had re-formed, I’m sure they would have made some great music, but I somehow doubt the forces would have aligned to make it anything like what it once had been.

All that aside, Super Deluxe continues to hold a very dear place in my heart. And they wrote some really fantastic songs.

She Came On

The aforementioned song that hooked me on the band. With one of the all-time best openings, as Blake sings “She came on…” in silence and then the guitars kick in, all jangly and full of life, as he continues “…like a storm from the blind side of a memory.” Like I said above, in any decently run universe, it would have ended up on the newest Will Farrell movie or something and been a mega-hit. Sadly, it was instead on Kingpin (remember that film?) and quickly faded into obscurity. Really fantastic song, though. And it contains one of my favorite lines: “I found myself wandering aimlessly, calling it freedom.”

Years Ago

This is the song that, for a couple months, captivated the greater Seattle area my sophomore year in high school. It’s not hard to see why. It’s acoustic, stripped down to just Braden and the guitar, and is almost stunningly beautiful. (As an aside, I know I’ve been gushing a lot, and that will probably end once I stop reviewing songs that are among my absolute favorites. But for now, you’re going to get gushing). This is just a love song, but it’s about as good as a love song can be.

Suitcases

Also from their first album. A little more alt and a little less pop than “She Came On.” This song is darker, about the loss of innocence, the sense of displacement and loss of the modern zeitgeist. Imagine Nirvana at their poppiest and with a little less heroin.

Okkervil River writes songs about the downtrodden, the insane, the criminals. And, in doing so, they also write about all of us. These songs are taut with emotion (and REAL emotion, we’re not talking Jimmy Eat World here), heartbreaking at times, overpowering at others. This is a band not afraid to wear their hearts on their sleeves, and for that, I love them. It’s easy to be ironically distant, but it’s very difficult to delve deep into what creates misery, loneliness, and pain and really explore the meanings.

Any discussion of Okkervil River has to focus on Will Sheff, the singer and songwriter. The tortured artist, who turns out extremely dense, literate poems into music. His voice is nothing amazing in a technical sense: it cracks and warbles at times and might be just a bit too boyish. But that is what makes it special, that he reaches and reaches for the right way to express feelings that cannot be explained or understood. The rawness of his voice conveys exactly how disturbing some moments of our lives can be. And when the songs return from these emotional vortexes, the soft, almost delicate, texture of his voice brings us back to the ordinary, the everyday, and forces us to juxtapose these contradictory impulses. Beauty and violence, stillness and terror: Sheff wants us to understand them as interlinked. The worst and the best of humanity is contained within all of us.

Okkervil River proves that you don’t have to be loud, or amp up your electric guitars to make bruising music. These songs drag you kicking and screaming through the storm and then lull you to sleep, softly stroking your cheek as you bury yourself under the covers.

The War Criminal Rises and Speaks

This is the kind of song that people dream about writing. Everything written above applies perfectly for this song. It occurs in three parts: the first focuses on the suburban reality of America: “The heart takes past Subway, past Stop and Shop, past Beal’s, and calls it ‘coming home.’” All is innocuous, and any violence or pain is far off in the distance, it cannot touch us or infect us. The music is quiet, his voice soft, but ever so slowly the tension builds…

The second part places us in the room with the war criminal as he tells his side: “Does the heart wants to atone? Oh, I believe that it’s so, because if I could climb back through time, I’d restore their lives and then give back my own.” All this time the tension is rising, the music begins to pound on the brain and Sheff’s voice crackles with intensity, it bends and breaks and shatters but still keeps on going. He makes no excuses, he cannot even cry, but it is clear that the mistake of 30 years ago has haunted him for every second of his life since. He does not ask to escape punishment, he only asks that those reading and watching to understand that he is not really any different from them, and for the hope that somehow he can be forgiven for falling into the abyss.

The music falls off the table and the quiet, doe-like Sheff is back in the third part. Here, they return to suburbia and deny any linkage between us and the war criminal: “Your heart’s warm and kind. Your mind is your own. Our blood-spattered criminal is inscrutable; don’t worry, he won’t rise up behind your eyes and take wild control. He’s not of this time, he fell out of a hole.” The message is optimistic but something is slightly different in his voice: there is a weariness, or perhaps a wariness: one can almost sense that he wants to believe this but cannot.

We are thus left to wonder whether the war criminal really is an anomaly, a demon or phantom rather than simply a man, or whether he really does reside within all of us. I believe that he does, that the dream of America, or of any person, wholly untouched by these emotions, completely without the capacity for violence, is a myth. The war criminal was not born a monster, nor are we born without the capacity for sin. To fail is not to have been corrupted. No, to fail is to be human. To atone for those failures and make a good life is the highest purpose for which we can aspire. If we are naturally good, there is nothing to lose, but also nothing to gain. That we must struggle, constantly, to hold back the war criminal within ourselves means that life is more than just an endless suburban landscape. And that seems far more optimistic than to simply wish away the pain.

Black

This song is discussed rather extensively in my “top 20 of 2005” list so I won’t go into much detail here. It deals with many of the same themes as “The War Criminal” though on a much more personal level, as the singer attempts to help a loved one who has been abused. It deftly chronicles the helplessness one feels at the impossibility of simply fixing someone who has been emotionally torn apart (“don’t lose me now, let me help you out. Though I know that I can’t help you anyhow”) and the anger which follows closely afterwards. And it’s got a great beat.

Westfall

This is probably not my third favorite song by them, but I thought it was an accurate reflection of their earlier work and was worth including for that reason. It is much more stripped-down (no strings, horns, or other accompaniment) and a little more folkish. However, it is yet another song about a murderer. This time a young man who kills a girl one night just for the fun of it. The song really hits its stride in the second half as the pace picks up, only to fall away for the devastating final lines: “Now, with all these cameras focused on my face, you’d think they could see it through my skin. They’re looking for evil, thinking they can trace it, but evil don’t look like anything.” That’s the truth of Okkervil River: evil can be seen in our actions and deep in our hearts, but it should never be understood as something simple. In these “Axis of Evil” days, I think that’s something worth remembering.

One shouldn’t get the impression from this that they only write songs about murderers, abusers, and the violent. These themes are very important, but just as important is the reality that the possibility for inflicting pain is within us all, but at the same time, the possibility of understanding pain is there as well. Which means that we all contain the capacity for empathy. And this is what Okkervil River is really about: our responsibility for empathy and happiness in the face of our capacity for violence.

Johnny Boy is Lolly and Davo. They’re very British, very punk (in all the best ways), and more in tune with what makes a perfect pop song than pretty much anyone. Their website describes them as “Sandanista-era Clash having a shootout with Phil Spector.” That seems about right, except this is music Phil Spector only wishes he could have made.

Earlier this year, I probably would have called them one of my top 20 favorite artists of all time. Which isn’t saying all that much, except that, at the time, I had only heard ONE song by them. That’s how good the song is.

You Are the Generation That Bought More Shoes and You Get What You Deserve

I got my computer in July of 2004, so I’ve got about a year and a half of iTunes data. I didn’t get this song until March of 2005, and it’s still EASILY my most-listened song. Like, by about 30 plays. That’s how much I love it.

It begins with the drum beat from “Be My Baby” (easily the best thing Phil Spector ever did), and then in come the guitars, the background starts to swirl, and then: “I just can’t help believing, though believing sees me cursed…” After one time through the verse, it explodes and she sings it all again, this time accompanied by the Wall of Sound. Before the next verse, the “oh baby baby”s fly back and forth. And then, at the 2:01 mark, the whole song is set on fire. The fireworks go off (literally), and all she sings is “Yeah, yeah! Yeah, yeah!” but it sounds like poetry. There’s the smallest respite as it cuts back into the last verse when the music recedes, apart from the occasional firework. The verse ends, there are a couple more “yeah, yeah!”s, and then, before you know it, the song is over, and you realize you’re about to pass out because you haven’t breathed in 3 minutes.

And don’t even get me started on the title. How awesome is that? We ARE the generation that bought more shoes and we do get what we deserve. Plus, I’m a HUGE Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy fan, which means I really love the idea that the decline of a civilization can most effectively be measured by the degree to which it is obsessed with shoes.

The thing I love more than anything about this song is that it manages to very effectively express the anger and frustration of living in a consumerist society, without being simplistic. It recognizes the contradictions. After all, it’s a song steeped utterly in pop. There’s nothing wrong with liking the simple things in life: a nice pair of shoes, a great pop record, etc. the song seems to say. The problem is when it becomes a process of consumption, rather that simply being open to the pleasure and the beauty. And THAT’s why Johnny Boy is about as punk as you can get. Sure, they’re just bringing Phil Spector into the 21st century, but punk has never been about the SOUND, it’s about the attitude.

Alright, all that gushing, and I haven’t even come close to doing it justice. Check out this review for even more Johnny Boy love.

Johnny Boy Theme

This doesn’t soar nearly to the heights of “You Are the Generation…” but not much does. It’s still a very good song in its own right. Same general principle (60s era girl-group goes punk, makes good) but with enough variation that it’s not just “Shoes, 2.0.” It’s full of energy, and her voice is as strong as ever. When she sings/whispers “Johnny, what’s got into you?” it’s quite touching. And the harmonies are beautiful.

Getting a hold of anything by them has been extremely difficult. They have a couple songs that can be streamed on their website, and there are a few more live tracks at XFM. They just released their first album, but it’s only available from Sweden, which means I just paid a rather ridiculous amount of money to have it shipped to me. When it gets here, I’ll probably post an update.

I’ve been compiling my “favorite new music of 2005” list, and in doing so discovered just how many great music blogs there are out there. For some reason, this inspired me to want to add one of my own. I don’t usually find myself with the time or resources to aquire all that much new music so I’m not really sure what I think I can contribute, but I wrote a fairly extensive list, so I might as well post it.

It was only supposed to be the top 10, but things got a little out of hand, as they have a way of doing. I decided to make the cut at 20, though I’ve included 10 more “honorable mentions” because…well…I’m crazy.

All in all, this was a good year for music, though (apart from Sufjan Stevens) it lacks some of the overwhelming moments of past years (nothing like You Are the Generation That Bought More Shoes and You Get What You Deserve or Elevator Love Letter for example). And it’s telling, I think, that two of the top six albums (Okkervil River and the Decemberists) are not even the best disc by that artist, and another (The New Pornographers) only barely beats its predecessors. Four more in the top 20 (Death Cab, the Eels, Bruce Springsteen, Aimee Mann) are also the weaker siblings of older material.

Even so, there is a lot of really good stuff.

Onto the list…

1. Sufjan Stevens – Illinois
This is easily #1. I liked the earlier Sufjan Stevens albums a lot, but this one blows them out of the water. The other ones showed the potential, this one followed through and then some.
First of all, if you aren’t familiar with Sufjan (pronounced Soof-yan), he’s supposedly writing an album about each of the 50 states. Michigan was first, this is second. So the album is about Illinois, but really it’s about the people who live there. It’s full of geographic references to places I’ve never heard of, lots of little vignettes, stories told by and about the people who live in Illinois, all kinds of interesting things going on, from experimental segues to sparse acoustic songs about loss and life, the highs (Abraham Lincoln) and lows (John Wayne Gacy, Jr.) of Illinois history, and a great little song that’s about loving your stepmother, alligators, and includes the rhyme “Steven A. Douglass was a great debater / But Abraham Lincoln was the Great Emancipator.” Plus, there’s a song about zombies. And the song titles are all kinds of fun, in their own right. An example: “The Black Hawk War, or, How To Demolish An Entire Civilization and Still Feel Good About Yourself in the Morning, or, We Apologize for the Inconvenience But You’re Going To Have To Leave Now, or, “I Have Fought the Big Knives and Will Continue To Fight Them Till They Are Off Our Lands!”” You see what I’m talking about.
And I haven’t even talked about the music! There are quite a few moments on this album that just knock you over. The moment in “Come on! Feel the Illinoise!” when part 2 begins and Sufjan sings “I cried myself to sleep last night” is devastating beautiful. The whispered end to “John Wayne Gacy, Jr.” is terrifying in its admission that “in my best behavior / I am really just like him / Look beneath the floorboards / For the secrets I have hid.” The chorus of Casimir Pulaski day (“oh the glory”) is heartbreaking. And I defy anyone to listen to “The Predatory Wasp…” and not be blown away when the slowly currents of the song hit their peak at the 2:30 mark.
Anyways, you really ought to own this album.
Highlights:
*Come on! Feel the Illinoise! -Part I: The World’s Columbian Exposition -Part II: Carl Sandburg Visits Me in a Dream
*The Predatory Wasp of the Palisades Is Out to Get Us!
*Chicago
*Decatur, or, Round of Applause for your Step Mother!
*Casimir Pulaski Day
*basically the whole album

2. Okkervil River – Black Sheep Boy
This is a concept album of sorts, following a “black sheep” character through various trials and tribulations. There’s no coherent plot–it’s more a series of connected ideas than a single narrative. A little bit of alt, a little bit of country, a little bit of folk, a little bit of poetry, and a lot of passion. At their best Okkervil River sounds like 20 gallons of emotion crammed into a 10-gallon container. See “Black” for an example of this. It’s full of barely contained anger, dragged along by the beat, the tension building until he screams “you should wreck his life the way that he wrecked yours.” It’s probably my favorite song of the year.
This is a ragged album, and I mean that in the best possible sense. You get the feeling that they’re constantly on the edge of sanity—a gust of wind at the wrong time and it all would collapse. But somehow, it all stays together. There’s a lot of sadness, and not all that much hope, but somehow, you finish believing that there’s beauty worth salvaging, even in the worst of situations.
Highlights: Black, So Come Back I Am Waiting, A King and a Queen, The Latest Toughs

3. New Pornographers – Twin Cinema
If you liked their first two albums, you’ll like this one. More of the same, but a little bit better. More adventurous than either of the past albums, though it’s not really all that adventurous. Huge pop songs that just want to overwhelm you with hook after hook. They put the power in power-pop. I think the word infectious was coined to describe the New Pornographers. Either them or the flu. “The Bleeding Heart Show” might be my new favorite song by them. It’s not quite as overwhelmingly great as Letter from an Occupant but that makes the payoff at the end that much better. It slowly builds until just after the 2-minute mark when the guitars kick into gear, the pulse quickens, they go up one more notch, and then Neko Case belts out “we have arrived too late to play the bleeding heart show.” The last half of the song is definitely two of the best minutes of music this decade. My one complaint, which applies to every New Pornographers album, is that they don’t utilize Neko Case as much as I’d like. There’s nothing wrong with the other singers, but her voice is transcendent. If you have that available to you, why not use it?
Highlights: The Bleeding Heart Show, Stacked Crooked (particularly the last minute-thirty), Jackie Dressed in Cobras (is this the same Jackie from Mass Romantic? I have no idea), Sing Me Spanish Techno

4. Stars – Set Yourself On Fire
The Stars frustrate me a little bit because they so clearly have the potential to be a truly unbelievable band. It’s difficult to imagine a better song than “Elevator Love Letter,” which was on their previous album. On this album, the standout is “Ageless Beauty” which is just about as pretty a song as can be, churning guitars, and her great voice. Listening to that song is like hearing a kaleidoscope. Compared to moments like these, a lot of the rest of their songs seem…I don’t know, a little faded, not quite as alive. Which is not to say they’re bad; they just don’t have the same vitality. I think the Stars next album could easily do what “Illinois” did for Sufjan Stevens, vault a good band into the stratosphere. Even given that, this is easily one of the best albums of 2005. And did I mention her voice?
Highlights: Ageless Beauty, Calendar Girl, Your Ex-Lover is Dead

5. British Sea Power – Open Season
What’s not to like about this band? Their name is awesome, they sometimes perform live dressed in full World War I naval gear, they play nice poppy/new wave/vaguely experimental stuff. This album emphasizes the pop/new wave component a lot more than their previous stuff which was a little more post-punk, artsy stuff. The best songs (“Please Stand Up” being the main standout) are full of hooks, pure pop bliss, but with a lot of texture, layered guitars, and strong drumwork. The one problem with the album: the songs do tend to bleed into each other a lot. I’ve listened to it many times and enjoyed it greatly, but I have to admit that I still have some trouble remembering which song is which. That’s not a terrible thing since all of the songs are good, but a little more variation in the sound could have turned this from just being one of the best albums of 2005 into one of the best albums of the decade.
Highlights: Please Stand Up, To Get to Sleep, Victorian Ice

6. Decemberists – Picaresque
To be honest, as highly as I’ve ranked it, this album is a bit of a disappointment. Castaways and Cutouts is easily one of my favorite albums of all-time, and it makes me a little sad that they haven’t produced anything that matches up with the best of that album since. Still, it’s a disappointment only because it’s good-but-not-great. Which is hardly the end of the world. They branch out a little bit, with some slightly more poppy songs (Sixteen Military Wives, The Sporting Life), and some longer story-oriented songs, but there’s still a lot of 19th century-esque songs with great lyrics and great tunes. The more involved songs are among my least favorite – I’ve always thought the Decemberists were at their best when they were playing dreamy, literate indie-pop, not the epic stories – but despite my minor complaints, there isn’t a bad song on the disc.
Highlights: Sixteen Military Wives, The Engine Driver, The Sporting Life

7. Bright Eyes – I’m Wide Awake It’s Morning
I never got that into Bright Eyes. Couldn’t deal with the warbling voice and the overwrought songs. He had a lot of good stuff but every album seemed to be 3 or 4 good songs surrounded by stuff I just couldn’t stand. This album, though, is solid the whole way through. It’s got a lot less of the teenage angst and a lot more of the Americana, good ol’ folk songs that he’s best at. The potential has always been there, but this time around, the signal-to-noise ratio has increased substantially. If he can keep up this kind of production, he’s going to make some seriously good music in the next few years.
Highlights: At the Bottom of Everything (though the little story at the beginning is exactly the overly precious stuff I wish he would do less of), Road to Joy, Another Travelin’ Song

8. Wolf Parade – Apologies to the Queen Mary
I only got around to listening to this album in the last couple days, so I’m a lot less familiar with it than with some of the others on the list, but even after only a couple times through, I can tell that this deserves a spot in the top 10. Think about your reaction to Arcade Fire last year and you’ll get a good sense of how you’ll respond to this disc. Isaac Brock (Modest Mouse) recorded a bunch of the album, and you can definitely sense that vibe as well. The songs careen, emotions rise and fall. Listening to the album feels like being caught up in a storm; you can’t be sure where you’ll end up and what will still be standing afterwards, but there’s something incredibly exciting about the chaos. For all that, it’s in many ways, a very uncomplicated album about the little moments in life that are often universal but seem impossible to define or describe. In that sense, I feel like if Bruce Springsteen was born 30 years later and lived in Montreal, he would be fronting for this band. Not because the music sounds the same, but there’s just something at the core of both that ties them together in my mind. One line I particularly like: “we say using god’s hands / But god doesn’t always have the best god damn plans, does he?”
Because I haven’t listened much, I ranked this album conservatively. I could definitely see it rising up a lot in the long term.
Highlights: I’ll Believe in Anything, Dear Sons and Daughters of Hungry Ghosts, Grounds for Divorce

9. The National – Alligator
This is another album I got to pretty late in the game. The first thing I noticed about them is Matt Berringer’s voice. It’s incredibly evocative, despite being, basically, just a normal baritone. I can’t really put my finger on what makes his voice so powerful. Maybe it’s that it can sound strong, yet simultaneously feel like he’s constantly on the brink of shattering into pieces. The music, well, it’s sort of a cliché to say it, but they sound like Coldplay, if Coldplay didn’t suck. There are moments of beautiful, quiet sadness and there are moments of tired resignation. But he is not without hope. When he sounds closest to succumbing he is dragged along by the persistent drums, forced to face the future. At times, it sounds to me like Berringer is adrift in the middle of the ocean. But the drums are his lifeboat and the guitars are the currents of the ocean. All he can do is hang on and hope against hope that he will be deposited someplace safe, where he can finally let his guard down completely. When the album reaches its conclusion with “Mr. November,” it feels quite climactic. He sings “I wish that I believed in fate” and I know exactly what he means. I wish I believed in fate, too.
Highlights: Mr. November, Abel, The Geese of Beverley Road

10. Mountain Goats – The Sunset Tree
People either seem to love or hate the Mountain Goats. I’ve heard people describe John Darnielle (the guy who is the Mountain Goats) as the closest thing this generation has to Dylan, and I’ve heard other people describe his music as lo-fi, warbly garbage. The truth probably lies somewhere in the middle. This album is probably his most polished. It’s still not exactly Phil Spector, but it doesn’t sound like it was recorded on a 4-track in a basement, either. This is both good and bad – the higher production values do tend to mean that a lot of the songs sound the same. But it also means that there aren’t any musical duds. As for the “concept” of the album, it’s about growing up, escaping from the confines of a broken home, an abusive stepfather, and tough childhood, and finding out what life will be like out there. However, it’s a pretty loosely hanging concept—you don’t need to follow the story for any of the songs to be meaningful. It’s more a series of vignettes than it is a coherent narrative. It drags on a bit in the second half, and there are a few songs that just don’t have any snap, but the good moments are quite good. In particular, the song “This Year” where he declares “I am gonna make it through this year if it kills me.” The uneasy defiance, the resignation that refuses to give up hope, the way he sounds exhausted but willing to suffer anything in order to survive, it makes for a touching and powerful song.
Highlights: This Year, Broom People, Up the Wolves

11. Mendoza Line – Full of Light and Full of Fire
I bought this album recently because I read a review that compared it to early Springsteen, early Replacements, and early Wilco, and went on to say that is is “easily one of the best albums of the decade.” I would not go nearly as far as that, but it has its moments. It really is fair to say that if you threw Bob Dylan circa “Blood on the Tracks” into a blender with Paul Westerberg, and invited Neko Case to sing on some of the tracks, you’d have a fair sample of this album. It’s an record about people who find dignity in living lives of quiet desperation. Even the name of the band (a baseball term for hitting .200 – about as bad as anyone can do and still have any hope for staying in the league) evokes this idea. They are writing songs about the people just barely staying afloat, holding onto the dreams they once had and are in danger of losing. The characters in these songs are forced to face the fact that their lives will never be as happy as they once had hoped, yet are struggling to find ways to create new dreams for themselves, without glamour, fame, or a silly idea of perfection, but which will be all the more beautiful because they have been tempered by pain.
A line from “Catch a Collapsing Star” pretty much sums up the album: “accept no imitations, baby, catch a collapsing star / it’s our limitations that make us what we are.” The two singers trade off the lead vocals, but the best moments are when they’re singing together, the nasally twang of Timothy Bracy merging with and then moving aside for he silvery voice of Shannon McArdle. Her two standout tracks are “Water Surrounds” a song that exudes weariness without succumbing to it about as well as any I have ever heard, and “The Lethal Temptress” which kicks some serious ass.
Highlights: Catch a Collapsing Star, The Lethal Temptress, Water Surrounds

12. My Morning Jacket – Z
I’m torn on this album. There’s a part of me that thinks it’s really great; there’s another that says it really isn’t anything all that special. I have no desire to gush about it the way I do about a lot of other albums this year, even ones ranked lower. Still, it’s quite good. This is southern rock without all the annoying baggage that sometimes goes along with that. But there’s more to it than that. Lots of reverb, occasional psychedelic meanderings, and a couple driving rock songs. Basically, it doesn’t fit together in any way that I can figure out. The songs don’t seem to lead into each other, the syncopated howling, swooping coda of “Wordless Chorus” ends suddenly and the indie-alt-country guitar and drum of “It Beats For You” jumps out. Also, they seem to talk about God a lot. Not really sure what’s up with that. And “Off the Record” is an unbelievably catchy tune for 3 minutes and then suddenly goes all ambient. And I don’t even know what’s going on with “Into the Woods.”
As a sign of my conflicted feelings about this disc, I notice I have failed to even mention my three favorite tracks so far. Hmmm. Anyways, this is a good album, but I can’t quite put my finger on why.
Highlights: Gideon, Anytime, Laylow

13. Death Cab for Cutie – Plans
There’s nothing wrong with this album. If it was the debut of some band I’d never heard of, I think I probably would have ranked it higher. It’s just…I don’t know…a lot less than I had hoped for from Death Cab. They’ve always been very much about pop music, but it had an edge. This album is, frankly, kind of boring. 11 warm guitar-driven songs that would fit in great on the OC. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. I love the OC and I love Death Cab. But, a little variation would be nice. There’s nothing that’s even close to the heights of the past (no Title Track, no Photobooth, not even a “Movie Script Ending”).
The best song is probably “Soul Meets Body” which has a great beat, but contains an utterly inexplicable 20 seconds where the beat stops, everything slows down, the guitar starts going in eccentric circles, and he sings the title of the song a couple of times. It’s jarring, completely baffling, and it really ruins the flow of the song for me. “I Will Follow You Into the Dark” is a very pretty song, just Ben and his guitar. But it’s not a fantastic song, just pretty. “What Sarah Said” is good, but drags on quite a bit. “Transatlanticism” on their last disc clocked in at 8 minutes, but it was worth every second as it slowly built to a huge crescendo. This song just kind of keeps going. Like Bilbo says, it feels stretched, like butter that’s been spread over too much bread.
So it’s a good disc and I’d definitely recommend it, but I guess it comes down to this: I’ve had it since early September and have only listened to it 6 or 7 times. I’ve had the Wolf Parade album for less than a week and have listened to it that many times.
Highlights: Soul Meets Body, I Will Follow You Into the Dark, What Sarah Said

14. Eels – Blinking Lights and Other Revelations
The Eels went from two of my top 20 all-time albums (Beautiful Freak and Electro Shock Blues) to a very nice record (Daisies of the Galaxy) to a very spotty record (Souljacker) to a totally inessential mediocrity (the unfortunately titled Shootenanny!). The progression was not a good one. But they have somewhat redeemed themselves with this double-disc. It’s nowhere near the heights of their first couple, but there’s a lot to like here. Lots of plinking pianos, organs, softly plucked guitars, wry observations about life, bitterness followed by resignation followed by glints of hope. However, it’s the musical equivalent of the Great Plains, no peaks, no valleys, lots and lots of the same landscape. There are something like 8 or 9 two-minute instrumental songs, many of which are variations on the same theme. And there are probably another dozen songs that are very similar. Giving an album a coherent feel is one thing, but making it all sound the same is another. There aren’t many songs I don’t like, but there are none that I couldn’t live without either. It’s a good record, but it’s definitely not a great one. And considering that the subject matter is life, the universe, and everything, “good enough” doesn’t quite cut it. It strives to be something truly meaningful but ends up feeling a little trite and overdone. Which is a shame, because there really is a lot to like here.
Highlights: like I said, there aren’t really any. If you wanted to pick a couple songs to try out: Railroad Man, Losing Streak, Suicide Life, and From Which I Came/A Magic World wouldn’t be terrible places to start.

15. Cardigans – Super Extra Gravity
Yes, those Cardigans of “Lovefool” fame. Who knew they were still around? Not this guy. But I read on a blog that they had a new album and downloaded the single “I Need Some Fine Wine and You, You Need to Be Nicer” and was reminded how good they are. This is not a groundbreaking album in any sense, but it’s a pretty good take on the “pop songs with a hint of melancholy” genre. And they’re from Sweden, so that’s always fun.
Highlights: Good Morning Joan, I Need Some Fine Wine and You You Need to Be Nicer, Overload

16. The Hold Steady – Separation Sunday
This is a rock album. Yeah, they still make those. Driving guitars, a singer who doesn’t sing so much as he spits out the words, varying between shouting and speaking the lyrics. And the vocals are right up front. They want you to hear about the misguided people in the songs, caught up in their experiences with sex, drugs, and rock and roll. All the classic rock and roll elements are here, the guitar solos, the extended codas to songs, verses, choruses, the piano interludes, and so on.
Highlights: Your Little Hoodrat Friend, Stevie Nix, How a Resurrection Really Feels

17. Bruce Springsteen – Devils and Dust
The Boss ain’t what he used to be, but he can still write some pretty darn good songs. This album is sort of a mixture of his previous stuff. Take two parts “The Ghost of Tom Joad,” add one part “The Rising,” add a pinch of “The River,” and garnish with “Nebraska.” He doesn’t really break any new ground here, but the tunes are good. I’m sure I’ve gone on my “Bruce Springsteen is one of the most important American cultural commentators” rant at one time or another for most of you, so I won’t really go into that. Suffice to say that all the things you’d expect from him are present to some degree: beaten down characters who still find a reason to live, people with troubling pasts coming back to haunt them, invocations of liberation in whatever form it may take (religious or otherwise), lives of quiet desperation, the uncertainty of salvation, etc. None of the songs on this album rise to the level of his best work, either musically or thematically. There’s no Thunder Road, Darkness on the Edge of Town, or “My City of Ruins,” or really anything close. But it’s definitely worth giving a listen.
Highlights: Long Time Comin’, Black Cowboys, Jesus Was an Only Son

18. Bloc Party – Silent Alarm
I’ve read a lot of rave reviews of this album. I’m not nearly as high on it as some of those folks, but it is undeniably catchy. Good old fashioned rock and roll. Tight songs, no nonsense, a little New Wave, lots of big hooks. If you like Franz Ferdinand or the Strokes or the Killers or, frankly, Duran Duran, you’ll probably like Bloc Party, too.
Highlights: Like Eating Glass, Banquet, This Modern Love

19. Clap Your Hands Say Yeah – Clap Your Hands Say Yeah
One of the most hyped albums of the year. I’ll be honest; I don’t really get what all the fuss is about. His voice is a little annoying, and the inexplicable choice to make the first track a piece of completely unlistenable garbage didn’t help. That said, most of the album is pretty good, and a few of the songs are quite good. I’ve read reviews that have compared them to pretty much everyone that’s anyone in indie rock these days. Arcade Fire, Interpol, Modest Mouse, Pavement, etc. and so on. If I had to pick one reference, I guess it would be early Built to Spill, except his voice is a lot weirder than Dough Martsch’s.
Highlights: In This Home on Ice, The Skin of My Yellow Country Teeth, Details of the War

20. Aimee Mann – The Forgotten Arm
Deciding what would be #20 was tough. It’s a pretty big drop from Clap Your Hands to here, and any one of a number of albums could easily have been the last pick. I went with Aimee Mann for a couple of reasons. First, she has a really amazing voice. Second, this is a fairly well executed concept album. It’s about John, a boxer, and Caroline, who meet, fall in lover, travel the country, have problems with drugs, meet a strange cast of characters, eventually resolve their problems, and live (maybe happily, maybe not) ever after. The songs really do tell the story and while the plot is not really anything special, the character development is pretty strong, as far as concept albums go. So what’s the problem with it? Well, it really could have been a lot better. The songs feel strangely clinical; for an album about pain, suffering, love, hatred, and redemption, it never really feels like much. The songs all bleed together as well. I’m not sure I could hum the tune of more than one or two of them, even after a dozen listens. I’ve always liked Aimee Mann because of how her songs made me feel. Many of her songs were great because they only hinted at complicated and unhappy lives without ever trying to be explicit. The mystery, the feeling that the song was only a brief glimpse into a much bigger picture was part of the magic.. “The Forgotten Arm” seems far too focused on telling the story over punchy tunes, to the exclusion of letting us understand how the characters feel.
Highlights: Goodbye Caroline, Little Bombs, That’s How I Knew This Story Would Break My Heart

Honorable Mentions:
Sleater-Kinney – The Woods. This is probably their best album so far. I just have never really been able to get into them. If I was into them, this would definitely be way up on the list. It’s very well done, and at it’s best is almost overpowering. It just isn’t really my thing, so they just miss the cut. Modern Girl is one of the prettiest songs that’ll ever kick your ass. And “Let’s Call it Love” is a fairly close musical approximation of being blown up by 100 sticks of dynamite.

Crooked Fingers – Dignity and Shame. The new band by the guy from Archers of Loaf. Some nice songs. In particular, Call to Love has a very nice boy/girl back and forth thing going on.

Andrew Bird – The Mysterious Production Of Eggs. Fake Palindromes is a fantastic song. The rest of the album is okay, but just doesn’t do all that much for me.

Lucksmiths – Warmer Corners. They’re Australian. They play bright, warm, melodic, pleasant songs. The Music Next Door and “Putting it Off and Putting it On” are decent examples.

Broken Social Scene – Broken Social Scene. I could really do without their experimental stuff, but when the just play (more or less) straight-up indie rock, they’re about as good at is as anyone. Check out Fire Eye’d Boy and 7/4 (Shoreline)

Tori Amos – The Beekeeper. Tori being Tori. No stand-out tracks, through “Sleeps with Butterflies” and “Cars and Guitars” are both nice.

Kanye West – Late Registration. There are a fair number of songs on here I don’t like at all, but at its best, this is a sophisticated and enjoyable listen. I liked “The College Dropout” and his collaboration for this album with Jon Brion is even better. “Gone” is six minutes of pleasure and “Diamonds from Sierra Leone” is powerful.

Paul McCartney – Chaos and Creation in the Backyard. People say this is his best album since “Band on the Run.” I guess that might be true (though I’d definitely take “Tug of War” and “Venus and Mars” before this, and probably “London Town”), but I’m not really sure I get what all the fuss is about. Don’t get me wrong, I love the Beatles more than…well, pretty much anything. And I love the post-Beatles stuff a whole lot, too. But I’m not going to go gah-gah over an album just because Paul made it. Which is not to say this is bad; it’s certainly not. But it’s not like this is the second coming of “Hey Jude” or anything. I guess it might be the second coming of “Red Rose Speedway,” though, which isn’t worth going crazy over, but it isn’t anything to scoff at, either.

Ryan Adams – Cold Roses
I have listened to this double-album all the way through probably half a dozen times. I enjoyed it each time, so I know I like it. But I couldn’t tell you what it actually sounds like, beyond “well, uh, it sounds like a Ryan Adams album.” So it doesn’t do all that much for me. Let it Ride is the one song that sticks out.

Bear Vs Shark – Terrorhawk. I’ve only heard a couple songs off this album, so I can’t rank it, but the stuff that I’ve heard is awesome. Very punk, very angry, crunching guitars, but strong melodies underneath it all.

Happy Chrismukkah!