Heartache With Hard Work

Desmond Hume Has Come Unstuck In Time – Goodnight, Sleep Well

A track I picked up thanks to one of my favorite “best of 2008” lists I encountered this year at Vague Space.

It starts out all twinkly and pretty, and then the small swoops of the strings come in. Before long some light percussion takes the stage. And then, at three minutes, the fire catches. You have to treat it delicately, breathing on it lightly to fan the flames. But if you’re patient and gentle, you’ll end up with a warm hue and tendrils of fire that dance into the cold night sky.

Goodnight, Sleep Well have an EP available directly from their myspace.

Obama is going to be the president of the United States in three weeks.

Whoa.

If that doesn’t call for some Swedish synthpop, I don’t know what does.

Summer Struck – Universal Poplab

I haven’t posted about books in a long time (since Harry Potter 7, I believe). And I’m still working on an internet connection that makes uploading MP3s a bit dicey. So here’s a quick summation of what I’ve been reading. I’m also obviously reading a bunch of other more “serious” stuff, but it’s a lot less fun to talk about those.

Thoughts? Recommendations? Disagreements? Post a comment and let me know.

Strongly recommended

* Night Watch by Sergei Lukyanenko. I picked this up in a book store based solely on the little recommendation card taped to the shelf. It said, more or less, that this is what happens when the kids in Harry Potter grow up, start drinking and having sex, and realize that the world is a far darker place than they once thought. It’s a sort of horror/fantasy hybrid, set in contemporary Moscow, with vampires and the like. It’s got an extremely modern texture, despite being about “magic” and stuff. The mythology is fascinating – basically good and evil are manufactured – and it just feels like almost nothing I’ve ever read. I sort of imagine it as a hybrid between Stephen King, Buffy, and Neal Stephenson. Except Russian. There’s four books, though the final one has not yet been translated and made available in English. The first three are all good, and I’m anxiously awaiting the finale.

* Various books by Jack McDevitt. Another one that began with a bookstore recommendation. I’m currently working through his ‘Priscilla Hutchins’ books, which are vaguely a series in the sense that they all happen in the same world and she remains a significant character throughout. However, they each work fine as standalone books. I started with The Engines of God, which has the basic premise that the universe is fundamentally organized to eliminate complex civilizations. I find that extremely satisfying in a depressing way. McDevitt is great at imagining the real difficulties in attempting to do anthropology on extinct alien cultures. His aliens come off as tremendously sophisticated – not caricatures. Which is pretty rare in SF, unfortunately. He also writes some pretty good action sequences – and keeps them firmly tied into real science. He does make allowances for some stuff (FTL drives and antigravity) as a backdrop, but once he establishes the world, there’s no Star Trek-esque insertion of new crazy technologies to fix problems. He forces the characters to deal with realistic problems in difficult situations.

* The Wizard’s Dilemma by Diane Duane. When I last talked SF, I recommended this series. I knew there were four books, but didn’t realize how many more she had written. I picked this one up and was happy to discover (after good but not spectacular efforts in the previous couple ones) an excellent story. It doesn’t quite match the original two, but it’s close. I’ve picked up a few more of the follow-ups to read in the near future.

* The Worthing Saga by Orson Scott Card. Apart from the first two Ender books, and maybe the early stages of the Alvin series, this is probably my favorite work by Card. The blatant parallels to Foundation are a little much (Capitol is a carbon copy of Trantor), but he takes things in a sufficiently unique direction. And unlike a lot of his other work where the religious stuff overwhelms the story, I think it serves its purpose well enough here. And I have to admit I think Abner Doon is a far more interesting architect of the rebirth of civilization than Hari Seldon.

* Neil Gaiman. That probably goes without saying. But I finally got around to reading Neverwhere recently, and it was quite good. Not as good as American Gods, but maybe my second favorite of his books. It takes a little while to get going. The “I’m very perplexed and no one is explaining anything” feeling of the first 100 pages gets old a bit fast, but once things get going it’s solid. I like that even where some things are pretty predictable (who the Big Bad turns out to be, for example), there’s still a lot of little stuff that gets spun out in ways you wouldn’t guess.

* The Infinite Book: A Short Guide to the Boundless, Timeless and Endless by John Barrow. Not SF (really, just S), but worth mentioning nonetheless. It’s a fascinating exploration of the concept of infinity, the serious problems it poses for mathematics, physics, and the imagination. Very enjoyable and thought-provoking.

Worth reading, with caveats

* Hyperion by Dan Simmons. This came highly recommended, and it won a Hugo – so there’s no denying it’s a very good book. My caveats are twofold. First, I didn’t realize this was only the first half of the story and I don’t have the sequel available, which makes it hard to really judge it. Second, I found the structure a little difficult to overcome. The story is pushed along in part by a Canterbury Tales style telling of stories, which I wasn’t in love with. Too many different backstories inserted as their own little short stories isn’t really my favorite way to put together a plot – mostly because i don’t like having to re-set my worldview every 20 pages to bring in a whole new set of characters and so on. Basically, I keep feeling interrupted just as I’m getting into things. That’s true even though I always end up enjoying the stories themselves once I got into them (except the poet, who sucks).

Also, I have a general distaste for SF that goes all ga-ga over 17th/18th century poetry. Surprisingly, this is actually a genre.

All that said, some of the background development of the universe is as good as anyone has done. And obviously I enjoy the idea of the robots going all Battlestar Galactica on the human race except for, crucially, actually HAVING a plan. It’s also very well-written in a literary sense (i.e – not just “good for SF” but simply good in general).

* The Thirteen and a Half Lives of Captain Bluebear by Walter Moers. Imagine Gulliver’s Travels + The Phantom Tollbooth + Douglas Adams. Or something. It’s good, but a little too long. 700 pages that could happily have been condensed down to 450 and it would have been superb. As it is, it plods a bit in places, but is still quite enjoyable. If you’ve got the time, it’s probably worth the investment. But it’s not a quick afternoon read or anything.

Don’t bother

* Twilight by Stephane Meyer. To be fair, it wasn’t horrible. It’s certainly a quick read, which convinced me to finish it instead of giving up 50 or 60 pages in as I was planning. It’s actually pretty standard young-adult sappy romance fare. Except with vampires, which provided some interest. The take on their mythology is occasionally intriguing – though she seriously overhypes the power of vampires to make them seem impressive but which actually just makes them a lot less believable.

The other problem is that the already irritating attitude of “OMG, I like totally love him and am drawn to him and want to be with him FOREVER and I just can’t resist him” is made a lot more preposterous when you factor in the vampire element. Why, exactly, do these immortal beings enjoy perpetually going to high school and hanging out with boring people like the main character?

Also, there are some serious creepy elements here. Like the way that the stalker attitudes of the boy vampire are treated as proof of his undying love – and thus offer a fulfillment for Bella’s otherwise pointless and dreary existence. Instead of being…you know…troubling because he’s behaving like a creepy stalker. I don’t want to read too much into it because it’s not meant to be treated as an allegory or anything, but there’s no denying that there is a lot of troubling gender stuff going on here…

* The Masks of Time by Robert Silverberg. DO NOT READ THIS BOOK.

The flaws are many. Where to begin? Well, there’s the ridiculously hackneyed 60s era (filtered through the mind of an SF writer) way of talking about sexuality. For people who could push the imagination so far in some ways you’d think that at least one of them might have pondered some basic questions about gender and sexuality.

Of course, it all fits once you realize that one of the central driving premises is the absolute terror expressed by two main characters (…more DO NOT READ THIS BOOK.

The flaws are many. Where to begin? Well, there’s the ridiculously hackneyed 60s era (filtered through the mind of an SF writer) way of talking about sexuality. For people who could push the imagination so far in some ways you’d think that at least one of them might have pondered some basic questions about gender and sexuality.

Of course, it all fits once you realize that one of the central driving premises is the absolute terror expressed by two main characters (and treated as if it’s so obvious that it doesn’t even merit explaining) that their scientific work might…gasp…produce efficient, clean, and safe energy. But, but, but…they fear, that would end the system of money. It would be almost communist!!!111oneone

Finally, Silverberg had apparently never met any actual human beings because he appears to have no understanding of how they speak to one another. I know that’s a standard cliche about SF writers of this era, but this is a particularly overwhelming example, I can assure you.

To summarize: this is a very bad version of Stranger in a Strange Land. And bear in mind that I HATED Stranger in a Strange Land.

Fairytale of New York – The Pogues

As I said last year:

There aren’t many songs that can still leave me totally defenseless, no matter how many times I hear them. This is one of the few.

From the opening piano notes and you hear Shane MacGowan sing as only he is capable of: with a tenderness only matched by its raggedness. And then, even though you’ve heard it so many times before, you’re still completely unprepared for the way Kirsty MacColl’s voice emerges, triumphant, joyful, alive beyond words. As the verse unfolds and their voices intertwine you can almost see them, dancing together under the falling snow. It’s all there: the joy, the pain, the anger, the lost dreams, the hope, and the love. And on the final verse, when he sings “can’t make it all alone, I’ve built my dreams around you” there’s nothing left to do except weep for the sheer beauty of it all. It’s all enough to shatter the composure of even the most stolid guy.

This is a song that grows better for me every time I hear it. There’s something transcendent about it. This is not simply a song about two people, or even a song about all people. It’s a song about what it means to exist, to sense, to feel. It goes beyond any definition. It simply is, and so are we, and that is beautiful.

Happy Christmas.

A month or two ago I was thinking that was a strikingly weak year for music. I already said yesterday on my list of top songs that this held true there. In terms of albums, however, I think 2008 turned out to be quite solid. There were tons of records this year that were solid from top to bottom.

Even more than usual, the cautionary note must be offered that these are only a snapshot of how I feel in this moment. Trying to compile this list this year was extremely difficult because every time I’d listen to a record I’d feel confident it simply had to be at least three or four slots higher. Until I listened to the ones above it and thought they had to move up.

I could easily have stretched the list out to 30 or beyond, but in the end I felt confident that these were the ones I could recommend utterly and completely without any hesitation. I listened to all of them a lot, and will likely continue to do so well into 2009.

25. Headlights – Some Racing, Some Stopping

Some Racing Some Stopping is all about exploring sound, finding nooks and crannies where you’d never expect them to be. With a series of tracks that would feel right at home on an OC compilation, they reveal that this genre possesses far more depth than it’s normally given credit for. It’s funny, because one thing I’ve always heard about their live shows is that they are blisteringly loud, but this is precisely the sort of record that you’d think would be best appreciated on high quality headphones in a quiet room.

Still, while you don’t want to complain too much about such a nice album, you also can’t help but wonder if it would have ruined things to include one barn-burner. Or, at the very least, build in a little bit more oomph throughout the record. Especially since their debut record was so good largely because of the stunning propulsive force of a few gauzy shoegaze-driven rock songs.

Highlights: On April 2, Catch Them All, Get Your Head Around It

24. Mates of State – Re-Arrange Us

Another 2006 standout who’s following record failed to meet expectations. I heard “Get Better” before the rest of the record and was full of anticipation. It sounded like they were refining their sound to bring in a little more sophistication (strings and a piano instead of the old-fashioned strictly drums + keyboards combo) without losing any of the magic. Unfortunately, the rest of the album didn’t quite follow through the second part.

Where they could get away with some simplicity in the past on sheer force of will, it doesn’t quite work this time around. The tiny studio touches everywhere only serve to highlight how little heft there is to some of these tracks. It’s a minor issue – this is still a VERY enjoyable record – but there’s not a lot of margin for error with these sort of songs. The tracks that work best are brimming with vitality. The ones that stumble quickly veer into preciousness or pop snoozeland.

Highlights: Get Better, My Only Offer, The Re-Arranger

23. The Felice Brothers – The Felice Brothers

A ramshackle affair, smelling of fir trees in the fall and hearts that were broken long ago. This is a woozy folk album the way it’s meant to be done. Over a sprawling 15 tracks there are a few that don’t quite work, but there’s enough great songs here (including the awesome “Frankie’s Gun” which was the first runner-up that missed out on my top songs list) to produce a very enjoyable record.

Highlights: Frankie’s Gun, Wonderful Life, Radio Song

22. Mogwai – The Hawk is Howling

Possibly their best record yet – it’s a lot bigger than anything they’ve done before. They’re still constructing intricate sonic landscapes but where in the past these would pass by in a whisper and only occasionally catch fire this time there is far more stormy weather. The metal and electronic influences exert a far greater presence, producing tracks like “Batcat” and “The Sun Smells Too Loud.” You get the feeling that these tracks are snarling beasts waiting to rampage out and only held in check by the relentless layering of sound upon sound. It’s a great record from one of the titans of post-rock. Mogwai also have the honor of being the first of a number of Scottish bands to make my list.

Highlights: The Sun Smells Too Loud, The Precipice, Batcat

21. The Magnetic Fields – Distortion

Another solid entry into the Magnetic Fields catalog. The combination of Stephin Merrit composed pop songs and the sound the Jesus and Mary Chain is hard to turn down. Especially when Shirley Simms (by far my favorite vocalist for any of Merritt’s projects) is back and given a chance to take frontstage. When the hook of using endless distortion works, it produces a number of beautifully dense songs. It’s also the funniest record he’s come out with in a long time (“The Nun’s Litany” in particular).

Highlights: The Nun’s Litany, Drive On, Driver, Too Drunk to Dream, California Girls

20. The Walkmen – You and Me

Everything that A Hundred Miles Off failed to be. A triumph of energy, excitement, and power. The raw texture has been buffed and the songs are more refined, but all of the passion remains. And, importantly, there’s a strong current of happiness that runs through it. Not a facile happiness, but a cathartic one. You and Me rings out with the sound of lives of deep meaning. For the first time, The Walkmen have produced a great album.

Highlights: In The New Year, I Lost You, Four Provinces, Red Moon,

19. Collections of Colonies of Bees – Birds

It dances and lilts like a scrap of paper in the wind. It batters your senses like a drenching rain, and shatters like a crystal glass errantly cast aside. It calls to mind a collaboration between Mogwai and The Six Parts Seven, or perhaps the melding of cool blue and fiery orange in Joseph Mallord William Turner painting.

It’s the sound of water flowing through a thousand underground caverns, echoing, reflecting. And with each passing second it grows, expands until you think you simply cannot take anymore. But still, you can’t tell whether the inevitable release will be gentle – a smooth sled-ride down an endless hill in the clear blue morning after a heavy snow – or if it will be an absolute catastrophe. The tension is maddening and yet…not knowing is part of what makes it so exhilarating.

Highlights: Flocks I is mediocre, Flocks II and IV are good, and Flocks III is stupendous

18. British Sea Power – Do You Like Rock Music?

It suffers in equal parts from an attachment to a too-epic-for-its-own-good style of stadium rock and from and overindulgence in art-rock pastiche – effects for the sake of effects – which distract from the underlying music. The problems occur when one of these two elements dominate. However, like matter and anti-matter, when they meet in the middle they produce an explosion that makes good on all the promises. The most obvious example being “Lights Out For Darker Skies” which is easily their best song to date. It’s epic, beautiful, and clear demonstration that they’re at their best when they drop some of the reverb and let the notes shine through with piercing clarity.

Highlights: Lights Out For Darker Skies, Atom, Waving Flags

17. Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog – OST

Joss Whedon’s musical project begun during the writer’s strike. It’s a spoof (or, it’s sort of a spoof) on the superhero genre, featuring Neil Patrick Harris as Dr. Horrible, trying to win the love of Penny (Felicia Day) and find a way into the Evil League of Evil, all while fighting off his nemesis: Captain Hammer (Nathan Fillion). While I had my problems with the story (I get it that Joss likes to kill off characters, but usually there’s a point to it. Here it turned Penny into strictly a plot element – which is frustrating and stupid for someone who’s usually so good at writing female characters with some depth), there’s no denying that the songs are fantastic.

They’re insanely clever and quite funny, which is to be expected. But they’re also quite good musically. “My Eyes” is ridiculously catchy and contains some of the most wonderful harmonies of the year, for example, while “So They Say” is a great ensemble number. Finally, “Everyone’s a Hero” features perhaps the best line from any song all year: “Everyone’s a hero in their own way, in their own, not-that-heroic, way!” Or: “It’s not enough to bash in heads, you’ve got to bash in minds!” Damn right.

Highlights: My Eyes, Everyone’s a Hero, So They Say, My Freeze Ray

16. The Tallest Man on Earth – Shallow Graves

As a music writer, you never want to invoke Dylan, because it’s simply too large to really be useful. Early, mid, or late Dylan? His guitar or his voice? The lyrics? Or do you just mean “folksy singer with a mediocre voice who’s obviously not as talented as Dylan”? Usually it’s the last option.

With that caveat in mind, let me say that Shallow Graves sounds more like Dylan than almost anything I’ve ever heard. It’s partly in the fantastic imagery, it’s partly in the voice: nasally and raspy at the same time. But mostly it’s because this is a record that uses simple means (just a guy and his guitar, and occasionally a banjo) to provoke a sense of utter astonishment. The one notable difference is that Kristian Matsson is an excellent guitarist. Where Dylan was content to strum, Matsson displays astonishing pickwork (see “The Sparrow And The Medicine”), not to mention a talent for playing with chords and for moving back and forth between the higher strings while holding the basic notes the same (“I Won’t Be Found” or “This Wind”).

Highlights: The Gardener, I Won’t Be Found, This Wind

15. The Raveonettes – Lust Lust Lust

The sounds are large, they overflow the speakers, the distortion constantly threatens to drown out the words. There are songs that rush past you in a torrent of guitar swells and drum cascades (“Dead Sound,” “Blush,” “I Want The Candy”). There are others that opt for a slower pace, but maintain the same fulsome character (“I Closed My Eyes,” “Black Satin,” “Expelled From Love”). And underneath all of it is a melody that would do The Ronettes proud. The result is a record that scoffs at restraints, that explodes like fireworks, that is gone before you can hardly tell.

Highlights: Blitzed, Blush, Hallucinations, Sad Transmission

14. Loquat – Secrets of the Sea

Secrets of the Sea is chock full of character. Of knowing glances and shy glances. And above all, it is smooth beyond all belief: gliding, seemingly without effort, through eleven exquisitely constructed songs. It’s a record without peaks and valleys – instead you’ll find ebbs and flows. It’s a delicate mixture of organic and electronic sound, a lush soundscape – the sort of record you want to simply let wash over you. It’s not a record that gets you humming the tunes. But it is one that works its way deeply inside your head. So much that it can sound both mysterious and completely appropriate at the same time.

Highlights: Harder Hit, In My Sleep, Sit Sideways, Clearly Now…

13. Bombadil – A Buzz, A Buzz

This is a gently-wrought record, a weather-beaten path on a crisp spring morning. With none of the trappings of the city, it’s free to meander and follow the counters of the land: here crossing a stream on an old wooden bridge, there running alongside a patch of trees. It’s filled with bumps and holes, the occasional branch. You wander in and out of the shade as the leaves rustle in the wind above. And if you look back over your shoulder you can see your own steps and light swirls of dust settling gently.

A melange of instruments are deployed: guitars, banjos, xylophones, organs, trumpets, and many more I can’t even guess at. And while they don’t shy away from electrical instruments, those never intrude. They lift up, spread out, and open space for each sound to fully express itself. The result is an absolutely enormous sound. Now, sounding “big” is nothing all that special, but they way they go about it is. Instead of compressing everything to drown out the gaps and create the illusion of size, each sound here is crisp and full – contracting and expanding as necessary to suit the context. The result is a record that would be perfectly at home anywhere from the smallest coffeehouse to the Colosseum.

Highlights: Julian of Norwich, Cavaliers Har Hur, Johnny, Smile When You Kiss

12. Sigur Rós – Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust

You know what Sigur Rós sounds like. Now imagine if they were happier, and more interested in producing melodies. Add some honest-to-god propulsive drum and bass supports. Then just set them free and watch the magic… “Við spilum endalaust” is an absolutely splendid piece of New Wave/post-rock fusion. “Ára bátur” is nine minutes of melodrama so expansive that it almost seems to touch the whole universe. And, after you step lightly through four minutes and a half minutes of warbly singing and organs in “Festival” you get the pay-off of a second half that is positively cataclysmic.

Highlights: Við spilum endalaust, Festival, Með suð í eyrum, Ára bátur

11. The Submarines – Honeysuckle Weeks

If Declare a New State (my favorite album of the glorious musical year that was 2006) was about redemption, Honeysuckle Weeks is about the time afterwards when the more mundane issues seep back into your life. There are plenty of moments of sheer wonder, but those are infused with a widespread sense of easy comfort. It’s less emotionally raw and without the hook of a deep pain, the music loses a bit of focus. Still, it’s a sign of just how good they are that are modest step down from their debut is still this good.

Highlights: You, Me and the Bourgeoisie, Brightest Hour, Xavia, Swimming Pool

10. Cloud Cult – Feel Good Ghosts

The #11 record is the follow-up to my favorite album from 2006. It’s only fitting, then, that this one follows my top record of 2007. Once again, it’s a bit of a let-down but still manages to pack a serious punch. The subject matter follows from The Meaning of 8: the bizarreness of our everyday lives, the universality of suffering, our attempts to find meaning in the chaos, and the way everything we thought we had left behind stays with us in the most unexpected ways. That final point is the underlying motif for the whole record, with its constant references to ghosts, figurative and literal. It’s a bit too obvious at times, but remains incredibly powerful.

Highlights: Journey of the Featherless, No One Said It Would Be Easy, Hurricane & Fire Survival Guide, The Will of a Volcano

9. Hello Saferide – More Modern Stories from Hello Saferide

This is a beautiful, engaging album. Often corny, occasionally hilarious, and never failing to demonstrate a keen awareness of how preposterous human beings truly are…it’s the sort of record that you wish would fall in love with you, but you can tell deep down inside that you’re both just a little too awkward for it to work out.

Highlights: Anna, Lund, X Telling Me About The Loss Of Something Dear At Age 16

8. Marching Band – Spark Large

This record shines. Swedish electro-chamber-pop via the Shins, it surges and flows through intricately layered harmonies. It wraps itself around you, swirling and dancing, held aloft by an army of instruments that dart in and out of the scene. These are campfire songs for the 21st century – intricately designed but sung with a sense of joy and community. It’s the polyphonic explosion of sweet songs and shared loves…the type of of experience that was sorely missed from the sophomore record of their Scandinavian compatriots: I’m From Barcelona.

Highlights: Travel in Time, For Your Love, Make No Plans, Makeup Artist

7. Okkervil River – The Stand Ins

There’s not a lot to say about Okkervil River that I haven’t already covered. Let’s just start with the fact that this is my least favorite record of their past four – and it’s still among my favorites for the year. That they can produce a new, unique, fantastic album that blows most of the rest of the competition out of the water every year or so is frankly astonishing. It’s like they’re playing a completely different game from everyone else. Combine that with a preposterously good live show and there’s no doubt in my mind that they’re the best band in the world right now.

The Stands Ins is a partner to last year’s The Stage Names. A little looser, a little more rock and roll, and as clever as ever. “Lost Coastlines” is the clear best track, but the finale “Bruce Wayne…” packs a major punch – and serves as a suitable bookend to the entire project. “Calling and Not Calling My Ex” is also one of the most straightforward (and best) songs they’ve released in a long while. And one of the single best moments of the year is in the delightfully ironic “Pop Lie” when Will Sheff sings with all his heart: “He’s the liar who lied in his pop song / And you’re lying when you sing along” – and you can’t help but join in.

Highlights: Lost Coastlines, Calling and Not Calling My Ex, Bruce Wayne Interviewed On The Roof Of The Chelsea Hotel, 19

6. m83 – Saturdays = Youth

It’s a shimmery soundscape, full of glitches and beats that glide along in perfect time. This record is what it sounds like in our dreams – or in an alternate universe filled with crystal spires and rain that falls upward. It is relentlessly forthright, unashamed of its passion or its madness. It imprints itself deeply into your psyche until you’re not even sure if these are your own memories, or simply the remnants of a wild imagination.

Highlights: Graveyard Girl, Dark Moves of Love, Kim & Jessie

5. Amy MacDonald – This Is the Life

Apparently Amy MacDonald is huge over in the UK, but I hadn’t heard anything about her until a couple months ago. There’s nothing particularly astonishing about this record. It’s simply a very, very good take on the folk/rock/pop borderlands. And to top it off she’s got a wonderful Scottish accent, which is an easy way into my heart.

She was only 19 when this was recorded which is definitely discernible in the youthful exuberance, and in the way she can make the dream of being a rock and roll star sound so fresh. But it’s also far more sophisticated than you might initially guess. “Footballer’s Wife” deals with the current crop of WAGs (wives and girlfriends) who dominate the British tabloids, putting them into stark contrast with the halcyon stars of yesteryear. It’s particularly funny because she is now engaged to a footballer herself. Then there’s “Poison Prince,” about ex-Libertines frontman Pete Doherty, which features the line: “I’ll tell you this my Poison Prince, you’ll soon be knocking on Heaven’s door.” Ouch. Or “Mr. Rock and Roll” with the strikingly honest admission that “it’s so rock and roll to be alone.”

Mostly, though, this is one of my favorite records of the year simply for the dynamism of the music. These songs carry a kick. “Barrowland Ballroom” in particular is potentially the most energetic song of the year. It bursts out at you, offering tangible proof of the magic in a rock and roll show.

Highlights: Barrowland Ballroom, Poison Prince, L.A., Footballer’s Wife, This Is The Life, Caledonia, Mr. Rock And Roll

4. Grand Archives – Grand Archives

It will never provoke that same sense of astonishment and wonder that I experienced the first time I heard Carissa’s Wierd, but Mat Brooke’s new band may offer something else. It’s fun, loping and dancing in a way that Carissa’s Wierd never did. And maybe it’s a sign that there’s a time to embrace the opportunity to go somewhere new. The ghost of past loves will always drape themselves over the new, but who says that must be a negative? There is a sense of freedom on this record, and beyond that, a simple, almost ineffable happiness. After hearing countless songs from him about lost love and broken hearts, in some way I’m just happy to hear one of my favorite artists feel the freedom to express the sheer joy of making music. This is the sound of a group of friends singing their hearts out with eyes open wide and hopes high. There’s something incredibly powerful about that.

Highlights: Orange Juice, Torn Blue Foam Couch, Sleepdriving

3. Caithlin De Marrais – My Magic City

The best record of the year that no one has heard of. Caithlin sings in a dusky voice over introspective, organic music. The maturity of sound and perspective hinted at by the later Rainer Maria records is now here in full force. There’s an openness to ambiguity, a gentle tension. It allows for a sense of warmth that is impossible in records with a less sophisticated emotional core. The songs on this record breathe like living beings. They move at their own pace, and reveal themselves slowly. In each of them you can sense an indescribable looseness, the feeling of newness etched into the air.

The great power of this record is the way it imbues the most simple, mundane moments with just a touch of magic. The point is not to create fantastical stories or overpowering emotions, but rather to tread lightly, to focus in on the spaces in between. In that respect it succeeds wonderfully. My two favorite records of the year both go big. But My Magic City is beautiful precisely because it holds you quietly, with a whisper and a tender kiss.

Highlights: Alexandria, Voicemail, Carefully, Voicemail, and every other song

2. The Gaslight Anthem – The ’59 Sound

They’ve tapped into the same wellspring that The Boss drew from: finding a power in rock and roll that can speak beyond particular stories and evoke some larger meaning. There are certainly echoes or even direct references all over the place, but it’s important to note that this is not a band simply trying to graft “the Springsteen sound” onto something else. It’s a natural evolution, and a perfect joining, between sounds. They also hail from Jersey but they come back to Springsteen via a trip into a more Chicago-punk sound. And most importantly, this a band who genuinely cares about the people in their songs – they are not mere props to spit out some formulaic lines about highways and the working class. These are stories that feel real, evocative, and purposeful.

There’s also a self-awareness that’s necessary to set apart the good songs from the great. The wishfulness, the way that this sound is leapt into out a pure love for the music of their youth but also out of a desperation to keep a sad and lonely world from spinning out of control. It’s the sort of album that you can’t be shy about. You won’t appreciate it if you don’t jump in completely. Accept that it is a flawed but beautiful record, don’t read too deeply into the countless references, and just let the feeling of growing up in a world of rock and roll wash over you. You won’t regret it.

Highlights: The ’59 Sound, High Lonesome, Casanova, Baby!, Here’s Lookin At You, Kid, Great Expectations

1. Frightened Rabbit – The Midnight Organ Fight

I can’t think of another band in the world right now who could have found the balance necessary to make this record. It’s suffused with a terrible fragility. Part is in the timbre of the vocals, which enables lines like “I might not want you back, but I want to kill him” or “it takes more than fucking someone you don’t know to keep warm” to sound entirely believable. Part is in the way they play: ranging from a shattering percussive blitzkrieg in one moment to a delicate interplay between swooping slide-guitar and punctuated bass notes in another. Finally, there’s the songwriting, which is incredibly intimate, like being deep down in the soul of someone – a place that even they can’t fully tap into. It keeps you absolutely spellbound, as you get sucked into the tragedy, the deep regret, the pain that feels like it will drag you under.

The songs convey a sense of the agonizing clarity that can accompany our worst decisions, as well as the kernel of hope that we hold on to in order to keep ourselves afloat. The pain doesn’t go away, but it becomes something else, a reason to keep breathing, a catalyst. And so, after all the heart-rending, you emerge, shyly, into the sunshine, squinting a bit at the bright lights but with a smile beginning to form. It’s a delicate subject and in the hands of another band could easily feel cloying or artificial. But here, on this marvelous album, the hope doesn’t feel false.

It’s fitting in a way. After all, in this year of all years, we were reminded that there has never been anything false about hope.

Highlights: Head Rolls Off, Poke, Good Arms vs Bad Arms, Modern Leper, Floating in the Forth, Fast Blood, and every single other song

It’s been strange year for music. 2006 may have been my favorite year for music ever, and 2007 had a ton of fantastic songs. 2008, however, has very few songs I would consider all-time classics. Something like “Girls in the Their Summers Clothes” which only managed #8 on my list last year would be challenging for #1 this time.

That said, I feel like my albums list is incredibly strong and deep. Which means there were tons of very good, but comparatively few great, songs this year. And there’s definitely something to be said for that. I certainly discovered far more good songs than I could ever listen to this year. After much trimming and paring, here’s my 40 favorite.

As always, it’s limited to one song per artist. And I’m continuing my tradition of not really talking about the whole song, but instead focusing in and highlighting the single best moment.

40 . Feel Alive – Metermaids
1:51 – It’s the sound the subway at 3 AM, of kids in Central Park, of hipsters on the Lower East Side, of the afternoon in Harlem. Most of all its an expression of joy, tempered by the recognition of hard times and tough places, but still resplendent in spite of it all.

39. Hooray – The Delays
0:10 – Someone else’s loss is my chocolaty goodness!

38. Me and Mary – Asobi Seksu
2:14 – Yuki Chikudate can do things with her voice that defy even the furthest boundaries of human imagination. Included on the list because it was released this year, even if the full record won’t be out until 2009.

37. I Kissed a Girl (youtube link) – Katy Perry
0:33 – Much as I’d like to deny it (and thus not be forced to include such an embarrassing song on my list) this chorus is one of the best pop/rock moments I’ve heard in a long, long time.

36. Flocks III – Collections of Colonies of Bees
9:52 – After almost ten minutes of buildup, the core collapses in upon itself and then bursts out in a cascade of light that quickly fragments and scatters in a million directions. In this moment, you can hear everything.

35. The Gardener – The Tallest Man on Earth
3:17 – Two lovers standing in the garden. Deep inside, I think she knows. But it’s easier to pretend. Which means they’re both guilty.

34. Viva La Vida (youtube link) – Coldplay
1:34 – Look, I don’t like Coldplay. I think they represent a lot of things that are seriously wrong with music. And it’s frustrating that a boring band like them gets so much reward while so many superior acts toil below the radar. That said, they do occasionally write a pop masterpiece. This is one of those times. I’m happy to report that the rest of the album is pretty wretched, though.

33. Overcome – Juliette Commagere
3:05 – So over the top that all you can do is sit back in wonderment.

32. White Winter Hymnal – Fleet Foxes
2:00 – After dialing up and up over the cycles of verses, it’s all stripped away and you’re left with a pure beauty shorn of all embellishments. You almost can’t breathe for fear of knocking apart the delicate latticework upon which these harmonies rest.

31. I Want You Back – The School
0:38 – A piece of twee perfection. The chorus hits you like a rush of dopamine to the brain.

30. A&E (youtube link) – Goldfrapp
1:02 – He had heard that women often fell in love with unattractive and quite ordinary men, but he did not believe it because he judged by himself and he could fall in love only with beautiful, mysterious and exceptional women.

29. The Trees Were Presidential (Andrew Bird vs. Youngbloodz) – ABX
1:33 – The whistle fits here so perfectly that you wonder how it could have ever existed anywhere else. I’m not a huge fan of mashups and the like, but when done well they reveal a depth in the music you never would have imagined.

28. Gumdrops – The Smittens
1:01 – In a song that’s almost too cute for its own good, this is the essential moment.

27. In the New Year – The Walkmen
2:05 – “We won by a landslide” – Close enough.

26. New Country – Birdmonster
1:12 – I love the way the lyrics bleed into these perfectly struck keyboard notes, and the way the guitar is growing slowly behind them.

25. Cath… – Death Cab for Cutie
1:04 – “She holds a smile like someone would hold a crying child” – easily Ben Gibbard’s best bit of songwriting in many years.

24. Við spilum endalaust – Sigur Rós
2:40 – The oncoming storm.

23. Blitzed – The Raveonettes
0:48 – Feel yourself drift out into the blissed out waves and watch the fireworks burst all across the horizon.

22. Julian of Norwich – Bombadil
1:28 – The fullness of Joy is to behold God in everything.

21. Journey of the Featherless – Cloud Cult
2:15 – As Samwise Gamgee once put it: “just like being inside a rainbow.”

20. The River – Anathallo
3:18 – A map of the world that does not include Utopia is not worth even glancing at, for it leaves out the one country at which Humanity is always landing.

19. Get Better – Mates of State
2:36 – The album was a bit disappointing, but the buildup and release in this song is as good as anything they’ve done.

18. Graveyard Girl – m83
2:33 – The spoken interlude is overdone, ridiculous, and yet perfectly sublime. The way the music returns – gentle and forgiving – makes this clear. It’s a moment of genuine compassion, even love.

17. Slow Down Csilla – The Spectacles
1:58 – One of the most intense moments of the whole year, made even more so by the lo-fi atmosphere

16. Travel in Time – Marching Band
3:27 – Everybody lives, Rose. Just this once. Everybody lives!

15. 14 Forever – Stars
2:18 – The single most pure moment in music since…well, since Set Yourself on Fire. The things Amy Millan can do with her voice continue to astonish me.

14. Lost Coastlines – Okkervil River
1:34 – Have I mentioned that I think Okkervil River is the best band in the world right now? That’s in large part due to moments like this. What other band could even conceive a line like: “Is that marionette real enough yet to step off of that set to decide what her dance might be doing? Ruining the play to, in the ensuing melee, escape?” – much less pull it off with such style and grace?

13. My Eyes – Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog
2:06 – Strange that my favorite harmony of the year was sung by two non-musicians and written by Joss Whedon. The overlap and interplay between the two is lovely, in that way that only the best show tunes can manage.

12. The Nun’s Litany – The Magnetic Fields
1:52 – I’ve always thought Shirley Simms was the best of the many Magnetic Fields singers, and here she shows why.

11. Barrowland Ballroom – Amy MacDonald
2:48 – Hard to pick a single moment from a song so packed with urgency, but for some reason the phrasing of this line absolutely demolishes me.

10. Lights Out for Darker Skies – British Sea Power
3:04 – The first three minutes are exactly the kind of great New Wave-tinged rock song you’d expect from them. This is the moment when you realize that something far greater is going on.

9. Anna – Hello Saferide
1:25 – You could write an entire novel and fail to capture the inner-workings of a broken heart as well as she does in this one moment.

8. You, Me, and the Bourgeoisie – The Submarines
0:49 – I get at least five hits every day of people searching for the line “every day we wake up, we choose love, we choose light” – given my feelings about this blog, this band, and the world at large, I think that’s pretty appropriate.

7. Alexandria – Caithlin De Marrais
1:39 – This song brims with the gentle pathos of everyday life on the road, the confusion, the fights, the aches and pains. Picking one moment is difficult, but this one feels the most evocative to me, for reasons I can’t really explain. It’s a blanket wrapped around you on a cold night, a warm cup of tea, a tired smile shared between friends.

6. Black Fur – Fredrik
1:59 – A glorious noise – it’s the sound of things we take for granted, but which would bowl us over in amazement if we really stopped to think about them.

5. Orange Juice – Grand Archives
0:17 – Ninety seconds of effortless beauty. You wouldn’t go wrong picking any part of it but for me, the opening line is perfect: “If you could believe in all the things that they told you, then you could be leaving with me.”

4. The ’59 Sound – The Gaslight Anthem
1:02 – It’s anthemic in all the best ways. Not because it tries to make itself large, but because of the way it takes an intensely personal and individual moment and lets it burst forth – inviting you into a world where you have permission to set aside the jaded, ironic distance that convinces us that it’s weak to feel pain and sorrow.

3. Present/Infant (Daytrotter session) – Ani DiFranco
2:24 – I think this may be the happiest Ani has ever sounded. And also the most secure in herself. For all the astonishing talent and beautiful songs over the years, there’s something tremendously comforting here that I’m not sure we’ve heard before. The style is reminiscent of her earliest records, but it’s tempered by age, and a recognition of the fact that even the most precocious people must take time to fully grow into themselves.

2. Ruins of the Realm – James McMurtry
2:45 – A brilliant rumination on the long decline of empires. It hits closest to home here. Thinking about the ruins of the South in the context of 2008 provides the glimmer of optimism necessary to offset the fundamental pessimism imposed by the promise a collapsing new world order. It’s a triumphant sadness.

1. Head Rolls Off – Frightened Rabbit
2:50 – This is the return home, where everything comes right. It’s here that we come to understand the meaningless of grand plans, the temporality of our lives. The fear this inspires in us, but the fundamental optimism of it all. What we used to look for in God we now see reflected back in the world around us, in the eyes of a million hopeful souls, living, loving, singing, dancing, touching hands, writing stories. And this song is a mirror for it all.

I’m back home in Washington for most of the rest of the month. This means I’ve somehow stumbled into a pretty reasonable snowstorm that’s expected to only get worse over the weekend. It also means my internet connection is virtually non-existent. I’ve still got a ton of stuff I wanted to cover before the year-end lists came out in a few days, but I may not get to much of it. In which case, early 2009 is going to be filled with reviews of the B/B- records of 2008.

In the meantime, I have been meaning to post something about this Rick Warren thing that is currently dominating the left-learning blogosphere. This is a place where I’m torn. On one hand I’m absolutely sick of homophobic bigotry being treated as relatively acceptable. To the extent that inviting Warren to speak is a symbolic example of that, I’m against it.

That said, the way the whole (admittedly narrow) blog-world has seemingly exploded with people freaking out about this seems a little off to me. Inviting the guy to speak doesn’t mean supporting any of his policies per se. And while it absolutely does lend him some authority and perhaps legitimates a discriminatory attitude on some issues, there’s more to it than just that.
People have reacted so negatively, I think, because they see this as purely a crass political move. I don’t think that’s quite right. I mean, obviously it’s a political move in the sense than any decision on symbolic issues for Obama in the next few years has to be political. But I don’t think it’s an attempt to “triangulate,” exactly. The idea here isn’t to invite a right-wing guy to piss off the left and make himself look “centrist.”

To say it’s only about that ignores some very real things going on. First, Warren is a right-wing bigot. But he’s also a lot more “moderate” than most of the other evangelical leaders. In particular, he has made it clear that he actually cares about issues, not merely party politics. publius has a fantastic post up about this that really captures my thoughts. To invite Warren is to make an offer which says: to be evangelical does not necessarily have to mean going after Democrats. It can instead mean going after your issues. And while that will of course continue to include crappy stuff like regulating sexuality, banning abortion, etc. it will also include charity, helping the poor, working on treatments for AIDS, and so on.

That stuff matters. It matters a lot, actually. And if reaching out to Warren makes it easier to work together on some of those things, I’m for it, even if that “credibility” to Warren. Because I think it’s silly to talk about Warren as someone who needs to be granted credibility by Obama. The whole point is that there are tens of millions of people in this country firmly committed to the ideas he stands for. You can’t simply write them off as bigoted. That’s a recipe for endless fighting and conflict, not to mention for a pretty unpleasant field of politics.

This brings me to my second point, which goes back to a post I wrote last month. I think what people continue to miss about Obama is that all of this talk about pragmatism is not a sign that he’s a moderate, middle of the road, traditional Democratic candidate. In fact, you can make a case that it’s precisely the opposite.

Matt Stoller thinks he scores a devastating point when he writes “Chris and I were pretty consistent in pointing out that you should believe what Obama says, and not try to pretend that he’s lying to the public so that he can get progressive policies passed. Obama’s pretty upfront about what he believes. He tends to do politician-y things like use liberal rhetoric to justify limiting rights for gay people and disembodying the left so he can punch us in the face every once in awhile.”

But what this misses is that it doesn’t actually operate on the premise of believing what Obama says. Because what Obama consistently has said is that he simply doesn’t believe in cutting people out of politics. His pragmatism is to say that everyone has a place, if they choose to take it. And where people agree, they can find a way to work together and get things done.
If you want to, you can read that as caving in to bigotry. But if you do that, then you aren’t taking Obama seriously, because his entire candicacy (the “change you can believe in”) was about the form of politics as much as the content. The idea is that if you strip away the ideological attack-based structure of political organization, it turns out that the majority of people tend to want a lot of progressive things – and you end up a lot closer to actually getting them done.

Now, it’s still an open question about whether that dream can be fulfilled. But too much of the left-wing commentary on this question has treated it like this isn’t even part of the question. All that they can see is the symbolism of inviting a homophobe, while not understanding the symbolism of a presidency that says “if you agree with me about anything, we have something to talk about.”

That’s why the left feels comfortable mocking Obama for stating a belief in ‘inclusive’ politics. “But!” they exclaim, “you’ve invited a bigot. Where’s the inclusion in what Warren believes?” The short answer is that it’s in his desire to help the poor and the sick. The longer answer is that it’s in his belief in higher ideals. That those beliefs do not include gay people is a place where disagreement and outrage is essential. But we shold always remember that there’s a difference between outrage and exclusion.

All that said, I am not fully convinced that inviting Warren to speak falls on the proper side of this equation. I recognize that my interpretation is pretty idealized, and like I said, I’m not at all happy with the premise that someone can be this intolerant of gays and still be given a national stage on inaguration day, where someone who expressed similar opinions on other forms of discrimination would be shunned. It strikes me as just a little bit too much like saying gay people should have to wait for social mores to catch up before they can expect politicans to treat them as full human beings.

So I certainly don’t mean to say people shouldn’t be upset about this thing. It’s perfectly reasonable to express unhappiness. I myself feel a lot of it. I’m just worried about that anger turning into wholesale backlash. I think it’s incredibly valuable for there to be a clear voice speaking up for the liberal perspective, even if (especially if) we take seriously the idea that Obama can promote a kind of politics where it’s possible to work with people like Warren. In the same sense that it promises a seat at the table to all perspectives, the liberal one should stay strong and demand his ear, as well.

Just because we all support Obama in general does not mean we have to believe that everything he does is good. Even more, just because the reality of politics means that some things simply won’t be possible doesn’t mean we should stop demanding them. One of the interesting results of this whole Warren thing is that it’s resulted in a perspective where the question is whether the anti-gay position is so far out of the mainstream that it should be entirely excluded. By registering anger about Warren, the progressive left has demonstrated that a position which was thoroughly mainstream only a few years ago is now a political minefield. That’s valuable and important.

The crucial thing, though, is to retain at least a little perspective. Be angry when Obama does things that aren’t what you like, but try to simultaneously recognize that process really does matter. And if the bad thing is symbolic rather than material, try to see how there may be a deeper symbolism in affirming a notion of politics that is fundamentally progressive, even if it doesn’t appear that way in this moment.

In short: democracy isn’t easy. People disagree about stuff. A truly progressive way of dealing with democracy must resist the impulse to simply shut out those who disagree. You must reach out to agents of intolerance because that’s what separates a true commitment to an ideal from crass political maneuvering. If you are inclusive only when its easy, that’s not really inclusiveness. That’s a benign form of fascism. And that’s not what the progressive community should be about.

There will be another Christmas post next week, but since I’m about 12 hours away from getting on a plane to Seattle (where it recently snowed, unleashing endless havoc) it seemed like an appropriate time to post this track.

Snowing In Seattle – Sherwood

It’s precisely what you’d hope for in a song about a snowy, Seattle Christmas: a clean slice of hook-laden power pop to keep your mind off of how badly everyone is going to be driving for the next week until the snow melts.

And while I’m in a festive mood, there’s also a very nice little album called A Very Balthrop Christmas. Most exciting for me is yet another fantastic track from Caithlin De Marrais (who will be featuring prominently in my upcoming year-end lists), but the whole record is very enjoyable. If you quickly grow sick of the standard holiday songs, this collection far more accurately reflects the quirky, communal, and multifaceted relationship that real people share over the winter months.

Seasonal Persuasion – Caithlin De Marrais

Newsweek asks for cultural critics to pick a work that “exemplifies what it was like to be alive in the age of George W. Bush.” Matt Yglesias agrees with the TV critic who picked Battlestar Galactica, saying that “really nothing else has done nearly so much to capture the dystopian nature of the Bush years.” I find this to be completely backwards.

BSG was great when it wasn’t trying to comment on Iraq and the war on terror. When the premise was a much larger rumination on the basic question of “do humans really deserve to exist?” it was fantastic. The reason the show worked is because there really wasn’t a clear answer to the fundamental question. The tension of having to wonder whether the Cylons were right to do what they did, of wondering if the true fate of humanity was simply to be relegated to the past as a historical artificat, wiped away by our progeny in the same way that we swept aside the Neanderthals…all of that is what made the show so excellent. The darkness wasn’t tied to some incredibly blunt and boring allegory to current events – it was intrinsic to the very notion of the human condition.

By the end of season two, and particularly in season three, however, all of this was brushed aside. The Cylons were now depicted as stupid conquerors, occupiers with no plan or goals, bumbling around for no reason. It made zero internal sense with what had already been established and appeared to exist as a plot development solely so they could tell the most boring of stories about the war on terror.

The only reason the show worked was because you had some reason to believe that the Cylons were letting them live for a reason. It never made the slightest bit of sense that a military force capable of wiping out 99.99% of humanity in hours would be so utterly flummoxed by one ship. So you were left to wonder: what is “the plan” that the opening credits keep promising? What was the real meaning of the attack? Can we re-orient ourselves and find a way to see the Cylons as the protagonists of the story rather than the enemy?

When those questions were possible to raise, there was a delightful ambiguity. All of that collapsed, however, once they went for the boring “oooh, isn’t the war on terror icky” approach in season three. We discover that the Cylons are exactly as clueless as anyone else.

In that sense, I guess it could represent the Bush years in the sense that eventually the curtain was pulled aside and it was revealed that no one actually had any idea what they were doing – making for a pointless muddle of back-and-forth among people who you don’t care about. The difference is that BSG actually WAS really good for a while. It was only ruined in retrospect.

Not to spend too much time on the Caroline Kennedy thing, but this defense of appointing her does nothing but convince of just how terrible an idea it would be. I normally like what Dana Goldstein has to say, but this conclusion has to be one of the least-persuasive imaginable: “the primary concern should be appointing the most effective and smartest senator right now. Caroline Kennedy just might be that person.”

The one thing that seems fairly obvious in all this is that she is almost definitively not the most effective and smartest Senate candidate. That she is famous might well bring some advantages (fundraising, a strong public persona which will get her airtime on issues), but those have nothing to do with her actual ability to legislate.

Goldstein floats a balloon for someone like Caroyln Maloney – who I admit to knowing nothing about – but shoots the idea down because “she isn’t known as a wonk or a quick study, and in a year when progressive policy opportunities abound, seriousness will be rewarded.” That may very well be true, but in what imaginable world is picking another Kennedy a sign of seriousness? If anything, it’s decidedly the opposite: a declaration that being famous is more important than experience or wonkishness.

While I’m on the subject of fame, let me take the opportunity to post another track from a band who helped define my whole musical existence back in the 90’s. I really love Super Deluxe.

Famous – Super Deluxe