Top 30 or So

Top 30 or So Albums of the First Half of 2011

2011-07-24T12:14:00.001-07:00

In no particular order, may I present my favorite albums of the first half of 2011. While these are in no particular order, I will offer up that my top 5 in some order are almost definitely, Kurt Vile, James Blake, Fucked Up, Tuneyards, and Destroyer. Beyond that, it's a real crap shoot. I think it's also pretty safe to say that before the end of the year Beirut's new album and The Rapture's new album will find a pretty lofty perch on the list. Anyway... on to the listing

Shabazz Palaces – Black Up
Bon Iver – Bon Iver
Pains of Being Pure at Heart - Belong
Tuneyards – who kill
Dinosaur Feathers – Fantasy Memorial
Wild Beasts – Smother
White Denim – D
Fucked up – David Comes to Life
Cults – Cults
Tyler the Creator – Goblin
Tennis – Cape Dory
Telekinesis – Twelve Desperate Straight Lines
Smith Westerns – Dye it Blonde
Mountain Goats – All Eternals Deck
Rural Alberta Advantage – Departing
Okkervil River – I am Very Far
Low Anthem – Smart Flesh
Kurt Vile – Smoke Ring for my Halo
James Blake – James Blake
J. Mascis – Several Shades of Why
The Weeknd - House of Balloons
Fresh and Onlys – Play it Strange
Fleet Foxes – Helplessness Blues
Destroyer – Kaputt
Decemberists – The King is Dead
Cut Copy – Zonoscope
John Maus – We Must Become the Pitiless Censors of Ourselves
Holy Ghost – Holy Ghost
Battles – Gloss Drop
Gil Scott Heron/Jamie XX – We’re New Here
Yuck – Yuck
Young Galaxy - Shapeshifting

Best Songs of 2009 50-25

2009-12-19T13:03:00.000-08:00

50. Glasvegas – It’s My Own Cheating Heart that Makes Me Cry

I only recently discovered that I’m a sucker for heartbroken Scottish guys singing about heartbreak. It’s a formula that works for me and it works particularly well in this track where slowed down Phil Specter tambourine driven verses are complemented by a soaring chorus of full on power pop riffs. There’s not a ton here to separate Glasvegas from their fellow Scots in Frightened Rabbit and We Were Promised Jetpacks but that doesn’t make this song any less great.

49. Handsome Furs – All We Want Baby is Everything

Ever slow on the uptake, I feel like I connected with the synth pop revival about a year too late. I am making up for lost time however and this track is one of those responsible for igniting my interest. If someone had told me that this was a new Depeche Mode song aimed at reviving their pop sensibilities I would have probably believed them and been very pleased that Depeche Mode had stopped sucking. Instead I get the knowledge that the Handsome Furs are really fucking good.

48. Fall Out Boy – America’s Suitehearts

I don’t care what you or anyone else says, NO ONE writes consistently better, simple, punk songs than Pete Wentz and it isn’t even close. Contrast this surprisingly underappreciated album to Green Day’s newest masturbatory arena rock opus and its excellence becomes even more apparent. I’m not calling this a guilty pleasure or making apologies for it, I’m on record as REALLY liking Fall Out Boy particularly this clever, possibly derisive, and surprisingly deep “tribute” to America’s tabloid fodder

47. Phenomenal Handclap Band – 15 to 20

Even though this song shamelessly rips off Blondie and even though the rest of the album doesn’t even TOUCH these pop heights, Phenomenal Handclap band’s 2009 output is worthy of mad credit. The funky, disco channeling count off is refreshing in its retro reverence.

46. Washed Out – Feel it All Around

The world needs more smooth yacht inspired indie rock for when two hipsters are bumping horned rimmed glasses and trading hits off of hand rolled and obnoxious American Spirits. This is it. Dreamy and awash with distorted synth, Feel it All Around feels like the preface to what will be an awesomely innovative career.

45. Raekwon ft. Ghostface Killah and Method Man – New Wu

“Tell a friend it’s that symbol again, that W, Coming through, bust a shot on your block” Welcome back guys. Thanks to Raekwon’s AWESOME Only Built 4 Cuban Linx pt. 2 we can all pretend like the uneven at best and awful at worst Wu-Tang comeback album last year never happened and that this track is the official welcome back moment for some of the greatest talents in all of hip hop.

44.The Crocodiles – I Wanna Kill

Just enough lo-fi fuzz to keep your interest but not so much that the irresistible pop melodies don’t sparkle through the distortion drenched haze. Like if The Strokes decided to make their comeback album as a Jesus and Mary Chain tribute band. That being said, the chorus does consist entirely of the lines, “I want to kill tonight” so you know that wherever it is these guys are coming from is well beyond left field.

43. Girls – Lust for Life

So how can a band still shock it’s listeners in modern in digitally desensitized modern America? Make three videos for your first single that progress from NSFW to “Holy shit that’s a dong isn’t it?” to Gay Porn. Add to that the fact that there is absolutely nothing about the song.; a spare, single guitar lick and hand claps combine with charmingly nasal vocals to create a classic (but not boring) indie rock experience.

42. Amadou and Miriam ft. K’Naan – Africa

It was really difficult to pick one song off of this great album to highlight. This wins it due to the fresh voice that by joining Mali’s favorite singing blind couple, Somalian rapper K’Naan brings to the table in what he calls, “the original east coast, west coast collaboration” a balance between world music and pop music that feels easier and truer than the other high points of the album

41. We Were Promised Jetpacks – Ships With Holes Will Sink

Like Franz Ferdinand if they stripped off their euro-trash pretense and just dropped a straightforward rock album. Clearly these guys borrow from a lot of other UK acts like the Frames but their rock edge separates them from their brethren to a certain extent and gives this track in particular some real emotional heft.

40. Patterson Hood – Screwtopia

This year, I get to complain about how criminally underrated Patterson Hood is INSTEAD of how criminally underrated his band the Drive-by Truckers are. When Hood does social commentary he doesn’t play the douchey liberal role, nor does he play the, “I’m just like all you normal folks except for my multimillion selling, Iraq War exploiting, country music album” role. He’s just a normal dude (truly a dude in every sense of the word… hell he even looks like The Dude from The Big Lebowski) calling it as he sees it. It’s refreshing and fantastic and dammit more people should be paying attention.

39. Port O’Brien – Sour Milk/Saltwater

This Alaska/California folk rock act released the album from which Sour Milk/Saltwater comes into an extremely crowded and increasingly homogenous genre and managed to pull of a unique and personal sound that rollicks more than the status quo. You can almost feel the “I lived in fucking Alaska” coming through here.

38. The xx – Vcr

If I made a Best Albums of the year list, The xx’s xx would be damn near the top of the list. In their case though, the unified greatness of the full length is based more on the overall arc of the album rather than on a collection of singular standout tracks. This song comes the closest though as the guy/girl vocal trade off aesthetic functions like a droney Kenny Rogers and Sheena Easton on “We’ve got Tonight.”

37. Cymbals Eat Guitars – Some Trees

I’ve maybe mentioned before how much I wish I had had a chance to experience the birth of indie rock first hand in its infancy rather than my current mode of going back and collecting the individual pieces like some sort of musical archaeologist. When I listen to Guided by Voices and Pavement I’m left to essentially say, “Fuck, I didn’t realize that all the bands I love were at least in part ripping these guys off.” Thankfully, I was informed enough that when I heard this fantastic 2 and ½ minute explosion from Cymbals Eat Guitars I knew exactly who they had ripped off and didn’t care in the slightest.

36. White Rabbits – Percussion Gun

Polished and fun, there is nothing at all cerebral about this song and that might be what makes it so good. Much has already been made about the connections to Britt Daniel and Spoon both in terms of their production relationship and in the fact that these guys sound A LOT like Spoon. No matter, there is enough room in that stripped down Austin sound for the both of ‘em.

35. Art Brut – Demons Out!

Speaking of not cerebral… is it possible that Art Brut are the most lovable act in music right now? You know all those insecurities you have? Art Brut’s Eddie Argos has those too and he’s going to sing about them… in detail. In this song though he chooses his OTHER favorite subject (and my favorite subject) and that is the fact that he knows that his pop cultural tastes are MUCH superior to everyone else’s. This might be the band that I would like to hang out with more than any other.

34. Japandroids – Rockers East Vancouver

Fuzzed out punk rock that that hangs on to its sense of melody just tenuously enough to keep you engaged. Similar to one of my favorite 2008 debut acts Titus Andronicus in their raw power only a little bit cleaner and a little less pretentious.

33. Wavves – No Hope Kids

This album takes WORK, like a lot. It was only upon maybe the 10^th or 11^th listen that I wasn’t driven bat shit crazy by the lo-fi production and reverb vocals that inform the entire album. It’s the harmony of this song though that unlocked the album and finally allowed it to make sense. Just pay attention and the complexity and poppiness shine through like a beacon rewarding your patience.

32. The Drive by Truckers – Uncle Frank

Originally released on their album Pizza Deliverance, this re-recorded and cleaner track made the B-Side (!) compilation The Fine Print. One of two great songs about dams (really) on the album, this one rises slightly ahead of Jason Isbell’s TVA on the strength of Mike Coley’s class warrior lyrics about doctors and lawyers teaching their kids to water-ski. And while we’re at it, let me just state AGAIN for the record that the amount of great output that these guys generate is absolutely unreal… they’re the best rock band in America.

31. Bowerbirds – Northern Lights

It’s so easy to write great songs about the south and how if you haven’t lived here it’s impossible to understand the subtle things that make it charming and great (note: not referring to racism and republican politics, really just referring to southern girls). This song approaches from the opposite angle as the vocals attest that, “I don’t expect a southern girl to know the northern lights.” This song sounds like a sober Ryan Adams before he became self- important.

30.Yonlu – I Know What it’s Like

For those of you who don’t know his story, it’s worth a read ( just look at the bio on the right side, bottom of the page)…. Okay so now that you’re weeping, listen to the song. I find that - similar to the music of Elliott Smith - Yonlu’s music is almost too heartbreaking and personal to enjoy sometimes. The one difference though is that while you really have to dig to find Smith’s silver lining, Yonlu’s is always evident and I’m not sure if that makes this light, samba inflected standout easier to handle or harder.

29. The Love Language – Manteo

Not gonna lie, I kind of geek out every time a song references a city that I’ve visited and feel some personal connection to. When Old Crow Medicine Show says Roanoke and Johnson City I forget that I’ve heard Wagon Wheel roughly 8 million times. In this song North Carolina’s, The Love Language provide a bit of a kiss off to the primary vacation spot of my youth with lyrics perfectly suited to their richly orchestrated freak-folk inspired pop.

28. Lucero – Goodbye Again

It’s not always good to give established indie rock acts a big major label budget. Often times this leads them to fuck up what works. Not the case for Lucero here as adding a horn section seems like it let them make the album that they were progressing to for years. No album sounded more like the home city of its band than this one. It is straight up Memphis and that’s great.

27. David Sitek – With a Girl Like You

One of the triumvirate of geniuses in TV on the Radio, David Sitek seems to have his hands all over universally great output. From the track “TV in the Radio” off of Wale’s newest (barely missed this list) to this Staxx R&B meets Joy Division love song, I am finding myself consistently falling for every single thing he does.

26. Metic – Gimme Sympathy

With a chorus that a music geek can easily fall in love with, vocalist Emily Haines asks, “Who’d you rather be? The Beatles or the Rolling Stones?” The synth driven, straight forward rock is a real marriage of standard music influences coming together in a modern and fresh way.

25. The Big Pink – Dominos

Of any song on the list this year, this one most deserves to be played the loudest. Totally stylistically innovative in a way that rejects hipster orthodoxy and focuses upon creating a sound that fills a void in the world of decent music. At times throughout the song (and album) you can hear Trent Reznor inspired industrial, 80s synthesizer, and most often soaring Brit Rock choruses that are evocative of Oasis or Blur.

The 25 Greatest Moments in The Wire

2009-12-03T06:28:00.000-08:00

Presented from the Best to the 25th Best... Your commentary is appreciated.

Warning: If you haven't seen this series in its entirety DO NOT READ THIS it contains nothing but spoilers. Seriously, even if you think you'll never watch it... don't read it because YOU NEED to watch it.

Best Scenes from The Wire

1) Avon and Stringer on the balcony
In a scene that is more powerful for what isn’t said than what is, the full dynamic of the relationship between Stringer and Avon comes to light. Stringer’s ambition collides with Avon’s loyalty to the game and it is clear to everyone, including the two friends, exactly how this is going to play out.

2) D’Angelo talks about the Great Gatsby + his initial decision to testify against Barksdale
These two scenes, despite stretching across two different episodes and two different seasons are essentially part of the same extended narrative. This is the redemption of D’Angelo, where he confirms for us what we’ve kind of known all along: the fact that he isn’t cut out for the family business and that the pressure to be something he’s not is killing him. If only he knew.

3) We used to have ourselves a community speech from Bunk to Omar.
Everyone’s favorite character meets his match in this scene. What throughout the series is seen as Omar’s perfectly consistent moral code is shown to be inherently flawed by an irate Bunk. Omar and his vigilante justice is as amoral as the corrosive violence of the series’ kingpins and the fumbling bureaucracy of the public institutions that enable them. This is a rare instance where Omar is rightfully humbled.

4) Bodie and McNulty’s conversation in the park, “I feel old”
In a series that is filled with tragically flawed villains and anti-heroes, no character aside from Bubbles attains the type of redemption that Bodie does. As he discusses his feelings toward the game with McNulty for the first time the viewer starts to see that the brash 16 year old from Season 1 is not a kid anymore… just as you realize it, so does Bodie and he utters what might be the most heartbreaking line of the whole series, “I feel old.”

5) The “Fuck” scene
Occurring early in Season 1, Bunk and McNulty dissect an entire murder scene using only derivations of the word Fuck. This doesn’t advance the plot much but it is the first point that the viewer realizes that the show’s creator David Simon has set the hook… from this point on you just get reeled further in.

6) Death of Stringer Bell
Is it okay to call this the most shocking death in television history? Of all the larger than life characters in this series none of them came close to the power of Stringer Bell. Perhaps what is most shocking is that the fierce Stringer doesn’t die the death of a soldier, he dies groveling… attempting to bribe his assassins before reluctantly accepting his fate.

7) Faculty meeting/Police meeting
Any public employee can watch this scene that cuts back and forth from a Teacher Work Week faculty meeting where an outside consultant inculcates the apathetic teachers with bullshit strategies that won’t work and a police department meeting where a Homeland Security specialist does the same can sympathize. The bureaucracy is made to protect the ass’ of superiors… to juke the stats… and we are left to deal with it.

8) D’Angelo talks chess
Would D’Angelo have been able to define the literary term allegory? Maybe not, but who cares. In a perfect preview of the basic theme of the series, D’Angelo gives it to his employees straight… in politics, drugs, unions, etc. the odds are and will always be stacked against the pawns.

9) Wallace gets his siblings ready for school
The care with which Wallace, already a drop out at 16, prepares his younger siblings for school is heart wrenching. Packing juice boxes, checking on homework… seeing this, a suburban white viewer gets new insight into the economic underpinnings of not only the American drug trade but poverty in general by seeing it in as real a depiction as TV can provide.

10) Snoop buying nail gun
Stephen King called Snoop the most terrifying character in the history of television. This is her big moment. The moment where you realize that she is a next level bad ass. What, after all, is she going to do with that nail gun? This scene also provides perhaps the best depiction in the series of the urban Baltimore world overlapping with isolated American suburbbery.

11) Dinner at Ruth’s Chris
Speaking of the urban world meeting isolated suburbbery dynamic… In this scene Bunny Colvin takes the winning group from a class project to a fancy steakhouse for dinner. Like Bigger Thomas’ character in Native Son it becomes clear very early in the scene that the children feel uncomfortable… cornered by the world into which they’ve been dropped. The formerly brash shittalkers suddenly become embarrassed and awkward teenagers when asked to dwell in a world with which they’re painfully unfamiliar.

12) Marlo murders Prop Joe
Who can’t Marlo get to? It is clear by this point in the series that the old guard gangsters from Seasons 1, 2, and 3 are being replaced by the indiscriminately brutal rule of Marlo Stanfield. But Prop Joe? Surely with his guile and elder statesmen status he will avoid a violent end. No dice. This scene is a stark reminder that truly, “the game done changed.”

13) Omar testifies against Bird and RAVAGES Maury Levy in the process
Is there anything as satisfying as seeing someone called to task for their hypocrisy? After watching this scene where Marlo humiliates super attorney Maury Levy, my answer would be no.

14) Bubbles’ AA speech
What does it say about this show that the only character for whom you root with no qualifications is a con man and heroin addict? In his final address to his AA group, Bubbles says everything that you’ve wanted him to say since the series began, and in a show that counts the possibility of redemption as a main theme, we are treated to what is perhaps the only fully redemptive moment from the character that we root for the most.

15) Bunk burning clothing
So oddly brilliant that it must be true. Bunk’s mumbling about the fibers on his clothes tipping off his wife to his numerous affairs is high comedy and McNulty’s “rescue” of him is classic buddy comedy material.

16) Bubbles is consoled by Waylon after overdose of friend.
After Bubbles suicide attempt in the police interrogation room, we see one of our favorite characters whose life has seemingly been comprised of one low point after another reach his nadir. Seeing Bubs silently break down into the arms of Steve Earle’s superbly acted Waylon through the glass of the mental hospital over the death of Sherod shakes you to your very core.

17) Policeman’s Wake for McNulty
I like to call this scene The Apotheosis of McNulty. As The Pogues’ “Body of an American” starts to play anyone familiar with the series starts to wonder just who died. You learn though that it’s more a matter of “what died” than “ who died” as McNulty’s career with the BPD is given a ceremonious farewell.

18) Chris and Snoop chasing Michael… with paintball guns.
By this point, it’s been well established that Chris and Snoop are this series’ angels of death. When you see them you best believe that someone is going to get got. That’s what makes this scene so disorienting and terrifying… you are left to think that Michael is ready to meet his doom. But… a paintball gun? really? Really.

19) 40 Degree Days
The man can construct a metaphor. The sarcasm and thinly concealed rage with which Stringer attacks his lieutenants for subpar performance is perfectly constructed. I find myself using the 40 Degree day analogy on a regular basis and it maintains its heft.

20) Omar buys Honey Nut Cheerios
One of the most fascinating and literary scenes of the entire series. As the episode opens, Omar, motivated by an almost childlike desire for his favorite cereal is forced to leave his apartment without his gun. At this point, the viewer has become quite attached to Omar and you are CERTAIN that he’s a goner as he enters the convenience store unarmed and unprepared. Ultimately, the whole ordeal ends unceremoniously with the only hiccup being the fact that Omar has to buy normal Cheerios this scene however takes on a new meaning in its eerie foreshadowing of Omar’s eventual demise.

21) Carver freaks out behind steering wheel
Really, any of dozens of scenes dealing with the school kids (8th graders which makes the whole story especially meaningful to me) could make the cut here. The scene however where Carver is forced to leave Randy at the group home is one of the few, but always powerful, moments where one of the main characters’ frustration with the dysfunctional system spills over. The silence of the scene created by the closed car door lends an otherworldly quality to the whole scene.

22) Bodie and friends see Carver and Herc at movies
Perhaps one of the funniest moments of the entire series and another one of those, “street world meets the world of the police and both worlds recognize how much they have in common” moments. Bodie’s line, “And you must be the lovely Mrs. Herc,” always slays me.

23) McNulty tears Breonna Barksdale a new one in the interrogation room
From the moment her son dies suspiciously in prison, you get the feeling that Breonna knows that there’s more to his death than meets the eye. Conveniently ignoring the circumstances and blindly trusting Stringer and Avon have allowed her to block this out… that is until McNulty shines the light of guilt directly on Breonna. McNulty’s obvious attachment and sympathy for D’Angelo makes this scene almost retributive in nature and seeing the consistently despicable Breonna realize the much of the blood in D’Angelo’s death is on her hands provides a strange sense of closure to the entire situation.

24) Khima Gregs’ Goodnight Moon
Simple, powerful, encapsulative of the entire series. Gregs’ own rendition of Goodnight Moon to the child that would have been her son is informed by the entire aesthetic of the show and serves as one of the most memorable final scenes of an episode in the series

25) Prezybylewski’s first day of school
This is informed more by personal experience than anything else but I think by in large, that’s what makes the Wire so appealing. No matter how bland and suburban you THINK your job is, The Wire explores that world as well, tackling the tedium of public bureaucracy better and more fiercely than any other artistic product… well… ever. As Prezbylewski struggles to reign in a room full of way-too-savy 8th graders, the teacher in me can’t help but cringe.

My Top 15 Albums of the 2000s

2009-11-19T11:41:00.000-08:00

Welcome back to the blog ... anyone that we hadn't complete run off due to my absence since June 2nd, enjoy.

1) Outkast – Stankonia
Not sure if Andre 3000 and Big Boi knew that they had made the soundtrack for the decade when they finished this masterpiece but with a standout like Bombs over Baghdad (a full THREE YEARS before there were actual bombs… over Baghdad) this album continues to sound innovative and simply UNDENIABLE nearly a decade after its release

My personal connection: Driving to school senior year of high school, I switched back and forth between this album, Arman Van Helden’s Killing Puritans, and The Run Lola Run Soundtrack…. no I did not do ecstasty.

Where I Purchased this: Martinsville, VA Circuit City

2) Radiohead – Kid A
Chuck Klosterman’s write up of how this album predicted the September 11 attacks in his book Killing Yourself to Live is millions of times more brilliant than anything I could write… Just like Stankonia, this album could come out tomorrow and the world would be clamoring about the new musical ground that Thom Yorke and the Greenwood Brothers had broken. Idioteque and National Anthem make any mix CD sound edgy and cool.

My personal connection: On the walk back from an awkward William and Mary freshman mixer during orientation I ran into a guy who called himself DJ Project, walking back to the dorms in the rain, this douchebag talked about how much he loved this album and then sang Pyramid Song off of Amnesiac for the duration of the walk back. Go Tribe?

Where I Purchased this: Roanoke, VA Books, Strings, and Things

3) The Shins – Chutes Too Narrow
Pithy Natalie Portman in Garden State commentary aside, the Shins do a really great job of being a really accessible band. 30 years ago they wouldn’t be in that douchy realm of indie rock, they’d simply be pop stars. Songs like Saint Simon and Kissing the Lipless should be loaded onto college freshmen computers in the factory.

My personal connection: My commute to Grafton Middle School for student teaching took exactly as long as this album, I would roll into the parking lot as Kissing the Lipless was restarting.

Where I Purchased this: Williamsburg, VA Plan 9 Records

4) Justin Timberlake – Justified
This album could have been 14 tracks worth of Rock Your Body and it would have made the top ten. Add one of pop music’s all time greatest Fuck You tracks in the form of Cry Me a River and it becomes increasingly clear as to why ‘N Sync was SO MUCH MORE AWESOME than the Backstreet Boys.

My personal connection: In my imminently important position as Delta Chi Formal playlist creator (read sarcasm), I don’t think I made a list that DIDN’T have Rock Your Body on it and every single time it played I recall some serious near baby making going down…. not with me of course, because I was there alone…. but with everyone else

Where I Purchased this: My final 10 CDs for Free order from BMG

5) Arcade Fire – Funeral
This was that album that spawned a million lame attempts by hipster guys to hit on hipster girls with the line, “Have you heard the new Arcade Fire?.” No? Just me? Whatever. This album is as epic as rock can get. Neighborhood’s 1-4 are the perfect indie arena rock suit and if you can listen to Wake Up and not pump your fist then you don’t have a soul. 10 years from now, these guys will be selling out stadiums.

My personal connection: There was no music listener in Williamsburg whose approbation I sought more fiercely than that of the guy with the beard at Plan 9… if you went there EVER, you know who I’m talking about… I bought this the day it came out and he gave me a strong shout out. Also, I’m a huge douche.

Where I Purchased this: Williamsburg, VA Plan 9 Records

6) The Strokes – Is This It
It sucks how much cooler the Strokes are than the rest of us. That was the aesthetic that these hip, children of privilege projected on their debut LP. As obnoxious as this is, it TOTALLY works simply because it’s impossible to call music as simple and catchy as this pretentious The opening chords of Last Nite (even though they BLATANTLY rip off Tom Petty’s American Girl) are ideal for that moment where it’s clear that you’re settling in for a long night of drinking, debauchery, and excess.

My personal connection: If you are drinking with me at Capital Ale House in Richmond and you DON’T hear this song, then it’s probably not me.

Where I Purchsed this: Charlotte, NC Borders

7) Kanye West – Late Registration
My heart says this spot belongs to the College Dropout in all of its sprawling, messy, and inconsistent glory but my head says to go with the much tighter Late Registration. I hope that Kanye’s current experimental phase hasn’t caused anyone to forget just how awesome it felt the first time you heard Gold Digger. I believe my precise reaction was OHHHH SHHHIIIIITTTT… not SHEEEEEEEEEEEET in the Senator Clay Davis tradition but SHHHHIIITTTTTTT in the way that people freak out when they see a colossal pancake block in a football game. And that isn’t even one of the three best songs on the album. For that you’ll have to listen to Drive Slow, Touch the Sky, or the Diamonds from Sierra Leone (remix) where Jay Z does in fact kill Kanye on his own song

My personal connection: Nothing beats driving an hour to buy this the day it came out (I was living in Hillsville, VA at the time and the closest record store was in the bustling metropolis of Wytheville), coming home with the giant Kanye Bear cardboard cutout in my car that I asked for at Sam Goody. And calling Goodwin, Jon, Grant, and Vida after listening to it to talk about how great it was

Where I Purchased this: Wytheville, VA Sam Goody

8) Drive by Truckers – Decoration Day
If this was a list of my favorite albums of this decade this album would be number 1…. no doubt. As it is, I’m able to put aside my personal tastes for the top 7. No matter who you are, Marry Me should be on your radar as one of the best songs of the decade but if you’re from the south.. like the real south… then Decoration Day is YOUR soundtrack

My personal connection: Listening to this for an entire weekend in the rural climes of Lee County, VA while visiting family who could have been the inspiration for any song on the album. Jon was there for this and will absolutely confirm how perfect this album was for this trip. Gives me chills just thinking about it

Where I purchased this: BMG Music Service

9) Spoon – Kill the Moonlight
The fact that top 40 music has become so homogenous and fallen so far that albums as poppy and accessible as this one are labeled “indie” rock is a true tragedy. “The Way We Get By” should have been a MASSIVE hit while “Jonathan Fisk” should be this generation’s anthem for disaffected and pissy youth.

Personal connection: My brother Reid introduced these guys to me and we listened to it in his/my (the jury is still out on this) Dodge Dynasty while Nick Farmer (one of his friends, a true man of genius) rocked out to Jonathon Fisk

Where I purchased this: Christiansburg, VA Target

10) N.E.R.D – In Search Of
This album might be the most forgotten of this list. Anything you need to know about Pharrell or the Neptunes is on his album. He saves all the best beats for himself, he loves soul, and he loves writing songs about sex. If Lapdance ISN’T the hottest song of the decade I’d LOVE to hear what is.

Personal connection: Anyone remember Streetwise? It was this street team agency that used to send out sampler CDs to anyone that signed up online so that they could distribute promo materials. The CD sampler for Lapdance hit Pulaski County High School early senior year and BLEW UP, everyone had it and everyone had the brain sticker that came with it…. it’s possible that 5414 Cougar Trail Rd. was the epicenter of the NERD fanbase.

Where I purchased this: FYE, Christiansburg, VA

11) Queens of the Stoneage – Songs for the Deaf
Josh Homme is THE underrated musical genius of this decade. Combining the Johnny Cashness of his deep snarl with thundering power chords created a great album in the form of Rated R but putting Dave Grohl behind the drum kit for the whole thing makes for a timeless album

Personal Connection: Of the many concerts I attended at the Norva while at W&M, this was the best. Hurtling down I-64E at the speed of comfort in Movie Dan’s Cougar and having my face absolutely melted off by Homme and the underrated Nick Oliveri was fantastic

Where I purchased this: Williamsburg, VA Plan 9 Records

12) Clipse – Hell Hath No Fury
These guys put the criminal in criminally underrated. Unlike Jay Z, when these guys rap about pushing weight, you actually BUY it. This album achieves where other rap albums of this decade fail… it keeps the guest appearances to a minimum and it has ONE producer giving it a unified sound that is strong without exception. And those steel drums in “Wamp Wamp”…. hot fire.

Personal connection: I think I sent the link to the pre-release mp3 “Wamp Wamp” to everyone I knew. I listened to it so loud once that the old ladies living next door to me asked me to turn it down.

Where I purchased this: iTunes

13) Wilco – Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
If you listen to Wilco or are even aware of them, then you are aware of the mythology surrounding this album, Tweedy’s prescription drug addiction, getting dropped from their label, the near disintegration of the band. One thing I can’t figure out though is why people think the songs here are so strange. Tweedy maintains that familiar tremor and the songs feel like logical and brilliant extensions of those on Summerteeth. Jesus, etc. in particular never ceases to blow my mind in its beautiful simplicity.

Personal connection: I have never, ever liked Norah Jones except for one single 5 minute period. At the Get out the Vote Tour 2008 concert she closed her set by covering Jesus, etc. and earning the tiniest bit of my respect

Where I purchased this: Charlotte, NC Borders

14) Animal Collective – Merriwether Post Pavilion
2008 was such a fantastic year for music with releases from bands like Fleet Foxes, Blitzen Trapper, and Bon Iver that I was ready to be disappointed by 2009. Animal Collective made a very early retort to that. On January 8, this album was released to much fanfare, all of which was well deserved. Every track on the album sounds like a revelation and I’m pretty certain that 10 years from now I’ll be talking about how much I love “My Girls”

Personal connection: Several way too close possibly alcohol influenced sing-a-longs with Grant on an unsuccessful walk home from Avalon

Where I purchased this: eMusic

15) Jay Z – The Black Album
The Blueprint gets way more critical love but for the life of me, I don’t understand why. On this album, Jigga finally seems totally focused on the task at hand. The idea was that it was a retirement, the summation of his career all on wax. He carried this through beyond anyone’s expectations… When he says in Public Service Announcement “Please allow me to reintroduce myself” he absolutely follows through on this lofty promise. If for no other reason this album is deserving of Hall of Fame status because it reunited Rick Rubin with hip hop on album standout 99 Problems, proving to the music world what anyone with ears already knew, no matter how many Neil Diamond and System of a Down albums Rubin helms, his bread and butter is hip hop.

Personal connection: I bought this album and College Dropout on the exact same day during my senior year of college and oh what a fine day. Here is the sequence of events as I remember it…. Get home from student teaching, drive back to Newport News in a minivan to Best Buy, purchase two of the best albums of the decade, burn a party CD for a Mansion party WITH School Spirit and Change Clothes.

Let it Be vs. Pet Sounds

2009-05-27T09:36:00.000-07:00

In the lead up to this hotly contested match up I found myself listening over and over to two slightly less than completely relevant songs. The first is the Justin Townes Earle's (Steve Earle's son) rendition of the Replacements' "Can't Hardly Wait"*; a song that doesn't even appear on Let it Be. The second is a radically rearranged Oldham Brothers version of the Beach Boys' "Wouldn't it Be Nice" that replaces the perfect harmonies of the original with the Oldham's distinctly imperfect rasp.

As I was listening, I found myself pondering the art of the cover song**. Now, I must admit that I REALLY love covers and at times have been guilty of enjoying even the most atrocious of their ilk. This list includes but is by no means limited to most New Found Glory covers***, Sun Kil Moon's Tiny Cities which is composed entirely of Modest Mouse covers.

At their best, cover songs give you a glimpse into the true inner workings of the ORIGINAL version of a song by allowing you to gaze upon it from a different angle. A good cover is sort of like Monet's series of sunrise impressions in that they give you a completely different and enlightening snapshot of the way in which someone else hears a song in the moment. The Hold Steady's "Atlantic City" which has become as close to a staple on my iPod recently as anything else is a classic example of this. Craig Finn and the rest of the band reimagine Springsteen's bleak Nebraska masterpiece in a way that allows the listener to experience elements of the original that they would never have experienced otherwise. This not only makes the cover great but it injects the original with new life.

In listening to the two covers that I mentioned to kick off this lengthy digression from the original topic of this post, I feel like I learned more about the original artists. I learned that the reach of the Replacements is perhaps the most underratedly tremendous of any seminal American rock band. You can hear those guys in everything from Soundgarden to the Gin Blossoms and they are worthy of mad respect for that because they continue to influence bands that aren't even aware they're being influenced by Westerberg, Stinson, and Co. I also learned that at his best, Brian Wilson wrote songs that were just better than everything else and for all his insanity and multi-tracked orchestration, he also appreciated the beauty of simplicity... his pen brought a newfound sweetness and originality to topics as banal as teen romance and the beach. Having said that, the nod in this matchup goes to Pet Sounds... it might not have influenced rock music in the way that the Replacements did on Let it Be but everything it DOES do is just too powerful to ignore.

*I found this and TONS others at the Archive.org Live Music Archive which has literally thousands of free and legal sets from acts ranging from Animal Collective to Yonder Mt. String Band... obviously it's a bit jam bandy but there's still a lot to like here
**This entire post will be a digression... be warned.
*** Particularly their admittedly terrible version of Peter Cetera's "Glory of Love" from the Goonies Soundtrack

In the Aeroplane Over the Sea vs. Daydream Nation

2009-05-12T11:31:00.000-07:00

Seeing as how I've already described what it is I love about the albums that have made it into round 2, the posts here are going to generally be a bit shorter and are going to have as their focus the relative merits of each album. It's of course very difficult to criticize any of the contenders here because they not only made my first list but have already been deemed BETTER than other really amazing pieces of musical art so there won't be much of that going on either. All that having been said (typed?) the victor in this particular contest is actually quite clear. Regardless, I'm going to try to riff for awhile so bear with me.

For those of you that read this and don't know me well, let me go ahead and put this out there... I'm a man of inaction. Crippling inaction. I'm a wuss, a woman, a fuck up. All of the above. These things have either made me the neurotic, hand wringing, wallflower that those who know me can count on to do nothing OR are because of the fact that I'm a neurotic, hand wringing, wallflower. However you want to look at it, that's , in the immortal words of DMX, "Who I be."

Now for just a moment, allow me to defend this reprehensible and foolish behavior. Sure you're costing yourself big time in the whole "potential for future happiness" department BUT you're also preserving some pretty great moments in time. By NOT acting, the person or goal that is the object of your affection essentially firms up its status as the perfect dream. Forevermore that person upon which you did not hit* will be that perfect specimen that you drunkenly spotted while perched on a bar stool or that awesome girl that you talked to at that one party who really liked the new TV on the Radio album... she won't become that person who rejected you, or that girl who actually turned away from you and stopped listening to your game midsentence. That crazy dream job STAYS a dream job because you never get a chance to realize that it's a bigger pain in the ass than you ever knew. The dream STAYS, in essence, pure and perfect because it is so fleeting that you don't have time to fuck it up. Keep in mind of course that in practice this stuff is OBVIOUSLY ridiculous and I wouldn't actually suggest this type of behavior to anyone... ever.

Now here's the connection...

Conceptually, this is WHY In the Aeroplane Over the Sea is better than Daydream Nation. Sonic Youth have been so prolific compared with the hermit-like Jeff Mangum and his two album tenured vehicle Neutral Milk Hotel. When I listen to Daydream Nation, as amazing as it is, I still hear the missteps of their later efforts. I hear the fact that a lot of the things they do sound the same. Standing on its own, in a vacuum, Daydream Nation might feel even more brilliant than it already does but the fact of the matter is it doesn't stand on its own. Aside from the slightly uneven debut Avery Island, all we have from Jeff Mangum and Neutral Milk Hotel is In the Aeroplane Over the Sea so in essence it DOES stand on its own... we can assume that the progression from debut to sophomore effort is such that it would continue in perpetuity. This is a virtue that only those that go out on top possess and it's one that's hard to deny. The only thing that mitigates the greatness is that it is so fleeting and who knows? Maybe the world REALLY IS missing out on some life altering music because of Mangum's self imposed hiatus? But can't it be enough as it is? Isn't that brief perfection better than even long term greatness? I think so.

Neutral Milk Hotel will face off against the winner of Let it Be and Pet Sounds in the Final Four

*My 11th grade English teacher would be so proud of my refusal to bend the rules of grammar.

Second Round Hype

2009-05-06T07:56:00.000-07:00

In the spirit of overhyped contests like the Kentucky Derby* and the Superbowl** I'm going to make my adoring readers wait a little while for Round 2 of the Greatest Bracket the World has Ever Known or The Top 30 or So Favorite Album Bracket whatever you're calling it these days by giving you a preliminary, "Albums I've Really Enjoyed in 2009 so Far" List (in no particular order).

The Pains of Being Pure at Heart by The Pains of Being Pure at Heart
an eminently enjoyable example of how you can make fuzzed out, shoegazey guitars poppy. They sound like The Jesus and Mary Chain on Prozac.

Middle Cyclone by Neko Case
You hear that pinging sound? It's this album chipping away at my musical misogyny. Also I would marry Neko Case... seriously, like right now. The snarky and at times bleak lyrics contrast wonderfully with the radio friendly instrumentation and harmonies generated by Case and her helpers.

Dark Was the Knight by Various Artists
I need more compilations like this in my life. This collection is absolutely littered with awesome B Sides and some never before released material from some of the best acts in music. Not even one weak link on a massive collection. Standouts include the Dave Sitek (TV on the Radio) dirge With a Girl Like You that melds Motown horns with the drone of Joy Division and wait is that the melody to Up on the Roof by the Drifters that I'm hearing?

The Foundation by Zac Brown Band
Country as it was intended. While I don't listen to a lot of new country because I don't really like much of it, it's not all that tough to make a country album that I'm willing to listen to. Write accessible songs about normal stuff like drinking, smoking weed, and girls and lay off the OTHER stale country platitudes like bull roping and suppressing your deep seated homosexuality*** And for real, if you don't like "Chicken Fried," someone should check you for a pulse

Hazards of Love by the Decemberists
By no means perfect, but it's hard to not to respect how Colin Melloy and the nerdiest band in music go for prog-rock glory in their 17 track rock opera. At best, ("The Rake's Song," "A Bower Scene") it stacks up well with anything off of their previous efforts. At worst, the tracks are endearing in their presentation of the completely over the top narrative.

Why There are Mountains by Cymbals Eat Guitars
Remember when all the Power Rangers would come together and form the one big robot? That's kind of what happens hear, only imagine if every Saddle Creek band formed one big robot torso on top of Pavement and Spoon. Derivative? Yes. Do I care? No.

Grand by Matt and Kim
Just so good. I'm still at a level where I can't talk about how much I enjoy this duo rationally. Imagine the White Stripes if they didn't take themselves seriously and traded Jack White's guitar shredding for A-Ha's synthesizer. Props to GMart for introducing me to them

Welcome to Mali by Amadou and Mariam
Blind couple from Mali make the only world music I've cared about since the Buena Vista Social Club. They're not just playing old school tribal shit though. They're crossing genres with producers like Damon Albarn to make something totally new and incredible. Check out the track "Sabali" then sample it on your DJ Green Lantern mixtape because it's absolutely begging for it.

* 1 minute of pseudo-excitement preceded by 5 hours of stories that basically amount to, "Aren't horsies cute?" and "Horsies cure cancer."

**to the point where I saw a lot of Superbowl coverage this season that was based around the the theme of, "There's too much Superbowl coverage"

*** oh wait, that's just Kenny Chesney

Game 8 - Let it Be (The Replacements) vs. In Utero

2009-05-04T07:39:00.000-07:00

In his book Killing Yourself to Live, Chuck Klosterman writes about the fact that all males at some point or another in their adolescence will go through a Led Zeppelin phase where no matter what they were into before or what they will be into later in life for a few months or so, NOTHING will be cooler to them than Zeppelin. I think it's safe to say that almost all of the male readers of this blog had a Zeppelin phase. For me, it centered around the aforementioned uncle from the Blonde on Blonde vs. Pet Sounds post loaning me a cassette copy of II at around the same time that I included Zoso in a Columbia House 8 CDs for a penny order. After listening to the guitar solo of "Whole Lotta Love" approximately 490098097 times, wearing out the bass line for Misty Mountain Hop, and renting a beat up copy of The Song Remains the Same from Franks' Video,* I dove HEADFIRST into my phase. Why all this Zeppelin talk in a post that is not actually supposed to be about Zeppelin? Because the era of all teenage males going through a Zeppelin phase is over. What's replaced it? Be prepared to feel old... wait for it... The Nirvana phase.

As someone who spends a good portion of the work week attempting to convince 8th graders that they need to give a damn about history, I think I have a unique perspective on the modern adolescent. Currently, I get WAY more kids rocking out to Nirvana in a lame attempt to get girls by forming an equally lame band than those channeling Page, Plant, Jones, and Bonham. Over time, I've looked back and found that my Zeppelin phase probably gave them much more credit than they actually deserved. Not that they weren't great, but lyrically, most of their work was on the border between barely tolerable and terrible and for all their musical power and talent, most** of their work was basically an exercise in "how loud can we play these recycled blues riffs?" So if Nirvana has become this band 15 years after the death of Cobain, what if anything, does this say about what Nirvana meant to us? I certainly remember a time in my life where I just wasn't interested in hanging out with ANYONE that found Cobain to be anything less than a genius. But does their status as the NEW adolescent dude band suggest, much as it does with Zeppelin, that they're not quite as perfect as we originally thought? I've got bad news for ya... I think so.

In preparation for this post, I found myself having to listen to In Utero a couple times through just to remind myself of the tracklist. This was red flag number one. It's not that the album is bad or that Nirvana wasn't great. On In Utero particularly, you can really hear a more mature band than on Nevermind that was obviously headed in a pretty interesting direction. There's a lot more there than the loud, quiet, loud formula that came to embody the "grunge" sound. This is particularly noticeable on tracks like "Dumb," "All Apologies," and "Pennyroyal Tea" that are strong departures from the formula that worked on Nevermind. Perhaps best of all, the influence of Steve Albini's production gives a raw, garage quality*** to the whole enterprise that is drowned out in the Butch Vig multi-tracking of Nevermind. The only problem though is that for the most part, the songs just don't have that sense of pop timelessness that other albums I've discussed here do. It's almost like Nirvana has become the equivalent of the Holy Grail in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. You can drink from it while you're there and bask in its glory but you just can't take it beyond the seal which in this case is high school. But even though they might not be all that useful to more mature music listeners anymore, it doesn't mean that they'll stop being fun and you can certainly take solace in the fact that they will help guide a whole new generation of pimply, girl-less, losers through some fairly difficult years of development.

Needless to say, The Replacements' Let it Be does not fall victim to the same fate. Whether they realize it or not, every rock band since The Replacements that doesn't suck**** owes these guys big time. Throughout the extent of their work, they bridge the gap between punk's raw aggression, pop's polish, and indie rock's willingness to stray from the conventional. Just going from the jangle pop of "I Will Dare" to "Favorite Thing" and its hints of Joy Division style post-punk to the weirdly sweet piano ballad "Androgynous" in Let it Be is far more impressive in terms of depth and profundity than the entire discography of Nirvana, much less one album. Add to this additional standout tracks like "Unsatisfied" and you get what basically amounts to a tour of the direction in which rock music was headed for the foreseeable future.

Let it Be will face off against Pet Sounds in the second round. Our next matchup will see In the Aeroplane over the Sea take on Daydream Nation in the first action of round two.

* If any P-Town Concrete people are reading this, PLEASE give it up for Franks'
** Everything except III and Physical Graffiti
*** Something that Cobain wanted for his band all along. Seriously, just listen to Grohl's drums in "Frances Farmer Will Have her Revenge on Seattle"
**** and some that do

Game 7 - Blonde on Blonde vs. Pet Sounds

2009-04-28T04:32:00.000-07:00

Ed Note:
It's truly a shame that one of these colossally great albums has to knock the other one out here in the first round as I think holding one of them up against something more modern like Pavement would be a truly fun exercise in musical analysis. But alas, the bracketologists* supervising this process chose not to fulfill the promise of these potential cross-genre dream matchups. At the same time however, my strong sentimental connections to both of these albums means that it's probably a very good thing to get at least one of them out early so as to avoid any more obnoxious waxing of pseudo-philosophical "what this album means to me" bullshit. That having been said, I DO have very strong sentimental connections to these albums that you'll have to read about now so how bout everyone just deal with it for a moment!? OKAY? OKAY? okay.

I remember specifically the moment that I first began to appreciate the unconventional indie-pop sound that currently dominates my musical listening preferences. Sitting at my grandma's in Martinsville, VA on a Sunday afternoon**, my uncle started to sing what was clearly the most ridiculous set of lyrics I had heard in my entire life: "Now your dancing child with his Chinese suit, he spoke to me, I took his flute, no I wasn't very cute to him, was I?" Despite or maybe because of the bizarre sense of humor the 7th grade version of me*** found in such a ridiculous set of lyrics, I instantly fell in love with this song in a pop context before I'd even heard Dylan's even funnier and more ironic take. My ability to appreciate this is even more remarkable when you consider that Marilyn Manson's cover of Sweet Dreams and Silverchair's Frogstomp were in HEAVY rotation in my sweet Sanyo boom box with a Nine Inch Nails and Perot 1992 sticker on it.**** When I finally DID get a chance to listen to Dylan's version, I was even more hooked on not only the song but on everything the album brought to the table. From the rollicking fare-thee-well country stomp of "Most Likely You Go Your Way and I'll Go Mine" to the mournful "ohhhh mamas" of "Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again" Blonde on Blonde takes its listeners on a Willy Wonka-esque boat ride through the canal of Dylan's warped sense of humor, insecurities, and past slights (either real or perceived). I've heard suggestions that Highway 61 or Blood on the Tracks represent the truly definitive Dylan album but for shear variety and power, Blonde on Blonde DEFINES Dylan as an artist.

While Blonde on Blonde came to signify this musical turning point for me, Pet Sounds was much less life altering as a whole. Instead its personal significance for me lies simply in its shear auditory beauty. To compare it lyrically to Dylan is to compare Mercer Mayer to Dickens. For poetic significance, just about the best Pet Sounds can muster are the acid fueled musings of an increasingly insane Brian Wilson. So clearly Dylan wins right? Not so fast. Pet Sounds unequivocally contains the BEST vocal harmonies ever captured in studio. To hear the Wilson, Jardin, Love harmonies in "Sloop John B" as the guys riff on the simple words, "home, let me go home" is to hear the pinnacle of pop vocals. "God Only Knows" is so simple and sweet and perfect a love song that to NOT have it prominently played at a wedding is simply tragic. "Wouldn't it Be Nice" is among that very rare breed of teen love songs that actually gets it right... and by it I mean everything.

To be honest, at the beginning of this (as is evidenced by the seeding) I assumed that Blonde on Blonde simply meant too much to me to lose this one. But after dedicating hours to each album over the past couple days I found myself moved all over again by just how great Pet Sounds sounds. The simple beauty of Pet Sounds is just barely more evocative than the lyrical significance of Blonde on Blonde. Discovering this was quite refreshing to me in that it was a pure reminder of the power of simple beauty.

The final match up of round one will pit The Replacements' Let it Be vs. Nirvana's In Utero.

*me
**face packed to the gills with chicken tenders no doubt
*** just a HORRIBLE human being this 7th grade me.
**** like I said... a HORRIBLE human being.

Game 6 - Exile on Main St. vs. Revolver

2009-04-20T04:32:00.000-07:00

I really really hate having the Beatles vs. Stones argument. First of all, as a whole there really is no argument to be had. In terms of aggregate greatness, one need only point to Voodoo Lounge and its putridly bizarre single "Love is Strong" to end the discussion.* The Beatles win simply because they never whiffed... even at their worst (Yellow Submarine) they were better than everyone else.

The argument gets a little more complicated however when you look at specific individual efforts from the Stones. Exile on Main Street is one of those efforts. Eighteen tracks of pure unadulterated killer with absolutely no filler. While hanging out in the French Riviera, snorting Tony Montana-esque piles of coke and banging European supermodels the Stones essentially invented alt-country while simultaneously setting the bar for rock music so high that no one even sniffed it** until the Ramones came around years later. The Keith Richards riffs on tracks like "Tumbling Dice" and "All Down the Line"*** exceed all but George Harrison's absolute best work with the Beatles (see below description of Harrison's best riffs), not to mention the fact that Richards plays with much larger cajones than Harrison. You can hear rock's future in his work... in each Richards lick you hear from artists running the gamut from Slash to Jack White.

The only problem with crowning the Stones' asses here is that Revolver is SUCH a monolithic force in the pop music canon. Ignoring the music entirely, the album is an incredible TECHNOLOGICAL achievement due to the production work alone. I think the music can best be explained by the fact that I had considered writing the following sentence but quickly thought better of it: "People just didn't do songs like Eleanor Rigby in 1966." I decided against this however when I realized that I could put literally any of the album's 14 songs into that sentence and it would still be unassailable. Revolver is just so much MORE than anything else of its time. You could argue that between Taxman, Tomorrow Never Knows, and And Your Bird Can Sing the boys from Liverpool invent punk, indie rock****, and power pop.

So how does one decide? Conveniently enough, I'm teaching the Renaissance right now in my history classes and as I plotted out this post I was reminded of a particular chunk of the curriculum. One thing that they learn is the idea of a "Renaissance Man" as someone who has talents in many areas. This image of course comes to embody the Renaissance spirit and sets the stage for centuries of creative genius. That having been said, Exile on Main Street is perhaps the best album ever at the one thing that the Stones were trying to do but Revolver is everything all the time. The sound and lyrics are profound in a way that no matter who your favorite band is you can hear them somewhere on this album... the sound is almost democratic. Not being one to buck democratic principles, I'll give the nod in this contest to Revolver by the thinnest of margins.

Revolver will take on Rubber Soul in Round 2. Next up, Blonde on Blonde vs. Pet Sounds

*Oddly, I remember MTV having a MASSIVE, overhyped rollout for the equally strange video for this song which, for those of you who have blocked it from your memory, constituted the band as giants walking around New York performing the song^.
^Strange 90s phenomenon: The absurdly expensive music video featuring outlandish special effects that cost millions of dollars back in the day but now would only cost like 8 bucks and a four pack of Red Bull in the hands of an adolescent computer geek. Other videos of this nature: 1. Black or White, Michael Jackson 2. Notorious B.I.G - Hypnotize 3. Hammer - 2 Legit 2 Quit 4. Missy Eliot - The Rain. Really anything with either Sean Combs or Hype Williams name attached to it works here.

** Not a reference to the aforementioned piles of Coke

*** My personal favorite... somehow he makes his guitar sound like a purring lioness.... this just blows off the top of my head

**** Tomorrow Never Knows sounds more like an Animal Collective songs than lots of Animal Collective songs

Game 5 - Rubber Soul vs. Part One Lola v. Powerman and the Moneyground

2009-04-10T09:32:00.000-07:00

Despite the fact that I am far from a "critic" of music I'm going to throw out a quick opinion on music criticism... it is incredibly difficult to assail the Beatles for anything. They're so adored by so many people* that the only critical debates that really work with the boys from Liverpool are those covering intraband questions. What's their greatest album**? What's their greatest song***? Who was the superior talent John or Paul****? All of these have been debated ad nauseum and anyone that's any kind of music fan has some kind of opinion. Debates you don't hear very often though are those comparing the work of the Beatles to other bands... be they contemporaries or current acts. Sure every once in awhile you get the random skinny jean wearing hipster who'll pull that, "The Stones were so much better" bullshit ( or even better the skinny jean wearing hipster who'll argue for the Beach Boys) but aside from these brief flare ups of dissent it seems as though the Beatles status as THE band is as safe as Jordan's status as THE greatest basketball player of all time or Gretzky's status as THE greatest hockey player of all time. So at least for me, looking at them in a critical light is very difficult. Is my regard for the Beatles such that to scour the nooks and crannies of Rubber Soul in a truly impartial light impossible? Has the nearly universal acceptance of the Beatles colored my impressions of them to the point that I'm blind to any possible imperfection that they might demonstrate? Well, maybe; but that doesn't mean that Rubber Soul isn't a perfect album.

One thing that is reassuring about by abilities to access the Beatles is that no matter how many other bands I devour I have never encountered a band that brought together all the pieces that one needs to make great music in the way that the Beatles did. At their best^ the properly canonized lyrical work of Lennon/McCartney and the underrated lyrical work of Harrison morphed into an entirely different state of music being under the production of George Martin. I think sometimes it's easy for modern Beatles listeners to forget that they were doing these incredible SOUNDING tracks on equipment that we would probably laugh at today. To get "Norwegian Wood" to sound as amazing as it does nowadays would be worthy of praise but to have done so on a 4 track analog recorder is mind boggling. So in this British invasion contest they are the clear winners and it really isn't that close.

That is not to say however that the Kinks are in any way not deserving of plaudits. Part One Lola v. Powerman and the Moneyground created an entirely different musical aesthetic for its time and still sounds fresh today. In fact, even including them as a "British Invasion" band is quite unfair because they did not have that canned, "let's sound as cockney as is humanly possible" vibe about them. On this 1970 classic, their mix of rootsy Byrds-esque rock (Check out "Got to Be Free") with the rock the back of the arena stylings of The Who (with drummer Mick Avory channeling Keith Moon on "Rats") comes across more like Dylan on meth than more stock British Invasion fare like the Zombies. Even the ballads like "Strangers" have an underlying aggression that is unmistakable and really cool. The only beef I have with the album is with its biggest hit "Lola," which while great has a tempering effect on the power that the rest of the album packs with its humor. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for a song about an encounter with a transvestite, but maybe put it out as a 7" and let the cohesion that exists between the 12 other tracks speak for itself.

So as I mentioned already this match up isn't that close. Rubber Soul is simply too important in the history of music and just TOO perfect to have any real trouble dispatching what is STILL without a doubt a groundbreaking and significant effort by The Kinks.

Rubber Soul will face the winner of Exile on Main Street and Revolver in Round 2

* I'm not taking issue with this at all
** Rubber Soul
*** In My Life or maybe A Day in the Life
**** John
^ Which was ALMOST always#
# Let it Be and Yellow Submarine, I'm looking at you

Game 4 - The Clash vs. New Day Rising

2009-04-03T07:37:00.000-07:00

So clearly I'm an unabashed Clash homer but I really couldn't help it. This was the album that introduced me to the slightly more than meets the eye punk sound of the Clash and without my love for it I would never have made the leap to the mind altering greatness that is London Calling. Much like Nirvana's Nevermind I will always hold a special place in my musical heart for the self-titled debut from England's second greatest rock band because it was my introduction to an entire world of possibility... sort of like getting that first glimpse of the cover of the Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition before your parents magically make it disappear. Even though you aren't sure exactly what's behind it, you've seen enough to know that you are definitely going to like whatever's there. Here's the thing about that though... eventually the Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition loses its luster. Sure you flip through it when it comes in the mail but the only strong feelings it provokes are those of nostalgia for the days when it WAS a big deal. Essentially, it's a throwback... a relic... like seeing a really great cover band that is fun because hey, they're playing Hey Jealousy but it's still far from life altering. That's the feeling I get now when listening to albums like Nevermind. They've become more about what they WERE than what they ARE and while The Clash isn't quite in that place for me, this exercise in bracketology has made me at least wonder if it's closer than I had originally thought.

Husker Du's New Day Rising completely defies explanation. I will readily admit that upon first listen, I was bothered by the lo-fi fuzz of the guitar and Bob Mould's oddly grating voice. Over time though, I began to notice the nuance of the way the lo-fi fuzziness of the guitars allowed the melody to come through in a way that punk/hardcore/whatever you want to call it hadn't quite achieved before. Mould's voice began to sound less grating and more an upgrade on Minor Threat/Fugazi singer Ian McKaye's tortured howl. The choruses of songs like, "Girl Who Lives on Heaven Hill" became more anthemic and before I knew it, I couldn't stop listening. Husker Du was combining everything that I secretly enjoyed about pop punk with all the things I openly enjoyed about hardcore. The music here isn't static though. Like a punk rock singularity, within a track like, "I Apologize" you can hear punk past, present, and future. You can hear the Stooges, the Sex Pistols, Green Day, and some 14 year old kids fucking around with a Squire Stratocaster in a basement.

So while it feels like I'm turning my back on something that was KEY to my development as a music fan* I have to give the nod in this matchup to Husker Du. The Clash is a snapshot of where I was as an impressionable music listener and was the doorway to something much bigger. But New Day Rising is amorphous... each time I hear is like the first time I'm hearing it and it's tough to improve on that.

New Day Rising will face London Calling in Round 2.

*I even remember buying this album in the $9.99 bin at Plan 9 in Carytown on one of Movie's "I knoooooow Cary St." road trips, while Goodwin sniped something to the effect of, "Oh you're buying another CD...okay"

Game 3 - London Calling vs. The Chronic

2009-04-01T07:21:00.000-07:00

Those of you who have heard me talk about London Calling in the past know that the odds are stacked against The Chronic here as giving Dr. Dre this matchup in Round 1 is like Radford pulling the Tarheels in Greensboro in this year's tournament. Joe, Mick and Co. really trot out a murderer's row of standouts on London Calling... all of which would make brilliant BEST songs on any decent album. So let's go ahead and give love to the the favorites in both the Mens' NCAA Tourney by comparing them to the favorite in America's second favorite tournament*, the Top 30 or So bracket

"London Calling" --> Tyler Hansbrough - The gritty, gutty, face of the team here. Because it seems like he has been at UNC for a Ron Pawlus-esque 15 years or so it's recently become easy for me to forget about what this guy does for his team just like I find myself oddly forgetting how much I love this song in spite of its title track status.

"Rudie Can't Fail" --> Ty Lawson - Just as Lawson is incredibly fun to watch and the cog in the machine that seems to make everything work at its best for the Heels, Rudie Can't Fail is the song you would tell someone who hasn't heard this album to listen to first. It's fun, relentlessly catchy, and brings together the punk energy of their earlier efforts with the ska and reggae influences that are all over London Calling

"Spanish Bombs" --> Ed Davis - Every time I see this guy in the game, I'm blown away at just how different he is than other college basketball players I've seen. The Richmond product might already be the best inside defender in the ACC after only one year and while the Heels aren't necessarily going to ride this guy to a title, when he's in the game you can count on him doing something that no one else on the court can do. Spanish Bombs pulls off this trick with great aplomb by being that one track on the album that fits into the arc of the album only in the fact that it doesn't fit at all and with its bilingual vocals and its pummeling staccato arrangement it is a truly unique bit of musicianship.

"Train in Vain" --> Tyler Zeller - This song is perhaps the single most recognizable by the masses on the album but I don't know that anyone instantly thinks of this song when they think of London Calling which always leads to a "wait a second... THAT song is on the album too? SWEET!" This is exactly the feeling I get when I realize that as good as Carolina has been this year they've done it all without a great deal of contribution from Zeller, one of the top recruits in the nation.

"Hateful" --> Bobby Frasor - Being lined up near Rudie Can't Fail on the track list of the 17 song epic is almost unfair; add to this the fact that the two are similar stylistically and it's easy to hate on Hateful. Just as comparing all-world athlete and playmaker Ty Lawson to second unit floor general Frasor really diminishes the fact that Frasor (as was evidenced in the first two rounds of the tourney) is more than capable of doing some fine work on the court.

So how is The Chronic supposed to step to this? Simply put... it's not. The Chronic has its own murderer's row** of tracks including perhaps three of the 10 greatest raps of the 90s in the form of Nuthin but a G Thang, Let Me Ride, and Fuck Wit Dre Day but that line up as well as spotty depth (seriously there are a few tracks that are completely skippable) and too many skits*** make this contest a rout... Just as Radford put together a great season in the Big South, Dre put together a great gangsta rap album and that's certainly achievement but gangsta rap doesn't even touch the pinnacle of 70s punk success just like the Big South ain't the ACC.

*NOT the All Valley Karate Tournament

** seriously I think they actually ARE murderers

***is there ANYTHING more repugnant than the rap album skit?

Game 2: Day Dream Nation vs. Chutes Too Narrow

2009-03-30T07:44:00.000-07:00

Our next match-up in the indie rock region I see as being quite similar to one of those #8 vs. #9 games on which it is impossible to make an even remotely educated guess as to the possible winner because the two make for such an odd pairing. I had a very difficult time comparing these two albums because they are such polar opposites. The Shins are one of those dribble drive motion teams a la Memphis who just slash and kick in perpetual movement and can be a hell of a good time to watch. Sonic Youth however are one of those grind it out Bo Ryan Wisconsin Badger teams that you do all those little, subtle, things that aren't so readily apparent on TV.

For starters, despite being their fifth studio album, Sonic Youth's Daydream Nation established the fuzzy, part grunge, part punk, part stoner rock aesthetic that persists on even their most experimental material to this very day. Daydream Nation definitely takes more effort than Chutes Too Narrow. The bits of straight forward neo-punk snarl always seem to devolve quickly into the beautiful muck and mire of guitarists Thurston Moore and Lee Renaldo's noisescapes. This album is like running a tough technical trail... occasionally you'll burst into a clearing and you feel that sense of ease and calm that always lures you into a false sense of ease right before the trail devolves into a crush of woods, rocks, and vines. The key to enjoying this album, and the point where it really shines, is being able to appreciate the complexity and order of those tangled masses of guitar sludge and noise. Once you do this, then those moments of pop bliss driven by Moore's sarcastic, fuck-if-i-care vocals and wife Kim Gordon's sultry yet slightly uncertain voice work are all the more beautiful and welcome.

Chutes Too Narrow on the other hand benefits from the fact that it takes almost no effort, particularly for those mopey masses of nerdy, hipster wannabes, who are desperately searching for a manic pixie dream girl* of their own. Due in part to their prominent placement on the Garden State soundtrack, this album was one of the most successful indie rock albums since another timeless Sub Pop Records release, Nirvana's Bleach. Listening to it, it's hard to argue with the relatively widespread embrace of this album. The melodies are evocative of Rubber Soul and while the album does not compare ALL THAT strongly in terms of overall greatness with the British Invasion Region #1 seed it's also not as far away as you'd think. Standout tracks like "Saint Simon" and "Kissing the Lipless" are Thomas Beckett songs** are just so easy to love and are the kind of songs that you hum all day without once thinking, "damn I wish I'd get this song out of my head." Just listen to the guitar solo from about the 2:10 point to the 2:27 point in "Saint Simon" and try not to fall in love with this album.

In the end though, it's that exact EASE of Chutes Too Narrow that makes it really hard to give it the nod over Daydream Nation in this matchup. Sonic Youth make you work just enough so that when you're done with their work you feel like you've really done something and while this isn't necessarily a sign of great music, in this case it serves to break a tie between two great albums.

Daydream Nation will square off against In the Aeroplane Over the Sea in Round Two

* This article is a MUST read for anyone who considers themselves even mildly pop culturally aware
** Songs for All Seasons.. HOO AH for that history reference

Game #1 Indie Rock Region

2009-03-29T18:48:00.000-07:00

Neutral Milk Hotel vs. Pavement

It's interesting that the selection committee* decided to let these two albums square off in Round 1 as there are perhaps no bands more responsible for laying the foundation for year 2000 era indie rock than NMH and Pavement. This is not to say however that the two attack from the same angle. The boys in Pavement - Stephen Malkmus, Scott Kanberg, and Mark Ibold, along with various drummers - particularly on what is perhaps their most accessible album Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain seem to embrace their inner rock star. Tracks like the opener "Silence Kid" and equally aggressive "Unfair" show that Pavement weren't afraid to turn the amps to eleven and take their at times jammy guitar solos on a stroll through more focused power pop territory. Throughout their history though, this half-hearted proclivity toward underground heartthrob status was always balanced by a total refusal to take themselves too seriously; particularly as evidenced in Malkmus' lyrics which were at times throughout the 90s the only media that seemed interested in poking fun at the absurdly inflated collective ego of the grunge movement. This trait is prominently displayed again in the Stone Temple Pilots/Smashing Pumpkins skewering "Range Life" and what became their biggest "hit"** "Cut Your Hair." What I love most about this album though is simply its pure listenability***. From beginning to end the album keeps you chuckling at the cleverness of the lyrics and hooks you musically with its sweet and simple pop melodies. All these forces come together just over halfway through the album with the standout track, "Gold Soundz" which represents everything that's great about the album as a whole.

Neutral Milk Hotel on the other hand approach from a completely different direction. While not venturing into stock indie rock snobbery, the work of singer/songwriter Jeff Mangum seems in no way interested in pop success. On In the Aeroplane Over the Sea we find the now reclusive Mangum writing what seems at times to be a painful ode to Anne Frank of all people and at other times to be a rumination on some other past love. At any rate, it seems that Mangum's personal demons are on display... it's just nearly impossible to tell what they are. As you listen to tracks like "The King of Carrot Flowers" and "Oh Comely" where in a very Anne Frankish manner pathos always manages to give way to a subtle sense of hope and at times optimism you feel the meaning of the songs in a way that defies explanation. Mangum's yelp over the rollicking fuzz of "Holland, 1945" is this closest the album gets to accessible but still stops well short of the territory in which Pavement ventured. The standout here though is the title track, where buried in lyrics that are focused upon mortality one can find the essence of the album as Mangum suggests, "So now we are young, let us lay in the sun, and count every beautiful thing we can see."

It's this key difference between the two albums that makes the winner in this first round matchup so apparent to me. Despite the fun and refreshing honesty of Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain, Neutral Milk Hotel reaches a point on In the Aeroplane Over the Sea where the honesty is felt uniquely by those listening.

In the Aeroplane Over the Sea will face the winner of Sonic Youth's Daydream Nation and The Shins' Chutes Too Narrow in round 2.

*me
**meaning they got to play it on Leno and the Real World London played it during a scene featuring the burgeoning love affair between British rocker Neil and whatever that American girl's name was.
***not a word

My Triumphant Return

2009-03-26T07:34:00.000-07:00

So yeah, it's been awhile.... I figure consistency is what makes a great blog and I haven't really displayed that recently. Fortunately, this is not a great blog so I get a free pass after this absence.

How then will I make it up to my ones of adoring fans? With something that you're probably seeing every blog in the world do right now... a bracket style contest between pop culture phenomona that do not have anything to do with basketball.

So how is this going to work? Basically, for years when I asked the question, "So what's your favorite album?" I have answered the same way: The Clash's London Calling... no doubt. Recently though, I've begun to reevaluate this and am starting to question my response. This is not to say that the Strummer, Jones, and Co.'s magnum opus isn't still number one... simply that I'm ready to consider the fact that I've moved on to something else. So over the next several weeks we're gonna have a little tournament of albums vying for my affection and the much sought after #1 spot on my list. Seeds and regions are posted below:

Indie Rock Region:
#1 Neutral Milk Hotel - In the Aeroplane Over the Sea
#4 Pavement - Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain

#2 Sonic Youth - Daydream Nation
#3 The Shins - Chutes Too Narrow

Rap/Punk Region
#1 The Clash - London Calling
#4 Dr. Dre - The Chronic

#2 The Clash - The Clash
#3 Husker Du - New Day Rising

British Invasion Region
#1 The Beatles - Rubber Soul
#4 The Kinks - Part One Powerman v. Lola and the Moneyground

#2 The Rolling Stones - Exile on Main Street
#3 The Beatles - Revolver

American Rock Division
#1 Bob Dylan - Blonde on Blonde
#4 The Beach Boys - Pet Sounds

#2 The Replacements - Let it Be
#3 Nirvana - In Utero

Wait... WHAT did you do with Victorino's two friends?

2009-03-06T07:52:00.000-08:00

Macarena - Los Del Rio

Add this organized dance song to a not-so elite group of songs that are almost universally loved by the boring, white, embarrass-yourself-while-singing-a-long-with-or-dancing-to-after-two-glasses-of-Berringer-Zinfandel crowd but aren't nearly as innocent and wholesome as those shouting them between vomit tinged burps would like to believe. If this pristinely described subgenre is not clear, let me direct your attention to songs like You Shook Me All Night Long,* Honky Tonk Woman**, Squeezebox***. This song, which I'm sure has been a part of elementary school dance presentations and church youth group lock-ins since its release is obscene on a level that would horrify Boy Scout den mothers the world over. The song subject matter ranges from basic shallowness to promiscuity to straight forward menage-a-trois all the while keeping up their absurd semaphore-esque^ dance of seduction.

All this makes it even funnier**** to watch entire rooms full of seemingly not-retarded adults gyrate indiscriminately to the hybrid Spanish/English lyrics which couldn't be more clear in terms of the nature of their subject. So really, pay attention next time you see your ex-Sunday school teacher soul clapping to this track at a chili cook-off and remind yourself that in doing so she is applauding the idea of group sex with Victorino's buddies.

So now getting down to business, what of the dance? It has had a few years to temper and slowly begin to die out (see: The Hustle) and in the process has become much less omnipresent and therefore much LESS annoying.... still though.

Drinks Rating: 7/10

*She told me to come but I was already there?
** She blew my nose and then she blew my mind?
*** The entire song
**** if that's even possible
^ Minus the flags of course. Come to think of it they almost look like they're signaling to other motorists that they're turning right on their motorcycles.

Line dancing makes me throw up in my mouth a little

2009-03-05T06:19:00.000-08:00

Watermelon Crawl - Tracy Byrd

Elements of the modern country music scene have set the south back more culturally than anything since the Civil War... seriously. The Great Depression? We were poor before that... it barely registered on our radar. Evangelical Christianity? The midwest fell victim to that much more strongly than we did.* Not that we particularly care about what outsiders think of us** nor am I suggesting that we should because frankly, a lot of the horrible preconceived notions about the south are manufactured and fostered by our media or other outlets and this doesn't seem likely to change as long as reality T.V. exists. There are some southern stereotypes that we can help fight however... and while I'm not sure which ones would be attacked by what I'm getting ready to suggest, I do know that it would be a very positive step in a positive direction.

Ready?

We MUST STOP LINE DANCING. Seriously.... forever. No one looks "good" or "mildly intelligent" while doing this. In fact, it makes you look like your pelvis has some sort of horrible malformative birth defect. The Watermelon Crawl sticks in my head as being a particularly obnoxious dance that was ridden straight to _________ *** and it's stupidity is truly unparalleled in this set. Don't agree? Here's a sample lyric: "She rocked back on her heels dropped down to her knees, Crawled across the floor then she jumped back on her feet, She wiggled and she giggled beat all you ever saw, Said this is how you do the watermelon crawl." Now, putting aside the actual act of this partial birth abortion set to steel guitar we also must consider the damage that the outfits involved in such a thing cause.

Here's the thing douchebag... you're not a cowboy. Sorry to tell ya but they don't exist anymore and haven't for decades. If I walked around dressing like a milkman or a soda jerk on any day other than Halloween I would probably get arrested and committed to an insane asylum because milkmen and soda jerks don't exist anymore. So let's bury this cowboy thing okay?
Go ahead and play Watermelon Crawl one more time just to purge it from your system forever... I'll wait.
.
.
.
.
.
Okay... it's over. Done.

DRINKS RATING: 8/10... avoiding a ten because it would actually be really funny to watch me line dance.

*For those of you that don't buy this, watch the documentary Jesus Camp and try not to give yourself a lobotomy afterwards.

**obviously

*** not sure what the word I need is... fame? fortune? brutality?

Like a dry body heave set to music...

2009-03-02T14:06:00.000-08:00

Our next series, inspired by what will surely be a great Charleston, SC summer wedding hopefully devoid of most of these songs will focus upon songs that teach/spawned dances. Given the fact that I rather enjoyed the quick hits format of the last post, I will be trending more toward that shorter format.

I will be rating these on a 1-10 scale based on the number of drinks that it would take to actually get me to dance to the song.... Without further ado....

Casper Cha-Cha Slide - Casper

Ne'er have mine eyes experienced a sight quite as terrifying/exhilarating as the summer exodus into the aisles at Bluefield, WV's Bowen Field at a minor league baseball game of morbidly obese mountaineers as they stumbled out of their jelly sandals over the remains of funnel cakes and bottles full of their eighty pound boyfriend's skoal spit to bless the world with the greatest gift given since the French gave our United States of America the Statue of Lib... nigh since the LORD gave the world his only begotten son our SAVIOR JESUS CHRIST. What might have caused such a colossal mammalian migration?* That my friends would be the opening hand claps of... wait for it... the Cha Cha Slide. I hate this song on a level that I can't articulate with words or actions or pictures or anything else for that matter. The problem isn't in the fact that it makes SO many white people dance but rather HOW it makes the cracker hordes of the world dance. Watching a room full of buzzed wedding guests/bowling alley patrons/baseball fans try to "cha cha real slow" is part of the world that I'm guessing the Virginia Company of London was envisioning when they began violently settling the lands of/uprooting people of color across North America. I can see it now:

John Smith: We wish to learn much from your kind Chief.
Powhatan: We will be gracious teachers if you will be gracious learners
John Smith: Great!! Let's start with the cha cha, I'll need to know it for a wedding.
Powhatan: Oh fuck.

Final Rating: 10 drinks out of 10

*reaction to a rumored appearance by Burt Reynolds?

Quick Hit Thoughts to Round Out the Love stuff...

2009-02-27T07:29:00.000-08:00

Instead of writing big, clunky, rambling chunks of virtually unreadable prose for every single post here, occasionally I'm going to just toss out some fleeting thoughts about the topic at hand wherein I'll throw out multiple songs on which I'm sure you'll sink $.99 immediately upon reading the post. We're gonna end this love theme with some good ol' fashion creepy love songs.

Its Me Again, Margaret - Ray Stevens

Has there ever truly been a creepier love song? Here, the genius that brought you the Mississippi Squirrel Revival, The Streak, and Ahab the A-Rab brings you what might be the only popular* song that includes a laugh track. All you need to know about this song lies in the fact that the only comment about this song on imeem is, "This songs the funnyest"

Choice Lyrics: "I know it's you Margaret... are ya nekkid?" "I bet you can't guess what I'm doin."

Every Breath You Take - The Police

Quick Recipe for a Restraining Order:
1. Buy blank CD
2. Open iTunes
3. Create playlist entitled, "At least 500 yards at all times"
4. Add "Every Breath You Take" by the Police to playlist
5. Repeat 16 times
6. Deliver to object of affection while wearing assless chaps

Choice lyrics: "every breath you take, every move you make, every bond you break, every step you take, I'll be watching you"

bump and grind - R kelly

This song is just here to represent the fact that anything by R. Kelly should now fall squarely into the category of creepy love songs. Oh what's that? You don't see anything wrong with a little bump 'n grind? Well sorry R but the Illinois department of justice would beg to differ. By the way, he married a 15 year old Aaliyah right after this song was released... lock your doors.

*probably the hardest word choice I've ever made

Bruce Springsteen - Thunder Road

2009-02-21T11:45:00.000-08:00

Thunder Road - Bruce Springsteen

I've basically immersed myself in this song for the past couple days in hopes of being able to do it justice but every single time I listen to it I hear a little something that I didn't quite catch on the previous listen. I'll add here that I'm not a big Springsteen guy... I don't pull the Rolling Stone magazine treatment and instantly canonize everything that he does, in fact I've found a large percentage of his recent output condescendingly rootsy and disingenuous. It almost seems like he's making music for a working class that hasn't existed since the early 80s and he's become so out of touch that he doesn't realize he's championing an industrial middle class that isn't even real. That bit of Springsteen bashing aside though, in looking at this song and a handful of his others* you realize that as a songwriter, when The Boss was on, only Dylan was better.**

Never was Bruce more "on" than on his 1975*** release Born to Run on which the classic romantic-in-its-realism love song "Thunder Road" appears. This song doesn't make you love Mary (its object of affection) like Buddy Holly makes you love Peggy Sue or like The Four Tops make you love Bernadette but instead you just knowingly nod assent at why Bruce is so into her despite the fact that, "[she] ain't a beauty but hey [she's] alright" because we've all had this kind of object of our own affection. The girl who is the proverbial bee in your bonnet... the one that as hard as you TRY to win over just isn't buying what you're selling or worse doesn't even see you like you see her... so you're left to do one of two things lay it all out there or fantasize about laying it all out there while doing absolutely nothing. In this track, at least for me, I don't think it's all that clear what Bruce actually decides to do after the screen door slams. Is the rest of the song him running after her and laying his plans on the line in truly romantic fashion or is it the fantasy sequence of events that plays in his head as he drives away unfulfilled as some nutless wimp. Maybe it's just me****, but I like the pathos of option #2. I mean how many times have you***** walked away from a girl just KILLING yourself over you inability to make her SEE that you could have a good thing and that no matter how long she "prays in vain for a savior to rise from these streets" and even though you're "no hero that's understood" that you can offer "redemption."

I tell ya man, I can't figure out if this song is jubilant or depressing as hell and that makes me love it even more. All I know is that while Bruce was listening to Roy Orbison sing for the lonely, all of us... we need to be listening to Bruce Springsteen.

*Born to Run, The River, Badlands, Dancing in the Dark, Rosalita, etc.
** just barely
*** seriously I was shocked when I was reminded of this... 1975? REALLY? This album could have been made yesterday and it would be totally new and game changing and incredible... but in 1975^? This album would have blown off the top of the 1975 version of me's head.
^ an incredible year for music, Blood on the Tracks, Physical Grafitti, Wish You Were Here, Patti Smith's Horses, and Roxy Music's Siren were all released in 75 and hilariously the Album of the Year Grammy went to Paul Simon's Still Crazy After All These Years and the Record of the Year went to.... wait for it... "Love Will Keep Us Together" by The Captain and Tenille. HUZZAH RIAA!!!
**** it is
***** read: have I^
^ so many times I've lost count

Alkaline Trio - Clavicle

2009-02-19T07:18:00.000-08:00

Clavicle - Alkaline Trio

We all have musical phases, and for me, none was more regrettable than my flirtation throughout my freshman year of college with Pop Punk.... I listened to them ALL. The good (Promise Ring), the bad (Less than Jake), and the ugly (Dashboard Confessional). I will argue that this trend was AT LEAST as bad as the abominable rap core movement that was in its last violent, spasming, bile vomiting, throes of death right at this time... with the All American Rejects and Yellowcard filling the Nero-esque role of Insane Clown Posse for the genre, fiddling (literally in the case of Yellowcard) while the whole scene burned to the grown.

As I will note in a more extensive post at some point, guilty pleasures are nothing to feel guilty about, only shit that you have to defend to hipster douchebags much more strongly than all the other non-hip stuff that you enjoy. Like any genre, no matter how detestable, there were redeeming acts that lurked under the shade of the pop punk umbrella. Aside from Fallout Boy who have really just become an arena rock band, the redeemers for pop punk in my mind are undoubtedly Alkaline Trio. At best, critics (read: hipster douchebags) are lukewarm for these guys which is something I really can't understand. The paired vocal stylings of Matt Skiba and Rob Doran simultaneously recall the rasp of Joe Strummer and the angst of Ian Curtis while sweetening up the goth rock formula that the Misfits kind of tried to work in between communal smack shooting sessions.

Clavicle embodies the Alkaline Trio formula... take something simple and seemingly normal and twist it just enough to get everyone's attention.* Clavicle does this with the love song/song about a crush formula. Since I am frightened by girls and generally have a great deal of difficulty and general failure in talking to them I can only hazard a guess that the reaction to the line, "I want to wake up naked next to you, kissing the curve of your clavicle" would follow the following stages: confusion --> entertaining the idea that it was sweet --> calling the court for a restraining order.** The truly impressive female reaction in my mind would be from the lady that listens on after this to hear the actually pretty romantic and totally realistic portrayal of the early days of a relationship that the guy can't help but be REALLY excited about. You know... you meet a girl, you are blown away by how cool she is, you have great conversations about everything, and then you spend the next weeks desperately trying not to fuck it all up (which, trust me, you will do anyway***). But all that is what makes this a kind of perfect love song... it acknowledges that insecurity but more importantly it honors the power of being so purely into someone that you bypass the big points of attraction (because they're a given) and start to be enamored of the insignificant things.

*a la Marcel Duchamp
** If you are indeed a girl reading this blog (unlikely), or are not paralyzed by fear of looking/sounding like a dick when approaching a girl (only slightly more likely) please add your two cents.
*** so it is written, so it shall come to pass

And your next list is...

2009-02-19T07:02:00.000-08:00

So in the spirit of the recently departed Valentine's Day I figured on something vaguely love related.... but really who needs another list of love songs? I know how much Unchained Melody might mean to you and your significant other but frankly no one else cares about the trite ridiculousness that is your relationship. What our focus is going to be here are those slightly non-traditional love songs.... the ones that tread lightly (or not) on that line separating love and obsession/horrible taste/full-on creepiness. Unlike our last project though, these songs will not be presented in any particular order. Stay tuned for the first post and hopefully the debut of streaming music on the top30orso blog.

1. Fleet Foxes - White Winter Hymnal

2009-02-17T09:01:00.000-08:00

DISCLAIMER:
To approach this song from a different viewpoint at this point is futile. Originally, my plan had been to maybe even finish up this process BEFORE 2009 which would have had me writing my gushing ode du Fleet Foxes at about the same time as all the other music media outlets that declared this one of their songs of the year. That having been said, I'm not sure if any of this is original or not. I might be flying off on a great tangent about this track, click post, and then five days later hear from Joe Satriani's attorneys claiming that in addition to writing the riff for Viva La Vida he was also the first to gush about Fleet Foxes. If that happens, so be it. Just know that I'm just a boy whose intentions are good... oh lord... please don't let me be misunderstood.

I've found that songs hit me on many different levels. Your run of the mill radio pop hits me physically. DJ Unk's "Walk it Out" actually does make me want to create some gutteral herky-jerky facsimile of what "walking it out" might look like. Beyond that, there are songs that hook me emotionally as well. Band of Horses' "kind of released in 2008 but not really enough to be included on this list" love song "No One's Gonna Love You" makes me FEEL that so into somebody that it makes you physically sick to even think about feeling. For me though, the true NEXT LEVEL songs are those that are sensory. Not only do they make you react and feel, but they TAKE you somewhere else. Great rap might makes me want to play ball, great metal makes me want to mount up my white steed and storm the Gates of Mordor, great indie rock can make me feel detached in that better living through chemistry kind of way....

And isn't that what great art SHOULD DO? I can enjoy shitty reality t.v. on a very basic physical level... simply put, it serves a physical purpose by satisfying my need for some kind of distraction. But man, when I watch The Wire, I'm IN Baltimore, and I KNOW Randy, Duquan, and Michael... I FEEL the Wire.

Thanks to my wonderful William and Mary education, I got a chance to develop a very basic attachment to some great artists via my Art History classes. One of those, Bruegel the Elder, is quite relevant to the discussion at hand because for those of you that aren't familiar with this album, it is his, "The Blue Cloak" that is featured on the gatefold cover. If pitchfork media suddenly dropped a newsflash on the indie rock world with proof that Bruegel had in fact risen from the dead and given "White Winter Hymnal" an 8.8 I would only be surprised at the fact that the dead were rising from the grave while yawning at the Flemish Master's love for the Twentysomething indiefolkers. "Why," you ask, "would Bruegel be interested in these guys, particularly this song?" Because, I dare say, they would inspire him... rather, they would make him FEEL. When I hear this song, I'm taken somewhere else by the absolutely incredible harmonies (referenced in the post on Your Protector), the minimal yet powerfully effective musical arrangements, and the non-traditional, almost poetic rejection of the verse chorus verse format of modern pop. When I hear the harmony, I can almost SEE the steam trailing each word as its delivered in some David the Gnome-esque taiga forestscape and despite the inherent nerdiness that making a David the Gnome reference implies, it feels very natural and apropos in this setting. This song is like a glimpse through the looking glass, inside the wardrobe, or along the tesseract in its ability to CREATE a temporary world for the listener. In the vain of Ring Around the Rosies it suggests a macabre nursery rhyme in its almost childish simplicity superimposed upon its violent lyrical overtones.

Simply put, I FEEL this song like none other released this year... and isn't that what good music is all about? Shouldn't that be the sole standard?

Readers' Note (I hope I'm still in plural territory): I plan on keeping this little blog project up and moving even though I've finished my list... probably the same format. Intermittent, mostly musical, lots of pop culture similes.... kind of like a Lil' Wayne mixtape.

2. Frightened Rabbit - Modern Leper

2009-02-11T11:51:00.000-08:00

There's something about Scotland man. For some reason, music that emerges from those moors just has something about it that's hard to deny. Maybe it's just the mournful brogue that makes every sentiment expressed by the likes of Belle and Sebastian, The Proclaimers*, Glasvegas, and Franz Ferdinand sound like the world is actually going to end or begin in the immediate fallout of said sentiment. I think there must be something else though... and here's why: Hank Williams Sr. Many of the readers of this blog have heard me wax crazy on the link between the culture of my dear ol' Blue Ridge Mountain home and that of the Scots-Irish pre-soccer Hooligans that originally populated the area. Their way of life became our way of life, only different. Haggis became chitterlings and brains and eggs. The sheep dog became the hound dog. Tom Dula became Tom Dooley. The link though was never completely lost, we were bound by the intentionally hard scrabble existence that we chose for ourselves. Coming down from the highlands and joining jolly ol' England would have been easier... but it wasn't home just like moving on up to Ohio or Detroit was easier for the downtrodden of the Appalachian during the Depression... but no matter what, it still wasn't home and many of these transplanted hillbillies came home sooner rather than later. It's that passive acceptance of a difficult life for the sake of independence that binds us to our Scottish cousins. You hear that in Hank Williams Sr.'s voice... listen to "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry" and tell me that HE doesn't know the same life as Stuart Murdoch in Belle and Sebastian's "Get Me Away from Here I'm Dying." I don't know that Murdoch and company ever rocked Hank Sr. in the studio so I wouldn't draw a direct line of influence but the connection is more organic... more genetic.. and it permeates modern country and music like Frightened Rabbit's "Modern Leper" to this day.

That genetically coded sadness is strong in this one. The single most self loathingly bleak line of the year might be when lead singer Scott Hutchinson strains through the chorus, "Is that you in front of me? Coming back for even more of exactly the same? You must be a masochist to love a modern leper on his last legs." What isn't clear though is whether this is a break up song or a love song. Is this his goodbye or his ode?

*no joke

3. Estelle ft. Kanye West - American Boy

2009-02-06T08:18:00.000-08:00

The summer after my sophomore year in college it took me forever to find a summer job. I was rejected all over the bustling metropolis of Pulaski... from fast food to retail, NO one wanted me to be gainfully employed. During this time of unemployment I did some serious work watching Dawson's Creek but ALSO got to spend a lot of time with my parents' CRAZY Labrador Retriever as a puppy. For anyone that hasn't had the joy of experiencing this, imagine beating yourself in the head with a tack hammer while cleaning up shit and this kind of comes close to replicating this situation. Every day though, no matter how fucked up the dog got he would inevitably pull some incredibly cute/endearing act that would make me feel like a jerk for being ready to sacrifice him to Odin.... and deep down, I knew he was a sweet dog.

This relationship is similar to my feelings toward Kanye West in 2008... When I first started to hear the tracks leaking off of 808s and Heartbreak I was frustrated. This artist, to whom I had developed quite an attachment over the years was storming around my musical house, chewing up shoes and just making a general mess of things. The funny thing though was that I found myself defending these singles and later the album (which I've come to really appreciate and kind of like) because I knew who he really was. Kanye had become that bad dog who disappointed me one minute while simultaneously reminding me why I have loved him from the get-go. His ego and inventiveness that I loved so much on his previous efforts was what led him astray on 808s just like the inherently cute puppyness of that psycho lab was what led him to drive me to the brink of insanity.

I didn't have to go far to confirm this thanks to the #3 song of the year "American Boy." This is Kanye at his illest. On this track, he shows us that his flow remains one of the best in the game (which does make it all the more frustrating to hear him singing it through an effing vocoder on 808s). He also miraculously makes the tried and not really true formula of rapped verse + R&B chorus sound remarkably fresh and inventive, utilizing the strength of Estelle's smokey English croon to sexually charge the already provocative lyrics. To add to this, this song is also home to my favorite rap-a-long bar of the year, "look at this pea coat tell me he's broke."* Ultimately, if "American Boy" did nothing else this year, it served as a fantastic reminder that no matter how often Kanye pulls the moody and difficult act he can still bring it and spit with the best of them.

*Seriously, how cool is it that he references pea coats?

4. Blitzen Trapper - Furr

2009-01-30T07:57:00.000-08:00

This is by far my favorite Bob Dylan song of the year... wait. What's that you say? This isn't a Dylan song? I'm not buying it. So what if it is technically by southern rock revivalists Blitzen Trapper. From the nasal midwestern drone of lead singer Eric Earley and the harmonica in place of a guitar solo to the hootenanny-esque bass drum driven rhythm, this track would fit perfectly alongside "Lay Lady Lay" on Nasheville Skyline. At this point I should note that if this song's status as the #4 track of the year didn't already suggest this strongly enough... all this Dylan aping is much to its credit.

Throughout their short, yet relatively prolific career, Blitzen Trapper has served as a town crier for the greatness of 70s rock and pop music. On their prior effort, Wild Mountain Nation the band borrowed more from harder acts than Dylan with distinct hints of AC/DC, Thin Lizzy (LOTS of Thin Lizzy), and the Allman Brothers. Because of this, I've read many critics referring to this LP, also entitled Furr, as a radical departure from their previous efforts but I can't say that I agree with that. Furr feels like less of a radical departure and more a natural progression. While Wild Mountain Nation was a stock debut effort (even though they had self-released others prior to this); more concerned with throwing the knock-out punch than bobbing and weaving. This is a good thing, it's like watching a star closer like Billy Wagner take the mound... here's my fastball asshole, hit it if you can see it. But we all know that baseball isn't about power vs. power. You've gotta balance this out with finesse... the thing that made Greg Maddux's starts so beautiful was the artfulness and muted precision with which he carved up opposing lineups. That's what we get on Furr, on this album (and this track reflects this) Blitzen Trapper have learned to pitch, not just throw.

5. T.I. - Whatever You Like

2009-01-27T07:41:00.000-08:00

Seriously... in the past 5 or 6 years has anyone consistently gotten your head bobbing like T.I.? I don't mean to imply that he has been the best rapper of the past few years (Mr. West?) but in terms of making purely raunchy, easy listening, head nodding southern hip hop no one does it better than T.I. From "Rubberband Man" (I've completely converted on this one Goodwin) to the AWESOME "Top Back" (even the Chevrolet commercial didn't ruin this for me) I can't help but give the guy mad credit for his collective efforts. The thing is though, I feel bad that I like this. I love when other rappers in the game talk about how they want to return to the intelligent, socially conscious hip hop of KRS-One and others of his ilk and I wholeheartedly endorse these sentiments. I can talk all day about how right Dead Prez was on Hip Hop when they complained about the fact that, "All yall records sound the same, I'm sick of that fake thug, r & b, rap scenario all day on the radio, Same scenes in the video, monotonous material."

In "Whatever you Like," T.I. steps (or should I say, swaggas...like us) in as exhibit A for Dead Prez's "real" hip hop beef. Lyrically, we're treated to absolutely nothing special... sex, cars, stacks, private jets, Patron*; clearly we've been here before. The only thing is, there's a reason we've been here before... we like it here. When Dead Prez decries "fake thug r&b rap scenario" they fail to account for the fact that probably 90% of people listening to hip hop ARE fake thugs. I mean, I'm afraid to TALK to girls... about anything really, and here's T.I. spitting SOME LIQUID MAGMA game at some random hook-up target. And yes, I understand it's misogynistic and materialistic but damn what a life it would be for one night.

"Hundred cant deposit, vacations hit the tropics, Cause everybody know it ain't trickin if ya got it, and you ain't never ever gotta go in yo wallet, Long as I got rubberband banks^ in my pocket."

I mean really... is there any question why this song works? It's straight up fantasy... the same thing that draws the nerds of the world to role playing games, sci-fi, and comic books is what makes mass marketed top 40 rap like this work. It allows us to LIVE the fantasy. Add this to the sickly sweet beat, demonstrated to the best effect in the last 20 or so seconds of the song, and it's impossible to not at least have a soft spot for this song. I would argue that beyond a that, the elements that I've described come together in this case to form a real textbook example of how to make the simple syrup of pop music work. One part fantasy to one part danceable and the final result will NEVER cease to impress.

Oh and also there was this, which was maybe the coolest thing I've seen this year.

*Coincidentally these items are all included on my tour rider
^ Tried to do this once and actually couldn't figure out how to wrap the rubberband around my money

6. TV on the Radio - Dancing Choose

2009-01-26T06:22:00.000-08:00

For two consecutive years one of my favorite films of the year has achieved that status due at least in part to the presence and talents of one of my favorite musical acts of the year. In 2007, the talents of Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova made for not only one of the most enjoyable albums/singles of the year in the form of Once and the incredibly beautiful "Falling Slowly" respectively, but also the low budget indie "romance but not really" Once. To be fair, the album is the soundtrack to what is basically a musical so the link between the two just makes sense, a good musical is obviously going to have a good soundtrack.

This year's example is much less intertwined. The movie to which I'm referring is Jonathan Demme's brutally stark portrayal of addiction Rachel Getting Married featuring not only my newest celebrity numero uno Anne Hathaway (she is like Winona Ryder version 5.0) but TV on the Radio's Tunde Adebimpe. Although Adebimpe plays only a supporting role in the film, he makes the best of his screen time with a fantastic a capella version of Neil Young's "Unknown Legend" off of the Harvest Moon album in a scene that illustrates vividly just how appropriately music can describe an emotion that can't be articulated through mere conversation. Jonathan Demme has understood the power of pop music for years and although the movie isn't really about music, the family portrayed is one for whom music is the Oliver to their Brady Bunch. TV on the Radio's Dear Science is a testament to that same power. For me, Rachel Getting Married will be the movie that I think of when I think 2008

I think every year needs it's definitive album as well; that one musical statement that's not only powerful but reflects the prevailing cultural zeitgeist. Nirvana had it in 1991 with Nevermind, Radiohead had it in 1996 with the amazingly prescient OK Computer and in more recent years, and I think you could argue that Outkast did the same with Stankonia in 2000. More than any other album, the themes and ideas of Dear Science reflect the bizarre year that was 2008. For me the album has been representative of the curious paradox that even in the face of an economic crisis surpassed in gravity only by the Great Depression we have embraced buzz words like "hope" and "change." I would like to think that we have done this out of a genuine sense of optimism but the cynic in me says that it's more the fact that after 8 years we're too exhausted with pessimism, fear, and truthiness to feel anything but optimism. That sentiment is what Dear Science feels like.

On "Dancing Choose" the lyrics are those of a world spiraling rapidly out of control under deception, lies, debt.. ya know those lovable characteristics of the Bush Whitehouse.* One could read these lyrics and expect something more musically reminiscent of The Smiths especially as it's noted in the chorus that, "I've seen my palate blown to monochrome, hollow heart clicks hollow tones." Instead, we get a full on body movin' banger with a lavish horn arrangement that draws from influences from rap to grime to house to campy lounge. Upbeat and danceable, the fun of the music does not overpower the bleakness of the lyrics. What's more 2008 than that?

*Acha cha cha cha

7. Vampire Weekend - A Punk

2009-01-21T11:47:00.000-08:00

For this post (my second today) I'm going to ask that you indulge my wistful side and for those of you that didn't attend college with me you are going to be thoroughly lost... sorry.

There are songs out there that I love because of one listen. I don't mean the kind of song that you fall in love with immediately... I mean the kind of song that you love because one time you heard it and it was perfect for its situation. The kind of song that takes on a life of its own after being a crucial part of an insanely fun, drunk, miserable, or interesting time in your life. I can't hear Mr. Big's "To Be With You" without seeing the deck of Pat Croce's restaurant in Key West with a table full of empty gin and tonics in front of me. I can't hear "Hanging Around" by Counting Crows without seeing Goodwin's room and an empty bottle of SoCo on Dupont 3rd West. "Summer of 69," "Free Falling," and it goes without saying, "Take Me Home Tonight" all breathe the not so rarefied air of songs that I love WAY more than I could ever begin to explain and I could actually go on forever with this list.*

So where am I headed with this? I think that what I'm trying to say was captured pretty well by a friend of mine in reference to the song "Hot and Cold" by Katy Perry when he texted me, "Am I crazy or is Hot 'n Cold by Katy Perry the song we would all be screaming on Friday and Saturday nights at the Mansion@ if we were still at WM?" So is Hot and Cold the number seven song on this list? No. I like it, but no. "A Punk" by Vampire Weekend IS the kind of song that makes me wish I was back in the Mansion playing quarters and running horribly ineffective game on freshman girls/being scared of Thetas. That the whole song is solid pop gold is hard to dispute. From the heavily Clash influenced bouncing guitar riff to the absurd lyrics that for some reason remind me of an "Are You Afraid of the Dark" episode, this has to be one of the funnest songs of the year. But it's not so much about all that for me. When I hear it, particularly at the onset of the Ay Ay Ays of the chorus, I can picture people# shooting a quarter into a Vikings shot glass and talking trash while simultaneously pumping their fists along to the cadence of the song. I guess what I'm saying is that when I hear this song, I WANT to hear it at King and Queen apartments, Ludwell 702B, Chandler 212, or Campus Center Little Theater%. This obviously isn't going to happen short of a trespassing/breaking and entering charge on my record and a prominent mention in the Flat Hat's Police Beat but just the fact that the song brings me back to all that makes is significant and awesome and... well if you don't understand already, then you just won't.

*One more for ya, Pieces of Me by Ashlee Simpson, oh what 80 ounces of malt liquor can do to two reasonably intelligent people before an intramural softball game especially when 40 of those ounces are Steel Reserve

@If you don't know, don't ask.

#And by people, I think we all know who I could mean.

%Okay, maybe NOT at the Campus Center Little Theater considering my horrendous exercises in dating futility there

8. Fleet Foxes - Your Protector

2009-01-21T07:46:00.000-08:00

This band has been written about and had praise heaped upon it to the point that it's actually impossible to say something original about them... so of course (SPOILER ALERT!!*) I will be writing about them twice in the next week or so as I finish this list. The harmonies are beautiful obviously... quite possibly the best since the Beach Boys and the orchestal folkiness of the musical arrangements belies their complexity and richness. Lyrically, I enjoy the fact that the band seems to have disconnected from our world and have succeeded in creating a sort of alternate landscape that seems to be located somewhere between Middle Earth and Narnia. A place where the namesake "Protector" of the song is so shrouded in mystery that I can't help but envision Stephen King's Gunslinger character or any assortment of sci-fi/fantasy badass@.

But let's face it, if you've heard these guys then you already know all of this. If you haven't... hear them... they're a slamdunk. I will guarantee that not only will you like them but you will have trouble not listening to them all the time so captivating are those aforementioned harmonies and lush musical arrangements. This is indeed the rare case of the iconic hipster obsession that warrants every bit of that obsession. Don't believe it? Check out this performance from SNL of Mykonos a track from their EP Sun Giant and kiss that 10 bucks that's let on your iTunes gift card goodbye.

*My life is officially complete... I've issued a spoiler alert.

@Okay I'll admit, I wasn't thinking of the Gunslinger... I was thinking of Cloud Strife from Final Fantasy VII... C'mon.... HATE ME!!! HATE ME!!! BRING IT... your hate replenishes my MP so that I can bust out a sweet Summon spell on you.

9. Department of Eagles - No One Does it Like You

2009-01-16T07:39:00.000-08:00

Although this could lead to a flurry of disagreement among my near double digit readership, I think that the Beatles have officially become underrated. It seems that every new, next big thing, Jerry and Jane on the block band seems to be paying their respects to the Beach Boys or Joy Division or even barely better than yacht rock performers such as Peter Gabriel. Not since the Shins' Chutes Too Narrow though has a band on my radar seemed to go out of their way to draw influence from the boys from Liverpool and even that didn't seem to draw all that overtly from that British invasion tradition. I hold the Beatles in such high regard that I think in order for John, Paul, George, and Ringo to get their proper due we would need to return to the hype level surrounding the Anthologies 1,2, and 3.

I hope that Department of Eagles awesome second LP In Ear Park represents the beginning of a renewed indie rock love affair with the Beatles, particularly as it is displayed in "No One Does it Like You." This track does indeed reflect the strange Pet Sounds obsession that seems to have reached a saturation point in their harmonies but that's where the similarities stop. This song sounds like an acid soaked B-side to Yellow Submarine if you substituted a good barbershop quartet* for Ringo's less than stellar pipes. If you listen closely, it seems as though you can even hear some of the nautical noise brick-a-brack that makes Yellow Submarine so strange and progressive in the first place.

So let this be a call to hipsters the world over to put away Pet Sounds, Rhino's Nuggets garage rock compilation, and Exile on Main Street for awhile and give Revolver, Rubber Soul, or Beatles for Sale a spin. I would love to have a strongly Liverpudlian soundtrack to 2009.

10. Gaslight Anthem - Old White Lincoln

2009-01-14T08:14:00.000-08:00

I knew that I wanted to play the bass the MOMENT I heard Krist Novaselic's bass solo in "Lithium." Not only did I know this for a fact but I was CERTAIN that not only would I learn to play this sweet solo but that it would get me SO MANY girls.* Sure, in the 15 years since I had this epiphany, I have been proven wrong on several accounts. I would in fact not learn to play the bass nor did I bag the amount of girls I hoped I would (to be fair joining the football team didn't work a year later for this either). Despite this colossal failure, I hope that somewhere in America right now some pimply, overweight, malcontent is hearing "Old White Lincoln" by the Gaslight Anthem and coming to a similar conclusion about the romantic powers of the bass. The nine second bass intro to this song is the first great chapter of a pretty close to perfect pop song by these Jersey punk rockers (is there any other kind?).

I've heard the criticisms heaped upon this band for simply ripping off Springsteen, and the marked musical similarities along with the Jersey obsession between Gaslight's album The '59 Sound and The Boss are tough to dispute, but I think that these guys and particularly this song avoid plagiarism and tread that fine line by staying solidly in homage territory. Much like the fantastic work of 2006's "When You Were Young" by the Killers, this song seems to isolate the joyous wrecklessness of modern youth frittering their lives away with insignificant drama. From the rich imagery of lighting a cigarette on a parking meter to the romance of the opening line, "If I could write, I'd tell you how much I miss these nights," Old White Lincoln just FEELS good in that quaint insignificance of small town life manner that artists like Springsteen and Alan Jackson capture so well

*Because let's face it, who did 7th grade girls love more in 1994 than Krist Novaselic... oh wait... everyone.

11. Flight of the Conchords - Ladies of the World

2009-01-12T04:37:00.000-08:00

I debated about this choice for quite some time. Comedy is a hard genre to plug into the typical pop music canon. For example, I can't imagine that The Hannukah Song made many best of lists but the truly hilarious Apollo 18 by They Might Be Giants is a masterpiece. Adding to the complications with this song is the fact that Flight of the Conchords are a made for T.V. band, and placing them in the company of the Monkees, Partridge Family, and 2gether* is perhaps the strongest argument AGAINST their musical merit. Despite this, I kept coming back to one thing when listening to this song... I really enjoy it. I defy anyone to sit completely still while listening to the Stan Getz-esque bossanova guitar strumming and hand claps that give the song that 70s lounge act feel for which the Conchords' Jemaine Clement and Brett McKenzie were clearly going. The true revelation on this and many other tracks on the album however is the range and versatility of McKenzie's voice... whether rapping (Hiphopapotamus vs. Rhymenocerous), whispering fantasy lyrics (Prince of Parties), or spitting a full scale dancehall banger (Boom), Brett plays the role of vocal chameleon that's essential to the thin line between satire and ridicule that the boys from New Zealand tread.

Ladies of the World stands out as the highlight here both for its subtle humor (just about everything sounds relatively believable as a legitimate pop song aside from the hilarious aside on the "sexy hermaphrodite ladies") and tag team featuring of both vocalists' strengths. I don't know that the 2nd season (airing soon) can top the highs of the first season's soundtrack but getting anywhere close to the fun of Ladies of the World should be considered a rousing success.

* If you remember 2gether then chances are you are between 21 and 28, white, and were probably nearly as lame as I was in middle/high school

12. The Mae Shi - Run to Your Grave

2009-01-10T16:14:00.000-08:00

As 33% of the European populace was dropping dead during the Black Plague, giant booze fueled orgies would break out as people simply decided to say fuck it and live it up for one more night.* It's a shame L.A.'s The Mae Shi aren't roughly 700 years older because "Run to Your Grave" would form one hell of a soundtrack for one of these drunken, communal rolls in the hay. This song is all about our tendencies toward self-destruction but isn't some Alice in Chains style ode du Heroin but a rollicking choral sing-a-long more reminiscent of the Polyphonic Spree than some apocalyptic dirge. This sounds like a downright cheery acceptance of the fact that the modern world is about trying to find the thing that will kill us the fastest and the great thing is that they leave the weapon of choice up to the listener... it could be drugs, could be girls, hell, why not global warming? They warn us only that "they're coming for your brain, but they'll leave with your head."

Musically, a simple pre-programmed Casio keyboard line and thunderous drum work that gives the track a single mic in the middle of the studio, Steve Albini-esque sound create a backdrop that compliments the madness of the lyrics. All of it adds up to a song that is like the crazy homeless guy shouting at the moon on the corner suddenly being hired as town spokesman.

*Quite possibly the worst lead in that has ever been written

13. Weezer - Pork and Beans

2009-01-06T11:22:00.000-08:00

Okay... I know... You've heard this song a thousand times and have been tired of it since like January last year. You're tired of the video too. But just for a second remove yourself from that and think back to the first time you heard it. This song has absolutely everything you have come to expect from Rivers Cuomo, the greatest pop songwriter since Paul Simon.*@ It's the meditation on his own geekdom that is simultaneously catchy, self deprecating, simple and delightfully contradictory. The story goes that when Rivers and Co. submitted this album to their record label, they heard the commonly held complaint that the album didn't have an obvious standout single... to which a miffed Rivers responded with the scathing "indictment of the industry" track that is "Pork and Beans" and which I (and c'mon... you too) have grown to love. So for those of you keeping score at home, Rivers wrote an incredibly catchy single to mollify his record company about how much it sucks to have to write incredibly catchy singles to mollify record companies.

For years, Weezer has made a living out of writing great rock songs from the perspective of a "couldn't be less cool" nerd. It doesn't take much thinking to figure out that this is in fact the perfect formula. The majority of music fans, at least discerning ones, come from a place that's FAR more Rivers than Brett Michaels so when they hear massive arena rock riffs played over lyrics like, "I've got a twelve sided di, I've got a dungeon master's guide," they're gonna feel it all the more. I will say unequivocally that I can associate much more strongly with "You won't talk, won't look, won't think of me, I'm the epitome of public enemy," than with, "At the drive in, in the old man's Ford, behind the tool shed, Baby 'til I'm screamin for more."

So is this song played out? Absolutely. But like so many other (thought not all) songs that achieve this status (Paper Planes anyone?) it's played out for a reason.

*I'm gonna go ahead and ruin ALL credibility I might have had by adding here that Pete Wentz is a possible challenger for this title.

@I encourage you to provide your retorts below

14. Titus Andronicus - Titus Andronicus

2009-01-03T10:34:00.000-08:00

Everyone that writes or has written knows the unnerving feeling of writer's block. Ironically, it took me about 20 different false starts on this post before I decided how to proceed so clearly I know the feeling as well although for me it's easy to get over... I simply remind myself that I never have nor will I ever need to rely on my already minimal ability to be creative to get by. When I think about someone for whom writing pays the bills experiencing writer's block though I find it to be a very scary proposition. What if you've gotten famous for some incredible achievement in literature, music, or film and you simply have nothing left in the tank. Are musicians paralyzed by the fear of never again coming up with a riff or hook that's worth a damn? If one believes New Jersey's Titus Andronicus on their self titled song "Titus Andronicus" then the answer is a resounding and violent YES
.
In the shouty, agressive, and unabashedly loud track, the four piece channels The Story is in the Soil... era Bright Eyes while also giving some musical love to the over the top textured compositions of Springsteen's catalog with the E Street Band. The album, The Airing of Grievances which as you might have guessed gets its name from the penultimate celebration of Seinfeld's Festivus is bitch and moan fest after another that works infinitely better than similar material which often times comes off as spoiled and petulant (see Romance, My Chemical and Confessional, Dashboard). Lyrically, the listener gets a good old fashioned melodramatic freak out care of vocalist Patrick Stickles who pouts

"Throw my guitar down on the floor
No one cares what I've got to say anymore
I didn't come here to be damned with faint praise
I'll write my masterpiece some other day
(Fuck everything, fuck me)"

Emo-ish? Yes. But trust me, just listen and you'll appreciate the pissed off stomp and jubilant nihilism that as a whole is quite reminiscent of Cursive's early 2000s masterpiece The Ugly Organ .

15. The Magnetic Fields - Drive on Driver

2008-12-31T08:15:00.000-08:00

69 Love Songs by the Magnetic Fields never ceases to amaze me. Every time I revisit it (about every month or so these days) I am astounded by the shear quality of the album, even at a full 69 songs there really aren't any duds or missteps. Unfortunately I can't say that about the 2008 release Distortion. There are missteps a plenty on the 13 track LP which overall sounds a bit messy and unfocused. There are several exceptions though, including the heartbreaking single "Drive on Driver" which would slot perfectly into 69 Love Songs while disrupting the successful attempt at juvenile humor inherent in having 69 tracks.*

The lyrics tread pretty common territory as the creative force behind The Magnetic Fields Stephen Merritt recaps the end of days of a relationship in which he seems to have invested a whole lot more than the girl. He waits for her to come and of course she doesn't. Nothing new here, but as is often the case with Merritt, the music is the real attraction as the lavish and distorted arrangement is so multilayered and rich that it takes several listens to just absorb everything that's going on. Merritt double, triple, and quadruple tracks his vocals to contribute to the mournful undertone of the song. As the song winds down following Merritt's final "drive on.." the guitar solo that leads to a quick splash of orchestral string work becomes perhaps the most enjoyable and impressive 45 seconds of music of the year.

*Or maybe I just spend entirely too much time around middle schoolers... seriously if I notice that reading begins or ends on page 69 I assign an extra page just to avoid saying 69 in class.

----------------
Now playing: The Magnetic Fields - Drive On, Driver
via FoxyTunes

16. Rhymefest ft. Michael Jackson - Man in the Mirror

2008-12-30T18:53:00.000-08:00

I don't care what Michael Jackson does with the rest of his life. If he buys 30 minutes of primetime advertising place and uses it to sacrifice three children, four dogs, two cats, and Macaulay Culkin I will still conveniently ignore his atrocities and continue to say he's one of the five most talented people in the world. Seriously. I'm willing to overlook everything post-Scream (the song with Janet and the multi million dollar video). The only problem with that is that musically his output, minimal though it may be, has been consistently terrible for the past 15 years and it's almost as though the MJ died in a terrible Neverland Ranch llama attack in 1995.

When I put on this track by Chicago rapper and Kanye West pal Rhymefest though, it's like the King of Pop has returned from exile. I can say in all honesty that the material on the mixtape Mark Ronson Presents: Rhymefest Man in the Mirror on which this song appears is the best Jackson family output since 1992's Dangerous. Granted, all of this output is sampled work from Jackson's career, dating back to his work with the Jackson Five but Ronson and Rhymefest breathe new life into the tracks that you've heard a thousand times before, even using interviews with Jackson to form the basis for several skits, the hip hop version of the shitty prize in the bottom of the cereal box. Additional guests on the mixtape are of the highest quality as well as Ronson disciples Wale and Daniel Merriweather appear along with samples of Ghostface Killah and Talib Kweli

In the song Man in the Mirror, Rhymefest takes the same look in the mirror that Jackson takes in the song's source material; questioning his self esteem a la White Power Bill in Arrested Development ("Maybe the problem is I don't love me") and reflecting upon the problems plaguing the rap world. Maybe, as currently appears quite likely, Michael Jackson will never come anywhere close to doing justice to his immense talents again. As I suggested before, I'm cool with this and it should in no way tarnish his musical reputation but my fear is that his current weirdness will somehow eclipse his considerable achievements. Rhymefest's "Man in the Mirror" assuages that fear though as it will hopefully serve as an effective reminder of all that was once good and what could be good again* about the self appointed King of Pop.

*For those of you playing the top30orso drinking game, it's time to take a giant swig for, "Reference to Field of Dreams." Hopefully you remembered to take a drink in earlier posts for "Reference to failings with opposite sex"

17. Alejandro Escovedo - Always a Friend

2008-12-28T15:19:00.000-08:00

As a music listener, and one who considers himself fairly refined, I am always especially embarrassed when I realize that I've completely missed out on a musical legend. That actually happens to me quite a bit so maybe I should just forget any notions I have about the possibility of having an advanced musical pallet.

Right before composing the final version of this list, I listened to the great APM podcast Sound Opinions with Chicago record critics Greg Kot and Jim DiRogatis and their interview with Alejandro Escovedo and heard this fantastic straight forward rocker. For those of you in the dark about Escovedo as I was, he was in on the ground floor of the American punk movement with the Nuns and expanded his horizons throughout the 80s and 90s. He collaborated with Whiskeytown on the near perfect Strangers Almanac album and has carved out a distinguished solo career for himself by strattling alt-country and garage rock, acquiring a list of fans along the way that includes Springsteen, Tom Petty, the Hold Steady, and countless others.

I think sometimes the instinct for the more established elder statesmen of rock and roll is to make albums totally lacking in ambition and creativity in the hopes of scoring giant pay days and not doing anything too risky that could possibly alienate a loyal and often mindless fan base (I'm looking at you The Who, Paul McCartney, Rolling Stones, and Axl Rose). Escovedo not only avoids that trap but manages to make an album full of melodic garage rock that eclipses the more high profile 2008 work of the Raconteurs and the Hold Steady with Always a Friend as the highlight.

In this song, Escovedo writes what has to be the greatest tribute ever written to the fantastic and possibly mythic "friends with benefits" arrangement. While the lyrics aren't destined for literature books or masters theses, ("We came here as two, we laid down as one
I don't care if I'm not your only one") they do the trick while allowing sonically unique guitar work and "Oooo, Oooo" and "Oh, Oh, Oh" harmonies to lead the way. In the process, Escovedo makes a song that should make 20 something bands give him shot outs in their liner notes and 50 something acts question their commitment and hopefully step up their game.

18. Q-Tip - Gettin Up

2008-12-24T12:37:00.000-08:00

Obviously like many wanna be music nerds the world over, one of my favorite movies of all time is High Fidelity. A movie that follows it's novel source material by Nick Hornby quite strictly and benefits heavily from that. The reason I bring this up is that in the movie Rob the main character's girlfriend Laura organizes a party advertised as offering "Dance music for old people." Let me just say that I've never heard a party, fictional or otherwise, sound more appealing. When I hear that line I don't think, bad beach music (ie one of the five million incarnations of the Drifters) or rich suburban assholes swinging their hands and shuffling their Cole Haan and Croc ensconced feet to some godforsaken Billy Joel song while trying not to vomit up their Appletinis and Michelob Ultras. Before hearing this song, by the most famous of the practitioners of the early 90s Native Tongue movement, I don't think I was even able to define that sound to which Laura was referring when she took it upon herself to bring Rob out of DJ retirement. Let there be no mistake though, this is most definitely dance music for old people in its must pure, mature, and kickass form.

So how is this song one for the old? First of all, it has that great rap bluster that we get from the younger players in the rap game ("the #1 M.C. Man") but it's dialed back to the point of showing up as only subtle swagger. Second of all, it brings the promiscuous sexiness of R. Kelly while simultaneously laying out plans for the future ("make a clan like the Kennedys"). Finally, the beat (and this goes for everything this highly underrated talent does) makes you want to move but not so much so that you will look like an idiot shaking the ass that you don't have in all your white arrhythmic splendor.

19. Parts and Labor - Nowhere's Nigh

2008-12-24T11:53:00.000-08:00

On one of my favorite albums of the year, this duo turned quartet from Jagjaguwar Records goes all sci-fi on our asses. Of course I say this in the most flattering way possible... I'm not talking Star Trek style Sci-fi here. This album almost reminds me of a musical companion to Alfonso Cuaron's near future masterpiece Children of Men in that it fixates upon and magnifies our present problems and projects them as the potential status quo in a time that is far too close for comfort. It's like they've peered ahead to a possible ending in a Choose Your Own Adventure book. Parts and Labor describe their version of the future as though they are already living it in their heads.

On the track Nowhere's Nigh, P&L join the the ranks of Roger Miller, Springsteen, and Kraftwerk by crafting an epic and memorable song about the highway. The one key difference here though is that while the aforementioned trio of highwaymen almost show begrudging reverence for the road Parts and Labor are decrying what the road has done to us. The post-hardcore act seems to be giving us a lyrical call to slow it down get the hell out of the suburbs and actually reconnect with the world and most importantly eachother. The lyrics take a biting tone, decrying the consequences of our self imposed departure from the world from our well documented oil addiction, "Guzzled desert teats a black milk precedent,” “gas stations flutter constellating in the night,” to our inability to see beyond our immediate need and desire for comfort through the crippling isolation of suburbia, "unsustainable lives with asphalt testaments, isolated withdrawn and galvanized." Ironically enough, this song SOUNDS like the highway in the sense that you can hear the road in the rhythm (not in a metaphorical sense either, it literally sounds like you're driving over reflectors) and the rev of the engine in the melody and vocal harmonies. This track succeeds in taking you on a 4:36 road trip that feels like a cross country tour at mach 1, quite an achievement

20. Bon Iver - Skinny Love

2008-12-17T07:04:00.000-08:00

The story behind this song is almost too hip to endure. Man goes through awful break-up, man moves into Wisconsin cabin in the winter to get away from it all and record a heart wrenching solo acoustic LP about said awful break-up. And it would all be too much to endure if it wasn't so well done and like Hank Sr.'s "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry" so solicitous of sympathy for the guy going through the break up. I have read comparisons to fellow bearded acoustic singer-songwriter Iron and Wine but I don't really see how that works. For one, Bon Iver's (aka Justin Vernon) stuff is much more complex musically (some of the arrangements are almost like hearing an orchestra through one channel of stereo) and his almost painful falsetto wail owes more to Eliot Smith than anyone else.

In "Skinny Love," Vernon is just letting us sit in on a heartbreaking F.U. to his former significant other. It's lyrics' meaning are not always readily apparent but the pained beauty in the final chorus tells you all you need to know

I told you to be patient
I told you to be fine
I told you to be balanced
I told you to be kind
Now all your love is wasted?
Then who the hell was I?

You can feel what he's feeling (or maybe it's just me and my state of mind). He's so pissed off at this girl for doing whatever she did but at the same time he's just sad... sad about everything going wrong and furious that there's nothing he can do about it. That distinct feeling of powerlessness permeates the entire album, from the harsh winter backdrop by which it was recorded to the multiple other standout tracks it's one of the more powerful emotionally driven works of art of the year.

21. Taylor Swift - Should've Said No

2008-12-16T04:27:00.000-08:00

I cannot, for the life of me, understand how this song hasn't made more top (insert number here) lists for this year. Rihanna's pieces of R&B trash "Disturbia" and "Please Don't Stop the Music" are getting some love along with anything to which Barnacle Beyonce attaches herself. So what's the deal with the complete lack of love for Taylor Swift? Is it the fact that she falls into the oft-reviled Nu-Country (I just invented that term... if it catches on you can say you knew me when) movement of Brad Paisley and his ilk? I will say that it is rare to hear any artists making modern country getting positive ink. It could possibly be her relatively young age but even the Jonas Brothers are getting some respect in critical circles (ie Rolling Stone which is almost dead to me) so that can't be it. Regardless of the reason, it seems that Taylor Swift has not been allowed to even become a guilty pleasure during the year in music 2008. What a damn shame.

In this song, she writes (that's right, she wrote or co-wrote every song on her album... at 16) a pissed off reflection on that most common of country turf, the cheating/no good significant other. The difference between this and more traditional country territory though is that she actually sounds pissed off... and more significantly, ready to move on. I can hear a lot of the same anger in this track that I hear in one of the best songs of the decade (really) Kelly Clarkson's "Since U've Been Gone." The pinnacle of this song comes as Swift kicks into the hell hath no fury like a woman scorned second verse where you can almost feel her disappointment as she laments, "Even now just looking at you feels wrong, you say that you'd take it all back, given one chance it was a moment of weakness and you said yes you should've said no." I have no idea whether Taylor Swift is headed to Reba McEntire territory or if she's due for an even more giant mainstream/crossover career but if this album and more importantly this track is any indication we've got a lot to look forward to.

22. My Morning Jacket - Touch Me I'm Going to Scream pt. 1

2008-12-15T04:42:00.000-08:00

It was a long time coming that someone stepped up and made another album about and inspired by sex. Lots of it, in all forms. On album seemingly reflective of roughly 1,000 of their musical influences its the one tie that binds this effort by the boys from Louisville. When I say sex in this case, I don't mean some mildly suggestive song lyrics about some girl that dumped the bassist, I mean an album teeming with full on make out music. I understand the Prince comparisons that this album has been labeled with but aside from the tongue-in-cheek "Highly Suspicious" I'm not hearing Prince as much as I am the "baby let's get down to business" sound of the Isley Brothers. This type of soul sexuality is oozing from Touch Me I'm Going to Scream (I'm going to see how many overtly sexual references I can toss out here).

Simply put, the song is about being so into someone that it is literally driving you crazy not to be able to make physical contact with them. That sort of raw emotional reaction is almost refreshing in a musical world that seems to favor obfuscation over anything straight forward. This makes it much easier to enjoy and frankly put a lot less work... everyone has had this feeling and everyone knows what it's like to be driven to the point of lunacy by a member of the opposite sex and that's all you need to enjoy this and every other track off this album. So next time you're sitting down for a nice roll in the hay consider popping in some Evil Urges and feeling the love.

23. Yeasayer - Wait for the Summer

2008-12-13T10:48:00.000-08:00

Perhaps more than any other song on this list, this vaguely tribal track creates a very distinct mood. I can't really explain and maybe someone slipped a hallucinogen into my drink last night but for some reason this song makes me feel like I'm not anywhere close to home. Like Neptune maybe. Or perhaps part of some trans-Saharan Berber Caravan Maybe it's the richly layered vocals that almost become a chant or it could very well be the sitar drone coupled with the hand claps and non-traditional percussion but this almost SOUNDS like indie rock's answer to the Muezzin's call to prayer. This song is no inaccessible moan fest however as the whole track is like (let's see how far I can stretch these non-Western analogies here) a piece of baklava where between every layer of metaphorical phylo dough is substantial syrupy pop sweetness. Just like I can imagine this song sacreligiously blaring from the top of a minaret I can just as easily imagine its melody being rapped over by the Rza. So please, can I have more? A LOT more.

24. Lil' Wayne - Dr. Carter

2008-12-12T08:14:00.000-08:00

Where to start with one Weezy F. Baby? First of all, I do not think he's a genius okay? Not even close (although he might be completely batshit insane), and I'm not gonna hop on board the hipster d-bag conestoga that was ready to canonize Ghostface Killah the last two years before it magically became cool for them to like Lil' Wayne either. I will say that the guy's a great rapper; he's creative, unique, and seems perfectly willing to challenger the verse + hook formula that has come to dominate a lot of hip hop these days (Hey Ludacris! Hey T.I.!!! Do you hear that!!!).

This song is a perfect example of that willingness to work outside of the hip hop box. Dr. Carter is Weezy's State of the Rap Union Address which I think is why it stands out on a great but far from perfect album. The Young Man Young Carter spits typically stream of consciousness flow that unlike some of his more lauded mixtape fare manages to stay out of the realm of the absurd. The second verse is quintessential Wayne with his game/ADHD face on (as opposed to his "I can't feel my face from all the Robitussin" face) as he flows seamlessly from giving respect to Swizz Beats, Young Jeezy, and Kanye to explaining his choice to give up writing his lyrics and convert to freestyle (apparently a combination of arthritis and haters... interestingly enough, this is also the cause for MY decision to only freestyle).

The beat is the real star of the show here though. Spare and muted, it is definitely not one for the clubs. All the listener gets is a lightly rolling snare and symbol. This matches Wayne's flow perfectly and almost makes you feel like you're in the middle of some fucked up open mic poetry night in the middle of a New Orleans housing project. You almost feel like this is Wayne saying to the true hip hop fan, "sorry for Lollipop, but I've got your back on this real shit." That same true hip hop fan can only hope that Weezy has banked enough off of this outing to finally get their back for a whole album.

25. Santogold - L.E.S. Artistes

2008-12-09T18:23:00.000-08:00

Like country, R&B has fallen on some tough times. When R. Kelly and his Trapped in a Closet odyssey is carrying the torch with future (current?) lounge singer John Legend for your entire genre you might be in serious trouble. Sure Alicia Keys is capable of one or two decent songs per album (No One? Great stuff) and Beyonce occasionally shows signs of life but more often than not, modern R&B sucks for the same reason lots of modern country sucks, it is largely derivative of everything else in the genre and it's just boring... really boring.

While we're holding out hope for the possible return of D'Angelo and Lauryn Hill, we officially have a place holder in the form of Santogold. Song #25 L.E.S. Artistes puts a modern, far from conventional spin on the "I'm starting to get over you" formula perfected by Gloria Gaynor back in the day, only this song isn't quite certain enough to say, I WILL Survive, this is more of an I Might Survive and it's that lack of bravado that allows this track to enter that seemingly rarefied R&B air where acts like Dusty Springfield and hell even Madonna dwell. I think there's something far more vulnerable and less self-assured about the way Santogold writes and delivers her lyrics than much of the current R&B canon. Even the guitar riff that starts the track seems tentative, like it isn't quite sure it's sold on the fact that it's time to start. This minimal beginning blooms into a full aural assault as hand claps and HUGE synth hooks compliment the cool world play of the lyrics, "You don't know me I am an introvert an excavator, I'm duckin' out for now a face in dodgy elevators." while understated beats bring the whole thing home. My favorite part though comes at the end and does a great job of projecting that sense of uncertainty that blankets the, on first blush, empowering lyrics.

" Change, change, change
I want to get up out of my skin
tell you what
if I can shake it
I'm 'a make this
something worth dreaming of"

That final verse finds our hero still living in a world of ifs, not whens, and damned if it doesn't make you root for her.

26. Killer Mike - Bad Day/Worst Day

2008-12-08T07:14:00.000-08:00

American music doesn't do pissed off like it used to. This generation doesn't have its Positively Fourth Street or its Fortunate Son... it certainly doesn't have its Hit 'em Up. Have we become fundamentally more positive since the 90s? Certainly not. The last truly effective "I'm Pissed Off at Everyone" song of our time was 2000's The Way I Am by Eminem who has since gone into seclusion after releasing the tripe that was Encore. So why can't we channel rage anymore? Sure we have acts that dabble in it... but they seem to be, like bands like Against Me and the Nightwatchman, dealing with a more measured and reserved form of outrage. Every once in awhile I want some good ol' fashion illogical unrestrained rage.

One reason why we might not see as much of this these days is that for some reason record labels have decided that it is unmarketable. Or at least that seems to be the reason why Sony sat on this follow up to Killer Mike's debut gold LP Monster. For those of you that haven't given Mike his due, I encourage you to get to it. He is the rapper version of Ice Cube (who apparently died after Natural Born Killaz was released) reincarnated and born in the south. He's intelligent, verbose, and really really pissed off. This standout track from the originally slated to release in 2005 but leaked for free in 2008 album Ghetto Extraordinary reads like a really clever laundry list of things that are/were currently bothering Killer Mike. Within one minute he has given the proverbial and literal fuck you to Bill O'Reilly, C. Dolores Tucker, Reverend What's his Name (no idea who this is), Kobe Bryant, B.E.T., Q-Tip, and former mentor Andre 3000. He goes on to skewer the white community, the African American community, and just about everyone else in this caustic and biting diatribe. Killer Mike generated a track that is intelligent and most importantly HONEST on a level that neither supposed "message" "rappers"Mos Def nor Talib Kweli (and yes both of those words belong in quotation marks given their most recent output) have achieved in years. The standout line from this song which actually predates the Don Imus/Rutgers Basketball Team controversy and is almost prophetic is, "I'd rather let Eminem call me 50 n****z than to break bread with a rich n***a readin' scripture." This line - an affront to hip hop's occasional flirtation with religion and indignant condemnation of the n-word - is the essence of the track and really the whole album... Killer Mike is not afraid to defy the conventions of what is perceived to be intelligent hip hop, instead he's just going to spit truth.

Download this album... legally... and for free

27. Truckasaurus - Fak!!!

2008-12-07T12:41:00.000-08:00

Looking back to a time when music videos actually existed, I can remember a few that actually convinced me to like a song that upon hearing on the radio I might have actually hated. Specifically, every Fatboy Slim song (by the way, I listened to one of his albums the other day and he has NOT aged well... The Rockefeller Skank? Yikes). The problem when this happens is that it's really hard to tell whether the song is any good or not. I think Ok Go proved this point to the world with their omnipresent clip for crappy song Here it Goes Again.

I will officially admit that I have fallen in love with the video for song #27, Fak!!! by Truckasaurus, and maybe that's why this spare, oddball joint made the list in the first place. This techno-ish act constructed their entire album "Tea Parties, Guns, and Valor" using the same synth effects that contributed to the Commodore 64 game system. As horrible as it sounds and as campy as it is, I think that it somehow works musically.... really really well. It's almost impossible to keep your head from bobbing along to the jittery Contra-soundtrack style beeps and blips that drive this album. The video is linked for your viewing pleasure.

28. Drive by Truckers - 3 Dimes Down

2008-12-06T06:44:00.000-08:00

If I had set out to make a list of the year's best single lines in a song there would be no question about the winner; "While chicken wing puke eats the candy apple red off his corvette" is undeniable poetry. Like the bar rockers the Hold Steady (their tourmates), the Drive-by Truckers have one trick: making classic rock for the here and now, and also like the Hold Steady, they do it really really well and with enough originality to keep you guessing. Adding to their charm, the DBT have the kind of sense of humor that convinces you that unlike 90% of the music world they do not take themselves too seriously.

That sense of humor is on full display on 3 Dimes Down as, according to a write-up by band member Patterson Hood, Mike Cooley references the Tom T. Hall opus Night in a Country Jail and Cooley, Hood, bassist Shonna Tucker, and drummer Brad Morgan create more classic rock gold that just happens to have been released in 2008.

The only thing that baffles me about this band and this song though is how they aren't more popular. They should be getting play on every mainstream rock radio station in America. All of those folks that obediently trot out to pick up the "new" Nickelback album (is there ever really new Nickelback?) should save themselves the heartache and pick up Decoration Day or Southern Rock Opera. I feel like this band should be exhibit A at any Payola trial as radio has tragically missed out on the pop gold that the Drive by Truckers produce more consistently than perhaps any other band out there.

29. Sons and Daughters - Gilt Complex, Vivian Girls - Where Do You Run to?

2008-12-05T07:07:00.000-08:00

Okay, I'm cheating... sorry, but I am connecting these songs due to some personal musical growth that I've achieved over the past year so bear with me.

I'll admit it... for years and I guess now to some extent, I was a vocal misogynist. I held female vocalists to an insanely high standard and did some serious player hating. I rejected Karen O and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, I spurned Chrissy Hynde, I turned a deaf ear to Patti Smith, unless the female singer in question was a soul singer, country singer, or Jenny Lewis I had no interest. Maybe it was the rah rah, "I am woman hear me roar" feminism of mid to late 90s girl rock that turned me off. Hell it could have even been the infamous "Dirty Dozen/Catorce Horrible" project of 2001-2005 that some (all three) of my readers are so familiar with. Whatever it was I just couldn't dig on girls trying to rock. I even, and this is part of the 12-step program I think, skipped past most Kim Gordon tracks on Sonic Youth albums.

Something changed this year though and I'm not sure what it was exactly. Maybe I finally recovered from the Dirty Dozen, maybe it was the Dusty Springfield album that I listened to on repeat for weeks, I just don't know. All I know is that these two tracks represent two of my favorite albums of the year and they both feature girls, in the immortal words of Wu-Tang, bringing the motherfuckin' RUCKUS.

In the first track, Scottish New Wave act Sons and Daughters reel you in with an ominous first 25 seconds that gets the head bobbing with a driving Meg White style rhythm and a guitar riff that almost seems to be heralding the arrival of some kind of supervillain. This creates the perfect background for that great pogo jump inspiring effect that European concerts have mastered (or so I'm told) while maintaining a nice Blondie-esque simmer of aggression without boiling over into straight forward punk. Lyrically, the song decries modern avarice (even using this vastly underrated 12th grade vocabulary word not once but twice!) and portends the downfall of those obsessed with such material pursuits. By far the highlight of this track though is the howling of lead vocalist Adele Bethel as the song draws to a close... it's almost an oracle.

In the second track, the Brooklyn (SHOCKING!) trio the Vivian Girls do their best Ronettes on Ambien impression and kick ass in the process. Remember what Jack White did for Loretta Lynn on Van Lear Rose? Now imagine The Supremes getting the same guest producer treatment from the Jesus and Mary Chain and you can kind of grasp what the Vivian Girls have going on in Where Do You Run to? The girls', (get a load of these names... I think I want to marry them and I haven't even seen them) Cassie Ramone, Kickball Katy, and Ali Koehler, breathy harmonies are irresistible and the Ringo-esque rhythms of drummer Frankie Rose (now behind the kit for the Crystal Stilts) bring the whole package together.

30. MGMT - Time to Pretend

2008-12-04T08:00:00.000-08:00

I think it has become way beyond overdone to diss the shallowness of the modern celebrity lifestyle. While shows like The Soup, the Daily Show, and Colbert Report do a great job of skewering the Celebreality obsession that seems to have permeated our nation's once great music video stations I feel like sometimes they might miss the point. I like to think that this celebrity obsession is just one giant inside joke. Everything from E!, to People Magazine, to I Love New York, to The Simple Life is doing us a favor by saying, "can you believe how incredibly fucked up and shallow these people are? Let's watch them to see how horrible they can be in this next scene."

Okay so what the fuck am I talking about? To make this even more confusing I'm gonna direct your (all three of you) attention to this painting by Diego Velazquez called Las Meninas. Noted smoking hot former William and Mary art history professor Jenny Ramirez suggested that maybe what was going on here is that the artist who had been commissioned to paint the Spanish royal family had included himself in the painting to imply that he knew what you knew... that the inbred Spanish royal family was a bunch of dullards. Just look at the look on his face... it's the one you give your friends over a girls shoulder when you're dancing that says, "I have no idea how in the fuck this happened but I'm just gonna roll with it for the time being."

Now it's time to half heartedly tie all this into the #30 on our list. Time to pretend is pointing all this out. Behind rich instrumentals (I hear handclaps... and wait is that a string section... and hey a TRUMPET! It's like someone is testing out each instrument on an old Casio) and a ridiculously catchy and impossible to get out of your head synth melody that drives the chorus, the folks in MGMT deliver the proverbial bitchslap to the Brett Michaels/Motley Crue image of the rockstar lifestyle and like Velazquez and umm.. I Love New York, they do so in a way that only those of us who are in on the joke will understand. And hey, that's hot.

31. Rural Alberta Advantage - Edmonton

2008-12-03T08:18:00.000-08:00

What if I'm only satisfied when I'm at home? That's the question in this track by another great Canadian export, joining the ranks of Broken Social Scene, the Arcade Fire, and Besnard Lakes. It's classic though not exactly conventional territory that is covered by the plaintive Jeff Mangum (Neutral Milk Hotel) sound-alike Nils Edenloff to great effect. Guy loves girl, girl wants guy to move away with her - and here's where the twist comes in - guy doesn't want to leave his hometown. He has to leave his friends and the only place he knows; and what if she hangs him out to dry and suddenly he's in some other province (oh those crazy Canadians) alone? Clearly these guys have a love affair with Alberta that goes way beyond that love/hate thing that Springsteen has with Jersey and in a way its endearing to hear that respect permeate throughout their album (not surprisingly entitled Hometowns). As the song reaches its apex, heralded by some awesome work from the rhythm section, the listener isn't really left with any answers but that just becomes motivation to listen to the song again.

32. Deerhunter - Agoraphobia

2008-12-02T19:46:00.001-08:00

Full disclosure... after repeated listens I'm not quite sure what this song is about. Some sort of unrequited obsession with a member of the opposite sex? I've got nothin'. That isn't necessarily a bad thing however because the vocals frankly just sound cool and become just another instrument as they blend perfectly with the music. Combining dreamy guitars with a fuzzy synth outro takes this song from Yo La Tengo inspired indie pop to Sonic Youth style noise as the song draws to a close.

Frankly, it was really tough to choose a song from this album to represent on this list that is currently read by roughly 3 people. From beginning to end the Atlanta-based Deerhunter flows seamlessly from style to style without sacrificing the pop melodies that unite the entire album. There are easily 7 or 8 absolutely essential tracks on the album and Agoraphobia stands out for me right now but just like asking me if I prefer So Yesterday, Pieces of Me, or Since You've Been Gone among the canon of the mysterious THE MATRIX songwriting team ask me in a week and I'll have picked another personal favorite.
.

33. The Hold Steady - One for the Cutters

2008-12-02T19:22:00.000-08:00

The thing that I love most about this track aside from the harpsichord (seriously when have you ever thought to yourself, "this song is great except for that pesky harpsichord") is that it follows in that fantastic tradition of The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia and even older cuts like the folk ballads Barbara Allen and Little Sadie and Johnny Cash's Long Black Veil. The big difference in this crime ballad is that in this case, it's hard to feel much sympathy for the justice obstructing ant/protagonist. This girl is like a lot of girls you know... on the surface she feels MUCH better than you and maybe she is, just below the surface though lurks just another girl who "when there weren't any parties, sometimes she'd party with townies." Add to that the fact that unlike Vickie Lawrence's Annie, Craig Finn's subject gets nothing close to redemption at the end and you have the recipe for a great song.

34. Her Space Holiday - The Truth Hurts so this Should be Painless

2008-12-01T19:20:00.000-08:00

Honestly, there really isn't much to this song. The stripped down musical arrangement serves only to enhance the real stars of the show, the lyrics and vocals of Marc Bianchi. The one man band incorporates lyrics from folk standard and one of my favorite songs of all time Which Side Are You On as he essentially delivers what amounts to a State of the Union address from the perspective of the kind hipster that has his own musical side project. As the song progresses it becomes what amounts to an indie rock campfire song... channeling Plastic Ono Band era John Lennon and White Stripes style minimalism. If nothing else, this track comes across as very fun in the process by daring you not to tap your foot and at least sing along. The album on which this track is featured "XOXO, Panda and the New Kid Revival," is filled with the same sort of sensible California-style pop which has managed to age remarkably well for me since the disc's release in October. So will this track change your life forever? Probably not... let's save that work for the Top 10. I can promise you though that you will have fun listening to it and with the addition of alcohol could very well have fun SINGING it in some group setting as your friends and acquaintances look at you like you are batshit insane.

Also, this song starts with a glockenspiel solo which I really enjoyed.

35. The Yah Mos Def - Stockton to Malone

2008-11-30T17:25:00.000-08:00

First of all, I love when musicians that I like throw out references to sports. Really anything will do, I'm not choosy. I love when Kanye raps about "pulling girls off the bench like a sixth man" in This Way by Slum Village. I love this and I also really liked this. My favorite of these ever though has to be The Beastie Boys claim to have "more hits than Sadaharu Oh."

What does this rambling have to do with my number 35 song of 2008? Well, there are two things... first the title is a reference to surefire Utah Jazz Hall of Famers' John Stocton and Karl Malone. Second of all - and most pertinent to ya know, actual music - is Philadelphia's The Yah Mos Def did an awesome job on their debut "Excuse Me, This is the Yah Mos Def" channeling the spirit of the world's three most famous white jewish rappers while being both inventive and unique. The band name is a hybrid of hardcore punk pioneers the Yah Mos and of course every non-rap fan's favorite rapper Mos Def. That is where the comparisons to either the Yah Mos or Mos Def end though as they show no evidence of hardcore and unlike Mos Def these guys actually rap. They've got the tag team flow that makes the Beasties so lovable and are as musically connected to the City of Brotherly Love as MCA, AdRock, and Mike D are to Brooklyn.

In Stockton to Malone, the YMD treat us to absurdist lyrics and b-boy posturing "We give a voice to the voiceless, moist to the moistless" while letting their hardcore flag fly with a Kevin Seconds shoutout. Vocally, the nasal whine of the beat sounds like it should accompany the robbery scene in some shitty 70s heist movie and makes the song feel almost frantic as it builds throughout.

So here's the deal...

2008-11-30T17:07:00.000-08:00

Admittedly, I find blogging to be one of the douchiest and most self-aggrandizing things that someone can do. To assume that anyone is interested in reading YOUR thoughts on - in the words of Elaine Benes - the EXCRUCIATING MINUTIAE of everyday life is, let's face it, terrible. I like music and listen to a lot of it but that doesn't make my opinions on it something that you should care about at all. As a matter of fact you should probably ignore the opinions of bloggers entirely when considering your thoughts on anything because their opinions are probably going to inherently be bullshit. So why do people (myself included I suppose) do this at all?

1. You think a girl might read what you're writing and like you more
This is just really fucking dumb and is not all that far removed from thinking the best Storm Trooper costume will get you laid at a Star Wars convention.

2. You have a MASSIVE ego

3. Your job has absolutely nothing to do with your major interests

These were really the only three reasons I could think of... but upon further examination, I realized that perhaps not coincidentally they are also the three reasons why people decide to start bands so I guess I should add one more reason.

4. You have no musical talent and can't start your own band

So why am I doing this? I really just wanted to find a way to put out a Top 30 or So songs of 2008 list for my friends to read... also I want girls to read it, I have a massive ego, the 8th graders I teach could not possibly care less about my musical interests, and oh yeah I have absolutely no musical talent.

So consider that my preface and apology for what I'm about to undertake... I encourage taunting, mockery, really anything to make me feel like less of an asshole for doing this in the first place.