25-21

25) Stars of the Lid – And Their Refinement of the Decline

Like an ancient epic poem this behemoth of an album can seem laborious, slow moving, but there a sparks of brilliance evenly spaced throughout and by the end you’re glad you’ve listened.

Perfect for days snowy gray and blue days when the world already seems magical.

24) Kanye West – Graduation

The automatically generated Top 25 list on my iTunes contains five songs from this album and for that reason alone it’s included--I just can't stop listening to him. An odd thing to say, yes, and I won’t deny the production is Kanye’s best so far and I admit I appreciate the ‘restraint’ he exhibits on this album but I’m just tired of Kanye.

I am tired of him proselytizing his own genius with insufficient flow while piggy-backing on hits that were more relevant in their own time. You dropped out of college and still made money, yeah we got it.

23) Bright Eyes

The All-Father Odin made sure that Bragi, Norse god of poetry, married Idunn, the keeper of the golden apples that promised eternal youth, because a poet ‘ought to be young.’ I don’t completely agree with that idea but in some cases, such as Conor Oberst, it’s unfortunately accurate.

Musically ‘Cassadaga’ finds Bright Eyes at top form. Lyrically, however, verses of fiery poetry no longer drip from Conor’s precocious mouth—because, well, he’s not precocious anymore. Yes, his older lyrics were overly simple and burdened by overwrought metaphors but his youth made it work. Hopefully his lyrics will mature to match the evolution of his music.


22) Battles

It took me about five listens to get past the second song ‘Atlas’—I pressed fast forward. The first song promises great things to come but the second one just simply annoys me. What’s worse is it’s apparently their single…I didn’t get it and still don’t. Actually that fact almost turned me off of the album. But the rest of it is so good, filled with solid, danceable beats and quirky sounds, something just needed to be done about that one pesky track.

So I just deleted Atlas and now I really like the album.

21) Apparat – Walls

My favorite music background music this year: subtle enough not to distract often but with hopeful moments that make me simply sit back, listen and slip into stream of consciousness:

The organic weeping of string instruments layered over soft and quick electronics. The unintelligible and sparsely used vocals bridge different movements that fade as differing shades of light on the black backs of my eyelids.