Tapeworm

2011-12-17T02:54:00.000-08:00

Biggest Disappointment(s)

Radiohead – The King of Limbs

It was natural to be let down after the near-perfect In Rainbows, but this album, even after several intent listens just made me want to fall asleep.

Okkervil River – I Am Very Far

I’m a big supporter of this band, but they seemed to really drop the ball this year. Only a few marginally interesting songs.

Albums I need to Listen to more:

EMA – Past Life as a Martyred Saint
Shabazz Palaces – Black Up
Beirut – The Rip Tide
The Antlers – Burst Apart
Tom Waits – Bad Like Me

Top Ten

10) Thurday – No Devolución

Back when “screamo” was getting a lot of radio play, Thursday enjoyed some added attention, but for all the wrong reasons. Yes, he screams, but this band is far from such mindless noise. They’ve flown under the radar for several years now, you don’t hear about their new releases unless you check out their website (or obsessively check Metacritic), but they’ve consistently improved their craft. They never make Radiohead-like changes to their music, they’ve not adapted to the times, one could say, but this is a great album with consistent, interesting songs from beginning to end.

9) Adele – 21

Well, yeah. I can’t deny that while living an ocean away from my future wife I didn’t listen to his album and then upon reunion share it with her and it become the soundtrack of our first shared apartment living. It’s a bit bloated, some of the songs downright boring, but I deleted those songs. One cannot deny “Someone Like You,” even André 3000 references it.

8) The Field – Looping State of Mind

I would like to spend just one day with this guy, just to see how he operates. I want to know how he happens upon his ideas. How does one say, hey, I’m going to hold a warbling tone for over seven minutes, give a smattering of drums here and there, a few other hiccups of sound and it’s going to be awesome? And then, how does one actually pull this off? Just like I suppose his creative process to be, the allure of this album is inexplicable.

7) Florence and the Machine – Ceremonies

I’m a sucker for bombastic melancholy and continual images of graveyard and ethereal angels. I can’t help it. Florence really just attacks singing, like she’s fighting against the words, the instruments, and herself and somehow this struggle works. I don’t know. I can just listen to this album on repeat, doing anything—including simply listening.

6) Tim Hecker – Ravedeath, 1972

I am even more confused by Tim Hecker than I am by the Field. This album is 52 minutes of barely tampered with white noise and it is transcendent. Wait for it to snow, put this album on a good set of headphones and go for a walk. Then you’ll understand.

5) The Weeknd – House of Balloons/Thursday

Ever since the second mixtape “Thursday” dropped I’ve always listened to these two in tandem and can’t really distinguish between the two of them—I’m not cheating. The Weeknd took a lot of heat this year from lovers of traditional r&b for trying to fix what isn’t broken, but seriously. r&b is boring as shit, it was boring in the 90s. When people asked what music I liked I said everything except r&b. But the production on these, largely, slow-burning songs is so hypnotic, so entrancing that I am never bored. Add that one of the most original and recognizable new voices and you’ve got an unbelievable new talent.

4) Drake – Take Care

I found this album only a month ago, but it completely destroyed me. I mean, it made all other music for at least a week dull as paint. I couldn’t listen to anything else, Rahel almost killed me. The first time “Marvin’s Room” came on it was over. I knew little of Drake before I got this album and sincerely wish I’d not read anything about him or watched any of his posturing music videos (the Marvin’s Room video being a (slight) exception), as some of the sheen was dampened on this album. But I know I’ll be listening to this for a long time.

3) James Blake – James Blake

My most played album of the year. I was first introduced to Blake through last year’s EP, which was amazing, but did nothing to prepare me for this album. When I first put it on, I was like, what the hell is this? But almost immediately I was drawn into Blake’s world. I’ve spent a lot of time by myself this year, especially in the second half and listening to this album, you can tell that Blake did the same. He would’ve had to, in order to produce such a masterpiece. Solitude has been, in no way, bad, but it’s been nice to have some company.

2) M83 – Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming

I’ve been waiting for this album a long ass time. I’ve always liked the idea of M83, but was never satisfied by the listening experience: the songs were overlong, the singing too subdued, the arrangements a bit “samey.” But this double-album with just about everything you could ever want in every song? M83 has finally drawn level with their promise.

You can pick out individual songs and they work beautifully (especially Midnight City, though…was I the only one that saw that Victoria’s Secret commercial? No other websites seem to make mention of it) but really this album demands to be listened to from the beginning to the end to be fully appreciated. Something I’ve done over and over.

1) Bon Iver – Bon Iver

A few years back I put “For Emma, Forever Ago,” at the top of my list, so it was going to be a given that I was going to like this album. It was also going to be a given that I as going to avoid putting this sophomore effort atop my list again, just so I wouldn’t be boring. But no other album can go here.

In truth, this isn’t even the same artist.

This music contains every emotion simultaneously. It is melancholic, joyful, sad, triumphant, tragic all at once. In short, it’s life compressed in under 50 minutes and no worse for that compression.

I listened to other albums for more than I listened to this one, but that’s because I couldn’t listen to it often. It’s been a crazy year, a wonderful year, but sometimes this album was a little too intense, a little too much.

But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t belong at the top of my list.

Top Albums of 2010

2011-01-05T05:35:00.000-08:00

Yes, I know my list is late, and rather short. I did not listen to much “new” music this year. There are several things that are new to me which I fell in love with such has Japandroids and the Pixies (I know I’m really late on this). Nevertheless, I was able to cobble together a top five and an honorable mention.

Honorable Mention
(in no particular order)

Best Coast – Crazy for You
Hurray for the Riff Raff – S/T
Charlotte Gainsbourg – IRM
Sufjan Stevens – All Delight People EP (miles better on vinyl)
Les Savy Fav – Root for Ruin

Top 5

5) Ra Ra Riot – The Orchard

There is nothing really dangerous or sexy about Ra Ra Riot. The automatic genre tag in iTunes is “Easy Listening,” which I don’t necessarily find fair, but can’t exactly argue against. The singer’s voice is pleasant and his lyrics vaguely poetic, a cellist and violinist are members of the band and they rely on the bass as the driving force of almost every song. But, I can’t help but really enjoy this album.

4) Wolf Parade – Expo 86

Many people seemed to jump ship on Wolf Parade after “At Mount Zoomer.” Not that they could be blamed, it was downright boring especially when compared to their debut and there interesting side projects. I have it on good authority, however, that the ennui of the album was due more to the production job than the songs themselves and that live they rocked out. Well, Wolf Parade seems to have taken that to heart, recording vocals to this album live (and perhaps other parts) and then just tweaking in the studio. And the process paid off, because from start to finish this album pulses with energy. It’s not as good as “Apologies to…” but it’s close.

3) Arcade Fire – The Suburbs

I, like many people, was quite wary of this title, fearing ramped up didactics like on Neon Bible, and at first I did not like this album. I did not mind it, but it—for a long time—was not something that I put on first, it was something that I’d put on only if I’d cycled through most of my other new music. I wish I could remember exactly when it clicked with me, but I don’t. At some point it became a first choice and has remained there.

2) Kanye West – My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy

Upon first listen in the Airport with my headphones the sonic detail on this album floored me. I sat there like a fool with a shit-eating grin on my face. The second time I listened—and by second I mean on vinyl—I couldn’t handle how warm every detail was, how well mixed, how much space every part of each song had. Unfortunately, the vinyl also reinforced certain misgivings I had the first time around, mainly that I don’t like the album all the way through. Most songs are certain genius, but not all of them, which kept this out of the top spot. Most of the blame lies with Chris Rock.

1) Sufjan Stevens – The Age of Adz

Before this album officially came out Nick and I had a long correspondence pertaining to the aesthetics—if you will—of the album versus the already-released EP. We reached the conclusion that the album was going to be too purposefully difficult, too (and these are my own words) Brooklyn. However, being a loyal fan and addicted to buying vinyl, I still bought the album and it quietly, subtly worked it’s magic on me until I would be sitting at my dining room table looking forward to each and every song, no matter how long that song (25 minutes!) may be. The blending of all previous styles along with the more confident and assertive singing style showcased on “You are the Blood” make for an album I listen to on repeat.

The Top 100

2009-09-26T15:18:00.000-07:00

Sorry this is so late. Maybe I'll post pictures later.

1) Okkervil River – Black Sheep Boy This album makes we weep over things I haven’t—and probably won’t—experience. I understand that perhaps they became a tighter and perhaps “better” band on subsequent albums but I can’t get over the raw intensity and lonely desperation of this album. It almost makes me want to have more pain in my life because it sounds so beautiful here. I still can’t listen to “A Stone” without completely stopping anything that I am doing. That includes driving…I don’t’ listen to this album much in the car.

2) Sunset Rubdown – Shut Up I Am Dreaming When I put this album on top of my list a few years back I didn’t know how to write about it nor explain why it had topped my list. I still don’t know how to write about it. How do you write about something you love? This album simultaneously recalls for small, yet beautifully detailed memories and images, created in my mind with the aid of this music, that hold an equally vivid place in my mind. There are certain nights alone when I listen to “Shut Up I Am Dreaming of Places Where Lover’s Have Wings.” It never ceases to make me feel better.

3) Tom Waits – Alice Yes, I love Radiohead and they made an enormous impact on my musical life. But I’m not sure that any of their albums trump this one in terms of refining my pallet and causing me to ask questions such as: what constitutes emotion? What makes good music?

4) Radiohead – Amnesiac Yes, I have it higher than Kid A. I make no apologies. Amnesiac is not an album that I came to eventually. It was, for some odd reason, immediate for me. I’ve been a staunch defender of every single one of these songs since the beginning. I even love “Hunting Bears” and Pulk/Pull Revolving Doors.” And in my opinion “Life In a Glass House” is the best album ender ever.

5) Animal Collective – Sung Tongs The only appearance they’ll be making so I figured I’d make it a good one. To be honest I can’t get into anything they’ve released since the album. I know they are saviors or something but I just want everything to sound like album. In fact, if all music could sound like “Winter Love” I would be content.

6) Bright Eyes – Lifted, or the Story’s in the Soil Keep Your Ear to the Ground It completely wrecked my list when I realized that this was released this decade. I love every single song on this album and I wish I didn’t find it clever and profound but those of you that know me know that I would find something like this album clever and profound.

7) Ryan Adams – Heartbreaker The only album I’m including from this prolific artist. He has several terrific and worthy songs not on this album, but this is the only really solid effort I feel he has produced. Reinforced by recent rides through the recession-ridden Midwest and south.

8) Sufjan Stevens – Michigan Higher than “Illinoise”? Yes. Perhaps it’s sacrilege but as I’ve gotten distance on all things Sufjan (please, Mr. Stevens, release something else, don’t tease us so much with “You Are the Blood”) this album continues to be the one that resonates with me more.

9) Interpol – Turn on the Bright Lights Just an unreal album that sounds like it was recorded somewhere else. These guys must experience a reality different than the rest of us, the receptors on their eyes must pick up different wave lengths.

10) The Arcade Fire – Funeral There’s really not much I can say about this album. It has aged incredibly well with me. There are still moments with “Crown of Love” and “Rebellion (Lies)” that effect me just as they did the first time. I can still vividly remember Kyle excitedly playing this for us in the duplex and it was so great I had no idea how to react. It’s an album where the some songs are so great you forget how good the other songs are until they come over he speakers. It’s an album I put on, surprisingly perhaps, to be happy.

11) Wolf Parade – Apologies to Queen Mary Before I fell completely in love with everything Spencer Krug shitted on tape there was this album that introduced me to him. The simmering, yet often falsetto-ed aggression never ceases to appeal to me. For some reason I connect with so many lyrics without having any idea what they mean.

12) Radiohead – Kid A Most people will say this is the most influential album of this decade. They have convincing arguments and in a face to face discussion I am sure I would let myself be convinced. Mainly because I love Radiohead. But for me it still harkens back to the nineties and I’m sorry, I still like Ok Computer better.

13) Bright Eyes – I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning Sir Oberst is on my list too much I know. This album I feel is timeless and I recognize that it’s better than the album of his that I’ve placed higher but it’s too emotional at this point.

14) Jay Z – The Black Album I didn’t like rap until I listened to this album. In fact I had never made it through an entire rap album until I listened to this whole thing. Even with Kanye and Jay’s earlier albums. I know that perhaps some of the albums are better, but this is a personal favorite.

15) Sufjan Stevens – Illinoise A sad, spiritual experience. I’m not entirely sure those two adjectives should belong together. Sufjan wants to make me believe in something because the world is so sad. Nope, that doesn’t make sense.

16) Bon Iver – For Emma, Forever Ago When I put this at the top of my list last year I worried then that in a year I would completely forget about it. I was convinced that I was just stuck in a particular mood and moment and that once I was past these things I would listen to this album less and less and then not at all. It’s not true.

17) Lil’ Wayne - Tha Carter 3: Mixtape I know that it’s a free throwaway more or less to stir up excitement for the actual release and I probably shouldn’t have it higher than the actual Carter III. But I can’t help it. I can clumsily and ridiculously rap along to every word. I still want to write a paper about his lyrics. Probably a fruitless endeavor but I would still enjoy it.

18) Iron & Wine/Calxico – He Lays in the Reins It’s just a phenomenal, and painfully small, collection of songs that I make we want to cry and live life just so I can feel such beautiful pain and regret. Man, I need to stop working on this list.

19) The Dirty Projectors – Bitte Orca I thought they would never top “Rise Above” but they proved me wrong.

20) Junior Senior – Hey Hey My My Yo Yo Ridiculously fun. I don’t know what else to say.

21) Brand New – Deja Entendu I’ve wanted to write about this album for a while. Admittedly I was sadly into “emo” for a period in college, but luckily I left most of those bands behind. Except for this one. I feel like this is one of the most underrated albums made. Between biting lyrics, clever melodies and youthful rage it’s a masterpiece of emo-otion. Plus, at time I felt like I could’ve written this or that lyric.

22) Grizzly Bear – Vecktamest I know that this is a lot of chamber singing and that it’s really controlled and perhaps a bit to…what’s the word…pretty? I sense some latent, barely contained rage in the album for some reason. And that is what keeps me interested.

23) The Books – The Lemon of Pink I actually can’t distinguish between the Books albums that well. They sort of blend together and they are all lovely. I just say that this one represents all of them. Mainly because it has “Tokyo” on it.

24) Justin Timberlake – FutureSex/LoveSounds I really don’t want to have this album that high, but the more I fought against it the highest the album climbed. I think in a couple years, perhaps another decade, this album will be a pop album regarded as a classic.

25) Kanye West – College Dropout I’m so sick of Kanye. I’m only including the one album that he created when I wasn’t sick of him.

26) Max Richter – The Blue Notebooks There a rule book somewhere for creating year-end and decade album lists and probably this book says that an album without any words, and especially one that, in the aughts, has no experimental feedback or instrumentations. This straightforward neo-(or post?)-classical album defies such a rule.

27) Bjork – Medulla I realize that I have two atmospheric and beautiful albums right next to each other. I could really write the same thing about he dreams and stuff, just a few years later.

28) Sigur Ros – Ágaetis Byrun I still recall some of the dreams this album induced freshman year of college when Nick and I would fall asleep to it almost every night in our dorm room. Should music be this beautiful yet somehow disturbing?

29) The Streets – Original Pirate Material You’re not going to find “A Grand Don’t Come For Free” on this list though that was the first Streets album I listened to, but the only reason I mention it is because I was led to this far superior album. It’s a rainy day rap album. I don’t know if another of its kind exists.

30) The Dirty Projectors – Rise Above An album that I keep trying to pull apart and understand better than I do, like a Pychon novel or something. When I really should just sit back and enjoy it.

31) Girl Talk – Night Ripper Originally, a couple years back, I had this album so low on a year end list that it probably shouldn’t have made this one. But I realized that I had just been denying something that I truly, completely loved.

32) Spoon – Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga Spoon finally clicked with me on this album. I understood the aesthetic and I really caught on to the songs. I don’t know how many times I’ve played this in my car.

33) Apes and Androids – Blood Moon Another album I thought I would forget about. For some reason it has worked its way into several aspects of my life.

34) Bright Eyes – Fever and Mirrors This album barely made it onto the list, released just inside of the aughts and often ignored by many except die-hard fans like myself. I guess bright eyes is ignored by most people….

35) Beirut – Gulag Orkestar Again an album taken directly from the “Musical Things Austin Likes” folder. I like the faux middle eastern vibe, or however one could describe. I like how effected his voice is. I like the drolling, depressing progress of the album. I feel brighten by the few happy moments that pop up.

36) Radiohead – In Rainbows This is one of those albums that as you listen to it you get obsessed with whatever song your listening to, thinking that it’s the best song on the album. You get lost in the little details, the background singer, the impeccable drumming while still appreciating the song as a cohesive whole. You love the song, you are tempted to hit rewind as the song ends. But you get distracted and the next track comes on and suddenly you’ve found a new obsession.

37) Wilco – Yankee Hotel Foxtrot Is this my favorite Wilco album? No (Summerteeth). But do I still want to be in the band that made this album because it would be fun to hang out on the musical mount Olympus? Yes.

38) Of Montreal – Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer? I don’t know how to explain my affection for this album. And I am already late in posting so just accept that I love, love it.

39) Jamie Lidell – Multiply It’s just so good. I could talk about every single little detail that I love. But Let’s just leave it at that. It’s so good.

40) The Rapture – Pieces of the People We Love I always forget how much I love this album. How catchy it is and how it just makes me feel good and happy. If I need to get people going, or just myself motivated this is a reliable to throw on.

41) Patrick Wolf – Wind in the Wires Yes, he is over-dramatic, self-serious and strange in a somewhat uncouth way. And no, he should not have access to a Twitter account but I can’t help but love his music. On this album his music mixes soundtrack fodder, layered voices yelping elaborate lyrical metaphors, weeping violins, tinkling piano lines and an innate sense of pop. All of these things can be found in the file titled “Musical things Austin likes.”

42) Phoenix – Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix I’ve liked Phoenix for awhile but I never listened to them for longs stretches of time until this album. I also never distinguished between one album and the other, but every single song on this album is better than anything they’ve done before.

43) The Mountain Goats – The Sunset Tree If you have never given this album a chance I would highly recommend it. The music is simply yet inventive and they lyrics are more like snatches of prose pulled from a novel than anything else.

44) Modest Mouse – The Moon and Antarctica I’ve appreciated this album more the older I’ve gotten. I liked it from the start but as my taste has matured (I’m sure some of you have valid arguments against this) my appreciation of this album has increased and I even look forward to the three-song drag in the middle of the album. Lyrically it has not lost its resonance and/or shock. Musically I get nostalgic and wish Modest Mouse had returned more to this sounds following “Good News…” but the world isn’t fair.

45) Jens Lekman – Oh You’re So Silent Jens I still remember the first time I listened to this album. I had no idea what to make of it. I couldn’t wrap my mind around the simplicity nor the complete orgy of music. But for some reason I couldn’t keep from listening to it. I still go on benders with this album sometimes.

46) Lil’ Wayne – Tha Carter III I like this album more than I should. Don’t worry there is more shame to come. (Who loves foreshadowing?)

47) N*E*R*D – In Search Of… An album I listened to on repeat before I started to really “listen” to music. For awhile it was just Radiohead and then other shit. But for me this album gets more intelligent the more music I know. I’m not making any sense. It’s okay. Please listen to this album.

48) The Go! Team – ThunderLightingStrike I am thoroughly addicted to this album for sometimes inexplicable reasons.

49) Aesop Rock – Labor Days Aesop Rock has an addictive flow that he uses to drop (sometimes too) clever lines and references to history, mythology and pop culture. Sometimes the production could be a little more inventive and sometimes I wish he’d drop the saxophone. In my opinion he peaked with the song “Daylight”—both in terms of production and extremely quotable lines: “Life’s not a bitch/ Life’s a beautiful woman/ You just call her a bitch because she didn’t let you get that pussy.”

50) The Tallest Man on Earth – Shallow Graves Found this album thanks to this yearly exercise we’ve all engaged in. Perfect for those snow-laden mornings where the light is only grey and the cold is something that doesn’t stop biting you.

51) The Roots – Game Theory I miss Philly. There are times when I ask myself why I don’t move back. While this album reminds me of all the things I more or less feared in that blessed city it makes me ache all the more for West Philly, for the Italian Market, for those streets that seem as though they are perpetually stuck in the season of fall.

52) Margot and the Nuclear So and So’s – The Dust of Retreat There is something to be said for straightforward sadness and depression committed to tape. Most people get bored with it. I wish I did.

53) The Knife – Silent Shout I like this record with reach passing year. It’s like a fine wine or something. It’s so crazy, really.

54) Modest Mouse – Good News for People Who Love Bad News Front to back I can listen to this album. I love the caustic lyrics, the pointless horn flares and intros, and yes, even the pop infusion that angered many Modest Mouse fans—even myself at first. I didn’t’ want “Float On” to be as big as it was, when you have a small band you like you simultaneously want everyone to like it and know one to know about it. It was impossible to ignore Modest Mouse after his album, for good reason.

55) Tom Waits – Blood Money I wrote an entire set of poems based on the titles and music from this album. I don’t know what else to say about that except that I still like the poems.

56) Jamie Lidell – Jim Not quite as stunning to me as his debut but I have to admit that certain songs (“Green Light” in particular) I like better than anything else he’s done.

57) The Killers – Hot Fuss Many may dismiss this pick because it was so huge and commercial and because they suck in concert. But I never stop thinking that this album is brilliant and such a unique (if flawed) sound. I know some will argue. Please feel free.

58) Ratatat – Remixes, Vol. 1 Thank you Mike for cluing me into this album. I zeroed my play count on itunes not to long ago because I was almost ashamed of how high the play count was for this album. Once I zeroed everything though I felt a certain loss, a certain sense of betrayal.

59) Iron & Wine – Woman King If you are feeling lonely and the sun is setting don’t listen to this album, even though it fits the mood perfectly. It won’t make things better.

60) Thursday – War All of the Time Yes I have two of their albums on this list. I have no explanation other than I have an unnatural affection for this scary kid screamo. I can still listen to this album, years and years later.

61) Okkervil River – The Stand-Ins Sorry, you won’t find The Stage Names. I like this album so much more. Always makes me want to smoke a cigarette. I think it’s time for a break…

62) Sunset Rubdown – Dragonslayer I saw Spencer and the crew play this whole album live before it actually came out. I was a bit disappointed because I couldn’t figure out if I had anything to look forward to because I already knew all the songs. I did.

63) Bloc Party – Intimacy More or less universally panned I still love this album and can’t stop listening to it.

64) Immortal Technique – Revolutionary, Vol. 2 The production isn’t fantastic. Sometimes his flow trips over itself, lost in it’s own ambition and vanity. But every time I listen to this album I notice another new, vitriolic, clever and uncomfortable line.

65) Common – Be I intermittently forget about this album, then rediscover it and listen on repeat. It’s a time-traveling album, harkening back to a point in the decade where Kanye produced less self-centered tracks and featuring John Mayer and John Legend wasn’t completely uncouth. The songs are excellently distilled and Common’s raps drip affirming and caustic from his lips.

66) Brand New – The Devil and God Are Raging Inside Me Brand New somewhat fell off the “popular” radar with this album. They abandoned any sense of emo-punk-pop, which they had perfected while simultaneously managing to sort of make the genre more…credible. Instead they indulged (sometimes too much) in longer, at times a-melodic, songs with profound (yes I said it) and introspective lyrics. I realize that emo, by definition, is self-reflective to a fault and perhaps it is because I identify with Jesse Lacey’s sentiments, but there are some lines on this album that are almost too honest. Musically, though some of the songs can drag, it is also a great leap forward for this band and I hope they will continue to improve.

67) Clap Your Hands Say Yeah – S/T Such an up and down album for me. It’s fluctuated to much on the list and I need to just get the damn thing up.

68) The Walkmen – You and Me I can be a bit of a depressive guy. Never in interactions but just in general thoughts and my yearning that every day was overcast and rainy. This album plays completely into these feelings.

69) Ra Ra Riot – The Rhumb Line Had they not emerged in the shadow of Vampire Weekend I am sure these guys would be more well known, more loved and more critically acclaimed than those boat shoe wearing posers.

70) Vampire Weekend – S/T If I am ever in a bad mood these days, or if I wake up and I can’t conceive the idea of teaching rowdy twelve year olds I put on this album and immediately feel better.

71) Jay-Z – The Blueprint I know I should like to and listen to this album more than I do. But I just don’t listen to it as much. I’m sure other lists will push it higher than this on the final main list.

72) The Decemberists – Castaways and Cutouts This band hasn’t exactly aged well with me. Were I to base their placement on how much I listened to them senior year and the summer after graduation they would be somewhere in or near the top ten. But like I said they haven’t aged well and are only making one appearance.

73) Sunset Rubdown – Random Spirit Lover My least favorite Sunset album but that still says a lot. Also “The Courtesan Has Sung” has weaseled its way on to many a playlist. It’s not really a song for playlist, but I don’t care because I love it.

74) Handsome Furs – Face Control Pretty amazing stuff that I had sort of avoided on principle because I didn’t want anything to interfere with my love for Sunset Rubdown. I am not sure why I thought the Handsome Furs threatened this, but love is sometimes irrational.

75) Adele – 19 Another female singer that I can’t listen enough. There is nothing inventive or clever or particularly interesting about this album. It’s just beautiful and full of sappy emotion I can’t help but be attracted to.

76) Passon Pit – Manners It’s ridiculous and indulgent on my part. I often pretend not to like those late eighties-pop songs like “King of Wishful Thinking” when they come on. But I do like them. I hate it. This album makes me feel better about all this self-loathing.

77) Pete Yorn – Musicforthemorningafter I know that singer-songwriters are supposedly the destruction of music. Perhaps I agree. I still love this album. Every single song is tied to a different memory from college and I can’t just pass that over.

78) Matt & Kim – Grand They are getting poorly oversaturated at the moment. Their songs keep popping up awkwardly in commercials where they shouldn’t. I don’t blame them, I am sure it’s a great windfall. But it’s getting increasingly hard to separate. Hmm…not really an endorsement for a relatively high placement. It’s a good catchy album, check it out

79) Destroyer – Destroyer’s Rubies I am quite aware that there are other Destroyer albums out there from this decade. I gave some of them a listen, and though many would protest, I don’t think they are as good as this one.

80) The Knife – Deep Cuts This album could be included on my list on the strength of “Heartbeats” alone. But I also find myself consistently gravitating towards other tracks on the album such as “Pass This On” and “Take My Breath Away.” Karin’s voice, even when heavily modulated, is mesmerizing and the music is both beautiful and not just a bit disturbing.

81) Rilo Kiley – The Execution of All Things One of my first “indie” bands discovered late in my college career as I slowly moved away from just singer-songwriters and emo. I still have a soft spot for this album.

82) Metric – Fantasies I saw this band live once in Philly and they were ridiculously good. But when I bought their album I was quite disappointed. The energetic, melodically smart band I’d seen in concert didn’t translate to a cohesive, catchy album. They finally did it with this one. It’s been steadily atop my “Recently Played” list.

83) Spoon – Kill the Moonlight Spoon just rocks. “The Way We Get By” makes me want to return to high school. I hated high school.

84) Mylo – Destroyer Still a brilliant album. Sometimes I’ll be singing “Missing Persons, Duran Duran” in my head even if I haven’t listened to his album in many, many moons.

85) Amy Winehouse – Back to Black I like this album for the very reasons everyone else talks about liking this album. It’s universal in that sense. Like cocaine.

86) The Pipettes – We Are the Pipettes It came along at a time when I needed something, some music, that was completely ridiculous and light. I will forever be indebted to this album for coming along when it did.

87) Tapes ‘n Tapes – The Loon I can go for years without listening to this album, but then I’ll pick it up and realize that I remember every single song. That the lyrics and the cool break downs still lurk in the background of my memory. Mark of a good album in my book.

88) Frightend Rabbit – Midnight Organ Fight There is definitely something to be said for music this straightforward and so endearing.

89) Junior Boys – So This Is Goodbye Dark, yet catchy. I love the hushed style of singing perhaps more than I should.

90) Thrice – The Artist in the Ambulance From the time I first plugged in I wanted to be able to play thrash metal. Unlike Nick who gets into the droning of distortion I wanted to wrap that distortion around a flurry of neo-classical notes but not have a singer who would be mistaken for a girl—and I didn’t want to wear spandex. This album is an answer to my dreams.

91) Ratatat – S/T One of the best albums to work or study to ever. Ever.

92) Iron & Wine – The Shepherd’s Dog The only full album from this weepy that I feel sustains itself for an entire album. If I hadn’t decided to include EPs this would be his only appearance.

93) Godspeed You Black Emperor – Lift Yr. Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven I can’t really describe how happy I was when I realized that this album counted as something from the Aughts.

94) Band of Horse – Everything All the Time A sleepy record that is good for both studying and falling asleep (sometimes those activities go hand in hand anyways). Their follow-up “Cease to Begin” may have a little more snap and pop to it, but the lyrics and melodies of this album have stuck with specific, nostalgic memories of mine so this album makes the list.

95) Mos Def – The Estatic I haven’t had enough time with this album. I’m sure, given more time it would be indefinitely higher. As it is…

96) Lykke Li – Youth Novel So syrupy sweet, how could I not include it? Seriously though, it’s a good album. And her voice works its way into your psyche like an arrow from Eros.

97) Why – Alopecia An album I picked up after seeing it on a myriad of lists for good reason. It awakens a small amount of 90’s nostalgia, while being completely modern and belonging to the aughts.

98) Girl Talk – Feed the Animals I listen to this album far more than I should.

99) Gorillaz – Demon Days I want to like this album more than I do because there are so may good songs on it. They just made “Feel Good Inc.” too well. I can’t get past it.

100) Thursday – A City by the Lights Divided I have no friends who like Thursday. At least, none who would profess it. I guess I don’t really care, even if Pitchfork describes their music simply as “shit.” With this album the band I thought would never change actually “matured.” Most will never understand my excitement over this fact.

Top 25 of 2008: 5-1

2008-12-12T17:05:00.000-08:00

5. Jamie Lidell – Jim

I often get weird looks when people ask me what type of music I like. I don’t like to define a type, because I’m that cool, rather I list artists. When I say Sunset Rubdown, or Okkervil River or Hercules and Love Affair, people, not acquainted with any of this type of music, generally assume they won’t like the same type of music as me.

Then I put on Jamie.

How can you not like this music? It’s throwback, for sure, but its updated throwback. It simply makes you want to move. And, especially on Jim, the production is impeccable. Listen to “Green Light” on a good pair of headphones and I challenge you not to be intrigued. Also, you can’t listen to the coda of “Hurricane” and not think of some funkified verision of the Beatles.

Ultimately I just appreciate the Lidell does exactly what he wants. I saw him in concert and he went on a ten minute electronic freestyle trip. The people I had convinced to go with me with the likes of “Another Day” and “All I Wanna Do” didn’t like it, but I thought it was fantastic.

I guess perhaps, for me, he can do no wrong.

4. Ra Ra Riot – The Rhumb Line

I kept my appreciation for this band under wraps this year. The album hasn’t been around for long, but the second I listened to it I just felt a weird sort of affection. This is a band that I root for, I want them to be popular, I want them to make it. And in certain circles, I guess they already have.

They were garnering a lot of buzz last year around the same time as Vampire Weekend, but their drummer died and delayed the release. And while I feel sorry for their loss I must say the experience has benefited their music. No group’s debut album should sound this mature. This album has the intensity that most debut albums of good groups have, but it’s welded with a musical, and dare I say, lyrical sophistication that groups don’t find until several albums later (some, sadly, never do).

Plus I’m a complete sucker for the inclusion of a string section with garage band type music. Maybe this means I’m secretly fifteen years old, but I don’t care. Also I like that they have two female and these vixens blend their voices perfectly with the lead singer.

In short, I’m a big, big fan.

3. Okkervil River – The Stand-Ins

Like Michael, I was initially unimpressed (more or less disappointed) with the Stage Names. And also like him I gained a better appreciation of it this year, but this appreciation stems from how enthralled I am with this album. The band is just so tight. The bass line never simply follows the guitar, nor do the keyboards merely echo and reinforce the overall chord progression. It all goes together so well.

I will say that, lyrically, nothing will top Black Sheep Boy, some of those songs still make me want to cry, but this album has some tough moments too. Due to certain experiences this year, I loved “Calling and Not Calling My Ex” as well as well as “Pop Lie.” I’ve already said this, but if I could sing like anyone I would sing like Will Shef, and I think, sometimes in my head I do sound like him. But this is just adoration.

Okkervil River is, and if they’re recent output is any indication will remain, one of my favorite bands. There is not an album that I can’t simply listen to, and this one is no exception.

2. Apes & Androids – Blood Moon

So Michael was embarrassed to have this album in his top ten, and as I push it into my top five I attempt a sense of embarrassment, perhaps just a small blush of shame, but it’s not there.

I unabashedly love every track on this album.

They combine every dirty pleasure, musical and otherwise, I have and make it sound great. I’m a sucker for those guitar solos from eighties movies. I’m a sucker for dreamy synthesizer combined with over-processed drums. I love reverb, eighties-The Cure-to-the-max guitars. Basically they take every musical element that I wish I didn’t like and make it okay. Perhaps this is dangerous.

I know this album is not for everyone, but I don’t care. I love how this album just never lets up. It reminds of those more innocent, caffeine riddled nights, when my friend Trevor (he, like me, was also a “rock musician” imprisoned in the countryside of Kentucky) and I would spend the entire night messing around with the eight-track recorder his parents bought him for Christmas. We made music like this but it sounded like shit.

Perhaps I like this album because it feels, somehow, like vindication.

1. Bon Iver – For Emma, Forever Ago

In years past I’ve maybe placed albums that I, in fact, listened to on a more regular basis, behind albums that I thought were musically better—at least musically better from an objective stand point (the arrangements more refined, the musically, overall, more inventive, and, yes, better critically accepted). But with this album it’s unavoidable. There is not a single album that even comes close to how many times I’ve listened to this album, we’re talking all day writing binges soundtrack-ed only by Iver’s haunting voice.

My friend Tom, when I sent him this album, said, “If I could make music I would make this.” I don’t feel that way. I would more make music like Apes and Andriods, if I could be any music I would be this music. I want to sing like Shef, but if I could some how exist as a voice I would be Iver’s voice.

I know this sounds dramatic, but I am unable to be objective about this album, I’m unable to list and quantify its musical attributes, to discern what works and what doesn’t because I just connect to it on a personal level. Maybe it’s just been my particular, overall mood this year and perhaps in a year I won’t feel the same way. But I’m not writing this list next year, I’m writing it now. And right now, though I tried to avoid it, there is no other album that should be at the top.

Top 25 of 2008: 10-6

2008-12-11T15:16:00.001-08:00

10) Wolf Parade – At Mount Zoomer

It has been an on again, off again type of year between Wolf Parade and I. I was initially disappointed with this album; it didn’t have the fire, the intensity of Apologies to Queen Mary. But then I friend of mine saw them in concert and told me I had to give it another listen and a loud listen at that. I fooled around with the levels a bit and she was right—the production on this album sucks, but the energy of the songs is definitely there.

Then I saw Sunset Rubdown in concert and my complete adoration for them was cemented, which instead of augmenting my love of Wolf Parade served to diminish it. Instead of listening to this album I put on old Sunset Rubdown albums. And if this album popped up at random I would just switch to Sunset. It was a sad situation.

And then, inexplicably, this album became something, that for a couple weeks, was the only thing I could listen to. Perhaps it was the piano hook on “Call It a Ritual.” And as long as I was listening to that song I might as well continue with “Language City” and there were the catchy drum highlights on “Bang Your Drum” and before I knew it was listening to all ten minutes of “Kissing the Beehive” with rapt attention.

9) Bloc Party – Intimacy

There is this great section in 2666 by Roberto Bolano, where Amalfitano asks a young pharmacists what his favorite books are:

Without turning, the pharmacist answered that he liked books like The Metamorphoses, Bartleby, A Simple Heart and A Christmas Carol. Leaving aside the fact that A Simple Heart and A Christmas Carol were stories, not books, there was something relevatory about the taste of this bookish young pharmacist...and who clearly preferred minor works to major ones. What a sad paradox, though Amalfitano. Now even bookish pharmacistsare afraid to take on the great, imperfect, torrential works.

This album has been roundly criticized for being overambitious, for throwing too much stuff into one album (luckily much of what they thrown in is drums), and for the failure to achieve what they set out to accomplish. But, to me, it’s a beautiful failure.

8) TV on the Radio – Dear Science

I’ve never been a big TVOTR fan, and by that I mean I’ve never given their albums more than one spin before I decidedly dismissed them as music I don’t like. This does not necessarily mean I discounted their talent, or their appeal to some people, but it wasn’t for me.

However, I couldn’t ignore the buzz around this album. Scarlette Johansson recommended it on the Daily Beast for crying out loud, and how can she be wrong? So I put it on one morning for my drive into work. My drive is usually about 45 minutes and I leave around 5 a.m. and usually I found the time passes most quickly with NPR, not with music. But this morning, with TVOTR soundtracking my journey it felt like no drive at all. And after this drive I couldn’t stop thinking about this album, replaying certain hooks and choruses over in my head, wondering why the fit together so well, why they were catchy, because on the surface much of this is not catchy.

7) Lil’ Wayne – Tha Carter III

Jennifer Olmsted, reacting to a “This American Life” piece that asserted Americans as a whole are getting smarter and more intellectual, wrote the following:

“Intelligence is the new chic. Chic, and easy to attain. Learn to pronounce Foucault, drop a well-placed Freaks and Geeks reference, read a few Great Books, subscribe to HBO and the Economist, mix in a little ironic Lil Wayne appreciation, and suddenly, you've got class, intelligence, and culture. And everyone perusing your Facebook knows it. Appearance, not reality.

Ironic Lil’ Wayne appreciation? This quote, though I didn’t much creedance to the post as a whole, caused a minor crisis. Was my appreciation of Lil’ Wayne only ironic? A Latin teacher in the suburbs of Boston listening all the time to Weezy rap about hustling rock, ironic? Who really knows what this word means?

Following Michael’s recommendation last year I got the mixtape version of this album and I haven’t looked back since. I would like to write a paper on the lyrics of Lil’s Wayne, but a study of the lyrics alone would only address half of the genius of this artist: the impact comes in the delivery, the evident pain in boastful raps, the slight chuckle after a line about death, the humor that is both sincere and (gasp) ironic.

I could go on gushing about this album and about Wayne’s body of work in general, but I’ll stop because I don’t have much time.

6) The Walkmen – You & Me

The colder weather hurt Hercules and Love Affair, and as they fell the Walkmen climbed. I don’t know if I can necessarily define the mood of their music. Is it dreary? Is it quietly joyful? Or does it simply exist? Is it just a mood, a state of being? I am inclined to think the latter, because I find my affection for this album indefinable.

Many, many mornings have spent with coffee writing and listening to this album. Over and over. Over and Over.

Top 25 of 2008: 15-11

2008-12-10T15:11:00.000-08:00

15. Vampire Weekend – S/T

I really didn’t want this album on my list for a couple reasons. First, because the leaked version came out last year and many people included it on their lists then and as someone who is, relatively, up on music that makes me feel behind (which I am). Second, it’s just too damn college with talk of oxford commas and professors and Romance languages. Third, it’s too cutesy and I hate these kinds of drums: steel-, kettle- whatever drum-bongo things.

Vampire Weekend owes its inclusion to two different factors: one, the genius playlist feature that Apple debuted a couple of months ago. Every time I created one some damn Vampire Weekend song popped up and I really liked it. Two, I was leaving a party about a month ago. It was late and I hadn’t had a particularly good time, being sort of out of my crowd among Ivy league graduates and rich kids from Wellesley. I put my ipod on random and the first song it chose was “Walcott.” Everything was perfect.

14. Frightened Rabbit - Midnight Organ Fight

Their name is horrible and their music completely predictable. Their singer has one of those thick Scottish accents that usually wears on one after awhile, and he uses it to sing faux-poetic lines like “it takes more than fucking someone you don’t know just to keep yourself warm.” Everything just seems to have this veneer of cliché and the whole song persists in a self-adorned naïveté.

I love it.

Frightened Rabbit has no need to invent a new genre or add some DJ or a second drummer to make them original—they’ve no need for original. They play the music they like and they play it perfectly.

13. Girl Talk – Feed the Animals

I have this album much higher than I had its predecessor though I admit that Night Ripper is the superior album. Everything about Night Ripper was a revelation: the way it mixed genres and paired absolutely crap songs (My Humps) with fantastic ones (Heartbeat). It was a more significant statement than this album. I don’t feel like articulating what exactly that statement was, but suffice it to say I came to this conclusion after I posted my entire list.

Anyways, I will still probably listen to Feed the Animals more because it’s simply more fun. Whereas Night Ripper is somewhat weighed down by its uniqueness and its statement (admittedly I feel like such seriousness is foisted on it by listeners, it’s not fault of Girl Talk himself), Feed the Animals is just downright fun. I still laugh when I listen to some of these pairings, especially the one with Jesse’s Girl.

And it’s a great party album.

12. MGMT – Oracular Spectacular

I’m not sure I’m allowed to put this album on my list. I’ve been listening to it since at least October 2007 when one of my ex-girlfriend’s friends lent me an advanced copy. He went to college with the duo and after he found out I was a big fan of The Knife he handed me MGMT. I listened to it and definitely liked it, but I guess I didn’t really take it seriously. I had a lot of “real” albums in rotation at this point and MGMT fell by the wayside. I didn’t think anyone besides me and Teddy (the friend) actually even knew this band existed.

But then strange things started happening. MGMT popped up on Rollings Stones’ “Hot List.” Not one but two students made me mix CD’s that included “Kids.” I told Teddy, via the ex-girlfriend, about the “Hot List” thing and apparently he was even surprised.

So I started listening more intently. Originally I’d never gotten beyond “Time to Pretend”—which I loved but viewed as the only really good song on the list. But I found that I loved every single song. “Electric Feel” is absolutely addictive and I even like “Pieces of What.”

The moral of the story is, the next time someone hands you an advanced copy listen to it.

11. Hercules and Love Affair – S/T

Had I written this list during the summer I have no doubt this album would have topped my list. It’s perfect for summer mornings. It’s ethereal yet it’s beat wakes you up. I love hearing Antony’s voice with upbeat, rather than slow, sad bastard music. I love how it unabashedly apes the 80’s, even down to the highlights, which constantly remind me of Ace of Bass—which for the record is not a good, but a great thing.

Unfortunately as the leaves began to change color and the temperature began to drop (then sporadically rise and then drop and rise again, they should have called it global crazy weather) I just didn’t listen to it as much. Which is why it fell just outside the top ten.

Actually, I feel sad about this...

Top 25 of 2008: 20-16

2008-12-09T16:02:00.000-08:00

20. Cut Copy – In Ghost Colours

I found this album early but never went through that “it’s the only thing I listen to for a couple weeks” stage of new album. In fact I’ve hardly ever listened to it the whole way through. However, songs from this album kept popping up in my life. I would include “Unforgettable Season” on every party mix I made over the summer. A friend of mine included “Going Nowhere” on a mix she made for me. In Mexico for some reason I would run listening to “Feel the Love” on repeat.

These songs will, most likely forever, be welded to certain memories from an admittedly tumultuous summer. And for that I’m grateful to Cut Copy.

19. Coldplay – Viva la Vida

As Nick told me once: this is a dangerous album. I can listen to it all the way through and not mind when the album automatically restarts. Every song just blends together, not because they all sound same but because they just fit together so damn well. This is an actual fucking album. Unlike Cut Copy above I couldn’t include any of these songs on a list because they just seem naked out of context—and this is not a point against it.

Martin’s lyrics are still syrupy and for the most part nonsensical, but the music, produced by the brilliant Eno, makes it all okay.

I also like this album because it allows me to revisit (re-download) the old pre-“X and Y” catalogue without a sense of self-hatred. Okay I never deleted song “In My Place” and “The Scientist” was just full of nostalgia. And yeah I still had (and listened to) “Politik”…but I deleted “Clocks,” that song sucks!

18. M83 – Saturdays = Youth

This album had me from the first four haunting piano chords. It was the first album I listened to on repeat this year. The other two M83 albums I use to fall asleep; even though the swells can be somewhat dramatic the overall, muted lushness of the albums allows me to slip off to dreamland peacefully.

Not so this album. It’s still lush and full of overwrought, though painfully honest, emotion but instead of lulling me to sleep it excites my mind with a longing for the past, for youthful emotions and the naïve anticipation of that island of adulthood to come. But as Robert Hass wrote: “I have come to that island/and I can tell you it is a lie.”

If only this album had come out earlier.

17. Fleet Foxes – Fleet Foxes

I grew up going to church every Sunday listening to a cappella gospel songs. In our church using instruments in worship was considered a sin (only because it wasn’t mentioned in the Bible…yes I know apparently King David played a damn harp, I’m not saying I agree with this theology). Even though I’m far, far removed from that upbringing I’m still a sucker for good harmony.

Yes, this album is a bit wimpy, but it’s earnest and beautiful. And “White Winter Hymnal” cannot be denied.

16. Sigur Ros – (something in Icelandic)

Nothing can prepare an avid fan of Sigur Ros for this first song. Did that guitar (acoustic guitar!) chord just change? It hasn’t been a minute yet! Wait, it just changed again…there it goes again! I can’t keep up. Every time I listen to “Goobledigook” my heart starts racing; it’s not the fastest song I listen to, it’s still so surprising—as is the rest of this album.

It’s still unmistakably my beloved Sigur Ros, but they are no longer ethereal aliens descended to earth to draw every last tear from our eyes by simply meandering on instruments. They are ethereal aliens descended to earth to form a kickass band that still makes me weep.

Top 25 of 2008: 25-21

2008-12-08T14:30:00.000-08:00

25. Lykke Li – Youth Novels

The first track of this album sounds like it was birthed in a yoga studio. It’s all spoken word and ethereal dribble: “Love is melody, desire’s the key/ love is the harmony, now sing it with me.” The first time I heard this line I laughed out loud while simultaneously choking back vomit. Luckily the album gets much, much better after the first track.

It’s a decidedly odd and schizophrenic album—it’s not exactly pop, though some parts are damn catchy—but I can’t stop thinking about it. The Swedish Li’s sweet and coy voice delivers corny lines the way only non-native English speaker can: honestly. The production is simple, utilizing negative space in way I’ve only heard Spoon pull off.

I came to this album rather late in the year and I’m worried it’s too full of saccharine to stand the test of time, but for now I can’t stop listening to it.

24. Margot and the Nuclear So and So’s – Not Animal

On “30 Rock” Alec Baldwin, explaining to Tina Fey why he’s attracted to the absolutely insane character played by Jennifer Aniston, says: “Emotionally unstable women are…fantastic in the sack. I mean, their self-loathing translates into…never mind.” This hilarious and perhaps painfully true quote may not be exactly apt but it’s the first thing that popped into my head when I approached writing about this completely self-loathing, emotionally unstable album.

Taken one way this album is sad, plodding and doleful. Taken another way, it’s sad, plodding and doleful. It doesn’t have energy of “The Dust of Retreat” and some of the songs get drunk at their own pity party, but there are moments on this album that are completely brilliant. If you feel like getting depressed make some coffee, light a cigarette and put on this album.

23. DJ Rupture – Uproot

After being overtaken by Burial’s “Untrue” album last year I scoured the Internet for dubstep. I’m not quite sure what dubstep is but I know I like it. I like listening to while working or reading: its beat keeps me awake while its haunting atmospherics keep me focused. This album is the best new stuff I found this year. For the record I was listening to this one before Pitchfork put it in their “Best New Music” section—which for some reason made me kind of sad.

It’s not haunting like “Untrue” nor is it particularly catchy. It exists, it seems, in a state of constant transition

22. Horse Feathers – House with No Home

There is a sad and rustic quaintness that pervades this entire album. It seems like they recorded this album next to where their parents were sleeping—playing as lightly as possible so as not to wake them. So, yes, the album never takes off, it sounds soft and samey throughout, but it’s beautiful and fills the void that lack of new releases from Sufjan has left.

This is not to say Horse Feathers sounds like every other pseudo-folk, Americana-whatsit band out there. They’ve definitely carved out their own sound, but I find myself unable to clearly articulate what exactly makes them original.

21. Max Richter – 24 Postcards in Full Color

The idea of making an entire album compromised of neo-classical “vignettes” all hovering around the minute mark so they could be used as ringtones sounded ludicrous to me. What I like about classical music is the movements, the crescendos, the prolonged emotions: one can’t do this in a minute.

And this is not what Richter tries to do. Instead he does just as the title promises. He somehow creates musical snapshots where the atmosphere is immediate, the scene set within a matter of seconds. I'll admit I've not used any for my ringtone but there's always time.

There’s not much else I can say about this album other than I love listening to it.

Radiohead's greatness not "greatest hits"

2008-06-19T09:09:00.000-07:00

The inherent problem with composing a “Greatest Hits” album for Radiohead is the lack thereof.

The greatest hits concept has served several bands quite well: U2 apparently has hits for each decade, the Beatles have a whole twenty-seven-track album of number one hits, hell, even Phil Collins put together an album comprised of bewildering yet undeniable hits. But Radiohead?

“Creep,” the band’s only bona fide hit, not only causes them to stop mind song out of boredom but also induces a groan in any loyal fan—not because the song is necessarily bad, but it’s the only thing non-fans know.

Capital Records, unable to compile a “chart-based” list of hits, simply picked “good” songs. The problem with this method being Radiohead doesn’t necessarily have “bad” songs (filler tracks on Pablo Honey and errant B-sides aside, but who pays attention to those?), unless of course the songs aren’t really songs (Pulk/Pull Revolving Doors, Fitter Happier). Yes, they have songs that maybe don’t “work” as well as other, but none that are out and out awful.

What is more some of Radiohead’s more brilliant songs don’t work out of context, they can’t be divorced from their album. For example, “Hunting Bears” is basically not a song unless it is preceded by “Dollars and Cents” and immediately followed by “Life in a Glass House.” In context that song stops time.

So if one can’t go by top ten singles, nor can one just choose the songs that are good (perhaps even great) what is one to do? I tried to make an album of personal favorites but I hated myself for every song left out. So I decided to compile an album, however unconventional it may be, that demonstrates Radiohead’s “greatness” not their greatest hits.

1) Karma Police – Christopher O’Riley version

Sacrilege! Yes, I know, but bear with me. Arguably their greatest, or at least most enduring hit after “Creep,” this song demonstrates how Radiohead subverts melody and vocal conventions (his voice warbles out of tune!) while creating a song that takes no prisoners. The solo piano lays bare the genius of this song. This version makes one not only want to listen to the original but also listen to the four songs preceding and the six after.

2) The Bends – The Bends

One of the few stand-alone tracks they have produced. It has everything; frenetic energy, a perfect quiet-loud dynamic, vocals soaring through musical gaps and completely unintelligible lyrics. It shows that Radiohead is first and foremost a rock band.

3) Paranoid Android – Live

Any live version probably will do. Yorke works himself into a fury, Greenwood goes insane and the crowd takes over the vocals during the “Rain down” section—I get chills just thinking about it. On the album it is good, live it is a religious experience.

4) Nude – In Rainbows

I fought the urge to make this the cut-in-half “Meeting People is Easy” version but the crappiness of the recording ultimately prevented that. Everyone knew, and adored, this song but a good recording was hard to find. This version represents the fulfillment of many desires—it was worth the wait.

5) Idioteque – Kid A

Every Radiohead fan, upon first listen, looked up and said “what the fuck?” as the vaguely electronic, vaguely what-the-hell beat started up. But at about a minute-and-a-half in we all said, “This is fucking good!” It all but encapsulates Radiohead’s diversity.

6) Like Spinning Plates – I Might Be Wrong

The best moment during this recording is when the crowd catches on to what song Yorke is actually playing. There is this roar and then for the rest of the song utter silence. I saw this song live, no one moved after we all knew what was happening. Perhaps this song gives us insight into Radiohead’s writing process? It probably doesn’t.

7) Just – The Bends

Maybe it’s the naked anger in Yorke’s voice, maybe it’s Johnnie practically breaking his guitar to play this solo, maybe it’s the terrifying video. No “greatness” compilation would be complete without this song.

8) I Will (No Man’s Land) – Hail to the Thief

The harmonies make this song both scary and beautiful at the same time. Radiohead makes something glorious without almost nothing but what’s even better is that “almost nothing” means “Like Spinning Plates” played backwards.

9) Motion Picture Soundtrack – Pre-album version

Nothing is wrong with the album version (it’s a completely different song, really) but it could never go on a compilation album because of its somewhat irritating hidden track. However this version has a certain tenderness, a certain frailty that induces weeping. It also has the third verse, which is heartbreaking.

10) Blowout – Live and unplugged with Portishead

This lounge version of the song sounds like it’s being played at some private party toasting the approaching apocalypse. It shows how Radiohead songs are malleable and, in most any context, beautiful. Plus it’s got Portishead who is attributed with influencing Radiohead’s very name!

Top 25 of 2007: 5-1

2007-12-20T17:10:00.000-08:00

5) Beirut – The Flying Cub Cup

Sorry I’m just a sucker for this type of music, I admit it. I don’t think about any of the gimmicky pitfalls of music like this, and I don’t care that Zach Condon is only twenty-one—this album is brilliant, especially when you take it together with the Lon Gisland EP released earlier this year.

This album reminds me that blank spaces used to exist on the map. It reminds me of a time when the unknown actually existed.
Illogical, rambling emotional impacts aside, this album marks an incredible progression for this band. Musically the song are much more distinguishable, and to emphasize this fact Condon seems to have intentionally utilized a single lyrical theme.

It’s the most listened to album on my ipod.

Favorite Track: The Penalty

4) The National – The Boxer

Climbed higher on my list with each listen. Their sound must originate from some smoky, basement bar in the middle of country where smoking inside is still legal. Matt Beringer’s voice is unshakable, the apocalypse could be raining down around him and I don’t his cadence would change.

Also since Sufjan didn’t release an album this year this is the closest I could get—he plays piano on the outstanding ‘Ada.’

Favorite Track: Slow, Slow

3) Sunset Rubdown – Random Spirit Lover

This isn’t so much an album as an opera. These aren’t songs but movements weaving a modern mythology of characters epically struggling against tenuous everyday existence and the underage temptations of vodka.

Spencer Krug’s arrangements, like Mozart (there I said it), are frustratingly complex yet simple. Krug’s frail voice makes everything sound dramatic, his guitar lines blend together like a string section.

I hope he continues to be as prolific as he has been past couple years. He’s the best composer working these days. There I said that too.

Favorite Track: The Courtesan Has Sung

2) Radiohead – In Rainbows

Dear Radiohead,

I’m sure you thought you would be first, and by all rights you should be. Without you this list wouldn’t exist. You’re the reason I love music.

You’ve definitely tested my faith over the years. Yes, eventually, all the albums were enjoyable but nothing approached the complete immersion, the complete escape I achieved with The Bends or OK Computer.

I kept waiting for an album I didn’t have to wrap my mind around, an album I liked immediately and could play for others and they would like it immediately instead of just asking me to play ‘Creep.’

As I waited, my music tastes matured and expanded thanks to the training you had given me. I had patience for music, I let it grow and build and glow in my ears. Months passed when I didn’t listen to a single one of your songs.

Then, when I wasn’t even paying attention, when I wasn’t obsessively guessing what new songs would make the album cut, you released this. After the misleading intro of ’15 Steps’ you launch into a simply blissful album. One after another the wonderful, accessible but complex, rolled across my ears—it was the album I had been waiting for, everything I had wanted.

So why aren’t you number one? I’m not sure, there are all these conflicting feelings, I’m so confused. After finally getting all that I wanted I’m not experiencing the complete endorphin rush of fulfillment I had expected.

I’ve decided we need to see other people, so I’ve put you at two. I hope we can we still be friends.

Best,

Austin

1) Spoon – Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga

Truthfully I’ve always listened to Spoon out of a sense of obligation. The same sense that makes you buy the Economist when you really want the Maxim with Buffy on the cover. I’ve always appreciated Daniel’s perfection of song craft, and the band’s virtuous use of negative, silent space within their songs, but the seemed songs too obviously crafted, too deliberate.

But then came this album.

It’s hard to write about. It’s flashes of independent brilliance delicately strung together. It is perfectly etched but strikes imperfect emotional chords. I don’t know how they wrote ‘Finer Feelings’ or where the bass line in ‘Don’t you Evah’ comes from or how they devised the handclaps on ‘Underdog.’ I’ve listened to it repeatedly.

It never gets old. Never ceases to amaze.

Favorite Track: Finer Feelings

Top 25 of 2007: 10-6

2007-12-20T06:03:00.000-08:00

10) The Field - From Here We Go Sublime

My list this year seems to be littered (delicately sprinkled?) with largely wordless, instrumental music. Perhaps it’s a sign that I will soon start listening to instrumental smooth jazz covers of 1990s top 40s? I just threw up in my mouth.

I listened to this album on the 5 a.m. train from Providence to Boston with my head pressed sleepily against the windowpane watching the snow spit in the blue winter dawn. The album’s title seemed possible.

Favorite Track: The Silent

9) The Dirty Projectors – Rise Above

I didn’t know what to make of this album at first. After a couple listens I decided it wasn’t a grower, either you liked it or you didn’t and I was definitely in the latter group—I couldn’t get past his voice.

And then, and don’t ask what possessed me to listen to it again, it was beautiful. It’s something, maybe the mixed vocals, the instrumental moments of chaos, something about the album’s ode to Black Flag, something…who knows?

Please just listen to it several times.

Favorite Track: Rise Above

8) Ryan Adams – Easy Tiger

Delicately understated and sincere. Gone is the self-indulgent Adams who thought everything he quickly shitted belonged on tape.

I can’t put a finger on the prevailing “theme” of this album—it’s not like “Heartbreaker” where everything’s about loss, or “Love is Hell” which deals with angst—but I think that adds to the attraction. The emotions range over top a landscape of just good, good music

It does almost act like a greatest hits album.

Favorite Track: Two

7) Sondre Lerche – Phantom Punch

Sondre Lerche’s testicles finally dropped. Don’t worry he still has that beautiful, seducing tenor, but he finally dropped his old, too-sweet-sounding-for-more-than-a-song-at-a-time music in favor of scissor-kicking-maybe-I-could-kick-you-ass-if-really-really-really-angry music—the results are astounding.

I’ve not found this album on any of the top album lists I’ve read but I don’t care. Throughout the turmoil that has been my top ten this album has been the one constant. I just keep listening to it.

Favorite Track: The Tape

6) Burial – Untrue

I work at a school and love getting to work early and staying a little late, after almost everyone else has gone home. There’s something about an empty space that was once bustling with people. All those bodies leave shadow imprints, all those voice drop whispers in the corners. It’s a tingling in the back of your neck, being alone without being lonely.

Somehow Burial captured this feeling and put it on tape. I don’t know what “dub-stepping” means, it appears to have a strict definition that I can’t understand. I don’t understand the music itself, really, I just feel affected by it.

Favorite Track: Archangel

Top 25 of 2007: 15-11

2007-12-19T05:12:00.000-08:00

15) Aesop Rock – None Shall Pass

In a year where I found myself listening to old favorites with new releases I purposely avoided this album. Aesop and I had had a long relationship and I really wanted to get into Dalek—I thought I needed another semi-underground hip-hop act to follow.

But, falling prey to a lazy afternoon, I obtained this album and almost immediately fell in love. Maybe I’m just a sucker for his flow and slick turns of verse. Nothing on this album, of course, reaches the heights of ‘Daylight’ but he comes awfully close with more than a few tracks.

Sorry Dalek.
Favorite Track: Keep Off the Lawn

14) Feist – The Reminder

Some among the indie elite hated that her singles appeared everywhere (Apple commercials, Verizon commercials, Grey’s Anatomy) but I can’t help but feel happy for her.

The album, while beautiful, doesn’t quite live up to the catchy pop genius of the singles. But she didn’t make an album of singles, she made an album, a lonely intimate album with supernova moments.

I mean, and just look at her.

Favorite Track: I Feel It All

13) LCD Soundsystem – The Sound of Silver

How did he make a dance music rock album? Just making an album seems tough enough these days, weaving together six-minute-plus dance songs into a rock album sounds impossible. But James Murphy did it, flavoring it with his patent brand of fierce sarcasm.

Checking the never ending list of lists abounding on the internet I seemed to have placed this album all-too-low, but the truth is I just never listened to it enough to have it crack the top ten. Maybe it’s something I’ll kick myself for later…

Favorite Track: North American Scum

12) Jay-Z – American Gangster

I thought Jay-Z had completely lost it. Kingdom Come? It hurt. After awhile most radio edits rightly cut his spot on Rihanna’s ubiquitous ‘Umbrella.’ I heard a version of Amy Winehouse’s ‘Rehab’ where he dropped a verse that almost made me delete all the Jay-Z I had on my computer.

Thank God for this album.

Jay steps outside of himself, creating a new, fictional ego—one no longer embarrassed by his youth. He should step outside of himself more often, it’s much less boring than hearing about what brands he’s currently sporting. Most telling line on the album: ‘Truth be told I had more fun with I was piss poor and pissed off.’

Favorite Track: Pray

11) Okkervil River – The Stage Names

I want to sing like Will Sheff. I want my voice to drip violence and anguish even when singing about some flip, fictional therapy session. Definitely lighter fare than Black Sheep Boy (Sheff isn’t tearing open anyone’s throat) but still jarring, The Stage Names proves that Okkervil River can and will continue to improve.

What kept it out of the top ten? 1) The fact that I love, love Black Sheep Boy and it would almost been akin to cheating. 2) I think Sheff's voice is better suited for singing about violence and real heartbreak. 3) Too much good stuff came out this year.

Favorite Track: Unless It Kicks

20-16

2007-12-18T06:18:00.000-08:00

20) Patrick Wolf – The Magic Position

Something made little Patrick happy. My guess is he got laid. What’s hilarious, methinks, is that while the title track and the following one, ‘Accident and Emergency,’ are decidedly upbeat a shadow gradually is cast over the rest of the album. You can almost hear the internal demons creep back into his voice.

The way he battles against them makes this album intriguing.

Favorite Track: Overture

19) Jens Lekman – Night Falls Over Kortedala

Because I like to pretend that I’m deep, I prefer obscure poetry to something like, say, Billy Collins and most MFA students would agree. But really Collins has powerful, touching material—why obscure it?

Jens Lekman’s lyrics may be overly simple, bordering on corny (admittedly sometimes he jumps over that line) but that doesn’t mean they lack emotional impact. He deals with conflicted sexuality, taking oneself too seriously and country bingo over insanely catchy, and danceable, music. How do you not like this?

Favorite Track: Kansk Ar Jag Kar I Dig

18) Fall Out Boy – Infinity On High

A conversation with myself:

This may negate my entire list and I definitely feel guilty about it but…don’t pretend to feel bad about this…what…you unabashedly like this band and their borrowed, factory-made music…well you have to admit it takes a certain craft to patch together such pitch perfect pop with a splash of soulful vocals…it just takes good producers, a million vocal takes, and healthy dose of low musical morals…okay, look you don’t have to like it…who said I didn’t like it?

Favorite Track: I’ve Got All This Ringing In My Ears and None On My Fingers

17) Yeasayer – All Hour Cymbals

They somehow take musical elements I appreciate separately—accordian, Indian drums, international flute type things —and melt them into unclassifiable, yet infectious music. And then they put early Beatles-esque harmonies over the top? Yes, please.

I feel like more time spent with this album would have translated to a higher spot, but alas.

Favorite Track: Sunrise

16) Iron & Wine –The Shepherd’s Dog

Around this time two years ago I wrote that Iron & Wine should only release EPs, because his sound and unaffecting voice can’t support the weight of a full-length LP. Thankfully, Sam Beam has proved me wrong. He finally harnessed the energy and immediacy of his Woman King EP and his work with Calexico and, with some training, gave it endurance.

I kept waiting for this album to get old and it never did. It definitely has staying power.

Favorite Track: Boy with a Coin

25-21

2007-12-17T07:41:00.000-08:00

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.

1-5

2006-12-16T16:15:00.000-08:00

5) Margot and the Nuclear So and So’s
I owe my discovery of this local Indianapolis band completely to RJ. As far as band names go, let’s be honest, their’s sucks—it’s trying to be too indie. For that reason alone I didn’t want to give them a chance, despite the desperate urging of RJ. It wasn’t until he visited and forced me to listen that I realized RJ’s enthusiasm was completely founded. Every track on this album sounds vaguely familiar, I know I’ve heard a particular melody or arrangement before, but I don’t mind. They seem to take the familiar and make it their own, pairing well constructed songs with thoughtful lyrics about life in the Midwest. Maybe I like them because they are from the middle of the country and I get homesick every once in awhile, but this is truly a great album and I would recommend it to anyone.

4) Thursday – A City by the Light Divided
Confession #2: I’ve always liked Thursday, since their first album. Their music is mostly indefinable, not exactly emo, not straight up rock, not new age. I think the reviewer for Pitchfork put it aptly when he described their music as shit. Call me scatological. However, as much as one may enjoy the smell of his own shit he still lights a match to clear out the room—I haven’t shared my adoration of Thursday with most people. But I never thought they could release album like this one. They haven’t changed their sound, they’ve simply perfected it. Relentless drums, flawless guitar blending, pulsing bass and copious amounts of screaming. Their tale-tell melodic singing to bloodcurdling screaming dynamic is taken to new levels on this album as they sing about religion, car crashes and the death of family members. I can’t help myself, I know they’re over dramatic; I shouldn’t like lines like This is all we’ve ever known of God/Fine with me let me touch you now—but I do. If you’ve never listened to them I wouldn’t recommend this album. You wont’ like it and then you will hate me.

3) Beirut – Gulag Orkestar
When I picked up this album I didn’t really know anything about it. I’d just skimmed through the “recommended” section of a couple of sites when I was desperate for new music. I didn’t know he was a 19-year-old American when I started listening I just knew the music was fantastic. I’ve always been intrigued by near- and middle-eastern music (can you call this music that?) and this fit my tastes perfectly. I love the horns, the accordion and I love, love his voice. Over the summer I went to a free concert in a dried out pool in Brooklyn to watch these guys play. That was the first time I realized I’d just been listening to a kid. But his voice was impeccable, as were the arrangements. I watched his tiny frame belt out that all-too-mature voice and reveled in it.

2) Mylo – Destroy Rock and Roll
Listen. Repeat. Listen. Repeat. That’s what this album was like when I first picked it up. I can seriously say I was addicted, in a bad/good/glorious way. If I went a couple days without listening to it my ears started to itch, I started sweating and an overall sense of depression swept over me. Eventually I weened myself off, but I still go back constantly like the smoker who’s convinced himself he’s quit and so allows himself the occasional cigarette. Slowly pulling the smoke into his lungs and exhaling it through his nose, watching tender curls play in the light, he decides it would be okay if he has one more. Listen. Repeat.

1) Sunset Rubdown – Shut up I Am Dreaming
I’ve been thinking for a solid two weeks how to explain why this album is at the top. It always was, from the moment Nick sent out the email ordering us to compose top 25 lists. Number one: Sunset Rubdown, everything else involved much more debate. I don’t think I can adequately explain why, but I’ll try anyways.
This album is a novel. I don’t know what famous author would write a companion novel to this music; perhaps Borges (though he never wrote a novel) or Angela Carter. The novel would take place in a windowless, basement bar in some lost coastal town. In this sepia-toned setting various carnival-esque figures would gather every night to drink themselves closer to Hell. Each page would draw the reader deeper and deeper into this mystical setting of desperation where the small whore of the bar would proclaim If I ever hurt you it will be in self-defense. The climax would come at the most desperate point in the album when some character, his life falling down around him, would shout out amidst the low whisperings of the bar Fuck me and someone else would say okay. But then something glorious would happen, hinted at by the song “Q-chord.” That brief glimpse of hope would disappear with the line oceans never listen to us anyway until the 5:11 mark of the last song. Then, in an instant, the reader, the listener and every other character would be in a place where lovers have wings and men have faithful hands and would make good boyfriends.

10-6

2006-12-14T17:51:00.000-08:00

10) The Pipettes – We Are the Pipettes
One of the Pipettes has an incredibly alluring voice. All of them have lovely pipes but one in particular always gets me. I said as much to Nick, oh you mean….? He said a name but I immediately blocked it from my memory. I didn’t/don’t want to know anything about the Pipettes. About the time they dropped this album a friend became the self-proclaimed herald of the “fifties/sixties resurgence”—it’s coming man, it’s coming. He thought everyone would soon sound like the Supremes and Otis Redding. Luckily he was wrong. I’m not much for gimmicks, and don’t care for artists aiming for a “particular” sound. That said I think the Pipettes have a timeless sound. It doesn’t sound like it’s straight out of the fifties, nor does it sound like a twenty-first century retro gimmick. This is why I don’t want to know their names, their biographies or where they learned to sing like cheating angels.

9) Tapes ‘n Tapes – The Loon
This was the first 2006 album that caught my attention. I listened to once and wanted to listen to it again. I’m not sure why and I still haven’t figured that out. I just know I would queue it up on my computer and happily let the album repeat over and over while I studied. I’ve tried to figure out what “Insistor” is talking about to no avail. I’ve often wondered where they get off saying in Houston/They are slow because I’ve driven on the highway in Houston and it’s no joke, eighty miles an hour in bumper to bumper traffic. But I’m content with letting this album remain a mystery, because the mystery keeps me intrigued.

8) Cat Power – The Greatest
I’ve been mentally composing this entry in my head since my drive to work this morning. I’ve tried to find something about this album someone hasn’t already discussed, but I failed miserably. Following the comment trail I came across this short entry by Hammy Harp (real name?): I kind of want to smoke a cigarette with Chan Marshall, you know? I can’t put it any better than that.

7) The Roots – Game Theory
Every morning I leave my apartment and must turn left, meaning I must venture further west in Philadelphia. Between 52nd street and City Line Avenue the world turns into complete shit. I feel bad when I lock my doors as I drive through but I feel I must. For weeks I drove under a banner that proclaimed “Stop the Violence,” until one day it was almost torn in half, riddled with bullets. Sandwiched between the gentrified University City District and one of the richest areas in the country, the Main Line, exists blocks that our country seems to have forgotten. This album serves as the perfect soundtrack for West Philly—driving through listening to the chorus It don’t feel right/It don’t feel right/It don’t Philly/Don’t Philly c’mon. What’s happening in those few blocks shouldn’t happen. Another telling verse: It’s in the music/Turn it up, let it knock/Let it bang on the block ‘til the neighbours call the cops/the cops gonna come but they ain’t gonna do shit/they don’t want to problems/what are y’all stupid?

6) Destroyer – Rubies
Freshman year in our tiny Humbert dorm room Nick and I would constantly get into phases. During such phases only one artist’s sound would emanate from our door. There was the Smashing Pumpkins phase, the Radiohead phase, the Sigur Ros phase and of course the epic Beatles phase. Since then I only declare I really, really love something if I can get into a ________ phase. Since it came out early this year I continually get into a Destroyer phase. Days pass where I only listen to his wordless choruses and mismashed instrumentation. Rubies is an album I love.

15-11

2006-12-13T18:10:00.000-08:00

15) Justin Timberlake – FutureSex/LoveSound
Do I begin with an apology? I feel perhaps I should, tainting a fantastic collection of countdowns with white boy R&B. But I don’t want to apologize; I’ll save apologies for later. At first I hated (hated!) this album. It had absolutely no hooks, the lyrics were insipid and it just seemed mushy. Honestly, I wanted a “Justified II” with mega-hits I could blast in my car and guiltily sing along with—I didn’t want some vain attempt at pop opera. However a “Justified II” wouldn’t have made my list, I wouldn’t have even thought about including it. But this album, with its seven minute pop epics bleeding into one another, mixing falsetto with impenetrably complex beats and crunk rap, deserves a spot. That’s all I got.

14) The Rapture – Pieces of the People We Love
The first time I listened to “Don Gon Do It” I thought I had the wrong album. The voice was unmistakable but this was not “House of Jealous Lovers” or “Heaven.” Those songs were catchy in their own right, but this, this catchiness was nearly indescribable. I checked it out and yes, I did have the right album, so then I figured the first track was a fluke, but again I was wrong. I can’t pick out a favorite track on this album, don’t ask me to, any one of makes me bob my head uncontrollably, losing myself in the completely fuzzed out, funkified bass.

13) Benoit Pioulard – Precis
Before I picked up this album I read a review advising me to crank this quiet album as loud as possible. So I did. Some music can be described as airy, atmospheric or breezy. I would describe “Precis” as windy—gusty even. Beneath the soft (though perfectly produced) strumming and the breathy (yet oddly dark) vocals exists a wind storm that fills the room. Beginning with the three minute long opener of beautiful white noise to the happy, almost jangly “Ash into the Sky” this album remains captivating. When the entire album finishes under thirty seven minutes you just want to listen again.

12) Lupe Fiasco – Food and Liquor
Clipse allows you to escape in their stories of packing heat, and getting with every honey in the joint. Lupe makes you feel ashamed of the ghetto life style you never lived. You feel bad for being the chauvinist asshole you most certainly are. Lupe’s confidant flow quickly berates you and moves on before you’re quite sure what happened. Some could argue his beats have a bit too much going on, that he could keep it simpler, but the beat needs all the help it can get to keep up with Lupe’s frantic flow.

11) Beth Orton – Comfort of Strangers
Beth Orton is pissed. There are those people who, when angered, lash out with venom dripping from their mouths, biting you with their bitter, enraged words. But such an attack rarely leaves a lasting mark. There are other people, however, who don’t change the tone of their voice, nay they may even smile when they snap at you so that you don’t even notice you’ve been stung. But eventually their words begin to eat at you, restlessly you stare at the ceiling wondering what the hell you could’ve done wrong. Such an attack leaves scars. Orton cuts deep.

20-16

2006-12-12T18:50:00.000-08:00

20) I’m From Barcelona – Let Me Introduce My Friends
Damn, oversleeping again. I love music that creates its own world, existing within its own ambit (new favorite word). I’m From Barcelona is not this music. The subject matter of this album is quite real. True, it’s happy and yes, if pressed I might call it “twee” but real life, as I know it, seeps in. A melancholy underbelly subsists throughout the album: the distant, harmonizing vocals on “I Have Built a Treehouse” or the grocery list of diseases on “Chicken Pox.” For someone who faces the guilt of oversleeping almost every morning this album brings refreshing truth.

19) Joanna Newsome – Ys
Confession: I never liked Joanna Newsome’s first album, but I pretended to. Every person whose musical taste I respected liked it so I played along. Eventually one song sounded bearable—but no I did not like it. When this new album came out I didn't even consider it, especially since reviews said the album needed time. I’d given her enough time. On a slow night, however, I downloaded it. It took no time. The strings, the harp even her voice, yes that voice that had previously grated on my ears sounded transcendent. I listened and listened and continue to do so.

18) Junior Boys – So This Is Goodbye
I fell asleep to the Junior Boys’ first album. I don’t mean that as an insult, I just mean I’d switch it on in my final moments of wakefulness and sleep peacefully. I don’t, I can’t, fall asleep to this album. The subtle harmonies on “The Equalizer,” the near frenetic opening of “In the Morning,” the insistent drumbeat on “So This Is Goodbye?”—such moments demand not dreams but attention. I consciously, not passively, create to this Junior Boys album.

17) Yeah Yeah Yeahs – Show Your Bones
I don’t really know what Karen O sings about. I’ve never broken down the lyrics on this album, perhaps they plumb the profound depths of society and being, I don’t care. For me the words simply fill the spaces between Karen’s Thracian huntress yelps. Yes, my attraction to this album can basically be boiled down to sex. And yes, it helps that the Yeah Yeah Yeahs are disciples of distortion (in fact I think they nail that sometimes elusive beast), but I’m in it for simple, base impulses. Apologies if anyone finds this offensive.

16) Clipse – Hell Hath No Fury
Where did this album come from? For that matter where did Clipse come from? One moment they’re telling us how a few words turned into sex with Timberlake, then they’re explaining the gangster lean right before diving into the underground and dropping pirated bombs. Now they’re back in full effect. “Here’s the secret about me and the Clipse/ Even in my absence I’m still the shit.” Verdad. Every time I listen the album climbs higher, given time who knows?

25-21

2006-12-11T18:42:00.000-08:00

25) Hot Chip – The Warning
Why didn’t I find this album earlier? I, admittedly, lost my edge this year. I didn’t read Pitchfork or Stylus or CokeMachineGlow or any other sites as religiously as I had in ’05 and certain releases just slipped by me. However from the moment Nick passed it on to me it became my background music—for a solid week. Hot Chip intrigues without overwhelming, relaxes but doesn’t dull. Had I listened to it earlier no doubt it would have climbed higher but at least it came along to bump Nelly Furtado off the list. I’m still trying to decide if that’s a good or a bad thing.

24) Yo La Tengo – I’m Not Afraid of You and I Will Beat Your Ass
I picked up this album soon after it came out, listened to it maybe once and shelved it. Later, after being berated by Nick and Blake, I picked the album up again and didn’t even get halfway. I wanted to like because it had the best album title, well, ever. But it just annoyed me. Then it clicked. It’s an album of small details: the strings on “I Feel Like Going Home,” the fifties organ on “I Should’ve Known Better.” Even the nine-minute “Pass the Hatchet” feels incomplete, a brief distilled moment, a minute detail.

23) Peter Bjorn and John – Writer’s Block
I don’t like this kind of this kind of music. Don’t ask me to define the demonstrative, I can’t tell you what I mean by this. Just imagine a slight sneer when I say it, this. However I like this (supply required proper noun) as opposed to, say, Belle and Sebastian—which you will not find on this list. I don’t mind the whistling on “Young Folks” or the faux western guitar on “Let’s call it off.” Nay, I like those moments. An example of appreciating quality song writing among almost hated musical elements.

22) Girl Talk – Night Ripper
Musical masturbation. Plain and simple. The ability to shamelessly enjoy ghetto rap spread like butter over late-nineties and indie standards. When I play this for my friend I ask, “Did you recognize the Neutral Milk Hotel, sample?” or “Don’t you love how he subverts Annie’s ‘Heartbreaker’ with ‘My Humps’?” I feel superior, and dance like a white boy. There’s only one reason this album didn’t make my top ten: masturbation, though many will argue, never equals the real thing—he doesn’t actually create music. Girl Talk simply had the time between real masturbation sessions to concoct this pure pleasure of an album.

21) The Arctic Monkeys – Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not
I shouldn’t like this album. I should ban their over-hyped, over-produced, over-British sound from my ears. My teenage high school students go bonkers for this shit. They lack originality and mature song writing (‘Montagues and Capulets?’ what the fuck?). For this reason no one thought they’d win the Mercury Prize (as if anyone cares about the Mercury Prize)—but they did. Why? This album is simply good. They do what every garage band wants to do: beat the fuck out of their instruments and make it sound good.

Top 25 Intro

2006-12-11T10:48:00.000-08:00

It was a strange year for me musically. Perhaps because I teach teenage girls all day I tended to gravitate more towards bubblegum, sorry-ass pop more than usual (as will be evidenced in my countdown). Perhaps it was because Sufjan didn't release a real album, or because the Decemberists released a bad one (might as well take away the suspense, "The Crane Wife" didn't make the cut, which makes me very sad. I have a theory that much good music packed up and ran after Radiohead released a live version of "Arpeggio" but that's probably because I'm obsessed and have really just been waiting for their new album hoping it will blow my mind but terrified that it will suck (Weezer anyone?).

Last year I listened to bands. I got really into Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, Wolf Parade, Bloc Party and Okkervil River. This year I listened to music. That doesn't really make sense, I realize, but it's true. This year I somewhat disconnected the music from the people who produced it. No I'm not a "new critic," and I didn't do this on purpose. It's just when I reflect on music this year I remember songs or certain strings of songs or even whole albums. I don't look back and say, man that band had a really good year.

Nevertheless I'm very excited (thanks mostly to Nick) to post this year. Let the feuding begin.