Top 25 of 2008: 25-21

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"

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

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

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

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

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

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.