2010 Jamz

The SadBear albums extravaganza is (hopefully) on its way.

In the meantime, (because of boredom and the want to write about some musical things), I present to you my 15 favorite (notice I say "my favorite" and not the best) tracks of 2010. You'll probabaly note that (when you see my albums list), a lot of these songs come from said albums. That's because I am, at heart, more of an "albums" guy than a single songs guy. (Not that there's anything wrong with listening to a lot of singles. It's just a different way of digesting and enjoying music.)

Again: These are just my jams that I played on repeat this year. I don't know if they're better or worse than any other songs that came out this year. I just couldn't stop listening.

Let's do this, countdown-style.

15. The Roots (feat. Joanna Newsom) - "Right On"
I did not listen to the album that Joanna actually released this year, but who knew that anyone could make her sound this funky? Leave it to Questlove.

14. Caribou - "Jamiela"
The kettle drum/synth climax halfway through this song makes me cream my jeans a little bit every time.

13. Black Keys - "Every Lasting Light"
Note to Dan and Patrick: More falsetto-stomp, please.

12. Titus Andronicous - "A More Perfect Union"
One of my favorite moments in song comes in at around 1:45, when Patrick Stickles yells "Baby we were born to die!" Then comes a messy solo that probabaly isn't that hard to play but just makes me want to pump my fist along the whole time. Also, the outro with "Rally round the flag" is very cathartic. I think it's about a relationship and not about war, but I have no real idea.

11. Thermals - "I Don't Believe You"
Always count on the Thermals to write a hook.

10. She & Him - "In The Sun"
Zooey sounds great (as Econ says, "her voice is actually pretty hot in this song") and M Ward mostly lays low until that solo at the very end, which is very tasteful yet kind of trippy with all the reverb layers. Also, the video: M. Ward is just fucking cool the entire time, and she's adorable.

9. Beach House - "Silver Soul"
It was really a matter of "which Beach House song on the album is best?", since I love all of them but have limited myself to one song per artist. I went this route because I think it's the most representative of the album and what I like about it.

8. Wavves - "Green Eyes"
Real stoner love.

7. Kanye West ft. Pusha T - "Runaway"
Pusha T's verse on this song has been lingering in my head ever since the first time I heard it. "Power" might be the more epic song, and most representative of the album thematically, but I think this one takes the cake musically and production-wise.

6. Broken Social Scene - "Forced to Love"/"Meet Me In The Basement"
These both count as one in my mind, mostly because it's hard to seperate "Basement" from the album since it's only an instrumental. But, boy, what an exhilarating instrumental. When the horns come in near the end, you're almost sad to hear it end, and wish it could go on for another four minutes. But it does. So you have to listen again.

The other song here, "Forced to Love", is perhaps the exact opposite. It announces its intentions quickly, with a fluid keyboard-and-flute main riff and pretty easily-digestible (probabaly disposable) lyrics about love. It's nothing new, but it all comes together so nicely. I thought I would get sick of these songs/this album after seven months, but I still haven't.

5. Hot Chip - "Take It In"
Hot Chip at their most vulnerable.

4. Cee-Lo - "Fuck You"
If this song doesn't stick in your head after just one listen, you have no soul.

3. Janelle Monáe ft. Big Boi - "Tightrope"
I came into Janelle late in the game (try three weeks ago) so maybe this should be No. 1. Time will tell. Regardless, she sounds so exuberant in this song — it just drips with excitement.

2. Big Boi - "General Patton"
The rap world needs more opera samples. This one is downright triumphant.

1. LCD Soundsystem — "Dance Yrself Clean"
Any doubt as to why this song is No. 1 on my list? 3:07. Just hang tight til 3:07 and all your questions will be answered.

Things I like right now

A broadened version of my "feel good hits." Because right now I am mainly interested in listening to three types of things:
•Classical music on NPR - Am I getting old? I don't even know most of these pieces but there's something enjoyable (refined?) about driving around in the summer with classical strings cranked to 11 (well, more like cranked to 3...my care stereo is loud)
•Alt country — I'm officially a sucker for all things that involve twangy guitars. Uncle Tupelo began me on this righteous path, and I have been smiting everything in its wake. Recent purchase Whiskeytown is perfect highway/ backwoods driving music (can you tell that's when I listen to a lot of my music?), and the Jayhawks are, well, what would happen if the Byrds were from the Midwest and rocked out a little more with Graham Parsons. A.k.a. awesome. There's a YouTube playlist of them doing a live set in Germany, I suggest you check it out. It has a lot of material from Blue Earth, the album I've been spinning.
•Power pop — Power pop, indie pop, call it what you will. I currently have a taste for lots of power chords and big hooks. Matthew Sweet satisfies this need nicely— that solo on "Girlfriend" kills. Also found an affection for the Fountains of Wayne (I never thought they were that good...but they actually kind of are) and another band I randomly found called the American Princes. Also, the New Pornographers and A.C. Newman...how did I ever get out of the habit of listening to them? (If Elliott Smith were happier, I might include him here too...he shows some hooky brilliance when he's got a full band...but that self-titled solo album, the only one of his I actually have and have been listening too, can be really fucking depressing).
•Then there's XTC, which doesn't really fit into the power-pop category but they're still notable as a weirdass post-pop (kind of a combination between power-pop and post-punk, I guess?) band I've also re-discovered. I always knew a song or two but never delved deeper. Good thing I did. I always heard lots of Kinks comparisons, which might be true if only the caveat: Kinks songs as covered drastically by the Talking Heads. Maybe a bit much. Thematically, though, English Settlement and Skylarking remind me a lot of Village Green Preservation Society.

Feel good hits

A shamelessly appropriated idea which I will use as my own from now on. From former Stylus writer Ian Mathers. My feel good hits of May 5th/ the early morning of May 6th, 2009:

Los Campesinos! - "You! Me! Dancing!"
Animal Collective - "Brother Sport"
Tokyo Police Club - "Your English is Good"
Thermals - "Liquid In, Liquid Out"
Belle and Sebastian - "I'm A Cuckoo"
Jens Lekman - "The Opposite of Hallelujah"
!!! - "Take Ecstasy With Me"
Beta Band - "Inner Meet Me (live)"
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - "Tupelo"
Jayhawks - "Sioux City"

15 albums - how much has changed...

So, there's this facebook thing. "25 Random Things," where a person writes 25 random things about themselves, and then tags 25 people to write 25 things about themselves and tag 25 more people, who do the same ad infinitum.

I hate that thing. It's annoying and I don't have time to sit there for two hours and think of 25 interesting thing about myself. Probably because there aren't 25 interesting things about myself that people don't already know that are even worth reading. Sill. (Popmatters has a nice little essay about the phenomenon that you should read).

So I think that's stupid. On the other hand, one of my former professors tagged me in another sort of note that I found more intriguing: 15 albums in 15 minutes. The premise:

"Think of 15 albums that had such a profound effect on you they changed your life or the way you looked at it. They sucked you in and took you over for days, weeks, months, years. These are the albums that you can use to identify time, places, people, emotions. These are the albums that no matter what they were thought of musically shaped your world. When you finish, tag 15 others, including me. Make sure you copy and paste this part so they know the drill. Get the idea now? Good. Tag, you're it!"

I did this one, because music actually means something, unlike "random facts" about a person.

The interesting this is, I did this kinda thing once before, freshman year. On my old (more embarrassing, and defunct) blog. Thing is, my tastes have changed so much since then that this new list bears little resemblance to that old one. So for fun I decided to post them on here side-by-side. The old list is first, then the new. No particular order on any of them.

2004 list
Bob Dylan - John Wesley Harding
The Brian Jonestown Massacre - Take it from the Man!
The Clash - The Clash [UK]
Fugazi - The Argument
Joy Division - Unknown Pleasures
Minutemen - Double Nickels On The DIme
Modest Mouse - Lonesome Crowded West
Pavement - Slanted & Enchanted
Pavement - Brighten The Corners
Pixies - Doolittle
Sonic Youth - Dirty
Spoon - Gimme Fiction
The Strokes - Room On Fire
Talking Heads - Remain In Light
Violent Femmes - Violent Femmes

2009 list
Pavement - "Brighten The Corners" - My first Pavement record. Not my favorite now (it comes in second behind "Wowee Zowee") but still important to me falling down the slipperly slope of music-nerddom (of the indie variety).

Sonic Youth - "Dirty" - Like "Brighten the Corners:" not my favorite album of theirs, but the first I heard. My introduction to noise music (sorta).

Spoon - "Kill the Moonlight" - Finally! My introduction to a favorite band that, to this day, holds up as a favorite. I ordered this online freshman year having never heard them before. Glad I did.

The Strokes - "Room On Fire - I remember looking at my iTunes play count at the end of freshman year and "Reptilia" had like 70 plays, with the rest of the album somewhere around 50. And that's just on the computer.

Joy Division - "Unknown Pleasures" - My introduction to post-punk. Vital in my music development.

Talking Heads - "Remain In Light" - Gleaned from my early days of reading Pitchfork; specifically, their "best of the 70s" list.

Rolling Stones - "Let It Bleed" - Hooked me on the Stones, and got me to realize they've come a long way (to sucking) since their glory days.

Uncle Tupelo - "89/93: An Anthology" - I listened to this for about three years straight before I finally bought an album proper ("No Depression"). Now I own all their albums and consider them a favorite band.

Beastie Boys - "Paul's Boutique" - First found at the West Bloomfield Public Library circa 2002. Seven years and about a thousand spins later, I'll never get tired of this record. Psychedelic rap glory.

A Tribe Called Quest - "The Low End Theory" - Wherein I finally realized that not all non-Beastie Boys rap is gangsta rap.

Wu-Tang Clan - "Enter the 36 Chambers" - Wherein I finally realized that not all gangsta rap was mindless and about killing people.

Daft Punk - "Homework" - Wherein I finally realized that not all dance music was about idiots dancing at raves with glowsticks and Dr. Seuss hats.

Fugazi - "13 Songs" - I realize that most of these are significant as introductions to genres. Well, this one's my introduction to hardcore and post-hardcore.

R.E.M. - "Murmur" - I grew up seeing R.E.M. as 'the band that did What's the Frequency Kenneth' and 'Losing My Religion.' Great songs, obviously, but when I came of age their new material was confined to adult alternative stations. I found this used at FYE or something for 5 dollars. Oh, I'm so glad I bought this on impulse.

My Bloody Valentine - "Loveless" - Shoegaze is a stupid term.

Neil Young - "On The Beach" - Doing 16, cause I couldn't decide. This album got me into...ah, screw it.

Best albums in 2008

Not of, mind you. IN. Because I didn't exactly listen to every new album this year. Or even all of the ones I was "supposed" to listen to. So it's a mix: new albums from this year that I liked, but also albums that are actually old but are new to me. No particular order on any of these, except Portishead and the Walkmen are probabaly 1 and 2. Album name links to review, song name to YouTube sample.

Superlatives:
Portishead, Third ("The Rip")
Walkmen, You & Me ("In The New Year")
Q-Tip, The Renaissance ("Move" / "Renaissance Rap", this is one track on the album but I think they work better as separate songs)
Cut Copy, In Ghost Colours ("Feel The Love")
Times New Viking, Rip It Off ("The End of All Things")
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Dig, Lazarus, Dig! (listen to MP3 in review)
Spiritualized, Songs in A&E ("You Lie You Cheat")
Black Mountain, In the Future ("Angels", "Tyrants")
Vampire Weekend, Vampire Weekend (scroll down for Christgau's take)
Wale, The Mixtape About Nothing (listen to MP3)

Darn good:
Silver Jews, Lookout Mountain, Lookout Sea ("Aloyisius, Bluegrass Drummer")
R.E.M., Accelerate ("Man Sized Wreath")
Los Campesinos!, Hold On Now, Youngster ("Death to Los Campesinos!", but their Pavement cover is the best thing they've ever recorded, unfortunately it's only on the EP)
Tokyo Police Club, Elephant Shell ("Tessellate")
Dungen, 4
Black Milk, Tronic ("Give the Drummer Sum")
Flight of the Conchords, Flight of the Conchords ("Ladies of the World"...the only reason why this album isn't great is because they fucked up some of the songs from their stand up and overproduced them...except this one...seriously, I want a whole album of nothing but songs like this and I'd enjoy it...even if they weren't being ironic, I think I'd love it...that fadeout thing at the end is brilliant, I could chill out for hours to stuff like this)
Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks, Real Emotional Trash
Drive-By Truckers, Brighter Than Creation's Dark ("The Man I Shot")
Black Keys, Attack and Release ("Psychotic Girl")

Older albums I got into/ back into (only a smattering, these are the notable ones):
Chavez, Better Days Will Haunt You
A Tribe Called Quest, Midnight Maradurs
Uncle Tupelo, Anodyne, Still Feel Gone, No Depression
Wilco, Summerteeth, Being There
Son Volt, Trace
At The Drive-In, The Relationship of Command
Drive-By Truckers, Southern Rock Opera
Nas, Illmatic
Galaxie 500, The Peel Sessions
Superchunk, Here's Where the Strings Come In
Guided By Voices, Do the Collapse

I didn't listen to:
Wolf Parade, At Mount Zoomer
The Dirtbombs, We Have You Surrounded
The Kills, Midnight Boom
Presidents of the USA, These are the Good Times, People
Local H, Twelve Angry Months
Tapes 'n Tapes, Walk It Off
Fleet Foxes, Fleet Foxes (and not sure I want to in this case)

Anything else I forgot about. Which means that I didn't care enough to listen to it or didn't remember enough about it to remember it came out this year. Or I'm just retarded and forgot something good. Damnit.

Things I Read: 2008

Michael Chabon - The Amazing Adventures of Kaviler and Clay
Michael Chabon - The Yiddish Policeman's Union
T.S. Eliot - Four Quartets
Louise Erdrich - Tracks
Jeffrey Eugenides - Middlesex
Jonathan Safran Foer - Everything is Illuminated
John Gardner - Grendel
Graham Greene - The End of the Affair
C.S. Lewis - Till We Have Faces
Carson McCullers - The Member of the Wedding
Alan Moore/ Dave Gibbons - The Watchmen
Tim O'Brien - The Things They Carried
Tom Stoppard - Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead
Stefan Szymanski - National Pastime: How Americans Play Baseball and the Rest of the World Plays Soccer
William Carlos Williams - Selected Poems

Top Ten Songs About You

(Or, Top Ten Songs in Which the Addressee is Mentioned in the Title)

I love songs like these. For no real reason in particular. I mean, it's very true that many (if not most) songs are about someone specific, about some sort of "you." I just like titles that specifically saw it. Most of the time they are only "Baby" or "Darlin" or "Girl" or even just "You," but they're always directed towards said person. Here's a list:

(Apologies to: "You're My Best Friend," "All I Want is You," "It's All Over, Baby Blue," "A Message To You Rudy," "What's the Frequency, Kenneth?", "I Want You" (She's So Heavy AND Dylan), "I Put A Spell On You," "Hang On To Yourself," "I Got You, Babe," "I Believe In You," and the entire Matchbox 20 album "Yourself Or Someone Like You," among many others.)

10. Morrissey - "You're the One for Me, Fatty"
The first Morrissey song here. A more personal twist on "Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others."
9. Caleb - "Baby Your Phrasing is Bad"
If I could find a sample of this I would post it. It's from Nuggets, so if you can imagine that then you probably get the gist of it. Great title, though, isn't it? Someone anonymous put this song on Rapidshare. I'm not sure who you are but let me know so I can give you props. Everyone should listen to this song now. Supposedly, this guy was Elton John's guitarist later, and Sir Elton is actually rumored to play on the song. I love the phasing (with the "phrasing"...ha!) and the lyrics, while hard to discern, I think go something like this: "Please try to make yourself clear / So that when you talk to me it doesn't strain my ear." Good stuff or what, eh?
8. Tokyo Police Club - "Your English Is Good"
No direct address, per say, like the previous one, but the spirit is still there. This is sort of the opposite twist on it, I guess.
7. Black Flag - "You Bet We've Got Something Against You"
There's a 30 second sound clip that only has the chorus but luckily, the chorus is the best part of the song. It goes, no joke: "You bet that I've got something personal against you!" He doesn't even really sing it, he just kinda says it. I imagine this would be good fighting music.
6. The Magnetic Fields - "Fido, Your Leash Is Too Long"
Maybe the ultimate diss track about an unnamed person.
5. The Smiths - "William, It Was Really Nothing"
The other Morrissey song on the list. Supposedly about a guy named Billy Mackenzie from another British band called The Associates. They, in turn, recorded a response song called "Stephen, You're Really Something." Kinda lame, really.
4. Led Zeppelin - "Babe, I'm Gonna Leave You"
Probably the most famous of all the "Baby, I'm Going To Do Whatever With You" type songs. Also, most assuredly the most cliche title out of all of them. Still iconic, though.
3. The White Stripes - "You're Pretty Good Looking (For A Girl)
You can tell he wants her.
2. The Thirteenth Floor Elevators - "You're Gonna Miss Me"
I love how angry this song is, and I often wonder if the person he was singing about knows who she is. Actually, this would have been number one, if not for the fact that the next one exists...
1. Don Caballero - "Let's Face it Pal, You Didn't Need That Eye Surgery"
It doesn't have any lyrics so it's basically just an awesome title, but still, isn't this the greatest title ever?

Top Ten Songs I Use If My Life Was A Series Of Movie-style Montages

I love a good movie montage. In fact, few things about movies make me happier than a well-edited montage with good music in the background (one favorite that comes to mind is the Margot montage in The Royal Tenenbaums. Maybe montages are cliche or kind of lame, but I love them. And if my life were a movie (or, at the very least, a series of montages), then it would have a pretty kickass soundtrack.

Usually montages are a good way at speeding along the time and setting of a movie and telling the story in a quick and (usually) painless way. So most of the so-called montages that I have created on the spot do this. This isn't a collection of background music during an extended and important scene (I might do that one sometime soon).

And I should note that once I get past the college portion of this it's all made up. I mean, most of it didn't happen as I would chronicle it in the movie. My life would be kind of boring if I did a memory-for-memory movie. And really fucking long.

In some sort of chronological order:

The event: Me growing up.
The song: The Kinks - "Do You Remember Walter?"
Why: It'd be like the intro credits of the movie, because I have a hard time thinking this far back. My childhood was really boring. So it will be mostly scenes of me doing kid things and playing with Ninja Turtles and playing basketball on my kiddie hoop. That sort of thing. There's not much else you can do with that than "whimsical." I had to pick an oldie because that's the only real music I was conscious of at that point. The Kinks it is then.

My actual life (the movie) would probably start here, in high school:

The event: Me discovering indie music (for better or for worse). Lots of shots of me at record stores, leafing through vinyl and CDs, with shots of those bands and album covers interspersed on the screen. Maybe a few of me sitting in my room with headphones.
The song: Pavement - "Stereo"
Why: I still remember the instance. I was hanging out with my friend Geoff and we were looking at the internet and we stumbled across Pitchfork. We were both already kind of starting to get into better music, him more than I (at the time I believe my favorite bands were Nirvana, the Foo Fighters, the Beatles, and Bad Religion or something. Not bad, but could be better). He had seen Pitchfork before, and apparently he had already heard about Pavement. He played me some and then gave me his burned copy of Brighten the Corners. And that was that. So if anyone ever wants to know why I'm such an ass about some of these things, I blame Geoff.

The event: Going downtown for the first time and taking it all in.
The song: The Beatles - "Got To Get You Into My Life"
Why: I'm not sure this actually happened, per-say. I mean, there was never one instance of me going on a subway by myself for the first time and exploring the city. That's probably mostly because Detroit doesn't have subways. Either way, I always think that "GTGYIML" is the perfect "going and exploring on a summer day" type song. I I mean, I've done that in Detroit before. So fuck you guys.

The event: The sports montage. I never actually was on my high school baseball team, but this is a hypothetical "what-if-I-was-and-what-if-we-won-state?" sort of thing. (If you couldn't tell, this movie has no real plot).
The song: The Count Five - "Psychotic Reaction"
Why: I like sports montages. I have no idea why. One of my favorites is in "Little Big League" where it shows the Twins (as managed by a 12 year old kid) suddenly clicking together and making a bunch of sweet plays to the tune of "Move to Japan" by the Band. There's another equally good one in there to the tune of "Runaround Sue." I wanted a montage that felt like that. So this could be good.

The event: College. Lots of scenes of fun college things. Minus a lot of the partying, which will be the next scene.
The song: The Strokes - "Reptilia"
Why: I made a list freshman year that was "Top Ten Songs I Listened to Freshman Year of College." I can't find it anymore but I'm pretty sure this was number one. Even if it wasn't, any Strokes song would do. I listened to a lot of them freshman year. I don't as much any more, but when I do it's always enjoyable.

The event: Getting really drunk for the first time. I could incorporate all the vices in there: first cigarette, first drugs. And then chronicling a lot of (probably ill-advised) scenes of partying. And then just me taking swigs of Old Crow while I write papers alone in my room. (This scene could concievably be before the previous Strokes scene.)
The song: It would begin with Uncle Tupelo - "I Got Drunk" and then fade into Modest Mouse - "Polar Opposites."
Why: The first song might seem like the title is too obvious, but damn, is it appropriate: "I got druuunk / And I fell down!" It just highlights the "don't give a fuck" attitude you sometimes get when you drink a lot. The Modest Mouse is there for when it becomes a problem ("I'm tryin' / To drink away the part of the day that I cannot sleep away"). I think we all feel like this sometimes.

The event: The relationship.
The song: Wilco - "Kamera"
Why: A perfect "everything is awesome" song. It's just so damn happy. Lots of cliche relationship scenes. But then...

The event: The breakup / girl getting back together with the old boyfriend / girl breaking up with him again / girl trying to keep flirting with you but still saying she doesn't want a relationship
The song: Local H - "No Problem"
Why: "I've always been an easy in / And easy out the door again / I know it's only because you're down / That you'd ever want to come around / Just a little secret in a little town / You had me but it's over now / You'll get my attention again somehow / It's no problem." That's why.

The event: Roadtrippin'
The song: Bob Dylan - "Nashville Skyline Rag / "To Be Along With You"
Why: Well, not depressed anymore (the movie works that out in the actual dialog - girl and I are cool now), single again, and once again carefree. So I take a roadtrip with friends (not necessarily any one road trip that happened...but incorporating parts of roadtrips that I've had). This is a good roadtrip song. Or at least I usually pop in Nashville Skyline when I'm roadtripping.

The event: The movie's final scene. I'm not sure where it will be yet. Probably somewhere where we finish our roadtrip.
The song: The Replacements - "I Will Dare"
Why: This is the one that isn't actually a real event (yet). But the idea is we finish the roadtrip and we're somewhere neat, some random place, and we go somewhere where I meet a beautiful, cool woman. Maybe going from a record store to getting coffee to being at a minor league baseball stadium with said woman and friends. Roll credits. As the song starts.

(Fuck you. It's my life and my movie.)