YEAR END LISTS! (yea)

Sorry for the long hiatus. I've been on the campaign trail fucking up candidates' campaigns one sucker at a time. Obviously, I started with John McCain - everything went wrong for that guy. (You're welcome.) Then Rudy looked to be making a surge so I went over to that piss-ant's corner and started dropping bombs about mistresses and NYC police escorts and such. And wouldn't you know, that shithead sicked Bernie Kerik on my ass. One morning I wake up and my Funky, my pet turtle, is dead at the foot of my bed. So of course you know I'm not done with that fucker. But I had to quickly move on to Huckabee and alert the world of the rapist he set free as governor of Arkansas - you know, that guy that went on to rape and kill another woman a few months after being released. Romney's a Mormon so I'll just let that take care of itself. And I may have to visit McCain before it's all said and done. As for the Democrats, I got Edwards in '04, putting him on Kerry's ticket, so I'm not too worried about him in '08. I've been working on Obama for years - black, absent father, drug use, but the guy's like a cockroach. He keeps coming back. So I went to Iowa and started spreading some last minute rumors. His poll numbers sank like a stone over night. (I'm the king.) Hillary...to be honest, Hillary scares me a little. A lot. She's fucking evil. Not a damn thing I do works. Doesn't even phase her. The woman's maniacal. I must say, I do believe I've met my match.

So, with my tail between my legs, let me dip back into the things I love most - music and movies. Now, if I were a better blogger, in addition to writing more than once every 5 months, I'd make it a point to listen to EVERY ALBUM and watch EVERY MOVIE, but, you know what, that's what Pitchfork and Rotten Tomatoes are for. As it is, you'll just have to respect that I can only make lists based on what I've actually had the good fortune of experiencing. And, in regards to music, by experiencing I don't mean having listened to once while reading a book or browsing the internet. I mean that I was able to listen to these albums many many times - on the road in my car, in airplanes, in my bedroom in the dark. These are albums I've had the opportunity to get to know intimately.

Therefore, there are some GLARING omissions. For instance, I've only listened to M.I.A.'s Kala once while she streamed the whole album on her myspace page. (WARNING: If you have epilepsy, you probably shouldn't go to this site. Seriously. She's from Sri Lanka. They don't know nothing but flashing lights.) But by all accounts, Kala is one of the best albums of the year.

Similarly, I only recently received Battles' Mirrored. I've listened to it a few times but not enough to include it on any year end lists, even though Pitchfork named it the number 8 album of the year. (Kala was number 3). A brilliant synthesis of live and electronic music, almost exclusively instrumental and unlike anything I've ever heard on this scale. (Some smaller bands, I'm thinking of a couple on Ann Arbor's Ghostly label, have made similar phonic leaps, but not with this level of production and imagination.) I do love this album and it may very well make it on a revised list sometime in the near future. (As will a few other albums, I'm sure.)

Other albums not making the list due to lack of adequate listening exposure:

Jens Lekman: "Night Falls Over Kortedala" - beautiful Swedish disco pop with elegant compositions and witty, whimsical narratives. I've always loved Jens Lekman and I really love this album but it's just too new for me right now to be able to make a qualified judgement about its positioning.

Nina Nastasia & Jim White: You Follow Me - produced by Steve Albini, and featuring little more than guitar, vocals, and drums, this album is working its way into heavy rotation for me. Jim White is a virtuoso on drums, yet he manages to perfectly support Nina Nastasia's sublime songs which drift in and out of despair and anger like a fresh widow trying to fall in love too soon.

Ola Podrida: Ola Podrida - a film composer by day, David Wingo's debut with his new band is a stunning effort of folkey guitars and subtle song craft that come together into a beuatiful album of 11 songs. Oh, and he had his album artwork before Interpol (who used the same design from the same graphic arts company. Photos taken from the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County.)

As for everything else, you're just going to have to assume that either I haven't heard it, or, more likely, I've heard it and it just, for whatever reason, didn't make the list.

YEA! THE LIST!

1. The National: Boxer

Pretty much the reason I started this blog. I've been addicted to this album since the day it came out. With every listen, new doors open to reveal hidden passages, witty jokes, and dolorous images. Matt Berninger weaves a metaphor like a poet and his voice acts like a black storm on the horizon - ominous and beautiful, predicting an explosion that hasn't yet come to pass. The band, dynamic and endlessly versatile, drawing comparisons to both Joy Division and Bruce Springsteen, their 21st century malaise is all encompassing, like a group trying to break out of the jail cell that is adulthood.

2. LCD Soundsystem: Sound of Silver

This album had just about all of my favorite songs of the year: "North American Scum," "Someone Great," "All My Friends." The title of the first song is "Get Innocuous!" for godssakes. James Murphy, the consummate king of the audiophiles outdid his first album as LCD Soundsystem with a sophomore masterpiece that meshes dance and rock, utilizing about a gazillion influences from the last 50 years of music - from Yello to Steve Reich, Bowie to Eno, Beatles to Velvet Underground, Kraftwerk to New Order - you name it, he referenced it and the result is a towering monolith that doesn't bow down to the sublime history of sonic orgasms, but rather stands as an example by which all music should aspire to.

3. Carribou: Andorra

This is Dan Snaith's masterpiece. Taking us back in time from the 90's shoe gaze of Up in Flames under his old moniker Manitoba, to the 70's krautrock and electronica of Milk of Human Kindness, to this year's beautiful psychedelic 60's omage Andorra, the guy only seems to get better. Focussing more on songwriting, and naming most of the songs after girl's whose names can only be found in songs, this Beach Boys inspired album balances between lush harmonies and his trademark exploding drums. This feels like a summer album, all beauty and sunshine, but even in the grey winter, it manages to come through, not necessarily through warmth, but perhaps in the memory of warmth, of young crushes and better times. This album is about days gone by, but makes a kick ass soundtrack for the day at hand.

(Side note: The Beach Boys had quite a resurgence this year, perhaps due to Brian Wilson's Smile finally being released a couple years ago. In addition to Andorra, Panda Bear's Person Pitch feels almost like a direct spawn of Wilson's harmonic palettes, albeit quite a bit more avant garde. Ironically, Pet Sounds is one of the long lost masterpieces of pop music, that seems to be gaining relevance only now, 40 years after its release.)

4. Spoon: Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga

Six albums in and these guys just seem to get better and better. Kill the Moonlight was a great album. It's bare bones economy countered Britt Daniels' songs and created some of the catchiest R&B tracks we've heard in a long time. Gimme Fiction saw the band add a little more in terms of composition and instrumentation. But with Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga, the band and Britt stepped up to a whole 'nother level. These bones are anything but bare and many of the songs on this album surpass not just anything they've done to date, but anything most anybody is doing. "You Got Yr. Cherry Bomb," "Black Like Me," and, of course, "The Underdog" are the highlights but the other 7 tracks are no less fantastic. Every song is so packed with ideas, it's amazing they were able to confine them to under four minutes. By the way, doesn't The Underdog sound just like a Billy Joel song? I can't place my finger on it (I'm thinking "Uptown Girl"). Anyway, amazing song, but the Billy Joel thing has been bothering me for a while.

5. Okkervil River: The Stage Names

I fell in love with Okkervil River a little over a year ago when I discovered Black Sheep Boy, which I was sure couldn't be surpassed. And I'm not willing, now, to say that The Stage Names is better, but it's at least in the same echelon. Part autobiography, part love letter to poet, John Berryman, this is the album that solidifies Okkervil River as one of the most arresting bands of the past decade. Will Sheff's always passionate, desperate voice calms a little from its zenith on Black Sheep Boy but maintains enough strength to break down the fourth wall, ever winking, ironically referenential, and builds an album that not only rocks but manages to stay exciting and interesting with every listen as we decode the songs, verse by verse. The crowning achievement of the album is closer "John Allyn Smith Sails," which reinvents "Sloop John B." (see? more Pet Sounds!) as a suicide note. John Allyn Smith is the birth name of John Berryman who killed himself in 1972.

I was going to stop at five albums but I'll continue the list in abridged form all the way to 10!

6. Beirut: The Flying Club Cup

His first album, Gulag Orkestar had one great song and a bunch of other songs that were interesting but didn't really have much substance to keep me listening. Not so on his sophomore follow up. This love letter to the baroque music of a distant Paris, was on constant repeat for a long time. Not only is the music exciting in its uniqueness, the songs are better than good and Zach Condon, at only 21, is just hitting his stride. Who can say if his old European sound can avoid becoming stale or gimmicky if he never strays in his ensuing albums, but for now, it's sublime. The band is in top form, the lyrics are...well, the band does more than make up for their shortcomings, and Condon's voice is a beautiful counterpart to the mandolins, acordians, and horns that make you yearn for a cup of coffee in a Paris courtyard.

7. The Twilight Sad: Fourteen Autumns & Fifteen Winters

God that voice! That fucking Scottish accent is so fucking awesome. This is another album I was addicted to for a while this year. A little shoe gaze, some epic tendencies, wonderful song writing - all the ingredients I need to fall in love.

8. Feist: The Reminder

Don't forget. Sometimes songs get overplayed and artists get overexposed because they deserve it. Yes, that's almost exactly what they said on Pitchfork's end of the year list, but so what, it's true. The only problem I have with this album is that it's a bit too long for my tastes. I've said it once, I'll say it again: Albums shouldn't be longer than 11 songs. 10 is the best. I've never listened to an album with more than 11 full songs that didn't seem just a tad too long. The last three songs on this album, I couldn't care less about. I just check out somewhere around track 10 or 11. I know there are 3 more songs, but they go over my head like a wave.

9. Panda Bear: Person Pitch

Hey! It made the list. I almost didn't think it would. Pitchfork says this is the best album of the year. So, you know, that's cool. I just didn't find myself reaching for it often enough. But I couldn't keep it out of the top ten. It is, without a doubt, one of the most ambitious and accomplished albums not just of this year but in recent memory, right up there with Sufjan Stevens' Illinois. Like a train chugging past musical influences, Panda Bear (of Animal Collective) pulls them all aboard and crafts this Beach Boys-esque homage that is, at times, more poetry than music. And that's not such a bad thing.

10. A Place to Bury Strangers: A Place to Bury Strangers

Joy Division meets Jesus and Mary Chain meets My Bloody Valentine. And it's loud as fuck, too. Put this on your headphones and walk around town. Tell me you don't feel like the baddest mother fucker around. Just great shit from some kids out of Brooklyn.

HONORABLE MENTION:

Yeah Yeah Yeah's: IsIs (ep)
Black Kids: Wizard of Ahhs (ep)

The White Stripes: Icky Thump

WORST ALBUM OF THE YEAR:

Arcade Fire: Neon Bible

Yeah, Funeral was great. It was amazing. That doesn't mean this piece of crap should get residual accolades.

NOTE:

I also want to mention Radiohead's In Rainbows. Great album, certainly, but not spectacular. Not even in their top four albums. It's like a Radiohead sampler - not a far cry from any of their various incarnations over the years. In no ways a landmark nor a change of direction. There aren't really any new ideas nor is the band taking any chances. Rather, the album comes off like the work of some very talented, very satisfied musicians sitting on their porch like old men, completely content. Therefore, if you wanted to introduce someone to Radiohead, you might give them this album. From In Rainbows, none of their other albums are a far cry. It's the center of the bullseye, connecting The Bends and Kid A, OK Computer and Hail to the Thief. It's a great album, but it needs to be seen for what it is. Nothing special.

That's it for now. I'll try to do better next time. And I'll try to keep the posts coming a little more frequently.

As soon as I see There Will Be Blood, I'll put out my movie list.

Oh, and if you read this, can you send me a little comment. I just want to know if I'm writing this strictly for myself now or if I have a chance to get some of my readers back.

Happy Holidays! Happy New Year!