Best of the Decade

I've been hemming and hawing over how to do a best of the decade list because the feat is so enormous. This decade has been my introduction to music and the majority of music that has played a part in my life, from minor mood lifts to CDs that have been on rotation every day since they came out, has come out this decade. I decided that I'm going to talk about some of my favorite albums in roughly the order that I discovered them until I get to this year (That may not necessarily be the order that they came out, so no being upset if it appears chronologically inconsistent). After that I'll post a list of my top 25 CDs (which I will have omitted from the previous posts). That seems like a fair way of doing this.


Hearts of Oak by Ted Leo + The Pharmacists I feel like Ted Leo kind of tricked me into listening to his music. At the time I first heard this CD I was buried head first in ska. Somewhere on the internet I saw the song title "Where Have All the Rude Boys Gone" and it peaked my interest. At first listen I was disappointed at the lack of upstrokes and trombones. But the song is witty and the music is catchy and powerful. I credit this band as a big part of showing me that music other than ska existed. It even had heavy political overtones so I wasn't shocked by new themes in my music. This CD is perfect for when you're up and ready to carpe the heck out of diem.

Good Health by Pretty Girls Make Graves Now that I'm older and wiser I would give this band a first listen because their name is taken from a title of a Smiths song and a Kerouac allussion. When I was blissfully unaware of the role Morrissey and an outdated literary movement would take in my speakers in future years, I just thought their name was awesome. This brand of art-punk is more organized than a lot of the stuff that is out there, but it doesn't compromise it's aggression in doing it. Seven years later, "If You Hate Your Friends, You're Not Alone" still makes me feel the exact same way it did when I was 13. I want to get in a fight at the bridge behind my middle school. The fact that it can make a frail, passive, college student want to punch something is a pretty impressive feat.

Oh, Inverted World by the Shins It'd be easy to talk about how this album was released in 2001 and has only been gaining speed since then. It'd be easy to talk about the success of "New Slang" and how it took the Shins from a band that hipsters adored to a band they claimed they never even wasted time illegally downloading. As a testament to the previous statements, I heard "New Slang" on KROQ for the first time a couple of weeks ago. That's not why this CD is great to me though, at least not specifically. This album is great because it balances naivety with a loss of the rose colored glasses, which was sort of the place I was in at the time I was first heard this CD. It's optimistic, but it's realistically optimistic.

You can probably give up on seeing any one coherent idea running through these posts. Good Health is probably an incredibly random pick to most people and Oh, Inverted World is probably the most transparent pick ever. But these are the albums that have spoken to me and stuck with me. It'd be way too easy to give Kid A and Is This It? the top two spots and call myself hip but every list of the best albums of the decade is going to do that. You can at least be encouraged by my honesty.

Eulogy for My High School Years

Every melancholy Christian kid that likes music is probably going to be even more sad-eyed tomorrow. I've never cared about a band like I've cared about Copeland. I've never had a band mean so much to me than Copeland has. There's a cliche that I've always laughed at when people say, but their music has helped me through pretty much every major and minor event in my life. Brian Eno once said about the Velvet Underground that "only a few dozen people bought this record, but that all of them were then inspired to start their own band." And not to hyperbolize, but I feel that everyone that's heard Beneath Medicine Tree will be in the same boat in 5 years. This year has been terrible for bands from my formative angst years- As Cities Burn, Armor for Sleep, the Morning Light, the Honorary Title- but this one stings more than any other band breakup could. I kind of feel like my best friend since junior high just decided I wasn't worth the time anymore.

At first listen to the newest song released from Raditude, Weezer upcoming full-length, I was furious. It was far too poppy, far too repetitive, and not like "My Name is Jonas" at all. I had a scathing review already forming in my head and was going to scratch Raditude off my list of anticipated upcoming albums. Then I played it again. And again. And again. It definitely wasn't as good as anything from Pinkerton, but was it good?

I don't think Rivers has lost touch with his fans. I don't think he's particularly stupid either. He's written pop music for over a decade, releasing two amazingly solid CDs and a couple CDs with a few good songs on them. He's been to both Berklee College of Music and Harvard. I feel like he deserves the benefit of the doubt. But, something's going on because it's obvious that the same guy that wrote "El Scorcho" is not the same guy that is giving us songs like "Can't Stop Partying," whose kindest description would be an wholly average pop song that under normal circumstances even KIIS FM would not play, let alone southern California alternative staples like KROQ. It even features the obligatory verse by Lil Wayne (Weezy...Weezer...it's clever, get it?) walking about his drug addiction ("Gotta stop mixin' alcohol with pharmaceuticals") that every pop song seems to have this year. Not to mention the current single getting radio play, "(If You're Wondering if I Want You To) I Want You To" which displays lyrics so trite and childish that even Christofer Drew fans probably yearned for an ounce of originality. The music is still salvageable but lyrics like "The rest of the summer was the best we ever had, we watched titanic and it didn't make us sad. I took you to Best Buy, you took me home to meet your mom and dad," are more groan worthy than your 10th grade PE coach's puns.

But despite the entire previous diatribe, I will keep listening to "(If You're Wondering if I Want You To) I Want You To," and I will most likely purchase Raditude, because there's something undeniable about it. It's catchy, it's fun, it sounds like the product of a man that is happy with his life and comfortable with what he's creating. The melody will get stuck on your head for hours and it's an easy song to listen to. Despite the previous let downs of Make Believe and the Red Album I think I still expect overly intelligent, exceedingly nerdy music to come out of the Weezer camp and get disappointed when that's not what I hear, but that's just not who they are anymore. They write catchy power-pop that compares more to All-American Rejects than it does to Pavement. And through that I will keep supporting them, because frankly, the world needs more Pitchfork approved pop.

The Stills EP

I've got the middle three days off this week so I've had the luxury of pretty much sitting on my butt not doing anything for a couple of days. In the past year Stuart Murdoch's God Help the Girl has released a full-length, 2 singles, and now a 5 track EP. This makes me feel extremely useless and pretty bad about myself. I hadn't even heard that God Help the Girl was releasing this, the Stills EP, until I stumbled onto it on Pitchfork this morning. Then I got more flustered than Sheldon in Wil Wheaton's presence and ran to listen to it. (I apologize for the Big Bang Theory reference for anyone that doesn't watch it).

This EP isn't any sort of deviation from the self-titled full-length that came out earlier this year. Evidently, it was recorded during the same sessions as the full-length was. If you heard the album you know the kind of matured, female-fronted, twee-pop to expect. Once again, the best songs book end this album. The first song, "I'm in Love With the City," picks up on the story where the album left off as a girl (female singer #1?) decides she's in love with the boy (Murdoch?). Unfortunately the boy has a new girl (female singer #2?). I would say the names of all of the female singers on this album but to be honest distinguishing the voices is kind of like trying to explain the differences between VH1's reality shows, but with less syphilis. They're all pretty amazing (as opposed to VH1 reality shows) but they also all sort of sound the same, which isn't bad, just confusing. Stuart Murdoch wrote every one of these songs but his role in performing them has been pretty ambiguous. He actually makes an appearance on the second track, pretty much bridging the gap between Belle and Sebastian and God Help the Girl. The next two tracks, "Stills" and "Baby's Just Waiting" kind of lure you to sleep and prove cult-following era Belle and Sebastian detractors right. It's Murdoch showing his Yanni influence. "The Psychiatrist is In" is the only guitar-driven song on the EP, albeit acoustic guitar. I sort of keep falling asleep during the middle of this EP so I lost the story a little bit but the title seems appropriate to this song except I think the psychiatrist is trying to pull a "Baby, It's Cold Outside" kind of ending on the patient. I don't know, but you seriously can't fault me for not listening to the title track.

Basically, God Help the Girl are an ambiguous band that feature some of the best active voices in music and would rather you interpret their music than tell you. And that's probably how Stuart Murdoch likes it. RIYL: Belle and Sebastian, Camera Obscura, winter coats, hipster love stories

God Help The Girl / God Help The Girl from God Help The Girl on Vimeo.

The BQE

What if Miles Davis had experimented with acid jazz? Or if Beethoven had written an entire symphony for the pan flute? What if Jimmy Page decided he'd gotten too good at this guitar thing and went on to only ever play the pipe organ? That's kind of what Sufjan's foray into soundtrack music feels like. The BQE is Stevens' soundtrack to his movie of the same title. From what Pitchfork describes the film as,"an audiovisual three-ring circus, with 16-millimeter video screening images of the roadway while costumed female hula hoopers gyrated in the foreground," I can't imagine how this dull piece of work fits into it. Yes, it's excellent soundtrack music. Yes, it's technically proficient. Yes, it's great background noise. "Party in the USA" is great prepubescent girl music but I don't want to listen to a Miley Cyrus record. It's not what I want to hear Sufjan produce. He has an extremely rare gift with words. This is the man that wrote a song that made you feel as depraved as a man who killed little boys in a clown costume, and he's writing orchestra music? Is Paul Simon remembered for his experiment with African music in Graceland? (No really, is he? Cause I pretty much only remember him for getting "Mrs. Robinson" stuck in my head for weeks at a time.) Sufjan- I love you. I want to support you in everything that you do. But you're really pushing my luck. Between Run Rabbit Run, this, and your music for insomniacs CD with your Step-dad I really don't know what to do with you. I could have excused one or two, especially if there was a Rhode Island or a Two Turtle Doves CD to look forward to.

I guess we just have to deal with the fact that Sufjan is too creatively endowed to be restrained to silly words and wish him the best in his pursuit of musical satisfaction.

Revival of Emusic

My dad renewed his subscription to emusic. This isn't exactly blogworthy except I ranted about how sad I was it was being taken away and now it's not =] I'm excited, even if we get fewer downloads a month than we did previously. Hopefully that's all the changes emusic is going to make for a while, because I would really enjoy keeping it. The anger of a middle-class teenager has been abated. Thanks dad!

PS
-Hi employee of emusic that has a google alert for blogposts about emusic. Would you like to give me a job?

Continuing with some short reviews of music that's come out recently, today. Four more albums that I am in love with recently. I'm adding a Recommended If You Like part today. These are tricky because I don't like any one band because they are like another band, so I'm going to be broad in this RIYL section. It can include bands that sound like them, bands that influenced them, bands that have the same feeling as them, etc. I will probably get them all wrong, but it's ok.

The Ruminant Band by the Fruit Bats The only thing I can really say about the Fruit Bats is that they play great American music. Alt-country without the normal country troupes. When it came out in 2005, Spelled in Bones was one of my favorite CDs and this CD is just a progression on that. The melodies are tighter, the vocals are more confident, and the music is fuller and slightly more varied. This is the perfect music for a super lazy summer day. RIYL: The Shins, Nick Drake, Polyphonic Spree

Vapours by Islands Nothing Nicholas Thornburn ever does will be better than Who Will Cut Our Hair When We're Gone. With the Unicorns long gone and his full attention on Islands it seems Vapours is as close as we're going to get to hearing another Unicorns album. The vocals on this album are far closer to WWCOHWWG than the previous two Islands releases and the copious amount of sequencing and programming give the music the fun feel that WWCOHWWG had. Islands find their balance on this CD. The crushing seriousness of Arm's Way is balanced out by these fun throwbacks to the Unicorns. RIYL: The Unicorns, the Flaming Lips, Wolf Parade, one of those days that can't decide if it's sunny or cloudy

Where the Wild Things Are OST by Karen O and the Kids This is fun. The indie dream team that make up the kids- the remaining Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Bradford Cox of Deerhunter, Aaron Hemphill of Liars, and the two least famous Dead Weather members- all throw away their self-awareness and seriousness to make fully imaginative and playful CD. Karen O, no stranger to reinventing herself, is able to put away her recent success with her band's most recent CD and relax to make a soundtrack that will no doubt be an integral tool to move the film on. RIYL: Happiness, relaxing, childhood, you know if you like Karen O or not by now

Loosing Feeling EP by No Age A lot has been written about how No Age is an LA band. It can get tiresome after a while but it seems relevant. No Age's best songs bookend this EP, and they encapsulate LA pretty well. The music is fuzzy, feels crowded, moves with a pulse that keeps you moving forward, and is pretty unapologetic in its attempt. The tracks in between are slower but no less symbolic of LA as they seem to imitate a haze. At this point in time, I'm pretty sure No Age is LA's best hope for fostering a music scene to compete with the best. RIYL: Husker Du, Japanther, Hollywood