Friday, December 31, 2004
K.K. Downing
Oh, what a freaking good year for music, and my boss is out today. The love in my heart! I have really enjoyed my relationship with music over the last couple years. If I had attempted to make a top ten list between the years of say 1998-2002, I would've only gotten about three albums deep. In fact, I remember the only other time I've tried to make a top ten list I only could muster three albums. I don't know what my problem was then, or what my lack of a problem is now, but this year and last I could probably even make a top fifteen or twenty. I know one reason is because I can download stuff that I read about all day at work, but that wasn't the case last year, which was a great one too.
10. The Go! Team - Thunder, Lightning, Strike
This one slips in at ten because I only JUST heard it about a week ago, so I would feel guilty putting it any higher. At any rate, I've been jamming this one hard and I suspect that, given different circumstances, it would rank much higher than ten. What is this shit, you ask? Fucking would-be, could-be TV show theme songs. A-Team, Thundercats, G. I. Joe, Peanuts, Mr. Belvedere, Jake and the Fatman- you get the picture. Most of the songs are instrumental all-out jams, but some employ vocals that sound like 13 year old black girls. The songs with vocals have a more 80's rap/shout/singing thing that sounds something like Technotronic/ESG/SaltNPepa, I guess. Bottom line, this is the type of album that you can just put on at party and everyone will be forced to start dancing. No worries about making some mix cd. I'm actually probably going to bring it to the place Still Flyin' is playing at tonight for a dance party after the show.
9. Lil' Flip Scoldjah - Out Francin' Yall
What can I say, other than I almost got my mind truly blown. I'm talking blown like... well, I can't really remember the last time my mind got a blowjob. Maybe when Dark first told me he was engaged. Anyway, so I'm in a shit-talking club that plays fantasy football, and you know the story from when you read OJ's top ten. If I hadn't caught wind of it DAYS before I received it (these dudes obviously don't understand the postal system, i.e. it might take longer for the mail to get to San Francisco from Athens than it does Atlanta from Athens), I would have been thunderstruck. Fuck the stress. I almost made this a shared spot with Wee Turtles - Fantastic Four to tha Floor, but that's a lame thing to do to begin with, and it's not officially out yet. It'll be on next year's list.
8. Futureheads - s/t
You want to hate them. That name sucks. You see it and you think "what is this shit?" If I didn't have a computer, I would never have heard them. Well, I like to attempt to know what's going on, and at least hear the "hot" bands (not to mention half of the songs were produced by Gang of Four's Andy Gill), so I downloaded their album. First song- hmm.. this is surprisingly pretty good.. for about ten seconds, then the main vocals come in... yeah, okay, that's what I thought it would sound like for about ten seconds, then the chorus comes with the barbershop quartet shit... this is strange. Well, I thought the second song was legitimately good on first listen, and the fourth and fifth songs are fucking hits. These dudes can make some catchy, catchy, fucking catchy songs, and I can't fight that.
7. Panda Bear - Young Prayer
So this is the year of the Animal Collective. This is the solo album of the drummer/singer made for his deceased father. Panda Bear, Young Prayer, made for dead father. That is EXACTLY what this sounds like, actually. I was just trying to figure out how to describe this, and that's perfect. There are no song titles, it could be argued that there are no songs, but this has great, vulnerable singing and gentle droning acoustic guitars and piano. It's much closer to classical music than pop, and obviously I mean that in a good way.
6. Bugs Eat Books - Another Ghost of Tom Joad
I wish I could cut a tune like Rob Derrick. I've always been a big fan of his songs and his band, and have been chomping at the bit for what, like six years, for this god damn album. They know how take their sweet, sweet time. Well, I'm glad it's out finally. You thought I was going to say "well, I'm glad they did". Fuck that. If they'd have gotten off their asses and went to the fucking studio it could have come out at least two years ago, but then it wouldn't have included my favorite song of theirs, one of the runners up to song of the year: whatever the hell the first song is called. That's another thing: Rob likes to make it so the song titles are pretentious and hard to remember for dumb people like me.
5. Sun Kil Moon - Ghost of Tom Joad doin' It Again
Okay, so this came out last year, but I'm sticking it on here for two reasons. One, I've actually spotted it on other top ten lists for this year (which leads me to believe that maybe it came out at the very end of last year), and two, it contains the song of the year for me: Glenn Tipton. I know all the words and I know how to play it, even though I never have tried to. I jammed it so many times, and it was in my head even more than that. I can't understand why, but the lyrics of the song just really do it for me. I really really like the lyrics and Mark Kozelek's voice. And I'm always a sucker for a spare beginning that keeps adding instruments as it goes along (in this case, another guitar, then stand up bass, then another guitar, and then the drums come in for the very end). And here's the kicker- it sustains the quality level after opening with "Glenn Tipton". Every single song on this is good.
4. Electrelane - The Power Out
I haven't heard this in a while, and I think it came out almost a full year ago. The first time I heard it, I didn't really think one way or the other. Then they played a show with a friend's band, and I liked them pretty well. My girlfriend, who seems to like almost any music made by women (side note- I asked her the other day to name one band with a girl singer that she didn't like. She said she didn't like Ani DiFranco and Life Without Buildings' vocals. That's all she could come up with.) bought the album, so I heard it in her car a lot. Next thing I knew I was borrowing it from her and jamming it on the way to work. I may have listened to this album more than any other this year. What do they sound like? Sort of like Stereolab, but not as self-consciously lame (or more so). Their songs tend to start with some sort of cool restrained riff, and it become more and more unhinged throughout the song, which is just the same riff over and over, with vocal changes. And the vocals! I really like them; they manage to be abrasive, powerful, and pretty at various points and sometimes all at once. And she sings in three languages. Normally that type of showing off would be a negative strike, but with her singing style, you don't really even notice it; you're already lulled into the center of the earth.
3. Dungen - Ta Det Lungt
This one blew me away, which isn't to be confused with getting my mind blown. Getting your mind blown renders you devoid of speech and more importantly, thought. Getting blown away is like getting your ears and mind and groin knocked down and you immediately bouncing back up, licking your lips for more. I've already talked about this on the mez ext, but shit, I'll talk about a little bit more. I was just chilling out, talking to some buddies, drinking a cold one, smoking some drugs. My buddy's messing around on the computer, and then he unleashes dungen out of nowhere. No "hey guys, check this out". No nothing. He was just noodling on the computer and then I got blown to bits. That thirty second drum solo into an awesome song- that's the sign of a BRUTE of a record. It feels weird to put this so high up when I've only been intimate with this for a few weeks, but that's just how much this shit blows me away. I only got the actual CD a few days ago, but I've been jamming the illegal downloads at work over and over and over ever since I found out about it.
[huge gap]
2. Animal Collective - Sung Tongs
This is like nothing I have ever heard before in my life. Like ewoks on drugs. That's the best I can come up with. I read a couple rapturous reviews of this album and did the download thing. For how weird this thing is, surprisingly, I was engulfed on the first listen of the first tune. By the time it got to song 4 (Winter's Love- another runner up for song of the year), I decided I was buying it on the way home. The singing is mystical and beautiful and quite simply amazing. The drumming is so original and works so well. Fuck, EVERYTHING does. I honestly became obsessed with this album for a stretch. Embarrassingly obsessed, like I wanted to quit playing pop music, even though I knew I couldn't do stuff like this, but I just had no interest in doing it anymore. Well, that subsided, and I actually haven't listened to this in a long time, but writing this is making me long for it once more.
1. Brian Wilson - Smile
I suspect this will be Smile's only appearance on a mes ecl top ten list, and what a crock of shame. I understand maybe some you just don't like the Beach Boys anyway, some have grown tired of listening to Pet Sounds and Smile bootlegs, or some just don't think Brian Wilson re-recording Smile thirty some-odd years after the fact sounds appealing, but shit. If you haven't even HEARD this, you are missing out. Seriously. People say that all the time, but I can't think a more appropriate instance. This is, matter of factly, one the the pantheon of huge, legendary pop or rock or whatever albums EVER. Of ALL TIME. It's like Sgt. Peppers coming out and people just being "ahh. whatever. Let's listen to Chk Chk Chk."
Sorry, enough lecturing. Let's get to the soundz. First I'll say that I'm pleased to see on metacritic that it is the the best reviewed album of the year, when of course it should be. I've had the bootlegs for years, and this trumps it. Easily. Brian Wilson can't sing like he used to, which is the only thing keeping this from being cemented as my favorite album of all time. One of my favorite songs of all time, Surf's Up, loses a little bit of sorcery because he can't hit the high falsetto notes anymore, creating a harmony for himself, enabling one the backing vocalists take high road on a few lines. "Columnated ruins DOMINO!" That part. He can, however, still sing better than almost anyone, and that's good enough for me. What elevates this so far above the bootlegs, aside from some of songs actually being finished, is the sequence. I've always been sort of obsessed with sequencing, believing that it can make or break a record, and that belief is solidified here. He throws every bootlegger for a loop, dividing it into three seamless suites, and ending it not with the melancholy Surf's Up, but the ebullient smash hit Good Vibrations, changing to tone of the whole album. I can't fathom how he could come up with something as simultaneously weird and catchy and flowing as this, and I am so thankful that he did, even if it was thirty years late.
Honorable Mentions:
1. Deerhoof - Milkman
2. Fiery Furnaces - Blueberry Boat
3. Magnetic Fields - i
4. Tussle - Don't Stop ep
Disappointments:
1. Ted Leo - Shake the Sheets
First song is great; the rest purely mediocre in my opinion.
2. Wilco - Tom Joad forever
Sorry OJ, but this was a HUGE let down for me. The things you mentioned- the guitar solo in the first song, and also the krautrock song- those are the only things that really do it for me. This would be number one, but I didn't really like the Ted Leo album at all, whereas this has some good stuff. This is nowhere even within the realm of YHF, possibly one of my favorite albums ever.
3. Magnetic Fields - i
Yes, they got an hon. mention, and they're on the diss list. That's how high my expectations were for this. I was really looking forward to him getting away from the 69 Love Songs nuttery and putting out a short, quality-laden, every song is awesome album. Nope.
Best Album That Was Totally Last Year But I Really Got Into It This Year:
M83 - Tom Joad Encore Set
Wow. I really just took up a lot of time at work. I bet most of you are off. Thanks for reading this far if you did. And Hillary and everyone else who write in the comments sections, please post a top ten at some point. We need your lists for mes ecl 2004 mix.
Oh, what a freaking good year for music, and my boss is out today. The love in my heart! I have really enjoyed my relationship with music over the last couple years. If I had attempted to make a top ten list between the years of say 1998-2002, I would've only gotten about three albums deep. In fact, I remember the only other time I've tried to make a top ten list I only could muster three albums. I don't know what my problem was then, or what my lack of a problem is now, but this year and last I could probably even make a top fifteen or twenty. I know one reason is because I can download stuff that I read about all day at work, but that wasn't the case last year, which was a great one too.
10. The Go! Team - Thunder, Lightning, Strike
This one slips in at ten because I only JUST heard it about a week ago, so I would feel guilty putting it any higher. At any rate, I've been jamming this one hard and I suspect that, given different circumstances, it would rank much higher than ten. What is this shit, you ask? Fucking would-be, could-be TV show theme songs. A-Team, Thundercats, G. I. Joe, Peanuts, Mr. Belvedere, Jake and the Fatman- you get the picture. Most of the songs are instrumental all-out jams, but some employ vocals that sound like 13 year old black girls. The songs with vocals have a more 80's rap/shout/singing thing that sounds something like Technotronic/ESG/SaltNPepa, I guess. Bottom line, this is the type of album that you can just put on at party and everyone will be forced to start dancing. No worries about making some mix cd. I'm actually probably going to bring it to the place Still Flyin' is playing at tonight for a dance party after the show.
9. Lil' Flip Scoldjah - Out Francin' Yall
What can I say, other than I almost got my mind truly blown. I'm talking blown like... well, I can't really remember the last time my mind got a blowjob. Maybe when Dark first told me he was engaged. Anyway, so I'm in a shit-talking club that plays fantasy football, and you know the story from when you read OJ's top ten. If I hadn't caught wind of it DAYS before I received it (these dudes obviously don't understand the postal system, i.e. it might take longer for the mail to get to San Francisco from Athens than it does Atlanta from Athens), I would have been thunderstruck. Fuck the stress. I almost made this a shared spot with Wee Turtles - Fantastic Four to tha Floor, but that's a lame thing to do to begin with, and it's not officially out yet. It'll be on next year's list.
8. Futureheads - s/t
You want to hate them. That name sucks. You see it and you think "what is this shit?" If I didn't have a computer, I would never have heard them. Well, I like to attempt to know what's going on, and at least hear the "hot" bands (not to mention half of the songs were produced by Gang of Four's Andy Gill), so I downloaded their album. First song- hmm.. this is surprisingly pretty good.. for about ten seconds, then the main vocals come in... yeah, okay, that's what I thought it would sound like for about ten seconds, then the chorus comes with the barbershop quartet shit... this is strange. Well, I thought the second song was legitimately good on first listen, and the fourth and fifth songs are fucking hits. These dudes can make some catchy, catchy, fucking catchy songs, and I can't fight that.
7. Panda Bear - Young Prayer
So this is the year of the Animal Collective. This is the solo album of the drummer/singer made for his deceased father. Panda Bear, Young Prayer, made for dead father. That is EXACTLY what this sounds like, actually. I was just trying to figure out how to describe this, and that's perfect. There are no song titles, it could be argued that there are no songs, but this has great, vulnerable singing and gentle droning acoustic guitars and piano. It's much closer to classical music than pop, and obviously I mean that in a good way.
6. Bugs Eat Books - Another Ghost of Tom Joad
I wish I could cut a tune like Rob Derrick. I've always been a big fan of his songs and his band, and have been chomping at the bit for what, like six years, for this god damn album. They know how take their sweet, sweet time. Well, I'm glad it's out finally. You thought I was going to say "well, I'm glad they did". Fuck that. If they'd have gotten off their asses and went to the fucking studio it could have come out at least two years ago, but then it wouldn't have included my favorite song of theirs, one of the runners up to song of the year: whatever the hell the first song is called. That's another thing: Rob likes to make it so the song titles are pretentious and hard to remember for dumb people like me.
5. Sun Kil Moon - Ghost of Tom Joad doin' It Again
Okay, so this came out last year, but I'm sticking it on here for two reasons. One, I've actually spotted it on other top ten lists for this year (which leads me to believe that maybe it came out at the very end of last year), and two, it contains the song of the year for me: Glenn Tipton. I know all the words and I know how to play it, even though I never have tried to. I jammed it so many times, and it was in my head even more than that. I can't understand why, but the lyrics of the song just really do it for me. I really really like the lyrics and Mark Kozelek's voice. And I'm always a sucker for a spare beginning that keeps adding instruments as it goes along (in this case, another guitar, then stand up bass, then another guitar, and then the drums come in for the very end). And here's the kicker- it sustains the quality level after opening with "Glenn Tipton". Every single song on this is good.
4. Electrelane - The Power Out
I haven't heard this in a while, and I think it came out almost a full year ago. The first time I heard it, I didn't really think one way or the other. Then they played a show with a friend's band, and I liked them pretty well. My girlfriend, who seems to like almost any music made by women (side note- I asked her the other day to name one band with a girl singer that she didn't like. She said she didn't like Ani DiFranco and Life Without Buildings' vocals. That's all she could come up with.) bought the album, so I heard it in her car a lot. Next thing I knew I was borrowing it from her and jamming it on the way to work. I may have listened to this album more than any other this year. What do they sound like? Sort of like Stereolab, but not as self-consciously lame (or more so). Their songs tend to start with some sort of cool restrained riff, and it become more and more unhinged throughout the song, which is just the same riff over and over, with vocal changes. And the vocals! I really like them; they manage to be abrasive, powerful, and pretty at various points and sometimes all at once. And she sings in three languages. Normally that type of showing off would be a negative strike, but with her singing style, you don't really even notice it; you're already lulled into the center of the earth.
3. Dungen - Ta Det Lungt
This one blew me away, which isn't to be confused with getting my mind blown. Getting your mind blown renders you devoid of speech and more importantly, thought. Getting blown away is like getting your ears and mind and groin knocked down and you immediately bouncing back up, licking your lips for more. I've already talked about this on the mez ext, but shit, I'll talk about a little bit more. I was just chilling out, talking to some buddies, drinking a cold one, smoking some drugs. My buddy's messing around on the computer, and then he unleashes dungen out of nowhere. No "hey guys, check this out". No nothing. He was just noodling on the computer and then I got blown to bits. That thirty second drum solo into an awesome song- that's the sign of a BRUTE of a record. It feels weird to put this so high up when I've only been intimate with this for a few weeks, but that's just how much this shit blows me away. I only got the actual CD a few days ago, but I've been jamming the illegal downloads at work over and over and over ever since I found out about it.
[huge gap]
2. Animal Collective - Sung Tongs
This is like nothing I have ever heard before in my life. Like ewoks on drugs. That's the best I can come up with. I read a couple rapturous reviews of this album and did the download thing. For how weird this thing is, surprisingly, I was engulfed on the first listen of the first tune. By the time it got to song 4 (Winter's Love- another runner up for song of the year), I decided I was buying it on the way home. The singing is mystical and beautiful and quite simply amazing. The drumming is so original and works so well. Fuck, EVERYTHING does. I honestly became obsessed with this album for a stretch. Embarrassingly obsessed, like I wanted to quit playing pop music, even though I knew I couldn't do stuff like this, but I just had no interest in doing it anymore. Well, that subsided, and I actually haven't listened to this in a long time, but writing this is making me long for it once more.
1. Brian Wilson - Smile
I suspect this will be Smile's only appearance on a mes ecl top ten list, and what a crock of shame. I understand maybe some you just don't like the Beach Boys anyway, some have grown tired of listening to Pet Sounds and Smile bootlegs, or some just don't think Brian Wilson re-recording Smile thirty some-odd years after the fact sounds appealing, but shit. If you haven't even HEARD this, you are missing out. Seriously. People say that all the time, but I can't think a more appropriate instance. This is, matter of factly, one the the pantheon of huge, legendary pop or rock or whatever albums EVER. Of ALL TIME. It's like Sgt. Peppers coming out and people just being "ahh. whatever. Let's listen to Chk Chk Chk."
Sorry, enough lecturing. Let's get to the soundz. First I'll say that I'm pleased to see on metacritic that it is the the best reviewed album of the year, when of course it should be. I've had the bootlegs for years, and this trumps it. Easily. Brian Wilson can't sing like he used to, which is the only thing keeping this from being cemented as my favorite album of all time. One of my favorite songs of all time, Surf's Up, loses a little bit of sorcery because he can't hit the high falsetto notes anymore, creating a harmony for himself, enabling one the backing vocalists take high road on a few lines. "Columnated ruins DOMINO!" That part. He can, however, still sing better than almost anyone, and that's good enough for me. What elevates this so far above the bootlegs, aside from some of songs actually being finished, is the sequence. I've always been sort of obsessed with sequencing, believing that it can make or break a record, and that belief is solidified here. He throws every bootlegger for a loop, dividing it into three seamless suites, and ending it not with the melancholy Surf's Up, but the ebullient smash hit Good Vibrations, changing to tone of the whole album. I can't fathom how he could come up with something as simultaneously weird and catchy and flowing as this, and I am so thankful that he did, even if it was thirty years late.
Honorable Mentions:
1. Deerhoof - Milkman
2. Fiery Furnaces - Blueberry Boat
3. Magnetic Fields - i
4. Tussle - Don't Stop ep
Disappointments:
1. Ted Leo - Shake the Sheets
First song is great; the rest purely mediocre in my opinion.
2. Wilco - Tom Joad forever
Sorry OJ, but this was a HUGE let down for me. The things you mentioned- the guitar solo in the first song, and also the krautrock song- those are the only things that really do it for me. This would be number one, but I didn't really like the Ted Leo album at all, whereas this has some good stuff. This is nowhere even within the realm of YHF, possibly one of my favorite albums ever.
3. Magnetic Fields - i
Yes, they got an hon. mention, and they're on the diss list. That's how high my expectations were for this. I was really looking forward to him getting away from the 69 Love Songs nuttery and putting out a short, quality-laden, every song is awesome album. Nope.
Best Album That Was Totally Last Year But I Really Got Into It This Year:
M83 - Tom Joad Encore Set
Wow. I really just took up a lot of time at work. I bet most of you are off. Thanks for reading this far if you did. And Hillary and everyone else who write in the comments sections, please post a top ten at some point. We need your lists for mes ecl 2004 mix.
