My Blogging Habit Has Been Blown... To Kingdom Come

Holy jalapenos in a hot pocket... it's been almost six months since I said a damn thing. The last thing I said was "Grizzly Bear is awesome," and the only activity is a gaggle of Google-ogling haters reminding me that my Hate Binky post is the #1 search result on Google for "Animal Collective sucks." Not complaining about that per se... cause hey, fight the powers that be. But I have hit blog bottom, and it smells like moth balls down here. Time to bust out the biscuits and strike up the band.

So let's see what I've been up to, culture-wise:

DINING & TRAVEL

I ate cream cheese on a bagel. I ate smoked mackerel. I ate at one of Las Vegas's finest buffets, shortly after eating the best Egg McMuffin I have ever had. I drew a picture of myself with blood pouring out of my mouth in crayon at a $30-an-entree restaurant. I ordered filet mignon shortly after drawing said picture. It was delicious. The filet mignon, not the drawing. The drawing was underdone. Those things happened over the past six months.

FILM

My Netflix queue has become a cesspool. I still haven't finished my Best Movies of 2008 post, and it's almost 2010. Not that I'll be writing a 2009 post from the look of it... I have seen exactly one film in a theater since the last time I posted anything here: the sixth Harry Potter movie. It was great, until the end, when it absolutely blew. How do you make the most devastating moment in the series totally boring and matter-of-fact? Makes me want to puke in a sorting hat.

TV

Lost. That's about it. Almost done with season two, and so far it's everything I'd hoped for. Mad Men's been awesome, but that ain't news.

MUSIC

Kind of a blah year for Teh Rock. To invert a Louis CK truism, nothing is awesome, and everyone's happy. Really? We're happy that Animal Collective and Dirty Projectors are the only things we can really hang our hats on this year? We're fine with that being the direction of music?

The only real victory of the year, musically speaking, the only true, top-to-bottom legitimate contender for Best Album of 2009, is Manners, from Cambridge's own Passion Pit. Continuing the burgeoning trend of New Order/Devo fixation, as epitomized by the likes of Cut Copy and Holy Fuck and Hot Chip, Passion Pit have brought the synth-heavy sound to bright, fun, bouncy new places. There's nothing complicated or challenging about them... I don't see PP changing the game or blazing new trails in music or anything. But I don't care. Manners is flat-out incredible from start to finish. All the words being used to describe Merriweather Post Pavilion that I hated so much? "Danceable," "universal," "accessible," and so forth? Those words describe Passion Pit.

Behold:

"To Kingdom Come"



"Little Secrets"



"The Reeling"



See? Isn't that some fun-ass fun? You know it is.

(Also of interest is Andrew Kuo's thoughts, visualized, on a show of theirs last year as well as their debut EP, Chunk of Change.)

Basically, this is the one breakout masterpiece of the year. Manners is the only front-to-back excellent album of the year; even Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix has its uncompelling moments. It'd be great to hear another breakout pop album before Christmas but I'm not holding my breath. It's not that kind of year. (Embryonic doesn't count, cause Embryonic is fucked up.)

It's bad enough that my primary musical fascination since the beginning of the summer has been late 70's/early 80's punk (Buzzcocks, Wire, Minutemen) and post-punk (Gang of Four, Mission of Burma, Pere Ubu) and neither (Elvis Costello). I've gone 30 years back in time to find something that moves me. I don't think I'll be able to do this again next year.

But until then... Double Nickels On The Dime, you are fabulous.

CAWK KACAWK KACAWWWWW!

Tweet of the week goes to famous blogger Jason Kottke, who taught his infant son to perform the inimitable apparently imitable after all Gob Bluth chicken dance.

Kottke provides linkage but just in case you forgot a single occurrence of the chicken dance:

Blogging By Linking Always Sunny Videos Theater, Part III

My favorite It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia sequence of late has been Charlie's official job title as the group's "wildcard," after three seasons of doing it pro bono. Hilarity, as it always does, ensues.









The other 12 seconds of this ep that I didn't show here are also very funny. Solid episode all around. And it really makes you think...

Alvin, You Were A Little Flat... Watch It

Having been walloped over the weekend by a white Christmas, having put the lights on the tree and the presents beneath it, and having guaranteed myself another Christmas Eve filled with frantic store-to-store driving, I have been overtaken by Christmas spirit. And I saved a mouthful of spirit for you! Enjoy.

ALF As Northwest Psych/Folk Pop

I wasn't sure who would appreciate this... but here's a video of a Blitzen Trapper song set to ALF footage.



(h/t)

Green Man: A Life In Pictures

Writing posts is hard, so instead take these fine clips of this fine persona from a fine show.

Ballwashing The National Again

Ignore the fan-video visual. Just listen to this simple, perfect song. Lucky you.

Nobody Expects the Palin Inquisition

I've been thinking about this since Sarah Palin was announced. Thank goodness someone else videotaped my thoughts...

You Mean Doctor Galazkiewicz?

I've always been a little puzzled by Eddie Jemison's presence in the Ocean's 11 movies. Apart from Shaobo Qin, whose role calls for anonymity, Jemison is the only unknown in a movie whose sole premise is to have celebrities in even its smallest roles. In that way, he stands out.

And yet despite not being a known quantity, he has always felt strangely familiar to me. For a long time, I thought it was because he appeared to be at ease, to belong, amidst the Pitts and Clooneys to an unexpected degree.

But tonight, thanks to this guy, I realized why. Behold:



HE'S FUCKING DR. GALAZKIEWICZ!!! I always wondered what happened to that guy! He had stardom written all over him. And sure enough! But man, that was awesome to discover.

A Video's Worth The Time It Takes To Write A Post

Seems like every summer I lose all ability to finish the posts I start. But they're not perfect yet. I'll make up for this radio silence eventually.

Until then, enjoy this. At least SOMEONE has a way with words around here.

Why YouTube Should Have A Repeat Button

If they did, I would put this on repeat, and leave it on repeat. Wouldn't that be awesome?

Boo-Yahhhhhh

This canned but funny Hellboy II promo was brought to my attention here...



Hellboy kicked ass. Hellboy II will kick the ass of whoever normally kicks asses, but will then defend its ass against the dude trying to kick his ass.

Jump In The Line

Been a long time since I've listened to Harry Belafonte.

I was sitting at home the other night, minding my own business, when I found myself humming to nobody in particular... jump in the line, rock your body in time, OK, I believe you...



That led me down two separate lines of nostalgic superlatives: remembering that Beetlejuice is one of my favorite movies (and characters) ever, and remembering that Belafonte was the best Muppet Show guest ever. I dare you to watch this video without feeling warm.



Thank goodness for the Interwebs... without YouTube, I'd have had to go out and buy something to feel that good.

Apatow FTW Part II: Pineapple Express Trailer

The red-band trailer here is NSFW, unless you work in a profane, weed-filled office.



HOLY HELL YES. Are we all going to enjoy the shit out of that or what? They had me at "thatisgoodweeeeeed!"

(Also, programming note... since Mr. Apatow is producing like 12-14 movies for the upcoming summer alone, I expect there will be plenty more Apatow FTW posts to come.)

Apatow FTW: Forgetting Sarah Marshall Trailer

I'm not cheered up just yet, but this helps:

The proverbial universe of Hollywood hasn't removed its proverbial lips from Judd Apatow's non-proverbial dong just yet. And rightly not, because Apatow and his cabal of miscreants continue to churn out funny shit, as is proved by this faaaaantastic (and NSFW) red-band trailer for Forgetting Sarah Marshall. I'm sold!

(thanks)

Easiest Post Ever

If a picture is worth a thousand words, then this video is worth Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace. Also, this is hilarious.



(hat tip)

Best Albums Addendum

A few leftover thoughts and reflections, following up on my best-of list.

* Best songs of the year:

Bloc Party - "I Still Remember"
Song of the year. I watched the video again as research, and got goosebumps. Almost a full year after the fact. Stunning. There is no excuse, whatsoever, for this song to have made no inroads on the American charts. It's not even hip!

LCD Soundsystem - "All My Friends"
Simple, bouncy, pithy, heartbreaking. James Murphy is living proof of David Byrne's theory that a deeply imperfect vocalist will connect with his audience better than a good one will. "All My Friends" and "Someone Great" are classic examples.

Jens Lekman - "Your Arms Around Me"
Another tune so perfect and classic that it couldn't possibly have come from the modern day. This song floors me.

Battles - "Tonto"
Absolutely epic. Any prog fan should shit a brick over the midsection of this one.

Spoon - "You Got Yr Cherry Bomb"
Incredible in any era. Totally timeless. White Texan geeks should not get the Motown sound so right.

The Twilight Sad - "Cold Days From The Birdhouse"
I'm a sucker for thick Scottish accents. They turn a great turn of phrase into something epic and authoritative. Not that the build up from slide-twang to heavy electric fuzz wouldn't have rocked the shit on its own. Boot raead thes fookin paeragraph agaen en a Scoattish accant, aen taell me ye disnae prefaer it thet wae. (Ye coont, ye.)

Honorable mention:
Band of Horses - "Is There A Ghost"
of Montreal - "The Past Is A Grotesque Animal"
Holy Fuck - "Lovely Allen"
Klaxons - "Golden Skans"
!!! - "Heart of Hearts"
Feist - "1 2 3 4"
Noisettes - "Sister Rosetta (Capture The Spirit)"

* I should have made it clearer how much I like The Field and Burial's respective work. Sticking it in the "overrated" ghetto doesn't really convey how good I think they are, or how much enjoyment I've gotten. Untrue in particular makes me wish I was drunk at 3AM with an hour's walk home ahead of me.

* The more I listen to Boxer by The National, the more I like it. I've had it in steady rotation for almost six months now, and it's still revealing new shit to me. Much as it's missing that one standout song to tie the record together, it keeps getting better and better nonetheless.

* Since posting the video for Simian Mobile Disco's "Hustler," I discovered that a new video was made for the track's inclusion on Attack Decay Sustain Release. It's messed up, clearly owing a debt of gratitude to Aphex Twin. (I'm not even a Richard D. James kinda guy, and I knew it was all about Aphex Twin freaking us all the fuck out. Though to be fair, if you encounter some seriously WTF messed-up shit in any context, chalking it up to James and Chris Cunningham is a safe bet. Come to daddy!!!)

Anyway, here's the new version... just as sleazy, but this time way funnier, and with a brand-new ending: punishment for being shallow! LOLOLOLOL!



* A few more albums that I should have mentioned:

Andrew Bird - Armchair Apocrypha
If you can write a hook around the phrase "thank God it's fatal," you're a champ.

Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings - 100 Days, 100 Nights
Nicole Willis and the Soul Investigators - Keep Reachin' Up
Poster children for retro soul, along with The Budos Band. Jones and Willis aren't bringing anything "new," but when it's this good, who cares? It's not as if the Stax/Motown sound is so revolting to our ears that we can't take a little bit more, right?

Manu Chao - La Radiolina
Mad genius. He gets docked points for reusing material from his work with Amadou & Mariam a couple years back. But as above, it's Manu Chao. It's not tired and repetitive... it's leftovers.

* Look, I'm a reasonable guy. Pitchfork thinks a lot of itself as a symbol/torchbearer, and acts accordingly, but when it comes to rating albums, they're usually a reliable source. I may not agree that last year's choice, The Knife's Silent Shout, was the best record of 2006, but it's defensible. I may not be a huge fan of love/hate acts like Clap Your Hands Say Yeah or Joanna Newsom, but I do acknowledge that they have something to offer and understand if people are deeply moved by their work. I may disagree when they champion a crappy band like Grizzly Bear, but if they want to stick their neck out and be totally wrong every now and then, that's their prerogative. I know where that comes from.

But don't hold up a piece of shit as the best album of the year. You're insulting everyone who actually made music over the last twelve months.

I can neither defend nor respect their selection. I truly believe that fans of Panda Bear have been punk'd; that enjoyment of this album represents an intellectual failure on the part of the listener; that the folks who call it a work of beauty, or a deeply moving blah blah blah or whatever, are fooling themselves; and that certain people want to call a piece of pretentious, non-musical shit like Person Pitch a work of genius, simply in order to look superior, to look like they see something you don't.

It is a sucker's bet. Someone smart enough to know better gets fooled by all the precision and hard work required to bring it to "life"... and in doing so looks past how boring, meandering and pointless it is.

Hey, I can look at a blank white wall and call it a work of artistic genius too. Doesn't mean there's something there.

It takes precision and hard work to scribble onto a wall with your own feces. That alone doesn't make the end result worthy of my time, let alone artistic.

Bottom line: if Person Pitch is where music is headed, I'm throwing myself into Verdi and Maria Callas and calling it a life.

Reason #86 Why I Want To Be A Kangaroo

Hat tips. NSFW if you work at a zoo... borderline otherwise.

Best Albums Of 2007

In a world... where art is enumerated...

In a place... that only exists in your computer...

In a time... when bloggers lay claim to that which is not theirs...

One man... will pretend he knows something.

... the Dunkin Donuts guy.



Well... I was hoping to discuss Time To Make The Donuts, my biopic about Fred the Baker. However, those prick Weinstein brothers refuse to release it without first cutting it to shreds in an attempt to make it more "commercial." So I can't. Let's talk about music instead.

I couldn't just make a quick list and leave it at that. Having blogged so inconsistently means that I haven't really gone on the record concerning most of the music I liked. So I've got a big one brewing. And this isn't even the end... I've got a Best Songs post on deck after this.

First things last:

* I've included videos where possible, and mp3s only in one particularly critical case.

* Seems I didn't hear much hip-hop this year. My iTunes playlist for 2007 only shows four artists: Kanye West, Talib Kweli, Common, and Blue Scholars. (All recommended.) Haven't heard the new Jay-Z, Ghostface Killah or Wu-Tang either. I'm basically calling a mulligan on hip-hop this year. Just go here for some expertise, cause I got none.

* The Pitchfork mind-meld procedure is surprisingly gentle. But they do go in through the rectum.

OK... let's chug some Haterade and Red Balls so we can get things going.

---

The Very Worst
(or "How To Tell What The Good Parts Of The List Won't Sound Like")

Animal Collective - Strawberry Jam
I suppose this pegs me as someone who just doesn't get them. Maybe I'll eventually come around, or have some big epiphany. But until then, I will wear my ignorance like a goddamn badge, because all I hear is the sound of two computers blowing each other.



Deerhoof - Friend Opportunity
Absolute garbage. Congratulations, Deerhoof, you recorded the sound of three amateurs taking dumps on their instruments. The result is the musical equivalent of 2 Girls, 1 Cup. Enjoy your status as the torchbearers for the musical genius of Yoko Ono. Your music makes me feel bad for having given you a chance. Thank you. Thank you right to hell. You win the coveted Clap Your Hands Say Yeah award: worst album of the year.



Grizzly Bear - Friend EP
First guy to kick these fuckers in the nuts gets a cookie. I don't want these dopes having kids. I can't imagine, like, six pre-teen Grizzly Bear cover bands running around and ruining everyone else's lives.

[mercifully no video]

Menomena - Friend And Foe
Man... if you put the word "Friend" in your album, you apparently suck balls. With friends like these, shoot yourself.



Panda Bear - Person Pitch
I don't understand this at all. This guy's a sound editor, not a musician. He's just messing around. That's fine, but I could give a shit. Making matters worse, this is his solo project spent while away from his band: Animal Collective. Way to go, Noah, you made two of the most unlistenable turds of the year.

---

The Album I May Eventually Regret Not Liking

Sunset Rubdown - Random Spirit Lover
Here's the thing. I love Wolf Parade, and I love what Spencer Krug brings to the table. And yet I loathe Sunset Rubdown, and not just because it keeps Krug away from Wolf Parade. I should like it. But I find it boring and uninteresting. Maybe this will change. But last year's entry in this space (Joanna Newsom's Ys) hasn't gotten any better. So maybe not.

---

Brilliant Folks What Dropped The Ball With Their Followups

Bright Eyes - Cassadaga
It's not bad. I kinda like "Soul Singer In A Session Band" for some reason. But it's hard to believe this is the same guy who could have used some restraint on Lifted. The video has more to say than Conor Oberst does on the entire album. Let's all hope he gets it back together before he kills himself.



Editors - An End Has A Start
There's a few likable songs on here, but the record as a whole is a far cry from The Back Room. All the energy and verve of "Munich" and "Fingers In The Factories" got scaled back. I liked them better when they were repurposing Interpol's sound instead of Snow Patrol's.

Smokers Outside The Hospital Doors [embedding disabled... fuckers]

Interpol - Our Love To Admire
Speak of the devil. Antics and Turn On The Bright Lights have grown on me, but Our Love isn't doing anything that those albums don't do a lot better. Nobody's gonna go ripping off this one.



Jimmy Eat World - Chase This Light
Most disappointing album of the year. Looks like they're out of songs. The underrated Stay On My Side Tonight EP suggested that they still had their Clarity-era fastball, but this is mostly just the same old crap from a band that should know better. "Big Casino" is the catchiest tune they've got, and it's really better served as like the 4th or 5th track on an album of better, stronger songs.

Big Casino

---

Likable, And Really Good... But Getting Way Too Much Love

Burial - Untrue
+
The Field - Here We Go Sublime
I'm no expert here. Both are worthy of inclusion in my own personal techno pantheon, which is quite small. But I can't honestly rank them. They're both albums I wouldn't hesitate to play or recommend, but best of the year? Not for me.

[no video]

Justice - †
The trendy dance/techno pick, universally hailed and revered despite its mediocre, momentum-killing center of "Valentine" and "The Party." I'm not feeling the universal love for "D.A.N.C.E.," either. Great song, great video, really derivative. Maybe I just feel spoiled by "We Are Your Friends," which is better by a wide margin than any track on †. Who knows. But I can safely say that this is not a great album, and definitely not as great as it's considered by the criterati.



Kanye West - Graduation
I'll repeat my complaint about Late Registration: he's as earnest as anyone's ever been in the same position, but I still can't get past what a rapper with some actual tricks up his sleeve would have done with the same beats. Also, four words: "Drunk And Hot Girls." Oh Mos Def, why hast thou forsaken us?

---

Three Albums Worth A Shout-Out

Blue Scholars - Bayani
The Budos Band - The Budos Band II
Holy Fuck - LP

---

Partial Credit: Stuff I Might Have Ranked If I'd Heard Them Sooner

Bonde do Rolê - With Lasers
The Real Tuesday Weld - The London Book Of The Dead
Okkervil River - The Stage Names
Pela - Anytown Graffiti
Patrick Wolf - The Magic Position

---

Stop Me Before I Release Another EP

Tokyo Police Club - Smith, Your English Is Good
I'm amazed that they've basically written, like, two or three songs so far... played those same three songs about a dozen ways across their various EPs and singles... and every single song still feels unique and fresh. They've certainly got no shortage of ideas. I hope to Jesus their full-length is as good as their EPs have been.

[No time for videos! Get your Canadian asses in the studio!]

---

Noteworthy Runners-Up

Art Brut - It's A Bit Complicated
Likable. I'd have put it in the "disappointments" list up top, but they had such an impossible task... and Complicated is actually a fair follow-up anyway. I prefer Eddie Argos when he's turning a song genre inside out ("Good Weekend," "Rusted Guns of Milan") or being flat-out ridiculous ("18,000 Lira"... sounds like a lot of money) than when he's yapping about girls and lying around in bed... who wouldn't prefer the old Eddie Argos? But if this is what Art Brut has to be from now on, it's a happy little medium.



Band of Horses - Cease To Begin
Everything All The Time is kinda dry and boring, "The Funeral" excepted. The meatier, thicker sound on Cease To Begin does them a lot of favors. "Is There A Ghost" and "Cigarettes, Wedding Bands" are big improvements sound-wise on everything on Everything.



Feist - The Reminder
It falls where Neko Case fell for me last year. Highly recommended, frequently enjoyed, but not something I connected with. Not much going on beneath the veneer of the music, either... it's really just underproduced crooning. But still good.



Jose Gonzalez - In Our Nature
Yes, folks, it's yet another finger-style folk-rocking Latin Swede! When will someone come up with an original angle??? So yeah, he's incredible. Every Nick Drake comparison is a well-earned compliment, but Gonzalez has a cool, pulsing, slightly sinister calm that is decidedly unlike Drake's joyous, colorful devastation.



Klaxons - Myths of the Near Future
I wanted to love this more than I do, because there are some seriously awesome songs on here ("Atlantis to Interzone," "Golden Skans," "Gravity's Rainbow"). But the rest is lazy, unmemorable, disposable, and sometimes embarrassing. ("18:30 on the Julius Caesar / Lady Diana and Mother Teresa"? Huh? Mercury Prize my dong.) "Hook + Nonsense" works as a formula, but when the hook doesn't work, they're shit out of luck.



Talib Kweli - Eardrum
A case where stepping backwards puts you in the right direction. The beats on The Beautiful Struggle didn't have much bite; Eardrum's got bite to burn. Feels like a slicker version of Reflection Eternal, which is a good thing.



Jens Lekman - Night Falls Over Kortedala
Ingenious stuff. He does it all... humor, insight, sweetness, self-reference, pith, you name it. He's really nailed this lilting-English, postmodern Burt Bachrach act he's got. But if I don't listen to Bachrach, why would I listen to Lekman? I tip my cap, but this sort of thing ain't my bag, baby.

(Nothing suitable on YouToogleGube, but go here and download "Your Arms Around Me." Then come back and thank me. I like being thanked.)

Noisettes - What's The Time, Mr. Wolf?
That quality that allows you to simply say someone "rocks"? They have it. Decidedly different and unique. Enjoyed the shit out of them in person, and the album's just as strong. "Sister Rosetta" is one of my favorites of the year.

[Sister Rosetta (Capture The Spirit)... ironically, this video doesn't capture their spirit at all]

Simian Mobile Disco - Attack Decay Sustain Release
Awesome, straightforward electronica. More front-to-back consistent than most techno debuts. And any excuse to show the "Hustler" boner-fest in polite company is good enough for me!



The Twilight Sad - Fourteen Winters And Fifteen Autumns
Their spacey, meandering, and ultimately explosive sound is good and all, but it's all held together by their singer's northern English accent. Seriously. The accent really bangs home the iconic lyrics, especially in the opening track.

[no video]

---

#15-11: Kings Of The Losers

Arcade Fire - Neon Bible
A worthy successor to Funeral, proving beyond any shadow of a doubt that they're here to stay. Clearly they were working on the organ sounds, with much patience. No "buts" are coming, either... I just don't feel like putting it on my best-of list. I don't think I can displace any album on the forthcoming list with Neon Bible. (Bonus: watch them play the title track in an elevator... living it up while they're going down!)



Battles - Mirrored
The last album to fall from the list, after several flip-flops. Best sounding album of the year... the clearest, cleanest rock recording I've heard in a long time. And the drumming is absolutely nuts. But I ultimately docked this one a few points for losing me toward the end of the record. 1-5... best album of the year. After that, it's just studio wizardry. But all the praise they've received elsewhere is totally warranted and earned. Behold the genius that is "Tonto."



The Go! Team - Proof of Youth
Doesn't have the freshness of Thunder, Lightning, Strike, but it has its fair share of winners. Anything with the wrath of either Marcie or Mikey involved can't be all bad. Note how perfectly their "Doing It Right" video translates the band's grainy, lo-fi, Schoolhouse Rock sound into visuals:



Stars - In The Bedroom After The War
Just a solid, reliable, straight-ahead pop album. Thoroughly enjoyable, and unremarkable in a good way. It's comforting to know that someone's out there playing plain old well-made pop.



Ted Leo + Pharmacists - Living With The Living
I really wanted to show Ted more love. It stands up to his best work, growing on me the more I listen to it. "Sons of Cain" kicks all kinds of ass. But the few missteps he makes (e.g. "The Unwanted Things" and its phony-baloney reggae) really stand out... and not in an endearing way, like "Bottle of Buckie" or "Bomb. Repeat. Bomb." In a skip-me-every-time way. When you're a punk-pop trio, your margin for error is pretty thin when it comes to genre experiments, and those here didn't work.

---

#10-1: The Top Ten

We start out with a huge upset:

10. Of Montreal - Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer?
I usually hate shrill music like this. Until about a month ago, I was going to award them the Clap Your Hands Say Yeah award for overrated, intolerable trash. Then two things happened: 1) I remembered that Clap Your Hands Say Yeah actually put out an album themselves, and 2) I revisited Hissing Fauna and lost my shit. They went from the Worst List to the Top 10. Bravo, gentlemen Kevin Barnes.

This Brothers Chaps-directed video for "Heimdalsgate," one of the most randomly bizarre videos I've ever seen, had a lot to do with the turnaround.



9. Radiohead - In Rainbows
This album needs a slap. The universal acclaim MUST be given a rest. It's good... it's not that good. It's not even amongst their best work! How can it be on the top of so many lists?

Something tells me the backstory with their self-release, and the ensuing media feeding frenzy, played a huge role in the album's toasty reception. After all, what really sells music to nerds is the backstory. All their parents and friends like totally died n' stuff, and that's why they called it "Funeral!" I'm gonna go blog about these guys! And so forth.

Bottom line for me... a great album from a great band, one that lived up to my expectations. And that's about it.



8. Bloc Party - A Weekend In The City
This one bounces around all over the place... it's gone from my top 3, to out of the top 10 entirely, to back in. It's been sliding around like soap in a prison shower. I slotted it above In Rainbows at the last second. But what am I supposed to do? It's both a bitter disappointment and an explosive success at the same time.

I'm still torn. It's one of the performances of the year. It follows through on its quasi-concept-album ambitions, and constitutes a leap forward for the band both musically and lyrically. But this isn't the "top 10 performances" list. The filler between classics like "Hunting For Witches" and "I Still Remember" isn't really memorable. Likable enough, but those weaker songs are mostly unworthy of the band. It's hard not to wish they'd done more. How high can you rank an album like that? And then I listen to "I Still Remember" again, and I (ha) remember what I love so much about it. My brain will explode if I consider moving it up or down the list again, so I'm leaving it right here.



7. The National - Boxer
It took many, many listens for me to upgrade it from "good ambient rock for those at-work moments" to "I might actually choose to give this some undivided attention." Nothing on Boxer comes close to the highlights of 2005's Alligator ("Abel," "Mr. November") but it's still an deep, accomplished album. There's more going on than meets the ear on the first listen... maybe not as much as the band's most ardent fans and defenders think, but more than you'd get on a single quick listen. It is the very model of a "grower."



6. !!! - Myth Takes
I was a bit too hard on Nic Offer in my initial review, for which I've since apologized. I didn't give him adequate credit for having scaled back the not-as-clever-as-he-thinks lyrics. There are groan-inducing moments (most of "Must Be The Moon," and the previously-deconstructed "Sweet Life") but Myth Takes still contains his best work. And that's before getting to the music, which is a gigantic step forward, a refinement and expansion of the sound they created on !!! and Louden Up Now. Great stuff.



5. The New Pornographers - Challengers
With every listen, the spreading of wings doesn't feel nearly as drastic as it did the first few times around. Apart from the more-obvious-than-ever comparisons to Fleetwood Mac, the band comes through with its deepest and thickest work yet. Each song on Challengers could have been re-arranged to work in the band's typical sugary mode, but none of them would have been quite right. In fact, the more familiar songs of theirs feel out of place. (Not that they're unwelcome.) Regardless, the changes are a success.



(another non-representative video, but at least this one has a bunch of Neko)

4. Apples in Stereo - New Magnetic Wonder
My #1 on the Irrational Love charts. All of the proper songs are catchy as all hell; it's a hit-or-miss proposition without any misses. And the production is just over-the-top insane; it plays like Robert Schneider's resume for working with other bands. If I have a beef, it's that the interstitial amuse bouche interludes are kinda distracting. My track-skipping finger gets itchy when they come up. However, as was the case with Sufjan Stevens' Come On Feel The Illinoise!, the little nuggets become less of a distraction with each listen. And they give the album some structure.



(the "Can You Feel It" video doesn't do them any favors)

3. Modest Mouse - We Were Dead Before The Ship Even Sank
The blew-me-away rock-out album of the year. It's a shame that people thought it was a step back, because it's a phenomenally accomplished rock album. They took the sound they perfected on Good News and used that power to rock our collective balls off. If I had a band, I'd want to knock people's cremaster muscles backwards too, turning men into women and women into men with the immovable force of my rock. That's not quite what Modest Mouse did to me, but it's pretty obvious that gender reversal is what they were after. (Huh? Nautical theme? I don't see that at all. Nope, it's clearly about sex changes.)



2. Spoon - Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga
I'm amazed that they can keep churning out music this good, while making it seem so simple and effortless. It's not like their songs are complicated. But somehow they just have a feel for what's classic and timeless without being unoriginal. "The Underdog" may be reminiscent of Billy Joel, and "You Got Yr Cherry Bomb" may but it's still their own. Who out there is trying to be classic? They're a truly gifted band.



(To find out what the big deal is with the robot, watch him shake his grant-money-maker to Gimme Fiction's "I Turn My Camera On")

1. LCD Soundsystem - Sound of Silver
Perfect. Brilliant dance-pop from start to finish, with nary a stinker on the entire record. The only song you can nitpick is album closer "New York I Love You," but I choose not to. Everything else... just perfect. Not much else to say.

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Phew... I've just about had it. If I missed anything, let me know down below. And look for my list of best songs in the near future.

(P.S. If you read all of the 3,325 words that preceded this, you get another cookie. And don't forget how you can get that first one. Get out there and kick Grizzly Bear in the balls, soldier!!!)

Oi, I've Got The Death Sentence On Twelve Systems, Guvnah!

Star Wars is on HBO right now. They just showed the Mos Eisley cantina sequence. To spice things up this time, I muted the sound and instead sang the "Derka Derka" theme from Team America: World Police over the intro. It was AWESUMMMMMMM

After I'd had my fun, up came a sequence that has always bothered me: the assault of Luke by the fiendish, dastardly Dr. Cornelius Evazan.



What bothers me is the looped dialogue. The lines come nowhere near Dr. Evazan's lip movements. Even with the prosthetics obscuring the actor's lips, they can't even get close. The noticeable lack of sync led me to believe that the line was changed, not that the looping was poor.

So today I decided to ask the Googlewebs what the original line was. The answer lies in the video below, a montage of production footage from the shoot. There are many, many tasty nuggets to be savored (please do) but once you get to the 5:38 mark, you'll hear the original Dr. Evazan dialogue. Turns out the lines didn't get changed... but the actor's accent did.



Cockney! Sweet.

But having heard the original, I'm inspired to speak words that have never been spoken on the Internet until now: I agree with a George Lucas decision. (It's true. That sentence is a Googlenope. Or, at least, it was.)

Anyway, the accents are more earthy, and match the actors' motion much better, but they're also kinda distracting. The accents identify Dr. Evazan and the bartender as Brits (or Shakespeareans) much more than the dubbed accents do. Drawing attention to the dubbing is bad, but it probably would have been worse to draw a comparison between Mos Eisley denizens and lovable Dickensian rogues.

So yeah... nicely done, George Lucas. (Well, 1977 George Lucas. I qualified my praise! Take THAT!)