Writing posts is hard, so instead take these fine clips of this fine persona from a fine show.
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
In Praise Of The Idiot Box
It's garbage day! Two mammoth posts. I've been catching up on some TV lately:
It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia
This surprised me, as I was predisposed to hate this show. I once saw a commercial for the episode "Charlie Gets Cancer" and found the ad supremely unfunny. (Perhaps it was during the baseball playoffs on FX, when I was presumably pissed off about the Yankees or some such nonsense.) I rarely jump into shows about assholes, and this is definitely a show about assholes. The show should be called It's Always Assholes In Philadelphia. (Or maybe just Philadelphia would suffice?)
But my God, is this a really, really good show or what? Not great, but 2x really good. As social satire, it's right up there with Curb and Seinfeld, but with a serious gonzo/stupid streak. Seinfeld meets The Three Stooges. A really simple premise that has been dipped in some seriously off-the-wall shit. It's as if they made a list of the very worst things in the world, and cross off two or three with each episode.
Oh, yes. I'm not entirely sure why these clowns are so endearing, not just to us but to each other, but they are. (Probably a result of their inner Stooge-ness.) I got the good lord goin down on meeeeeee...
Battlestar Galactica
As someone who is generally skeptical of television sci-fi, this is really fantastic. I haven't gotten far enough into it to encounter what I understand is some seriously stupid shit, what I've seen through half of Season One is really excellent.
They pull few punches, and constantly wreak havoc upon their characters, burying them in disaster and giving them a mere toothpick with which to dig themselves out. Dread lies around every corner, ready ruin the entire human race if someone makes just one simple error. The first proper episode of the series establishes this so memorably that they can skate on things further down the road without losing credit. They make you imagine what it would be like to live in fear of the human race dying in the next few minutes.
This show about androids and space flight feels so real because it works on a personal, human level to a greater extent than any other sci-fi show I've seen. The drama doesn't come from imagining some weird alien universe, it comes from allegory and transplanted human feelings. On the show, it's Cylons attacking every 33 minutes; in real life, it's "terrorists" and 9/11.
Either way, highly recommended.
Mad Men
I can't say this is as great a show as it's been built up to be. But it's awfully great. It oozes cool and style and charisma in every frame, serving, as The Sopranos did, as a proxy through which the viewer behaves irresponsibly. You cannot agree with the show's subjects, who have probably done more damage to America than the Mafia, on any count, but Jon Hamm and his off-the-charts likability makes you like and even root for this amoral person nonetheless. He's just barely decent enough to grab you and keep hold as he navigates the slimy waters of his universe.
Heroes
Yes, it's flawed. It's camp, it's derivative, it has awful dialogue, its characters are stupid and frequently act in service of the plot instead of themselves, and it hand-holds you through every step of its labyrinthine plot, unwilling to let even the most fundamental truth go unspoken. But I like it all the same. Because it's fun.
But I'm beginning to lose my patience.
Ever since the first season, they've been flailing around, trying to make this show work. The second season was in many senses a do-over of the first. More new storylines, more unrevealed mysteries, just more, not unlike how The Wire handled its sophomore season... except Heroes was awful.
This season, they've tried to delve more deeply into the same characters, but in reality have done more to invalidate past truths than build upon them. It's been a litany of "remember that? Well that wasn't REALLY how it went" revelations. Why they would want to tell us that what we LIKED was fake, and what we do NOT like is the real deal, I don't know. It's a delicate dance that even when done supremely well can be loathed or rejected (ahem, Matrix Reloaded). This show's writing staff has failed to pull it off.
And while it's nice that they've heard our calls for fewer new characters, they have answered those calls in the most perfunctory manner possible: by simply teaming up odd pairs of heroes and having them do something benign. The effect is the same as, say, the effect satirized so well in the brilliant film Last Action Hero: the movies will always pair up cops in the craziest ways, like the lady cop with the cartoon cat, or (as with the stars) Arnold Schwarzenegger with an eleven-year-old kid. (Gosh, I wish I had video of this.) On the good side, you have something like Lethal Weapon. On the bad side, you have some of the more ridiculous Tom & Jerry cartoons out there, those in which Tom and Jerry have to team up to defeat some third entity, like the dog... it's thrilling because Tom and Jerry are enemies who have teamed up, but after a while, so what? And doesn't it totally undermine the premise (cats and mice) to team them up? Heroes, if you couldn't guess, leans heavily towards Tom & Jerry. Oddness for its own sake sucks after long enough.
So why do I keep watching? I honestly have no idea why this show has the distinction of being the only one I try to watch live. And yet it is. But if this crap keeps up, it won't be for long.
But let's end this on a high note:
30 Rock
Is awesome. I was stunned to discover that 30 Rock isn't a gigantic hit. This show is hilarious, madcap, and entirely accessible. There's no weird Arrested Development-esque barrier to watching... devoid of inside jokes and winks, you can jump in pretty much anywhere without missing a beat. And it killed Studio 60, and justifiably so. Why is this show stuck in the low-rated-Emmy-winners ghetto? It's no longer the mix of trail-blazing and quality that kills ratings... now it's strictly quality! Totally, totally bizarre.
It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia
This surprised me, as I was predisposed to hate this show. I once saw a commercial for the episode "Charlie Gets Cancer" and found the ad supremely unfunny. (Perhaps it was during the baseball playoffs on FX, when I was presumably pissed off about the Yankees or some such nonsense.) I rarely jump into shows about assholes, and this is definitely a show about assholes. The show should be called It's Always Assholes In Philadelphia. (Or maybe just Philadelphia would suffice?)
But my God, is this a really, really good show or what? Not great, but 2x really good. As social satire, it's right up there with Curb and Seinfeld, but with a serious gonzo/stupid streak. Seinfeld meets The Three Stooges. A really simple premise that has been dipped in some seriously off-the-wall shit. It's as if they made a list of the very worst things in the world, and cross off two or three with each episode.
Oh, yes. I'm not entirely sure why these clowns are so endearing, not just to us but to each other, but they are. (Probably a result of their inner Stooge-ness.) I got the good lord goin down on meeeeeee...
Battlestar Galactica
As someone who is generally skeptical of television sci-fi, this is really fantastic. I haven't gotten far enough into it to encounter what I understand is some seriously stupid shit, what I've seen through half of Season One is really excellent.
They pull few punches, and constantly wreak havoc upon their characters, burying them in disaster and giving them a mere toothpick with which to dig themselves out. Dread lies around every corner, ready ruin the entire human race if someone makes just one simple error. The first proper episode of the series establishes this so memorably that they can skate on things further down the road without losing credit. They make you imagine what it would be like to live in fear of the human race dying in the next few minutes.
This show about androids and space flight feels so real because it works on a personal, human level to a greater extent than any other sci-fi show I've seen. The drama doesn't come from imagining some weird alien universe, it comes from allegory and transplanted human feelings. On the show, it's Cylons attacking every 33 minutes; in real life, it's "terrorists" and 9/11.
Either way, highly recommended.
Mad Men
I can't say this is as great a show as it's been built up to be. But it's awfully great. It oozes cool and style and charisma in every frame, serving, as The Sopranos did, as a proxy through which the viewer behaves irresponsibly. You cannot agree with the show's subjects, who have probably done more damage to America than the Mafia, on any count, but Jon Hamm and his off-the-charts likability makes you like and even root for this amoral person nonetheless. He's just barely decent enough to grab you and keep hold as he navigates the slimy waters of his universe.
Heroes
Yes, it's flawed. It's camp, it's derivative, it has awful dialogue, its characters are stupid and frequently act in service of the plot instead of themselves, and it hand-holds you through every step of its labyrinthine plot, unwilling to let even the most fundamental truth go unspoken. But I like it all the same. Because it's fun.
But I'm beginning to lose my patience.
Ever since the first season, they've been flailing around, trying to make this show work. The second season was in many senses a do-over of the first. More new storylines, more unrevealed mysteries, just more, not unlike how The Wire handled its sophomore season... except Heroes was awful.
This season, they've tried to delve more deeply into the same characters, but in reality have done more to invalidate past truths than build upon them. It's been a litany of "remember that? Well that wasn't REALLY how it went" revelations. Why they would want to tell us that what we LIKED was fake, and what we do NOT like is the real deal, I don't know. It's a delicate dance that even when done supremely well can be loathed or rejected (ahem, Matrix Reloaded). This show's writing staff has failed to pull it off.
And while it's nice that they've heard our calls for fewer new characters, they have answered those calls in the most perfunctory manner possible: by simply teaming up odd pairs of heroes and having them do something benign. The effect is the same as, say, the effect satirized so well in the brilliant film Last Action Hero: the movies will always pair up cops in the craziest ways, like the lady cop with the cartoon cat, or (as with the stars) Arnold Schwarzenegger with an eleven-year-old kid. (Gosh, I wish I had video of this.) On the good side, you have something like Lethal Weapon. On the bad side, you have some of the more ridiculous Tom & Jerry cartoons out there, those in which Tom and Jerry have to team up to defeat some third entity, like the dog... it's thrilling because Tom and Jerry are enemies who have teamed up, but after a while, so what? And doesn't it totally undermine the premise (cats and mice) to team them up? Heroes, if you couldn't guess, leans heavily towards Tom & Jerry. Oddness for its own sake sucks after long enough.
So why do I keep watching? I honestly have no idea why this show has the distinction of being the only one I try to watch live. And yet it is. But if this crap keeps up, it won't be for long.
But let's end this on a high note:
30 Rock
Is awesome. I was stunned to discover that 30 Rock isn't a gigantic hit. This show is hilarious, madcap, and entirely accessible. There's no weird Arrested Development-esque barrier to watching... devoid of inside jokes and winks, you can jump in pretty much anywhere without missing a beat. And it killed Studio 60, and justifiably so. Why is this show stuck in the low-rated-Emmy-winners ghetto? It's no longer the mix of trail-blazing and quality that kills ratings... now it's strictly quality! Totally, totally bizarre.
Live: TV On The Radio & The Dirtbombs
Why do things right away when you could just wait a month or two?
TV On The Radio / The Dirtbombs
Wilbur Theater, October 13, 2008
Telling you that TVOTR is incredible in person is old news, so let's start with some exciting new business:
THE DIRTBOMBS
Absolutely outstanding. I listened to Ultraglide in Black, their 2001 soul cover album, damn near on repeat for the week leading up to this show... their new album, We Have You Surrounded, is good, but Ultraglide is the best thing I've heard all year. With the really great stuff, you know as soon as you hear a little bit of it, and Ultraglide is no exception.
Both Sly Stone cover "Underdog" or Phil Lynott cover, "Ode To A Black Man" deserve to be heard in all their proper glory. And you deserve to listen to them. Just barely below those two is "Chains of Love," embedded for your convenience, which also owns.
Unfortunately I had to wait for someone before the show, so I didn't make it inside in time to catch them playing either song. (At the pace those guys move along at, I probably missed about 5-6 songs in those 15 minutes.) But I did catch "Ever Lovin' Man" (embedded below) and "Chains of Love," so it worked out. My ears took a lot of punishment from being so close to the front, but entirely worth the trouble.
They have earned my business for each of their Boston shows for the immediate future. And if they come to you, you really need to check them out yourself.
TV ON THE RADIO
(credit)
Having seen them before (this is now my third time) and having gotten three completely different shows from them, each time elevating the source material, I'm pretty convinced. Easily one of the two or three best live acts I've ever seen. And any visit they make is going to get high marks from me.
I'm always impressed by how they go about repurposing their older songs, perfecting them over time for live performance. Case in point is "The Wrong Way," which has been making a slow journey from the medium-pace distort-o-matic recorded version to a show highlight that I dare say has overtaken "Wolf Like Me" in the rock-out department. (This will be the second year in a row that a TVOTR song will be my live-and-in-person highlight of the year.)
The version captured above was taken in Philly the night before the Boston show, and is notably missing the full horn section that makes the rendition I heard the full-blown Vegas-style explosion that it is. Tunde Adebimpe fed off the horns, hopping around even more than usual and knocking it out of the zip code, let alone the park. The closest comparison I could come up with, to what I saw and felt and was reminded of, was the James Brown church sequence in The Blues Brothers. It built and built and built. I kinda loved it.
The thing is, I was hoping for similarly joyous treatments of the new material. And I didn't get them. The new stuff played fine. The Benedictine Horns sounded a little off on "Golden Age" and "Crying" (though "Dancing Choose" went far better for them), and the result was less than perfect, given how awesome "Golden Age" in particular is.
The bottom line is that of the opening five-song murderer's row, the unquestionable highlights of that stretch were still oldies "The Wrong Way" and "Wolf Like Me." The new songs couldn't hold a candle to the old ones. I'm sure they will work that out; their second tour supporting Cookie Mountain was far better than the first.
Also on the less-than-glowing side, their set list surprised me a little. While I appreciate their range of abilities as a band, and I'm impressed that they thought to play two selections from Young Liars, I was put off by the long, filler-filled lull during the third quarter of the show. I didn't show up to hear "Stork and Owl," "Blues From Down Here," and similarly middling songs. Oddly, "Stork And Owl" is probably the ONLY song on Dear Science worth skipping, and they managed to include it at the expense of "Red Dress," understandably, and "DLZ" and "Lover's Day," less understandably. Leaving a full four new songs out in order to bring along "A Method?" Seriously? At least play "Tonight" or "Province," two other heinous omissions, if you're gonna preserve Cookie Mountain's lesser works. "Tonight" had never made much of an impression on me, until they opened their 4/19/07 show with it. It's surprisingly moving in person. "A Method" just sucks. What the hell.
But that doesn't change my opinion of their quality one bit. Despite the time I've spent nitpicking here, they are minor complaints on the whole. The great largely outweighs the not. The lulls and less-interesting song selections were flanked by some seriously excellent work. They are a truly tremendous live band.
As I've parroted before, the essence of this band has not been captured in the studio. One day, they will release a live album that presents their live sound definitively to the masses, as Okonokos did for My Morning Jacket, and people will flip the fuck out. (And "The Wrong Way" will be that album's best track by far.) I would like more people to have the experience I've had with these guys.
Other thoughts from the show:
* I liked the Wilbur Theater's concert setup. It's a skinny, tall theater, so floor access is that much better if you get it. And it's historic, so it's got some character, though not really that of a rock show. But best of all, unlike some theater-based rock shows, where you have to deal with immovable seating and strict ticketing restrictions, the Wilbur gets that shit out of the way! And with (I presume) fire codes involved, it's less of a sea of humanity down there at the bottom. The only minus is the lack of bar. But that can also be a plus, depending on the crowd. (Kyp actually thanked us for having so much fun despite the lack of bar.) On the whole, I give the Wilbur an A-.
* I was close enough to the stage to read Tunde's set list (in reverse) prior to the start of the show. While the blogger in me furiously noted the list in his phone, the fan in me knew what was coming ahead of time, and had a bit of the joy of surprise taken away. This is a good example of the reviewer/blogger mindset taking the soul out of the experience.
* Check this nugget from the AV Club interview with Tunde:
Ren and Stimpy!!! The guy who sang "all your dreams are over now / all your wings have fallen down," draws analogies to Ren and Stimpy. This is like learning that Cormac McCarthy drawing inspiration from The Three Stooges.
Anyway, great show as always. I don't know that I really described the character of the show,
SET LIST
Halfway Home
The Wrong Way
Dancing Choose
Golden Age
Wolf Like Me
Young Liars
Love Dog
Stork and Owl
Dreams
Blues From Down Here
Shout Me Out
Satellite
[encore break]
Crying
A Method
Staring At The Sun
TV On The Radio / The Dirtbombs
Wilbur Theater, October 13, 2008
Telling you that TVOTR is incredible in person is old news, so let's start with some exciting new business:
THE DIRTBOMBS
Absolutely outstanding. I listened to Ultraglide in Black, their 2001 soul cover album, damn near on repeat for the week leading up to this show... their new album, We Have You Surrounded, is good, but Ultraglide is the best thing I've heard all year. With the really great stuff, you know as soon as you hear a little bit of it, and Ultraglide is no exception.
Both Sly Stone cover "Underdog" or Phil Lynott cover, "Ode To A Black Man" deserve to be heard in all their proper glory. And you deserve to listen to them. Just barely below those two is "Chains of Love," embedded for your convenience, which also owns.
Unfortunately I had to wait for someone before the show, so I didn't make it inside in time to catch them playing either song. (At the pace those guys move along at, I probably missed about 5-6 songs in those 15 minutes.) But I did catch "Ever Lovin' Man" (embedded below) and "Chains of Love," so it worked out. My ears took a lot of punishment from being so close to the front, but entirely worth the trouble.
They have earned my business for each of their Boston shows for the immediate future. And if they come to you, you really need to check them out yourself.
TV ON THE RADIO
(credit)
Having seen them before (this is now my third time) and having gotten three completely different shows from them, each time elevating the source material, I'm pretty convinced. Easily one of the two or three best live acts I've ever seen. And any visit they make is going to get high marks from me.
I'm always impressed by how they go about repurposing their older songs, perfecting them over time for live performance. Case in point is "The Wrong Way," which has been making a slow journey from the medium-pace distort-o-matic recorded version to a show highlight that I dare say has overtaken "Wolf Like Me" in the rock-out department. (This will be the second year in a row that a TVOTR song will be my live-and-in-person highlight of the year.)
The version captured above was taken in Philly the night before the Boston show, and is notably missing the full horn section that makes the rendition I heard the full-blown Vegas-style explosion that it is. Tunde Adebimpe fed off the horns, hopping around even more than usual and knocking it out of the zip code, let alone the park. The closest comparison I could come up with, to what I saw and felt and was reminded of, was the James Brown church sequence in The Blues Brothers. It built and built and built. I kinda loved it.
Link:
The thing is, I was hoping for similarly joyous treatments of the new material. And I didn't get them. The new stuff played fine. The Benedictine Horns sounded a little off on "Golden Age" and "Crying" (though "Dancing Choose" went far better for them), and the result was less than perfect, given how awesome "Golden Age" in particular is.
The bottom line is that of the opening five-song murderer's row, the unquestionable highlights of that stretch were still oldies "The Wrong Way" and "Wolf Like Me." The new songs couldn't hold a candle to the old ones. I'm sure they will work that out; their second tour supporting Cookie Mountain was far better than the first.
Also on the less-than-glowing side, their set list surprised me a little. While I appreciate their range of abilities as a band, and I'm impressed that they thought to play two selections from Young Liars, I was put off by the long, filler-filled lull during the third quarter of the show. I didn't show up to hear "Stork and Owl," "Blues From Down Here," and similarly middling songs. Oddly, "Stork And Owl" is probably the ONLY song on Dear Science worth skipping, and they managed to include it at the expense of "Red Dress," understandably, and "DLZ" and "Lover's Day," less understandably. Leaving a full four new songs out in order to bring along "A Method?" Seriously? At least play "Tonight" or "Province," two other heinous omissions, if you're gonna preserve Cookie Mountain's lesser works. "Tonight" had never made much of an impression on me, until they opened their 4/19/07 show with it. It's surprisingly moving in person. "A Method" just sucks. What the hell.
But that doesn't change my opinion of their quality one bit. Despite the time I've spent nitpicking here, they are minor complaints on the whole. The great largely outweighs the not. The lulls and less-interesting song selections were flanked by some seriously excellent work. They are a truly tremendous live band.
As I've parroted before, the essence of this band has not been captured in the studio. One day, they will release a live album that presents their live sound definitively to the masses, as Okonokos did for My Morning Jacket, and people will flip the fuck out. (And "The Wrong Way" will be that album's best track by far.) I would like more people to have the experience I've had with these guys.
Other thoughts from the show:
* I liked the Wilbur Theater's concert setup. It's a skinny, tall theater, so floor access is that much better if you get it. And it's historic, so it's got some character, though not really that of a rock show. But best of all, unlike some theater-based rock shows, where you have to deal with immovable seating and strict ticketing restrictions, the Wilbur gets that shit out of the way! And with (I presume) fire codes involved, it's less of a sea of humanity down there at the bottom. The only minus is the lack of bar. But that can also be a plus, depending on the crowd. (Kyp actually thanked us for having so much fun despite the lack of bar.) On the whole, I give the Wilbur an A-.
* I was close enough to the stage to read Tunde's set list (in reverse) prior to the start of the show. While the blogger in me furiously noted the list in his phone, the fan in me knew what was coming ahead of time, and had a bit of the joy of surprise taken away. This is a good example of the reviewer/blogger mindset taking the soul out of the experience.
* Check this nugget from the AV Club interview with Tunde:
AVC: Cookie Mountain felt like an artistic hurricane. By contrast, Dear Science feels, not reserved, but...
TA: More regular?
AVC: Exactly.
TA: [Laughs.] The recording of Cookie Mountain is something that none of us really wanted to experience over again, let alone accidentally repeat. Doing so probably would have resulted in the band breaking up, or one of us causing another grievous bodily harm.
AVC: Why is that?
TA: It was just a really dark place. I'm glad that record exists, but it was kind of like the Ren & Stimpy episode where they get space madness, and they're orbiting the planet, ready to kill each other for a bar of soap. Coming home after touring, we had to be like, "Guys, remember how we actually liked each other? Let's do that again, and make something that comes out of that." Which is what Dear Science is.
Ren and Stimpy!!! The guy who sang "all your dreams are over now / all your wings have fallen down," draws analogies to Ren and Stimpy. This is like learning that Cormac McCarthy drawing inspiration from The Three Stooges.
Anyway, great show as always. I don't know that I really described the character of the show,
SET LIST
Halfway Home
The Wrong Way
Dancing Choose
Golden Age
Wolf Like Me
Young Liars
Love Dog
Stork and Owl
Dreams
Blues From Down Here
Shout Me Out
Satellite
[encore break]
Crying
A Method
Staring At The Sun
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
TV On The Radio - Dear Science,
TV On The Radio
Dear Science,
The comma-laden Dear Science, is a surprisingly positive and immediate effort from a band known primarily for a distinctively brooding sound that is typically described as post-apocalyptic. While each song on Return To Cookie Mountain, their 2006 breakthrough, is shrouded in a unique fuzz that inspires visions of broken machinery and rust, the entirety of their follow-up is shiny, clean, and, most shockingly, a lot of fun. If their debut Desperate Youth, Blood Thirsty Babes was the apocalypse, and Cookie Mountain was the first sprout from beneath the rubble, then Dear Science, is the party.
That new brightness is a double-edged sword. The primary source of fun with Cookie Mountain, and to a lesser extent Desperate Youth, is in the discovery of musicality in the untraditional elements used to build not just atmosphere ("Playhouses," "Tonight," "Don't Love You") but front-and-center hooks ("I Was A Lover"). That aforementioned distortion-heavy signature sound of theirs is gone, replaced by drum machines, funky guitar lines, clean reverberations, and (gasp) hand-clapping. It's not really a better-vs-worse thing... one part of me had been looking forward to hearing what kind of crazy shit they'd come up with next, and the other part is just digging the new hotness.
If there is a clear disadvantage, it's in the smaller emotional punch Dear Science, packs. Their biggest songs, "Wolf Like Me" off Cookie Mountain and "Staring At The Sun" off Desperate Youth, are so strong because they're so immediate, urgent, and terrifying on the surface. The best work on Dear Science, doesn't carry the same rage or spite... by contrast, it's sleek and composed. More intimate, maybe, but not as effective in stirring up a deep response.
But at the same time, that best work is really excellent. Their mastery of rhythm is on full display, particularly on the faux-rap intro to "Dancing Choose" and the faux-African horns of "Red Dress" (contributed by, er, non-faux Afrobeat band Antibalas). "Crying" is slowly becoming a favorite, its choruses becoming increasingly thick with horns and synths on top of the main guitar riff. "DLZ" has a heavy, almost Zeppelin-ish stomp. "Lover's Day" is a strong, call-to-arms closer that leaves you with the kind of explosion that every album should end with.
Even their filler is better than ever, far superior to that of Cookie Mountain and Desperate Youth. "Love Dog" and "Family Tree" aren't as deep or unique as "Dirtywhirl" or "Let The Devil In," for example, but they work a whole lot better, both as complements to the stronger tracks and on their own.
When I last wrote about Cookie Mountain, I suggested that TVOTR was capable of more. While Dear Science, is not quite what I had in mind, and while it won't Represent Something Important the way that Return To Cookie Mountain did, it's easily one of the top releases of the year. It stands as evidence that TVOTR are realizing how good they are, gaining confidence in their abilities, and relying less on sonic trickery to make compelling music.
Thursday, September 11, 2008
Yearly Album List
And now... the last of today's cleaning of the Drafts folder...
A while back, a blog-dork exercise made the rounds, in which the author makes a list of great albums from each year of your life. You're free to decide your own criteria and overarching theme and whatnot... just do it however.
I tried, and failed, to use a consistent metric for each selection. It's just not possible for a civilian. I haven't listened to enough music from that pre-2000 period to use quality as the only criterion. And my listening behavior as a child doesn't lend itself to a list of albums that loomed large in my consciousness... Brothers In Arms and Graceland are the first instances of that. Where I could tip my cap to what I was listening to, as with 1988, I did. But until 1989, when I finally acquired the buying power to collect CDs, this wasn't happening. So these albums are, for the most part, picked retrospectively. I wasn't listening to Sheik Yerbouti in 1979, Appetite For Destruction in 1987, or Neutral Milk Hotel in 1998.
But that's fine. This is a fair index of my musical tastes over the years where possible, and a decent reflection of my tastes going backwards. Discussion to follow...
1979 - Fleetwood Mac - Tusk / Frank Zappa - Sheik Yerbouti (tie)
1980 - Talking Heads - Remain In Light
1981 - The Police - Ghost In The Machine
1982 - Dire Straits - Love Over Gold
1983 - Billy Joel - An Innocent Man
1984 - Weird Al Yankovic - In 3-D
1985 - Dire Straits - Brothers In Arms
1986 - Paul Simon - Graceland
1987 - Guns N' Roses - Appetite For Destruction
1988 - DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince - He's the DJ, I'm The Rapper
1989 - Faith No More - The Real Thing
1990 - They Might Be Giants - Flood
1991 - Red Hot Chili Peppers - Blood Sugar Sex Magik
1992 - Rage Against The Machine - Rage Against The Machine
1993 - Pearl Jam - Vs.
1994 - Green Day - Dookie
1995 - Rancid - And Out Come The Wolves
1996 - Weezer - Pinkerton
1997 - The Mighty Mighty Bosstones - Let's Face It
1998 - Neutral Milk Hotel - In The Aeroplane Over The Sea
1999 - Blink-182 - Enema Of The State
2000 - The New Pornographers - Mass Romantic
2001 - Ben Folds - Rockin' The Suburbs
2002 - Spoon - Kill The Moonlight
2003 - OutKast - Speakerboxxx/The Love Below
2004 - The Killers - Hot Fuss
2005 - Sufjan Stevens - Come On, Feel The Illinoise!
2006 - The Decemberists - The Crane Wife
2007 - LCD Soundsystem - Sound of Silver
2008 - The Hold Steady - Stay Positive [pending]
What's fascinating to me isn't so much the classic albums I couldn't include (1979's London Calling, for example) but the number of albums by those names that caused drastic alterations in my musical tastes and habits. Lots of big names are missing. Where's Nirvana? Where's Radiohead? Where's Snow Patrol? Those bands each changed the way I listen to music, and they're not represented even once. And I wanted to include Stone Temple Pilots, just as a big fat fuck-you to whoever says they were talentless and unoriginal. But this is how it has to go.
Nevermind wasn't the only tought cut from 1991. That year was a near-impossible decision. Blood Sugar Sex Magik gets the nod over Nevermind and Ten because it showed me that sexuality could be put forward openly and aggressively without it being childish ("Sir Psycho Sexy" notwithstanding). Since I was just starting to mature, it really affected me... and corrupted my sweet, church-going, innocent mind! Thank God for that.
1979 was another toughie. It's the only tie, but I couldn't lose either Tusk or Sheik Yerbouti. And that meant leaving out London Calling, The Wall, The Specials, Fear Of Music... just far too many crimes against musical list-making.
On the other hand, my unavoidable 1985 selection disappoints me greatly. Brothers In Arms is possibly my least favorite Dire Straits album, despite the enormous footprint it left on my childhood. The work they did prior to that album was so far superior that Brothers In Arms really doesn't belong here, especially when I already selected Love Over Gold as my pick for 1982. However, 1985 is littered with a mix of good albums by great bands whose better work appears elsewhere on the list (this, Little Creatures, Dare To Be Stupid, Life's Rich Pageant) and critical classics I haven't really listened to enough to put on a list like this (The Replacements' Tim, The Smiths' Meat is Murder, Kate Bush's Hounds of Love). I would have been much happier if I could, in good faith, put Tim in this slot. It's a fantastic album that I like a lot. But it has played zero role whatsoever in my life.
1981 is the only de facto choice. I expected more. But that's not so bad, because The Police ought to be on here in some form. But it was one of a whopping five non-Zappa albums from 1981 in my iTunes. So it was an easy make-up call to give them. (Other four: The Tom Tom Club, Van Halen's Fair Warning, Guitar Music by Leo Kottke, and The Replacements' Sorry, Ma, Forgot To Take Out The Trash!)
And speaking of make-up calls, I got to give one to The Killers. I tore apart Hot Fuss in my review of Sam's Town, and have often referred to The Killers as part of a progressive abstraction away from similar and better bands (i.e. "The Killers ripped off Interpol, Interpol ripped off New Order, New Order owes everything they had to Ian Curtis, Joy Division is overrated," etc), which I may have elucidated on the blog a long while back. However, after dozens of listens, I have completely changed my mind. Hot Fuss is one of the great albums of the decade. When I can't decide what to listen to on my mp3 player as I go out for the evening, I invariably select Hot Fuss. I can think of no bigger compliment, especially given that it's been out for four years.
2002 is kind of a weird year, too. Kill The Moonlight is a fantastic album, and the Spoon album most representative of why they're so awesome. But that gets the pick because of its lasting effect as much as anything else. There were so many albums from 2002 that I loved at the time, but don't affect me as much anymore... The Postal Service's Give Up, Talib Kweli's Quality, Blackalicious' Blazing Arrow, Jurassic 5's Power In Numbers... the list goes on. And the others that I do still feel strongly about, like the late-era Bosstones release A Jacknife To A Swan, don't hold up to the true classics from that year, like The Flaming Lips' Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots or Bright Eyes' Lifted...
You know what? Screw it. I'm talking too much about stuff I left off. I should just list the most egregious omissions.
1979 - Pink Floyd - The Wall
1980 - The Clash - London Calling
1987 - R.E.M. - Document
1991 - Nirvana - Nevermind
1991 - Pearl Jam - Ten
1992 - Sublime - 40 Oz. To Freedom
1992 - Stone Temple Pilots - Core
1994 - Weezer - Weezer
1996 - Less Than Jake - Losing Streak
1996 - Dave Matthews Band - Crash
1997 - Foo Fighters - The Colour And The Shape
1997 - Radiohead - OK Computer
1999 - The Roots - Things Fall Apart
2002 - The Flaming Lips - Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots
2003 - Snow Patrol - Final Straw
2003 - Guster - Keep It Together
2003 - The New Pornographers - Electric Version
2004 - Green Day - American Idiot
2004 - Franz Ferdinand - Franz Ferdinand
2006 - The Hold Steady - Boys And Girls In America
2007 - The National - Boxer
I could have made a whole other list of rejects! Better stop right there, before I do make another list....
A while back, a blog-dork exercise made the rounds, in which the author makes a list of great albums from each year of your life. You're free to decide your own criteria and overarching theme and whatnot... just do it however.
I tried, and failed, to use a consistent metric for each selection. It's just not possible for a civilian. I haven't listened to enough music from that pre-2000 period to use quality as the only criterion. And my listening behavior as a child doesn't lend itself to a list of albums that loomed large in my consciousness... Brothers In Arms and Graceland are the first instances of that. Where I could tip my cap to what I was listening to, as with 1988, I did. But until 1989, when I finally acquired the buying power to collect CDs, this wasn't happening. So these albums are, for the most part, picked retrospectively. I wasn't listening to Sheik Yerbouti in 1979, Appetite For Destruction in 1987, or Neutral Milk Hotel in 1998.
But that's fine. This is a fair index of my musical tastes over the years where possible, and a decent reflection of my tastes going backwards. Discussion to follow...
1979 - Fleetwood Mac - Tusk / Frank Zappa - Sheik Yerbouti (tie)
1980 - Talking Heads - Remain In Light
1981 - The Police - Ghost In The Machine
1982 - Dire Straits - Love Over Gold
1983 - Billy Joel - An Innocent Man
1984 - Weird Al Yankovic - In 3-D
1985 - Dire Straits - Brothers In Arms
1986 - Paul Simon - Graceland
1987 - Guns N' Roses - Appetite For Destruction
1988 - DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince - He's the DJ, I'm The Rapper
1989 - Faith No More - The Real Thing
1990 - They Might Be Giants - Flood
1991 - Red Hot Chili Peppers - Blood Sugar Sex Magik
1992 - Rage Against The Machine - Rage Against The Machine
1993 - Pearl Jam - Vs.
1994 - Green Day - Dookie
1995 - Rancid - And Out Come The Wolves
1996 - Weezer - Pinkerton
1997 - The Mighty Mighty Bosstones - Let's Face It
1998 - Neutral Milk Hotel - In The Aeroplane Over The Sea
1999 - Blink-182 - Enema Of The State
2000 - The New Pornographers - Mass Romantic
2001 - Ben Folds - Rockin' The Suburbs
2002 - Spoon - Kill The Moonlight
2003 - OutKast - Speakerboxxx/The Love Below
2004 - The Killers - Hot Fuss
2005 - Sufjan Stevens - Come On, Feel The Illinoise!
2006 - The Decemberists - The Crane Wife
2007 - LCD Soundsystem - Sound of Silver
2008 - The Hold Steady - Stay Positive [pending]
What's fascinating to me isn't so much the classic albums I couldn't include (1979's London Calling, for example) but the number of albums by those names that caused drastic alterations in my musical tastes and habits. Lots of big names are missing. Where's Nirvana? Where's Radiohead? Where's Snow Patrol? Those bands each changed the way I listen to music, and they're not represented even once. And I wanted to include Stone Temple Pilots, just as a big fat fuck-you to whoever says they were talentless and unoriginal. But this is how it has to go.
Nevermind wasn't the only tought cut from 1991. That year was a near-impossible decision. Blood Sugar Sex Magik gets the nod over Nevermind and Ten because it showed me that sexuality could be put forward openly and aggressively without it being childish ("Sir Psycho Sexy" notwithstanding). Since I was just starting to mature, it really affected me... and corrupted my sweet, church-going, innocent mind! Thank God for that.
1979 was another toughie. It's the only tie, but I couldn't lose either Tusk or Sheik Yerbouti. And that meant leaving out London Calling, The Wall, The Specials, Fear Of Music... just far too many crimes against musical list-making.
On the other hand, my unavoidable 1985 selection disappoints me greatly. Brothers In Arms is possibly my least favorite Dire Straits album, despite the enormous footprint it left on my childhood. The work they did prior to that album was so far superior that Brothers In Arms really doesn't belong here, especially when I already selected Love Over Gold as my pick for 1982. However, 1985 is littered with a mix of good albums by great bands whose better work appears elsewhere on the list (this, Little Creatures, Dare To Be Stupid, Life's Rich Pageant) and critical classics I haven't really listened to enough to put on a list like this (The Replacements' Tim, The Smiths' Meat is Murder, Kate Bush's Hounds of Love). I would have been much happier if I could, in good faith, put Tim in this slot. It's a fantastic album that I like a lot. But it has played zero role whatsoever in my life.
1981 is the only de facto choice. I expected more. But that's not so bad, because The Police ought to be on here in some form. But it was one of a whopping five non-Zappa albums from 1981 in my iTunes. So it was an easy make-up call to give them. (Other four: The Tom Tom Club, Van Halen's Fair Warning, Guitar Music by Leo Kottke, and The Replacements' Sorry, Ma, Forgot To Take Out The Trash!)
And speaking of make-up calls, I got to give one to The Killers. I tore apart Hot Fuss in my review of Sam's Town, and have often referred to The Killers as part of a progressive abstraction away from similar and better bands (i.e. "The Killers ripped off Interpol, Interpol ripped off New Order, New Order owes everything they had to Ian Curtis, Joy Division is overrated," etc), which I may have elucidated on the blog a long while back. However, after dozens of listens, I have completely changed my mind. Hot Fuss is one of the great albums of the decade. When I can't decide what to listen to on my mp3 player as I go out for the evening, I invariably select Hot Fuss. I can think of no bigger compliment, especially given that it's been out for four years.
2002 is kind of a weird year, too. Kill The Moonlight is a fantastic album, and the Spoon album most representative of why they're so awesome. But that gets the pick because of its lasting effect as much as anything else. There were so many albums from 2002 that I loved at the time, but don't affect me as much anymore... The Postal Service's Give Up, Talib Kweli's Quality, Blackalicious' Blazing Arrow, Jurassic 5's Power In Numbers... the list goes on. And the others that I do still feel strongly about, like the late-era Bosstones release A Jacknife To A Swan, don't hold up to the true classics from that year, like The Flaming Lips' Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots or Bright Eyes' Lifted...
You know what? Screw it. I'm talking too much about stuff I left off. I should just list the most egregious omissions.
1979 - Pink Floyd - The Wall
1980 - The Clash - London Calling
1987 - R.E.M. - Document
1991 - Nirvana - Nevermind
1991 - Pearl Jam - Ten
1992 - Sublime - 40 Oz. To Freedom
1992 - Stone Temple Pilots - Core
1994 - Weezer - Weezer
1996 - Less Than Jake - Losing Streak
1996 - Dave Matthews Band - Crash
1997 - Foo Fighters - The Colour And The Shape
1997 - Radiohead - OK Computer
1999 - The Roots - Things Fall Apart
2002 - The Flaming Lips - Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots
2003 - Snow Patrol - Final Straw
2003 - Guster - Keep It Together
2003 - The New Pornographers - Electric Version
2004 - Green Day - American Idiot
2004 - Franz Ferdinand - Franz Ferdinand
2006 - The Hold Steady - Boys And Girls In America
2007 - The National - Boxer
I could have made a whole other list of rejects! Better stop right there, before I do make another list....
Ballwashing The National Again
Ignore the fan-video visual. Just listen to this simple, perfect song. Lucky you.
Annotated Girl Talk
Looks like I'm flushing a bunch of old posts today...
Girl Talk's new collection of mashups to end all collections of mashups, Feed The Animals, is out now. And somehow, it's even better than Night Ripper. Not all the mashups work, but there are so many flourishes of DJ genius that it's worth it.
His work is so dense and encyclopedic that you need an atlas to figure out his samples. Most of the times I've listened to Feed The Animals, I've followed along in Wikipedia. Enjoyable as it is, I always have trouble seeing it for its music, and not for its documentary value. I think I like acknowledging which songs he mashed together more than listening to the end result. (Not that I won't dance to it. Because I absolutely will. Just saying.)
Anyhoo, following in the footsteps of such music-nerd compendiums as the Dan Bejar/Destroyer wiki, a good fellow at waxy.org compiled this statistical analysis of how GT uses those samples. Breakdowns of median sample date, length, changeovers, etc. It's interesting stuff.
[hat tip]
Girl Talk's new collection of mashups to end all collections of mashups, Feed The Animals, is out now. And somehow, it's even better than Night Ripper. Not all the mashups work, but there are so many flourishes of DJ genius that it's worth it.
His work is so dense and encyclopedic that you need an atlas to figure out his samples. Most of the times I've listened to Feed The Animals, I've followed along in Wikipedia. Enjoyable as it is, I always have trouble seeing it for its music, and not for its documentary value. I think I like acknowledging which songs he mashed together more than listening to the end result. (Not that I won't dance to it. Because I absolutely will. Just saying.)
Anyhoo, following in the footsteps of such music-nerd compendiums as the Dan Bejar/Destroyer wiki, a good fellow at waxy.org compiled this statistical analysis of how GT uses those samples. Breakdowns of median sample date, length, changeovers, etc. It's interesting stuff.
[hat tip]
New TVOTR Songs
Two new TV On The Radio songs have been making the rounds of late, and they're both awfully promising. They're both a little simpler and smaller than their usual fare, but good nonetheless. I'm so ready for the new album. It's been a weak year, full of disappointments, disasters, boredom, and downturns. I can't write a best-of post of nothing but de facto choices; if Gnarls Barkley makes my 2008 list, I quit. I really need Dear Science, to be good.
"Golden Age" and "Dancing Choose" can be heard here, as of today. They're also touring this fall; go see them.
Tuesday, September 09, 2008
Nobody Expects the Palin Inquisition
I've been thinking about this since Sarah Palin was announced. Thank goodness someone else videotaped my thoughts...
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