I was a bit skeptical going into this one.. ,wait. I’ll lay down my level of Trekness before i continue. Love the old trek, next generation and the movies- everything else trek is total crap. I’m not a superfan who can tell you who did what when and how many times such and such happened, but i could name all the regular characters from both crews. My nerd rating is maybe a C+ on trek. . . ..So Leonard Nemoy was in this one, which is cool for all the old time fans- I love when he shows up on The Simpsons. Shaun of the Dead guy Simon Pegg was young Mr. Scott. Which was a great selection- since the original Scotty was a riot. They chose all new young cast members to play Kirk and the gang. The story was set earlier in their history when the original crew all meets.  The acting was good, right down to mannerisms, but i don’t know if they all really looked the part. These people were all just too pretty. Compared to other Trek movies, this one was an action super/action, good story line as well- with plenty of stuff to impress those of us familiar with the characters. One of them kisses Uhura! But it was no Wrath of Khan . . . .  I did fall asleep and missed the means by which they solved the crisis, but I’m sure it was a string of techno mumbo jumbo as is the usual solution.

Rating B+

No Shatner in this one! Maybe they wouldn’t let him rap.

¶

¶

As far as music made in the 2000s goes, I’ve encountered it pretty much the way an old man sitting on his porch sees the kids who walk down the street: accidentally, viewed with suspicion, what with their crazy haircuts and eyepods, whilst muttering about the good old days.  Ok, so I’m not quite as curmudgeonly as that–there’s actually been a lot of music made this decade I’ve loved–but this blog is generally a testament to the fact that my attention has been directed elsewhere.  Still, I’m a music geek–just because I’m not really qualified won’t stop me from making a mix documenting the year as I managed to hear it (blaring from the goddamned headphones of the teenaged hoodlums in the neighborhood).

¶

Two albums especially stood out to me this year: Fever Ray’s ‘Fever Ray’ (more or less a new album by The Knife); and the big surprise, The Flaming Lips‘ ‘Embryonic,’ which grabbed me so much I had to make a mix in response.  Each was something of an “album album,” difficult to convey through a single track.  But they fit into the pervasive atmosphere of this mix (not sure if it’s the result of my scattershot listening or some actually representative strain of internet-era almost-zeitgeist) of dirty, fuzzy, clattering darkness, cunning north-north-west madness, and a healthy dose of sweetness.  The Harvey Girls, Dominique Leone, Voodoo Economics, David Sylvian, Animal Collective, Mos Def, Radian, and Faust create a slightly exotic nocturnal bazaar of sound.    Reflecting an uncertain world that still wants to believe in beauty are Mirah, The Subcons, Lee Fields & The Expressions, Grizzly Bear, Vitalic and Junior Boys.  Unless I’m just hearing it with rose-colored hearing aids, (possible given its punning title,) my favorite song of the year, Matt Anders‘ “Schtick Around” (streamable above,) is a heartbreakingly wonderful, almost-unabashed declaration of love and hopefulness–under its bright synthetic kit and half-autotuned vocals, Old Man Soundslike thinks it’s a lovely tune, like they made the old days.

¶

‘Various – Get Off My Lawn, 2009, And Stop That Racket!‘
A Curmudgeon’s Guide to Shopping During the Apocalypse

Part 1
01  [00:00]  Air – “Love” (Love 2, 2009)
02  [02:36]  Flaming Lips – “The Sparrow Looks Up at the Machine” (Embryonic, 2009)
03  [06:41]  Mirah – “Shells” (Aspera, 2009)
04  [09:05]  Harvey Girls – “Tickle” (I’ve Been Watching A Lot of Horror Movies Lately, 2009)
05  [12:36]  David Sylvian – “Money”  (Manafon, 2009)
06  [14:49]  David Bazan – “Lost My Shape” (Curse Your Branches, 2009)
07  [18:28]  Dominique Leone – “Sometimes You’ve Got to Be Happy” (Abstract Expression, 2009)
08  [22:55]  The Subcons – “I Respired” (Unreleased, 2009)
09  [27:08]  Lee Fields & The Expressions – “Love Comes and Goesl” (My World, 2009)
10  [30:10]  Fever Ray – “Dry and Dusty” (Fever Ray, 2009)

Part 2
11  [00:00]  Grizzly Bear – “About Face” (Veckatimist, 2009)
12  [03:20]  Voodoo Economics – “Meathook” (Nighttime Sabbaticals, 2009)
13  [08:00]  Animal Collective – “Daily Routine” (Merriweather Post Pavilion, 2009)
14  [13:29]  Mos Def – “Twilite Speedball” (The Ecstatic, 2009)
15  [16:08]  Vitalic – “Your Disco Song” (Flashmob, 2009)
16  [19:43]  Radian – “”Subcolors” (Chimeric, 2009)
17  [23:57]  Junior Boys – “What’s It For” (Begone Dull Care, 2009)
18  [28:55]  Faust – “Lass Mich” (Version Originale) (Cest Com Com Complique, 2009)
19  [30:48]  Matt Anders – “Schtick Around” (A Whisper to No Face, 2009)

[Total Time: 67:17]

¶

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As I was thinking back on the world of NASCAR in the 00’s, the sport has witnessed the most change in this ten-year span than any other decade. The series’ name change (Winston/Nextel/Sprint), the advent of the Chase in 2004, the drivers themselves, and the historic crowning of a fourth consecutive title for Jimmie Johnson.

Looking back at the drivers who were on top at the beginning, in 2000, only six drivers racing that year are still active and competitive today: Jeff Burton, Tony Stewart, Mark Martin, Jeff Gordon, Matt Kenseth, and Dale Earnhardt Jr. (and even Jr. hasn’t been good this year). All the other drivers are either retired, dead, or just not competitive at all in this day and age (Bobby Labonte, Joe Nemechek).

What really got me thinking about all this was a video I watched on YouTube (below). The death of Dale Earnhardt Sr. on the final lap of the 2001 Daytona 500 was what really set the wheels of change into motion, in my opinion. Some were for the better, like safety features. The Head And Neck Restraint System (HANS), which protects a driver in a crash, SAFER barriers, and the COT are all examples. Other changes haven’t been so successful, like drivers bland personalities (if a swear word were to slip, NASCAR would issue penalties), the Chase (which is arguably allowing the wrong driver(s) to win), and the racing we see on restrictor plate tracks, especially Talladega.

Today’s album is one out of this big box of random CD’s that I obtained for free from a temporary job I did this year. The box was kind of an odd mix, but seemed to lean heavily on Country music (or music favored by people who would otherwise be Country fans), film soundtracks, and lots and lots of Christmas albums. Roseanne Cash’s Black Cadillac was in there, and since I’ve been feeling adventurous lately about talking about some of these albums, I think it’s about time to talk about the Emmylou Harris and Mark Knopfler album, All The Roadrunning:

There’s really about only one thing I can think of in common between Dire Straits’ Mark Knopfler and my favorite Country lady Emmylou Harris: both are prolific solo artists who seem to be prized collaborators. So what happens when two of the most sought-after collaborators collaborate for a collaboration? Well, at the risk of making the next 800 words a bit of a waste, it’s pretty great!

I gave this song its requisite 3 or so spins recently (sandwiched between many more Leonard Cohen spins but that’s beside the point) in order to prepare for this writeup, and something stuck out like an excitable nudist: the songs are all expertly crafted and mesh really well with each other for drawing from the variety of genres Mr. Knopfler gets mixed up with. The polish could be due to the fact that everyone involved in this recording are expert musicians, but it could also be that this album project took everyone involved 7 years to make. Mind you, that’s not “Guns N’ Roses” level of “still workin’ on it”, and certainly this album is actually good, but yeah, Johnny Cash could have done 30 albums in that much time. Still, the end result is what matters, and that’s what we’re looking at today.

The album certainly seems at home in the “Country” section of your local music superstore, but there are a few tracks that kind of stand on their own, genre-less and rad. The beginning track has enough oddity to have more of a “folk” vibe, but let’s not mix words over classification. “Beachcombing” seems to be about mixing some kind of feeling with some kind of imagery, like a metaphor or something? I don’t know how these songs work, man. This song starts a tradition of Mark Knopfler taking some extra time to throw out a few solos, which is kind of amusing to me. Emmylou is unaffected though, seemingly content to do her “Ohh-oh”s in the background until it’s her turn to sing again.

“I Dug Up A Diamond” is a thing where, for some reason, the guy is talking about this diamond he dug up, and describes other elements of it to perhaps imply that this “diamond” may be something other than literally a diamond? I guess. Either way, this song once again contains extra solos from a guitar that you plug into the wall via an intermediary that they call an “amp” in the circle of musicians.

When I was talking up there with my words about some of the songs being kind of genre-less, the song I had in mind was “This Is Us”, which starts with a synthy bassy synth and is kind of driven by it, with a more straight-forward beat that may remind one of 80’s rock rather than Country, and the lyrics sound like they’re coming from an old couple showing you a scrap-book of their adventures. It’s one of my favorite songs on the album actually.

Another one I quite like is right after, called “Red Staggerwing”, whatever that is. The song’s lyrical structure is amusing, since it takes kind of an adolescent set of “dream” material objects, and places them in the scheme “If I was a (car, airplane, guitar), you could do (verbs) to me”. The thing I like about it is the following line:

If I was a Taperwing
A Taperwing painted blue
I’d be barrel-rolling over you

Which, if you’re on the internet long enough, you should notice an unintentionally hilarious reference to one of the internet’s worst jokes in there, or else I’m just going crazy. It could be either.

Now that I think about it, it looks like pretty much all but 2 of the 11 songs on this collection were written by Knopfler. That’s kind of a shame, since Emmylous is such a fine songwriter. Then again, perhaps she was taking the Warren Zevon approach and saving her original material for her own album, who knows. Either way, I’m not entirely familiar with Mark Knopfler’s songwriting style, as I was never a Dire Straits fan (see my aversion to 80’s music for a clue as to why this is), but I have always appreciated Mark’s work on other people’s music, which I suppose is why I like this album so much. It’s not that the songs are the best in the world, it’s that the sounds that go on are really pleasing to me. The myriad of melancholy tones that lie under the strong melody behind “Rollin’ On”, the killer beat with droning synth driving my favorite song, “Right Now” (favorite possibly because it reminds me of Emmylou’s original stuff more than anything else here), are examples of elements to each song on this album that capture my attention in some small way. Indeed, this is an album I have easily listened to about 4 or 5 times now in the past couple of days, and I’m still picking up on sounds that I missed the first several times. I guess that’s the mark of a well-done album, is when one finds oneself re-visiting songs per chance to catch certain melodies or other subtleties within the mix. Mind you, in an album that took 7 years to make, one should expect no less than perfection, and I guess that’s what this album is, albeit in a small way.

Those might be considered bold words for an album containing a song called “Donkey Town”, but you know sometimes you have to be bold.

A lot happens in a decade, don’t you know.

Ten years ago I was fresh out of school and had just started college. I was studying Information Technology and fully expected to work in computing once I had left college, gone to uni, etc. I ended up with a History degree. Funny how life turns out.

Ten years ago I had a VCR, and now I’ve got a Blu-ray player. Poor DVD.

Ten years ago I had a Ericsson mobile phone that couldn’t send text messages. Now I’ve got an iPhone 3G which can handle augmented reality.

Ten years ago I had one PC, and it was a bulky one. It had a CRT monitor, a 333MHz Intel Celeron processor, 64MB RAM and a 4GB hard disk. I thought it was awesome. Now I have an Apple MacBook with a 2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, 2,048MB RAM and a 250GB hard disk. I also have a PC which I built a few months ago that has a 24″ LCD monitor, an AMD Athlon 64 X2 7750 2.7GHz processor, 4,096MB RAM and a 250GB hard disk. Oh and an old semi-retired PC with a 19″ LCD monitor, 2.4GHz AMD Athlon processor, 2,048MB RAM, a 120GB hard disk and a 160GB hard disk. Oh and a Sony Playstation 3 with a 250GB hard disk, oh and my iPhone has a 8GB solid state drive (did solid state drives even exist in 1999?), and countless flash drives and SD memory cards.

Ten years ago I had cable. Now I have Sky+ and cannot quite imagine life without being able to pause live TV.

Ten years ago my MP3 collection consisted of about 40 files. Now I have 3,849 files that would take me just over 15 days to listen to without a break.

Ten years ago I had 56k dialup internet. Now I have 8MB broadband which is now considered slow.

Ten years ago I didn’t have a digital camera. We had one at school, but it was huge and photos were saved to a 1.44MB  disk inserted into the side of it. Now I have a Nikon D40 digital SLR camera that takes SD cards, and currently has a 2GB SD card in it.

Ten years ago I was running Windows 98 on my PC. Now I’m running Windows Vista and Ubuntu on my PC and Mac OS X Snow Leopard on my Mac. Ubuntu didn’t even exist ten years ago. Nor did OS X.

Ten years ago few people outside the US had heard of George W. Bush. Few people outside the UK had heard of Tony Blair. Few people anywhere had heard of Osama Bin Laden.

Ten years ago if a newsreader mentioned “a billion dollars” you’d have gasped at such a large figure. Now “a trillion dollars” barely raises eyebrows.

Ten years ago “credit crunch” would have sounded like a breakfast cereal. Now it’s fucked the world over.

Not everything changes, though. Ten years ago Liverpool fans were hoping and waiting to finally win the Premier League. Now they’re still hoping and waiting.

• Released: 2009
• Label: Drag City
• Lineup: Annabel Alpers (all instruments)
• Producer: Annabel Alpers
• Grade: A-

Precious, New Zealand effected vocals with strumming guitars and playing at being Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young or The Shins. Building to big circus sounds, calliope pulsing, choir swinging. I’m droppin’ ludes; I’m sniffin’ glue; I’m looking at weird shit crawling up and down my walls. I’m guessing this is some modern lo-fi, which means solo artist hi-fi meant to sound fake shitty, which is about all you can do these days. This is some coy-bastard pop. There, I’m making up a genre. Here’s the specs: Must have digital editing software; self-aware twee lyrics; and the newest Mac Book.

Despite the snarky tone of this review, due likely to memories of REAL lo-fi in the golden age (the Sebadoh “family”, Guided by Voices, Secret Stars, etc), this is done much better than most of the modern practitioners of this genre. This is due to some excellent sound collage layering, which makes each sample distinct, like a homemade 7-layer burrito (does that make the drums the beans, and the production sheen the tortilla?). Most other music like this is like a Taco Bell 7-Layer. It was annoying the wife in the bath (not the Wife of Bath, for all you Chaucer freaks out there…she’d probably want to bang the lead singer), so it may not be for the fair sex (excuse the anachronism: I am reading the Adventure of the Illustrious Client, and I’m at the point where Miss Violet de Merville is rejecting the good advice of Sherlock Holmes). I think there’s a song about robot sex on here (“Her Rotating Head”). Small hints of Elephant 6 in here as well. Very fey.

–Myshkin

It’s probably no surprise to any long-time Musicophilia listener, but I’m pretty disinclined to spend much time concentrating on the thin slice of all-available-music that is “now”.   That said, I did manage to hear quite a lot of stuff I really love during the 2000s–which are suddenly at a close, while albums from 2004 still feel “new” to me.  I’ve put together my highly personal, in no way shape or form comprehensive list of favorite albums from the decade.  But my real purpose in posting it is to solicit suggestions from my listeners who’ve been more in touch about all the great stuff I missed!  Keep your eyes peeled for the 2nd annual ‘Get Off My Lawn’ year-end mix (the least-well-informed year-end mix series you’re likely to hear); and maybe a ‘Get Off My Lawn, 2000s’ decade-spanning mix.

¶

Here’s a ranked Top 20, followed by a year-by-year list of albums that have stuck with me to varying degrees after the “more…” link.  Who knew it was a decade about electro-pop, female singer-songwriters, artists creating their best work in their 2nd/3rd/4th decades, and Mornons from Duluth?  Probably only for me.

01  Bjork – Medulla (2004)
02  Sam Phillips – Fan Dance (2001)
03  Knife, The – Silent Shout (2006)
04  Badu, Erykah – Mama’s Gun (2000)
05  Low – Drums & Guns (2007)
06  Burial – Burial  (2006)
07  Herbert, Matthew (Herbert) – Bodily Functions (2001)
08  Flaming Lips – Embryonic (2009)
09  Gnarls Barkley – St. Elsewhere (2006)
10  J Dilla – Donuts (2006)
11  Portishead – Third (2008)
12  Knife, The – Deep Cuts (2003)
13 Herbert, Matthew (Herbert) – Scale (2006)
14  Thomas, David – Surf’s Up (2001)
15  For Carnation, The – The For Carnation (2000)
16  Low – Trust (2002)
17  Daft Punk – Discovery (2001)
18  Caribou – Andorra (2007)
19  Burial – Untrue (2007)
20  Sylvian, David – Blemish (2003)

¶

Best albums I heard of the 2000s (by year):

(2000)
Badu, Erykah – Mama’s Gun (2000)*
Broadcast – The Noise Made by People (2000)
Cat Power – Covers Record (2000)*
Chicago Underground Duo – Synesthesia (2000)
For Carnation, The – The For Carnation (2000)*
Kozelek, Mark – Rock ‘n Roll Singer EP (2000)
Low + Spring Heel Jack – Bombscare EP (2000)
Modest Mouse – The Moon & Antarctica (2000)
Outkast – Stankonia (2000)
Radiohead – Kid A (2000)
Songs:Ohia – The Lioness (2000)
Yo La Tengo – And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside Out (2000)*

(2001)
Adult – Resuscitation (2001)
Bjork – Vespertine (2001)*
Daft Punk – Discovery (2001)*
Erase Eratta – Other Animals (2001)
Garbarek, Anja – Smiling & Waving (2001)
Herbert, Matthew (Herbert) – Bodily Functions (2001)*
His Name Is Alive – Someday My Blues Will Cover the Earth (2001)
Knife, The – The Knife (2001)
Kozelek, Mark – What’s Next to the Moon (2001)
Low – Things We Lost in the Fire (2001)
Sam Phillips – Fan Dance (2001)*
Radiohead – Amnesiac (2001)
Thomas, David – Surf’s Up (2001)*
Tortoise – Standards (2001)
Welch, Gillian – Time (The Revalator) (2001)

(2002)
Beck – Sea Changes (2002)
Flaming Lips – Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots (2002)
Herbert, Matthew (Radioboy) – Mechanics of Destruction (2002)
Liebezeit, Jaki & Burnt Friedman – Secret Rhythms (2002)
Low – Trust (2002)*
Nordenstam, Stina – This Is (2002)
Wilco – Yankee Hotel Foxtrot (2002)*
Yo La Tengo – The Sounds of the Sounds of Science (2002)

(2003)
Belle & Sebastian – Dear Catastrophe Waitress (2003)
Blur – Think Tank (2003)
Courvoisier, Sylvie – Abaton (2003)
Herbert, Matthew – Goodbye Swingtime (2003)
Knife, The – Deep Cuts (2003)*
Outkast – Speakerboxxx/The Love Below (2003)
Sylvian, David – Blemish (2003)*
Wyatt, Robert – Cuckooland (2003)

(2004)
Bjork – Medulla (2004)*
Deadbeat – Something Borrowed Something Blue (2004)
Nordenstam, Stina – The World is Saved (2004)
Phillips, Sam – A Boot & A Shoe (2004)

(2005)
Amadou et Mariam – Dimanche a Bmako (2005)
Anders, Matt – 2005 Demos (2005)
Dockstader, Tod – Aerial (2005)
Feist – Let it Die (2005)*
Jones, Sharon & The Dap-Kings – Naturally (2005)
Lidell, Jamie – Multiply (2005)
Menche, Daniel – Concussions (2005)
Prekop, Sam – Who’s Your New Professor (2005)
Vitalic – OK Cowboy (2005)

(2006)
Burial – Burial  (2006)*
Gnarls Barkley – St. Elsewhere (2006)*
Herbert, Matthew (Herbert) – Scale (2006)*
Hu Vibrational – Universal Mother (2006)
J Dilla – Donuts (2006)*
Junior Boys – So This is Goodbye (2006)
Knife, The – Silent Shout (2006)*
Kode 9 & The Space Ape – Memories of the Future (2006)*
Kreiner, Michael Pogo – E-Magic Flute (2006)
Menche, Daniel – Creatures of Cadence (2006)
Roots, The – Game Theory (2006)
Yorke, Thom – The Eraser (2006)*

(2007)
Burial – Untrue (2007)*
Caribou – Andorra (2007)*
Low – Drums & Guns (2007)*
Menche, Daniel – Animality (2007)
Various – After Dark (2007)
Wyatt, Robert – Comicopera (2007)

(2008)
Badu, Erykah – New Amerykah, Part 1 (2008)
Fevre, Bernard (Black Devil Disco Club) – Eight Oh Eight (2008)
Hercules & Love Affair – Hercules & Love Affair (2008)
Matmos – Supreme Balloon (2008)
Phillips, Sam – Don’t Do Anything (2008)
Portishead – Third (2008)*

(2009)
Animal Collective – Merriweather Post  (2009)
Bazan, David – Curse Your Branches (2009)
Faust – C’est Com Com Complique (2009)
Fever Ray – Fever Ray ( (2009)*
Fields, Lee & The Expressions – My World (2009)
Flaming Lips – Embryonic (2009)*

¶

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I’m not about to tell you that this is the greatest album of the decade.  I’m sure that some other, more popular record made a cultural impact that far eclipsed the splash made by indie faves Belle & Sebastian.  What Dear Catastrophe Waitress is, though, is my favorite album of the past 10 years.  I hadn’t even heard of Belle & Sebastian until 2006’s The Life Pursuit.  By approaching their catalogue backwards, I was quickly rewarded when listening to their stunning fifth LP.  From the opening honks of “Step Into My Office, Baby” to the twangy fadeout of “Stay Loose,” the whole record is nothing short of a masterpiece.  I’ll leave it up to you to investigate a more detailed account of Belle & Sebastian’s history leading up to Dear Catastrophe Waitress, but I’ll quickly run it for you here:  After a pair of rather popular albums, the group fell into a bit of a slump (though I contend that The Boy With The Arab Strap is still really good).  Searching for some direction, the band came to sonic whiz Trevor Horn, the mastermind behind the Buggles, Art Of Noise and ZTT Records.  Horn rather quickly assigned Stuart Murdoch the role of lead singer, a position that the band had been reluctant to so rigidly define on previous albums.  With Horn at the helm, Belle & Sebastian created a disc’s worth of songs that showed off talent and depth that had only been hinted at on previous releases.