D.O.T.M Presents Stilltown Vol. 1

Brand new music from the best hip-hop artists in Pittsburgh, PA.

http://www.mediafire.com/?gkhm0z15mty

01. Jack Wilson – Clap Your Hands Say Yeah (Prod. by SPAED)
02. Reverrb – Here You Go, Kiddo (Prod. by 2 Deep Productions)
03. Shindiggaz – GI Joe (Prod. by DJ Thermos)
04. Divine Seven – Str8 From the Heart
05. Jon Quest – Emcee University (Prod. by Shade Cobain)
06. B-FreeDaMisfit – In the Sunshine
07. Ayatollah Jaxx – Nothing Like You Ever Heard (Prod. by Chim Beats)
08. Apex – Get Ready (Prod. by Ulliversal)
09. Living Proofe – Be (Prod. by Nice Rec)
10. Idasa Tariq – Blacksmith Application (Prod. by Idasa Tariq)
11. Billy Pilgrim & Reverrb – Regardless
12. Lone Catalysts feat. Mood – Beware
13. Jev the Ghost – Open the Door (Prod. by Vills)
14. Internal Korruption – Get Out (Prod. by Internal Korruption)
15. Davu – Get Loose (Prod. by Shade Cobain)
16. Gene Stovall & Armstead Brown – Remote Control (Prod. by Armstead Brown)
17. Good Company – Might Not Make It (Prod. by Fundamental)
18. Divine Seven – Reachin’ (Prod. by Shade Cobain)
19. Shindiggaz – Ninja Turtles (Prod. by DJ Thermos)
20. Jack Wilson feat. Billy Pilgrim & Deric Norgren – Meets His Speaker
21. Jasiri X – Silent Night

Big ups to Rory @ stilltown.blogspot.com

Therm&Soul&Friends – Adventures on Gunstar9 - Coming real soon. Like in the next two days. Keep checking back here.

While mainlining Radiohead at work today, I came across a stellar animator, Gastón Viñas, who has created animated music videos for Radiohead tracks. Watch, listen, and be.

heaven sent you to me, to me, to me

Rolling Stone has compiled a list of 100 Best Albums of the Decade, so I thought I’d weigh in on a few of their selections. Links to songs included!

1. Kid A (Radiohead): Okay, I have to admit that I have never hopped on the Radiohead bandwagon. However, now that this album has earned the number one spot on their list, I will definitely be snatching it up as soon as possible. If all the best people in the industry think there has been nothing better, it is at least worth a listen.

3. Yankee Hotel Foxtot (Wilco): Yes, yes, yes. Three of my all-time favorite Wilco songs are on this album, including my all-time favorite, I am Trying to Break Your Heart, so I whole heartedly agree with this selection. In fact, I’d put this album on my list of the greatest albums of all-time, not just this decade. I got to see Wilco live when I was in DC and ever since then, my listening experience with their albums has been on another level. Each song brings me something new.

14. The Black Album (Jay-Z): Jay-Z also earned the number four spot with “The Blueprint.” Two albums in the top 20? I think that speaks wonders for the artist that he is. Like many others, The Black Album is my favorite of his, with my favorite track being “Public Service Announcement.” Ask me sometime to rap this song for you and I’ll do it at the drop of a hat.

28. Fever to Tell (Yeah Yeah Yeahs): I saw the Yeah, Yeah, Yeahs in concert and they bored me so much I actually left. Plus, two “cougars” got in a fight in front of me and one girl lost her shoe. Odd experience coupled with a poor performance doesn’t entice me to check out their records anymore.

53. Only by the Night (Kings of Leon): Each time I listen to this album, I pick a new favorite track. Someone once told me that they judge a good album by tracks five, eight, and the second to last. This is because anyone can make three great songs and a band will always pick something great for the last song. This song is a “five, eight, and second to last” album all the way.

56. Vampire Weekend (Vampire Weekend): I might get some flax for saying this, but I love this album. In fact, I even had Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa as my ringtone for awhile last summer. Was this album life changing? No. But it is fun to listen to and always cheers me up.

58. The Grey Album (Danger Mouse): Bump this album up about 50 spots and I’d be happy. Danger Mouse combined tracks from the Beatles’ White Album and Jay-Z’s Black Album to create Perfection.

63. 808s and Heartbreak (Kayne West): Get this album off the list.

97. Sky Blue Sky (Wilco): As a whole, this album is probably my favorite of Wilco’s. I can absolutely never get enough of the guitar solo at 1:28 in “You are my Face.” I remember driving around once after a morning of classes and continually pressing rewind so I could hear that transition in the song over and over. I love Wilco because their music feels so raw and real to me. “You are my Face” epitomizes that for me. “I have no idea how this happens to me/All of my maps have been overthrown. Happenstance has changed all my plans/So many times my heart has been outgrown.” I could also go on for miles about “Hate it Here.” Greatest break-up song, in my opinion.

Thoughts? Reactions? Think I have terrible taste in music and want to change my mind through a listening session? Please share! Nothing makes me happier than getting music recommendations.

Also, my music collection is your music collection.

Rolling Stone hints that Radiohead turned rock music on its head with the “Kid A” album, which was released to start the decade.

To the magazine, the album

“renounced everything in rock that, to (Thom)Yorke in particular, reeked of the tired and overfamiliar: clanging arena-force guitars, verse-chorus-bridge song tricks.”

Maybe so but I think The Strokes “Is This It” is better, even though it’s more of a standard rock formula.

“Is This It” was number 2 on the Rolling Stone list.

In a few weeks, we say goodbye to the aughts. It seems only fitting that we provide you, our readers, with our own “best of” lists. What better way to kick it off than with our “Best Albums of the Decade.”

For me, it’s been a decade of great discovery musically–one where I’ve opened myself to new artists and genres–and moved past some of my previous biases. The 1990’s were marked by great albums with huge commercial success. It seems like everyone had a copy of Ten, Nevermind and OK Computer. Times have changed and the manner in which we consume our music has evolved. Gone are the days where terrestrial radio dictates what we listen to and no longer do we go to our local music store to purchase our favorite CD’s.

Instead, we turn to the Internet–to download, share, listen and get recommendations. This has paved the way for artists who lack traditional commercial appeal to find their way into the home of every American.  Most of the albums on this list, never dominated the charts, but each one packed an emotional punch from beginning to end and provided the listener endless pleasure.

With that said, this selection process was not without a system. My iPod contains all 10 albums. I have carefully analyzed my listening stats for each album, averaging the ranking of all the songs on an album, using the iPod 5 star ranking system. In the event of a tie, I moved to the average number of listens per song for an album.

1.)    Lifted or The Story is in the Soil, Keep Your Ear to the Ground

Bright Eyes

Saddle Creek Records, 2002

Seattle played a major role in defining the music of the 1990’s and while no one city has dominated the music world like Seattle in the aughts, the closest thing we had was the Midwest scene in towns like Lawrence, Kansas, Omaha, Nebraska, and Columbia, Missouri.

Seattle’s Sub Pop Records introduced the world to Nirvana, arguably Seattle’s most influential band. Omaha’s Saddlecreek Records, introduced the world to Bright Eyes, arguably the most influential band in the Midwestern sound and possibly the defining sound of the 2000’s. Nirvana already had a loyal following prior to the release of Nevermind, but it was that album’s release that earned them mainstream success. Similarly, Lifted earned Bright Eyes, already a favorite among the indie crowd, a mainstream following.

No album of the decade captures the post-9/11 angst many Americans my age felt. Indeed, Lifted marked Conor Oberst’s first overt attempt to fuse his music with politics and his own unique brand of existential dread, as evidenced by the opening lines of the albums’ first song, “The Big Picture” (The picture is far too big to look at kid/ Your eyes won’t open wide enough and you are constantly surrounded by that swirling stream of what is and what was./Well, we’ve all made our predictions but the trust still isn’t out/So if you want to see the future, go stare into a cloud.).

These themes continue throughout the album, hitting emotional crescendos in songs like “Waste of Paint” and “Don’t Know When But a Day Is Gonna Come” and my personal favorite song of the decade, “Let’s Not Shit Ourselves (To Love and To Be Loved)”.

I first discovered Bright Eyes in 2001, at the end of a dark chapter in my life. A friend gave me a copy of Fevers and Mirrors and I listened to it religiously. I bought Lifted the day it was released and I credit it for keeping me sane through the majority of the Bush years.  I knew at that point the album was special, but it wasn’t until I began this project to compile the best albums of the decade that I realized just how special it was and remains.

2.)  The Moon & Antarctica

Modest Mouse

Epic Records, 2000

Modest Mouse achieved their greatest commercial success starting in 2004 with their release of Good New for People Who Love Bad News. However, this Seattle act has been rocking since 1993.  The Moon & Antarctica represents their most complete album with hardly any blemishes. Compared to their albums, The Moon is much more instrumental driven, featuring numerous memorable guitar riffs, some of which have permeated our popular culture. Nissan used the opening to “Gravity Rides Everything” in an ad campaign a few years back. With that said, Modest Mouse manages to avoid being superfluous with their music, never allowing their instruments to overshadow the deeper meaning of their songs. Indeed, their unique sound provides an ethereal backdrop for delivering a chilling, often heart wrenching message.

Though not a concept album by definition, the songs blend perfectly together. I divide the album into three parts and an epilogue. The first part begins with Track #1, “3rd Planet” and culminates with “Perfect Disguise.” Part Two  begins with “Tiny Cities Made of Ashes” and climaxes with “The Stars Are Projectors,” the most powerful song on the album. The third part begins “Wild Packs of Family Dogs” and ends with “Lives.” While “Life Like Weeds” and “What People Are Made Of” combine to form the perfect postscript.

3.)  Picaresque

The Decemberists

Kill Rock Stars, 2005

I was a little surprised at how well Picaresque scored when I started going through the numbers on my iPod. I knew the album would make my Top 10 list, but I didn’t remember how great this album is until I actually started going through it again. While the Top 2 spots are held down by albums full of melancholy, Picaresque is much more lively and fun. The Decemberists don’t shy away from dark subject matter, but beginning with the high-energy “The Infanta” on track 1 you get a totally different vibe. What sticks out most about the album, and can be found in most of The Decmberists work, is the tight narratives that hold the songs together. Frontman Colin Meloy is a master of the use of imagery within a song, the likes of which we have not seen since Paul Simon. As you listen to the songs, Meloy paints a vivid picture, so the experience becomes as much visual as audible. Some even remind us of some of the great writers of the English language. The first time I heard “The Mariner’s Revenge Song,” I could not help but think of Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.” While the plots aren’t the same, the structure that both Coleridge and Meloy employed are similar.

If you want a small sample of this album’s greatness, I recommend “Eli, the Barrow Boy.” It is a perfect example of the imagery and narrative I discussed above and my personal favorite from the album.

4.)   Kid A

Radiohead

EMI, 2000

One album sure to be on every “best of the decade” list is Radiohead’s Kid A. Since it’s release, Radiohead fans and music fans alike have debated over the meaning of the album. The commonly held belief is that it is a concept album about the world’s first human clone, “Kid A.” Musically and stylistically, the album represented a break from the Radiohead of the 1990’s and defined the Radiohead sound of the aughts. The songs feature electronic sounds and vocal distortions, rarely used in the group’s first three CD’s, but that have been more common in their more recent work. I love Radiohead, but would never have the audacity to claim to be an expert on the band. I know they have a very loyal fan base and out of respect to that fan base I will refrain from commenting too much on the album. I don’t need to!  The album speaks for itself. I will say that “How to Disappear Completely” is my favorite Radiohead song and “Optimistic” is not too far behind.

5.)  Backspacer

Pearl Jam

Monkeywrench, 2009

This choice will not surprise many of who know me and understand my love of Pearl Jam. Simply put, the best  Pearl Jam album since No Code and the best album released by anyone in 2009. I doubt Backspacer will win over many new fans to the band, but Pearl Jam has a well established fan base and those fans, including myself, can see the growth this band has experienced over the years. Perhaps it’s the new President or maybe it’s being free of a major label and allowed to express their artistic freedom, but Eddie Vedder and the entire band seem almost happy for the first time in their career. Indeed, on the album’s firs track, “Gonna See My Friend”, a song about addiction, Vedder expresses a common theme for the album, “I’m gonna shake this thing/I wanna shake this pain before I retire.” For the past twenty years, Pearl Jam has rocked against the establishment with a youthful exuberance and proud ideology. While they remain true to those principles, it seems like they’ve learned, through experience, that in spite of the problems the world presents, there are many places to find a respite and some inner peace.

One of those places seems to be their own music. No longer trying to please a record executive, the band can make music they want to hear. Backspacer is much more up tempo and high energy than the band’s previous releases. It’s almost as if they’ve had all this energy stored, throughout the years, and finally have an outlet to express it.

Vedder also looks to love as a means to some inner peace. In “Amongst the Waves,” a song that traces the path of a relationship, Vedder writes, “if not for love I would be drowning/I’ve seen it work both ways, I’m up/Riding high among the waves/I can feel like I have a soul that has been saved.” On “Just Breathe”, we see Vedder adopt the acoustic style he favored for his recent solo work to carve out an old fashioned love song. They return to the sea analogy and more hints of love in the anthem, “Force of Nature”–the best song on the album.

6.)  Tennessee

Lucero

Madjack Records, 2002

“Alt-country” experienced a boom in popularity during the decade. From some of the early pioneers of the genre like Ryan Adams and the Old 97’s, to the new blood of bands like My Morning Jacket and Drive-By Truckers, the music permeated the landscape and found it’s way into other genres as well. One band in the genre that is often overlooked is Lucero. I first saw Lucero play a show around the time they released Tennessee. At the time, I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to find decent entertainment during a weekend trip to Little Rock and just happened to walk into a Lucero show. I had never heard of the band and did not know what to expect, but to this day I rank it as one of the best shows I have ever been to.  The band played festivals all over the country in support of Tennessee and earned a loyal following.  One of the best reviews I read regarding Tennessee upon its release compared Ben Nichols’ vocals to a “country” Kurt Cobain. Indeed, there is a grittiness to his voice and it is that distinctive voice that draws the listener into the lyrics. Once drawn in, the band takes the listener or a journey into dance halls, honky tonks and little roadside dives all across the United States. This is especially true with tracks like “Slow Dancing”, “Nights Like These” and “Here at the Starlite.” Since the release of Tennessee, Lucero has experienced some mainstream success, but still doesn’t get the respect of My Morning Jacket or Drive-By Truckers. Take it from me, they have done more for the country rock genre than anyone since Gram Parsons.

7.)  The Blueprint

Jay-Z

Roc-A-Fella/Island Def Jam, 2001

As a teen in the early 90’s, I became a huge fan of the rap and hip-hop of the time. I still count Dr. Dre’s The Chronic as one of the top 5 albums of any genre and I loved everything 2Pac put out, but when 2Pac died the genre seemed to fade as well. Instead of remaining true to telling stories of the streets, rap and hip-hop evolved into a philistine, pseudo-art form. It reminded me of the evolution of rock. In the 60’s and 70’s, rock was defined by truly talented artists writing great songs of political and social importance. In the 80’s, hair bands started hijacking the genre and rock went from fighting “the man” to one big party, full of booze, Aqua Net and strippers. When rap and hip-hop laid down their guns and picked up the bling, the music took a serious hit. Sure, it was easier for a suburban audience to consume, and thus more profitable, but it just wasn’t the same as the great music I experienced in middle school and high school.

For years, I refused to listen to any “new” rap or hip-hop, including some of Jay-Z’s earlier stuff, but when I first heard The Blueprint I heard an edge that had been missing from the genre for far too long.  Without a doubt, this is the best rap/hip-hop album released since the death of 2Pac. At the beginning of “The Ruler’s Back,” Jay-Z announces “what you about to witness is just my thoughts.” When I heard those words, I knew real hip-hop was back.

8,)  Dear Catastrophe Waitress

Belle & Sebastian

Rough Trade, 2003

If I had to use one word to describe this album it would be “fun.” At the end of the day, sometimes music needs to be fun. In Dear Catastrophe Waitress, Belle & Sebastian reaches back into the annals of music and channels the spirit of so many of the great “British invasion” bands. Catchy tunes and whimsical lyrics abound on this album, including the title track.

As a fan of classic rock, I simply love the Thin Lizzy inspired “I’m a Cuckoo.” The baseball fan in me laughs at the tongue and cheek humor found in “Piaza, New York Catcher.” No matter what life may throw my way, I can listen to this album and know that at the end I will be in  a much better mood. It may not be as great or artistic as some of their recordings from the 90’s and, yes, it was released at a point when their music was becoming far more commercial, but when you stack it up against the rest of the music of the decade, this one definitely lands in the Top 10.

9.)  Cassadaga

Bright Eyes

Saddle Creek, 2007

The second Bright Eyes album to make our list is a much more polished version than the first and finds Conor Oberst refining many of the styles he experimented with on Lifted, most notably the alt-country genre. Indeed, if you listen closely you can hear the influence of The Byrds’ Sweethearts of the Rodeo stage and Gram Parsons.

The pedal steel plays in the background, mixing beautifully with Oberst’s Dylan-like delivery of lyrics on “If the Brakeman Turns My Way”.  On “Four Winds”, Oberst puts an alt-country twist on William Butler Yeats’ “Second Coming”.  Perhaps the most moving of all the songs on the album is the haunting “Middleman,” a collection of beautifully played strings mixed  with the distant howling of a woodwind section creates a symphony of sorrow best enjoyed alone.In “I Must Belong Somewhere”, Oberst points a mirror directly at America, causing each of us to pause and question our society and culture–the sign of a true artist.

10.)  Fever to Tell

Yeah Yeah Yeahs

Interscope Geffen, 2003

I never got the chance to visit CBGBs. When I listen to Fever to Tell, I like to imagine that this is what it sounded like back in its prime. Lead singer Karen O is our generation’s Patti Smith and the music’s raw energy makes you want to jump out of your seat and move along with the beat. The album is best known for the single “Maps”, which received heavy radio play, but relatively speaking it’s a “weak” song when compared to the rest of the album. The one-two combination of “Rich” and “Date With the Night” gets the album off to a fast start, which continues up until “Maps” when the album takes a decidedly slower turn, not that it’s a bad turn. In fact, the closing trio of “Maps”, “Y Control” and “Modern Romance” caps the album off nicely.

Honorable Mentions

Lost Souls – Doves

Bleed American – Jimmy Eat World

You Are the Quarry – Morrissey

Fold Your Hands Child, You Walk Like a Peasant – Belle & Sebastian

Living in America – The Sounds

http://www.lib.washington.edu/media/pitchfork/images/sufjan_illinois.jpg

Note: So I wasn’t going to do the whole best of the decade thing that’s become a big fad, but what the fuck? It’s fun.

I started thinking about my favorite album of the decade at some point a few months ago and I realized something strange. I’ve sort of stopped listening to new music in the last two years. This is inordinately strange for me. I used to scour ravenously for new bands and sounds and constantly badgered my friends who had similar inclinations. And now I find myself suddenly, well, disinterested. For two years, I’ve been listening to the same music I’ve always listened to (which granted, is a metric-fuck-ton) and revisiting albums I’d left behind.  It prompted me to picture myself in the future, 20 years from now, sitting and listening to some old Flaming Lips albums the way my dad still listens to his old reggae albums on vinyl (yay Ja Spirit!). Music’s like this train that rolls right along and you can go as long as you want. But when you stop to get off, you’re off. And right now, I’m off… I’m also content with this.

This is relevant to my point for one reason, which sadly involves another tangent: If you were to ask me what my favorite album of the decade was, I would have instantly answered Radiohead’s Kid A for some self-obvious and tangible reasons. For starters, it had a profound affect on me, both in terms of taste and how I physically listen to music. I still maintain that the album serves as the great Rosetta stone for how to listen for sub-sound and sub-melody. To boot, it just sounds so god-damn advanced. Like it’s made by those gastro chefs who can turn gasoline and cake batter into a some kind of edible ice tart. Which is not to say that’s what matters it music, just that it’s an easily tangible way to identify genius. So I started constructing lists and arranging stuff in my head and just always sort of assumed Kid A would be at the top of my list.

So now then, over the last month I’ve been listening to a bunch or albums from this era that I liked, and I found myself listening to Illinois by Sufjan Stevens over and over and over (I spend a lot of time in a car and still use good old fashioned cds. I’m not a luddite it’s just my Ipod was stolen forever ago and I’m still bitter about buying a new one. That shit’s expensive). And it was like some remarkable rediscovery of the album, far from it, it was something else entirely:

I realized: I listen to Illinois all the time.

I got the album when it first came out and it has never left my car. It has never been far off my Itunes. I routinely throw songs from it on mixes. I find myself whistling little bits from it. Most of all, I write to music and and I seriously can’t think of a better album to listen to while writing. I realized I literally don’t go two weeks without listening to a song from that album, and I’m not sick of it. And it’s been five god damn years folks.

I don’t consider myself to be predisposed to liking Sufjan Stevens. There’s a kind of inherent preciousness to his music that just begs for a nice reactionary/illogical criticism. But I have no interest in playing that role. I’m highly aware that there’s already a heckuva lot of, nay unanimous critical praise for the album, but it rolls off my shoulders. I really don’t care what people think of it. It’s really good and everyone knows it’s pretty good. It’s just I’ve merely been unaware of how much I truly loved it. Debate if you will, but I have nothing invested in this argument. It’s not like I’m trying to prove why it’s good, or relevant, or lovable, or sucks, or any of that nonsense we try to do when arguing about music.

It just is.

It’s an album that’s exists out of all other contexts for me. Something I enjoy on the most basic, if largely subconscious level for so many years. Unlike Kid A, which immediately go into my head and in my heart, Illinois has done than far more impressive feat of getting in my bones.

And that’s what I think matters. I could talk to you about the intensely personal song writing, the epic tone and feeling of the music, it’s rich sense of atmosphere, it’s alternating of upbeat with aching melancholy, while often slyly fading with its use of both at once. But all that sort of feels irrelevant. Music is the most intensely personal form of art you can relate with….

And this one got me in my bones.

-mgss

Addendum:

-I went with Illinois and not “Illinoise” because it’s intentionally confusing withthe album cover/actual naming.

-SERIOUSLY, when the hell is he going to make another for real album and not some crazy mixed media thing or unreleased B sides? I’m jonesing.

-Honorable mentions:

Kid A by Radiohead – reasons aforementioned

Funeral by The Arcade Fire -I can’t think of a better debut album off the top of my head. Just amazing awe inspiring stuff.

Good News For People Who Love Bad News by Modest Mouse – sure it’s the popular album. So what? I’ve seen nothing but a long list of critics looking for reasons to include the other MM albums on their best of lists and I don’t get it. It’s great top to bottom, why can’t we acknowledge that there’s a reason this album hurled the band into the big time for a reason? I love The Moon and Antarctica too. Hell nobody love Sad Sappy Sucker more than me. So why do we have to pretend this one wasn’t even more awesome again?

Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots by The Flaming Lips – w/ this and MM, it’s the 2000s, otherwise known as when great bands that had been together for a decade got popular.

Late Registration by Kanye West – I’ve seen college dropout on more lists than this. Why? Because not as many people were into him then? There’s probably nothing more pretentious then a pretentious rant about critics being to pretentious, but seriously I don’t get this. The Jon Brion produced(!) Late Registration is just a superior, incredible album.

Others: Kala by MIA, Return to Cookie Mountain by TV on the Radio, Stankonia by Outkast, Z by My Morning Jacket, White Blood Cells by The White Stripes, Turn on the Bright Lights by Interpol, Sea Change by Beck.

Photo by colm.mcmullan

Robert Christgau, perhaps the most famous rock critic in history, once called Radiohead the “Only Band That Matters,” a title previously bestowed upon British punk band The Clash. Radiohead has put out seven full-length studio albums and have been called the “Pink Floyd of Generation Y.” Whether or not you listen to them or you believe they deserve it, they are the most critically acclaimed band of the past two decades.

I grew up in a middle-sized town in northwest Indiana: too big for John Mellencamp, but not quite large enough to relate to the Rolling Stones’ portrayal of New York in “Shattered.” I used to sit in front of my parents’ stereo and listen to Beatles’ records for hours at a time. I listened to a dozen CDs a week driving to and from my high school. My best friend used to tell me there were three musical phases you would go through at some point in your young adult life; a Beatles phase, a Led Zeppelin phase, and a Radiohead phase. My Beatles phase came young, and my Led Zeppelin phase was throughout high school. Now I write for a couple of music blogs and spend part of my week doing grunt work at a local record label. I have listened to thousands of artists, I own hundreds of records, and I have never had a Radiohead phase. This makes me wonder if it will ever happen to me. Is Radiohead worthy of a phase in my life, or everybody’s for that matter? In order to answer these questions I enlisted the help of experts and conducted a personal experiment (involving five and a half hours of Radiohead) that has never been attempted.

The Experts

In order for Radiohead to legitimately occupy a plane above all other pop bands they have to contribute more to society than ring tones and record sales. According to Brandon Forbes, co-editor of Radiohead and Philosophy, the band is not just a capitalistic juggernaut.

“We had a pretty good hunch going into it, but putting this book together made it plain to us that there are good reasons why Radiohead has succeeded The Clash as ‘The Only Band that Matters’.”

The book compiles essays about the band itself and its music and lyrics, separating them into categories such as “Radiohead’s Existential Politics” and “Radiohead and the Postmodern.” The overarching theme of the book is that yes, it is possible to have a discussion about the band that goes beyond the surface aesthetics.

As Forbes puts it, “Radiohead’s music points toward philosophical analyses of actual experiences in the world.”

However, Radiohead has impacted more than just the philosophical world. They made a cultural and economic splash in 2007 with the unconventional release of their highly anticipated album, In Rainbows. They decided to allow fans to download the album for whatever price they wanted to pay. The results were mixed, and it is estimated that less than half of those that downloaded the album contributed any money to the virtual tip jar. The album was released physically later, but this attracted much less attention than the initial digital-only sale.

This new method, flawed as it may have been, created a whirlwind of controversy about not only the album itself, but about the entire music industry. D.E. Wittkower, author of the essay “Everybody Hates Rainbows,” says that cutting out the middle men of the recording industry is something that plenty of people would not mind doing.

“Music is expressive, and the idea of transforming something fundamentally communicative into a commodity for sale has always been a bit of a house of cards…From the fan-perspective, music as a commodity has always been only a necessary evil and an unwelcome precondition.”
Any band with enough power to make countless numbers of fellow musicians, authors, and professors muse about their work and cultural impact has to be important. Having established that Radiohead does hold merit in intellectual communities, it is time to answer whether or not Radiohead can have a significant impact on my personal life.

The Experiment

What do Radiohead and I have in common? Nothing as far as I can tell. I have never listened to any of their albums all the way through. To me, this does not seem like such a big deal, but to other music writers it is akin to reporting on professional football for a year and then going on vacation during the Superbowl.
In the interests of science and my own personal edification I listened to all seven of Radiohead’s studio albums in a row. According to iTunes that is five and a half hours and 81 songs. There were three bathroom breaks and a phone call from my mother that stopped the music, but other than that it was smooth sailing on a slow Sunday. When I decide to do something I tend to follow the plan through to completion (unless you count my childhood dream of owning a Ford Probe, which I have put on the back burner for now).

I am not a very good scientist. I went into the experiment wanting to like Radiohead. Often I wonder to myself, do I have an inherent dislike for Radiohead, or as perhaps George W. Bush would ask, is it a choice that I freely make? The only band I ever tried to make myself like was Pink Floyd. I remember having a 7th grade duty to hate them since “pink” is in their name (i.e. must be for girls). Then, somebody cooler than me told me they were the greatest band ever so I sucked up my pride, bought Dark Side of the Moon, and listened to it twice through while sitting in my mom’s minivan. Quickly it became one of my favorite albums, and I still love it.
I have listened to a few Radiohead songs before (I think once in high school I fell asleep listening to Hail to the Thief on a long car trip), but I’m still probably an anomaly in the “indie rock” world. Before I listened to all the albums I liked the song “Karma Police” and I have a previously formed opinion (more later) on the single that vaulted them into the spotlight from relative obscurity, “Creep.”

This did not end up like Chuck Klosterman’s essay where he sets out to watch music videos on TV for 24 hours, only to find out that they loop every couple of hours, so he ends up watching the same videos in the same order all day. Radiohead does have seven studio albums and, as I found out, they had quite an interesting musical evolution. What follows is my account of the day when my view on Radiohead became informed, instead of just based on speculation.

Any Given Radiohead Sunday

Released in 1993, Pablo Honey is the group’s first studio album, which is the first step on my journey to enlightenment. The album art is god-awful and for a moment I consider scrapping the whole experiment and throwing on an old Led Zeppelin record.

1 Song In: The first song on the album is called “You” and it sounds more like R.E.M than what I had imagined Radiohead to sound like. It is rather surprising and I can’t say that I dislike it.

2 Songs In: This is the aforementioned “Creep” and my opinion on it has not changed. Anybody who has played the Rock Band video game or has had a roommate trying to learn guitar knows this song and has heard it too many times. Since it is the second song into my odyssey there is no new context in which I can view it, so I still think it is whiny drivel.

5 Songs In: I’ve listened to four full tracks and I have not heard any break beats or electro-sneezes that I expected to hear. This song is called “Thinking About You,” and if Radiohead was an 80’s hair metal band, this would be their “Ballad of Jayne.”

12 Songs In: “Blow Out,” the last song on Pablo Honey is ending, giving me the first glimpse of psychedelic weirdness that I have previously associated with Radiohead.

15 Songs In: This song, “High and Dry,” is the first song that has legitimately wowed me. It has a sad beauty that kind of sums up the rest of the songs I have heard so far.

19 Songs In: More than half way through The Bends, and this song, “Just,” has woken me from some sort of trance. I was either entranced or napping, but I’m not sure which. This song is what I would call rock and roll and boasts a pretty great guitar solo.

25 Songs In: “Airbag” is the first song on OK Computer, which many consider the band’s greatest accomplishment. In an NME article from 1995, singer Thom Yorke said of the album, “You know, the big thing for me is that we could really fall back on just doing another moribund, miserable, morbid and negative record, like lyrically, but I really don’t want to, at all.”

30 Songs In: I can see what Yorke means now as I listen to “Karma Police.” This album ventures more into outer space, with songs like “Paranoid Android” and “Subterranean Homesick Alien,” as opposed to the introspective bent that the previous albums had. Like The Smiths before them, Radiohead was often labeled as a band to listen to only when depressed, since their lyrics were often self-loathing and melancholy. OK Computer signaled a change in perspective as the band began to comment more on the world around them, as opposed to the world inside themselves.

37 Songs In: Starting the next album, Kid A, right now, and feeling the beginnings of the pain this might inflict on my physical self. I feel a little burnt out but glad I decided to undertake this experiment instead of a Whitesnake experiment. Can you believe the band with one video of a model dancing on the hood of a car put out 11 full-length albums?

46 Songs In: This song (“Motion Picture Soundtrack”) has multiple endings and solidifies my view that Radiohead is adept at choosing the last song on each of their albums. I am enjoying each album more than the last, which I am more than half certain is not because I am developing some sort of disorder from sitting in front of my monitor for so long.

57 Songs In: I just finished listening to Amnesiac, which is the most epic album that I have heard so far. It has thunderous bass, but lacks the cohesiveness of Kid A. The albums were recorded at the same time, but their releases were staggered since the band was opposed to releasing a double album. My mental and physical states are on the brink, but maybe the next album will be full of Metallica covers to keep me awake.

58 Songs In: I am listening to the first song off 2003’s Hail to the Thief, which is called “2+2=5 (The Lukewarm).” This album annoys me already for a few reasons. First, did each member of the band get to choose a word of each song title without consulting each other? I do like the title “A Punchup at a Wedding. (No no no no no no no no),” but I think that probably triggered the trend in music nowadays where bands think it is okay to name themselves Somebody Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin.

71 Songs In: Hail to the Thief, like all of Radiohead’s previous albums, builds on their sound, this time adding a creepiness and feeling of impending doom to each song. At points the album falls short and turns into background music, but it has a handful of quality songs. Also, I think this may be the first album that gives credit in the liner notes for playing the “laptop.” If you are allowed to claim that you play the computer, I think the next Britney Spears album will come with a tome full of liner notes.

81 Songs In or The End: I just finished listening to In Rainbows and it went by like a blur. I like the sound of the album as a whole, but there are not any songs that stood out to me like “High and Dry” or “Karma Police.”

Conclusions

Having consulted the experts and gained firsthand knowledge (maybe a little too much) about Radiohead’s music, I have come to realize a few things. The first is that Radiohead is a great band. Who am I to tell millions of people that a band they love is not worth loving? Such a statement always sounds ludicrous and ignorant when it is about a topic as subjective as musical taste. Even if it is not my perception of them, the world sees them as great and credit should be given where credit is due. The last thing that I learned from my time with Radiohead is that I do enjoy their music and their message, even if I do not fully understand it. Now I understand the hype and I can eagerly follow along as the band teeters on the edge of a break up or contemplates the post-In Rainbows world and the evolving (devolving?) state of the recording industry. I may be a late bloomer, but I feel like I am on the edge of a new musical phase…

It was my final year of school and I was just starting to realise that you actually had to work in order to get A levels when a friend pushed a certain CD into my hands. It had a crappy little inlay made in Word with a grim little font but that didn’t really matter as it contained eight tracks from ‘Kid A’ which he had downloaded from the internet. We were late adopters of the internet, my family. We’d only just got a computer and it was dial-up all the way. The aforementioned friend – Chris, should he happen to ever read this – was quite the opposite and had been pissing around on the net for years prior to this and this was the first time it had ever impacted upon me. He told me that it wasn’t what I might be expecting and that he didn’t really know what he thought of it. Sounded interesting enough to me.

I remember playing it through a shitty little green Alba CD/cassette player at school and being quite taken aback. I instantly loved ‘Idioteque’ and kept playing ‘Everything In Its Right Place’, trying to decide if that nagging sensation was like or annoyance. A few of the tracks had little messages embedded and little strategic clicks. Where the hell he’d got the songs from, I didn’t know but it was pretty clear that it was all a little dodgy. Still, hearing that music upfront was an absolute joy and it’s one of the last times I can remember an enormous ‘event’ album appearing without any serious internet clamour preceding it.

As a result, the finished album was largely familiar to me – annoying message and clicks removed – and for a little while I played little else. ‘Optimistic’ and ‘The National Anthem’ are glorious beasts, while ‘Morning Bell’ and ‘Motion Picture Soundtrack’ are some of the finest, glacially atmospheric pieces they’ve ever released. I could offer a quick review of the album, but it’s all been said before. Suffice to say, it meant a lot then and means a lot now.

(I’ve mentioned the glorious 2001 Later Special before, but if you’ve still not seen – or even bits of it on the recent deluxe editions of ‘Kid A’ and ‘Amnesiac’ – you can see pretty much all of it in high quality here.)

This is part one in a series about why Ed O’Brien is cooler than people think. Why? Well, to quote Noely G:

“I know what little Thom does, I know what Jonny does, I know what Colin does, I know what the Samaritan does on drums, what do you do?”

Anyway, here’s the first, and probably the best, example of Ed’s coolness, Treefingers

This is mostly Ed’s creation, with Thom and Ed adding effects to Ed’s guitar work to create the ambient sounds heard on the album. I would kill to hear it before and to know what they used to digitally change it.

Albums may seem like a dying a breed as technological advances make it easier to skip and rearrange tracks, but they are still the primary creative force for most musical acts. And whether it’s a pointless convention or the natural artistic outlet for music, we still evaluate acts based on the strengths of the albums they put out. For most music fans, it’s albums that allow them to develop a relationship with a band or artists work. Whereas most of NPI’s musical retrospective thus far has been an attempt to sum up what was popular, innovative and interesting about this decade in music, this list is not going to be concerned with broad trends: We are looking simply for the BEST albums of the decade. Now, this is just one man’s opinion, but I think it’s safe to say that if you made it through this decade without listening to these albums, then you’re missing out on quite the musical experience.

10) Wilco, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot (2002)

I was never a really big Wilco fan; I was on the “Wilco is overrated” bandwagon for a long time. And it’s hard to deny that the turmoil that surrounded this album did anything but inflate its critical perception. But we ought to remember that something can be overrated and still be good. Yankee Hotel Foxtrot is very good. It wore me down gradually—first, with the catchy pop of “Heavy Metal Drummer,” then with the subtle poignancy of “Jesus, Etc.,” and then with the vast scope of “I Am Trying to Break Your Heart.” This is an odd way to get hooked on an album that is such a complete entity. Musical and lyrical phrases recur throughout Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, enhancing its thematic cohesion. And yet the album is completely unassuming and unpretentious—it’s accessible and enjoyable, and it will wear you down no matter how much you try and resist its critical charms.

9) The New Pornographers, Mass Romantic (2000)

The New Pornographers are often considered a “supergroup,” which sounds like a compliment but really isn’t. It’s hard to name a “supergroup” (besides Cream, I guess) that ever matched the expected value of the sum of its parts. Would you rather listen to the Traveling Wilburys or the solo work of all of its members? Would you rather listen to Audioslave or Rage Against the Machine? Velvet Revolver or Guns N’ Roses? Supergroups, by and large, suck. But the New Pornographers are an exception. They are the rare supergroup that sounds like a meeting of minds, as opposed to a cash cow for its members. The New Pornographers combine the power pop of Carl Newman, the eclectic sound of Dan Bejar,* and the beautiful voice and country vibe of Neko Case. Mass Romantic features some of their best collaborations, including “Letter from an Occupant,” “To Wild Homes” (the only time, I believe, that all three primary members share the vocals), and “Execution Day.” The album also features some of the best of the band’s more personalized songs, such as Newman’s “The Body Says No” and Bejar’s “Jackie.”

*Unsurprisingly, Dan Bejar’s OTHER “supergroup”—Swan Lake—doesn’t sound as good as Destroyer.

8 ) LCD Soundsystem, Sound of Silver (2007)

Before Sound of Silver, I had the kind of respect for James Murphy that you usually have for an artist that has mastered a genre you like, but don’t love. I have nothing against “dance punk,” but it’s not like I was throwing The Rapture CDs in my car or buying all the DFA Records compilations. I liked “Daft Punk is Playing at my House,” but I wasn’t that interested in the rest of LCD Soundsystem’s debut. Sound of Silver, however, was a lot different. First of all, it’s rare for an album of its genre in that it didn’t have any weak songs. Beyond that, it didn’t seem like a collection of singles or disparate tracks; it congealed in the way most great albums do. Nevertheless, this album IS incredibly deep in the number of viable singles it has. The strength of songs like “Someone Great,” “All My Friends” and “North American Scum” alone is often enough, but the fact that Sound of Silver is good from top to bottom puts it in the top ten.

7) Interpol, Turn on the Bright Lights (2002)

A lot of this decade’s best albums were experimentations with the rock form. Interpol’s debut, though, shows why innovation is overrated. Extensive comparisons to Joy Division (although a lot of that was just because Paul Banks’ voice sounds frighteningly like Ian Curtis’) and Television were warranted, but only highlighted the greatness of Turn on the Bright Lights; this album feels like an heir to some of the most groundbreaking sounds of the 1970s. The guitar harmonies of Banks and Daniel Kessler are among the best of the decade, and they are complemented on this record by the heavy, well-paced rhythm section. Turn on the Bright Lights also demonstrates the band’s skill with its structure, sandwiching a slow-building song like “NYC” between two energetic numbers, “Obstacle 1” and “PDA.”

6) Animal Collective, Merriweather Post Pavilion (2009)

A few weeks before this album came out, I was listening to Feels on my iPod. I had generally liked Animal Collective since I had first heard them, but they had always seemed, as someone once put it to me, “too scene.” (Although, if you’ve seen this list, you’re probably wondering why that was a problem for me.) And they are pretty scene, but when I was listening to Feels—and not for the first time, mind you—I got the unexpected sensation of chills down my spine that comes from great music. And while the first four songs on Feels are as good as the band ever got, its most recent album was also its most complete. From the swirling, atmospheric opening of “In the Flowers” (which, not coincidentally, echoes the first song on Feels), to the bouncing pop of “My Girls,” to the soft harmonies of “Bluish,” this album has a remarkable depth. Animal Collective is also deceptively and impressively poignant. Since its songs are so experimental, and since its vocals so often play a roll in their instrumentation, it’s easy to miss a beautifully simple line like “I’m getting lost in your curls.” But when you hear it, it can send chills down your spine.

5) The Secret Machines, Now Here Is Nowhere (2004)

Like Interpol, the Secret Machines are an example of how good a band can be when it’s not afraid to wear its influences on its sleeve. Now Here is Nowhere sounds like a neo-classic rock album, infused with the psychedelic sound and heavy rock of The Who and Pink Floyd. But it also sounds modernized, with the atmospheric element added by the synthesizers. “Sad and Lonely,” sounds like it could have fit right in on Led Zeppelin’s debut, but a song like “Nowhere Again” sounds like those songs updated with the benefit of newer sounds. This album also includes the forgotten art of the rock anthem, with both “First Wave Intact” and “Now Here is Nowhere,” clocking in at over eight and a half minutes and incorporating all of the elements the Secret Machines do so well. Unfortunately, this trio leaned heavily on the guitar playing of Brandon Curtis, and they couldn’t really survive once he left the band in 2007. But Now Here is Nowhere was one gem of an album. 

4) Radiohead, Kid A (2000)

Since I wasn’t really a fan of Radiohead until after Kid A came out, I never really had the strong initial reaction to this album that so many listeners did. People either viewed Kid A as a betrayal of Radiohead’s rock and roll roots, a brave foray into experimental/electronic music, or the greatest thing ever recorded by humans (actually, only the writers of Pitchfork probably ever totally believed that last part). I didn’t completely understand the impact of this album, actually, until reading Chuck Klosterman’s hypothesis, in Killing Yourself to Live, that Kid A unintentionally predicted 9/11. Now, I don’t think that this hypothesis is necessary to appreciate Kid A, or even, for most people, helpful to appreciate it. But it made me think about Kid A in terms of an emotional narrative that made complete sense. It’s not very often that a band can combine the technical and experimental developments that Radiohead includes on this album with the resonance of the final suite of songs. When this happens, you get a record that is truly excellent (but, at the same time, one of this album’s 10 songs is “Treefingers,” so let’s not get carried away).

3) TV on the Radio, Dear Science (2008)

We sometimes talk about great athletes putting it all together to take “The Leap” into greatness. Dear Science sounds kind of like the musical equivalent of that. We knew that TV on the Radio was great ever since the excellent debut EP, Young Liars, in 2003. The next year, its first full album had an excellent first six songs, but trailed off after that. Return to Cookie Mountain (2006) had the band’s best songs to date, but failed to cohere into a truly great album. Dear Science, however, sounds like a band clicking on all cylinders. It has songs that grab you from the first listen—“Halfway Home,” “Dancing Choose,” “DLZ”—as well as songs that get better with repeated listens—“Shout Me Out,” “Family Tree,” “Love Dog.” The album is brilliantly paced, coming in at 50 minutes, yet feeling much shorter. Musically, this album combines the experimentalism of the band with its grasp of so many different melodies. Really, one of the hardest things to do on a rock album is effectively go from fast to slow, and TV on the Radio nails it in Dear Science. TV on the Radio didn’t need Dear Science to prove it was a great band, or to make its impact on the decade, but it sure helped.

2) Bloc Party, Silent Alarm (2005) 

In high school, I got into a very counterproductive argument about whether Bloc Party were a “punk” band. I was gravely offended: Calling them a “punk” band seemed unfair and dismissive. Of course, this is why genre classifications are stifling—what we call Bloc Party shouldn’t matter nearly as much as how good they are. And man are they good. Silent Alarm is the best guitar-rock album of the decade. It’s aggressive and fast-paced and dynamic. It’s probably best-known for its single “Banquet,” but I always felt like that was one of the album’s weaker tracks—it’s not as fast as “Helicopter,” or as heavy as “Positive Tension,” or as subtle as “So Here We Are.” This only highlights the depth of the album; virtually any song you pick will have something on it you likely haven’t heard before. And this is why any genre tag is unfair to a band like Bloc Party. There are no “punk” bands that sound like Silent Alarm, but there aren’t really any rock bands that could have produced this album. Bloc Party forged a distinct and powerful identity on this album, putting its mark on the decade.

1) Arcade Fire, Funeral (2004)            

Some choices are easy. In 2004, I made a list of the ten best albums of the year, and Funeral came in fourth. But while John-of-five-years-ago certainly got it wrong, this also shows just how important the test of time is. I couldn’t even tell you which albums placed ahead of Funeral, let alone whether or not I still listen to them. Arcade Fire’s debut, though, is still an integral part of my iPod’s rotation. I was dubious when I first listened—I had heard all the buzz and the positive reviews, and I really wanted to be iconoclastic and critical. But from the album’s opening notes, delicately played on a piano, it announces itself as something sincere and compelling. It’s a complete, well-rounded album; at different points, five of the ten tracks have been my favorite–and I can see arguments for three more. Beyond the songs as songs, though, is how they interact and build on one another. The great tracks become transcendent because of the emotional and musical buildup to them, and the “weak” tracks are elevated to great heights. This is the kind of album that runs the gamut, that gets better and reveals more complexities the more you listen to it. And if I had to pick one album from this decade that I’m sure I’ll still be listening to in another ten years, this would be it.

I’ve never been a big fan of Kanye West. I generally think he’s overrated,* and I find his antics off-putting. None of his big singles—“Jesus Walks,” “Through the Wire,” “Gold Digger”—ever really resonated with me; I didn’t really think they were bad, but I never went out of my way to listen to them (not that I ever had to). But when I first heard “Stronger,” I remember thinking that West had trapped some kind of “cultural sound” in a bottle (I didn’t think it in those words, exactly; it was probably something more like This song is awesome!). “Stronger” was the kind of “cutting edge” song that sounded both ahead of its time and of the moment.

*Truthfully, this impression is mainly of College Dropout, which I really didn’t like. Most of his work since that is more or less accurately rated.

Rock music stopped being the most interesting genre of pop music at least ten years ago. This isn’t to say that there are no more good rock and roll bands, or that rock music has nowhere left to develop—both of these statements are flatly false—but simply that the dominant sounds of popular culture were not rock and roll this decade. Part of this is rock’s own fault: Watch a movie from that late 1990s and you’ll hear what a lot of “rock” sounded like then—a lot of Third Eye Blind, Sixpence None the Richer, Vertical Horizon, and, of course, Barenaked Ladies. Not exactly riveting stuff.

But even more of it had to do with the flourishing of other genres, most notably rap and hip hop. Almost every artist to get that elusive combination of commercial and critical success this decade was working within those genres: Jay-Z, Kanye, Eminem, 50 Cent, Lil Wayne, Usher, etc. The only rock bands to approach the success of those acts in the 2000s were Coldplay and Green Day…and those bands fucking suck.

So why was this? It’s not like rap and hip hop were new during this decade. Some people would probably even argue that this decade has really seen a bastardization of the “classics” of these genres. So why were the Aughts so clearly defined by them?

The answer to this question is complex. Some of it probably has to do with socioeconomics, some of it with demographic changes, some with cultural shifts, and some with technological changes. But to the extent that the answer is musical, I think it can be largely explained by “Stronger.”

“Stronger,” from its opening sampling of Daft Punk’s “Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger,” announces itself as a different kind of song. It’s the kind of song that isn’t really bound by genre classifications, instead incorporating the best elements of other artists and genres, and building on what makes them appealing.

Of course, sampling and hip hop have gone hand in hand since the genre began. What’s intriguing about “Stronger” is how West incorporates the Daft Punk song. Instead of just throwing a heavy bass behind the Daft Punk melody and rapping over it, he loops the song, changes the tempo, runs the sample over itself, and adds new layers of synth to the original sound. In short, he turns the song into something completely different. In fact, not only is most of the melody in this song West’s own, but it’s mostly West’s take on electronic music, and not really rap at all.

Electronic music (or electronica, or electrophunk, or electro, or house music, or post-disco, or synthpop, or electropop, or dance punk; there are too many names for these genres and it’s too hard to tell where one ends and the other begins), of course, was the other genre that flourished creatively this decade. Like hip hop, electronic music (which I’m going to use to refer to all of the above and any affiliated subgenres) was on the ascendancy in the 1990s. Pop and rock acts like Madonna, Radiohead, U2, and R.E.M. were all trying to incorporate elements of the genre into their music at the turn of the millennium, with varying degrees of success.

This decade, however, has seen acts like LCD Soundsystem, Girl Talk, The Rapture, The Knife, Death From Above 1979, MGMT, most of the DFA label, and lots of others expand on this sound. These acts represent such a wide range of sounds that it feels odd to even include them in the same genre, but they all evolved from the same milieu. Not coincidentally, these bands were some of the most innovative and groundbreaking of the decade.

This sound also bled into some of the commercial successes of the decade. Artists like Gorillaz and The Killers managed to turn these sounds into radio-friendly anthems. Even acts generally seen as more traditional “rock” ones like The Strokes, Interpol, the Arctic Monkeys, and Franz Ferdinand all seemed to come from this “post-punk revival” genre,* which was able to integrate a new synth sound into traditional rock and roll.

*This genre is like the postmodernism of music: Everyone talks about it like they know what it means, but nobody can define. If “post-punk revival” is like postmodernism, then I guess John Lydon is its Jacques Derrida.

These were certainly some of the best acts of the decade, but it was electronic music’s convergence with hip hop that became the really dominant sound of the Aughts. The marriage of electronic music with rap, hip hop and R&B was much more natural than the marriage of either genre with rock music. Both electronic music and hip hop descend directly from DJing, both tend to emphasize dancing, both rely more on drum machines, breaks and basslines than on guitar or piano. So when these two genres finally found creative pioneers, like OutKast, Kanye, and Danger Mouse, it was only a matter of time before that kind of work became the most interesting and, inevitably, the kind every musician was trying to do.

Most of what’s played on the radio, even and especially the bad stuff, at the end of 2009 owes a large debt to this fusion. Take, for example, a recent Billboard #1: Jason DeRulo’s “Whatcha Say.” Now, this song isn’t especially original or groundbreaking; it is, essentially, a generic R&B song played over Imogen Heap’s original. But it’s quite catchy. It’s not hard to see why it’s popular, and it’s also an improvement over Heap’s original song, “Hide and Seek,” even though Heap’s vocals are the best part of DeRulo’s song. In other words, the synergy between the two works is what makes the styles work.

As is always the case when a genre becomes as pervasive as this one now is, there are people who do it well and people who do it poorly. Plenty of the songs that come out of this tradition seem like bastardizations of the art form. But this is how popular music always works: The pioneers are followed by imitators, some who take the form to new levels, some who know how to craft hits, and some who end up churning out crude knockoffs that make fans of the original wince.

When it’s at its best, though, this blend has created some of the best pop songs of the decade: “Stronger,” “Crazy,” “B.O.B.,” etc. These will likely be the songs that this decade is best remembered for.

Of course, the musical landscape now is more fragmented than it was at the beginning of the decade; fewer people buy blockbuster albums, and the standards for commercial success have been lowered.* Part of this is due to the recording industry’s incompetence, but part of it also has to do with a kind of ‘long tail’ inevitability. With easier access to music and small communities of fans for a specific genre, it’s easier for the market to self-segment. As a result, peoples’ musical tastes are more independent of the mainstream than they used to be.

*In 2000, the biggest album of the year was No Strings Attached, which sold 9,936,104 copies domestically. In 2009, by contrast, the top six albums COMBINED to sell under 7 million copies. In other words, the top album of 2000 outperformed the top six albums of 2009 by over 40%. 

This could potentially mean that trying to identify a “contemporary sound” is irrelevant: Plenty of fans can go through the whole decade without ever listening to this “sound” or hearing about James Murphy and Jason DeRulo. And the fact is that there are plenty of acts that don’t seem affected by this sound: massive acts, like Coldplay and Jet and Kings of Leon, as well as smaller, buzz-friendly acts, like The Hold Steady and the Fiery Furnaces.

But there are two main flaws with this line of logic. First, it’s simply not true that these acts don’t influence one another. Coldplay obviously pays attention to Radiohead, who’ve been using electronic influences since Kid A. Kings of Leon come from the same alternative rock scene that has been dominated by The Strokes, one of the prototypical post-punk bands. Even Kanye West himself has claimed inspiration from Franz Ferdinand, who themselves get inspiration from LCD Soundsystem. Influence bleeds across genres all the time, often in unexpected and unpredictable ways. So even if you decide to listen to music on only one end of the spectrum, you can be pretty confident that what you’re hearing has something to do with what’s going on at the other end.

The second reason is more ambiguous: People generally want music to unite them. It’s true that people use personal taste as a marker for personal value at times, and often wear odd personal preferences as a badge of pride, but in the long run, people want other people to like the music they like. It’s fun to listen to music in a group. It’s cool to find out other people agree with you about what music is good.

And right now, the kind of music that is bringing together fans of disparate genres is the kind of music in “Stronger.” This does not mean that in another decade everyone will listen to rap and rock bands will be gone forever. This does not mean that the genres of electronic music and hip hop don’t still stand as distinct genres in their own right. This does not mean that all other genres are waning or irrelevant. This is only a sign that pop music is evolving, not that it’s dead. And that which doesn’t kill it, of course, can only make it stronger.

O canal espanhol Cuatro colocou no ar essa promo maravilhosa no dia 29. Os fãs da série já discutiam sobre o jogo de xadrez há um bom tempo e exatamente com os personagens que aparecem na promo. Será que tem spoilers aí? Claro, o melhor é terem colocado Everything in It’s Right Place (Tudo está em seu devido lugar, tradução livre), do Radiohead, que praticamente traduz a promo.

Faltam 62 dias para a estréia da sexta e última (dor no coração) temporada. Preparados?

This post will be far too short and much too whimsical. This is a heavy topic, god damnit — the top 25 albums of the decade! That’s ten years, people! Ten fucking years. I crawled from 12 to 22. Others did the same. Music came pouring out of our hands, feet, and kisses. We’re still suckers for a well-timed scream, still adverse to female vocalists, and still lapping up every unknown album that comes up on Mediafire. Bear with us, we’ve got a lot more listening to do. And so do you. So here it is, Fred’s top 25 Albums of the Decade.

331 songs, 1.53 GB of data, 27 album covers = 20 hours 34 minutes and 15 seconds of that tingling, nervous stomach drop effect you get the moment before the chorus hits and the music takes you somewhere you never thought you’d go. Close your eyes, tap your snare drum three times, and repeat after me: there are no albums like these.

1) Radiohead – Kid A

2) Wolf Parade – Apologies to the Queen Mary

3) Sunset Rubdown – Shut Up I’m Dreaming

4) Interpol – Turn on the Bright Lights

5) Frog Eyes – Tears of the Valedictorian

6) The Strokes – Is this it?

7) Grandaddy – Software Slump

8.) Sigur Ros – ( ) & Agaetis Byrjun

9) Xiu Xiu – Fabulous Muscles

10) Future of the Left – Curses

11) Akron Family – Akron/Family

12) The Flaming Lips – Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots

13) Why? – Alopecia

14) Beck – Sea Change

15) Arcade Fire – Funeral

16) Queens of the Stone Age – Songs for the Deaf

17) LCD Soundsystem – Sound of Silver

18) Andrew W.K. – I Get Wet

19) The Walkmen – Bows & Arrows

20) Mastodon – Crack the Skye

21) TV on the Radio – Cookie Mountain

22) The Rapture – Echoes

23) Godspeed – Lift Your Skinny Fists like Antennas to Heaven

24) Muse – Origin of Symmetry & Absolution

25) Clap Your Hands Say Yeah – S/T

You’d be forgiven at the moment for thinking we were nearing the end of a decade. The interwebs have been awash of late with more countdowns, best ofs, top tens and general reminiscences of the 2000’s then you could poke a digital stick at. Suddenly everybody is a critic, and while some of the countdowns have been insightful and thought-provoking, others have been….well, like this one. For the nostalgic, these countdowns are practically memory-heaven. But for those who don’t buy into that sort of stuff, it gets a little tiring. So, what better than to list some of the best (and worst) ‘best-of’ lists currently clogging up cyber-space?

Pitchfork: P2K

Over the past months American music site Pitchfork have taken an in-depth look at the decade in music. Way back in the dark ages of 2001 the site barely existed, but since then has grown to be one of the most formidable online music news and reviews sites on the net. Not only does P2K count down the best albums, songs and music videos, it also features a series of essays detailing some of the more interesting developments in music over the past ten years. Of particular note is the ‘Decade in Indie’ and the social history of the mp3.

Highlights
Best Album: Radiohead- Kid A
Best Song: Outkast- B.O.B.

Paste Magazine: The 25 best Album Covers

Slightly more obscure is Paste magazine’s countdown of the best album covers. It has been argued that as digital sales boom and physical CD sales decline, the quality of modern album art is going steadily downhill (as this cover would seem to prove). Regardless, Paste have put together an interesting countdown, which includes the likes of The Flaming Lips, Animal Collective, Arcade Fire and Lil Wayne. Whoever decided to award Neko Case’s Middle Cyclone cover as number 1 though needs to go back and re-take primary school art classes.

Highlights
Number 1: Neko Case- Middle Cyclone
Number 2: Animal Collective- Merriweather Post Pavilion (and rightly so)

The A.V. Club: The 30 best TV Shows

The problem with critics is often that their views on what is ‘good’ differs from the majority of the viewing public. Which is a shame, but it’s also the reason why most of the shows on the A.V. Club’s list of best TV shows of the decade have either ended or been cancelled. Still, it’s a formidable list. The top 3 (The Wire, Arrested Development and the Sopranos) are undoubtedly some of the finest productions since television’s inception, let alone in this decade. Other notable shows include Mad Men, Lost and The West Wing, just scraping in at number 30. The best part of this countdown though is the shitfight in the comments as to what constitutes a ‘decade’. Hilarious.

Highlights
Number 1: The Wire
Number 15: Veronica Mars
Number 22: Six Feet Under

News.com.au: Moment of the Decade

Oh, News.com.au. Purveyor of fine, quality journalism. Not content with simply telling Middle Australia what the best bits of the noughties were, good old Rupert has gone and encouraged everyone to name their own favourites! For anyone that’s ever read the comments to any article on the site, that should be enough to click your way on over. In case you need any more incentive though, today’s category is ‘Killers, Haters, Tools: Choose the Villian of the decade’. Apparently Kyle Sandilands and John Mayer are in the same league as Osama Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein. Who would have thought? The fun doesn’t stop there. Oh no siree, it doesn’t. For you creative types, you can even have a go at naming what the next decade should be called! An issue of utmost importance, of course. Seriously, the sooner this site becomes paid-only, the better.

Lowlights
Pop Culture
Money
Sex & Life
…actually, just spend a good 15 minutes trawling through the site. It’ll make your day.

Times Online: The 100 Best Movies of the Noughties

Slightly more classy news outlet Times Online went all out and counted down the top 100 cinematic releases of the decade. With everything from political drama Milk to Roman-epic Gladiator to comedy Knocked Up, the list does well to cater for everyone…up until the odd choice of The Bourne Supremacy/Ultimatum at number 2 (So really it should have been the best 101 movies). And Team America World Police in the top 5? You must be joking.

In Brief
Number 1: Hidden
Number 16: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Number 34: Finding Nemo
Number 64: Anchorman

Well that’s about it. Some of the best (and worst) countdowns of the best (and worst) things to happen in the noughties. Of course, a quick google search will reveal thousands more best-ofs then the ones here. But really, is there much point? When it comes down to it, who gets to decide that Franz Ferdinand is better than Hot Chip? Or that Monsters, Inc. deserves to place ahead of Pan’s Labyrinth?

Perhaps the best countdown of the decade should go to Hungry Beast. They look at the ten best years of the 2000’s. You can check that out here.

]]> http://feministmusicgeek.com/2009/11/25/records-that-made-me-a-feminist-bjorks-homogenic-and-vespertine-by-alyx/ Wed, 25 Nov 2009 21:05:40 +0000 Alyx Vesey http://feministmusicgeek.com/2009/11/25/records-that-made-me-a-feminist-bjorks-homogenic-and-vespertine-by-alyx/

Cover of Björk's Homogenic (One Little Indian, 1997); image courtesy of slantmagazine.com

Cover for Björk's Vespertine (One Little Indian, 2001); image courtesy of harmony-korine.com

When I began conceptualizing this blog in the ol’ brainspace, one of the first sections I came up with was “Records That Made Me a Feminist.” I knew Björk was going to get at least one entry. Homogenic and Vespertine each played a vital part of shaping my politics. So, I figured out I’d probably have to write about them together.

Pairing albums for this section of the blog is something I originally wanted to do this when covering Erykah Badu’s Mama’s Gun, which I started listening to around the same time as PJ Harvey’s Stories From the City, Stories From the Sea. I liked the idea of dialoguing seemingly dissimilar work by female artists with one another, but I feared covering those two albums together would short-shrift the artists who made them. However, talking about two distinct pieces of work by one woman seemed easier. And essential. So here we go.

I must admit that covering Björk’s 1997 and 2000 full-length releases present its own political challenges that makes me think critically about how I understand and practice feminism. Both of these albums made me a feminist largely because of the boys I was preoccupied with at the time.

But while my initial reception and resulting connections to them were tied up with potentially normative feelings around romantic angst and heterosexual coupling, I feel the albums speak to my development at the time as well as transcend it. In other words, Homogenic and Vespertine may remind me of boys I used to date, but they speak to larger, more overtly feminist issues as well.

Of course, being a feminist doesn’t mean you can’t like boys or be hung up on them from time to time, so long as you don’t let them run your life. Which I don’t think Björk endorses in either of these records, even though she herself has an ambivalent relationship with feminism (though not with calling out the music industry’s sexist practices of attributing male engineers and instrumental songwriters).

Importantly, as both albums were prescient to my development, they also went over my head when I first listened to them. Debut and Post were more accessible and, as a result, I liked them almost immediately. It was hard for 10-year-old me not to fall for the girl dancing through New York City on a flatbed in the music video for “Big Time Sensuality.”

But Björk’s next two albums took more time to process. Both albums mark advances in the artist’s production sensibilities, approaches to music-making, and interest in electronic instrumentation. Thus, just as Björk had to evolve as a musician before creating these albums, I had to mature a bit as a person before liking them as a fan.

So, Homogenic came out just as I was starting high school. I don’t exactly remember when I bought it, but I think it was sometime toward the end of junior year. I completely ignored it at the time. Or rather, I listened to it once, went “ooh, so angry!” and put Post back on.

The particulars I’ll keep to myself for the sake of decorum. Suffice it to say that I dated someone for a little while, fell in love, we broke up, and I spent a little over a year trying to get us back together. It didn’t work out. Eventually I got over him and whatever I thought we were, but not without some pain and denial and then serious personal re-evaluation. The healing process involved some righteous anger, loud parties, several bottles of wine and other goodies, and burgeoning feminist development. After a rough start, 19 turned out to be a pretty okay year. Homogenic was its soundtrack.

Now, I have no problem acknowledging that this guy was a total jerk to me. But feminism isn’t only about recognizing and calling out chauvinistic bullshit. It’s also about self-empowerment, personal accountability, and un-learning heteronormativity and patriarchal co-dependence. It isn’t always just the guy’s fault, even when it is.

Thus, I also have to own up to being really needy and delusional at the time. I pinned my worth on whoever I was dating without questioning whether being with them was actually good for me. So I projected my own big feelings and insecurities on someone who clearly didn’t want to be with me. I was ignoring the reality of the situation and, as a result, my own well-being. I finally recognized what I was doing when confronted with the lyric “How could I be so immature to think he could replace the missing elements in me — how extremely lazy of me.” 

Kinda appropriate that a break-up record got me over mine, no? Apparently, Björk made the album after breaking up with drum’n'bass musician Goldie while they were working on their own project. Hence lines like “So you left me on my own to complete the mission, but now I’m leaving it all behind.” But it pretty much hit all the right notes of melancholy, indignation, rage, and feisty recovery for me. I’m a quarter Norwegian on my mother’s side, so even the line ”I thought I could organize freedom — how Scandinavian of me” in “Hunter” applied.

Attention must be paid to the album’s sound and how it marked a musical departure for Björk. Post was an eclectic mix that boasted songs like “Army of Me,” “Enjoy,” and “Headphones,” that opened up her sound to include state-of-the-art aggressive digital distortion and serene electronic minimalism.

While this was evident in the production work Tricky and 808 State’s Graham Massey did on Post, it wasn’t the focus. It would come to define the artistic work she began doing with producers like Mark Bell on Homogenic and would continue to do with Matmos on Vespertine. But I’d hedge that most casual listeners just remember Post’s ”It’s Oh So Quiet,” which was produced by Björk’s then-mainstay, Nellee Hooper, the man responsible for all the production on her breakthrough Debut. He was also responsible for “Hyperballad,” which I’d argue suggests the artist’s shift, which is fully evident on her next album.

Man, I wish I could post the music video, but WMG has apparently disabled the audio. All the more reason to check out Michel Gondry’s Directors Label DVD, or any of the other myriad DVD titles that have documented her videography.

So Homogenic marks a transition from being a pop star to an artist who challenges her listeners’ ears and expectations with each release. By 1997, we also heard alternative pop stars like Beck and Radiohead establish themselves similarly with Odelay and OK Computer. We would hear Radiohead do it again in 2000 with the mind-blowing Kid A, where they really demonstrated their love for electronic instrumentation and experimental production techniques.

Björk was already on this path in 1997, but while Radiohead looked outward toward the fallabilities of modern life, Björk looked inward at the seductive pleasures and wobbly peculiarities of domestic life and partnership on her next record, rapturing at her voice’s clicks and finding percussive possibilities out of shuffled decks of cards. I don’t think these innovations went unnoticed when Radiohead went to work on In Rainbows. To me, Vespertine’s influence is all over a song like “Nude,” which was originally an outtake from OK Computer. This is further confirmed by the band’s rendition of Homogenic’s ”Unravel” as a tip of the hat. As if lead singer Thom Yorke’s backing vocals on “Náttúra” aren’t enough.

Hmmm. Maybe at some point, I’ll consider Yorke’s duets with Björk and PJ Harvey. Yorke is one of my favorite vocalists, a fact confirmed by a recent revisit of Hail to the Thief. If one of my friends ran a blog on male masculinity and music culture, I’d pen a guest entry in a second.

But I was afflicted with a troubled mind when Vespertine first came out. In addition to boy heartache, I was going through some considerable familial strife. I was also starting my first semester of college, so a tackier person might blame 9/11.

After seeing the music video for “Hidden Place,” I dutifully bought the album, along with My Bloody Valentine’s Loveless, another at-the-time inscrutable release, at the Tower Records by campus. I listened to the album a few times, but my head was not in the right place for it. It was too contented and quiet. I couldn’t hear it. And then for a little while all I could hear was Homogenic at full volume.

Stills from the video that convinced me to buy "Vespertine"; image courtesy of unit.bjork.com

To be blunt, Vespertine didn’t really make sense to me until I started having sex. Critics like Ryan Dombal would seem to concur. I remember seeing her performance of ”Cocoon” on Jay Leno and thinking that it was really quiet, but totally not getting how micro-embodied intimacy is the song’s entire purpose. While I had a good understanding of mechanics and had engaged in related activities before going into my first listen, I don’t think a song like “Cocoon” makes sense to a person unless they’ve experienced it, to speak euphemistically, in a corporeal sense.

BTW, yes that is Bill O’Reilly adjusting his tie. If he was actually listening to the song, I’m sure he’d be appalled by how delightfully, defiantly sexual this song is and that it was performed uncensored on network television. Watching it now, I can’t believe I wasn’t really listening. Maybe I should have been leaning into the television.  

Again, the particulars here aren’t really important. I was a week or so into being 20 and, frankly,  didn’t want to be a virgin anymore. The guy was someone willing, it was fun, and didn’t last very long.

In short, the romanticism and emotional connectedness that is often built into such an experience was not there, nor do I regret that it wasn’t. I would find that later, which would make my understanding of those aspects of Vespertine more profound and further develop my feminist principles.

I bring sex into the discussion because I, to borrow briefly from Arrested Development’s George Michael Bluth, find Vespertine’s complex eroticism one of its most key contributions to what made me a feminist. Though perhaps a stretch and certainly not without its own distinctions, I tend to think of this album in accord with Audre Lorde’s wonderful essay “Uses of the erotic: the erotic as power.”

And while I don’t know if this entry’s subject has read the essay, something tells me that the same woman who identifies as bisexual and recognizes the erotic potential in mundane activities would concur with much of the theorist’s thesis.

Of course, feminists must also have the wherewithal to recognize that eroticism, even ephemeral evidence like orgasms, are luxuries to some women and girls. Not everyone is given a space, a country, or a political system that allows them the safety and freedom to enjoy and explore these possibilities.

But eroticism isn’t about cataloging who did what to whom for Björk. As David Fricke gestured toward in his review of the album for Rolling Stone, it might be everywhere, at once tangible and theoretical.

This is where I think it’s important to consider the album’s production sensibilities and Björk’s particular uses of her voice. In addition to non-conventional practices like sampling and turning seemingly non-musical domestic items into instruments, the singer’s voice is the album’s real focus. Because of how closely she’s miked, you can hear every tic, breath, whispered turn of phrase, and any other sound coming out of her mouth. As a result, her voice becomes a varied and vital instrument, an idea she has continued to develop and that has continued to stay with me.

#1.  Radiohead, Kid A (2000): Anticipation for a follow up to 1997’s hugely successful Ok Computer was immense, and for good reason.  Once thought of as standard bearers of the brit rock movement of the early 90s, Radiohead stepped out of that mold with a more expansive collection of work that took form as a concept album.  Beyond the signature arena-rock sound were more sonic textures that made for an amazing album that truly set them apart from their fellow countrymen.  With the release of Kid A, never again would they be compared to anyone else.  Like any other fan of Radiohead, I went through 4 stages while digesting this album; shock, disgust, curiosity, then finally sheer admiration.  Mostly gone were the guitar-oriented songs that were the hallmark of both Ok Computer and The Bends.  In their place were songs like the opener, “Everything in its Right Place.”  An entirely electric, experimental tune with a very unconventional song structure;  needless to say I was not thrilled.  But in time, I grew to realize that it wasn’t the music that I didn’t like, it was the fact that it was different from what I had come to know and love about Radiohead.  Taking the record on its face, it is a wonderful mixture of electronica, alt-rock, classical, techno and even jazz fusion; a huge contrast from anything they had done before.  There’s still some guitar-driven stuff here on tracks like “The National Anthem” and “Optimistic.”  But more often they choose to eschew distortion pedals for exotic synthesizers and other creative sounds like on the technocratic “Idioteque;”  An earnest shout out to techno progenitors Kraftwerk.

All across the musical landscape, it is common practice for bands to mail it in once they’ve reached superstar status [see U2].  Instead of taking the easy path, Radiohead embarked on an ambitious undertaking.  It is for this reason that it stands atop my list of the best albums of the decade.

Faves: Everything in its Right Place, The National Anthem, Optimistic, Idioteque.

Buscaba un sencillo ordenador portátil. Necesitaba que tuviese buena conectividad, que reprodujera música y DVD.Sólo para textos, internet y para seleccionar fotografías. Nada más.

Tampoco ando bien de pelas, así que tenía que ser económico. Y como soy un pijo, necesitaba que fuese bonito.

Debía ser idiota por pensar que exista algo así, que tenga 2 puerto firewire, 2 puertos USB, Tarjeta PCMCIA, Tarjeta WIFI, Ethernet 100mbps, Salida S-Video, Salida VGA (con posibilidad de escritorio extendido), puerto de IR. Disco Duro reemplazable en 5 minutos con sólo un destornillador de estrella pequeño. Lo mismo para ampliar la RAM (hasta 1 Giga al menos). Posibilidad de reemplazarle o ampliarle la placa madre en 10 minutos. Debía tener autonomía suficiente. Poder enchufarse a la red, leer CD y DVD. Y estaría bien que si no me hace falta lo del DVD podría quitarlo y ponerle otra batería y doblar la autonomía… O si lo voy a utilizar en un lugar con electricidad a mano, podría quitarle las dos baterías y así pesa muy poco. No hace falta que se pueda hacer sin apagarlo, pero se agradece. Debí ser idiota por pensar que algo así se fabricaba, hasta que eché la vista atrás y encontré este “vejestorio” del año 2000… ¡¡¡ 9 años !!!

Apple Powerbook G3 400 Pismo

Está claro que soy idiota y que me gustan los vejestorios, como este ordenador o música del año 2000… y alguna que otra cosilla más incluso con más de 9 años…

Elige: Idiota u optimista. Y recuerda: Lo que la blogosfera vota, va a misa!

Idioteque (Kid A) 2000. Radiohead

ƒ

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Optimistic (Kid A) 2000. Radiohead

]]> http://knifa.wordpress.com/2009/11/23/the-mysterious-he-dreams-awake-and-why-i-compare-them-to-radiohead/ Mon, 23 Nov 2009 01:33:58 +0000 KNiFA http://knifa.wordpress.com/2009/11/23/the-mysterious-he-dreams-awake-and-why-i-compare-them-to-radiohead/

WHAT IS MYSTERIOUS EXACTLY?! WHY DO SO MANY DIFFERENT WEBSITES OR NEWSPAPER ARTICLES DESCRIBE THE SOLO ARTIST AS “IN HIS OWN LITTLE WORLD,” “OUT THERE IN THE BEST WAY POSSIBLE” & MANY MORE SHADOW-LIKE DESCRIPTIONS THAT CREATE THE “MYTH OF THE MYSTERIOUS ARTIST WHO MAKES UNIQUE & COMPLEX NOiSE” – I HAPPEN TO LOVE THIS MUSIC BECAUSE I HAVE GROWN TIRED OF ALL THE “INDIE,” “HIPSTER” & “UNDERGROUND” BANDS THAT SOUND THE SAME AND MAKE AT LEAST TRES TRACKS WELL OVER 5 MINUTES LONG THAT THE MAIN MUSIC SITES BUST A NUT OVER EVEN THOUGH IT IS NOTHING EVEN CLOSE TO SPECIAL. FOR THEM TO LOVE RADIOHEAD IS A-OK BECAUSE THAT BAND CREATES MUSIC NOONE CAN TOUCH. THEIR B-SIDES THAT WEREN’T EVEN RELEASED BY THE BAND (8 TRACKS FROM IN RAINBOWS) USUALLY COMPARE SIDE BY SIDE AND SOMETIMES EVEN MURDER CERTAIN TRACKS OFF THE ACTUAL ALBUM. ANY OTHER BAND WOULD MAKE AS MUCH MONEY POSSIBLE OFF OF SONGS THAT WEREN’T ON THEIR #1 SELLING CD ACROSS THE WHOLE GLOBE (ON THE BILLBOARD CHARTS AFTER THEY SOLD MILLIONS OF DOLLARS OF CD’S FOR A PAY WHAT YOU WANT SCHEME 3.42 MONTHS EARLIER, WHICH ALSO LED TO BIG TIME ARTISTS SUCH AS JAY-Z & TRENT REZNOR TO FOLLOW SUIT) ~

SO, HE DREAMS AWAKE IS BASICALLY WHATEVER YOU WANT TO CALL HIM, BUT I HAVE FOUND 48 SONGS OF HIS AROUND THE INTERNET AND I LOVE ALL OF THEM IN THEIR OWN SPECIAL WAY.. CLOSE TO 50 SONGS RECORDED AND EVEN THOUGH HE DECLINES INTERVIEWS AND ALL THAT, I HEARD A PHONE INTERVIEW HE DID WITH AN INDIE WEBSITE/BLOG AND HE SAID THAT HE ISN’T TRULY HAPPY WITH ANYTHING HE HAS MADE UP TO THIS DATE AND THAT HIS DEBUT ALBUM WHICH IS HALFWAY COMPLETED IS LIGHT YEARS AHEAD OF THE SONGS PEOPLE CAN FIND RIGHT NOW. HE PLAYS BY HIS OWN RULES, MAKES SONGS IN THEIR OWN FORMULAS/KEYS/SCALES/FORMATS/ETC. & I WILL PROCLAIM HIM THE NEXT RADIOHEAD FROM ONLY HEARING THE 48 SONGS HE MADE ON HIS OWN.. IMAGINE IF NIGEL GODRICH PRODUCED HIS FIRST CD!! JEEZ LOUISE!! I JUST WANTED THIS IN PRINT. I LOVE YOU HDAWAKE! I LOVE YOU EVEN MORE RADIOHEAD!!

http://www.divshare.com/download/9425480-6a0

The quietness of this corner means that there are big things afoot.

Stay tuned.

…are these five albums:

1) Disc One of Bob Marley’s “Songs of Freedom” four-CD collection

2) Charlie Parker’s “Yardbird Suite: Volume 2″

3) Radiohead’s “Kid A”

4) Nina Simone’s “Nina Simone Sings the Blues”

5) That Handsome Devil’s “That Handsome Devil”

What are you folks listening to?

Working it,

-Shady

It’s around this time each year that journalists, bloggers and any one else similarly obsessed with letting everyone know their bloody opinions get rather excited.

This has nothing to do with the imminent gifts or feasts of meat and alcohol that xmas inevitably brings.

No, this time of year means one thing for these people. Lists.

Yes, they have already started flooding in. Furthermore, this year, while not quite as salivatingly-big an opportunity as the Millennium, we have the prospect of a ‘greatest album of the decade’-a-thon!

The NME has this week been the most prolific perpetrator of this culture with their 100 Greatest Albums of the Decade.

On first inspection, and considering the usual standards of the aforementioned publication, their list seems surprisingly good. The Strokes don’t seem a bad shout for number one seeing as whatever is chosen will make people who believe too much in their own opinions cry. The album also sounds fairly relevant nine years on.

The inclusion of the obligatory Radiohead, Interpol and The Holdsteady also tick the seemingly ‘given’ boxes needed to appease their blinkered readership. And although I wouldn’t argue with any of these, how they figure In Rainbows is better than Kid A is bewildering. Even for the NME.

Arcade Fire’s Funeral and Relationship of Command by At the Drive In are nice surprises, as are The Rapture, Bright Eyes and The Walkmen. All excellent albums.

But, and this is rather large interjection, when you look at the detritus filling out the other spaces on the list, and think about it for marginally more time than it takes to flick through the New Musical Express’ fickle pages, the list loses rather a lot of credibility.

I know this debate is essentially down to taste so I wont deride choices such as Green Day’s American Idiot or Klaxons’ Myths of the Near Future; no one is forcing us to read this. However, I feel the list is characterised by its frankly puzzling omissions: worthy albums; albums which I would expect the NME to include.

Where was Phoenix’s amazing Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix? Where was Burial’s Untrue? Where the bloody hell was Madvillainy?!

These are not the esoteric choices of a bitter music snob. These are merely the most surprising and obvious absentees from an NME list. Is Kasabian’s Empire a not better — if not, more obvious — choice than the detestable and shallow ‘band’ Hard Fi?

Are the NME being purposefully pugnacious by not including anything by Daft Punk? How can one recognise Bright Eyes and Sujan Steves yet ignore Iron and Wine?

My point is to ask if NME are taking the piss or if they really are as inept as we have long suspected?

Lists are controversial; that’s why they are published. But to show that when making a list there’s no need to be so firmly camped inside a bubble of shit, here are some far more considered alternatives.

Paste Magazine’s top 50 albums of the decade.

and

Pitchfork’s 20 greatest albums of the ’00s.

Opinions etc?

  Being the young age I am (under 30) this last decade was really the one where I can intensely focus on new releases, critically analyze and find real magic in modern music.  As much as I wish I was cool enough to say I bought “Slanted and Enchanted” on vinyl the day it came out or smoke a joint and sit around with my friends about to listen to “The Bends follow-up album” with everyone saying “this better not suck!”  But since I never saw Nirvana in a basement and didn’t hear “Loveless” until Billy Corgan recommended it I’ll just stick to this last decade and share what got me through the last ten years.

10. The Unicorns – Who Will Cut Our Hair When We’re Gone?

     Not a horribly popular top ten of the decade choice but I’m still baffled at why not.  Jump-starting an explosion of lo-fi, boyish child rock in the underground, the year following saw bands like Clap Your Hands Say Yeah and Boy Least Likely To taking notes from the drug hazed, short attention spanned rock that reminded everyone of easier, much more careless times.  Everything about this album is unexpected at first listen.  The old analogue synths, the fighting within lyrics vocals, the friggin recorder?!  WWCOHWWG spans from life to death in 12 sweet tunes and by the end I remember feeling the same way, subdued and ready to die.

The Unicorns – Les Os

9. Electric President – S/T

     So here’s another selection very unlikely to be absent from lists and I feel sorry for all those lists.  Guiding me through 2006, S/T is the self retrospective view of young Ben Cooper and every other confused young male in the world.  Songs like Insomnia tackle depression with uncompromising lyrics that find every emotion and leave it our to dry.  The album is soothing and instantly relatable, and Ben’s shy vocals and unique percussion roll you through the journey and dump you right off at the end.  By then you might feel as if you’re in the same place but with a simplified clarity.

Electric President – Insomnia

8. Of Montreal – Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer?

     Kevin Barnes is the gayest straight man on earth.  And god damn, he should write every album in solitude in Northern Europe.  The genius in this album will never be something Barnes will be able to exemplify again (shown evident in the self absorbed Skeletal Lamping, an album where Barnes basically chews on his ego like bubblegum bugging everyone to watch him blow bubbles.)  The centerpiece here is obviously The Past is a Grotesque Animal, a bi-polar freak out of sorts with all of Barnes A-list lyrics jammed tight in its epic 12 minute sprawl.  Every track is interesting in its own way, and Barnes does a great job of making the album a single statement while never repeating himself.

Of Montreal – We Were Born the Mutants Again with Leafling

7. The Arcade Fire – Funeral

    What can I say that hasn’t been said a million times about this little gem?  This album wasn’t so much about the great songs inside of it but more about its perfect timing.  It was like the momentum of modern rock music was impatiently waiting for this album in order to push forward.  The 7 zillion arcade fire copycat that managed to squeeze their subpar disco beat driven garbage into the remainder of this decade still doesn’t take anything away from the happiest moments of Rebellion (lies) or the saddest moments of Neighborhoods #4.  I look forward to this band continuing to take us to new places in the next decade.

The Arcade Fire – Neighborhood #3 (Power Out)

6. Frightened Rabbit – The Midnight Organ Fight

   If you’ve never experienced real heartbreak, if you’ve never sat alone in your bedroom feeling ultimately hopeless and desperate, then you’ll never relate with this album.  Scott Hutchison perfectly describes heartbreak from start to acceptance in a power, real, and naked way.  No emotion is held inside here, no disturbing thought bottled up.  Songs like The Modern Leper and Keep yourself Warm much of the time hit too close to home for comfort, but their harsh realities keep you revisiting because when it comes down to it, we all wanna feel something.

Frightened Rabbit – Floating in the Forth

5. The National – Boxer

     In 2007 I knew early on that Hissing Fauna was my album of the year.  No one album was gonna change that, especially not some dark, professional looking, baritone led band called The National!?  But like any National album, repeated listens bring on a fierce addition.  Boxer for me was like cocaine for a confused 19 year old girl saying “I’m only gonna do coke on the weekends” and spiraling into an everyday occurrence.  It’s melodies are haunting, led by Matt Berninger’s deep, hypnotizing baritone.  Matt’s lyrics have always been satisfyingly selfish, but here he seems to take to others, and although hard to clearly identify with what he talks about each line paints his own portrait, colored perfectly by the band of brothers that provide a solid blend of melodic ecstasy, topped of by Peter Katis’s dark production.   

The National – Brainy

4. Wilco – Yankee Hotel Foxtrot

   A billion things have been said about this album, from its difficult release to its beautiful drug tinged americana.  But it will never be enough.  Jeff Tweedy struck fucking gold with every track here.  Every song seems to get better, and the idea of mixing folk rock and sonic electronic noise seems insane (and is!) and could never be pulled off like Wilco did early this decade.  Songs like Jesus Etc. quickly find a place in your heart, with simple yet powerful and brilliant lyrics like “Last Cigarettes” and “Our Love is All of God’s Money.”  

3. Broken Social Scene – You Forgot It In People

    Here is one of those fantastic albums that you remember exactly where you were and what you were doing when you first heard it.  The amount of styles represented in this album are baffling, and prove of the large amount of brilliant songwriters at hand here.  Sexually charged and full of surprises, each song on here has its own style, flair, and fashion.  The jaw dropping Anthems For a Seventeen Year Girl is hypnotic and the lyrics are the perfect mix of vague and overlaid, mixed in and out of phase causing an almost unexplored emotion surfacing from the listener.  I’ve literally seen rooms full of people go dead quiet while this song was playing.

Broken Social Scene – Anthems For a Seventeen Year-Old Girl

2. Modest Mouse – The Moon and Antartica

   When I graduated high school I was religiously into Modest Mouse.  Obsessed, wished I was Isaac Brock.  TM&A is the pinnacle of Modest Mouse and as terrible as it is too say I truly believe if Isaac Brock would have killed himself directly after the release of this album they would have been hailed in a Nirvana like fashion, known for this and Lonesome Crowded West, there never would have been a Float On, and Johhny Marr could still focus on playing in his flavor of the month bands.  But even if isaac wrote Float On 63 times, it would take nothing away from the sheltered genius he created in this album.  Starting off with 3rd Planet, Isaac basical drafts his theory of the universe, and by track 2 you’re sold on it.  The drugged out drunken poetry never falters, becomes too indulgent or relaxes, climaxing up to the 8 minute Stars Are Projecters, a hallucinogenic sound scape of alternative theories, believes, and philosophies.  Even while isaac is busy re-writing the history of the universe he manages to find time to bring worthy singles like Paper Thin Walls into the mix.

Modest Mouse – What People Are Made Of   

1. RADIOHEAD – KID A

 There is absolutely nothing I can say about this album that hasn’t been said, yet no one has been able to properly describe it’s genius either.   Fuck this, I’m just gonna go listen to this album. 

Radiohead – Optimistic