Sunday, January 3, 2010
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
Best Song of the Year
"Carved your name across three counties
Ground it in with bloody hides"
With that line, I bring you my favorite song of the year.
Neko Case - "This Tornado Loves You" from Middle Cyclone
Gifted with our generation's most powerful voice, Neko Case came out of nowhere this year - much like the titular act of nature - and unleashed this jewel of a track on an album that could barely keep up with it.
Working from the backbone of a surprisingly simple - albeit allegorical - concept, "This Tornado Loves You" finds our Patsy-Cline-meets-Ozzy protag chasing after a poor, unknowing schmuck with terrifying devotion. Devotion, that is, in a swirling vortex of death with Fatal Attraction issues kinda way. Children are orphaned, insides are sucked out of orifices and - while waiting with "a glacier's patience" - said vortex demolishes flora, fauna and structures as it bores into the ground for miles and miles across.
Then, there are the tender moments, as Case's hellacious warble softens to the dulcet tones we've grown to love. To go from almost comically destructive to endearingly earnest is generally not in the post-country chanteuse's bag, but Case sells it and makes it stick to the heart as she laments, "I miss how you'd sigh yourself to sleep / When I'd rake the springtime across your sheets."
Scary. Weird. Flagrantly hipster-ish (no choruses, folks). Touching. Sad. Lonely. Introspective. Words ... PSSHAW! Mere words.
Words do no justice. Words cannot make sweet, limb-numbing, back-convulsing love to the ears the way the gilded aura Case unleashes upon the listener can.
Sadly, as our decade opened with a massive tragedy, followed soon by 9/11 (take that, Dubya), it ends with a depressed sigh. As our generation tries, almost in vain, to prove that it has something worth giving to the world, we, like Miz Case, may be asking, "What will make you believe me?"
For now, as long as we continue to turn out great artists, we'll have to make do with the unanswered question.
Ground it in with bloody hides"
With that line, I bring you my favorite song of the year.
Neko Case - "This Tornado Loves You" from Middle Cyclone
Gifted with our generation's most powerful voice, Neko Case came out of nowhere this year - much like the titular act of nature - and unleashed this jewel of a track on an album that could barely keep up with it.
Working from the backbone of a surprisingly simple - albeit allegorical - concept, "This Tornado Loves You" finds our Patsy-Cline-meets-Ozzy protag chasing after a poor, unknowing schmuck with terrifying devotion. Devotion, that is, in a swirling vortex of death with Fatal Attraction issues kinda way. Children are orphaned, insides are sucked out of orifices and - while waiting with "a glacier's patience" - said vortex demolishes flora, fauna and structures as it bores into the ground for miles and miles across.
Then, there are the tender moments, as Case's hellacious warble softens to the dulcet tones we've grown to love. To go from almost comically destructive to endearingly earnest is generally not in the post-country chanteuse's bag, but Case sells it and makes it stick to the heart as she laments, "I miss how you'd sigh yourself to sleep / When I'd rake the springtime across your sheets."
Scary. Weird. Flagrantly hipster-ish (no choruses, folks). Touching. Sad. Lonely. Introspective. Words ... PSSHAW! Mere words.
Words do no justice. Words cannot make sweet, limb-numbing, back-convulsing love to the ears the way the gilded aura Case unleashes upon the listener can.
Sadly, as our decade opened with a massive tragedy, followed soon by 9/11 (take that, Dubya), it ends with a depressed sigh. As our generation tries, almost in vain, to prove that it has something worth giving to the world, we, like Miz Case, may be asking, "What will make you believe me?"
For now, as long as we continue to turn out great artists, we'll have to make do with the unanswered question.
Sunday, December 27, 2009
Top 7 songs of the year; Numbers 3 and 2
White people playing club music. You may know a few of them. In fact, you may be one of them. It becomes distressing when, in a year that saw the movements of a black president - not to mention the movements against said black president - the two best club-thumping tracks came from two pigment-challenged artists ... one of them even proclaiming to be the most pigment-challenged in the current time-frame.
The Whitest Boy Alive - "Courage" from Rules
Well, it looks like the smooth, almost-yacht-rock pop wonders of The Kings of Convenience couldn't hold Erlend Øye's need to get his disco dance on. And what a great record to do it on. Rules has enough bass-and-synth beats to put Om Records to shame, but its songs all come with a flair that is distinctly Øye.
"Courage" opens with a simple guitar riff that leads to a simple synth repetition but is propelled to the shimmering shoals of club heaven by Marcin Öz's skanky, slutty, fuck-on-the-floor bass and Oye's tender emoting. The whole thing finds itself nicely wedged somewhere in your favorite coffee spot, your mom's car and your sweatiest nightclub, arousing genitalia in all.
Animal Collective - "My Girls" from Merriweather Post Pavilion
Well, isn't this just the most obvious choice? Liberal, indie-boy, college-grad douche-bag picks a track by Animal Collective to be on his top-of-the-year list? Also, dog bites man.
But, strip away the post-psych contrivances, the nu-rave glistening of the synths, the bump of the canned-drums and that fucking retarded bike-horn noise that pops up here and there. Take into account the actual lyrical content, something that figures in more and more in this age of fuck-it-all instrumentation and lavish production:
"There isn't much that I feel I need
A solid soul and the blood I bleed
But with a little girl, and by my spouse,
I only want a proper house"
The simplicity of "My Girls" turns out to be its strength. Animal Collective found the right note to hit in the year of recession, in which wanting something simple can be as hard as reaching for the stars, and getting something simple can seem like the world. Now, add on all of those instrumental facets that would usually roll the eyes of a pop music naysayer and let the song soar, stupid fucking bike-horn and all.
One of the fewer critically touted songs worth its new-found prestige.
The Whitest Boy Alive - "Courage" from Rules
Well, it looks like the smooth, almost-yacht-rock pop wonders of The Kings of Convenience couldn't hold Erlend Øye's need to get his disco dance on. And what a great record to do it on. Rules has enough bass-and-synth beats to put Om Records to shame, but its songs all come with a flair that is distinctly Øye.
"Courage" opens with a simple guitar riff that leads to a simple synth repetition but is propelled to the shimmering shoals of club heaven by Marcin Öz's skanky, slutty, fuck-on-the-floor bass and Oye's tender emoting. The whole thing finds itself nicely wedged somewhere in your favorite coffee spot, your mom's car and your sweatiest nightclub, arousing genitalia in all.
Animal Collective - "My Girls" from Merriweather Post Pavilion
Well, isn't this just the most obvious choice? Liberal, indie-boy, college-grad douche-bag picks a track by Animal Collective to be on his top-of-the-year list? Also, dog bites man.
But, strip away the post-psych contrivances, the nu-rave glistening of the synths, the bump of the canned-drums and that fucking retarded bike-horn noise that pops up here and there. Take into account the actual lyrical content, something that figures in more and more in this age of fuck-it-all instrumentation and lavish production:
"There isn't much that I feel I need
A solid soul and the blood I bleed
But with a little girl, and by my spouse,
I only want a proper house"
The simplicity of "My Girls" turns out to be its strength. Animal Collective found the right note to hit in the year of recession, in which wanting something simple can be as hard as reaching for the stars, and getting something simple can seem like the world. Now, add on all of those instrumental facets that would usually roll the eyes of a pop music naysayer and let the song soar, stupid fucking bike-horn and all.
One of the fewer critically touted songs worth its new-found prestige.
Friday, December 18, 2009
Top 7 songs of the year; Number 4
Not many words to describe this song other than the infectious beats, the techno drone and the asexual vocals zipping past you at such a pace that it's a pity when it's over ... then you skip back the track and listen again.
Royksopp - "Happy Up Here" Junior
As the net-speakers would say: :)
Royksopp - "Happy Up Here" Junior
As the net-speakers would say: :)
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Top seven songs of the year; Number 5
Nobody croons anymore. Nobody risks sounding like a threat to an insecure curmudgeon's stranglehold over the gal he so tenuously has because she couldn't find anyone better. Nobody cuts through the mystique of hipster fuck-off looks and lays their cards on the table in a naked display of vocal self-evisceration.
It takes balls to croon. It takes more balls to croon than it does to be GG Allen. The results can be catastrophic and you may never sing in this town again ... ever ... forever ... till the end of time ... and maybe a little after that, too.
Which brings us to Number 5 on our list.
Dent May & His Magnificent Ukulele - "Meet Me In the Garden" The Good Feeling Music of Dent May & His Magnificent Ukulele
Oh sure, he looks like the fucked up bastard love-child of an 80-year-old shaved James Hetfield and Elton John ... and he kind of sounds like a Samba-fan Kermit the Frog, come to think of it ... but, the irrefutable fact is that Dent May has "It." He has that "It" that the crooners of past and present have used as a weapon through the noise, high above the jealousy and beyond the grasp of the naysaying Cro-Magnons who haven't so much as won the heart of an audience - let alone a lady - with just the pureness of their voice.
The lyrics sound almost improvisational (kind of like Jens Lekman, who can also carpet a stage of gals' undergarments on command) as the Mississippi-born singer-songwriter paints a picture that comes across as pastoral-by-way-of-Crayola ("While all the birds and flowers will go in time / Tonight they're ours, Miss Caroliiiiiiine"), it is that simplicity that edges May past the cutesy irony-tinged bump of modern indie rock and morose condescension of indie folk.
While his "College Town Boy" would seem to be more politically and culturally important ("Get off your ass and do something"), we have the terseness of a million bad punk bands a shitty hip-hop acts to do that for us. Is it too much to ask for an artist that goes beyond contrivances and gives himself to an audience fully, completely and honestly?
It takes balls to croon. It takes more balls to croon than it does to be GG Allen. The results can be catastrophic and you may never sing in this town again ... ever ... forever ... till the end of time ... and maybe a little after that, too.
Which brings us to Number 5 on our list.
Dent May & His Magnificent Ukulele - "Meet Me In the Garden" The Good Feeling Music of Dent May & His Magnificent Ukulele
Oh sure, he looks like the fucked up bastard love-child of an 80-year-old shaved James Hetfield and Elton John ... and he kind of sounds like a Samba-fan Kermit the Frog, come to think of it ... but, the irrefutable fact is that Dent May has "It." He has that "It" that the crooners of past and present have used as a weapon through the noise, high above the jealousy and beyond the grasp of the naysaying Cro-Magnons who haven't so much as won the heart of an audience - let alone a lady - with just the pureness of their voice.
The lyrics sound almost improvisational (kind of like Jens Lekman, who can also carpet a stage of gals' undergarments on command) as the Mississippi-born singer-songwriter paints a picture that comes across as pastoral-by-way-of-Crayola ("While all the birds and flowers will go in time / Tonight they're ours, Miss Caroliiiiiiine"), it is that simplicity that edges May past the cutesy irony-tinged bump of modern indie rock and morose condescension of indie folk.
While his "College Town Boy" would seem to be more politically and culturally important ("Get off your ass and do something"), we have the terseness of a million bad punk bands a shitty hip-hop acts to do that for us. Is it too much to ask for an artist that goes beyond contrivances and gives himself to an audience fully, completely and honestly?
Sunday, December 13, 2009
Top seven songs of the year; Number 6
I know you all love the hell out of The Dirty Projectors' modern R & B (and Solange Knowles-covered) "Stillness Is the Move," and quite frankly, so do I. How can a self-indulgent hipster not blow all over the inner lining of their zipper when listening to band leader Dave Longstreth's Timbaland-copping bump-n-grind production or singer Amber Coffman's dolphin-fart soprano that makes mince-meat out of the last decade of Mariah-absented radio tripe?
But, while that track did a crazy number on clubbers from indie venues to Jigga-approved hangouts, The Dirty Projectors bit we have at Number 6 is a little more refined in its song-craft rather than crazy Auto-tuning skills.
The Dirty Projectors - "Two Doves" from Bitte Orca (Domino; 2009)
While he's never been all that original, Longstreth has at least had the decency to mind-fuck the zombified irony buzz-heads that usually clamor over a bad taste and indecency toward influential art (see Black Flag cover album done from memory). But, with "Two Doves," Longstreth and the silken-throat of Angel Deradoorian actually manage to make something sincerely beautiful out of a hodgepodge of an album that - while brilliant - probably won't be as influential as it seems it will be.
Opening with a chamber orchestra and a Jackson-Browne-like acoustic guitar riff, the song brims with romantic yearning from the get go, but never devolves into fluff as Deradoorian's warm vocals and tender lyrical delivery work to disarming effect in ways that Longstreth, Coffman or even Nico (whose Chelsea Girls is all over the track) didn't.
In a pitchfork.com interview, Longstreth said, "It's crazy what you can do with a human voice, or a couple of human voices. It's so basic and it's so direct."
Thankfully, by stripping all of the cutesy indie-Damon-Dash glitz and freak-folk flourishes, he let Deradoorian do the voicing for him.
But, while that track did a crazy number on clubbers from indie venues to Jigga-approved hangouts, The Dirty Projectors bit we have at Number 6 is a little more refined in its song-craft rather than crazy Auto-tuning skills.
The Dirty Projectors - "Two Doves" from Bitte Orca (Domino; 2009)
While he's never been all that original, Longstreth has at least had the decency to mind-fuck the zombified irony buzz-heads that usually clamor over a bad taste and indecency toward influential art (see Black Flag cover album done from memory). But, with "Two Doves," Longstreth and the silken-throat of Angel Deradoorian actually manage to make something sincerely beautiful out of a hodgepodge of an album that - while brilliant - probably won't be as influential as it seems it will be.
Opening with a chamber orchestra and a Jackson-Browne-like acoustic guitar riff, the song brims with romantic yearning from the get go, but never devolves into fluff as Deradoorian's warm vocals and tender lyrical delivery work to disarming effect in ways that Longstreth, Coffman or even Nico (whose Chelsea Girls is all over the track) didn't.
In a pitchfork.com interview, Longstreth said, "It's crazy what you can do with a human voice, or a couple of human voices. It's so basic and it's so direct."
Thankfully, by stripping all of the cutesy indie-Damon-Dash glitz and freak-folk flourishes, he let Deradoorian do the voicing for him.
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