Wednesday, January 13, 2010
R.I.P. Jay Reatard
Sunday, January 10, 2010
The Best of 2009
Tentatively my final list of the top 25 songs and top 5 albums of the year, as determined by me. Mostly by gut feeling, although factors such as longevity and sentimental value are factors in addition to overall enjoyment of the song.
Top 25 Songs
1. Grizzly Bear - While You Wait for the Others
2. Passion Pit - Little Secrets
3. Japandroids - Wet Hair
4. Sleigh Bells - Crown On The Ground
5. Lil Wayne feat. Nicki Minaj - Sweet Dreams
6. Japandroids - I Quit Girls
7. Bat For Lashes - Moon And Moon
8. Grizzly Bear - Two Weeks
9. Dizzee Rascal - Holiday
10. Lil Wayne - Swag Surf
11. KiD CuDi - Day N Night (Nightmare)
12. Animal Collective - My Girls
13. Passion Pit - The Reeling
14. Animal Collective - Bluish
15. Fever Ray - If I Had A Heart
16. Future Of The Left - Drink Nike
17. Thunderheist - Jerk It
18. Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Zero
19. The Ting Tings - That's Not My Name
20. Black Lips - Drugs
21. Future Of The Left - You Need Satan More Than He Needs You
22. Thunderheist - Do The Right Thing
23. Bat For Lashes - Pearl's Dream
24. Jarvis Cocker - Leftovers
25. Jay Reatard - Wounded
Top 5 Albums (tentative)
1. Japandroids - Post-Nothing
2. The Field - Yesterday and Today
3. Animal Collective - Merriweather Post Pavillion
4. Fuck Buttons - Tarot Sport
5. Future of the Left - Travels With Myself and Another
Top 25 Songs
1. Grizzly Bear - While You Wait for the Others
2. Passion Pit - Little Secrets
3. Japandroids - Wet Hair
4. Sleigh Bells - Crown On The Ground
5. Lil Wayne feat. Nicki Minaj - Sweet Dreams
6. Japandroids - I Quit Girls
7. Bat For Lashes - Moon And Moon
8. Grizzly Bear - Two Weeks
9. Dizzee Rascal - Holiday
10. Lil Wayne - Swag Surf
11. KiD CuDi - Day N Night (Nightmare)
12. Animal Collective - My Girls
13. Passion Pit - The Reeling
14. Animal Collective - Bluish
15. Fever Ray - If I Had A Heart
16. Future Of The Left - Drink Nike
17. Thunderheist - Jerk It
18. Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Zero
19. The Ting Tings - That's Not My Name
20. Black Lips - Drugs
21. Future Of The Left - You Need Satan More Than He Needs You
22. Thunderheist - Do The Right Thing
23. Bat For Lashes - Pearl's Dream
24. Jarvis Cocker - Leftovers
25. Jay Reatard - Wounded
Top 5 Albums (tentative)
1. Japandroids - Post-Nothing
2. The Field - Yesterday and Today
3. Animal Collective - Merriweather Post Pavillion
4. Fuck Buttons - Tarot Sport
5. Future of the Left - Travels With Myself and Another
Saturday, January 9, 2010
"Kids These Days!": Justin Bieber
I can't even believe this shit. Not only is this little prick's "celeb crush" Beyonce, who is Jay-Z's girl, but he then goes out of his way to diss her footwear in "Justin On His Biggest Turn-Off!": "'I will not even look at you if you're wearing Uggs--even if you're Beyonce!'" (Nevermind why aren't the parents upset that we live in a society where it's appropriate to ask a pubescent boy about his sexual preferences in a magazine.)
Where does Justin Bieber get off?
Jay-Z is soft. Jay-Z should drop a diss track against Justin Bieber.
Friday, July 31, 2009
No. 1 Single Reviews: "I Gotta Feeling" by the Black Eyed Peas
I know this one has been at the top of the charts for five weeks now, but waiting three months for "Boom Boom Pow" to drop off the charts, only to be replaced by more Black-Eyed Peas, was so soul-crushing I couldn't open Blogger for almost a fortnight.
It boils down to a crappy, dispassionate "let's go party" song--in other words, it's still the Black-Eyed Peas. There's an oddly psuedo-sentimental, yet up-tempo feeling to the dry, eighth-note guitar strums that I can't quite put my finger on. It's got that perverse "mid-level indie trickles up to the mainstream" vibe. Remember how Kelly Clarkson got her Yeah Yeah Yeahs on with "Since U Been Gone", then got her "Since U Been Gone" on with "My Life Would Suck Without You?" Dilute that by another ten levels to get this. In fact, for the first half a minute it almost seems like it might be a likable song, but as usual the Black-Eyed Peas miss the point entirely. The vocals start, and before long will.i.am is barking out the verses in four-word tone-deaf burst: "AH GOT MAH MONEY/LET'S SPEND IT UP."
It as asinine and grating as "Boom Boom Pow," but in an entirely different way. It also plays like a checklist of shitty, focus-grouped tricks for radio singles. The lowlights include:
-Auto-Tune
-The "beat cuts out for a split second after an appropriate lyric" manuever, Lyrical Varation 15: "shut it down".
-An early favorite for corniest call-and-response bridge of the century so far, in which Fergie sounds and looks like nothing so much as a pudgy, slow girl ab-libbing along to a record.
will.i.am.: Fill up my cup
Fergie: DRANK
will.i.a.m: Mazel tov
Fergie: L'CHAIM*
-A shameless, shoehorned "counting down the days of the week bit".
I hate everything about this song. I even hate the title, "I Gotta Feeling." Even Urban Dictionary knows this means "got to" as in "have to", not "got a" as in possession.
That's right; the name of this song is "I Have To Feeling." Congratulations on electing these idiots your best representative for popular music, America!
*Yes, Fergie says "l'chaim," a Jewish toast. Yes, it's Auto-Tuned.
It boils down to a crappy, dispassionate "let's go party" song--in other words, it's still the Black-Eyed Peas. There's an oddly psuedo-sentimental, yet up-tempo feeling to the dry, eighth-note guitar strums that I can't quite put my finger on. It's got that perverse "mid-level indie trickles up to the mainstream" vibe. Remember how Kelly Clarkson got her Yeah Yeah Yeahs on with "Since U Been Gone", then got her "Since U Been Gone" on with "My Life Would Suck Without You?" Dilute that by another ten levels to get this. In fact, for the first half a minute it almost seems like it might be a likable song, but as usual the Black-Eyed Peas miss the point entirely. The vocals start, and before long will.i.am is barking out the verses in four-word tone-deaf burst: "AH GOT MAH MONEY/LET'S SPEND IT UP."
It as asinine and grating as "Boom Boom Pow," but in an entirely different way. It also plays like a checklist of shitty, focus-grouped tricks for radio singles. The lowlights include:
-Auto-Tune
-The "beat cuts out for a split second after an appropriate lyric" manuever, Lyrical Varation 15: "shut it down".
-An early favorite for corniest call-and-response bridge of the century so far, in which Fergie sounds and looks like nothing so much as a pudgy, slow girl ab-libbing along to a record.
will.i.am.: Fill up my cup
Fergie: DRANK
will.i.a.m: Mazel tov
Fergie: L'CHAIM*
-A shameless, shoehorned "counting down the days of the week bit".
I hate everything about this song. I even hate the title, "I Gotta Feeling." Even Urban Dictionary knows this means "got to" as in "have to", not "got a" as in possession.
That's right; the name of this song is "I Have To Feeling." Congratulations on electing these idiots your best representative for popular music, America!
*Yes, Fergie says "l'chaim," a Jewish toast. Yes, it's Auto-Tuned.
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Where are all the Animal Collective sound-alikes?
"You can hardly throw a stone in a record shop without hitting a new album by a band that sounds like Animal Collective." - Dusted Magazine
"We'd love to get through this without mentioning Animal Collective, which has become the indie-focused writer's Beatles or Brian Wilson-- a comparison so overused that it's meaningless." - Pitchfork
"Between 1996's groundbreaking Millions Now Living Will Never Die and 2001's pacesetting Standards, Tortoise garnered a level of influence in indie music that almost rivals that of Animal Collective today." - Pitchfork (again)
Where, exactly, is this proliferation of Animal Collectivesque bands that I've somehow missed?
"We'd love to get through this without mentioning Animal Collective, which has become the indie-focused writer's Beatles or Brian Wilson-- a comparison so overused that it's meaningless." - Pitchfork
"Between 1996's groundbreaking Millions Now Living Will Never Die and 2001's pacesetting Standards, Tortoise garnered a level of influence in indie music that almost rivals that of Animal Collective today." - Pitchfork (again)
Where, exactly, is this proliferation of Animal Collectivesque bands that I've somehow missed?
Sunday, June 14, 2009
Concert Review: The Posies (peforming Frosting on the Beater), The Bell House, New York City, June 12
The
recent explosion of bands performing full albums live--most notably with the Don't Look Back concert series--has been an interesting new way to focus on the album as a whole piece of work in an era when record sales are down and downloads and shuffle options guide a new generation to think in terms of single tracks. Choosing to do one of these shows is also something of a statement that an artist wants to hold an album up as a classic, or at least their best work, and can be a way to honor underrated albums deserving of more recognition.
The Posies' performance of Frosting on the Beater was an excellent way to elevate both an unheralded classic album and the one of the most severely underrated rock bands of the modern era. They left a string of great albums and should-have-been-hit-singles but never caught on commercially, despite swimming in power-pop cred (we're talking "Ringo Starr covers one of your songs and a Big Star reformation enlists your songwriters and singers" levels here.) Their only flaw was that their music was made for the wrong era, so one of the little ironies of their career is that their most successful and popular album was the one that coated their melodic songwriting in layers of grunge distortion.
It also happens to be their best album, however, and particularly well-suited for a live treatment. Their strongest songwriting meant an hour of sing-alongs, backed by some alternative rock sheen for a little headbanging. The opening four songs salvo is one of the best stretches of guitar-pop of the nineties, and big rockers like "Definite Door" or the era's quiet/loud dynamic on "Lights Out" punched the songs up live.
The
band's rotating rhythm section has long since left the album's original players behind, putting the focus squarely on songwriters/vocalists/guitars Jon Auer and Ken Stringfellow. Auer, who takes the lead on most Frosting songs, was by far the looser performer of the two. While Stringfellow's voice has held up enough to match the records well, Auer's voice seems a bit higher and more nasally than the recordings, and has lost a bit of the deep, breathy quality it used to have. Auer also does most of the lead guitar work, and worked up some good squealing noise for the noisy jam ending of "Burn and Shine" and the drumless "Coming Right Along." For his part, Stringfellow ricochets around the stage and bounces like his legs are pogo-sticks, and the frequency and intensity with which he spits (occasionally soaking the front row) would be impressive for a 20-something punk rocker, let alone a guy who's been in a band called the Posies for two decades.
The second set/encore skewed heavily towards the Frosting follow-up Amazing Disgrace, highlighted by the fierce Stringfellow rocker "Everybody is a Fucking Liar." (A few requests for that song mid-way through the set elicited the Stringfellow gem "Hey, Jon, after the last twenty seconds did you have any doubt we're in the New York area?")
The atmosphere on stage was as loose and fun as the playing, with the band retuning and cracking jokes between nearly every song--most notably a brief running gag about Bret Michaels' recent injury at the Tony Awards, including a "moment of silence." The mood from the unappreciated band before and after the show: Auer joked to the front row about missing roadies as he set up his pedals before the show, and the guys were not too famous to work their own merch booth after the show. They still deserve better--the performance would have, and should have, played just as well to a few thousand instead of a few hundred--but the show was a fitting tribute to a gem of an album.
Set One (Frosting on the Beater):
Dream All Day
Solar Sister
Flavor of the Month
Love Letter Boxes
Definite Door
Burn and Shine
Earlier Than Expected
20 Questions
When Mute Tongues Can Speak
Lights Out
How She Lied by Living
Coming Right Along
Set Two (Encore):
Start a Life
Ontario
Apology
Please Return It
Throwaway
Everybody is a Fucking Liar
Conversations
You're the Beautiful One
recent explosion of bands performing full albums live--most notably with the Don't Look Back concert series--has been an interesting new way to focus on the album as a whole piece of work in an era when record sales are down and downloads and shuffle options guide a new generation to think in terms of single tracks. Choosing to do one of these shows is also something of a statement that an artist wants to hold an album up as a classic, or at least their best work, and can be a way to honor underrated albums deserving of more recognition.The Posies' performance of Frosting on the Beater was an excellent way to elevate both an unheralded classic album and the one of the most severely underrated rock bands of the modern era. They left a string of great albums and should-have-been-hit-singles but never caught on commercially, despite swimming in power-pop cred (we're talking "Ringo Starr covers one of your songs and a Big Star reformation enlists your songwriters and singers" levels here.) Their only flaw was that their music was made for the wrong era, so one of the little ironies of their career is that their most successful and popular album was the one that coated their melodic songwriting in layers of grunge distortion.
It also happens to be their best album, however, and particularly well-suited for a live treatment. Their strongest songwriting meant an hour of sing-alongs, backed by some alternative rock sheen for a little headbanging. The opening four songs salvo is one of the best stretches of guitar-pop of the nineties, and big rockers like "Definite Door" or the era's quiet/loud dynamic on "Lights Out" punched the songs up live.
The
band's rotating rhythm section has long since left the album's original players behind, putting the focus squarely on songwriters/vocalists/guitars Jon Auer and Ken Stringfellow. Auer, who takes the lead on most Frosting songs, was by far the looser performer of the two. While Stringfellow's voice has held up enough to match the records well, Auer's voice seems a bit higher and more nasally than the recordings, and has lost a bit of the deep, breathy quality it used to have. Auer also does most of the lead guitar work, and worked up some good squealing noise for the noisy jam ending of "Burn and Shine" and the drumless "Coming Right Along." For his part, Stringfellow ricochets around the stage and bounces like his legs are pogo-sticks, and the frequency and intensity with which he spits (occasionally soaking the front row) would be impressive for a 20-something punk rocker, let alone a guy who's been in a band called the Posies for two decades.The second set/encore skewed heavily towards the Frosting follow-up Amazing Disgrace, highlighted by the fierce Stringfellow rocker "Everybody is a Fucking Liar." (A few requests for that song mid-way through the set elicited the Stringfellow gem "Hey, Jon, after the last twenty seconds did you have any doubt we're in the New York area?")
The atmosphere on stage was as loose and fun as the playing, with the band retuning and cracking jokes between nearly every song--most notably a brief running gag about Bret Michaels' recent injury at the Tony Awards, including a "moment of silence." The mood from the unappreciated band before and after the show: Auer joked to the front row about missing roadies as he set up his pedals before the show, and the guys were not too famous to work their own merch booth after the show. They still deserve better--the performance would have, and should have, played just as well to a few thousand instead of a few hundred--but the show was a fitting tribute to a gem of an album.
Set One (Frosting on the Beater):
Dream All Day
Solar Sister
Flavor of the Month
Love Letter Boxes
Definite Door
Burn and Shine
Earlier Than Expected
20 Questions
When Mute Tongues Can Speak
Lights Out
How She Lied by Living
Coming Right Along
Set Two (Encore):
Start a Life
Ontario
Apology
Please Return It
Throwaway
Everybody is a Fucking Liar
Conversations
You're the Beautiful One
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Covers: "Don't Stop Believin'" by the cast of Glee
I'm not sure what bugs me more: that a cover of "Don't Stop Believin'" by the cast of Glee is No. 4 on the Hot 100--five spots higher than Journey's original peaked--or that it seems to rip off the Petra Haden version. (At least the intros.)
An a capella take on a song isn't necessarily such an original idea that two people can't come to it independently. Haden's cover is from a relatively obscure compilation. A compilation with a "guilty pleasure" theme, in fact. Who knows whether or not the crew of some network television studio is aware of Haden's 2007 cover or not.
They knick the sound, but lose points for effort. Haden went so far with her vocals that she even sang the guitar solo. The Glee kids, however, wimp out. After about a minute, in come the drums and the rest of the band, and by the end of the song the a capella concept seems to have been entirely fazed out.
It's an obscenely bombastic arrangement: the a capella backing vocals stick around, horns show up, and a man and girl duet in the shrieking style of drama kids--Adam Lambert is kicking himself over a missed opportunity right now. (Speaking of Idol, if the girl on this song was a contestant she'd have "pitchy" ringing in her ears.)
If anything, it's that earnest stage sincerity that sets the Glee cover apart. Haden's version is more low-key, goofy, and even seems to be making fun of the song, or at least teasing it. The Glee version sings to the rafters and is intended to get those 12-to-15-year-olds bopping on their couches.
As for how the cover stacks up to Journey, well, who do you trust: Steve Perry or a nation of tweens with iTunes?
An a capella take on a song isn't necessarily such an original idea that two people can't come to it independently. Haden's cover is from a relatively obscure compilation. A compilation with a "guilty pleasure" theme, in fact. Who knows whether or not the crew of some network television studio is aware of Haden's 2007 cover or not.
They knick the sound, but lose points for effort. Haden went so far with her vocals that she even sang the guitar solo. The Glee kids, however, wimp out. After about a minute, in come the drums and the rest of the band, and by the end of the song the a capella concept seems to have been entirely fazed out.
It's an obscenely bombastic arrangement: the a capella backing vocals stick around, horns show up, and a man and girl duet in the shrieking style of drama kids--Adam Lambert is kicking himself over a missed opportunity right now. (Speaking of Idol, if the girl on this song was a contestant she'd have "pitchy" ringing in her ears.)
If anything, it's that earnest stage sincerity that sets the Glee cover apart. Haden's version is more low-key, goofy, and even seems to be making fun of the song, or at least teasing it. The Glee version sings to the rafters and is intended to get those 12-to-15-year-olds bopping on their couches.
As for how the cover stacks up to Journey, well, who do you trust: Steve Perry or a nation of tweens with iTunes?
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