Monday, December 29, 2008

Top 25 Albums of 2008


This was hard. Much harder than I thought it would be. I listened to about 75 albums from 2008, but there were so many more that I thought I "should" listen to, to be fair. Well, time ran out, and here's what I ended up with. I'm happy with it. I'd really appreciate your comments. Also, see my FULL list of reviews of all of the albums I listened to.

25. Beach House - Devotion
Very nice Nico-esque sound they have. It's retro, for sure, but not the same kind of retro everyone else seems to be ripping off lately. These Baltimoreans have done my home state proud.

24. AU - Verbs
I heard these guys open for the Dodos, and it took a few songs, but I eventually got into their sound. For some reason, I end up comparing a lot of bands to Animal Collective, but I think it's apt here. They have that same sense of how to make the bizarre beautiful.

23. Delta Spirit - Ode to Sunshine
Not consistently good through the whole album, but there are a few outstanding tracks. Their old-school folk/soul lo-fi sound feels comfortable from the moment you hear it.

22. Kanye West - 808s and Heartbreak
As much as I dislike the guy for his attitude, there's no denying his ear. Yeah, maybe he isn't a very good singer, but he knows it, and makes up for it with some appropriate effect-work.

21. Cut Copy - In Ghost Colours
Fun and dancy, this record doesn't take itself too seriously like a lot of electronic music. The synths and beats make for perfect party music that owes plenty to Depeche Mode and other earlier electronic groups, but still sounds modern. I think the singer could use some voice lessons though.

20. Bon Iver - For Emma, Forever Ago
All quality songs. This mellow folk rock rookie in the Iron & Wine mold has some stellar melodies and a haunting sound that will touch your heart and be appropriate for the soundtrack to Gray's Anatomy (woops, too late).

19. Deerhunter - Microcastle
This album has multiple personalities. Its ambient, spacey, trippy side makes it pleasantly groovy. Its power pop melodies and hooks give it a familiar feel. "Never Stops" is a really good track.

18. Santogold - Santogold
Hopping back and forth between new wave, reggae, hip hop, and hard rock, (even a taste of country) this exciting new artist is fresh and filled with the funk. Can't wait to hear what she has to give us next.

17. The Raconteurs - Consolers of the Lonely
Jack White's "other band" is better than his regular band (The White Stripes). Yeah I said it. This isn't his side project. This is the real deal. Unlike White Stripes albums, this one keeps moving the whole time, not pausing to marvel at Jack's virtuosity. This is about the songs, not the man. The rest of the band must bring out the more practical rocker in him.

16. Amadou & Mariam - Welcome to Mali
Blind husband-wife duo mix traditional and modern sounds with soulful song-writing. I have no idea what they're saying, but they've got me convinced.

15. The Dodos - Visiter
This duo, sometimes trio, is downright nasty with the skills. Acoustic guitar, drums, and singing (and sweatpants). That's all you need, apparently. Their music is a frenzy of activity that you should be shocked to learn comes from just two young dudes from San Francisco. Full review.

14. Shugo Tokumaru - Exit
When I first listened to it, I thought it would surely be one of my top 3 albums of the year, but it didn't take too many spins before I realized it's just a very very good album. The multi-instrumentalist from the nation of my birth did the homeland proud with a little gem of an album. It's fun, trippy, airy, and concise. Full review.

13. Sigur Ros - Med sud i eyrum vid spilum endalaust
The Icelandic group's most accessible album to date. Mosts of the songs are single-length and of fairly standard song structure, unlike much of their more ambient catalog. A good listen for sure, even if it seems to cater more to the masses. They're still near the top of the active psychedelic music scene.

12. Fleet Foxes - Fleet Foxes
It took a long time for me to appreciate this album. It seems to be on everybody's top ten list, and I just didn't see it until I listened to it in the morning. Some albums are night-time music. This is morning-time music, for me at least. My beef with it for a while was that it's not very original, as it borrows a lot from the 60s and 70s era psychedelic and folk scenes, especially the Beach Boys. I know everyone borrows, but it just seemed too similar. But I realized that regardless of whether the style is new, the songs are great, and the melodies are timeless.

11. Jay Reatard - Matador Singles '08
What is he? Indie? Punk? Who cares, it sounds so good to me. It's defiant, angry, paranoid, confident. Everything he seems to be as a person.

10. Crystal Castles - Crystal Castles
Another innovative electronic group making beautiful sounds with blips, beeps, and buzzy beats.

9. Elbow - Seldom Seen Kid
This Mancunian group have been one of my favorite bands for a while now, but this album seems like their best, most confident work so far. Also, their show at 6th & I historic Synagogue was my favorite show of the year, and I went to a LOT of good shows this year.

8. Dr. Dog - Fate
They might be higher if not for a weak final three tracks. This band has been one of my favorite music discoveries of the year. They're awesome live, and this album, an indie/blues/folk fun-ride, complete with great vocal variety and harmony. Full review.

7. The Cool Kids - The Bake Sale
Midwest hip-hop duo lay witty, self-deprecating rhymes over minimalist, old school beats. My favorite hip-hop album since Madvillainy. Ok, so I don't listen to that much hip-hop, it's true. But this has fulfilled my undernourished taste for it for '08, and I think '09 will be a year of hip-hop exploration for me.

6. Fuck Buttons - Street Horrrsing
The future of music? This electronic group put together a great effort filled with hard beats, dramatic buildups, and a fascinating mix of melody and noise.

5. Frightened Rabbit - The Midnight Organ Fight
"I am armed with the past, and the will, and a brick / I might not want you back, but I want to kill him." These are the kinds of raw emotional lyrics, sung with a wobbly, earnest voice, that make this album great. It's produced by the same guy who produced Boxer by the National last year, and the two albums share the quality of breathing new life into the conventional rock style with just good song-writing and production.

4. The Walkmen - You & Me
Roommate Ed proclaims, "Sounds like Bob Dylan" and dismisses it. Whatever, he does have that great-singer-that-can't-really-sing kind of sound to him. There's so much more though. You feel like you're in some grainy independent film that's vaguely set in the past, but feels particularly timely, if that makes even a lick of sense.

3. TV on the Radio - Dear Science
This album occupied my top spot for a good portion of the year, and might have suffered from being the first of these top 3 that I heard, and therefore, the least fresh. It's amazing. They deserve all the praise they're getting. I think they finally put it all together on this record, where in their previous efforts, there were good tracks, but not a good album. Also, read my full gushing review.

2. Portishead - Third
Wow, who knew a band could go away for so long and come back with an album this good? I guess it's not unheard of. These alt-electro-rock-ish veterans know how to make some amazing sounds with their instruments, machines, and voices. To use a cliche term, the songs take you on a journey, and all the stops on that trip are beautiful and strange.

1. Department of Eagles - In Ear Park
First off, props to Brooklyn for putting out so many good records this year (this one, TVOTR, Santogold, The Hold Steady, MGMT, Vampire Weekend). Nicely done. This one takes the cake though. It's a full album, stunning from start to finish. They ditched their out-and-out electronica sound and humor (which were good too) and focused on making a spooky folktronica masterpiece. Daniel Rossen, also from Grizzly Bear, has a beautiful and earnest voice that colors the album with vivid, pained strokes. Also check out my full review.

Wednesday, December 24, 2008

inconvenient year-end technology failure


If you happen to be in the market for a netbook, and you are trying to decide between the Acer Aspire One and the MSI Wind... get the Wind. My friend Rachel got the Wind in September. I got the Acer in October. My Acer is now dead, or something like it. It won't turn on. I'm sending it back for repairs. This is annoying because:
  1. I'm obviously an internet fiend.
  2. I can't work on my annual Christmas mix, and it'll have to be delayed.
  3. I can't work on my year-end top albums list because all my music is on that laptop.
  4. My desktop (which I'm using to write this post) is a six-year-old hand-me-down piece of garbage that crashes every five minutes, and certainly doesn't fit in my man-purse.
Meanwhile, Rachel sent me a link saying that Wired named the Wind the Top Gadget of 2008.

On top of that, my new LG enV2 phone, which I also got in October, turns off every time I put it in my pocket. Garbage.

Sunday, December 21, 2008

songs of the year: 2008

The year's coming to an end, and I'm still working on my albums of the year list, but here's something to whet your appetite.

Ten Favorite Songs:
10. Department of Eagles - In Ear Park
9. Fuck Buttons - Sweet Love for Planet Earth
8. MGMT - Time to Pretend
7. Sigur Ros - Gobbledigook
6. Amadou and Mariam - Sabali
5. Elbow - Grounds for Divorce
4. Frightened Rabbit - I Feel Better
3. TV on the Radio - Dancing Choose
2. Portishead - The Rip
1. Dr. Dog - The Old Days

Bonus! Least Favorite Song:
My Morning Jacket - Highly Suspicious

Friday, December 19, 2008

Why I Hate Of Montreal

Of Montreal being annoying in Baltimore, 2007

I don't usually go around actively hating on bands. I respect musicians for putting themselves out there for public critique, and I usually just ignore bands I don't like. But Of Montreal is an exception. I can't stand them. I first heard them on Satanic Panic in the Attic, and it was an OK album, but I found the unchecked glee of the singing highly annoying. Don't you know rock music is about misery?! The next time I heard them was on an Outback Steakhouse commercial. I generally groan when bands I like "sell out" and do commercials, but Of Montreal took it a step further. They changed the words to one of their own songs to make the jingle for the Outback commercial, "let's go Outback tonight." Here's the original song, "Wraith Pinned to the Mist and Other Games." That is criminal! An "indie" band shilling for a corporate steakhouse and changing the words of their own song?! Who does that? They deserve maximum mocking. That happened a while ago, though. The indie-heads know that's old news. The last straw for me, however, was even older news than that, which I recently found with the help of my good friend Wikipedia. Of Montreal is not from Montreal, but from Athens, Georgia. Maybe I'm the stupid one for assuming what shouldn't necessarily be assumed. Maybe everyone else caught on to that long ago. But me? I just learned about it, and I'm angry at being deceived for so long. Also, it didn't help their cause that their new album, Skeletal Lamping, sucks.

Overboard?

This is the scene in my car lately. I've been working on a year-end best albums list, and the end of the year is coming fast. I still have a lot of albums to listen to. No time to waste uploading to my ipod. Is there a law against operating a laptop while driving?

Monday, December 15, 2008

Concert Review: Wilco - 12.14.08 at Lyric Opera House in Baltimore

I got tickets to Wilco even though they're not a band I've ever fallen in love with. They kind of occupy the same sort of vague territory of appreciation without outright affection that the White Stripes, Ted Leo, and Broken Social Scene fall into for me. But I knew they write good songs, and they have a reputation for being an excellent live act to see, and the choice of venue had me sold. 

The Baltimore show was one of only a couple that Wilco are doing this tour without Neil Young, so they get to be the headlining act. Funny, that they are opening for Neil Young, but the one time I saw Neil Young, he opened for Dave Matthews Band... something is wrong here. Anyway, the venue of this show, the Lyric Opera House, was a big selling point for me too, because shows I've seen this year in fancier seated venues have all been excellent (Sigur Ros, Elbow, Mos Def).

And what do you know, I got exactly what I paid for. (Ok, not exactly... I bought two tickets thinking, surely, I could convince one of my friends, or some poor hipster out in the cold of Baltimore to see the show, but I couldn't find a single taker, and had to totally eat the cost... and that's the 2nd time that's happened in two weeks! WTF?)

The thing that struck me about this show is that this is just a very good, professional, band. They're tight, they have no weak links, they take their craft extremely seriously. That being said, one of the more memorable parts of the show came when Tweedy messed up a verse on "Jesus, Etc." about which he seemed really embarassed. He explained that, what had gone through his head to make him lose his place in the song was, he was thinking about how cool it'd be if characters from "The Wire" (best show in the history of tv) like Omar and McNulty were real and came to a Wilco show. It was a stark contrast from Nick Cave, who seemed to not give a damn about stopping in the middle of "God is in the House" or explaining why.

So in conclusion, even if you don't like Wilco that much, you should go see them if you get the chance, especially if your friend is offering them to you at a discount and would probably even give it to you for free.

Monday, December 8, 2008

Might Could at Orion Studios

My friend and guitar teacher Aaron is in a band called Might Could. Usually, they're an acoustic prog  guitar trio plus bass sometimes. At Orion Studios in Catonsville on Saturday night, they were that for the first set, and then, for the second time in their existence, a metal cover band for the second set. They rocked the house two times over.

Thursday, December 4, 2008

Concert Review: Dr. Dog - 12.3.08 at the 9:30 Club

For the pre-encore setlist, see the previous post.

The encore was:
  1. I Hope There's Love
  2. OHNO
  3. Fuck It
This was my second Dr. Dog show in five days and third in the past three months. From these shows, I've learned it's best to see this band up close, not hanging back or from a balcony. Though not the most danceable of musical styles, a lot of their appeal is their high energy. I used to always be a "near-the-stage" kind of concert-goer, but lately, in my old age, I've been favoring the balcony or the "hang-back" method. This is fine for mellower shows. But I hung back at the Dr. Dog show in Philly a few days back, and it just wasn't as good.

The 9:30 club set was pretty similar to both of the previous sets I saw. All three opened with "The Old Days", the first song of theirs I ever heard, and still one of my favorites. The sets were all heavily from their two latest albums, Fate and We All Belong, but featured a few old ones sprinkled in there. They're a really well-rehearsed band, and I definitely respect them for that.

The real treat in being up front for the show was the crowd. Dr. Dog fans are my kind of people, I guess (except for the couple that was making out hardcore in the front row). They sing along, but not obnoxiously; they dance; they're good-natured. I'm glad I saw this show, because after watching them from next to the sound board in Philly, I was starting to question whether this band was as good as I'd thought. The answer: yes, they're that good. If you ever get a chance to see them (and you will - they tour a lot), learn the songs, buy a ticket, and stand in the front with my people.

dr. dog 930 club setlist

full review coming later.

Monday, December 1, 2008

song of the day - 12.1.08: portishead - nylon smile


This Portishead track is sure to give you goosebumps. Beth Gibbons's ghostly whisper hitting all the right notes, the driving hand-drum rhythm, and the blips and moans of indistinguishable electronic and instrumental fills create a trance-like feel. It will transport you to a creepily beautiful landscape painted by three great musicians from Bristol. Enjoy the ride, readers. Enjoy.