2 Tablespoons Dinosaur jr.
1 Cup 90's spacerock (think Hum or Siamese Dream era Smashing Pumpkins)
1/2 cup of mid-nineties emo (Sunny Day Real Estate/Mineral brand, preferably)
1 1/2 teaspoons of Weezer's Blue Album
Melt the Dinosaur Jr. in a small frying pan. Mix in the 90's spacerock and stir until lightly browned. Toss in mid-nineties emo and add Weezer's Blue album to taste:
Yuck is pretty tasty when it's all done, but you won't ever quite be sure if its delicious on its own merit, or gratifying because it reminds you of so many familiar, comforting flavors from your youth. This problem may never be resolved.
Sunday, January 30, 2011
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
Book Review: 33 1/3 #48 Rid of Me: A Story
Kate Schatz's Rid of Me: A Story is a tricky entry into the 33 1/3 series. Most volumes deal with albums in a fairly straightforward manner providing a direct set of criteria through which to evaluate them. These criteria generally look to a book's insight into the album, its clarity of purpose and vision, the quality of the prose, and the various strategies an author uses to explore said album. Schatz's entry on PJ Harvey's Rid of Me, like the volumes on Meat is Murder and Music from Big Pink before it, is a little trickier in that its fictional. What makes Rid of Me: A Story more complicated, however, is that it never explicitly deals with PJ Harvey or her album. That's okay. I like the boldness of the approach. Whereas Joe Pernice and John Niven ground their fictions in the experience of listening to the album and a fictionalized telling of the creation of the album, respectively, Schatz's volume focuses instead on the themes and mood of Harvey's album as invoked through a dark and, at times, sexy narrative. Because I'm a fan of the idea of a book of fiction being about a rock album, I wanted to love this book and bury it with praise. And, while much of Schatz's volume pays off, I find myself distinguishing between the volume's two aims: its ability to capture the essence of PJ Harvey's album, and its ability to tell an engaging story.As an exploration of Rid of Me, Schatz's work is a surprising success. The narrative's grim tone and damaged, but strong characters read as if they were ripped right out of Harvey's album. Schatz's desolate nature imagery and her protagonist's desperation, anger, and longing all bristle with the same energy that Harvey brings to her compositions. Through the protagonist's odd romance and flight from those who wronged them, Schatz is able to explore the raw, thrumming pathos that underlies every distorted guitar and pained howl on Rid of Me.
So what is holding the volume back? Well, it doesn't quite work as a story. At least to this reader. I'd like to qualify this, though. The prose in this book is mostly excellent, and the ideas seem pretty compelling, but neither of these are enough to carry the narrative beyond its simple lack of grounding. Ultimately, Rid of Me: A Story aims to be a non-conventional narrative told through points of view that shift between unreliable narrators, and which are so grounded in the sensation of the moment that I had trouble finding stable footing at times. While this ethereal approach to storytelling works wonderfully in capturing the mood of the album, I found myself struggling to stay invested in Mary and Kathleen, the story's protagonists. Even now, as I think back on the story, the details are a bit hazy--I know Kathleen and Mary escape from shitty patriarchal surroundings, find each other, and forge a darkly erotic relationship. Then, while little happens in the story's present, the women are besieged by paranoia, fear, and bad dreams as we learn bits and pieces of their pasts through hazy flashbacks. In the end, my connection to these characters is about as foggy as the ways their backstories unfold. I wonder if the story might have benefited from some stronger grounding in the present, and perhaps a bit more present-tense friction to help drive so much uncertain remembering.
Still, I feel as if my own fiction writing and workshop mentality (which is begrudgingly branded into my brain) is getting in the way of my fully enjoying Schatz's story. I want to love this book--its approach and attitude is everything I look for in fiction, but without enough footing to stand on, I ended up feeling lost and aloof.
Regardless, I'm thrilled that Continuum and Schatz took the risk with this book. Despite my problems with it, the volume is still interesting and worthwhile, I was just hoping for a little more.
=======
Next up, Marvin Lin's book on Kid A
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
Songs that Changed the Landscape of Human Thought and Understanding: Glenn Frey's "You Belong to the City"
Ever since the Industrial Revolution, much of the global population has left rural spaces for urban ones. According to the 2010 U.S. Census, "a whole shitload of people live in the City now." Of course, there are major differences between the City and the Country. Where the Country is full of self-reliant, weather-beaten figures who live off the fat of the land and generate home-spun wisdom like Creationism, the City is filled with "Street Smart" people who can't live without cell phones, public transportation, or Whole Foods supermarkets. These are not stereotypes, but unfalsifiable facts. Where the Country might get you eaten by bears if you're not careful, the City will literally eat you alive. If the City was a person, it would be a cannibal. The growling stomach of this metaphorical cannibal actually produces a soundtrack of city sounds: car horns, corkscrew gusts of wind winding their way through high-rise buildings, subway trains, bass-heavy music, jackhammers, and the intrusive voices of self-delusionally important people talking on their iPhones. But for the real City person, the ultimate soundtrack of the urban existence is the slow-burn saxophone solo. You City folk know EXACTLY what I'm talking about: When you're walking down a poorly lit street in a sketchy neighborhood, brooding and lost in thought, those pesky, puppy-dog sounds of the the slow-burn sax solo follow your every footstep until you step into Starbucks. It took nearly 150 years for a musical genius to put this urban reality into a brilliant pop song. We can thank Eagles veteran Glenn Frey for realizing this in his 1985 classic "You Belong to the City."Glenn Frey, one of the tortured angels behind the 1970s supergroup the Eagles, proves his solo bona fides once again with "You Belong to the City," as truthful a song as has ever been composed. Completing the career trifecta begun by "The Heat is On" and "Smuggler's Blues," this track is his tour de force and a definitive moment in the history of song. Sure, it's not the first song to prominently feature a sexed-out saxophone lead. We must not forget another one of the 1980s' most fabulous songs, "Careless Whisper," by Wham. The lead that begins that sultry track, played by Steve Gregory, literalizes George Michael's poetry when he sings, "Guilty feet ain't got no rhythm." Truer words have not been spoken.
However, in "You Belong to the City," underrated saxophonist Bill Bergman takes the slow-burn saxophone lead into a whole other dimension of sheer awesomeness. Thanks to Frey's great skills as an arranger, the listener is initiated into this musical cityscape by Bergman's sax. The tone is sensuous yet menacing, approximating the film noir reality of city life, except now it's rendered in glorious Technicolor and stars Don Johnson. Then, brilliantly, Glenn Frey turns on the sweet sounds of the drum machine, which is perfectly timed to the speed of feet walking on city concrete, creating the perfect urban rhythm. I can't even begin to tell you how genius this is. Frey's voice, soothing as lotion, spins a seedy narrative about a man probably not unlike himself, unable to express himself in words--or not without double negatives--a wandering soul, "movin' through the crowd," an apparition, anonymous in the hustle and bustle of the city night. He lives "in a river of darkness / beneath the neon lights," while being "on the run." The only way for him to express himself is for saxophonist Bill Bergman to literally follow him around aimlessly as he broods about the city being "in [his] moves" and "in [his] blood." I think we all know exactly how he feels. After listening to this great cut, we all belong to the city, even if we literally live in vast wilds of Australia or in Wasilla, Alaska. It is exactly Glenn Frey's knack for generic melodrama and 80s music-by-numbers studio wizardry that makes "You Belong to the City" such a universal listening experience.
Here is the monumental video for this song:
Friday, December 17, 2010
PoMo Jukebox's (and friends'!) Top 25 Albums of the Year: 5-1
Welcome to PoMo Jukebox's first ever Album's of the Year List (2010 edition). By now it seems pretty evident that 2010 was all about excess. We had Kanye West's excessive production and ruminations on celebrity, Sleigh Bells' excessive volume, Joanna Newsom's excess of material, The Arcade Fire's excessive everything, and Sufjan Stevens' excess of feeling and whatever the hell else is going on with The Age of Adz. Oddly, through all of this excess 2010 ended up being a pretty incredible year for music. While excess has traditionally been a dirty word when talking about music, all of a sudden our excess of excess ended up giving music fans an excess of exciting, larger-than-life albums that managed to mix raw enthusiasm with their unchecked ambition.
At long last, here they are PoMo Jukebox and Friends' top 5 albums of 2010. You listened to them. You loved them. You voted for them. Now read about them one last time, and give them one last listen before tucking them away on your shelves and turning your attention to 2011.
Ah, but I kid 2010. One more time, this has been an outstanding year for music, and I look forward to seeing many of the albums on this list show up on decade lists in 2020. I hope you've enjoyed our trip down music's short-term memory lane. Next week we'll resume our regularly scheduled sporadic updates.
5. Sleigh Bells - Treats
Label: N.E.E.T. / Mom & Pop
After generating a killer bee swarm of buzz in 2009, the duo Sleigh Bells delivered on it this year with their aptly-titled debut CD Treats. Singer Alexis Krauss and guitarist/keyboardist Derek Miller create the ultimate party-rager’s music, influenced as much by late 1980s techno and industrial as by early Andrew W.K. Miller’s aggro-beats are offset by Krauss’ comparatively ameliorating vocals. The juxtaposition of these two musical counterpoints has the effect of seeing Sigur Ros perform live in downtown Baghdad the night the United States launched Operation Iraqi Freedom. For as anarchic as this all may sound, Sleigh Bells are great because given sheer amount of volume they produce, they are exceedingly accessible. This is music equally suited for peaking trippers as well as cheerleading competitions. Sleigh Bells is packed with entertaining numbers like the opener “Tell ‘Em,” the hit “Infinity Guitars,” and metal-stomp of “Crown on the Ground.” The group also displays a knack for effective sampling on “Rill Rill,” cribbing Funkadelic’s psych-gospel masterpiece “Can You Get to That,” creating the most chill moment on the album. Sure, one could criticize Treats for being slight, but so is some rock’s best music (“wop-bop-a-loo-bop-a-wop-bam-boo” to you). —Brian Flota
4. The National - High Violet
Label: 4AD
More than any National album before it, High Violet is immediately accessible and moving, and for a band that released a contemporary classic like Boxer, that’s saying something. Similarly, “Bloodbuzz Ohio” may be the tightest, strongest song The National has released to date, and it stands as one of the best singles of the year. Like the rest of the album, “Bloodbuzz” is catchy yet complicated, with all the instruments and voices coming together in a perfect and unified whole. “Bloodbuzz” also serves as a good representation of the album’s major themes: love, loss, the search for a solid plateau to place one’s feet on. Other highlights include “Terrible Love,” “Afraid of Everyone,” and “Runaway,” though High Violet has no truly weak tracks. From first note to last, it is a tightly crafted, beautiful album that deserves all the commercial success and critical recognition it received this year, and then some. --Joshua Cross
3. Deerhunter - Halcyon Digest
Label: 4AD
Over the past few years, Bradford Cox has become one of the most important voices in indie rock, both with Deerhunter and his solo project, Atlas Sound. Halcyon Digest stands above all of Cox’s prior releases as the most coherent, beautiful, and devastating work. In short, this album is his masterpiece to date. What sets it above Deerhunter’s past works, and many of the year’s other best albums, is its cohesion, the way it functions as a proper album, not just a collection of great songs. While the first two singles, “Revival” and “Helicopter,” are both excellent songs on their own merits, isolating them from the rest of the album makes any of the songs seem somehow out of place, a quality usually found exclusively in proper concept albums. While Halcyon Digest is not necessarily a concept album in that it does not tell a story from beginning to end, the themes of isolation, aging, and coming to grips with one’s mortality form one harmonious whole that forces us to consider the album as an entity. And a powerful entity at that. The move to 4AD exclusively (the label had previously distributed Deerhunter overseas) brought a slightly higher budget to the album’s production. But somehow the band managed to retain their signature bedroom recording feel, psychedelic dreampop sound, and DIY aesthetic while benefitting from the production, rather than losing intimacy and immediacy. All told, Halcyon Digest is a hallucinatory dream that catches the listener the moment the needle drops and doesn’t let go until long after you hit the run-out groove. --Joshua Cross
2. LCD Soundsystem - This is Happening
Label: DFA / Virgin
I was not entirely sold on LCD Soundsystem until their latest effort, This is Happening. James Murphy’s overt debt to David Bowie and his very hit-or-miss attempts at humor in some of his songs always struck me as a weakness. For every stunning track like “All My Friends,” there has been a “New York, I Love You But You’re Bringing Me Down” to undermine it. On the new album, these moments are kept to a minimum (even the record’s most troublesome cut, “Drunk Girls,” possesses irresistible pop hooks). The album moves briskly; few hour-long albums seem this brief (this is a compliment). Beginning with the slow-building opener “Dance Yrself Clean,” James Murphy’s focus is sharp. The first three minutes of the track are barely audible. Then, the drums kick in, along with a sick blast of Atari 2600 keyboard goodness, and the song instantly becomes legendary. “All I Want” is his one direct stab at Bowie, drawing heavily from “Heroes,” with its intermingled, atmospheric guitar lines. The lyrical self-reflexivity of “You Wanted a Hit” is as playful as its propulsive beat. Unlike most of the great European/American dance music of the past twenty years or so, This is Happening is largely free of drug-fueled pretensions, aesthetically speaking. This is direct, minimal dance music, driven by a “motorik” drumbeat, bass, guitar, synthesizers, and vocals. There are no samples, overdriven drum machines, or disorienting keyboard textures. This approach makes it one of the strongest albums of the year. —Brian Flota
1. Kanye West - My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy
Label: Def Jam / Roc-A-Fella
After the initial fervor surrounding the release of Kanye West's My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy died down, I've been trying to figure out the perspectives of those who can't get into it. While this year's Kanye West earthquake (measuring a 10.0 on the Richter, erm, I mean Pitchfork Scale) may have been a surprise to many, especially coming as a follow up to the interesting but heavily flawed 808's and Heartbreaks, not to mention West's status as Most Hated Celebrity in America, the album makes perfect sense for our time and place. That time and place, of course, is somewhere adrift in a distorted, fragmented version of pop culture that permeates our every move and leaves us always a bit suffocated by its ubiquity. Enter Kanye. I get how people can be alienated by My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy--the absence of commas from the title alone is enough to make me want to punch a nun--but, in a way, this album is about alienation. Not just West's alienation as he grapples with fame and identity, but the alienation we feel in our relationships with spectacle.
That's why West's excess works, here. It doesn't matter that he doesn't have the best flow, or that the songs are all six-plus minutes long, or that production is over-blown, or that the Chris Rock skit goes on a bit too long. Those are all details, ill-considered quibbles thrown against a juggernaut text that sets out to do nothing less than put Kanye West and the idea of pop spectacle in an outhouse together then blow them the fuck up. And that's just what My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy does. West alternates between euphoria ("can we get much higher" from album opener "Dark Fantasy") and self-hatred ("I'm a motherfucking monster" from, of course, "Monster") in an exploration of the fame and the sense of entitlement with which it comes. One of the album's more controversial moments, the extended vocoder outro on "Runaway" also manages to work as the album's cathartic core--after putting himself on the line, turning himself inside out and more often than not finding a repulsive, angry, arrogant man, we are offered that man's soulful, but mangled pleas for inner peace.
My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy isn't a masterpiece because it is relateable, or because it is all about Kanye (it's not either of those things). The album is a masterpiece because it's about the way we relate to pop culture and celebrity, and the ways we forge our identities through interactions with that very culture. Now, thanks to West, we have been confronted with just how fucked (and fuckin' ridickahliss) that culture is. Still, that shouldn't keep us from coming back for more. --James Brubaker
At long last, here they are PoMo Jukebox and Friends' top 5 albums of 2010. You listened to them. You loved them. You voted for them. Now read about them one last time, and give them one last listen before tucking them away on your shelves and turning your attention to 2011.
Ah, but I kid 2010. One more time, this has been an outstanding year for music, and I look forward to seeing many of the albums on this list show up on decade lists in 2020. I hope you've enjoyed our trip down music's short-term memory lane. Next week we'll resume our regularly scheduled sporadic updates.
5. Sleigh Bells - Treats
Label: N.E.E.T. / Mom & Pop
After generating a killer bee swarm of buzz in 2009, the duo Sleigh Bells delivered on it this year with their aptly-titled debut CD Treats. Singer Alexis Krauss and guitarist/keyboardist Derek Miller create the ultimate party-rager’s music, influenced as much by late 1980s techno and industrial as by early Andrew W.K. Miller’s aggro-beats are offset by Krauss’ comparatively ameliorating vocals. The juxtaposition of these two musical counterpoints has the effect of seeing Sigur Ros perform live in downtown Baghdad the night the United States launched Operation Iraqi Freedom. For as anarchic as this all may sound, Sleigh Bells are great because given sheer amount of volume they produce, they are exceedingly accessible. This is music equally suited for peaking trippers as well as cheerleading competitions. Sleigh Bells is packed with entertaining numbers like the opener “Tell ‘Em,” the hit “Infinity Guitars,” and metal-stomp of “Crown on the Ground.” The group also displays a knack for effective sampling on “Rill Rill,” cribbing Funkadelic’s psych-gospel masterpiece “Can You Get to That,” creating the most chill moment on the album. Sure, one could criticize Treats for being slight, but so is some rock’s best music (“wop-bop-a-loo-bop-a-wop-bam-boo” to you). —Brian Flota
4. The National - High Violet
Label: 4AD
More than any National album before it, High Violet is immediately accessible and moving, and for a band that released a contemporary classic like Boxer, that’s saying something. Similarly, “Bloodbuzz Ohio” may be the tightest, strongest song The National has released to date, and it stands as one of the best singles of the year. Like the rest of the album, “Bloodbuzz” is catchy yet complicated, with all the instruments and voices coming together in a perfect and unified whole. “Bloodbuzz” also serves as a good representation of the album’s major themes: love, loss, the search for a solid plateau to place one’s feet on. Other highlights include “Terrible Love,” “Afraid of Everyone,” and “Runaway,” though High Violet has no truly weak tracks. From first note to last, it is a tightly crafted, beautiful album that deserves all the commercial success and critical recognition it received this year, and then some. --Joshua Cross
3. Deerhunter - Halcyon Digest
Label: 4AD
Over the past few years, Bradford Cox has become one of the most important voices in indie rock, both with Deerhunter and his solo project, Atlas Sound. Halcyon Digest stands above all of Cox’s prior releases as the most coherent, beautiful, and devastating work. In short, this album is his masterpiece to date. What sets it above Deerhunter’s past works, and many of the year’s other best albums, is its cohesion, the way it functions as a proper album, not just a collection of great songs. While the first two singles, “Revival” and “Helicopter,” are both excellent songs on their own merits, isolating them from the rest of the album makes any of the songs seem somehow out of place, a quality usually found exclusively in proper concept albums. While Halcyon Digest is not necessarily a concept album in that it does not tell a story from beginning to end, the themes of isolation, aging, and coming to grips with one’s mortality form one harmonious whole that forces us to consider the album as an entity. And a powerful entity at that. The move to 4AD exclusively (the label had previously distributed Deerhunter overseas) brought a slightly higher budget to the album’s production. But somehow the band managed to retain their signature bedroom recording feel, psychedelic dreampop sound, and DIY aesthetic while benefitting from the production, rather than losing intimacy and immediacy. All told, Halcyon Digest is a hallucinatory dream that catches the listener the moment the needle drops and doesn’t let go until long after you hit the run-out groove. --Joshua Cross
2. LCD Soundsystem - This is Happening
Label: DFA / Virgin
I was not entirely sold on LCD Soundsystem until their latest effort, This is Happening. James Murphy’s overt debt to David Bowie and his very hit-or-miss attempts at humor in some of his songs always struck me as a weakness. For every stunning track like “All My Friends,” there has been a “New York, I Love You But You’re Bringing Me Down” to undermine it. On the new album, these moments are kept to a minimum (even the record’s most troublesome cut, “Drunk Girls,” possesses irresistible pop hooks). The album moves briskly; few hour-long albums seem this brief (this is a compliment). Beginning with the slow-building opener “Dance Yrself Clean,” James Murphy’s focus is sharp. The first three minutes of the track are barely audible. Then, the drums kick in, along with a sick blast of Atari 2600 keyboard goodness, and the song instantly becomes legendary. “All I Want” is his one direct stab at Bowie, drawing heavily from “Heroes,” with its intermingled, atmospheric guitar lines. The lyrical self-reflexivity of “You Wanted a Hit” is as playful as its propulsive beat. Unlike most of the great European/American dance music of the past twenty years or so, This is Happening is largely free of drug-fueled pretensions, aesthetically speaking. This is direct, minimal dance music, driven by a “motorik” drumbeat, bass, guitar, synthesizers, and vocals. There are no samples, overdriven drum machines, or disorienting keyboard textures. This approach makes it one of the strongest albums of the year. —Brian Flota
1. Kanye West - My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy
Label: Def Jam / Roc-A-Fella
After the initial fervor surrounding the release of Kanye West's My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy died down, I've been trying to figure out the perspectives of those who can't get into it. While this year's Kanye West earthquake (measuring a 10.0 on the Richter, erm, I mean Pitchfork Scale) may have been a surprise to many, especially coming as a follow up to the interesting but heavily flawed 808's and Heartbreaks, not to mention West's status as Most Hated Celebrity in America, the album makes perfect sense for our time and place. That time and place, of course, is somewhere adrift in a distorted, fragmented version of pop culture that permeates our every move and leaves us always a bit suffocated by its ubiquity. Enter Kanye. I get how people can be alienated by My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy--the absence of commas from the title alone is enough to make me want to punch a nun--but, in a way, this album is about alienation. Not just West's alienation as he grapples with fame and identity, but the alienation we feel in our relationships with spectacle.
That's why West's excess works, here. It doesn't matter that he doesn't have the best flow, or that the songs are all six-plus minutes long, or that production is over-blown, or that the Chris Rock skit goes on a bit too long. Those are all details, ill-considered quibbles thrown against a juggernaut text that sets out to do nothing less than put Kanye West and the idea of pop spectacle in an outhouse together then blow them the fuck up. And that's just what My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy does. West alternates between euphoria ("can we get much higher" from album opener "Dark Fantasy") and self-hatred ("I'm a motherfucking monster" from, of course, "Monster") in an exploration of the fame and the sense of entitlement with which it comes. One of the album's more controversial moments, the extended vocoder outro on "Runaway" also manages to work as the album's cathartic core--after putting himself on the line, turning himself inside out and more often than not finding a repulsive, angry, arrogant man, we are offered that man's soulful, but mangled pleas for inner peace.
My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy isn't a masterpiece because it is relateable, or because it is all about Kanye (it's not either of those things). The album is a masterpiece because it's about the way we relate to pop culture and celebrity, and the ways we forge our identities through interactions with that very culture. Now, thanks to West, we have been confronted with just how fucked (and fuckin' ridickahliss) that culture is. Still, that shouldn't keep us from coming back for more. --James Brubaker
Thursday, December 16, 2010
PoMo Jukebox's (and friends'!) Top 25 Albums of the Year: 10-6
Welcome to PoMo Jukebox's first ever Album's of the Year List (2010 edition). By now it seems pretty evident that 2010 was all about excess. We had Kanye West's excessive production and ruminations on celebrity, Sleigh Bells' excessive volume, Joanna Newsom's excess of material, The Arcade Fire's excessive everything, and Sufjan Stevens' excess of feeling and whatever the hell else is going on with The Age of Adz. Oddly, through all of this excess 2010 ended up being a pretty incredible year for music. While excess has traditionally been a dirty word when talking about music, all of a sudden our excess of excess ended up giving music fans an excess of exciting, larger-than-life albums that managed to mix raw enthusiasm with their unchecked ambition.
Over the course of this week, we are excited to be rolling out our Top 25 Albums of the Year list. We, literally, couldn't have made this list without you, our friends and readers. After our call for lists we received well over twenty lists with votes for over a hundred albums. What follows is the result of your tastes and ours. Enjoy, and let us know what you think.
10. Arcade Fire - The Suburbs
Label: Merge
Arcade Fire’s The Suburbs is a more delicate, intimate recording than their past albums. With strong, orchestral arrangements, songs like “Sprawl II” shine, though the first song sets the subtle mood of the album. Win Butler’s lyrics about childhood and youth are charming and well-written, even humorous at times, and make this a strange but well deserved place in their catalog. --Brandon Hobson
9. Beach House - Teen Dream
Label: Sub Pop
Teen Dream continues the distinct dream-pop sound Beach House had crafted on their first two records, but also represents something of a musical growth for the Baltimore duo. Victoria Legrand’s signature deep, smoky vocals are still present, as are her droning keyboards and Alex Scally’s spacey guitars, but Teen Dream expands that reliable aesthetic to a sound that is somehow simultaneously both darker and brighter. Songs like “Silver Soul” and “Norway” match the bleak backdrop of the album’s January release, while others like “Walk in the Park” have shades of pop heretofore unheard in previous releases. Of all the albums that came out at the beginning of the year, this is one of the most listenable eleven months later. --Joshua Cross
8. Vampire Weekend - Contra
Label: XL
You’ve probably heard Vampire Weekend’s song “Holiday” on all those Honda commercials, but that’s only just a taste of this fantastic album. Contra, their second album, is more adventurous and upbeat than their first album. The opener, “Horchata” is a surge of synth-pop and guitars and as catchy as anything I’ve heard in a long time. “White Sky,” another catchy tune, shows the band’s versatility—but the whole album, in fact, is a nice blend of West African guitars, reggae, and ska. Contra is my pick for album of the year. --Brandon Hobson
7. Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti - Before Today
Label: 4AD
Bad 1970s and 1980s pop music can be identified by its forceful use of then-new synthesizer technology, ultra-compressed beats, and cheesy saxophones. On Before Today, Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti revisit these nauseating sounds not with nostalgia, but from the perspective of musical anthropologists seeking to excavate these broken shards of sound from an abandoned mound of refuse. As a result, the group produces washed out music that just doesn’t like it’s from another time, but from some forgotten place in our collective musical unconscious. The unmistakable highlight is “Round and Round,” their hypnotic ode to Marianne Faithfull’s “Broken English.” —Brian Flota
6. Joanna Newsom - Have One on Me
Label: Drag City
While nobody was expecting Joanna Newsom to turn around and put out a 3xLP set this year, we shouldn't have been surprised. It's not like here last album, Y's was lacking in ambition with its five songs starting from seven minutes, and its grand, orchestral sweep. What should surprise us about Have One on Me is how easy Newsom's transition from those larger than life songs back to more straightforward singer-songwriter material would be. Of course, using straightforward as an adjective for anything Newsom related is a big misleading, and though Have One on Me finds Newsom's songs getting a bit hookier, and a bit more direct, the complexity of both the arrangements and the emotional content is impressive. And while "Good Intentions Paving Co." might be Newsom at her most timeless, "Does Not Suffice" might very well be this album's crowning achievement, and the best "last song" of the year, as Newsom packs up her things, looks back at a failed romance and turns out the light before showing us the door. --James Brubaker
Over the course of this week, we are excited to be rolling out our Top 25 Albums of the Year list. We, literally, couldn't have made this list without you, our friends and readers. After our call for lists we received well over twenty lists with votes for over a hundred albums. What follows is the result of your tastes and ours. Enjoy, and let us know what you think.
10. Arcade Fire - The Suburbs
Label: Merge
Arcade Fire’s The Suburbs is a more delicate, intimate recording than their past albums. With strong, orchestral arrangements, songs like “Sprawl II” shine, though the first song sets the subtle mood of the album. Win Butler’s lyrics about childhood and youth are charming and well-written, even humorous at times, and make this a strange but well deserved place in their catalog. --Brandon Hobson
9. Beach House - Teen Dream
Label: Sub Pop
Teen Dream continues the distinct dream-pop sound Beach House had crafted on their first two records, but also represents something of a musical growth for the Baltimore duo. Victoria Legrand’s signature deep, smoky vocals are still present, as are her droning keyboards and Alex Scally’s spacey guitars, but Teen Dream expands that reliable aesthetic to a sound that is somehow simultaneously both darker and brighter. Songs like “Silver Soul” and “Norway” match the bleak backdrop of the album’s January release, while others like “Walk in the Park” have shades of pop heretofore unheard in previous releases. Of all the albums that came out at the beginning of the year, this is one of the most listenable eleven months later. --Joshua Cross
8. Vampire Weekend - Contra
Label: XL
You’ve probably heard Vampire Weekend’s song “Holiday” on all those Honda commercials, but that’s only just a taste of this fantastic album. Contra, their second album, is more adventurous and upbeat than their first album. The opener, “Horchata” is a surge of synth-pop and guitars and as catchy as anything I’ve heard in a long time. “White Sky,” another catchy tune, shows the band’s versatility—but the whole album, in fact, is a nice blend of West African guitars, reggae, and ska. Contra is my pick for album of the year. --Brandon Hobson
7. Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti - Before Today
Label: 4AD
Bad 1970s and 1980s pop music can be identified by its forceful use of then-new synthesizer technology, ultra-compressed beats, and cheesy saxophones. On Before Today, Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti revisit these nauseating sounds not with nostalgia, but from the perspective of musical anthropologists seeking to excavate these broken shards of sound from an abandoned mound of refuse. As a result, the group produces washed out music that just doesn’t like it’s from another time, but from some forgotten place in our collective musical unconscious. The unmistakable highlight is “Round and Round,” their hypnotic ode to Marianne Faithfull’s “Broken English.” —Brian Flota
6. Joanna Newsom - Have One on Me
Label: Drag City
While nobody was expecting Joanna Newsom to turn around and put out a 3xLP set this year, we shouldn't have been surprised. It's not like here last album, Y's was lacking in ambition with its five songs starting from seven minutes, and its grand, orchestral sweep. What should surprise us about Have One on Me is how easy Newsom's transition from those larger than life songs back to more straightforward singer-songwriter material would be. Of course, using straightforward as an adjective for anything Newsom related is a big misleading, and though Have One on Me finds Newsom's songs getting a bit hookier, and a bit more direct, the complexity of both the arrangements and the emotional content is impressive. And while "Good Intentions Paving Co." might be Newsom at her most timeless, "Does Not Suffice" might very well be this album's crowning achievement, and the best "last song" of the year, as Newsom packs up her things, looks back at a failed romance and turns out the light before showing us the door. --James Brubaker
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
Pomo Jukebox's (and friends'!) Top 25 Albums of the Year: 15 - 11
Welcome to PoMo Jukebox's first ever Album's of the Year List (2010 edition). By now it seems pretty evident that 2010 was all about excess. We had Kanye West's excessive production and ruminations on celebrity, Sleigh Bells' excessive volume, Joanna Newsom's excess of material, The Arcade Fire's excessive everything, and Sufjan Stevens' excess of feeling and whatever the hell else is going on with The Age of Adz. Oddly, through all of this excess 2010 ended up being a pretty incredible year for music. While excess has traditionally been a dirty word when talking about music, all of a sudden our excess of excess ended up giving music fans an excess of exciting, larger-than-life albums that managed to mix raw enthusiasm with their unchecked ambition.
Over the course of this week, we are excited to be rolling out our 25 favorite Albums of the Year list. We, literally, couldn't have made this list without you, our friends and readers. After our call for lists we received well over twenty lists with votes for over a hundred albums. What follows is the result of your tastes and ours. Enjoy, and let us know what you think.
15. M.I.A. - /\/\/\Y/\
Label: Interscope
/\/\/\Y/\ is arguably the most challenging piece of pop released in 2010. On it, M.I.A. reconfigures her multicultural brand of hip-hop into deconstructed dance music. The disorienting but pleasant sounds of “Galang” and “Paper Planes” have been replaced by the disfigured party beats of “Teqkilla,” the meth-rush of “Born Free,” and the stammering, headbanging glory of “Meds and Feds.” Lyrically, M.I.A. is all over the place, as concerned with the trappings of fame as she is with the elimination of privacy in the instant information age. /\/\/\Y/\ may be her best album to date, as well as her most unlistenable. —Brian Flota
14. Janelle Monae - The ArchAndroid
Label: Bad Boy/Wonderland
Janelle Monae sort of surprised everyone this year by coming out of nowhere to release one of the best albums of the year. Using a thin, and unnecessary (but fun) sci-fi concept as a through-thread, Monae manages to annihilate just about every genre and aesthetic expectation known to man. Veering from straight R&B, to hip hop (w/ Big Boi), to indie pop (w/ Of Montreal), to psychadelic folk, The ArchAndroid is easily the most adventurous and exciting album of the year. --James Brubaker
13. Best Coast - Crazy For You
Label: Mexican Summer
If we define 2010’s musical landscape in terms of excess, then there’s something refreshing about Best Coast’s simplicity. Short, catchy songs, repetitive lyrics, simple chord structures, and standard songwriting about themes like love, longing, and loneliness. There’s something both immediately familiar and refreshingly novel about Crazy About You that makes it stand out in a list of the year’s best albums. Throw in talking cats and Bethany Cosentino’s larger than life, though incredibly down to earth, presence on Twitter (not to mention Snacks the cat’s tweets!), and Best Coast is one of more intriguing acts to emerge from 2010. --Joshua Cross
12. No Age - Everything in Between
Label: Sub Pop
The slashing punk rock guitar, booming drums, and MBV atmospherics of No Age’s debut album (Nouns) are tempered slightly on its follow-up by greater production values. The opening single, “Glitter,” is loaded with shimmery keyboards and feedback as well as an improved vocal sound. Just because they’ve grown up some and listened to a little more of The Cure than they used to, though, doesn’t mean they can’t still bring tha noize. Tracks like “Fever Dreaming,” “Depletion,” and “Shed and Transcend” rock as hard as anything they’ve recorded. While it’s no Nouns, it’s great to see them growing musically. --Brian Flota
11. Sufjan Stevens - The Age of Adz
Label: Asthmatic Kitty
Jesus, Sufjan. You go away for a few years, talk about writing fiction, make some crazy-ass multi-media art and this is what you come back with? A sprawling, messy, cantankerous bit of cathartic pop that kicks us in the balls while running its fingers through our hair? This album is long--aided by its epic twenty-five minute closing track--and it can even be a bit alienating, but in the best possible way. By seamlessly blending icy electronics with warm orchestral and choral flourishes, Stevens has built an album about what it feels like to be blown apart, drifting away from whatever it is that we make our core, and hanging on for dear life. By album's end, two things are clear: Sufjan won't let go and he's not fucking around. --James Brubaker
Over the course of this week, we are excited to be rolling out our 25 favorite Albums of the Year list. We, literally, couldn't have made this list without you, our friends and readers. After our call for lists we received well over twenty lists with votes for over a hundred albums. What follows is the result of your tastes and ours. Enjoy, and let us know what you think.
15. M.I.A. - /\/\/\Y/\
Label: Interscope
/\/\/\Y/\ is arguably the most challenging piece of pop released in 2010. On it, M.I.A. reconfigures her multicultural brand of hip-hop into deconstructed dance music. The disorienting but pleasant sounds of “Galang” and “Paper Planes” have been replaced by the disfigured party beats of “Teqkilla,” the meth-rush of “Born Free,” and the stammering, headbanging glory of “Meds and Feds.” Lyrically, M.I.A. is all over the place, as concerned with the trappings of fame as she is with the elimination of privacy in the instant information age. /\/\/\Y/\ may be her best album to date, as well as her most unlistenable. —Brian Flota
14. Janelle Monae - The ArchAndroid
Label: Bad Boy/Wonderland
Janelle Monae sort of surprised everyone this year by coming out of nowhere to release one of the best albums of the year. Using a thin, and unnecessary (but fun) sci-fi concept as a through-thread, Monae manages to annihilate just about every genre and aesthetic expectation known to man. Veering from straight R&B, to hip hop (w/ Big Boi), to indie pop (w/ Of Montreal), to psychadelic folk, The ArchAndroid is easily the most adventurous and exciting album of the year. --James Brubaker
13. Best Coast - Crazy For You
Label: Mexican Summer
If we define 2010’s musical landscape in terms of excess, then there’s something refreshing about Best Coast’s simplicity. Short, catchy songs, repetitive lyrics, simple chord structures, and standard songwriting about themes like love, longing, and loneliness. There’s something both immediately familiar and refreshingly novel about Crazy About You that makes it stand out in a list of the year’s best albums. Throw in talking cats and Bethany Cosentino’s larger than life, though incredibly down to earth, presence on Twitter (not to mention Snacks the cat’s tweets!), and Best Coast is one of more intriguing acts to emerge from 2010. --Joshua Cross
12. No Age - Everything in Between
Label: Sub Pop
The slashing punk rock guitar, booming drums, and MBV atmospherics of No Age’s debut album (Nouns) are tempered slightly on its follow-up by greater production values. The opening single, “Glitter,” is loaded with shimmery keyboards and feedback as well as an improved vocal sound. Just because they’ve grown up some and listened to a little more of The Cure than they used to, though, doesn’t mean they can’t still bring tha noize. Tracks like “Fever Dreaming,” “Depletion,” and “Shed and Transcend” rock as hard as anything they’ve recorded. While it’s no Nouns, it’s great to see them growing musically. --Brian Flota
11. Sufjan Stevens - The Age of Adz
Label: Asthmatic Kitty
Jesus, Sufjan. You go away for a few years, talk about writing fiction, make some crazy-ass multi-media art and this is what you come back with? A sprawling, messy, cantankerous bit of cathartic pop that kicks us in the balls while running its fingers through our hair? This album is long--aided by its epic twenty-five minute closing track--and it can even be a bit alienating, but in the best possible way. By seamlessly blending icy electronics with warm orchestral and choral flourishes, Stevens has built an album about what it feels like to be blown apart, drifting away from whatever it is that we make our core, and hanging on for dear life. By album's end, two things are clear: Sufjan won't let go and he's not fucking around. --James Brubaker
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
Pomo Jukebox's (and friends'!) Top 25 Albums of the Year: 20 - 16
Welcome to PoMo Jukebox's first ever Album's of the Year List (2010 edition). By now it seems pretty evident that 2010 was all about excess. We had Kanye West's excessive production and ruminations on celebrity, Sleigh Bells' excessive volume, Joanna Newsom's excess of material, The Arcade Fire's excessive everything, and Sufjan Stevens' excess of feeling and whatever the hell else is going on with The Age of Adz. Oddly, through all of this excess 2010 ended up being a pretty incredible year for music. While excess has traditionally been a dirty word when talking about music, all of a sudden our excess of excess ended up giving music fans an excess of exciting, larger-than-life albums that managed to mix raw enthusiasm with their unchecked ambition.
Over the course of this week, we are excited to be rolling out our Top 25 Albums of the Year list. We, literally, couldn't have made this list without you, our friends and readers. After our call for lists we received well over twenty lists with votes for over a hundred albums. What follows is the result of your tastes and ours. Enjoy, and let us know what you think.
20. Das Racist - Sit Down, Man
Label: Mad Decent / Greedhead / Mishka
Das Racist have had a busy year. Over the summer, everyone was singing their ridiculous "Combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell," which they promptly followed with the full length mixtape, Shut Up, Dude, a collection of beats and rhymes that pleasantly surprised anyone who was familiar with their fast food homage, but ended up being dwarfed just a few months later by a second mixtape, the fun, impressive, and sharp Sit Down, Man. On this second mixtape, Das Racist expand on their promise by opening up their song structures while continuing to reference everything from soap operas to obscure Star Trek lore. If the fact that Heems and Kool AD are able to load an album with tight wordplay and solid beats isn't enough for you, Sit Down, Man also likes to get subversive with ideas of race and privilege. But that's not really the point, is it? --James Brubaker
19. How to Dress Well - Love Remains
Label: Lefse
If I had a nickel for every time I've described Love Remains as haunted, I'd have enough nickels to fill up the sock I should use to knock myself out for being so goddam redundant. That said, How to Dress Well is a marvel of lo-fi, decomposed production. Tom Krell starts with half-rotted song sketches that have a bit of an R&B flavor, then under-records them so they end up sounding like distant, totally fucked howls of distorted emotion. While "Decisions" is the easy highlight, Krell somehow manages to build an entire album of these disintegrated pop songs that works as a unified--and stunningly listenable--whole. You might even say the whole affair is beautifully haunted. --James Brubaker
18. Flying Lotus - Cosmogramma
Label: Warp
When Cosmogramma first leaked, I wrote a review describing it as sci-fi noir. I stand by that descriptor, but what hadn't sunk in from those early listens was just how elegant and warm Flying Lotus's arrangements are. Mixed in with the cool synths and interstellar beats are breathless bursts of jazz and a dazzling orchestral sweep. While these elements seem disparate, FlyLo blends them together seamlessly to make an album that doesn't just sound like foreboding future cities, but that makes jazz music feel more relevant than it has in a long, long time. --James Brubaker
17. Laura Marling - I Speak Because I Can
Label: Astralwerks
If you live on this side of the Atlantic, this is the best record you probably haven’t heard this year. Marling, however, is no secret in her native Britain, where I Speak Because I Can, her sophomore LP, debuted at number four on the charts. Though only 20 years old, Marling’s confident songwriting, urgent lyrics, and at times Nick Drake-esque guitar work create an ethos that well surpasses her years. This is among the most engaging folk music to come out in years, without equivocation. Do yourself a solid and listen. --Joshua Cross
16. Surfer Blood - Astro Coast
Label: Kanine
Surfer Blood has drawn comparisons to Weezer, Vampire Weekend, Japandroids, Built to Spill, Dinosaur Jr., and even early Cure. (OK, so that last one may just be me. But listen to “Harmonix” and tell me you don’t hear echoes of Three Imaginary Boys.) And all of those with good reason. There’s the fun hooks of the Blue Album, there’s the fuzz of Post-Nothing, there’s the frat-party fist-pump of Vampire Weekend. But while this is a fun, fuzzy, fist-pumper of a debut LP, there is an intricacy underlying many of these songs that suggest these Floridians have bigger things in store. --Joshua Cross
Over the course of this week, we are excited to be rolling out our Top 25 Albums of the Year list. We, literally, couldn't have made this list without you, our friends and readers. After our call for lists we received well over twenty lists with votes for over a hundred albums. What follows is the result of your tastes and ours. Enjoy, and let us know what you think.
20. Das Racist - Sit Down, Man
Label: Mad Decent / Greedhead / Mishka
Das Racist have had a busy year. Over the summer, everyone was singing their ridiculous "Combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell," which they promptly followed with the full length mixtape, Shut Up, Dude, a collection of beats and rhymes that pleasantly surprised anyone who was familiar with their fast food homage, but ended up being dwarfed just a few months later by a second mixtape, the fun, impressive, and sharp Sit Down, Man. On this second mixtape, Das Racist expand on their promise by opening up their song structures while continuing to reference everything from soap operas to obscure Star Trek lore. If the fact that Heems and Kool AD are able to load an album with tight wordplay and solid beats isn't enough for you, Sit Down, Man also likes to get subversive with ideas of race and privilege. But that's not really the point, is it? --James Brubaker
19. How to Dress Well - Love Remains
Label: Lefse
If I had a nickel for every time I've described Love Remains as haunted, I'd have enough nickels to fill up the sock I should use to knock myself out for being so goddam redundant. That said, How to Dress Well is a marvel of lo-fi, decomposed production. Tom Krell starts with half-rotted song sketches that have a bit of an R&B flavor, then under-records them so they end up sounding like distant, totally fucked howls of distorted emotion. While "Decisions" is the easy highlight, Krell somehow manages to build an entire album of these disintegrated pop songs that works as a unified--and stunningly listenable--whole. You might even say the whole affair is beautifully haunted. --James Brubaker
18. Flying Lotus - Cosmogramma
Label: Warp
When Cosmogramma first leaked, I wrote a review describing it as sci-fi noir. I stand by that descriptor, but what hadn't sunk in from those early listens was just how elegant and warm Flying Lotus's arrangements are. Mixed in with the cool synths and interstellar beats are breathless bursts of jazz and a dazzling orchestral sweep. While these elements seem disparate, FlyLo blends them together seamlessly to make an album that doesn't just sound like foreboding future cities, but that makes jazz music feel more relevant than it has in a long, long time. --James Brubaker
17. Laura Marling - I Speak Because I Can
Label: Astralwerks
If you live on this side of the Atlantic, this is the best record you probably haven’t heard this year. Marling, however, is no secret in her native Britain, where I Speak Because I Can, her sophomore LP, debuted at number four on the charts. Though only 20 years old, Marling’s confident songwriting, urgent lyrics, and at times Nick Drake-esque guitar work create an ethos that well surpasses her years. This is among the most engaging folk music to come out in years, without equivocation. Do yourself a solid and listen. --Joshua Cross
16. Surfer Blood - Astro Coast
Label: Kanine
Surfer Blood has drawn comparisons to Weezer, Vampire Weekend, Japandroids, Built to Spill, Dinosaur Jr., and even early Cure. (OK, so that last one may just be me. But listen to “Harmonix” and tell me you don’t hear echoes of Three Imaginary Boys.) And all of those with good reason. There’s the fun hooks of the Blue Album, there’s the fuzz of Post-Nothing, there’s the frat-party fist-pump of Vampire Weekend. But while this is a fun, fuzzy, fist-pumper of a debut LP, there is an intricacy underlying many of these songs that suggest these Floridians have bigger things in store. --Joshua Cross
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