Make-Believe Gospel

2010 Albums

2010-12-31T17:24:00.000-08:00

10. Gorillaz - Plastic Beach

9. Joanna Newsom - Have One on Me

8. The Walkmen - Lisbon

7. LCD Soundsystem - This is Happening

6. Deerhunter - Halcyon Digest

5. Janelle Monae - The ArchAndroid

I first heard about Janelle Monae on NPR's Sound Opinions, where hosts Jim DeRogatis and Greg Kot could hardly contain their praise. I immediately bought it and sat down to be blown away. It didn't happen. I liked what I heard, but was she the musical visionary they claimed? I stuck with it, though, and each song began to emerge: I fell in love first with "Locked Inside" and grew to love single "Tightrope" as well as every single other song on the album. As an artist, she's all over the map; this album is like a symphony with overtures, interludes, hip hop, disco, even a weird track featuring Of Montreal. Plus, the woman is gorgeous—and she can dance.

4. Arcade Fire - The Suburbs

The title of this album scared me. "The Suburbs" sounded like the last thing I'd want Arcade Fire to call an album. Wouldn't it be fun to hear them sing about, I don't know, surfing? I didn't need another dark, brooding, preachy album about how bad the suburbs are and urban sprawl.

They save it by finding their earnestness again, by showing that they love the subjects of their songs as much as they despise them. In that dichotomy lies Arcade Fire's power. They also find their storytelling voice again. But above all, the music is remarkable. They make an art of mid-tempo songs, comfortable that they don't have to hurry up and say what they need to say; if you make stunning songs, people will stick around and listen to what you have to say.

3. Vampire Weekend - Contra

Unlike Nick, I fell in love with this album from the beginning, from the very first song. A leap forward in maturity from their last album, yet still goofy and unmistakeably the work of exactly the same band. They took a risk, making music that was a little more difficult to love, just as melodic but not quite as obviously so. More than any other album, I listened to Contra over and over again throughout the year: in the dead of winter "Horchata" comforted me; I trained for the marathon this summer to "Giving up the Gun." Ezra's vocals are a big part of this album; he sings independantly from the instruments, sometimes over nothing but silence, making his voice go up and down and all around. I can't wait for what they do next.

2. Robyn - Body Talk

I came to this album late in the year, but I'd heard pieces of it throughout 2010. Robyn is like a Swedish Madonna, and this year she released this album in three parts. I heard "Dancing on My Own," still the album's best track, at some point this summer. But I had no idea how good every other track would be on this, the final installment, which features songs from the first two parts as well as some new ones.

This year was about beats for me; for the most part, indie rock bored me. Maybe it was the fact that I spent half the year mining the 80s for tracks and obsessing over Depeche Mode. I had a short attention span for music this year, but this was the last problem with Body Talk: this is my Junior Senior of 2010, dancey, a slightly guilty pleasure, the most danceable, happy-inducing music I heard in 12 months. Whether it was the melancholy of "Dancing on My Own," the dark, solipsistic persona of "Don't Fucking Tell Me What to Do," the robotic vocals of "Fembots" or the bittersweet, knowing lyrics of "Hang with Me," I totally fell in love with this album and with Robyn.

1. Kanye West - My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy

Where do I even start? I listened to this album for the first time one afternoon at home, when I was trying to get a bunch of work done. I got about 20 seconds into the first track when I literally could not work and listen to this music at the same time. I had to stop and do nothing but absorb. And I did so for the next hour, then did it all over again.

Since that day I've listened to every song on this album 3-4 times every day. I've watched the 30 minute art-film music video that features many tracks from the album at least 4 times. And the only thing I can really say is that this album is the work of an artist, on the level of the best musical artists of all time. And along with that, it is a work of a collaboration. Kanye has the gift of presenting a complete, formed vision, while at the same time allowing room for many voices and talents within it. In that sense he is a greater musical artist than many who have come before him.

I feel like I can't say much more than others have already said. We'll all be listening to this album for years.

The Top 100!

2009-09-25T06:44:00.000-07:00

Of the decade!

And, it's here.

This has been a lot of fun, very stressful, and deeply nostalgic . It's been an incredible decade, one in which my taste in music changed dramatically thanks to people like Nick living across the hall, Pitchfork, and the explosion of the indie genre. I never knew how much music was out there until these things happened.

That said, my list has a lot of emphasis on the 2004-2009 years, because since 2004-ish I've been a much more aware and avid music listener. Obviously there is lots of pre-2004 represented, but the choices might be more obvious ones.

I wish I had more time to devote to writing about these albums, but perhaps I will soon. But in any event, the damned list is done.

For dramatic effect, the top ten albums have cover art, too.

100 . Badly Drawn Boy - Hour of Bewilderbeast
99 . Jayhawks - Rainy Day Music
98 . Yo La Tengo - And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside Out
97 . Feist - Let It Die
96 . Edan - Beauty and the Beat
95 . Beck - Sea Change
94 . The Strokes - Room on Fire
93 . Silver Jews - Tanglewood Numbers
92 . Grizzly Bear - Yellow House
91 . Ted Leo and the Pharmacists - The Tyranny of Distance

90 . Broken Social Scene - Broken Social Scene
89 . Junior Boys - So This is Goodbye
88 . Keith Jarret - Radiance
87 . Alphabeat - S/T
86 . Brendan Benson - The Alternative to Love
85 . Air France - No Way Down EP
84 . Kanye West - Late Registration
83 . Regina Spektor - Begin to Hope
82 . Air - Talkie Walkie
81 . Andrew Bird - Weather Systems

80 . Travis - The Invisible Band
79 . Sufjan Stevens - Michigan
78 . Asobi Seksu - Citrus
77 . No Age - Weirdo Rippers
76 . M.I.A. - Kala
75 . Brian Wilson - Smile
74 . Bright Eyes - I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning
73 . Dirty Projectors - Bitte Orca
72 . Deerhunter - Microcastle
71 . New Pornographers - Twin Cinema

70 . Godspeed You Black Emporer - Lift Yr Skinny Fists to Heaven
69 . Joanna Newsom - Milk-Eyed Mender
68 . Destroyer - Rubies
67 . Vitalic - OK Cowboy
66 . Peter Bjorn and John - Writer's Block
65 . LCD Soundsystem - LCD Soundsystem
64 . Broadcast - Tender Buttons
63 . Burial - Untrue
62 . Junior Senior - Hey Hey My My Yo Yo
61 . Sigur Ros - Agaetis Byrjun

60 . The Tallest Man on Earth - Shallow Graves
59 . Russian Futurists - Our Thickness
58 . Radiohead - Amnesiac
57 . David Gray - Lost Songs
56 . Hot Chip - The Warning
55 . The Books - Thought for Food
54 . The Streets - A Grand Don't Come for Free
53 . Ratatat - Ratatat
52 . Antony and the Johnsons - I Am a Bird Now
51 . Belle & Sebastian - Dear Catastrophe Waitress

50 . Hercules and Love Affair - S/T
49 . Bon Iver - For Emma, Forever Ago
48 . Vampire Weekend - Vampire Weekend
47 . Walkmen - Bows + Arrows
46 . Tough Alliance - New Chance
45 . Art Brut - Bang Bang Rock and Roll
44 . Fleet Foxes - Fleet Foxes
43 . The Shins - Chutes Too Narrow
42 . Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Fever to Tell
41 . LCD Soundsystem - Sound of Silver

40 . Clap Your Hands Say Yeah - Clap Your Hands Say Yeah
39 . The Knife - Silent Shout
38 . Okkervil River - The Stage Names / The Stand-Ins
37 . Animal Collective - Feels
36 . Franz Ferdinand - Franz Ferdinand
35 . Spoon - Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga
34 . Wolf Parade - Apologies to the Queen Mary
33 . Radiohead - In Rainbows
32 . Belle and Sebastian - Push Barman to Open Old Wounds

31 . No Age - Nouns
30 . Broken Social Scene - You Forgot it in People
29 . Cat Power - The Greatest
28 . Jens Lekman - Oh You're So Silent Jens
27 . White Stripes - White Blood Cells
26 . Feist - The Reminder
25 . Spoon - Gimme Fiction
24 . The Strokes - Is This It?
23 . Ryan Adams - Heartbreaker
22 . Madvillian - Madvilliany
21 . Eliot Smith - Figure 8

20 . Liars - Drums Not Dead
19 . Interpol - Turn on the Bright Lights
18 . The Rapture - Echoes
17 . Daft Punk - Discovery
16 . Animal Collective - Strawberry Jam
15 . Rufus Wainwright - Poses
14 . The National - Boxer
13 . Animal Collective - Sung Tongs
12 . Andrew Bird - Andrew Bird and the Mysterious Production of Eggs
11 . The Walkmen - You & Me

10 . Spoon - Kill the Moonlight

9 . The Books - Lemon of Pink

8 . The Avalanches - Since I Left You

7 . Panda Bear - Person Pitch

6 . Jens Lekman - Night Falls over Kortedala

5 . Arcade Fire - Funeral

4 . Animal Collective - Merriweather Post Pavilion

3 . Radiohead - Kid A

2 . Sufjan Stevens - Illinoise

1 . Wilco - Yankee Hotel Foxtrot

2008 Albums: 1-5

2008-12-12T23:30:00.000-08:00

5. Okkervil River - The Stand-Ins

It would be so easy for Okkervil River to drift into preciousness or precociousness. Will Sheff is enormously literary with his lyrics, perhaps self-consciously so, which normally bothers me. His voice has an indie-rock quality to it that's almost too much. The songs are rooted in folk but draped in just-barely-not-ironic horns and power-pop and honk and bar cover band vibe. If you described the music to me without my hearing it, I'm pretty sure I'd avoid it altogether.

But listening to Okkervil River, what it most undeniable is the quality of song writing and the sincerity of Will Sheff. I loved last year's The Stage Names, and according to an interview I heard with Sheff, the songs for this album were written together with the last ones, but as they went through the recording process they decided which to push to a later album.

The Stand-Ins is looser and more confident. Knowing that they've improved in the space of a singler year speaks well to their bright future. I was unmoved by Black Sheep Boy, convinced by Stage Names, and overwhelmed by The Stand-Ins. I am beyond excited for what Okkervil River does next.

4. The Tallest Man on Earth - Shallow Graves

I'll never forget a conversation I had with Nick back in college over a $1.99 Amber Bock at the Duck. We were discussing music, possibly because Pitchfork had put out their best of 2000-2005 list and I hadn't heard of more than half of the bands. At one point, Nick said something casually derisive about the entire singer-songwriter genre as a whole. Namely, that he hated them. That singer-songwriters were the height of mediocrity in music, clogging up all the space with their hackneyed Bob-Dylan-aping schtick, lacking a shred of originality.

Having grown up around church youth groups where the earnest-man-with-a-guitar is respected and adored, I remember being incredibly surprised, and I feebly defended the genre. But a short while later, I realized Nick was absolutely right. 99% of singer-songwriters are crap, emotionally adolescent, and uninventive musicians. It was a sad but true realization.

So my sincere love for The Tallest Man on Earth could be dismissed as nostalgia. Perhaps it's for early Bob Dylan, with whom the similarity is uncanny--not just the way the music sounds but his vocal style, aptitude for poetic lyrics, and overall energy. Or maybe it's because he's Swedish and I'm just a sucker for that country, as this list seems to attest. But I have not stopped listening to this album since I got my hands on it in May. The songs are rich, vivid, sad and deeply beautiful.

How can someone sound like early Dylan in 2008 and not be a derivative hack? I don't know. But the only answer I can offer is that maybe there's something transcendent possible when a man sings and plays a guitar.

3. Deerhunter - Microcastle

Cryptograms was totally lost on me -- I hadn't heard of it until end-of-year lists, and then I just didn't have the energy to unpack it. I'm sure it was briliant and all that. But I chalked it up for loss and moved on to other things. So when Microcastle came out, I was determined to listen to it along with everyone else, planning to put in a good effort and understand what it was about Deerhunter that was so amazing.

But once through was enough. Sometimes the only reason I want to listen to music is to be taken someplace I could never reach myself. More than reading a novel or looking at a painting, music can create an emotional experience within a minute or two that's bewildering in its intensity. Listening to Deerhunter, I feel myself retreating completely into a disturbing sensibility, a bleak landscape. I think the only thing that keeps me tethered is the moments of pop. I have no idea where the songs began, how they got to where they are now, and I don't much care. Deerhunter achieves for me what The Liars did a couple years ago with Drums Not Dead. I am transfixed and amazed and held sway.

2. The Walkmen - You & Me

Maybe more than any other album this year, I loved giving in to The Walkmen. It is a perfectly paced album, unfolding carefully and slowly. It helps, of course, that their music is moody and atmospheric, that they evoke the kind of beleagured middle-of-winter mood that's strangely comforting and easy to slip into. But from the moment I heard the first gentle cymbal crash of Donde Esta la Playa and the rumbling, muddled bass, I had little choice but to submit.

What's most surprising to me is that I never emerge from The Walkmen feeling depressed, even though I should. There's something about Hamilton Leithauser vocals that's human and courageous. To write this I'm going back over the tracks individually and what strikes me is how quiet they are, which I hadn't really realized before. There's nothing like the ferocity of The Rat. But the music lacks none of its intensity, commanding my attention just as pointedly as that song but with more careful instrumentation. With every listen the contours of this album shape and become clearer, new moments emerge, most unexpectedly uplifting. How The Walkmen bury this kind of beauty is lost on me. But this is a remarkable album.

1. No Age - Nouns

I came and left this album through a period of many months this year, obsessing then putting it away. I couldn't help but compare it to last year's Weirdo Rippers. I love Weirdo Rippers with a fierceness I can't explain. I may have listened to it more than any other 2007 album during 2008. Its power over me continues to grow. The songs, anchored in punk, stretch out into these giant, moody guitarscapes that evoke plane hangars and the warm, woozy desolation of Los Angeles. But at the same time I was trying to absorb Nouns, their proper full-album (Weirdo Rippers was a collection of EPs and other material). But Weirdo Rippers wasn't done with me; I hadn't escaped its thicket of messy sound.

Nouns isn't more cohesive--it's barely held together by an overhanging fuzz. But there are little moments of melodious brilliance (Things I Did When I was Dead) that I keep returning to. The power of melody is never more important than in noise rock--it's the beauty among obliteration that makes it all worth listening to.

It may be that I'm way in over my head with Nouns at the moment, and making irrational decisions about its placement on this list. But more than any other album it has captured my time, intellect, and imagination. The music is inventive and brilliant for a drummer and a guitarist -- bands twice their size are routinely less impressive, with a fraction of the ideas. Their mastery of noise is unmitigated.

It's been said that the sign of a good writer is when a whole book is thrown away on every page. The same applied to Nouns. The sheer number and quality of ideas in this album is staggering.

2008 Albums: 10-6

2008-12-12T05:16:00.000-08:00

10. Coldplay - Viva la Vida

It's hard to know what to write about Coldplay, because it's hard for me to understand what this album is doing eeking into my top ten albums of the year. The blatheringly bad X&Y was a record I loved to hate--its use of meaningless anthemic sounds and titanic yet vapid lyrics was either stupendously naive or darkly cynical. Rush of Blood to the Head has some gems, but hasn't aged terribly well. I was always back-and-forth about Parachutes, usually ending up indifferent. Except this time, well, Brian Eno was involved. So I'd have to at least listen to the single with good headphones.

I would play "Viva la Vida" over and over again and never tire of its melody. I have no idea what it's about -- Martin's thoughts on the lyrics are cringe-worthy -- but Jesus, that string section. And the second half of the Coldplay album following the single -- begining halfway through "Yes" and through to the end -- is absolutely brilliant. The album should sound like a bunch of overfilled, puffed-up songs, CPR'd by Eno into passable listenability. But instead they are actually good. They go down easy, and they're vague. But there's a lot that's smart about the music, beginning with the opening track.

I really don't want to like this album. Here's how they describe why Delacroix's Liberty Leading the People is on the Cover and they've been touring in military jackets:

There’s this slightly anti-authoritarian viewpoint that’s crept into some of the lyrics and it’s some of the pay-off between being surrounded by governments on one side, but also we're human beings with emotions and we’re all going to die and the stupidity of what we have to put up with every day. Hence the album title.

Fight the government! It's just terrible that a band of this commercial stature would clumsily, disengenously pose in this way. But what can I say? Easily their best album, and one I returned to often.

9. Hercules & Love Affair - S/T

What I think is most important to stress about this album is its brevity. Every song could let loose and extend for miles; every song is full of capable ideas. But instead it's fantastically restrained, and that's why it's more than just a dance record--why it has the power to impart meaning.

I'm not longing for the long-lost age of disco per se. Nor am I gay. But listening to this album, I feel something. Just the same way Antony singing about a boy longing to be girl brought me to actual tears, so the emotion here is imparted. But who am I kidding? What I really love about this album is how my feet move. Hercules' Theme and Blind have made me very, very happy this year. And that's enough.

8. Vampire Weekend - S/T

I'm starting to feel like I'm spending too much of my time defending my choices rather than exclaiming why I actually love the albums on this list. But, it's going to be hard to not to that again here. This is the kind of album that's so easy and catchy that it's hard to listen to anything else in the first week of exposure. In fact, this was the first album I heard in 2008 that I really loved. As time went on, this love became guiltier and guiltier as the sheen wore off and I realized that I felt like an alumni frat brother during Monon Bell weekend, and I put them away for awhile. But the songs stood the test of many listens, and every time a song would pop up on random, I'd drop turn off shuffle and listen through the whole album. I've always admired bands that are able to appeal quickly while maintaining staying power.

It's also an album about New York, and I'm a sucker for those. The whole Columbia Ivy-Leage preppy schtick, while undeniable, is handled with appropriate measures of sincerity and irony. My biggest complaint is that the song about Blake's new face is the weakest on the album.

7. Fleet Foxes - S/T

Some of you bailed on Fleet Foxes awhile back -- which is fine -- but I adored this album. Sure, it sounds like you're in church. But that's what I love about it. It's not easy to make music this stunningly beautiful. The moment I heard Winter White Hymnal I was floored. I love harmonizing, and I love the vague, steeped-in-fairytale quality of the lyrics, I love the myriad influences and styles in every song, and I love the mountain-man folky qualities. I love that this album draws from all kind of American music and couldn't have been made anywhere else.

Maybe I'm a sucker for this sort of well-produced AM radio/country/folky/60s California thing, indie-fied for my pleasant consumption. And sure, the lead singer probably loves the sound of his own voice. I'll admit the harmonies are nowhere near Brian Wilson stature. But listening to this album, I am moved, emotionally uplifted, and full of wonder.

6. TV on the Radio - Dear Science

I had never loved a TV on the Radio album in the past -- not through a sense of purpose, but because none had ever drawn me in past a listen or two. This almost happened to me again this year when I listened to Dear Science. Maybe it's a matter of taste, but my first time through the album the songs seemed redundant, and the funky drums just didn't sit right with me. There was plenty to admire about it, but I wasn't compelled. There was all this heft to things, but it landed with a dull thud. The same thing the second time. But I was reading such incredibly praise about the album that I kept on it.

Everything changed when I put on headphones. Suddenly I heard the handclaps on Halfway Home. The textures of each song emerged. Everything became vivid. And the quality of the production was enough to keep me around long enough for the revelation to hit. The heft reflected the intensity of emotion. The rawness of political statement was achieved not through brute force, but an emotional complexity and energy.

2008 Albums: 11-15

2008-12-10T13:01:00.001-08:00

15. MGMT - Oracular Spectacular

It's difficult to shake a song you hear while incredibly happy to be the best man in a close friend's wedding. Add to that being buoyantly drunk, garrulous, jubilant, and in an unfamiliar city being driven around by a mysterious woman (Kyle's girlfriend). All these circumstances converged in Electric Feel, which Kyle played over and over while we all embraced each other in the back of a car and cared not what it looked like. We fell asleep singing that song in the hotel room, and played it the next morning despite raging hangovers and the fact that Nick periodically threw up all the way home.

But as much as I wanted to just put on Electric Feel and remember that night, the other songs were immediately interesting enough to keep me listening to the whole album. They're warm, lush, immediate, and sugary. And I just kept listening to the album over and over. I didn't care what they sang about or why, or if the music was derivative or inventive. It was, and is, just a hugely enjoyable album to listen to. So here it is on my list.

14. Lindstrom - Where You Go I Go Too

The first time through this album, I actually sort of chuckled. For some reason what popped into my head was some sort of mid-90s computer generated school video about travelling through the universe, zooming in and out of the solar system and learning about planets. This, naturally, made it very hard to take the album too seriously. Repetive beats, spacey sounds, artificial synthesizer melodies -- it sounded like the production assistant at an educational video publisher had got hold of an MC-303 and gone to town.

I clearly got past this initial reaction. In fact, this is a beautiful piece of work that I listened to many times while reading and writing, and came to appreciate like a piece of classical music. It's hardly danceable -- there are bits here and there that would work, but in between long stretches of swirly ambience where you'd stand around wondering what to do -- but that's probably not the point. Plus, doesn't he look like such a nice guy?

13. Lykke Li - Youth Novels

What the hell is it with Sweden? It's like a conveyer belt of really good bands. One after the other, year after year, somebody new comes around and blows me away. My biggest Sweden crush this year was Lykke Li, who is young (22), smart, not afraid to be goofy, and a fantastic writer of pop songs.

It's easy to listen to this album once or twice and walk away saying "meh." The production is very minimilist and uncrowded, which can be a little underwhelming, especially because the songs are well-written enough to really soar, and at times I really wished they would. But I stuck with it, and found myself increasingly charmed. It's a very, very restrained album, and mature because of it--every little beat and backup vocal is carefully placed. Lykke's voice is pretty airy and gentle, so the simplicity suits her -- but it takes time to love. She's a coy artist, which is the best kind to have a crush on.

12. Shearwater - Rook

During my torrential love affair with Okkervil River this year, building on my love for last year's The Stage Names, I read a lot about them. That's when I found out about Shearwater, a side-project for Will Sheff with Jonathan Meiburg that has since grown, while Sheff has lessened his role to work with Okkervil River (Meiburg also plays in Okkervil River)

The influence of one band on the other is clear, but Shearwater is a lot calmer, darker, and introspective. Like the National, the band pulls off a kind of wearied sophistication that's massively appealing. There is a melancholy to everything, but none of that mood weighs down the record; instead it give it permanence. The songs ebb and flow with the high falsetto and richly expressive qualities of Meiburg's voice, which has this amazing combination of strength and fragility (think Jeff Buckley). The record is entirely human, and the songs express that. It's not a record of pop melodies or experimentation. Just an extremely high quality collection of incredibly well-written songs.

11. Silver Jews - Lookout Mountain, Lookout Sea

Since I missed Tanglewood Numbers back in 2005 I've been absorbing a lot of Silver Jews. I've since gone back to their earlier albums (especially American Water), and I recently realized that they're closely related to Pavement, and Stephen Malkmus played with lead singer David Berman in college and was an early member of the Silver Jews until Pavement took off. This is, I think, their best album since American Water.

Why do I love the Silver Jews? Berman is a gifted songwriter, a published poet who writes like it, and pens incredibly odd music. He's probably a heavy whiskey drinker, and just an all-around weirdo. The songs are unfailingly smart, hilarious, and never takes themselves seriously (see Sometimes a Pony Gets Depressed from Tanglewood Numbers, or the epic San Francisco B.C. from Lookout Mountain, Lookout Sea). It's just enough country for me, feeding a casual southern/southern-gothic fascination, and he knows how to tell a great story. He sings in a casual, deep voice that kinda reminds me of Johnny Cash in its deadpan delivery. But in the end, I'm most entranced by the strange beauty that emerges when I listen to the Silver Jews. I don't know why, but I can't deny it.

2008 Albums: 16-20

2008-12-09T08:35:00.000-08:00

20. Cut Copy - In Ghost Colors

I'm not well-versed in Cut Copy's music, but this album really stuck with me this year. I suppose it's a electronic dance album, which is fine, but dance/house music isn't something I often play repeatedly. Maybe this is because, well, a lot of it takes care of that and more by being incredibly repetitive all on its own. Sure it's great in a club where you want 20 identical measures of the same thing to perfect your robot--but it's not something I often put on at home wearing headphones.

In Ghost Colors has got the beats covered, and is full of shining examples of good electro-synth-pop. But their songs and melodies stand out more than usual. I found myself coming back to it for reasons other than being fun to dance to--because the songs were really good.

19. David Byrne and Brian Eno - Everything that Happens Will Happen Today

Who could know what this album would actually sound like. Two 60 year old musical gods casually tell the world they're throwing together a few bits and bobs they've got lying around. One of them just produced the latest commercial rock behemoth for Coldplay, the other rides his bike around Manhattan these days, turning buildings into art exhibits. Would it be landscape-y and dreamy like Eno's Airports? Quirky and quick like Talking Heads albums? Just about the only thing we could count on was that it would sound great on headphones.

The result is a warm, touchingly scattershot affair that is held together only because the two men who made it are very good at what they do. My first couple times through this were pretty rocky. There are a lot of awkward moments, some odd lyrics, and a cohesion was not made a huge priority. You get the sense that each is feeling the other out to see whether this collaboration will work again. But everybody just seems to be in such a good mood, especially Byrne. And of course, it's incredibly fun to, well, listen to this on headphones.

18. Alphabeat - S/T

This album is embarrassingly high on the list for me. But I should refuse to feel bad. With gems of pure sugary pop as satisfying from the first listen to the 40th, even an album as uneven and over-pleasing as this gets credit in my book. iTunes play counts don't lie, and 10,000 Nights of Fire, Fascination and In the Jungle are all in my top ten for the year. The first three songs are almost enough to make the rest of the album work, but it all does begin to wear.

But there were innumberable times when I put on the beginning of this album after a bad day, and it made me indescribably happy, dancing around like a white man never should. And if music that does this isn't good, I don't know what is.

Technically this was released last year, but they came out with a 2008 version that's not as good. So get the original.

17. Bonnie Prince Billy - Lie Down in the Light

I'll preface this by saying that I'm not a big fan of Bonnie "Prince" Billy, because, well, I really have a low tolerance for sad bastard music. When Nick told me about this album, he was sure to mention immediately that he didn't much like BPB either. So with this recommendation from a skeptic, I gave it enough time to grow on me.

It's a great, great album. The man is actually sorta happy. Halfway through the first track, when a one-handed little piano ditty comes into the mix and someone hums, I had a good feeling. He's got a few downright uptempo cuts on this, and he just lets the songs be folk songs, shedding the solipsistic singer-songwriter schtick for country twinge and playful arrangements that sound full and lush in comparison to his earlier albums. The album ends with a chorus, for Christ's sake.

16. M83 - Saturdays = Youth

To call M83 cinematic is incredibly obvious, but they're one of the few bands that actually inhabit this over-used adjective with full-on earnestness. The synths are huge, the nostalgia is thick, and there's a girl who looks like Molly Ringwald on the cover. As if I didn't love John Hughs' movies enough -- many of them were filmed in my town or the next one over -- M83's album let me re-live it all again. The big sweeping sounds are expansive and 80s-drenched, yet carefully orchestrated enough to sound modern (but still nicely fuzzed-over into shoegaze). After the dreamy opener, Kim & Jessie is a good enough song to propel me halfway into the album. But the song after song hits home.

In this territory it would be easy to make a saccharine, heavy-handed pile of crap. But everything is kept in balance and the emotions, somehow, never veer too far into sentimental territory. Maybe it's just nice to hear sincere love for the past without irony playing too much of a role--Gonzalez really cares about the 80s. He's not just ripping them off casually. Oscar Wilde described the sentimentalist as someone "who desires to have the luxury of an emotion without paying for it." This album does not meet that definition.

2008 Albums: 21-25

2008-12-08T09:31:00.000-08:00

25. Peter Bjorn and John - Seaside Rock

Most of the reviews I've read seem to really hate this album. Maybe it's because, without a doubt, it's a huge let-down after Writers Block. It's a slapped-together instrumental album with lots of clips of Swedish people talking and not a single great pop hook. No doubt, this is probably a bunch of leftover half-cooked stuff that they put out while working on their proper follow-up with vocals. But I don't know -- I sorta like it. If I'd never heard of Peter Bjorn and John before and this album came on, I think I'd enjoy it. There are at least a couple frustrating moments when a good buildup is thrown away or the blathering old Swedish woman just keeps talking a little too long. But it doesn't take itself too seriously, it's imbued with a kind of child-like charm, and has lovely moments. The band's future is not in mining experimental electronics--it is, hopefully, in writing 60s-esque pop songs--but I still like this album.

24. Beach House - Devotion

I'm a serious sucker for ambient and moody albums, and this kind of dream pop gets me every time. I am more than happy to submit to a world of muddled, ethereal, hazy sounds. But to create this seamless world is to risk writing songs that all sounds the same. That leads to a pleasing but boring album. Which has been a consistent criticism I've read about this album.

What makes Devotion work is the variation within the songs. Weepy keyboards and calm work on an electric slide guitar are the albums constancy, but the music subtly changes in interesting ways throughout. The album is placid, but the ghostly lyrics and singing of Victoria Legrand keep things from feeling settled. Kind of like Broadcast but a little less stark and spare.

23. The Dodos - Visiter

The first time I listened to the Fleet Foxes, I emailed Nick right away because he'd told me to download it. "This is so beautiful," I dashed off. "Oh, you're just getting to that?" came the dismissing reply. "Try the Dodos. It takes a little more time to get, but definitely worth it." So try I did, to get into the Dodos. I downloaded the album without reading much about them, and listened to it. Over and over again. Probably ten times. But I couldn't make any sense of it. It just seemed spotty and disorganized. And really frustrating.

A couple months ago I tried again, and finally understood that they're not trying to write pop songs. I realized that people were comparing them to the freak-folk scene, and Animal Collective's "more straightforward moments" in the words of the Pitchfork review. I started to relax and let the album set its own terms. And I think I got it. They're nowhere near as exciting and joyous as Yeasayer last year or Animal Collective--no single song knocks your socks off--but they've quietly made a very good album once you obey its rules more than your own.

22. Conor Oberst - S/T

"There's nothin' that the road cannot heal." God, we need songwriters around who still sing a line like this so earnestly, who build an album around it glorifying driving and wanderlust. Even though I think I've reached an age where I can no longer read Keroac's On the Road without sheepish embarrassment at its zealous naiveté, I'll still listen happily to Oberst conjuring up old cliches. Maybe our generation no longer believes in the road; we're not sad when Peter Fonda sighs at the end of Easy Rider, "You know Billy, we blew it." But hearing about the road in songs? I lay back and indulge.

What I loved about I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning is true of this album: the way Oberst writes songs that seem offhand and yet packed full of intensity. It's probably something to do with the shaky quality of his voice. With this album the highs are not quite so high, the lows not as low--the songs are more even-keel, the songwriting is stellar. It's just a more laid-back record, a little more traditional in its folky-country sound. That's quite fine though--it makes for a great album.

21. Air France - No Way Down

Air France aren't French, they're Swedish, and that's an important point. There's no summer in Sweden, or no summer like the average person would define it. It's all a joke. For an album that sounds like it was born on a tropical island, but created in snowy Sweden, this is pretty convincing. Living in Estonia, I listen to this and think fondly on fellow Northern European / Scandinvian neighbors as the driving windy snow blows down the street, and how we are all working together to collectively imagine beachy paradise. "Sorta like a dream?" asks the innocent girl's voice on "Collapsing at Your Doorstep." "No, better."

The summery vibe is only a part of it, though -- the music is also rich and textured and wonderfully reminscent of The Avalanches. Every time I listen to "Beach Party" I want to run and put on Since I Left You. But then I stay, and realized that Air France might be just as good.

2007 Albums: 1-5

2007-12-21T21:58:00.000-08:00

5. Radiohead - In Rainbows

The first few seconds of this album, just after I'd finally been able to buy it from the bogged-down In Rainbow website, formed a pit in my stomach. Computery, refracted beats, sparseness, ghostly Yorke voice. Nobody really knew what this album would sound like, and it came out of nowhere, but I think a lot of us didn't want it to sound like that.

Then that gently sliding guitar, a warm, almost cozy sound. It was enveloping. "15 Step" may be one of my least favorite tracks on the album--it's not really even a song--but that single riff went a long way for me in establishing the mood. The emotions on the record are real again, instead of antiseptic and hospitalized.

I was a huge OK Computer fan, and never got into one of their later albums the same way. But moments of songs from In Rainbows have lodged in my brain and authored entire afternoons of feeling. Can this be an experience I'm actually having? Listening to Radiohead this late in their career? There are some downright heartfelt emotions here. It's a serious pleasure being allowed to hear a band as good as they are just sit down without too much cerebral overshadow, and create transcendent songs and play them.

4. Animal Collective - Strawberry Jam

Was Animal Collective seriously on Conan O'Brien? National television?

As much of a mystery as Animal Collective is, this year provided some glimpse into their music-making process with the solo releases of Avey Tare and Panda Bear, their two lead singers. After Person Pitch came out, we were all astounded, and thought that maybe Panda Bear really was the genius in AC. Avey Tare's solo album with wife was fine, but nowhere near as astounding as Panda Bear's. But then out came Strawberry Jam, and Avery Tare is all over it. His vocals are the most compelling part and carry the album, not to mention anchor "For Reverend Green," the albums centerpiece.

"For Reverend Green. " Enough said. Just keep listening to that song over and over, until it becomes a spiritual experience. When I saw them play it live at South St. Seaport with the sun setting and the Brooklyn Bridge behind them, it did for me. But seriously, that song is ridiculous. It established why Avey Tare is such a talented vocalist, for one, (or at the very least totally original) because he makes that song work and no one else could ever sing it. Panda Bear somehow comes through with more astonishing tracks: I love "Derek," the lost Person Pitch song, a song which codified the feelings I had toward my childhood golden retriever, and her death two years ago. #1, the song they played on Conan, demonstrates well why AC needs both singers: the airy Panda Bear background as a setting for the rough-edged snap of Avey Tare. I think this is their best behind Sung Tongs, which will always astound and inspire me because it was the first thing I heard and when I realized music could do things I'd never realized.

3. Spoon - Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga

For some reason, I was diligently checking almost every morning for this album to leak, moreso than anything else this year. I became a man obsessed. I joined a Spoon forum and got message board updates in my email inbox. I tried desperately to score an account with Oink. I read commentaries when the cover leaked, people finding out where the photograph comes from and what it might mean about the music therein. I remember vividly the day that one track, “Ghost of You Lingers” leaked, and I put on headphones at 4pm in the office, and listened to it with my eyes closed. I kept waiting for the band to join in with the persistent, horror-film piano and Britt’s ghostly falsetto--and then, suddenly, the song was over. I was suddenly very, very nervous about the new Spoon album.

I was even more nervous when I did hear it, and the first song, “Don’t Make Me a Target,” came on. It’s kind of a weird song, the tempo seems off somehow, and, for lack of a better description, it just kinda sounds like Spoon. But like all of their albums, the more you abuse it, the better it becomes. Which is of course what happened with this one.

I literally get butterflies listening to songs on this album. As soon as a track starts, I want it to play faster, quickly, all at once because I’m too impatient for the good parts to get here already. I want to hear all the little studio tricks, all the accumulated moments that make a Spoon album as rewarding the 39th time you listen to it as the first, more so.

2. Jens Lekman - Nights Over Kortedela

Jens, how is this accomplished? How do you consistently write songs this perfectly pitched between joy and sadness, make them totally singable, and throw in lines any other singer would sound like a bafoon uttering? How can a song contain all these emotions and, through the virtue of their absolute and perfect balance, never feel weighed down?

Elin and I saw Jens this year and it was, quite surprisingly, among the best shows I've ever seen. I didn't think the songs would really benefit all that much from a live setting, and Jens wouldn't have his studio to tinker in. But he was friendly, infectiously humble, and basically just played and played and told stories that were as goofy as they were profound. I also got to hear the full story of "Postcards to Nina." This wasn't a high-energy affair, no one was sweating and having palpitations, but the crowd called him out for a triple encore before the venue made him get off the stage. He then told the crowd that he'd be out in a minute and he hoped that we could all keep singing and playing somewhere else. I didn't wait around--I wanted to leave with the warm feeling intact--but somehow it was such an authentic gesture, and not hippyish like it sounds.

And then there's the production, a wonder of samples and subtlety. The bizarrely perfect use of beats, which are as well-constructed and labored over as on a hip-hop album.

I debated with myself for awhile about whether this belonged in front of or behind the following album. They're just so different. Ah, I'm still not sure.

1. Panda Bear - Person Pitch

I heard "Bros" last year and forced Nick and Austin to listen to it when we played our top five songs of 2006 for each other. I think it came after Austin played some fast, beat-heavy song that he used to work out to. Then I put on "Bros," that starts with an owl hoot and needless to say, we didn't make it through all 12 minutes of it.

I think I know what the problem was--you're supposed to listen to Panda Bear alone. Yes, it's a headphones album, so that contributes. But all my feelings about this album are tied to very private experiences. "Bros" reminds me of snow falling, which is probably because the first time I heard it, I was walking around some Brooklyn brownstones at night and snow was falling softly all over the city, Joyce-style. It was one of the most beautiful and profound moments I've ever had in New York City. I felt utterly alone and utterly connected to the universe, etc., etc.. Another time I was alone one night and put "Ponytail" on repeat and fell asleep to it, and had dreams that were dreams I needed to have, and I woke up with a better understanding of myself. Last month, I woke up in the middle of the night having a bizarre panic attack while traveling, and feeling very, very confusedly unsettled. Nothing would put my mind to rest but "Search for Delicious."

I don't know why this is, why Panda Bear and Animal Collective in general are able to create these musical moments. Perhaps they just give us an abstract musical space to project our own fears, thoughts, dreams. But they really are artists, and this is really meaningful music.

2007 Albums: 6-10

2007-12-20T09:42:00.000-08:00

10. Okkervil River - The Stage Names

Unlike Mike and Austin, I didn't love Black Sheep Boy, despite its supposed positive qualities like wrenching heartbreak and authentic depression. Both Nick and I tried to get into it, but the only song we seemed to like was the opening track, a quiet little ditty that the band didn't even write. Maybe it was the exuberance of living in New York, where depression doesn't manifest itself quietly, but in loud, self-destructive behavior, Walkmen's "The Rat" style. The album just seemed dusty and distant. So it was a relief when the opening cut on The Stage Names began with the sound of palm-muted guitar strings keeping a quick beat, which gives way to loud, raucous singing and the occasional "woo hoo!" The second song doesn't slow down either, and suddenly Okkervil River is a confident band with gusto, without losing any of the literary qualities--there are characters and personas all over the album. Generally the idea of a literary songwriter bugs me--it comes off pretentious and fake and just hackneyed, but I really don't feel that way about Okkervil River. It's honest rather than pretentious, while maintaining the mystery of storytelling which is the reason we're drawn to it in the first place.

9. Liars - Liars

The Liars convinced me of their greatness with their last album, Drum's Not Dead, an experience of sheer power. It still gives me chills. Shapeless and unformed, it was nonetheless acutely emotional and wrenching. I loved it for its abstract qualities, its hugeness and its violence. If a band can go from sprawling abstractness to straightforward rock song structures, as they do with this year's release, Liars, without losing any of their power, it's a serious achievement. The probably dared each other to write regular songs and see what happened. This happened. The first track is loud and angry, incredibly good, but a fairly normal song, though made to sound powerful and desolate by the nature of the band playing it. But then "Houseclouds," the second track? It's a pop song. Who is this, Beck? Nevetheless, this two-punch is among the best moments on an album in 2007. Throughout, the songs are pretty paced, and they don't indulge in long instrumental sections, staying true to some variation of punk, garage, or pop rock form. But the fact that it's the Liars performing them makes all the difference. They can't help but do it better than anyone else.

8. Arcade Fire - Neon Bible

It wasn't really possible for them to live up to the expectation. What album by any band possibly could? The depths of childhood and personal tragedy had already been mined; how many times can a band do that? Funeral meant something different to all of us because it was such a personal album, and we all took it personally. Neon Bible found them going in the opposite direction, into larger themes and sweeping ideas, and trying to sound like The Boss. It's a noble goal, oft-failed, and "Antichrist Television Blues" was perhaps the most emotionally powerful song of 2007 that was at the same time universal--what a work of art should do, represent the large in the small. That was the highlight of the album, along with "Intervention," at least lyrically. I think they have a lot that's interesting to say about religion in America (or Canada, I suppose), things that need to be said and explored, and they have the gusto and musical power to do so. Other parts of the album were musically exciting--but overall it's not a cohesive album. Maybe they got too big, too ambitious, too risking of melodrama. They could only make it work on half the songs. But those highlights are enough to carry it well into the ten best of the year.

7. The National - Boxer

People always say that the first time you listen to The National, it's just a really boring experience. A sleepy baritone singer slurs his lyrics out over quiet, mid-tempo piano songs, and it just makes you want to fall asleep. But I had the opposite thing happen: the gorgeous first track, "Fake Empire," sound like it's lit from within. A textbook piano riff gets a sleepy sheen as Matt Berninger sings about being half-awake and spiking his lemonade with some mysterious lover to go apple picking. The song--and the whole album--remind me of that hour of day when the night is ending and the morning is beginning, halfway between two worlds, the late-night revelers and the morning commuters. Things are half-lit, nostalgic, boozy, with a slight headache creeping in. I also just happen to think it's one of the most beautiful things released this year.

6. LCD Soundsystem - Sounds of Silver

"I'm not charismatic or particularly talented...I'm not Bowie. I'm not Eno. I'm not Lou Reed reinventing rock. I'm just a fucking dude with a band, but I fucking take it seriously. ...Don't play a show with us and then bring your fucking B-game and phone it in and pose and pull a bunch of rock bullshit moves and emote and shit like that because I'll punch you in the fucking face. That's bullshit. When I see bands, they just roll over and think it's OK, like, "You go, man! You guys are crazy!" And then they go and they play, and I'm just like, "Holy shit, dude, seriously look at yourself! You're a fucking burlap sack full of somebody else's gestures!"

Two years ago I almost broke my ankle falling down the stairs on the way to see James Murphy DJ, because I was so drunk and excited. But I feel like that small physical ailment is only a fraction of the physical and emotional martyrdom that James Murphy puts into LCD Soundsystem. I read this interview with James Murphy while listening to the first three songs of Sound of Silver--especially that long building opening to "Get Innocuous"--and I was pretty sure nobody was going to come out with a better album this year. James Murphy is a huge, bear-like badass, is a fast-talking nutcase, and he makes immediately fantastic, danceable music--not aping but inhabiting and reimagining entire past eras of music. There's this whole other side of Sound of Silver that was nowhere on his earlier stuff--affecting emotion. He's stopped ad-libbing lyrics on the fly and started writing them, and it makes the music more meaningful. Not that the getting-old thing on "All My Friends" makes much personal sense to me, but you can feel the weight to the songs, and that wobbly, repeated one-handed piano part is stunning. He just manages to create a basically perfect album without a single bad moment. I'm sure when I'm 35 this will all make more sense to me.

2007 Albums: 11-15

2007-12-19T09:42:00.000-08:00

15. Kanye West - Graduation

Thank God, he's learning that skits aren't fun or cool! In their place, we get Kanye's most cohesive collection to date, both accessible and smart enough to have staying power (as always) and, if it were even possible, tighter in production and sampling. Even if there aren't the all-out wow moments that made our mouths drop the first time through Late Registration, i.e. Gold Digger, there is a more rounded, compact quality to this one, that's more consistent and cohesive. Minus the Mos Def song. And he's working on that recurring criticism, his flow--I think it's getting better. I like the synths stuff on "Flashing Lights" and that he explores new territory constantly (well, musical territory, anyway). I'll always listen to Kanye because he's relentlessly creative and has fun at the same time, an unusual quality.

14. Andrew Bird - Armchair Apocrypha

As you all know, Andrew Bird's last album floored me completely and was second only to Sufjan in 2005's list. His highly intelligent writing style, personal aesthetic, and overall ear for melody and harmony has always impressed me. This time around all these gifts are present, and he seems also to be aiming persistently for accessibility. You get a sense that these songs are more radio-friendly, a little more traditional in structure, and, for that reason, only just slightly less personally authentic. I listened to this album over and over, waiting for the spell that overcame me listening to Mysterious Production of Eggs; it never came. This record has some unbelievable highlights. Scythian Empires is a gorgeous, quietly political song with a repeating one-handed piano piece and plucking violins; his gentle philosophizing lyrics in Dark Matter are still here ("Do you wonder where the self resides / Is it in the head or between your sides / And who would be the one who will decide / Its true location?"). So liked this album very, very much, but never passed over to love. There's still no one doing anything like Andrew Bird.

13. The Tough Alliance - A New Chance

A mix of unpredictable beatscapes and youthful vocals made this album irresistible the first time I heard it; its appeal has only increased. The unusual vocal sampling and instrumentation have yielded more unexpected surprises with every listen. There's something about dancepop that's impossible for me to dislike. This is a Swedish duo of childhood friends, who are Jens Lekman's favorite band, which is good enough for me. They're also famous for their somewhat confrontational personalities and aggressive, supposedly Situationist politics. That all seems to be lost on me, and perhaps lost in the carefree music--Situationist ideas were always a pose anyway. They've also been accused of promoting anarchy and violence, which just seems absurd. Perhaps this line from "Neo Violence" is apt: "Truly sorry thought you'd get the wink, it's in our nature to be out of sync."

12. No Age - Weirdo Rippers

It takes about almost two and a half minutes into the first song for this L.A. punk band to do much of anything but create fuzz. There are two sheets of guitar sound swaying back and forth, one calming and watery, the other persistent and melodic. A symbol gets agitated here and there, and the stray drumbeat enters (the band has no bass player). It sounds shoegaze, but there's a potent jaggedness to things. Then out of the blue they rip into this guitar-and-drum thing and yell some stuff using processed vocals, and quit a minute later.

It sounds like an indulgent, stupid project, but instead it's really good. Throughout the rest of their 32 minute album, the tidal guitars of shoegaze are crunched up and juxtaposed with punk drumming, and the results are strangely brilliant. Their big sprawling epic, Dead Planes, clocks in at a long-winded 4:12, and the first 2/3 of the song is spent creating a formless mess of guitars and disconnected drums. But it's the perfect example of their long-drone-short-burst aesthetic that works so well, and when the song comes together, it all seems inevitable.

11. Feist - The Reminder

It’s always hard figuring out where to put your long-haul favorites from the year, those albums that you got into early on and which, though they might lack the shiny appeal of bands you’ve discovered in the last month in the all-out listening-sprint that is required for writing a top 25 list, are nonetheless great. I’ve loved Feist since Let It Die showed up at WGRE in 2004, to when I saw her with like 50 people in 2005, to when I saw her with 5000 people in Williamsburg this year. She makes totally delightful yet lasting music that goes down easy but has enough charm to stick around. And that voice. Airy, heady, weathered and surprisingly expressive, especially on cuts like Intuition and So Sorry, the more low-key minimal-production tracks. But who could deny that 1,2,3,4 isn’t one of the most fun songs of 2007? Clean fun! She’s all over my top 25 most played of 2007, and for good reason.

2007 Albums: 16-20

2007-12-18T07:30:00.000-08:00

20. !!! - Myth Takes

What I love about Myth Takes is its kind of amateurish vibe. He can't really sing very well, for one. And the band doesn't seem all that good about realizing when they've got a good hook on their hands--they often throw one away when they should be basing a whole song around it. Instead, the tracks are crowded with too many ideas, too many new beats and directions, not enough focus. But that's also the reason I like it--all this adds up to exuberance, and if not exuberance, an infectious ADD. Horns duetting with retro-sounding synths over a disco beat? The album pulses with life. But then they do stupid things like spend 8 minutes on "Bend over Beethoven," a relatively uninteresting bit of music, and chop off the next track, "Break in Case of Anything," at 4 minutes, when it should have been built into an epic event. Ah well.

19. Black Kids - Wizard of Ahhs EP

Create a flawless four-song EP with ridiculous potential, and make it exceedingly fun--that’s an immediate place on my list. These guys are apparently blogworld darlings, going from nothing to hype in no time flat, but I don’t read that many music blogs. I don’t remember how I ended up with it, but I’ve listened to all four songs too many times and can’t wait for their album. I’ll admit that they’re a half-formed thing at best, but there’s something in the freewheeling spirit that is really exciting. Kind of like a Clap Your Hands Say Yeah that you can understand. Maybe they’ll put out a good album and then utterly fail like that other conspicuously hyped band. But for now, take really great pop songs, make things a bit fuzzy with echo, add caffeine, and throw in 80s synths. Imagine a yelp like the Cure's Robert Smith, without the whine. That’s this EP.

18. M.I.A. - Kala

It’s hard to say it better than Mike did: M.I.A.’s music is amazing for relatively obvious reasons. She incredibly fun to listen to, her beats are inventive, and you feel like your horizons are expanding. The music is radical and political far beyond anything else I listen to. But the reasons that I find her original and intriguing are also the reasons I can never really connect. Her politics are mysterious. She’s like this crazy figure that’s really fun but I don’t actually understand. Not that that should be a prerogative for enjoying an artist, but it's more acute here. Seeing her in concert, for example, was enough to skyrocket her first album high on my list in 2005, but while Kala was as good or perhaps even better than Arular, I find myself less interested in returning to it as much. Maybe that’ll change and I’ll suddenly start wearing bright colors and sunglasses, but until then, this album remains more of a novelty for me. Though it's a damn good one.

17. Iron & Wine

The moment I put this album on I knew I would like it. The first few bars are all quiet, muted, and sound like Sam Beam's early bedroom folk, beautiful and ghostly. Then, "clap," and the song jumps into full-blooded flesh, drums, bass, and Beam's breathy, harmonized voice voice. I think it's a subtle nod to his past while reminding us that his music loses little and gains much with a band behind him. None of the intimacy is lost. Throughout the album the instrumentation complements his natural hush, and even the watery vocal effect on "Carousel" works beautifully. He's not afraid of sonic ambition as a folk artist and singer-songwriter, which makes him consistently interesting, and probably the only artist of that type that I listen to. And his literary talent on songs like Resurrection Fern allows him to write perhaps the most heartbreaking song of the year.

16. Yeasayer - All Hour Cymbal

I swear the first time I heard this, I thought it was a lost Talk Talk album. That blend of high-pitched vocals, frail and yet full of lung power, the spaciousness, the indescribable communal feeling that you also get when listening to Animal Collective, especially Sung Tongs. Then "2080" came on, the third track, and my mouth dropped. The verse carried on by a persistent bass drum and tinny guitar, and then all of a sudden the chorus, "Its a new year I'm glad to be here," and the song has become achingly beautiful. THEN, at 2:50, everything gets even bigger, and they band starts to sound like they're singing around a campfire, and other people are hearing the music and joining the anthem. There's this whole gospel element to it. And just when you think it can't get any larger and more joyous, a group of children start singing, and the song ends in this quiet denouement.

I know this is more a review of that song that anything else, and it's certainly the highlight of the album, but if you're a fan at all of Talk Talk, Peter Gabriel, and like songs that possess a stunning melodicism with some tribal sounds and overall utter originality, please listen to this.

2007 Albums: 21-25

2007-12-17T11:10:00.000-08:00

25. A Place to Bury Strangers - A Place to Bury Strangers

There's always some shoegaze album that I get into every year because there are times when no other music will work for my brain. When I need the obliterating effect on the mind, the droning guitars, the fuzzy vocals, thick texture, the overall indistinctness. If I'm "using" the music to suit my mood rather than listening to it for what it is, that's fine. Even so, I will say that this is far more than shoegaze derivative--their use of guitar distortion is careful, even if it sounds haphazard, and there's a haunting quality to the record, a kind of austere tension, that reminds me of Joy Division. Plus, like last year's shoegaze choice, Asobi Seksu, they're from Brooklyn.

24. Cool Kids - Totally Flossed Out EP

Ever wish hip-hop sounded more late 80s? Here's your chance. In the same way that lots of recent bands are throwbacks, the Cool Kids remind us that hip-hop used to be more fun. Their beats are purposefully low-fi, their swagger immature, their flow laconic. They characterize themselves as a black Beastie Boys, though that comparison isn't so much about sound as about a retro style, with a dash of immaturity. And for the most part, it doesn't seem ironic: it's not a skin-deep aesthetic, it's a whole mentality. All this is made more fun by their sound, which reminds me of slowed down, skewed up N.E.R.D. beats (and how's that for a cool pun: Cool Kids, Nerd beats?). In my own limited whiteboy hip-hop listening world, they're the Kanye antidote: while his production gets slicker and his songs overflow with samples to the point of nauseating saturation, the Cool Kids use their own voices and are decidedly classics. It's refreshing.

23. Battles - Mirrored

I had like a one-month love affair with this album, and then, quite suddenly, it felt like the most boring music imaginable. It's difficult to describe why this happened, but one moment they were this marriage of immense creativity with ridiculous technical proficiency, and the next, totally indulgent and uninteresting. It was totally unexpected, but I didn't know what to do, so I stopped listening for a few months. Putting together this list, I've been listening again, and I really do think it's a great album. They set up some confines for the music--literally, their album cover has the band inside a glass room--and proceed to invent endlessly within them. But it's a very limiting kind of creativity, and it leads to indulgence and frenetic results.

22. Low - Drums and Guns

I can’t speak much to where this album belongs in the progression of Low releases, which have been steady since 1993. I’m pretty new to this band, unlike some of their long-enduring fans, so I don’t have a sense of their evolving style or the slowcore movement in general. I do know that at its most basic, this is beautiful, fragile music that stands up to repeated listens. The band sounds so flimsy that a strong breeze would blow them over, as if the warm center of their music has been plucked out, yet the harmonies and quiet instrumentation keeps it all tied together. But honestly, it’s like the album is inside a freezer: the drum beats are tinny, the vocals beautiful but shaky, the tempo always even and slow, the melodies all downbeat.

Why do I love it? This might be a terrible metaphor, but it’s as if the band is a skinny, willfully quiet, possibly goth kid on the playground, who a bully likes to beat up. As a listener to the album, I feel compelled to beat it up, to call its haunting bluff. But I can’t. It’s music that I want to write off quickly, but instead keep returning to. Those weak dorky kids make bullies mad because they seem to have some secret to hide.

21. Kevin Drew - Spirit If...

I came pretty late to this album, frustratingly. When Elin and I saw Feist in concert at a giant old swimming pool turned into a concert hall in Brooklyn, Kevin Drew opened for her, but we got there too late to see him. When we got home I downloaded the album, but somehow failed to listen to it. Little did I know that there was a lost Broken Social Scene album sitting in my iTunes library.

In the frantic rush to relisten to all my 2007 albums the last month or so, I finally heard this. The characteristic “beautiful mess” that they’re always tagged with (I’m guilty)--which would eventually be an album-length haze over that 2005's Broken Social Scene--that’s here, but things are a bit more singular in focus. Its probably because Kevin is at the reins, with the rest of BSS flanking. He tries to push them into pop structures. Ironically, when he fails, and things unravel, the album is most arresting. I guess that beautiful mess thing really is the key.

2006 Albums: 1-5

2007-01-09T20:52:00.000-08:00

Okay, finally:

5. Tapes & Tapes - The Loon
I’d admit, if pressed, that this is a flawed album. Maybe it’s because it came at a time in the year when, aglow with all the great releases of 2005, I was beginning to be sorely disappointed that something hadn’t come out which I was genuinely obsessed with, that hit more than one spot in my proverbial musical appetite. I’d kinda liked the Mylo album, The Knife was leaving me interested but confused, The Strokes album was depressing, and I was briefly enamored with Man Man until they started they began to annoy me. Where to turn? How about an album that collected a bunch of influences--Pavement, Pixies, Talking Heads--and wrapped them up in one amazing release of quick songs, interesting guitar playing, a dynamic vocalist, and raw energy? Weirdo lyrics that make sense to me--I always fall for that. Depressing content and with sprawling, possibly incoherent musicianship to counterweight: an effective combination. I knew I liked this album from the start, but it was also an album that grew on me more than any other--the incoherency began to gel into an emotionally complex picture, the loose-cannon musicianship became purposeful and controlled, the humor suddenly less ironic and more genuinely laughable.

4. Morrissey - Ringleader of the Tormentors
I’m probably going to be dismissed for putting this album so high, but isn’t everyone allowed an indulgence on their favorite album lists? One which they’ve enjoyed immensely despite the usual built-in suspicion that ought to be present towards albums put out by 50 year old, gray-haired men, who take themselves very seriously? Albums which, as Smiths devotees might complain, are so well-produced and lacking in Johnny Marr’s interesting guitar work as to sound scrubbed clean, corporate-sounding, and, in the end totally irrelevant? Okay, okay. All interesting points. But the fact is I listened to this album almost more than any other, found it interesting and emotionally complex, and, most importantly, it was my entry point into the fascinating cult personality of Steven Patrick Morrissey. His irony, artifice, his witticisms, leading me to reread Oscar Wilde and start listening to Elvis and read about James Dean. Could it be that my unhealthy love of all things Smiths/Morrissey this year (Thanks, Paul) is clouding my opinion of this album? I couldn’t say, really. But I do know I loved it--the self-satisfied, even smug, critiques of politics and religion, the admittedly maudlin songs about abusive stepfathers, the sentimental-leaning attempts at exploring love and sex and the divine. My english degree scolds me for liking this stuff, but I can’t help being affected emotionally, something I can’t dismiss easily. His more acclaimed and similar album, You Are the Quarry, doesn’t interest me that much, which probably means that my love of this album is incidental to its release date and what it led me to read and think about otherwise. But the fact that it consumed me so gave it a prominent place on this list.

3. Belle & Sebastian - The Life Pursuit
“Hey, is that the new Belle & Sebastian?” Yes, we used this joke a couple of times the moment Nick or I downloaded this album, and our third roommate Max, was home (not all that common). We all three listened to it together in our tiny Manhattan apartment and couldn’t help cracking a smile during almost every song--this was not at all the “sad bastard music” of High Fidelity fame. This was ebullient, happy, complex, catchy, literary, clever, emotional, imaginative collection of near-perfect pop songs. Why am I a sucker for this combination? For pop songs that tightrope-walk the wire-thin line between utter happiness and complete despair? That something so strange and personal, an emotional life so depressing in a literal sense, can be transformed into universal pop-inflected pleasure? Because I think it’s a matter of genius. Sometimes this attempt is cloying, sometimes depressing, sometimes fake-sounding and simplistic. Rarely can an album balance heavy lyric content without being weighed down, crafting pop lifeboats around it and improving the quality of life for people who listen everywhere. Twin Cinema, an album I began loving intensely shortly after we had all published our 2005 lists, did it last year. Murdoch and co. did it this year. I don’t have a good response to Austin’s complaints, but all I know is I think this album is totally wonderful and, save for a few songs from their very early career (check out “The State I Am In” and the rest of Push Barman to Open Old Wounds), is full of their best moments yet.

2. Destoyer - Destroyer’s Rubies
This is the third album in my top 10 with an audacious first track close to 10 minutes long, which suggests a combination of arrogance and theatricality, and, when appropriate, genius. Austin and I had a couple email exchanges in which we discussed, with some degree of dismay and frustration, that the Destroyer album was once again coming ‘round the bend to completely ruin us and any chance for listening to anything else. All that had to happen was that first track, a little seduction which happened to stretch for enough time to leave you unable to do much but fold and submit to the textured, abrasive, idiosyncratic, familiar, distorted, weird literary world of Dan Bejar. The music is so strange and willfully queer that it’s remarkably interesting to more than a few people, both immediate and purposefully wearing its strangeness as a kind of distance from the listener. But it’s such a devoted, complete vision, a kind of shrine to one man’s outlandish bizarreness, that it’s endlessly engaging and satisfied repeated excavations into its interior. His voice is the perfect metaphor for this: nontraditional and making no effort to sound normal, but once you hear it enough times, as expressive as anything you’ve heard, malleable and creative and doing things many other voices wouldn’t dream of doing. Getting somewhere artistically means, at least at first, the method will seem too out-there, but this is merely the time where we’re readjusting to another way of seeing the world and we’ll be rewarded once we get there. At least in this case, we get nine minutes thirty-two seconds to come around.

1. Liars - Drum’s Not Dead
This is the kind of album--mysterious, awe-inspiring, emotionally draining, ambitious, elastic, tangled, beautiful--that makes me wish language was as abstract and flexible, as possible to reach for the infinite, as music. The kind of album that reminds me, forcefully, that music is perhaps the greatest, most universal, most capable of art forms. Which makes writing something like this futile, doomed to sound overexcited and overwrought. Description of the music, I think, would highlight only those qualities in this album which are conscious (as opposed to subconscious), like the conceptual backbone of the whole thing, a dialogue (or battle) between creativity and doubt, confidence and second-guessing. That’s all interesting, but it’s the subconscious effects of the music that has made me listen to it so obsessively since the first afternoon I put it on, at which point I had to stop all I was doing and listen to every epiphany-filled turn (the incredible falsetto at the start of “A Visit From Drum”), every texture and the shape of the music (The incredible buzzing, robotic, angry sound at the start of “It’s All Blooming Now Mt. Heart Attack”), every emotion, until, assaulted and exhausted and drained, yet strangely content, the final track took all that abrasiveness and exhaustion and noise and chaos and let it unfold into the most beautiful denouement I think I’ve ever heard. In it’s context especially, but even without, it’s the most affecting, emotional song I’ve heard all year. The Liars live, back to Brooklyn from Berlin, was the best show I saw in 2006, full of the most unrelenting energy and ambition. How is it that amidst all the mayhem there is a powerful emotional core? I couldn’t say, and I don’t want to, because these kinds of paradoxes are the territory of music.

2006 Albums: 6-10

2006-12-14T18:11:00.000-08:00

10. Cat Power - The Greatest
I think a lot of people were waiting for this album. It's always been clear that Chan Marshall knows how to write great songs, but on previous albums they've seemed unrealized, almost-there but held back by something. Finally, the production and arrangements are really working for her, bigger but not obtrusive, giving the album a kind of roominess, which you can tell Chan's thankful for. But at the same time, the songs, as always, are humble--at some moments to a fault, when they're sad and forlorn and there's a bit of self-pity that creeps in. But they remain small and personal and intimate, and that Cat Power keeps that quality while also growing larger I think is a feat. Musically, it allows her to channel and develop more of the elements in her music, the gospel and the soul. The songs are all still sad and heartbroken, but I can keep listening to this record without feeling emotionally assaulted and depressed. So I guess that's what I was looking for: a Cat Power record that let me do this.

9. Islands - Return to the Sea
I tend to fall for shambly, ebullient albums that are goofy and poppy. I liked the Unicorns a lot, though at times they frustrated me with their free-form attitude, when things became more sloppy than interesting. Once they fractured and reformed with members of Arcade Fire as Islands, out came this decidedly more polished work. All the odd, awkward, at times gross humor is still here--" total void tells me stories / sometimes they make me sorry / but i need another / i need another / sugar dumpling muffin baby / this world is going crazy,"or incomprehensible white-boy rap freakout halfway through "Where There's a Will There's a Whalebone"--but the more organic music allows the coolness to become something closer to beautiful, the idiosincratic becoming cultivated eclectisism. In short, a band growing up and creating a more unified sense of focus or vision. This is all not to say how varied and ambitious the styles that are jammed into this 11 song collection--hip hop, country, etc.--or how well it all integrates into a pop artiface without sounding glued together. And of course, major points for the Friedrich album cover.

8. Asobi Seksu - Citrus
I think there are a few of us who have this album hiding, ready to emerge in our top ten lists, and we all think it's kind of our secret. I, for one, find it difficult to resist any kind of shoegazing tendencies. And when it's fronted by a female vocalist, it's doubly hard. Then when she sings "put your tongue up to my battery," I give in. To this gorgeous, well-crafted, highly-original, sweeping-yet-intricate album. It makes me so happy to listen to it. I love the way lush, distorting guitars absorb me. I love that she sings in Japanese, it's so charming. Sometimes listening to this entire album is like slipping into this foreign dream, where I've been shrunk and I'm being led by the hand through a forest of bonsai trees, with a big paper bag over my head. Other times, I'm in Brooklyn (where the band is from) at a house party in the summer, and everyone is smiling, and there are these big, swirling guitars like funnels of colorful light all over the place, and I'm hanging upside down by my knees from a rafter in the ceiling. Oh man is it beautiful.

7. Yo La Tengo - I Am Not Afraid Of You And I Will Beat Your Ass
Speaking of Brooklyn in the summer: Nick stole my story. Which isn't fair, because I'm placing this album higher. But anyway: we're outside, cold white wine being passed around as thousands wait for the sun to set behind a giant projection screen, which is going to play dusty, scratched-up underwater documentaries that some French guy made decades ago. We see sea horses making love; prehistoric sea anenomes bend and waffle in the curents; a jellyfish turns itself inside out. Thousands of people are sitting there, absolutely rapt. Can you imagine a better visual image for this band's music? There isn't one. But what I love about this album is that they begin with the ten-minute epic, then spend most of the album working on very tight pop songs, by turns hypnotic and bouncy, with the usual core of geniune, accessible emotion. The disembodied, epic style of Yo La Tengo never sacrifices that sophisticated core, which is why their albums are rewarding. And, thankfully, the last track absolutely obliterates me and is a glorious return to fuzzy form, which is when they remind you that, indeed, they're not afraid.

6. Bob Dyan - Modern Times
After watching the Scorcese documentary, like many people, I began the long path of making my way back through Dylan's albums. It just happens that way, and you have no choice but listen to him an no one else. In the midst of that, this strange sort of shock hit me: Dylan's alive. He's somewhere standing around, possible spouting off Dadaist poetry about commissioning his clips and getting his bird bathed and burned. I started listening to his Theme Time Radio show and reveling in the weirdness of the way he talks and just becoming a intrigued by his personality. Then this album came out and, after loving it from the first listen, I've come to think that it potentially ranks up there with what he was putting out in the 60s. I think the songs are working on a number of levels, and I think it's very complex and quietly a masterpiece. And perhaps I'm saying this because I'm trying to convince myself just as much that this album is that good, to shed the nostalgia and forgive Dylan for his possible tendency to be derivative and to realize that he's got every right to be predictable, because he invented the things people are blaming him for sounding like. People like Pitchfork are suspicious that an aging world of music critics heapspraise on Dylan because he's Dylan, but I really think this is one of the best releases this year, by far. He's doing whatever he wants to do, and for as long as he'll do it, people who are objective or gushing fans forsaking their critical impluse, will listen. I'll be joining them.

2006 Albums: 11-15

2006-12-13T19:48:00.000-08:00

15. Josh Ritter - The Animal Years
I know this isn't much of an indie-cred sort of pick, what choosing a folksy singer-songwriter and all, but I really like this album. I've been listening to Josh Ritter for a few years, after spending a semester in Ireland, where he is twice as popular as he is in his home country (the Irish band The Frames have invited him to tour with them numerous times). I've always thought he's three or four steps above your average guy with a guitar, crafting enduring songs with simple storytelling, integrity, and emotional sensitivity. He's had a few early-Dylan-derivative moments and the occasional boring patch of songs, but this is certainly his best album to date. He's learned to avoid platitudes at all costs, honing in on personal elements and experiences and the metaphors available within those stories. He has a literary bent without being heavy, a light touch, and the ability to maintain this kind of human-spirit positivity even while writing about the very political and angry subjects of these songs. This is all not to mention the music, which is folky in a way that I don't feel I'm being nostaligically manipulated. I think this is an excellent, excellent record.

14. Joanna Newsom - Ys
While I was getting the art for this album on Amazon, I scrolled down and picked through some of the reviews, just curious. I'm absolutely amazed how many people utterly hate and attack Joanna Newsom's music. People go way out of their way to call her awful and condemn the people who listen to her--and for me, this kind of overcompensation is always a good sign that an artist is doing something right--polarizing people is one quality of good art. True, there's such a thing as holding new/interesting/weirdness on a pedestal so as to forget about actual quality and intelligence in a work of art. But I think it's quite obvious that this isn't the case with Newsom. She's not playing a character and making her voice weird and trying to fool us all, and this album--its depth, its extended, complex allegories, its imagination--is proof. Those who didn't like Milk Eyed Mender, I could see a kind of sense to their suspicion of her voice and pretension (though I, for one, thought that album was beautiful and smart and so affecting). I've been desperately trying to listen to this album over and over in hopes that I could make sense of it by the time this list came around. I'm not there. But after listening to interviews (check out an NPR segment on All Songs Considered when she guest DJs--her picks are fascinating) I know Newsom is doing something incredible, and I don't really care to even discuss the concept of people "getting" it or not. She's making music without much precedent, and I'm happy that the indie scene--which doesn't usually listen to harpists and albums without drums or guitar--gives her a place to explore and continue to make music.

13. Junior Boys - So This is Goodbye
I never listened to Junior Boys' first album, so I came to this thing with fresh ears after reading a 9.0 Pitchfork review (which I think was a bit unwarranted, and the reviewer seemed to be rating it on very personal reactions to the album and not very objectively). That said, this album is so well crafted and compelling, and lives up to so many repetivive, abusive listening sessions, that I'm ecstatic over it. From the playful poetry of the lyrics ("you're high-staked /you're right-faked / floor creeps / and deep sleeps / you catch up / you young pup / you old dog / you bullfrog") to melodies and harmonies that clearly fell out of heaven (the chorus bit in "In the Morning" where they switch and go up on "too young") to the spick-and-span sound of the production, not a note out of place--it all adds up to smart, danceable album, which is a rare combination I'd say.

12. Various - Marie Antoinette OST
Am I allowed to write about this album? It's not really an album and, save a Kevin Shields remix here or there, none of this was new to 2006. But have you sat down and listened to this thing? Forget that it's a carefully sequenced group of selections on par with Sophia Coppola's mastery over every cinematographic element. The songs in this collection, once it was released, solidified a trend in my own listening habits: a growing amount of time I was spending listening to songs from the 80s, which is another thing that spun out of my Smiths obsession this year. Who knew how atmospheric 80s music could be? How naturally The Strokes could have fit in, not only to that context but cinematically into the 1770s (the moment they play in the film is spot-on)? While Marie Antoinette the film asked us to collapse centuries, in a anachronism-embracing feat, so the soundtrack makes a challenge of comparison within pop music, and it's suddenly not that challenging. I could argue for awhile why the auteur hand of Coppolla in picking the tracks for this soundtrack makes it aceptable as an album, but the point is I loved the way my trajectory into 80s interests this year was represented and confirmed with this film and soundtrack. So it may be weird that I'm putting it in my list, but now you know the reason. I guess it stands for that collective listening portion of my year.

11. Peter Bjorn and John - Writer's Block
Yes, I really like this album--I have from the moment I began listening to it, increasingly, until this moment as I put it on again to write this sentence. Once in awhile an album comes along and I simply like it, in a way that rarely happens. I'm not excited intellectually for some reason, or for a specific musical style, or vocal style, or apparent influence, or that it makes me dance. The whole thing just sounds familiar and it's immediately important to me. For that reason it's hard for me to say anything intelligent, because it's hard for me to seperate it into distinct parts. Kind of like I'm too close to it to get much focus. And I'm not usually much interested in unpacking it. I like it when this happens, and I like it to last, and so far with this album it has lasted, and I keep listening to it and it keeps making sense and feeling like it was made for me. I'm not really sure what Austin meant when he talked about the Belle-and-Sebastian-like elements, because to me the album doesn't sound overly happy or sappy, and I think it has a lot of interesting textural elements and sounds. But that's just me, and I'm clearly lacking objectivity when it comes to this pick. But I know it should be this high on my list.

2006 Albums: 16-20

2006-12-12T21:33:00.000-08:00

So, I changed my mind. There are 20 albums from 2006 that I'd like to write about. Originally, I was going to spend this section talking about the all-encompassing 8 month bender I went on listening to The Smiths and Morrissey, but that will have to be another blog post another day. So here's my 16-20. I'm in the game.

20. Alex Smoke - Paradolia
Don’t ask me what this album is doing on my 2006 list, because I won’t have a good answer. I have no idea how I came across it, or why a techno album, a genre which generally holds little appeal to me, is in my list at all. After 4 listens in one afternoon at work, the thing had worked its way into my skull and refused to leave. It’s something like this: yanking techno away from the inane, wall-smacking repetition, and injecting it with a cyborgian soul. Somehow this is music that is yes, very danceable, but refuses to quite give in to that human element that comes with danceable music. It’s very cold, and doesn’t make you want to join a whole crowd of people somewhere, and it has suitably creepy moments. But it’s also consistently melodic. Like electronic music I usually prefer, it engages your intellect and tugs in this metallic way at your emotions at the same time. Like having a conversation with a robot.

19. The Blow - Paper Television
I heard this album quite late, after Nick sent a pleading email spurring Austin and I to get off our post-college asses and work harder to find good music. This was one of the 30 or so albums that I immediately began liking, mostly for its airy, yet complex songs and melodies. In one mood, it’s easy to breeze through the album and absorb its bouncy pop constructions and juxtapositions of organic instrumentation and dance-influences electronic elemements. But in another, each song holds up to careful listening and scrutiny and turns up lots of funny witticisms about love, strung together by Jona Bechtolt’s emotional but distant-sounding singing.

18. Beirut - Gulag Orkestar
I didn’t plan on liking this album very much. For one, I resist hype. Second, I don’t usually fall much for the projected persona sort of songwriters, finding literary pretensions vaguely annoying and even inappropriate in a music context, and just inauthentic. I don’t know why this is and it isn’t logical, but I find it overbearing. With a band name like Beirut coming from a 19 year old guy, songs referencing European countries, and a carnivalesque array of instruments that sound like they were found under a bench in a pub in Romania, I was suspicious. Turns out the songs are authentic, captivating, and sophisticated, and maintain a kind of joy through all the maudlin heaviness, whether through the instrumentation or melodic choices. I think I’ll return to this album with fondness for a long time to come.

17. Hot Chip - The Warning
In my best estimation: if I continue to listen to this album, which I will most definitely, and if I had a time machine, which I most definitely do not, then this album, as I listened to it longer then returned to this moment to say what I really feel about 2006 albums, The Warning would climb my list of 2006 albums, and I don’t know where it would stop. I’ve had this album for just a few weeks, and I really, really love it. However, the point of this writeup is to say why, and I can’t do that, unfortunately. This seems to happen to me when albums like this come along: the music which I am most immediately affected by, which strikes me off the bat, is often the sort of music that makes the least sense to me. When I try to apply words to it, I fail. I can point out my favorite parts--that gorgeous and funny chorus in “the warning”, the dance madness of “careful”, the way the beat drops in the middle of “colours”--but that doesn’t go anywhere near a explaining intelligently about why I love this album. Is this a definition of pop music? All I know is Hot Chip rub me right and I’m not going to say I don’t like it.

16. The Knife - Silent Shout
I’ll be honest: this review is half about Deep Cuts, The Knife’s previous album which, like Mike, I discovered this year. I had been listening to Jose Gonzalez’s “Heartbeats” after seeing it in the Sony Bravia ad (amazing commercial worth watching, by the way), and found it by far the standout track on his album. And then, somewhere, I heard that the song was a cover, and that The Knife had written it. I’d been listening to Silent Shout for awhile, mostly just confused by it, but once I heard “Heartbeats” I was totally, absolutely floored. Deep Cuts, I think, it a phenomenal album, and it makes Silent Shout a lot easier to understand. I’m divided over which is better--Silent Shout is more cohesive and precise, but it resists letting you have much fun, it’s frigid and scrubbed clean--I like listening to Deep Cuts a lot more. I have no idea what to do with this music, whether to engage it intellectually or not. I do know that Karin Dreijer Andersson’s voice might be the perfect tool for parsing the divide between human and abstract, and exploring that little area of the time/space/philosophical continuum. I think that this music is, in the end, very important and deeply serious. It’s dance music...but I don’t think we’re supposed to dance to it.

Top 5: Nina Simone

2006-12-11T23:38:00.000-08:00

I decided early on that writing exclusively about albums that were released in 2006 wouldn’t do my year in music much justice. For one, 2006 didn’t have the extraordinary releases which 2005 had, although I'm not sure if that's true, or merely a function of my changing perspective. I also simply spent a lot more time looking backwards, exploring older albums and especially individual artists. To justify this totally personal approach to the listmaking, my "Top 25" is going to be a bit different (just at first): I’ll talk about an album by an artist that actually was released in 2006 (as a kind of justification), but mostly as a platform to talk about 5 albums from that artist's history which I grew to obsess over and love as a result of hearing this release. I want to do this twice, and once we reach 15, I’ll start with 2006 albums, because I can make a suitable list at that point. I hope that it’s still interesting to y'all. For today: Nina Simone, born Eunice Kathleen Waymon in 1935 in Tryon, North Carolina.

Forever Young, Gifted and Black: Songs of Freedom and Spirit
Forgive the overly-earnest album title: the songs within marry fiery anger and politics and tender emotion without a drop of sentiment. That quality, along with complex emotions and musical versatility, is what I’ve come to love in Nina Simone’s music as I’ve explored it this year. Young, Gifted and Black, a phrase popularized by Aretha Franklin’s 1972 album, was originally a song by Simone. Musically, the album showcases Simone’s penchant for blues and soul singing, and the breadth of style in her recordings, from jazz to showtunes to gospel to r & b, all balanced atop accomplished, classical piano playing. In the end, she hated being categorized by anything, calling her music “black classical” (she was rejected from attending Juliard, purportedly because of her race). In some ways, it’s a blessing, because her resulting recordings, most of them covers from traditional spirituals to Leonard Cohen’s “Suzanne,” are remarkable. She released almost 60 albums in her lifetime and penned over 500 songs (she died in 2003). Here, 5 albums that I most loved, though I’ve just begun. MP3: "Revolution (Parts 1 & 2)"

5. Wild is the Wind / High Priestess of Soul (1967/67)
I think this is a pretty good place to begin with Simone’s music, especially since you can buy it as a double-LP, both from 1966. The albums are full of somewhat boisterous arrangements and characterize a number of styles, mostly due to the fact that it’s made up of six disparate recording sessions. Here is the song Jeff Buckley later covered, “Lilac Wine,” as well as traditional folk songs reappropriated (“Black is the Color of My True Love’s Hair”) and spirituals (“Take Me to the Water”) and original selections like the four-part song called “Four Women,” which highlights her gift for spinning unsentimental emotion out of political and racial animosity. One of my favorites is “Break Down and Let it All Out,” where her emerging pop sensibilities shine a little bit. MP3: "Four Women"

4. In Concert / I Put a Spell On You (1964/65)
The first half of this double-LP album (I know I’m kind of cheating again, but they were from very similar periods in her career), a show from New York City, where Simone’s live persona--brash, contradictory, moody, angry, breathy, tender, funny, emotional--really shines through. For subject matter like “Mississippi Goddam,” which was about a church bombing, she chooses light-heartedness, claiming that the song is a show tune, “but the show hasn’t been written for it...yet.” But the scowl on the cover of the album suggests her humor is in irony, and she’s not really joking, not really. The rest of the performance is peppered with bitter moments and shrewd comments under her breath. She lets some joy come through in “Old Jim Crow” about the hopeful end of discrimination, but the song at the end of the concert, “Missisippi Goddamn” became an anthem for young black people fighting oppression. The second LP is Nina Simone at her more personal, opening with the title track “I Put A Spell On You,” one of my favorite of her covers. The album is one of the most enjoyable and satisfying of her albums--it’s certainly one of the most consistent. “Ne Me Quitte Pas” is absolutely gorgeous, an example of her numerous French cover songs (she later moved to France). MP3: "I Put A Spell On You"

3. Great Show of Nina Simone / Live in Paris (1975)
This is a fairly rare recording that I got from a friend, released under a couple different titles in France as above, and once as “Live in Europe” in the US. I was interested in it originally because it’s the source for the famous “Just in Time” recording which is used in Richard Linklater’s film Before Sunset, in the poignant last scene. It’s an excellent quality recording and she’s in a fairly good mood (not typical). It has a few of my favorite songs from her repertoire, including “When I Was a Young Girl,” “Backlash Blues,” (written with Langston Hughes) “See-Line Woman,” and the strangely affecting “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood,” (made famous by The Animals) during which I’m consistently convinced that being misunderstood, trying and being passionate and foolish and then, in the end, being misunderstood--that would be the greatest tragedy of all. This is just a wonderful recording of some her best originals and covers, and I continue to come back to it. MP3: "Backlash Blues"

2. Sings the Blues (1966)
Sings the Blues might be Nina Simone’s most cohesive, successful studio album, recorded with the same band in the same sessions from start to finish. The blues spectrum from Muddy Waters to Ma Rainey is covered, with Simon’s unique, powerful vocals free to roam over a simple, effective backing band--bass, drums, harmonica, occassional organ, and Simone’s own piano mastery. The result is raw and prurient and a whole lot of fun. It has the feel of a live album but a careful set of players and arrangers cultivating contained energy. The songs all feel like they’re about to burst, but that energy/restraint is a characteristic of the blues. Over all else, Simone’s vocals weave it all together, along with her song choices, to make daring, earthy, potent album. I'd say it's objectively among her enduring and best, certainly as far as a singular style is concerned. MP3: "Buck"

1. To Love Somebody (1969)
By most standards, this is not Nina Simone’s best album, but for various reasons, I’ve put it at #1. The first track, “Suzanne,” is a cover of Leonard Cohen’s song, and I’ve listened to it around 100 times in the last 3 months. It’s gorgeous and heartbreaking and perfect. Leonard Cohen’s original is good, but in Simone’s hands, it becomes celestial and eternal. I couldn’t say why I love this song like I do, but it’s enough to affect me even as I listen to it again and write this, long after I’ve memorized ever moment and know it inside out.
The rest of the album is top-notch, especially the two-part “Revolution” song set. I’ll admit the latter half of the album falls off some, especially the three Dylan covers (she never quite pulled any of those off throughout her career, but these are done well), but the Byrds cover “Turn! Turn! Turn!” is quite good. This isn’t the place to begin listening to her music, and it’s not the best as far as universal objective standards, but for some reason I like it and I don’t know what else to say beyond that. MP3: "Suzanne"