An Ear For An Era: 2006

Hello there! Long time!

These are going to be spread out quite a bit now. Because we are entering the world of me acquiring all of the music. Full on.

2006 was a rough year. I lost a good friend and my great grandmother.
2006 is also the last time I've been to Chicago (other than driving through). I went to the Touch & Go Records anniversary show and saw tons of bands I never thought I'd see like Shellac, The Ex, Scratch Acid, and lots more. That was awesome.
I also had plantar fasciitis. That sucked for going to a big music festival.
That's mostly it. There is too much music to talk about so I'm kind of pushing that off here. But okay, let's go.

I made a change here for 2006 because it's the first full year that I had this computer I'm using right now, so I was able to divide it up by when I added stuff to my library. So I shuffled everything I added in the first quarter of the year, then second, etc. And then all the stuff I added after the year had ended. Which was a ton in this case. It kind of made it weird because I knocked out all the stuff that dominated my year at the beginning. Because in 2006 I listened obsessively to that early 2006 stuff all year. And then the stuff I added afterward I barely listened to.

Anyway. This order may be random.

Early on in the year I felt like women were putting out a lot of great music. In fact, when I made my end of the year mix I dedicated a full CD to female fronted jams. In retrospect, that was kind of silly because they don't need to be segregated out. That seems a little insulting now. So I apologize! But I will still segregate them here to point out how many great female artists put out great music in 2006. And/or I discovered a lot of great women as my mind was quickly expanding in the music world at this time.

It started with Cat Power. The Greatest. I hadn't heard of her before this but such a strong album of melancholy. And then Beth Orton. Comfort of Strangers had me obsessed with her singing voice. I can't quite put my finger on it but it just sounds so amazing to me. It also helped that we saw her do a sound check at the Gothic Theater, which has amazing sound, and it just filled the place. I also quite enjoyed Katharine Whalen's solo album Dirty Little Secret. She was from Squirrel Nut Zippers. She's got a great voice and this album employs it in various interesting ways. El Perro Del Mar was interesting, a sad sad version of girl pop.  Jess Klein has an incredible voice reminiscent of Emmylou Harris. I already was a fan of Nina Nastasia but On Leaving might be my favorite album of hers. Just short, sweet, a bunch of slices of life. My favorite song is "Our Day Trip," which kind of says it all. It's not about moving away or changing your life, it's about a day trip. Just taking a day off.

Disclaimer: Several of these British artists' albums didn't come out in the states until 2007. I set the release date as 2006 anyway, even though my experience of this stuff was just various singles that came in out 2006 and then the full album in 2007. One such example: The Pipettes may have had their music written by a man, but I just loved them for their personalities and pizazz and singing as much as the music. Before it became kind of an overdone thing, they had that 60s throwback stuff DOWN. I saw them live and it was magical. Rosay was my favorite. Did you have a favorite?

The Pipettes "Pull Shapes"

Similarly, Lily Allen's debut Alright, Still didn't come out here until 2007 even though we were clamoring for it on the strength of her MySpace popularity! But I quite like "LDN." And "Smile" is nice now that it's been so long since it was overplayed. And her sassy songs about stupid boys are a lot of fun too.

Same with Amy Winehouse! Oh man, was she special. Back to Black is so much more than "Rehab." Do yourself a favor if you only know "Rehab," listen to this album.

I'm going to use Outkast as a segue here because the highlight of Idlewild was my introduction to one of my favorite female artists, Janelle Monae. On "Call The Law," there's a little bit of Big Boi on there but it's really just a showcase of Janelle Monae's vocal prowess. She completely steals the show. I didn't even know the half of it, of course. Her concept albums that would follow are so much more than a powerhouse voice. But this was my first exposure to her and just knocked me out.

Outkast featuring Janelle Monae "Call The Law"

Food and Liquor by Lupe Fiasco was a great intro to a great talent who kind of fell off. Or maybe I'm the one that fell off. Because as much as I love "Daydreamin'," some of it seems a little too on-the-nose (I am aware I used that same expression below for Neil Young). But I guess I've felt the same way about The Coup and when you want to get your message out to the masses you kind of have to.

J Dilla's last album from his lifetime was the amazing Donuts. Such a great collection of beats that I now recognize on stuff that came out later by great MCs. It was nice to run to. And then The Shining, his first posthumous album with great artists such as Pharoahe Monch (I love that song "Love") and Black Thought. It is no wonder he is so desperately missed in the music world. A rare talent.

My first non-alternative-or-whatever hip hop album was Fishscale by Ghostface Killah. I just wanted something different and this one got good reviews or whatever. So I dove right in. And I loved it for the most part! Especially the more soul songs, but especially "The Champ," which became my favorite song to pump be up for kickball.

Remember how inescapable Gnarls Barkley was? I revisited this inescapability by having tons of versions of "Crazy" on my computer so it came up lots of times. Besides that, St. Elsewhere was a fantastic crossover album that everybody loved.

Teddybears' Soft Machine is a classic party record as far as I'm concerned. Great Swedish dance music featuring the likes of Neneh Cherry and others, the definitive version of "Cobrastyle," and of course Iggy Pop on "Punkrocker," which is maybe my favorite song to run to.

The Lawrence Arms, one of my favorite bands of all time that I'm sure I've written about many times here, put out Oh! Calcutta! and it was just strange to me. It was their most straightforward punk rock album at a time when I was getting out of the business of punk rock (not that I ever did or will completely get out of that business!). It's a favorite of the band based on how much of the stuff they play in concert since it came out, but I didn't get into it nearly as much as everything else they put out. They even put out an album recently and I love it and immediately was drawn to it more than this one. But I really think I need to just give it some more spins. The same goes for Lawrence Arms side project The Falcon. Unicornography continues in that direction and I'm just not as much into it.

I had a similar reaction to Happy Hollow by Cursive. They'd put out these amazing personal albums where Tim Kasher would just stare into his own soul and bare it for all of us and poke and prod it with hot things, and this one was just an attack on the bible belt. Which isn't unwarranted, it just felt like a cheap and easy subject. But it's not like he can keep making albums about himself. In retrospect, it's still a very good album. It just will never hit that place in my heart reserved for Domestica and The Ugly Organ.


Calexico's first album since I officially became a fan was probably the least Calexico-sounding album they put out. Garden Ruin was closer to indie rock than the others, but they did it so effectively and with quite a big of grace that it turned out really strong. Particularly the closing track, which is a perfect fusion of the two genres for a truly epic, building track.

Calexico "All Systems Red"

Also great at epic songs was Yo La Tengo. And great at album titles: I Am Not Afraid of You and I Will Beat Your Ass is one of the best album titles ever. This was when I really personally started getting into YLT and the way they have 10+ minute songs that you want to go for hours, along with nice shorter pop songs. But the best for me was this sad song. As discussed, I had some tough times this year and the best song for feeling sad was "Black Flowers."

Yo La Tengo "Black Flowers"

The Gothic Archies' Tragic Treasury was a great collection of Stephin Merritt songs based on the Lemony Snicket books. Those dudes are friends! And similarly fantastic with linguistics! Daniel Handler actually came into work and performed one of these songs ("Scream and Run Away") on air, and it was really really awesome.

The Crane Wife may be The Decemberists' crowning achievement. Or maybe that's just because it's the first one I got. But it is a very special album with epic folk songs and catchy angry songs and lovely other songs. Protest music of the 21st century!

I finally got into The Mountain Goats (I am now a devotee and get everything!) with Get Lonely, a lovely album. The only reason I really even got into them though was because they had a music video directed by Rian Johnson, who I admired for Brick. But the song the video was for turned out to be a great slice of life, and just a great way to get into a great band (and a great director who would go on to direct an upcoming Star Wars movie!).

The Mountain Goats "Woke Up New"

My number one album officially at the time was The Life Pursuit by Belle and Sebastian. I still love this one quite a bit. It dominated my year. Kind of more rock than they'd previously done, maybe a little more pop and a little less precious.

However, my real number one in retrospect is one that topped everyone else's lists that year. TV On The Radio just blew up with Return to Cookie Mountain and they were one of my favorite bands at the time. The only reason I put them at #2 at the time was because it came out later in the year and I'd spent all year getting obsessed with the pop sounds of Belle & Sebastian. Plus its positivity helped me through tough times. But Return to Cookie Mountain is a monolith of a record, it has so much happening, and is what got me started on all my hyperbolic talk about TV On The Radio being the most important band of the decade or whatever and all that. I particularly love the four song stretch of Wolf Like Me - A Method - Let The Devil In - Dirtywhirl. The way they build on each other and ebb and flow is just perfect. And particularly particularly "Let The Devil In" with its primal cleansing expression of pure emotion is still one of my favorite songs ever made.

TV On The Radio "Let The Devil In"

Observations. Lots of stuff will go here.

• Arctic Monkeys! They actually were the first I listened to here. I thought they were kind of overrated at the time but it was a blast to revisit them.
• Other British/European bands had a similar sound. I kind of got sick of that sound in 2006 but I enjoyed all of them quite a bit this time around. Dirty Pretty Things, Brakes, The Fratellis, Mando Diao, etc.
• Ray Davies solo! fun!
• They just announced a reissue of the first Jenny Lewis solo album. She has a lovely voice but I was a little underwhelmed by the lyrical content. Still enjoyable.
• Loose Fur. Jim O'Rourke and Jeff Tweedy! Having a lot of fun.
• Kris Kristofferson put out another album and it was solid. I saw him with my dad on the tour for this album!
• Sonic Youth was rather excellent on Rather Ripped.
• Remember Neil Young and his Living With War album about impeaching George W Bush? I dug it at the time but now it feels a little too on-the-nose.
• I kind of dug Peaches' dirty response to hating on W though. Impeach My Bush indeed.
• Raconteurs were pretty good I guess!
• Elvis Costello put out an album with Allen Toussaint about Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath. It was quite lovely.
• Supersystem were awesome.
• Game Theory saw The Roots pissed off, and it made for some very compelling music. I really like this stage in their career. It was also around the time I finally got into them so...
• The Return of Dr. Octagon was a scam! Kind of! I guess it is officially legit but I remember getting so mad at that album. I got it because it was The Return of Dr. Octagon, but then found out it was more of a remix album of a few demos or something. I don't remember the whole story. But it's weak as far as Kool Keith albums go, doesn't even include that much of him, and is more electro than anything else. It's weird.
• ...Nogatco Rd. was much better. A more legitimate Kool Keith sci-fi release. And look at that title in reverse if you didn't figure it out. The REAL return of kind-of Dr. Octagon.
• Weird Al. Straight Outta Lynwood. Yet another classic! Particularly for "Trapped In The Drive Thru," which my wife couldn't stand but I think is brilliant.
• I'm going to put this here. I just realized that one of the bonus tracks on Return to Cookie Mountain was an El-P remix of "Hours." Was that the first time they worked together? Because TVOTR backed Run The Jewels on Colbert and it was so awesome and they need to work together more.
• I wasn't super into Pieces of the People We Love by The Rapture at the time, because I wanted it more rock like the amazing previous album...but upon revisit, I'm pretty impressed with it. It's quite fun.
• American V: A Hundred Highways by Johnny Cash was just heartbreaking. "Rose of My Heart" was amazing. Rest in peace.
• Ludacris being serious can be pretty damn good. Release Therapy has "Tell It Like It Is" which is a great raw expression from him.
• Modern Times by Bob Dylan was pretty good!
• Remember Lady Sovereign? I quite enjoyed her at the time but now I know more about hip hop and find her a bit bland and trying-too-hard.
• I only have one Cunninlynguists album, A Piece of Strange, but I like it a lot and need to get more. And I need to listen to this one more.
• Rhymefest. Blue Collar is a catchy record. He is a very enjoyable rapper. I remember we got mad at him for homophobia a couple years later. And I stand by that. But why do we hold some rappers to different standards than others? We just have high hopes for some I guess.
• ...I did like that P.O.S. album and he had a good statement about that on his.
• Rock Plaza Central is great too! A concept album about robot horses deserves more than just a bullet point but damn there is a lot of music to cover. If you are reading this, listen to "Anthem for the Already Defeated," one of my favorites!
• Islands! 
• Cut Chemist!
• Tom Waits put out that three disc compilation Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers, and Bastards. Too much to even begin to write about it. It has an awesome Daniel Johnston cover though. Among many other things.
• I thought revisiting Yellow House by Grizzly Bear would make me love it but I still didn't think it was all that special. I don't know why, I think I'm supposed to like it but it sounds too fussed over for me. I think I like their next album more though.
• I didn't get Ta-Dah by Scissor Sisters until later in life even though I was a fan of their first album and got subsequent albums. Just the idea of them not doing dance music didn't seem appealing to me. But of course it is a great album. Like good Queen songs kind of?
• Hank III's best album is probably Straight to Hell. That hidden 42 minute track is something that just has to be heard.
• Hot Chip! So good!
• More amazing women! Bat For Lashes! Joanna Newsom! Neko Case! Gossip! Nicole Atkins (just an EP but a great EP)!
• Peter Bjorn & John! Come for the "Young Folks," stay for the rest! Stay forever!
• How about The Knife!
• Model/Actress was a project from a dude from Brainiac. It sounded great. All we got was an EP.
• I wanted to run to LCD Soundsystem's 45:33 Nike track thing but it didn't work out. Awesome set of music though.

2006 Mix From 2006:
It Was 2006
1. Gnarls Barkley "Go-Go Gadget Gospel"
2. Polysics "Toisu!"
3. Model/Actress "Wait, What?"
4. The Streets "Memento Mori"
5. Thom Yorke "The Clock"
6. Elvis Costello & Allen Toussaint "Who's Gonna Help Brother Get Further?"
7. Belle and Sebastian "Dress Up in You"
8. Yo La Tengo "Black Flowers"
9. Mr. Nogatco "Bionic Fuse"
10. Ludacris "Tell It Like It Is"
11. The Raconteurs "Intimate Secretary"
12. Loose Fur "The Ruling Class"
13. Kris Kristofferson "In The News"
14. Neil  Young "Let's Impeach the President"
15. The Gothic Archies "Shipwrecked"
16. Built to Spill "Liar"
17. TV On The Radio "Let The Devil In"
18. Sonic Youth "Incinerate"
19. The Lawrence Arms "Jumping the Shark"
20. Calexico "All Systems Red"
21. Johnny Cash "Rose of My Heart"

It Was 2006: The Women (I really do apologize for doing it this way!)
1. Cat Power "Empty Shell"
2. The Dresden Dolls "Sex Changes"
3. Peaches "Two Guys (For Every Girl)"
4. CSS "Let's Make Love and Listen to Death From Above"
5. Yeah Yeah Yeahs "Gold Lion"
6. Lady Sovereign "Public Warning"
7. The Pipettes "We Are The Pipettes"
8. Neko Case "John Saw That Number"
9. Nina Nastasia "Our Day Trip"
10. Lily Allen "LDN"
11. Katharine Whalen "Want You Back"
12. Outkast featuring Janelle Monae "Call The Law"
13. Beth Orton "Shopping Trolley"
14. Jenny Lewis with the Watson Twins "Rabbit Fur Coat"
15. El Perro Del Mar "Dog"
16. Joanna Newsom "Monkey & Bear"
17. Cat Power & Karen Elson "I Love You (Me Either)"

Next Time:
2007 has long been declared my favorite year of music. Was it just because I was at such a level of consumption that I discovered a lot of great albums then, or was it actually that good? Without even looking ahead...of Montreal, Battles, Jay-Z, Kanye West, Jesca Hoop, Shellac, LCD Soundsystem, Animal Collective, Talib Kweli, M.I.A., Okkervil River...

An Ear For An Era: 2005

I am very well aware that 2005 was a decade ago. That weighed on my mind as I went through this. 2005 was arguably the best year of my adult life personally. I went through a whirlwind and came out on the other side something resembling a grown up.

2005 was the year I...

• Completed my final film for school
• Graduated from said school
• Moved in with my sister
• Got this very computer I'm typing on right now (it's damned ancient)
• I was trying to log on to myspace to see if I posted my year-end list thing there at the time...and now...my computer is too out-of-date for myspace! 
• Using my phone, it appears that the blog entries might not even be available anymore on myspace, just old pictures and top 8s.
• I could now potentially just sort the music by "date added" and be even more granular in when stuff comes on and all that! Weird! I don't think I'm gonna do it, too many complications. But still weird!
• Joined the hipster scene with the kickball and the dancing and the dancing some more
• Met some of my best friends
• Got that full-time gig at the Internet TV station
• Moved into my first studio apartment in Denver
• Met my wife
• Went on our first date
• All that jazz.

I remember in college I kept thinking I was doing it all wrong. I did not party, I did not drink until I was 21, I just went to class and didn't have many friends. Spent a lot of evenings alone. Went to a lot of shows at least. Then senior year I finally started hanging out with the friends I should have been hanging out with the whole time. But really, when people refer to college as "the best  years of [their] life," I just thought I wasn't having the fun I was supposed to be having. But then the summer of 2005, when the freedom just hit me, that was when I had that experience. Out of school, paying very little rent to my sister, working for very little money but it was okay (and having a crazy schedule, 4am-noon), going out multiple times per week, it was a very good year.

Is it time to talk about music now? I am scared of doing this.  I started listening to 2005 a month and a half ago. It took awhile. There was a lot. So I apologize if I'm short-worded on some of this stuff. Some of it was so long ago.

It was a pretty significant year in music. If 2003 was the end of my punk/"emo" dominated days, 2004 was the big dance year, then 2005 was when I went full hipster with the indie rock. But still lots of dancing. Lots of indie dance rock, if you will. So let's start there.

Remember Datarock? They were goofy. But "Computer Camp Love" was fun and quoted Revenge of the Nerds. Witching Hour by Ladytron had the hit "Destroy Everything You Touch." They ended up having a lot of really great songs. I also closely associate Goldfrapp with them. Supernature was one of their bigger hits. Both of those groups had already established themselves over the years before and had mature albums, great craft, and just kind of owned the synthy indie dance stuff in 2005. Fischerspooner held up surprisingly well. Or it was just coasting on my nostalgia. But Odyssey was fully entertaining to listen to all the way through. The Juan Maclean's got a groove for sure. But of course there's the other half of the DFA coin...LCD Soundsystem just blew the whole thing up for me. Their debut self-titled full length was such a blast of fresh beats. I kind of got sick of the inescapable single "Daft Punk Is Playing at My House" but upon revisiting it, it makes me want to jump all over the dance floor with all my friends. But the rest of the album is great. "Movement" is a great rock song, and the beat to "Thrills" will get stuck in your feet.


My second favorite album of the year was even less of an album than my #1 (to be seen later in this entry). It was a single! Kind of a double sided single. Two songs available only on this single. And both covers. Okay, enough teasing. !!! put out a cover of The Magnetic Fields' "Take Ecstasy With Me" backed by a cover of Nate Dogg's "Get Up." And it took everything I loved about !!! into two separate but equal directions. I've given both of the songs five stars. The most consistent the band has been (not that consistency over two songs is a great accomplishment). "Take Ecstasy With Me" takes the essence of the Magnetic Fields song and spaces it out and turns it into a real ecstatic experience. Then "Get Up" is a pure party track with a huge build to a huge ecstatic climax.

 

!!! "Get Up"

Metric was a favorite of my wife's. "Monster Hospital" is a pretty undeniably awesome track. I liked the new New Order album Waiting for the Sirens' Call..."Krafty" showed that they still could pack a dance floor.


And just like, indie indie. You know? Indie like indie rock or whatever. One song that persisted in my brain for weeks after hearing it here was this one:

The Decemberists "16 Military Wives"

It's just so damn catchy and beyond that, it demonstrated to me the power of a great protest song that didn't have to be punk rock. It can be catchy pop folk music. I remember we played this video a lot. But this time, listening to it again, it just reminded me of my rage over the Iraq war and it just fired me up. And made me mad about it all over again. That is one powerful song. The rest of the album is quite good but that song in particular wouldn't get out of my head. And now I'm listening to it again so that's sure to happen again. I forgot to put the band's name in here to bold it. The Decemberists. Great group.

When Sufjan Stevens released Illinois, I was concerned with one thing: how could I make money off this thing? See, right before the album came out there were news reports about a last minute change to the cover art, and how for copyright reasons they were trying to recall the cover art that included an image of Superman. There were stories of the version with Superman going for lots of money on eBay. And I went to my favorite local record store and there was the version with Superman! So I bought a few copies and left them unopened. Then I heard the album was good so I opened one copy for myself. Then I found out that the Superman version was really not that rare, just the first pressing. So I had a few extra copies. Luckily, I had a few friends to give them to. The moral of the story? Buy this album (with or without Superman on the cover). Because it is amazing, as many know. It's not some big secret. An album of folk songs accented by lush orchestral arrangements. Some of the saddest songs and some of the most joyous. All beautiful. And since Illinois, every major album he has put out has been nothing short of a masterpiece. This is where it started for me. I'm glad I hatched my hair-brained money making scheme because it ended with me having a copy of this album.

Sufjan Stevens "They Are Night Zombies!! They Are Neighbors!! They Have Come Back From the Dead! Ahhh!"

In early 2005, since I was kind of keeping track of when music came out, I reluctantly let Bright Eyes be my first 2005 album. It's always such an honor in my mind, being the one that kicks off the music of that year for me. I'd always been pretty skeptical of Bright Eyes, but I liked Desaparecidos so I figured I'd check out his "electronic" type album Digital Ash in a Digital Urn. You know, anything to kind of mask the whiny voice because I can admit that he is a good lyricist and songwriter, I just couldn't stand that voice. But he has gotten better at that and later in the year I learned from my new girlfriend that his folky album (he put out the same day) I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning was actually a better album and showed a new level of maturity and has a bunch of really good songs on it. Fine, Bright Eyes. You win.

And Okkervil River. Black Sheep Boy was kind of the peak of their slower, folkier period. I would become a huge fan on the next one when it was a bit more rock, but going back to Black Sheep Boy is such a pleasure. Just absolutely brilliant.

A guy in my film class found out I liked The Pixies so he realized I had impeccable taste in music. Once when we were at the hipster bar he was telling me about Spoon, and how I HAD to check out Gimme Fiction because it is just amazingly amazing. I listened to him and got the album. And then couldn't get away from "I Turn My Camera On" at work. But still. I'm glad I got it because he turned me on to who may be the most consistently great band in indie rock.

Another consistently great band in indie rock is Sleater-Kinney. This year (2015) there was all that hype around their new album, their first since 2005. And the hype was justified because it is simply amazing and they didn't lose a beat over those 10 years off. But The Woods, that's...also simply amazing. I think they are one of the truly great guitar based bands of our time. By guitar based I mean really guitar based. They use it as more than just filler or a necessary sound...they really make the guitar mean something and it's just so much fun to hear. I probably could have written that better. But they couldn't have written The Woods better (see what I did there? Lazy, I know).

The album I ended up voting as my #1 of the year was an odd choice. An EP that wasn't particularly groundbreaking but just had two artists combine their visions into one in such a perfect way. I'm talking about Iron & Wine and Calexico and their collaborative EP In The Reins. I'd gone into it as an Iron & Wine fan. They also had the Woman King EP this year which had them incorporating a lot more sounds into the once minimalist folk music. I was familiar with Calexico, but on the strength of this EP I became a big fan, particularly in every album they put out going forward. But what was it about this EP that drew me in so strongly?  Just the perfect compliment of Iron & Wine's lyrics and vocals with the southwestern flavor of Calexico's instrumentation? It's even a subtle thing for the most part. A slide guitar here, some moody atmospheric percussion there. Calexico's not stepping on anyone's toes. Sam Beam has a delicate voice and they compliment it just perfectly.

Calexico and Iron & Wine "Sixteen, Maybe Less"

CocoRosie followed up their great debut with Noah's Ark. The album itself was a small disappointment for me personally. Like my idea of what the band should sound like, how they should evolve, was different from the direction they evolved into. In retrospect it is a solid album, but when I first heard the single "Noah's Ark" before the album came out, I loved it so much and the rest of the album couldn't live up to it. Here is my ideal version of CocoRosie:

CocoRosie "Noah's Ark"

The joy of The New Pornographers on Twin Cinema, it doesn't get much better than that. Every time I hear the coda to "The Bleeding Heart Show" I can't help but bang on my steering wheel/leg/whatever's available as hard as I can and sing at the top of my lungs. So damned catchy! The dictionary definition of power pop, if you ask me. Underline the word power. And the word pop. Twice. Put a few exclamation marks at the end of it too, why not.

The White Stripes. I finally got into them with Get Behind Me Satan. I listened to that album a lot. I think at the time I didn't acquire a ton of music so what I got I listened to a lot. In the car on my daily commute. And my nightly commute back into Denver to party. You know. Anyway, I remember this album was on in my car a lot. I really liked "My Doorbell" and the video with Conan. Was that for "The Denial Twist?" I think so. Catchy songs. And lots of more low tempo songs. I liked the kiss-off vibe of "I'm Lonely (But I Ain't That Lonely Yet)."

Other stuff happened too! Like hip hop!

Blackalicious released their follow-up to the brilliant The Blazing Arrow and did everything one could hope for.  Full of bangers, full of catchiness, The Craft was kind of a victory lap but in a very acceptable way. Not the cohesive, singular statement but just an expression of...the craft. Good songs. Great songs even. Fun songs. Fun Fact: this was the first album I ever ripped to this computer.

Beauty & The Beat by Edan was quite brilliant, very good recommendation (but I do need to listen to it more). 

Is this where I put Gorillaz? When Demon Days came out I felt bad for Dan the Automator but I don't know what politics or personal relationships were involved when Damon Albarn went to Danger Mouse to produce this one. I think at this point Danger Mouse was just known for The Grey Album. So Demon Days, the 2005 Gorillaz album, started his hot streak of being on top of the crossover pop world. "Feel Good Inc" and "Dare" were such hot tracks and more or less defined the year in pop music. I ended up liking it more for the darker songs (the vast majority of the album).



I guess it makes sense to use this to transition to Danger Doom. The other big Danger Mouse production of the year. I was already a fan of the Adult Swim stuff so it was just a fun, silly album to listen to that had Brak rapping on it. And Meatwad, he was pretty good. But it was also really my introduction to MF DOOM and turned out to be more than just a novelty. And Talib Kweli was on that track which was just so great and maybe that was my introduction to Talib Kweli. And Ghostface. Really it introduced me to a whole other side of hip hop.


Hey, who's this Kanye West guy? Late Registration is such a great piece, even if I got oh so sick of "Gold Digger" and Jamie Foxx doing his Ray Charles impersonation (though he was great in the movie). We should keep an eye on this dude though, I think he's going to say and do some interesting things in the public eye and if we don't pay attention he might just disappear. Seriously though, Late Registration was the last Kanye album I was late to, so it's still one I need to pay more attention to, but all of the singles are so great and there's not really a weak track on the thing.


Also Notable...

• Sharon Jones! I didn't know who she was until '07 but Natually is a good collection of throwback soul goodness.
• Similarly, Bettye LaVette!
• Common! I'd heard about him because in some American music class some classmates did a project about him and praised him for being all progressive and whatnot. So then Be came out. And it's got stellar Kanye production and that "Testify" song. We played that one a lot at the ol' station.
• Coldplay sucks! So for some reason Amazon once thought it'd be fun to charge like a buck each for their albums so I went for it. Mostly so I could have the relics when I was doing this project, this is what 2005 sounded like to the mainstream or whatever. But all I could think while this played was, why did I pay money, as little as it was, for Coldplay music? Why is this taking up space on my hard drive(s) and why is it taking up my time when I could be listening to something else? I think I'm gonna get rid of it...
• When The Buzzcocks were at the studio a Wolfmother song played and the guys liked it and asked about it. So ManiaTV!, amongst our other accomplishments, introduced Wolfmother to The Buzzcocks! Umm anyway, Wolfmother is pretty neat sounding. A better mainstreamish rock band of 2005 than stupid Coldplay.
• Jens Lekman gave away free downloads of a bunch of tour EPs and let me tell you...they have some of his catchiest material. Check out "Run Away With Me."
• Beck too, Guero might be my favorite Beck album. Certainly among the most fun he's put out.
• I liked Frances the Mute by The Mars Volta, but it was a bit tough and too proggy and it turned out to be the last Mars Volta album I actually bought.
• TV On The Radio put out a free song called "Dry Drunk Emperor" and I loved it and made everyone at work listen to it a lot.
• Animal Collective, they were on to something with Feels.
• Antony & The Johnsons, how great were they??
• Yeah Yeah of Montreal, The Sunlandic Twins. Their last album before I found out about them! "The Party's Crashing Us" is great fun though.
• Old favorites Polysics moved from Asian Man Records to Myspace Records (???) and reached a strange level of popularity and it was weird. But it resulted in them playing a show in Denver so I got to see them live, so I am super appreciative that it worked out that way. Now Is The Time isn't quite as great as Neu, but it's still a lot of fun and resulted in opportunities to introduce them to more people.
• No more Black Eyes but Hand Fed Babies, one of many offshoots, were pretty great.
• Remember that "Do They Know It's Hallowe'en?" song? That was ridiculous.
• Bruce Lee Band EP! Acceptable ska. But I do like their next one (just came out recently!) better.
• Kaiser Chiefs were another good "Target" band that I checked out because they were cheap at Target. Lame I know. But like Franz Ferdinand, I ended up liking it way more than I'd ever have expected.
• Speaking of Franz Ferdinand, that second album was also quite good!
• Thunderbirds Are Now! Turned out to be Jess' friends but I discovered them when they opened up for Enon. That Justamustache album is audio crack.
• Junior Senior put out a second album too! It's entertaining too!
• Bang Bang Rock & Roll by Art Brut was one of the most fun releases of the fun year, and whenever "My Little Brother" came on at Lipgloss or other such dance nights I would go so crazy. I could see myself as the little brother who just discovered rock & roll.
• When M.I.A. came out with Arular (and the infectious "Galang") I didn't know what to think. I didn't particularly care for it. But after finally "getting it" with the follow-up album, I came back to Arular and realized it was quite amazing. 
• I was just looking through the stuff from a future year and discovered that Robyn's self-titled album was actually 2005. So I then listened that. "Konichiwa Bitches" is still a huge blast to listen to. Of course, she's more known for the great progressive-ish pop of her recent Body Talk series, but the level of sass hits some dangerous levels here in '05. Irresistible.
  

EDIT: I can do this now!
2005 Mix From 2005:
It Was 2005
1. LCD Soundsystem "Daft Punk is Playing at My House"
2. Thunderbirds Are Now! "Eat This City"
3. Franz Ferdinand "Do You Want To"
4. The New Pornographers "The Jessica Numbers"
5. The Kaiser Chiefs "What Did I Ever Give You"
6. Bright Eyes "Hit the Switch"
7. CocoRosie "Noah's Ark"
8. !!! "Take Ecstasy With Me"
9. Gorillaz "O Green World"
10. Danger Doom feat. Ghostface "The Mask"
11. Blackalicious feat. Lateef & Pigeon John "Side to Side"
12. Fischerspooner "Never Win"
13. Out Hud "The Song So Good They Named It Thrice"
14. New Order "Krafty"
15. The White Stripes "I'm Lonely (But I Ain't That Lonely Yet)"
16. Sufjan Stevens "Casimir Pulaski Day"
17. Calexico and Iron & Wine "Dead Man's Will"

Next Time:
Amy Winehouse's big breakout, those Arctic Monkeys, remember Bat for Lashes? And one of my favorite Belle & Sebastian albums! Beth Orton's angelic voice made me swoon. Big Bob Dylan combeback. Cursive come on back, I finally get really into The Decemberists, the crazy Gnarls Barkley, Hank III's finest moment (perhaps), The Hold Steady, Islands, Dilla's Donuts, SexyBack, The Knife, the last Lawrence Arms album for awhile, remember Lily Allen? Food & Liquor was good! Nas was hip hop's coroner, Neko Case's brilliant Fox Confessor album, Pipettes, Game Theory (!), Teddybears, Yo La Tengo is not afraid of you, and MUCH more. These are getting really long you guys.

An Ear For An Era: 2004

Oh, 2004. The year of...turning 21. The year of going out dancing all the time. The year I stopped trying to be who I wasn't and embraced some budding friendships. Stuff. Things. Dancings.

The music, I don't even know where to begin here. 2003 was kind of the last hurrah for the emo/punk phase of my life. 2004 was mostly just dancing music at this point. A big shift. Myspace days. Hipster (not yet such a bad word, at least as far as I knew) stuff. And there was just a lot of music in my library from 2004. Bear with me.

Move My Hips To Move My Heart.

In 2004 we used to go to an 18+ or All Ages (don't remember) dance night at a place whose name escapes me right now. Downtown Denver. Kind of Five Points area. I started making dance mix CDs in these days. Once we turned 21 we started going to Lipgloss, the way-too-hip dance night every Friday night. $2 Gin & Tonics and $2 PBR. In 2004 I was overwhelmed by it, thinking I wasn't cool enough. By 2005 I was comfortable enough there to dance with strangers. That place changed my life. Or maybe it was the music. Isn't this a music blog? I'll talk more about 2005 in the 2005 entry. How about that? So anyway, 2004 I was discovering the dance music genres and picking up some confidence in it.

Le Tigre's big major album This Island was very near and dear to me. I saw them live and was blown away that feminist icon Kathleen Hanna was now playing awesome dance music with the same political spirit. And the show was just so much fun...it seemed we were all going through this same transformation together. And the total protest song "New Kicks" just reminds me of the Iraq war protests and how pissed off I was about that war. I could still care about things while shifting my music focus!

!!! was the ultimate band to see live if you wanted to dance. They played at the same venue in downtown Denver mentioned above and the whole room just turned into this organic dancing thing, like it wasn't even a concert but a party. Half the time I wasn't even looking at the stage. Their album of this time Louden Up Now was a bit repetitive for my tastes but when it had the jams it really had the jams. Particularly this now-staple" I always have to stomp-stomp-clap along to that song every time I hear it.

 !!! "Me and Giuliani Down By The School Yard (A True Story)

Black Black Ocean, that ol' favorite Denver band of mine, put out their final album Eaglemaniac. Did I talk about these guys? I saw them roughly 10234 times over the course of two years. Such a confrontational live show but so much fun. The singer would walk right up to your face and after I saw them a few times I started craving this. And they picked up on that. And I got so close to this band as a fan that they asked me to video tape their reunion show a year or two later. Eaglemaniac though, how about that album? It was the one that finally captured the kind of band they were. The energy, the insanity, it's all there.

And The Scissor Sisters! Their self-titled album is a dance classic that has remained awesome over time. "Take Your Mama" and "Filthy/Gorgeous" were always going to do well at Lipgloss.

Franz Ferdinand kind of changed something for me. My acceptance of "mainstream" indie rock came about because of these guys. I'd heard one or two of their songs and dug them and back then Target had some sort of BS "up and coming" endcap with cheap CDs by bands like Franz Ferdinand. I always paid it no mind because I was punk rock and knew better than Target what bands were good. I could take recommendations from local indie record shops instead, thank you very much. But anyway, I'd heard some Franz Ferdinand and their self-titled album was on said endcap and it was only $8 or so so I gave it a shot. It had everything a dance whore like myself could want. Fire! Homoeroticism! Angular guitars with a good dance beat! Sexiness! Just enough heart! I put "This Fire" on maybe my second dance mix CD.

Based on the success of me loving that Franz Ferdinand album, I also picked up Hot Fuss by The Killers under the same general circumstances. Those singles would set that dance floor on fire ("Mr. Brightside," "Somebody Told Me") but beyond that the album didn't really resonate with  me like I'd hoped. "Midnight Show" was another good song though, if you want a deep cut.


There was also this thing called electroclash. It was this thing where hipsters would listen to a version of electronic music that just had a way of getting us all going crazy. It was weird listening to electroclash 11 years later because my mind was enjoying it in an ironic way but it was always an ironic thing. This stuff wasn't made to be taken seriously, it was made for a laugh and a good time on the dance floor. And while it is now ridiculously dated, I don't think it was ever intended to be timeless. So listening to it now it was probably just as fun as it was back then.

Miss Kittin's solo album I Com was one of the better albums in my opinion, and her song "Requiem For A Hit" became "our song" when Jess & I started dating. All irony lyrically. But a hell of a beat. Dirty Sanchez and Avenue D captured the pervy jokiness of the movement. I also had a mix called Xavier J: Electro Wave that I listened to on a run and it certainly kept me going.

Move My Hipster to Be Hipper.

I also started exploring more non-dance, non-punk indie music. Pinback's Summer in Abaddon is a lovely thing, isn't it? Iron & Wine kind of reached their apex of achievement (before they started adding more instruments to the very minimalist acoustic guitar setup) with Our Endless Numbered Days. Denver's own DeVotchKa put out a bonafide classic with How It Ends (I saw them live at Red Rocks last year, I am guessing you already know how their set ends...). Battles pre-empted their amazing debut full length (coming out in 2007!) with THREE EPs put out within a month of each other. Blonde Redhead started moving comfortably into their more "comfortable" sound on Misery Is A Butterfly, which is a sound I quite like from them.

Black Eyes blew my mind. I got their second album Cough when I was in Chicago visiting some friends. Because at that time it was still somewhat difficult to find stuff I wanted, the record store in Chicago was a big deal because I found this album. I played it for those friends and they were...as supportive as they could be. But it takes a very special person to really enjoy this album. Willfully abrasive and a guy with a really annoying voice sings about half the words. But beautiful post post hardcore (I think that's the term I went with when I'd try to describe them). I don't remember what I officially called the album of the year for 2004 but this is a distinct possibility. It awoke in me my punk rock spirit while calling on the adventurous nature of my musical journey at the time. I have only known a couple people in my lifetime who actually listened to Black Eyes and they have both been very special to me. And after this album they were done. One-Two-Done. For one of the most innovative bands in post hardcore or whatever you would call them.

I started really getting into The Magnetic Fields around this time. They had a dance remix of "I Thought You Were My Boyfriend" that was suggested to me when I was making a dance mix, and based off of that I picked up the album i. That album was full of analog instruments and had a very melancholy feel which I loved. It was my first Magnetic Fields album. Then I saw them live and picked up 69 Love Songs and I was off to the races. But i is a very strong album with Merritt's trademark wit and sadness combination. If I hadn't picked the song I had for my wedding first dance (discussed in the 1999 entry), I might have gone with "It's Only Time," a lovely underutilized song about devotion. "I Looked All Over Town" is probably my favorite song on this album, about a sad clown. A very sad song about not fitting in, I remember being annoyed when I saw them live because people were laughing at the song when I took it very seriously, but I understand now. It is both. And we need to be able to laugh at pain. And this song does this in a very beautiful way. Like a sad clown. (the tragically ludicrous/the ludicrously tragic?)

The Magnetic Fields "I Looked All Over Town"

Jens Lekman seems like he looks at the world though a similar lens as Stephin Merritt, just a little less cynical and with more innocence. They have similar baritone delivery and both hit the perfect balance of humor and melancholy though. It took me a while to finally find and pick up When I Said I Wanted to Be Your Dog, but it has the wonderful "You Are The Light (By Which I Travel Into This and That)."


Modest Mouse found some modest success with Good News For People Who Love Bad News. It still is, front-to-back, one of my favorite albums of theirs. Biting lyrics, painfulness, clever clever words. And as much as the song "Float On" was everywhere and inescapable to the point where I started disliking it a little, a few years later I took it as an empowering anthem after getting laid off at my job. And now when I hear it that's all I think of.


I didn't get Seven Swans by Sufjan Stevens until recently even though the first song I ever heard by him was "To Be Alone With You." It was a highlight on a mix from my friend Christy. But I didn't really explore him until Illinois (story coming next entry!). My wife walked down the aisle to "The Dress Looks Nice On You" though. Because it was perfect. He is very good at the folk thing.

That same mix included a song called "Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels)" by this new band called Arcade Fire. I heard it in December of 2004. The major standout to the mix, I had to ask more questions about this band. The song was just so full of passion that it kind of reminded me of The Broadways in a weird way. So it went from obsession with this song, to checking out the album Funeral (and finding out it was a big big deal in the indie world, probably the #1 album of the year by "indie consensus" if that's a thing), to being pretty obsessed with the whole album and inserting myself into that indie rock culture. I was kind of an outsider when I approached this stuff after knowing everything about everything punk rock. It was a fun adventure.

Arcade Fire "Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels)"

Oh and 2004 was also the year I first got into a new Sonic Youth album. Speaking of an outsider learning about indie rock. Sonic Nurse was their latest at the time and I got it and loved it a lot. Kind of had the band heading in a similar direction to Blonde Redhead mentioned above. A little less abrasive but still passionate and energetic and experimental.

My previous investments in the awesomeness of Touch & Go Records continued to pay dividends. I got the track "Good Friday" by CocoRosie for free off their website and then eventually was able to find their debut album La Maison de mon Reve somewhere in Denver. Something I looked for everywhere but was hard to find back then. A really cool mix of art and hip hop beats and melody...CocoRosie would slowly evolve over time, but not quite in the direction I'd hoped. I still love them though. This album is very cool.

And then there was my real actual probably #1 album of the year. If not Cough, it had to have been Desperate Youth, Bloodthirsty Babes by a certain TV On The Radio. They felt like my band, like my discovery. My secret. I also discovered them via Touch & Go Records and they filled a void for me. Something completely unique and not really like anything else I listened to at the time. I always speak in hyperbole when I speak of this band because I really do think they are the best band of this century. And it really started here. Or that EP from 2003. Maybe there. But here is where they started for me. A combination of spacey minimalist instrumentals (with maximalist portions when appropriate) and soulful vocals. I know the fact that they were on the jukebox at the hipster bar we went to means I wasn't the first/only person to know them, but I still felt pretty cool when I played them on said jukebox on a crowded Thursday night (Thursday night was the big party night in Boulder) and confused the hell out of everyone. The song was "Ambulance," their a capella love song, which may have not been the best song for partying. But I just really wanted my friends to hear it and that was the best way to do that. But that's not the song I'm going to post here because another song has eclipsed it. They opened a show back then, I think maybe election day 2004? The line was so long I couldn't get in until their last song. But I caught the last song and at that moment it was the best thing I'd ever heard live. It is everything TV On The Radio does well at its best. A perfect song that gets stuck in my head for days. (note: I am really sorry about the image below. Thanks, whoever put this on Youtube, for finding it necessary to use such an image!)

TV On The Radio "Poppy"

Old Reliable.

Elvis Costello continued to deliver with The Delivery Man. I remember being a sucker because I went and bought this album on CD at the local independent record store for something like $17.00 and then seeing it at Target or Best Buy or whatever for less than $10. But I was supporting something important, man! This album was yet another left turn from his previous (When I Was Cruel), and while I didn't love it quite as much I still have a lot of affection for it. It introduced me to the voice of Emmylou Harris, who provided some beautiful guest vocals on a couple tracks. It told a story. It was heartbreaking in places. Like here.

Elvis Costello featuring Emmylou Harris "Heart Shaped Bruise"

The best album of the year was probably technically this 40-years-in-the-making one. Brian Wilson finally finished Smile! I feel like I kind of talked about it with Smiley Smile and all that stuff back then but I have to talk about it a little bit here. But everyone knows what he did. It just turned out so damn good! It felt great to listen to even when Colorado was experiencing a ridiculously rainy May. I could feel the sunshine and the harmonies were just Wonderful.

And On and on.

• Milk Man is a great Deerhoof album that I just recently acquired and have only listened to a couple times.
• A Ghost Is Born shows Wilco going full on experimental. It's pretty great from the right mood (country Wilco just puts you in the mood).
• I got Love Everybody by The Presidents of the United States of America because I have been a long-time fan but only a few of the songs have that element I love about them. But "Some Postman" and "Jennifer's Jacket" are quite good.
• Asian Man Records got into the "indie rock" stuff outside of the usual ska and punk with a very cool rhythmic album by Colossal called Welcome the Problems.
• The Roots and Mos Def kind of put out forgettable-ish albums (compared to everything else either artist has put out!).
• The Grey Album was pretty neat, I wish it sounded a little more Beatlesy though. Not that that was super possible when mixing them with hip hop.
• The Black & Blue Album was a Weezer-Jay-Z mashup, which was also pretty neat, though messy in places. It did have a bonus track "99 Luft Problems" which is pretty much my favorite mashup ever.
• I didn't discover Feist until The Reminder a couple years later, but her debut album Let It Die was pretty neat. I love her cover of "Inside And Out" by The Beegees. I had it played at my wedding.
• That Loretta Lynn album produced by Jack White was neat!
• Madvillainy was rad too. And MM...Food. That MF Doom guy is a reasonably talented dude!
• Super xx Man is great singer songwriter stuff. I particularly recommend 2004's Vol. IV: My Usual Way.
• The Descendents came back after another 8 years off! Cool To Be You was...interesting. I liked a couple of the tracks but I'd just as easily stick with their early stuff.
• The Good Life put out Album of the Year so that was neat.
• Some kid called Kanye West released his debut album. I did not care at the time. Pretty good listen though.
• The Streets. "Fit But You Know It." Another dance floor staple.
• The Go! Team! I got into them a year or two later when they opened for The Flaming Lips at Red Rocks! Rad band!
• Hanalei saw Brian Moss from The Wunder Years and The Ghost expanding into a more personal territory.
• Annie! Anniemal! Swedish pop is the best pop.

Next Time:

2005 was probably the best year of my life. I will try to fit in some music discussion with that.

Stanley Film Festival 2015 In Review

This year I was a very lucky man and my wife got us fancy passes to the 2015 Stanley Film Festival in Estes Park. It was this past weekend and it was one of the awesomest experiences of my life. Hanging out with genre film nerds and people that make such genre films, seeing tons of movies that haven't been available to the public as of yet, and just hanging around the historic Stanley Hotel all contributed to that. I'm going to spend the bulk of this entry talking about the movies to hopefully help spread the word about them and contribute in my own small way toward their success. And really, it's all about the movies.

But let me also quickly mention things like the great parties. Bands like Snake Rattle Rattle Snake played, which was super cool. And the awards brunch included such high concepts as our Saw table, requiring us to locate a key hidden in a dummy's mouth to get our silverware and our Re-Animator biscuits & gravy included an awesome green hot sauce in a syringe just because. And if they count as parties, all the other immersive/interactive things going on, it was more than a film festival. It was a full weekend of insanity.

And the people! Jess is quite good at striking up conversations with people at the festival, finding common ground in our obvious similar obsessions with horror movies. Just talking about movies with other people that developed toward the same obsessions over different time periods, talking about other interests, it seemed like everyone was generally easier to talk to there than in the real world. I miss that already.

Oh and being star struck because I don't get to meet a lot of heroes, but there were so many filmmakers in attendance. For every movie we saw but two, at least the writer or director was in attendance for a Q&A after the screening. The insight on the creative process was so inspiring that I am starting to think that I can maybe make at least a short myself someday soon. And submit it to various festivals. And use that to get funding for a real live, honest movie! And start a career and all that. Some directors seemed awesome (particularly Karyn Kusama and Todd Geoghegan) and some seemed somewhat douchey (not going to call them out here) but it was always interesting and inspiring to hear them talk about their craft.

What a great way to segue into the movies themselves! I'll just write a little bit about each one I saw and maybe be more obvious about recommending things that I feel should be recommended. Which is most of what I saw, but some more passionately than others.

Day One: April 30
The opening night film was Cooties, produced by Elijah Wood's SpectreVision. Goofy horror comedy. We saw a lot of goofy horror comedy, which is kind of our main subgenre of "horror" anyway. This had an all star comedy cast including Elijah Wood, Alison Pill, Rainn Wilson, and more (you can look at imdb for such details) and was about teachers surviving a crazy zombie-like outbreak amongst the students. Without giving too much away, there is a lot of kid killin' in the most tasteful way possible. I will highly recommend this when it comes out. I gave it 4 out of 5.

Day Two: May 1
We showed up over an hour early to see Director's Commentary: Terror of Frankenstein. We did not need to do this. We could have easily seen another movie before hand. But with the legendary Leon Vitali in attendance I figured it would be much more popular than it turned out to be. The concept was an odd one: a made up director's commentary track on a DVD for a real movie from the 70s revealing a very strange and tragic string of events (paralleling the story of Frankenstein in its own way) happening behind the scenes. A bit better in theory than in practice, it was still a very interesting concept and a bizarre experience.

Then we got to the main theater for The Invitation. Very anxious and stressful, very good at keeping you guessing, maybe more thriller/drama than horror film but very well executed. This is the new one from Karyn Kusama (Girlfight, Jennifer's Body) so I'm sure you'll be seeing it somewhere soon enough. I gave this one a 4 as well.

We only saw three films on Friday due to needing to eat and not seeing one before Terror of Frankenstein. So after dinner and hanging out in the lounge, we made our way to the midnight(ish) movie of the night, Deathgasm. I'd watch it again because it was quite entertaining but I can't give it the greatest rating for a couple reasons. As funny and gory as it was (New Zealand horror comedy), a couple things seemed a little derivative (using a chainsaw...) and disingenuous (it's about a metal fan but it felt like the writer didn't really care about/fully understand metal music and this is coming from someone who doesn't fully understand metal music). But overall, it's a silly comedy and worked great as a midnight(ish) movie. It's not exactly asking to be judged on very high standards. I think I gave it 3.

Day Three: May 2
We started our day at the oldest movie theater in the country (that was originally built as a movie theater) with a world premiere (much of the cast in attendance!) of Some Kind of Hate. The first real horror movie in a way. Very violent, pretty serious, and the second movie in a row that included an instance of a metal head introducing a cool/popular girl to metal music and her life being changed. Is that a common fantasy amongst high school metal heads? Anyway. This reminded both of us of Carrie. The drama factor wasn't as strong as the film wanted it to be, but the horror aspect was great.

We stayed at the old theater for a 35mm print of the classic film Re-Animator. Neither of us had seen it, shamefully enough. But we can no longer say that. Director Stuart Gordon was in attendance to receive the Master of Horror award (an axe, of course) and he sat in the same row as us! And Barbara Crampton presented it to him! What an experience this film was, I don't know how we never made our way to seeing that one in our annual October tradition, but luckily that has been remedied. I don't think I need to say much about this other than the fact that the final act is one of the most amazing displays of ridiculous gore I've ever seen.

We made our way over to the closing night presentation of The Final Girls. Another horror comedy, this one is super meta, think Sherlock Jr. meets Friday the 13th. Or an elaborate episode of Community. Without saying too much, it was quite funny, not quite scary, and surprisingly quite touching. Almost everybody we talked to loved it, I gave it 5 out of 5 stars, and I highly recommend it when it comes out later this year. But it was also the best possible crowd for this type of film, I'm not sure how it would land without having such an enthusiastic crowd. The other concern I must bring up is that one person we talked to that didn't love it. He hated it. He felt like it was too cheeky, that it was making fun of old stupid horror movies and their tropes. I took it as a harmless tribute made with love of the genre, but apparently a small percentage of the audience may not see it the same way.

Day Four: May 3
On the last day we had to see as many movies as we could. Meaning two before we had to head back home to the real world. After the awesome brunch alluded to above, we made our way to see We Are Still Here. The other "real" horror movie we saw. Another one I really don't want to say much about for fear of ruining your experience, I'll just say that it is a haunted house movie, it stars the legendary Barbara Crampton, and it has some amazing amazing practical effects and gore. Maybe the scariest movie we saw all weekend as well. I wanted to give this one a 5 (and kind of regretted giving The Final Girls a 5 the night before) because it was just so great, so mature (particularly for a first time director!) so scary, so mysterious and intriguing enough that I want to re-visit it when it comes out to the public. Unfortunately for some reason we didn't get ballots to vote for this one. See this movie when you can. It was my favorite. Just love.

And finally we caught When Animals Dream. A movie about a werewolf in Denmark. That description made me want to see it in hopes that it would be somewhat similar to Let the Right One In. And I guess it was. Subtle, dramatic, and very Nordic. It really reminded me of the great films I watched in my Nordic Film & Lit class. Like The Match Factory Girl except she turns into a werewolf. I gave it a 4. Just a great depiction of sadness and repression and...well you can probably imagine but you should see it for yourself anyway. It's got the same distributor as Let the Right One In so it'll probably make its way to theaters soon enough.

That is a lot of high ratings. There were some fantastic films. And many we were not able to see. Such is the nature of such things. I want to go back next year. And I highly recommend genre lovers do so as well. It is getting more and more popular and it will probably be crazy. Maybe they'll eventually have to expand it to a full week!

An Ear For An Era: 2003

2003 was a year of the heavy hitters. The big dogs. Massively massive albums. The year of over selling things.

I turned 20. That was pretty neat.

It was also the first year I really started getting into the "ranking the albums of the year" practice that I have obsessed over since. The year I recognized years as the next unit up from album. This year was way better than that year. The basis for this whole thing, I guess, kind of came from these exercises. So all of these albums I'll talk about, let's just say they could all be called album of the year. Maybe. We'll see how this goes.

The #1 Dance Punk or Whatever Album of 2003:
Pitchfork ranked the #1 album of 2003 as Echoes by The Rapture. I wonder if they have any regrets about that. It seems like they were trying to capture the band that most exemplified the most NOW sound of those days. Or something. The whole dance punk craze. But damn it, it is an amazing album. Does it outrank the other ones I'm going to talk about? I guess Pitchfork thinks so. What is it about this album? I have no qualms calling it the best entry in that whole dance punk world. DFA production. Passion upon passion. It really is punk rock. I think I probably got into this around 2004. But maybe that all ages dance night I went to would play "House of Jealous Lovers" and I got really good at dancing listening to that song. When I started going to Lipgloss (the 21+ "hipster or whatever" dance night) in 2004 it was possibly my #1 jam.

The Rapture "House of Jealous Lovers"

Lesser dance punk entries (I guess I can use this format):

• Metric- Old World Underground, Where Are You Now? Right before they really hit their peak, this debut album is a good taste of the good stuff.
• Electric Six- Fire. Kind of ridiculous. I still enjoy about 3 of the songs but it feels pretty dated compared to the rest of the crop.
• Ladytron- Softcore Jukebox. Can I put a mix tape here? Ladytron demonstrated their impeccable taste with this mix including My Bloody Valentine, Pop Levi, and a bunch of people I haven't heard of. And closed it off with Nancy & Lee!
• Ima Robot- Ima Robot. They were pretty fun. I saw them live at the Larimer Lounge (I bet Black Black Ocean opened up the show) from the front row. Good times!
• Les Savy Fav- Inches. Okay, there is nothing at all "lesser" about LSF. They are kings of this stuff. Inches was a compilation in reverse chronological order of a series of singles they put out over the years. Behold! De-evolution! But a good third of those singles were from 2003 anyway. So this album just kicks off with a series of amazing dance punk tracks of pure energy and pandemonium. Possibly my favorite 6 tracks by the band.
• Black Black Ocean- Operacion and Vultures for Permanent Fix. They were my favorite local Denver band. Always getting uncomfortably close. I'll talk about them more when I talk about their final album.
• The couple songs LCD Soundsystem put out in 2003 were great. "Give It Up" is still an all-time favorite. I kind of want to do that song karaoke some day.
• Let's put Polysics here! Neu is such a masterpiece in their new wave psycho psycho punk style, probably their best. Before Myspace Records or whatever discovered them, they were just a crazy Japanese band that Asian Man imported. I had no reference for this sound, as much as they insisted Devo were their major influence. It just sounded out of this world to me. This album in particular, it is a little more nuanced than Hey Bob! My Friend! It has some slower songs that build energy and the whole album is just pure joy.

Polysics "Black Out Fall Out"

The #1 Album of I Still Listened to Some of The Same Bands I've Always Listened To:
I'm sure much of the indie/emo crowd ranked the #1 album of 2003 to be The Ugly Organ by Cursive. If I'd been honest at the time I probably would have as well. I probably had it way up there. One of the first albums I pre-ordered from the record label for mailorder. I got it at my place in Boulder. And listened to it on vinyl. A lot. It was just so brutally honest about the artistic process and other personal things that just came crashing out. Such a good sound of chaos as well, with minor chords being played on said organ. Yet promising. The cello (this is their only full album with that cello!!) just brings in the hope and the sadness. I just think of the end of the song "A Gentleman Caller." When the cello comes in. Here, just listen to it (listen to the whole song):

Cursive "A Gentleman Caller"

The cello is what I associate with the line "the worst is over..."


Honorable albums of I still listened to some of the same bands I've always listened to (?):

• The Lawrence Arms- The Greatest Story Ever Told. Probably their most concepty album. And I loved it from the first notes I heard of it. This was when they were my favorite band. It just kind of felt like a celebration of how awesome they were.  And the three years between this one and the next one made it feel like some sort of final statement on the "middle" era of the band. They were very productive up until this point. Anyway, this was probably easily in my top 5 at the time.
• Alkaline Trio- Good Mourning. Such a complicated relationship I have with Alkaline Trio. I loved their first couple, hated Infirmary, and then quite liked Good Mourning, but not enough to buy anything they've put out since. I listened to this one like 6 times in a row once I got it and I got quite fond of it. Good personal songs, good sadness.
• Mike Park went solo (officially) on For the Love of Music. Less ska, very personal acoustic music. Gotta dig it.
• The Smoking Popes went Christian (officially) with the band Duvall. I liked the songs that were less obvious about being preachy. I saw them live. It was great and I thought it would be my only chance to see members of the actual Smoking Popes live.
• Ted Leo & The Pharmacists- Hearts of Oak. For some reason I didn't get into them as much as my peers at the time but now I know better. This is some great punk rock.
• The Honor System- Rise and Run. They brought a lot more energy into their sound here while keeping the passion and poetic political lyrics. Fantastic!
• The Weakerthans- Reconstruction Site. All of his albums are so great. All.
• Black Eyes- Black Eyes. Holy crap. I need to listen to this one over and over again. I didn't get this album until they'd broken up even though I got their second one. Another case of things being hard to find back in the day. But this is one of the best hardcore albums I own that I haven't listened to enough.
• The Suicide Machines tried to redeem themselves with A Match And Some Gasoline. I liked it okay. It sounded just like their first two albums, which were the ones I liked.

Officially The Best Acoustic or Something Music of 2003:
I didn't know anything about Sufjan Stevens until Illinois, but the start of his 2 States Project was Greetings From Michigan: The Great Lake State. A lovely album of sadness and sorrow and some hope as well, a very personal album and a great showcase of his arranging skills. You can just hear the love he has for the state all over this album.

Honorable Acoustic or Something:

• Songs: Ohia put out the album Magnolia Electric Co and it was fantastic stuff.
• The Handsome Family- Singing Bones. Hey, it has that True Detective song on it! 
• Jose Gonzalez- Veneer. Because it is the one.
• Cat Power- You Are Free. This showed her starting to branch out and incorporate different styles/arrangements. I haven't given this one its fair shake but I've been obsessed with everything she's put out since, and listening to this recently I could tell why. Here's another one for the obsession.
• Nina Nastasia- Run to Ruin. This was the Nina Nastasia album it took me forever to track down. But I've been a fan of hers since right around this time. She was probably the first female solo artist for me to get into. I just love how she puts her voice up and down like a rollercoaster on "I Say That I Will Go."

Nina Nastasia "I Say That I Will Go"

The Greatest Hip Hop Album of The Entire Year of 2003:
This is another one that is obviously well regarded a dozen years later. Or should I say another TWO? That's right, I'm talking about Outkast. Speakerboxxx/The Love Below. Because my ex girlfriend was obsessed with Outkast I was able to be aware of this when it was new. Also there was the fact that nobody on this planet was going to escape "Hey Ya!" the earworm that would not go away but would not get old. The Onion mini-headline "Outkast Universally Accepted" kind of said it all. We were all cool with Outkast at this time. I feel like everything's been said about this. Big Boi's Speakerboxxx is a crazy accomplishment in that it is a full album where it's all bangers, no bar is wasted, it doesn't let up. It gets overlooked because of its game-changing accompanying disc, but on its own it could be the #1 hip hop album of the year or more. And then Andre 3000's The Love Below is a crazy good experiment that went right. Channeling Prince, it's not really hip hop at all. Just brilliant experimental pop music. I don't know, have you heard "Hey Ya" before? It's a pretty catchy tune!

Honorably Hip Hop:

• Kid Koala- Some of My Best Friends Are DJs. A DJ album! All scratches! I discovered him through the fact that he worked with Deltron 3030. And then I found out he had solo material. This is so like nothing else I'd ever heard. Jazz music created by turntables. Far out, man!
• Madlib- Shades of Blue. Then this similar idea but way different execution. Madlib remixing/reimagining the Blue Note catalog!
• Jaylib- Champion Sound. The album with Jay Dilla rapping! And Madlib! The two most respected producers in early '00s hip hop (don't quote me on that) working together to mixed results. Hey, I like the song with Talib Kweli!
• Hieroglyphics- Full Circle. I don't know this one as well as their other one but they are quite a crew.
• Jay-Z- The Black Album. It took me longer than perhaps it should have for me to discover this one. I finally did before he came out of retirement, so I did get to experience it as his "final album." Such a great final statement for an artist to make, all-encompassing, his autobiography. And "99 Problems." Of course. The whole thing just sounds like victory.
• Ludacris- Chicken N Beer. This one holds a special place in my heart because it's the first Ludacris album I actually bought. It's a bit ridiculous but has a couple songs I still like quite a bit, particularly "Hip Hop Quotables."

The Probably One Of The Most If Not The Most Loved Album 12 Years Later Album of 2003:
In retrospect, this might be the real #1 album of 2003 as a universal truth. Depending on your opinions of Outkast and The White Stripes and whatever. But this one has really stuck around. I'm talking of course about Give Up by The Postal Service. One of those albums I can completely agree with my wife on (although The Ugly Organ also shares that distinguishment). Sure, "Such Great Heights" may have been overplayed but these days it is still a treat to hear. Ten tracks that all kind of have the same feel, but it's such a great feel. Tamborello's production toed the line between cold and comforting, distant and embracing. Something completely organic produced by something completely digital sounding. Gibbard's vocals were completely on point, his lyrics relatable and familiar, it's just a lovely unassuming record that accomplishes so much. A little side project that may have been the best work either of them ever put out.

The Postal Service "Nothing Better"

And Finally! My Officially Declared Album of 2003 As Declared In 2003 So It Doesn't Matter What I Think 12 Years Later:
When I got De-Loused in the Comatorium by The Mars Volta I didn't know what prog was. I thought it was something boring like jazz. I only knew that this was a crazy ambitious album with lots of long songs, arranged like a crazy symphony. It was the guys from At The Drive-In with all the vision and to me it was the most amazing thing I'd ever heard. I remember listening to it once and thinking, "why do I even listen to pop music? I should start only listening to music like this." I thought it was so beyond everything else out there. So I had to call it my #1. Someone else on my message board put it a little lower on his list saying he didn't rank it higher because he doesn't actually listen to it enough. I chided him (slightly) and said that was his problem, not the album's. Of course, now I know what he meant. It's not like your personal ranking can't take personal subjectivity into account. Anyway, looking at all the other stuff that came out this year, I can't say I still think this is the best of 2003 but it's a hell of a ride all the same. They had a way with energy, these guys. It translated well from At The Drive-In because they were able to harness crazy amounts of energy and then unleash it in such a beautiful way.

The Mars Volta "Roulette Dares (The Haunt Of)"

The Rest of the Honorable Mentions:

• Hail to the Thief by Radiohead was the other album I put up on top of my list at the time, maybe at #2 or 3 or 4. The other one I listened to when I wanted to get away from all the "pop" stuff. Good and political and stuff. I liked the politicalness of it.
• I don't know where to put Feast of Wire by Calexico. It is awesome and probably deserving of being #1 on some list somewhere. #1 Calexico? Maybe!!
• Early Okkervil River! I got a song off of Down The River of Golden Dreams once upon a time because I liked their name. I liked that song. I looked for their stuff everywhere and eventually gave up. The song was "The War Criminal Rises and Speaks." I still love that song. Eventually they got very popular and I became more of an official fan.
• Is Apple O' Deerhoof's best? I think of it as quintessential Deerhoof-from-before-I-knew-them.
• Janelle Monae's debut Audition gives just the faintest hint about what she would go on to achieve.
• Poodle Hat was Weird Al just throwing it all out the window. That's what I felt when I heard what the album would be called and saw the cover. Is that his most random cover? Might be. Just might be. In general it may be a slightly lesser Weird Al album, but that might just be my opinion. But there are some gems, especially "Bob." Doing an artist parody of Bob Dylan and making every line a palindrome is one of the most poetic things one could do. I still can pull out random lines from that song to demonstrate palindromes. A Toyota's a Toyota. Do Geese See God? Do Nine Men Interpret? Nine Men, I Nod.
• Yeah, Goldfrapp was neat too.
• So was The National!
• And Beaulah. Yoko was their last album! It was funny, it took me forever to get Yoko even though I loved the band because I'd found an exclusive indie record store "demos" version of it, so I already had and knew all the songs, just in demo version. When I finally got the album, I think I decided I liked the demo versions better...
• Hey, early Dirty Projectors!
• Where else do I put Elephant by The White Stripes? This seems so wrong to put them way down here! But they did get their due. I remember tons of magazines and such put this as their #1 album of 2003 so who cares if my little blog throws it down here? I didn't really get into The White Stripes until their next album. "Seven Nation Army" is a classic tune though. And it seems like they're having fun. Expanding their palate a bit. 
• Oh, if I only had known about TV On The Radio in 2003. The Young Liars EP came out and would have blown me away. I waited until they had a full-length album before finding out about them though.
• The New Pornographers - Electric Version. Because they are fun!
• Is Transatlanticism the best Death Cab for Cutie album? Please discuss.
• Elvis Costello doing piano based love songs! North is the name of the album. Pretty good, but I like everything he does.

What Happens Next?
I'm glad you asked! After 2003 comes 2004. 2004 includes music from the likes of Annie, Arcade Fire, Battles, Black Black Ocean, Black Eyes, some album from Brian Wilson called Smile, CocoRosie, Descendents (!), DeVotchKa, a double Elvis Costello release, The Ex, Franz Ferdinand, The Go! Team, Jens Lekman, some kid named Kanye West, Le Tigre, Madvillain, Modest Mouse gets huge, Scissor Sisters, TV On The Radio, and !!!. Among other things.

An Ear For An Era: 2002

Your bitterness doesn't surprise me. A quote from 2001 but that was what 2002 was like. I remember blowing off a class because I was bitter about a relationship status. Feeling alone and not wanting to deal with macroeconomics or whatever it was. I think I ended up doing ok for the semester but taking like a week off from class.

It was a painful breakup and it was fueled by painful breakup music. It was perfecting loneliness. It was online friends because I'd alienated all my physical friends. Not discounting said online friends, and if any of you are reading this you were amazing at helping me fight my way through this. It got better. But 2002 was a tough year for me. Not that I should have let that get to me, I was in fact very lucky in all ways except that crucial one way.

Not that it was terrible the whole time. It was a turbulent year with ups and downs, just as the breakup I went through had its on and off points, and I still owe that girl a lot for what she did for me musically. In addition to getting me into some of the crucial emo-esque-whatever bands of the time, she insisted and fought me until I accepted the art of hip hop. So here in 2002 we have the first hip hop album I bought, my favorite hip hop album for the longest time, and even today it stands amongst my favorites.

It came about because I went with her to see Jurassic 5. They were pretty darn cool. Even in 2002 when they were collaborating with Nelly Furtado. Looking at the lineup, there were some cool looking openers and I was curious about this group called Blackalicious. I found my way upon this track they had done called "Chemical Calisthenics."

 

Blackalicious "Chemical Calisthenics"

This song right here was undeniable proof of the presence of talent in hip hop (yeah yeah, baby steps). Incredible talent. And braininess. Smarts. Cleverness. Uniqueness. Everything I thought I knew about this art form was turned on its head because of this song. A nerdy song about chemistry. With different movements and melodies incorporated. Eventually I picked up the album. Blazing Arrow. I still remember going to a record store somewhere in Boulder (I don't think it's there anymore, it was down 28th by where Barnes & Noble was somewhere I think) and picking it up. And listening to it in my car. And becoming obsessed. This was a hip hop album that was immersive and contained, a statement rather than a selection of songs, but something that flowed throughout, in a way I previously credited to the highest honored rock groups like Fugazi. This was an opus. It sampled Harry Nilsson! And had PASSION! And politics and brains and SO MUCH SOUL. And it introduced me to Saul Williams on the epic hip hop track (!!) called "Release." It not only became my immediate favorite hip hop album (not a challenge at the time since it was my only hip hop album, but it remained my favorite hip hop album for years and push come to shove it might still be) but one of my favorite albums of all time. I just can't get over it. It is everything.

So hip hop was entering my consciousness. The Streets were getting started with Original Pirate Material, full of great beats and an interesting perspective on the genre. The Roots took some interesting turns on Phrenology. And oh boy, Talib Kweli. Quality is the other indisputable classic hip hop album of 2002. The lyricism is dazzling, the way he weaves stories and social commentary through classic beats is phenomenal. To me, this is where it feels that Kanye West as a producer really established himself. Sure, that Jay-Z album sounds great. But the songs he does on this album are just unbeatable. "Get By" and "Gorilla Monsoon Rap" are earworms/bangers/everything. And Kweli just makes them so thoughtful and perfect.

Another of my favorite albums of all time doesn't particularly hold a resonance tying itself to my personal life (and I don't think I got into it until it was a couple years old), but nonetheless has been a personal favorite and something I can always rely on to lift my spirits and get my brain working is High Society by Enon. This album is all over the place, hitting so many sounds, but hitting them all right on the head. It feels smart to me but wholly entertaining. This song says it all: Less pop, more fizz.

Enon "Carbonation"

There was a good beat here though, which segues nicely into the other thing that was slowly developing for me. Dance music. Lots of bands I liked started taking this turn toward the dance floor and over the next 2 years I'd discover my own internal lord of the dance which would kind of change my life eventually. Q and Not U were one of these bands. Different Damage seemed like something entirely different and new for a math rock esque band to tackle and I loved it.

And lots of the greatest hits of Lipgloss (the premier indie dance night of Denver) of 2004-5 (when I would go) came out in '02, it turns out. The famous Junior Senior's D-D-Don't Stop the Beat was out and LCD Soundsystem's early single "Losing My Edge" took name dropping to a new, acceptable level. Ladytron was more electronic than most of what I'd listened to but were very catchy. Interpol...I used to think they were famous and crappy but I probably just had them mixed up with someone else. At Lipgloss I enjoyed them. And Hot Hot Heat! "Bandages" was definitely my jam to dance to.

The first new Elvis Costello album that came out when I was closely following him (i.e. getting all the deluxe reissues of all of his back catalog) was When I Was Cruel. Such a great breakup album, full of bold experiments in song structure. Such a perfect album for me to become obsessed with. It combined my budding love of his cynical lyrics and my interest in the abstract and the weird. I just loved that such a respectable artist, a good quarter century into his career, was doing such exciting and weird things while keeping with the spirit of his whole career.

One of my best memories of 2002 was April 20, 2002. The school put on a show to get us kids doing other stuff besides getting stoned because I went to CU Boulder and that was pretty much the thing to do on 4/20. I was not interested in any of that though, and it turned out to just be a great excuse to bring The Lawrence Arms to town! I had just gotten a video camera and my dorm was approximately a block away, so my friend Greg and I decided to go ask Brendan (of said Lawrence Arms) if it would be cool if I video taped their set. He said that would be fine. And I was going to get up to the front to get a good angle with my camera when he brought us back stage to talk to the band and then had us posted on the side of the stage for the duration of the show. It was hard not to dance around and scream along to all of of the words. Anyway, great time. It was right after Apathy & Exhaustion came out, which was kind of a pinnacle achievement for the band. They had just moved over to Fat Wreck Chords and I was worried the sound would be influenced by the label (I'd previously made fun of the fact that all Fat bands sounded just like NOFX, and similarly favorite band Alkaline Trio took a bit of a nosedive when they moved labels), but it was really just an extension of the sound they'd developed on "the splits" that I've mentioned in previous posts here. In fact, as much as they change from album to album, the smallest change they ever made between two albums was this one, the one time they moved record labels. As far as the songs themselves go, Brendan's got increasingly philosophical in their crass self deprecation, and Chris' just got more personal and closer and closer to my own heart. This was emphasized by the song "Brick Wall Views," which I took as my AIM screen name as I drifted away from my ex girlfriend and needed someone to understand. I felt like this song understood me. Which made it even more amazing on April 20 at that show, because Brendan dedicated that very song to "these guys over here, to Greg and Brandon."

The Lawrence Arms "Brick Wall Views"

Of all the shows I saw with Greg in these days, one local band seemed to open up every damn time. Laymen Terms. To where we learned the songs and became pretty big fans. Still not the best of that crop, but they had a few good jams that took me back when I heard them.

Brian Moss of The Wunder Years had a new band called The Ghost, and they released their debut album This Is A Hospital to much acclaim among me and a couple friends. It took the sound of The Wunder Years and put more heave behind it, oozing with passion and stuff.

What really defined me in these days, or maybe this was more 2003 and 2004 but the album came out in 2002, was Perfecting Loneliness by Jets to Brazil. This came out after all my friends talked about Orange Rhyming Dictionary being so great and Four Cornered Night being disappointing. It didn't seem like anyone was talking about Perfecting Loneliness. But what a title! I found the vinyl in some sort of clearance rack, I hadn't heard of a third Jets to Brazil album so I picked it up. And I put it on with much frequency. For the longest time I only had it on vinyl and I still listened to it more than most other music I had access to. Living in a small house by myself, putting this on lonely Friday nights when I had nothing to do but stay inside, this made it feel okay. "Thank God for no phone calls."

Jets to Brazil "Further North"

Other Things About Things:

• Early Iron & Wine was something special and intimate.
• For some reason even though I skipped an album by Reel Big Fish and was totally over them by now, I got Cheer Up! and it was the right thing to do at the time. Even though I did not want to cheer up, the album hit home in a surprisingly strong way. And the closing track "Drunk Again" has gone on to be one of my favorite self pity songs of all due to lyrics like "If I had a dollar bill for every time I've been wrong, I'd be a self-made millionaire and you'd still be gone..."
• Speaking of ska that still ska'd my world, MU330's Ultra Panic cemented the band as something beyond my 90s ska phase. The personal, thoughtful lyrics on "Speed Bump" and "Hey Now" still resonate.
• Similarly, Slow Gherkin's Run Screaming made them a ska band to grow on. "Baby Snakes" spoke to me pretty intimately.
• Desaparecidos were the only way I could handle Conor Oberst at the time. Overtly political and too loud to notice the whiny vocals? Yes please!
• I just recently got Title TK by The Breeders. Nice record!
• Stephin Merritt's Eban & Charley soundtrack was lovely enough, but it includes one of my (many I guess) favorite Merritt compositions, "This Little Ukulele." One of those simple songs that seemed like it should have been put together before 2002 A.D. but we finally got it and it's an instant classic.
• Dntel with Ben Gibbard = the beginnings of a certain Postal Service...oh boy!
• Jim O'Rourke did a lot of good for the music world in 2002. He brought Sonic Youth to sound a little bit more like Wilco on Murray Street, and he made Wilco sound a little bit like Sonic Youth on Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. Both of these albums are bonafide indie classics.
•  I went and saw Cursive this past month on their Ugly Organ tour. That album was from 2003 and I'll talk about it plenty in the next entry I'm sure. But on the way to the show, on shuffle for 2002, I was fortunate enough to have their split with Eastern Youth come on. One of their best uses of cello, the song "Excerpts from Various Notes Strewn Around the Bedroom of April Connolly Feb 24, 1997" came on and I remembered it being one of my favorite Cursive tunes. They played that one at the show and I was one of the few people rocking out to it, which was weird because it's one of their best but I guess that split is less well known than their full length albums.
• Some real indie stuff was getting started in 2002, bands that would hit their peak in popularity in the era of 2005-2007, when I was at my peak in listening to bands like that. Mirah, Deerhoof, Spoon (the official beginning of their Midas phase which is still going on??), some Neko Case, Decemberists, The Mountain Goats, and more!
• Flaming Lips. Yoshimi. Do you Realize?? Do I need to say anything more?
• Heiruspecs became a favorite hip hop live band that I happened to see a few times. Their next album was better though so I'll try to talk about them when that comes up.
• Beck on Sea Change was a new Beck but it really showcased that he was more than fun beats and fun tricks...
• For more mainstream hip hop, Missy Elliot nailed it on Under Construction.
• Johnny Cash's American Recordings comeback became very real to me (and probably many others) on American IV: The Man Comes Around. The first one I got personally, the one I probably listen to the most, is probably the most vital of the era, and of course it has his cover of "Hurt" which needs no other words.
• I had a recording of the CU Marching Band doing all the songs we did that previous fall. I think I could kind of hear that great trombone player known to readers as Quiet Brandon, but who knows because he was probably pretty quiet.

Next Time:
Alkaline Trio kind of redeem themselves to me! Beulah finishes up. Black Eyes are amazing. Classic Calexico! Deerhoof/Decemberists/Dirty Projectors for a trio of D. The Black Album!! Another great Lawrence Arms classic! I go pretentious with The Mars Volta & Radiohead! Speakerboxx/The Love Below! Another Polysics album to go down in history! Something called The Postal Service. Michigan. The debut EP from TV On The Radio!! Elephant is something classic I think! And another indisputable classic album by Weird Al.