An Ear For An Era: 2017

And just like that, after so many years and so many songs and so many more songs, I have reached my last AEFAE. Series finale. Or whatever. I started this partly because I realized I had an excessive amount of music but couldn't decide what to listen to. And now I'll come right back upon that conundrum. I think now that I'm a bit older though I'll spend more time listening to stuff I just know I like. There is a lot of that and it is a place to begin.

What happened in 2017...hmmm...for some reason there was a lot of protest music. Yeah. And my wife got pregnant with our son. He was born this February so he has been taking up most of my energy for the past 3 months. But that's 2018. Which will not be written about here because it's not over yet.

Music was good in 2017. I came around to the fact that in general, hip hop has been more groundbreaking lately than the rock I have held so dear. But there was some top notch music from both camps. But why am I separating them? Music is easy to categorize as this or that but there can be thematic threads through different genres and eras and time is a loop!

Music was not as good as I would hope though. Because all of the '7s in this thing have been exceptional, but 2017 was the exception to that. Still a good number of good-to-great albums came out.

Is this the longest intro thing I've done? I gotta save some bytes for the outro!

Lots of bytes have been spent on the Our First 100 Days collection (compilation?), consisting of 100 songs that were released a day at a time for the first 100 days of 45's presidency. As would be expected from 100 songs, there are hits and lesser hits. Angel Olsen and Jens Lekman were the highlights for me. And there was the Battle Hymns compilation which had a bunch of artists I like singing songs that were a bit on the nose for the most part.

A much more relevant protest album to me was Nothing Feels Natural by PRIESTS. I missed their live show last night because I have a cold. Just thought I'd throw that in here since I'm writing about them today. But this was the most interesting rock album of the year for me. Just a wild ride.

Priests "Appropriate"

Jesca Hoop followed up her collab album with Sam Beam with Memories Are Now. I came back around to Jesca Hoop recently. I've always been into her music but it started to blur together for me for a bit, but this one sounds special to me.

Nicole Atkins had a very similar trajectory to Jesca Hoop in my eyes. I discovered both around the same time, and while they are not very similar in style they both fell off briefly with me before coming back with a vengeance in 2017. Goodnight Rhonda Lee is a simply great album. "A Little Crazy" is instantly in my top Nicole Atkins songs, as she really wails as only she can.

Nicole Atkins "A Little Crazy"

Life Will See You Now, the latest from Jens Lekman, was one of my favorites. As his albums always are. I don't know how to explain how this one is special, it's just a bunch of slices of people's lives told in beautiful ways. When "Evening Prayer" came on while I was driving, it just hit me so strongly that I teared up a bit. It's just so relatable that I could put myself into the story and then be devastated by it.

Dirty Projectors' self titled album was interesting. It gets ruined a little by the condescending tone of the lyrics, but the music is really cool. It had contributions from Tyondai Braxton and that blends really well with the vocals and other experiments.

Stephin Merritt's latest project as The Magnetic Fields was his 50 Song Memoir. It was interesting to hit that as part of my musical memoir-ish project. It is a great collection of songs, some of which are amongst my favorite Merritt tracks. That alone is quite an accomplishment after all these years.

Spoon continues to astound with Hot Thoughts. I listened to it a bunch last year and when I revisited it here I realized that they had secretly thrown in a bunch of new Spoon classics. I was so used to songs like Shotgun and Can I Sit Next to You that I didn't realize they were new ones. Spoon, the most consistent band in rock. Pretty sure.

Another favorite indie band of a few years ago that put out more music in 2017 was Fleet Foxes. Crack-Up was a lovely album that I really need to spend more time with than this project allowed. One thing I'm looking forward to with the freedom of not doing this is listening to stuff like this more.

Deerhoof never goes out of style for me. Mountain Moves was their most overtly political album with covers of songs like Freedom Highway by The Staples Singers and Small Axe by Bob Marley. It also has a bunch of guests, something Deerhoof hasn't really done before.

LCD Soundsystem reunited and put out an album called american dream. It seems like it's theoretically as great as their older albums but has not reached those levels for me. Maybe I just need to give it more time. Or maybe it's just great, not exceptionally great?

Sleep Well Beast is one of the more inventive albums The National has put out. And that one song sounds like a really good Pulp song. That's what I remember I wanted to write/joke when I first heard it.

The Hanged Man by Ted Leo is an interesting one. It's less punk and more...Elvis-Costello-or-Nick-Lowe-esque? He experiments with some weird harmonies and choruses and toward the back half of the album I just realized it really sounded like those favorites of the late 70s.

St Vincent! MASSEDUCTION was an odd one. It's nowhere near as great as her s/t album but I appreciate her direction on this one. But the sexy sounds of half the album just really brings attention to how great her ballads are. Songs like New York and Happy Birthday, Johnny remind me of great Tom Waits or Lou Reed songs. But I want her to shred some guitar on her next album.

St Vincent "New York"

One more indie band I feel kind of obligated to write about is Arcade Fire. Helloooooo, backlash. I was lashing back at these guys back at Neon Bible, but now that everyone has caught up and hated on Everything Now, I kind of want to defend them. Oddly, when I listened to it first I got through the first 4 tracks (including the title track, Signs of Life, and Creature Comfort) before I got to work. At that point I was ready to say that this is a solid album and people are getting picky about silly things. Then Peter Pan came on on the drive home and it felt like a slog through the middle section of the album before ending somewhat strongly for the last couple songs. What I wanted to say early though was that you just have to take this band on their terms. You can't cynically go in with a bad attitude, you have to just immerse yourself. That's how Reflektor was to me. But this one...yeah, hit and miss.

Kendrick Lamar has yet to miss and he hit us all pretty hard with DAMN. (how's that for a segue?) When I first heard the album, I was mostly taken by how much it just sounds like a collection of songs. Of course, that was all surface level and it turned out to be another masterpiece with themes running through it and a flow. Plus all the bangers on it. Plus the whole thing where playing it with the track order reversed makes it make even more sense front to back (I ended this project by listening to this album backward. I think I preferred it this way).

I can't say why I enjoy Oddisee so much, but The Iceberg is a special album to me. It almost reminds me of some of the indie 90sish hip hop I used to listen to.

Shabazz Palaces only reminds me of Shabazz Palaces, even though dude was in an actual 90s indieish hip hop group. The two separately released but complementary albums Quazarz: Born on a Gangster Star and Quazarz vs. The Jealous Machines are very dense but I think I'm finally starting to get to where I can appreciate them. So again, more music to listen to more!

Vince Staples continues the trend of hip hop that's not even really hip hop at this point other than the rapping. Big Fish Theory is a straight up great electronic album.

Open Mike Eagle continues to be the rapper I most enjoy lyrically, and Brick Body Kids Still Daydream is just another pile of reasons for that.

I listened to a few things only once, since I had acquired them at the end of the year and I was trying to get this project done. But I need to pay a lot more attention to the following:
Waxahatchee
Algiers
Charlotte Gainsbourg (really excited about this one, IRM was one of my favorites)
Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings (rest in power, Sharon Jones! I am not happy that there is no more new music to hear from you.)
Slowdive
gSp

So that's it. Thanks for reading. What have I learned?

• Not as much as I was hoping to learn. When I was working through the 70s I was excited that I was becoming so aware of what albums came out in what years, but I've lost all that knowledge among the mess that was the 21st century. There's just way too much.
• I learned I have more music than I can listen to in 4 years (was it 4 years?)
• The early 70s weren't so bad and 1973 was actually very great!
• Even 1997, the one that I thought was going to break my theory of '7s, was when I really got into independent music and it also had OK Computer.
• I need to listen to an album repeatedly to really "get" it. It's hard to write about something after I listened to it once 4 weeks ago.
•  I am excited to listen to whatever I want to. New and old. Shuffling stuff.
• That new Janelle Monae album has been waiting for me.
• See you in December when I say something about 2018! But it won't be An Ear For An Era! The end of an.......................era.

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.

2013 in Music: An Outsider's Opinion

Is that title ok? Is it pretentious? I'd like to think not. I'm not saying I was above it all, I was just outside of it all. Doing this thing I've been doing on this blog I was much less invested in the music of this year than I have in years past. It will be funny when I finally reach 2013 in that other project, because the memory will be that I was focusing on older music at the time.

Not that I can consider myself a huge outsider. While I was less invested than usual, I still got a lot of music and tried to listen to it when it made sense to. In between years and whatnot. There was a lot of music I was looking forward to this year, and I couldn't just leave it alone. I just only have a few listens through of each of the albums I took seriously. And have less than the last few.

But yeah, anticipation. That has to be the theme of this year. Highly anticipated releases in some ways or others. Strange that many favorites were surprises.

I'm going to take a cue from last year and not try to rank anything. I'm just going to write about whatever I feel like sharing an opinion about. And the top top releases, I'll put stars in front of them showing my enthusiasm. But there were some overrated things I also want to write about. And other things I'm sure. Enjoy!

In Alphabetical Order Because I Am Serious About Not Ranking Things:

• ***Arcade Fire starts with an A! Early hype was "Arcade Fire is recording with James Murphy!!" Then there was the whole shrouded in mystery thing. And then a TV blitz. And it was just too much. Funny thing about this record. I love it in spite of all of that. I need to hear it more but I quite enjoy it. And I've complained in the past about them showing too much ambition, trying to make big statements and such (particularly on Neon Bible) when they were so young, and I so appreciated The Suburbs because they were taking a step back in that department. But here, they shot for the stars. And the results are fantastic. It takes a couple listens (honestly I didn't really like any of the songs the first time I heard any of them on their various TV appearances), but now songs like "Joan of Arc" and "Here Comes The Night Time" have pulled me in, and I discover more joy in this each time I put it on.
• ***Crooks On Tape just snuck up on me with their debut album Fingerprint. I've been a John Schmersal fan for a while now. After I discovered Brainiac in my early college years I was obsessed with his very own blend of delightful weirdness and undeniable catchiness. Enon became one of my "top 3" bands for the longest time past that, and they kind of mysteriously stopped doing things, and I tried to watch for any new Schmersal projects but didn't hear about anything. Until a week before this album dropped. It is almost everything I love about Enon! A wide variety, a respectable amount of experimentation and weirdness, and the catchiness. Oh, the catchiness. I have a new band to try to get my friends to love as much as I do!
• **David Bowie managed to make a giant comeback without much hype about it. I need to give it even more time than I did, but I do quite like all of the material from the original album, bonus tracks, and bonus EP. That James Murphy remix for "Love is Lost" on the bonus EP is epic and I don't take that word lightly. But it's everything you would want from a combination of Bowie and Murphy.
• *Deltron 3030 put out Event 2. Now there's a release with a buildup. The first album came out in 2000 and I first started hearing about the sequel being worked on in 2006. That means the time it was hyped for for me personally (I know the artists didn't spend all this time building it up, I just got very excited when I heard about it and kept trying to find more information) was longer than the time between the original release and the start of the hype. As the release date approached and I didn't hear much from Koala or Automator and I got less and less interested in Del's solo material, I started dreading this. I worried it would suck, my expectations dropped considerably, but I still knew I had to get it. And I was just relieved that it was good! I guess the critics didn't care enough about it when it came time to make year end lists, but damnit if Automator didn't create some more catchy beats here! And the David Cross/Amber Tamblyn skits are mildly entertaining even after quite a few listens. And all the guests bring it and Del brings it and nothing will ever meet that original Deltron album but this is a very worthy successor.
• *Elvis Costello working with The Roots? Do You Want More??! Get Happy! This one was an odd one, this Wise Up Ghost. Again, highly anticipated for me, as Elvis Costello is my #1 all time #1. And The Roots are The Roots! And for as restless as the chameleon Mr Costello is musically, it felt like he was treading water on the last couple albums. So ?uestlove was just the one to shake things up. Things never live up to expectations but still, this is a good shake up of some old Costello lyrics and new context and yet another dynamite ballad from the master, "Tripwire."
• ***Janelle Monae is The Electric Lady. She got considerably more popular this year, didn't she? That "alternative reality pop music" I spoke of a couple years ago may be coming to fruition. I don't know if this album quite measures up to The Archandroid in consistency, but its bangers are as hot as the bangers of its predecessor. It's just so damned front loaded. Hook 'em with the hook, hold 'em with the heartbreak and love ballads. She makes it work but I just preferred the ballads of old a little more. Might be the lack of commitment on my part though.
• Ok, everybody putting Yeezus on the top of their list makes me feel like this year was subpar or something. I was so excited for this after seeing him on Saturday Night Live, because it was (one of?) the biggest stars in pop music doing something abrasive and angry and anti-commercial and using his talent for good. But then I got the album and it just fell short for me. And the more I listened to it the more I wanted to just listen to Saul Willams' Trent Reznor produced album from a few years ago. Something with an actual message and not just bitching. Something with anger instead of hate. Something with the passion I thought I heard when I first heard those first couple songs.
• ****My Bloody Valentine killed it with their first album in forever (making it highly anticipated) and its surprise release (undercutting any building anticipation that would have formed). This cuts to my soul, man! Like Radiohead. And it beats "chillwave" at its own game by bringing a rock-oriented version of that atmosphere (that mbv had been integral in creating in the first place all those years ago). I don't know how to write about this but this might be #1 if I were keeping track.
• ***Not only do The National grow on me when I listen to an album over and over, but they grow on me with every album they release. The odd time signatures on this one, the chorus about being the television version of someone with a broken heart, I keep liking every album of theirs a bit more than its predecessor. Not sure if that's just me...
• ***And Okkervil River continues to be underrated forever as they just up and put out another masterpiece this year and nobody seems to remember it come year-end time. I mean, it's fine, I appreciate that I can see them at places like The Marquis instead of having to pay for The Fillmore.
• Another highly anticipated one was Talib Kweli's Prisoner of Conscious. When I first heard about it it seemed like it was going to be a very personal album for him, a grand statement that would push him to a new level. There were even a couple albums that came out before that, so I figured he was saving something for PoC. But then it just came out without fanfare and something about it just isn't what I hoped for.
• **Weird, this Yo La Tengo album doesn't have any songs over 10 minutes! Not even over 7 minutes! What we get is the usual YLT catchiness and diversity and they even sneak some of that feel-goodness that only they ever really accomplish for me, usually over the course of an epic long track. In this case it's over some short pop songs, but it still works.

I have less to say about these but still something:

• !!! THR!!!ER They have some good beats here, and this album served as the soundtrack to many runs this year very effectively. Highly energetic, singing about sweating, other catchiness. Pitchfork complained about the lack of huge builds and drops a la "Intensified" from their first album, and sure, those would have pushed this over the top, but this album shows a maturity and songwriting craft that was very conspicuously absent from their older material.
• Aceyalone's Leanin' On Slick was kind of a sequel to The Lonely Ones, one of my favorite random hip hop experiments. But this one felt like it should have come before The Lonely Ones, because it was less of a stretch from his "normal" material.
• Bilal. I wanted to love A Love Surreal but instead I merely like it. There's plenty to like on this record and he continues to be quite underrated.
• I like the idea of the Daft Punk album and it took me longer than it should have to get over "Get Lucky."
• Danny Brown...yeah I got it because it was cheap and I think I like it but I didn't have time to listen to it enough to form a strong opinion of it. Maybe it will be spoken of highly when the ol' EfaE catches up to 2013...
• Death Grips put out another free album in case people forgot about a true bombastic/abrasive/angry hip hop artist in the wake of Yeezus...
• The Ex & Brass Unbound. Enormous Door. What else can The Ex do these days? Bring in a brass band! It's a killer combination.
• How about that Justin Timberlake? Fun guy.
• Man or Astro-Man made a triumphant return as well this year! Defcon 5...4...3...2...1 is that same old band that's been consistently awesome with every release.
• Hey everyone! Neko Case is still amazing! Bonus points for the cover of the "other" Nico!
• of Montreal in a song format must leave less of an impression on me than their wild and crazy concepts, but I still like that they did what they did with this one.
• I dug that Phosphorescent one, it reminded me of what I like about Fleet Foxes.
• The Pixies have to have their name on something from this century, and something without Kim. I kind of dig that "Indie Cindy" song but for the most part this new EP sounds just like a Frank Black solo album. But what else are they supposed to sound like at this point? 
• Run The Jewels. El-P and Killer Mike just having a good time. Yes please.
• I feel like She & Him have reached a new level of confidence and swagger with Volume 3. I like it.

I admit I missed the boat on...

• Savages. That was on my list all year and I never did get it. I know, it was the best.
• Vampire Weekend. I'm ok with Pitchfork calling it album of the year if only because I'm sick of seeing Kanye top every list. I used to have something against them but I think I'd actually like their new material now.
• Where CHVRCHES as great as people have been saying?
• Disclosure?
• Who are all these young whippersnappers?

I'll be back in a bit with something older than me.