I imagine the best way to build up a loyal readership base is to rarely post on this thing. I don't want to overload people, you know? Well I'm sorry to interrupt my silence with the one reliable post I like to make. The music retrospective!
I wanted to list all my favorite albums of the decade but I didn't have much time for that. I still might make a list but not try to write about them yet again because I just wrote about all the things in those yearly retrospectives as well as An Ear For An Era. So it was revisited just a bit ago. I am trying to finish up my top 100 songs of the decade playlist, because that's a fun way to do things and it's somewhat related to another project I'm working on - a podcast! But that's a different entry.
2019 was a year I was on Spotify. It's a weird world. I still purchased vinyl for most of these, I'll try to do so for at least all the albums I love enough to put on a list like this. But the nice thing about streaming services is that very few of these albums are ones I would have known to check out if it wasn't so easy. Most of them were things I gave a chance on and got hooked onto. My tastes seem to be drifting off in other directions. I'm more interested in something that probably has a name but I will call singer-songwriter-R&B. Like, soul that is more of an individual statement by the artist? I don't know, but I was into a lot of that instead of my usual indie rock. And a renewed interest in punk rock, particularly that fronted by women. I guess I'm starting to get somewhat bored by bearded dudes that look like me.
I was also less into hip hop this year. I liked a few albums but none cracked this list for me. Maybe my brain just couldn't process it enough. Having said that, there are a few hip hop albums I highly recommend in the Honorable Mentions list below.
So here comes the list. There are fourteen. I'm not ranking them this year because I'm back in the "ranking something so subjective seems so silly" mode. There was also no clear #1. If it's on this list, I found it very compelling and found myself going back to it a lot this year. Call it a 14-way tie. It's in more-or-less chronological order.
Sharon van Etten - Remind Me Tomorrow
She took what I loved about some of her songs from previous albums and made a full album of it. Just great get-your-fists-pumping music with lots of passion and empathy. I don't have a lot of words about this but I was very into it.
Le Butcherettes - bi/MENTAL
I just found this band last year when they opened up for Hot Snakes. I was blown away by their performance. This is their first new album since then and it's a quite good payoff. Good chaos rock full of righteous rage. Empowering words, and a musical style that fits somewhere between DC angular hardcore and Detroit jangle rock and hits you in the jugular? Does that make any sense when describing a Mexican punk band?
Adia Victoria - Silences
So badass. Kind of reminds me of listening to Tom Waits, even though it's pretty different. At least vocally. I think she could play Tom Waits songs and Tom Waits could play Adia Victoria songs and I wouldn't bat an eye. There's a knowingness to her vocals and lyrics. Kind of the blues with that Waits style of drunken music that accompanies the vocals but not quite in lockstep. More of a companion that understands you and shares your world view but doesn't need to talk about it all the time.
Kelsey Lu - Blood
Kind of reminds me of why I first got into Jesca Hoop. Very similar vocal delivery. Very haunting. Probably a little more range though. Sometimes she goes off and reminds me of a singing saw. That with the strings that come naturally with her cello background feels like it's swirling around you like a tornado but not, like, damaging anything. You know?
Jamila Woods - Legacy! Legacy!
Maybe my favorite sung album of the year. And the hip hop beats just pull me along. I'm having a hard time describing why I love this album, it just feels so right. It's soul and it's hip hop and I know those genres have spent so much time together, and I don't know why this is unique but it just is. It's like nothing else even if it's like other things. Definitely making sense here.
Otoboke Beaver - Itekoma Hits
This is so fresh to me. The bursts of noise, it reminds me of the punk I was into in the early 2000s. Like Refused. That level of precision to the explosions of noise, but this is a new noise. It has a youth factor about it. It takes me back to high school even though that was half my life ago. Infectious energy with frequent start/stop tempos. I think that basically explains the awesomeness that is Otoboke Beaver.
black midi - Schlagenheim
Mathy. It gets me. From Battles to Deerhoof to The Ex, rhythm section driven chaos is extremely my jam, and we can put black midi on that list. I don't feel like working anything else about this. If you haven't heard of them but like those listed bands you should check them out.
Purple Mountains - Purple Mountains
It reminds me of great 70s singer songwriters of great wit such as Harry Nilsson and Warren Zevon, all of whom are dead. I always meant to check out Silver Jews but they remained on that list of someday. Someday passes at some point. When David Berman passed, I finally checked out his work, starting with this solo effort released very shortly before he took his leave. It's an eerie listen to hear these lighthearted songs of depression because it feels like a suicide note. But it's so catchy and inviting. It makes the whole thing so damn disturbing but irresistible.
Gauche - A People’s History of Gauche
It sounds like Sleater-Kinney at first and then it evolves into sounding like Black Eyes. Very adventurous and wonderful. I mourn the Priests hiatus just a little bit less knowing it could lead to more Gauche. Punky and funky and the right kind of off-putting.
Bleached - Don’t You Think You’ve Had Enough?
I feel like this was very underappreciated. Bleached was always very poppy in their punk, and here they leaned even further into that to a somewhat Blondie-esque sound. I loved it. The whole album is catchy, maybe catchier than most of their older stuff. And when they do decide to rock, such as on “Daydream” and the payoff of “Shitty Ballet” (a song I don’t care for until suddenly I love), it’s that much better.
Sleater-Kinney - The Center Won’t Hold
It might not be the best Sleater-Kinney album of the decade, but there was something very compelling about it that I kept listening to it. And the 1-2-3-4 punch of the last four songs beginning with “Bad Dance” is a real knockout. If that were an EP it would be right up there. It speaks so clearly to the urgency of this moment in history. I just wish it had worked out with Janet Weiss.
Baby Rose - To Myself
Uncanny how much she sounds like Nina Simone but still so modern. Beautiful, sometimes heartbreaking, and always with a haze of “cool” over everything. This would be great in a movie soundtrack to really elevate a scene of intensity
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - Ghosteen
It’s just so vulnerable. So moving. A really heavy listen. The last album Skeleton Tree was one of my top albums of the decade and I can’t decide if this one is even better. Every time he sings the title phrase in the song “Waiting for you” I just get chills and have to stop whatever I’m doing. It might hit closer to home now that I’m a father, and I hate to say that because great art can make you feel things regardless of your personal context. But an already amazing album is deepened by the very heavy weight of its subject matter and knowing what happened to Cave and his family. You have to be ready to listen to this, though there is no preparing for what it contains.
Kim Gordon - No Home Record
I didn’t give myself enough spins on this one, but it was so great when I did. I was always partial to the Kim songs on Sonic Youth albums, and her other projects (like all SY related side projects) were very avant garde. This solo album strikes the same balance the great SY albums have, where it’s plenty weird and interesting but there’s a pop anchor to grab onto. But very different in other ways. More electronic in an industrial sense, without sounding like anything else I’ve really listened to. Maybe brief hints of Nine Inch Nails, but it sounds very new.
Those are the ones. Here are some honorable mentions.
As mentioned above, Malibu Ken, Little Simz, Rapsody, and Danny Brown. Plus People Under The Stairs.
Mike Krol, FEELS, Uranium Club, Petrol Girls, Titus Andronicus, Yeesh, Battles.
Better Oblivion Community Center, Stella Donnelly, Wilco, Angel Olsen.
Nekhane, Helado Negro, Calexico & Iron & Wine, Bill Callahan, Jesca Hoop, Esther Rose.
Mekons, Hot Chip, Pixies, New Pornographers.
Carly Rae Jepsen, Charly Bliss, Kitty Kat Fan Club.
I am now a father and my life is so very different in 2018. My priorities, the joy I feel, my newfound affinity for "dad rock..."
In 2018 I also finished that crazy aEfaE project, so my music listening returned to focusing on the present.
I decided to try out a streaming service at this point because aEfaE showed me that I have spent too much money on my music library and it is too big. I went with Apple Music because it would incorporate with my existing music library, except when it didn't. There are random songs missing from my library in Apple Music when I own them via legit, artist-supporting ways. Which means I have to add them if I want to listen to them on my phone, and then my itunes shows two versions of a track. So I think I might try Spotify and keep my library as a separate entity. For reference and for things that are not available on said 'fy.
But yeah, everything relating to how I consume music was different in 2018. I'm trying to figure out this new world. If I already tried to consume too much by buying too much, having access to almost everything compounds that issue. In any given week, there are at least 3-4 new albums worth checking out if I don't have to pay for them. And looking at the list below, the majority of my favorite stuff is not the obvious stuff I knew I'd like before I gave it a shot.
And I mostly only listen to music in the car on the way to/from work and daycare. Sometimes when rocking the baby to sleep. And when I was putting forth effort into working out, music was sometimes involved. But that's not enough time spent listening when there is so much music.
So in 2018, there was too much music for me to digest. If anyone has any suggestions on how to handle this in 2019, please let me know. Or I can just become one of those 35+ year-olds who doesn't bother with all this new music. Maybe I should go back to only listening to one or two genres. Or let my FOMO go and not try to hear all of the things that people like. Because this too much music thing makes it very hard to appreciate music on a deeper level, on a level that rewards repeated, devoted listening. And that's my sweet spot.
Sidenote: How come the Blogger YouTube search function sucks and doesn't come up with most of the things I'm looking for? Then I can go to YouTube and find it and use the embed HTML code to put it here? Annoying, but at least it works. I should've tried that during AEFAE.
Anyway, here is what stuck out to me.
Honorable Mentions
Or: Things I Want to Talk About But Mostly Just A Little Bit Or: Things That Were Interesting But Not Good Enough Or: Things That Were Probably Good Enough But I Wouldn't Know Because There Are Only So Many Hours In The Day
This section is rather large. I kind of turned it into an Ear for an Era type post, feeling the need to cover a lot of ground. But that also reflects how much darn music I consumed! There's a lot more that I did not honorably mention, mostly because I didn't have enough time to devote but is promising and maybe someday I'll hear it (yeah right).
Right away I just want to write about that compilation Dr. Demento Covered In Punk. It came out in January or so. I heard about it because "Weird Al" covered The Ramones on it. That cover was pretty well publicized, of course. But there is so much more going on here. This is a compilation of my junior high self and my high school self (as in my major development of musical taste). All the stuff from before I "liked music" and the stuff from once I "fell face first into my obsession with music." Because as I have written about in this blog, music used to be just a source of amusement for me. "Weird Al" Yankovic was the first artist I obsessively bought everything by. And it was because it was so very funny to me. Because his humor is Very Much My Humor (TM). And when I wanted a stereo with a CD player because it was a cool thing to want, and my parents were like "but you don't listen to music," my only argument was that I listened to "Weird Al" tapes. Then I got the CD player and started getting "Weird Al" CDs. But I didn't really like other music (some Presidents of the United States of America maybe, but they were also pretty novelty-heavy). Then I got some Cartoon Planet CDs when I discovered that amazing show. Which was more Very Much My Humor (TM). My first Christmas album was Dr. Demento Presents The Greatest Christmas Novelty CD of All Time. Novelty music was the music for me. And then along came ska and with it, punk. And it was a whole different thing. And I became obsessed with music forever and now I feel the need to write a blog to keep up with it all in some way. So a compilation that combines novelty music and punk is a very personal thing to me. And it is Very Much My Humor (TM). And the punk is very much legit punk. In 1998 this compilation would have totally blown my mind. In 2018, this compilation totally blows my mind. I only like around half the songs (hence it only being an Honorable Mention), but I don't care. The fact that this exists is insanity to me. Talking too deeply about it seems like it ruins it though. It's best to listen to it blind, not knowing what's coming up, and taking it in. But I will just say that Brak's cover of "Institutionalized" by Suicidal Tendencies is maybe the most perfect culmination of what this CD aims to be, and it really seems like the song was written specifically for Brak.
Brak "Institutionalized"
And that is more than I will talk about anything else in this blog post.
Some other bands/artists from my past put out some fun music as well. The Smoking Popes' original lineup had their first album in 20ish years. It includes some very Popesy gems as well as some cheesy songs. Cursive put out their first album with a cello (though not with that cellist) in 15ish years and it's probably their best album in that period (though it's been something of a rocky period). I certainly enjoyed it more than their last several albums. Hot Snakes had a big reunion and continued to be as awesome as ever. I went to the show for that one.
Titus Andronicus and of Montreal each put out full length albums consisting of a few long tracks. In Titus Andronicus' case, it was enjoyable and loose, though some of those songs went on too long. As for of Montreal, it was their best album in a while.
Oddly enough, I quite enjoyed the new one by The Good, The Bad, and The Queen. I say "oddly" because I had begun to reach Damon Albarn Fatigue with those last couple Gorillaz albums and I wasn't particularly into the first TGTBaTQ album. But I'll be damned.
Zeal & Ardor - Stranger Fruit. That was an interesting concept and a couple of the songs were truly awesome. I'm excited to see where this project goes! Next year they're touring with Deafheaven; they are pretty reliably awesome and this year was no exception. I also was really into that Sumac album.
There is a weird lineage of awesome rock that goes from Sleater-Kinney (obviously awesome) to Wild Flag (not too surprisingly awesome) to Ex Hex (starting to get the idea here, awesome) to Bat Fangs (who I just stumbled upon not having known of their existence, but it was exactly what I was expecting). Their self titled album (are any of these bands going to put out a second album? or does it matter because we are still consistently getting awesome music under different variations of similar concepts?) is obviously great. I just can't wait for whatever random band offshoots from Bat Fangs!
I was a bit surprised at how much I enjoyed Big Red Machine. I almost didn't even bother adding it to my library because members of The National have so many side projects going that it's not really worth trying to keep up. And Justin Vernon has a few projects of his own. But damn, did all involved create something unique and beautiful.
I never really got into the music of John Spencer. I remember when "Weird Al" directed a John Spencer Blues Explosion music video and that piqued my interest but it didn't go anywhere because I mostly just wanted punk rock at the time. And years later, the song in Baby Driver was rad. Then late this year, he put out an album called Spencer Sings the Hits. Since Spencer is my son's name, I thought it would be amusing on some level to check it out. Plus I saw a review of this album that made it sound awesome. And it turns out it is awesome. Just trashy dirty awesome rock and roll that I crave.
What a year it was for hip hop, eh? In addition to some of the stuff in the real list, there was just so much and I'm still not very good at writing about it. But Knife Knights' 1 Time Mirage was something special. Kind of a side project for Ishmael Butler of Shabazz Palaces, it had the jams and headiness I like from them. What else? Well, Dr. Octagon's actual return was overlooked by pretty much everybody. Not like it was an especially great album but there was a track with Deltron 3030 so that was awesome. I think Kool Keith has been pretty reliably great the last couple years. Of course, Black Thought put out his first solo material and both of those EPs are just bars and bars from the best. And Earl Sweatshirt seems to really be elevating the game on Some Rap Songs. Noname came out with Room 25 and the description was exactly what I'd been searching for and really delivered on that promise. I still haven't seen the movie Sorry to Bother You but the soundtrack album (EP?) by The Coup was fantastic, with Tune-Yards' fingerprints all over it. Just so much energy. I didn't fall as heavily for Vince Staples' new one but no matter, it's one of his "in between" years when he puts out something minor. To me it just sounded like a good rap album as opposed to some genre defying masterpiece.
Jean Grae and Quelle Chris put out an album together called Everything's Fine. It was a lot of fun and had comedians doing guest spots and such, but I just wished there had been more Jean Grae on it!
I came back to that Kilo Kish EP quite a bit this year as well. I'm assuming she's going to put out something amazing in the near future.
Oh, and all-time favorite Elvis Costello. I think Look Now is at least his best since The Delivery Man. That was his first official album with The Imposters. This one really catches the sound of The Imposters as their own entity. The groove of the bass. And the songs and the words. He's always got some lyrical gems and they are plentiful here, especially in those ballads.
I was destined to have a soft spot for the new one from Phosphorescent, C'est La Vie. I had a soft spot for his previous album, and this time he's singing about fatherhood. And it seems very dorky when he sings about "thinking about another beer." And I am on board with that. Thinking about another beer and maybe an order of jalapeno poppers for me and my friends, you know? I can't think of anything about Phosphorescent that should make the music stand out to me. But I love it. And this was an album I listened to on multiple occasions with my own beautiful baby boy, trying to get him to fall asleep. He seemed to like it ok too.
As I write this, I'm hearing Lucy Dacus' Historian for the first time. There was too much to check out and some things had to slip! So I first heard her when there was all that hype around boygenius. That EP is wonderful, though it didn't quite grab me like it seemed to grab everyone else. But it is just the type of thing I could find myself loving after spending enough time with it. Now the Dacus album is starting to pick up. I really like this. If I'd spent proper time with it I could see it being on the "real" list below. Oh, and now the song "The Shell" is hitting me a little too close to home. Damn.
I have to call out another very special record called Childqueen by Kadhja Bonet. One of those things I just found by restlessly browsing through said streaming service for something unique and awesome. Following layers of "you might also like." This record is like a beautiful score musically and evokes this bizarre feeling of being in an old cartoon or something, in a meadow with a smiling sun. You know, that type of music.
One really cool album that impresses me every time I listen to it is Ultraviolet by Kelly Moran. This is usually the type of thing that I like more in theory than in practice. Heavily improvised, experimental music created by modifying a piano. I can't tell you how many experimental/improvisational albums I've purchased because it sounds like it's something I should like (not that I don't like these, I just usually listen to them once or twice and then am never in the mood to pull them back out). This is really cool though. It's accessible. Kind of like Battles, in that it's experimental music that is just catchy to me and I can listen to it whenever. It should be the soundtrack to a horror movie (particularly the track "Helix") except that would be doing a disservice to the music, which stands so strong on its own that I wouldn't want some cheesy visuals trying to keep up.
Kelly Moran "Helix (Edit)"
And the Top 7 Albums of 2018 In My Ears Are:
Or: Why we're here Or: The word of the year is Relatable.
Why 7? In honor of my beautiful baby, who is my parents' seventh grandchild and whose three names each have seven letters. And also because it is the cutoff for truly killer material that I was able to absorb enough to know was killer.
7. Open Mike Eagle - What Happens When I Try to Relax (buy it!)
It's an EP. But it feels like a new era for Open Mike Eagle (partially because this is the first release of his new record label). The production just seems more...dynamic. But the lyrical cleverness is still there. And a word that shall be used to describe all of the albums on this list is the song that kicks it all off.
Open Mike Eagle "Relatable (Peak OME)"
6. Robyn - Honey
It's delicate. It's a grower. Robyn has grown beyond the sass that has defined much of her sound. But the sincerity is still there, making it particularly relatable. Maybe even moreso than last time around. Robyn is a treasure. Didn't we all miss Robyn? That first track "Missing U" starts off and immediately puts you in the mood for some Robyn jams. Then it quiets down a bit and gets very personal. This might be my favorite track:
Robyn "Because It's In The Music"
5. Troye Sivan - Bloom (buy it!)
Is it weird that I'm ranking this kid above Robyn? I feel a little weird doing it. But Bloom is a very beautiful album that does a lot of the stuff I love about Robyn's music. It's the earnestness in the pop. It makes me feel the way Body Talk made me feel. But make no mistake, this is pure, no-qualifiers-pop. Do I finally "like" pop music? Did I just take the longest journey to come around this way? Maybe I should've given that Ariana Grande album a chance while I was at it! Oh yeah, and it's relatable.
Troye Sivan "Animal"
4. Mitski - Be the Cowboy (buy it!)
Another artist that critics have always loved and I didn't quite spend enough time with. But this time I did! Be the Cowboy is great! All the shifting tones and moods and everything, all the catchiness beyond that, and it's hella relatable. Even as she went less personal than previous albums, it is so universal and it feels like she's singing about herself because it feels like she's singing about all of us.
Mitski "Nobody"
3. Janelle Monae - Dirty Computer
I just deleted a fairly large paragraph I'd written about this. I just listened to the album again and had some things I wanted to say. Monae has always been one of my absolute favorites and anticipation for this album was very high. So it was bound to be a little bit disappointing when there was no jam that hit the highs of some of her older songs such as "Dance Apocalyptic" and "Tightrope." But really, not sure if anyone has hit those highs ever. My initial disappointment was also in its being more accessible than previous efforts. But ironically, it still grew on me. Just in a different way. Easy to love, and a breezier listen than the older albums (not as many ballads, just jam after jam after jam). But the main thing I'm getting to after writing another paragraph worth of nonsense is that this album sounds like freedom. It's got so many great messages of acceptance and love and exercising freedom. And while a couple of the songs have a couple cheesy lines and I still think the closing track is extra cheesy and sounds too happy, it's also perfect for that same reason. It's accessible. And when I saw her perform live this summer (one of the few shows I made it out to this year), it made me a believer in that. It's a message that needs to get out to everyone so it needs to be accessible and relatable to all. No elitism. (And "Django Jane" gets really close to those aforementioned highs)
Janelle Monae "I Like That"
2. U.S. Girls - In A Poem Unlimited
I first heard of U.S. Girls when they did a remix of PRIESTS, a definite standout in 2017. Not that I cared much for the remix. And once I came to streamland, I checked out this album and did not immediately particularly care for it. But then I kept trying. I gave it a bunch of chances. I think I knew there was something there that I had to keep trying. And I put a bunch of the songs on my workout mix. And eventually it paid off. Every song on this album is such a jam, I don't know how I found it so unapproachable before. Something something relatable.
U.S. Girls "M.A.H."
1. serpentwithfeet - soil (buy it!)
When I first asked a friend if he'd heard this album, he said "isn't it kind of weird?" But of course. It is very weird. And maybe it makes up for the rest of my list being dominated by actual pop music. I'm still into weird stuff! It's mostly a capella but has as full of a sound as anything else. The passion that comes through every second of this album was enough to draw me in, first out of curiosity for all the sounds and what they were doing, and then keep me coming back. The intense emotion plays out in a way that anyone who has loved deeply and lost deeply can't help but find it relatable. If you've ever struggled to breathe due to that grief, the sound of all those voices really sounds and feels like a breath of fresh air, and such a release at the same time.
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.
Remember 2016? Sure you do. It was so recent. Yet so long ago.
A tense time, a sad time, a time with a few breaks from the sad tension...
We did go to Universal Studios and the Simpsons area they have there. That was great. And we went to Germany, which was legendarily great. In January, we took a short vacation to Florida and an even shorter two-night cruise to the Bahamas. It was on that cruise ship when we found out that David Bowie had died.
And that just kind of kicked off the year that would be 2016.
Blackstar by Bowie is about as great a swan song as any artist has delivered. It has the sounds of a restless artist putting everything out there in a final purge of energy. A scream, not a sigh. Jazz and industrial and rock and whatever words you use when you describe Bowie's career in full. It's all there. And yet, there was probably more in there lost to the afterlife. The last song is called "I Can't Give Everything Away." Even so, he gave more than most any artist in our lives. I can't say enough even though I've said nothing. Bowie.
David Bowie "I Can't Give Everything Away"
Iggy Pop recorded an album with Josh Homme called Post Pop Depression. It was great and inventive and I spent much of the year worrying he would join his compatriots in the afterlife. Especially since last time I saw him live (I can't believe I have seen him three times!) he talked a bit about probably not being much longer for this world. But he continues. And Post Pop Depression is an awesome album. But even that album title!
Savages are a kind of direct descendent of Iggy Pop's post punk innovations, and their second album Adore Life is super engaging and makes me want to go to 1979 in Germany or something.
I feel like people didn't freak out enough about Emily's D+Evolution by Esperanza Spalding. I know it got some rave reviews, which was why I decided to give it a shot when it eventually hit the $5 bin. But I just finally listened to it now and wow. This is so much. It's funky, it's post punk, it's so much in addition to the "jazz" label. Not that jazz has limitations. But as much as I heard she was branching out or whatever, I did not expect this. I need to listen to it more times.
Freetown Sound by Blood Orange was another great singular vision of high creativity. Usually something with as many guests as this would feel a bit scattered, but this was a clear statement and so of the times in 2016 (and today, it's only 2 years later after all, things don't change that fast...).
Another respite from the challenges of living in 2016 was Welcome the Worms by Bleached. Pop punk in the true sense of the word is the catchiest music to me. And no song was in my head in 2016 as much as "Wednesday Night Melody."
Bleached "Wednesday Night Melody"
And back to sadness of losing great artists. Do I write about Charles Bradley here? He lived until 2017 which puts him outside the class of 2016, but he put out his final album Changes that year and it was really something. Screaming eagle indeed, his voice was unrivaled in its passion.
Perhaps my favorite album of 2016 (there were two frontrunners and I'm going to go ahead and exercise my right to not pick a #1) was created by someone who is fortunately still around, but an exploration of loss in the wake of an unspeakable tragedy. I'm speaking of Skeleton Tree by Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds. Every song on the album gives me deep feelings of love, loss, dread, and a little bit of hope. It is a masterwork. If Cave were someone besides Nick Cave, it would be a career defining album. But his catalog is so vast and incredible that I can't even attempt to quantify that. But in a year like 2016, this was (potentially tied for) the greatest thing an artist could release.
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds "Girl in Amber"
Leonard Cohen had already teased the idea of dying when he was promoting You Want It Darker, but it was still a shock when he departed shortly after its release. But he went in the way of Johnny Cash, with a string of late career masterpieces on the way out (only Cohen stuck with original compositions the whole way through). You Want It Darker was everything you want from the master. Funny, reflective, intelligent, and yes, darker.
Hip hop in 2016 was kind of amazing. To briefly shift gears from the people we lost in 2016, there were great hip hop albums by Chance the Rapper, Aesop Rock, and De La Soul. Particularly De La Soul. ...And The Anonymous Nobody was a great comeback/re-introduction/modernization of a classic crew.
And then there was Danny Brown. Atrocity Exhibition is an album that I hesitate to call a hip hop album because to my ears the only thing that makes it hip hop is the rapping. The music itself is a combination of post punk and industrial and electronic and all sorts of influences.
And Run The Jewels, that's always good. RTJ3 came out on Christmas or something like that, so it basically counts as 2016.
But of course the other best album of 2016 was a reunion and a farewell and a wake for a fallen artist. Phife Dawg of A Tribe Called Quest left this world but not before recording We Got It From Here...Thank You 4 Your Service. Furious but hopeful, pushing boundaries in a way that evokes their classic 90s output while still sounding fresh, it's almost like a debut album in how much energy and purpose it has. This is not the album 2016 deserves, but it's the album we need after a year like 2016.
A Tribe Called Quest "We The People"
And I also have to mention... Prince. Technically no 2016 music so all I can say is thank you for your service. Sharon Jones. (She had a posthumous 2017 album though, so we'll talk about her next time)
Other Things:
The Falcon - Gather Up The Chaps. The kind of sort of maturity of the latest Lawrence Arms album kind of sort of reflects onto this album but also not. I like The Falcon.
Open Mike Eagle - Hella Personal Film Festival. Continuing to evolve and be great.
ANOHNI sang a lot about drones and death and destruction on Hopelessness. A beautiful and sad album reminding us that Obama was still deeply flawed, which can be a hard thing to fathom now in 2018.
Midwest Farmer's Daughter by Margo Price is beautiful, yes it is. Artists like this are why I can never write off "modern country music."
Kendrick Lamar's untitled throwaways are gold!
Santigold's album 99 Cents was kind of a stark contrast to the general bummer of 2016 with some positivity and fun. It was good to have a break.
case/lang/veirs was a great reminder of this Neko Case fan of how great K.D. Lang is.
Sam Beam and Jesca Hoop put out a collaborative album and I liked it like I like both of them. Great complementary voices!
Frank Ocean doesn't belong down here but I don't have time to write about Blonde enough. I really need to listen to it a bunch more times anyway.
Kool Keith had a pretty great comeback in 2016 with Feature Magnetic.
I quite liked Hypercaffium Spazzinate by The Descendents.
Dan P's music is really good for playing for my son.
Avalanches returned! It was lots of fun! Danny Brown works well for their style.
Bon Iver went off the deep end (in a great way) with 22, A Million.
This:
Mac McCaughan "Happy New Year (Prince Can't Die Again)"
Next Time:
2017 shall be the last one of these, it would appear. Not soon enough, as it's near impossible to find time to write this and update playlists with a newborn around. 2017 was the year of...stuff. I think it broke the '7 narrative I've been building in this thing. I think 2016 was better. I still need to work out what the highlights actually were though.
Reader, can I call you Reader? 2015 was a year, you see, where we were all so innocent (not really) and things were so much simpler (or more complicated) and we hadn't yet entered the hellscape of a Bowie-less world (and other such disappointing developments of 2016). 2016 is modern music, current music, in 2018. But 2015 is the end of an era.
Another randomly sorted list of things. Well the sorting is more or less similar to release date, in that my stuff is sorted by quarter. So alphabetically by album, but divided by quarter. That's how I've been doing this thing for a while now.
Most notably these items:
I guess I'll just happen to start off with what is likely #1 album of the year for me. It was for a lot of people I think. Sufjan Stevens' devastating Carrie & Lowell. Sad sad songs about a mother or the idea of a mother or something, of confusion and growing up. The thing that was most striking listening to this album now was that in the time since, I have seen him live twice, and he's put out a live album and a kind of remix mixtape thingy. New and exciting interpretations of these songs that I love. And then you come back to the original takes, the spare arrangements of this album and it just makes it hit that much harder.
Sufjan Stevens "Blue Bucket of Gold"
Belle & Sebastian seemed to be trying to shed their twee image once and for all with Girls in Peacetime Want to Dance. (Aww, remember peacetime but not really peacetime, let's not romanticize that time too much now?) Not that they'd been particularly twee for some time by now, but this one had moments where they just straight up played dance pop. Good times. This was also the album that I finally saw them on tour for, and it was a show at Red Rocks with the Colorado Symphony Orchestra. Which was awesome. Charles Bradley opened for that show, which was about as amazing as you could want. But I'm talking about Belle & Sebastian. They are a perennial favorite.
That reminds me of something I wanted to talk about for 2015. Not that it was some great revelation, but 2015 really seemed to mark the point where I spent most of my new music budget on those perennial favorites, regardless of what all the cool new critics were saying was cool and new. I still checked out a few new critical darlings probably, but I'm getting older and only have so much time and I know what I like. (Breaking the format of going in that order now to talk about things). Bands like The Go! Team, Modest Mouse, The Mountain Goats (though they keep changing things up and putting out albums about wrestling and whatnot), Calexico, Jim O'Rourke, Hot Chip, Built to Spill, Battles, Wilco, !!! and Mercury Rev didn't get a ton of critical attention but they are part of the class of bands/musicians that I feel like will never let me down and put out solid B+ albums on a regular basis forever.
I'm going to talk about Sleater-Kinney separately here because No Cities to Love did not feel like a band that has put out a bunch of albums. And it was something of a reunion. But it has such freshness about it. The Woods probably would have counted in that other category, but No Cities to Love sounds almost like a debut album with its energy levels and complete awesomeness (though with some veteran musicians at the top of their game).
Courtney Barnett sure is a fresh voice in this world, isn't she? She seems to share a lot of DNA with Jonathan Richman, from the high level of wit in the lyrics (with a good amount of heart) to the speak-sing vocals to the long album titles (Sometimes I Sit and Think, and Sometimes I Just Sit). I just thoroughly enjoy just sitting and listening to her music.
The other highly regarded album of the year shortlister was of course Kendrick Lamar, whose To Pimp a Butterfly was some next level stuff, particularly in the mainstreamish line he tows. All of the Thundercat jazzy stuff, recurring motifs, thoughtful interludes and bursts of creative energy, it really is something special. I remember in 2015 I thought it was a good album but that it didn't have enough songs that could qualify as straight-up songs to quite stick with me. The revisit I just did with this project changed my mind though, as things do. Everything had stuck into my mind and unearthing that was really cool.
There was another very special record that I insisted on listening to twice (as I put it in a Facebook post, revisiting 2015 requires listening to it more than once), and that was E-mo-tion by Carly Rae Jepsen, and I don't even care what that looks like. Yes, she is hipster-approved pop, so it's not like I'm super courageous to be declaring my love for it, but damn does it sound good. To sing along to, to exercise to, to let it just dig into your brain and hum it all day. You gotta listen to it more than once.
Carly Rae Jepsen "Run Away With Me"
My final major highlight, from the final quarter of 2015, was Art Angels by Grimes. At first I was skeptical when this great experimental producer/musician went all-out pop, but it is so infectious that I don't mind. And there are still interludes and postludes and odd song structures that prove her avant bonefides and keep me wanting more and more.
Other highly notable items
THEESatisfaction - EarthEE - Bold, engaging, I think it matches the last album in terms of quality. they will be missed!
Father John Misty probably counts as someone who was new and cool with critics even though he came from the world of Fleet Foxes (who were still relatively new compared to those 20 year old bands). I Love You, Honeybear is a pretty great record. I like his ranty old man character he takes on.
John Carpenter's Lost Themes is an awesome collection of jams.
The Sonics came back after forever and put out This Is the Sonics, which is a title that reminds me of their album titles from the 60s. Lots of fun garage rock as one might expect from the almighty Sonics.
I picked up Apocalypse, Girl by Jenny Hval because I apparently had money to burn at the record store (and the cover amused me, and it was on the reliable Sacred Bones records, and I looked it up really quick and it had good reviews, and I like nordic stuff in general). But was I ever glad I did. This album sounds great on headphones, reminds me of Laurie Anderson or something.
Downtown Boys are real good.
Old reliable Kermit Ruffins put out a hashtag album called #imsoneworleans and I don't even care. The music's great so whatever!
Desaparecidos came back so I'm sure everything was going fine politics-wise.
Vince Staples deserves more than a bullet point for his double album but I'm neglectful.
Georia Anne Muldrow actually rapped on her album A Thoughtiverse Unmarred. And I dig it quite a bit!
Both Beach House albums made for some good headphone listening.
CHVRCHES are real good too y'all. More of that pop music.
MEOW THE JEWELS.
One tragedy of this strategy was that the really dense albums I couldn't give enough time in 2015 didn't get any less dense, so they still didn't get enough attention on revisit. Remind me to give The Most Lamentable Tragedy by Titus Andronicus a lot more attention in the near future (and yes, I know they have a new one coming out!)
Dilly Dally is a very interesting band that I'm hoping to hear more from soon.
Next Time:
I feel like 2016 was pretty epic, if nothing else. Many terrible things happened. Lots of great music came out though. Bowie of course, De La Soul, Danny Brown, Frank Ocean, Blood Orange, The Falcon, Open Mike Eagle, Run The Jewels, Solange, Nick Cave, A Tribe Called Quest, Avalanches, Leonard Cohen, Bon Iver, et al.
2014 was more doing this project. I also went to Costa Rica. That was pretty awesome.
This will be quick. I almost feel like I'm just getting these out of the way. With a baby coming soon, my focus is going to be in other places. I'm hoping to continue to use this blog to relate music to what my new life will be. Whatever that means.
So real quick, 2014.
Oh and my stupid itunes synching app stopped synching play counts/times so it's harder to keep track. Stupid thing.
I'm going to just do this like a quick recap where I write a few sentences about just a few of the many albums I listened to here. Not really in any order. Well the order is approximately the order I listened to stuff in, which is a somewhat randomized version of the order they were released in (shuffling all the albums of a given quarter)
Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings - Give the People What They Want. I saw them live on this tour. It was the last time I would see them. WEWANTSHARON I remember being the thing. The hash tag thing. She was always amazing. Always. This album is as powerful as anything she did. RETREAT!
Neneh Cherry - Blank Project. I got this one because I so dug her album with The Thing. And because Robyn's on a track. It's pretty hot stuff that you might have forgotten about so give it a spin.
Vertical Scratchers - Daughter of Everything. I just recently picked this one up because I just recently heard of it. Another Schmersal project (John of Enon and Brainiac and several other things), this one is high energy and a lot of fun. I should give it another listen and have something constructive to say!
The Lawrence Arms - Metropole. Who would have thought, huh? My favorite band in college, I loved all their stuff back then, and then I got out of college and they put out what might be their most popular album (Oh Calcutta) and I kind of let my fandom wane even though I think I do quite dig that one...but that all leads to this, almost a full decade later. Metropole. They're getting older, I'm getting older, they're singing about it, I'm relating just as I did in college. Strikes all those same old nerves. What a great, great album.
The Lawrence Arms, "The YMCA Down The Street From the Clinic"
St. Vincent - St. Vincent. What a coincidence, she has a new one now. And I'm seeing her live this January. One of, if not the last, show I go to before fatherhood. It will be a hoot! This self titled album might be my favorite of hers, as she continued her evolution to art rock god in the vein of David Byrne or something like that (easy comparison to make since she had that collab album with him). Her view of the world is so New York, so Lou Reed and Laurie Anderson, and she absolutely shreds on guitar. I dig the new one but I absolutely love this album.
St. Vincent, "Digital Witness"
Open Mike Eagle - Dark Comedy. I think I got a random email from Mello Music Group in 2014 with a free download. See, I'd dug some of that label's stuff and they put out some quality free tracks on bandcamp. This one intrigued me because it featured noted funny person Hannibal Buress. It turned out to be the Open Mike Eagle song "Doug Stamper (Advice Raps)" and it was quite funny. Eventually I picked up the album and it is so smart and funny and creative and I can't describe him as well as he does on the opening song "Dark Comedy Morning Show" when he sing-raps "For those who haven't heard of me, I'm bad at sarcasm so I work in absurdity." Eventually I saw him perform live and after several drinks I told him how much I dug his stuff and shook his hand twice. Hopefully he just found me amusing.
Open Mike Eagle, "Qualifiers"
People Under the Stairs - 12 Step Program. I like all of the things that they do, this one was notable for its "1 Up Til Sun Up" song that samples mario and zelda games. And that creepy "Pictures On My Wall" song.
Tune-Yards - Nikki Nack. I'm going with normal spelling. I think they are finally going with normal spelling on their new one that comes out next year. She just keeps pushing forward creatively, she's no longer just dealing in loops but still engrossing. I think I might like whokill a little more but this one is up there.
The Bruce Lee Band - Everything Will Be Alright,My Friend. Mike Park doing what he does. Great ska punk from the man that mastered ska punk 20 years before.
"Weird Al" Yankovic - Mandatory Fun. This one's great because it's a Weird Al album. I think it was his first to hit #1 on Billboard or something? He made all those videos and really captured the attention of the Internet and the Internet returned the favor by paying for the album I guess. At this point I more or less am back to knowing the songs he's parodying because I don't go out of my way to avoid those popular songs. I still don't always know who does what but I can say "I think that's that one song."
TV on the Radio - Seeds. Masters of earnestness and dense soundscapes continue to do their thing too. They stopped pushing the envelope a couple albums ago but as I always say about them, the playing field they have created for themselves is a rich land and they explore interesting depths and whatever other fancy words you want to insert here.
Run The Jewels - Run The Jewels 2. This is probably their crowning achievement. Full aggression, full of politics, entertaining, etc.
I probably also should have written about Spoon, Lia Ices, Leonard Cohen, The New Pornographers, and Shellac. All great too.
Next time I will tackle 2015 and that will really feel like modern times. Grimes, !!!, Sufjan Stevens, Carly Rae Jepsen, Sleater-Kinney, Courtney Barnett, Dilly Dally, Vince Staples, and Kendrick Lamar did some amazing things that year and it's probably still fresh in your mind. Still...nostalgia?
Here is 2013. 2013 is here. Or then. Just a few short years ago I started this project and I'm still kind of doing it. I've been doing this for nearly 5 years now, and I'll hit 5 years before I'm done.
So I've been basing this, at least since the entries taking place in the 80s or 90s or so, on my experiences with the music and my life at the time. This year I was in high school and couldn't get enough ska. That year I had a bad breakup and that music helped me through it. Etcetera. My memories of 2013-2017, music-wise, have mostly just been this project and digging backward. So for 2013 and the rest of these, as I have warned, I am just going to give a quick overview of what I liked. Since in 2013 I was listening to 40s music and whatnot, I didn't spend much time with 2013 music. So I haven't heard enough of any of this. So I got to listen to it all one more time and now I get to write about it.
Oh, and here is what I wrote in 2013. Probably more insightful, as I gave it a little more thought then than I am now.
Life experiences: In 2013 I went to Ireland. That was fun. I remember finishing one year of this project on the plane and not writing about it until I got back. See, those are my music memories. We'll see if anything gets jogged as I list things out.
I was big on running in 2013, so that was a pretty cool coincidence that I used the word "jogged" up there. In 2013 there were more "breaks" between years since I had such short, week-long time frames between entries on this project. So I was able to incorporate some modern music into my jogging playlist. What did I like to run to?
Run The Jewels! The dream of a project between Killer Mike & El-P came to fruition! The first album is mostly just boast raps but man, it kicks!
The Lonely Island is always great for running. Especially that song with Robyn.
CHVRCHES. The Bones of What You Believe is a perfect example of great running pop music. It just feels so empowering and I feel like I can just go and go and go.
The sides of Danny Brown on display on the album Old are so insightful...I have gotten so used to his goofy persona in recent years that listening to this album where half of it is more serious stuff just blows my mind. Dude is brilliant.
M.I.A. had a very nice return to form with Matangi. I quite liked running to that album. Very catchy and feel-good.
And finally, the reason I wanted to have a section about running music is because !!! had that album THR!!!ER that was my favorite album for running. I like those guys a lot. The energy they have managed to continue to throw into everything they've done for so many years now is quite impressive. And the ultimate running song, if you were to ask me, and I wasn't at the time thinking about which Carly Rae Jepsen song to say, would be this one.
!!! "Even When the Water's Cold"
Another interesting trend I'm noticing here is that 2013 had a lot of big reunion/long-awaited releases.
Justin Timberlake, ooh! I think it had been a few years since that sexxyback or whatever came out and he had some new jams. The main thing about his The 20/20 Experience double album that was actually just two albums he put out that year was that there were lots of long songs. Like he was trying to be Stevie Wonder or something. Most of the songs are 6/7/8 minutes long. And one of the shorter songs was the 5.5 minute "Suit & Tie" featuring Jay-Z. It's a catchy number, though Jay-Z has been better.
David Bowie had a big comeback with The Next Day. I remember it coming out and everyone had thought he'd retired so it was a big deal. And it was a big deal because it was a fantastic album. I gave lots of songs three stars (I should probably revisit those ratings) but none above three. Which is my way of saying "it was really good but man, it will now forever be overshadowed by Blackstar!"
My Bloody Valentine finally released their new album and holy cow, what a record m b v was. Somehow it sounded newer and fresher than most anything else that came out from bands that formed in the last couple years, and this is a band formed in the early 80s following up its amazing 1991 album. But it exists, this album is great and I could listen to it always. And apparently they're "already" (in 2018) putting out more new music in the near future! Only 5 years!
My Bloody Valentine, "she found now"
Man or Astro-Man? was a surprise reunion to me. I never got to see them live in high school even though I really wanted to. Most of the time they played at the Starlight for 21+ shows. Then they stopped playing shows. But then I went to the Touch & Go Records anniversary festival in Chicago in 2006 I think, and they played a big reunion show there, so I was lucky enough to see them there. But I was still surprised when they put out actual new music. Defcon 5...4...3...2...1 brings back a lot of the instrumental surf rock they were known for, and went different directions than their previous last album that was pretty experimental. But they still were growing forward and D54321 is quite good. A few songs with vocals, lots of the MOAM sound I love in general though.
Remember the big deal of Daft Punk coming back? That was cool. "Get Lucky" was in my head for a while just listening to it again once. I do think the album as a whole was a little boring and overrated but you cannot get that song out of your head. Oh, you think you don't have it in your head? "We're up all night to get lucky." Now it's in your head for a week. You're welcome.
I was waiting for the new Deltron 3030 album for so long. I actively checked the wikipedia page for any updates I might have missed. Since like 2006. I didn't know if it would ever actually be an album, but in the big reunion year of course Event II finally came out. And it didn't disappoint! Even though my expectations were low due to my declining interest in Del's solo material, getting the gang back together was something special. Amusing, high quality, great production, all stuff that just made it a special album.
Other things of note that were just artists doing good things but not after a big reunion:
Deafheaven - Sunbather. Shoegaze, indie friendly or whatever, metal. I think metal purists hate it, probably because they brought a bunch of hipsters to their metal shows. And there's only enough room for one type of pretentious douchebag, thank you very much. But seriously, this album kicks. The passion, the intricacy, play it LOUD.
I have to talk about Kanye West. Yeezus was an interesting direction for the dude to go. I loved it in theory, merely liked it in practice. I liked the more political songs, I liked the sound of him rapping over industrial music, but wish he'd gone further. And I wish it wasn't praised as so original, since he was totally ripping of what Saul Williams had done in 2007 or so. And many others before him in the Def Jux crowd. But "Black Skinhead" is a great song.
The National continued to be fantastic. I really love this song. Listen to the words.
The National, "Pink Rabbits"
Savages were a great new addition to the world of music with Silence Yourself. Euro sounding post punk. I don't know if I have enough words to justify putting them in this section, so let me just spend some words saying simple things like they are awesome and you should get both of their albums right now. Ok, thank you!
Janelle Monae is still special. Has it really been this long since she put out a real new album? What gives? Someone wants to be a Hollywood star or something! Anyway, The Electric Lady was a great last note (so far) from one of the most creative forces in entertainment. A double album full of jams, including the last word I have in my collection from Prince, and that "Dance Apocalyptic" song, and so many great songs expanding on the Metropolis universe she began sharing way back when.
Neko Case is a MAN.
Other Things to Share Short Thoughts About:
Nightmare Air's High in the Lasers was an interesting weird album that I got as part of a package deal. It was an odd one but I dug it.
Bilal's A Love Surreal was very nice, good to hear him pushing some boundaries.
Kacey Musgraves. Same Trailer Different Park. I remember seeing the digital album on Amazon all the time but not thinking twice. Then I think her more recent album came out to very good reviews so I checked out this older one and it is quite fantastic, it turns out. Not all contemporary country is bad!
Micah Schnabel - I'm Dead, Serious. I saw this dude live playing with my friend's band and he had good songs so I got the album.
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds. Push The Sky Away. A good dramatic album that only paves the way for his even more good more dramatic album he put out in 2016!
Ducktails. The Flower Lane. Good album, too bad the guy turned out to be a pervert or something. I saw them in Brooklyn when I decided to track down a hipster show the one weekend I was in New York. They opened for Lower Dens, who were even better. But I did like Ducktails at the time.
Nanobots was probably one of They Might Be Giants' better recent albums.
Deathfix was a pretty cool band. Their context of being a band of people that really liked 1973 music (or so, I forget and refuse to look it up) was enriched by this project because I always assumed the 70s sucked until '77 and then this project showing me how great 1972/1973ish was in some certain glam/art-rock circles. They also have a highly amusing song called "Dali's House" where they just say random things about random famous people.
Yo La Tengo. Fade. Just gotta bring it up. Not as many long songs as I'm accustomed to on YLT albums but still quite catchy and enjoyable.
The Men were still quite good and New Moon was a good one that saw them branching out a bit into sounds hinted at on their previous album. yeah yeah.
Acid Rap!
Colin Stetson's New History Warfare Vol. 3: To See More Light was interesting in that he had Justin Vernon on a bunch of tracks. Still prefer the Laurie Anderson collabs though!
PLVS VLTRA! Toko from Enon! I got that album on cassette with my bandcamp order since it was the same price or so!
I was slightly disappointed in Prisoner of Conscious by Talib Kweli because it was teased for so long as a grand statement about his position as an author and when it finally came out it just seemed cheap and small. To me, at least.
She & Him. Vol. 3 was nice, seemed like they were embracing some of the originality and catchiness they are capable of. Seemed like something of a step forward which was refreshing after Vol. 2 (which was also very nice but just seemed like another collection like Vol. 1)
Is Shaking The Habitual the final album by The Knife? Very good album, I made the mistake of putting it on my running mix. Not super upbeat.
Future Bible Heroes. Interesting project for Stephin Merritt to bring back at this time (come on, I want a modern day 6ths album please!). But in the end, it doesn't really matter which project we're talking about. It's going to have a couple great songs and Partygoing is no exception. "Drink Nothing But Champagne" is an anthem like none other, and "Keep Your Children in a Coma" is still highly amusing, even as I prepare for my own son to enter this world.
The Ex collaborated with Brass Unbound for an album called Enormous Door. Some pre-existing songs, some were new (to me at least), and the takes on things were so unique and I love how inventive The Ex has been for like 40 years now. The brassed-up Konono No. 2 is so great.
Similarly, Elvis Costello's album with The Roots just offered fresh new takes on some of the different things EC has done over the years. Re-contextualizing snippets of lyrics to give them new meanings, or emphasis, or whatever. And the random new song that wasn't particularly wild still managed to get itself on the level of many of my favorite Elvis Costello songs. It's called "Tripwire." Look it up.
Like PLVS VLTRA, Crooks on Tape was the other Enon offshoot that is just so great, So much of what I love about Enon is present here on their album Fingerprint.
Sundowner! Neon Fiction!
Preservation Hall Jazz Band put out an album of originals!
Arcade Fire. Reflektor was maybe a tad overrated but now that they've bombed with their new album I feel bad. Reflektor was a grower though. I still need to hear that new one.
What's Next?
After 2013 comes 2014. Which means great albums by The Roots, D'Angelo, Budos Band, Open Mike Eagle, ANOTHER John Schmersal project (Vertical Scratchers), Shellac, a Weezer album I actually got (though I'm not sure I'll write about it), The Bruce Lee Band, The Lawrence Arms, Tune-Yards, the triumphant return of Braid, Ex Hex, more RTJ, TVOTR, Against Me!, and another classic from Weird Al! (Is this the latest Weird Al album? Is this the last time I get to say this in this??)
And thus, we wrap around to where we started. Kind of. I started this thing in 2013. Which kind of means 2012 was the original planned stopping point. Kind of. I didn't think I'd get it done in a year. But what I'm getting at is that while this is not the last one of these I'm doing, it's the last one that will really be tied in to my life. Because my musical memories of 2013-2017 consisted of going through this project and sneaking in some new music in between. So I'm continuing this project just because 2013-2017 were neglected and I might as well listen to that stuff one more time and give my thoughts on it, whether they are interesting or not! Luckily, doing this project also kept me from acquiring as much new music as usual, so it should speed up a bit here.
So 2012 was a significant year for me and for music. The last "big one" you'll see on this blog. Maybe going forward (and I'm thinking way ahead now, since I have a bunch more entries to do), I'll turn this into an ongoing blog about my relationship with music. Whatever that means. And 2013-2017 will be that black hole.
I forgot to get started in that last paragraph. Too bad I don't know how to edit what I've written to make those two paragraphs one coherent thought. Oh well.
Oh, here's my 2012 list from 2012. I decided to stop ranking things that year because it was too hard to compare Frank Ocean to The Dirty Projectors. But seriously, read that. I read it after writing this and it was eerie how many things I described the exact same way 5 years ago. And some things I described much better there than here.
In 2012 I got married. That was the main thing. So my relationship with music was mostly in the fact that I was particularly sentimental toward love songs and such and was seeking them out for perfect wedding playlist choices. And then memories of driving around Napa Valley on our honeymoon listening to The 2 Bears. That's probably the definitive music memory for 2012 for me. Napa Valley and into San Francisco, listening to "Bear Hug" and going over the Golden Gate Bridge. See, that album Be Strong was a good one for both of us to like because it was the dude from Hot Chip but nobody knew about it. My wife (wife!) had reviewed it for a website she was working for at the time, gravitated toward it due to a love of said Hot Chip. It's basically Hot Chip but with more silly songs and guest vocalists. They also had a song called "Ghosts & Zombies" which worked for the wedding thing since wedding was horror themed. But I think my favorite song off that album was "Time in Mind."
The 2 Bears "Time in Mind"
I just jumped in there, didn't I? I mean, once I actually jumped? When I was listening to music this time I was thinking about themes and how I'd summarize the year, but I just put that there. And there's no turning back now. My backspace key is broken. It's a good thing I don't make typos.
2012 was characterized by some very straightforward music. Most of the best music of the year was pretty unambiguous. Usually my favorite music kind of hops genres and is hard to define. Not this year.
Of course, I'll start (not counting The 2 Bears) with the exceptions to that. There are a lot of releases in a year and they're not all going to fit into these boxes.
One of the hottest songs of the year to me was sponsored by Converse and it brought together some favorites that aren't that far apart but still not usually interacting. Three giant personalities that are usually enough on their own. I'm talking about a song that had contributions from Gorillaz (the official "artist"), Andre 3000, and James Murphy of LCD Soundsystem. It was a thing that Converse had them do, and let me tell you, it is an entertaining track. Especially the long, uncensored version (which really has the LCD Soundsystem influences go off the rails along with Andre). If you didn't hear this in 2012, or you just forgot about it, here is a treat for you!
Gorillaz featuring Andre 3000 and James Murphy "DoYaThing" (short version, sorry! couldn't find the long version on YouTube anymore!)
THEESatisfaction melded together some different things as well. I call them hip hop, but it's more of a neo soul thing I guess? I don't know. Just spiritual and honest and smart and moving. Maybe? Check out awE naturalE, it is a great record and features Palaceer Lazaro (of Shabazz Palaces), the closest spiritual partner to this wild music that I can think of. Meanwhile, Robert Glasper fused together jazz and R&B and some hip hop on Black Radio. Such great soulful performances on there from the likes of Musiq Soulchild, Bilal, Erykah Badu, etc.
I just keep finding exceptions! I think my rule is nonsense but still a convenient way to break this up. But pop/R&B singer Neneh Cherry teamed up with avant-jazz group The Thing for The Cherry Thing and it is such a unique, special....thing. It's got covers of great songs by The Stooges and Suicide and Madvillain, and that Madvillain cover in particular ("Accordion") I love because it brings out MF DOOM's lyrics in such a new and unique way, more like poetry than rap, and I'd love to hear such a treatment of more rap songs because I appreciate his lyrics that much more now.
Kid Koala, ever unclassifiable. I generally put him under hip hop because turntables, but 12 bit Blues is straight up a turntable blues album. Like, classic blues. That guy! If you check out one song off this album, make it "8 bit Blues (Chicago to LA to NY)." Heavy Chicago blues. And turntables. And area codes. Just...the area codes. For Chicago, LA, and NY. That guy!
Deerhoof firmly belongs in the "undefinable" category, but Breakup Song is kind of their pop album anyway. They have always been gleefully weird and catchy, but Breakup Song might be their catchiest without making a whole lot of concessions to their signature weirdness. Does that make sense? Of course that makes sense. It's Deerhoof.
I think Swing Lo Magellan is my favorite Dirty Projectors album. It might be their most mature. With enough weird creative energy for me to list them next to Deerhoof but also enough pretty vocals, it i s a very realized sound from what seems to be a bunch of experts. But they have fun with it. Amber Coffman takes the lead a couple times on vocals and they are some of my favorite moments. And then the playfulness of songs like "Unto Caesar" where they kind of take on a looseness not unlike "Barbara Ann" by the Beach Boys, where they're just kind of showing off how easy it is for them to hit those perfect harmonies when they feel like it. And then on other songs, there is an intensity that the harmonies just amplify. It really is sad that the personal and professional relationship of David Longstreth and Amber Coffman fell apart as it did, but we'll always have this album.
Dirty Projectors, "Gun Has No Trigger"
I skipped out of the UMS for the night Saturday night to see Dirty Projectors that year. No regrets at all.
And now the straightforward stuff that I swear was the whole point I was getting at, I'm sure this is the focus!
Rock and roll just went straight out rock and roll in 2012. Cloud Nothings' Attack on Memory reminded me of Bleach era Nirvana, the changeups, the passionate grungey vocals (Cobain-style, not Vedder-style), and just the way they pushed everything to its limits, it really is one of the best pure rock albums of the past decade.
Similarly, The Men went balls-to-the-wall on Open Your Heart, OFF! had a self titled album that was just exactly what we needed, which is what OFF! is always best for: short fast punk songs, preferably under a minute but sometimes as long as a minute 37 seconds. Ty Segall Band put out Slaughterhouse which I think is the only Ty Segall album I have. They cover "Diddy Wah Diddy" by Bo Diddley, so that's great. Dinosaur Jr continued their reunion hot streak with I Bet On Sky. Screaming Females delivered big time on Ugly with the best vocals and guitar licks one could want. Even Titus Andronicus simplified their formula as well with Local Business, a decidedly not conceptual album (while fitting in a couple characteristically long confessional tracks). And METZ.
Jack White's solo debut Blunderbuss was I guess slightly more complicated than The White Stripes, but pretty much straightforward blues rock. I saw him at Red Rocks as well as at a tire shop in Denver on this album. My last hurrah of working weekends (oh yeah, I switched to weekdays in 2012!) was the ability I had to chase him down to see an intimate show at a random tire (was it a body shop? I don't know, something car related) on West Colfax and be in like the 2nd row. That was a thrill, let me tell you. Then Red Rocks that night. Oh, and our "end of the night" song from the wedding was his "I Guess I Should Go to Sleep." Good song!
Jack White, "I Guess I Should Go To Sleep"
Oh, and remember Alabama Shakes' debut album Boys & Girls? More awesome soulful garage rock! Fairly straightforward!
And finally, Japandroids' Celebration Rock may just take the cake for rock album of the year. Maybe. The pure mass of sound they put out as two people is just phenomenal. The passion, the whoa-oh-oh, it's just pure anthemic celebration. I guess that album title is a pretty good descriptor that I didn't realize was right in front of me. I also remember one night I was listening to it and it ends on a song called "Continuous Thunder" and it ended up being the same night as a huge thunderstorm in Denver. I kind of wondered if the album had called it into being, similar to a rain dance.
Japandroids "Continuous Thunder"
Small section in here for pretty-easy-to-classify Swedish indie pop artist Jens Lekman. I Know What Love Isn't is signature Jens Lekman, just easy songs with some truly insightful lyrics while also staying true and all that. Words. He's better at words than me. But this album has "I Want A Pair of Cowboy Boots" which is one of my favorites. "Just buy me a drink so I can refuse to raise my glass to these sad and worn out midnight shoes..."
And also easy to classify is straightforward pop music. Carly Rae Jepsen'sKiss came out in 2012 and while the album is uneven to say the least (she would get much more consistently great in a few years), it had the smash single "Call Me Maybe" which is great for all the unironic reasons. And that alone makes it worth pulling into the main part of the entry here.
Another usually easy to define genre is hip hop. It was a very good year for hip hop, if you remember 2012. El-P'sCancer 4 Cure saw the beginning of his mutually beneficial relationship with Killer Mike. Or did Killer Mike's R.A.P. Music come first? Either way, before they were Run The Jewels, the two collaborated quite a bit on two of the best hip hop albums of the year (and probably more than just the year). So I'll talk about them together here. El-P's started with an extended instrumental break that I remember people remarking made them think they'd accidentally gotten the instrumental version of the album. He just makes you wait for it longer than you may be used to. But once that hits, the words come hard and he does not let up. I don't know how to explain these albums! In terms of RTJ, they showcase the individual talents more than their combined efforts, and for that I hope they do some more solo material (while not wanting RTJ to end because duh).
Aesop Rock's Skelethon. It has some great moments of creepiness, particularly when they feature his newtime collaborator Kimya Dawson (which almost would put him in the "less classifiable" category, except that she doesn't sway the album out of hip hop territory. I will say that she brings her signature twee in to a great unsettling effect).
Nas put out an album as a reasonably old rapper called Life Is Good. I didn't think I'd be that into it but it must have been $5 or something. It ended up being one of the better "mature" hip hop albums I've heard. Still uneven (particularly when the song about having a daughter is followed up within a couple songs by less than savory language one wouldn't want to use with one's daughter) but there are some illuminating moments for sure.
The Coup made the revolution a party by the way. Sorry to Bother You is THE ONLY album you need for your revolution party.
Kendrick Lamar kind of broke my rating system with good kid, m.A.A.d city. Usually my ratings are there to indicate standout tracks so I know which ones to revisit (in addition to using them so they'll come up on various shuffly playlists, as I do). But the consistency of greatness on this album just kind of means the whole thing is to be revisited. Over and over. It's interesting to revisit this album now that he's put out a couple more. It might be my favorite of the three (not counting untitled unmastered). But it also has had the most time to marinate. I'm excited for the revisiting of TuPAB in the near future. The reason I'm not trying to really write about the music is because so many words are on the internet about this album. I don't really have anything to contribute. But just to say something, it is a refreshingly honest portrayal of life in Compton without being grandstanding. It's about difficulties and it's just about growing up. It's oft misunderstood but wise beyond its years. Or something. I don't know. It's one of the best hip hop albums in existence. And I get to see him live on Saturday (I had to throw that in there).
We can also put Frank Ocean firmly in the R&B category of the record store. Channel Orange is not a typical R&B album though. The pure honest heart on sleeve presentation and the deep, deep levels of creativity make this something truly special and it transcends any genre. Even though it evokes greats like Marvin Gaye and Al Green, it is so contemporary and original. Album of the year? Tough call, due to this year being this year. But maybe.
Frank Ocean, "Pyramids"
Also of note:
Grimes' Visions was fantastic. I know she would go more pop and arguably better on her follow-up, but Visions was my intro to her and I love its experimentalism.
Man, there was a giant box set of Bob Dylan covers that I got because it was a benefit for Amnesty International, but was that a slog to get through! No regrets for supporting it, but it had maybe an EP's worth of tracks I actually liked.
John K Samson of Weakerthans fame went solo with Provincial. Definitely consistent.
Leonard Cohen deserves more than a footnote, I'll try to put in a tribute with the 2016 entry. Old Ideas was fantastic though.
Chromatics' Kill For Love. A great album for driving around a big city on a rainy night.
Magnetic Fields checked in with Love at the Bottom of the Sea. As usual, it had a couple great songs and some filler. But I really liked "Andrew in Drag" and "Going Back to the Country."
I'm not sure which category I'd put Sleigh Bells in above (which I guess puts them in the non-straightforward category!) because Reign of Terror saw them going a little more basic, dropping some of the hip hop influences in favor of making it closer to metal. So it's only joining together like three genres now, okay?
Revisiting The Shins' Port of Morrow was quite rewarding. I had thought I'd remembered it being dull, but this time it was a pure delight.
of Montreal had two albums! And many genres as well!
I think Heaven might have been the album that really made me appreciate The Walkmen.
I feel like I didn't like The House That Jack Built by Jesca Hoop as much as I should have, considering it seems to expand on my favorite quirks of her first album. I wonder if it's related to the similarly timed release of Fiona Apple's The Idler Wheel Is Wiser Than the Driver of the Screw and Whipping Cords Will Serve You More Than Ropes Will Ever Do, which touches on similar styles and was just so great that it made others look bad. Not sure. But yes, I put that whole title in here. Confession: I used copy/paste for that one.
Hot Chip also had an album as Hot Chip and it was great. It deserves to be not just a footnote, but I write about them a lot already!
Same with Scissor Sisters. b is more greatness from them.
Is Master of My Make Believe Santigold's best? Maybe, just maybe.
Calexico, man. Calexico. Algiers is just like, what Calexico does. They could put out 10 more albums like this and I'd love them all.
The xx managed to evolve enough for their sophomore album Coexist where I maintained interest, but they were nowhere near the year end list this time. I still enjoy them though.
The Whigs' album Enjoy The Company was included in a random grab bag thing I got at the record store. Two words of advice: when you already have tons of music, don't go acquiring more stuff you've never heard of. However, sometimes you might get lucky and get something awesome.
David Byrne and St Vincent teamed up for a pretty funky collaborative album. It's got hits and misses but the hits hit hard, like good classic Talking Heads. I'd like more of St Vincent's signature oddball guitar work, but the brass sounds good too.
Divine Fits were a good way to hold us over until the next Spoon album.
Big Boi took a step back with Vicious Lies and Dangerous Rumors. But still, Big Boi.
The Evens! The Odds!
Bat For Lashes! I got bored with her other albums for whatever reason, but The Haunted Man is the real deal!
And always The Mountain Goats. Transcendental Youth is typical great Mountain Goats music.
2012 Playlist from 2012:
Comfort in Destiny: It Was 2012
17. David Byrne & St. Vincent "Weekend in the Dust"
18. Jack White "I Guess I Should Go to Sleep"
Next is 2013:
Chance the Rapper! CHVRCHES! The return of Man or Astro-man?! The return of Janelle Monae! DELTRON EVENT II! My Bloody Valentine! (now I feel silly talking about the return of Janelle Monae since the other returns are after much longer hiati) Bowie! Daft Punk! (now I'm realizing that I'm getting older and all the more exciting albums are returns) Run The Jewels! Savages! Deafheaven! (now that's more like it, some new stuff) Elvis Costello with The Roots! Justin Timberlake! And more stuff! But not as much as I started to scale back on my music. Please keep reading this even though I said it would be less personal. You might get nostalgic for music from 4 years ago, right? Remember 4 years ago? Those were the days.
mp3s are for sampling purposes only. If you like what you hear, support the artists using the links provided. If you are the owner of any of the songs I share, you can email me at brandon.horning@gmail.com and demand immediate removal, and I will comply! Otherwise, they last for one week.
An Ear For An Era Playlist!
Check out a spotify playlist of the stuff I post in the An Ear For An Era feature!
