An Ear For An Era: 2009

This was seven years ago. 2009 was the year we bought our house. Not sure what the significance is there, it just seems like the only real major life event that happened in 2009. There was probably more.

I just got a new computer and this is my first blog entry using it, so it feels weird. The editor looks more like a word document now. It also screwed up my whole process of playlist creation/use, since on this computer all of my music suddenly has 0 plays. And I can no longer use my "date added" field, a perk that lasted from 2006 to 2009. It's fine, it just took a long time to get that playlist count cleared up on the old computer. Oh well.

So I don't have record and don't remember what album started 2009 here. But it shouldn't matter. 2009 had some very good music. I also can't find any posts I made here summarizing the best of the year of 2009 (or 2010 for that matter), which is weird. I must have only made my declarations on Facebook or something.

It seemed like a sort of high watermark for the "indie rock" music I listened to in those days. Kind of the peak of an era. So I'll start with said indie rock.

The who's who of indie rock generally contributed to the phenomenal compilation called Dark Was The Night. That compilation is what had me realize that there were a lot of good-to-great bands active in the indie scene. In reverse alphabetical order...Yo La Tengo*, Sufjan Stevens, Stuart Murdoch**, Spoon***, Sharon Jones, The New Pornographers****, The National, Iron & Wine*****, Grizzly Bear (with Feist!)******, Feist (with Ben Gibbard!), Dirty Projectors (with David Byrne!)*******, The Decemberists********, Dave Sitek*********, Conor Oberst (with Gillian Welch!), Cat Power, Bon Iver**********, Blonde Redhead, Arcade Fire, Antony (with Bryce Dessner!)***********, and many more came together and put out some of their best material. It's the most solid front-to-back two disc long compilation I may have ever heard.

*Yo La Tengo also put out Popular Songs, which does what all of my favorite YLT albums do. Starts with some amazing pop songs and ends with some super long guitar jams that you wish were even super longer.

**Stuart Murdoch's project God Help the Girl put out their self-titled album and it was quite lovely. Some alternate versions of Belle & Sebastian hits and other originals that are just amazing because Murdoch is a pop songwriting genius, I can't believe I missed the actual film when it was in theaters! I assumed it would be on demand somewhere by now...

***Spoon also put out an EP called Got Nuffin. They are always great.

****Some New Pornographers members put out solo albums. A.C. Newman's Get Guilty is classic power pop, and Neko Case is discussed lower down.

*****Iron & Wine put out a collection of B-sides and rarities, which was quite nice and minimalist compared to his recent output.

******Grizzly Bear put out Veckatimest, which is a lovely album but got way too hyped up in my opinion.

*******Dirty Projectors had their breakthrough album Bitte Orca come out, which is very much a contender for album of the year. Just ridiculous harmonizing and beautiful melodies. The songs do seem very carefully constructed but still passionate and pretty, similar to Brian Wilson's work. This song is a bit on the long side, but its different parts demonstrate all of my favorite aspects of the album as a whole.

Dirty Projectors "Useful Chamber"

********The Decemberists put out Hazards of Love, which I got on vinyl and didn't have a download card, so I didn't listen to it very much. I later got the digital stuff because it was $5 or something. But I still haven't listened to it enough to fairly judge it.

*********Dave Sitek didn't put anything out that I know of, but his TV On The Radio compatriot Kyp Malone put out a couple albums with his side projects. Dissolver by Iran was one of those projects, and it just has a great full sound with a poppier topside (if that makes any sense), a more "typical indie rock" album backed by some patented TVOTR guitars. He also had a project called Rain Machine, and some of the songs could be TVOTR all over, since he sang on it as well. "Smiling Black Faces" and "Give Blood" really call to mind his work in his "major" project.

**********Bon Iver put out an EP called Blood Bank which was very autotuned and processed and weird. But still quite soulful. He also put out an album with his side project Volcano Choir, mentioned in the "Etc" section.

***********Antony and his The Johnsons put out The Crying Light, one of my favorite Antony albums probably.

Another compilation that seemed like kind of a big deal was called War Child Presents Heroes, featuring modern artists covering old songs, where the cover artists were chosen by the original writers/performers. So it's kind of hit-or-miss (Lily Allen does no justice to The Clash, I'm sorry to say! But Rufus Wainwright tackling Brian Wilson is quite nice...) but it was quite poignant to have TV On The Radio covering "Heroes" by David Bowie. I was already a big TVOTR fan obviously, and already had a five star rating on this cover, and I know Bowie had worked with them before so it was no surprise that he chose them, but it's just such a powerful moment. 

Speaking of covers, the amazing Neko Case put out one of her better albums Middle Cyclone and in addition to great cover art, she covered a somewhat obscure Harry Nilsson song "Don't Forget Me." I remember when she was on Elvis Costello's TV show discussing Nilsson's songwriting and how he could make you laugh and cry within the same line. 

Neko Case "Don't Forget Me"

Don't get me wrong; the whole album is great and Case's songwriting is top notch. I'm just a sucker for one great artist showing appreciation for another great artist.

The Antlers also came out in 2009. Hospice is about as devastatingly sad as the title may suggest. So beautiful, so sad, so personable...I don't know what else to say about it right now. But listen to it if you are in the mood.

Charlotte Gainsbourg had an amazing album called IRM which was produced by Beck. The French abbreviation for MRI, the album is amazingly personal while also being supremely catchy. I know this was high on my list for the year. Her voice is so versatile, sometimes calling to mind her mother Jane Birkin's whisper singing and sometimes with much more power behind it. I think Beck's production was a huge asset as well to make the songs so catchy.

Charlotte Gainsbourg "Heaven Can Wait"

Sonic Youth. I don't know if The Eternal was expected to be their final album, but here we are. Farewell to the eternal sonic youth. It does feel like a good throwback SY album after developing some semblance of "maturity" on Rather Ripped, The Eternal ended up sounding quite youthful even for Sonic Youth. Sort of poppy, completely fearless, and completely ripping. This is a band that has played together for decades and can make a masterpiece out of something that feels like they're just messing around. Did that come across right?

My "official" declared favorite album of 2009 was xx by the xx.  Even at the time I remember it being more of a protest vote than anything though. With (what I viewed at the time as) the overdone nature of the big popular indie rock albums of the year by bands like Animal Collective, Dirty Projectors, and Grizzly Bear, I wanted to go with something minimalist, and this album suited that desire just fine. I just loved all the stripped down empty spaces, how you can say so much with the notes you don't play and all that. The world feels big when you listen to this album, and the vocals feel so small but so significant. Does that make sense? 

the xx, "Heart Skipped a Beat" (Live)

On another hand, Japandroids played something I may call maximalist indie rock with only two people in the band. Post-Nothing just has such a huge sound to it that it makes it all that much more impressive. One of my favorites of the year for sure. Those cymbals!

Let's talk about some of the more out-there indie music that wouldn't fit as well on those compilations though.

Tyondai Braxton released his first post-Battles album Central Market and I dug it. I remember at the time I compared it to a Danny Elfman Tim Burton score, but there is much more to it than that. There's a lot of Battles-esque rhythm here, it's almost as if Atlas-era Battles worked extensively with an orchestra to create a score for a Beetlejuice-era Burton film taking place in a circus or haunted house or something. I'm posting a lot of videos in this entry. Credit the new computer that allows me to do so without pulling my hair out!

Tyondai Braxton, "Central Market"

Beloved Jim O'Rourke had his album The Visitor, which was just one long somewhat minimalist track. I prefer albums to be broken up into songs for the sake of having stopping points when necessary, but listening to this is really worth finding the time to sit down and take 38 minutes to let it wash over me.

After the breakup of Black Eyes, the more shrill/noisy/off-putting (in the BEST way!) singer started a new band Mi Ami. I think I wanted to call them post post hardcore or something. I just remember tracking down their first album Watersports at Wax Trax and being impressed that an older guy (maybe 60s?) told me how much he liked the album. And I remember hoping I'm like that when I'm that age, open minded enough to listen to something as out there as Mi Ami, something most of my friends would never ever want to listen to even when we were all so forward thinking in our 20s.

I'm sure I wrote it somewhere, but if it's not here I don't know: YACHT did their best to fill the LCD Soundsystem hole the year had in new music. See Mystery Lights was a lot of fun. And James Murphy must have been impressed enough himself, since it was on his DFA Records. Not that it's particularly similar, it just hit some of the same beats in my mind. I wasn't really dancing any more in 2009, but if I was, I would hope to hear this song at all the clubs and I would go nuts over it. (Disclosure: I have no idea if they played this at the indie club nights)

Yacht, "Psychic City (Voodoo City)"

Another band that probably stormed the indie dance floor was Phoenix. Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix was quite the sensation, I recall, with the inescapable "Lisztomania" and "1901" (my personal favorite). Oddly, I don't really care for the other albums of theirs I've heard but once they went full on pop, they became infectious and I could not resist their jams.

Peter Bjorn & John took a move for the more dancey and beat oriented with Living Thing. Amusingly profane, immensely charming, and somehow a big hit with rappers? Wale rapped over a PB&J song on his Back to the Feature mixtape, and then a full mixtape entitled Re-Living Thing came out with the likes of Talib Kweli, Bun B, Rhymefest, Big Sean, GZA, and many many more rapping over PB&J songs.

It really was a big year for combining indie rock and hip hop. There was a mashup album of Sufjan Stevens songs with artists like Aesop Rock, Outkast, and Blackalicious. The Black Keys worked with a bunch of hip hop artists on Blakroc. And N.A.S.A. came out with their only album The Spirit of Apollo. I remember the Pitchfork review of that album was overly snarky and negative, while the album itself is just positivity and unity and everything that is good in this world. They brought together artists from different worlds on tracks that are surprisingly coherent. David Byrne singing the chorus for Chali 2na, Karen O going toe-to-toe with Ol' Dirty Bastard & Fatlip, Tom Waits and Kool Keith trying to out-eccentric each other...the album is just a big funky party where you don't care about genre. It's just fun.

Raekwon released a long awaited sequel album Only Built 4 Cuban Linx...Pt. II. I feel like I am supposed to like Wu-Tang projects more than I often turn out to, so I end up getting most of the solo material from Raekwon and Ghostface in particular and then don't always fully enjoy what I'm listening to. But the reason I keep coming back to these guys is albums like this. Gritty stories of the streets, songs that recall the classic full-group Wu-Tang albums like "House of Flying Daggers" (featuring pretty much the whole crew), heartfelt soul hip hop ballads, and just a fully immersive album make some of it (maybe 30% of the material these still very prolific gentlemen release) must-hear music.

Born Like This by Doom is a highlight of his catalog and his first since dropping the MF from his name. I don't know what else to put here, I just know it's good enough to bring up here. I just like it? And I remember listening to it at the old apartment while walking my dog. And the one kind of homophobic song but his explanation was that he was a character that's a villain so what do you expect? That song still makes me a bit uncomfortable.

And that made me appreciate Us by Brother Ali that much more, which includes a verse about the struggles of a gay character, something that even as recently as 2009 was somewhat unheard of in hip hop.

I was quite blown away by Aceyalone & The Lonely Ones, an album that is pretty much classic soul/jazz but also hip hop. It's weird how well it works.

I should have just made my #1 album The Ecstatic by Mos Def. I think I put it at #2 when I made said list, but in retrospect it is probably my favorite. It just doesn't let up. Very few features, it's mostly just one of the greatest rappers over some amazing beats. But very progressive. Very felt and awake and just entertaining. 

Mos Def "Quiet Dog Bite Hard"

And now he doesn't even go by Mos Def anymore. And may be retiring from music after his next album. If it's anything near The Ecstatic, he will certainly be ending on a high note.

Etc. (note: this will be in a weird order because of the aforementioned inability to use last play times for half of the 2009 stuff. so that's why it will be in reverse alphabetical order for a while)

• Wilco went pretty poppy with Wilco (the album). It's pretty good to revisit, but I'd still prefer to listen to the classic albums. That song with Feist is pretty enjoyable though.
• Eskimo Snow by Why? kind of continued down the path of their previous album but it was less novel at the time so I didn't give it as much attention. But if you have time check out the song "The Blackest Purse" because it's quite good.
• White Rabbits! I remember them! I liked It's Frightening. They always kind of sounded like Spoon Jr (they did have Britt Daniel produce the album), but the two drummers had an interesting impact on the beat.
• I need to spend some more time with that Volcano Choir album because it is quite lovely.
• tUnE-yArDs came out in 2009 even though back then it was pretty much Merrill Garbus and her looping machine. BiRd-BrAiNs had some very awesome moments, but it was mostly just a hint at things to com.
• Sun O))) was my introduction to whatever you call that droney type of metal. Monoliths & Dimensions was such a huge album...
• I didn't get into St. Vincent until a couple years later even though I'd heard Actor was a great album. I'm happy to have finally discovered her for myself though!
• I didn't actually discover Shabazz Palaces until they released a "major" album, but they put out a couple EPs in 2009 that are pretty tight. 
• That silly band Rock Plaza Central from a couple years back returned with ...At the Moment of Our Most Needing, which continued their path of goofiness in a very heartfelt way. Apparently they have been on hiatus since then.
• Marissa Nadler. Little Hells. Maybe the first album of hers that I heard? She is awesome.
• Magnolia Electric Co. Josephine is a lovely lovely album.
• Incredibad by The Lonely Island turned out to be a pretty good album to run to while training for my marathon. Kept my mind off running, that's for sure.
• I do enjoy Jarvis Cocker's album Further Complications. Some moments that recall some of my favorite Pulp songs, particularly lyrically.
• Speaking of side gigs, Black Francis/Frank Black had a band with his wife Violet Clark called Grand Duchy, and it is one of my favorite of his recent exploits.
• One great irony of that Mos Def album is that one of the best songs is him rapping over a Georgia Anne Muldrow song called "Roses." Because of it, I checked out her album Umsindo, and I ended up liking the original version of that song more.
• I really thought I'd like Elvis Costello's album Secret, Profane and Sugarcane more than I did. I love a couple of the songs but thought it would be the next King of America because it had the same puzzle pieces as that legendary album. I probably just need to give it more listens without such ridiculous expectations.
• Dinosaur Jr. keeps putting out amazing albums and it's just not fair for them to be that consistent.
• The Dead Weather are great.
• David Bowie's VH1 Storytellers album is from 2009, so that was quite nice to listen to.
• Breeders EP!
• Remember The Big Pink? A Brief History of Love was a sensation.
• Flight of the Conchords! I'm seeing them on Tuesday!
• It was weird that The Mountain Goats put out an album based on bible verses, but it ended up working quite well.
• Jesca Hoop = great
• Sour Boy Bitter Girl = great, I feel like Songs About the Landscape or Songs About the Wolf Army was the start of a higher level of songwriting than the previous splits. 
• Annie = great. Don't Stop just upped the sass factor by a bunch and really owned everything she's best at.
• The Lawrence Arms put out their last music in a while in their Buttsweat and Tears EP. But damn, they have some great songs on that EP that are live show staples.
• People Under The Stairs are great!
• So is Kermit Ruffins!
• I like There Is No Enemy by Built to Spill but I haven't listened to it enough to say much more. It's just yet another great album by that great band.

It Was 2009 Playlist:

1. Obits "Back and Forth"

2. The Dead Weather "Hang You From the Heavens"

3. Japandroids "Crazy/Forever"

4. Rain Machine "New Last Name"

5. YACHT "Psychic City (Voodoo City)"

6. Wale featuring K'Naan "TV In The Radio"

7. Mos Def "Quiet Dog Bite Hard"

8. Dirty Projectors + David Byrne "Knotty Pine"

9. Antony and the Johnsons "Aeon"

10. James Husband "Greyscale"

11. The Antlers "Bear"

12. N.A.S.A. featuring Karen O, Ol' Dirty Bastard & Fatlip "Strange Enough"

13. Tyondai Braxton "Uffe's Woodshop"

14. Mi Ami "New Guitar"

15. The Flaming Lips "Silver Trembling Hands"

16. Sonic Youth "Sacred Trickster"

17. Grand Duchy "The Long Song"

18. The xx "Heart Skipped a Beat"

19. Iran "Airport '79"

Next Time:

2010 was another huge year in music in my opinion. I just remember a big handful of albums that could easily have been #1 in any other year. Stuff like Sufjan Stevens, Big Boi, Titus Andronicus, LCD Soundsystem, Robyn, Kanye West, and lots of other great stuff.

An Ear For An Era: 1990

Another decade begins. I actually didn't have much of note from 1990. It was another case of the late 80s sounding more like what I think of the 90s than 1990, which sounds more like an extension of the late 80s. If that makes any sense. Like a regression or something. Still though, some stuff was pushing stuff forward. That's what I'm bothering to talk about here. Bah. Words.

Punk rock of 1990. The seeds of the popular punk rock of the mid-to-late-90s continued to be sowed. The self-titled album by Social Distortion is one I didn't actually have back in high school, but I did have their live album (to be released later) and considered myself a fan of several of these songs. This one kind of toes the line between punk and mainstream rock, was released on Epic Records, but it's got a lot of heart. And dig that Johnny Cash cover!

"You're not a punk and I'm telling everyone" "Save your breath, I never was one." Sorry Jawbreaker, but I'm going to file you under punk rock for now because Unfun has lots of <3 about="" album.="" album="" and="" call="" emo="" first="" i="" if="" jawbreaker="" ll="" minute="" my="" or="" post-hardcore="" prefer="" punk="" rock="" s="" something="" songs="" there="" this="" ultimately="" very="" was="" while="" you="">Bivouac
. Then I got Unfun and did not like it at all. It just seemed sloppy by comparison. But in retrospect I have come to quite enjoy a few of the songs on this album. It has most of the aspects I love about Jawbreaker, just in condensed formats.

Jawbreaker, "Down"

I guess I'll keep Fugazi in the "punk rock" section of this. Repeater is the definitive statement of the early works of Fugazi. +3 songs, which I have on vinyl as a 7" by the way! It's a pretty accessible album as far as Fugazi goes. I know it helped make a convert of my friend's little brother, as my friend proudly told me he caught him singing the title track. "Merchandise" is a good summary of the band's position on commercialism in music (and they lived up to that standard forever! Even when I finally saw them in 2001 it was a $6 show with no merch!), there are some great instrumentals featuring the rhythm section, plenty of energy, and what is possibly my favorite Fugazi song of their whole catalog... (here is an insane live version I found...I believe from the Instrument documentary)

Fugazi "Shut the Door"

How about that alternative scene that defined the 90s like how that new wave scene defined the 80s and that disco scene defined the 60s?

I feel like Goo is Sonic Youth's most popular album but I have no idea what that's based on. About as poppy as you get from Sonic Youth I think, which is not very. But "Kool Thing" features Chuck D, so that's pretty damn cool. I think it's the playfulness that gives me that impression. After Daydream Nation it's kind of refreshing to just have faster, simpler songs with almost a punk rock vocal delivery. Not that that's a particularly apt description of the full album, but it fits the mood that I get from it in general with songs like "Mary-Christ" and "My Friend Goo."

I picked up the Treepeople album Guilt Regret Embarrassment the first time I visited Seattle. I had looked for Treepeople all over in Denver but had no luck. I'd been kind of a fan of Built to Spill so I wanted the earlier incarnation. It's definitely a harder edged version of BTS and suits the pre-grunge or whatever era this was. Very lo-fi and rocking. But the melody in there, such as the one in this song, is what keeps me coming back.

Treepeople "Every Time When I Fall Down & My Head Hits the Floor Hard"

They Might Be Giants will go here for whatever reason. Completely different from their surroundings but that may make them the most alternative of all! Flood was their big album (lots of big popular albums this year!) with their big hits. I can't get enough of those big hits, "Particle Man" and "Istanbul (Not Constantinople)" and someday when I have a kid I'm totally going to make him/her listen to "Whistling in the Dark" because as I said earlier, that's the kind of nerdy I want my child to be. (Here they are on MTV performing it...technically in 1989. MTV must have been actually pretty awesome back then if they had this!)

They Might Be Giants "Whistling In The Dark"

The Breeders' album Pod kind of showcased Kim Deal's songwriting skills as she was kind of overlooked by the Pixies. Plus they covered "Happiness is a Warm Gun!" But what I really love about The Breeders are the harmonies the Deal sisters create. And I'll have more to say about Last Splash in 1993.

The Pixies' quality didn't exactly drop off a cliff after Doolittle. Bossanova still has a lot of creativity going into it, plenty of three-star songs, and a few that have lots of energy. It's just not quite there though. I don't know if they were trying to get more popular or what. It feels like a retread of ideas from the earlier albums though without being as quirky or dynamic. Almost going through the motions. Especially toward the end of the album, it just starts to wear off. I feel like I'm being overly critical but they raised the bar so much that it's going to be disappointing when they slide under it.

Speaking of influences on Nirvana, the few Daniel Johnston songs I have from 1990 are among his best. "Some Things Last A Long Time" is very sweet and simple, but the most sweet and simple track is this one. I had some good friends dance at their wedding to a cover of this song and it was just perfect. This is the polar opposite of the cynicism and sarcasm of the coming 90s.

Daniel Johnston "True Love Will Find You In The End"

Other stuff about things:

• The Vandals' Fear of a Punk Planet took me back to high school a little bit. Closer to the Vandals that I actually listened to then.
• Strangely the only hip hop I had of 1990 was two Public Enemy songs off Fear of a Black Planet. One is "911 is a Joke," which is an ok Flava Flav song. The other is the gigantic song that reminds me of Do The Right Thing, "Fight The Power." Great song there.
• I have a bunch of songs from some sort of post hardcore band called Pitchfork. Not bad. I wonder what rating they would get on Pitchfork.
• A song called "Pizza Power!" TMNT!
• Some Simpsons songs came up. I was a gigantic Simpsons fan. The whole family was. I'll say more about it when we get to that Simpsons Sing The Blues album in 1991.
• I kind of got bored listening to Sinead O'Connor's I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got (probably just because I was driving on a sunny day and would have rather listened to something upbeat) but that "Nothing Compares 2 U" cover is pretty phenomenal.
• Some more Mr. T. Experience...Making Things With Light isn't quite there for me but it's not bad either.
• Boom Chicka Boom is considered one of those lesser Johnny Cash albums, but it includes a song Elvis Costello wrote for him, "Hidden Shame," so that's rad. 

Next Time:

The 90s kick into high gear! Or whatever! That golden age of hip hop in the 90s I've heard of has to be this age, with albums from De La Soul, Del the Funky Homosapien, DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince, Gang Starr, Main Source, Organized Konfusion, and A Tribe Called Quest. Also another quality Elvis Costello album, Punk rock keeps going different directions with Fifteen, Fugazi, that Jawbreaker album I mentioned earlier, The Jesus Lizard, Nation of Ulysses, Skankin' Pickle!, and Slint... Fishbone has a big popular album, and good ol' Magnetic Fields make their first appearance! Oh and My Bloody Valentine. And some album called Nevermind. At 465, 1991 is the highest number of songs for any year so far (although that number gets way bigger as we move along)

An Ear For An Era: 1988

1988 meant I was 5 years old, I could bike, I could read, and I didn't particularly concern myself with music. But it was happening, man! Lots of good stuff I would appreciate later in life! Indie/college/alternative was still in a good place even though the first hints of its takeover-in-a-lesser-form-in-the-90s could be spotted. You know, the 90s when the popular stuff was called "alternative" but then what was it an alternative to at that point? When it got confusing. And other stuff was going on. I'll start with Weird Al.

I think Even Worse may have been my first Weird Al tape. I have vivid memories of purchasing the tape at a store and they didn't take off the security tag so we had to use my dad's pocket knife to bust it out. I think there was a crack in the tape case because of it. I made a music video with my friend for "Fat" where we put pillows under our shirts and basically acted out as many parts as we could. "(This Song's Just) Six Words Long" has always been a favorite. And all the puns on "I Think I'm A Clone Now" are just too much great to handle. He has a lot of great puns on the album as a whole but "Clone" takes it to the next level with such gems as "I guess you could say I'm really beside myself," and "Born in a science lab late one night without a mother or a father, just a test tube and a womb with a view."

Ok just had to get that out of the way. Even Worse is probably in my top 3 Weird Al albums after all!

Hip hop took something of a turn around this time, didn't it? Not that BDP was all innocent and peaceful and clean, but the dirty got dirtier based on what I have. Ice-T with his sex jams (at least he clarifies "Safe sex that is...but that's another song"). Slick Rick was very clever on The Great Adventures of Slick Rick.

But who really owned it was Public Enemy. It Takes A Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back is one of those statement albums. Chuck D with his righteous anger and intelligence, Flava Flav still being somewhat tolerable, Terminator X just driving everything hard. Something about the angry intelligence makes it much more terrifying for white America because assuming we're paying attention we know he's right.

Public Enemy "Prophets of Rage"

Similarly, NWA's Straight Outta Compton had a good angry feel to it and Dr. Dre made some great beats early on for sure. The anger towards the man is a little more directed at cops than the overall system but effective regardless. Ultramagnetic MCs' Critical Beatdown is a good one but it seems to be laid out much more simply than the people really pushing things forward. Great rhymes and styles but in an old school simplicity that makes it seem a little behind in context.

Punk rock. Last year it was The Descendents and this year it's All. I have an appreciation for All that they did, particularly for the Fort Collins, CO scene, but the first actual All album I bought in high school was Allroy For Prez. Which was an EP. I didn't particularly care for just how darn soft it was at the time. Now I'm ok with it though.

The Pogues' If I Should Fall From Grace With God is one that coincidentally enough came up St. Patrick's Day weekend. It touches on a lot more different styles than Red Roses For Me, the other Pogues album I have. It pulls in influences to a point where some of the songs aren't even all that perfect for St. Patrick's Day! There's my favorite Christmas song ("Fairytale of New York"), ballads like "Lullaby Of London," and one of my favorites, a Spanish influenced drinking/partying song called "Fiesta."

Is this the place to place Big Black? I guess for now at least I'll put Touch & Go and Dischord stuff under punk rock. I'd wanted to get this album for years and finally did eventually (I think shortly before I got to see their big reunion show at that Touch & Go Anniversary Block Party thing I flew out to Chicago for). I feel like they got even harder and angrier as they went on and wrapped things up. Their whole discography is this pure rage, pre-NIN industrial with the crunchiest attainable guitar sound by the best guitar rock sound engineer in the biz.

Big Black "L Dopa"

Fugazi has begun! Of course I have their first two EPs in the form of the 13 Songs CD, but I set the years correctly and got to hear the Fugazi EP as originally released (the first 7 of 13 songs). So we have "Waiting Room," one of their best known songs. We have the earliest example (in my collection at least) of the hardcore scene tackling the problem of sexism in "Suggestion." We have basically some very seasoned veterans joining forces to form a band with seemingly no learning curve. Playing organically together to create something amazing on their very first EP.

Fugazi "Bad Mouth"

I also hit my first actual album by The Ex, that great underrated Dutch punk/chaos band that has been around since the 70s (and still going strong today!). Aural Guerilla is the sound of a great political punk band evolving for a decade and not sitting still. I just love the high distortion on the guitar and vocals and the swirling chaotic (sorry for using that again but it's the most apt description I've got!) drumming going on here.

College rock!

What I said in the intro about seeing the first hints of the popularity of alternative rock showing up was mostly because of R.E.M.'s Green. Kind of a breakthrough for them (they would later become one of the biggest bands of the 90s). And it has the song "Stand" which would later receive the "Weird Al" parody treatment and while "Weird Al" is very hip to the new sounds, he probably wouldn't have parodied a song that wasn't a gigantic hit. That's my frame of reference right now.

Besides that, the underground that would remain somewhat underground was reaching new highs.

I seem to be responding a lot more personally to Dinosaur Jr's 1988 album Bug more than 1987's You're Living All Over Me. Not sure why. But I thoroughly enjoyed listening to Bug. It seemed more passionate or something. Maybe it was just the circumstances of how it came up or something. Or maybe it's actually better.

Sonic Youth put out their most highly regarded album that has since entered the library of congress, and that was Daydream Nation. I don't know what I can say about this but I feel like I need to say a lot about it. They were young then. Creating something impossibly mature but in a really playful way. Putting mature skills to use in creating something that just sounds fresh and fun and somewhat loose. The authoritative vocals from Kim & Thurston, the way their guitars interplayed, the noise noise noise, the LOUD, the quiet, the uneasiness and scream and distortion! Every song a shove but also a suite, it's everything.

Sonic Youth "Candle"

I honestly cannot reach a final decision about my favorite Pixies album. Doolittle was my first and holds a dear place in my heart, but Surfer Rosa has always been hot on its heels and a part of me seems to think/know it is the superior of the two. Maybe. Something about it feels a bit rawer. Probably songs like "Something Against You." The screaming is powerful here. And Joey Santiago's guitar is a bit more vicious on this album, such as on "Vamos" when he comes up with so many different squawks to make his guitar make on a very forward moving beat (I remember being blown away when I saw them on their initial reunion tour by how much of the Pixies' uniqueness could be attributed to Santiago's inventiveness on the guitar). And it has a Kim Deal song! And the songs that are softer, acoustic style? Two of the greatest songs they ever recorded. There's the ever popular "Where Is My Mind?" and then there's my favorite track, one that has guided me through long distance relationship hatred (not hatred but obsession and anger and hell):

Pixies "Cactus"

I'll call it right there. Done.

In other comments...

• Thomas Dolby. Aliens Ate My Buick. A nerd of nerds, one of the last great new wave albums maybe? Mostly it's nerdy funk.
• I feel like I'm past talking about classic rock and that's kind of how I place The Traveling Wilburys. So I'll put this here. Roy Orbison is very missed. So is George Harrison now. That Vol. 1 is a good album. It just kind of sounds like a bunch of legends having a great time.
• I dig Camper Van Beethoven.
• Leonard Cohen's I'm Your Man actually sounds ok in the context of other late 80s music. Meaning the over-production I noticed when I first listened to it out of context is less noticeable when lots of the surrounding music is also over-produced. And "Take This Waltz" is another damn gem from this genius songwriter.
• The debut from My Bloody Valentine is pretty astonishing for a debut.
• Operation Ivy's Hectic EP is a part of the version of Energy I have on CD so it's kind of like it's here. I think I'll hold off and write about them in full when I hit Energy though.
• Lincoln is probably one of They Might Be Giants' stronger efforts.
• Fishbone album! Truth and Soul shows a band that is clearly in the minority of black bands in punk rock fighting against the pressures that come from that.

So what's next?

1989. We wrap up the 80s. But I have a lot to chew through so this may take a while (473, my highest song count yet!)

Hip Hop: Beastie Boys return. De La Soul shows up. So does Young MC! (looks much more positive this year)

College/Whatever: Disintegration is the best album ever! Depeche Mode keeps new wave alive a little bit longer. Early Nirvana! The other greatest Pixies album! My only Public Image Ltd album! Stone Roses. More Yo La Tengo.

Old People: Bob Dylan returns with a great album! So does Elvis Costello! And Lou Reed! Queen. 

Punk: Crimpshrine! Fugazi delivers the second half of 13 songs with the Margin Walker EP. The Mr. T. Experience. Operation Ivy for real this time. Slint means math rock is a thing! Vandals go country.

Popular: Janet Jackson's Rhythm Nation 1814. 

An Ear For An Era: 1987

Those '7 years, man. Always a big deal it seems. The culmination of a decade and the promise of the following decade. I didn't think 1987 would be that way, but here it is. "College" rock and hip hop were in a very '7 way in 1987.

But let's get the boring mainstream stuff out of the way first.

One of the biggest album of all of the 80s was Guns N Roses' Appetite for Destruction. This happened to come on when my metalhead friend was in the car and he had to laugh a bit about it. So quaint in the metal scheme of things. I don't really care for most of the album but the hits are pretty undeniable. Welcome to the Jungle. Paradise City. Sweet Child O Mine.

And then U2. Boring. I like their singles ok kind of, but yeah. The Joshua Tree came on and it was all boring and stuff. Were they interesting ever? Was it all lost by 1987?

Just like in 1982, there were giant albums from the two pop giants. Michael Jackson put out Bad, which had a good number of hits itself (but there's no following Thriller), including one of my favorites "Man in the Mirror." Prince put out Sign 'O' The Times, a massive double album that I only have in vinyl format. But I have a couple singles, including my favorite "I Could Never Take The Place of Your Man."

Ok now to get to the interesting stuff. Not that Prince & MJ were ever not interesting. But looking to the future was hip hop, which was rapidly growing up. Boogie Down Productions' Criminal Minded came up and I was like "KRS One already??" because he has this flow about him, it's astonishing and so fast and beyond all the hip hop previously encountered in this project. It's like, an actual flow! The only problematic things are "The P is Free" (which kind of seems like it glorifies taking advantage of people's crack addictions in a very misogynistic way) and the whole bridge wars thing. When I read about the bridge wars to put some of these songs into context, it turns out it was really stupid because BDP kept saying "I can't believe you think hip hop started in Queens! You're so wrong!" and then Queens was saying "we didn't say that" and then BDP said "I can't believe you said hip hop started in Queens!" etc. I like Scott La Rock's DJing in a 1980s hip hop manner. He was pushing things forward.

But then I heard something that felt even more forward. An album that must have been one of the most influential albums for all the great early 90s golden era hip hop that I'm looking forward to exploring, I'm of course talking about Paid in Full by Eric B. & Rakim. Rakim's vocals just have this sound to them, something that just feels good. The laid back flow way beyond everything else. And Eric B. was sampling different things, soul things. In jazzy ways to complement Rakim's flow.

Eric B. & Rakim "As The Rhyme Goes On"

Ok now for my wheelhouse. I put "college" rock up there meaning indie rock as it was referred at the time. But I also consider all the post hardcore (mostly DC) developments to be a part of this even though I have no idea if Dag Nasty was played on college radio stations. But Wig Out At Denko's is some sort of indie classic. To me it sounds like a somewhat more technically advanced Descendents. The energy is similar and I think that's what I like about it. We're also approaching Fugazi but one of the essential pitstops on the way to that is Embrace, Ian's short-lived emo project. I only have a few songs off their album but "No More Pain" is kind of the quintessential example of early emo to play for people that don't get it. Guy Picciotto's band of this era was Happy Go Licky, who didn't officially record anything in a studio but a live show was recorded.

You know, I talked about the Descendents above so here is an awkward segue into The Descendents' (original) swan song, All. Kind of their most mature album, say an Enjoy! without (as many) fart jokes. Not that it took itself particularly seriously. Yes, there are some of their better pop songs on here ("Coolidge," "Clean Sheets," "Pep Talk") but there are their most experimental pieces as well. Jokey experimental pieces. Like "Van" about doing stuff in a van. "Impressions" about a journey. "Ice Man" about a crazy Ice Man that cometh! The almost 7 minute "Schizophrenia." And the manifesto.

The Descendents "All-O-Gistics"

Qua quaaaaaaaaaaa qua qua...

And Dinosaur Jr! You're Living All Over Me! Can we get more classic college rock than that? And by that I mean they are both classic and they are influenced by classic rock. But with such youth and vigor, because that's how it was back then. Those dudes were young once, it turns out.

In the same vein of people that are now old but have been doing great work forever...Yo La Tengo. New Wave Hot Dogs is the earliest instance of YLT I have in my collection and it's quite good. Lots of the atmospheric things they are now known for can be seen here, just in smaller bursts. None of their patented long songs just yet.

I was missing a good chunk of Sonic Youth records between their self-titled debut and Sister, because now they are suddenly at the top of their game. Melodic when they needed to be, insane when they needed to be, they were shaping the future man! The underground would never be the same. I'll share this track mostly because it's Ash Wednesday.

Sonic Youth "(I Got A) Catholic Block"

But the biggest college/alternative/indie/whatever album of all of 1987, the biggest deal at least, was an EP by an up and coming band called the Pixies. This blog will be obsessed with the Pixies for the next few entries and then they will disappear. So playful, such great screaming, such odd guitar licks, it was all there on their very first EP Come On Pilgrim. Even if all of that has disappeared on their recent EPs.

Pixies "I've Been Tired"

Should I put The Smiths down here? It looks like The Smiths broke up here, and this part is about the ends of journeys. 8 songs on that Louder Than Bombs collection are from 1987, the last hurrah. Including one of my favorite Smiths songs because it's pretty relatable, "Half a Person."

Another one of those bands were still around still doing very good work was The Cure, who put out one of their stronger efforts (in my opinion), Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me. It's got some of my favorite hit songs of theirs ("Just Like Heaven" in particular), it's got a lot of Cure-sounding songs, and it has my favorite Cure song that doesn't sound so much like The Cure. Save this one for a special mixtape.

The Cure "Catch"

I guess that'll do it.

Also I may mention...

• Sinead O'Connor's The Lion And The Cobra played and it feels like a big influence on lots of the great female singer songwriters of the past 20ish years, such as Fiona Apple, Feist, Jesca Hoop, etc. that I dig because of how much creativity they push into a genre I would have otherwise assumed was just someone strumming a guitar.
• Fat Boys are very definitely a novelty act in 1987 with half-cover songs, a song with The Beach Boys, and a Chubby Checker featuring "The Twist (Yo, Twist!)"
• Operation Ivy had some undergroundish EPs in 1987 but I'll hold off talking about them until we at least get to the Hectic EP.
• One of Johnny Cash's lesser known lesser albums, Johnny Cash is Coming to Town, came up and I dig it because he covered an Elvis Costello song on it. And some cheesy love songs and other cheesy things.
• I also had the distinct pleasure of listening to the other half of The Pixies' "Purple Tape," which Come on Pilgrim was derived from. Mostly it's just interesting to hear early versions of songs that would make their major upcoming albums.
• R.E.M. was doing pretty good and starting to blow up thanks to their hit "It's The End Of The World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)"
• And just to clean up the last of the pre-Fugazi stuff in time for Fugazi, Rites of Spring had a 7" come out (even though they had been broken up a couple years) and it was fabulous.
• Big Black! Headache and Heartbeat!

What's Next??

1988 in punk/whatever: FUGAZI FUGAZI FUGAZI! Descendents turn into All! Big Black goes all out! An actual album by The Ex! Operation Ivy! Pogues! Shudder to Think! 

1988 in indie/whatever: Camper van Beethoven make their (here) debut! More Dinosaur Jr! Fishbone! Do My Bloody Valentine go here? One of the Two Best Pixies Albums! The Best Sonic Youth Album! 

1988 in singers or whatever: More Leonard Cohen! Traveling Wilburys! 

1988 in hippity hop: NWA! Ice T! (stuff's about to get profane!) Public Enemy! Slick Rick! Ultramagnetic MCs! 

...And another classic album from "Weird Al" Yankovic.