An Ear For An Era: 2017

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Priests "Appropriate"

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

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

Nicole Atkins "A Little Crazy"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

St Vincent "New York"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

An Ear For An Era: 2008

Oh hello there.

These are coming out so spread out that I kind of forget how to do them. Not that there's a way to do them. Just write about it, show you guys some clips for stuff that is cool, and do whatever I want. I answer to nobody but me here.

2008 was an...eventful year. Let's say that. Very early in the year I lost my job, and it was the head end of the big recession. Luckily I kind of managed to avoid the worst of it and got myself a job in July (which I've had ever since). So all of that means that most of the music I had, at least early in the year, was stuff that was offered for free. Mixtapes and whatnot. So keep that in mind.

And of course it was the year of that one election. That was referenced a lot. Remember all the hope and excitement about that election? Remember when Sarah Palin was a scary prospect? Simpler times.

Sorry, I don't mean to scare people off with political talk. But it was a big thing in 2008.

And that was the year I moved to the suburbs for a brief period. That sucked.

Oh! Starting with this entry, this very blog has my thoughts on 2008 FROM 2008! Whoa. Various lists, some thoughts I've repeated here, some things that I still agree with...

http://quietbrandon.blogspot.com/2008/12/its-all-in-one-post-here-because-it.html

NOTE: I got tired of trying to find youtube videos for the hip hop songs I wanted to share. Most were not there. That's the only reason there's such a big break without videos...check spotify or whatever you use to check out these artists.

Okay, let's start here. Hip hop. It was a year where there were some great mixtapes and somehow less great official releases. Nas had The N**** Tape, a highly political album from what I consider a kind of resurgence period of his. Or maybe it was just because that's when I took notice. But he had the pro-Obama song "Black President," which was so inspiring...oh, to be 2008 again. (note: I am being kind of sarcastic but it WAS a huge deal and still is, in ways we haven't even seen yet). Anyway, then he put out his official album that was supposed to be called N**** but he ended up just making it self titled (with still very provocative album artwork), which seemed slightly copout-ish. Make us uncomfortable!

Big Boi released a couple songs purportedly from his forthcoming album (which wouldn't be out until 2010), but they didn't end up on there even though they are amazing. Kind of an Outkast reunion, "Royal Flush" stands as one of my favorites from his first solo album, even if it wasn't actually on it. I was going to post the song here but apparently it's not on youtube. Oh well. Look it up.

Old favorite Del the Funky Homosapien had a smallish comeback with Eleventh Hour, his first album in quite some time. It was just so refreshing to hear a new Del album that there was no way I wouldn't love this album. But shortly after this he got really prolific and I stopped caring so much about his new material. However, revisiting Eleventh Hour, it still holds up very well. I'll gladly throw it on any time.

Another great mixtape came from Rhymefest and Mark Ronson, who put out a Michael Jackson tribute mixtape called Man in the Mirror. Some brilliant mashups of Michael Jackson songs and Rhymefest rappin' along. Some dumb chopped up interview skits were on there as well, but when it hits, it hits just right.

And the other another great mixtape...Wale. Mixtape About Nothing. He's been chasing this high for the past 8 years, I feel. Just brilliant wordsmithing and flow and relating everything to Seinfeld for whatever reason. He was a rapper that could just keep going and going and going (check out the "Roc Boys" freestyle!) and if you were to actually catch everything that comes out of his mouth you would find some really complex internal rhymes and poetry and probably some meaning too.

The most annoying mixtape I got was Ludacris' The Preview. I think it's pretty common on those free mixtapes, but every time the snippet "gangsta grizzills" comes up I want to pull my ears out of my head. Fortunately, his actual official album that it was a preview of was quite good. I liked it more then than I do now, but it has some highlights such as a song bringing Jay-Z and Nas together.

The Roots put out a highly confrontational and brilliant album in Rising Down. I obsessed over this one in 2008, and when it came back on I loved it just as much. Just a great reflection of where we were at in 2008 as a society. If youtube had it, I would have posted the song "Singing Man" so track that one down.

I really appreciated the anti-pop Kool Keith brought to Dr. Dooom 2, in which he needs to repeatedly kill Dr. Octagon AGAIN because some fools thought he should be resurrected. There's a lot of goofiness here but also a lot of genuine justified anger. And creepiness. Of course creepiness.

But don't you just want the FUN? People Under The Stairs put out an album that was just pure fun called Fun D.M.C. Just old school hip hop with a lot of skills and a lot of fun. Track down the song "Enjoy" and enjoy.

Next time you have to go on a run and it's around 66 minutes, do yourself a favor and put on White Van Music by Jake One. Those beats will keep you going for 66 minutes and 26 seconds. With a great assortment of guest vocalists (lots of the best rappers around), it doesn't get old or boring, and those beats man. Those beats.

What about that indie or whatever stuff? Should we talk about that? How about The Magnetic Fields? I kind of consider Distortion the kickoff of their "latter era" (that I hope just lasts forever!)  that has been going on ever since. It was supposed to be a highly distorted sound reminiscent of The Jesus And Mary Chain, but I felt like it had a very similar sound to their own classic 90s albums. Which is a very good thing. The songs can be hit or miss, but mostly hit still. Particularly "Too Drunk to Dream."

The Magnetic Fields "Too Drunk to Dream"

What else was there? Why, The Mountain Goats of course!Heretic Pride was when I was officially a fan going into a new album, and I loved it. It still might be my favorite, although I do need to spend more time with their older material. Quiet songs, brilliant lyrics, passionate louder songs, perfection.

She & Him took me a bit by surprise with their first album Volume One. When I heard about it, I didn't really have any interest in hearing the songs. Then I heard one on a Merge compilation and I enjoyed the girl-group stylings. So eventually I got the album. And it turned out to be completely charming. And they've put out a few albums since then and I always enjoy them, but coming back to Volume One, it does have an amateurish sounding charm about it that will probably make it my favorite of theirs no matter what they do going forward.

Cat Power put out her second covers album Jukebox, which was decent. My favorite two songs were the one original ("Song to Bobby") and the Roberta Flack song found on the bonus disc ("Angelitos Negros" showed me that Cat Power can really wail when necessary!).

The Breeders had a comebackish album Mountain Battles. They have a song in German. And one in Spanish. But I'll need to listen to the German song just to help me learn the language ahead of my trip...hey man, I can write whatever I want on this thing. But I like the Breeders' warm sound and it was all over this album.

Ladytron kind of killed it with Velocifero. Years after people stopped caring about electroclash, they put out this album. Not that it's particularly electroclash. I can never get my electronic music subgenres straight anyway. But there's just so much feeling and energy. This came on while I was running and it just made it so much better.

And then of Montreal followed up the brilliant Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer. Anything they would do would not live up to that. But Skeletal Lamping is a part of Hissing Fauna. It is a continuing saga of Georgie Fruit, the character of Kevin Barnes' id come to life. So on the surface this album is just a bunch of dirty sexy party songs, but beneath you can feel some misery breathing its hot breath, encapsulating everything and giving it a certain unease. I was worried about revisiting this one because at the time I felt like I was the only one who appreciated it, and maybe I was seeing something that wasn't there because I wanted to like it so much. But I can still feel what he put into this album, and it's still a lot of fun but also contains that dread that is more subtle than what Hissing Fauna achieved because the party songs are even more outrageous.

Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds. I'm glad Grinderman was a thing because it properly got me on track to get more interested in Nick Cave projects. Dig!!! Lazarus Dig!!! is a great rock and roll album that continues down the track of Grinderman to just punch you in the gut and then keep its fist there, in your gut, while it electrocutes you. Maybe instead of a fist punching your gut it's a guitar. I don't know.

Another great songwriter from that era but in a completely different vein, Jonathan Richman had a great album "Because Her Beauty Is Raw and Wild," which is indeed in quotation marks. It's just a heartbreaking album, which has two versions of the same song about how we can't block heartbreak. He hits an interesting intersection of funny and sad and thoughtful.

Ted Leo & The Pharmacists put out a quickie EP to raise money for something, I forget what. Related to the election though. I actually saw them play in town with Eugene Mirman (!) because the DNC was in Denver. Anyway. the EP is great and intense.

One of my favorite combinations was KatJonBand, who put out a self-titled album. This album reminds me of walking my dog around our apartment complex in the suburbs. I must have listened to it a lot then to forget I was living in the suburbs. But it was Kat Ex from The Ex (maybe my favorite drummer??) and Jon Langford from The Mekons (and other things). Which makes for a cool combination of folky and driving rhythm.

KatJonBand "Limbo"

Carried to Dust might be my favorite Calexico album. Particularly the three songs in a row that I gave four stars to, which sum up all of my favorite things about this band: "Inspiracion" (upbeat song in Spanish), "House of Valparaiso" (midtempo song featuring Sam Beam), and "Slowness" (countrified slow jam that hits me right in the heart). Can't be beat.

Okkervil River followed up their excellent The Stage Names with the equally excellent sequel album The Stand Ins. More clever lyrics, more of that Okkervil energy, and the best opening song they have (after the previous album closed on the best closing song they have!).

And finally, album of the year obviously went to TV on the Radio for Dear Science. I wrote a lot of hyperbole about this one (I always do!) in that best of 2008 post linked above, if you would like to read that. What can I add that time has changed about this album? None of my love for it has left over the past 8 years. It is an amazing experience to listen to this with some immersive headphones. Just let it wash over you. The production is perfection. It might be the band's crowning achievement, as they built up to this for a couple albums and the ones since then have been more of a denouement as they have scaled back their ambition a bit. So this might be the peak for who I consider the peak band of the past decade. Just the way all the pieces fall into place. The harmonies, the different instruments, the beats, the passion, the chaos, the lyrics, the everything. My two favorite tracks ("Shout Me Out" and "Family Tree") are polar opposites in style, and I love them for completely different reasons. This album hits everything.

TV on the Radio "Family Tree"

Other noteworthy notes:

• I wanted Miss Kittin to outlive the electroclash movement in popularity, but Batbox didn't end up being as successful as it should have been. Still, when I listened again a good 8 years later it held up quite well. Check out the song "Barefoot Tonight."
• Raconteurs' second (and last?) album Consolers of the Lonely came out. Enjoyable stuff.
• And The Kills. Randomly they popped up right after Raconteurs. Before The Dead Weather was even a thing!
• Crystal Antlers rocked so hard!
• Thao with the Get Down Stay Down put out the awesome We Brave Bee Stings and All, which is quite enjoyable.
• And Adele, with 19. Way back when!
• Similarly, I did like Duffy.
• Remember when Lykke Li was a new thing? Youth Novels has so much more of a twee sound than her recent albums, kind of a poppier El Perro del Mar. But I like it.
• And of course El Perro del Mar. From the Valley to the Stars takes the sadness of the first album and puts it through an AM radio of pop.
• Why? put out what I think was their first non-hip-hop album Alopecia. Just a lot of cleverness that I appreciated.
• I wanted to like Emmylou Harris' All I Intended to Be more than I did, but it's still worthwhile for a few choice cuts and always worthwhile for her amazing voice.
• Al Green with a late career stunner produced by ?uestlove!
• The first Titus Andronicus album was pretty great, but really just a preview of things to come.
• Santogold! That used to be what she went by! 
• Momofuku was the first Elvis Costello album I was slightly less jazzed about. I'm not sure why. There are still a couple stunners, and as I look over the track listing more than just a couple, but after The Delivery Man I don't know what I was expecting...
• Those Flight of the Conchords guys are hilarious! I'm going to see them this July at Red Rocks!!
• Neat, Beck produced by Danger Mouse!
• That Girl Talk album Feed the Animals is some mashup magic, and the best thing for running (aside from White Van Music).
• Little Jackie had some fun sass, I remember discovering them when they played on Conan (whichever show was on at the time!)
• Randy Newman hit a similar place to Jonathan Richman.
• Fleet Foxes. I dig it. Their next one ended up being my favorite of that year. But I don't remember the first one (and preceding EP) well enough to write about it properly at all.
• Nada Surf is pleasant always.
• Smoking Popes came back to this world and Stay Down was a quite good return.
• DeVotchKa was quite great on A Mad and Faithful Telling.
• According to my entry from 2008, I loved The Odd Couple by Gnarls Barkley. I still enjoy a couple songs, but I don't know what that was about. I don't dislike it, but it didn't stick out to me on the revisit.
• Oh, and Kanye did that 808s & Heartbreak album. People on the Internet seem to like/love that album for some reason. Any of my friends I talk to (who like Kanye otherwise!) agree that it is not good. I don't know what we're missing. I thought revisiting it would be a revelation but instead I just kind of hated it again. I get it, you want to create a crying robot or something. But the songwriting itself is sub par, I'd much rather listen to some actual singing, and pop has been done so much better by so many others. I mean, if this is what it took to get Kanye where he needed to be to put out My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, so be it. It's worth it and everything. But I still do not like 808s and Heartbreak and I don't suspect I ever will.

(EDITED TO ADD: I forgot to include the playlist for my mix! here it is!)
Nothing We've Actually Seen Has Been Mapped or Outlined
1. Fleet Foxes "White Winter Hymnal"
2. Gnarls Barkley "Blind Mary"
3. She & Him "Why Do You Let Me Stay Here?"
4. Jonathan Richman "When We Refuse to Suffer"
5. Frida Hyvonen "Birds"
6. Okkervil River "Lost Coastlines"
7. TV On The Radio "Shout Me Out"
8. Miss Kittin "Barefoot Tonight"
9. Ladytron "They Gave You A Heart, They Gave You A Name"
10. Bill O'Reilly "DO IT LIIIIVE!!!!!!!!1111 (DiscoTech Mix Version 2)"
11. KatJonBand "Crackheads Beware"
12. The Magnetic Fields "Too Drunk to Dream"
13. of Montreal "Gallery Piece"
14. The Roots featuring Truck North, Dice Raw & Porn "Singing Man"
15. Atmosphere "Yesterday"
16. Calexico "Slowness"
17. The Mountain Goats "Lovecraft in Brooklyn"
18. Ludacris featuring Nas & Jay-Z "I Do It for Hip Hop"
19. Wale "The Freestyle (Roc Boys)
20. Rhymefest "Can't Make it"
21. Big Boi featuring Andre 3000 & Raekwon "Royal Flush"
22. The Breeders "Here No More"

Next Time:

What comes after 2008? 2009. That means Dirty Projectors, Mos Def, and The xx. Lots of other stuff. Sonic Youth, St. Vincent, The Antlers, Yo La Tengo, Japandroids, and even more other stuff. It actually looks pretty good!

An Ear For An Era: 2004

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

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

Move My Hips To Move My Heart.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

Move My Hipster to Be Hipper.

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

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

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

The Magnetic Fields "I Looked All Over Town"

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


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


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

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

Arcade Fire "Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels)"

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

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

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

TV On The Radio "Poppy"

Old Reliable.

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

Elvis Costello featuring Emmylou Harris "Heart Shaped Bruise"

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

And On and on.

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

Next Time:

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

An Ear For An Era: 1999

Let's close out this millennium with style! Swag! Something special! Exclamation points maybe!

1999 was the year I got my driver's license and then broke my leg three days later playing soccer. One thing I remember from that ordeal was that the TV was messed up in my hospital room and so I requested that my parents bring me my discman and the CDs that were in the 6 disc changer in the car. I'd put 6 of my favorites in because duh, I got to drive and I was excited. I know Chumps on Parade was on there, probably Suicide Machines and Skankin' Pickle as well. And probably some Less Than Jake. Etc. Another thing I remember about the ordeal was that I decorated my crutches and walking cast with band stickers. All of this is to emphasize how much skapunk defined this experience for me, music was my life. My own music.

1999 was also the year my brother went to college. We drove down to Arizona with him to help him move in. I don't remember much about that trip except that I must have just gotten the Dan Potthast album Eyeballs right before, because I listened to that CD repeatedly on that trip. I was obsessed with that album. It emphasized the lyrical skills he had, the stories he told with multiple meanings, the clever way he turned a simple story into an analogy about life. And cute love songs, there are plenty of those as well. With Rivers Cuomo/Brian Wilson levels of insecurity. I wrote him a fan letter by hand and sent it in the actual mail and he wrote me back by hand. Such a cool guy that Dan Potthast is! And he's still at it! His band MU330 also put out two albums in '99 because he was so damn prolific in these days. There was a Christmas album that I always put on around Christmas even 15 years later (that wasn't part of this project because I've excluded Christmas music, not wanting to listen to the stuff in January-November) and their self-titled album. I remember this one being new, getting the album at that show I spoke of in a previous entry. The production on it was a little odd, a little lo-fi for MU330, but yet another showcase of Dan P's increasingly personal lyricism.

The Hippos improved when they put out Heads Are Gonna Roll. They shed their Reel Big Fish copping style for a synthy 80s flavored skapunk. Like The Cars meet skapunk. This time I listened to it while running my first half marathon and still really like their cover of "Always Something There to Remind Me."

The next album that came up during the half marathon was Fun in the Dark by Groovie Ghoulies. I don't know why I never got more of their albums because this one has been a favorite of mine for a long time. I always bust it out around Halloween time. It's just perfect spooky-ish pop punk. Spooky in the 50s horror/sci-fi style and pop punk in the 70s Ramones style. I'm glad it came up during October because that was perfect, and I'm glad it came up during the race because it was quite motivating.

One album from this era that I loved at the time and hadn't revisited in a long time but it all came back when I did was Hopeless Romantic by The Bouncing Souls. In '99 I enjoyed the earlier Souls records but they were both from a million years ago (i.e. from before I knew about them) and Hopeless Romantic was the one that came out while I was into them. So to me it feels a bit more mature but not too mature. Some sentimental tracks and some fun tracks. "Bullying The Jukebox" takes me right back to the time I saw them with my brother. They were playing with Less Than Jake and we saw them in downtown Denver. My parents dropped us off there and picked us up at Hooters (the only place we could find with a pay phone...remember pay phones??). Anyway, I'm getting off topic. They played and the singer just bounced around stage and it was just so much fun.

Another one I listened to contemporarily was Weird Al's Running With Scissors. This was a weird one for me but also the perfect one for me at the time. I had just enough exposure to mainstream music at the time to know and understand what he was parodying, and enough hatred for mainstream music at the time to laugh at it. Maybe too much hatred and too much laughter. But I really did hate that Offspring song "Pretty Fly for a White Guy" so I doubly appreciated Weird Al mocking it. It was also funny when the Backstreet Boys were in the polka and my little sister's friend got mad about it, "he can't be allowed to do that!!" I think this was the one where he shaved his mustache too, so it kind of signifies the second era of Weird Al or something. Where he was contemporary to me, up to date, and relevant. Yes, those all kind of mean the same thing.

After The Broadways (about whom I wrote very lovingly if you will recall), The Lawrence Arms formed and put out their debut album A Guided Tour of Chicago, featuring two of the members of The Broadways. The Lawrence Arms would soon become my favorite band for several years and are still up there. The debut was a lot more lo-fi than anything else they would do, and that made it feel like a step back from The Broadways at first. Some political songs, some songs of self loathing, it's a decent collection but their second album (coming up in 2000!) is where it's at.

Their peers Alkaline Trio put out their most solid release of all in 1999, the I Lied My Face Off EP. Four songs, all four stars or more in my ratings. Two Matt songs, two Dan songs. They were just on the top of their game, with Matt getting more poetic and Dan reaching the pinnacle of his angry side.

Alkaline Trio "This Is Getting Over You"

It was my college days when I got knee-deep in this melodic punk/"emo" stuff and Piebald was one of my favorite groups in those days. If It Weren't For Venitian Blinds It'd Be Curtains For Us All is probably their best one. I remember seeing them live and how awesomely unkempt the singer's appearance was, all with a white t-shirt and messy hair and scruffy face, and thinking of how awesome that was. Such beautiful music coming from someone who looked like he just walked in off the street. Maybe that's why I always let myself go in the facial (and head) hair department(s). Look up the song "Fat and Skinny Asses" though, because that's the good stuff.

I lost track (and then re-gained very recently) of Brian Moss, the singer for many projects over the years, starting with The Wunder Years. They had a couple releases in 1999. One was a split CD with Sorry About The Fire called On Behalf of Rock n Roll. It's decent, and I love the first track "You Know Who You Are" but the other album is one of those all-time favorites, Pitstops on the Road Less Traveled. Just an album of motivational songs for a high school kid, delivered with high amounts of passion. I hadn't listened to this album in a long time and of course it was another one of those where it came on and I was immediately singing along, remembering those days.

The only cure for cynicism is optimism. Or something like that. In the early '00s I was all down because my girlfriend had broken up with me and I listened to lots of that pseudo-emo stuff (and some real emo stuff!). I went to a show at Tulagi's in Boulder and Dressy Bessy opened (or maybe who I was seeing opened for Dressy Bessy?) I went by myself and I don't even remember who I was there to see. Because the thing that turned me around, changed my life in a way because it was what told me it would all be okay, was this Dressy Bessy set. Just some pure pop sugar to turn me around and show me that it will be okay. Optimism without sounding like something trying to tell me to be happy when I was not happy. I must have just been ready for it. I bought their CD Pink Hearts Yellow Moons and it's always been there for me since then.

Dressy Bessy "If You Should Try to Kiss Her"

Jim O'Rourke put out two amazing releases in 1999. The first was Eureka, and I don't know how to explain how brilliant it is. I'm sure others have been successful at that. But I just think it makes me feel good. It's comforting and the right kind of sad at the right moments. I think "Movie On The Way Down" is what exemplifies it for me, as it reminds me of the scene in Love Liza that uses it. Just the composition and the words it uses. The drunkenness of the horns. How it stumbles around in sadness.

Jim O'Rourke "Movie on the Way Down"

Keep it Like a Secret is arguably the best Built to Spill album. I think I might prefer some of their others, but they scaled back on the jamminess of Perfect from Now On without losing its technical brilliance. Pop music with respectability. Very 90s indie rock. The end of 90s indie rock?

Where do I fit Tom Waits into here? Mule Variations is yet another brilliant work by him, maybe even more brilliant than most of his other work. It starts off lo-fi-ish and pushes out from there. His blues songs have always been on point and the chaos around him splashing around, not overtaking the power of his vocals. I kind of hope one day to have a child listen to this with me and sing along with "Cold Water."

I didn't get into the Flaming Lips until a bit later than '99, even though I know my friend was a fan. But in retrospect, yes, The Soft Bulletin is one of the greatest albums of 1999. Full of songs of hope and hopelessness but trying. Just doing our best and it not being enough. It's sad but from a perspective of persistence. And selflessness. It wasn't until around 2006 that I saw this video but it is just so touching and everything I love about this album contained in a clip.

The Flaming Lips "Waitin' for a Superman"

Notice I called The Soft Bulletin "one of the greatest albums of 1999." That's because, without question, the BEST album of 1999 was a three-CD collection of 69 Love Songs by The Magnetic Fields. Sometimes an artist just has a time period where everything they do sounds just perfect, they're just tapped into this something. And Stephin Merritt took advantage of that by letting it all pour out over 69 damn songs. Sure there's filler, but it's barely any. Just a few silly songs like "Punk Rock Love," a repeating of the lyrics "Punk rock love punk love, punk love love..." Otherwise though, these are completely solid and overwhelming. Romantic, hopeful, sad, sadder, funny, and all very clever. Several perfect songs, as far as I'm concerned. My wife thought "Papa Was a Rodeo" was a cover of an old country song, and I have to think that's because it's so timeless now it's hard to imagine it being new ever. Like that line from Inside Llewyn Davis, that blues songs were "never new and never get old." My friend introduced me to the band with the song "The Luckiest Guy on the Lower East Side," which was funny and true and full of longing and sadness in a happy song. But the first song I actually ever heard by them was the result of grabbing a bunch of songs off a file sharing program in college. I didn't know what to think of it at the time, it wasn't really "rock" so why was it in the "indie rock" section? It sounded like an old song (as usual) and it stuck with me until I eventually figured out who this band was and put the song into context. And eventually, that was the song I danced with my wife to as our first dance at our wedding. No, not "The Book of Love," which everyone uses (even people who don't know who Stephin Merritt is!). This one. Simple but perfect, obvious but not too obvious. A song I love to associate with my marriage.

The Magnetic Fields "Nothing Matters When We're Dancing"

Other Stuff:

• Jay-Z's album Vol. 3...Life and Times of S. Carter is okay. It's got "Big Pimpin'" on it.
• The debut of !!! and sister group Out Hud was seen on their split EP Lab Remix Series Vol. 2. Very promising (and knowing history, both bands would turn out to be killer)
• Goodnight Pavement, Terror Twilight was their final album I believe.
• Fat Wreck put out a compilation of 101 30 second songs called Short Songs for Short People. I remember liking it for a few reasons. It introduced me to lots of bands. Blink-182 had a very profane song on it as did MTX. I don't know if anything else really stood out to me other than stuff like "hey cool a Rancid song!" and stuff like that.
• Eminem. The Slim Shady LP. I hated him at the time as a crusader against rap and as a budding crusader against homophobia. But why him specifically? Not sure. 
• Fifteen kind of entered that phase of their career of being super political and more about that than the music with Lucky. But it's heartfelt enough that I still find it somewhat endearing. And at the time I loved it because it was more lessons for me in leftist thought. 
• Beck's all super funky and such on Midnite Vultures.
• I only have a couple songs off The Faint's Blank-Wave Arcade but they are pretty great.
• AFI went all goth/dark/whatever on Black Sails in the Sunset, and at the time I dug it. Not super memorable though, 15 years later.
• The Roots were still awesome duh.
• Dr. Dooom killed Dr. Octagon. I like those Dr. Dooom records. No chorus. Really stupid album artwork. And rhymin' like only Keith can do.
• The first Hank Williams III album Risin' Outlaw is a great showcase of his vocals sounding just like his granddad's. Just a small hint of the way he would blow up the whole country music genre in a bit, it's pretty traditional but quite enjoyable.
• ODB! Got Your Money!
• The White Stripes' debut. I'll save my thoughts on them for a couple albums down the line. But it's good stuff.
• I liked a couple songs on the debut Common Rider album Last Wave Rockers. A different side of the OPIV singer, I kind of liked the songs he rapped on and remember thinking "this is the kind of rap I can appreciate." In retrospect, that was very silly of me.
• Sigur Ros, that stuff's pretty dreamy isn't it?
• More hip hop brilliance: Mos Def's debut album Black on Both Sides was quite the manifesto and a great start (not counting the already brilliant Black Star of course) and Handsome Boy Modeling School's debut So...How's Your Girl? was a nice collection of beats by two of the all-stars of hip hop at the time. With some fantastic guest spots from like likes of Del and El-P.
• Gah Les Savy Fav was great too!
• No Division was a Hot Water Music album I never got myself, but I always wanted to because I have two songs off it and they are probably my favorite HWM songs, "Free Radio Gainesville" and "Rooftops."
• And finally, the debut LP by Blackalicious Nia. Who knew that in a couple years I would discover this group and my entire perspective on hip hop would change? I probably would have actually liked this in '99 if I'd heard it. Very apparent skills on the mic, smart lyrics expressing the same thoughts I've always had, it's just a fantastic album.

Next Time: in the year 2000........(insert your favorite Conan joke here)

Aesop Rock, Alkaline Trio, At The Drive-In...and other letters besides A! Common and Cursive put out some of their best work, Deltron is appropriately futuristic, Enon, The Honor System are the flipside of that Broadways breakup, and my favorite Lawrence Arms album by the way, Ludacris, New Pornographers, Nina Nastasia, Reflection Eternal, Shellac, I get betrayed by The Suicide Machines, Weakerthans, other stuff. 

An Ear For An Era: 1995

Until the wheels fall off! My computer housing the music is not accepting (or the keyboard is failing to submit) the letters L and O, and the number 9, and the period. So now I'm on my wife's laptop. I hope I can figure out what is wrong with my super old computer or its super old keyboard. Or this will get difficult when I wish to write while the wife is using her computer.

Okay. 1995. This is getting weird. This was supposed to be some sort of historical thing, and now it's invading my life.

Several Wu Tang solo albums came out in '95 as they started taking over the world. Ol' Dirty Bastard's Return to the 36 Chambers is a favorite mostly for its collaborative songs with other Wu Tang members (particularly Raw Hide, featuring Raekwon & Method Man) because he seemed to bring out some real fire in them...ODB on his own is something else entirely to listen to and can get overbearing over a full album, so it hits a good balance. Raekwon's album Only Built for Cuban Linx is a critical favorite but a bit too monotonous for my liking (mostly just Rae and Ghost being badass storytellers). The GZA's Liquid Swords I like a bit more because it has a more full Wu-Tang roster as guests and the production is just fantastic.

Mobb Deep and their album The Infamous is along the same lines and just feels very real and very honest. Aceyalone brought a lot of creativity and spark to proceedings with his debut All Balls Don't Bounce. Similarly, The Pharcyde followed up a ridiculously creative endeavor with another one, Labcabincalifornia. I need to give these dudes more spins, because that was a highly entertaining listen.

Around '94 (I'm not sure if I articulated this in the last entry), I was struggling to find music I liked and followed my sister's lead. And I thank her for welcoming me into that world, even if I never quite found its groove. In 1995, I think that must have been the big trifecta year for my family. We got a PC, a dog, and cable TV (it could have been '96 but I don't know for sure and judging by the music of '95 it seems accurate). Now, of course the dog was the best thing about that. Ringo forever! But cable TV meant MTV finally found its way to me. And my brother got into that popular "alternative rock" scene and MTV helped us bond a little bit over that stuff. Having music videos we liked and would call each other over if they came on. Like this one!

The Presidents of the United States of America "Peaches"

The Presidents of the United States of America were a total bonding band for me and my brother. He had the CD but played it a lot. Together, we came up with an idea for a Weird Al song called "Leeches" ("Millions of leeches, stuck on my knee?" something like that?) and in the ensuing years would continue to appreciate PUSA. So perfect that lead singer Chris Ballew would start a children's music project Caspar Babypants in time for my brother to introduce his son to one of his favorite artists of all time.

My brother was a big fan of the Smashing Pumpkins in this, their heyday. He requested albums by them for gifts and my parents struggled to keep up (I recall a story of my mom trying to work with a music store clerk saying she was looking for a band that was called something like "killing fruit"). All of their singles from Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness bring back memories of watching videos with my brother and more or less identifying with their youthful rage. I know we got a midi version of "1979" because those were a thing in these days of the Internet and laughed at how off it sounded. Midioke is what we found, a program that showed lyrics to accompany midi versions of songs. Those were fun. My brother's website had lots of those files if I recall. Back when we had AOL sites. This might have been a little later than 1995. Isn't it weird to think that the song "1979," popular in 1995, is now older than the year 1979 was in 1995? I remember loving the song/video for "Thirty-Three" and it was kind of my own love (less shared with my brother) but of course the pinnacle of this album, of the Pumpkins' popularity in the 90s, and to me the definitive music video of these days was this one. It would be years before I would learn about Georges Melies and his A Trip To The Moon film that this was based on.That knowledge enhanced my enjoyment of both.

The Smashing Pumpkins "Tonight, Tonight"

The other band I equate with my brother and his "alternative rock" tastes and MTV is Oasis and specifically the album (What's the Story) Morning Glory. I remember "Wonderwall" playing all over the place and that was why I thought they sounded like The Beatles. Or like they were trying to sound like The Beatles. I now recognize their songcraft, and I think that was only really the case for their slower songs like that and "Don't Look Back in Anger." Oh, and another funnyish story about this album. My brother's CD player had what looked like a slot to hold a smaller disc than a standard CD. So at Best Buy we saw they had Minidiscs. Remember those?  We bought this album as a minidisc. Smart move. Obviously it did us no good. We theorized taking it back, telling Best Buy that a grandma bought it because she was confused about CDs but I think we just ended up keeping it. I ended up getting a minidisc player a few years later but I don't think I ever put this album on there. I didn't say much about the music. It's Oasis' big one, that's for sure. The hit songs make me nostalgic for those memories. That's about the extent of what I can say about it.

How about the other sides of the Brit pop contest of 1995?

Blur once again had a very solid entry into the competition (definitely at least more consistent than Oasis!) with The Great Escape. Another great mix of all types of pop music from melancholy to giddy.

However...not only did Pulp pull out its second consecutive Brit Pop victory, but a good argument could be made for Different Class being the greatest album of 1995. It's just of a whole different class, if you will. It's the apex of their career. They spent a decade or so perfecting this sound and there's so much confidence and swagger just oozing out of this album that it's infectious. Have I mentioned that I spent a few months after college as a go-go dancer? Well I did. It was for free drinks at a hipster dance night, so no big deal (and I'll probably have more to say about it a ways later in this project) but the way I got the gig was that "Common People" came on and I just went nuts over the song because it's impossible for me not to, and that impressed some guy that was organizing the thing. That song and really the whole album is just so full of energy, a little bit of perversion, and a very earned "epic" feeling that just makes what you're listening to sound like the most important thing in the world.

Pulp "Common People"

Wow, I don't think I had ever seen that video before. A little goofy and not really worthy of the amazing song.

The other album that is a clear candidate for album of the year was The Bends, Radiohead's fantastic follow-up to the not-quite-fantastic Pablo Honey. Looking at my ratings, none of these songs rates below a 3 star rating, which is pretty remarkable. Pretty much means it's perfect. I always have a soft spot for jams like "High and Dry" and of course "Just" but it's such a step in the right direction for the band that the experiments are more hints at how far they would go on the next album OK Computer while still being grounded. I'm not sure which of the two is my favorite Radiohead album but this one so ably straddles the line between experimental Radiohead and grunge-ish/populist-ish/but-not-in-a-bad-way Radiohead. Very guitar based, which I can't say about their later work, but absolutely fearless.

Now let's talk about stuff that I was not aware of in the least at the time, as I was only 11-12 in 1995.

I promised another beloved Magnetic Fields album and Get Lost is certainly that. I'm somewhat torn between this and The Charm of the Highway Strip as my favorite pre-69-Love-Songs Magnetic Fields album...I love Charm as a cohesive unit, a conceptual piece, with plenty of great songs. But Get Lost has my favorite songs of all (and no filler!). I love it for pretty much every song, and feel like if any of these had been on 69 Love Songs they would be highlights. "All The Umbrellas In London" is one of my favorite sad songs...I fell for it during a live performance after the album i, so it was a slowed down version with cellos and whatnot, which just brought out the brilliant lyrics. "If I could live through the night, it'd be all right. It'll make a good song or something." Indeed it did. And then this song, which I like to use as a representative Magnetic Fields song if purposefully introducing someone to the band. Even though introducing people to the Magnetic Fields is usually an accidental occurrence in that any time someone hears them in whatever context they happen to be in, they tend to want to know more.

The Magnetic Fields "Save a Secret for the Moon"

"I know all the saddest people...most of them are dead now" is one of those simple lines that used to catch me off guard and provoke a strange hybrid response of both humor and dread. Something Stephin Merritt excels at, and that line exemplifies it. He also had some other bands, one of which was The 6ths, who released an album called Wasps' Nests (they sure liked to make hard to pronounce names!) this same year. Bringing in guest singers singing against type was a great move and as a collection is very solid Merritt work. "San Diego Zoo" featuring Barbara Manning is a mixtape staple (many Merritt songs are mixtape staples). Listen to this stuff, yo!

I was SO CLOSE to finding punk rock in 1995 but it would be another year or so yet. But that doesn't mean I didn't eventually totally dig Rancid's album ...And Out Come The Wolves. One of those defining punk rock albums of the 90s. I don't care how old I get or what people say about 90s punk rock not being real punk rock. ...And Out Come The Wolves was a defining album for me and is part of what made me a punk rock kid. From the insane bassline of "Maxwell Murder" to the ska backbeat all over the album (very much influenced by The Clash's London Calling) to catchy punk rock songs like "Ruby Soho," this album had it all. Oh, and a good story song about the life of Operation Ivy in "Journey to the End of the East Bay." That caps it off.

Less Than Jake's Pezcore is a pretty seminal album in mid 90s skapunk and listening to it brought back many memories of hanging out in high school and being awesome. Reel Big Fish made their debut with Everything Sucks but I think they would go on to do much better once they had major label backing, as weird as that is to say, as their big album of next year would greatly influence me and my musical tastes for decades to come. On this album they feel like demo versions of the songs. Which when listening with a less nostalgic feel all these years later just kind of makes it feel immature and whiny. Maybe when I hit the big album in the next entry the nostalgia will take more hold.

Honorably Mentioned:

• The end of Freddie Mercury's Queen. I'll miss them!
• My one and only Dismemberment Plan album titled simply "!" (quotation marks included) is fabulous and I should have gotten more at some point I reckon.
• I could almost devote some more space to Fugazi for Red Medicine but I'm going to relegate them to here because their last two are the ones I have personal stories to express. But Red Medicine is the one that was apparently a weird departure at the time. I kind of consider everything Fugazi represents a weird departure so this one stands out slightly less to me. I will say that it wasn't as great for running to as some of their previous albums, so that's saying something. 
• Crap! The Roots' Do You Want More?!!!??! came out in 1994. My itunes was mislabeled 1995 so I can't really write about it except to say yes I do!
• Archers of Loaf's Vee Vee is another excellent record I must say.
• So was Wowee Zowee (what's it with album names with double e's in 1995 indie rock? Just the thing to do?) by Pavement which was my favorite and sounds kind of like their double album even though it kind of fits on one CD. All over the place and has some real gems.
• A couple stray Tupac songs, "Dear Mama" and "California Love."
• I like PJ Harvey's album To Bring You My Love. Kind of a 90s alt rock version of Patti Smith.
• The Suicide Machines/Rudiments split is the first taste of who would be one of my favorite skapunk bands in the 90s. And The Rudiments!
• Citizen Fish was a great skapunk band who seemed to have shared members with Brit punk band Subhumans. Highly political but smart about it, Citizen Fish are one of the few skapunk bands that persist an I can still enjoy on a less-nostalgic level.
• That Bjork album Post is pretty great even if I couldn't get into her music videos at the time. Today I think they're pretty neat!
• I have a soft spot for the early Wilco album A.M. because it was one of my first (due to the property of many of my nostalgic albums, the fact that it was the one I found when browsing for used CDs).
• The Pietasters' Oolooloo used to be one of my favorite ska albums but at this point it just feels way too chauvinistic to be comfortable with. Still lots of catchiness though. But something's not quite right about those dudes.
• Don Caballero's album Don Caballero 2 is fabulous by the way.
• Smoking Popes' Born to Quit is my first Popes album. I expected it to be a little more punk rock after learning of how many bands were influenced by them but I adapted to it. The ultimate romantics.
• Aceyalone's All Balls Don't Bounce was a very welcome addition to the hip hop vocabulary I've been developing. Not the most innovative but definitely up there in creativity.
• My first play of The Amps' only album Pacer. Good pretty-much-the-Breeders album that I need to listen to more.
• In the emo world, the last Jawbreaker album Dear You came up. It's not particularly well received by critics but I'm ok with it. Definitely way more commercial than anything else they did but the lyricism and the cleaned up vocals kind of bring to mind Blake's next project Jets to Brazil. At least here and there.
• Insomniac by Green Day was another one I bonded with my brother over. I only have a couple songs on my computer but we were into it. Which may make it my first punk rock album despite being owned by my brother? Or we'll just call this one coming up next year my first punk rock album. Either way...

Next Time!

1996 was a turning point for me. Kind of. I mean, I didn't get into some of the 1996 stuff until 1997 but it was current when I got into it and it changed my life. So we'll call it like that. What's the stuff of 1996?

Beck! Belle & Sebastian x2! Braid! Super sweet Brainiac album! My first official "guilty pleasure" (The Cardigans)! Cat Power! De La Soul still killin it! Descendents comeback album! DJ Shadow goes all nuts! So does Dr. Octagon in what would eventually lead to The Gorillaz! Eels! Fugees! Ghostface solo! Jay-Z! Nada Surf is Popular! Neutral Milk Hotel is amazing! So is Outkast! RBF! Refused! I get to write about The Roots this time! Au Revoir to Skankin' Pickle. But hello to the likes of Slapstick and Slow Gherkin! A swing revival with the Squirrel Nut Zippers! And how about that Sublime? The Suicide Machines were a favorite. And another gem from that Weezer group. One of the better Wilco albums. 2Pac. And another classic from "Weird Al" Yankovic!

An Ear For An Era: 1994

All of these things turn 20 this year.

There are too many things to write about. Expect very little detail because it's overwhelming and I can't get it all in here. But I'll try my best. Tons of music important to my life and tons of music that was just so influential to all of music. Tons of debuts of super important musicians. And silly things that I personally love.

How about USA against Ghana, huh? Here's that silly video I promised last time because soccer and stuff:

James "Goal Goal Goal"

That's the album cover for the CD I had. Now I know I had a CD player in 1994 because I got this CD and World Cup USA and stuff. I remember being in Florida for vacation that summer and watching lots of world cup games there. I rooted for Italy and Roberto Baggio especially that year and got way into it, and then Baggio blew it in the final shootout. Scandalous! I remember Alexi Lalas and Cobi Jones were the star American players according to our Sports Illustrated For Kids. I think I even got a Cobi Jones autograph at a Rapids game when they played LA once. I wonder if that's still around anywhere...This year I'll be rooting for various teams. USA of course, and I like The Netherlands. And Mexico is impressing me greatly. And we'll see how this first round shakes out.

Oh, were we talking about music?

1994 was a landmark year for 90s punk rock. The stuff I'd listen to in '98 and surrounding years. The Bouncing Souls' The Good The Bad And The Argyle had its share of goofy songs and covers and I can still enjoy listening to it. Dixie by Avail is totally solid. The Choice of a New Generation by Fifteen still saw them be likeable and a punk rock band as opposed to a vehicle for political ranting. Let's Go by Rancid had "Radio" so that wins. And 22 more tracks in real punk rock fashion. And the quintessential 90s punk album in my view was Punk in Drublic by NOFX. Slightly less juvenile than their previous material but still full of jackassery, the energy of this CD made it the perfect driving around with friends CD. Just blast it. Countless classic songs, some leftist political leanings, and some silly things to keep it fun. 

NOFX "The Brews"

And of course the big one. Dookie. Green Day exploded onto the pop world with their pop punk masterpiece. I'm not ashamed to call it that. They were in the right place to make an impact and they did it. Just what the culture ordered. Dookie would be an album my brother would get, and it would have an indirect impact on my personal change from listening to my sister's music (Hootie and the Blowfish or whatever) to listening to my brother's "alternative" music, which was closer to where I'd end up when I discovered my own music.

And with punk came ska. Well I liked the ska side first. MU330 was one of my favorite bands and here's their debut album Press! They would get much more mature as the years went on, but the goofy songs like "Stuff" kept me quite amused back then. Sing Along With Skankin' Pickle was a little less goofy as they no longer had King Goof, Mike Mattingly. I don't know what happened with that split but his band Neosoreskin had all the goofiness with just the amount of resentment that makes it uncomfortable. I hit some early Less Than Jake stuff from the Losers, Kings, and Things We Don't Understand collection. Very horn based back then. 

Later I would evolve to "indie rock" or whatever. Built to Spill's There's Nothing Wrong With Love was the first album I got that I defined with that term, even if I didn't know what it meant. But that's an album that has stuck with me more for its cutesy indie pop songwriting ("Big Dipper," "Car," "Twin Falls") than their guitar virtuosity would define them more as their career continued. But damn, those are some great lyrics! The Magnetic Fields became a favorite toward the end of college (and continue to be so now). It seems they put out two albums in 1994. The Charm of the Highway Strip is one of my favorite Magnetic Fields releases with its charming concept of train songs and countryish approaches. Leaps and bounds beyond their earlier work.

The Magnetic Fields "Born On A Train"

Their other album from 1994, Holiday, happened to come on pretty quickly after Charm, and it's lovely of course. Particularly "Take Ecstasy With Me." Yup. Good stuff.

Where do I talk about Rodan? Does this work? Their only album Rusty is excellent for many different reasons. The main reason there are so many reasons is that it's all over the place in six tracks. Soft songs, hardcore songs, lots of mathy stuff...it jumps around a lot. And I love it for that. Brainiac can go into a similar category, so this will be that paragraph. Bonsai Superstar is an album it took me a while to track down (after becoming a 1341N14C fan back in college) but it became one of my favorites. And Jawbox, that For Your Own Special Sweetheart is an underrated gem. 

And I gotta talk about Pavement a little bit because Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain might be their finest album. "Cut Your Hair" is a fun song to listen to and sing along to, but "Gold Soundz" is the one you really want to sing along to. But "Range Life" sounds strangely the most earnest for someone that was such an icon of such an ironic movement. And closer "Fillmore Jive" just builds perfectly into the chaotic mess that I was wanting to hear the whole time. 

And now the rest of the world that I was only sort of aware of in 1994. Alternative was becoming quite the thing in 1994. Beck's big breakout song "Loser" was a "slacker anthem" or whatever so go slackers. Who knew Beck would still be doing stuff and have maturity and stuff 20 damn years later? 

Lots of friends liked Weezer and their Blue Album but I never got into it until much later. I don't know why not. I'm sure I would have liked them. But by the time I really heard them (other than the "Buddy Holly" video, which I more enjoyed for its non-Weezer aspects) I was way into punk rock and found them too poppy for my tastes. Good thing I'd eventually give them another chance, because it is one solid pop rock album. Bush was popular too. 

Okay and there's the Brit pop showdown! In one corner, Parklife by Blur. Fabulous record right there, much better in my opinion than Definitely Maybe by Oasis in another corner. Lots of energy but they would probably do better on Morning Glory. And the winner? His 'n' Hers by Pulp, who wasn't even in a corner but managed to win the Brit Pop Showdown of '94! Without even putting out their best effort yet!

Pulp "Have You Seen Her Lately?"

And hip hop was completely turned on its head in 1994, for better or worse. While I found the early 90s to be dominated (from my collection's perspective at least) by alternative hip hop goofballs, 1994 had some albums that would just change the course of the genre completely. Outkast's debut Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik is a lot of fun (but more commercial and less experimental than what they would go on to do). The Notorious B.I.G. changed everything on Ready To Die. The most vivid depiction yet (in my collection) of what inner city life looked like, the desperation, the pressure, it just paints a beautiful picture of suffering. It's a shame he left so soon. 

The Notorious B.I.G. "Things Done Changed"

And this was followed up immediately in the playlist by Illmatic by Nas, which I need to listen to more but it's more of that realness. Then Method Man's first solo album (the first Wu-Tang solo album) Tical came around and solidified it.

Finally, a comeback. Johnny Cash. Rick Rubin. American Recordings. Just a man and his guitar, the way it's always been meant to be. It's so fantastic how he was able to resurrect his career just by finding someone that knew what to do with his talent. And there he was, covering Leonard Cohen! And having songs written for him by the likes of Tom Waits and Danzig!

Johnny Cash "Thirteen"

That's a good place to stop. Except I have a couple more things. Another comeback! The Beatles released a "new song" in 1994 and I remember it happening! But I still don't really find "Free As A Bird" as exceptional as most Beatles songs. But how exciting it was that it was coming out at the time! I think I saw it on 20/20 or something.

And I have to close on Jeff Buckley because this is the only album we get. Grace. Beautiful vocals. Rock and roll. I could post the famous "Hallelujah" cover but you probably know that. And I want to make it clear that this album is more than just that. Buckley's short career is more than just that. "Last Goodbye" would be clever but maybe too clever.  Let's just do this song and call it done. I like it because it places so much focus squarely on the vocals.

Jeff Buckley "Lilac Wine"

Done.

Other things to note, there are many:

• The Rollins Band song "Liar" used to make me laugh in its ridiculousness.
• Elliott Smith early stuff! "Drive All Over Town" is great.
• I wish I had more to say about Let Love In by Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, other than the fact that it's probably my favorite Nick Cave album and I just realized that when I was listening to it for this thing.
• Man or Astro-man?'s closing theme music from Space Ghost Coast to Coast came on, which means I would soon discover Space Ghost and it would be the best thing ever for a while. And I would also soon discover Man or Astro-man? who are the spaciest, surfiest instrumental rock n roll partiers around.
• Portishead is a good band that I probably should be way into but it just kind of washed over me.
• I never got way into Nine Inch Nails but The Downward Spiral feels important. It has that "Closer" song and "Hurt."
• New Times was an early Violent Femmes purchase I made based on it being available at a used CD store. I have a soft spot for it and can't judge it objectively.
• Without A Sound is the only "mid period" Dinosaur Jr album I have, but I like it quite a bit. Not as much as the early period or late period stuff though.
• Experimental Jet Set, Trash and No Star is a better Sonic Youth album.
• I think I've said most of what I'm going to say about the Beastie Boys but still. Ill Communication. Plus this talk of Weezer, Dinosaur Jr, and this album (it includes "Sabotage") tells me we were in that great music video era of Spike Jonze and the like. I almost had MTV at this point. Almost.
• Not to say the hardcore rap of Biggie/Nas/Etc totally shut out the jazzy hip hop...Gang Starr's Hard To Earn may be their finest effort, and I loved Guru's guest spot on Digable Planets' Blowout Comb. 
• Brutal Youth is one of the first Elvis Costello albums I got and of course it's wonderful.
• My wife really liked Warren G. Who knew??

Next Time...

I figure out a better way to tackle these giant lists. 

Hip hop: Aceyalone keeps things light, Wu-Tang solo artists go nuts, Mobb Deep, more Pharcyde, The Roots

Punk/ska: AFI was still a punk band, Blue Meanies, Citizen Fish, D-Plan, Don Cab, Fugazi goes slightly different, Jawbreaker goes mainstreamish, Pezcore, Pietasters, Rancid, RBF

Alternative?: Another Kim Deal band, Archers of Loaf, Bjork, another favorite Magnetic Fields album of course, PUSA! Radiohead, Smashing Pumpkins

Another brit pop battle between Blur, Oasis, and Pulp

Curios: Elvis Costello's covers album, the final Queen album with Freddie Mercury

And more...