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: 2007

I've been putting off writing this one for some time now. Maybe not on purpose. Mostly just because I was busy with Christmas and catching up on the ton of music I'd acquired in the previous couple months in an attempt to have some sort of grasp on the music of 2015. Not that I ever felt I even sort of caught up on that. But I've spent the past month listening to recent acquisitions released from 2013-2016. 2016 is Bowie. That's a whole other thing. I always make it a big deal to myself what my first album of a year is and I'm so glad it's Bowie this year.

Okay, where am I?

2007 was my favorite year for music. So much so that I was hoping to get this up by the end of the year so I could say something like "2007 was my favorite year of 2015!" but at least that's here, so that's something.

When I started this project I was looking forward to 2007. I was wondering if context would make a difference, if I'd change my opinion on 2007 music because it might have just been the sheer quantity I consumed that year that helped me find so many albums I loved (and in many cases, my introductions to many artists that I love). But that's not really how it works. Because these are albums I loved and they will always be albums I love. Regardless of context. Are there some lesser albums? Of course. Just like every year. But the top bunch are amongst my tip top bunch of all time.

I'll try to not make this too long but I feel like there will be a lot I will want to write a lot about. And things that deserve full paragraphs might end up in the notable things at the end just because there's so much great here.

I guess I can get started since I've already made the intro much too long.

It started this time with Ted Leo & The Pharmacists. I'd long respected them and lots of my friends liked them, but Living With The Living was where I finally really got it personally. The energy, the passion, the politics...they really captured my feelings during the Bush years and the aftermath of the war in Iraq. And then the slightly softer songs were just so damn catchy, it's just a great album from front to back. And it has one of my favorite lines that really exemplifies the whole reason I have this blog project, from "The Lost Brigade." Repeating and repeating, more and more earnest...

"Every little memory has a song."

2007 was a year I was so into music that it was the year I got to go to SXSW in Austin for work. We interviewed tons of bands, saw tons of shows, just absorbed the whole thing, and it was amazing.

We had to run to try to catch Les Savy Fav's set and only caught the last song. To this day that is the only time I witnessed LSF live, which is a big regret (but not as big as if I had missed it completely!). We interviewed Tim and he gave us some fun soundbytes because he is a very clever man. Anyway, the album. Let's Stay Friends is the album from this year and is a huge ball of energy, just like the band.

The other SXSW story I have to share is when we went to a "US vs Norway" showcase. We went through the line outside and asked people "US or Norway??" and got some great answers. Then we went inside and a band was playing called The Lionheart Brothers. I was supposed to get some footage of bands playing so I sat there taping them. And continued to. And was completely mesmerized by this band with its spacey guitars and lovely vocal harmonies, matched by a driving beat. They don't have very good distribution in the states but I got their album Dizzy Kiss on itunes, one of the few albums I've ever bought on itunes.

When we headed back home after an amazing few days with very little rest, I think it was an early morning flight. Everyone was so tired and I listened to my iPod in the airport. And this memory has this song. And the lyrics don't really fit it much other than being tired, but I was picturing the film of our journey, and it was the end credits, and I saw everybody sitting half-dead or napping at the airport, everyone with their own favorite adventures and memories, and this song played.

Sundowner, "This War Is Noise"

Yes, Chris, best known for The Lawrence Arms, one of my favorite songwriters in two of my favorite band, and the man who wrote my senior quote, put out his solo debut as Sundowner. Four One Five Two. Just a great set of songs, including a couple Lawrence Arms covers that he completely transforms. But "This War Is Noise" will always take me back to that airport in Austin and the recovery from one of the best weekends of my life.

Another memory has a song (or an entire album!). I had just gotten The Shepherd's Dog by Iron & Wine and I got sick. Sicker than usual. I never take sick days but I had to go home and take some drugs. And I put it on the turntable and listened to it. And about halfway through the album I realized that no, there wasn't a female guest vocalist on all of those songs. My record player had gotten all messed up and was playing everything at some rpm between 45 and 33. Oh, and the album itself: it's great!

Hey guys, Shellac only puts out an album every several years and it is always an event. Excellent Italian Greyhound was my first "new" Shellac album. The End of Radio kicked off my "it was 2007" mix CD and was a great statement on the state of music. The rest of the album is just pure Shellac. Rage, calculated rage, and aggression (calculated aggression).

Speaking of calculated aggression, I have a confession. I didn't really start listening to Nick Cave until Grinderman. Their self-titled debut as Grinderman is so great and it introduced me in a more official capacity to the genius that is Nick Cave.

Deerhoof came onto my radar with Friend Opportunity. Kind of. I had heard a few songs but it always seemed so weird and abrasive (both qualities I've loved for a while, but for some reason I couldn't get into them). Friend Opportunity was my opportunity to really understand them and spend more time listening to them (particularly because it came out early in the year!) and really find the catchiness aspect they excel at. Catchy and weird rather than abrasive and weird. With pieces of the right kinds of abrasive.

Another band known for being catchily abrasive and weird is Animal Collective. After reading some great reviews and loving the idea in theory I picked up Strawberry Jam and I tried. I really, really tried to get into it. But I couldn't. It just wasn't the right kind of catchy or abrasive. The right kind of weird maybe. But I gave it a bunch of spins and it didn't do much for me. Cut to a couple months later. Riding in a friend's car. He has it playing on the stereo. Suddenly I love it. It had snuck into the back of my brain!

Panda Bear (of said Animal Collective) had the highly lauded Person Pitch album that year as well. Less weird, more beautiful in general, and a similar burrowing quality.

I listened to 23 by Blonde Redhead a lot at work that year. It was one of just a few albums on my computer there but it always made me feel so good to put it on. I don't know if they've hit this balance of synthiness and catchiness in the years since.

Perennial favorite Enon had what ended up being their final album Grass Geysers...Carbon Clouds. This one was a little more focused than usual, almost to its disadvantage. I always like the kitchen sink approach of their albums and this was more rock-centric. But that made the songs that stray from the straightforward beat (such as "Pigeneration") that much more interesting in this context. They are having a lot of fun on this album and you can tell.

Okkervil River really hooked me with The Stage Names. As good as Black Sheep Boy was (and I was too much of a latecomer for it to be "my" Okkervil River album), The Stage Names is just so catchy and smart, sad at the right times, and really reminds me of the French New Wave of cinema. Will Sheff is so learned about music and he has so many references that are placed at the perfect place while putting his own spin on everything, it's just fun to listen to and catch everything flying by. But especially when the last song goes into "Sloop John B" and gives me such a rush of joy.

Okkervil River, "John Allyn Smith Sails"

Spoon has always been on a hot streak. I remember we ambushed Britt Daniel at the Monolith Music Festival and talked about his new album Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga (even he had to count on his fingers to get the title right). This one might even be better than the average Spoon album. It seemed like they really expanded their sound here without losing their core. It's great fun.

The Shins hit a high point (and I got them the same day I got my first album of 2007) with Wincing The Night Away. Or I just accepted them into my world. Friends and loved ones already loved them, and they were hugely popular because of Garden State, but I didn't have much interest in them until I decided to have interest in EVERYTHING around this time. And I liked it, some catchiness reminiscent of The Beach Boys, and a great kickoff beat to start the whole thing.

Speaking of a great kickoff beat, how about that LCD Soundsystem? Sound of Silver could have been #1 and maybe if I take everything into account it is now. Just the one-two punch of "Someone Great" and "All My Friends" hit me on such a personal level and are some of my favorite 14 minutes of music.  Surround that with some great party jams and end it with an earnest ballad and you've got a classic on your hands. I don't know how necessary it is for me to write much about this since everyone seems to know about them (how about the hype around their reunion only 5 years after their hiatus?!), but this is really something special.

LCD Soundsystem, "All My Friends"

I feel like !!! started off their still-going streak of greatness with Myth Takes. I really dig their earlier material (and you may recall that their EP/single thing was basically at the top of my list in 2005) but they did what they kind of set out to do. They reached a certain kind of maturity here (keep in mind that they are still as gleefully juvenile as ever with lyrics and antics; I'm talking about the way they handle a groove) that has propelled them way beyond anyone's expectations.

Talib Kweli had a banner year in 2007. He started it off with a free collaborative EP with Madlib. This was kind of what kicked off my interest in Talib, and I ended up ranking the free EP very highly on my year-end list. It felt like nobody remembered it since it came out at the very very beginning of the year, but it sits close to my heart. I'm guessing a big part of that is because he is such a great artist and it was my window to a world of talent. But he also put out a very long, very acclaimed album called Ear Drum. Probably the most successful he has been at the pop thing. I was less interested in it at the time but upon revisiting it, it really works for him. He's tried a few times to be a popular rapper and shed the "conscious" label even though he's so good at that as well.

How are we already to the end of the great Guru? Guru's Jazzmatazz Vol. 4 was released in 2007 and was my real intro to his great voice. His delivery had a certain knowing swagger to it, an authority that makes me take notice. Gang Starr was before my time and just about all of the Jazzmatazz stuff was as well. He came into the studio once and talked about his new vegetarian diet and healthy lifestyle, which made his heart attack just that much more shocking. I don't feel like I'm doing justice to the album or the man, but just give him a listen.

Guru's Jazzmatazz featuring Kem, "Connection"

I finally "got" Kanye West when he put out Graduation. He has gone on to even greater heights, but I just really liked how vulnerable he allowed himself to be (briefly) on this album, it made him human. Plus he'd just dissed George W Bush on national television so he was getting good will from me.

I really really liked American Gangster by Jay-Z. It seemed like he really found some inspiration from that movie and had to put it out there. It's just full of great songs, from the catchy ones (Roc Boys) to the inspired (Pray).

Saul Williams and Trent Reznor released an optionally free album (around the same time as Radiohead)  so I really tried to help get the word out. The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of NiggyTardust! is a very intense and confrontational album about race in America, with some great production by Trent Reznor. It was like nothing I had heard before, the mix of industrial and beat-poetry-hip-hop, and should have been more successful than it was.

Janelle Monae finally released her EP and the beginning of her Metropolis arc and it was just so great right out the gate. The two follow-up LPs are absolutely amazing, but the kickoff EP is more than just promising. It is a full chapter of greatness, an introduction to a very interesting career indeed.

I didn't really like M.I.A. at first but then we got the video for "Boyz" at the station. As obnoxious as it was, it really dug into my brain and I ended up getting the album. Kala. And I really really got the appeal. Such a fantastic album, including the never-going-out-of-style "Paper Planes."

I picked up a single by Jesca Hoop out of a free bin because it had a quote by Tom Waits. Turns out she worked as a Nanny for Mr. Waits, which is a pretty funny concept to me. But his endorsement was not unfounded. Her debut album Kismet is really something special. I'd call it my introduction to "quirky" female singer-songwriters. Because my ignorant brain always equated them to softer folky stuff. But Jesca Hoop jumps all over the place with her vocals and her production and her rhythms and lyrical content in a way that is so engaging and fun to follow.

Nicole Atkins will always be related in my mind to Jesca Hoop because she was the other great woman singer-songwriter I discovered around the same time. But her stuff is less bouncy and more brooding. I always wanted to edit together a dramatic dance sequence set to "The Way It Is."

Jens Lekman too?? When I first got Night Falls Over Kortedala I thought he was getting too soft. Particularly the front end of the album sounds almost new agey in its mix (despite the usual lyrical brilliance). But it works and you get used to it. Plus this has the very personal song "It Was a Strange Time in My Life," which also takes me back to walking my dog around Congress Park when I lived over there. For whatever reason. I know I listened to that song pretty obsessively and probably listened to the album a few times while doing that.

My #1 album at the time, after much internal debate, was Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer? by of Montreal. I have written a lot about this album so I won't spend too much time here except to say that I still love it, and this time around I could really feel the transition from the front end (gleeful depression) and the back end (gleefully shoving that depression back so far you can almost pretend it's not there). Such nuance on an album that feels so much like a circus is quite an accomplishment. Making me feel like a sad clown at a psycho carnival but still wanting to dance and sing along, no wonder it was the best of the best.

And the other other album that could have been #1 with a different order of operations was Mirrored by Battles. When it came out I was producing a show where we talked about the new albums every Tuesday. I took on the research portion myself because I really didn't want to miss anything. I didn't know anything about this band except what I was reading about the pedigrees of the members (including someone from Don Caballero) but it turned out we had a video available! We played this video after I made the host talk about how cool this band was, and that day I went out and bought the album. And listened to it a lot.

(Note: I can't find the video on YouTube so this is just the song)

Battles, "Atlas"

Other Stuff of Note:

• I feel like I'm being a jerk putting Neon Bible by Arcade Fire way down here. It's probably lots of people's favorite album of the year. But to me this is where it felt like they started to believe their own hype. Self importance. Revisiting it 8 years later, my tune has changed a bit and it has a lot of great songs, I just wish it didn't feel like it thought it was as great as it is.
• My official first acquisition was Best Kept Secret by Ultramagnetic MCs. It still took me a long time to get any of their earlier material but I wasn't huge on this anyway. I like the other sides of Kool Keith.
• I didn't listen to Modest Mouse as much as I probably should have but We Were Dead Before The Ship Even Sank was a good one.
• Dinosaur Jr: same. Beyond is way beyond expectations for a reunion album, it's like they didn't miss a beat.
• Wilco kind of officially went "dad rock" with Sky Blue Sky, but that just means it's something my dad and I would probably both enjoy. I have a specific memory of going to a shoot for work and listening to this album for the first time in a couple weeks and deciding I quite liked the direction they were heading.
• There was an Amnesty International benefiting John Lennon tribute album, and when I was listening to it I was remembering how boring most of the contributors were and I was wondering why I'd bought it. Then I remembered it was a benefit. And also there are a couple gems on there, including a rare Postal Service cover of "Grow Old With Me." That stuff's way at the back though after lots of U2, Christina Aguilera, Aerosmith, etc etc.
• The I'm Not There soundtrack is much more successful. A great Bob Dylan tribute album with heavy Calexico involvement.
• I really dug the party mode White Stripes on Icky Thump after they started taking themselves seriously on the previous album.
• You know how KRS-One is the Teacha? I learned a lot about hip hop just listening to his album with Marley Marl called Hip Hop Lives.
• There's an Evil Dead musical and it came out in 2007. I just got the cast recording to play at our Evil Dead party when the show premiered. Pretty ridiculous but I enjoy much of it.
• I continued to be loyal to CocoRosie even though they just wouldn't quite be exactly what I hoped for.
• I really really wanted to like the Chrisette Michele album but couldn't get beyond the production and the lyrics. Great voice though.
• Simian Mobile Disco, they were pretty awesome.
• Kate Nash writes some pretty interesting songs. At the time she kind of felt like a Lily Allen ripoff but upon further investigation I can appreciate her style and her songwriting is on a much higher level.
• Dirty Projectors' experimental Rise Above is a cool way to do a tribute. But the best is yet to come with them...
• Boxer was my introduction to The National but at the time I just thought it was serviceable indie singer-songwriter stuff. It would take me a bit to really appreciate them.
• I also got back into They Might Be Giants! The Else is a lot of fun.
• The New Pornographers are too damn consistent. Everything feels new and great with them.
• Feist! The Reminder was a great reminder of her powers. "One Two Three Four" was inescapable but the whole album is fantastic. I really should have put this in a full paragraph form. But I love the sound of her voice and the songs and the words and all of it!
• I dug Joss Stone at the time.
• More Nina Nastasia please! 
• Also where I got into Aesop Rock. None Shall Pass was almost too much for me to handle.
• Qui had David Yow in them for a little bit. Love's Miracle is what they have to show for it. One of my more favorite abrasive albums of recent memory.
• Rumblings of some guy named Bon Iver.
• Radiohead too!?!? How much stuff is there to write about?! In Rainbows was that crazy industry changing album (or not) that allowed people to pay what they wanted to a band that was in a position to do something like that. The music itself is quite good.
• Do you like to D.A.N.C.E.? So does Justice!
• Old dudes Paul McCartney and Neil Young remained relevant with some quite good albums.
• Andorra is the end of a certain part of Caribou's trajectory. I dig it.
• I was still sleeping on some Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings at the time but 100 Days, 100 Nights is some classic throwback soul. Obviously.
• Sentai, including former member(s) of Black Eyes, are way too overlooked.
• The Weakerthans too man! Too much stuff.
• Lupe Fiasco's The Cool.

Mix From The Time: 2007 Was It

1. Shellac - The End of Radio

2. Battles - Atlas

3. Blonde Redhead - Silently

4. The Lionheart Brothers - Hero Anthem

5. LCD Soundsystem - All My Friends

6. Kanye West - Can't Tell Me Nothing

7. Talib Kweli & Madlib - Time Is Right

8. Animal Collective - For Reverend Green

9. !!! - All My Heroes Are Weirdos

10. Enon - Dr. Freeze

11. Jesca Hoop - Intelligentactile 101

12. Jens Lekman - It Was a Strange Time in My Life

13. M.I.A. - XR2

14. KRS-One and Marley Marl - Nothing New

15. Jay-Z - No Hook

16. of Montreal - A Sentence of Sorts in Kongsvinger

17. Ted Leo & The Pharmacists - (Hidden track from the bonus EP)

18. Okkervil River - John Allyn Smith Sails

Next Time:

2008! Great! Breeders! The return of Del! DeVotchKa! Gnarls Barkley! The Roots! She & Him! TV On The Radio! And More! This was the year I was unemployed and got a job and moved to the suburbs so...yay!

of Montreal - Paralytic Stalks

I guess it's time to throw in my 15 cents about this new of Montreal album, eh?

Last year sometime I was reading an interview with Kevin Barnes that had a fairly surprising amount of time praising the Sufjan Stevens album The Age of Adz. It was about how the album was so under-appreciated and in retrospect people would see it as one of the great works of our time. I was happy to see someone defending it so fiercely because I happened to agree strongly with his assessment. Adz was such a massive personal statement into which Stevens threw his whole being, a radical departure from all of his past "mainstream" releases.

It appears that Mr. Barnes was quite influenced by this great work. He seems to have decided to make his own personal version. So what we get here isn't as quite as radical a departure as the one Sufjan Stevens made, but that's only because of Montreal has never shied away from the outrageous/layered/layered/layered/A.D.D.-esque sounds that can be found on this album. But something has changed.

Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer? was my favorite album of 2007, a year that included oh so many great albums (Battles, LCD Soundsystem, Okkervil River, Jens Lekman, Animal Collective, Jay-Z, M.I.A., and many others absolutely killed it that year). I had to venture into the world of Myspace to find this, but here is what I wrote about Hissing Fauna in my 2007 summary:

of montreal - hissing fauna, are you the destroyer?/icons, abstract thee
not only my favorite album of the year, but quite possibly my favorite album of the last FEW years. such happy, uplifting music about depressing subject matter. WE JUST WANT TO EMOTE 'TIL WE'RE DEAD. such a perfect opening line to the greatest album i have heard in a really long time. it makes me dance, shed a tear, think, scratch my head, laugh, all while singing along. and i never ever wanted to write this song...

The way that album combined dizzying highs and depressing lyrics moved me in ways I still find troubling. Since then, of Montreal's music has been disappointing me to a degree. The last couple albums just found Barnes reveling in his Georgie Fruit alter-ego, creating a strange fusion of of Montreal and Prince, getting all sorts of funky. Nothing wrong with any of that, it just didn't seem as personal a work, and it was near impossible to relate to it on a personal level.

This new one is different though. He has finally moved on. The lyrics hit the same levels of depression as Fauna, but the music now has a darkness to match. The way they are sung retains what Destroyer did, and once you've spun this a few times, if you're like me you will find yourself singing along with just as much emotion as on Hissing. It's just instead of singing about wanting to "shave your head, have a drink, and be left alone (is that too much to ask?)" it's more about how "somehow I lost the thread of being human, wrapped in all this bitterness."

It's a trip into the depths of Barnes' psyche, it's his most personal work since at least Hissing Fauna, and it's easily the darkest record they have put out. If you can take it, and if you can give it the time and attention it requires, I highly recommend it.

new track from of montreal

yes, i said "from of."

pitchfork has posted a new song from of montreal's upcoming album skeletal lamping.  if you are me, you are very excited about this album.  there's a lot of good shit coming out this fall, but this may just be the best.  maybe.

it's a good thing i got a job.  this fall is going to be expensive.

early notice

according to an email i received today, of montreal (my favorite band of 07, and if they play their cards right by releasing an equally brilliant album this fall, potential favorite band of 08) will be playing in denver on november 16th!  far as i know, this is the first official announcement of any official dates.  

another show i was alerted about is a very cool local show.  these bands are among my top colorado bands and i haven't seen them in awhile:

matson jones - they haven't played a show in so long!! their myspace has a bunch of songs you can download if you like.  if you don't know them, get on it because they are damned good.

monofog - i totally play kickball and/or go way back with the majority of this band.

sour boy bitter girl - one of my oldest and dearest friends!

magic cyclops - c'mon you know magic!

charly "city mouse" fasano - i have no idea but i shall.

july 24th at the bluebird.  be there, denver!

of montreal

here is something i forgot to share.

you ain't no picasso posted this awesome blog of a ton of of montreal cover songs.

i haven't gotten to listen to them yet, but pretty awesome.

ALSO, if you want them all but don't want to download them all individually, pasqualle posted a zip file.  it's in another language, but the second update on the blog says "zip" so that's where you click.  

(in other news, i'm almost done with the p's as far as my "music listening project" goes, and today is the 1 year anniversary of when i started the whole thing.  then q's will be pretty short.  maybe i'll finish the alphabet by the end of march?)

*and if you were hoping to see new movie releases yesterday here, well, there's really nothing of interest to me being released this week in denver.  so that's that.