Favorite Albums of 2010: Wolf Parade - Expo -86

Wolf Parade, Ghost Pressure

Expo '86 (2010)

Wolf Parade have become one of my favorite bands.  This is their third album, and it's a little less urgently frenetic and a bit more uneven than the previous two, but it's still cool and catchy as hell.  It's too bad, I heard they're breaking up, or going on "indefinite hiatus"next year.  The members are each in about fifty other bands besides Wolf Parade, so I'm sure I'll get a fix somewhere, but I would really like to see them live.

I still haven't quite figured out how to describe their sound.  Energetic speed pop, maybe?  I don't know. They're really good, though, and Expo '86 is a good listen.

Favorite Albums of 2010: The Gaslight Anthem - American Slang

The Gaslight Anthem, We Did It When We Were Young

American Slang (2010)

It is kind of funny as I go through the stuff I've listened to the most this year...it all reminds me of airports or hotels or driving on unknown freeways.  I know I've done a little more traveling this year than in the past, but I didn't quite realize how much that would impact what I listen to.  Most of the albums that I've listened to in their entirety over and over again have been when I'm on the road.

This one definitely is.  Awhile back I had to go to this dinky little town in New Jersey, and so I flew into the Newark airport not realizing that it would take me an hour and a half on the Jersey Turnpike to get to where I was going (if I had flown into Philadelphia, I would have been about fifteen minutes away...live and learn).  It was a Tuesday night in November and I remember listening to the election returns come in and all the voices on the radio talk about Tea Parties and Republicans and all their bullshit.  It bummed me out so I turned off the radio and put on my iPod and scrolled around.  

This song came up, and I took it off shuffle and went through the whole album.  It's kind of corny, because I was in New Jersey and that's where these guys are from, but it just made a perfect soundtrack.  I wasn't in the Garden State long enough to really get a sense of it, but there's no doubt, there's a kind of blue collar, been-kicked-in-the-teeth vibe to the parts I drove through, and that really comes through on this album.  Describing the association of this album and that particular trip threatens to make the whole "life is a journey" metaphor a bit too literal, but really, listening to this album makes you think about growing up and moving on and all that stuff.  It's pretty good, and it's also pretty good rock and roll.  Think Bruce Springsteen meets Social Distortion and you've got a pretty good idea of what these guys are like.

Favorite Albums of 2010: Kanye West - My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy

Kanye West, Monster

My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy (2010)

I was going to put LCD Soundsystem's This Is Happening on here, but Kanye took them out at the last minute.  I liked the LCD Soundsystem album more when it first came out, probably because I figured I should.  While it's got some fun, cool songs, I kind of think that if you've heard one LCD Soundsystem song, you've heard them all: they start out with minimal techno beats that run for a minute or two, and then as the song goes on, more and more layers come in while James Murphy waxes clever about all sorts of things while the music gets more frenetic.

So it's pretty good for what it is, but it's not in my Top Ten.  I've been resisting putting Kanye West on my list because when The College Dropout came out in 2004 and topped critics' lists, I went out and bought it and was totally underwhelmed.  This year, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy has been popping up as number one all over the place so about I month ago I picked it up.  I didn't want to like it because I was afraid if I did, that meant I probably missed something with The College Dropout.  Well, I guess I'm going to have to see if I can find that CD because yesterday when I was listening to this album for the hundredth time, I figured it had to go on the list.

I've been listening to My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy a lot since I got it (it is a really good treadmill companion), and the more I listen, the more I realize that Kanye is just plain crazy, but in a good way.  Like in the way he stood there with Mike Myers and after rambling on for awhile said George W. Bush didn't like black people--still one of the funniest, most randomly bizarre, yet presciently accurate moments ever.

As I said before, I'm usually not much for hip-hop or rap, and I'm not familiar with all of Kanye West's stuff.  But this CD has all kinds of cool music, samples, and just weird ass lyrics.  I enjoy it quite a bit more than I expected it to, and every time I listen to it, I hear something new.  I don't know if Kanye West is worth all the hype, but he might be.

Favorite Albums of 2010: Gorillaz - Plastic Beach

Gorillaz, On Melancholy Hill

Plastic Beach (2010)

I used to think Gorillaz were a total gimmick (although humans technically make the music, the band are actually cartoon characters), but still, they've put out some really cool songs.  This album is kind of indescribably weird.  It's like a surreal, electro-pop meets hip-hop slow-fi acid trip through a Hanna Barbera cartoon.  I mean, the album has both Lou Reed and Snoop Dogg on it, for goodness' sake.  Where else is that going to happen?

If you really want to be a hardcore Gorillaz fan, I guess there are all sorts of virtual universe ways to interact with the band and its listeners.  It's actually a rather interesting, post-modern social media-creates-reality experiment that Damon Albarn and Tank Girl illustrator Jamie Hewlett put together over a decade ago.  I haven't really gotten into all that stuff, and before Plastic Beach, never really spent much time on the concept.

But this year I've done a fair amount of flying, which I've grown to dislike quite a bit, and it's nice to have albums that take you away when you're already traveling to wherever it is you may not want to go. Plastic Beach is a really good album to listen to if you're in that state of mind, or if you want to pretend that you are.

Favorite Albums of 2010: Black Rebel Motorcycle Club - Beat the Devil's Tattoo

Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Annabel Lee

Beat the Devil's Tattoo (2010)

So, yeah, Annabel Lee.  Cool song.  If you've ever read this blog (and lately, it appears nobody comes back here anymore, so I'm pretty much talking to myself) then you know I routinely jerk off about Black Rebel Motorcycle Club (in case you don't remember, here's where I posted the title track).  Next to Tool, they're probably my favorite band.  Kelly and I went and saw them in Vegas on the tour to support this record last February; they haven't come back to Salt Lake City in a long while and that's a shame.  We've seen them five or six times, and they are hands down the best live band I've ever seen.

This is kind of a different album for them.  I don't think it's quite as cohesive as their last two efforts, but I like it better than the first two albums (I'm not counting The Effects of 333 in there, since I don't really know what that is).  They got rid of their original drummer, Nick Jago, permanently this time (he was also kicked out during the recording of Howl), and replaced him with ex-Raveonettes drummer Leah Shapiro.  I can't quite put my finger on it, and even if I could, I don't know enough about music to explain it, other than to say that that change seems to have affected the chemistry of the band a bit (fun fact: after the show in Vegas, Kelly and I semi-stalked Peter Hayes and Leah as far as we could through the Hard Rock Hotel until they turned down a hallway guarded by several very burly men in black suits; that's as close as I got, although Kelly claims to have chatted it up with Peter beforehand while I was off peeing... convenient enough, I suppose...).

Anyway, BRMC is pretty much a self-financed band and after touring the world on their own nickel in support of Baby 81, they found themselves broke and in need of a place to live and record.  A friend loaned them a house back east somewhere, and as Robert Been and Peter Hayes got acquainted with their new drummer, they started getting into Edgar Allan Poe and Beat the Devil's Tattoo is heavily influenced by the same kind of melancholy, romantic muse that inspired a lot of Poe's poetry.  There are some rockers and some ballads, but the whole record is permeated with this gothic sensibility--not gothic in the Hot Topic sense, gothic in the frightening, narrative, 18th Century sense.  Indeed, some of the songs sound like soundtracks to Penny Dreadful stories.

Sonically, the band is still more like Love & Rockets and The Jesus & Mary Chain than, I don't know, Type O Negative or whatever the eyeliner hessians wear.  But on this album, there is something a little more melancholy and mysterious, even on the rockers.  I would describe this album as something the Velvet Underground would have made had their tour bus been overtaken by Dracula.  And it's BRMC and when it comes to them, I'm honestly pretty easy to please.

Favorite Albums of 2010: Josh Ritter - So Runs the World Away

Josh Ritter, The Curse

So Runs the World Away (2010)

Several months ago I was reading the concert listings in the City Weekly and noticed that a performance by a musician named Josh Ritter was sold out.  I'd never heard of him, and wondered what all the ticket buyers knew that I didn't.  Then later that same day, I was listening to NPR on the drive home and heard this really cool, really weird kind of folk song.  A music critic came on and said it was Josh Ritter, and the host talked about how, like Built to Spill and Led Zeppelin, he came from Idaho and also like those bands, he was the son of two neuroscientists or something.  Anyway, they played a few more songs that were traditional Americana folk type songs with all kinds of subtle noises and almost psychedelic distortion.  I told myself I'd have to check the guy out.

So I went to the library and picked up a couple of his past albums--Hello Starling and The Historical Conquests of Josh Ritter.  They were amazing...kind of like Elliott Smith meets Wilco.  Soft, mesmerizing instrumentation and thoughtful lyrics.  I special ordered a couple more of his albums, and eventually made my way to So Runs the World Away.  All of his albums were new to me this year, but it's the one that came out this year.  It's a little more mellow and folksy that some of his other stuff, though not as country as some of it either.  I've really enjoyed listening to him, and all of his albums are fantastic.

I guess 2010 was as good a year as any to discover him, since he was previously rather prolific in his output which started in 2000 with a self-titled debut, but in 2007 he hit a wall of writer's block and it took three years for him to get going again.  As I heard it, he was unable to write until one night a story about a love affair between an archaeologist and a mummy came into his mind, and he composed the lilting waltz, The Curse (you should watch the downright charming video, here).  From there, the rest of So Runs the World Away poured out of him, as did a forthcoming novel.  It's not exactly a concept album, but the whole thing certainly has the same contemplative, almost forlorn feel to it.

I feel like kind of an idiot for missing out on this guy for the last ten years, but it has been nice making up for the lost time.

By the way, So Runs the World Away has got a song on it called Another New World that was inspired, at least in part, by the Edgar Allen Poe poem "Annabel Lee," which is a good segue to tomorrow's post....

Favorite Albums of 2010: Eminem - Recovery

Eminem, Almost Famous

Recovery (2010)

I am starting with this one because musically it's pretty different from the stuff I usually post on here.  But if you go by what I listened to the most, then this is my top album of the year.

When I was in college I had this assignment to take some public figure I hated and then write a five page research paper on them (I picked Marilyn Manson and he actually intrigued me enough that I wound up  buying the Mechanical Animals album, and since then, have picked up the rest of his catalog).  It was a really useful exercise, and since then, if I hate someone and don't really know why, I read up on them like I'm doing a research paper.  Most recently, I've done that with Sarah Palin.  What a stupid, vapid, terrifying crone she is.  But eight or nine years ago, I kept hearing all about this Eminem guy and he seemed like such a douchebag to me, so I started reading up on him.

Like with Marilyn Manson, I wound up buying a CD (I have not bought any of Sarah Palin's albums, in case you were wondering).  This time it was the Marshall Mathers LP, and even though I've never been much of a hip hop guy, it knocked my socks off with its vicious satire and clever rhymes.   Since then, I've followed Eminem and picked up all of his albums, some of which have been pretty good, but none of which were as good as MMLP.  They've all kind of gone downhill after that one.  And the last one, Relapse, was pure garbage.  Just unlistenable.

So I didn't have high hopes for Recovery, but man, was I wrong.  I skipped it when it came out, but within a week or so it started to get a little buzz, and then Amazon had it for a five dollar download and so I got it on a Friday night and listened to it straight through the next morning.  Every song is really good.  Several of them are fantastic.  There aren't any of the silly skits that have been on all his other albums, and no goofy songs, either.  It's a very mature, grown up record that has Eminem looking back at his life and his decisions critically.  While he's got some barbs ("Girl, shake that ass like a donkey with Parkinson's / Make like Michael J. Fox is in your drawers playin' with an Etch-a-Sketch;" "If they don't like it they can all get fucked instead of sucking him off / They can go get a belt or a neck tie to hang themselves by / Like David Carradine they can go fuck themselves and just die"), he's his own victim most of the time.  He takes the gloves off and discusses his failings as a lover, a father, a friend, and an entertainer, and in the process, he makes his best record ever.

I love it and I bet I've listened to it a least once a week since I bought it last June.  I don't care what kind of music  you listen to, you should get this.  It's mature, dark, serious, powerful, optimistic...just fucking incredible.

What If It Was True?

Violent Femmes, Jesus Walking On The Water

Hallowed Ground (1984)

I Have To Wonder

The Wolfmen, Marilyn Monroe (Wam Bam JFK)

Single (2010)