Ah, so here we are. The magical mid-way point. Alright, admittedly, I'm a bit late, and I take full blame for that. I've been filling my time watching NBA summer league games, mostly ones in which Steph Curry is playing, simply because I've been intrigued by the pure volume of shots he has missed. I've got to get over to the Inside Handshake before next week is out. Boy, do I have some material, fellas.On with it, though. It's so far been a pretty slow first half for music releases. With the more anticipated releases being pushed to the 4th quarter of the year (Jay-Z, Lupe Fiasco, Brand New, etc.) Still, there was music made, and a list to be made discussing said music. Before I dive in, some notes:
-No. No, I have not listened to Dave Matthews' new album. Nor will I. I haven't listened to Dave Matthews since I put "Lover Lay Down" on a mix CD to try to score a makeout session with a girl my senior year of high school (didn't work....thanks, Dave.) I was living in Charlottesville, VA when the recording of the album was going on, and the insanity surrounding it...like most Dave "stuff"...I just didn't get it. I can respect that it's one of the more critically acclaimed albums of the year. But, I can't take any glorified Jam Band seriously. Not even Phish, and Trey Anastasio is the shit.
-I thought the new Animal Collective record was decent, but not top 10. Just getting that out of the way now, so that my music snob friends won't send me hate email and texts. It was a solid album, probably deserving of everything you've read about it....but I thought their previous works were better.
-My friend Justin and I were discussing this, and talked about giving out gold stars to the best contributor to each album, much like grade school, where I never got the number of gold stars that I felt I had coming to me. (Though it's not too late to cough them up, 5th Avenue elementary.)
-Oh, Taking Back Sunday released another sub-par album early last month. So, if you're keeping count.....let's see...how many good albums have they made since their debut?? oh, no, wait....still at Zero.
And, off we go.
10.) Yeah Yeah Yeahs- It's Blitz!: I have an easier time accepting this album than I did Show Your Bones. I think I hated Bones so much simply because it wasn't (Debut album) Fever To Tell. Well, Blitz! isn't either, and though it's not a drastic leap forward, it's not exactly the band tripping over itself, either. I'm admittedly a bit of a Karen O apologist, meaning that I'm one of about 10 people who don't think she's just gone tastelessly too far with the Siouxsie Sioux-esque antics. But, I do feel like she's lost a step in her usually flawless album presence. The tough, self centered, arrogant lyrics still remain, but the bite is a bit more dull. On Fever, when she yelps, "I'll take you out, boy...", you believe it. On Bones, when her cry is, "I'm bigger than the sound", you DEFINITELY believe it. But here, when she lags out, "Off with your head/Dance 'til you're dead"....well....you think about a million other things you'd rather be doing. (Not to mention, what's with all of the artists now demanding us to dance until there's bodily harm? eh, I digress.) I'm not much of a producer name-drop geek, but I think the thing that holds Blitz! together so flawlessly is Nick Launay, who used to produce Talking Heads and PiL....so, you've got to imagine if you can work with David Byrne AND John Lydon...Karen O's got to be a breeze. On one hand, we've heard better from these guys, and this album is just like, ok, we get it....The Y's are critical darlings who simply made another album for critics to make love to in between their pages. But, at the core, 3 full length albums in, who's to say that the Y's aren't this decade's most exciting band?
GOLD STAR GOES TO: Well, I'd like to say Nick Zinner, as he was the straw that stirred the drink on Bones....but, it has to go to Launay. This album, for better or worse, is cleaner sounding, and less jumbled than their previous effort, thanks to the work of Launay.
9.) Fall Out Boy- Folie De Deux: Don't be shocked. Here's the thing that Chi-town's favorite sons have figured out: If your first album is a CLASSIC....don't try to top it. You hear that Bloc Party? Taking Back Sunday? you guys listening in? Folie is FOB's most....comfortable record to date. It doesn't have the pressure of "Major label debut hype" that Cork Tree had thrust upon it. And most importantly, it doesn't have that feel that Infinity on High had, which felt like the guys were just trying to prove they belonged at the toppermost of the poppermost, and pulling out all the stops in the process (Though, Infinity could open the album with one of the better lines of all time, "Last summer we took 3's across the board/but by fall we were a cover story now in stores"....nothing like sticking it to critics on the first line of a new album, covering resentment from the old, eh?). Jay-Z intro? (on a song shamelessly titled "Thriller", no less), Babyface's slick overproduction? Leonard Cohen rip-offs? Nope. Not on this record. Folie is so dialed down in fact, that if it wasn't for Patrick Stump's distinctive vocals, you'd forget it was a FOB album. Lyrically, Pete Wentz spends the whole of the album answering the ever burning question, "Will this kid ever grow the fuck up???"
The answer? A resounding "kind of". He makes a concentrated effort to steer away from his contemporaries' haphazard metaphorical overuse (though I could do without lines such as "The only thing suicidal here is the doors"....I smiled the first time I heard it, and then it got annoying), and really takes on the responsibility of toning himself down for the greater good. I know he'll always be hard to be taken seriously, and I can respect that. But if we're under some grand illusion that he's a poor lyricist, I can't buy it. Will his lyrics ever peak like they did on (Debut) Take This To Your Grave? probably not. But here, it's not Wentz taking aim at his critics, his paparazzi, his lost loves, or his own band....it's Wentz taking aim at Wentz. And that has to be appreciated. The album's highlight, and what will probably go down as the band's finest single is the Hey Jude-esque "What A Catch, Donnie", which features Elvis Costello among a host of others. And it works. And that's all you can ask out of any band who has a dominant egomaniac at the helm, and a shy, nervy, vocalist singing lyrics he doesn't even believe. Just keep working. This record won't hold up like Grave, but it's not supposed to.
GOLD STAR: Well, I want to say drummer Andy Hurley, because he's truly not bad, and NEVER gets credit. But, this was Patrick Stump's album, from the co-production duties, to the simple fact that he gets vocally better. Every. Single. Album. Oh, and if you missed his acoustic cover of Prince's damn near impossible "I Wanna Be UR Lover"....do yourself a favor.
8.) Bruce Springsteen - Working On A Dream: Shut up. Look, I'm biased. And this album wasn't bad. So, whatever. I don't have to explain myself.
GOLD STAR: Goes to me. Because I put up with Bruce's shitty 90's music just to get to this point where he's cementing his late career legacy by making good music, and I can rub everyone's face in it. Ummm. Moving on.
7.) Mos Def- The Ecstatic: Now, for years, Mos Def has been an enigma. I mean, raw talent-wise, he's almost peerless. I'm not joking. The problem is, it's hard to be peerless when your peers are making albums that have surpassed every attempt. Yeah, Black on Both Sides was decent, but hip-hop, can we stop acting like that was something that it wasn't? yeah, it was a decent album, but if anyone else has THAT record as their best, we don't take it seriously. Thankfully, Ecstatic came along, before Mos was relegated to the "Well, he's a better actor than rapper..." discussion. And just in time....to say that it's been a bad showing for Rap this year would be an understatement. And it took 4 albums to get him there, but you understand that Mos has the understanding now. This is an album of someone finally grasping what they're capable of, and never trying to go over it, which is admirable. Madlib's production is a treat, which isn't surprising. The fact that it's a 16 track album that clocks in at just around 45 minutes is also refreshing. Each track is to the point, the longest track, "Auditorium" is 4:34, and that's likely because it features Slick Rick, who never found a short way to express himself. Honestly, I can say, and this might sound off, that I've gotten musically all I know I can get out of Mos Def. Young Hollywood can now do with him what they must. He won't top this album.
GOLD STAR: J Dilla. Even though he only produced one track, that track was a strong, firm reminder of how much he is missed in the hip-hop community, and at a time like this, when his presence is needed more than ever.
6.) Manic Street Preachers - Journal For Plague Lovers: First off, this album is going to age well. This is the first Manic's album since 1994's Holy Bible to use the lyrics of missing since 1995/presumed dead guitarist and lyricst Richey James. If you're asking me, personally, who my maybe top 5 lyricists of all time are, it'd be hard for me to NOT include Richey James. When he went missing under odd circumstances (want an interesting story? do some research on the Manics, and Richey), and years later was presumed dead, I just assumed that the Manics would pack it up, since vocalist James Dean Bradfield is a bit of a joke, and Nicky Wire is terrible. Either you find this album somber, and touching, or just plain boring. There's no middle ground with this record, which is exactly why it's worth a listen. If you can feel strongly un-divided about anything, let it be the music of this band, who is about as divided as it gets. Critics scoffed at the fact that Wire and Bradfield went back through Richey's old journals to piece together lyrics for this record, which, I admit....I'm on the fence about. But, what else do you do with left behind lyrics of a deceased bandmate?? And there's some classic Richey stuff in here. The chorus to "All is Vanity" eeks out, "'it's not what's wrong it's what's right/that makes me feel like I'm talking a foreign language sometimes". Plus, Steve Albini takes over production duties, which makes the sound much more haunting, dense, and just flat out brilliant. This album does in it's first four tracks what no album this year will ever do. Take my word there. The only gripe is Nicky Wire's tinny guitar playing. Fuck, how does a guy with as little musical skill as Wire LAST in a band like the Manics?
GOLD STAR: Ummm....Richey James. Without his lyrics, this album is as worthless as the previous two Manics albums. And we lyricists are reminded that the lyrical evolution of Costello-to Morrisey-to Wentz has another pillar.
5.) Silversun Pickups - Swoon: I find myself just waiting for the Pickups to mess up. Not because I don't like them. But, because they seem to be too good to be true. They're not original, make no mistake about it. They've copped their style from My Bloody Valentine, and early Pumpkins. But they've done right by expanding on what those two bands were aiming for, and really, what Billy Corgan WISHES he could have gotten to. The melodic quality of Swoon, much like it's predecessor, Carnavas, leans on Corgan, and the Pumpkins. But the sheer VOLUME of the music is comparable to MBV, but far surpasses anything the Valentine's ever did. And, again, it works. I can accept that the lyrics are a bit....well, bad. But, who ever had allusions of the Pickups being great lyricists? Not I. You'll get complaints of "boring", "unoriginal", and "pretentious"...but, looking at the state of alt-rock in this modern era, a band like the Pickups, to me, are a breath of fresh air. A great shoegaze album, at a time where shoegaze was supposed to be long gone. That alone gets high marks from me.
An aside/rant on this record: Where are all the indie purists screaming "RIPOFF!" at the Pickups for this record, when the aforementioned Animal Collective's Merriweather Post Pavillion is a vicious rip off of Brain Wilson's Pet Sounds efforts. Are we to say that "ripping off" Billy Corgan is a worse offense than ripping off Brian Wilson? or is the Collective just a more credible indie "name-drop" band than the Pickups?
Oh, or, is it that you so-called indie purists have no idea what Pet Sounds is? Either way, it's a long fall from the high horses, my friends. Load up the iPods with all of the trends.
GOLD STAR: Nikki Monninger, because my rant on women playing bass in indie rock bands got me into a lot of trouble. And she had a much better musical showing on this record than on the previous.
4.) Prince - Lotusflow3r: Ok, I have to tread carefully here, because I already had my one, "biased/fanboy" pick. But, no. I genuinely feel like this album belongs here. Prince at his most average still blows his peers out of the water. Period. And, ok, a triple album, seemingly just for the sake of exposing Bria Valente to the world? maybe not the greatest. Bria's portion isn't bad, but I feel like it's what holds this record back from topping this list. It's not exciting, it's simple, boring, formulaish R&B. Prince's proteges often come arcoss as forced, and puppet-like, and Valente is no different, but her stuff isn't ALL forgettable, she gives us "Elixer", which is mostly good because it's the last song on her portion of the triple album. This album is a lot to take in, two discs of just prince, Lotusflow3r, and MPLSound, but it never gets dry, or boring, like RCHP's Stadium Arcadium, which by the end of, I wanted to go on some sort of chocolate binge. Prince has been back since Musicology, people have just been sleeping on it. Don't make the mistake.
GOLD STAR: Bria Valente. Just because if Prince likes her, I like her.
3.) Sonic Youth - The Eternal: Finally. FINALLY. When SY announced that they were ending their long-standing relationship with Geffen after 2005's Rather Ripped, I bowed my head a bit. Oh, what ever will David Geffen do now for credibility. You can only be "the guy that signed Nirvana" for so long, right? I mean, no disrespect Dave, but Kurt's been gone for well over a decade. Anyway, the Youth made the expected move to Matador records, and recorded this album in Hoboken, New Jersey over a hectic month-long period in Hoboken, New Jersey. And it sounds like it. Kim Gordon has always been free of my rants against women playing bass in indie rock bands. Because, well, she's the QUEEN of female indie-ism. Before the indie heartthrobs of Jenny Lewis, the aforementioned Nikki Monninger, Ani DiFranco, and so on, Kim Gordon was the love of the 80's garage scene. And her singing has gotten so much cleaner, more honest, and more pure. She sings all of the best stuff on Eternal, and Thurston Moore proudly fades into the background to do what he does best. Dominate from within. I don't know what else can be said. The Yeah Yeah Yeah's might be more exciting, but Sonic Youth may easily be the most important band of my lifetime. This album was dedicated to Ron Asheton of the Stooges, who died during it's recording. Which is pretty awesome.
GOLD STAR: Gordon. She's never been one for presence, gladly deferring to Moore and Lee Ranaldo, but you get the sense that she finally got the album that she deserved. Bravo. I'll still take her over Jenny Lewis, any day.
2.) The Decemberists - The Hazards Of Love: This is one of those "everything you've read about it is true" albums. It's gotten massive acclaim heaped upon it, and it's all dead on. The thing that most music fans appreciate about a band like the Decemberists is the willingness to progress. Colin Meloy always makes the effort to challenge himself, and he ventures into dark territory here, covering well, mostly songs about lost love, and murder. Unlike their previous effort, The Crane Wife, the musical potential finally outshines the lyrics. Actually, if I can be honest, the lyrics have gotten worse a bit ("She being full of charity/a credit to her sex"? Seriously?). The sludge guitars are reminiscent of early Sabbath, which coupled with the themes of this album seem just about right. And it doesn't come off gimmicky, as one might think, although Meloy has flaunted the fact that this album was INDEED a gimmick. Now, could I do without Rock Operas? yeah, probably. I mean, Green Day's attempt to re-create American Idiot, this year's 20th Century Breakdown, was a bitter failure. So, I really wasn't invested too much in whatever storyline Meloy and his mates were trying to get across. I mean, I know there's something about a forest-dwelling fawn somewhere in there. Otherwise, I get lost. But, much like My Chemical Romance's Black Parade, the music is so good, that it overshadows whatever story there is to be told. Stop making concepts. Start making fantastic music. Hmmmm..... We're onto something, indie scene.
GOLD STAR: Two of them go to Becky Stark from the band Lavender Diamond, and Shara Worden of My Brightest Diamond. Their guest vocals lent to whatever the story was, but again, I wasn't paying attention. I just thought they held up well, and both of their bands have diamond in the title.
AND FINALLY.
1.) The Dream - Love Vs. Money: Most will scoff at the notion that a true modern R&B album can hold this much acclaim. I would naturally scoff at it. Dream's first record, 2007's Love/Hate held my attention for all of about 2 minutes. Sure, I'd heard about the genius hit-maker who penned Rihanna's "Umbrella", and Mary J. Blige's "Just Fine", but when I heard his first album, it just sounded like a guy who wrote all of his best songs for other people. Love Vs. Money first caught my attention when someone slid it to me after it leaked a week early. I didn't even consider listening to it. I had heard the first single, "Rockin' That Thang/Shit", and was more impressed than normal, but figured it was the squirrel with unattractive glasses getting better looking with contacts. Then something odd happened. Rolling Stone magazine influenced me. Has it been a worthless rag for some time? yes. But here's the interesting turn of events. Love Vs. Money secured a 4.5 star rating in RS. No, and I mean NO R&B album has been rated that high since Marvin Gaye. Rolling Stone gives R&B albums good ratings about as often as OSU wins a bowl game. But, it wasn't just RS alone, the album got universal acclaim, which, again, in today's mainstream R&B climate, is just unreal. So, I finally gave it a listen. See, here's the thing. It's not that Dream is THAT much further ahead of the curve than his peers. This album isn't great because of what he does do, it's more great because of what he DOESN'T do. In a genre where everything is overblown, dance moves are placed higher than vocal abilities, and almost everyone is considered a hit-maker, Dream stands out. He dances very little, almost in a natural sense. Not in the frantic, urgent, trying to prove himself way that Chris Brown and co. do. He's toned down the production this time around to make way for his nearly flawless falsetto. Dream is the new R. Kelly. But, seemingly better. I mean, yeah, this album is sex, sex, bravado, sex. But not in the tasteless, clobber you over the head way. Some of it's even funny, on the track "Sweat it out", the topic is post-sex hair grooming. "I Luv Your Girl" shamelessley discusses, well, an unfortunate attraction to your girlfriend. Dream's not a lyricist, by any regard, but he is a master craftsman of song. And this time around, he's seemed to save the best for himself. Which makes Love vs. Money more than just a boastful genre piece.
GOLD STAR: Tricky Stewart. Dream's production partner needs to get more work. Really, this record can't be fully appreciated until it's listened to on headphones. The multi-layered production is risky, and amazing all at once.
And there you have it. While these 10 are solid, by year's end, I would venture to guess that only 3-4 of them stick around.
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