Another
very good year. In fact, a downright
remarkably good year, that I don’t think I appreciated nearly so much the
first time around. It’s
very much a deepening of trends already present last year, rather than any
revolutionary step forward, which probably accounts for why it snuck up on
me. (this is especially the case in the
gradual return to psychedelic sounds, deepening and expanding in three
different directions – the psych-pop that’s
always been an undercurrent, this year joined by a resurgent orchestral
folk-pop and some pretty excellent deep/hard psych). But the best point to illustrate how music
has gotten worthy again is to note that this year the indie kids of the 21st
century get their very own No Alternative:
Dark Was The Night is not only also a
Red Hot charity comp, but similarly encapsulates some of the variety going on
in the c. 2008 indie scene. It’s
similarly diverse (even moreso), even if not as rocking as its alt-rock
equivalent. And that’s
probably a more or less accurate comparison of the late ‘00s to the
early ‘90s: probably more diverse, but somewhat less rocking.
Still,
let’s turn away from the indie world and towards hip-hop to
start. This year my hip-hop collection
is dominated by mixtapes, by artists both underground (Mr. Lif, the Cool Kids,
Wale) and otherwise (Gucci Mane). And
again what I learn is that mainstream hip-hop rappers just don’t
interest me that much. Muck like Jay-Z,
Gucci Mane doesn’t seem to have a lot to say.
Unlike Jay-Z, his beats aren’t good enough to make up for that. (which is to say that Jay-Z’s
Blueprint 3 is a lot of fun
sonically, but typically insubstantial lyrically: has there ever been a bigger star with so
little to say?). Of course, that’s
a broader problem with mixtapes: by their very nature, the beats are generally
either primitive or recycled, which is forgivable, since they’re
generally free, and should be treated more like promo items. This makes it hard to know what exactly to
say about Del’s new album, which is free (like a mixtape) but presented like
a real album. Judged as a mixtape, it’s
phenomenal, showing that Del still has his lyrical dexterity intact, and by
mixtape standards, the production values are very high. Judged as an album, though, it’s
a bit weaker. Comparable to his real album
last year, but not a patch his earlier beats.
Major Lazer are another group whose proper album feels very mixtape-like
to me. It’s well-produced, in a post-dancehall
kind of way, but feels extremely scattershot.
Elsewhere,
though, there are more straight-up excellent hip-hop albums than I’ve
had in one year in awhile. Both Mos Def
and MF Doom (now just DOOM) return from a several-year exile. For DOOM, this was a disappearance coming off
a career high point (the Madvillain – Mouse & the Mask – Mmm..Food triptych), and his return does not disappoint,
even as it’s basically more of the same hazy stuff you’d
come to expect. Mos Def, on the other
hand, was coming off a limp contract-fulfillment-sounding record, and just as I
was ready to write him off, he drops the downright stunning The Ecstatic. He’s moved away from the rock & hip-hop
approach of The New Danger, but this
is still almost as sonically inventive and more consistent, with a hard synth
sound that is more lush than the Roots’ similar stuff on their last one, but
still pretty hard-hitting, and recasting Def as again an artist with some
political fire in his belly.
The
third excellent hip-hop record this year actually does pick up on the rock
& hip-hop gauntlet thrown down by Mos Def (and even features him on a
track). The Black Keys don’t
have a proper album this year, but do have the Blakroc project, pairing Black
Keys riff-rock with various rappers (including a fair amount of Wu-Tang-ers). This is probably the most successful rap-rock
I’ve
heard outside of Rage Against the Machine, and while Rage were primarily a rock
band with rapping, this sounds much more like an equitable partnership of the
two. Not a great classic, but entirely
worthy for something that’s basically a side-project for all
concerned.
Not the
only Black Keys side-project this year, though.
If Blakroc plays up the Keys’ beat-heavy side, Auerbach’s
solo album plays up their more melodic side (as befit an album he made without
his drummer). None of these songs are
phenomenal classics, but it is a worthy effort.
Elsewhere in folk-rock, Jack White has yet another side project, though
apart from prominent female vocals, this is very much in the same roots-rock
vein as the last few White Stripes and Raconteurs albums (perhaps a bit more
beat-heavy). And Wilco are back as well,
and also not deviating much from their recent trends. They’re even less experimental here than on
their last album, and seem to be settling into a late-career groove as jammy
roots-rock, far from the more adventurous or electronics-enhance sound of their
turn-of-the-century records. Like Tom Petty
before them, Wilco seem bent on sounding older than their years.
The folk-rock
veterans, meanwhile, have a mixed year, stuck like Wilco in a bit of a rut. Bruce Springsteen and Elvis Costello both
have albums that are solid but unremarkable (Elvis’s is one of
his periodic country-rock effords), and neither are particularly exciting, even
if they’re solid enough. Neil
Young is a bit more eccentric (as is his wont), recording a rocked-up tribute
to his electric car. But this is a bit
of stumble for Young; his albums in this lost decade (unlike his ‘80s
records), tend to be high-concept lyrically, but pretty unremarkable (for good
or ill) instrumentally. So like Greendale, Fork In The Road marries an overarching lyrical conceit to a fairly
rote set of Crazy Horse-style rockers. Better,
though, is Dylan. He’s
not changed his pre-rock roots-sound much from the last two (adding a bit of accordion),
and this album feels more minor than his previous two, with lyrics that seem a
bit more cast-off. But it’s
a fun, if minor, album.
More
fun than Hank Williams Jr’s, anyway, which mostly reminds me of
how little I care about mainstream country, which increasingly just sounds like
c. 1983 stadium rock. Much better is the
alt-country side of things, where another son-of-a-great has his debut. Despite all the folk-rock revivalism, there
hasn’t been much in way of alt-country revivalism. This makes Justin Townes Earle (son of Steve)
a pleasant exception (although he recalls Being
There-era Wilco more than his dad).
And moving from actual sons to more metaphorical descendents, My Morning
Jacket’s Jim James has a very pleasant George Harrison tribute-LP,
highlighting how much his main band owes to the ex-Beatle’s
All Things Must Pass era.
James
is also part of the indie-folk-rock supergroup Monsters of Folk this year, with
Bright Eyes’ Conner Oberst, M. Ward, and some other guy (the Jeff Lynne of
this particular supergroup, I guess). It’s
quite good, if minor. Not quite the new
Crosby Stills & Nash, though like their second album, the songs frequently
sound like solo tracks with the same backing band (and backing singers). Though the light rockabilly glaze means that
the Monsters recall Robert Plant & Allison Krauss more than CSN.
Of
course, the premier supergroup of the ‘00s is the New Pornographers (and they’re
pretty clearly better than any other supergroup of any era, including CSN (who
only had 2 worth albums) but possibly excepting Cream). Nothing new from the band as a whole save a Dark Was The Night contribution, but a
pair of noteworthy solo albums. A.C.
Newman shows that he’s the chief architect of the New Pornos
sound, as his solo album sounds a lot like the New Pornos without the
impressive backing vocals, while Neko Case shows that she’s
the Pornographer evolving the most. Here
she’s moved into increasingly abstracted terrain, but still
sounding vaguely like an updated Joni Mitchell.
Really,
generally, indie-pop is blurring into folk-rock this year. Some of this is more straightahead. The Magnetic Fields complement last year’s
distortion-fest with an acoustic-based disk, while both Bon Iver and the Antlers
make gentle folk-pop I have a hard time caring much about. More interesting (though not necessarily
good) is the stuff that gets a bit more experimental. Grizzly Bear are the premier example here, with
a symphonic-folk sound that recalls the post-67 likes of Love or the Zombies (but
also with very much the melodic sense of Paul McCartney). The Dirty Projectors also owe a lot to Paul
McCartney, though fused with more of an afro-beat sensibility. They’re not as good as Grizzly Bear (who
really are quite good at a return to orchestral late-60s pop), but they are
better than Vampire Weekend (who they strongly recall). Still, 1) they sound more like Paul Simon
than the genuine article, and 2) I still can’t forgive them for their wimp-pop
desecration of Black Flag’s Damaged. So, in short, not as clever as they think
they are. Better than the Animal
Collective, though. Way back at the
beginning of this project, I’ve ranted about how much I hate this
band, but just to reiterate: their early
stuff (prior to this album) was “experimental,” but severely
hurt by their lack of either compositional or instrumental skill, or anything
really to say. This year they go “pop,”
shifting to a sub-Grizzly Bear sound, that seems to go for a Pet Sounds vibe, but they lack the
songs. I am thoroughly mystified as to
how this band got as popular/acclaimed as they did. Their early experimental stuff is dull, and
their later sound is hardly the premier example. Grizzly Bear does the orchestral pop better,
and Black Moth Super Rainbow (among others) does hazy psychedelia much
better. So the Collective are just
unremarkable, and while I don’t hate this album as much as the earlier
ones, I still never make it all the way through before getting bored and
switching to something more compelling.
And one
of those bands I’ll switch to are the aforementioned Black Moth Super
Rainbow. I don’t know much
about this band prior to this year, but this year they put out one of the
finest albums of deep psychedelia I’ve heard in probably decades, all hazy
distorted synths and vocals adding up to an obtuse but hooky mess. It really recalls Love Kraft-era Super Furry Animals.
Also, it’s an album that would possibly get tedious if it were longer,
but is pretty perfect at 35 minutes. Much
longer, though comparably compelling, is the new Flaming Lips album. Quite remarkably, this is again one of the finest
pieces of deep psych (of the Saucerful
variety) that I’ve heard in awhile. Embryonic is one I almost wish I had on
vinyl, as it’s the sort of record you expect to find buried in the record
store bins. It also puts me in the mind
of Wire’s Read & Burn. Like Wire, it’s a band sort of returning to their
original approach, though not exactly their original sound, with the benefit of
experience, and returning to it after fading out with increasingly synth-based
and non-rock sounds. Pretty phenomenal,
if somewhat out of time. It’s
worth nothing, though, that while both of these albums are psychedelic, they
don’t really sound throwback-y.
Rather, these are modern takes on the sound, not at all interested in
retro-sounds, but similar in approach to the likes of early Floyd.
Also a
good year for more pop-psych sounds. The
Super Furry Animals decide to mash up motorik Krautrock with glam rock (and
psych) to pretty excellent results, while Cornershop return from a long silence
of their own. Judy Suck A Lemon For Breakfast really sounds like it could have
been recorded in the same sessions as Handcream
for a Generation, right down to the psychedelic 15+ minute epic at the back
end, but I don’t mind Cornershop repeating themselves, as no one else comes
close to this kind of kaleidoscopic sound (and they do a mean Exlie-era Stones/glam rip).
Turning
to (slightly) more contemporary sounds, there’s also a mini-alt-rock revival going
on. This includes newer bands, such as
Deerhunter (sounding very Breeders-esque) and Japandroids (returning to
pre-Green Day pop-punk sounds), but also a number of older groups. Dinosaur Jr.’s comeback isn’t as
remarkable as, say, Wire’s, but like Mission of Burma, they pick
up right where they left off, with more grungy guitar sounds. Phish similarly sound unchanged from their
hiatus, though perhaps with a bit more prog in their sound (and a move away
from the more radio-friendly direction they were heading in pre-hiatus). The Eels, meanwhile, are sounding a bit more
rocked-up, but otherwise pretty close to their classic sound.
Also
rocking up their sound to good effect are Carbon/Silicon, who actually sound
like the band I wanted them to be when they first appeared. That is to say, they’ve remembered
their punk energy, but have fused it to the more sonically varied palate of
BAD. (but better than any BAD since at
least The Globe). Jarvis Cocker is also roughing up his sound,
though it’s less effective. He
was so good at being a 70s-style non-folk singer-songwriter that it’s
disappointing to hear him turning to more rote bashing like the punk-rocker he
never was. The Arctic Monkeys are
similarly substituting energy for inspiration, unfortunately. The Hold Steady also don’t
blow me away this year, with a decent but non-revelatory live album. Perhaps it could work as an
alternate-universe greatest hits, but honestly, if you’re going to
get just one Hold Steady album, pick up Boys
& Girls in America.
But,
there are good things out there in non-psych indie rock. The synth-pop revival continues apace,
including the return of a pair of former NYC garage-rockers. The Yeah Yeah Yeahs still sound like
trend-hoppers (and like they’re coming late to the dance-punk scene),
but Julian Casablancas (of the Strokes) does a bit better on his solo
debut. With the heavy synth-sound and a
songwriting style still very indebted to late-70s/early-80s stuff, he sounds a
lot like late-era Cars, but it’s more compelling certainly than the
Strokes have been since their debut. There’s
also synth-glam revival from Sunset Rubdown.
Once you get past the fact that this album is far wimpier than any album
named Dragonslayer has any right to
be, it’s pretty decent, if wimpy, glam-rock. Better still though are Phoenix, who continue
in the same modern synth-pop sound of their last album. It’s even better here, though, both with
tighter pop singles and more interesting lengthier stuff on the back end. The AV Club’s album of the year, and certainly one
of the best of the year overall.
Finally
among the rock bands, and perhaps fitting with all the psychedelic revivalism,
you get a few bands with more prog inclinations. The Decemberists go even deeper into their
Tull-influenced sound, with a straight-up rock opera (complete with guest
vocalists singing different parts). They
also get harder than they’ve been in the past, at times almost
metallically-so. What they really put me
in the mind of, though, is the Who, insofar as the problem with the
Decemberists is that Colin Meloy can write this stuff, but his voice is far too
weedy to sing a lot of it. So he needs a
Roger Daltry to his Pete Townshend. Also
problematic is that, like The Wall, The Hazards of Love is an album you need
to listen to as a piece, without a lot of readily-extractable singles. This is fine as far as it goes, but hurts
them in the post-album environment of modern rock.
Less
successful on their return to rock opera are Green Day. Partly this is because they’ve
lost the shock of the new, but a large part of it is that they sound less
inspired by The Who, and more inspired by the Broadway takes on rock opera (so
less Tommy and more Jesus Christ Superstar). Also, they’re far from the most compelling
prog-punk out there, what with another installment in Fucked Up’s
consistently excellent Zodiac series of punk song-suites. Fucked Up are really shaping up to be the
single most interesting thing in not only punk, but hard rock generally through
the late ‘00s.
They
also sound not too far from the prog-metal bands this year, of which there are
more than a few. Mastodon, who really
got this movement going, are sounding more and more toward the prog end of the
prog-metal spectrum, but unlike the Mars Volta, they sound more like a modern
reinvention than just rote recreation.
As they move away from metal, though, other bands rise to take their
place. Baroness are pretty successful at
Mastodon-style rock, but Converge falter somewhat. The big difference, I think, is that while
both bands are comparably hard and intense, Baroness has a much better sense of
how to use space to let their songs breathe.
Converge are more a steadily pummeling assault, which is pretty numbing
soon enough, but Baroness know how to use dynamics to hit harder when they do.
More
abstract prog-metal is out there as well, in the world of drone-metal. Sunn O))) take this to an extreme, with a
4-track double LP of largely unchanging drones.
Not unlike Black Sabbath played at 16 rpm. It’s hypnotic in its own way, but I can’t
help but feel like this stuff is a bit too easy to do to really put them on the
same level as the experimental likes of the Flaming Lips or the like. Or Isis, who are a far more interesting take
on the style. Like Baroness, they use
dynamics and tempo shifts to great effect, though they’re more
creative than Baroness’s more conventional pummeling. If they were an instrumental group, they’d
be one of my favorites, but they (like all the other metal bands discussed
above) are infected with the ridiculous Cookie Monster growl of death metal
that just sounds distractingly amateurish amid all the technical precision otherwise
displayed by these bands.
So
basically, as ridiculous as he could be in his own right, I miss Ronnie James
Dio, who returns to us this year for what is sadly his last studio album. I really wish the Dio-era Sabbath had
reunited first, so that The Devil You Know
could have been released as a Black Sabbath record instead of a Heaven &
Hell record, and Ozzy’s version would have needed to tour as
Masters of Reality or whatever. Because
without getting into classic-era Ozzy-Sabbath vs. Dio-Sabbath (Ozzy wins
there), the reunited Dio-Sabbath were far more interesting than the
Ozzy-version. 1) Dio’s
pipes have aged far better than Ozzy’s, actually perhaps sounding better now
than he did then, while Ozzy sounds far far worse. 2) Dio-Sabbath actually have new material,
and it’s quite surprisingly really good new material (better than
anything either he or Sabbath have done since The Mob Rules). Oddly, it’s
closer to the heavy sound of Ozzy-Sabbath than the more aggressive sound of classic
Dio-Sabbath (or the power-metal both Sabbath & Dio wandered into without
each other), though it’s really more its own thing. And what it does more than anything is remind
me how, while I may respect and enjoy modern metal, I don’t
love it the way I do the classic 70s-style version. So RIP Ronnie James Dio, and I
not-so-secretly hope Ozzy-Sabbath fail to put out a new album, as there’s
virtually no chance it would be a better last Sabbath record than this
one.
Song of the Year: The Flaming Lips – “Watching
The Planets.” This song is just
fantastic. A pounding psychedelic gem
played at a march temp that gives it an almost menacing sense of inevitability. And it works even better as the culmination
of a two-LP-long journey into sonic deep space.
Album of the Year: The Super Furry Animals –
Dark Days/Light Years. This isn’t a bold step forward for the SFA
(though they’ve never been so explicitly motorik-engaged before), but it’s
probably their finest album. They obviously
have had songs that were excellent (and albums full of them), but none of their
earlier albums hang together and flow like this one does. Also among the most inventive of the year,
and representative of the neo-psych tinges.
Artist Most
Benefiting from Reevaluation: Carbon/Silicon. After being disillusioned by their first records,
I find that they actually can live up to their promise. So much the better!
Artist Most
Diminished in Reevaluation: I’m
not sure I have a specific artist, though I can say I got pretty tired of the
third-tier beats cluttering the mixtapes in my collection this year. So call it less an artist diminished and more
a format. Mixtapes are fun and all, but
with only a handful of exceptions, they’re really closer to bootleg live albums
than proper studio releases.
Album List
A.C. Newman - Get Guilty
Andrew Mitchell - 2009
Andrew Mitchell - 6B Lounge 12 July 2009
Andrew Mitchell - 6B Lounge 26 July 2009
Andrew Mitchell - Hold on Me - 7 June 2009
Andrew Mitchell - July 2009 hmm
Andrew Mitchell - July 6 2009 - Wedding Songs
Animal Collective - Merriweather Post Pavilion
Arctic Monkeys - Humbug
Baroness - Blue Record
Black Moth Super Rainbow - Eating Us
Black Sabbath - The Devil You Know (Heaven & Hell)
Blakroc - Blakroc
Bob Dylan - Together Through Life
Bon Iver - Blood Bank
Bruce Springsteen - Working On A Dream
Built To Spill - There Is No Enemy
Carbon/Silicon - The Carbon Bubble
Converge - Axe To Fall
Cornershop - Judy Sucks A Lemon For Breakfast
Dan Auerbach - Keep It Hid
DanK & the Funksticks - 2-20-2009 Jen and Jays
DanK & the Funksticks - 39948
DanK & the Funksticks - 39977
DanK & the Funksticks - 39982
DanK & the Funksticks - Live at Mike's - 6/27/09
Deerhunter - Rainwater Cassette Exchange
Del Tha Funky Homosapien - Funk Man ( the stimulus package)
Dinosaur Jr. - Farm
Dirty Projectors - Ascending Melody 7"
Dirty Projectors - Bitte Orca
Eels - Hombre Lobo
Elvis Costello - Secret, Profane & Sugarcane
Fucked Up - Year Of The Rat
Green Day - 21st Century Breakdown
Grizzly Bear - Veckatimest
Gucci Mane - The Burrprint The Movie 3D feat. DJ Drama
Hank Williams - Revealed [The Unreleased Recordings]
Hank Williams, Jr. - 127 Rose Avenue
Isis - Wavering Radiant
Japandroids - Post-Nothing
Jarvis Cocker - Further Complications
Jay-Z - The Blueprint 3
Julian Casablancas - Phrazes For The Young
Justin Townes Earle - Midnight at the Movies
Major Lazer - Guns Don't Kill People... Lazers Do
Mastodon - Crack The Skye
Metallica - Death Magnetic
MF Doom - Born Like This. (DOOM)
Monsters Of Folk - Monsters Of Folk
Mos Def - Misc.
Mos Def - The Ecstatic
Mr. Lif - I Heard It
Today Megamix by Mr. Sonny James
Muddy Rhodes Blues Band - 16 May 2009 West Rutland Town Hall
Muddy Rhodes Blues Band - 25 July 2009 Shrewsbury Town Hall
My Morning Jacket - Yim Yames - Tribute To
Neil Young - Fork In The Road
Neko Case - Middle Cyclone
Nick Lowe - Quiet Please: The New Best of Nick Lowe
Pearl Jam - Ten Redux
Phish - 2009/05/31 I Boston, MA
Phish - 2009/05/31 II Boston, MA
Phish - Joy
Phoenix - Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix
Sunn O))) - Monoliths and Dimensions
Sunset Rubdown - Dragonslayer
Super Furry Animals - Dark Days/Light Years
The Antlers - Hospice
The Cool Kids - Gone fishing (Mixtape)
The Dead Weather - Horehound
The Decemberists - The Hazards Of Love
The Fiery Furnaces - I'm Going Away
The Flaming Lips - Embryonic
The Hold Steady - A Positive Rage
The Magnetic Fields - Realism
The Notorious B.I.G. - Notorious
The Replacements - D.G.T. - Paul Westerberg
V/A - 2008 Pitchfork Music Festival Sampler
V/A - Dark Was The Night: A Red Hot Compilation
V/A - Sub-Pop Sampler
Wale - Back To The Feature - GetRightMusic.com
Wilco - Wilco (The Album)
Willie Nelson - Willie And The Wheel
Yeah Yeah Yeahs - It's Blitz
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