Album of the (Last) Year

This is massively late because I could not distance myself from this album at all. Objectivity was out the window. I had waited for it more excitedly than any album ever- not even sure why.¹ I really liked his first four, but all had major faults and none in my personal Top 25.² The fact that it exceeded my wildest hopes was an unreal experience, a first. So I gave in for months, soundtracking every run, multiple drives, and a fair amount of jobsearching, and then went away from it, for three³ whole weeks. When I came back, I was still rabid. Now, after 2 months and only hearing again the library's Parental Advisory version, I have come to terms with my fanboy impulses and feel like I can contain them.

Just to start my conversation, here are the top five tracks⁴

Top Five

5. Lost in the World
4. So Appalled
3. Runaway
2. All of the Lights
1. Power

I'm going to restrain myself to bullet-points because I'm most interested in hearing what others think.⁵

+Pusha-T is fucking ferocious

+Jay's Monster 16 is actually good, after he finishes reading off every monster Wikipedia could find, and his So Appalled set is fire

+Ye shouts out '30 Rock' oh yes

+different exotic fishes!

+Pat texted me: What's your theme song? POWER

+When All of the Lights leaked, it should have been a goddamn national holiday

+Its a new era when hip-hop has better guitars than indie 'rock'

+The interlude between Power and All of the Lights was necessary to prevent brain-explosion manslaughter charges

+Dude flew everyone into Honolulu like a SPECTRE mastermind. Who else is this possessed with perfection? Someday I'm gonna write an essay comparing him to Brian Wilson. (Weezy F is Bob Dylan in this scenario. I think.)

+Dear credited 'handclappers' Ian Allen, Wilson Christopher, Uri Djemal, and Chris Soper: I challenge you all to a clap-off! I should have been the one flown into Hawaii! I'm a great goddamn clapper. Do you know how many standing O's I've started? Sure, I can't keep a beat for more than a minute, but technology can fix that, and the resonance I get is uncanny.



Questions:

Q: Is this a 100% album?
A. No. 'Hell of a Life' veers into the grotesque and 'Blame Game' has limited replayability, regardless at how good Chris Rock is in it. But the interesting question here is, can something be flawed and still perfect, as if its massive ambition can justify a couple slips? Exile on Main St. has "Turd on the Run" after all.

Q: Have we already had the album of the decade?
A: I hope not, but I would be happily surprised if there was a better one.

Q: Can we get much higher?
A: No




¹unemployment
²which you'll see soon
³!!!
⁴the easily offended should replace So Appalled with Gorgeous. or Dark Fantasy. or Devil in a New Dress
⁵in my mind this is the only thing people want to take about these days, a contradictory pile of empirical evidence notwithstanding

Top Five Dinosaur Jr. Albums

5. Where You Been
4. Beyond
3. You're Living All Over Me
2. Bug (lost out for Don't)
1. Farm

Iron+Wine: Kiss Each Other Clean OR Beardos with Golden Pipes: Godfather Edition

Unfortunately professional, like late career Paul Simon¹ or something. the Complacency Curse. I feel like producer Brian Deck saves his best stuff for Califone and shuffles his JV ideas off on the too-easy-going Sam Beam, who admittedly, is not firing on all (lyrical) cylinders either. I remember being psyched out of my mind when I thought he and Califone were recording an album together, a la Calexico, but it was only a tour together. Still I hoped he'd picked up some of their strange, original view on Americana, but instead Sam worked with their producer and set his sights on, he proclaimed, 70's FM. Back into that chest-hairy womb², huh?

Not that I don't enjoy the album; its tailor-made for bleary-eyed Sunday mornings, when you can disappear to do laundry and come back five minutes and pick up right where you left off. "Your Fake Name" has that great slowburning crescendo thing I'm a sucker for and "Tree by the River" is a keeper as well. But most of the rest falls into a Shepherd's Dog B-side no-man's land of mostly unmemorable tunes gussied up with fancy, sort of soulless production. I would LOVE to hear Sam fronting a genuine New Orleans ensemble, but I don't want him singing over a dude in Chicago's idea of what those Dr. John outfits sound like.³ These songs are Rube Golbergs where the eventual goal is to start the next song, forty hamster wheels later.

I put together a little ranking of essential Iron+Wine for the non-converts, and was mildly disturbed to realize most of the songwriting that I love from Sam is nearly ten years old. He had demos for 90% of the songs on these releases back when he sent Creek Drank the Cradle to Sub Pop back in 2002. I'm gonna try not to dwell on that too much.


Top Five Iron+Wine Albums

5. Our Endless Numbered Days
4. Around the Well
3. In The Reins
2. The Sea & the Rhythm/Woman King⁴
1. The Creek Drank the Cradle


ps
My favorite Sam song, still somehow unreleased:


¹pitchfork also used this as a touchstone, but i didn't read them til after i published this
² shag-carpeted womb might have been a better joke.
³ Big Burned Hand. ugh.
⁴yes, sonically and chronologically different EPs, but spliced up makes a great album. though i'm not sure i can ever listen to Jezebel again.

Good Better Best Vol. 1

Haven't reviewed any music for awhile. After Scott took his game stratospheric, I've become a little self-conscious of my sophomoric approach. But a Ben can only keep his obnoxious opinions to himself for so long before they must bust free and head home, to the Internet, where they belong.

I am going to test out a hypothesis that albums can be best discussed concurrently, especially when they have something in common. In this case, we're going with a (drumroll please): Beardo's With Golden Pipes Edition. I've had only these three in the car with me for a month. Here is what I think:

Fleet Foxes

Mostly pleasant, Coffeehouse Deluxe stuff: its hard to imagine truly forming an emotional connection to it. There is only one moment of catharsis in Helplessness Blues and of course Robin undercuts it immediately by singing about motherfucking apples in sunshine. Geeesus. He's a good kid, I just wish I could burn his record collection and give him a new one. Also needs to lose the Ben Gibbard Desire to Enunciate Complete Sentences Syndrome. Goddamn Seattle. Still, that moment where he gets some gravel in his throat (The Shrine quarter of that mess of a song) gives me hope.

My Morning Jacket

So this was a Hold Steady record, in that it showcases some new songs that'll sound great live, and then some filler around it. So be it. A great MMJ cut makes my life better and a poor one is still pretty good. Unless its about peanut butter. (Also in the albums-as-excuse-to-tour mindset: Wilco.)Also, the title track might be my favorite MMJ song ever.


Bon Iver

special Godel-Escher-Bach-ian Sub-album breakdown:

Good
Michicant
Wash.
Lisbon, OH

Better
Minnesota
Holocene
Towers (opens like Tom Petty)
Hinnom, TX

Best
Perth
Calgary
Beth/Rest

In the liner notes he thanks Kanye for teaching him to go hard in the studio, and he does. Dude just has better ears than 99% of his peers. He doesn't rest on a 'good-enough' idea, everything is fleshed-out until its perfectly recorded and sounds intuitive, like a song you've always heard. The album is entirely self-possessed and self-assured. It should go without saying, but in our amateur-hour Indie where everyone gets a gold star for not trying, here is a grown man absolutely passionate about making the best album he could. The drums are stellar. The horns are great. The strings are key; unobtrusive, not Coldplayed. And he absolutely earns the sax in Beth/Rest. The only thing I can take away from it is that it does have three pieces (the Goods) which function basically as breathers, particularly Wash. and Lisbon bookending standout Calgary. Definitely a must-have; medicinal in the best sort of way. This will cure you for at least a day. I know I'll save it for those times the world has me beat.

For Scott