Category Archives: lists

Revisiting The 2000s: 20 Albums (First Five)

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If you’ve already read Part I where I explain my madcap project of searching for and reviewing the best 20 albums I may have missed in the first decade of the 2000s, then let’s get going! An explanation of how the reviews were written, and the first five albums, are below. 

If you missed the intro, go and read it, and then come back.  

Okay, ready now?


Part IV: Review Rules

My friend Matt thinks one of the best things I ever wrote was a 12-pack fueled 12-album review. That may be, or that may not be. It gets a little long, and is too gonzo for publication in the world as we know it, but you can judge its merits for yourself by reading it here. What I think he liked about it was its spontaneity and unpolished aspects. Which, when you think about it, fits music as a visceral, immediate medium. More than books, more than movies (which you often ponder afterwards), music is something we appreciate (or not) in the moment. So, while I’ll leave the beer out these days, I am going to write the reviews real-time as I listen to each album for the first time. Except for corrections of misspelling and gross grammatical error, everything you see is spontaneous first thought.   
Part V: The Albums (first five albums)

Animal Collective, “Merriweather Post Pavillion” (2009, 3 votes)
Hmmm. Don’t get me wrong, I do have anexperimental bone in my body. But I usually prefer my music to be a little less sound-effect produced and tape loopy. Which is not to say that I have no room for distortion- there are places where I really like it, but those places tend to be where the distortion is informed by an underlying sense of Rock song conventions (cf. the Raveonettes, Jesus and Mary Chain, Sonic Youth). So far this reminds me of the start of a Pink Floyd song that then doesn’t get past the start. Like being stuck in the first 10 seconds of “Us and Them”. Track two, “My Girls” is rather like track one “In The Flowers” in all the ways I didn’t totally care for track one. The weird thing is, I like some equally messy-sounding groups. No Age and Times New Viking come to mind. I think I like it better there because it’s produced by guitar over-drive, versus overlaid studio computer tricks. It comes by the noise more honestly. Track two is growing on me though… Oh, track three, “Also Frightened” is winning me over through jungle sounds in the background, despite the continued presence of annoying bell-ringing sounds. You do have to like a song where the refrain is “are you also frightened?”. See now, “Summertime Clothes” (track four) just teased me by starting off with a sound that almost was real crunching guitars, but devolved into a sample repeat loop. I actually like the lyrics, and don’t mind their obscurity and the difficulty of reaching them through the sound, or rather I wouldn’t, if the sound itself weren’t bugging me. What can I say? Less is more! In Beatles terms, I’m more of a “Helter Skelter” or “Yer Blues” than a “Revolution Number Nine” or “Day In the Life”. Whatcha gonna do? This reminds me of how much I loved the Shins on “Chutes Too Narrow” and how turned off I was when the next album got studio-experimental. I feel like these guys could put out a great album too with something less “cleverly” produced. Track Seven, “Guys Eyes” is making the best case so far for being worth a second listen, I think mostly because it’s added in a background beat that gives the whole collage something to hang on. Track eight “Taste” seems to be doing something similar, and with a Beach Boys twist, but it has a few too many distracting “airplane in takeoff” sound effects in the background. Is it a bad sign that my first thought on reaching track nine is, “Another fourteen minutes of this? Ugggh.”? P.S., that’s a bad sign in itself. Average track length of almost 5 minutes is rarely justified for anyone. Ah, reading about them now on AMG and Wikipedia, which I didn’t want to do beforehand to influence my review. And you know, if I had, I would have expected something like what I’m getting- a smart, not uninteresting, musical art project. Which certainly has its place, but is just not my cup of tea. Next!           
Arcade Fire, “Funeral” (2004, 7 votes)

“Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels)” started slower and more studioey than I usually care for (see the entire above entry, for example) but by the time it really kicks in, you realize that the slow start has been building up power. It earns the “woo oh hoo” chorus it ends up with. Nice kick-off of drums and guitars on track two “Neighborhood #2 (Laika), such that once the arty extra instruments arrive, they’re welcome. I’m also liking the “recorded in a steel drum” sound of the vocals. There’s something about the album so far that feels like struggling to remember a dream. It’s there, you know it’s full of power and meaning, but it’s just slightly out of reach. In a good way. Oh wow, loving how the otherwise suspiciously artily named “Une Annee Sans Lumiere” moves from a dreamy sound with nostalgic early 60s instrumental rock touches to a driving rock finish. And these guys know enough about sequencing to give the next song a driving rock start for the segue. My head is bobbing of its own accord, and that’s always a good sign. Whereas Animal Collective’s Indie Rock was the 95% indie, 5% rock version, this is a good solid 50-50. Or at least 60-40. Me likes! Ah, track five, “Neighborhood #4 (7 Kettles)” knows that after you’ve pumped it up two songs in a row, you need to slow it down. Which it’s doing with a song that feels like slow surges of emotion. And track six, “Crown of Love”, now takes that feeling and transmutes it into a more straightforwardly earnest, pleading song. You know what I’m realizing? This is an honest to God album! Like one where the songs belong together and belong in the order they’re in, building on each other and taking the listener somewhere. You know what else I’m realizing? It takes me far less space to talk about something I’m liking than something I’m hoping to like and failing. Here I’m approaching track 8 and thinking, “Oh no! Don’t end in three more songs.” Also nice to hear a female vocalist on some of these tracks. I’ve always felt that groups that have both male and female vocalists are worth their weight in iridium (and, my end of album reading reveals this is a husband and wife team, and an album inspired by the passing of important people in their lives- no wonder it surges with genuine emotionality!). This album is everything indie rock should be at its best- smart, arty, conversant with Rock’s ways and means, and not afraid to produce a song that gets your foot tapping. An immediate “yes” for going in to permanent rotation in my 2000s playlist!
Beck, “Sea Change” (2002, 5 votes)

Well, it’s starting off with something that sounds like a sad cowboy song, and that’s always good in my book. I’ve tried to avoid reading anything about these albums beforehand so as not to prejudice my reviews, but I did know that he wrote this while going through a breakup of a long-term relationship. That’s what this first song, “The Golden Age” sounds like, in a weary early 70s country rock kind of way. If I ran across this at random, it would not even cross my mind that it’s Beck, but then again being a musical chameleon is pretty much his stock in trade. And sure enough, the second song “Paper Tiger” has the same weary and worn feeling that I remember from my own divorce, but in a completely different musical setting. This one has a beat, Beatlesque string section effects, etc. In emotional tone though, it seems to hang together perfectly with the song before it, and that can be quite a fine way to build an album. Leastways, I’m still listening. Hmmm, and now track three “Guess I’m Doing Fine” is back to the country sound of the first. And really, even given a synthesizer effect here and there, so damn authentic sounding. Seriously, it brings to mind Gram Parsons, and “Wild Horses”. Track four is named “Lonesome Tears”, which certainly would have you expecting another country song, but this one is back to the Beatlesque instrument swirls. Also maybe a little Pink Floydy. And aching, tired and gorgeous. It sounds like lost love. Oh hey, track five, “Lost Cause” I know you! And had no idea you were by Beck. This one is kind of like synth-folk. I realized I’m writing a lot about the music here, but the lyrics are quite worth the time as well, straightforward without being trite, and sounding like they’ve earned their world-weariness. I also like how the music is getting more mixed up as we go along. Overall, strongly in an acoustic, country-tinged vein, but with classic rock studio production accents, and things that feel like 80s pop all dropped into some kind of wonderful blender and mixed together. You know how a lot of stuff on the radio sounds like it’s trying and has its heart in the right place, but ends up sounding like ass? If it succeeded at what it was trying to do and didn’t sound like ass, it might sound like this. Oh, I really like the way track ten, “Sunday Sun” falls apart into a harsh tangle of feedback at the end. And then song eleven “Little One” positively surges with emotion musically, which is an almost chilling counterpoint to the gruff exhausted vocals. Every song on here sounds like looking straight into someone’s naked heart. I’m fully on board with everyone who describes this as a masterpiece.
Daft Punk, “Discovery” (2001, 4 votes)

Electronica is, for the most part, not my bag. That being said, I do like the way track one, “One More Time” jumps into it full-speed ahead. No slow weird intros, bizarre sound effects, just beat, beat, beat- go! I do like some kinds of hip-hop and dance music, and this first song is clearly in that vein, rather than droning Rave sound, so maybe that’s it. It reminds me of the best of 90s and 2000s dance music, and, looking at the release date, probably heavily influenced the later. Ah see, track two, “Aerodynamic” did have the slow start and weird sound effect bell tolling. Fortunately, it doesn’t last long, and gets in to some pretty decent synthesizer faux guitar later in the song. I also like the fact that there are lyrics here in most songs, as in track three “Digital Love”. Are they the most profound lyrics ever? No, but they’re energetic and fun, and buoyed by a sound that often adopts the structure and pacing of rock music. I’m reminded of Fischerspooner and LCD Soundsystem, though of course I have my causality backwards in both cases in terms of whose sound influenced who. In track four, “Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger”, I’m again picking up on something I’ve heard throughout, a strong strain of 80s hip-hop and early 80s soul a-la Rick James, Earth, Wind & Fire, etc. Take that, mix with some of the sensibility of rock, and you’re going to get an Electronica I can stand behind. So much so, I’m almost willing to suspend my natural suspicion of their being French. Don’t get me wrong, they turn out fine literature and film, but their music is usually a little too cutesy for me. Although it’s returning with the slow chords and heartbeat sound effect on track five, “Nightvisions”. A little too ambient for me, I’ll probably drop it from my final iTunes mix for this album. Especially since, see how nicely it perks up again on the next track, “Superheroes”? You know, despite the dig I just couldn’t help above, one of the sad things about the 2000s in American music (and the 90s too, for that matter) is how black and white popular music were so separate. This album has a sound that brings elements of both together, and I wonder if it takes someone from the outside, like a European, to do that these days? Track 11, “Veridis Quo” may also be a little too long, low key and vocal-free for me, but otherwise I am quite enjoying this so far. Oh, especially the penultimate track, “Face to Face”. They even keep the last track, ten minute-long “Too Long” entertaining enough that I can forgive the joke. This kind of album is never going to get to me on the same level that Arcade Fire or Beck’s albums from this list do, but I wouldn’t kick it out of bed, either. Musically speaking. There’s a mood that it fits, and it really fits that mood well!  
D’Angelo, “Voodoo” (2000, 3 votes)

Track one “Playa Playa” starts off with some banging, mumbled voices and finger-snapping that feels like it goes on a little too long before finding a beat. When it does, there’s some nice funk guitar, and vocals that bring to mind the early 80s a-la Prince, Rick James, Earth Wind & Fire. Still a little wandery, though. Not sure if I’m buying it. It’s also going on way too long given that it’s basically a slow-jam with repetitive lyrics bordering on the nonexistent. Song two, “Devil’s Pie” starts off more hip-hop musically, and there are lyrics, even if they’re delivered is such a low-key monotone cadence that it’s kind of like the Hootie & the Blowfish of soul. There are some moments that lift above this, but not many. Track three, “Left and Right” I’d keep, it’s reminding me of the best of 70s and early 80s funk and soul, and has enough musical and vocal variability to save it from the vague blah fate of the other two. Track four “The Line” is back to the slow-jam blah, though. The next track, “Send It On” actually appears to be putting my cat to sleep. Oh, but I’m liking track six, “Chicken Grease” in a Moby sampling and remixing a funk classic kind of way. And then track seven, “One Mo’gin” puts it back to sleep. About halfway through now, and already waiting for this album to end. I’m having the opposite of my experience with Daft Punk- that was generally with the groove it was in, a few tracks I’d drop. This is generally not in the groove, a few tracks I’d keep. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not at all terrible in the way that a lot of 2000s radio is terrible. It’s just not my cup of tea. This is certainly something people of good will could disagree about. And I definitely hear, and appreciate, the influences- 70s funk, early Prince, early 80s slow jams, even the neo-psychedelic side of Motown. But that just makes me want to go listen to those sources, rather than this derivation.

Okay, that’s it for now. Tune in next time for albums 6-10…

Revisiting The 2000s: 20 Albums (Intro)

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Part I: The Lost Decade

There’s a common perception that the 2000s (Naughts, Nothings, whatever you might call the first decade of our new millennium) has been, shall we say, a troubled period for popular music. It certainly hasn’t seen anything along the lines of the birth of Rock in the 50s, its flowering in the 60s, the Punk explosion of the 70s or the Alternative Rock boom of the 90s. And this is not just about Rock. Hip Hop, Dance Music, Country, you name it, nobody was exactly having a golden age during 2000-2009. Instead, it’s been more like a treading of water and triumph of pre-packaged bland slickness in pop music, reminiscent in some ways of the 80s. I had hoped that this might be a waiting period for the next big thing, but I’m starting to feel some despair on that front.
Personally, I was, in various ways, out of commission myself for large parts of the decade. A little marriage breakup here, intense workaholism there, plus a major dash of bottoming out and getting in to recovery will do that to you. You miss some life that way, certainly. But, even more disturbing, you miss some culture. Now, it’s not as if I paid no attention to new music in 2000-2009. As you can see elsewhere in this blog, I had my musings about the decade, and best albums of the year lists here and there. But, given my outages, I have been haunted by an ongoing fear that there might be significant gaps in my musical experience of the decade.
More than that, I’ve been curious about what I might have missed. Even in the worst periods, there are diamonds among the dung. I wondered what might be waiting for me, undiscovered…
Part II: Project Overview
To discover what I might have missed, I first had to determine what others were saying the best albums of the decade had been. In pursuit of this, I looked to a few sources:
I was looking for albums that garnered multiple entries, since that seemed the best way to cancel out the biases of individual lists (Pitchfork is tilted toward indie-rock, NME likes Brits more, Rolling Stone is the stodgy conservative of the music journalism scene, etc.). 
Combining 260 total listings from these nine sources ended up netting me 150 albums. Of this 150, only 43 made it on to two or more lists. That was actually kind of refreshing, since the rap on these kinds of lists is that “everybody picks the same things”. In fact, over 100 albums only appeared once, meaning that each source’s tastes do have some individuality to them after all. Even better, out of 150 albums total, only 27 appeared in three or more sources.
Part III: The List
I figured this 27 was the crème de la crème, where I might find the great albums that I had missed (the numbers represent the number of times an album appeared in the nine sources):
Wilco, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot       8
Arcade Fire, Funeral      7
The Strokes, Is This It    7
Jay-Z, The Blueprint       6
LCD Soundystem, Sound of Silver          6
Outkast, Stankonia        6
Radiohead, Kid A          6
Beck, Sea Change         5
Kanye West, The College Dropout           5
The White Stripes, Elephant       5
The White Stripes, White Blood Cells      5
Daft Punk, Discovery     4
Green Day, American Idiot         4
Interpol, Turn on the Bright Lights           4
Kayne West, Late Registration    4
MIA, Kala          4
Animal Collective, Merriweather Post Pavillion     3
Coldplay, A Rush of Blood to the Head   3
D’Angelo, Voodoo         3
Eminem, Marshall Mathers LP    3
Madvillian, Madvilliany   3
MIA, Arular        3
Phoenix, Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix     3
Spoon, Kill the Moonlight           3
Sufjan Stevens, Illinois  3
The Flaming Lips, Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots         3
TV on the Radio, Return to Cookie Mountain        3  
     
As you can see, I have some of these highlighted. The ones in yellow I already love, so I don’t need to “discover” them. The ones in gray, well… I’ve tried to like Radiohead. As documented elsewhere, I’ve failed. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think they’re bad, I don’t think people who like them are stupid or evil. They’re just not my cup of tea. Ditto with Coldplay. And even more so, but with less respect for the underlying musical product, with the Strokes.
Weeding out albums I knew, or knew would be non-starters, by very happy coincidence, left 20 not totally familiar to me (as in, I’d never given them a proper listen from start to finish) albums from the 2000s for me to review (presented here in alphabetical order by artist):
Animal Collective, “Merriweather Post Pavillion” (3)
Arcade Fire, “Funeral” (7)
Beck, “Sea Change” (5)
Daft Punk, “Discovery” (4)
D’Angelo, “Voodoo” (3)
Eminem, “Marshall Mathers LP” (3)
Interpol, “Turn on the Bright Lights” (4)
Jay-Z, “The Blueprint” (6)
Kayne West, “Late Registration” (4)
LCD Soundystem, “Sound of Silver” (6)
Madvillian, “Madvilliany” (3)
MIA, “Arular” (3)
MIA, “Kala” (4)
Outkast, “Stankonia” (6)
Phoenix, “Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix” (3)
Spoon, “Kill the Moonlight” (3)
Sufjan Stevens, “Illinois” (3)
The Flaming Lips, “Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots” (3)
TV on the Radio, “Return to Cookie Mountain” (3)
Wilco, “Yankee Hotel Foxtrot” (8)
Stay tuned for the next installment, in which our reviews will commence…

25 Most-played Songs in 2011

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Full disclosure: This is not a top 25 of songs released in 2011, or played on the radio in 2011.

Those of you who know me know that I love statistics and numerical patterns. iTunes seems to share my obsession, and one of my favorite things every time I synch the iPod up to load a new playlist is seeing how my top 25 most-played songs has changed. Since the year is now over, I’ll reset statistics tomorrow, but first I wanted to review the past year. Consider it my Holiday present to you, dear readers…

Here, without fear and favor (and in alphabetical order to further reduce the favoritism) are my top 25 most-played songs in 2011 (links mostly to live versions, but feel free to play the originals if you’ve got ’em!):

All Along The Watchtower (Bob Dylan, Before the Flood)– This is a live version with the Band from a tour album Dylan released in the 70s. It’s one of 6? 7? versions I have in my library. Not my favorite version (that would be the original), but there’s a soft spot in my heart for this album, as listening to it on my parent’s record player after school was the start of my induction into the glories of classic rock.

Batman (Jan & Dean, Surf City: The Best of Jan & Dean)– I can testify, I did end up listening to this a lot this year. Every time has been as delightfully silly as the first. I’ve got to hand it to Jan & Dean, though, this song evidences a better understanding of the uncanny darkness of the character than the campy 60s TV series did.

Could You Be The One? (Husker Du, Warehouse Songs & Stories)– The thing about all these 80s nostalgia kiddies around now is that they had no idea just how bad it was. Overproduced top 40 was everywhere, TV, the movies, the Mall. There was no escaping it. The only way you could find anything different unless you were in a big city was in a small record store that you had to learn about from friends that had a locked case in the back with a few alternative rock cassettes. Then, maybe, if you were lucky, you could find something like this bubbling up from the underground, keeping rock just barely alive in an era that had prefab slickened it to within an inch of its life.

Darkside (Tanya Donelly, beautysleep)– I’m a big fan of the Pixies and Throwing Muses, and all solo careers that have flowed from there, hence their strong presence in my playlist. The album that this is from, by Throwing Muses co-founder Tanya Donelly, came across my path immediately following my separation in 2002. It was like a beacon of light, giving me faith that a life of shimmering beauty and deep meaning was waiting out there somewhere past the darkness…

Down By The River (Neil Young & Crazy Horse, Decade)– Ah, Neil Young, one of my all-time top 5 musical artists (along with Dylan, the Who, the Pixies and Nirvana, in case you’re wondering). There’s also something hauntingly beautiful, yearning and melancholy about this. Easily my favorite shooting down your lover song. Which is a distressingly crowded genre!

Full Moon, Empty Heart (Belly, Star)– Belly was the group Tanya Donelly formed in the mid-90s after being with the Breeders for their first album, which came after her exit from the Throwing Muses. Like all the best of her work, this is evocative, full of gauzy beauty, and underlined by serrated guitar that underlines its delicacy with steel.    

Ginger Park (50 Foot Wave, Golden Ocean)– One good Muse deserves another, in this case in the form of 50 Foot Wave, the current vehicle of Tanya’s half-sister and fellow founding Throwing Muse Kristin Hersh. The combination of the harsh shred of her voice and the guitar, backed up with the lyrics (I don’t belong there/ I guess I never will/ I don’t belong anywhere) simultaneously makes me feel chilled and crawlingly itchily warm.

Green (Throwing Muses, In A Doghouse)– And now here they are together! Albeit this is one of the rare songs written and sung by Tanya Donelly that the Muses did. Hence, I imagine, her eventual decision to split and go solo. There’s a driving urgency behind this song, a sound that’s like someone just on the edge of really losing it.

A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall (Bob Dylan, The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan)– This album, Dylan’s big original breakthrough, was another of the ones raided from my parent’s that started me on my musical journey. While it was written in an attempt to cram in everything he thought and felt as the world seemed on the edge of holocaust during the Cuban Missile Crisis, it’s no less affecting today. The poet as prophet, after all, inherently taps into a timeless space.    

Her Majesty (the Beatles, Abbey Road)– One of many cute little snippets from Abbey Road that kind of makes you wish they’d been developed to full length. Although I’m not sure how long you could sustain this ditty of a love-song to the Queen.

I’ll Cry Instead (the Beatles, A Hard Day’s Night)– Most of my favorite early Beatles songs tend to be John’s. There’s just more anguish and edge to them, as here, where he’s simultaneously crying over the loss of his girl and boasting about his ability to break and load every girl in the world. Oh Johnny…

I Don’t Believe You (She Acts Like We Never Have Met) (Bob Dylan, Another Side of Bob Dylan)– Early Dylan has a lot of bitter telling-off a theoretical gal songs. I don’t think of this as being one of my favorites, but apparently it snuck into my playlists pretty often. Also a fine example of the “Dylan nearly cracks up in the middle of a song” genre, which could generate a playlist of its own.

I Should Have Known Better (the Beatles, A Hard Day’s Night)– Remember what I said above about John Lennon’s early Beatles songs? Ditto here. It’s a sweet straightforward love song, but just underneath the surface you can tell something’s a little wrong. And isn’t that what the urgency of early love is so often like?

I Walk The Line (Johnny Cash, The Legendary Sun Records Story)– I would have been mighty upset if some Johnny Cash hadn’t made it in to this list. I love his early Sun stuff, there’s something very simple about the songs musically and they’re lyrically totally straightforward. But despite that, or maybe because of it, they’re full of depth.    

Lay Lady Lay (Bob Dylan, Nashville Skyline)– Sometimes this song doesn’t quite do it for me, since it tends to get overplayed. But there’s something about Dylan’s country croon, bright ringing guitar and tender entreaty here that wins out. Besides which, my parents played it at their wedding, so this song practically conceived me. Doubly so since they were married December 26th and I was born September 28th of the following year.

Lovely Rita (the Beatles, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band)– Not one of my favorite Beatles albums, it suffers for me from the overplay and overhang of “this is the most important, popular music-changing album of all time”. That all being said, this is one of my favorite songs. There’s something very swinging 60s about seducing the meter maid, and a winning contrast between McCartney’s poppy presence and the slightly sinister distorted Lennon backing.

Lucy In the Sky With Diamonds (the Beatles, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band)–  The very heart of Beatles overplay. For me too, apparently, since it’s on this list! So, not one of my favorites, but there is something undeniably arresting about the musical layering and surrealistic imagery.

Night Flight (Led Zeppelin, Physical Graffiti)– I maintain that Physical Graffiti is one of the most sonically perfect albums ever recorded. I also have a theory that it represents a kind of capstone of Classic rock, a point at which nostalgia for the passage of flower power past officially replaces the living actual feeling that something great and wonderful was about to happen. This song is that to a T.

Paint It Black (the Rolling Stones, Aftermath)– Through some glitch of iTunes, this song ended up on every playlist I downloaded, even though it wasn’t included in the playlists themselves in my iTunes library. The result, of course, was that I ended up listening to it a lot. Not a bad thing, really. Take away the 60s nostalgia and you can see it for what it is, one of the most creepily nihilistic expressions ever committed to record by a popular group.          

Ready Steady Go (Generation X, No Thanks! The 70s Punk Rebellion)– Speaking of 60s nostalgia, here’s a song that’s a conscious repudiation of it, and yet, in it’s poppy bounciness recalls the best of the British Invasion. It’s also a reminder that Billy Idol once had something going for him.

Sexy Results (Death From Above 1979, You’re a Woman, I’m a Machine)– The 2000s have been a rough period, musically. Kind of as dismal at the mass market level as the 80s, maybe even more so. But even in the worst eras there’s always something going on somewhere, as DFA’s re-imagining of heavy metal as dance music is here to remind us. 

Speedy Marie (Frank Black, Frank Black 93-03)– Speaking of the dearth of something going on in the 2000s, one of the best albums I bought last decade was this collection, which chiefly features songs from the 90s. What can I say, I’m a fool for the Pixies, and the solo work of their former front man as well. This is not one of my favorite songs by him, but it does go down super-smooth, with a strange aftertaste from the phrasing of the highly literate lyrics.

Subliminal (Suicidal Tendencies, Suicidal Tendencies)– Yes, I was an 80s alternative kid, but I think everyone should love the album this is from. I mean, really, listen to it. it was released in 1983, and everything that would actually become popular in the 90s amalgamation of punk and metal into grunge is already here, with a little shout out to rap metal as well from an era when hip-hop itself was in its infancy.

To Be Alone With You (Bob Dylan, Nashville Skyline)– Nashville Skyline is one of my favorite albums and this is a bright and shiny little gem from it. It just rolls along, so uncharacteristically cheerful. Plus, I perennially love that, “Is it rolling Bob?” that kicks it off.     

Won’t Fall In Love Today (Suicidal Tendencies, Suicidal Tendencies)– Opportunity to repeat everyting I said above about Suicidal Tendencies. Only faster, since this song clocks in at 1:00 exactly!

So there you have it. This may tell us as much about the algorithms of the iPod as it does about me, or popular music. But I am pretty proud of the nearly half-century span of music (from I Walk The Line in 1956 to Sexy Results in 2004) on display here. Happy New Year all, and happy listening to come in 2012!

       

 

 

10 Essential Sci-Fi Books

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(from my Sci-Fi Book Club)
(and thoughts on 11 others)

One of the things I sorely miss about SF (the city, San Francisco) is my SF (the genre, Sci-fi) Book Club. We started in March 2008, taking turns each picking a book. Our membership waxed and waned from nearly 10 to barely 2 or 3 at times. We had periods where we met every 6 weeks like clockwork, then some others where we couldn’t get together a next meeting for months. Even in the face of all these starts and stops, we got through 21 books by the time I moved to the Boston Area in July 2011.

Despite being a very book kind of guy and card-carrying geek of multiple lineages (Star Trek, Star Wars, comics collector, D&D player, I could go on), I had actually never read much Sci-fi, so I was interested to see what was out there, and what I would think of it. From the admittedly not completely scientifc selection of the books picked by the guys and surprisingly large number of gals in our group, here’s my vote on a top 10, in alphabetical order (spoiler light beyond the basic premises, since I hate spoilers):

1. A Fire Upon the Deep  (Vernor Vinge, 1993) In full disclosure mode, I must note that this is one of the ones I picked. That being said, I really didn’t know a lot about it beyond being familiar with Vernor Vinge from his relationship to thought about the Singularity. It turned out to be a delight for the way it combined genres- at heart it’s a kind of horror story, with a really scary ultra-intelligence monster. But the story gets told in a unique Sci-fi setting (a race across across the galaxy, which turns out to be segregated by zones where intelligence, and even the laws of physics, are more advanced on the edge, and get duller toward the center). And a great deal of the action happens in what is basically a fantasy setting, full of castles and palace intrigue. Really well written, delightful all the way through, and provocative.

2. Childhood’s End (Arthur C. Clarke, 1953) This was the third book we read, deservedly a classic. Clarke is a master of clear, simple prose. The book itself is the prototypical “saucers appear over every capital on Earth” story, and once you read it, you’ll see its influence everywhere. As far as what those saucers are doing there, who’s in them, and what they want with us, though, the thing I found most striking about the book was its originality, both at the time of publication, and still today almost 60 years later.

3. I, Robot (Isaac Asimov, 1950) Again, a classic, and one whose influence you’ll find everywhere you look. The thing that most impresses me about Asimov, though, is the warm humanity of the writing. The stories ring true not so much based on whether predictions about technology and future society are on target (though some of them are), but mostly because they are full of the author’s shrewd understanding of what people are like and why they do what they do. In the hands of someone else this could come off very cynical, but with Asimov it’s more of a wise, knowing, “Ah, yes, that’s who we are.”

4. Neuromancer  (William Gibson, 1984) Here is born cyberpunk. And happy birthday to it! In many ways, a chillingly plausible look at a world more technologically advanced, but more socially decayed. Did this foresee many aspects of the Internet, or actually influence its development? And seriously, could The Matrix pay some copyright for ripping off every element of character and visual design it had from this book (albeit with a very different storyline)? But beyond all the further thoughts I could unload about it, at heart it’s a damn well done film noir story thrust into the realm of cyberspace (a term it invented!).  

5. Revelation Space (Alastair Reynolds, 2000) All the books I’ve described so far do an excellent job with character, but I don’t think any of them get as deep into the psychology of their (often deeply flawed) main characters as this book does. Along the way, there’s horror, intrigue, skillful plotting as three widely divergent storylines converge, and high concept cosmic evolution. Given that so many of the works we read came from a Sci-fi heyday of the 50s to the 70s, this makes me glad to say: Well done, 2000s!

6. The Forever War (Joe Haldeman, 1974) When it first came out, this was a kind of parable about the Vietnam War told through the main character’s experience of a war lasting generations due to the time dilation between it’s far-flung battlefields. Nobody quite knows how the war is going, why we’re fighting, or even exactly who the enemy is. Sad to say, it has a whole new resonance thirty-five year later after our own decade-long Forever War Against Terror.

7. The Martian Chronicles (Ray Bradbury, 1950) This was the book we kicked off with. As we should have, since it gave us the vital middle of the ABC “big three” of classic sci-fi (Asimov, Bradbury, Clarke). In terms of science, the Mars it portrays was already badly outdated by the mid 60s, and throughout, the technology of how we get there and stay there is treated as an afterthhought. And that really doesn’t matter, because it functions on the level of fable- the things in it are true, because they’ve always been true. And that truth is suffused with some of the most heartbreakingly beautiful prose you will ever read.

8. The Mote In God’s Eye (Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, 1974) There’s also some feudality here, in that there are lords and ladies in an interstellar monarchy. This turns out to be a feature of several of the books we read, a portrayal of human civilization becoming more feudal as it spreads out across multiple star systems. The focus of the action, though, is first contact with the Moties. I’ll leave it to you to find out all about them, but suffice it to say it is a superb portrayal of just how physically and culturally alien an alien race might turn out to be. Plus it’s just good, character-rich, well-plotted, fast-paced fun to read.

 

9. The Ophiuchi Hotline (John Varley, 1977) Set in a solar system that is now thoroughly inhabited (except for, curiously, but for good reasons, Earth) this book is rollicking good fun. It has everything you’d need for a good time- clones, aliens, spaceships, genetic engineering. It also delivers a future that seems quite plausible to me (especially the banana meat trees) despite how exotic it is. And it makes you think about just how little say we might have in the shape of our own future if there really are other intelligences and a higher cosmic order.

10. The Sparrow (Mary Doria Russell, 1996) This could be exhibit A in the “Is literary fiction that happens to use Sci-fi themes or settings still Sci-fi?” argument. Or, conversely, “Can Sci-fi be ‘serious’ literature?” I’ve always thought it’s a bit of a silly distinction. Dickens and Shakespeare were, in their time, writing that day’s equivalents of potboilers. Meanwhile, many things that are supposed to be “important books” today will vanish in the mists of time, and thus prove to be quite as disposable as anything Danielle Steele ever wrote. Good writing is good writing, and time will tell what the enduring literature is. But this massively sidetracks us. A great book, literarily. And great sci-fi. Also one of my favorite kinds of sci-fi, near future, and involving first contact. Which turns out to be far less about the aliens, and far more about who we are and how we make meaning in life.

Honorable Mention (9 other good reads):
Berserker (Fred Saberhagen, 1967)– May man versus killer robot spaceships always be so fun.
Eon (Greg Bear, 1987)– I think about this one a lot, almost a top 10. Stunning ideas about future human evolution, with a time travel twist. Plus great use of Ralph Nader. Really.  
Flashforward (Robert J. Sawyer, 1999)– I told you that CERN supercollider would be trouble… 
IQ83 (Arthur Herzog, 1978)– A potboiler? Yes. But damn would it be fucked up if this happened.
Quarantine (Greg Egan, 1992)– While this didn’t make my top 10, I do think Egan is one of the finest, and most philosophically challenging, sci-fi writers out there. Check out Distress and Permutation City for further mind-bending.
Starship Troopers (Robert Heinlein, 1959)– Right wing? Left wing? Somehow to blame for the movie made from it? And Showgirls as well, through mere association? Or just damn fun reading?
The Divine Invasion (Philip K. Dick, 1981)– One of my favorite authors. If I hadn’t already read his book VALIS before I got to the group, it would have been in the top ten above, and this is more from that same, very good, vein.
The Gods Themselves (Isaac Asimov, 1972)– I don’t believe Asimov wrote a bad book. Besides which, anything featuring trisexual energy beings is an automatic yes.
The Road  (Cormac McCarthy, 2006)– See The Sparrow above vis-a-vis Sci-fi and literary fiction. Either way, a great book that somehow manages to be heartwarming and unrelentingly grim at the same time.

 

Dishonorable Mention (2 cautionary tales)
Last and First Men (Olaf Stapledon, 1930)– It deserves props for ambitious future history, and recognition as one of the earliest sci-fi novels. It was also very dry and slow. The only one I never finished from the group, sad to say.
The Blind Assassin (Margaret Atwood, 2000)– Great book, albeit very slow to start and frequently quite bleak. Not Sci-fi, though it does contain a sci-fi tale within the tale. Discussions on group policy were had afterward.

Three Intentions for 2009

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For New Year’s 2007, I was on a retreat in the Santa Cruz mountains which had a New Year’s Eve ritual inviting us to form and share three general intentions for the year. I went to the same retreat again this New Year’s for several days, but I was back in the city for New Year’s Eve itself, so I didn’t do the ritual this time. I can’t be more specific about the reason, except that it involved my girlfriend, some close friends, and Lord of the Rings Trivial Pursuit. In any case, the ritual was such a valuable thing for me in 2008, not to mention which my intentions also largely came to pass, that even though I didn’t do it there, I’d like to do it again for this year, and share it with you. Here are my intentions for 2009:

1. To invest more in myself physically- I’ve always done gangbusters investing in my mental life, and the last few years I’ve been getting much better with doing the same emotionally and spiritually. My physical life has always been the least developed- sometimes I’ve even thought fondly about being a brain in a jar hooked up to a supercomputer. So, I think this is a year to work on that. What does that mean? Beats me, it’s just a general intention! Seriously, I imagine it will mean all kinds of things about diet, about exercise, about consciously investing in clothes and wardrobe, and about trying new physical activities. Maybe yoga wind surfing?

2. To reconnect with my Muse- While I’ve done a lot of writing in the last two years, and even started and completed some brand new stories, I haven’t really felt the fire (as one example, I haven’t written any new poetry) since going in to rehab at the end of 2006. I think that’s a pretty natural result of having to focus on recovery first these last two years, and I mostly have patience with it as part of a natural ebb and flow. But I do think this is my year to get back in touch with it, while staying safe and sober. So, I’m re-reading old journals to see what’s there that I can connect with, starting to learn music, reading new poetry, creating more time for writing in my weekly schedule and just generally inviting the Muse to alight. Tell her if you see her!

3. To be a little less self-obsessed and a little more connected to other people- Recovery literature regularly talks about most of our problems coming back to self-obsessed suffering, and for me this is definitely true. My external life has really gotten to be pretty darn good these last two years, and the only things I really suffer from these days are old patterns of thinking and feeling that still unspool in my head. So the solution, I have heard, is to spend a little less time there and a little more focusing on other people. Not to mention I might do something nice for others in the process. So tell me, what’s going on with you? Maybe I can take you out to lunch soon…

Those are my intentions for 2009. How about you?

Eight From 2008

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While it’s not standard for year-end countdowns, I’ve decided that a top eight albums is the best approach to take for 2008. What can I say? I’m a sucker for numbers and symmetry. Here, in alphabetical order, are my top picks:

1. Get Awkward (Be Your Own Pet)- They’re punk and garage with a dash of metal. Their songs are simultaneously tongue-in cheek and brash, slapping you to the mat from the start and keeping you there throughout. They’re fronted by a brash blonde girl. They’re from Nashville. What on Earth is not to like?

2. Brighter Than Creation’s Dark (Drive-By Truckers)- This album has it all. Male lead vocals. Female lead vocals. Straight-up country. Rock that reminds one of the Seventies in a good way. Music that sounds like storm clouds brooding. And as good as it is musically, it’s even better lyrically. The 19 tracks herein include heartfelt paeans to family, subtle evocations of domestic discontent, a soldier musing on the unknown life of the unnamed foe he’s just killed, and a song from the viewpoint of someone who has had it with a friend’s (family member’s? spouses?) crystal meth addiction.

3. Lust, Lust, Lust (the Raveonettes) There was a good case to be made with their previous album, Pretty in Black, that the Raveonettes had lost their mind. On this album they find it again and the lust, menace, and shimmering clouds of guitar feedback are ours to enjoy.

4. Narrow Stairs (Death Cab for Cutie)- I’ve been a late convert to Death Cab, but like many an infatuation acquired in later life, I’ve made up for it by falling hard. A song like “I Will Posses Your Heart” that starts with a four minute drum intro shouldn’t hold your attention, but in their hands it keeps you rapt, and brings a shiver when the lyrics finally kicks in with their mixture of romanticism and dark obsession. And really, at the end of the day, anybody who writes a bleak, piercing song about searching for Kerouac’s ghost can call me their bitch.

5. & 6. Nouns (No Age), Rip It Off (Times New Viking)- These two bands are probably tired of being mentioned in the same breath, but they really are two peas in one wonderful lo-fi pod. Of the two, No Age brings more melody and traditional pop structure in their navigations of ragged walls of sonic distortion. This makes Nouns more consistently listenable, but Rip It Off more exciting and challenging.

7. Stop Drop and Roll! (the Foxboro Hot Tubs)- Yes, okay, it’s really Greenday in musical drag buying time while they try to figure out how to follow American Idiot. But what glorious drag it is! Their roaring, rocking success at producing rock in the Kinks/Who/Hollies et al vein makes me wonder why rock ever stopped sounding like that.

8. We Started Nothing (the Ting Tings)- Dance music with the form and attitude of rock, this album is just good clean fun from start to finish.

Those are my picks, but in the interest of full disclosure, Bruce Springsteen’s Magic only made honorable mention on my 2007 list, and it’s turned out to be one of the few albums from that year that I still regularly listen to. I reserve the right to listen further… And so should you!

Top Ten Albums of 2007

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You might reasonably ask why I’m coming out with this list in mid-February. The truth is, I think you have to build in at least a good month of overhang, because you still may not have found and digested some of the year’s best albums properly by midnight on December 31st. This past year took some digesting too, unfortunately more from dearth than from girth. Here, in alphabetical order, are my picks for the best albums of 2007:

1. Chrome Dreams II (Neil Young)- Neil Young is a pleasure even when he’s piddling around. It’s an especial pleasure to find him here, well past the age of 50, still able to narrate interesting stories with his plaintive wail on a coherent set of songs that alternate between relaxed folkiness and Crazy Horse style assaults of heavy guitar feedback.

2. Icky Thump (White Stripes)- A so-so White Stripes album is kind of like so-so sex. It’s still pretty compelling, and you certainly never think of leaving before it’s over. As with Get Behind Me Satan, there’s a little too much self-conscious experimentation here to really achieve the straight ahead, undiluted quality of their best work. Nevertheless, I’ll still take a near miss from Jack and Meg over the best effort of many another outfit any day of the week.

3. I’m Not There (soundtrack, various)- Soundtracks usually have trouble succeeding as truly acceptable stand-alone albums since a significant layer of their meaning relies so heavily on the movies they spring from. Without that they run the risk of just being a weird assemblage of songs. This soundtrack, however, benefits from coming out of a movie that was itself about music and the life (through the work) of a single musician. Between unusual songs, unusual approaches to familiar songs and a surprising variety of artists participating, this ends up being a fresh and invigorating showcase of Dylan’s song craft. I particularly recommend disc two.

4. Juno (soundtrack, various)- See caveat above about sound tracks as albums. How delightful, then, that this soundtrack pulls it off. The heart and soul of the effort, of course, is Kimya Dawson’s delightful folk-punk songs, with their innocent and exuberant insistence on simple, fun lyrics. More remarkable is that the songs here by other artists, despite their diversity of styles and eras, feel like they belong with Dawson’s songs and create a quirky, yearning and ultimately sweet organic whole.

5. Losin’ It! (Vancougar)- Many have their eye on the music scenes in Canada’s big cities as the source of the next big thing. This quartet from Vancouver certainly encourages you to think that hope may not be in vain. Part punk, part girl-group harmony and all energy, every time I listen to this album I wish there were more people out there making rock with this sense of loving attention to it’s basic idioms and joyous adventure. And still producing songs that are actually about something, with distinctive voices from each of the individual members. Keep your eye out on what these gals are up to next.

6. Twelve (Patti Smith)- Well here’s someone who knows a thing or two about loving attention to rock’s idioms. A good cover should honor the essence of the original, but approach it sonically in a new and different way. If covers are going to sound just like the original, after all, that’s what we have originals for. Patti Smith breathes new life into all twelve songs she covers here, not tripping at all in the transition from Tears for Fears to Neil Young to Jefferson Airplane to Dylan to Nirvana to Stevie Wonder (et al) and holding the whole thing together with the hypnotic power of her own singular voice and vision. Outstanding fun for any music lover.

7. Under the Blacklight (Rilo Kiley)- Try it and see if these songs aren’t so damn hooky that they get stuck in your head the next day. And yet leave behind shards of lyrics that unsettle as they slowly dissolve. There’s more than a trace of the now thankfully peaking and passing dance-rock indie sub-genre here, but with a lean more toward the rock side of the equation such that they end up with a genuine power and urgency that the efforts of many others in this vein ultimately lack. More than that, Jenny Lewis’ incisive and insightful lyrical vision and lush and world-weary vocal delivery carries the whole thing to another level entirely.

8. 93-03 (Frank Black)- I’d agree in principle that it’s questionable to include a greatest hits collection in a list of the top albums of the year. Nonetheless, the first 11 tracks of this compilation of the first ten years of the solo career of the former Pixies front man is one of the most consistently excellent listens of the year.

9. Almost Made Its- No, this isn’t a band or an album name. Although it’s a good name, isn’t it? Pay me a nickel if you use it. What I mean is all the albums that made a vigorous stab at being superb but just missed it. Art Brut’s It’s a Little Bit Complicated, the Foo Fighters Echoes, Silence , Patience & Grace, Kings of Leon’s Because of the Times, Bruce Springsteen’s Magic, and Tegan and Sara’s the Con are all worthy of attention.

10. There is no number 10. Lest it escape anyone’s attention, it’s a bad sign when the best albums of the year include two soundtracks, a greatest hits collection and a covers album. It’s no accident that Frank Black got on the list with a set of songs from the mid-90s, the most recent of rock’s periodic outbursts of renaissance. That last musical fluorescence has run it’s course, and once again the old Gods are nearly dead. It’s time for a revolution!