Presidential Flashcards

Top Ten Songs of 2007

2008-02-25T20:57:00.000-08:00

When I first started to really get into music, I didn’t sit at my computer with iTunes constantly shuffling my entire music library the way I do now. This is due to a few reasons. For a time, my “music library” was severely limited, consisting of Third Eye Blind’s self titled debut, Semisonic’s Feeling Strangely Fine, and Smash Mouth’s Astro Lounge, so the need to shuffle wasn’t all that great. iTunes, of course, had yet to even enter my consciousness, and I certainly didn’t have a computer of my own. I can’t really wax nostalgic about pulling out LPs to play on my turntable because I came of age as a music fan in the late ‘90s and CDs were just fine with me. I do, however, remember the boom box, and later the stereo, handed down to me from my brothers. Sure you had to balance a sneaker on top of them to stop that awful squeaking, but they served my purpose. Eventually I graduated to my own brand new stereo. This aural delight had extra bass, a remote control, and – most importantly – a three disc changer! Now I could shuffle Third Eye Blind, Semisonic, and Smash Mouth all at once!

By now you can probably see where I am going with this, and although it’s one of the most heavily relied upon clichés of anyone who writes about music, the way we have grown to listen to music really has changed. When I really started listening to music, shuffling between hundreds of different artists wasn’t a possibility. Now I don’t give this fact a second thought. My computer and my Zune do a great job of keeping my entire music collection close at all times. This isn’t to say that albums are no longer important or facing an inevitable death or any of that nonsense, but individual songs hold a bit more weight today than they did a mere ten years ago. Ten years ago I wouldn’t listen to songs from Third Eye Blind one at a time, a fact that owes as much to the change in technology as to junior high Mark’s love for Third Eye Blind.

According to Last.fm, the song I’ve listened to most since I began scrobbling a few years ago is The Veils “The Leavers Dance.” The next highest ranking song by The Veils ranks (at this present moment) 275^th. We can look at this one of two ways. On the one hand, I could make the case that I’d have never listened to “The Leavers Dance” nearly as much 10 years ago because the rest of the album just wasn’t strong enough to warrant so many repeat plays. On the other hand, if I only had a stereo at my disposal to listen to music, perhaps the album would have earned more spins on the strength of its most immediately gratifying song. The simple fact of the matter is that great songs – whether or not they are singles – are capable to rising to the forefront of our music listening habits in a way that they couldn’t ten years ago. They also might be doing a disservice to their fellow album mates, as we more often zero in on a few select tracks and ignore the rest.

I’m not trying to weigh in on the whole song vs. album argument. Mix CDs and custom playlists are great; so are albums. I don’t want to debate the merits of zeroing in; all I want to say is that for better or for worse, zeroing in happens. Maybe you do it, maybe you don’t. I, for one, do. What follows are the songs I zeroed in on in 2007 (with apologies to other great songs from their respective albums):

10. Spoon – “The Underdog” (With apologies to “Black Like Me”)

In case you wanted more proof for my Everything Jon Brion Touches is Gold theory, here it is. After bouncing from Fiona to Kanye and now to Spoon, I can’t imagine an artist who wouldn’t benefit from giving Brion a chance to handle production duties. There were plenty of great tunes to choose from on Ga x5, but “The Underdog” was the one that got used as a clue in a game of Taboo I played in this year, so it gets the nod at number ten.

9. Bloc Party – “I Still Remember” (With apologies to “Rhododendron”)

They’ll never write another “This Modern Love,” but that’s not to say they should reinvent themselves; they seem to have the market on wistfully romantic mix-tape-ready indie-rock anthems cornered. Eventually their formula will get old, but I think we can squeeze a couple more of these out of them.

8. The Thrills – “The Midnight Choir” (With apologies to “Teenager”)

When I’m in the proper mood, I prefer “Teenager” a bit more, but I’m always in the mood for “The Midnight Choir.” It’s straight ahead and a bona-fide toe-tapper, but at the same time my heart always breaks a little bit during this song, first when frontman Conor Deasy sings, “But now you’re home cause you can’t run forever,” and then again when he timidly ponders “if something should come between us.”

7. Rooney – “I Should’ve Been After You” (With apologies to “Help Me Find My Way”)

The obvious influence remains (and probably will always remain) Weezer, but this tune finally finds Rooney expanding their range with a bridge straight out of Brian Wilson’s playbook before it switches gears, recalling Queen. Still, the measure of Rooney will never be how far they push the envelope but simply how much you want to listen to their songs. You’ll probably want to listen to this one a lot.

6. Frightened Rabbit – “It’s Christmas So We’ll Stop” (With apologies to nothing, this was a single)

I was under the impression that Christmas singles were a way for bands to make a cheap buck, perhaps throw some of the money charity’s way, and then slap together a video for equal parts self-promotion and holiday cheer. Nowhere in that formula is it important for the song to actually be good. In fact, since people generally don’t spend more than 10% of their year listening to ‘holiday music,’ it’s probably best to use a throwaway song. After all, why spend a good song on something people will spend most of their year not listening to? Frightened Rabbit, it seems, was not aware of any of this, instead using their 2007 Christmas single to release what is their best song to date, eclipsing anything on their 2006 album, Sing The Greys.

5. LCD Soundsystem – “All My Friends” (With apologies to “New York, I Love You But You’re Bringing Me Down”)

Riding in the car with my father, who (“If You See Jordan” aside) generally doesn’t object to much on the radio, “All My Friends” came on. About halfway through, no doubt having realized that this song was shaping up to be much longer than he had bargained for and clearly not going anywhere anytime soon, my dad turned to me with one of those I’ve Had a Joke in My Head All Day and You’re About to Hear It grins and remarked, “That guy playing those piano chords must be getting pretty tired, huh?” This made me realize a) that there probably wasn’t so much looping going on in the ‘60s and b) if you don’t absolutely love it, “All My Friends” is probably one of the most boring songs you’ve heard in the past year. To me, the momentum of “All My Friends” is what makes it great; it sounds like a train picking up speed (or a runaway train, depending on the day’s current outlook on life) headed to an inevitably awesome climax. To people like my dad, it’s seven and a half minutes of the same sloppy piano chords accompanied by some halfway-decent singer whining about seeing his friends. Needless to say, he probably wouldn’t have it fifth on his year end list.

4. Hanson – “Something Going Round” (With apologies to “Tearing It Down”)

Hanson is never going to blow your mind, reduce you to tears, kick the shit out of you, or do anything that can in any way be considered surprising. What they can do is write straight up pop songs with the best of them. Sometimes music just needs to be fun. Not everything we listen to needs to take us to another place or inspire deep introspection. In fact, it would suck if that’s what every song was like. Sometimes we just need to kick back, soak in some harmonies, and sing along to lyrics that will never require us to head for the dictionary. That said, if I needed to bet my life on one band writing a great, simple pop tune, I sure as hell wouldn’t bet it on Hanson because there’s always a chance they’ll churn out something like “Go,” but I will sure as hell buy every single one of their albums for the chance they come up with more gems like “Something Going Round,” the best plain old pop song of the year.

3. Animal Collective – “Fireworks” (With apologies to “For Reverend Green”)

I have a hard time describing Animal Collective songs, but I am convinced that they are awesome. I can’t describe their songs in any flattering way other than to say you should probably listen to them. The thing that amazes me most about their recent work is how they’ve taken sounds that should in no way be catchy and turning them into irresistible songs, each oozing with more creativity then I’ll possess in my entire lifetime. With the shrieking “They’ve got two,” during “Fireworks” it’s as if Animal Collective is doing their best to keep listeners away, yet I just can’t help but be drawn in. I shouldn’t want to listen to this, but I do, again and again. I feel kind of like a moth.

2. Radiohead – “Nude” (With apologies to “All I Need”)

“Nude” is heart-aching music at its finest. Just close your eyes and listen to Thom offer up the most beautiful vocal of the year; I’m moving on. (Seriously, close your eyes, this slow motion video thing is kinda weird)

Before getting to the final song, I thought I'd toss in some honorable mentions:

I love Dan Deacon's "Woody Woodpecker," and Justice's D.A.N.C.E., but I didn't have either of these until long after 2007 was over, so I disqualified them... Pretty much everything on In Rainbows is awesome, it was a shame to limit that disc to just one track here... Kanye had some good tunes, most notably "Stronger" and "Good Morning"... I feel obligated to point out that Sir Paul had a new disc out in '07; I'd say the best that album had to offer was "Dance Tonight" (Check out the video, Natalie Portman is in it)... Pearl Jam did a great job with The Who's "Love Reign O'er Me"... Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova won a well deserved Oscar for "Falling Slowly," but since it was previously released (2006), I couldn't put it on this list. Ditto for Hanson's "Great Divide" (2006) and Hot Hot Heat's "5 Times Out of 100," (2002!) the best song on their new album. Finally, the top song of 2007...

1. Shout Out Louds – “Impossible” (With apologies to “Tonight I Have to Leave It”)

Unlike some of the other songs on this list, I’ve been settled on “Impossible” and all of its multi-part glory as the song of the year for quite some time now. While the drums drive the song, it is augmented by bits of woodblock here and claves there and truly soars with the help of strings. Lyrically, I love every word of this song, even its opening, a stark life assessment: “I don’t want to feel like I don’t have a future.” If you’ve ever felt uncertainty about anything, this song will strike a nerve in the way that only beautiful music can.

Thanks for reading. See you again soon with the top ten albums of 2007.

Back to Blogging

2008-01-30T19:43:00.000-08:00

I am not terribly good at making decisions, nor do I make them swiftly; I've turned second guessing into something of an art form. List making season (which for me kicks off sometime around Thanksgiving and lasts until February) is when my second guess faculty kicks into its highest gear; the other day I even caught myself thinking that maybe I should reconsider Radiohead's claim to the top spot. That idea lasted for all of eight and a half seconds because I remembered that In Rainbows is, of course, absolutely brilliant (Thank God for that, too. If I had to go through the business of picking a top ten without such a clear choice for number one, you wouldn't be seeing my list until April at the earliest). What I've been agonizing over for the past few months isn't a top ten, it's the next best nine. And for the past several weeks I've been stuck.

I don't spend much time at all on school work; papers of mine never see more than one draft. For my year in review blog posts (which will be read by a maximum of 6 other people, and that's being generous) I'm on to my third or fourth draft. Meanwhile, songs and albums have bounced back and forth in my head (and out of my speakers and headphones) as I've tried to sort out the ten best albums and tracks from the past year.

Lately, my 2007 focus has been on my third annual year-rehashing mix that I give to any interested friends (so perhaps two or three people; again, I'm being generous. If you'd like in that exclusive club, let me know). With the mix finally completed and out of the way it's on to finalizing the lists. Honestly, I just want to be done with this stuff. As a music fan with a half-hearted attempt at a music blog, I feel kind of obligated to make a top ten but, seriously, Dan got me a Band of Horses album and the Pearl Jam Live at the Gorge boxed set, and I'd really like to listen to them. Problem is, they're not from 2007, so they've taken a back seat (I did, however, allow myself to listen to The Black Album the other day. Yes, I feel a little guilty about this).

If you're wondering whether I'm actually getting to a list in this post, the answer is "no." If you're wondering what the point of this post is, the answer can be found somewhere between "there's none, really" and "to say that the lists are forthcoming, and soon." I'd write more now, but that would be wasting valuable list-finalizing time. See you back here again soon, next time with some lists.

[One last note: If you think that year in review lists are overdone, gimmicky, and altogether serve no purpose other than providing a conversation starter (sometimes) and an ego inflater for the author (almost always), I'm with you. Thing is, I'm a sucker for overdone gimmicky lists, so here we are.]

Ryan Adams - Heartbreaker

2007-12-04T17:44:00.000-08:00

With such potential for making spot on and out of the blue recommendations, I hardly ever get to any music before either of my brothers. Not to say this is a bad thing; all the work of discovering music is usually done for me. So whenever I do get to something before one of my brothers points me there, it gives me pause. How did this album manage to slip past the older brother filter?

Listening to Ryan Adam’s Heartbreaker, I couldn’t help but wonder, “How in the world, with not one but two older brothers both adept at telling me what music I will and will not like, has neither one of them ever spoken a word directing me to listen to Ryan Adams?” How could Aaron, who knows exactly what track of an album will let me know if I like it or not (See Josh Joplin Group’s “Camera One”), fail to direct me to the greatness that is Adams’ “Come Pick Me Up”? How could Dan, who nearly force-fed me the Little Ones not do the same for Heartbreaker? I feel let down.

Folk-rock, alt-country, call it what you will, but what makes the songs on Heartbreaker so, well, heartbreaking, is just how delicate they are. Adams isn’t afraid of silence; he’s willing to occasionally let his vocals drop to almost nothing, filling his music with spaces that give it plenty of room to breathe. The songs here never try to overpower listeners nor do they feel incomplete; instead Heartbreaker finds Adams crafting an album that leave listeners aching to soak up every last faint guitar strum.

The first two songs here – “To Be Young” and “My Winding Wheel” – start the album off with a pair of folk-rockers in the vein of Dylan while “Amy” finds Adams sliding into Nick Drake territory. Despite the influences, this isn’t one of those “Let me take forty minutes to show you what’s in my record collection” albums. Instead, Adams has stories to tell and tells them with a lyrical acumen to match his songwriting ability. At times he is endearingly straightforward and filled with heartache, offering lines like “I don't know which is worse/to wake up and see the sun/or to be the one/be the one that's gone.” Other times he’s a bit less straightforward, singing things like “I wish you would/come pick me up/take me out/fuck me up/steal my records,” leaving the listener to determine what reason Adams would have for wanting his records stolen (Maybe he owns 400 copies of All About Chemistry?). What remains constant in his lyrics is an earnestness that matches the bare feeling of the music. The songs aren’t dressed up in gloss and overproduction and neither are the lyrics. Ryan Adams is heartbroken and vulnerable and he doesn’t care who knows it.

Following “Amy” is the Nick Hornby approved “Oh My Sweet Carolina” where Adams is aided in his longing for home by vocals from Emmylou Harris, anointed by Hornby “the best harmony vocalist in the history of pop music.” “Oh My Sweet Carolina” would no doubt be the album’s centerpiece were it not for the immaculate “Come Pick Me Up.”

“Come Pick Me Up” is one of those songs that demand all of your energy to listen to without even trying. You’ll want to sing along with Adams to let him know he’s not alone in his yearning, but at the same time you won’t want to make a sound so as not to spoil a single ounce of Adam’s emotion. When he asks “And the mannequin's eyes/do they all look like mine,” you’ll listen even more intently to hear vocals that sound as if they narrowly escaped getting trapped in Adams’ throat. This is Adams at his finest. Throw in a great harmonica solo to boot, and a classic song is realized.

Sure, I’m a bit late to the party on this one, as Heartbreaker was released in 2000. And though I don’t know how I missed out on Ryan Adams the first time around, I do know that Heartbreaker is definitely not a record I want stolen anytime soon.

Week in Review

2007-11-18T13:05:00.000-08:00

What you missed in case you were rushing out to grab one of the new Zunes:

Jay-Z tops the charts, moving over 400k copies of American Gangster.
Oasis aren't as cool as Radiohead: An In Rainbows-style release could only happen over Liam's dead body.
Meanwhile, Thom is apparently too cool for Sir Paul.
This week's recommended music: The Little Ones and The Thrills.
2008 Watch: Radiohead (Happy New Year!) and Weezer set release dates.
Hanson are finally accepting pre-orders for their updated Middle of Nowhere but decide to inexplicably leave out three tracks while overcharging for what is essentially a novelty item. Oh well, I'll still get "Madeline," and they'll still get my 25 bucks.

Finally, RIP Donda West. "Hey Mama" no doubt gets a few more spins from Kanye and his fans this week.

Hey, hey, hey, hey oh!

2007-11-14T09:43:00.000-08:00

“Buy this. It’s awesome.” Handing me a copy of The Little Ones’ Sing Song EP, my brother, Dan, cemented a spot in the “Great Moments in Older Brother History Hall of Fame.”

If it sounds like the “Great Moments in Older Brother History Hall of Fame” is something I made up about twelve seconds ago, it’s because it is. While we’re here, I might as well induct a few other moments to the Hall’s inaugural class: Dan taking me to my first concert (Pearl Jam on May 2, 2003), Aaron giving me my first bowl of Cookie Crisp (the whole “cookies for breakfast” thing never flew with our mom), Dan drawing up a 26-play play book for our two against nobody front yard football games as the hypothetical "Ridgeview Rockets," and Aaron taking me to Boston in the bitter cold of January. Thanks for humoring me.

Anyways, back to the point. It’s not that The Little Ones are my favorite band, or even anywhere close to the top five. It’s not that this was the best recommendation I’ve ever received from one of my brothers, either. What made this recommendation great was the boldness of it. I’d never even heard of The Little Ones, let alone heard any of their songs, and here was my brother suggesting, nay, demanding that I buy their EP.

The Little Ones are, as my brother knows, awesome. In conversation Dan will occasionally and without provocation ponder aloud when they will release a proper full length. I agree; they need one. If you like guitar-pop that you can clap your hands to, you’ll like The Little Ones. If you love joyous shout-along-able lyrics such as “hey, hey, hey, hey oh” you’ll really like The Little Ones.

The Sing Song EP starts in full sing-along mode, with its multi-voice "whoa-oh-oh-oh" kicking off the opening track, "Let Them Ring The Bells." Rolling percussion drives the first minute or so before giving way to bass, keyboards, and glockenspiel (at least that's what it sounds like to me). Next up is the standout track, “Lovers Who Uncover,” a guitar-driven song that squeezes the maximum handclap and sing-along potential from its four minutes and fourteen seconds. Although there is a bit of sadness to the tune, it is overpowered by the playfulness that characterizes the Sing Song EP. The songs may get a bit somber at times, but the lively guitar + synth + bass + sing-along formula is never abandoned along the way, and that's not a bad thing.

That's enough from me; I could give you a track-by-track retelling of the EP, but it's always more effective to show people something awesome rather than to tell people about it. Enjoy:

The Thrills - Teenager

2007-11-13T21:15:00.000-08:00

Unlike some people I know, I don't own a Zune, so I have to discover music the old fashioned way: by going to the record store and listening. I try to make it a point to get to my favorite record store at least once a month to check out whatever is on the listening station for that month. Sometimes this means wading through multi-disc compilations of Brazilian folk music, or albums by underground emo bands that make you wonder how any emo bands manage to get aboveground. But every once in a while I'll discover a great new band, or an old but heretofore ignored band, and my record collection is all the richer for it. All told, the twenty or so minutes I spend tucked inside the listening station headphones is time well spent, and almost always yields at least one new discovery.

I consider this time spent listening to be an essential component of the ongoing search for new music, and I thoroughly expect to find something worth buying every time I step into the record store; in fact, I'm not sure that I have ever left a record store empty-handed, with the possible exception of my multi-week quest to track down a copy of Girl Talk's Night Ripper album. What I live for, though, are those moments when I discover an album that's not just the next in a long line of purchases, but that becomes an essential record, a linchpin in the collection. These are the "where have you been all my life?" moments. These are the albums that, thirty seconds into the first track, you already know you're going to buy. Pretend You're Alive by Lovedrug and Punches by World Leader Pretend fall into this category. Listening to these albums was like opening that box on Pulp Fiction and seeing the glow of what may or may not have been Ving Rhames's soul.

(By the way, when was the last time Ving Rhames was in a movie? He pops up every few years in the latest Mission: Impossible in the quintessential "hey, I still do movies" moment, but other than that I can't think of a single thing he's done lately, which is a shame. Imdb claims that he was in seven movies in 2007. Have you seen any of them? I doubt if all seven of these movies actually exist.)

My latest listening station treasure is the album Teenager by the Thrills. I would describe it as a non-French Phoenix, by way of Travis, except that they don't very much sound like either of those bands. They combine generally up-tempo, bright-as-Tatooine's-twin-suns acoustic guitars with the occasional piano chord and banjo pluck, and Conor Deasy's breathy vocals sound like each syllable has been squeezed through one of those Play-Doh macaroni presses. This is one of those albums that constantly reminds you of something else, but you can never put your finger on it. For the briefest moment, for example, I wanted to compare one of these tracks to the Go! Team, as preposterous as that sounds. All told, it's a concise album of bittersweet pop, perfect for those autumn days that look warm but aren't, as summer backpedals into winter and you're starting to figure out that nobody loves you anymore.

Buy this record; you won't regret it.

Rolling Stone Says I'm a Whiz...

2007-11-07T21:43:00.001-08:00

But I say that scoring 22 out of 58 on their aptly titled Almost-Impossible Rock & Roll Quiz is more a sign of grade inflation than true Whizzardry on my part. For the record, I think I guessed on at least 50 of the questions. I did not, however, have to guess at which Backstreet Boys member has the same name as a "failed reduced-fat hamburger." A.J. McLean, duh.

In other unnecessary and ego-boosting news, one of my teachers has called me a "music guru" in back to back classes. However, he also said today that the only music he likes is "sleepy elevator music," I'm not so sure that's high praise. Maybe he thinks I spend a lot of time in elevators?

Anyways, enjoy the quiz. Score higher than a 22, please. At least one of us here should know something about music.

The Inevitable "I Have a Zune" Post

2007-11-01T10:13:00.000-07:00

There are some places I expect to discover good new music from. For some of these places, not only do I expect to discover new music, but I'm downright disappointed when I'm not pointed in the direction of at least a few good tunes. When I flip through one of Dan's old CMJs, or when I start up my In Rainbows - style subscription to Paste, or when I tune in to the only station that matters, I fully expect to discover something good and new. If I don't, I feel let down.

There are other places where I don't necessarily expect to discover music, but I am more than open to the possibility. How I Met Your Mother, for example, gave me The 88, the Violent Femmes' "Good Feeling," and name-dropped Otis Redding. Music discovery isn't the goal of watching a sit-com, I know, but it sure is a great side effect.

Other mediums, however, absolutely stun me when they introduce me to some good tunes. I did not, for example, expect to discover a rapper like K'naan flipping through the pages of Utne. Nor did I expect to find anything good among the preloaded content on my new Zune. Normally I would have assumed any preloaded content to be garbage not even worth dabbling in for a bit, but since I at least recognized the names of some of the bands, I thought an exploratory listen was in order. Still, my hopes were low.

You can imagine my surprise then, as I walked to class yesterday morning, fiddling with my new gadget before settling on Band of Horses for the remainder of my four or so minute walk to class. It wasn't garbage!

In fact, not only is it not garbage, but the song, "Wicked Gil," is pretty great. Not a pantheon song to be sure, but good enough to make me want to listen to more Band of Horses, and isn't that the point? Whoever (or is it whomever? I have no idea about that sort of thing) has the job of creating the playlist to preload onto every Zune has done his or her job well if new Zuners like me are turned on to even one band from the list. For the record, I am convinced that this is one of the greatest jobs ever, not quite as great as owning a record shop, but almost certainly better than any other job one could have at Microsoft (or anywhere, for that matter).

I won't bother attempting a song review because: a) I've only listened to "Wicked Gil" three times now; b) the only person I can guarantee will read this is Dan; he already listens to Band of Horses and, as far as I know, didn't need the guidance of one of the world's largest corporations to discover them, making him infinitely hipper than I am; and c) a much more efficient way to find out if you like it or not would be to simply listen to it yourself. So go buy yourself a Zune. Or, you know, find some other way to listen to it.

Neil Young

2007-10-23T15:09:00.000-07:00

I just bought Neil Young's latest album, Chrome Dreams II, and while I haven't listened to it yet - there's a lot of other stuff in the stack to get through - I've already begun to notice what's becoming a recurring theme in Neil Young album reviews; something to which I'll heretofore refer as "The Neil Young Phenomenon." The blurb I just read describes this album as, to paraphrase, "the best Neil's been in years."

The problem is, as far as I can remember, every album Neil Young has put out since I've been old enough to read (seventh grade) has been described as "the best Neil's been in years." It is not possible that this can actually be true every time it's written. Neil Young puts out an album roughly every three-and-a-half weeks, each one better than he's been in years, which would mean that the new album must be better than anything in the history of recorded music, and probably since the evolution of the ear.

This is the problem with living legends: everything is judged against their entire body of work. Every album is essentially compared to the greatest hits album and, invariably, fails to live up. To overcompensate, music journalists - who love Neil Young because they're, you know, not communists - cross their fingers and hope that each new album is the next Harvest. (It's probably not.)

This is a classic dilemma for critics, because how can you objectively judge an album or a song when the whole time you're thinking, "It's alright, but it's no 'Cinnamon Girl?'" I don't think you can. Certainly I can't. So what critics do is decide how they're going to treat a living legend from here on out, and then stick to it. In Neil's case, the chosen treatment is optimistic rooting. At age 114, he's still making vital music, and for all the bluster about "the best album in years," he's basically one of the more rock-solid consistent artists out there. So I would like to introduce into the lexicon "The Neil Young Phenomenon," to describe any situation where a critic's opinion (or anyone's, for that matter) of a particular artist becomes written in stone, and every critical opinion will read the same, irrespective of the actual quality of the work.

For the record, my truncated opinions of Neil's last several albums: Living with War: alright. Prairie Wind: great. Greendale: alright. Are You Passionate?: Near-great, with the exception of the well-intentioned but hastily-written "Let's Roll." Silver and Gold: Awesome. As for the new album, I don't know when I'll get around to listening to it, but I'm looking forward to it. I hear it's a return to form, the record we've all been waiting for.

Jens Lekman - Night Falls Over Kortedala

2007-10-22T18:04:00.000-07:00

In the wake of a truly great album, it's easy to forget that other music even exists, let alone is constantly being released. Lucky for me, my friend had been preemptively raving about Night Falls Over Kortedala - "the album of the year, so far" he says - for quite some time, so in a week otherwise dominated by listening to or thinking about In Rainbows, I somehow remembered to head on over to eMusic to download the latest from Jens Lekman.

(Quick tangent: In a world where last.fm records everything I listen to, Amazon remembers the last thing I've looked at, and lala can recall every trade I've made, it's worth noting that a personal recommendation still trumps them all (I was going to go with "it's amazing" or "it's incredible" instead of "worth nothing," but it's really not amazing or incredible at all. Listening to music, loving it, and then telling as many of your friends as humanly possible, isn't that what being a music fan's about?). With all of these online mediums trying to tell me what to listen to, I'll take a personal, human recommendation any day, whether it be from Hip-Hop Man at Lakeshore or from my friend Andrew, who gave me the Jens tip. Just no recommendations from priests. That's how I ended up listening to P.O.D. Anyways, back to the review.)

Night Falls Over Kortedala makes me want to move. Rich with glorious swirling strings, handclaps, and other oddball bits of percussion, Lekman's genre-bending album - also filled with samples, I'm told - is indeed one of the finest of 2007. None of the songs here feel predictable (notice the abrupt tempo changes on "Shirin"), and it is this unconventional nature of the album that helps make it such an exciting listen. The doo-wop style backing vocals that open "Kanske Ar Jag Kar i Dig" sure aren't expected but they sure are excellent.

Lyrically, Lekman isn't always overtly ecstatic, yet he still has crafted a joyous album by taking lyrics like "so just lick your lips/these are the good times that you'll miss/when you are sipping on the sweet nectars of your memories" to create a tune that is more playful than regretful. That sort of song craft is what best defines Night Falls Over Kortedala. The melodies are generally upbeat and energetic, with witty lyrics that are at times a bit silly - a charming sort of silly and not the "I got it from my mama" sort of silly. Ultimately it is that Lekman charm that will keep fans coming back for repeated listens.

Radiohead - In Rainbows

2007-10-17T19:25:00.000-07:00

Two disclaimers: First, I can’t say anything about this record that hasn’t been said already. Second, I can’t take anything that’s already been said about it and say it better.

In Rainbows is the year’s best, biggest, and most significant release. Rarely do those three things intersect.

This is the album of 2007. We don’t need the rest of October or any of November or December to settle this. Every year there comes a moment when you realize that you’re listening to the best those 365 days have to offer. Last year, this happened for me at the end of April, as I sat on my suite’s couch, liner notes in hand, attention fixed on the new Pearl Jam album that had gloriously decided to arrive in my mailbox the Friday before it was due. After the beginning of the album kicked the shit out of me, I sat breathless as Eddie Vedder and Co. won me over with the stunningly beautiful “Come Back.” Two of my suitemates poked their heads into the room to tell me that they liked it, too. 2006 was officially over.

This year, I had to wait until October for the “It’s over” moment. I listened to the record two and a half times before finally stepping away the day it came out. The next day, I tried to listen to something that wasn’t Radiohead. I couldn’t do it. It was over. I’ve since been forcing myself to listen to other things in order to keep from killing the album and to delay some of its gratification. The problem is that everything has paled in comparison since I first heard In Rainbows. As I listen to other music, I am constantly catching myself thinking, “This is good, but why haven’t I listened to ‘Nude’ in the last fifteen minutes?”

“Nude,” perhaps the most beautiful vocal from Thom Yorke since “Fake Plastic Trees,” is a standout in an album chock full of standouts. The beautiful thing about this album is that the songs not only fit together beautifully into a cohesive album – in large part to the ever present but not overpowering sea of strings – but also make superb listens on their own, a quality that isn’t always present on even the finest of albums (Honestly, how many times have you listened to “Fitter Happier” when it hasn’t been sandwiched between “Karma Police” and “Electioneering?”). As beautifully as “Faust Arp” fits between “All I Need” – which invokes “You and Whose Army?” as the piano jumps in with just over a minute left – and “Reckoner” – a brilliant showcase of Thom’s falsetto – it stands fine on its own, perfect for those times when you’d love to hear lovely finger picked Beatles ditty that’s, you know, not by the Beatles. Even the one track that I don’t yet love, “House of Cards,” slows things down so as to make the opening guitar and bass of “Jigsaw Falling Into Place” feel all the more urgent, only to set up the closer “Videotape,” the only song on the album where the rest of the band finally indulge Thom and allow some Eraser-esque glitchiness to emerge over repeated fragile piano chords.

Not only are the songs on In Rainbows great, but they feel like they belong together. Maybe this is why the band let some of these songs sit unreleased for so long; they were simply waiting for the right group to put them with. The end result is a Radiohead album that is more immediately gratifying than anything else they’ve released. I loved Kid A for “The National Anthem,” but it wasn’t until few years later that I fell in love with “Motion Picture Soundtrack.” Many of my other favorites, like “Let Down” and “You and Whose Army?” were delayed discoveries, tracks that didn’t truly engage me for quite some time after I first gave them a spin. Even “Paranoid Android” didn’t grab me (at least not as much as it does now) the first time around. Aside from The Bends, Radiohead albums have tended to be growers and not showers. Such is not the case with In Rainbows. I’m tempted to say that this is the most accessible of Radiohead’s albums, but accessibility generally refers to people who aren’t fans; I haven’t known for years what it’s like to not be a Radiohead fan. What I do know is that, at least from the perspective of this fan, In Rainbows takes no time at all to love.

In Rainbows by Radiohead

2007-10-15T15:21:00.000-07:00

As I write this, I am listening to Radiohead's latest album, In Rainbows, for the tenth time since it came out five days ago (yeah, I keep track of those things). Maybe it's the four year wait since their last album, the much-maligned but secretly awesome Hail to the Thief; maybe it's the fact that Radiohead is one of my all-time favorite bands; maybe it's the presence of the long-gestating "Nude." But whatever it is, this is one of those albums that I want to listen to again as soon as I finish it; in fact, I often want to listen to it again while I'm still listening to it the first time.

For the first ten or twenty seconds, it sounds as if the band has picked up where Thom Yorke's solo album left off: we begin with a warbly 5/4 electronic beat, which transitions into an actual Phil Selway drum beat. Then, at about the forty second mark, the guitar drops in and you're reminded that, oh yeah, Radiohead is awesome. They may have a lot of computers lying around the studio, but they're also pretty darn good at playing their instruments, as is evidenced by Colin Greenwood's bass lines later in the song. One track in, you're going to be glad you paid whatever you decided to pay for this variably-priced album.

If there's one word that describes this album, it's "ethereal." The few moments of uninhibited rocking notwithstanding - most notably "Bodysnatchers" - the album's primary focus is atmospherics, more so than any past Radiohead release. The songs are generally mellow, meandering and wrapped in strings.

The production is also the cleanest of any Radiohead album yet. Gone is the ubiquitous hum of computer glitchiness and detuned radios buzzing; gone is the knob-twiddling that normally make Selway's drums sound like, you know, not drums; gone is the Mac voice saying things like, "I may be paranoid, but not an android." This not a White Stripes album, to be sure, but it's about as bare bones and stripped-down as Radiohead can muster. As a result of this production, you can actually hear empty space. Rather than plug every square inch of the album with sonic gadgetry, the band has allowed the songs room to breathe; Ed O'Brien even plays actual notes on some of these songs. It's also, maybe, their warmest album to date. Make no mistake, alienation is still a key ingredient ("Don't get any big ideas/They're not going to happen"), but the album is alienated with you, not at you.

What's most amazing about this album is how captivating it manages to be without much tonal shift. "Bodysnatchers" offers the album's one plain-faced rock and/or roll moment, a classic rock riff wrapped up in the Radiohead aesthetic, and "Jigsaw Falling Into Place" - "The Trickster" by way of "Knives Out" - gets the juices flowing; the rest of the tracks seem like the ballad you'd find between two rocking songs. Even "Reckoner," one of the loudest and most energetic songs in its original, 2001 incarnation, has mutated into a mid-tempo groove here. The album rarely drops into sheer balladry, the gorgeous "Nude" and the White Album-plucked "Faust Arp" being the exceptions; instead, it simmers on the edge of an explosion that never comes. The bulk of the songs threaten to explode into a three-guitar-and-strings song-along chorus at any moment, but never do.

What's on display throughout the album is the sheer number of things to which Radiohead need not resort to write a good song: the production is relatively spare; the structures are simple, often lacking even distinct verses and choruses; screaming guitars, loud-soft shifts and repeated refrains are conspicuously absent. No disrespect to the classic "Paranoid Android," one of the greatest songs ever written, but the Radiohead of In Rainbows would never write a six-minute, multi-sectioned epic of manic time-shifts, overlapping sound effects and blistering guitar solos. They'd rather drop a few piano chords and a plaintive melody in your lap, and wring from them every ounce of available beauty before abandoning them.

Perhaps this album is a shot across the bow of every band that's made a living aping The Bends and OK Computer, all those bands who think you can be Radiohead by throwing some sound effects and twinkly guitar layers on top of songs about not having any friends. Stripped of artifice and grandiosity, In Rainbows proves beyond any doubt that Radiohead's brilliance lies not in their frenetic production nor that piece of paper with Nigel Godrich's phone number on it, but in their sheer brilliance.

Call me Nano.

2007-10-15T10:31:00.000-07:00

A little brother is like an iPod Nano, and not just because both are smaller and weaker versions of their older sibling, although that description certainly fits. The Nano was only born because the older brother wasn’t a total failure and mom and dad thought it would be a good idea to add to the family. The Nano is only recognizable as different from big brother by people who are familiar enough with the full iPod family, or when the two are standing next to each other in the family Christmas card. The Nano takes its cues from its big brother, and is in fact modeled after him. Essentially, the Nano does everything a real iPod does only with a smaller record collection. Even then, if you’ve a parent to both an iPod and a Nano, chances are there’s significant overlap in their musical libraries.

This is not to say that my brothers and I are entirely the same. Unlike my brother, Dan, I do remember what the first cd I ever owned was; it was the two disc soundtrack to Fantasia. The first pop album I bought was Third Eye Blind’s self-titled debut. Unlike Dan, I’ll probably wait a few more weeks before I drop 80 or so dollars to grab that Radiohead discbox. Unlike Dan, it took me more than just three or four tracks to realize that All About Chemistry sucked. Right here - with the Radiohead discbox or the Semisonic indiscretion - is the problem with little brothers: we are bound to end up in the same place as our older brothers, it just takes us longer to get there (To wit, Dan got his first post up before I did). Even in those rare instances where I’ve come across something first (for instance, lala), it is big brother who makes better use of it.

Of course, sometimes it pays to be the little brother. On May 2, 2003 Dan took me to Buffalo for my first concert, effectively ending my days as a casual Pearl Jam fan. When discs get re-released with bonus tracks that Dan absolutely has to have, I get the discarded first editions. These aren’t crummy hand-me-downs either (although I do inexplicably have a Busta Rhymes single somewhere). Re-releases scored me my first Weezer (The Blue Album) and Elbow (Cast of Thousands) discs.

You could make the argument that Nano’s tastes are essentially handed down to him from big brother iPod, although Dan and I do have some differences. He refuses to let Kanye West or the Killers into his life. I’m not wild about that People in Planes disc that he recommended to me last year (and by “not wild” I mean “if I listen to it too much, my head will explode”). The problem is that even when Nano makes a conscious effort to distance himself from big brother iPod, he rarely can do it. Take this conversation Dan and I had about a Brazil album at the record store a few months ago:

Me: Is this any good?

Dan: Yeah.

Me: It’s not prog, is it?

Dan: (Smiles) It’s good!

I bought the Brazil cd. It was good.

Anyways, this is our blog.

...And on the seventh day, he created the Internet

2007-10-14T23:09:00.000-07:00

I do not remember my first CD, my first cassette, or my first record. If I ever, through some confluence of improbability and slipshod editorial decisions, find myself the subject of a twenty questions magazine interview, I'll have to make something up for that particular question; something endearingly embarrassing, probably: the Little Mermaid soundtrack or Please Hammer, Don't Hurt 'Em, both of which I did, sadly, own on cassette.

I don't remember my first album, because for as long as I can remember, I've been listening to music. We used to get these big boxes of pretzel nuggets, and I would sit behind the armchair, right in front of the speaker, listening to records on my Dad's old record player and eating pretzels by the fistful. I'd listen to the Beatles and Zeppelin and the Who. I'd listen to the Crickets, who sounded suspiciously like Alvin and the Chipmunks. I'd listen to Huey Lewis and the News. I'd listen to Bill Cosby's stand-up. I'd listen to the story of Benjamin Franklin discovering electricity. I'd even listen to Billy Joel.

I don't remember the landmarks like first album; what I remember are the little things. I remember listening to Van Halen's "Jump" on one of those magazine inserts you could play on your record player. I remember the way that the number of songs you could listen to on the walk home from school depended on how long your batteries had been in your walkman. I remember our older brother buying a copy of Def Leppard's Pyromania in Sears. I remember seeing the video for Michael Jackson's "Beat It" on network television; Radiohead's "Creep," too, and our brother trying to explain the "chookah chookah" part to our parents. I remember never knowing which side was which on my Achtung, Baby! tape. I remember listening to "Batdance" in our neighbors' basement. I remember hearing "Hangin' Tough" every time I went to the rollerskating rink. I remember being in Pizza Hut and debating whether or not I should drop the five or ten bucks on the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles album, deciding to save the cash and then regretting it for a really long time. I remember staying up until five in the morning one night in college, downloading the entire Ninja Turtles album off Napster from some kid with a dial-up connection, completely geeking out with my friend Joe and listening to "Pizza Power" for what must certainly be the most times in a row that that song has ever been listened to.

These are the things I remember; in fact, my memory is little more than a string of these innocuous musical details. I've listened to some great music in my life, and I've listened to some awful music. I've seen Neil Young in concert, but I've also seen Flickerstick. I've heard albums that I've wanted to tell the world about, like World Leader Pretend's Punches, which I pestered my brothers to buy every single time I spoke to them until they eventually both did, and which made all three of our top ten lists that year. And I've heard albums to which I've wanted to affix bright orange "Do Not Buy" stickers, to warn the record-buying public, like Semisonic's All About Chemistry, which very nearly went out the window on the QEW after only three or four tracks.

It was somewhere on I-90, while listening to either K'naan or the Shout Out Louds or Animal Collective, that my brother and I decided that it would be a good idea - although maybe not actually a good one, and not so much an idea, either - to start a blog about music. And so, a week and a day later, here we are. We've chosen a name and a layout and are prepared to unleash upon our imagined, hypothetical readership a sporadic dribble of uninformed and inarticulate opinions of a scattershot fraction of what all there is to listen to. And yeah, I've ended two sentences with prepositions in this post. That's right.

Enjoy.