You know the drill. Arbitrary lists palooza.
TOP 1970s ALBUMS
1. Television: Marquee Moon (Elektra '77)
2. Big Star: Third/Sister Lovers (PVC '78)
3. Wire: Pink Flag (Harvest '77)
4. The Clash: London Calling (Epic '79)
5. Stevie Wonder: Innervisions (Tamla '73)
6. Talking Heads: More Songs About Buildings and Food (Sire '78)
7. The Clash (Epic '77)
8. The Velvet Underground: Loaded (Cotillon '70)
9. Patti Smith: Horses (Arista '75)
10. Big Star: Radio City (Ardent '73)
11. Stevie Wonder: Songs in the Key of Life (Tamla '76)
12. Neil Young: Tonight's the Night (Reprise '75)
13. Parliament: Mothership Connection (Casablanca '76)
14. Brian Eno: Another Green World (Island '76)
15. Michael Jackson: Off the Wall (Epic '79)
16. Ramones (Sire '76)
17. Neil Young: Zuma (Reprise '75)
18. David Bowie: Lodger (RCA '79)
19. Marvin Gaye: Here, My Dear (Tamla '78)
20. Neil Young: On the Beach (Reprise '74)
21. Stevie Wonder: Fulfillingness' First Finale (Tamla '74)
22. Neil Young: After the Gold Rush (Reprise '70)
23. John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band (Apple '70)
24. The New York Dolls (Mercury '73)
25. Funkadelic: Let's Take It to the Stage (Westbound '75)
26. The Rolling Stones: Sticky Fingers (Atlantic '71)
27. Wire: Chairs Missing (Harvest '78)
28. The Jam: All Mod Cons (Polydor '79)
29. Marvin Gaye: Let's Get It On (Tamla '73)
30. Blondie: Parallel Lines (Chrysalis '78)
31. The Beach Boys: Love You (Reprise '77)
32. Brian Eno: Before and After Science (Island '78)
33. David Bowie: Low (RCA '77)
34. Fleetwood Mac: Rumours (Warner Bros. '77)
35. Neil Young: Time Fades Away (Reprise '73)
36. Funkadelic: Maggot Brain (Westbound '71)
37. John Cale: Paris 1919 (Reprise '73)
38. Patti Smith: Easter (Arista '78)
39. Curtis Mayfield: Superfly (Curtom '72)
40. The Rolling Stones: Exile on Main Street (Atlantic '72)
41. Big Star: #1 Record (Ardent '72)
42. Marvin Gaye: What's Going On (Tamla '71)
43. Leonard Cohen: Songs of Love and Hate (Columbia '71)
44. Sly & the Family Stone: There's a Riot Goin' On (Epic '71)
45. The Flamin' Groovies: Shake Some Action (Sire '76)
46. Gang of Four: Entertainment! (Warner Bros. '79)
47. Joy Division: Unknown Pleasures (Factory '79)
48. Talking Heads: Fear of Music (Sire '79)
49. Paul Simon (Columbia '72)
50. Neil Young: Harvest (Reprise '72)
+ (because I can't fit them above but can't bear not mentioning them):
Fleetwood Mac: Tusk (Warner Bros. '79)
Dennis Wilson: Pacific Ocean Blue (Reprise '77)
2002 ALBUMS
1. Wilco: Yankee Hotel Foxtrot (Nonesuch)
2. The Roots: Phrenology (MCA)
3. Broken Social Scene: You Forgot It in People (Arts & Crafts)
4. Pet Shop Boys: Release (Sanctuary)
5. The Mountain Goats: Tallahassee (4AD)
6. Interpol: Turn on the Bright Lights (Matador)
7. The Extra Glenns: Martial Arts Weekend (Absolute Kosher)
8. Rilo Kiley: The Execution of All Things (Saddle Creek)
9. The Flaming Lips: Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots (Warner Bros.)
10. The Walkmen: Everyone Who Pretended to Like Me Is Gone (Startime)
+
Red Hot Chili Peppers: By the Way (Warner Bros.)
Eels: Souljacker (DreamWorks)
Laura Cantrell: When the Roses Bloom Again (4AD)
Peter Gabriel: Up (Geffen)
Gus Gus: Attention (Underwater)
1992 ALBUMS
1. Leonard Cohen: The Future (Columbia)
2. Pavement: Slanted and Enchanted (Matador)
3. L7: Bricks Are Heavy (Slash)
4. R.E.M.: Automatic for the People (Warner Bros.)
5. XTC: Nonsuch (Virgin)
6. Madonna: Erotica (Maverick)
7. Television (Capitol)
8. Yo La Tengo: May I Sing with Me (Alias)
9. Lightning Seeds: Sense (MCA)
10. Lush: Spooky (4AD)
+
Catherine Wheel: Ferment (Fontana)
Peter Gabriel: Us (Geffen)
Deee-Lite: Infinity Within (Elektra)
Lou Reed: Magic and Loss (Sire)
INXS: Welcome to Wherever You Are (Atlantic)
Loudon Wainwright III: History (Charisma)
1982 ALBUMS
1. Richard & Linda Thompson: Shoot Out the Lights (Hannibal)
2. King Sunny Ade: Juju Music (Mango)
3. Prince: 1999 (Warner Bros.)
4. Yaz: Upstairs at Eric's (Sire)
5. George Clinton: Computer Games (Capitol)
6. Mission of Burma: Vs. (Ace of Hearts)
7. Marvin Gaye: Midnight Love (Columbia)
8. Lou Reed: The Blue Mask (RCA)
9. Roxy Music: Avalon (Warner Bros.)
10. Peter Gabriel: Security (Geffen)
+
XTC: English Settlement (Epic)
The English Beat: Special Beat Service (I.R.S.)
1972 ALBUMS
1. Curtis Mayfield: Superfly (Curtom)
2. The Rolling Stones: Exile on Main Street (Atlantic)
3. Big Star: #1 Record (Stax)
4. Paul Simon (Columbia)
5. Neil Young: Harvest (Reprise)
6. Al Green: Let's Stay Together (Hi)
7. Todd Rundgren: Something/Anything (Bearsville)
8. Stevie Wonder: Talking Book (Tamla)
9. The Meters: Cabbage Alley (Reprise)
10. David Bowie: The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars (RCA)
+
Miles Davis: On the Corner (Columbia)
Nick Drake: Pink Moon (Island)
Lou Reed: Transformer (RCA)
Funkadelic: America Eats Its Young (Westbound)
Stevie Wonder: Music of My Mind (Tamla)
O'Jays: Back Stabbers (Philadelphia Int'l)
Jimmy Cliff et al.: The Harder They Come OST (Mango)
Yoko Ono: Approximately Infinite Universe (Apple)
Roxy Music (Reprise)
Herbie Hancock: Crossings (Columbia)
Van Morrison: Saint Dominic's Preview (Warner Bros.)
Loudon Wainwright III: Album III (Columbia)
1962 SONGS
(An unscientific list; I want to do this more extensively in the future. As it stands, I'm positive I'm forgetting some majors and obscurities.)
1. Smokey Robinson & the Miracles "You've Really Got a Hold on Me" (Tamla)
2. Sam Cooke "Bring It on Home to Me" (RCA)
3. The Crystals "He's a Rebel" (Philles)
4. Roy Orbison "Working for the Man" (Monument)
5. John Lee Hooker "Boom Boom" (Vee Jay)
6. Sam Cooke "Twistin' the Night Away" (RCA)
7. Ray Charles "Unchain My Heart" (ABC)
8. Dion "The Wanderer" (Laurie)
9. Howlin' Wolf "Shake for Me" (Chess)
10. Marvin Gaye "Hitch Hike" (Tamla)
11. Chris Montez "Let's Dance" (London)
12. Roy Orbison "Dream Baby" (Monument)
13. Freddy Cannon "Palisades Park" (Swan)
14. The Impressions "Minstrel and Queen" (ABC)
15. The Everly Brothers "Crying in the Rain" (Warner Bros.)
16. Tommy Roe "Sheila" (ABC)
17. Mary Wells "You Beat Me to the Punch" (Motown)
18. Ben E. King "Don't Play That Song" (Atlantic)
19. The Crystals "There's No Other (Like My Baby)" (Philles)
20. The Marvelettes "Beechwood 4-5789" (Tamla)
21. James Brown "Night Train" (King)
22. Dick Dale & His Del-Tones "Misirlou" (Deltone)
23. Muddy Waters "You Shook Me" (Chess)
24. Otis Redding "These Arms of Mine" (Volt)
25. Hank Locklin "We're Gonna Go Fishin'" (RCA)
26. The Isley Brothers "Twist and Shout" (Wand)
27. Dion "Ruby Baby" (Laurie)
28. The Marvelettes "Strange I Know" (Tamla)
29. Routers "Let's Go (Pony)"
30. The Impressions "Little Young Lover" (ABC)
31. Mary Wells "The One Who Really Loves You" (Motown)
32. Marvin Gaye "Stubborn Kind of Fellow" (Tamla)
33. Skeeter Davis "End of the World" (RCA)
34. Patsy Cline "She's Got You" (Decca)
35. Sam Cooke "Having a Party" (RCA)
36. Little Eva "The Loco-Motion" (Dimension)
37. Ray Charles "You Don't Know Me" (ABC)
38. The Beach Boys "Surfin' Safari" (Capitol)
39. Booker T & the MGs "Green Onions" (Stax)
40. Tornados "Telstar" (Decca)
41. The Marvelettes "Too Strong to Be Strung Along" (Tamla)
42. Sam Cooke "Little Red Rooster" (RCA)
43. Roy Orbison "The Crowd" (Monument)
44. Dion "Born to Cry" (Laurie)
45. Elvis Presley "Return to Sender" (RCA)
46. Smokey Robinson & the Miracles "I'll Try Something New" (Tamla)
47. Gene Chandler "Duke of Earl" (Vee Jay)
48. The Marvelettes "Playboy" (Tamla)
49. The Crystals "Uptown" (Philles)
50. Duane Eddy "Dance with the Guitar Man" (RCA)
The Beach Boys "409"
The Shirelles "Soldier Boy"
The Ventures "Lolita Ya Ya"
Roy Orbison "Leah"
Dee Dee Sharp "Mashed Potato Time"
The Beatles "Love Me Do"
Ray Charles "At the Club"
B. Bumble & the Stingers "Nut Rocker"
The Drifters "Up on the Roof"
The Beach Boys "Heads You Win, Tails I Lose"
Chubby Checker "The Twist"
Elvis Presley "Can't Help Falling in Love"
Ray Charles "I Can't Stop Loving You"
Bobby 'Boris' Pickett "Monster Mash"
Monday, December 31, 2012
The B-52's: Wild Planet (1980)
(Warner Bros.)
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED
Sure, sure, it's just exactly like the first record. Does nothing new, etc. More of the same. So fine, think of it as an extension. Deny yourself this sort of pure delight and it's like, what are you even listening to records for?
"Party Out of Bounds" is the perfect way to ring out a year -- new wave haunted castle synths and better lampshade anarchy than "Barbara Ann" and, I dunno, "Love Shack" put together. Nothing here quite stands up to their all-time double-header peak of "52 Girls" and "Dance This Mess Around" from the first record, but mix those in with the bubbly march "Dirty Back Road" or inexplicably filthy "Quiche Lorraine" and nobody'll notice.
You can carp with every B-52's album after the first one, but the fact is that this one don't stop, and if we're honest with ourselves we realize that sentimental attachment ties us to its predecessor; if anything, Wild Planet is more consistent, and for god's sake, when Ricky Wilson was in the fold they were never anything less than a blast to listen to. The biggest brashest retro-funk on order here is in the steamily weird "Give Me Back My Man," a showcase for Cindy Wilson; the '50s Roebuck catalog surf-kitsch of the first album is effectively reprised with "Runnin' Around."
The best material here, however, is of more pronounced absurdity and is concerned primarily with the joy of band interplay -- "Private Idaho" is a surreal joke of little importance but its chief attraction is the chance to hear the band operate so well as a unit, subservient to nothing except its belief in its joyous art-punk. Even a towering riff like that of "Devil in My Car" can't be taken fully seriously, but its pleasures go beyond an attraction to antiquated pop forms and into a harmonic seizure of sorts, divorced from context and in the kind of avant world that allows for belted, feverish, bloodcurdling screams to become musical, for the declarative "I can't lock the door!" to achieve bizarre transcendence. It's all nonsense. It's perfect. You're so into their giddiness you're almost disappointed when "53 Miles West of Venus" is just music, chanting, then the curtain lifts: beneath it all, the band is terrific. Remember? But nuts to all that -- party out of bounds, still spinning.
[SEE ALSO:]
The B-52's (1979)
Thursday, December 27, 2012
Beach House: Devotion (2008)
(Carpark)
RECOMMENDED
Would you have a look at that pleasant scene playing out on the cover of yer dreampop record here? They seem like a nice couple of kids, yeah? They really are, I think, and what's more -- they listen to a lot of the same shit you did when you were that age. (They're actually older than me, but who's counting?) Yeah, Cocteau Twins and Low and all that stuff. As you know, with Bloom I became a full-on Beach House convert in a big way; it sonics and hooks soared with me in every manner that the predecessor, Teen Dream, had left me cold. We won't be devoting much time to another Teen Dream revisit anytime soon -- try as I might, it falls on my ear pleasantly and disappears and that's all I can say for it.
Devotion, which has been kicking around for a while but which I focused on after the Bloom fixation took hold, falls someplace between the two other Beach House albums I've spent time with. One thing it's easy to sense is specifically why the transformation after the duo's Sub Pop signing seemed so impressive -- this is comparatively raw and simple music, typically spinning its magic out of not much more than drum machine and organ and reverb and more reverb and, of course, Victoria LeGrand's tirelessly woozy vocals, which make a bigger impression here in and of themselves that at any point since. The relative clarity of the music itself doesn't present any revelations in songwriting terms -- but for me, this just spells a good band that took a while to find its voice. What's here is nevertheless interesting and worthwhile, even if it does kind of float away like some shoreline breeze. Maybe that's the idea.
The quintessential Devotion cut is the second, "You Came to Me," which is the sort of track for which AllMusic invented those "tones" listings it has -- by turns, this is fluid, focused, sweet, unfettered, lilting, relaxed, catchy, and, well, long. One reason I found Bloom such an immersive experience was that the length and detail of its songs was, for me, hypnotic; there's less variance here and the lushness is missing, but I do get a sense of what LeGrand and restless tape-deck twiddler Alex Scally were getting at -- "Holy Dances" introduces plenty of the trickiness that'd show up later, and it's one of the livelier tunes here, but the slightly canny, flat sound does it in. This band needs spaciousness the same way Merrill Garbus needed an actual recording studio. They do stomp a little, and it's easy to understand why Teen Dream wrought the inclination to spend much more money on sonics, why the band reported that that album's demos sounded like this one's finals. Nevertheless, there's charm in the offhandedness that provides a wholly different effect than what's now associated with Beach House -- something more fitting of their name, even! Of course, pay too much mind to all this and by "Gila," the thing starts to plod. "Turtle Island" is the occasion for yet further plodding. It sounds nice though! But they could sue Tennis for essentially co-opting this album as the basis of their entire career.
It can't be a coincidence that this and Teen Dream both give me an inclination to fall into a painless and gently adventurous slumber; that is not by any means a negative criticism, just an observation. I snap into total consciousness thrice: first on "All the Years," because it's an excellent song and points the way ahead for LeGrand's haziness, Scally's druggy meanderings; second, hey look they covered Daniel Johnston, and that tune's way around a hook renders it their most immediate pre-Bloom moment outside of the inexhaustible "Norway"; and dig that "Imagine" homage on "Astronaut"!
It's another Beatle whose image keeps popping around my head when Devotion's playing. Or even when I'm looking at that adorable cover image -- I feel like I'm hearing one of those early off-the-cuff Macca things when the poor guy was trying so desperately hard not to be humorless and provided us with telling glimpses of his kinda-surprisingly-mature (seemingly) domesticated lifestyle. It's not just because Devotion starts with the namby-pamby sweetness of "Wedding Bell," a chilled lounge slow-dance just this side of Ram by way of the Cure. It's more a feeling that instead of complaining, I need to let these two invite me in and feed me and light the candles and just be nice to them, they're good nice people -- the kind of good nice people with just that shade of something sinister in their eyes that quietly implies they have something like Bloom up their sleeves.
[SEE ALSO:]
Bloom (2012)
Wednesday, December 19, 2012
The Best Records of 2012
***
TOP TEN ALBUMS
My feelings about the flaws in treating pop music as an album-oriented medium have been trotted out here and elsewhere a million times, and we don't want to spoil anyone's fun with a rant, but 2012 has renewed my passion on the matter. For the first half of the year I was overrun with singles, one-off internet tracks, and Soundcloud fragments that infiltrated my life -- and no more than one or two albums that held up over any significant period of time. In general, I'm bound to remember 2012 as a weak year after a couple of good ones; the bottom third of my top ten wouldn't have soared that high in 2010 or 2011, and several records of comparable high quality, all of which I love but none of which I'd call truly "great," competed for the top until very late in the year. I had no real idea what my #1 album of the year would be until I sat down to listen to everything and compose this entry; my tentative choice was down three spaces by the end of the venture. That hasn't happened since I've been keeping up. The choice that was made for #1 sprang up in the final weeks of the year and its only serious competition was also the sole record of 2012 that I love more every time I hear it, to the extent that I'd level the top two as almost interchangeable, even.
But does this all spell burnout? Doubtful. I feel that exposure to more music since devoting myself to this blog has potentially made me more cynical about a number of the acclaimed or unknown albums I digest. That only makes it more of a splendid experience when I discover something like Confess or Words and Music that I can be as enamored of and excited about as if I were still seventeen and doing odd jobs around the house to keep a healthy supply of CDs coming in. I fretted for a few months about whether I too was consigned to the doom of being a curmudgeon about all that's new; there are multiple strands of pop and semi-pop right now that do absolutely nothing for me, including much of what seems to be happening in electronic circles. Should I apologize for this? I don't really think so -- so long as this is just my blog, my zone, and hey, I've always been pretty choosy. The essence of all this is that new music keeps me feeling young and I don't think I could do without it. That's never been a truer aspect of who I am than in the last few years, and I'm passionate about it. On long drives to and from my girlfriend's house this fall, I rediscovered the source of that passion: it's always and forever songs. I think the occasional album can do something with the medium and can stretch it -- see #1 below for sure, and perhaps #2 and #3 in some capacity -- but as for the rest, they mean as much to me and maybe even more to me as "collections of songs" than as some daunting unassailable artform of the Long-Player. This is nothing new. I've always preferred shuffle mode and greatest hits collections; I'm that asshole the Kids in the Hall made fun of.
All that said, there's nothing like gathering these wonderful records back together and hearing the great cuts come up one after the other -- conveniently, #3 below actually discusses such phenomena and personal epiphanies at length. Here are the ten best such epiphanies I experienced in 2012, more arduously than usual (as in '10, but for the opposite reason) whittled down from 84 albums I officially reviewed here this year -- and at least twenty more that I listened to but didn't write up. The seven below the ten encompass near-misses and flawed records that have lingered for me and will continue to do so. A theme with the ten big ones, though, is their consistency. You can cut them up, but their impact is cumulative and the bands and acts responsible make a sizable impression by their own strengths, and I think it's important to mention that only two artists in my top ten here also made it to my top ten songs below. Different matters -- not completely, but just enough.
I also want to state that, completely by accident (in the sense that I did not notice until just this second), only one album of the ten below comes from a band/performer who's previously done full-length work I loved, and he happens to be my choice for the best living, currently active solo artist we've got. Obviously Beach House and St. Etienne are not new or new-to-me bands, and I've known and liked Fiona Apple's work for a decade and a half, but my real passion for them is new. If I'm ever in this space proclaiming that the latest dinosaur rants from the Rolling Stone-beloved aging titans of my youth are the best that the year in music has to offer, please kindly tell me to stop bothering. I'm doing this because I love music, of course, but like Sarah Cracknell implies more than once on Words & Music, really I'm doing it 'cause I need it. I hope that doesn't change and I don't think it will.
10. Terry Malts: Killing Time (Slumberland)
Bouncy but brutal, disaffected but friendly, this is really just pure pop, hook-filled, loaded with the caffeinated manics of early Ramones or Buzzcocks (even Wire on "Can't Tell No One") and the suburban angst of the Replacements. It never gets old, traversing from loud and obnoxious to snottily despairing to sometimes surprisingly romantic (roll my eyes and squeeze you tighter), with useful rants about not being a Christian, being neurotic and going to the mall. The pettiness is so devotedly ground into classicist punk fury that it's all quite affirmative and winning, and the most fun I've had with a standard guitar rock album in some time.
Best cuts: "No Good for You"; "Tumble Down"; "I'm Neurotic"
[Full review]
9. The xx: Coexist (Young Turks)
Are you as sick as I am of hearing about how this is too "minimalistic" to give you anything to hang onto? Sure, it's hushed and intimate, but so is the complicated monogamy upon which it fixates -- despite the title, it's less about the conflicted passions and doubts of years-long familiarity than about the tentative movements toward commitment, the growing pains and moments of mutual insecurity. Like any great thematic recording, it sounds like what it sings about; it expands the universal psychology of the lonesome and wanting in Tracey Thorn's much more florid work with Everything But the Girl into the arresting and sensual back-and-forth of a couple on the run into themselves. It seems sincerely felt, but beyond that it just sounds wonderful, Jamie xx's deep and unorthodox pounding and stroking a nocturnal gift for the loved and longing alike.
Best cuts: "Tides"; "Angels"; "Fiction"
[Full review]
8. Suckers: Candy Salad (Frenchkiss)
This spent most of the year near the bottom of the list (in other words, not anywhere close to the top ten), presumably because my experience with it was too sporadic to render a really consistent appreciation. Since virtually no one paid it much attention (I was provided a copy as part of a freelance gig and then ended up buying myself the record), the infectious brilliance of the songs failed to jump out at me until to my surprise, this past week I put it on the turntable and could hum if not sort-of-sing every track. I know little about this band and haven't yet reached back to their earlier work, but they are tunesmiths of splendidly relaxed ease and grace. From "Chinese Braille" to "George" and back again, the oddball arrangements and full-throated vocals are impossibly catchy and lushly but smartly produced, evocative as much of the Shins at their power-pop peak as of a warmer, more romantic ("your love is all that surrounds me") variation on the mixed-media aural stuntwork exemplified by AU and MGMT. I hope more people check this out in the months to come and are as unexpectedly enamored by it as we are; if so, please let us know if you can decipher the lyrics to the chorus of "Figure It Out" so we can belt it out the right way. Just pretend the record has a different cover and you're all set.
Best cuts: "Bricks to the Bones"; "Turn on the Sunshine"; "Figure It Out"
[Full review]
7. Advance Base: A Shut-In's Prayer (Orindal)
Do you know Casiotone for the Painfully Alone? Oh good, you'll love this. Do you love having your heart broken and then reliving it over and over again? Welcome to Owen Ashworth's beautifully sad universe, a hazily remembered netherworld of time spent with long-gone loved ones, forlorn childhood failures, and wistful triumphs and regrets. Read anything I've just said and/or watch the splendid Muppet-focused video for "Summer Music" and you're bound to think of Ashworth as the one-note jilted lover he absolutely isn't. It's more accurate to lay out the wit and ache central to his humor -- which on "Riot Grrls" escalates to a masterfully warm odyssey of friendship and its iterations and transformations -- and sincere pathos, which is everywhere. "My Sister's Birthday," an account of frayed relations with a once-beloved sibling, hits the emotional peak of both Ashworth's work thus far and 2012 music in general with the simple statement "oh, when we were kids, she stuck up for me when no one else did," which sounds like a basic enough premise in print. But like so many things Ashworth writes, when he sings it, it elevates to parts unknown, and you can't escape the height of it, and then if you're like me you get more than a little choked up. He's always been great and I think he's getting better. Plus he sent me a hand-drawn picture of a duck (or a goose, possibly) and that's awesome.
Best cuts: "Riot Grrls"; "My Sister's Birthday"; "Summer Music"
[Full review]
6. Leonard Cohen: Old Ideas (Columbia)
Being a major booster of the moralistic fury of The Future and being, additionally, the only person in the whole scope of Cohen fandom who preferred Dear Heather to Ten New Songs, I was initially disappointed that Cohen's first album in eight years captured him in reflective mood, with little of the anger that was once an inseparable feature of at least parts of each album, and none of the bizarrely plastic, surreal production values. It seemed a step into self-aware classicism to me. But as the year wore on, it became increasingly clear to me that you can put up nearly all of these songs up against anything Cohen's done, from any era; there was no more dramatic proof than when "Anyhow" came on and until two or three minutes in I was sure it was vintage, 1979 or something. That comes down to the songwriting, which calls back to the most insurmountable and iconic of the great man's works, from "Hallelujah" to "Tower of Song," tempered now by a new sense of accomplishment and loss -- and, of course, the fearlessness that came into focus somewhere around I'm Your Man. "Amen" and "Show Me the Place" are carnal spirituals as stark and strikingly beautiful as anything in this illustrious catalog. I undersold the second half too, being an extended mood-builder worthy of his early crooning singer-songwriter records. So glad he's still here. Would give anything to see him live.
Best cuts: "Different Sides"; "Amen"; "Show Me the Place"
[Full review]
5. Beach House: Bloom (Sub Pop)
I haven't given Teen Dream a complete renewed shot yet (Devotion will be reviewed here soon) so I can't say whether I just wasn't ready, but every second of Bloom endears itself to me. It's the sort of music that feels physically good to listen to, like a tease upon the ears; "Myth" was good enough on its own but the record opens up with the panoramic "Wild" afterward and then continues to stretch and stretch until the "Marquee Moon"-like catharsis at the finale, just a clang clang clang clang into a strange paradise. Equal parts throwback synthpop and shoegaze drone, it's immersively, cinematically beautiful -- perfect for zoning, cooking, driving, drugging, whatever -- and so consistent it's hard to pick out standouts; the 45rpm version Sub Pop put out helps. This spent most of the year as my presumptive top of the pops and it's not undeserving.
Best cuts: "New Year"; "Lazuli"; "Other People"
[Full review]
4. Twin Shadow: Confess (4AD)
Makeout city. I'm rather proud of having expressed two years ago that I believed Twin Shadow (George Lewis Jr.) would return with a killer second album; I was more than correct. This gigantically wonderful series of perfect pop tunes, confidently delivered swagger by a genuine rock & roller who dances on his hooks, suggess Morrissey as much as Prince and recalling a time when pop and soul needn't substantially differ in impact. I was half-asleep the first time through and the florescent John Hughes atmospherics came at me hard and dreamlike; waking up in love with the songs, I concluded that these odes to faltered relationships and dancing while you lie to me (dancing while I lie, too) may have been initially striking because of the leap in sonic value since Forget, but they linger because they are a shot of generous pleasure as songs, songs before sounds and songs before "records." Plus, the drama and sexuality of it all is enormous, from the grand gestures of "Golden Light" into more intimate territories -- the sweeping bridge on "I Don't Care" during which Lewis comes to his lover in the night towers above everything, my favorite moment in 2012 music.
Best cuts: "Run My Heart"; "I Don't Care"; "When the Movie's Over"
[Full review]
3. Words and Music by Saint Etienne (Heavenly)
Surprised there's any critic, or anyone who cares deeply about the experience of falling in love with (and to) music, who doesn't adore this record. The initial hit to the sensitive obsessive's heart is Sarah Cracknell's monologue on "Over the Border," reminiscing about the cool kids who went to scope out Peter Gabriel's house, Top of the Pops as international roadmap, living in her room and watching the charts and changing everything, "all because of music." Then the city seems to magnify and breeze by as adulthood looms, as a transfixing gig becomes the whole world on "Tonight," as the communal and private pleasures of pop become the foundation of "I've Got Your Music." And finally, that inescapable worldly nostalgia of "When I Was Seventeen," of having known so much and so little. It surprises me that I can't say this the most moving recording of the year (slightly eclipsed by the two below in a tiny walk), because its expressions both lyrical and pounding, pumped-up musical strike a deep chord. You want to live in it and carry it everywhere, which is only appropriate.
Best cuts: "Tonight"; "When I Was Seventeen"; "Over the Border"
[Full review]
2. Fiona Apple: The Idler Wheel Is Wiser Than the Driver of the Screw and Whipping Cords Will Serve You More Than Ropes Will Ever Do (Epic)
The kind of album that renders every 1970s notion of the singer-songwriter aesthetic something on the order of laughble; this is lovesick music hall daydreaming of astounding confidence. Apple's long period between projects apparently pays off in the form of lyrics perfectly wrought and densely layered, music of charm and power that reveals itself over time to be ever more lovingly crafted than you realized on the first few passes. It captures a laid-bare experience of the unlocking of one's self to oneself, or in this case to an army of the faithful listening. Can we talk about what an outstanding singer Apple is? It's not as though she wasn't always, but her range here, from the Andrews Sisters winking of "Hot Knife" to the guttural punchdrunk proclamations of "Every Single Night," she's a presence of magnificent force. Almost nothing about this isn't magic -- even the loveliest records of this year can't claim to feel so full-blooded and frank, and even fewer can make that bleeding so gorgeous.
Best cuts: "Hot Knife"; "Anything We Want"; "Left Alone"
[Full review]
1. Kendrick Lamar: good kid, m.A.A.d city (Interscope)
Underneath everything: the wake-up calls, the swimming pool full of liquor, the first love, the music of being young and dumb, the shooting, the "becoming a positive person" -- this is no mere harrowing childhood story, it's a cry out for empathy and a note of regret and contrition to a family, however flawed. Lamar's a head-spinning performer, his voices and roles never gimmicky but consistently gripping, his emotive hits to the jugular telling: "I'm fortunate you believe in a dream." One of the best-ever entries in the notion of album as storytelling medium, and a personal missive that comes so clearly and undeniably from the heart. But don't let the excellent lyrics and vocals distract you from the grooves that simmer, the paranoid arrangements as likely to torment as to titilate. good kid, m.A.A.d city is the most formidable achievement in rock & roll this year -- and it's really real.
Best cuts: The record resists such segmentation, but if we must, "Sing About Me" is probably at the top.
[Full review]
HONORABLE MENTIONS
(Others I loved in 2012)
Bob Dylan: Tempest (Columbia)
A reliable band like Dylan's can generate beauty in the mundane, even in workhorse mode -- Dylan goes intimate and old-world on the soft doo wop of "Soon After Midnight" and Sexton, Hidalgo, Garnier et al. fall behind him as smoothly as can be imagined. They can make something vital out of a swaggering Muddy Waters lift, or make the distorted, deliberately backward Lennon tribute that closes the record feel as stuck in time as it should. All the while, Dylan never wavers from his own sense of purpose, renewed once again. Grab hold of the storytelling and the introspection if you want, but when he pitches in with a snarling "Even death has washed its hands of you," well, that's my Dylan.
Best cuts: "Pay in Blood"; "Tempest"; "Soon After Midnight"
[Full review]
The Tallest Man on Earth: There's No Leaving Now (Dead Oceans)
The only problem that Kristian Matsson's work presents is that it's so consistent I have a hard time laying out what's different about his third album. A few press reports indicated it to be a full-band effort, which is amusing since this amounts to a nearly insignificant number of songs featuring bass and/or drums. The melodies are a bit more sophisticated this time, I suppose. More clearly, Matsson's voice has stretched and now croons a bit, a considerable evolution from the cigarette-burn of his 2008 out-of-nowhere treasure Shallow Grave. As on The Wild Hunt, the songs take time to gain the breezy, almost primal familiarity of the first record, but once they do, each and every one of them is a delight. If there's nothing here as emotionally soaring as "Love Is All" or as biting and guttural as "The Gardener," fine, but this is an even more consistent record -- I wouldn't mind more of the same from this gentleman anyway.
Best cuts: "1904"; "Leading Me Now"; "To Just Grow Away"
[Full review]
Titus Andronicus: Local Business (XL)
Nevertheless, this is a big album by design when you think about; modeling itself on Springsteen, the Rolling Stones and the Replacements, it's a true rock & roll album. More specific to its touch of the working-class anthemic is its status as a true American album, a true New Jersey album -- a gritty catharsis of drinking songs and camaraderie by a group of decent guys who aren't afraid to occasionally expose their dark side, one defined by self-doubt and self-abuse rather than contempt for others. Like The Monitor, it's a quintessentially masculine recording, but not a "macho" one.
Best cuts: "In a Big City"; "In a Small Body"; "Still Life with Hot Deuce and Silver Platter"
[Full review]
Nas: Life Is Good (Def Jam)
Purely musically, there's no doubt this is Nas' best album in well over a decade. With varied, capable production handled in bulk by No I.D. and Salaam Remi (on separate tracks), it employs a robust R&B sound that seems deliberately backward, yet fresh in its playful applications. It's in his lyrical themes, however, that Life Is Good comes across as the most consistent (and least self-conscious) LP the great rapper has put together since It Was Written in 1996. That's not to say that Nas has reined in his more unsavory mannerisms; there's sexism, bitterness, and bare anger that's all unbecoming years after the fadeout of Illmatic's goodwill. What's striking is the messiness; Nas keeps comparing this to Marvin Gaye's Here, My Dear, and he's right in many respects. The rants and raves that occupy Life Is Good -- an ironic title, of course -- are meant to piss you off, to make you shake your head and try to psychoanalyze the dude. But there's just enough of an abstraction here to make this a successful examination of a broken human both living in and trying to escape the past.
Best cuts: "You Wouldn't Understand"; "A Queens Story"; "Bye Baby"
[Full review]
The Walkmen: Heaven (Fat Possum)
I must admit this is the weakest Walkmen record for me (hello to Hundred Miles Off fans) but I've come to appreciate its subtleties, especially when heard as an extension to the excellent Lisbon. I've even started not to notice its awkward pacing, reiterating a vague initial feeling that it just gave us what it gives us in the wrong sequence. Why carp about little things? It's a great band doing fine work, still stretching on the title cut and "Dreamboat," and the smashing rocker "The Love You Love," and generally serving as a domesticated fat-and-happy ode to the finer familial things. How much can you really object when you immediately know from the first moments of "Love Is Luck" that it's the Walkmen doing Walkmen things but you're still clapping and still touched? Don't hesitate schmaltz; it has its purpose.
Best cuts: "Song for Leigh"; "The Love You Love"; "Line by Line"
[Full review]
Andrew Bird: Hands of Glory (Mom + Pop)
Stripped of his indie leanings and the baroque fixation that began to take hold circa Weather Systems, Bird proves himself little more or less than an enthusiastic talent whose penchant for chameleon-like playing, singing, and writing is just an element of who he is. His relaxation and freedom to experiment betray a robust confidence that make Hands of Glory something much more than any given artist's collection of live-in-the-studio jams. It's a delight, a must for anyone who's ever been impressed by him, and I'll take this unlabored joy over the poky meanderings of certain other solo genre-busters any day.
Best cuts: "Three White Horses"; "Railroad Bill"; "If I Needed You"?
[Full review]
Killer Mike: R.A.P. Music (Williams Street)
You can be forgiven if you put a new rap record on in 2012 and feel like you've entered a time warp when you hear this rapid-fire old school shit against a super-angry rant about Reagan; the only evidence, in fact, on the current apocalyptic single bearing the former president's name that this isn't the Iran Contra era is a (not very kind) reference to Barack Obama and the rather classic closing line: "I'm glad Reagan dead." Well, then. It's naive incendiary politics but how great and strange is it to hear such rage directed against matters that predate Mantronix? Killer Mike blows his horn about his literacy even as he makes conspiratorial accusations, though I doubt anyone would question that he's right about how we live in a world of a white-tinted single party system -- the right and the extreme right, naturally -- but that's dangerous talk right now in these last weeks of the danger of a Romney administration. As he puts it, "If I say any more / They might be at my door." Cute. But we love rock stars with a thirst for awareness and education (lord, how I hate the word "consciousness") that's far outpaced by their imagination, the ones who can't keep their mouths shut; that's basically John Lennon, right? Lennon would've dug this record.
Best cuts: "Reagan"; "Don't Die"; "R.A.P. Music"
[Full review]
***
OTHERS I LIKED IN 2012
Chromatics: Kill for Love (Italians Do It Better)
Horse Feathers: Cynic's New Year (Kill Rock Stars)
Frank Ocean: Channel Orange (Def Jam)
Ice Choir: Afar (Frenchkiss)
The Mountain Goats: Transcendental Youth (Merge)
Miguel: Kaleidoscope Dream (RCA)
Lord Huron: Lonesome Dreams (PIAS)
The Men: Open Your Heart (Sacred Bones)
Dent May: Do Things (Paw Tracks)
WhoMadeWho: Brighter (Kompakt)
Spiritualized: Sweet Heart Sweet Light (Fat Possum)
Jessie Ware: Devotion (Cherrytree)
Lambchop: Mr. M (Merge)
The Magnetic Fields: Love at the Bottom of the Sea (Merge)
Perfume Genius: Put Your Back N 2 It (Matador)
Cat Power: Sun (Matador)
Brian Eno: Lux (Warp)
Hot Chip: In Our Heads (Domino)
John Talabot: fIN (Permanent Vacation)
Tame Impala: Lonerism (Modular)
Antibalas (Daptone)
Andrew Bird: Break It Yourself (Mom + Pop)
Quakers (Stones Throw)
Willis Earl Beal: Acousmatic Sorcery (XL)
The Roots: Undun (Def Jam)
Yeasayer: Flagrant World (Secretly Canadian)
Curren$y: The Stoned Immaculate (Warner Bros.)
Bonde do Rolê: Tropical/Bacanal (Mad Decent)
EP'S I LIKED IN 2012
Yo La Tengo: Stupid Things (Matador)
TNGHT (Warp)
***
BEST SONGS OF 2012
Youtube links provided where available. Limiting to one song per album, but not per artist. Like the album list, this is subject to change, only even more so. The version you see here will stay with time-capsule permanence, but in future years I reserve the right to go back on it. As noted above, this list is far more rife with brilliance than the albums list; virtually everything up to the bottom half of the thirties would be top ten-worthy in a lesser year. It completely blows my mind that "Dance for You" is all the way down there, that "Tonight" is only #14, that Usher's "Scream" isn't #1 for the year. But I can make a case for every single thing above them. Singles are still the lifeblood of rock & roll; celebrate them please.
1. Frank Ocean "Lost" [Channel Orange
2. New Build "Do You Not Feel Loved?" [single]
3. Miguel "Adorn" [Kaleidoscope Dreams]
4. Le1f "Wut" [Dark York]
5. Beyoncé "Love on Top" [4]
6. Spiritualized "Hey Jane" [Sweet Heart Sweet Light]
7. Cat Power "Manhattan" [Sun]
8. Twin Shadow "Run My Heart" [Confess]
9. Superchunk "This Summer" [non-LP single]
10. Beach House "New Year" [Bloom]
11. Ellie Goulding "Lights" [Lights]
12. Black Marble "A Great Design" [A Different Arrangement]
13. Fiona Apple "Hot Knife" [The Idler Wheel...]
14. Saint Etienne "Tonight" [Words and Music By]
15. Pink "Blow Me (One Last Kiss)" [The Truth About Love]
16. Chromatics "Kill for Love" [Kill for Love]
17. Mary J. Blige "Mr. Wrong" [My Life II]
18. Passion Pit "Take a Walk" [Gossamer]
19. Big K.R.I.T. "Money on the Floor" [Live from the Underground]
20. Horse Feathers "Fit Against the Country" [Cynic's New Year]
21. Dark Dark Dark "Tell Me" [Who Needs Who]
22. Tanlines "All of Me" [Mixed Emotions]
23. Perfume Genius "Hood" [Put Your Back In 2 It]
24. Mode Moderne "Foul Weather Fare" [Strange Bruises]
25. Usher "Scream" [Looking 4 Myself]
26. Hot Chip "These Chains" [In Our Heads]
27. Suckers "Bricks to the Bones" [Candy Salad]
28. Leonard Cohen "Different Sides" [Old Ideas]
29. Justin Bieber "As Long as You Love Me" [Believe]
30. Alpine "Hands" [single]
31. Dirty Projectors "Dance for You" [Swing Low Medallion]
32. Storm Queen "Let's Make Mistakes" [single]
33. Terry Malts "No Good for You" [Killing Time]
34. Jessie Ware "Wildest Moments" [Devotion]
35. The Men "Candy" [Open Your Heart]
36. Young Jeezy "Leave You Alone" [Thug Motivation 103: Hustlerz Ambition]
37. Dent May "Parents" [Do Things]
38. Yeasayer "Longevity" [Fragrant World]
39. Lotus Plaza "Eveningness" [Spooky Action at a Distance]
40. John Talabot "Journeys" [fIN]
41. Grimes "Oblivion" [Visions]
42. The xx "Tides" [Coexist]
43. The Magnetic Fields "Andrew in Drag" [Love at the Bottom of the Sea]
44. WhoMadeWho "Inside World" [Brighter]
45. Wild Nothing "Shadow" [Nocturne]
46. Frankie Rose "Know Me" [Interstellar]
47. Curren$y "Plot Music" [internet-only]
48. The Walkmen "Song for Leigh" [Heaven]
49. Elle Varner "Refill" [Perfectly Imperfect]
50. Nas "You Wouldn't Understand" [Life Is Good]
51. Lambchop "Gone Tomorrow" [Mr. M]
52. Andrew Bird "Three White Horses" [Hands of Glory]
53. Strand of Oaks "Maureen's" [Dark Shores]
54. The Tallest Man on Earth "1904" [There's No Leaving Now]
55. Chairlift "Met Before" [Something]
56. Dominique Young Unique "Big in Da Game" [internet]
57. La Sera "Please Be My Third Eye" [Sees the Light]
58. Advance Base "Riot Grrls" [A Shut-In's Prayer]
59. Azealia Banks "Liquorice" [internet]
60. Titus Andronicus "In a Big City" [Local Business]
61. Simian Ghost "Wolf Girl" [Youth]
62. Fergus & Geronimo "No Parties" [Funky Was the State of Affairs]
63. Disclosure "Tenderly" [single]
64. The Mountain Goats "Lakeside View Apartments Suite" [Transcendental Youth]
65. Cold Showers "BC" [Love and Regret]
66. Lord Huron "Time to Run" [Lonesome Dreams]
67. Quakers "War Drums" [Quakers]
68. Ice Choir "I Want You Now and Always" [Afar]
69. Sidi Touré “Tondi Karaa" [Köima]
70. Royal Baths "Faster, Harder" [Better Luck Next Life]
71. Blur "The Puritan" [non-LP single]
72. Lee Ranaldo "Off the Wall" [Between the Times and the Tides]
73. Bob Dylan "Pay in Blood" [Tempest]
74. Egyptian Hip Hop "SYH" [Good Don't Sleep]
75. Phèdre "In Decay" [Phèdre]
David Byrne & St. Vincent "Who" [Love This Giant]
DIIV "Geist" [non-LP single]
AU "Get Alive" [Both Lights]
Daniel Rossen "Silent Song" [Silent Hour/Golden Mile EP]
Colleen Green "Goldmine" [Milo Goes to Compton]
Willis Earl Beal "Monotony" [Acousmatic Sorcery]
Bonde Do Role "Bang" [Tropical/Bacanal]
Lace Curtains "Bedroom Honesty" [The Garden of Joy and the Well of Loneliness]
Black Star "You Already Knew" [Aretha]
Sky Ferreira "Everything Is Embarrassing" [Ghost EP]
Antibalas "Dirty Money" [s/t]
Killer Mike "Reagan" [R.A.P. Music]
TEEN "Electric" [In Limbo]
G-Side "Land in the Sky" [internet-only]
Madonna "Gang Bang" [MDNA]
Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti "Only in My Dreams" [Mature Themes]
Boys from Patagonia "Rimini '80" [non-LP single]
Open Mike Eagle "Cobra Commander" [4MNL HSPTL]
TOP TEN ALBUMS
My feelings about the flaws in treating pop music as an album-oriented medium have been trotted out here and elsewhere a million times, and we don't want to spoil anyone's fun with a rant, but 2012 has renewed my passion on the matter. For the first half of the year I was overrun with singles, one-off internet tracks, and Soundcloud fragments that infiltrated my life -- and no more than one or two albums that held up over any significant period of time. In general, I'm bound to remember 2012 as a weak year after a couple of good ones; the bottom third of my top ten wouldn't have soared that high in 2010 or 2011, and several records of comparable high quality, all of which I love but none of which I'd call truly "great," competed for the top until very late in the year. I had no real idea what my #1 album of the year would be until I sat down to listen to everything and compose this entry; my tentative choice was down three spaces by the end of the venture. That hasn't happened since I've been keeping up. The choice that was made for #1 sprang up in the final weeks of the year and its only serious competition was also the sole record of 2012 that I love more every time I hear it, to the extent that I'd level the top two as almost interchangeable, even.
But does this all spell burnout? Doubtful. I feel that exposure to more music since devoting myself to this blog has potentially made me more cynical about a number of the acclaimed or unknown albums I digest. That only makes it more of a splendid experience when I discover something like Confess or Words and Music that I can be as enamored of and excited about as if I were still seventeen and doing odd jobs around the house to keep a healthy supply of CDs coming in. I fretted for a few months about whether I too was consigned to the doom of being a curmudgeon about all that's new; there are multiple strands of pop and semi-pop right now that do absolutely nothing for me, including much of what seems to be happening in electronic circles. Should I apologize for this? I don't really think so -- so long as this is just my blog, my zone, and hey, I've always been pretty choosy. The essence of all this is that new music keeps me feeling young and I don't think I could do without it. That's never been a truer aspect of who I am than in the last few years, and I'm passionate about it. On long drives to and from my girlfriend's house this fall, I rediscovered the source of that passion: it's always and forever songs. I think the occasional album can do something with the medium and can stretch it -- see #1 below for sure, and perhaps #2 and #3 in some capacity -- but as for the rest, they mean as much to me and maybe even more to me as "collections of songs" than as some daunting unassailable artform of the Long-Player. This is nothing new. I've always preferred shuffle mode and greatest hits collections; I'm that asshole the Kids in the Hall made fun of.
All that said, there's nothing like gathering these wonderful records back together and hearing the great cuts come up one after the other -- conveniently, #3 below actually discusses such phenomena and personal epiphanies at length. Here are the ten best such epiphanies I experienced in 2012, more arduously than usual (as in '10, but for the opposite reason) whittled down from 84 albums I officially reviewed here this year -- and at least twenty more that I listened to but didn't write up. The seven below the ten encompass near-misses and flawed records that have lingered for me and will continue to do so. A theme with the ten big ones, though, is their consistency. You can cut them up, but their impact is cumulative and the bands and acts responsible make a sizable impression by their own strengths, and I think it's important to mention that only two artists in my top ten here also made it to my top ten songs below. Different matters -- not completely, but just enough.
I also want to state that, completely by accident (in the sense that I did not notice until just this second), only one album of the ten below comes from a band/performer who's previously done full-length work I loved, and he happens to be my choice for the best living, currently active solo artist we've got. Obviously Beach House and St. Etienne are not new or new-to-me bands, and I've known and liked Fiona Apple's work for a decade and a half, but my real passion for them is new. If I'm ever in this space proclaiming that the latest dinosaur rants from the Rolling Stone-beloved aging titans of my youth are the best that the year in music has to offer, please kindly tell me to stop bothering. I'm doing this because I love music, of course, but like Sarah Cracknell implies more than once on Words & Music, really I'm doing it 'cause I need it. I hope that doesn't change and I don't think it will.
10. Terry Malts: Killing Time (Slumberland)
Bouncy but brutal, disaffected but friendly, this is really just pure pop, hook-filled, loaded with the caffeinated manics of early Ramones or Buzzcocks (even Wire on "Can't Tell No One") and the suburban angst of the Replacements. It never gets old, traversing from loud and obnoxious to snottily despairing to sometimes surprisingly romantic (roll my eyes and squeeze you tighter), with useful rants about not being a Christian, being neurotic and going to the mall. The pettiness is so devotedly ground into classicist punk fury that it's all quite affirmative and winning, and the most fun I've had with a standard guitar rock album in some time.
Best cuts: "No Good for You"; "Tumble Down"; "I'm Neurotic"
[Full review]
9. The xx: Coexist (Young Turks)
Are you as sick as I am of hearing about how this is too "minimalistic" to give you anything to hang onto? Sure, it's hushed and intimate, but so is the complicated monogamy upon which it fixates -- despite the title, it's less about the conflicted passions and doubts of years-long familiarity than about the tentative movements toward commitment, the growing pains and moments of mutual insecurity. Like any great thematic recording, it sounds like what it sings about; it expands the universal psychology of the lonesome and wanting in Tracey Thorn's much more florid work with Everything But the Girl into the arresting and sensual back-and-forth of a couple on the run into themselves. It seems sincerely felt, but beyond that it just sounds wonderful, Jamie xx's deep and unorthodox pounding and stroking a nocturnal gift for the loved and longing alike.
Best cuts: "Tides"; "Angels"; "Fiction"
[Full review]
8. Suckers: Candy Salad (Frenchkiss)
This spent most of the year near the bottom of the list (in other words, not anywhere close to the top ten), presumably because my experience with it was too sporadic to render a really consistent appreciation. Since virtually no one paid it much attention (I was provided a copy as part of a freelance gig and then ended up buying myself the record), the infectious brilliance of the songs failed to jump out at me until to my surprise, this past week I put it on the turntable and could hum if not sort-of-sing every track. I know little about this band and haven't yet reached back to their earlier work, but they are tunesmiths of splendidly relaxed ease and grace. From "Chinese Braille" to "George" and back again, the oddball arrangements and full-throated vocals are impossibly catchy and lushly but smartly produced, evocative as much of the Shins at their power-pop peak as of a warmer, more romantic ("your love is all that surrounds me") variation on the mixed-media aural stuntwork exemplified by AU and MGMT. I hope more people check this out in the months to come and are as unexpectedly enamored by it as we are; if so, please let us know if you can decipher the lyrics to the chorus of "Figure It Out" so we can belt it out the right way. Just pretend the record has a different cover and you're all set.
Best cuts: "Bricks to the Bones"; "Turn on the Sunshine"; "Figure It Out"
[Full review]
7. Advance Base: A Shut-In's Prayer (Orindal)
Do you know Casiotone for the Painfully Alone? Oh good, you'll love this. Do you love having your heart broken and then reliving it over and over again? Welcome to Owen Ashworth's beautifully sad universe, a hazily remembered netherworld of time spent with long-gone loved ones, forlorn childhood failures, and wistful triumphs and regrets. Read anything I've just said and/or watch the splendid Muppet-focused video for "Summer Music" and you're bound to think of Ashworth as the one-note jilted lover he absolutely isn't. It's more accurate to lay out the wit and ache central to his humor -- which on "Riot Grrls" escalates to a masterfully warm odyssey of friendship and its iterations and transformations -- and sincere pathos, which is everywhere. "My Sister's Birthday," an account of frayed relations with a once-beloved sibling, hits the emotional peak of both Ashworth's work thus far and 2012 music in general with the simple statement "oh, when we were kids, she stuck up for me when no one else did," which sounds like a basic enough premise in print. But like so many things Ashworth writes, when he sings it, it elevates to parts unknown, and you can't escape the height of it, and then if you're like me you get more than a little choked up. He's always been great and I think he's getting better. Plus he sent me a hand-drawn picture of a duck (or a goose, possibly) and that's awesome.
Best cuts: "Riot Grrls"; "My Sister's Birthday"; "Summer Music"
[Full review]
6. Leonard Cohen: Old Ideas (Columbia)
Being a major booster of the moralistic fury of The Future and being, additionally, the only person in the whole scope of Cohen fandom who preferred Dear Heather to Ten New Songs, I was initially disappointed that Cohen's first album in eight years captured him in reflective mood, with little of the anger that was once an inseparable feature of at least parts of each album, and none of the bizarrely plastic, surreal production values. It seemed a step into self-aware classicism to me. But as the year wore on, it became increasingly clear to me that you can put up nearly all of these songs up against anything Cohen's done, from any era; there was no more dramatic proof than when "Anyhow" came on and until two or three minutes in I was sure it was vintage, 1979 or something. That comes down to the songwriting, which calls back to the most insurmountable and iconic of the great man's works, from "Hallelujah" to "Tower of Song," tempered now by a new sense of accomplishment and loss -- and, of course, the fearlessness that came into focus somewhere around I'm Your Man. "Amen" and "Show Me the Place" are carnal spirituals as stark and strikingly beautiful as anything in this illustrious catalog. I undersold the second half too, being an extended mood-builder worthy of his early crooning singer-songwriter records. So glad he's still here. Would give anything to see him live.
Best cuts: "Different Sides"; "Amen"; "Show Me the Place"
[Full review]
5. Beach House: Bloom (Sub Pop)
I haven't given Teen Dream a complete renewed shot yet (Devotion will be reviewed here soon) so I can't say whether I just wasn't ready, but every second of Bloom endears itself to me. It's the sort of music that feels physically good to listen to, like a tease upon the ears; "Myth" was good enough on its own but the record opens up with the panoramic "Wild" afterward and then continues to stretch and stretch until the "Marquee Moon"-like catharsis at the finale, just a clang clang clang clang into a strange paradise. Equal parts throwback synthpop and shoegaze drone, it's immersively, cinematically beautiful -- perfect for zoning, cooking, driving, drugging, whatever -- and so consistent it's hard to pick out standouts; the 45rpm version Sub Pop put out helps. This spent most of the year as my presumptive top of the pops and it's not undeserving.
Best cuts: "New Year"; "Lazuli"; "Other People"
[Full review]
4. Twin Shadow: Confess (4AD)
Makeout city. I'm rather proud of having expressed two years ago that I believed Twin Shadow (George Lewis Jr.) would return with a killer second album; I was more than correct. This gigantically wonderful series of perfect pop tunes, confidently delivered swagger by a genuine rock & roller who dances on his hooks, suggess Morrissey as much as Prince and recalling a time when pop and soul needn't substantially differ in impact. I was half-asleep the first time through and the florescent John Hughes atmospherics came at me hard and dreamlike; waking up in love with the songs, I concluded that these odes to faltered relationships and dancing while you lie to me (dancing while I lie, too) may have been initially striking because of the leap in sonic value since Forget, but they linger because they are a shot of generous pleasure as songs, songs before sounds and songs before "records." Plus, the drama and sexuality of it all is enormous, from the grand gestures of "Golden Light" into more intimate territories -- the sweeping bridge on "I Don't Care" during which Lewis comes to his lover in the night towers above everything, my favorite moment in 2012 music.
Best cuts: "Run My Heart"; "I Don't Care"; "When the Movie's Over"
[Full review]
3. Words and Music by Saint Etienne (Heavenly)
Surprised there's any critic, or anyone who cares deeply about the experience of falling in love with (and to) music, who doesn't adore this record. The initial hit to the sensitive obsessive's heart is Sarah Cracknell's monologue on "Over the Border," reminiscing about the cool kids who went to scope out Peter Gabriel's house, Top of the Pops as international roadmap, living in her room and watching the charts and changing everything, "all because of music." Then the city seems to magnify and breeze by as adulthood looms, as a transfixing gig becomes the whole world on "Tonight," as the communal and private pleasures of pop become the foundation of "I've Got Your Music." And finally, that inescapable worldly nostalgia of "When I Was Seventeen," of having known so much and so little. It surprises me that I can't say this the most moving recording of the year (slightly eclipsed by the two below in a tiny walk), because its expressions both lyrical and pounding, pumped-up musical strike a deep chord. You want to live in it and carry it everywhere, which is only appropriate.
Best cuts: "Tonight"; "When I Was Seventeen"; "Over the Border"
[Full review]
2. Fiona Apple: The Idler Wheel Is Wiser Than the Driver of the Screw and Whipping Cords Will Serve You More Than Ropes Will Ever Do (Epic)
The kind of album that renders every 1970s notion of the singer-songwriter aesthetic something on the order of laughble; this is lovesick music hall daydreaming of astounding confidence. Apple's long period between projects apparently pays off in the form of lyrics perfectly wrought and densely layered, music of charm and power that reveals itself over time to be ever more lovingly crafted than you realized on the first few passes. It captures a laid-bare experience of the unlocking of one's self to oneself, or in this case to an army of the faithful listening. Can we talk about what an outstanding singer Apple is? It's not as though she wasn't always, but her range here, from the Andrews Sisters winking of "Hot Knife" to the guttural punchdrunk proclamations of "Every Single Night," she's a presence of magnificent force. Almost nothing about this isn't magic -- even the loveliest records of this year can't claim to feel so full-blooded and frank, and even fewer can make that bleeding so gorgeous.
Best cuts: "Hot Knife"; "Anything We Want"; "Left Alone"
[Full review]
1. Kendrick Lamar: good kid, m.A.A.d city (Interscope)
Underneath everything: the wake-up calls, the swimming pool full of liquor, the first love, the music of being young and dumb, the shooting, the "becoming a positive person" -- this is no mere harrowing childhood story, it's a cry out for empathy and a note of regret and contrition to a family, however flawed. Lamar's a head-spinning performer, his voices and roles never gimmicky but consistently gripping, his emotive hits to the jugular telling: "I'm fortunate you believe in a dream." One of the best-ever entries in the notion of album as storytelling medium, and a personal missive that comes so clearly and undeniably from the heart. But don't let the excellent lyrics and vocals distract you from the grooves that simmer, the paranoid arrangements as likely to torment as to titilate. good kid, m.A.A.d city is the most formidable achievement in rock & roll this year -- and it's really real.
Best cuts: The record resists such segmentation, but if we must, "Sing About Me" is probably at the top.
[Full review]
HONORABLE MENTIONS
(Others I loved in 2012)
Bob Dylan: Tempest (Columbia)
A reliable band like Dylan's can generate beauty in the mundane, even in workhorse mode -- Dylan goes intimate and old-world on the soft doo wop of "Soon After Midnight" and Sexton, Hidalgo, Garnier et al. fall behind him as smoothly as can be imagined. They can make something vital out of a swaggering Muddy Waters lift, or make the distorted, deliberately backward Lennon tribute that closes the record feel as stuck in time as it should. All the while, Dylan never wavers from his own sense of purpose, renewed once again. Grab hold of the storytelling and the introspection if you want, but when he pitches in with a snarling "Even death has washed its hands of you," well, that's my Dylan.
Best cuts: "Pay in Blood"; "Tempest"; "Soon After Midnight"
[Full review]
The Tallest Man on Earth: There's No Leaving Now (Dead Oceans)
The only problem that Kristian Matsson's work presents is that it's so consistent I have a hard time laying out what's different about his third album. A few press reports indicated it to be a full-band effort, which is amusing since this amounts to a nearly insignificant number of songs featuring bass and/or drums. The melodies are a bit more sophisticated this time, I suppose. More clearly, Matsson's voice has stretched and now croons a bit, a considerable evolution from the cigarette-burn of his 2008 out-of-nowhere treasure Shallow Grave. As on The Wild Hunt, the songs take time to gain the breezy, almost primal familiarity of the first record, but once they do, each and every one of them is a delight. If there's nothing here as emotionally soaring as "Love Is All" or as biting and guttural as "The Gardener," fine, but this is an even more consistent record -- I wouldn't mind more of the same from this gentleman anyway.
Best cuts: "1904"; "Leading Me Now"; "To Just Grow Away"
[Full review]
Titus Andronicus: Local Business (XL)
Nevertheless, this is a big album by design when you think about; modeling itself on Springsteen, the Rolling Stones and the Replacements, it's a true rock & roll album. More specific to its touch of the working-class anthemic is its status as a true American album, a true New Jersey album -- a gritty catharsis of drinking songs and camaraderie by a group of decent guys who aren't afraid to occasionally expose their dark side, one defined by self-doubt and self-abuse rather than contempt for others. Like The Monitor, it's a quintessentially masculine recording, but not a "macho" one.
Best cuts: "In a Big City"; "In a Small Body"; "Still Life with Hot Deuce and Silver Platter"
[Full review]
Nas: Life Is Good (Def Jam)
Purely musically, there's no doubt this is Nas' best album in well over a decade. With varied, capable production handled in bulk by No I.D. and Salaam Remi (on separate tracks), it employs a robust R&B sound that seems deliberately backward, yet fresh in its playful applications. It's in his lyrical themes, however, that Life Is Good comes across as the most consistent (and least self-conscious) LP the great rapper has put together since It Was Written in 1996. That's not to say that Nas has reined in his more unsavory mannerisms; there's sexism, bitterness, and bare anger that's all unbecoming years after the fadeout of Illmatic's goodwill. What's striking is the messiness; Nas keeps comparing this to Marvin Gaye's Here, My Dear, and he's right in many respects. The rants and raves that occupy Life Is Good -- an ironic title, of course -- are meant to piss you off, to make you shake your head and try to psychoanalyze the dude. But there's just enough of an abstraction here to make this a successful examination of a broken human both living in and trying to escape the past.
Best cuts: "You Wouldn't Understand"; "A Queens Story"; "Bye Baby"
[Full review]
The Walkmen: Heaven (Fat Possum)
I must admit this is the weakest Walkmen record for me (hello to Hundred Miles Off fans) but I've come to appreciate its subtleties, especially when heard as an extension to the excellent Lisbon. I've even started not to notice its awkward pacing, reiterating a vague initial feeling that it just gave us what it gives us in the wrong sequence. Why carp about little things? It's a great band doing fine work, still stretching on the title cut and "Dreamboat," and the smashing rocker "The Love You Love," and generally serving as a domesticated fat-and-happy ode to the finer familial things. How much can you really object when you immediately know from the first moments of "Love Is Luck" that it's the Walkmen doing Walkmen things but you're still clapping and still touched? Don't hesitate schmaltz; it has its purpose.
Best cuts: "Song for Leigh"; "The Love You Love"; "Line by Line"
[Full review]
Andrew Bird: Hands of Glory (Mom + Pop)
Stripped of his indie leanings and the baroque fixation that began to take hold circa Weather Systems, Bird proves himself little more or less than an enthusiastic talent whose penchant for chameleon-like playing, singing, and writing is just an element of who he is. His relaxation and freedom to experiment betray a robust confidence that make Hands of Glory something much more than any given artist's collection of live-in-the-studio jams. It's a delight, a must for anyone who's ever been impressed by him, and I'll take this unlabored joy over the poky meanderings of certain other solo genre-busters any day.
Best cuts: "Three White Horses"; "Railroad Bill"; "If I Needed You"?
[Full review]
Killer Mike: R.A.P. Music (Williams Street)
You can be forgiven if you put a new rap record on in 2012 and feel like you've entered a time warp when you hear this rapid-fire old school shit against a super-angry rant about Reagan; the only evidence, in fact, on the current apocalyptic single bearing the former president's name that this isn't the Iran Contra era is a (not very kind) reference to Barack Obama and the rather classic closing line: "I'm glad Reagan dead." Well, then. It's naive incendiary politics but how great and strange is it to hear such rage directed against matters that predate Mantronix? Killer Mike blows his horn about his literacy even as he makes conspiratorial accusations, though I doubt anyone would question that he's right about how we live in a world of a white-tinted single party system -- the right and the extreme right, naturally -- but that's dangerous talk right now in these last weeks of the danger of a Romney administration. As he puts it, "If I say any more / They might be at my door." Cute. But we love rock stars with a thirst for awareness and education (lord, how I hate the word "consciousness") that's far outpaced by their imagination, the ones who can't keep their mouths shut; that's basically John Lennon, right? Lennon would've dug this record.
Best cuts: "Reagan"; "Don't Die"; "R.A.P. Music"
[Full review]
***
OTHERS I LIKED IN 2012
Chromatics: Kill for Love (Italians Do It Better)
Horse Feathers: Cynic's New Year (Kill Rock Stars)
Frank Ocean: Channel Orange (Def Jam)
Ice Choir: Afar (Frenchkiss)
The Mountain Goats: Transcendental Youth (Merge)
Miguel: Kaleidoscope Dream (RCA)
Lord Huron: Lonesome Dreams (PIAS)
The Men: Open Your Heart (Sacred Bones)
Dent May: Do Things (Paw Tracks)
WhoMadeWho: Brighter (Kompakt)
Spiritualized: Sweet Heart Sweet Light (Fat Possum)
Jessie Ware: Devotion (Cherrytree)
Lambchop: Mr. M (Merge)
The Magnetic Fields: Love at the Bottom of the Sea (Merge)
Perfume Genius: Put Your Back N 2 It (Matador)
Cat Power: Sun (Matador)
Brian Eno: Lux (Warp)
Hot Chip: In Our Heads (Domino)
John Talabot: fIN (Permanent Vacation)
Tame Impala: Lonerism (Modular)
Antibalas (Daptone)
Andrew Bird: Break It Yourself (Mom + Pop)
Quakers (Stones Throw)
Willis Earl Beal: Acousmatic Sorcery (XL)
The Roots: Undun (Def Jam)
Yeasayer: Flagrant World (Secretly Canadian)
Curren$y: The Stoned Immaculate (Warner Bros.)
Bonde do Rolê: Tropical/Bacanal (Mad Decent)
EP'S I LIKED IN 2012
Yo La Tengo: Stupid Things (Matador)
TNGHT (Warp)
***
BEST SONGS OF 2012
Youtube links provided where available. Limiting to one song per album, but not per artist. Like the album list, this is subject to change, only even more so. The version you see here will stay with time-capsule permanence, but in future years I reserve the right to go back on it. As noted above, this list is far more rife with brilliance than the albums list; virtually everything up to the bottom half of the thirties would be top ten-worthy in a lesser year. It completely blows my mind that "Dance for You" is all the way down there, that "Tonight" is only #14, that Usher's "Scream" isn't #1 for the year. But I can make a case for every single thing above them. Singles are still the lifeblood of rock & roll; celebrate them please.
1. Frank Ocean "Lost" [Channel Orange
2. New Build "Do You Not Feel Loved?" [single]
3. Miguel "Adorn" [Kaleidoscope Dreams]
4. Le1f "Wut" [Dark York]
5. Beyoncé "Love on Top" [4]
6. Spiritualized "Hey Jane" [Sweet Heart Sweet Light]
7. Cat Power "Manhattan" [Sun]
8. Twin Shadow "Run My Heart" [Confess]
9. Superchunk "This Summer" [non-LP single]
10. Beach House "New Year" [Bloom]
11. Ellie Goulding "Lights" [Lights]
12. Black Marble "A Great Design" [A Different Arrangement]
13. Fiona Apple "Hot Knife" [The Idler Wheel...]
14. Saint Etienne "Tonight" [Words and Music By]
15. Pink "Blow Me (One Last Kiss)" [The Truth About Love]
16. Chromatics "Kill for Love" [Kill for Love]
17. Mary J. Blige "Mr. Wrong" [My Life II]
18. Passion Pit "Take a Walk" [Gossamer]
19. Big K.R.I.T. "Money on the Floor" [Live from the Underground]
20. Horse Feathers "Fit Against the Country" [Cynic's New Year]
21. Dark Dark Dark "Tell Me" [Who Needs Who]
22. Tanlines "All of Me" [Mixed Emotions]
23. Perfume Genius "Hood" [Put Your Back In 2 It]
24. Mode Moderne "Foul Weather Fare" [Strange Bruises]
25. Usher "Scream" [Looking 4 Myself]
26. Hot Chip "These Chains" [In Our Heads]
27. Suckers "Bricks to the Bones" [Candy Salad]
28. Leonard Cohen "Different Sides" [Old Ideas]
29. Justin Bieber "As Long as You Love Me" [Believe]
30. Alpine "Hands" [single]
31. Dirty Projectors "Dance for You" [Swing Low Medallion]
32. Storm Queen "Let's Make Mistakes" [single]
33. Terry Malts "No Good for You" [Killing Time]
34. Jessie Ware "Wildest Moments" [Devotion]
35. The Men "Candy" [Open Your Heart]
36. Young Jeezy "Leave You Alone" [Thug Motivation 103: Hustlerz Ambition]
37. Dent May "Parents" [Do Things]
38. Yeasayer "Longevity" [Fragrant World]
39. Lotus Plaza "Eveningness" [Spooky Action at a Distance]
40. John Talabot "Journeys" [fIN]
41. Grimes "Oblivion" [Visions]
42. The xx "Tides" [Coexist]
43. The Magnetic Fields "Andrew in Drag" [Love at the Bottom of the Sea]
44. WhoMadeWho "Inside World" [Brighter]
45. Wild Nothing "Shadow" [Nocturne]
46. Frankie Rose "Know Me" [Interstellar]
47. Curren$y "Plot Music" [internet-only]
48. The Walkmen "Song for Leigh" [Heaven]
49. Elle Varner "Refill" [Perfectly Imperfect]
50. Nas "You Wouldn't Understand" [Life Is Good]
51. Lambchop "Gone Tomorrow" [Mr. M]
52. Andrew Bird "Three White Horses" [Hands of Glory]
53. Strand of Oaks "Maureen's" [Dark Shores]
54. The Tallest Man on Earth "1904" [There's No Leaving Now]
55. Chairlift "Met Before" [Something]
56. Dominique Young Unique "Big in Da Game" [internet]
57. La Sera "Please Be My Third Eye" [Sees the Light]
58. Advance Base "Riot Grrls" [A Shut-In's Prayer]
59. Azealia Banks "Liquorice" [internet]
60. Titus Andronicus "In a Big City" [Local Business]
61. Simian Ghost "Wolf Girl" [Youth]
62. Fergus & Geronimo "No Parties" [Funky Was the State of Affairs]
63. Disclosure "Tenderly" [single]
64. The Mountain Goats "Lakeside View Apartments Suite" [Transcendental Youth]
65. Cold Showers "BC" [Love and Regret]
66. Lord Huron "Time to Run" [Lonesome Dreams]
67. Quakers "War Drums" [Quakers]
68. Ice Choir "I Want You Now and Always" [Afar]
69. Sidi Touré “Tondi Karaa" [Köima]
70. Royal Baths "Faster, Harder" [Better Luck Next Life]
71. Blur "The Puritan" [non-LP single]
72. Lee Ranaldo "Off the Wall" [Between the Times and the Tides]
73. Bob Dylan "Pay in Blood" [Tempest]
74. Egyptian Hip Hop "SYH" [Good Don't Sleep]
75. Phèdre "In Decay" [Phèdre]
David Byrne & St. Vincent "Who" [Love This Giant]
DIIV "Geist" [non-LP single]
AU "Get Alive" [Both Lights]
Daniel Rossen "Silent Song" [Silent Hour/Golden Mile EP]
Colleen Green "Goldmine" [Milo Goes to Compton]
Willis Earl Beal "Monotony" [Acousmatic Sorcery]
Bonde Do Role "Bang" [Tropical/Bacanal]
Lace Curtains "Bedroom Honesty" [The Garden of Joy and the Well of Loneliness]
Black Star "You Already Knew" [Aretha]
Sky Ferreira "Everything Is Embarrassing" [Ghost EP]
Antibalas "Dirty Money" [s/t]
Killer Mike "Reagan" [R.A.P. Music]
TEEN "Electric" [In Limbo]
G-Side "Land in the Sky" [internet-only]
Madonna "Gang Bang" [MDNA]
Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti "Only in My Dreams" [Mature Themes]
Boys from Patagonia "Rimini '80" [non-LP single]
Open Mike Eagle "Cobra Commander" [4MNL HSPTL]
Tuesday, December 18, 2012
Anouar Brahem: Barzakh (1991)
(ECM)
RECOMMENDED
You were expecting maybe some year-end lists!? Well, having finally listened to everything many times over, I am now allowed to dive back into, uh, "old" music again, and this calming and beautiful hour of Tunisian jazz musician Brahem playing the oud (with minimal but striking accompaniment by percussionist Lassad Hosni) is the soundtrack to my attempts to write something coherent about all the damn music I've listened to the last few days. Still, desolate, and minimal, this is a wondrous kind of comedown-romance, and Brahem's playing is bracing in its lyricism. For the full run of this expansive set, he never sinks into repetition or meandering; it's improvisational work that's as easy on the ear as can be imagined.
...
Not to make this personal again, but good lord, for the next few weeks I'm listening exclusively to garage bands circa 1965 and ancient Motown 45s and I will not think critically about any of it, goddammit.
But of course you know that last bit isn't true. See you in a few hours.
Monday, December 17, 2012
TNGHT EP (2012)
(Warp)
RCMND
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Sunday, December 16, 2012
Yo La Tengo: Stupid Things EP (2012)
(Matador)
RECOMMENDED
Though we've since heard more, this was the first taster of new material in a slightly appalling three years from the ordinarily prolific Yo La Tengo, a trio that we here at The Only Engine are not shy about proclaiming pretty much the best band in the world. In the meantime, with the exception of the Chris Knox cover "Colored," there'd been no one-off EP or scattered track. They've hardly, of course, been dormant -- their Spin the Wheel tour in 2011 quickly became infamous and controversial in a manner to which few other 27 year-old bands can claim access. Few people can logically claim this to be an artistically placid band, which is interesting when you consider where, say, the Rolling Stones sat after a comparable amount of time.
"Stupid Things" is a track from the forthcoming album Fade, but presented in a different mix; it's a gentle, driving, echoing oddity that signals a departure of sorts, not just because the band is working with a new producer, John McEntire, after nearly two decades with Roger Moutenot at the helm. The mix here is a sensual, enveloping thing that sounds familiar but wholly new and vaguely experimental, in common with the last album's first released cut "Here to Fall." The striking thing here is the lush, gorgeous string arrangement -- it's hard to get it out of your head, especially laid against that pressing, obsessive beat.
The only problem with this so-called EP is that it really doesn't deserve to be billed as such, coming across more as a glorified 12" or even 10" single, boasting simply three versions of the same cut. What's here is excellent, though. As bold an introduction as "Saturday" was to the muted glories of And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside Out, "Stupid Things" is a honey of a track. It's joined here by a bizarre and not wholly successful remix that's nearly impossible to recognize, which, fine, have your fun. But the reason you should pay a few bucks and pick this up is the twelve-minute instrumental demo of the song that never intensifies or flags but remains beautiful and crucial, a hypnotic extended jam that doubles as a fascinating glimpse into the band's impenetrable process. I frankly wouldn't mind if they did this for every song they put out.
We try not to be straight up shills for the bands we like at this blog, but if you go to Matador's web store, you can pick this up in lovely 12" format for quite cheap. Aaaand not that we're suggesting we know anything about the quality of the subsequent album, but... buy that too.
[SEE ALSO:]
Popular Songs (2009)
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