Top 20 Songs Of 2008...

Albums would be nothing without the songs that make them up. Call me Doctor Obvious after a statement like that. But seriously, songs are the vertebrae that make up the spine of... ah, no... I got nothing, really. I was going for witty and incisive but it's coming up whack. Too much talk and I'll ruin the moment. I've already said too much, let's just go...

20. You Want That Picture – Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy

This album didn’t have all that many stand-out tracks, it worked (as does all of Will Oldham’s mastery) as a cohesive album. Still I found myself coming back to this song or playing the album on shuffle a lot and starting with this song. It's a lovely duet, a conversation between two lovers.

19. A Sky For Shoeing Horses Under – Why?

Xylophone keyboard line. Stompin’ drum beat. Lyrically superb. Oakland’s Why? Made some of the most introspective songs this year, and some of the most interesting music to boot. “I’ve only played chess once in my life. And I lost…” Deep.

18. Brulee – Ratatat

It’s like video game music crossed with elevator jazz-funk done for the teeny-boppin’ soda-shop set of the early 60’s. Ratatat's instrumentals are the soundtrack for the 8-bit set.

17. I’ve Got A Little Room (Cannonball) – Hezekiah Jones

As long as Hezekiah is putting out music, it will undoubtedly appear on any year-end list here at The Musicologist. Is that like a form of nepotism? This track appeared on a split 7” with Chris Bathgate called The Asheville Squints.

16. L.E.S. Artistes – Santogold

She’s from Philly, so hometown points for that. And critically acclaimed by garbage-peddling mass media outlets (Rolling Stone named this song #2 on its year-end list, good for you Jan Wenner!). The song is a hard dis on all the Lower East Side phony-hipster artists (I’m sure it works in Williamsburg, Northern Liberties, hey- you can do that across the bay over in the Mission, too!) whose only goal (or “art”) is to be seen where you’re supposed to be seen. We need another Vietnam to thin their ranks out a bit, don’t we? Bring back the draft, Emperor Obama!

15. Autoclave – The Mountain Goats

Lo-fi afficianados have been slamming John Darnielle for his last few albums because he actually uses a studio to record now, but as a music geek I’d have to say I love the qualities just as much as All Hail West Texas or any of that older boombox recorded stuff. Never mind all that; Darnielle is one of the best living American song writers. Really.

14. Cheap and Cheerful – The Kills

VV singing about her addiction to chaotic men? I heard she used to be a total nerd, like used to carry around a notebook always journaling, sat alone in corners at parties, doesn’t drink or use, blah blah, blah- so to hear this coming out of her mouth you’d think a lot more things have been in that mouth. But co-Kill Hotel produced a bomber of a track here.

13. Eraser – No Age

This is the first banger from this album- the single that got my attention and made this album (Nouns) absolutely unstoppable in 2008.

12. Oxford Comma – Vampire Weekend

This song came out so early in the year that I played I out by June, literally not listening to it again until about a month ago. Still a great song from a great album, I don’t understand why A-Punk got all the attention this year, thought that song was just okay- it wasn’t even the second best song on the record, but whatev…

11. Electric Feel – MGMT

See, I’m apt to call this an ’07 release because technically this record came out last year, digitally that is. But the “hard” copy didn’t hit until this year, so there we go. Anyway, probably one of the stickiest songs- like something Michael Jackson wished he did for the Bad album. I've seen some of the other reviews and they have this band ranked way high and their two other tracks rated higher than this. I've made my choice.

10. Connjur – School Of Seven Bells

Found these girls/guy by accident on eMusic’s website. Basically I was browsing through to see what they had since they have the best membership deal (like .22 to .25 a song, really). Anyway, I listened to this track and was like, yeah, okay, I get this now. Then I still illegally downloaded the album. And listened to this track over and over. Shame it wasn’t released earlier in the year, it may have made a better showing on this list.

9. Smell Yo Dick – Riskay

If you haven’t seen this video yet, get your ass over to YouTube to check it out. Tragically ludicrous. I don’t know anymore if I truly hate it or love it in an ironic way so damn much, either way it doesn’t matter- I’ve watched this video way more than any other this year… (LINK)

8. Jump In (For Gilkey Elementary School) – High Places

It’s all bells and poppy jangle, an uplifting inspirational message for the next generation. It doesn't matter that singer Mary Pearson's voice has little to no range, it's what she says. The minimal and kinda bleary under-production makes it what it is, and it's a hell of a song.

7. What It’s All About – Girl Talk

ADHD much? Look at the list of samples on this track: (LINK)

6. Wrestlers – Hot Chip

Best piano break during the middle eight, one of those “Sssshhh- I have to hear this…” moments, like when Elaine was dating that guy who’s song was The Eagles’ Desperado. I told you I was a music geek. Also, name-checking Willie Nelson and backward-masking shit, big ups, Hot Chip.

5. Crying – TV On The Radio

This is at once soulful and melodic and nervous; with that patented tension Tunde Adebimpe’s croon brings to the mix, it was hard to pick a standout track from such a stellar album. And that amazing synth-sound from the keyboard (reminiscent of Toto’s Africa) on the outro of the track, this was a banger of a tune. If the sign of the times is bleak and crazy, the sound of the times is TV On The Radio.

4. Gila – Beach House

Shoegazey dream-popsters from Baltimore make the “prettiest” song of the year, beautiful in both its musicality and lyricism. Mildly ambient and translucent production values offer this track an atmosphere like no other.

3. A Thousand Eyes – Crystal Antlers

The best verse-to-chorus change in any song I’ve heard this year, here’s some adjectives I’ve been throwing at this song: bombastic, anthemic and soul-shattering.

2. Live Your Life – T.I. (ft. Rihanna)

I made the mistake of listening to the radio one day on my way to the skate park in Alameda- this song came on right before I got to the park and stuck in my head throughout my whole sesh (I was without an iPod that week, BestBuy was attempting to repair it…) and when I got back in the car to go home, guess what was on? I promptly bought the track from iTunes when I got home and can’t stop listening to it. I will always have a special place in my heart for cheesy, radio-friendly R&B (rap & bullshit).

...and The Musicologist's 2008 Song Of The Year:

1. Teen Creeps – No Age

There wasn’t another track from ’08 that was more auto-biographical; it seemed to sum up my entire existence of the last four years.

Wash away what we create / My sins like funny calls you make
Teen creeps I've seen you on my street / Teen creeps get what they want and me
I won't end up like them at all / This town will take you kissing trees
Before you see the forest bleed / Teen creeps I've tried to hold it back
So let me leave your welcome mat / I won't end up like them at all
Wash away what we create / I hate you more I hate this place
I know why I feel this way / Teen creeps please don't leave me dead, dead this way…

There were a ton of really great tracks this year- it's pretty hard to narrow the list down to just 20 songs, and some that just barely missed were Lil' Wayne with a pair of bangers (Lollipop and Got Money), The Decemberists' Record Year For Rainfall, Department Of Eagles' Teenagers, Fleet Foxes' White Winter Hymnal, Why Do You Let Me Stay Here? by She & Him, Sigur Ros' Gobbledigook, The Raveonettes' With My Eyes Closed, Immortal Technique's Mistakes, another High Places' song (The Tree With The Lights In It) and Xiu Xiu's F.T.W. all could've been included. So I guess that's my top 31 songs of '08.

Next up: FINALLY! The Top 20 Albums of 2008

Year In Review...

So you may have noticed that I stopped posting entries back in April. I was writing at a pretty good clip up until then, and well, you know. Once you stop, you think of an excuse to let it go another day, then another, and before you know it…

…it’s December and you forgot to write a year-end best-of list, and you gotta get yours out before all the major publications do so you can “told-you-so” their faces off.

Never mind the fact that you listened to almost nothing new between mid-April and mid-June, you just had to play catch-up and download new releases onto your girlfriend’s laptop and transfer them to your iPod and delete it off her hard drive before she notices.

Yeah.

So I’ve had a ton of time to digest the hell out of 2008’s best music. And without further ado, here’s (a disclaimer of sorts to) The Musicologists' Year In Review, 2008 style.

Most of January and February was spent listening to all the “great” albums of ‘07 that I missed (Dirty Projectors’ Rise Above, Holy Fuck’s LP, Battles’ Mirrored, Liars’ Liars, Les Savy Fav’s Let’s Stay Friends, and No Age’s Weirdo Rippers), that is; when the weather was okay and I was out skating with the iPod. If I was home and it was raining, I was probably listening to jazz; an old habit I picked up from all those years delivering pizzas. For some reason I’ve always associated the sonance of gently falling rain with the easy rat-a-tat of 16^th notes on a hi-hat; and the reflection of headlights and neon in a wet-black street seems to go right against sax and trumpet, and mud-stained sidewalks, concentric circles in puddles, the image of urban detritus melting into sewers underneath the city- carrying the murk down, down, like a fretless bass line.

Yes, I am a music geek…

I was still able to catch a lot of new releases (and some outside help on the reviews) from stellar writers like Keri Hope, Lee Henderson and Cicco (thanks, gang!) I even went to some concerts (Explosions In The Sky, The Mountain Goats, Vampire Weekend, Jose Gonzalez, Rilo Kiley, Killah Priest, Beirut and Carla Bozulich. How’s that for diversity?) But as the year went on and my employment situation changed, as did my lifestyle and living environs (shit; three different places this year, anyone do that, too?), I had to put music and writing way on the back burner; hell, I put it out back on the grill and forgot all about it…

So about a month ago I started putting this list all together, compiling stats like total listens, overall album feel, songs that I couldn’t stop listening to, trying to ignore other media outlets’ various and sundry lists (and laughing at all their crappy picks), which brings me to my first list of the year-end festivities. Let’s dive into the shallow end of this pool, see what we come up with, eh?

The Worst of 2008

First, the bad news: all the crap! The hardest albums to listen to, the most over-rated, and the just plain dumb. What’s the point of being a douchebag critic if you can’t slag people’s music tastes? That’s how I judge people- by what they listen to. I’m silently judging you based on the bands you claim allegiance to on your social networking profiles.

Let’s start with Death Cab For Cutie’s Narrow Stairs. Wow, this was pretty rotten- and I’m not talking about the “fake” album labeled as Narrow Stairs that Swedish dude leaked onto the internet, that was actually better than the real Death Cab album. Anyway, where do I begin with this record? Let’s start with the fact that they picked I Will Possess Your Heart (at 8-plus fucking minutes?) as their first single, a faux-prog rock mess in D-Major. There were a few okay songs, Cath… and Your New Twin Size Bed were serviceable as stand-alone tracks, but this wasn’t as much as an album as previous offerings, no cohesiveness at all.

Except for the overall vibe of suckiness. These guys want to be the American Coldplay so they can battle for world’s wussiest band. Now on to their album; Coldplay’s Viva La Vida or whatever (I think there’s more to the title…) I WOULDN’T LISTEN TO THIS BAND FOR ONE FUCKING SECOND.

There, that was easy.

Moving on, Of Montreal is quite possibly the most annoying band ever. I listened to Skeletal Lamping once and deleted it off my hard drive. Same with My Morning Jacket’s Evil Urges, you guys really shit the bed on this one. Whereas both of these band’s last albums were pretty fucking good, fame and notoriety plus inflated sense of self-worth obviously equals artistic license to start sucking. I’ll bet anyone a million dollars that Of Montreal signs a major-label deal next year.

Fleet Foxes- it didn’t suck at all, but I can’t feel all the hype around this album and quite frankly, I don’t understand it. I listened to it a lot, but to me it felt like background music. Stereogum readers picked it as their #1, Pitchfork readers' #2 while Britain’s Drowned In Sound put it at a deserved #45. That sounds about right, those folks across the pond are on to something, but the rest of that list is a joke. Like Cut Copy’s In Ghost Colors at #3? Really? In fact, the more I look at their list, the more I laugh...

…and regretfully, I have to say that Portishead’s album was also a mess.

What else was over-rated? (I’m only mad at these bands because they tricked me into downloading them, taking up valuable space on my already clogged hard drive): Times New Viking (worst production values ever, even John Darnielle has made better recordings on a Panasonic boombox), Fuck Buttons (with that name, I was hoping they’d be awesome, but alas; no dice), Gang Gang Dance (I really like “experimental” music, but I think the experiment was how to annoy the listener for 44 minutes), M83 (but only in England, no one cares about you over here) and Ra Ra Riot (ya ya no-way).

And for the 14^th year in a row: I have no idea what’s going on in mainstream music and couldn’t care less.

Upset with anything I may have said? Here’s your chance to fight back! Leave a comment and get the dialog ball rolling…

Don't Call It A Comeback...

I'm bringing it back.

Stay tuned...

Two Reviews For The Price Of None...

I get CDs to review in the mail now, so it's nice to know that someone's actually reading this blog. I'd like to thank the lovely folks over at Sneak Attack Media for finding this site and offering me free music, and in return I'm going to review whatever you guys send me. Hell, you took the time to put together press kits and all that, the least I can do is listen...

The Sword - Gods Of The Earth (Kemado Records; released April 1st, 2008)
This is some really heavy-ass metal. I've been listening to a lot of lo-fi stuff the last few weeks so when this happened to show up in the mail, I was like "holy shit, this is fucking heavy..." The only other metal band currently in existence that I listen to is Mastodon, and this is almost on par with that. Unless you count instrumental "metal" that I listen to (Pelican and Russian Circles). So I obviously don't know metal at all. Now the 80s shit, yeah, I have plenty of that (Maiden, Metallica, Priest, etc...) I even have some 90s stuff like Pantera, but I claim ignorance about today's metal.

In short- this is pretty good, it's easily accessible; think melodic, anthemic orchestrations over punishing drums with liberal dark china cymbal crashes. Maximum riffage without being scary. Because really heavy shit scares me; I know, I'm a pussy...

Maiden, Mother & Crone is my favorite track on here; imagine Black Sabbath and The Allman Brothers getting together over a crate of Jim Beam and a bag of the sticky-icky; it's that patented southern rock-meets-70s sludge sound all over this album. So it's no wonder that The Sword hails from Austin, TX, the most diverse music scene in these here United States.

Gods Of The Earth opens with The Sundering, starting with a nicely picked acoustic guitar arpeggio before slamming your face teeth-first into a curb, the pounding riffs are the boot to the back of your head assuring re-constructive surgery and many visits to your orthodontist. Then, as if it weren't enough- The Frost-Giant's Daughter's opening drums are enough to send the four horsemen of the apocalypse screaming away in retreat; again, this is some heavy-ass shit hearkening back to those early-80s metal bands I mentioned in the opening paragraph.

The all-encompassing term I'm looking for to describe the sub-genre of music would be Progressive Metal; it relies as much on its influences as it tries to usher itself forward into a world where metal has seen better days.

Heavy is as heavy does, and How Heavy This Axe does the most amount of damage in the shortest amount of time- it's a banger with the drums way up at the front of the mix. Fire Lances Of The Ancient Hyperzephyrians also blisters the shit out of the low-end area of the register, a rolling thunder of bass and muted power chords giving way to a meandering solo.

The White Sea is a seven-plus minute instrumental thrasher of a jam; the album's homage to Metallica's Kirk Hammett/James Hetfield Kill 'Em All era-style soloing/riffing prowess from The Sword's John D. Cronise and Kyle Shutt; resolving itself into almost a minute of feedback before the album's conclusion, a little untitled two-minute acoustic guitars and hand-drums outro.

Overall rating: 7.5 out of 10

Annuals - Wet Zoo EP (Canvasback Records; released April 1st, 2008)
Ah, the "split EP"; I miss these. Being billed as an Annuals project, it's actually three songs under their name and two from their "side-project" known as Sunfold. These youngins from Raleigh, NC construct a sunny and easy-to-listen-to brand of eclectic Americana, think early-70s AM pop-rock meeting the disciples of Wilco.

It's not a huge departure from their debut album Be He Me; eschewing the murky atmospherics and ambient touches in search of a more readily accessible sound (and possibly a request from their label's parent company, Sony; to become a more marketable retail entity.)

The opening track Sore is a gem of a ditty, both musically and lyrically it has a searching and longing tone to it. The chorus is at once rollicking and anthemic; and makes way for strings and a programmed drum pattern before delving back into the second verse.

But that's about it as far as greatness is concerned on this EP; the live song Around Your Neck is rushed through in under three minutes; lending its sound to an unfinished Shins track; maybe Annuals were hanging around the studio when James Mercer and Company were throwing out the "bad" tracks from Wincing The Night Away.

Just Stay In is a good song, not great; and I can't help to think they held back much better tracks from a forthcoming album in favor of a broader pastiche to more or less attract "everybody" into the world of Annuals.

Now the weirdness: Sunfold's two tracks. Um, this is kinda emo, dare I use that word, but I'm at a loss. This is the lead guitarist Kenny Florence's baby, and it falls somewhere between Coheed & Cambria and all that crap-rock you would hear on your local FM "modern rock" station.

I have to give Sunfold a failing grade here; it's both trite and whack, the opposite of Annuals' slightly above average grade. As for the opening three songs: 9/10, 3/10 and a 7/10; averaging out to a 6.3. Factor in Sunfold's two zeros; well, you're looking at a 3.8 overall. Ouch!

Stay tuned for more to come...

NEW Colin Meloy Solo Album...

I pre-ordered the Colin Meloy solo 2xLP Colin Meloy Songs Live! a few months ago. It was supposed to be shipped before or on the release date, April 8th (today). So I go to check my e-mail and there's something in there from The Decemberists' Shop explaining that there was a problem with the vinyl pressing something something just read it:

Colin Meloy Sings Vinyl

Decemberists Orders

show details 9:46 PM (2 hours ago)

Reply

Hello there!

You are being contacted because you purchased a copy of the Colin Meloy Sings Live Double LP scheduled for release on Tuesday April 8. We apologize that we have not yet been able to ship this to you because it is not back from the manufacturer. (If you've been a Decemberists fan for a while, you may be conditioned to this experience: the ins and outs of vinyl pressing are a little trickier to time than CD runs, and LPs have tended to lag behind.) You rest assured that your order from the Decemberists Shop will ensure you get your Double LP weeks before they are available in stores.

To thank you for your patience, Jealous Butcher Records has put up a streaming player page which allows you to log in with the email address you made your purchase with to listen to the album. Simply click this link:

http://jealousbutcher.com/CMSL/

We have been told to expect the finished LPs to arrive in late April. We will, of course, keep you updated on the matter.

Thanks for your understanding,

Corrina & Chad
Your Decemberists Shop Pals

Anyway, due to their little mistake, I'm going to let you listen to it, for free, streaming. Just go to that link and enter my e-mail address:

the.musicologist@gmail.com

Word. Don't ever say I don't love you...

Huge News!

The National is set to release a documentary DVD on May 20th entitled A Skin, A Night directed by Vincent Moon. It's basically a behind-the-scenes (or making-of) Boxer, which was 2007's Album Of The Year here at The Musicologists.

Here's a clip from Slow Show, showing the adding of the bass and piano parts to the song's click track.

Slow Show
by The_National

for more info, visit their website: The National