Friday Night Post

I came home just a few minutes ago (it is now midnight exactly) and Synecdoche, NY is still messing with my head quite royally. I recommended it, for the sheer fact that you might not like it*, and I think this country needs to experience more things that we don't like.

But that has nothing to do with music whatsoever. Here's something you might not like:



Have a fun weekend getting either the audio OR the visual out of your head!

*I like it... in hindsight.

Are You a *Sniff Sniff* Socialist?

Only a few days in, and I already broke my New Year's Resolution, but I have a good reason! I swear! I was under the weather, so I went to bed early.

While on my daily run, though, I got to listening to the bonus disc to Pulp's This Is Hardcore and remembered the brilliant lunacy that is "Cocaine Socialism." By the time the album was finished, the song had become "Glory Days" and switched its gloomy pessimism for a lest genuine-sounding optimism. It also lots some backup singers, horns and excess that just sounds right in hindsight. In the liner notes, the lead singer (Jarvis Cocker) explains his mindset when making this album, and it unsurprisingly is filled with betrayal, self-loathing, sex drugs and politics - the last of which seemed to toss him over the edge a bit.

The entire bonus disc is filled with lesser gems, from the non-LP single "Like a Friend," a personal favorite, to "It's a Dirty World," whose understated production seems as unseemly as the story it tells.

Different Class is Pulp's masterpiece, but I always find This Is Hardcore to be much more fascinating, as its themes seem much more psychological and internal. The sex in the title track and non-LP song "The Professional" are so perverse they sound like they're dripping with blood. Yet the last three songs on the album wind up being hyper-optimistic, like they have to mask the darkness that preceded it. The majority of the album comes off with the despair and loathing of a film noir, which makes the positivity of the ending unconvincing. Luckily, the reissued Deluxe Edition does an excellent job showing some of the early versions and discarded song, making the light at the end of the tunnel into a light at the middle of the tunnel.

I leave you with the video for "This Is Hardcore," which echoes my film noir sentiments.

This Is Hardcore:


AND Because I missed last night's post, here's another Britpop-related treat, courtesy of my friend Dennis:

I Ain't No Joke

This post is dedicated to Eric B. & Rakim. Not because either have done anything to get them in the news lately, but because I put Paid in Full in a little while back and was like "Holy shit! It's almost a dozen years since this came out and "I Ain't No Joke" just completely embarrassed my emcee skills!" And no, I have never even tried to seriously rap, but such is the power of Eric B's DJ and Rakim's nimble yet relaxed flow.



I ain't no joke, I used to let the mike smoke/now I slam it when I'm done and make sure it's broke.

No foolin'.

Seriously... There are few albums I go back to when I want to hear some incredible rhyming skills, and some straight hip-hop (not to be confused with the antithesis of out hip-hop, credit to the always Wayne's World "I am not worthy!"-worthy Jeff Weiss for that piece in yesterday's LA Times). Not a single chorus on this album... just rhymes falling on top of rhymes and the dawning realization that 99% of the flows I've ever heard just got destroyed.

Enjoy this piece of awe-stricken fanboyism, by the way. Thanks to Amazon selling the soundtrack to Notorious for 3.99 (HOLY F#$*IN' S$&T!!! THAT'S A GREAT PRICE!), I've gotten swept up in the hype for Notorious and will more than likely be commenting on it by Friday.

EDIT: Just realized that I accidentally bought the CLEAN version of the Notorious soundtrack. D'oh unto me!

Brighter Blights..

Today while I at work, I snapped out of listening to nothing but music from 2008 (as I have been doing since probably Christmas week - listen, those 100 or so albums take a lot of time to finish when you have to do things like work and celebrate with friends and family). Scrolling through my iPod, I settled on listening to Chaos and Disorder by Prince and continued on with my day.

Chaos and Disorder may potentially be the most underrated album in Prince's catalogue. It was released as he had changed his name, as a way of getting out of his contract with Warner Bros. blah blah blah... It's got some great guitar sounds on it. I would go so far to say it might be his most guitar-centric album, second to Purple Rain. Yeah, the songs aren't as strong, but they also don't try to hard, either. Prince's discography is filled with tons of ambitious albums - or, at least, albums that were driven to prove something. Chaos and Disorder is one of the rare glimpses into what the man does when he's just making filler. Some standout songs that have been forgotten by his subsequent weirdness include: "I Rock, Therefore I Am," "I Like It There" and the title track.

Next on my playlist, I gave Bob Dylan's Knocked Out Loaded a shot. I actually just had a conversation with a friend saying not to get involved with Dylan's 80s output until he's gotten just about everything else (this from someone who thinks the deluxe version of Tell Tale Signs: The Bootleg Series, Vol. 8 was worth the $120 price tag). I say this, though I have to admit I haven't listened to Knocked Out Loaded or Saved more than a couple times. That said, giving this one another chance, it is fair to say it is one of the more underwhelming entries in Dylan's recorded output.

However, it's notable that I like this one a bit better than its predecessor (Empire Burlesque, long my least favorite Dylan album until I happened upon Saved). It still doesn't strike me as memorable, but "You Wanna Ramble" and "They Killed Him" are unmemorable but pleasant. "Brownsville Girl," an 11-minute epic, is generally considered the "hidden gem" of this album, and after listening to it here and a few other places (the box set Dylan, namely), it finally feels like it deserves the designation. That might also because it's so long and there are so many lyrics that some of them are bound to be insightful/poetic/etc.

My point in this post? Dig in those crates and give another shot to the albums you didn't like the first time around (not that I ever disliked Chaos and Disorder) - you never know what gems you'll find.

I couldn't find any YouTube clips of either Prince circa-Chaos and Disorder, or Dylan circa Knocked Out Loaded (there's a surreal video of "Brownsville Girl" out there, though, that seems to meld stock footage with Tina Turner's "What's Love Got to Do with It?" video), so I leave you with this video of Dylan on Letterman in 1984, doing "License to Kill."

Mx4's Top 50 Albums of the Year

Firstly (perhaps finally?) I present to you, my top 50 albums of 2008... in alphabetical order... BY ARTIST!!!

 

(pausing for the oohs and aahs)

 

1. Adele - 19
2. Black Milk - Tronic
3. British Sea Power - Do You Like Rock Music?
4. The Bug - London Zoo
5. Butch Walker - Sycamore Meadows
6. Cut Copy - In Ghost Colours
7. Death Cab for Cutie - Narrow Stairs
8. Drive-By Truckers - Brighter than Creation's Dark
9. Elzhi - The Preface/Europass
10. eMC - The Show
11. Erykah Badu - New Amerykah Pt. 1: Third World War
12. Estelle - Shine
13. Fall Out Boy - Folie a Deux
14. The Fireman - Electric Arguments
15. Firewater - The Golden Hour
16. The Felice Brothers - The Felice Brothers
17. Foxboto Hot Tubs - Stop Drop and Roll!!!!
18. Guns N Roses - Chinese Democracy
19. Hercules and Love Affair - Hercules and Love Affair
20. The Hold Steady - Stay Positive
21. Jazmine Sullivan
22. Jenny Lewis - Acid Tongue  
23. Kanye West - 808s and Heartbreak
24. The Knux - Remind Me in 3 Days...
25. The Kills - Midnight Boom
26. Koushik - Out my Window
27. Lil Wayne - The Drought is Over Pt. 6: The Reincarnation
28. Los Campesinos! - Hold On Now, Youngster
29. Love Is All - A Hundred Things Keep Me Up at Night
30. Nas - The Nigger Mixtape
31. Neon Neon - Stainless Style
32. Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds - Dig!!! Lazarus Dig!!!
33. Nine Inch Nails - The Slip
34. No Age - Nouns
35. Old 97's - Blame It on Gravity
36. Pink - Funhouse
37. Portishead - Third
38. Q-Tip - The Rennaisance
39. Quiet Village - Silent Movie
40. Raphael Saadiq - The Way I See It
41. Santogold - Santogold
42. Shugo Tokumaru
43. The Silver Jews - Look Out Mountain, Look Out Sea
44. Times New Viking - Rip It Off
45. TV on the Radio - Dear Science
46. The Very Best - The Very Best Mixtape
47. Wale - The Mixtape About Nothing
48. Weezer - Weezer
49. Why? - Alopecia
50. Wolf Parade - At Mount Zoomer

In total in 2008, I purchased (or downloaded, in the case of a lot of mixtapes) something over 100 albums (iTunes says 122, but it includes both discs of some albums, some reissues and the occasional career-spanning boxed set, which I don't count). This was an interesting year - the album is dying, slowly and painfully. People aren't buying them (except me). Record stores are slowly going the way of the dinosaur and record companies the way of Lemmings when I play that game on the SNES (hint: I suck at it).

 

If anything, the state of the music industry has given artists chances to experiment with promotion and distribution.

Lil Wayne and Nine Inch Nails were the most successful (and in Wayne's case, ubiquitous) at this, as both promoted themselves in the form of free music (seriously - raise your hand if you actually bought one of Weezy's mixtapes). It's these models and streaming albums before the street date on MySpace that might be seen more in the future.

 

But enough about the business end of things -- if I were about business, Tha Carter III would be on my list. Here's some music I think deserves a highlight:

 

Butch Walker - Sycamore Meadows

I've said my piece about this one before, but I think I should take the time to say that it's my favorite album of 2008. The critics at Slate.com treat 2008 as a mediocre year in music, and I almost agree with them. Like I said, this is my favorite album of the year, which is not to be confused with my choice for the best. It hits some higher points than most other releases this year ("ATL," "The Weight of Her," "Ponce de Leon Ave"), to the point that its one bum track ("Song for the Metalheads") is forgiveable.

 

Song for the Metalheads

This might become an extended rant sometime in the future, but I was on RollingStone's news blog and noticed a lot of people bemoaning that they cover - gasp! - pop music and things other than "rock." One person wrote that they should put Pearl Jam, the Foo Fighters and the White Stripes on the cover (as though none of those artists have had any covers on the mag). Granted, their current cover story (a fictional, satirical interview with George W. Bush) is probably something that they should leave to The Onion, but the fact is "rock" as it was defined in the 90s is just about dead. Music moves on, and 2008 is no exception. Looking at my list, I don't think any of the rock albums there would play nice with the Pearl Jam crowd, except maybe No Age or Times New Viking. Maybe Portishead, since they're contemporaries... Maybe Guns N' Roses.

 

Weezer toured with the Foo Fighters once, but everyone thinks Weezer sucks*.

 

As though to prove this, no one gave a damn about Chinese Democracy. If it wasn't made in the 90s or by Jack White, I guess it sucks in the public conscience.

 

Weezer and the Art of a Helluva Pop Song

I will never fault Rivers Cuomo for not writing another Pinkerton. Why? Because people usually move on. Lennon only wrote one John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band, Dylan only has one Blood on the Tracks. Another Pinkerton or blue album from Weezer might sound like an All-American Rejects album. So Weezer has been doing the right thing for their entire career trajectory, pumping out killer single after killer single and solid, if not all-time classic, albums to go with them. Seriously -- does anyone realize how great a singles collection by Weezer would sound? How well-crafted and deceptively simple (yet skillfully nuanced) the latter-day singles would sound? Especially when put up against the singles from the first two albums?

But Weezer aren't the only band I would credit for having great pop sense: Green Day-- err, I mean, Foxboro Hot Tubs-- have also been told to cut the pop shit out when the topic came up on Digg. Yet their past two projects? A challenging rock opera about the post-9/11 America featuring 9-minute suites and obliquely political lyrics and an homage to garage rock. Indeed, there is nothing more pop than that. What exactly makes "Longview" less pop than "American Idiot?" Because it's about masturbation? I sigh at post-1980s rock more than anything.

 

Meanwhile, in the same corner, Los Campesinos! and Love Is All released three albums between them that probably could've held their own against Weezer (the blue one) or Dookie on any day in 1994. Love Is All reminded me of some old Stiff Records sides -- goddammit it's good to be alive!

 

2008: The Bippinest' n' the Boppinest'?

I will admit, firstly, that Lil Wayne's The Drought is Over Pt. 6: The Reincarnation is not by itself one of the top 50 albums of the year, but I felt that I have to acknowledge the awesomeness of the continued existence and success of Weezy. Also, it has the best album cover of the year.

Yeah, sure, no albums/mixtapes he does are particularly consistent, but this, Tha Carter III and The Dedication 3 all had killer tracks: when the man is on, he is ON. Yes, he has a penchant for embarrassingly lame lyrics occasionally, but over all, he's probably the poster boy for how music might get distributed or recognized in the future. It's not the albums that matter, it's individual songs. 

Remember: even if you're ankle-deep in shit and knee-deep in cold water, you can still be shoulder-deep in ice cream sundae and have your head encased in a pizza with your favorite toppings.

 

At least, that's how I feel about Wayne's output.

 

But hip hop had a great year, with Kanye (arguably - and I argue "hell yes" and rest my case) putting out a helluva breakup/conceptual album and The Knux releasing an amazing debut. Q-tip came out of the wilderness. Black Milk and Elzhi between them have 3 awesome albums (I counted Europass and The Preface as one because a lot of songs overlap). eMC is the best supergroup since the Wu... The Show is both hilarious and moving and thought-provoking. It's possibly my favorite hip hop album of the year. Finally, Wale's The Mixtape About Nothing is probably the best use of Seinfeld since syndication.

And men weren't the only ones kicking ass! Estelle's Shine, Jazmine Sullivan's Fearless and especially Erykah Badu's New Amerykah Part 1: Third World War were absolutely spectacular. I especially love Sullivan's Motown-throwback sound that still comes on as hard as any rap music released in the past decade. New Amerykah is something else, though, an absolutely amazing piece of work that is at once foreboding, fearful yes resilient and strong.

New Year's Resolution: Post more often. Ideally, once a day at minimum.

And now I kick off the new year with a video by Shugo Tokumaru:

*Everyone. Is. Wrong.