Best of 2009

It's the most wonderful time of the year.

Best of 2009, in no particular order:

Woods - Songs of Shame
Monsters of Folk - s/t
Telekinesis - Telekinesis!
Jarvis Cocker - Further Complications
Morrissey - Years of Refusal
The Pains of Being Pure at Heart - s/t
The Decemberists - The Hazards of Love
Phoenix - Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix
The Soundtrack of Our Lives - Communion
Faunts - Feel.Love.Thinking.Of

Honorable Mention:

Flight of the Conchords - I Told You I Was Freaky
The XX - xx
Regina Spektor - Far
Bishop Allen - Grrr...
Wilco - Wilco (The Album)
They Might Be Giants - Here Comes Science
Grizzly Bear - Veckatimest
Built To Spill - There Is No Enemy
Mt. St. Helens Vietnam Band - s/t
Real Estate - s/t

2010...
**new Spoon album - it's great!
**full-length from Brown Recluse! buy their EP now and get in on the ground floor!
**even more Susan Boyle! (just kidding!)
**as always, some bullshit i've never even heard of but will fall ass over feet in love with!

Album of the Decade: The Strokes - "Is This It"

The very notion of a hyped band means said group is unlikely to live up to that hype, and few bands in the last 10 years received more of it than the Strokes. Eight years after the release of Is This It, the buzz may have faded and the band may have splintered a bit, but the music remains as compelling as it was in the fall of 2001.

Perhaps no band since the Beatles has served as such a template for the way in which popular music was perceived throughout the rest of its decade. In the initial years after that first record, nearly every upstart group of bed-headed would-be garage rockers was positioned as Strokes disciples: The Hives? Swedish Strokes. The White Stripes? Bluesy, sibling Strokes. Kings of Leon? Southern Strokes. The Bravery? Synth Strokes. (And that's not even going into the untold numbers of blatant rip-off artists pilfering the New Yorkers' sound and style that have since been forgotten.) Sure, a lot of that was journalistic laziness, but the band still served as a critical template (and high-water mark) for the way much of the garage-influenced rock spewed forth circa 2001 - 2005 was perceived. Seemingly every new rock band came to be seen as either a vindication of the Strokes' back-to-basics style and/or a repudiation of the late '90s rap-metal jackassery that carried into the new decade.

If there's a prevailing mood on the disc, it's a mix of disenchantment, disengagement and old-fashioned just-don't-give-a-shit. None of that's a surprise considering the late '90s/early '00s culture that preceded the record's release - and the opening title track conveys that with its hazy chorus and middling pace. Hell, the disc opens with an exasperated "Can't you see I'm trying?" But, like their forbearers in the Velvet Underground, the Strokes set their fuzzed-out malaise to inescapable melodies and arrangements, like the radio-ready "Soma" or the bouncy, oldies-tinged "Someday," all while accompanied by guitar lines pulled from the Television playbook. By the time "Take It or Leave It" rolls around to close out the album - with frontman Julian Casablancas straining his vocal chords in hollering out the final chorus - you can almost feel the exasperation. It's tiresome business, after all, trying to give a damn - especially when you just don't have it in you. Still, a bad attitude rarely sounded so good.

It's been recently announced that not only will the Strokes start touring again in early 2010, but they may release a new record as well. At this point, nobody expects them to save rock 'n' roll - and, really, isn't rock 'n' roll the kind of thing that's beyond saving anyway? Would it be any fun if anybody actually did? - but at least they'll still be around to show the next anointed savior just how it's done.

(Originally posted to Spectrum Culture, 12/14/09)

Review: Paul McCartney - "Good Evening New York City"

Regardless of your budget, Paul McCartney seems determined to stuff himself in your stocking one way or another this holiday season, either by way of The Beatles: Rock Band (which will set you back about $50), Fab Four reissues (running about $18 each) or Good Evening New York City, a two-CD/one-DVD set averaging $15.

Showcasing McCartney's opening shows at New York's Citi Field, Good Evening is pretty much what you'd expect; a lengthy greatest-hits retrospective chock-full of a whole lot o' Beatles (more than half of the entire set and the entire second disc). The whole affair is billed as historic, what with the Beatles' epic '60s Shea Stadium performance, and there's certainly merriment here to mark the occasion, but one has to wonder how much this varies from any other McCartney show - does he not put out nearly three hours of classics at any other show?

In spite of its virtues, it's by no means a perfect set, in part because McCartney's voice isn't near what it used to be and has a strained quality for much of the recording. Some Beatles tracks - in particular, showstoppers like "Hey Jude" and "Get Back" come off strong, whereas many songs suffer from overly beefed-up arrangements. Just because of the way four decades wear on and tear at vocal chords, much of the more recent material comes across better, almost to the point where it'd be nice to get more Wings and recent solo material. Ironically, the records he's ostensibly promoting - 2005's Chaos and Creation in the Backyard and 2007's weaker Memory Almost Full - get little more than a cursory glance. Then again, who goes to a McCartney show to hear new songs?

In addition to three fully-loaded discs, the package also comes with notes by veteran music scribe Michael Azerrad (Our Band Could Be Your Life). All told, it's a solid set and certainly a value, considering the low asking price. And if you can't afford to give McCartney concert tickets - and, in this economy, who can? - then this is at least a decent substitute.

(Originally posted to Spectrum Culture 12/14/09)

Review: "The Essential 'Weird Al' Yankovic"

If you’re inclined to look down on the concept of “essential” “Weird Al,” don’t.

In a career spanning nearly 30 years, Weird Al has surpassed the Dr. Demento show that spawned him as a cultural institution; survived and thrived while the artists he’s parodied have faded to obscurity; stayed consistently funny while SNL continues to tank; and become a modern musical icon to rival just about any other of his time, so widely recognized that even your mom knows who he is.

So why not an Essential collection, then?

The two-disc set – selected entirely by the man himself – comprises 38 tracks from across Weird Al’s career, wisely splitting the difference between straight-up parodies (“Another One Rides The Bus,” “Fat,” “Canadian Idiot” and more) and originals and style-parodies. It’s a smart move, since two discs of non-stop parodies would quickly grow stale. The chronological sequencing also gives a fairly nice overview of the past 30 years of popular music (filtered through Al’s distinct sensibility, of course).

There’s certainly some notable omissions here, but mostly on the early end of his career – it’s disappointing not to see “Ricky” (originally Toni Basil’s “Hey Mickey”) and slasher movie tribute “Nature Trail To Hell” left off, while tracks like “Bedrock Anthem” (originally the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ “Give It Away”) and “The Saga Begins” (Star Wars, to the tune of Don McLean’s “American Pie”) made the cut.

Among the standouts, however is “Don’t Download This Song,” a “We Are The World”-style screed against filesharing that serves as essential listening for anyone who thought Weird Al may have jumped the shark. Nice to see that three decades into his career he hasn’t much changed the formula. Then again, there’s little need to reinvent yourself when mocking the changes in popular music is your job description.

(Originally posted to Under The Radar 12/8/09)

Review: Chuck Klosterman - "Eating The Dinosaur"

After a collection of previously-published essays and taking an ill-advised stab at fiction, Chuck Klosterman’s latest offering gets back to what he does best, but it all feels a little too familiar.

In Eating The Dinosaur, Klosterman once again takes the position of all-encompassing cultural commentator, riffing on Abba, Garth Brooks, Kurt Cobain and David Koresh, time travel and more. Composed of a collection of un-related essays, Dinosaur ostensibly replicates 2002’s Sex Drugs & Cocoa Puffs, inexplicably Klosterman’s best-selling title to date (as he himself admitted in a 2008 Borders.com interview). If the book is “about” anything at all, it’s a dual treatise on the nature of authenticity and the way we as a society make meaning out of shared media experiences.

The problem, among others, is that Klosterman is at his best when sticking to one subject and following that thread throughout a book, as he did with hair metal in Fargo Rock City and dead rock stars in Killing Yourself To Live.

Despite some successful moments – particularly essays on time travel and Garth Brooks, respectively – the book unsuccessfully tackles some pet projects rather than sticking with what’s tried and true: the introductory essay on the nature of interviewing falls flat and belabors its point, and the author twice delves deep into sports – a topic he admits much of his readership doesn’t give a shit about.

There’s enough winning moments here to make it worth a read, but at this point Klosterman is enough of a known quantity that he can do just about whatever he wants (see: Downtown Owl) and his fans will still buy it.

(Also posted to Under The Radar, 12/7/09)

Revew: Julian Casablancas - "Phrazes for the Young"

At first glance The Strokes and KISS wouldn't seem to have much in common, but as The Strokes continue to not release Strokes albums and instead put out solo and side projects, they become less and less the sum of their parts—much like that time each KISS member released his own solo record. And, like the KISS solo efforts, each subsequent Stroke's record is less and less interesting than the one that came before, to say nothing of their output as an actual band.

More than three years since the last Strokes LP and the best that Julian Casablancas could come up with was these 8 songs? What sticks with you about Phrazes for the Young isn't that it's finally The Strokes solo project you've actually been waiting for, but just how disappointing and disposable the vast majority of it is. Granted, there are some fine melodic moments on tracks such as "Out of the Blue," and "11th Dimension" is easily the best '80s jam of 2009; but by and large the songwriting is weak and Casablancas comes off as uninspired. In lieu of a Strokes record, you get this instead.

Whereas the members of KISS had distinctive personalities (or at least recognizable make-up personas), their solo efforts were largely unimaginative KISS re-hashes that suffered from a) not being actual KISS albums and b) canonizing songs that ordinarily probably would've ended up on the cutting room floor. Likewise, the solo Strokes are less the sum of their parts; contrary to what was promulgated five years ago, the band is essentially interchangeable, with its members having little to say of musical merit when left to their own devices. The only real big surprises on all non-Stroke releases has been that Albert Hammond, Jr. is a surprisingly credible popsmith and Casablancas fetishizes synthesizers a lot more than you'd expect.

It's not all awful, and it's certainly not Gene Simmons doing "When You Wish Upon A Star," but it sure ain't the Strokes, either.

(Originally posted 11/17/09 @ Under The Radar)

Review: Wolfmother - "Cosmic Egg"

Part of what made Wolfmother's 2005 debut stand out was that the band wasn't afraid to embrace stupidity with a straight face. Here was a group of dudes that grabbed onto some of the most ridiculous aspects of psychedelic hard rock and held them close - fantastical cover art, druggy influences, blistering riffs, a Plant-esque howl and nonsensical lyrics: "She's a woman, you know what I mean/ You better listen, listen to me/ She's gonna set you free."

Did it make sense? No. Was it probably about fucking? Yes. Did you love it? Of course you did! It was the perfect soundtrack to turn up loud and stomp around your apartment like a Neanderthal while nobody's home.

Four years later, the trio is now a quartet (with bandleader Andrew Stockdale the sole original member) and while many of the same elements that made Wolfmother a success are here, overall the album doesn't quite add up. Stockdale's songwriting isn't up to the level of their debut (and he wasn't exactly crafting poetry there) and many of the riffs are weaker this time out, making it more difficult to divert the listener's attention from cliché-ridden lyrics.

Despite some high points, there's more than a few misguided attempts to broaden their sound, most notably the gratuitous power ballad "Far Away" ("I believe that love is gonna last forever/ And it's all within my mind") and "In The Morning," which begins like bad Oasis before building to a guitar-soaked conclusion. Neither achieves their transcendent aims (though of the two "Far Away" comes closer) and they're an ill-advised step away from what Stockdale does best.

For sure, Cosmic Egg has its memorable moments: the simple "New Moon," propulsive opener "California Queen" and "Phoenix," initially driven forward by a throbbing bassline until coming to fruition while Stockdale yelps about phoenixes rising and giving way to an extended guitar solo.

It seems unfair to criticize an album for not being stupid enough, but that's the case here. The primordial trudge and explosive riffs still make appearances, but they're largely undercut by attempts at musical growth - something it initially seemed Wolfmother rejected the very idea of.

(Originally posted 11/18/09 @ Spectrum Culture)