The Year in Music

Musically, 2013 was an interesting year. Some strong albums from older, more established artists (David Bowie, Daft Punk, Johnny Marr) coupled with a decided 80's influence in the sound of a lot of younger bands (Ducktails, High Highs, Savages) made me wonder if I was listening to new releases from 2013 or 1988. Not a bad thing.

A few things that went into consideration when I put together this list: Hip-hop makes up a very small percentage of what I listen to (Deltron 3030 being the only representative here), so while I'm sure Kanye/Drake/Danny Brown/M.I.A./Eminem/whoever made some amazing music, they won't be on my list. Neither will Robin Thicke, Miley Cyrus, or anybody not wearing robot helmets who played the VMA’s. There were also quite a few albums from names I would usually jump on, but for whatever reason, I just didn't spend enough time with their new stuff for them to be part of the list (you'll find them at the end of the post). Finally, outside of Tegan and Sara, Ducktails, and Kurt Vile, there were no obvious standouts for me this year, so rather than try to rank a lot of albums that were all equally interesting, I went with quantity: What follows are the 20 albums released in 2013 that I listened to the most. In these days of being able to listen to whatever I want whenever I want, if an album pulls me back for multiple listens, it makes my list for the year. Here's what I've had in heavy rotation for the past 11+ months:

Tegan and Sara, Heartthrob
My hands-down album of the year, as evidenced by more than double the listens of anything else on the list. Tegan and Sara albums have always been a little hit-or-miss for me, but the production makes Heartthrob their strongest one to date. It was a surprise to discover that the emotionally heavy lyrics one expects from Tegan and Sara benefit greatly from being wrapped in danceable, synth-heavy, new-wave hooks that veer well into sugary pop territory. Some of their fans are calling this their sellout record, but for me, it only added another dimension to their music, one that made it a lot more fun to listen to.

David Bowie, The Next Day

Superchunk, I Hate Music

Ducktails, The Flower Lane

Daft Punk, Random Access Memories

Kurt Vile, Wakin on a Pretty Daze

Deltron 3030, Event 2

High Highs, Open Season

Johnny Marr, The Messenger

Arctic Monkeys, AM

Volcano Choir, Repave

Har Mar Superstar, Bye Bye 17

Caitlin Rose, The Stand-in

The Thermals, Desperate Ground

The Mary Onettes, Hit the Waves

Savages, Silence Yourself

Arcade Fire, Reflektor

White Denim, Corsicana Lemonade

Dawes, Stories Don’t End

Mount Moriah, Miracle Temple

If you're on Spotify (and if not, do it), listen to all of these albums for yourself:


Also, here's 20 more albums from this year that I enjoyed:
Local Natives, Hummingbird; Kate Nash, Girl Talk; Chris Thile, Bach: Sonatas and Partitas, Vol. 1; Camper Van Beethoven, La Costa Perdida; Mogwai, Les Revenants; Yo La Tengo, Fade; Dinosaur Jr., I Bet on Sky; Shearwater, Fellow Travelers; Night Beds, Country Sleep; The Men, New Moon; Jimi Hendrix, People, Hell and Angels; Marques Tolliver, Land of Canaan; King Khan & the Shrines, Idle No More; Toad the Wet Sprocket, New Constellation; Julianna Barwick, Nepenthe; The Joy Formidable, Wolf’s Law; Josh Rouse, The Happiness Waltz; Foxygen, We Are the 21st Century Ambassadors of Peace & Magic; The Deep Dark Woods, Jubilee; Deerhunter, Monomania

And finally, the albums that for whatever reason, I haven't spent enough time with to have an opinion on them yet. If you know who I usually listen to, you'll recognize a lot of names here:
Andrew Bird, I Want to See Pulaski at Night; Jason Isbell, Southeastern; Kings of Leon, Mechanical Bull; Janelle Monae, The Electric Lady; Sigur Ros, Kveikur; Forest Swords, Engravings; Yuck, Glow and Behold; The National, Trouble Will Find Me; Vampire Weekend, Modern Vampires of the City; Steve Earle & The Dukes, The Low Highway

Recently

Another mix of stuff I've been listening to lately:

1. That’s All Right (Mama)… The Beatles
2. If Time Permits… Matthew Sweet
3. Soda Jerk… Buffalo Tom
4. Life On Mars?… David Bowie
5. Something In You… The Orange Peels
6. Just Blue… The Weepies
7. No Sunlight… Death Cab for Cutie
8. Constructive Summer… The Hold Steady
9. The Beauty of Gray… Live
10. 4:35 A.M… Gemma Hayes
11. Sit and Wonder… The Verve
12. Starman… David Bowie
13. Spreadin’ Rhythm Around [Lady Bug vs. Lady Day RR Remix]… Billie Holiday
14. My Revenge… Julie Ocean
15. Sequestered In Memphis… The Hold Steady
16. Remnants… My Morning Jacket
17. Took My Lady To Dinner… King Khan And The Shrines
18. Spiral Staircase… Kings Of Leon

Fall Music Preview

Lots of potentially great new music coming out this fall. Here’s a list of what I’m looking forward to (I’ll continue to update as I find more info):

8.19
The Verve, Forth
The reunited Manchester outfit’s first album since 1997’s Urban Hymns. They’ve been playing new songs on tour this summer, and early buzz is good. Even if Forth is only half the record Hymns is, that would still make it a quality reunion album.

8.26
Matthew Sweet, Sunshine Lies
I’ve heard a couple tracks on his MySpace page, and I can’t tell if they're rough mixes, or if his production is that raw. His last few albums have been hit or miss for me, so I’m hoping this one will be more along the lines of In Reverse or Kimi Ga Suki, and not another Living Things.

9.12
[UPDATE] Metallica, Death Magnetic
I can’t decide about this one. It’s hard for me to get excited about a new Metallica album since their last few have sucked so hard, but the word is that they’ve returned to their roots for this one, tapping into some ...And Justice For All-type riffs. That sounds good... after all, Justice is the album that made me love these guys in the first place, but then again, it’s hard to forget how bad St. Anger was. I think I’ll give this one a listen before I drop any cash on it.

9.23
Kings of Leon, Only By the Night
Their last one, Because of the Times, was such an amazing leap forward, I’m interested to see if this is more of the same, or if these four Southern boys keep pushing their sound.
[UPDATE] If the first single (now playing on their MySpace page) is indicative of the whole album, I’d say they haven’t strayed too far from Because of the Times. I’m good with that.

Mogwai, The Hawk is Howling
Same here. I liked Mr. Beast a lot, and Mogwai’s the type of band that sticks with what works. Fine by me.

9.30
Ben Folds, Way to Normal
On the other hand, we have Ben Folds, coming off the underwhelming Songs For Silverman. I’m hoping he can get back to the fun of Rockin’ the Suburbs on this one.

10.07
Margot and the Nuclear So & Sos, Animal! & Not Animal! (2 separate releases)
No idea what to expect here, although I do know the excellent “Broad Ripple is Burning” will be on one of these.

Oasis, Dig Out Your Soul
It might suck, but I’ll still play the shit out of it. Easily worth it for the two or three Noel-sung songs that are sure to appear, like [UPDATE] the newly-released “Falling Down”. I'll buy it on the strength of that song alone.

11.18
U2, No Line on the Horizon
Early word is that U2 are “very, very pleased” with this one. Bono is happy, and just in time for the holidays. Looks like we’re in for 7 years of peace and prosperity the world over.

(Most of these dates come from Metacritic.com)

Good to Be Kings

One of the first things I did after I bought my new TV and added the HD channels to my cable package was to set my DVR to record Austin City Limits. ACL has always had this legendary reputation, but it’s always been sort of a mystery to me. Despite the fact that some of my favorite artists have done incredible shows, I never remembered to watch it unless I happened to pass an episode while flipping channels. But thanks to my DVR, now I can see every new episode, and this season has definitely been worth it. For many years, ACL focused mainly on country and blues, giving the nod to local Austin acts whenever possible. But recently, they’ve begun to change their focus, booking younger and hipper indie bands. So far this year, I’ve seen sets from Wilco, Arcade Fire, Bloc Party, Explosions in the Sky, Paolo Nutini, and Ghostland Observatory. But the best so far was the band pictured above, Kings of Leon, who in just a few songs reminded me what an amazing live band they are.

I’ve seen the Kings live twice—a couple of years ago in Indianapolis at a small club, and last summer here at Red Rocks as part of the Monolith Festival—and both times, they’ve been fantastic. The Kings are pretty unassuming onstage. They don’t go for a lot a lot of banter or big fancy light shows; they just get up and play their songs (and play them well). Their music is a perfect blend of indie and Southern rock (think the Strokes meet Skynyrd), and it lends itself very well to a live show. When I saw them in Indy, they were there because they had a night off from a 3-night stint opening for U2 in Chicago and wanted to play somewhere that wasn’t a cavernous arena. They had the crowd of 500 rocking, and they sounded great, but I’m willing to bet their music sounded just as good in the United Center. It certainly sounded good at Red Rocks, where in my opinion, they were the highlight of the festival. If you’ve never heard their stuff, their ACL performance is a great place to start. PBS tends to rerun episodes fairly frequently, so check your local listings... or just set your DVR.

Other stuff I’ve been into lately:
There Will Be Blood. I had some issues with the story itself (I thought it was a little choppy and unfocused), but the combo of Daniel Day-Lewis and the score by Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood made this movie an incredibly intense experience.

Lost: Season 3. This season seemed a lot better when taken in a just couple of chunks, rather than spread out over seven months. I’m definitely looking forward to the new episodes, even if we’re only getting 8 of them.

GarageBand. I’m not a DJ, but I play one at home.

Salem’s Lot, Stephen King. The first time I read this book, I was 13 years old and it scared me so bad, I wouldn’t go down in the basement by myself for a month afterwards. It wasn’t quite as scary this time, but then again, I don’t live in a big house in the woods anymore with the wind blowing tree branches against my window all night. Even so, it’s still a terrific read, and it made me remember why I got so into King in the first place.

In Rainbows, Radiohead. Still amazing every time I listen to it. I’m just as excited by it as I was when I wrote this.

Wrapping Up

As I’ve been sitting at my computer finishing up my Christmas shopping, I set up a playlist in iTunes for all the albums I own from this past year, and what I’ve discovered in retrospect is this: As musical years go, this one didn’t blow me away. I saw a lot of great live shows*, but as for album releases, meh. I’ve been looking over other folks’ year-end lists, which range from the tragically hip to the simply tragic, but barring one album, there’s nothing that screams “classic”. That said, I didn’t have much trouble coming up with a top ten for ’07. Here’s 2 through 10 in no particular order:

Wilco, Sky Blue Sky

Modest Mouse, We Were Dead Before The Ship Even Sank

The Shins, Wincing The Night Away

Bloc Party, A Weekend in the City

Aesop Rock, None Shall Pass

Andrew Bird, Armchair Apocrypha

Galactic, From the Corner To The Block

The National, Boxer

Kings of Leon, Because of the Times

And the easiest decision? The hands-down, no-contest, numero uno? I’m probably one of the few people who paid for it, and it’s been worth every penny.

Radiohead, In Rainbows

A few more Honorable Mentions:

Cabin, I Was Here EP
Ted Leo & Pharmacists, Living With The Living
Neil Young, Chrome Dreams II
Band of Horses, Cease to Begin
Dinosaur Jr., Beyond
Elliott Smith, New Moon

*Of all the shows I saw this year, Neil Young was my favorite, simply because I had waited so long to see him and it was still an amazing show. Bloc Party and Wilco were also highlights. What follows is an in-order list of every artist I saw live in 2007: Elvis Perkins > My Morning Jacket > Béla Fleck & the Flecktones > Adem > Badly Drawn Boy > The Noisettes > Bloc Party > Hot Hot Heat > Snow Patrol > Rush > Wilco > Everything Absent Or Distorted > The Broken West > Reverend Peyton’s Big Damn Band > Clap Your Hands Say Yeah > Das EFX > Kings of Leon > Editors > The Decemberists, > Black Rebel Motorcycle Club > Cake > Nina Storey > Little Ones > Meese > Margot & The Nuclear So and So’s > Ian Ball > Lords of the Underground > Art Brut > Spoon > The Flaming Lips > The Awkward Stage > Lavender Diamond > The New Pornographers > Crown City Rockers > Blackalicious, > Pegi Young > Neil Young > Jason Collett > Feist. Whew.

Standing on the Mountainside

I spent the past two days at Red Rocks taking in the inaugural Monolith Festival, and other than some sore legs, I’d call it a rousing success. The festival had five stages (the main Red Rocks stage plus four smaller areas), and over the course of two days, I saw 19 bands. Having been to a few festivals in my time, I was pretty impressed with the efficient timetable by which the bands’ sets were staggered (and the fact that everyone basically stuck to it), especially since this was the organizers’ first shot at this. Over the two days, I caught bits and pieces of a lot of performances, but here’s who I stayed to watch play more than one song:

FRIDAY
Everything Absent or Distorted
The Broken West
Reverend Peyton’s Big Damn Band
Clap Your Hands Say Yeah
Das EFX
Kings of Leon
Editors
The Decemberists
Black Rebel Motorcycle Club
Cake

SATURDAY
Nina Storey
The Little Ones
Meese
Margot & the Nuclear So and So’s
Ian Ball (of Gomez)
Lords of the Underground
Art Brut
Spoon
The Flaming Lips

Whew. When I look at that list, it’s no wonder I’ve been so looking forward to chilling on the couch today.

After hearing so much about them, I was really looking forward to seeing the Lips, and they didn’t disappoint. They put on a great show (although I could have done with a little less speechifying from Wayne Coyne) with smoke, lasers, confetti, streamers, and dancing aliens and Santa Clauses, and were a great way to end the two days. Kings of Leon were definitely the highlight for me, but I was impressed by The Broken West and Ian Ball (who did some great covers and solo versions of Gomez songs), really happy to finally get to see Margot & TNSAS, and had my interest piqued enough that I’ll try to see Editors and BRMC in a different setting. It was also very cool to discover some great Denver-area bands (Everything Absent..., Meese, Cat-A-Tac, Nina Storey)—there’s a pretty solid music scene developing out here. Overall, this was a great festival experience, and hopefully, next year’s will be just as good. Parking was a breeze, it was easy to move between stages (as long as you don’t mind climbing stairs... lots of them), the food and merch was fairly reasonably priced (although they could use some more variety in the food department next year), the lineup of artists was solid, and of course the setting couldn’t be more amazing. I’m already looking forward to seeing next year’s announcement.

As a side note, I was really pleased to see woxy.com as a sponsor of Monolith. As I’ve said before, WOXY was the local college radio station in Oxford, OH (where I went to school) for many years, and turned me on to a lot of the music I still love today. Through a series of strange events, WOXY was forced to go internet-only, and has twice been snatched from the jaws of bankruptcy. I talked to one of their DJ’s, Shiv, about the happy fact that they’re still in business, and we reminisced about Oxford. Then he gave me a free t-shirt (rather appropriately, the graphic is a phoenix emerging from the ashes). Sweet.

The Week in Review

Since the daily post thing just isn’t happening anymore, I’m going to shoot for a regular wrap-up of all my entertainment for the previous week. Here it is:
I Am Legend, Richard Matheson. The best “vampire plague brings about the end of the world” novel ever written, not to mention an inspiration for some of the biggest names in horror —including Stephen King. I wanted to revisit this book before the upcoming movie with Will Smith sullies its good name.
Fountains of Wayne, Traffic and Weather. A somewhat disappointing fourth album from one of my favorite bands. The whole album feels like a retread of the lamest songs from their previous albums. Uninspired, and nowhere near as catchy as their last disc.
Kings of Leon, Because of the Times. On the other hand, this album is a big leap forward for these southern rockers. Clearly, their recent stints opening for bands like U2 and the Rolling Stones has brought them some new maturity, and it shows here in a rich and well-crafted third effort.
DC United at Colorado Rapids. The bad: My dad and I stood in the sub-freezing temps and blowing snow to watch United lose. The good: 16,000+ other people showed up too, and went home happy (if slightly frostbitten) after seeing the hometown team open their spanking new stadium in style. Despite its horrible name, Dick’s Sporting Goods Park is a fantastic venue, and I’m looking forward to going back. The Rapids looked good, and I’ll have no problem supporting them when they’re not playing DC.
HBO’s Sunday lineup: The Sopranos and Entourage. Completely justifying the extra $8 a month on my cable bill.

Year-end, shmear-end...

So I thought about doing a 2005 wrap-up like I did last year, but to be honest, I'm kind of tired of year-end lists. Instead, here's a few things I covered at one point or another this year. Some of them were released in years prior to 2005, but they're all things that made my year enjoyable.

• sudoku
• going to England for the first time
• Bloc Party's Silent Alarm/Silent Alarm Remixed
• Sufjan Stevens's Illinois
• Danger Doom's The Mouse and the Mask (and all of MF Doom's music that I heard this year)
• Eric Johnson's Live from Austin, TX
• Matisyahu's Live at Stubb's
• Gorillaz's "Feel Good Inc"
• Imogen Heap's "Hide and Seek"
• Weezer's "Perfect Situation"
• Doves at the Vic Theater, Chicago
• the 2nd night of U2 at the Wachovia Center, Philadelphia
• Gift of Gab & Lateef/Mike Relm/Twilight Sentinels at the Patio, Indianapolis
• Kings of Leon at the Music Mill, Indianapolis
• discovering Last.fm
• Reese Witherspoon in Walk the Line
• the last two minutes of Layer Cake
• the fact that Batman Begins was nothing like Joel Schumacher's Batman movies
• The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova
• Chuck Dugan is AWOL by Eric Chase Anderson
• Carter Beats the Devil by Glen David Gold
• My Name is Earl
• Arrested Development, on TV and DVD
• the Freaks and Geeks DVDs
• the Spacecataz bonus feature on the Aqua Teen Hunger Force: Volume Four DVDs
• Cartoon Network's Star Wars: Clone Wars series