Sunday, January 30, 2011

Yours, Mine and Everyone Else's 2010

What's that, Jaybee? Still with the 2010? That’s so…last year!

Well, I’m sorry, but that’s how long it takes to get a grip on a year of music, as cramped and limited a grip as it is.

And I’m still catching up on the various year end Best of 2010 Music Polls.

Yes. I admit it. I’m a list nerd. And since I love music, you can imagine how much I love Top Whatever Albums of Whenever lists.

As silly as they may seem, these polls have the advantage of giving you some perspective on a record after the initial enthusiasm (and hype) surrounding it dies down.

And it’s that time of year for everybody’s “Top Albums of 2010” lists. Some people can’t even wait that long. For them it’s been that time since mid-November. I don't know where they get off doing this - it’s like saying screw December. Talk like that will get you on Santa’s naughty list.

So I say wait, not only until January 1 of the following year, but until everything from the year before has sunk in, which in my case could take decades. I do get around to a vague and non-committal statement by mid-January, though.


My Old Pazz and Jop:

At least some people understand this need to wait. Like the Village Voice with their Pazz and Jop Poll, which only came out, what? Last week? And that’s pretty good for them.

I always looked forward to Pazz and Jop. In the seventies, because it was great for seeing how familiar music measured up. It wasn’t that hard to keep up. Radio stations weren’t awful yet, and I liked to buy records.

Over time, though, it got harder and harder to keep up. I still liked music, but radio was getting steadily worse. By the early 80’s, I deemed commercial radio to be Officially Useless. I had no recourse but to wait months to hear about what a whole swath of music critics and fans were experiencing.

Eventually Pazz and Jop would be the first place I’d hear about something. I remember seeing a Pazz and Jop from the mid 90s and thinking who the hell is Liz Phair? She’d won that year, for “Exile in Guyville”, which is now one of my all time favorite albums.

This scenario would repeat itself over and over again. Occasionally I’d be disappointed, especially when a poll winner was in a music genre I didn’t yet - or never would - get. But the great discoveries would more than make up for this.


List of Lists, and Lists of Lists of Lists:
But Pazz and Jop isn’t as essential as it used to be.

For one thing, it’s a whole lot easier to find out about new music now than it was in the dark days of the 80s and the great but hard to follow 90s. Did someone just mention a band to you? Google them and you can find out about and maybe even hear their latest songs. Type in allmusic.com and you get a biography and discography. And if you want to know how an album is, and you don’t know if the critic you’re reading shares your taste, you can use a site like metacritic.com to see what dozens of critics and fans think of it. Totally reliable? Of course not. But on a week to week basis I know what’s coming out, and then, by the time the year end lists come out, the results are not a total surprise.

And for another, well, there are all of these other lists now.

So, without further ado, the following is a fairly arbitrary list of 2010 Album lists compiled by various individuals/magazines/cabals, which I’ve stumbled across over the last few weeks. It could be more comprehensive, but then that would have involved actual work.

NME: stands for New Musical Express, from England. Now the Brits, aside from giving us great bands like the Beatles and Stones, can be a bit odd, and they sometimes have some very lame music here. (It must be the language difference.) So take this list with a grain of salt.

One way of hedging your bets is to use NME’s Aggregated List, which pulls together critical reactions from all over, whatever that means.

And Stereogum is, well, Stereogum.  And a million more other ones, too.

Never heard of any of this? Stop worrying about that. Of course you haven’t heard of them. You’ve been raising a family and working for a living. But keep going. It’s too late to stop now.

And one of the items on my list of lists, is, well, a list of lists.  Jesus Freaking Christ, I thought I was bad. But, hey, knock yourself out.

And of course, the old no longer perfect, but still wonderful Pazz and Jop, which I will be going over with a fine tooth comb over the year.

You've already pored over the above lists? Well then, move onto someone's opinion of what the Underrated Albums are.  Honestly, where do these young folks find the time?

And when you’re done, you can move onto the Top Albums of All Time (including the Jurassic period)  which not only aggregates the lists of many, many people, but also allows you to add your own. I don’t know about you, but I've just found my major time suck for 2011!


Time to Get a Grip:

When you’ve finished looking over this stuff, you may think:

Fine, Jaybee, but
a). I never heard of any of this, so
b). I don’t care about it, or
c). It can’t possibly be as good as what I listened to when I was younger, so
d). it must suck.

To which I say:
a). Please see the note above about you having that life. Congratulations on that, but it doesn’t mean you’ve got your finger on the pulse of popular culture.
b). You should care, you old geezer you. Music added joy to your life once and it can again, not just as a means for feeling nostalgia, but as a source of inspiration. Stop acting so old. There’s plenty of time for that when you’re dead.
c). My experience is that the music I’m listening to now is at least as good as what I was listening to in the seventies. Are you going to just stand there and let me have more fun than you?
d). And if you end up not agreeing with me on c), I think you’ll still find that this newer music not only doesn’t suck, it’ll give your old Springsteen records a run for their money.

Now that I’ve utterly convinced you of the error of your ways, you’re probably thinking Jaybee, you’re right again! Where have I been? There’s a sh*tload of music out there I should be checking out. What have I been doing with my life?

To which I say, don’t feel bad. Just jump in. The water’s fine.

But where to start? Well, do you see titles appearing repeatedly? Like Arcade Fire and Vampire Weekend Told you, didn't I? Who did you notice showing up a lot? Maybe you should check them out.

You’ll notice that the pop critics like…pop music. The Americana polls favor…Americana. Keep that in mind as you see something show up repeatedly in the Death Metal polls or Lame Country Music Roundups. So you may want to stick to genres you’re comfortable with. Not a problem. For me, though, what’s really striking is when a genre record is so good it breaks down this “taste wall” and makes an impression in a place where it normally wouldn’t. But know what you’re getting yourself into, and proceed with caution.

My list of Possibilities to Check Out, you ask? Ariel Pink, The National, Deerhunter, Sleigh Bells, Robyn, Beach House, and (gulp) Kanye West. Yes, that Kanye West.


A Final Confession:

After all my exhortations, I have to admit that this doesn’t always work for me.

These ears of mine have their limits, and as the age difference between me and the critics/fans gets greater, these lists just can’t be as reliable as I’d like them to be. They used to make me feel part of a larger community by showing me what I had in common with people I never met. Now sometimes they highlight our differences.

No matter. They got me this far.

And besides, after all this reading and comparing and thinking, my favorite albums end up being the ones that suggest themselves to me no matter how many (or few) times they’re mentioned on a list. They sit there hiding in this sea of information until they decide to make themselves known to me, at which point they plant themselves inside my brain until I just have to go out and get them.

But the lists provide the raw data that feeds this very subconscious subjective process. Without them I’d be limited to only what I happen to hear on my own, and I’d hate to be left to the mercies of radio.

And they’re there to show us that there’s a whole lot more out there for us to enjoy.

On to 2011!

Saturday, January 22, 2011

My 2010

You know the expression “his eyes are bigger than his stomach”? It’s when you order too much food and can’t possibly finish it.


Well my ears are bigger than my… well, ears, I guess, because I tend to get more music than I can keep up with. So, right after a birthday or Christmas (where I’ve carefully instructed my wife and kids on what to get me) I get that bloated feeling, except that it’s around my head.

Every January, I make a half hearted, not-spoken-aloud resolution to cut down on the record buying. Maybe just get one CD a month, I suggest to myself. But then there’s that gift certificate burning a hole in my pocket, or that great offer from yourmusic.com (my current record club), or a great selection in the cut out bin of my favorite record store. And before you know it, I’m already up to ten and it’s only June.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.


Winter:

During the winter months, I try to pull my head out from up the ass of pop music, and explore my pile of “under-listened-to” - usually jazz or classical - records. This re-acquaints me with music I already have, and if this time around I connect with it, it’s almost like getting new music. It has the added advantage of keeping me from going out and getting more. And I was doing pretty well, holding out for a couple of months.

But then March came, and I was itching for something new. I couldn’t wait for the good weather to show up, so I ordered online:

As a lover of chiming electric guitars, I was disappointed to find what sparse use Spoon makes of them on "Kill the Moonlight" (2002). Their music is primarily rhythmic - driven almost as much by piano as by the drums. But it rocks like hell. And when the guitars do chime, they chime like hell. Recommended.

If you mix the Beach Boys with Yes (What?), and then have them move to Brooklyn, you get Animal Collective's "Merriweather Post Pavilion" (2009). There's a lot here, so much so that it's almost too much to absorb. The synthesizers swirl and the voices reach for the heavens (in a sort of down to earth way), so the first few listens are pretty overwhelming. It's short of a masterpiece, but not by much much. Quite ambitious, and fun, too. And it sounded great when the warm weather arrived.

You want pretty and bouncy? Try Phoenix's "Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix" (2009) and you’ve got it. There are some real nice moments here, but it's a little samey-samey, too, and so, slightly disappointing.


Spring:

So in May, I crawled out of my cave, and happened to visit the record store (like how I happened to breathe). This was shortly after Alex Chilton died, so I thought, what better way to pay tribute than to pick up "Soul Deep: The Best of the Box Tops"?  Okay, it was only $6.99 worth of tribute, but worth every penny. It’s the epitome of unpretentious blue-eyed soul, recorded while the rest of the world was going psychedelic. I’d love to know the story behind Alex’s leap from here to the Beatles styled pop of Big Star.

"Pilgrim's Progress" was one of those elusive songs I'd always loved but rarely heard on the radio. And since I don’t like buying a record for a single song, I waited and waited, until Procol Harum's "A Salty Dog" was finally re-mastered on CD. And I wasn't sorry. You probably know the title song, and the others range from good to great. This record gives classic rock a good name.

It's hard to turn down records that cost $4.99, especially when they're the old Grateful Dead albums I've always wanted. And "Anthem of the Sun" is the most meaningful one yet. What a revelation! I half expected a 60s relic that didn't stand the test of time, but boy was I wrong. The songwriting is already pretty good but it’s the ambition of it that’s even better. Powered by the best pharmaceuticals to be found in Haight Ashbury at the time, the boys play their hearts out, finding inspiration where others might just be self indulgent. Jerry Garcia wails away and the band doesn’t let the occasional mistake slow them down. The jam is so infectious that when my son heard it, he took out his guitar to play along.


Summer:

Have I mentioned that I love Father's Day? The wife and kids know the drill - I usually ask for CDs I'm reluctant to get on my own - and they always come through. And they have to let me listen to them all day, too, ‘cause it’s practically the law. By the end of the day, they're all exhausted. I'm fine, though, and that’s what counts, right?

The music’s not bad, either.

Like "The Rolling Stones - The Singles Collection". It's got all of the Stones singles - three CDs worth - from their rhythm and bluesy beginning through their poppy mid-sixties up until their hard rocking early seventies. I was always a bit hazy on the early Stones, and this set helped a lot. I'm a better person for it. Okay, that's not saying much…

Conor Oberst, working under the band name Bright Eyes, has been writing and recording since he was, what? Thirteen? He's put out dozens of records and I have been trying to figure out where to jump in. Well, I found it. "I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning" (2005) contains ten lovely heartfelt country tinged tunes that even Mrs. Jaybee can stand. (Well, not anymore. I played it practically every day for a month.) The mandolin on “We Are Nowhere” immediately makes this a morning record. Conor's a loquacious young man, but I find that the quantity of words doesn't hurt the quality. He hails from the midwest, but sings about recently moving to the big city. I like when he mentions my neighborhood.

I had occasion to spend time with some wonderful young people I hadn't seen in a while, whose love for early 1980s punk rock - made before they were born! - inspired me to seek out some music I missed when I first had the chance. Friend Sean, all of 22, told me how much he loved Black Flag's "Damaged", from 1981!. This was Henry Rollins' first band and if anything he's more intense here than he is now. I will be living with this music for a while before I fully absorb it. But I love some of the songs, and the sentiments, already - "Rise Above", "TV Party". It really brings back what it was like in the mid-eighties, not that I really want to remember. And their disdain for most of it matches mine.

Is Steve Reich's "Music for 18 Musicians" classical music? Is it popular music? Or is it just modern music? Who knows? This hour of rhythm with miniscule shifts of tone and tune still manages to hold my attention all the way through. It’s never quite mechanical, never quite muzaky. And, when you get down to it, not even very strange. Just quite lovely all the way through.

Summer ends more or less with my birthday ( didn’t you know?), and it’s kind of like Father’s Day all over again, except that I don’t have to share it with other fathers. This time I got “Robyn Hitchcock and the Egyptian’s Greatest Hits". Talk about your misnomers! But don’t let that discourage you. Allegedly a collection from Robyn’s middle – and not so great – period, it turns out to be tuneful and entertaining from beginning to end. The whole house really enjoyed this one. If it wasn’t a best-of, I’d call it my album of the year.

I took more of Friend Sean’s advice and dove into Minor Threat’s “Complete Discography”, which covers 1980-83. They are just as angry and but more idealistic than Black Flag. And as such, it will take this old man a little while longer to get to the bottom of it, if there is one. But I’m in awe of people who were looked on as thugs, merely because they had no use for the pop music or its outer trappings, of the time. (Those awful early eighties again!) God bless ‘em.

MIA spends most of her time lately pissing people off. She does occasionally make some music, and “Kala” is her second album. It’s kitchen sink hip hop/dance music and a bit too busy for me to take it at once. I’ll get it when it’s considered an oldie.

And even though I don’t love the Beastie Boys, it was time to check out “Paul’s Boutique” which is considered their masterpiece. It sounds pretty much like “Licensed to Ill” by these old ears. But I’ll give the Boys some time…


The Holidays:

Belle and Sebastian can be bad luck for me. I have memories of listening to and loving “If You’re Feeling Sinister” in the late nineties. The trouble was that I was feeling miserable at the time, and the mood got associated with the music. It doesn’t help that their music is as sad as it is beautiful. So a vague unease, as well as a fear of disappointment, kept me from getting anything else by them. I waited ten years before trying “Tigermilk”, which turned out to be wonderful. I was even in a good mood at the time.

So I thought it would be time to try their compilation of non-album singles and EPs – “PUSH BARman TO OPEN old wounds”. Knowing full well how such collections can be very hit or miss, I was struck by the overall quality throughout the double CD set. There are some songs that are clearly experiments/departures/private jokes, but I find most of this collection to be quite devastating. (Yes, I was feeling down again.) So devastating in fact that I am very hesitant to listen to it – it was the only music I listened to for about a month. Stuart Murdoch is a master of melody, and pretty handy with odd/disturbing lyrics. Twenty five songs in all, there are at least twelve that I can’t live without. Why aren’t these guys more famous? Not quite an album by strict definition, so another not quite album of the year.

And finally, Christmas brought me “Intermission”, which is a best-of collection of Grant McLennan’s and Robert Forster’s solo recordings while they weren’t busy being the Go Betweens. few years. Robert and Grant each get a CD here. Robert can be spare and a bit awkward, and Grant, a little too smooth. And on a Go Betweens album, Grant’s pretty tunes were always put right up against next Roberts more tactile and verbal songs. It was the combination that was so effective. So, at first I was unimpressed. But now after a few listens, I’m liking it quite a bit more.


The Year of the Non Album:

There are a couple of themes this year. Jaybee reaching too far, and having to wait until he understands MIA, Minor Threat, etc.

But more importantly, it’s the year of the Best Of.

Perhaps it was the act of an old man hedging his bets and no longer digging deep, but in 2010 I got a hell of a lot of collections, whether they were best-ofs or compilations. Actual Albums, which I’ll define as a release of all new material by a single artist, are many fewer and farther between this year. As such, when I try to figure out what my favorite albums of the year are, a lot get eliminated on this technicality.

If I simply ask myself which records were the best, I’d have to say Robyn Hitchcock and Belle and Sebastian, but is it fair to compare them to “Anthem of the Sun” which was not quite as good?

Oh, who gives a rat’s ass anyway? Robyn Hitchcock and Belle and Sebastian. Easily.


I’ve Got Your Deus Ex Machina Right Here:

So here’s the funny part. Everything mentioned above is a record bought by or for me. What I haven’t mentioned is that my son Michael has been directly responsible for what may be the three best CDs – proper albums all - of the year:

Both Vampire Weekend albums and Arcade Fire’s “The Suburbs”. All three of these records are as good as anything else I’ve mentioned. And two of them actually came out this year! So he’s keeping me current, too.

Hmmm. Maybe it’s time for me to retire.

Well, that should keep you in suspense while I decide whether to turn over the family business to Michael. How does “Jaybee and Son” sound?