Greetings readers,
For just today, the movieblog becomes a musicblog.
2012 was yet another solid year for music. The introduction of Spotify made it easier for all of us to hear whatever we want whenever we want, not to mention making parties twenty times easier to DJ. I got to go to my very first South by Southwest in Austin, which was a blast but a little overwhelming; it's literally impossible to see everything that you want. I saw great live shows around the Twin Cities from Heartbeats, Polica, NOFX, Solid Gold, Passion Pit, Father John Misty, My Morning Jacket & Band of Horses, Metric and many more.
I would of course be amiss not to mention the passing of one of my personal heroes, Adam "MCA" Yauch of the Beastie Boys. He had a hand in everything: hip-hop, filmmaking (he owned distribution company Oscilloscope and directed many Beastie videos and even a documentary), political activism (he founded the Tibetan Freedom concerts of the mid 1990s, which featured every band you'd ever want to see ever) and all-around good dudeness. He briefly dated Madonna in the '80s and worked to save Tibet in the '90s. The Beastie Boys in general were so influential to my style and upbringing, and he was the grounded, soulful counterpart to Mike and Adrock's wildness. It was the first celebrity death I can remember that really hit me hard. To MCA, who has hopefully found his way to enlightenment by now, may you rest in peace.
And now, people, let's get on with the countdown!
5 I heard were very good but I didn't get a chance to get into, though I want to soon:
Cloud Nothings-Attack on Memory
Chromatics-Kill for Love
Jack White-Blunderbuss
Swans-The Seer
Alt-J-An Awesome Wave
10 for Honorable Mention:
Stars-The North
Good return to form.
Michael Kiwanuka- Home Again
-soulful and smooth.
Porcelain Raft-Strange Weekend
Fun, atmospheric electro-pop.
Hospitality-Hospitality
Jangly guitars and hooky hooks from singer Amber Papini in her NYC trio's debut.
Killer Mike-R.A.P. Music
-political and smart with booming El-P production.
The Men-Open Your Heart
-raucous and kind of awesome.
Sleigh Bells-Reign of Terror
-I didn't care for their first disc, Treats, much at all. But even though Reign of Terror starts to sound a little too same-y, there were some jams on this one--"Leader of the Pack", "End of the Line" and the single "Comeback Kid", which was on constant rotation for me this Spring.
Beach House- Bloom
This album is kind of boring and sleepy at times (I personally think their first record, Devotion, is their best) but the Baltimore duo sure does make pretty music.I really enjoy first single "Myth", as well as singer Victoria Legrand's vocal stylings on "Lazuli".
Django Django-Django Django
-Goofy pysch-pop from the UK put out one of the best singles with "Default".
Delta Spirit-Delta Spirit
-It pains me to see them not make the top 20, but I just didn't get into this one like the previous two. "California" and "Yamaha" are both amazing songs, but the rest kind of feels phoned-in.
THE TOP 20 of 2012:
20) Fiona Apple-The Idler Wheel
I find Miss Apple a little bit strange and pretentious (see: 18 word album titles), but there's no denying the talent both as a songwriter and a piano player. "Every Single Night" is one of the year's best, and "Werewolf" seethes with Apple weirdness.
19) Nas-Life is Good
There is a trend in hip-hop right now, as evidenced by this past year's Rock the Bells tour, of artists doing their entire classic albums front to back. One of the highlights of South by Southwest for me this year was seeing Nas do Illmatic in it's entirety (with special guests DJ Premier and Pete Rock). Not only is Illmatic considered a classic, it's considered one of the classics. I was in awe of how easy it seemed for him 20 years later; in contrast, I saw Eminem in 2011 and while he was good, he couldn't coast through his fast-spitting half-rhyming lyrics without running out of breath from time to time. On Life is Good, Nasir Jones reflects on life as an icon and deals with divorce ("Bye Baby"), fatherhood (the excellent "Daughters") and the proliferation of violence ("Accident Murderers"). Two decades after Illmatic, he's grown up and the hunger has dissipated slightly, but not the skills.
18) The Shins-Port of Morrow
They may never return to Chutes too Narrow/Oh, Inverted World territory, but their latest album is full of pop goodness that only James Mercer and co. are capable of delivering. The opening 1-2 punch of "The Rifle's Spiral" and "Simple Song" were both constantly in my head this year.
17) Grizzly Bear-Shields
Ed Droste and Daniel Rossen are the Lennon-McCartney of the Brooklyn art rock set, and Shields expands on what they already do so well. Their harmonies are very compatible with their chamber pop aesthetic, especially on my favorites (and last tracks) "Half Gate" and "Sun in Your Eyes."
16) The xx-Coexist
If it ain't broke, don't
fix it, right? The stripped-down trio gets even more stripped-down on
their sophomore effort, and the result is more of what we have come to
love about the xx--Everything But the Girl-style vocal interplay,
atmospheric guitar reverb, simple bass lines and drum kicks. At times
you wish they expanded their sound a little more, but for the most part
it works, especially on the gorgeous opener "Angels", which is a nearly
perfect song in it's length, scope and simplicity.
15) Calexico-Algiers
Another solid disc from Tuscon duo John Convertino and Joey Burns. At
times it feels like a gypsy manifesto, with its horns, accordions,
cellos, bells and fiddles riding over their acoustic strumming. Single
"Splitter" is a highlight, as is 3/4 ballad "The Vanishing Mind."
14) Robert Glasper-Black Radio
When I was
Austin for South by Southwest, I had to scramble and literally sprint
across town to make it to a Youth Lagoon set at a showcase in a record
store parking lot. Afterwards, I went in the store to cool off for a
little bit and listen to albums on their listening stations. One of the
ones that I ended up checking out was Black Radio. Glasper, a Houston jazz pianist and hip-hop producer, has created (besides the re-issue of Disintegration Loops)
the best headphone record of the year. With guests like Talib Kweli,
Bilal, Erykah Badu and Lupe Fiasco, it recalls some of the best R&B
of the mid to late '90s, with Hammond organ loops and cracking snares
and rimshots over jazzy soundscapes. Perfect for a Sunday afternoon.
13) Metric-Synthetica
I had the pleasure of taking in the Canadian popsters in concert at the Orpheum this year, and they were very, very good. Lead singer/hipster waif Emily Haines (Who I once asked to marry me in 2004 during a Broken Social Scene concert) has come into her own as a songwriter. I really like this album, especially the soft-loud-soft over a four on the floor beat single "Breathing Underwater."
12) P.O.S.-We Don't Even Live Here
Would have probably crept into the top 10 if I had just had more time with it. We Don't Even Live Here function's as this year's Evil Empire or Pick a Bigger Weapon, our soundtrack to raging, rioting, and throwing our hands the fuck up. Stef Alexander hasn't had the easiest 2012; it became public knowledge that his kidneys were failing after he had to cancel much of his tour for the album. For someone who is on dialysis, the guy gets the job done, exacting revenge on the 1% with single "Fuck Your Stuff" and its anti-commercial protest chorus: "My whole crew's on some shit/scuffing up your Nikes, spitting on your whip." There are plenty of Minneapolis brethren to guest star as well. Justin Vernon of Bon Iver appears on the stunner "Where We Land" and my favorite, "They Can't Come" features P.O.S. trading punches with Doomtree collaborator Sims over a hard piano line.
11) Japandroids-Celebration Rock
Two dudes thrashing guitars and beating the hell of the drumsets and sweating beer? Sign me up! The Vancouver duo (Brian King on vox/guitar, David Prowse on vox/drums) build on the critical success of 2009's Post-Nothing and knock out the anthemic rock album of the year. And it's even better live. Opener "The Night of Wine and Roses" comes charging out of the gate, and "Younger Us" celebrates youth and young manhood with lyrics like "remember that night you were already in bed, said 'fuck it', got it up to drink with me instead." "The House that Heaven Built", with it's easy to mimic whoa-oa-oa chorus and it's notion to "tell 'em all to go to hell" has found it's way into the conversation for many critics' song of the year.
10) Purity Ring-Shrines
Canadian duo Megan James and Corin Roddick have not only made a great electronic record and manage to create a sound all their own. With strange subject matter ("dig holes in me with wooden trowels") and even stranger titles ("Obedear", "Crawlersout", "Lofticries"), Shrines is intriguing in its push-pull aesthetic. For each blip and bloop that skates across the sonic landscape, James cherub-like vocals match the weirdness with ease.
9) Tame Impala-Lonerism
I got into this one kind of late, but man is it a fun record. Melbourne's Tame Impala are stuck in the garage-psych-fuzz of the 70s, and we are all the better for it. "Feels Like We Only Go Backwards" is one of the year's better songs, and "Apocalypse Dreams" rules.
8) Divine Fits-A Thing Called Divine Fits
Britt Daniel of Spoon and Dan Boeckner of Wolf Parade and Handsome Furs
live up to their potential on their first of hopefully many team-ups as
Divine Fits. "Would That Not Be Nice", which name-checks Minneapolis,
feels like a lost "Don't You Evah" b-side. The awesome Dan Boeckner
voiced single "My Love is Real" and deep cut "For Your Heart" pulse with
fuzzy synths and electro drums. At times, the album feels like a Spoon
and Handsome Furs split EP; the songs they each sing on sound a lot like
their respective bands. Not that this is a bad thing.
7) Twin Shadow-Confess
On Confess, George "Georgie" Lewis, Jr. took his signature '80s sound and made short work of everyone else trying to do the same thing. After writing a novel, the cocksure motorcycle enthusiast went for broke with cinematic (and borderline ridiculous) music videos. "Golden Light" is a Peter Gabriel and Phil Collins throwback, while "Five Seconds" (one of the year's best) sees Lewis turn in his best impression of the purple one, all the way down to the guitar solos. Then there's "Run My Heart", which might as well be called "I'm On Fire, part II" and the genius "Beg For the Night", with synth horn section that Scritti Politti could be proud of.
5) Frank Ocean-channelORANGE
Much has been made of the meteoric rise of Frank Ocean in 2012. You could argue, with ORANGE's inclusion on basically everybody's year-end lists, that 2012 was actually the year of Frank Ocean. Within the span of a little more than a year, Frank went from Odd Future crew member and lackey to sought-after hip-hop hooksman (see: "No Church in The Wild", "Made in America" etc.) to full-blown star. And unfortunately for Frank (ne' Christopher Breaux), he was all set to get great reviews on his own merit before the media made him their darling after he came out of the closet via Tumblr on July 4th, shortly before he released the album.
I'm not wanting to play scrooge here. I am as supportive as the rest of you are that Frank Ocean opened up about his sexuality, and it was a very important moment. It was especially brave considering the rampant homophobia in the hip-hop community; even his frequent collaborators in Odd Future are constantly using the word "faggot" in a negative light. I just kind of feel like it became this cause for critics to root for him and thus ignore the fact that channelORANGE is, at it's heart, a good-to-really-good R & B album. I personally question its status as a "classic." In other words, it's not, in my opinion, on the same level as say, Voodoo.
That said, Ocean displays serious vocal chops from the get-go on single "Thinkin' bout You." He ostracizes the wealthy over the head-bobbing Benny and the Jets throwback "Super Rich Kids" and then turns around and calls out drug addicts on "Crack Rock". Addiction is a recurring theme here, whether it's to drugs, lifestyle ("Sweet Life") or love ("Pilot Jones", "Bad Religion"). The most clever song thematically is "Pyramids", tracing the history of black women as literal jewels of the Nile up to the present, where they instead work at strip clubs called "the pyramids." Again, the talent is there and the high ratings are deserved. I do really like his voice. But is he a little overhyped? Like the Egyptian civilization, only time will tell.
5) Father John Misty-Fear Fun
For me, the intrigue started early in the year. First, I kept hearing the name. Then, I heard FJM was J. Tillman's (drummer for the Fleet Foxes) new project. Then I heard "Hollywood Forever Cemetery Sings." I went nuts for that jam. My love affair for that song continues on; the only difference is now the car is colder as I wait for the song to finish and turn off the car.
While "HFCS" is the standout, the rest of the album holds it's own. The boho folk hero with the heart-on-his-sleeve persona of Father John Misty comes from a bout of severe depression, followed by several days taking various hallucinogens (mainly mushrooms) in the woods, followed by an epiphany: He was to leave the Fleet Foxes and the dreariness of Seattle for sun-soaked Brooklyn West--Laurel Canyon, California. A few months later, he emerged, having traded the long hair and flannel for a decidedly more clean-cut approach. When I finally saw him live this year (on my birthday) after trying twice previously, my friends and I had a blast watching him perform, shaking his hips and flailing his skinny body all around while cracking wise in between songs. You could tell that a major part of his reinvention project was getting out from behind the drum kit.
But back to the album. Opener "Funtimes in Babylon" reads like his first journal entry on the trip along the PCH as he hits falsetto notes wishing to " smoke everything in sight with every girl I've ever loved" and proclaims "Look out Hollywood, here I come." In the very next song, "Nancy From Now On", he wonders "How was I to know?/The milk and honey flow/just a couple states below." From there, the fun, debauchery, and occasional longing charges on as he makes his way south. In the truckin' "I'm Writing a Novel", he articulates his adventures as Misty, reading Sartre, drinking poppy tea, passing out in vans, and running for his life ("Would you please come help me/that Canadian shaman gave a little too much to me"). The tongue-and-cheek nature of Tillman's lyrics practically show you the air quotes that should be around "shaman".
One of the best tracks,"Only Son of the Ladiesman", sweetly laments the loss of the old-time player with a heart of gold: "They tied down his casket with a garter belt/each troubled heart was beating in a sequined dress/someone must console these lonesome daughters...I swear that man was womankind's first husband." You get the feeling that the witty Tillman is eulogizing himself 35 years down the road.
4) John K. Samson-Provincial
John K. Samson, the former bassist of skate punk leftist heroes Propaghandi and former singer/songwriter of the Weakerthans, brings forth his lyrical genius and songwriting prowess on Provincial, his first solo record in 20 years. In large part a love letter to his Canadian heritage, he tackles this giant landmass in all of it's empty expansiveness (fun fact-Canada has lowest population density in the world!) and impending loneliness of being smack in the middle of it.
This is verbalized literally in "Longitudinal Centre" ("Where the Atlantic and Pacific are the very same far away") and "Highway 1 West" ("Too far to walk to anywhere from here...The city some cheap EQ with the mids turned up/in one long note of wheat"). It's verbalized figuratively in the clever "When I Write My Master's Thesis" and the crushingly beautiful "The Last And."
Provincial toggles back and forth between straightforward rockers and nordic-tinged 3/4 time acoustic ballads, the latter coming across a bit more effective than the former. But the one constant is Samson's gift as a storyteller, whether from the perspective of an entire town attempting to get it's local hero Reggie Leach inducted into the hockey hall of fame ("Petition"), the one-two punch of a lazy grad student trying to save his relationship ("When I Write My Master's Thesis") and a 100-year old archive from his research ("Letter from the Ninette San in Icelandic"), or an Edna Krabapple type pining for her Principal Skinner ("The Last And").
Take the lyrical chops of Dylan, drop the social issues, move a few hours north, obtain a nasal-y delivery similar to They Might Be Giant's John Flansburgh, and you have Provincial, the most intellectually satisfying album of the year.
3) Frankie Rose-Interstellar
I had some great weekends this last summer, but by in large my weekdays were shit. I was dead broke and working two jobs, teaching a very challenging group of 4th graders in a disorganized summer program, constantly worrying about money and receiving a consistent flow of rejection letters from jobs I had interviewed for. The fact that I got through them at all was thanks in large part to a quirky, tattooed, Brooklyn hipster sprite named Frankie Rose.
After the kids had left for the afternoon and I worked to put my classroom back in order, I would crank this album through the soundsystem. I don't exactly know why, but it always brought great calm to me. I became obsessed pretty quickly. Rose, previously a drummer for the Dum Dum Girls and the Vivian Girls, released Interstellar very early in the year to good critical acclaim. It was kind of overshadowed, however, by another indie pop/electronica solo artist coming to the forefront, a Canadian named Grimes. Someone asked me recently what I thought of Grimes, to which I replied "She's like a less good Frankie Rose."
Interstellar is equal parts hypnotic and driving. She does a fantastic job of layering her pretty vocals and harmonies throughout the album, dancing in and out of choruses and utilizing plenty of reverb effects. Opener "The Fall" sees her echoes gliding over a simple cello and guitar line, while "Interstellar" takes us on a romp into the cosmos. "Apples for the Sun" and "Pair of Wings" both showcase her vocal chops over synthesizers; the latter is probably the album's highlight, in which she imagines herself as a wounded bird: "Show me your scars/I'll show you mine/Perched above the city on a pair of power lines." If you have seen the videos for either "Night Swim" or "Know Me", you can attest to the fact that Frankie Rose is a strange lady. No matter, though. Her voice is easy to obsess over.
2) Perfume Genius-Put Yr Back in 2 it
From the minute the first piano chords sweep in on "Awol Marine" (apparently a song about a man and his wife making naughty home videos to raise money for her medication), you can tell what you're in for on Perfume Genius's second album. Genius is the solo project of Mike Hadreas, a young gay man from Seattle, and he's come the closest to the beauty and fragility of Elliott Smith since, well, Elliott Smith.
The sense of loss and regret is palpable on tracks such as "Hood" ("You would never call me baby/if you ever knew the truth") and "Dirge" ("All you loved of him lies here/do your weeping now"). Oddly enough, an instrumental portion of "Dark Parts" appears in a ubiquitous Honda commercial; the lyrics of the song deal with the sexual abuse of his mother by his grandfather. Ladies and gentlemen, "Walking on Sunshine" this album is not.
Nonetheless, it's almost unfair how pretty of an album it is. Piano, strings, sampled drums and most of all, Hadreas' voice, create an ether-like, staring out at the snow effect. Like Elliott Smith's XO, which I listened to for two solid months every day in the Spring of '99, proceed with caution, because the entirety of Put Yr Back in 2 it is a sluggish and emotional earworm that can be hard to shake.
1) Kendrick Lamar-good kid, m.A.A.d. City
good kid, m.A.A.d. City begins in a van. 17-year old Kendrick has borrowed his mother's vehicle and is off to see Sharene, his girlfriend. As he is about to get to her house ("I'm two blocks away, 250 feet/six steps from where she stay, she waving me 'cross the street/I pulled up, a smile on my face and then I see/two niggas, two black hoodies, I pause as my phone rings"), his mother calls asking for the van back so that she can get to the county building and away from his goofy, dominoes-obsessed father. Kendrick's parents bicker back and forth a little more, and in the background of the voicemail we hear "Fuck some damn dominoes. Nobody wanna hear that!" followed by "Nobody wanna hear yo' ass! Matter of fact, cut my oldies back on, you killin' my motherfuckin' vibe." Cue song #2, "Bitch, Don't Kill My Vibe", and gkmc is off and running.
Kendrick Lamar broke onto the scene last year with his excellent mixtape, Section .80, which, like gkmc, is a concept album with characters that weave in and out of the narrative. After it dropped, rumors were abound about the future of Kendrick Lamar, and more specifically, his involvement with Dr. Dre--was he going to be a collaborator? Was Dre going to take him under his wing a la Snoop Dogg twenty years ago? It turned out to be more of the former, with Dr. Dre appearing on "Compton" and first single "The Recipe", executive producing the record and helping to mix it. While Kendrick did opt to sign with Dre's Aftermath records, he kept the same production team he had worked with when he was independent. This ended up being the right call on his part because the album wouldn't have worked nearly as well thematically under Dre's souped-up and polished production.
The narrative of good kid takes place over a 24-hour period in Compton. Through young Kendrick's eyes, though, the first half of the album sees Compton as playground. He kicks posturing rhymes in the back of the van throughout "Backseat Freestyle" ("all my life I want money and power/respect my mind or die from lead shower"), plans home robberies with his friends on "The Art of Peer Pressure" ("Pull in front of the house that we've been camping out for like two months/the sun is going down as we take whatever we want/I hit the backseat in search of any Nintendos/DVDs, plasma screens in the trunk") and chases down women with Drake in "Poetic Justice." The most captivating on side A is "Money Trees", which shows Kendrick both flexing muscle ("You lookin' like an easy come-up, ya bish/a silver spoon I know you come from, ya bish") and recognizes the double-edged sword of being a hero in the ghetto ("Everybody gon' respect the shooter/but the one in front of the gun lives forever.")
Things start going downhill for Kendrick and the homies and throughout the second half of the album, and we start to see the adversity from multiple perspectives. "If Pirus and Crips all got along/They'd probably gun me down by the end of the song/seem like the whole city go against me", he laments on "m.A.A.d. City". Lead single "Swimming Pools (Drank)" takes us on the rollercoaster of being blackout drunk. Album highlight and 12-minute stunner "Sing About Me/Dying of Thirst" steps into the shoes of a gangbanger and a hooker before Kendrick and crew lose a friend in a shootout and the mood all changes. "Tired of running/Tired of hunting/my own kind/and retiring nothing" he raps on the "Dying of Thirst" half of the song. When his mother catches him holding a gun, she says to him "Why are you so angry? See, you young men are dying of thirst. Do you know what that means? It means you need water...holy water." It is spoken like a woman who, like many parents in her situation, doesn't want her child to repeat the same mistakes. Same goes for dad, who tells him later on, again on his answering machine: "Don't learn the hard way like I did. Any nigga can kill a man, that don't make you real. Real is responsibility...real is taking care of your motherfuckin' family."
When all is said and done, gkmc will go toe-to-toe with Kanye West's classic My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy with the best hip-hop album of the era. But if Kanye's opus is just that--fantasy--Kendrick's masterpiece is rooted in reality. While everyone's favorite narcissist fell in love with porn stars and lamented having too much power, Kendrick tried to survive Compton as a horny, angry, scared-shitless teenager. Though musically there are shades of Aquemini and 2Pac's All Eyez on Me, it mostly feels original and fresh. gkmc is important for a number of reasons--its lyrics, its commercial success, its role as a launch pad for what is going to be a sky's-the-limit career--but it is most important as a story. It's hard to be a teenager, especially in a hostile environment, and sometimes it's our toughest moments that end up shaping who we become.
