My best of 2011

Top 10:

1. Cass McCombs, Wit’s End (Domino)
2. James Blake (A&M/Atlas)
3. PJ Harvey, Let England Shake (Vagrant)
4. Tune-Yards, Whokill (4AD)
5. Laura Marling, A Creature I Don’t Know (Domino)
6. Wye Oak, Civilian (Merge)
7. Tinariwen, Tassili (Anti-)
8. Low, C’Mon (Sub Pop)
9. Beirut, The Rip Tide (Pompeii)
10. Matthew Herbert, One Pig (Accidental)

Also good (in alphabetical order):

Adele, 21 (XL/Columbia)
Keren Ann, 101 (Blue Note)
Antlers, Burst Apart (Frenchkiss)
Alison Krauss & Union Station, Paper Airplane (Rounder)
Bon Iver, Bon Iver (Jagjaguwar)
The Civil Wars, Barton Hollow (Sensibility)
Jolie Holland and the Grand Chandeliers, Pint of Blood (Anti-)
Jeffrey Lewis, A Turn in the Dream-Songs (Rough Trade)
Nick Lowe, The Old Magic (Yep Roc)
My Morning Jacket, Circuital (ATO)
Lou Reed and Metallica, Lulu (Warner Bros.)
St. Vincent, Strange Mercy (4AD)
Washed Out, Within and Without (Sub Pop)
Wilco, The Whole Love (dBpm)
Yuck (Fat Possum)

Best of 2010

My top 20:

1. Sufjan Stevens, The Age of Adz
2. Laura Marling, I Speak Because I Can
3. Sleigh Bells, Treats
4. Sharon Van Etten, Epic
5. Teenage Fanclub, Shadows
6. Best Coast, Crazy for You
7. Kanye West, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy
8. Sade, Soldier of Love
9. Beach House, Teen Dream
10. Man Forever, s/t
11. Marc Ribot, Silent Movies
12. Mumford & Sons, Sigh No More
13. Arcade Fire, The Suburbs
14. Janelle Monáe, The ArchAndroid
15. The Roots, How I Got Over
16. She & Him, Volume Two
17. Los Lobos, Tin Can Trust
18. Jenny Wilson, Hardships!
19. Mountain Man, Made the Harbor
20. AfroCubism, s/t

Best of 2009

For fun, and for explanatory exhaustion, I’m keeping my blurbs to four words apiece:

1. Wye Oak, The Knot. Brave hurricane of feeling.
2. Dirty Projectors, Bitte Orca. Decade’s boldest indie vision.
3. Fool’s Gold. Hot, culturally malleable Afroism.
4. Bat for Lashes, Two Suns. Arty eye, amorous heart.
5. Amadou et Mariam, Welcome to Mali. Cosmopolitan Bamako blues, smiling.
6. Grizzly Bear, Veckatimest. Harmony dreams, almost vertigo.
7. Micachu and the Shapes, Jewellery. Re-sculpted rubbish. Rauschenberg? Punk.
8. Jason Lytle, Yours Truly, the Commuter. Outsider’s diary, finally outside.
9. The Almighty Defenders. Delicious degeneracy. (Sorry, Sam!)
10. Antony and the Johnsons, The Crying Light. Pastoralism eulogized pastorally, eerliy.

Also recommended:

Neko Case, Middle Cyclone
Cryptacize, Mythomania
Cymbals Eat Guitars, Why There Are Mountains
Dinosaur Jr., Farm
Florence and the Machine, Lungs
Girls, Album
The Pains of Being Pure at Heart
Phoenix, Wolfgang Amadeus Pheonix
Regina Spektor, Far
The Very Best, Warm Heart of Africa
Vivian Girls, Everything Goes Wrong
M. Ward, Hold Time
Wilco, Wilco (The Album)

Worst album of 2009 (tie):

Ray Davies, The Kinks Choral Collection
Decemberists, The Hazards of Love

Best of the decade

My list:

1. Radiohead, Kid A (2000)
2. Spoon, Kill the Moonlight (2002)
3. M.I.A., Arular (2005)
4. Arcade Fire, Funeral (2004)
5. 50 Cent, Get Rich or Die Tryin’ (2003)
6. Wilco, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot (2002)
7. Nick Lowe, The Convincer (2001)
8. The Shins, Oh, Inverted World (2001)
9. Kanye West, The College Dropout (2004)
10. Cat Power, The Greatest (2006)

(Average is 2002.8, slightly on the fogy side.)

The next 10:

11. Webb Brothers, Maroon (2000)
12. Salif Keita, Moffou (2002)
13. Feist, The Reminder (2007)
14. Dirty Projectors, Bitte Orca (2009)
15. Robert Plant and Alison Krauss, Raising Sand (2007)
16. Teenage Fanclub, Howdy! (2000)
17. White Stripes, White Blood Cells (2001)
18. Beyoncé, Dangerously in Love (2003)
19. Grandaddy, Sumday (2003)
20. Camille, Le Fil (2006)

More decade stuff: Return to WFUV

I’m not quite done with the decade yet. Still have to do postmortems on my 2007 and 2008 lists, and then of course finish up my 2009 list. I spent the holiday weekend unpacking, centering and leveling picture frames, and re-alphebetizing records, so I’m running behind. Soon, I swear.

But first. The good people at WFUV, where for two years I reviewed records every week, invited me back for a special end-o’-decade show. Claudia Marshall and I talked about a few of my shoulda-beens for the decade: amazing albums that did not get the attention they deserved at the time, and are getting even less now. Find out what I chose tomorrow morning at 8:30, on 90.7 FM in New York. They also podcast it here.

And now back to lists for me.

❧

UPDATE: Here’s the link for the audio.

Decade postmortem: 2006

My original list:

1. Cat Power, The Greatest
2. Joanna Newsom, Ys
3. Arctic Monkeys, Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not
4. Gnarls Barkley, St. Elsewhere
5. Ali Farka Touré, Savane
6. Camille, Le Fil
7. Beyoncé, B’Day
8. Regina Spektor, Begin to Hope
9. Grizzly Bear, Yellow House
10. TV on the Radio, Return to Cookie Mountain

There wasn’t a huge amount to choose from in 2006, at least if you were looking in the usual places. The top sellers were High School Musical, Rascal Flatts, Carrie Underwood, Nickelback, Justin Timerlake and James Blunt. The Pazz and Jop winners were Dylan, TV on the Radio, Ghostface Killah, the Hold Steady and Gnarls Barkley, followed by Arctic Monkeys, Clipse, Neko Case, Joanna Newsom and a Tom Waits miscellany.

I liked some of those, but not all, and looking back I’m not overwhelmed with feeling for the music of 2006. I stand by The Greatest; never been a huge Cat Power fan but this one really got under my skin, and despite my initial ambivalence it remains very powerful. Beyond that there are a lot of decent records but not many killers. Joanna Newsom only came alive for me in concert, and anyway The Milk-Eyed Mender is more convincing. So I’m moving that down. Arctic Monkeys feels like a blip now, and aside from “Crazy,” Gnarls Barkley is more silly than great.

Other than The Greatest, the ones that hold up the best, in my view, are Camille, Ali Farka Touré and Grizzly Bear, so they’re all getting bumped up. I’m adding Justin Timberlake, which I’m not sure why I omitted three years ago, since I liked it then, too; it’s still dazzling, and while it doesn’t take itself seriously enough to really be called “visionary,” it certainly is futuristic. The other addition is Beirut, which now looks like a harbinger of the kitchen-sink multi-culti direction that indie rock was starting to go in, and Gulag Orkestar sums up the aesthetic with grace.

More comments: Camille’s Le Fil is an unrecognized masterpiece, a set of amazingly inventive vocal variations, Savane is spellbinding as Ali Farke Touré’s swan song (he died in early 2006), and Regina Spektor sounds pretty darn near perfection; Beyoncé is less strong but still fun enough to include.

Interesting that my original top 5 didn’t fare as well as the bottom 5. Why? No idea. Theories/challenges/rebuttals welcome.

So, here’s 2006 revised:

1. Cat Power, The Greatest
2. Camille, Le Fil
3. Ali Farka Touré, Savane
4. Justin Timberlake, FutureSex/LoveSounds
5. Grizzly Bear, Yellow House
6. Beirut, Gulag Orkestar
7. Regina Spektor, Begin to Hope
8. Joanna Newsom, Ys
9. TV on the Radio, Return to Cookie Mountain
10. Beyoncé, B’Day

Buncha ladies. That’s good.

❧

My postmortems of 2007 and 2008 are coming next. I expect there will be less revision there since they’re more recent, but who knows. You can see my previous entries below, or, for those who are really lazy, here: 2000 and 2001, 2002, 2003, and 2004 and 2005.

(And 2009 is on its way, eventually.)

The folly of prediction

A little while ago I was asked what I thought might lie ahead for music in the 2010s, given all the retrospection of decade-end lists, etc. In answering the question it became clear how silly it is for anyone at all to predict the future. (Wall Street and Washington people, and everyone who relies on their wisdom, take note.) But it’s especially pointless for critics considering how consistently the pop pendulum has swung throughout the postwar era:

In 1950, it looked as though the future would be all crooners and soft, string-laden arrangements.

In 1960, it was clear that rock and roll was a passing fad.

In 1970, it was all going to be peace and love, and concept albums on 8-track.

In 1980, it was clear that disco would live forever, and that cassettes were the future.

In 1990, hair metal and CDs were indomitable.

In 2000, the industry was at its historic sales peak, boy bands were everything, and the Internet was a controllable nuisance.

So what are the inevitably wrong, blind-man-and-the-elephant predictions for the 2010s? Well: the industry will die, audiences will fragment further, and journalism will die. Smart money would say that at least one of those plain-as-day prognositcations will be dead wrong.

Why? For one, history is obviously not predictable; the black swan theory says that change tends to be led by unexpected anomalies. Also, pop is by its nature contrary and reactive; whatever the last generation liked, the next one rejects. Also, technology moves way too fast. Also, what are music critics ever right about anyway?

Decade postmortem: 2004 and 2005

My original list for 2004:

1. Arcade Fire, Funeral
2. Franz Ferdinand, s/t
3. TV on the Radio, Desperate Youth, Blood Thirsty Babes
4. Kanye West, The College Dropout
5. Regina Spektor, Soviet Kitsch
6. Wolf Eyes, Burned Mind
7. Vietnam, The Concrete’s Always Grayer on the Other Side of the Street
8. Usher, Confessions
9. Modest Mouse, Good News for People Who Like Bad News
10. William Shatner, Has Been

In terms of how music is made and distributed, the early 2000s weren’t hugely different from the late ’90s. There were still megaplatinum albums (7.4 million for The Eminem Show in 2002, 6.5 million for Get Rich or Die Tryin’ in 2003), MTV still wielded the hitmaking wand, and the Internet was still more of a nuisance/question mark than the Third Horseman. (The iTunes store opened in 2003, to no small amount of skepticism.) But 2004 was the year things started to look truly transitional.

It was actually a good year for album sales. They went up 2 percent in 2004, after slipping the previous three years. Usher’s Confessions was tops with a remarkable 7.9 million. After sweeping the Grammys and moving 5.1 million copies of Come Away With Me in 2003, Norah Jones continued to sell by the truckload: another 3.8 million in 2004. What could be wrong, right?

In hindsight there were probably a million indicators of what would come, but here are two obvious ones: First, Danger Mouse’s The Grey Album, a big flaming copyright violation released online with no label. It proved that this crazy new distribution model could actually work, and while the labels were used to challenges from the consumer/pirate side, this one came from an artist. Second, the Arcade Fire. They scaled the peaks of blog hype, but their sales were still peanuts by biz standards. Lesson: the days of plucking a Kurt Cobain out of indie-rock are over. Consequence: the indies dry up as a farm league and spin totally out of orbit.

❧

I think I was pretty dead-on with my list. Aside from a few position changes, the only change I want to make is to cut Vietnam, which made an impression on me at the time but hasn’t held; Joanna Newsom replaces it. Notes: Nix on The Grey Album, a curiosity that I never got much out of musically, although I recognize DM’s ingenuity. I’m also omitting U2, the Killers, Gwen Stefani, Interpol and Wilco for various reasons, the biggest that I don’t love the albums. And yes, the Shatner record is good!

What does all that biz analysis have to do with my favorites? Nothing. It’s just interesting.

So, 2004 revised:

1. Arcade Fire, Funeral
2. TV on the Radio, Desperate Youth, Blood Thirsty Babes
3. Joanna Newsom, The Milk-Eyed Mender
4. Kanye West, The College Dropout
5. Usher, Confessions
6. Franz Ferdinand, s/t
7. Regina Spektor, Soviet Kitsch
8. Wolf Eyes, Burned Mind
9. Modest Mouse, Good News for People Who Like Bad News
10. William Shatner, Has Been

❧

And now for 2005. I don’t have much more to say about the biz or the larger culture. It was the year in which, despite everything, George W. Bush was sworn in for a second term, having won a decisive majority. Maybe it’s appropriate, then, that the best album of the year was an uncompromising, politicized cry from the third world.

My original list:

1. M.I.A., Arular
2. The Frames, Burn the Maps
3. Sons and Daughters, The Repulsion Box
4. High on Fire, Blessed Black Wings
5. Kanye West, Late Registration
6. Decemberists, Picaresque
7. White Stripes, Get Behind Me Satan
8. Fiona Apple, Extraordinary Machine
9. Keyshia Cole, The Way It Is
10. The Go! Team, Thunder, Lightning, Strike

I’m going to give myself the groupthink test on these — i.e., looking back after four years, which ones am I certain I was voting for out of love, and which might be the result of that invisible consensus peer pressure we were talking about earlier?

1. Not a chance. Loved it, listened over and over.
2. Nope. It didn’t even make Pazz and Jop.
3. Ditto.
4. Ditto, not that metal would make that list anyway.
5. Some groupthink is inevitable, but to my 2009 ears it still sounds completely solid. And it’s amazing just how much of a fully-formed star Kanye was right from the get-go. He had years of practice with Jay-Z, Twista, Jadakiss et al., but none of those guys had the gumption to look into a live network TV camera and say, “George Bush doesn’t care about black people.”
6. Probably some, but it’s easy to forget how fresh the Decemberists sounded in the first half of the 2000s. Picaresque is what their major-label debut should have sounded like; as I’ve said elsewhere, it got stale pretty fast after this point.
   
7. Nah, check my other lists.
8. Probably. It is an excellent album, though, and I have no regrets about including it.
9. Nah, I fell for it all on my own. This one also didn’t make Pazz and Jop.
10. Yeah, makes me wince. What can I say, sometimes you make a bad call.

So that’s pretty good, I think, overall. I’m cutting the Go! Team, as you might guess, but otherwise leaving my list pretty much intact.

For me, the big contenders I had originally excluded are: My Morning Jacket’s Z, Sufjan Stevens’ Illinois, Feist’s Let It Die, Spoon’s Gimme Fiction, Teenage Fanclub’s Man-Made, Amadou & Mariam’s Dimanche à Bamako, Wolf Parade’s Apologies to the Queen Mary, Van Morrison’s Magic Time, Lee Ann Womack’s There’s More Where That Came From, Teddy Thompson’s Separate Ways and Okkervil River’s Black Sheep Boy.

Of those, the only ones I have unequivocal feelings about are My Morning Jacket, Wolf Parade and Okkervil River. And I think MMJ wins out. Sorry, Sufjan, your big breakthrough was beautiful but a little too precious for me. Sorry, Feist, Spoon and Teenage Fanclub, I love you guys, but your albums were flawed. Sorry, Amadou & Mariam, you handed Manu Chao the keys. Sorry, Teddy, I still think you can better. Sorry, Van and Lee Ann, you made gorgeous records but they feel lost in time.

So, 2005 revised:

1. M.I.A., Arular
2. The Frames, Burn the Maps
3. Kanye West, Late Registration
4. Keyshia Cole, The Way It Is
5. Sons and Daughters, The Repulsion Box
6. Decemberists, Picaresque
7. High on Fire, Blessed Black Wings
8. White Stripes, Get Behind Me Satan
9. My Morning Jacket, Z
10. Fiona Apple, Extraordinary Machine

Decade postmortem: 2003

My original list:

1. Sparks, Lil’ Beethoven
2. Tall Dwarfs, The Sky Above, the Mud Below
3. Shins, Chutes Too Narrow
4. Fountains of Wayne, Welcome Interstate Managers
5. Kings of Leon, Youth & Young Manhood
6. Broken Social Scene, You Forgot It in People
7. Outkast, Speakerboxxx/The Love Below
8. Warren Zanes, Memory Girls
9. The High Strung, These Are Good Times
10. Grandaddy, Sumday

The big releases in 2003 were Outkast, Norah Jones, 50 Cent, Beyoncé, Linkin Park and Evanescence. The ones that turned up on the most critics’ lists were Outkast, the White Stripes (Elephant), Fountains of Wayne, Radiohead (Hail to the Thief), the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and the Shins.

2003 was a pretty great year for pop singles. There was “Hey Ya!” and “In da Club,” perhaps the two greatest hip-hop/pop songs ever. (And I mean pop: Not talking about “Straight Outta Compton” here.) It was also the year of “Crazy in Love,” the greatest of whatever that is. And “Seven Nation Army,” the White Stripes’ peak, the last moment before they began obsessively dismantling the formula they had created.

So with all of those wonderful pop hits, why did I pick Sparks and Tall Dwarfs? I don’t really know. To some degree I think it’s the contrary instinct: you know everybody else is going to pick the White Stripes and Outkast, so you go for a personal favorite and try to grab some cool points with something obscure. It’s kind of ridiculous, but everybody does it. Another reason is simply that you’re rating full albums, not singles.

And goddammit, Lil’ Beethoven really was the most entertaining album of the year for me. It’s full of bile and wit and stacked harmonies, with “classical” arrangements and the Sparks’ trademark opera-rock vocals (they did it before Queen), and the Mael brothers just ridicule everything they see: ostentatiously angry rock bands, the island of Ibiza, automatic phone hold-bots, “Ugly Guys With Beautiful Girls.” There’s no real point to it, no major relevance. But neither was there any huge point to The Importance of Being Earnest, and you damn well better believe that that would have topped my list in 1895.

❧

Judging by some of my other choices, it seems that my mood in December 2003 was, “Fuck it, I feel like choosing these 10 albums right now, and I’m tired of thinking about it.” Call it PMS: pre makingalist syndrome. So Tall Dwarfs is good, but probably not No. 2 good. Warren Zanes and the High Strung, nah. Fountains of Wayne album has some nuggets but it’s no Utopia Parkway.

As for the other biggies, yes on 50 Cent and Beyoncé, both of which are so fantastic I really can’t account for their omission. Elephant also belongs here, bottom half. But I stand by my meh of Hail to the Thief, and while I think the Strokes’ second album is underrated, it’s not as great as, say, Grandaddy’s still-amazing Sumday. I don’t remember why I put Kings of Leon here, but I’m leaving it because I don’t have a good reason to take it off.

Revised:

1. Sparks, Lil’ Beethoven
2. 50 Cent, Get Rich or Die Tryin’
3. Grandaddy, Sumday
4. Shins, Chutes Too Narrow
5. Beyoncé, Dangerously in Love
6. Broken Social Scene, You Forgot It in People
7. White Stripes, Elephant
8. Outkast, Speakerboxxx/The Love Below
9. Tall Dwarfs, The Sky Above, the Mud Below
10. Kings of Leon, Youth & Young Manhood

I think that’s a pretty good list.

❧

Next ... 2004!!!

Decade postmortem: 2002

My original list:

1. Wilco, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
2. Sonic Youth, Murray Street
3. Afel Bocoum, Damon Albarn, Toumani Diabaté and Friends, Mali Music
4. Spoon, Kill the Moonlight
5. George Harrison, Brainwashed
6. Breeders, Title TK
7. Low, Trust
8. Orchestra Baobab, Pirates Choice
9. Bright Eyes, Lifted or The Story Is in the Soil, Keep Your Ear to the Ground
10. Pulses, s/t

I don’t remember a lot about 2002, other than that the whole thing felt like a long, horrible countdown to the inevitable invasion of Iraq. And looking over the various critics’ lists from that year, there’s a lot of music that hasn’t aged terribly well. Critics aren’t to blame for that, but they’re to blame for brainwashing themselves into overpraising it. I’m sorry, but Beck’s Sea Change was a boring, ponderous exercise that deserved about half the stars that Rolling Stone gave it.

Then there’s Maladroit, Songs for the Deaf, In Search Of..., The Rising, One Beat, and ones by younger and supposedly fresher bands: Turn on the Bright Lights, Original Pirate Material. None of these hold up great: a lot of weak mid-career placeholders (Weezer, QOTSA; remember Red Hot Chili Peppers’ By the Way?), dutiful post-9/11 statements (Springsteen, Sleater-Kinney) and overhyped fads (fill in the blank).

BUT, there was indeed a lot that was good. White Blood Cells broke the White Stripes, and Kill the Moonlight still stands as one of the sharpest and most original statements of the decade. Springsteen gave us jingoism, but Sonic Youth dealt with the painful reverberations of 9/11 on a more personal and poignant scale, unexpectedly delivering their best since Daydream Nation. It’s slightly depressing, though, that 2002’s best album (Yankee Hotel Foxtrot) only came out that year because it had been delayed by an idiotic music-biz drama.

❧

I think I did OK on my list but not great; I excluded a lot of the crap but still made a few iffy choices. I’m striking the Breeders and Low, and disqualifying my buddies the Pulses as a conflict of interest. Technically Orchestra Baobab shouldn’t count because it’s a reissue, but I can’t resist; it really is that magnificent. I’m also giving credit to A Rush of Blood to the Head — say what you will about Coldplay, it’s a very strong album — and I’m adding Salif Keita’s unbelievably gorgeous Moffou as well as a sentimental favorite, Sondre Lerche. Honorable mentions to Doves’ The Last Broadcast, Sigur Ros’s () and Hot Snakes’ Suicide Invoice.

So here’s my revised list:

1. Wilco, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
2. Spoon, Kill the Moonlight
3. Sonic Youth, Murray Street
4. Orchestra Baobab, Pirates Choice
5. Coldplay, A Rush of Blood to the Head
6. Afel Bocoum, Damon Albarn, Toumani Diabaté and Friends, Mali Music
7. Salif Keita, Moffou
8. Bright Eyes, Lifted or The Story Is in the Soil, Keep Your Ear to the Ground
9. Sondre Lerche, Faces Down
10. George Harrison, Brainwashed

Decade postmortem: 2000 and 2001

UPDATES: I tweaked the 2000 list a bit and added an addendum to 2001.

Now is the time when the music critics of the world compile their lists of the best releases of the year, and, even more agonizing, of the decade. Actually, for most writers that time was a month ago. I always get to these late, cuz (1) I don’t usually have a pressing early deadline, and (2) I find it psychically impossible to look back on a year until at least the second week of December.

I’ll be posting my 2009 list soon. But while scanning through the best-of-the-decade cloud, I’ve also been reflecting on my own past choices. Every critic should be held up to the lasting wisdom of his or her old year-end lists. Anybody can pick 10 faves, but a good critic is supposed to have the insight to find quality amid the mediocrity, and to explain and contextualize it. The problem is that aside from a few obvious mega-masterpieces (Thriller, Nevermind, William Shatner’s The Transformed Man) no one knows what will stand the test of time, which is the only test that matters. As a result, the art of the year-end top 10 includes an embarrassing amount of guesswork, fanboy advocacy and consensus groupthink gone stupidly wrong.

In 2007 the Village Voice ran a brutal but very funny reckoning about its Pazz and Jop poll, which covers hundreds of critics each year. (New Times had recently bought the Voice and begun booting its staff, so the motivation might not have been purely journalistic.) Reviewing decades of old Pazz and Jop tallies, the new Voice found a lot of howlers. Our nation’s rock critics got Thriller and Nevermind right (phew), but otherwise came out looking only slightly smarter than Grammy voters. For instance, in 1991 P.M. Dawn was laughably overestimated at No. 5, while My Bloody Valentine’s Loveless only made No. 14 and Dinosaur Jr’s Green Mind No. 37. Those are two of the most important alt-rock albums of the ’90s, and it was pretty obvious at the time how big a deal they were. In 1995 Elastica was No. 5 but Ready to Die was shunted all the way down to No. 38. I think we know who killed Biggie Smalls!

Over the next week or so I’ll be reviewing my past lists to see how well they hold up, and revising them as needed. Feel free to take me to task, shout in solidarity, call bullshit. It can be tricky to define exactly what we’re saying with these rankings. The big question is whether they represent only personal affinity or are larger statements about artistic or cultural importance. I lean toward the former, although I think a critic isn’t doing his job unless the latter plays a significant part.

❧

First up: 2000. I can’t find a list for that year; if I made one at all, it was informal. But with the benefit of hindsight, here’s the one I would (or should) have made:

1. Radiohead, Kid A
2. Webb Brothers, Maroon
3. High on Fire, The Art of Self Defense
4. White Stripes, De Stijl
5. Grandaddy, The Sophtware Slump
6. Sigur Ros, Agaetis Byrjun
7. Bebel Gilberto, Tanto Tempo
8. Outkast, Stankonia
9. Coldplay, Parachutes
10. Dead Prez, Let’s Get Free

I can’t deny Kid A, which stunned me when it came out. It was amazing that something so bizarrely beautiful went to No. 1. It’s a milestone in the history of weird music. It wasn’t a breakthrough exactly: it wasn’t the first “post-rock” album, nor was it really a major reboot for Radiohead (that was OK Computer). But Kid A continued and surpassed all the post-rock/electronica that had been bubbling up through the ’90s, when those sounds were new and revolutionary. And after a decade it still hasn’t been surpassed. Why? Because Radiohead made it look too easy. In the same way that 1,000 shitty lo-fi bands tried to fake being Pavement in the 1990s, 1,000 shitty post-rock bands tried to fake being Radiohead in the 2000s. It’s still happening, and that’s why Radiohead are still giants.

I also love the Webb Brothers, who reside in a different and less futuristic musical continent. These young sons of Jimmy Webb (“Wichita Lineman”) absorbed their father’s songwriting classicism and applied it to the druggy, debauched fast life in an epic concept album dripping with melody. (I originally had this in my 2001 list, but I believe the album came out in 2000. I can’t remember anymore.)

Following that, High on Fire’s debut was an instant classic of stoner metal, and De Stijl was the album that got the buzz going on the White Stripes. (I bought it at Midnight Records on 23rd Street; I hadn’t heard of them before, but it had one of those covers that guarantees something interesting.) Otherwise, I don’t have much to say about this list, other than that I remember being very struck by Dead Prez at the time, and that it took some time for me to make sense of Grandaddy; I probably would not have included them on this list if I had written it in December 2000, but now it seems essential to me. The Sigur Ros album had a complicated release history but it basically broke in 2000. (First major press mention on Nexis: announcement of NME Premier Awards nominees, Jan. 21, 2000.)

❧

And now, 2001. Here’s the list I made at the time:

1. Spoon, Girls Can Tell
2. White Stripes, White Blood Cells
3. Lightning Bolt, Ride the Skies
4. Manu Chao, Proxima Estación: Esperanza
5. Radiohead, Amnesiac
6. Low, Things We Lost in the Fire
7. Moldy Peaches, Moldy Peaches
8. Webb Brothers, Maroon
9. Fugu, Fugu 1
10. Tortoise, Standards

I think I’m right about a lot of this. But there are two big, big albums I would need to add: Nick Lowe’s The Convincer and the Shins’ Oh, Inverted World. The Convincer has become a real favorite of mine; discussing it with Claudia Marshall on WFUV recently, I called it “the most tasteful album of the 2000s,” and I stick by that. It’s magnificently elegant and eloquent, the perfect sound for Lowe’s wry but still warm-hearted reflections on the follies of life and love. The Shins I don’t need to explain; it’s fabulous, and it gets me right there. What I will say in defense of this revision is that that both albums reached me too late because of 9/11, when my life shifted to constant fifth-gear mode for several months. (Lowe’s album was released on that day; the Shins came out earlier, but I don’t think I heard it until early 2002.)

Otherwise, it’s a fairly easy decision to remove Manu Chao and Tortoise, neither of which has held up terribly well for me, and as noted above Marooned is reassigned to 2000. More difficult to lose is the lovely and playful Fugu. It charmed me eight years ago and is still nice, but here in 2009 it don’t sound like such great shakes.

That leaves room to add two titles, and there are some prominent candidates: Bob Dylan’s Love and Theft, the Strokes’ Is This It, and Jay-Z’s The Blueprint. In terms of who made the best album, I think Dylan wins out, and as much as I might loathe the Strokes, I have to admit that Is This It holds up really, really well. It was also the year of Miss E ... So Addictive, but my frustration with Missy albums is that aside from two or three brilliant tracks they tend to get pretty boring.

So here’s my revised list for 2001:

1. Nick Lowe, The Convincer
2. Spoon, Girls Can Tell
3. The Shins, Oh, Inverted World
4. White Stripes, White Blood Cells
5. Lightning Bolt, Ride the Skies
6. Radiohead, Amnesiac
7. Bob Dylan, Love and Theft
8. Moldy Peaches, Moldy Peaches
9. The Strokes, Is This It
10. Low, Things We Lost in the Fire

Addendum: Teenage Fanclub’s Howdy, released in the UK in 2000, came out in the US in 2001. It’s gorgeously pastoral, and asks simple, honest and poignant questions about life and love. (Here is my review at the time.) If I were to put it in this list it would be between Nos. 3 and 4, but I don’t want to mess with it at this point.

❧

Next up ... 2002!

Partial recovery of ‘Best of 2008’

All links, formatting and embedded clips, etc., are gone, and I really don't feel like going to all that trouble again. But here it is, at least until Google allows it to mysteriously disappear again:

ALBUMS

1. Vampire Weekend (XL). Although the role of blogs in their success might be overstated, as people who know have suggested, there’s no denying a textbook 21st-century phenomenon. Yet there’s also something comfortingly classic going on here. The album has a clear musical vision and sonic consistency — two elements endangered by “unbundling” — and, most important, tight, smart songwriting. The rampant Graceland comparisons are simplistic and inaccurate, but this does remind me of the clean minimalism of the ’80s. The Police, maybe? Anyway, fishing for antecedents is a dismal pursuit. The reason this is great is just that it is great.

2. Bon Iver, For Emma, Forever Ago (Jagjaguwar). The sad-sack lo-fi album is the most pathetically overdone trend since 15-year-olds discovered black lipstick. But Justin Vernon has done it about as best as can be done, with breathy, wintry harmonies and a perfectionism that still allows for something ragged and unbalanced, making this seem at times like a very low-energy tantrum. Best of all, that perfectionism puts other boo-hoo boys on notice. The age of the trembling Conor Oberst imitation is dead; you have to actually sing now.

3. Girl Talk, Feed the Animals (Illegal Art). There’s nothing new about mashups, nor about an album made entirely of samples. What Gregg Gillis, a.k.a. Girl Talk, has done is return the art of sampling to its origins, which were all about the thrill of familiarity. DJ’s recontextualized old sounds, yes, but they chose those sounds in part to piggyback on the memories they triggered. A typical GT track is nostalgia in hyperdrive, stitched together from dozens of samples — each of which you are happy to hear again and again, and again and again.

4. Metallica, Death Magnetic (Warner Bros.). Maybe it is compressed; so what. This is a return to the Metallica that I love, the Metallica I haven’t heard from in 20 years. Physicality = viscera = blood rush = the hunt = murder = pain. In many ways this is a simple horror film, with lyrics like “Crushing metal, ripping skin/Tossing body, mannequin.” There’s also new depth in there, though, thanks to age and the mirror of rehab. But you don’t really care about that, do you? They had you at “ripping skin.”

5. TV on the Radio, Dear Science (Interscope). I’m getting tired of putting TVOTR albums on my best-of lists. But they twisted my arm. This is maybe their best, the noise-cloud gathered into cleaner, sharper lines, the falsetto still kickin’, the caustic surrealism still kickin’ too.

6. Randy Newman, Harps and Angels (Nonesuch). Perhaps the best piece of political satire all year. Newman did a beautiful thing by taking a step away from partisan rancor and arrogance, and then using lighthearted entertainment to brutally lambaste them. How better to frame a theme of post-Katrina shame than with avuncular New Orleans showmanship?

7. My Morning Jacket, Evil Urges (ATO). Jim James may make a great album some day. This isn’t it — disqualified for sexy librarians and “the Interweb” — but it’s one of the most ambitious records by a major band in 2008. (I contend that only Coldplay and Axl Rose took bolder risks. Discuss.) It’s a tug-of-war about paranoia and alienation, and goes through a lot of itchy electronic stuff before getting anywhere close to the Southern-rock pastorals they are known for. And when they do get there (“Thank You Too!”) it’s absolutely gorgeous.

8. Black Kids, Partie Traumatic (Columbia). The Black Kids suffered a bit from the industry-not-moving-as-fast-as-the-Web thing. (Not too bad, though; I still heard them every time I walked into an Urban Outfitters.) But any backlash reflected badly on the blogosphere itself. This is smartass indie dance-pop at its best, and the lyrical wit (“Hello, this is your body/What do you want, my body?/I wanna feel somebody on me”) is the cherry on top.

9. Jonas Brothers, A Little Bit Longer (Hollywood). Perfect rocklegum. How long do we have to wait until Nick Jonas hits his Brian Wilson period?

10. Beach House, Devotion (Car Park). Victoria Legrand has a suppler, deeper alto than Chan Marshall, although she doesn’t reach the same expressive heights. But on Devotion, she wins. Her voice is like a hormonal beacon through clouds of organ and slide guitar (by the other member of Beach House, Alex Scalley), whereas Cat Power’s aimless Jukebox just gets lost. My worry: There’s not much else but texture here. I hope Legrand (and Scalley) develop further and don’t end up simply treading pretty water.


SINGLES

1. Katy Perry, “Hot N Cold”
2. Jonas Brothers, “Lovebug”
3. Coldplay, “Viva la Vida”
4. Black Kids, “I’m Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend How to Dance With You”
5. She & Him, “Why Do You Let Me Stay Here?”
6. Fall Out Boy, “I Don’t Care”
7. Leona Lewis, “Bleeding Love”
8. Lucinda Williams, “If Wishes Were Horses”
9. Jazmine Sullivan, “Bust Your Windows”
10. Kid Rock, “All Summer Long”


30 MORE RECOMMENDED ALBUMS

Al Green, Lay It Down (Blue Note)
Jamey Johnson, That Lonesome Song (Mercury Nashville)
Coldplay, Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends (Capitol)
Jay Reatard, Matador Singles 08 (Matador)
Jay Reatard, Singles 06-07 (In the Red)
She & Him, Volume One (Merge)
Nick Cave, Dig!!! Lazarus Dig!!! (Anti-)
Lykke Li, Youth Novels (LL/Atlantic)
Portishead, Third (Island)
School of Seven Bells, Alpinisms (Ghostly)
Raconteurs, Consolers of the Lonely (Warner Brothers)
Jazmine Sullivan, Fearless (J)
Nine Inch Nails, Ghosts I-IV (Null Corporation)
Fall Out Boy, Folie à Deux (Island)
Joe Jackson, Rain (Ryko)
Liam Finn, I’ll Be Lightning (Yep Roc)
Fleet Foxes (Sub Pop)
Sons & Daughters, This Gift (Domino)
Death Cab for Cutie, Narrow Stairs (Atlantic)
Hercules and Love Affair (DFA/EMI)
Shearwater, Rook (Matador)
Magnetic Fields, Distortion (Nonesuch)
Jealous Girlfriends (Good Fences)
Tokyo Police Club, Elephant Shell (Saddle Creek)
Hot Chip, Made in the Dark (DFA/EMI)
MGMT, Oracular Spectacular (Columbia)
Wye Oak, If Children (Merge)
Death Vessel, Nothing Is Precious Enough for Us (Sub Pop)
Jolie Holland, The Living and the Dead (Anti-)
Wolf Parade, At Mount Zoomer (Sub Pop)

REISSUES

Nick Lowe, Jesus of Cool (Yep Roc)
Dennis Wilson, Pacific Ocean Blue (Legacy)
Love Train: The Sound of Philadelphia (Legacy)

MORE SINGLES I LIKED

Lykke Li, “Little Bit”
Ting Tings, “That’s Not My Name”
Beach House, “Gila”
Kanye West, “Love Lockdown”
John Legend, “Green Light”
Weezer, “Pork and Beans”
Pussycat Dolls, “When I Grow Up”

BLANK STARE

Guns N’ Roses, Chinese Democracy (Geffen)

MOST INTERESTING FAILURE

Kanye West, 808s & Heartbreak (Def Jam)

BEST TITLES (ALSO HIGHLY RECOMMENDED)

Marnie Stern, This Is It and I Am It and You Are It and So Is That and He Is It and She Is It and It Is It and That Is That (Kill Rock Stars)
Kasai Allstars, In The 7th Moon, the Chief Turned Into a Swimming Fish and Ate the Head of His Enemy by Magic (Crammed Discs)

FAVORITE COVER

[Crystal Castles]


YES BUT 2007

Flo Rida, “Low”
M.I.A., “Paper Planes”

HONORARY MENTION

Bruce Springsteen’s powerful reading of Suicide’s life-affirming “Dream Baby Dream,” on a purposely obscure 10-inch (cover, right) that kicked off a series of singles on Blast First Petite in honor of Alan Vega’s 70th birthday (yes, 70th!). It was limited to 4,000 copies, one of which I snagged with an advance order on Amazon. Supposedly it’s sold out, although the last time I was at Kim’s on St. Marks they had three of them, and it’s on eMusic.

MOST OVERRATED INDIE BANDS

No Age
Fleet Foxes

WHITE CRITIC’S OBLIGATORY LIL WAYNE REFERENCE

Lil Wayne

DISAPPOINTMENTS

Shelby Lynne, Just a Little Lovin’ (Lost Highway)
Ray Davies, Working Man’s Cafe (New West)
Cat Power, Jukebox (Matador)
Gnarls Barkley, The Odd Couple (Atlantic)

CAN’T BE A DISAPPOINTMENT IF YOU DON’T CARE

Beck, Modern Guilt (Interscope)

WORST ALBUM OF 2008

Scarlett Johnansson, Anywhere I Lay My Head (Atco)

2008: The year in live music

I saw slightly fewer concerts in 2008 than usual — about 90 shows, not counting theater and some other things. Here are some of the more notable events, with favorites in bold itals.

Best were Nick Lowe, Leonard Cohen, the Vaselines and My Bloody Valentine. (Am I getting old, or what?) Most surprsing: Information (opening for Teenage Jesus, who were great too), “From Beyond” (conflict of interest alert), Philip Glass’s “Satyagraha” at the Met, Jamey Johnson, and the Korean avant/traditional fusion of the Tori Ensemble. Most disappointing was probably everything about Oneida’s show at the Kitchen except “Sheet of Easter,” as much as I do love them.

1/10: Lou Reed and John Zorn (with Laurie Anderson) @ The Stone
1/19: Blonde Redhead, Raveonettes, School of Seven Bells @ Terminal 5
1/29: Vampire Weekend, Beat the Devil @ Bowery Ballroom
2/1: Joanna Newsom w/ Brooklyn Philharmonic @ BAM
2/6: Cat Power @ Terminal 5
2/13: Jason and Lucas Ajemian’s “From Beyond” @ 436 West 15th Street (behind Passerby bar)
2/13: MGMT, Yeasayer, Violens @ Bowery Ballroom
2/14: Yeasayer, MGMT, Chairlift @ Music Hall of Williamsburg
2/23: The National, My Brightest Diamond @ BAM
3/7: “Peter Grimes” @ Metropolitan Opera
3/10: Vinicio Capossela @ Joe’s Pub
3/13-15: SXSW (highlights: Motörhead, Holy Fuck, My Morning Jacket, Liam Finn, Bon Iver, Atlas Sound, Wye Oak, Pissed Jeans, Handsome Furs, Health, 2 Live Crew, White Shoes and the Couples Company, the Pillows)
3/30: Boredoms @ Terminal 5
4/2: Beach House, Papercuts, Luke Temple @ Bowery Ballroom
4/4: Shelby Lynne @ Ethical Culture Society
4/6: Simone Dinnerstein @ Town Hall
4/9: Nick Lowe w/ Robyn Hitchcock (and Elvis Costello!) @ Grand Ballroom, Manhattan Center
4/16: Joe Jackson @ Town Hall
4/17: Opening party @ John Varvatos store, 315 Bowery (former CBGB): Wayne Kramer, Handsome Dick Manitoba, Tom Morello, Jerry Cantrell, Slash, Joan Jett, Ian Hunter, Ronnie Spector, others.
4/19: “Satyagraha” @ Metropolitan Opera
4/30: Madonna @ Roseland
5/4: Tashi (Wuorinen, Takemitsu, Messiaen) @ Town Hall
5/19: The Swell Season, Interference @ Radio City Music Hall
5/24: Rosa Passos @ Allen Room
6/6: MIA, Rye Rye, Holy Fuck @ McCarren Pool
6/11: Robert Plant and Alison Krauss @ WaMu Theater at Madison Square Garden
6/13: Teenage Jesus and the Jerks (Lydia Lunch, Jim Sclavunos, Thurston Moore), Information @ Knitting Factory
6/14: Oneida (“The Wedding”) @ The Kitchen
6/20: My Morning Jacket @ Radio City Music Hall
6/23: Coldplay @ Madison Square Garden
6/25: Leonard Cohen @ Salle Wilfrid-Pelletier, Place des Arts, Montreal (pre-festival)
6/26-28: Montreal International Jazz Festival (highlights: Dee Dee Bridgewater, Vieux Farka Touré, Return to Forever, John Jorgenson, Al Green, Hank Jones duos with Joe Lovano and Brad Mehldau; Mehldau solo; Saxophone Summit w/ Lovano, Dave Liebman and Ravi Coltrane)
7/5: Rush @ Saratoga Performing Arts Center
7/9: Vaselines, Indelicates @ Maxwell’s
7/12: Beth Orton, Matt Munisteri @ Celebrate Brooklyn
7/13: Breeders, Matt & Kim, the Whip @ McCarren Pool
7/18: Billy Joel @ Shea Stadium
7/19: Matmos, Leprechaun Catering @ Le Poisson Rouge
7/20: Liars @ McCarren Pool
7/25: Black Kids, Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson, Zambri @ Santos Party House
8/7: Neil Diamond @ XL Center, Hartford
8/9: All Points West: Radiohead, the Roots, Kings of Leon, Black Angels @ Liberty State Park, NJ
8/17: Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings, Menahan Street Band @ Central Park Summerstage
8/20: The Ex with Gétatchèw Mèkurya; Mahmoud Ahmed and Alèmayèhu Eshèté with Either/Orchestra; Extra Golden @ Damrosch Park Bandshell, Lincoln Center Plaza
9/10: Bill Frisell, Paul Motian, Joe Lovano @ Village Vanguard
9/17: Lee Ann Womack, Jamey Johnson @ Allen Room
9/23: My Bloody Valentine @ Roseland
10/11: Haroon Bacha @ Forest Hills Jewish Center
10/16: TV on the Radio, Dragons of Zynth @ Brooklyn Masonic Temple
10/17: “Baltimore Round Robin” w/ Beach House, Jana Hunter, Santa Dads, Lexie Mountain, Lesser, Teeth Mountain, Nautical Almaniac, Lizz King, Creepers, WZT Hearts, Ed Schrader, Sand Cats, Thank You @ Le Poisson Rouge
10/21-25: CMJ (highlights: Shugo Tokumaru, Jay Reatard, the King Khan & BBQ Show, Growing, Psychic Ills, Sian Alice Group, Mission of Burma, the Muslims, School of Seven Bells)
11/7: Rosanne Cash, Joe Henry @ Rubin Museum
12/5: “Red Hot + Rio 2”: CéU, Curumin, Bebel Gilberto, José González, Otto and João Parahyba, w/ Kassin, Moreno Veloso, Domenico Lancellotti, Money Mark, Janja Gomes, Jorge Continentino, Carlos Darci and Zé Luis @ BAM
12/6: Tori Ensemble (Yoon Jeong Heo, Erik Friedlander, Kwon Soon Kang, Young Chi Min, Ned Rothenberg, Satoshi Takeishi) @ Asia Society
12/10: Bon Iver, the Tallest Man on Earth @ Town Hall
12/18: “La Bohème” @ Metropolitan Opera (with Ramón Vargas)
12/31: Joan Osborne @ City Winery
12/31: Akron/Family, Deerhoof, Megafaun, etc. @ Knitting Factory

(Top photo credit.)

Slow news day

From AP feed on NYTimes.com homepage:

Man Who Aided Bicycle Theft Plan Has Bike Stolen

Filed at 11:31 a.m. ET

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) -- A former Fort Lauderdale city commissioner who helped create a program to combat bicycle theft had his own bike stolen while trying to help people involved in a vehicle crash.

Tim Smith said he witnessed the traffic accident as he was cycling to the beach on Monday. He said he left his bike on the sidewalk to rush to the cars involved. But after finding both drivers uninjured, he went to retrieve his bike and discovered it was gone.

To add insult to injury, Smith -- as a commissioner -- had successfully pushed for a citywide bike registration program to help police track stolen bikes. But when he contacted police to report his own stolen bike, he had to admit it was not registered.

2008 sounded like ...

Your guide to retro 2008. The unoriginality matrix. The rip-off ledger. “It happened last year ... and a few years before that, and a bunch of times in the 10 years prior, and then probably it happened for the first time about 12 years before that.”

All these titles will work just fine. None are truly fair, and indeed there’s a good deal of this music that I like. But the first rule of snobby criticism is that if there’s enough to like then there’s enough to not like. So ...

That 2008 “best of” band ...	... basically sounds like ...	... circa:
Crystal Castles	Kraftwerk	1981
Crystal Stilts	Velvet Underground	1968-69 (“quiet” period)
Jay Reatard	Billy Childish	1991
Beach House	Mazzy Star	1993
Lykke Li	Björk? (does she have a less talented sister?)	1995
School of Seven Bells	Lush	1990
TV on the Radio	TV on the Radio	2006
Metallica	Metallica	1988
Guns N’ Roses	Guns N’ Roses	1991 + 25 TB of tinkering
Fleet Foxes	My Morning Jacket	2003
Department of Eagles	Grizzly Bear	2004
Santogold	M.I.A.	2005
The Ting Tings	Toni Basil with Devo	1981
Vivian Girls	Beat Happening covering My Bloody Valentine	1989
AC/DC	AC/DC	1980
Hercules and Love Affair	Pet Shop Boys	1988-ish
The Hold Steady	Shane MacGowan with the E Street Band	1984
Girl Talk	Soulwax	2001
Portishead	Portishead	1997

Contributions? Challenges?

Coming soon: My best-of list(s) for 2008.

Rolling Stone interns, old at heart

The most interesting year-end list I’ve seen is by Rolling Stone’s interns, posted yesterday:

Fleet Foxes - Fleet Foxes
The Black Keys - Attack & Release
Vampire Weekend - Vampire Weekend
Beck - Modern Guilt
Conor Oberst and the Mystic Valley Band - Conor Oberst
My Morning Jacket - Evil Urges
MGMT - Oracular Spectacular
Coldplay - Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends
The Hold Steady - Stay Positive
Portishead - Third

Besides the obligatory Fleet Foxes, these are suspiciously baby-boomer choices for a bunch of 20-year-olds. Does anyone under 40 really care about the Black Keys’ humorless retro blooze? And Beck? Coldplay? My Morning Jacket? Portishead? Fine albums, and MMJ will probably place high on my list. But I’m 34.

Are the interns really this fuddy duddy, or are they just brown-nosing their bosses with RS sacred cows like Beck? (Who has gotten at least four stars for everything since Mellow Gold, which of course got three and a half.) If the latter, they’ve gone too far: Even those masthead elders are hip enough to recognize TV on the Radio, Lil Wayne, Girl Talk, Blitzen Trapper and Santogold.

2007: The year in live music

In 2007 I saw 135 shows, not counting theater, TV tapings and some other nonmusical events. Here’s the list, with faves in bold itals. The hands-down winner is the Boredoms’ epochal “77BOADRUM” on 7/7. Runner-up: Dirty Projectors on 12/4. Worst is probably Mos Def on 1/17.


1/10: Love Arcade @ Bowery Ballroom
1/10: Cold War Kids @ Pianos
1/17: Mos Def’s Big Band (Lincoln Center American Songbook) @ Allen Room
1/24: Camera Obscura, Essex Green @ Warsaw
2/2: Devendra Banhart, Vashti Bunyan, Vetiver, Adem, CocoRose, Cibelle (David Byrne Perspectives: “Welcome to Dreamland”) @ Carnegie Hall
2/3: Estrella Morente (World Music Institute Flamenco Festival) @ Town Hall
2/4: Haale, Alarm Will Sound, Camille (David Byrne Perspectives: “One Note”) @ Zankel Hall
2/7: Libby Johnson @ Rockwood Music Hall
2/7: Essie Jain, Mike Wexler @ Tonic
2/8: Calexico (Lincoln Center American Songbook) @ Allen Room
2/16: Arcade Fire @ Judson Memorial Church
2/17: Gang Gang Dance @ Studio B
3/19: Chris Daughtry @ Irving Plaza
3/24: Lightning Bolt, Barr, Marnie Stern @ 3rd Ward
3/30: “Festival of India: Colors of Rajasthan,” Gulabi Sapera and Party (World Music Institute) @ Symphony Space
3/30: Toumani Diabaté’s Symmetric Orchestra @ Zankel Hall
3/30: Rebuilding the Rights of Statues (ReTros) @ Luna Lounge
3/31: LCD Soundsystem, planningtorock @ Bowery Ballroom
4/4: Alfred Brendel (Haydn, Beethoven, Schubert, Mozart) @ Carnegie Hall
4/5: Land of Talk, Mahogany @ Mercury Lounge
4/9: Iggy and the Stooges, Sistas in the Pit @ United Palace Theater
4/10: Klaxons, Bonde do Rôle @ Bowery Ballroom
4/11: Lily Allen, the Bird and the Bee @ Irving Plaza
4/13: The Locust, Daughters, Cattle Decapitation @ Rebel
4/13: Roky Erickson and the Explosives @ Southpaw
4/14: Jandek (w/ Tim Foljahn & Pete Nolan) @ Abrons Arts Center @ Henry Street Settlement
4/14: Cloud Cult, Young Galaxy @ Mercury Lounge
4/30: Lou Reed, Okkervil River @ Highline Ballroom
5/4: Northern State, Boyskout @ Galapagos
5/5: Orchestra di Piazza Vittorio (screening/concert, Tribeca Film Festival) @ Pace University
5/9: Arcade Fire, The National (High Line Festival) @ Radio City Music Hall
5/16: Spanish Harlem Orchestra @ SOB’s
5/17: Ken Nordine (High Line Festival) @ Kitchen
5/19: Ricky Gervais (High Line Festival) @ Theater at Madison Square Garden
5/22: Vinicio Capossela @ Joe’s Pub
5/22: Bebel Gilberto @ Gramercy
5/27: Brand New @ Bowery Ballroom
6/1: Animal Collective, Danielson @ South Street Seaport
6/9: Bee Thousand 33⅓ “microshow” w/ Marc Woodworth (Todd P.) @ Don Pedro’s
6/14: Welcome, Georgie James @ Mercury Lounge
6/14: Jealous Girlfriends, Woggles @ Pianos
6/17: The Whitest Kids U’ Know @ Pianos
6/19: Erik Friedlander @ Marquee
6/19: White Stripes, Citizens Band @ Irving Plaza
6/21: Richard Thompson, Ollabelle @ Celebrate Brooklyn
6/24: Superchunk, Oakley Hall @ McCarren Pool
6/24: Arms and Legs @ Cake Shop
7/7: Boredoms “77BOADRUM” @ Brooklyn Bridge Park
7/11: Deerhunter, Ex Models @ Bowery Ballroom
7/12: The World Without Magic, Ford & Fitzroy @ Pianos
7/13: Menomena, Beat the Devil @ South Street Seaport
7/13: Jealous Girlfriends, Dappled Cities @ Mercury Lounge
7/17: Os Mutantes (Lincoln Center Festival) @ Rose Theater
7/17: Slint @ Webster Hall
7/20: Nick Lowe @ Housing Works Café
7/21: Siren Music Festival: M.I.A. etc. @ Coney Island
7/21: Gogol Bordello @ Irving Plaza
7/25: M.I.A. @ Studio B
7/26: Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings @ Castle Clinton
7/27: Melvins @ Troubadour, LA
7/28: Rentals @ Spaceland, LA
8/12: Ted Leo, Thermals @ McCarren Pool
8/21: José González @ Spiegeltent
9/10: Dina Dean @ Rockwood Music Hall
9/10: Live Rock ’n’ Roll Karaoke @ Arlene Grocery
9/13: Ollabelle Taj Mahal people @ Banjo Jim’s
9/19: Nick Lowe, Holmes Brothers @ 7 World Trade Center
10/3: Modern Sky Festival day 2 (New Pants, Supermarket, Peng Tan, others) @ Haidian Park, Beijing
10/3: Joyside, Queen Sea Big Shark, Banana Monkey @ D-22, Beijing
10/4: Modern Sky Festival day 3 (Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Carsick Cars, Arms and Legs, ReTros, S.A.W., 641, Submarine, The Young Kids, Tibet, Dead J, others) @ Haidian Park, Beijing
10/4: Notch festival (Kira Kira, Johann Johannsson) @ Yugongyishan, Beijing
10/5: ReTros, Birthday Boyz @ 2Kolegas, Beijing
10/6: Lonely China Day @ 2Kolegas, Beijing
10/7: Lie Tie Qiao (sax/drum improv) @ D-22, Beijing
10/9: Improv night (Yan Jun, etc.) @ 2Kolegas, Beijing
10/11: Birthday Boyz, Last Choice @ 4698, Changsha, China
10/12: Birthday Boyz @ Vox Bar, Wuhan, China
10/17: TK Webb and the Visions, Douglas Armour (CMJ) @ Glasslands Gallery
10/17: Fool’s Gold showcase w/ Cool Kids, Kid Sister, Nick Catchdubs (CMJ) @ Hiro Ballroom
10/18: We Are Wolves (CMJ) @ Fader CMJ space
10/18: Yo Majesty, Elk City (CMJ) @ Pianos
10/19: Yeasayer, Black Kids (CMJ) @ R Bar
10/19: Essie Jain, Leah Siegel (CMJ) @ Living Room
10/19: Sons and Daughters, Maccabees (CMJ) @ Bowery Ballroom
10/20: O’Death, Old Time Relijun (CMJ) @ The Yard, Brooklyn
10/20: White Willams (CMJ) @ Fader CMJ space
10/20: Justice (CMJ) @ Terminal 5
10/26: Brunettes, Wows @ Union Hall
10/27: Gamelan Cudamani @ Skirball Center @NYU
10/27: Bill Charlap Trio (Kenny Washington, Peter Washington) @ Village Vanguard
11/3: The Exit @ BAM (“BAM Takeover”)
11/4: Band of Horses, the Drones, Tyler Ramsey @ Terminal 5
11/12: Pipettes, Nicole Atkins @ Gramercy
11/16: Berlin Philharmonic (Kurtag, Mahler) @ Carnegie Hall
11/23: Black Dice, Sightings, Awesome Color @ Highline Ballroom
11/26: Julie Hardy @ 55 Bar
11/26: John Wolfington and friends: Tim Foljahn, Alexa Wilding @ Living Room (upstairs)
11/26: Antihoot: David L.K. Murphy, etc. @ Sidewalk Café
11/26: Jim Boggia, Jim Campilongo Electric Trio @ Living Room
11/26: Live Rock ’n’ Roll Karaoke @ Arlene Grocery
11/27: Cross Pollination #169: Bess Rogers, That Fleeting World @ Pianos
11/27: Michael Daves @ Rockwood Music Hall
11/28: Joel Frahm Trio (w/ John Ellis not Frahm) @ “The Salon at Arthur’s IP” (a.k.a. Arthur’s Invitations and Prints)
11/28: Tinariwen @ Other Music (in-store)
11/28: Defibulators @ Rodeo Bar
11/29: Dog Day @ Sound Fix Lounge
11/29: Howard Fishman @ Pete’s Candy Store
11/29: Anistar @ Zebulon
12/1: The Clean, Times New Viking, the Mad Scene @ Cake Shop
12/4: Ansel Matthews @ Zinc Bar
12/4: Terry Waldo @ Banjo Jim’s
12/4: Eli Degibri Trio @ Louis 649
12/4: Dirty Projectors, White Williams @ Bowery Ballroom
12/6: Taylor Mali, David L.K. Murphy @ Bowery Poetry Club
12/6: Old Time Jam with Zot’s Dream @ Freddy’s Back Room
12/6: Rachelle Garniez @ Barbès
12/6: Flying Lotus (not seen: El-P) @ Studio B
12/7: Harry Partch’s “Delusion of the Fury” @ Japan Society
12/8: Doc Marshalls @ Hill Country
12/11: Yo La Tengo @ Maxwell’s
12/12: Neil Young @ United Palace Theater
12/19: Trefoil @ St. Bartholomew
12/20: Harlem Blues and Jazz Band @ Trinity Church
12/20: Boys of St. Thomas Choir @ St. Thomas Church
12/21: Ethel etc. @ World Financial Center Winter Garden
12/27: “Roméo et Juliette” @ Metropolitan Opera
12/30: Chuck Berry @ B.B. King’s

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The year in records.

Best of 2007

ALBUMS

1. Dirty Projectors, Rise Above. Much has been said about the concept. And it’s brilliant. But what got me was how Dave Longstreth advanced the emerging indie-boys-discovering-Afropop minigenre. He rips up highlife and uses just what he wants — the sunny, melodic dance lines, the manic guitar counterpoint — which is exactly what he does with/to Black Flag and those Stockhausen-esque alien harmonies. Oh, and it kicks ass, too. (Example; Black Flag’s original.)

2. Robert Plant and Alison Krauss, Raising Sand. This seemed a potential trainwreck when I first learned of it, but it turned out to be a glorious surprise. Luxuriant and masterly, it’s the O Brother, Where Art Thou? of blues, country and rockabilly, with a center of gravity in the 1950s instead of the ’20s.

3. Spoon, Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga. I gave it a mixed review when it came out because the looser, jammier approach of latter-day Spoon seemed less compelling than the structure-mad minimalism of the Kill the Moonlight era. But I was wrong. This is Britt Daniel in magnificent command of sound and vision, and though it’s less compositionally compressed than before, not a single sound is wasted.

4. Battles, Mirrored. The nuttiest, tightest and most surprisingly danceable math(ish)-rock album of the year.

5. Feist, The Reminder. First impression: Sounds like Feist. Six months later: Pretty much a perfect archetype of what soft-rock can be in the ’00s, tasteful and grown-up but squarely in the indie idiom, not folk. That means its interests extend beyond the acoustic guitar, and the central emotional tone is mature vulnerability, not earnestness.

6. Amy Winehouse, Back to Black. It was clear long before her Lohanization that Amy is a star. Back to Black is a broadly conceptualized, flawlessly executed vision of neo-soul, with big, hip-hop-y beats that could be samples were Amy and Mark Ronson — who deserves his share of credit — not in love with real, live sound. But listen again to the suicide note that is “Rehab”: she was fucked up way pre-Perez Hilton.

7. M.I.A., Kala. Actually my biggest disappointment. Ms. Arulpragasam made a very, very good album instead of another freakin’ unbelievable one. Her agitprop also threatens to get boring eventually. But I had the pleasure of interviewing her, and found her very willing to be challenged and debated on politics. A simple egotist/ideologue wouldn’t be.

8. Arcade Fire, Neon Bible. Second-biggest letdown, because three years ago they made a supreme statement of optimism and joy at a time when the ruling dogs were the Strokes, Modest Mouse, etc. Neon Bible is their apocalypse album, and it’s excellent. But it feels like 47 minutes in purgatory, which by definition isn’t exactly satisfying.

9. Avril Lavigne, The Best Damn Thing. It’s the best pop record I heard this year. So fuck you.

10. Radiohead, In Rainbows. It’s a bad year when your top 10 includes three disappointments. This is a gorgeous, classic Radiohead album — how infinite in faculty! in form, in moving, how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! in apprehension how like a god! — but it doesn’t tell me anything I didn’t already know about the band.

THE NEXT 13

The National, Boxer
Black Lips, Good Bad Not Evil
Linda Thompson, Versatile Heart
Beirut, The Flying Club Cup
Ryan Adams, Easy Tiger
Animal Collective, Strawberry Jam
St. Vincent, Marry Me
Yeasayer, All Hour Cymbals
Kanye West, Graduation
Neil Young, Chrome Dreams II
White Stripes, Icky Thump
Essie Jain, We Made This Ourselves
Tegan & Sara, The Con

ALSO RECOMMENDED

Arctic Monkeys, Favourite Worst Nightmare
Nicole Atkins, Neptune City
Meg Baird, Dear Companion
Big A Little a, gAame
The Bird and the Bee, s/t
Andrew Bird, Armchair Apocrypha
Bonde do Rôle, With Lasers
Deerhoof, Friend Opportunity
Deerhunter, Cryptograms
Dinosaur Jr., Beyond
Julie Doiron, Woke Myself Up
Dolorean, You Can’t Win
Justine Electra, Soft Rock
Tim Fite, Over the Counter Culture
Frames, The Cost
Fratellis, Costello Music
Erik Friedlander, Block Ice & Propane
José González, In Our Nature
Jesca Hoop, Kismet
Jennifer Gentle, The Midnight Room
Jesu, Conqueror
Klaxons, Myths of the Near Future
Lavender Diamond, Imagine Our Love
Bettye LaVette, The Scene of the Crime
LCD Soundsystem, Sound of Silver
Nick Lowe, At My Age
Nellie McKay, Obligatory Villagers
Nina Nastasia & Jim White, You Follow Me
No Age, Weirdo Rippers
Okkervil River, The Strange Names
Josh Ritter, The Historical Conquests Of
Shins, Wincing the Night Away
Elliott Smith, New Moon
Spanish Harlem Orchestra, United We Swing
Mavis Staples, We’ll Never Turn Back
Marnie Stern, In Advance of the Broken Arm
Richard Thompson, Sweet Warrior
Teddy Thompson, Up Front & Low Down
Ween, La Cucaracha
Tinariwen, Aman Iman
KT Tunstall, Drastic Fantastic
David Vandervelde, The Moonstation House Band
Voxtrot, s/t
Rufus Wainwright, Release the Stars
White Williams, Smoke
Wilco, Sky Blue Sky

REISSUES

Young Marble Giants, Colossal Youth
Betty Davis, Betty Davis/They Say I’m Different
Pylon, Gyrate

SINGLES

1. Amy Winehouse, “Rehab”
2. Rihanna feat. Jay-Z, “Umbrella”
3. Avril Lavigne, “Girlfriend”
4. Bonde do Rôle, “Gasolina”
5. Lil Mama, “Lip Gloss”
6. Robin Thicke, “Lost Without U”
7. M.I.A., “Boyz”
8. Fratellis, “Chelsea Dagger”
9. Spoon, “You Got Yr. Cherry Bomb”
10. Grinderman, “No Pussy Blues”

HONORARY MENTIONS

Radiohead, “House of Cards”
Kanye West feat. Mos Def, ““Drunk and Hot Girls”
Bruce Springsteen, “Livin’ in the Future” (time travel theory here)

NOPE

Fall Out Boy
Architecture in Helsinki
I’m From Barcelona
Mos Def
Polyphonic Spree
Dean & Britta
Black Rebel Motorcycle Club
Sage Francis
Dntel

DISAPPOINTMENTS

Keyshia Cole
Rilo Kiley
Bjork

BLANK STARE

Levon Helm (he’s great and everything, but album is terrible, and gushy reviews are inexplicable)

REALLY, REALLY BUMMED OUT THAT I MISSED LIVE

Daft Punk

REALLY, REALLY GLAD I SAW LIVE

Dirty Projectors

TRULY IS THAT GOOD

Feist

SPECIAL CITATION FOR OPENING A PORTAL TO THE BORE-UNIVERSE FOR 77+ MINUTES

Boredoms, 77BOADRUM, Brooklyn, 7/7/07 (I was behind this guy, at position #69)

POOR THING

50 Cent

COOLEST TITLE

Tom Zé, Danç-Êh-Sá

DUMBEST TITLE

Radiohead, In Rainbows

BEST NEW BLOG BAND

Vampire Weekend

MOST OVERRATED NEW BLOG BAND

Black Kids

BEST USE OF ‘WOLF’ BY A CANADIAN INDIE BAND ...

AIDS Wolf

... AND WORST

Sea Wolf (because they’re from L.A.)

MOST PATHETIC KERFUFFLE

Fallout from Sasha Frere-Jones’s misguided essay on the whiteness of indie-rock. David Brooks should never write about music, with the possible exception of political allegories drawn from Marx Brothers musical numbers. As has been noted, Carl Wilson performed an excellent tear-down of Frere-Jones’s piece.

BIGGEST LIE

Live Earth. It had nothing to do with saving the planet and everything to do with Al Gore’s ego. Ever wonder why the musicians most outspoken about environmental issues — Pearl Jam, Neil Young, Willie Nelson, Radiohead, U2, even emissions-credit-buying Coldplay — were not involved?

WORST ALBUM OF 2007 (tie)

Prince, Planet Earth. Come on people, it sucks. And let’s all just admit it: he hasn’t done anything worthy since Diamonds and Pearls (’91) and nothing truly great since Lovesexy (’88). He’s awesome in concert and looks good and all, but please.

Jesse Malin, Glitter in the Gutter. Bruce, say it ain’t so.

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The year in live music.