On a certain music message board that I frequent, we conduct a yearly poll for our favorite albums of singles from the past year. For the last three years, I’ve written up some blurbs for a few of the releases. Note: most of these were done about three minutes before they needed to be posted, so I do not really vouch for the quality of any of them. I actually do really like the BSS, Hold Steady, Feist, and Dinosaur Jr. ones, though.
2005:
Kanye West – Late Registration
Beck – Guero
Spoon – “I Turn My Camera On”
2006:
Broken Social Scene – “7/4 (Shoreline)”
The Hold Steady – Boys and Girls In America
2007:
Dinosaur Jr. – Beyond
Feist – “My Moon My Man”
R. Kelly – “I’m A Flirt (Remix feat. T-Pain and T.I.)”
Kanye West – Late Registration – First thing: Kanye West is incredibly cocky and/or insecure. That doesn’t mean he can’t make a good album. “Late Registration” isn’t as good as “The College Dropout,” but it is a better follow-up than anyone expected. A lot of the credit goes to Jon Brion. Co-producing with Kanye, they have created the best sounding rap album this side of the Roots. The highlights here match the best from his debut. These are mostly the singles or tracks that will probably be singles in 2006, like “Gold Digger,” “Heard ‘Em Say,” “Touch the Sky,” “We Major” with Nas, and “Diamonds From Sierra Leone (remix)” with a great verse from Jay-Z in which he compares himself to Jesus (“I had to get off the boat so I could walk on water”). Maybe Kanye isn’t the cockiest person on this album. The problem with “Late Registration” comes from the fact that we learned the entire Kanye West story on his first album. The filler on “Late Registration” can’t be filled with car crashes or working at the Gap. Instead, Kanye decides to give the listener a history lesson about the government spreading crack and AIDS in the black community. And the skits still aren’t very funny after the first half-listen. For me at least, what saves the record from just having some songs on “The Very Best of Kanye West” in 2010 is the “bonus” track, “Late.” Kanye is still cocky, but I finally feel like he backs that up with “Late.” It’s the traditional “Kanye West” sound with the slowed down sample, but it feels like he’s finally becoming comfortable with his rapping skills. If Kanye hadn’t been telling us since January that his new album was going to change the world, it might have seemed even better. Supposedly he’ll have another out by this time next year. I just hope that all he tells us about it is, “You’ll have to hear it to believe it.”
Beck – Guero – In the year or so leading up to the release of “Guero,” we were being led to believe that it was either a straight-up hip-hop album or a straight-up guitar-rock album. Somewhere those two ideas came together (along with bits and pieces of everything Beck has released since “Odelay”). Kicking off with his biggest hit in years, “E-Pro,” we’re greeted with the guitars that Beck promised. Up next on “Qué Onda Guero” we get the hip-hop with a Spanish taste to it, fitting as “Guero” is Spanish for “whiteboy.” Singles “Girl” and “Hell Yes” stand out as the first is one of the catchiest songs that might be about killing someone ever and the second features some old school (or at least back to 1996) rapping along with Christina Ricci saying “Please enjoy.” The majority of the rest of the album sounds like the more upbeat songs from “Mutations” or the more low-key songs from “Odelay.” This isn’t a horrible thing, but it does feel at times that Beck is trying to mix all the styles he’s tried together a little too neatly. A notable thing about “Guero” as a whole is the amount of official remixes released, from iTunes exclusives to remix Eps to deluxe edition tracks even to a full remix album. Combining all of these and finding the best versions of each song could turn this good Beck album into a great one.
Spoon – “I Turn My Camera On” – A minimalist track that combines elements of Prince and the Rolling Stones that isn’t a joke? Somehow Spoon made it work with “I Turn My Camera On.” With a barely there guitar track overshadowed by the bass and drums, Spoon created something new that reminds us of all the songs we ironically liked until they became popular again. By the time the feedback guitar solo hits with thirty seconds left, you’re not paying any attention to it. All that you can think about is that bass line that will be in your head for days and in the playlist of every indie-dance party for years.
Broken Social Scene – “7/4 (Shoreline)” – If you’re listening to a band that can have up to eighteen members, it should be expected that their songs would have a “Wall of Sound” quality to them. Broken Social Scene does not disappoint, especially on “7/4 (Shoreline)”. As if almost to slowly lead the listener to the audio onslaught to come, the layers are introduced one-by-one until you’re hearing a solid mass of guitars and the lovely voice of Leslie Feist. It all comes to a stop for a second to give you (and probably the band) a chance to catch your breath, but it starts right back up again and continues to build with more noise and horns and handclaps. I have no clue what they’re singing about other than that “It’s coming in hard,” but it’s still one of the most powerful things I’ve heard in a long time.
The Hold Steady – Boys and Girls In America – Good rock and roll music should make you feel alive. The Hold Steady’s Vagrant debut, Boys and Girls in America, does just that. Taking a combination of the best aspects of Thin Lizzy, The Replacements, Jack Kerouac, and Born To Run/Darkness on the Edge of Town era Bruce Springsteen, the songs making up Boys and Girls in America create a set of characters who are bored with what’s surrounding them and doing whatever they can, usually drinking, doing drugs, and falling in love, to make some sort of change. I think that the biggest fans of this album are people who have lived the situations that Craig Finn is describing in the songs and the people who don’t like it have never experienced it. Finn isn’t really romanticizing these characters, though. They seem to be as close to completely falling apart as the music does at times, but it doesn’t change the fact that right now they’re still alive and so is the listener.
Dinosaur Jr. – Beyond – I don’t know much about the original runs of Dinosaur Jr. beyond the singles that made a bit of dent during the “alternative” era, so I didn’t quite know what to expect when I put Beyond in my playlist of things to listen to before the end of the year. I was on the train and all of a sudden this crazy guitar started playing through my headphones. And it didn’t let up for the next 45 minutes. This album rocks. Hard. Going back to that early Dinosaur Jr. album made me realize that even though this is technically a reunion album, it sounds like it could have been made in their heyday. For most bands, this is probably a bad thing, to get back together and make an album that sounds like you did nearly twenty years ago, but Dinosaur Jr. are so good at what they do, it doesn’t matter. When Dinosaur Jr.’s peers in the Pixies reunited around the same time a few years back, everyone wanted them to record a new album. I say if they can’t match half of what Dinosaur Jr. did with Beyond, why bother?
Feist – “My Moon My Man” – Seen as almost an afterthought in this post-“1234” world, the first single from The Reminder explores all of the sonic dimensions of Feist. Along with “Sea Lion Woman,” it represents the sound that Feist has defined for herself live. As the song progress, more layers build up, until the song climaxes with a multi-tracked vocal repeating over the set of piano chords that have been churning throughout the song. Suddenly, everything else stops and we’re just left with that piano. “1234” may have been the introduction of Feist to the mainstream, but “My Moon My Man” should be what lasts.
R. Kelly – “I’m A Flirt (Remix feat. T-Pain and T.I.)” – As the most recent in a long line of songs about R. Kelly stealing your girl, “I’m A Flirt” shines for a variety of reasons. First, you have the expected nonsensical one-liners flowing from Kels, like any uptempo sex jam should have. He is rather frank with the fact that if you are at the club and you go to the bathroom, he will steal and statutory rape your lady friend. He doesn’t care that she’s over 18. Why can/will he do this? Because he’s black, handsome , sings, plus he’s rich and most importantly, a flirt. Next T.I. follows and just like in last year’s “My Love,” he acts as the voice of reason. Well, sort of. At least compared to R. Kelly, he’s trying to look out for you. Finally, T-Pain (did you ever expect to hear him on a hip-hop/R&B track this year?) shows up and T-Pains around a little bit. By combing three of the, if not best, at least most ubiquitous urban hit-makers of the last few years, you’re left with a ridiculous jam that somehow still is the most logical thing found on Double Up.
Awkward Commas
End of Year Music Blurbs: 2005, 2006, 2007
July 2, 2008
On a certain music message board that I frequent, we conduct a yearly poll for our favorite albums of singles from the past year. For the last three years, I’ve written up some blurbs for a few of the releases. Note: most of these were done about three minutes before they needed to be posted, so I do not really vouch for the quality of any of them. I actually do really like the BSS, Hold Steady, Feist, and Dinosaur Jr. ones, though.
2005:
Kanye West – Late Registration
Beck – Guero
Spoon – “I Turn My Camera On”
2006:
Broken Social Scene – “7/4 (Shoreline)”
The Hold Steady – Boys and Girls In America
2007:
Dinosaur Jr. – Beyond
Feist – “My Moon My Man”
R. Kelly – “I’m A Flirt (Remix feat. T-Pain and T.I.)”
Kanye West – Late Registration – First thing: Kanye West is incredibly cocky and/or insecure. That doesn’t mean he can’t make a good album. “Late Registration” isn’t as good as “The College Dropout,” but it is a better follow-up than anyone expected. A lot of the credit goes to Jon Brion. Co-producing with Kanye, they have created the best sounding rap album this side of the Roots. The highlights here match the best from his debut. These are mostly the singles or tracks that will probably be singles in 2006, like “Gold Digger,” “Heard ‘Em Say,” “Touch the Sky,” “We Major” with Nas, and “Diamonds From Sierra Leone (remix)” with a great verse from Jay-Z in which he compares himself to Jesus (“I had to get off the boat so I could walk on water”). Maybe Kanye isn’t the cockiest person on this album. The problem with “Late Registration” comes from the fact that we learned the entire Kanye West story on his first album. The filler on “Late Registration” can’t be filled with car crashes or working at the Gap. Instead, Kanye decides to give the listener a history lesson about the government spreading crack and AIDS in the black community. And the skits still aren’t very funny after the first half-listen. For me at least, what saves the record from just having some songs on “The Very Best of Kanye West” in 2010 is the “bonus” track, “Late.” Kanye is still cocky, but I finally feel like he backs that up with “Late.” It’s the traditional “Kanye West” sound with the slowed down sample, but it feels like he’s finally becoming comfortable with his rapping skills. If Kanye hadn’t been telling us since January that his new album was going to change the world, it might have seemed even better. Supposedly he’ll have another out by this time next year. I just hope that all he tells us about it is, “You’ll have to hear it to believe it.”
Beck – Guero – In the year or so leading up to the release of “Guero,” we were being led to believe that it was either a straight-up hip-hop album or a straight-up guitar-rock album. Somewhere those two ideas came together (along with bits and pieces of everything Beck has released since “Odelay”). Kicking off with his biggest hit in years, “E-Pro,” we’re greeted with the guitars that Beck promised. Up next on “Qué Onda Guero” we get the hip-hop with a Spanish taste to it, fitting as “Guero” is Spanish for “whiteboy.” Singles “Girl” and “Hell Yes” stand out as the first is one of the catchiest songs that might be about killing someone ever and the second features some old school (or at least back to 1996) rapping along with Christina Ricci saying “Please enjoy.” The majority of the rest of the album sounds like the more upbeat songs from “Mutations” or the more low-key songs from “Odelay.” This isn’t a horrible thing, but it does feel at times that Beck is trying to mix all the styles he’s tried together a little too neatly. A notable thing about “Guero” as a whole is the amount of official remixes released, from iTunes exclusives to remix Eps to deluxe edition tracks even to a full remix album. Combining all of these and finding the best versions of each song could turn this good Beck album into a great one.
Spoon – “I Turn My Camera On” – A minimalist track that combines elements of Prince and the Rolling Stones that isn’t a joke? Somehow Spoon made it work with “I Turn My Camera On.” With a barely there guitar track overshadowed by the bass and drums, Spoon created something new that reminds us of all the songs we ironically liked until they became popular again. By the time the feedback guitar solo hits with thirty seconds left, you’re not paying any attention to it. All that you can think about is that bass line that will be in your head for days and in the playlist of every indie-dance party for years.
Broken Social Scene – “7/4 (Shoreline)” – If you’re listening to a band that can have up to eighteen members, it should be expected that their songs would have a “Wall of Sound” quality to them. Broken Social Scene does not disappoint, especially on “7/4 (Shoreline)”. As if almost to slowly lead the listener to the audio onslaught to come, the layers are introduced one-by-one until you’re hearing a solid mass of guitars and the lovely voice of Leslie Feist. It all comes to a stop for a second to give you (and probably the band) a chance to catch your breath, but it starts right back up again and continues to build with more noise and horns and handclaps. I have no clue what they’re singing about other than that “It’s coming in hard,” but it’s still one of the most powerful things I’ve heard in a long time.
The Hold Steady – Boys and Girls In America – Good rock and roll music should make you feel alive. The Hold Steady’s Vagrant debut, Boys and Girls in America, does just that. Taking a combination of the best aspects of Thin Lizzy, The Replacements, Jack Kerouac, and Born To Run/Darkness on the Edge of Town era Bruce Springsteen, the songs making up Boys and Girls in America create a set of characters who are bored with what’s surrounding them and doing whatever they can, usually drinking, doing drugs, and falling in love, to make some sort of change. I think that the biggest fans of this album are people who have lived the situations that Craig Finn is describing in the songs and the people who don’t like it have never experienced it. Finn isn’t really romanticizing these characters, though. They seem to be as close to completely falling apart as the music does at times, but it doesn’t change the fact that right now they’re still alive and so is the listener.
Dinosaur Jr. – Beyond – I don’t know much about the original runs of Dinosaur Jr. beyond the singles that made a bit of dent during the “alternative” era, so I didn’t quite know what to expect when I put Beyond in my playlist of things to listen to before the end of the year. I was on the train and all of a sudden this crazy guitar started playing through my headphones. And it didn’t let up for the next 45 minutes. This album rocks. Hard. Going back to that early Dinosaur Jr. album made me realize that even though this is technically a reunion album, it sounds like it could have been made in their heyday. For most bands, this is probably a bad thing, to get back together and make an album that sounds like you did nearly twenty years ago, but Dinosaur Jr. are so good at what they do, it doesn’t matter. When Dinosaur Jr.’s peers in the Pixies reunited around the same time a few years back, everyone wanted them to record a new album. I say if they can’t match half of what Dinosaur Jr. did with Beyond, why bother?
Feist – “My Moon My Man” – Seen as almost an afterthought in this post-“1234” world, the first single from The Reminder explores all of the sonic dimensions of Feist. Along with “Sea Lion Woman,” it represents the sound that Feist has defined for herself live. As the song progress, more layers build up, until the song climaxes with a multi-tracked vocal repeating over the set of piano chords that have been churning throughout the song. Suddenly, everything else stops and we’re just left with that piano. “1234” may have been the introduction of Feist to the mainstream, but “My Moon My Man” should be what lasts.
R. Kelly – “I’m A Flirt (Remix feat. T-Pain and T.I.)” – As the most recent in a long line of songs about R. Kelly stealing your girl, “I’m A Flirt” shines for a variety of reasons. First, you have the expected nonsensical one-liners flowing from Kels, like any uptempo sex jam should have. He is rather frank with the fact that if you are at the club and you go to the bathroom, he will steal and statutory rape your lady friend. He doesn’t care that she’s over 18. Why can/will he do this? Because he’s black, handsome , sings, plus he’s rich and most importantly, a flirt. Next T.I. follows and just like in last year’s “My Love,” he acts as the voice of reason. Well, sort of. At least compared to R. Kelly, he’s trying to look out for you. Finally, T-Pain (did you ever expect to hear him on a hip-hop/R&B track this year?) shows up and T-Pains around a little bit. By combing three of the, if not best, at least most ubiquitous urban hit-makers of the last few years, you’re left with a ridiculous jam that somehow still is the most logical thing found on Double Up.
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Tags: 2005, 2006, 2007, Beck, broken social scene, dinosaur jr., feist, kanye west, music, r. kelly, spoon, t-pain, t.i., the hold steady