And now for something completely different.
What? The website’s subtitle promises “Other Sundry Excitements.” This is one of them. So, off we go.
In the summer of 2009, I bought something like sixty LPs and worked slowly through those, an effort which took me well into 2010. I wanted to find some new artists to explore (or older ones I’d always meant to get to). So, I picked up things from critical Top Ten lists from 2000-2009 (Liars, No Age, The Knife); I checked out things I remembered people mentioning, but was, for some reason reluctant to investigate (Galaxie 500, The Unicorns). My rule was: at least five complete listens, no matter how much I initially loathed something, to be sure I wasn’t just having knee-jerk reactions to art I should be appreciating. Around August of this year, I got around to exploring a bunch of 2010′s releases (which, added to the previous pile, makes for about 85 new albums explored in the space of a year). I thought ’10 would ineluctably blow in comparison with 2009: there was a preposterous volume of excellent, intriguing music released last year (an improbable six of my forty highest-rated albums were released in 2009). And almost through my 2010 investigations, I’m pleased to’ve been proven wrong. Now, there could be some killer releases coming in the next sixty days, but as it is, I feel pretty comfortable doing a preliminary Top Ten list.
UPDATE: And, of course, I should not have felt so comfortable. Having completed my sixty-plus album adventure (with the exception of Joanna Newsom’s Have One on Me), I am forced, for the sake of full disclosure, to append this entry.
What’s changed? I was able to nix a few explicatory notes at the bottom of the original list as I reluctantly trudged through Arcade Fire’s Suburbs which, apparently, is just John Cheever’s Bullet Park, set to music, relieved of its complexities, and made dull. But thanks to that sonic misadventure, I’m now totally willing to say that I’m officially unimpressed by 98% of Arcade Fire’s and The National’s respective oeuvres, and I’m not sorry. With Suburbs, I even printed out the lyrics and read along. Still no dice.
More importantly, Clinic’s Bubblegum has been bumped off the list for something else (scroll down to find out what). I added another note or two on Beach House’s Teen Dream. And there’s a bit more commentary on Ted Leo’s Brutalist Bricks, as I’ve become increasingly enthusiastic.
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11. Clinic, Bubblegum: If you already liked Clinic, then you know not to expect a sonic revolution when they release a record. ButBubblegum is as close as they’ve come to “evolving”: it’s like someone finally gave them enough money to use a decent recording studio. This is the same pretty excellent album they’ve been recording/releasing under various names (Internal Wrangler, Visitations, Do It!) for ten years, finally with better acoustics. Not that their lo-fi aesthetic was without charm, but it’s nice to finally hear Clinic sound like they were recorded by something other than a cell phone. |
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10. Ted Leo & the Pharmacists, The Brutalist Bricks: They successfully redeemed themselves after the bloated, blah ordeal that was Living with the Living. This LP has some nuts to it. Killer guitar tone—the first few tracks had me reaching to turn up the volume and, yes, maybe playing a little air guitar. The tone trend continues ’til album’s end. The creepy “Tuberculoids Arrive in Hop” is an off-kilter acoustic number that feels simultaneously unsettling while not out of place. And, though I don’t not enjoy any of the LP, I have to say that I find more of its songs exceptional than I have on any other Pharmacists’ release (this is true both proportional to any given album’s total tracks, or just by sheer numbers) with the exception of 2005′s Hearts of Oak—an album so good, to quote Stewie Griffin “it just has to be fattening.” |
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09. Matthew Dear, Black City: I listened to this solely based on Pitchfork’s review. It said the disc is a grimy electronic that’s as filthily sexual as anything since Nine Inch Nails’ “Closer.” I’m not sure that’s an accurate appraisal of the situation. But it’s an excellent album nonetheless—and nothing I would’ve otherwise ever checked out. So, two points to the critics for getting me interested. |
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08. Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross, The Social Network: I know, I know: totally predictable coming from an unabashed Reznor acolyte. But note the conspicuous absence of his How to Destroy Angels from this Top Ten list. And note just how well-constructed this score is. It’s supplanted everything else in my collection for Best Thing to Listen to While Writing. Like a fifth volume of Nails’ Ghosts that’s not as schizophrenic, and instead well/evenly paced. This didn’t make the list because I felt obligated to include it, it made the list because it deserves to make the list. |
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07. Beach House, Teen Dream: I didn’t get why people I trusted were going nuts about this album. So I listened to it over and over for about a week. And then I got it. It’s subtle, and a creeper, but it is awesome. Best enjoyed by sitting and enjoying the album. Not an LP to put on, then bustle about, hoping to feel the groove. A highlight: If I were to make a second list, an accounting of single songs, “Norway” would enter its Top Ten. It’s damned tough to pull off the track’s alternately dissonant ringing and gossamer guitar fondling, but here the feat is accomplished with aplomb. |
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06. Spoon, Transference: In a delightful reversal, this record seems to be the stylistic negative image of Clinic’s Bubblegum, the LP it bumps to number eleven. Not that Spoon have ever sounded power-pop/auto-tune overpolished, but two members of the group are accomplished audio engineers, so the quartet’s LPs have always felt brisk, slick, clean. Very deliberate, even when they’re doing their best to acheive garage rock raggedness (see 2007′s stellar, yet lamentably titled Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga).Transference often seems sonically sparse, it features a noticeable use of startling staccato piano hammering; in places, it sounds raw and genuinely ragged because it is: “demo” versions of some songs were not fully re-recorded/mixed, and instead integrated into the album as is. In a move familiar to other Reznor acolytes, words drop off in the middle of syllables; tracks collide awkwardly into each other, instead of making smooth transitions—even the album’s sole fade-out ending is discomfiting, as it segues in a weirdly seamless fashion into the opening bass groove of the next track. A highlight: Britt Daniel’s vocals on “Written in Reverse” sound as if they literally hurt him to perform. Transference is a deliberate mess and, as such, it is approachable, affecting, and absolutely charming. |
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05. The Morning Benders, Big Echo: Complete opposite experience from the Beach House LP: This album kicked me in the nuts eight times in a row, took a moment to itself, then kicked me again—track nine of ten, “Stitches” is very good, but not excellent. People keep comparing The Benders to The Shins. They’re wrong: Big Echo is more engaging that anything The Shins ever did—and that’s taking into account that I consider Chutes too Narrow one of only forty “perfect” albums I’ve ever heard. |
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04. Sleigh Bells, Treats: I got lambasted earlier this year for suggesting that this album was mindblowingly good. I stick to my guns. It’s sonically engaging and a bit innovative (yes: it is supposed to sound like your speakers have been blown; no: that won’t suit everyone’s aesthetic palate); and so what if it’s not a lyrical masterpiece? Neither was The Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds, but that’s still a classic. Sleigh Bells is essentially pop for people who are sick of traditional pop. And I am, apparently, of that number. Treats is a great album. Although I’m still angry that the LP is a fucking picture disc. Best album art of the year and it’s wasted as a shitty, flimsy insert in a shittier plastic sleeve which itself is marred by an ugly, overlarge font—Def Leppardesque—advertising the title. |
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03. The Radio Dept., Clinging to a Scheme: I liked this the first time through, but was bugged by certain tracks. Over the next few spins, it turned out that the tracks which had bugged me were the ones which had serious and delightful bite. Like Big Echo, there’s one song on the album which isn’t quite up to snuff (“You Stopped Making Sense”: it still kills, but suffers in comparison to the rest of the LP). It’s a testament to the quality of this album that I paid more for a copy of the extremely limited-edition vinyl pressing than I have ever paid for any record in my collection. |
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02. Deerhunter, Halcyon Digest: Deerhunter is probably my favorite working band, so I had huge expectations of this album. And on first listen, I was disappointed; I thought it paled in comparison to Microcastle—another of the aforementioned Forty Perfect Albums. And it isn’t, I don’t think, perfect. But it doesn’t miss by much. As above, it suffers for its company (Cryptograms & Microcastle are siblings with big shadows to crawl out from beneath). If I liked Jay Reatard more—lately deceased close friend of the band to whom the last song, an eight minute cathartic warbling called “He Would Have Laughed,” is dedicated—maybe I’d put the disc on equal footing with ’08′s‘Castle. Regardless, this album grew on me very quickly. And it positively exploded on me after I saw the bulk of it performed live. “Helicopter” might be the best song Deerhunter’s ever recorded. And “Sailing” is just audio Vicodin: a little lonely and sleepy, but lovely nonetheless. |
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01. Local Natives, Gorilla Manor: Simply because I was too lazy to check out another album, I kept listening to this, long past the point I’d decided to quit doing so. After the first listen, I actually went back and reread the reviews I’d seen to be sure the oft-effusive critics and I were experiencing the same disc. After the fifth listen, I was alright with the disc; I thought it was a kind of limp amped-up version of Grizzly Bear, but I was aware that there were some pretty cool songs on it. Post-tenth listen: I knew that this was an exceptionally solid album, but an extraordinarily subtle one (subtler than the above Teen Dream). Listen Fifteen: “There’s not really a weak song here—I mean, when I play it, no matter what my mood is, I don’t skip any of the tracks. Seriously.” I said that while endorsing the disc to a coworker. Listen Twenty: “Album of the year. Album of the year, no fucking question.” |
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There seem to be a few staple albums on everyone’s Best of Aught-Ten lists. Some of them are missing from mine. By way of explanation:
1. I still haven’t spent any time with Joanna Newsom’s triple LP, and I’m consistently impressed by her. I’ve been holding it all year for my celebratory last exploration.
2. I didn’t really bother with High Violet. The National have mostly bored me with Alligator and Boxer. I gave the latter more than twenty listens before I was sure that I wasn’t going to suddenly become impressed (though “Mistaken for Strangers” is transcendent, in a Bret Easton Ellis sort of way; “Squalor Victoria” is spectacular; and “Fake Empire” is formidable as well). Everyone tells me that High Violet will totally change my opinion of the group. Which is exactly what they said about Alligator and Boxer. So fuck it.
3. I just don’t like LCD Soundsystem, no matter what I try. And I’m sick of trying. So, This Is Happening is missing from my list, despite the fact that it was, in June, seemingly every pro-critic’s favorite album of the year.
