More Favorite Albums From the 2000-2009

Let's discuss a few of these in one post, alright?

Animal Collective- Feels (2005)

Animal Collective is a band that frustrates me. They have quite a few songs that I love, and a lot of songs that I absolutely hate. Their inconsistency is especially obnoxious because I feel like it could easily be avoided. The Animal Collective songs that I tend to like are the ones that are actual pop songs, as opposed to the ones that are unfocused, meandering, 'experimental', etc. They could be a great band if they put the same amount of focus and effort into all of their songs that they put into the best of their songs. Feels has more of these focused pop songs than any of their other albums. Or at least, it has more of the pop songs that I like (I usually don't like electronic music, so a lot of Strawberry Jam and Merriweather Post Pavillion is boring to me, regardless of how focused the songs are).

Feels is probably the album where they sound the most like a rock band, with lots of live drums and guitars. But it is still as weird as their earlier albums. I love pop music, loud noises, and weird things, and the best songs on this album have those attributes in abundance. "Did You See the Words", "Grass", and "The Purple Bottle" are Animal Collective at their best: hyperactive, exciting music. The drums and bursts and yelps on "The Purple Bottle" exemplify why I keep listening to Animal Collective, despite how much they frustrate me. Of course, since they are apparently incapable of delivering an album of great music from beginning to end, there are also songs like "Banshee Beat" and "Daffy Duck" that don't really ever go anywhere, but stretch on for a long, long time. I appreciate the spirit of experimentation in these sorts of songs, but I still don't enjoy listening to them. And while it's not my place to tell anyone what sort of music they make, I'd really love it if Animal Collective made an entire album of songs of the quality of "The Purple Bottle".

P.S. The artwork on this album is awesome. It's all based on the art of Henry Darger, who is one of my favorite artists.

The Persuasions- Frankly A Capella: The Persuasions Sing Zappa (2000)

A collection of a capella versions of Frank Zappa songs is probably the very definition of a novelty album. But this album is still a heartfelt tribute to the man who probably did more to fuck with the notions of what should and shouldn't be considered novelty music than anyone else. In the liner notes to the album, Jerry Lawson, lead singer of The Persuasions, explains that "God put The Persuasions on this earth to sing. And I think at this point in our career, He wants us to remind the world what a great composer Frank Zappa was, and how much he is missed." The liner notes go on to explain that Frank Zappa and his wife Gail signed The Persuasions to their first recording contract, so this tribute is personal as well as musical.

I'm not going to even try to pretend that I am capable of understanding or explaining Frank Zappa's music. I love it, but it so conceptually dense and confusing that I have to admit that don't always get it. That said, many of my favorite Frank Zappa songs are the ones that adopt and adapt the style of doo-wop. Not only are they a good example of Zappa's subversion of popular forms of music and art, but they also function as great pop songs with carefully contructed, unusual vocal harmonies. And I think one of the reasons why I like this album is because it evokes both of those qualities of Zappa's music.

Obviously, the exploration vocal harmonies are in full effect (to great effect) throughout the album, as The Persuasions are a vocal group. But by the mere fact that they perform all of these songs in their usual, a capella gospel style, they add another layer to the already complicated conceptual implications of these songs. For example, they take the underlying sweetness of "Any Way The Wind Blows", which in Zappa's versions was obscured by weird arrangements and performances, and make it explicit. And the implications of a genuine gospel group performing "The Meek Shall Inherit Nothing", which is about as critical of religion as any pop song in history, are fascinating. Most importantly, these interpretations are great to listen to in their own right. They are warm and heartfelt, capturing the beauty of Frank Zappa's music as well as the subversive nature of his concepts. And they also exhibit an appropriate sense of humor (the word duodenum shows up in more than one song).

My Youth In Arcadia- Voice of a Free Arcadia (2002?)

That picture is not the album cover, but rather a photograph of My Youth in Arcadia bassist Matt Harra during a rare My Youth in Arcadia live performance at El Molino High in Forestville, CA. My Youth in Arcadia was a band composed of 5 young musicians from West Sonoma County. When they existed, they played fun, noisy, experimental punk. I think this is their only full length album.

I first heard these guys when I saw them open for John Courage at The Phoenix in 2003. They played in the lobby with the lights shut off. I watched them from the outer-lobby through the cut-out in the wall, and all I could see was the silhouettes of the band members as they flailed about. And the music was a great, noisy, energetic mess. I could hear occasional bits of violin and keyboards among the din of screaming and a loud guitar and some incredibly powerful, if sloppy, drumming. It was, apparently, their only performance at The Phoenix, and it stuck with me. About a year later, I discovered their website and sent them an e-mail asking to purchase a CD. To my surprise, some of the band members delivered it directly to my door. They were excited because no one who wasn't already a friend of theirs had ever ordered a CD from them before. They were some of the most polite, soft-spoken people I have ever met in my life. In fact, a few months later, they invited me to see them perform at a tea party at their friend's house.

I think part of the appeal of their music comes from the fact that it often is in significant contrast with the polite earnestness of them people who perform it. Voice of a Free Arcadia is noisy, unfocused, weird, and loud. It sounds like what it mostly likely is: the product of a few West County kids hanging out in each others' bedrooms, garages, living rooms and wherever else to play around with busted keyboards, guitar effects, drums, violins, etc.

DC hardcore seems to be a reference point for these guys (and a gal), as are bands like Braniac and Mission of Burma. And they clearly have a sense of humor about what they are doing, with song titles like "Ninja Town, Ninja Mayor". Some songs are trashy, loud punk songs, while others are more acoustic or electronic based. And like Animal Collective, some songs are structured, actual songs while others just seem to be wandering experiments. Make no mistake, this is an uneven album and it is hard to listen to the whole thing in one sitting. Some of the songs don't seem to have titles, while two different, consecutive songs are named "Drink to Eyes that Can't Stretch." This haphazard approach to song titling and organization is emblematic of the album as a whole. But because the best moments are so much fun (and because I'm inclined to be more forgiving to teenagers with home-recording equipment than to famous musicians with professional equipment), the unevenness doesn't bother me. In fact, it's endearing, as it represents the spirit of experimentation and adventure inherent in homemade, teenage music.

The best song by far is "Doorknob" (which has a much longer title that I can no longer remember). It starts with some loud guitar noise and screamed vocals that follow the arrhythmic crashing of drums and cymbals. That fades out quickly, and a violin melody is paired with some chords played on the bass. Now the vocals are actually sung, though off key and with barely intelligible lyrics. The guitar and drums and screaming (I think the singing is done by Matt Harra, the bassist, and the screaming by Dean Tisthammer, the guitarist) edge back into the mix, though this time they are more controlled as they follow the melody of the violin. By song's end, though, it has devolved back into noisy chaos. The whole thing is over in less than 2 minutes. It's one of my favorite songs of the decade by any band and is something I've listened to at least a couple hundred times. I've put it on mixtapes and playlists and tried to share it with as many people as I can. It has even influenced the music that I've written. It's just a great song.

Another noteworthy aspect of My Youth in Arcadia is the fact that they were essentially the founders of (or as their website used to say, the broken condom that led to) a very interesting, very cool DIY scene in West County known as Astronomy Club Ghost Story. Gabe Meline wrote an article about the scene in The Bohemian a few years ago and someone put up this video explaining it. Basically, it was (and maybe still is) a group of friends in West County starting bands, playing house shows, recording and releasing music primarily for the enjoyment of their small, close group of friends. They'd burn CDs and hand them out to each other, with handmade covers (one compilation I received from them was packaged in a page torn from a UC Santa Cruz class catalogue from 1983). By the time I found out about them, they had a website that offered free downloads of a lot of their music. Around the time that I moved away from Sonoma County, some of these bands like The Highlands and Exasperation Missionary started to play more shows and get a bit of a real following around the county. I don't know if the bands or the scene still exist, as I think a lot of these people have grown up and moved away from Sonoma County, but when they were around, they were like a hidden gold mine of great music out in West County. And it all started with My Youth in Arcadia.