Year End Music Review

I've never really done this before (mainly because I'm usually slow to find and appreciate new music), but I think there are enough good albums from this year to justify a Top 5 List. I'll start by offering a few honorable mentions: Zach Hill Face Tat, Mossy Roots Rip Your Heart Out, Ariel Pink Before Today,  How to Dress Well Love Remains, and the Shannon and the Clams Christmas 7".

My Top 5 Albums from 2010:

5) Kanye West My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy

This album is the very definition of a guilty pleasure for me. I hate that I love it, but I just can't help listening to it. It is deeply, deeply flawed (starting with the unfortunate, arrogant, poorly punctuated title), but it is just too weird and too catchy to ignore. Kanye still can't rap ("Too many Urkels on your team/That's why your wins low"), but his beats are better than ever. He has always had excellent taste regarding samples, and continues to exhibit that on this album (check out the King Crimson sample in "Power"). He has bragged about spending as much as 5000 hours working on a single song for the album, and that commitment really shows through in his production. I particularly enjoyed his combination of lo-fi aesthetics with an expansive (and expensive) pop sheen. One of my favorite moments on the album is his weird, distorted, overlong autotuned-vocal-cum-guitar solo set against overwrought strings and piano at the end of "Runaway". As an avowed hater of autotune, I've had to begrudginly admit how much I love it in this instance. And yeah, it's sappy and excessively self-serious, but I still found it affecting as simple, pure pop music.

His lyrics are a different story altogether. His rhymes are often akward, stupid, and unoriginal (I count at least three specific instances where he is blatantly aping some of Jay-Z's lines). And the overwrought, pseudo-emotional qualities that work so well in his beats just seem shallow and embarassing in his lyrics. I've often found that great hip-hop lyricists have at least a couple lines in every good song that excite me whenever I hear them. It's similar to the experience of watching a great play in a basketball or baseball game in that it makes me (literally or metaphorically) jump out of my seat and say "Oh shit!" These are the lines that I always remember and recite when they come up in the song. Kanye doesn't have any "Oh shit!" lines. In fact, he has a number of memorable lines that have the opposite effect. I cringe with embarassment every time I hear something like "Got caught with thirty rocks/The cop look like Alec Baldwin" in "Gorgeous". And it doesn't help that the album has cameos from much more skilled artists like Raekwon, KiD CuDi, and Jay-Z (whose verse on "Monster" isn't great, but is at least outside of his usual "half-assed guest verse" comfort zone). Hell, even Nicki Minaj overshadows Kanye (though Rick Ross doesn't, because Rick Ross fucking sucks).

But the one redeeming factor Kanye possesses as a lyricist is an embarassing level of honesty. His lyrics read like a Facebook or Twitter feed by one of those people who lack the ability to filter inappropriate personal content. This whole album is like one big oversharing experience for Kanye. And while that doesn't really make it great, it at least makes it interesting and, sadly, an accurate depiction of our current state of public discourse and popular culture. It's almost comical how well the line "I sent this bitch a picture of my dick" reflects a world in which Brett  Favre's penis makes more headlines than any of his football exploits. Van Morrison has an album entitled Inarticulate Speech of the Heart. This album may as well be called Inarticulate Speech of the Ego.

It may seem unusual that I spend more time reviewing and analyzing this album than any of the other four albums that I rated higher, but I think that's part of the appeal of this album. It reminds me of a type of person I've known at various points who tends to elicit more armchair psychoanalysis than he (or she) would seem to warrant. It's not because he is a particularly insteresting or deep person, but rather because he is the opposite: shallow, simple (but kinda fucked up), and embarassingly honest and open. Just like how discussing that sort of person is a satisfying, if guilt-inducing, experience, it is easy and fun to talk about what makes this album great or terrible, weird or boring, etc. This album is, essentially, like an open diary: embarrasing and messy, but oddly engrossing.

4) No Age Everything In Between

I didn't really like it when I first bought it, but it grew on me pretty quickly. I still think Weirdo Rippers is my favorite No Age album, but this has become a close second. I love the melodies, though I wish it was a bit noisier, like their previous two albums. I think a large part of the reason why I ultimately embraced this album is because I saw them live a couple weeks ago and they put on a great show. The songs on this album definitely sound better (and noisier) live. Another cool thing about this album is that it comes with an awesome 48 page booklet full of photos and art. I bought it on vinyl specifically to get the booklet.

Also: they give pretty good interviews.

3) Joanna Newsom Have One On Me

I haven't listened to this album in months because it makes me cry every time I hear it (shut up). It's by far my favorite album of hers, which is saying a lot because I love The Milk-Eyed Mender. I also saw her live this year, and she put on a great performance (though the opening act, some guy from Fleet Foxes, was terrible).

2) Daughters Daughters

Daughters are one of my absolute favorite bands of all time and I'd been looking forward to this album since sometime last year. My co-worker Steve and I literally had the release date circled on our calendar at work. And my friend Alexis and I had a listening party the day it finally came out. Of course, the release of the album coincided with news announcing the demise of the band, and my excitement over the new music was tempered by my disappointment at not being able to see the songs performed live (seriously, Daughters are one of the best live bands I've ever seen). This album was different than what I was expecting (more metal, less noisy and weird), but it's still awesome. This is another album that took a little while to fully reveal its charms to me.

Also, Fang Island sucks.

1) Deerhunter Halcyon Digest

Considering how eagerly I'd anticipated Daughters and how much time I spent listening to that album, it could be considered something of an upset that I would choose anything else as my favorite album of the year. But Halcyon Digest is just too good for me to designate anything else as my favorite album of the year.

I bought this album and Everything In Between on the same day (I was going to to buy the new Grinderman album, too, but I didn't have enough money. I still haven't heard that album) and spent an equal amount of time listening to each album for about a week. But pretty soon, I found myself listening to Halcyon Digest more and more until I realized that I was listening to this album at the expense of almost anything else. I've had a few nights where I listened to this album at least ten times in a row. Or sometimes I would just listen to the second half over and over. "Basement Scene", "Coronado", and "He Would Have Laughed" are three of my favorite songs of the year by any band (to the extent that I had a hard time deciding which song to include in the following list).

I studied everything about this album, from the music to the lyrics to the sequencing and packaging. I tried to deconstruct it in order to better understand pop music in general. I found it influencing my own songwriting and recording techniques. This is one of those rare albums that actually makes me feel good just from the experience of listening to it. It is my favorite album of the year because it accentuated and enhanced the very things that lead to me to appreciate music itself.

Top 6 Songs of 2010:

6) Gil Scott-Heron "Me and the Devil"


This album was a bit of a disappointment, but this song is great. The video is pretty cool, too.

5) How to Dress Well "Decisions (Ft. Yüksel Arslan)"


This song makes me feel like I'm underwater. I've listened to it obsessively to the extent that I have barely listened to the rest of the album.

4) Deerhunter "He Would Have Laughed"


I ultimately chose this as my favorite song from this album because I love the way that is grows and progresses. I was surprised when I realized that it is over seven minutes long. It moves along in such a natural way that it seems much shorter. And I love the way that it ends abruptly.

3) Mossy Roots "Make It Worng"


You can download the album here.
This is another song I listened to obsessively. I love most of Dallin's music, but this is the best song he's ever recorded. I love the watery sounding guitar part and the weird, low, fuzzy noise that appears intermittently throughout the song.

2) Daughters "The Unattractive, Portable Head"


This is my favorite Daughters song. I wish I could have seen them perform it live. I probably listened to this song more than any other single song this year. It makes me angry in a good way. Also, dig the bell sound; it's a nice, subtle touch.

1) NHT Boyz "6 In the Morning"


I found this song when I somewhat randomly stumbled upon Erk Tha Jerk's blog. I love that the beat is simple and straightforward without being boring or tired. I like the way it evokes an earlier era in rap (particularly "Boyz N Da Hood") while still being fresh. The lyrics are pretty straighforward Bay Area gansta rhymes, but there is a definite "Oh shit!" line ("Black and white can't catch me/Call them Heyward-Bey"). I've been critical of Bay Area rappers in the past, so it gives me an extra measure of enjoyment to have a song by local rappers that I genuinely love.