Addenda

February 11th, 2010

The first six weeks of 2010 have exposed me to three metal albums from last year that I really wish I had heard in time to mention in the metal paragraph attached to my Top Albums of ‘09 list. They’re all so good that I’ve decided to dedicate a new post to their public exaltation. So here you go: fans of metal, please treat yourselves to The Great Cessation by Yob, Gambling on the Richter Scale by Kowloon Walled City, and the fabulously-titled Dimensional Bleedthrough by Krallice. All getting a lot of attention from my ears lately, and all acting as a perfect complement to the dismally wet miasma that is February in Portland.

I don’t think I’m going to bother with a Top 100 Songs of the 2000s list. Too much work. And you all already know how I feel about “All I Need” and “Kim & Jessie.”

Top 100 Songs of 2009

January 8th, 2010
  1. Bat for Lashes: Daniel
  2. Dirty Projectors: Stillness Is the Move
  3. Animal Collective: My Girls
  4. The Gregory Brothers: Auto-Tune the News #5
  5. Bon Iver: Blood Bank
  6. Dirty Projectors: Two Doves
  7. Grizzly Bear: While You Wait for the Others
  8. Grizzly Bear: Two Weeks
  9. Fuck Buttons: Surf Solar
  10. Bear in Heaven: Lovesick Teenagers
  11. Grizzly Bear: Ready, Able
  12. Washed Out: Belong
  13. Phoenix: 1901
  14. Washed Out: Feel It All Around
  15. Mastodon: Oblivion
  16. The Pains of Being Pure at Heart: The Tenure Itch
  17. Bat for Lashes: Sleep Alone
  18. Camera Obscura: French Navy
  19. Yeah Yeah Yeahs: Zero
  20. The Very Best (feat. Ezra Koenig): Warm Heart of Africa
  21. YACHT: Psychic City (Voodoo City)
  22. Wild Beasts: This Is Our Lot
  23. Fuck Buttons: The Lisbon Maru
  24. Bear in Heaven: Ultimate Satisfaction
  25. Grizzly Bear: Cheerleader
  26. The Mint Chicks: Hot on Your Heels
  27. Fever Ray: Triangle Walks
  28. Passion Pit: Little Secrets
  29. Memory Cassette: Asleep at a Party
  30. Big Boi (feat. Gucci Mane): Shine Blockas
  31. Neon Indian: Deadbeat Summer
  32. Phoenix: Lisztomania
  33. Memory Tapes: Stop Talking
  34. The xx: Crystalised
  35. Dirty Projectors and David Byrne: Knotty Pine
  36. Yo La Tengo: Avalon or Someone Very Similar
  37. Volcano Choir: Island, IS
  38. St. Vincent: Laughing With a Mouth of Blood
  39. Mastodon: Ghost of Karelia
  40. Discovery: So Insane
  41. Sonic Youth: Antenna
  42. The Drums: I Felt Stupid
  43. Bat for Lashes: Glass
  44. Destroyer: Bay of Pigs
  45. The Pains of Being Pure at Heart: Ramona
  46. The Pains of Being Pure at Heart: Young Adult Friction
  47. Polvo: Beggar’s Bowl
  48. Beach House: Norway
  49. Cymbals Eat Guitars: Tunguska
  50. Morrissey: Something Is Squeezing My Skull
  51. Dinosaur Jr: I Don’t Wanna Go There
  52. Benoît Pioulard: Idyll
  53. Passion Pit: Moth’s Wings
  54. Pictureplane: Goth Star
  55. No Age: You’re a Target
  56. Raekwon (feat. Inspectah Deck, Ghostface Killah, Method Man and GZA): House of Flying Daggers
  57. Isis: Hall of the Dead
  58. Best Coast: Something in the Way
  59. Cass McCombs: You Saved My Life
  60. St. Vincent: The Strangers
  61. Joy Orbison: Hyph Mngo
  62. Atlas Sound (feat. Noah Lennox): Walkabout
  63. Best Coast: When I’m With You
  64. Zombi: Spirit Warrior
  65. The Flaming Lips: Silver Trembling Hands
  66. Animal Collective: What Would I Want? Sky
  67. Atlas Sound (feat. Laetitia Sadler): Quick Canal
  68. Silversun Pickups: Growing Old Is Getting Old
  69. tUnE-yArDs: Sunlight
  70. Los Campesinos!: The Sea Is a Good Place to Think of the Future
  71. Solange: Stillness Is the Move
  72. Future of the Left: Arming Eritrea
  73. Cam’ron: My Job
  74. The xx: Basic Space
  75. Slayer: Playing With Dolls
  76. Japandroids: Young Hearts Spark Fire
  77. Ganglians: Valiant Brave
  78. St. Vincent: Actor Out of Work
  79. Delorean: Seasun
  80. Annie: Songs Remind Me of You
  81. Magic Johnson: Las Malas
  82. A Place to Bury Strangers: Keep Slipping Away
  83. Yeah Yeah Yeahs: Soft Shock
  84. Think About Life: Havin My Baby
  85. Megadeth: The Right to Go Insane
  86. Dinosaur Jr: Pieces
  87. U2: Breathe
  88. Slayer: Beauty Through Order
  89. John Talabot: Sunshine
  90. Yo La Tengo: Here to Fall
  91. Megadeth: How the Story Ends
  92. Small Black: Despicable Dogs
  93. Wilco: Bull Black Nova
  94. Julian Casablancas: Left & Right in the Dark
  95. Antony and the Johnsons: Her Eyes Are Underneath the Ground
  96. Lady Gaga: Bad Romance
  97. Four Tet: Love Cry
  98. The Flaming Lips (feat. Karen O): Watching the Planets
  99. Dykeritz: Chasing the Wheel Away
  100. Alice in Chains: A Looking in View

100?

January 6th, 2010

I don’t think I can limit myself to fifty songs this year. I’ve narrowed the list down to 100 and can’t be arsed to narrow any further.

So look in the next few days for a Songs of ‘09 list, double my usually-preferred length, showcasing an unprecedented panoply of artists from Annie to Zombi.

Top Twenty Albums of 2009

December 31st, 2009
  1. Grizzly Bear: Veckatimest
  2. Dirty Projectors: Bitte Orca
  3. Fuck Buttons: Tarot Sport
  4. Bear in Heaven: Beast Rest Forth Mouth
  5. Mastodon: Crack the Skye
  6. Yo La Tengo: Popular Songs
  7. Sunn O))): Monoliths & Dimensions
  8. Bat for Lashes: Two Suns
  9. St. Vincent: Actor
  10. The Pains of Being Pure at Heart: The Pains of Being Pure at Heart
  11. Yeah Yeah Yeahs: It’s Blitz!
  12. Dinosaur Jr: Farm
  13. The xx: xx
  14. Raekwon: Only Built 4 Cuban Linx … Pt. II
  15. Sonic Youth: The Eternal
  16. Animal Collective: Merriweather Post Pavilion
  17. The Flaming Lips: Embryonic
  18. Kylesa: Static Tensions
  19. Slayer: World Painted Blood
  20. Memory Tapes: Seek Magic

Major calisthenics were demanded before I could arrive at a final order for these twenty gems, but I made it. What a terrific year!

Notes:

Grizzly Bear utterly dominated the competition. I feel strongly about every one of these, but I can’t remember another year—at least not recently—when my #1 towered so high above the rest of the list (maybe 2004?). Veckatimest has purchased real estate next to some of my all-time favorites. Way to go, guys.

It was an unusually strong year for metal, with three albums of undeniable heavitude (four if you count the majestic Monoliths & Dimensions; notice that I balk at the opportunity to put the band’s name in parentheses) moshing their way into the top twenty. Honorable mentions for 2009’s contributions from Isis, Shrinebuilder, Khanate, Skeletonwitch, Baroness, Converge, Coalesce, and, most delightfully, Megadeth’s pummeling Endgame, which is their best in perhaps twenty years.

Many of my favorite rock bands of the nineties, from an array of genres, made strong showings this year, with Yo La Tengo seeming to turn over a new leaf, Dinosaur continuing to roll as confidently as ever in its new (old) incarnation, and Sonic Youth releasing its punkiest album ever. And though I didn’t get quite as swept away by Embryonic as some other folks might have, its ambition and foggy darkness made it more than satisfying. A few other entries in this category deserve an HM: Polvo’s In Prism, Built to Spill’s There Is No Enemy, Wilco’s Wilco (The Album), and, yes, U2’s No Line on the Horizon. I’ll keep my mouth shut about the Alice in Chains and Pearl Jam albums. Oops. Guess I didn’t do a very good job of that.

Finally, as to new sounds: this glo-fi thing? I am over the moon for it. Washed Out didn’t quite make the albums list, and neither did Neon Indian, and Memory Tapes’s inclusion was a veritable squeaker, but all three artists impressed me enormously, and all three will be present on my forthcoming songs list. To the degree that this fledgling sound is in fact a coherent sound, and that these three artists from among certainly many more may be considered its most salient representatives, this sound is deeply moving to me and comes as close as any electronic music I’ve heard to delivering the emotional goods that I expect from the best pop. It’ll either take over indie electropop altogether in the next two years or be forgotten utterly. We’ll see. It might depend entirely on what M.I.A. decides to do next.

And as to the two songs lists I’m working on: they are totally driving me crazy. Wish me luck.

Top Fifty Albums of the 2000s

December 27th, 2009

Behold! The first of this decade’s stocktakings is complete.

  1. The Dismemberment Plan: Change
  2. Radiohead: Kid A
  3. Joanna Newsom: The Milk-Eyed Mender
  4. Jay-Z: The Blueprint
  5. Grizzly Bear: Veckatimest
  6. Wilco: Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
  7. Deerhoof: Friend Opportunity
  8. Vampire Weekend: Vampire Weekend
  9. Radiohead: In Rainbows
  10. Modest Mouse: The Moon & Antarctica
  11. Joanna Newsom: Ys
  12. OutKast: Stankonia
  13. Animal Collective: Strawberry Jam
  14. Death Cab for Cutie: We Have the Facts and We’re Voting Yes
  15. Elliott Smith: Figure 8
  16. Mastodon: Remission
  17. The Hold Steady: Boys and Girls in America
  18. Arcade Fire: Neon Bible
  19. Dirty Projectors: Bitte Orca
  20. Cut Copy: In Ghost Colours
  21. Yo La Tengo: And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside Out
  22. Eminem: The Marshall Mathers LP
  23. Interpol: Turn on the Bright Lights
  24. Björk: Vespertine
  25. Fugazi: The Argument
  26. Burial: Untrue
  27. Sonic Youth: Murray Street
  28. The Shins: Chutes Too Narrow
  29. Interpol: Antics
  30. Dirty Projectors: Rise Above
  31. Arcade Fire: Funeral
  32. Broken Social Scene: You Forgot It in People
  33. My Morning Jacket: Z
  34. The Joggers: With a Cape and a Cane
  35. Coheed and Cambria: In Keeping Secrets of Silent Earth: 3
  36. Panda Bear: Person Pitch
  37. The Decemberists: The Crane Wife
  38. Menomena: Friend and Foe
  39. Deerhoof: The Runners Four
  40. M.I.A.: Arular
  41. Kanye West: Graduation
  42. Deerhunter: Microcastle/Weird Era Cont.
  43. TV on the Radio: Return to Cookie Mountain
  44. Strength: Going Strong
  45. Sleater-Kinney: The Woods
  46. Fuck Buttons: Tarot Sport
  47. Mastodon: Leviathan
  48. Q and Not U: Different Damage
  49. Animal Collective: Feels
  50. Battles: Mirrored

The best year for music this decade? As I confidently asserted at the time, it was 2007, all ten of whose Top Ten finalists made this list of fifty.

The artist of the decade? The raw numbers would suggest Radiohead. If we restrict ourselves to artists who first emerged this decade (and we hopefully can agree on a definition of “emerge” without too much back-and-forth), it looks pretty sweet for Joanna Newsom.

No matter the top dog, it was a delightful and consistently surprising ten years for music, and I think the list reflects the diversity of the pearls that this unpronounceable decade had to offer. I don’t know why Change still seems so insuperably brilliant to me all these years later—maybe it’s me—but it’s possible that it really is one of the best albums of all time.

Thinking of slapping some genre-specific sub-lists together (metal, hip hop, etc.). I feel pretty good about this one, though.

There Will Be Lists

December 16th, 2009

I’m working on year-end lists enumerating my favorite albums and singles of 2009, and strongly considering taking the time to compile a decade’s-best list as well.

So: don’t let my long absence from this blog fool you. I still live. It’s just that the blog was mostly used for movie reviews anyway, and I’ve stopped caring about movies because movies have stopped caring about me. And the trickle of trivial stuff I used to share on here has been relocated to twitter.com/quillh.

Milk

February 14th, 2009

Milk ★★★½

Deeply moving, heroic biopic about Harvey Milk (Penn), who was the first openly gay man to be elected to public office in California, holding the office of San Francisco City Supervisor for the better part of a year before his assassination in November of 1978. Penn’s beautifully openhearted performance lends the film the kind of rich humanity that movies of its ilk too often lack; first-time 29-year-old writer Dustin Lance Black also deserves kudos for having interwoven the events and themes of Milk’s political and personal lives so elegantly, making the necessary point that the gay rights issue is of course deeply personal to those fighting on its frontline. A very strong drama in a year sorely wanting for one. Penn and Black won well-deserved Oscars.

(2008) C-128m. D: Gus Van Sant. W: Dustin Lance Black. DP: Harris Savides. SEAN PENN, EMILE HIRSCH, JOSH BROLIN, DIEGO LUNA, JAMES FRANCO, ALLISON PILL, VICTOR GARBER, DENIS O’HARE. [R]

Holy Shit Amazing New Women Song

January 19th, 2009

Top Fifty Songs of 2008

January 13th, 2009

Holy moly, I think I’m finally there! I limited my revisions to ten thousand.

The usual apologies for not having been able to include literally every song I liked last year are in order. Had the list been allowed (by the gods) to run a little longer, such diverse and talented artists as Hercules and Love Affair, Crystal Castles, Sigur Rós, Frightened Rabbit, Dodos, and Amadou & Mariam might have enjoyed inclusion. It was not to be, alas. Here are the real winners.

  1. M83: Kim & Jessie
  2. Cut Copy: Out There on the Ice
  3. Vampire Weekend: M79
  4. Deerhunter: Nothing Ever Happened
  5. Fleet Foxes: Drops in the River
  6. Vampire Weekend: Oxford Comma
  7. Femi Kuti: Tell Me
  8. Beyoncé: Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)
  9. Jay Reatard: Always Wanting More
  10. Portishead: Silence
  11. TV on the Radio: Golden Age
  12. Q-Tip: Gettin’ Up
  13. No Age: Teen Creeps
  14. Santogold: L.E.S. Artistes
  15. Women: Shaking Hand
  16. David Byrne and Brian Eno: Strange Overtones
  17. Gang Gang Dance: House Jam
  18. Bon Iver: Re: Stacks
  19. No Age: Cappo
  20. Beach House: Gila
  21. M83: Couleurs
  22. Deerhunter: Never Stops
  23. Fuck Buttons: Sweet Love for Planet Earth
  24. Dragging an Ox Through Water: Houses and Homunculi
  25. School of Seven Bells: Half Asleep
  26. TV on the Radio: Love Dog
  27. Fucked Up: Black Albino Bones
  28. Fleet Foxes: Blue Ridge Mountains
  29. High Places: From Stardust to Sentience
  30. Lil Wayne: Shoot Me Down
  31. Beach House: You Came to Me
  32. The Walkmen: In the New Year
  33. Deerhoof: Offend Maggie
  34. Harvey Milk: Motown
  35. No Age: Sleeper Hold
  36. Empire of the Sun: Walking on a Dream
  37. Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds: Night of the Lotus Eaters
  38. Cut Copy: Lights and Music
  39. Passion Pit: Sleepyhead
  40. Telepathe: I Can’t Stand It
  41. The Laughing: Canopy
  42. Death Cab for Cutie: Cath…
  43. Lykke Li: Little Bit
  44. Fleet Foxes: Ragged Wood
  45. M83: We Own the Sky
  46. Jay Reatard: See/Saw
  47. Kanye West: Love Lockdown
  48. Atlas Sound: River Card
  49. Max Tundra: Number Our Days
  50. Crystal Antlers: A Thousand Eyes

Now I can go get the new Animal Collective!

Top Twenty Albums of 2008

January 9th, 2009
  1. Vampire Weekend: Vampire Weekend
  2. Cut Copy: In Ghost Colours
  3. Deerhunter: Microcastle/Weird Era Cont.
  4. Portishead: Third
  5. M83: Saturdays = Youth
  6. No Age: Nouns
  7. Fleet Foxes: Fleet Foxes
  8. Gang Gang Dance: Saint Dymphna
  9. Bon Iver: For Emma, Forever Ago
  10. TV on the Radio: Dear Science
  11. Fuck Buttons: Street Horrrsing
  12. Point Juncture, WA: Heart to Elk
  13. 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
  14. Q-Tip: The Renaissance
  15. The Mae Shi: HLLLYH
  16. Beach House: Devotion
  17. High Places: High Places
  18. Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds: Dig!!! Lazarus Dig!!!
  19. Mount Eerie: Lost Wisdom
  20. Frightened Rabbit: The Midnight Organ Fight

The big story is how many first-timers there are on here. I can hardly believe it myself, but the only artists on this list ever to appear on one of my previous Albums of the Year lists are TVotR and Portishead (who snuck Dummy in at #20 back in ‘94; yes, I have been doing this for that long). Firstly, there are five debut LPs on the list—Vampire Weekend, Bon Iver, Fuck Buttons, Fleet Foxes, and High Places—all of them knockouts. [If last year's singles-comp Weirdo Rippers doesn't count as an LP, then No Age's is the sixth. Last year's list, as a point of contrast, had one debut.] Then there are Deerhunter and M83—both of whom I formerly had had no better than a passing, rootless interest in—who impressed the shit out of me with albums that constituted quantum leaps in each group’s artistic maturation. Cut Copy utterly dominated my iPod all summer, and I had literally never heard of them before IGC dropped; same deal with The Mae Shi and GGD, who each broke out in spectacular fashion after toiling too long in obscurity. Local faves PJWA finally put out their magnum opus, two years in the making, and it was worth the wait. And finally, there were heartwarming comebacks in 2008 as well, most memorably from the aforementioned Portishead, but also from Q-Tip, who put out a record that actually challenges the Tribe back catalog, and Nick Cave, whose Bad Seeds’ release of this year sounds fresher than anything he’s done in a decade.

Also, props to Jay Reatard, whose Matador Singles ‘08 tragically fails to qualify for consideration on the same grounds on which Weirdo Rippers was excluded last year (i.e. it’s a compilation of singles, not an LP). Format classification aside, it (MS’08) is one of the most sublimely perfect punk rock collections to be released in years, and it will be well-represented on my Songs list.

That about sums it up. Hopefully I won’t regret any of my placements this year as badly as I regret last year’s placement of Burial’s Untrue and Arcade Fire’s colossal Neon Bible. [Both should've been higher.]

Said Songs list will follow soon; that one’s much tougher to get together.