Spango Dips

1. Bon Iver: Bon Iver
2. EMA: Past Life Martyred Saints
3. tUnE-yArDs: w h o k i l l
4. Real Estate: Days
5. Unknown Mortal Orchestra: Unknown Mortal Orchestra
6. The Weeknd: House of Balloons
7. Jay-Z and Kanye West: Watch the Throne
8. Oneohtrix Point Never: Replica
9. Kurt Vile: Smoke Ring for My Halo
10. PJ Harvey: Let England Shake
11. Drake: Take Care
12. Blut Aus Nord: 777 — Sect(s)/The Desanctification
13. Iceage: New Brigade
14. Gang Gang Dance: Eye Contact
15. Danny Brown: XXX
16. M83: Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming
17. Clams Casino: Instrumental Mixtape
18. The Antlers: Burst Apart
19. Kendrick Lamar: Section.80
20. Point Juncture, WA: Handsome Orders

What an exciting year to have an ear to the ground. Though they may fall short of constituting a trend or inspiring an investigation, the quirks of this year’s list that jump out at me are:

1. the high hip hop quotient. Somehow 2011 was the year when I finally embraced hip hop’s supplantation of rock as America’s popular music, though it could easily be argued that this shift became palpable as long ago as, say, 1999. To put it another way, this was the year when hip hop finally stopped seeming like something inherently not “for me,” something I have to work a little harder to enjoy. Though I’d always been willing to put in the work in the past, there’s simply no need anymore. Hip hop now sounds as natural and organic to me as any other style, which is quite valuable in a world where its presence grows still larger every year with no end in sight.

2. the high fresh blood quotient. Observe just how many of these terrific records are their artists’ first or second releases. There really aren’t a lot of firmly established names on here, and those that do appear really earned the spot (Let England Shake just has to be PJ Harvey’s best album since To Bring You My Love). What I mostly see instead are some rather shocking debuts (EMA, UMO, The Weeknd, Iceage), and some (perhaps equally shocking) sophomore quantum leaps (Bon Iver, tUnE-yArDs, Real Estate, Drake). What’s more, four of these entries were free downloadable mixtapes, which is most definitely a record (no pun intended) as far as these lists of mine go, though one that I expect could be shattered as soon as 2012. [This figure is obviously highly correlated with the list's strong hip hop presence; a huge Thank You to the hip hop community for continuing to be the front line in the movement to decouple music from commerce.]

The songs list now demands my full attention, though it may be another week or two before it’s out of the oven. Spoiler alert: Bon Iver wins.

1. Robyn: Dancing On My Own
2. Tame Impala: Alter Ego
3. Arcade Fire: Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)
4. Caribou: Odessa
5. Deerhunter: Desire Lines
6. Best Coast: Our Deal
7. Robyn: Call Your Girlfriend
8. Tame Impala: It Is Not Meant to Be
9. High on Fire: Bastard Samurai
10. Kanye West (feat. Pusha T): Runaway
11. Beck and Bat for Lashes: Let’s Get Lost
12. Panda Bear: Slow Motion (Single Version)
13. Big Boi (feat. Cutty): Shutterbugg
14. Neil Young: Peaceful Valley Boulevard
15. Vampire Weekend: Run
16. Jay Electronica: Exhibit C
17. Best Coast: Boyfriend
18. Kanye West: All of the Lights
19. Joanna Newsom: Good Intentions Paving Company
20. Tame Impala: Desire Be, Desire Go
21. Wavves: King of the Beach
22. High on Fire: How Dark We Pray
23. Tame Impala: Solitude Is Bliss
24. Gorillaz (feat. Bobby Womack and Mos Def): Stylo
25. Tame Impala: Expectation
26. Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti: Round and Round
27. Deerhunter: Fountain Stairs
28. Janelle Monáe (feat. Big Boi): Tightrope
29. Owen Pallett: Lewis Takes Off His Shirt
30. Das Racist: hahahaha jk?
31. Deerhunter: Helicopter
32. Vampire Weekend: Cousins
33. Janelle Monáe: Oh, Maker
34. The Morning Benders: All Day Day Light
35. Caribou: Bowls
36. The-Dream: Yamaha
37. Abe Vigoda: Crush
38. Kanye West (feat. Kid Cudi and Raekwon): Gorgeous
39. Deerhunter: Coronado
40. Janelle Monáe: Locked Inside
41. Arcade Fire: Modern Man
42. Joanna Newsom: ‘81
43. How to Dress Well (feat. Yüksel Arslan): Decisions
44. Julian Lynch: Stomper
45. Vampire Weekend: Giving Up the Gun
46. Yeasayer: I Remember
47. The Walkmen: Torch Song
48. Cee Lo Green: Fuck You
49. The Knife in collaboration with Mt. Sims and Planningtorock: Colouring of Pigeons
50. The National: Conversation 16
51. Daft Punk: End of Line
52. Two Door Cinema Club: What You Know
53. Arcade Fire: Empty Room
54. Janelle Monáe: Cold War
55. Broken Social Scene: Forced to Love
56. Robyn: Hang with Me
57. No Age: Glitter
58. Menomena: Tithe
59. Best Coast: Crazy for You
60. Kanye West (feat. Jay-Z, Rick Ross, Nicki Minaj and Bon Iver): Monster
61. Beach House: Lover of Mine
62. Sade: Soldier of Love
63. Arcade Fire: Ready to Start
64. Women: Locust Valley
65. Broken Social Scene: World Sick
66. Gayngs: The Gaudy Side of Town
67. Zola Jesus: Night
68. WU LYF: Heavy Pop
69. Broken Social Scene: Sweetest Kill
70. Das Racist: Shorty Said (Gordon Voidwell Remix)
71. Owen Pallett: Tryst with Mephistopheles
72. The National: Bloodbuzz Ohio
73. Robyn: Get Myself Together
74. Sleigh Bells: Tell ‘Em
75. Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti: Butt-House Blondies
76. Lil Wayne (feat. Cory Gunz): 6 Foot 7 Foot
77. Julian Lynch: In New Jersey
78. Teengirl Fantasy: Cheaters
79. Beach House: Zebra
80. Twin Shadow: At My Heels
81. Japandroids: Younger Us
82. Sleigh Bells: Infinity Guitars
83. Lady Gaga: Alejandro
84. The National: Lemonworld
85. Tame Impala: Lucidity
86. High on Fire: Fire, Flood & Plague
87. No Age: Valley Hump Crash
88. MNDR: Fade to Black
89. Department of Eagles: While We’re Young
90. Best Coast: The End
91. Janelle Monáe: Faster
92. Earl Sweatshirt: Luper
93. The Futureheads: Dart at the Map
94. The Walkmen: Angela Surf City
95. Beach House: Walk in the Park
96. Kylesa: Spiral Shadow
97. LCD Soundsystem: All I Want
98. Julian Lynch: A Day at the Racetrack
99. Dom: Living in America
100. Oneohtrix Point Never: Returnal

There. Let us never speak of 2010 again.

I’m back, bitches.

1. Tame Impala: Innerspeaker
2. High on Fire: Snakes for the Divine
3. Deerhunter: Halcyon Digest
4. Janelle Monáe: The ArchAndroid (Suites II and III)
5. Caribou: Swim
6. Kanye West: My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy
7. Brian Eno: Small Craft on a Milk Sea
8. Best Coast: Crazy for You
9. Arcade Fire: The Suburbs
10. Robyn: Body Talk
11. Beach House: Teen Dream
12. Vampire Weekend: Contra
13. Gorillaz: Plastic Beach
14. Das Racist: Shut Up, Dude/Sit Down, Man
15. Big Boi: Sir Lucious Left Foot: The Son of Chico Dusty
16. Nachtmystium: Addicts: Black Meddle, Pt. II
17. Owen Pallett: Heartland
18. The National: High Violet
19. Gil Scott-Heron: I’m New Here
20. Julian Lynch: Mare

In spite of the nonzero amount of joy that these albums delivered (my No. 1 is particularly near to my heart), 2010 was a shit year for pop music, and in fact the only reason it took me an extra year to get this list (and my forthcoming song list) together is because I simply couldn’t summon the will last January to wade through the year’s vast swamps of mediocrity. I’ve now finished the job, but as the moment has passed and these albums are officially old news, it feels a bit silly to talk about them. It would have felt sillier, though, to ignore the true gems of 2010 just because the year happened to disappoint on the whole, let alone to abandon this cherished tradition of mine forever just because of one bad year. So please receive this list and its forthcoming successor as nothing more or less than the necessary prerequisite to the 2011 lists, about which I’m actually excited.

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.”

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

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.

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.

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.

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 ★★★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]