With year end lists coming up...
This is the first year in a long time where I haven’t been keeping up enough to know what the clear favorites are.
I really didn’t pay all that much attention this year. What is the skinny?
What is this years gratuitous hipster loved metal album that most of the lists will have to show “Hey, I like metal!”. I know Mastodon released something this year and they’re usually the clear favorite in this field. They are like Paul McCartney is to Grammy Awards. All they need to do is release something in a given year and they win by sheer force of lazy inertia.
What about the gratuitous, token pop record? I know Laday Gaga released something but that’s so last year. I’ve heard this Drake fellows name mentioned a few times in hipsterish circle’s so is he the new one? Or is he this years gratuitous rapper? I’ve never heard a song by him so I don’t know if he’s a pop singer or a rapper and I see him mentioned in both categories.
Comments
This year’s gratuitous rapper is definitely Tyler, but the best, sadly, is one of the most ignored: Shabazz Palaces, which is two of the three former members of Digable Planets.
I’ve got not idea what went on in pop this year. At all.
I mostly just listened to a shit ton of Radiohead. Those remixes just kept coming out, and then there was the Live from the Basement show…
I liked the new Mastodon, but according to my play counts, I apparently liked the new Obscura and Red Fang albums much more.
Sadly, I think most of the pitchfork albums will be favorites, and I think most of them are boring or just plain garbage. Kurt Vile, Girls, John Maus, Washed Out, James Blake… all of it. Just dull dull dull. Not a single spark of life, not a single hint of anything new or interesting, and not enough song writing chops to make up for it. Though it was surprising that they picked up on the new Oneohtrix Point Never, albeit months after the album actually came out.
John said:
Sadly, I think most of the pitchfork albums will be favorites, and I think most of them are boring or just plain garbage. Kurt Vile, Girls, John Maus, Washed Out, James Blake… all of it. Just dull dull dull. Not a single spark of life, not a single hint of anything new or interesting, and not enough song writing chops to make up for it.
I got news for you, I’m going to say this assesement is more a factor of your ever creeping age than it was the music actually released this year. Because that pretty much sums up the last several years for me, if not the last decade to decade and a half all together. And I’ve realized it’s more a factor of the older you get, the less “new” there is out there. I’ve enjoyed more stuff actually the past couple of years just by deciding I don’t care if something is new or exciting or innovative or groundbreaking or even if it’s insanely derivative as long as it’s derivative of something I already like.
That being said, there even seemed to be a drought of things good but not particularly innovative or things good but derivative of things I already like this year.
Yeah, I was afraid that might be the case. It seems, though, Pitchfork has picked a lot of very similar sounding albums with a very specific production aesthetic wrapped around what is essentially a pretty shallow, bland song. And sure, I love Dylan and Springsteen, I love Brian Eno and shitty old synths, I love reverb and jangly guitars, but how many goddam albums do you need that combine all those things? In a single year? Their whole best-of list is just one shitty synthy, jangly reverby street poet album after another, interspersed by boring house albums.
You know what? I take it back. I’m not old. Pitchfork is just stupid.
That Shabazz Palaces album is really good.
John said:Yeah, I was afraid that might be the case. It seems, though, Pitchfork has picked a lot of very similar sounding albums with a very specific production aesthetic wrapped around what is essentially a pretty shallow, bland song. And sure, I love Dylan and Springsteen, I love Brian Eno and shitty old synths, I love reverb and jangly guitars, but how many goddam albums do you need that combine all those things? In a single year? Their whole best-of list is just one shitty synthy, jangly reverby street poet album after another, interspersed by boring house albums.
You know what? I take it back. I’m not old. Pitchfork is just stupid.
No, you’re old. Everything you just said is exactly the type of stuff I started saying around 30. Only then it was “Sure I love (insert name of old band here) but how many disco beat, indie rock, angular guitar playing, garage rock posing indie rock bands with sub-Peter Murphy baritone singers can you listen to!! None of this is original!! You all suck.” My early 30’s were my most curmudgeonly musically speaking. But then in a few years I just resided myself to the fact that my ears were jaded and focused more on bands or artists doing a sound well rather than simply doing something that was new original or exciting. And I started enjoying music again. But I have to admit that the past year or two has been pretty spotty overall.
It has been spotty. But there’ve been a few gems that’ve more than made up for the lack of diversity in my 2011 iTunes smartplaylist. In particular, Deerhoof, Radiohead, Battles, Tom Waits, and Tuneyards, as well as some really good noise albums like the aforementioned Oneohtrix Point Never, Tim Hecker, NHKyx, and Hella. I even warmed up to the new Bon Iver and Fleet Foxes.
So this may end up being the shortest Top Albums list I’ve posted on the scrab in a while, it at least won’t suffer for quality.
I like the albums by Battles, Beirut, James Blake, and Tune-Yards (and kinda St. Vincent).
Overall, very lacking though. I’m not sure about these other Pitchfork bands, but I’m digging on James Blake. It’s minimal like The XX, with some soul in the vocals. It’s a fresh sound to me.
I think it has been a decent year. I have seen more bands this year than for a while and that may be an influence.
The Kirt Vile album is amazing and The War on Drugs one will give him two markers in my top ten. The James Blake thing is strange..I like it one week and then hate it the next..then return to it a few weeks later and start again. Other Lives have made a masterwork with Tamer Animals.
Philly has produced a ton of great stuff this year, Vile, Toy Soldiers, East Hundred to name a few.
The only irritating thing with this year has been an over flow of fuzzy poppy stuff, not all bad, admittedly. Cults, Best Coast, Foster the People kind of thing.
John said:I even warmed up to the new Bon Iver and Fleet Foxes.
Interesting you mention this because I realized the same thing this past weekend about the Bon Iver record.
Kevin when you say “Year end lists” do you mean “2012 end of the world apocalypse list?” If thats the case than I would suggest TI.
Reddit’s doing a vote up/vote down top albums of the year list that’s worth reading solely because there are a number of albums here I haven’t seen mentioned anywhere else or that I had no idea were even released. E.g., I had forgotten that Wild Beasts were coming out with a new album this year — it’s been out for months!
Kev, this Other LIves album is fantastic. It’s very Grizzly Bear, which is a very good thing.
I still don’t know that I’d rank it as one of the best of the year, but I’ve revisited and reconsidered this most recent Iron and Wine album. I recently went back and listened to it with headphones on and there’s a helluva lot of interesting stuff going on with the arrangements and instrumentation. The songs still lack a little something or other, but it’s not as easily dismissable and as throw away as I originally thought.
I was gonna go back and listen after reading that, but found I apparently hated it so much I deleted it. I think Ima stick with my first instinct. That shit was awful.
i found the kurt vile record boring too, hutch.
i was really into the records of: portugal the man, beirut, tune-yards and wu lyf.
I tried the portugal: the man album yesterday, but wasn’t digging it. Beirut is dead to me. Seeing him live ruined a lot of the appeal, and then stagnating musically finished him off. Love Tune Yards and thanks for your Wu Lyf recommendation, though.
I’m really surprised how many bands had new albums this year that I hadn’t even heard about. New Megadeth and new Anthrax! And they both aren’t bad!
Can you elaborate on the Beirut hatred? I’ve seen a few random comments on facebook posts, and I think I have a handle on it. But before I go “See! I was right!!” I’d like to know that I definitely am right.*
*Note: Even if you deny that I’m right, I’m still right and you are probably lying.
We saw him at the Electric Factory a year or two ago. It was easily one of the worst shows I’ve ever been to. First of all, he spoke french. The whole time. To the audience. The philadelphia audience. And he’s from fucking San Diego. So that set me off right away. As the show went on, we were up in the bar area and I was annoyed at how it sounded. They sounded out of time, off-key, and there were whole instruments I saw on stage I could hear none of. Figuring it was a problem with stereo separation or something, Kev the Manc and I head down to the pit area to get a better view and hear better. Turns out, the problem wasn’t where we were sitting, it was that he had a dude on stage fucking pretending to play. You couldn’t tell from up top, but from the floor, you could see the guy miming playing the vibraphone on some songs. A vibraphone that had no mics or cords near it. And when he picked up some brass later, I figured the same shit was going on.
Frankly, I just felt ripped off. I felt like I went to see a musician, and instead I got a fucking actor pretending to be french and pretending to have a band. And it just colored all his music from that point forward. I still enjoy the first two albums, but between that and the complete retread that is this new album, I just gave up on the asshole.
I don’t remember exactly what your opinion was of him (though I assume it’s negative) so I don’t know how right this makes you, but yeah. Fuck Zach Condon and his phony bullshit.
My opinion was that it (or he specifically) was pretentious, phony garbage. You disagreed vehemently. So……I was right.
Also, I love how a young kid playing boring, old people oompa music on a goddamned french horn is o.k., but speaking French to the audience is just one pretentious bridge too far for you.
We all have our lines in the sand, brother.
man i don’t know if i agree with hutch or kevin v. well isn’t that how it always goes.
back to the albums.
wye oak is awesome. and so is the new black keys. digging that!
I played in an orchestra for 11 years. I’ve seen lots of unpretentious, sincere kids play lots of old people oompa music. I figured he was just a band geek trying to make a go at a pop career. To be that young and that skilled at the french horn, he’d have to be. What I didn’t realize is that, in addition to being a sincere band geek, he might also be a complete phony douchebag.
And honestly, if his music had continued to evolve into the promise that his one EP had shown where he was experimenting with different sounds, I could forgive some of it. I mean, I still enjoy his first two albums (albeit not as much as before cause now I picture his stupid, smirking shit-face when I hear it). But the new album was just one big retread, so it didn’t matter.
Also, this is nitpicking semantics, but I think it’s important: I specifically did not use the word “pretentious” because I don’t think it applies. I think you, like practically everyone else in America, seem to be confusing it with “highfalutin snobbishness.” If he were pretentious, he’d be under the auspices that what he’s doing is somehow important or vital, and, while he may very well think that, he hasn’t really given us any indication.
I don’t confuse pretentious with highfalutin snobbishness. I know the difference. You don’t think a kid from San Diego speaking French to a bunch of kids (relatively speaking) at a (more or less) indie rock concert crowd in Philadelphia is pretty much the epitome of pretentious? You don’t think a guy who feels he has to pad his on stage group with people who don’t even play instruments has some sense that this makes his performance more credible in some way? To me pretentiousness goes hand in hand with condescension. And in fact I’d say even condescension towards orchestras and band geek types.
Admittedly most of what I instinctively find pretentious is just that, based on gut instinct and how that person/performer comes across. I think in the case of Beirut you admit that his whole deal is phony and that he’s a smirking jerk. That pretty much confirms my initial instinct that what he’s doing is filled with pretentions.
Good example of the gut instinct aspect of it: Andrew Bird plays a violin in his indie rock music to indie rock crowds. I don’t find a single thing about the dude pretentious at all. He’s simply incorporating an instrument he loves into his songwriting and performance without shtick, or winks or whatever. I don’t even particularly like his music but it doesn’t at all appear laced with irony or condescension. Now put that same violin in the hands of Owen Pallet and it strikes me as insufferably pretentious. Whether it’s because of the songs themselves, or him playing that music and wearing death metal t-shirts while doing so (Oh, how ironic that is!!!) or his Ren Faire photo shoots or whatever.
Again, it’s pure instinct and admittedly it’s subjective. But I’d say everything you described about Beirut and his performance fits the bill of pretentious. It doesn’t always have to go hand in hand with phony, but more often than not it does.
Funny you’d compare Andrew Bird to Owen Pallett, cause I find the former insufferably twee and his music totally dull. Owen Pallett just reminds me of some of the dudes I knew in orchestra who had big ideas about what they wanted to do with their instruments outside of classical music. Difference is, he actually does it. And the compositions are just so fucking good he could be taking potshots at my wife and daughter in his lyrics and photos and I’d still love it. Plus I’ve seen Pallett live and I didn’t get even the slightest hint of the aforementioned smirking condescension. I think he’s actually just a big nerd. I know people like him. They exist. They’re big nerds.
But yeah, you make good points about Condon. I’m convinced: dude is fucking pretentious.
I can see dull, but twee? Compared to Pallet? Good lord, no. And again, I don’t like either one of them at all.
Ultimately I think these orchestra type dudes who go the indie rock route with this are doubly pretentious. They have pretentions of being somehow cooler than the folks who remained band geeks and committed to that type of music without care for scenes or coolness or translating it for rock audiences or whatever. But they also have pretentions of being somehow more serious musically than just average rock dudes playing chords on a guitar.
Eh, I could see that being true, but it seems like a generalization to me, with no demonstrable real-world evidence to back that up.
Admittedly. Like I said, it’s all gut instinct and impression, specifically with those 2 (Zach whatshisname and Owen Pallet). But the same is pretty much true of all our opinions. There’s no way for you to demonstrate in a real world way that Andrew Bird is dull or that so and so is actually boring. It’s all from personal instinct.
On the other hand I can look at, listen to, and see someone like Joanna Newsom playing her big old harp and not get that vibe at all. Or Antony doing his completely overwrought borderline operatic drama and not feel that way at all, and fully feel that they are doing it because that is legit the only way they know and there isn’t a single bit of wink-nudge, or condescension in what they are doing. And all this is said as someone who doesn’t really feel invested in any of these artists music since just in general it’s not my thing. So it’s not even a matter of “Well, I like Antony’s music and I hate Beirut’s music so I think the former is sincere and the latter is contrived.”