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Island in the Stream…that is what I am.
In the interest of full disclosure, I should tell you that for my wife Katie and me, the Kenny & Dolly duet is “our song”. So, before you even skim my list of 2011 music that I deem excellent, I’ve already destroyed any smidge of credibility you might have assumed that I had. You must understand that sometimes lovebirds don’t choose their song; rather, their song chooses them. Such is the anomaly Katie and I shared during our third date. It’s an anomaly that we both now own, and proudly. But, that’s another story for another time.
Don't judge me, not yet at least.
Let me explain why I’m an island in the stream. I’m in the Stream because I no longer consume music from files that I store on a hard drive. Instead of a carefully researched and price-shopped collection of music that I assembled, I depend on the cloud (and Spotify’s label affiliations) to hear anything in their catalog of more than 15 million songs. I can’t imagine returning to music, and life, as it was with an 50 GB iTunes library.
I’m an island because I have few friends using Spotify. I jumped into a premium Spotify subscription in mid-July, soon after they launched service in the U.S., and I haven’t looked back since. If only the 10 or 12 people whose taste in music I really value would do the same, the Spotify experience would be further enhanced. Maybe I’ll ramp up my recruitment efforts in 2012.
Spotify is not without flaws. Most importantly, artists get a miniscule revenues from streamed music. This seems fair for the albums I wouldn’t have purchases outright, and grossly unfair for the albums I would have bought. Katie has reminded me that I don’t make the stuff I like as available as I did with iTunes. That’s because I only sync playlists with my phone, and not with the family mp3 players we use around the house and on the go.
There are some new releases (maybe about 5% in my brief experience) that I can’t find when I look for them. Interestingly, two of my favorite albums from this year (by The Weeknd and A$AP Rocky) were mixtapes available on the web for free download. To hear them in Spotify, I have to import them from a local directory. I also miss all the metadata tied to albums in iTunes (e.g. BPM, year, etc.).
Overall, I love Spotify. It’s cut my annual music budget by more than half, and I have access to almost anything at almost any time. Before this post turns into a full-blown Spotify review (too late?), I’ll get to the point of all this.
Albums
In sharp contrast to the iTunes years, using a subscription service has resulted in listening more to full albums and EPs. When I relied on hard-drive storage for music files, individual mp3s were the basic units in my collection.
I would pick and choose songs and avoid purchasing LPs to save money. Now that I no long have a discrete collection, and unlimited access to (most) albums, I’m back to consuming long-form recordings. And to think, I used to the album as a genre was dead!
Also, I’ll go on record as saying that I think three of the best-received albums of 2011 according to Metacritic’s aggregation are overrated (PJ Harvey, Bon Iver, and The Horrors). My daughter would agree — when I played Bon Iver soon after it came out, Jackie gave me a bored look and pleaded, “let’s play some JAMS Daddy.”
These are my 20 favorites of the past year, classified in four tiers below:
Tier One
Days – Real Estate
House of Balloons* – The Weeknd
SUBTRKT – Sbtrkt
The English Riviera – Metronomy
Black Up – Shabazz Palaces
Tier Two
Lenses Alien – Cymbals Eat Guitars
Electronic Dream – araabMUZIK
Wounded Rhymes – Lykke Li
Sepalcure — Sepalcure
Parallax – Atlas Sound
Tier Three
Looping State of Mind – The Field
Mirror Traffic – Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks
A$AP Rocky — LiveLoveA$AP
Tomboy – Panda Bear
No Color – The Dodos
Tier Four
Helplessness Blues – Fleet Foxes
Hurry Up We’re Dreaming – M83
Smother – Wild Beasts
Carrion Crawler/The Dream – Thee Oh Sees
It’s All True – Junior Boys
Songs
My 60 favorite songs of 2011 are listed below, and here’s the link to the Spotify playlist.
- It’s Real – Real Estate
- An echo from the hosts that profess infinitum — Shabazz Palaces
- The Bay – Metronomy
- Wildfire (feat. Little Dragon) – Sbtrkt
- Rifle Eyesight (Proper Name) – Cymbals Eat Guitar
- I’ll Take Care Of U – Gil Scott-Heron & Jamie xx
- The Morning* – The Weeknd
- Black Night – The Dodos
- Street Joy – White Denim
- Video Games – Lana Del Rey
- Nasty – Nas
- Gorilla* – Clams Casino
- Stick Figures In Love – Stephen Malkmus and The Jicks
- Every Night My Teeth Are Falling Out – The Antlers
- Streetz Tonight – araabMUSIK
- Still Sound – Toro Y Moi
- Reach A Bit Further – Wild Beasts
- Love Out Of Lust – Lykke Li
- Pencil Pimp – Sepalcure
- Ungirthed* – Purity Ring
- Is This Power – The Field
- New Map – M83
- Come To The City – The War On Drugs
- Street Halo – Burial
- Alsatian Darn – Panda Bear
- Lotus Flower – Radiohead
- Need You Now – Cut Copy
- Ritual Union – Little Dragon
- Top Bunk – Gauntlet Hair
- Brand New Guy (feat. ScHoolboy Q) (prod. Lyle) – ASAP Rocky
- Edge of Extremes – Clubfeet
- Make My – The Roots
- All The Same – Real Estate
- What You Need* – The Weeknd
- Santa Fe – Beirut
- If I Had A Boat – James Vincent McMorrow
- Other Side – Family Portrait
- My Mistakes – Eleanor Friedberger
- Shut Up, Man (feat. El-P) – Das Racist
- Songs 4 Women* – Frank Ocean
- I Follow Rivers – Lykke Li
- Grown Ocean – Fleet Foxes
- Woods – The Rosebuds
- Falls (Violet) – Van Hunt
- Angel Is Broken – Atlas Sound
- Every Night – James Pants
- Don’t Move – Phantogram
- Under Cover Of Darkness – The Strokes
- Like Gentle Giants – Corduroi
- Something Goes Right – Sbtrkt
- Banana Ripple – Junior Boys
- Something Came Over Me – WILD FLAG
- Wait In The Dark – Memory Tapes
- Get Right – Megafaun
- Hey Sparrow – Peaking Lights
- Gangsta – Tune-Yards
- Weekend – Smith Westerns
- Get Away – Yuck
- Make Me Proud – Drake
- Holocene – Bon Iver
* denotes a track that can’t be found on Spotify, but can easily be found on the web.
My parents were the first of many influences on my musical tastes. Mom is the bona fide musician of the family; she has a beautiful singing voice and is proficient on the piano. I took three years of piano lessons, but it didn’t stick. What did become ingrained was an appreciation for artists in the singer/songwriter mold. The fact that I would belt out Willie Nelson’s Good Hearted Woman at age four can be attributed to my father’s passion for music. Even now, when I hear the Battle of New Orleans (video below), I hear my Dad’s voice and not Johnny Horton’s.
At some point in the late 80′s, it became obvious that I was developing my own set of criteria for evaluating art. I remember a seminal moment in particular — the day they chastised me after hearing the intro track on Black Sheep’s A Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing blaring from my room. Someday, in ten years or so, my daughter or son will play something that bothers my ears, and the circle of life will continue.
How do my tastes differ from my parents’ tastes? I’m obsessed with melodies first and rhythm second. Mom’s prefers talented vocalists and dramatic phrasing, and Dad listens for song structure and lyrical content and meter. I wonder what they might think of my favorite track of 2010, Eyesore by Women. The song consists of three mini-songs strung together, and although I’m pretty sure Patrick Flegel’s nasally vocals are in English, only short segments of words are decipherable as coherent English phrases.
Unlike my previous year-end evaluations in 2008 and 2009, I’ll remember 2010 as a year when I made a conscious decision to consume full albums rather than singles (for old time’s sake, I guess). I can’t yet say whether this body-of-work strategy pays more dividends than the alternative piecemeal song strategy. This year, I feel like I have a stronger opinion when it comes to ranking albums, and less of a breadth of exposure to individual tracks, especially in the genres that I don’t hear as much through the blogs and satellite radio stations I depend on for music discovery (hip-hop, R&B, jazz, dance, and electronic). So, forgive me if my lists for 2010 are rock-heavy.
Music snob ice-dancing solo to the music in his head
This year I won’t dissect releases that disappointed me (Spoon and Broken Bells) or what I think was overrated (Sleigh Bells and Sufjan Stevens) or downright ridiculous and irritating (Kings of Leon). Instead, take a look and listen at what I found to be the aural highlights of 2010.
Oh, and I owe special thanks to my wife for tolerating my obsession and being agreeable about whatever I put on the home stereo.
Best albums
I’ve had 42 full albums and EPs, all released in 2010, in the rotation off and on this year. My 16 favorites are classified in the APJ four tiers of quality:
Tier One
- Public Strain — Women
- Lisbon — The Walkmen
- Cosmogramma — Flying Lotus
- InnerSpeaker — Tame Impala
Tier Two
- Astro Coast — Surfer Blood
- Before Today — Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti
- Black Noise — Pantha du Prince
- Forget — Twin Shadow
Tier Three
- Everything In Between — No Age
- Swim — Caribou
- The Budos Band III — The Budos Band
- Halcyon Digest — Deerhunter
Tier Four
- Teen Dream — Beach House
- The Monitor — Titus Andronicus
- My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy – Kanye West
- Odd Blood — Yeasayer
Best songs
My 40 favorite songs of 2010 are listed below. I linked mp3s if I could find them elsewhere (why yes, I am too cheap to pay for the WordPress audio upgrade) for the first 20 or so:
- Eyesore — Women
- Albatross — Besnard Lakes
- My Way — jj (feat. Lil Wayne)
- I Was Thinking… — Gauntlet Hair
- Odessa — Caribou
- Lucidity — Tame Impala
- Heart to Tell — The Love Language
- Carolina — Girls
- Promises — The Morning Benders
- Woe is Me — The Walkmen
- Mouthful of Diamonds — Phantogram
- How I Got Over — The Roots
- Round and Round — Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti
- National Anthem — Freddie Gibbs
- Piece — Deer Tick
- River Serpentine — The Budos Band
- I Don’t Think I — Devin Therriault
- Empire Ants — Gorillaz (feat. Little Dragon)
- O.N.E. — Yeasayer
- Cremona Memories — Keep Shelly in Athens
- Castles in the Snow — Twin Shadow
- Heart — Love Diamonds
- Gold Skull — Miniature Tigers
- Waterfall — Fresh & Onlys
- Total Life Forever — Foals
- Desire Lines — Deerhunter
- Satelllliiiiiiiteee — Flying Lotus
- I Learned the Hard Way — Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings
- Marathon — Tennis
- Valley Hump Crash — No Age
- Dance or Die — Janelle Monáe (feat. Saul Williams)
- In the Fall — Future Islands (feat. Katrina Ford)
- Shadow People — Dr. Dog
- The Suburbs — Arcade Fire
- Wide Eyes — Local Natives
- Golden Haze – Wild Nothing
- The Dreamer — The Tallest Man on Earth
- A More Perfect Union — Titus Andronicus
- Dance Yrself Clean — LCD Soundsystem
- Bottled in Cork — Ted Leo and the Pharmacists
The Carrboro stop of the “Classic Lineup Reunion Tour” did not disappoint me. Going into it, I knew that 80% of what GbV would play at Cat’s Cradle a couple of weeks ago were songs from Bee Thousand and Alien Lanes. Provided that Mr. Pollard was sober and coherent for the show, how could I have been disappointed?
The two aforementioned albums were recorded about the time I was finishing high school and leaving Burke County once and for all, so you can imagine how much the band and its fans have aged. I’d guess that the average show-goer was around 35. But, when Bob did the Roger-Daltrey-style kick, he still could get his foot up around eye-level, and there were several fans who were partying and throwing stuff like it was 1995 (don’t worry…I kept a safe distance from them).
THE CLUB IS OPEN
Highlights of the 30-some song, 3-encore set included Quality of Armor, My Valuable Hunting Knife, Shocker in Gloomtown, and Don’t Stop Now. Bob and the boys were energetic and their sound was tight. I’m glad to have had a last opportunity to see one of my favorite acts of all time.
Every summer, I compile my favorite tracks of the year so far and force the compilation on the people I know will give them a listen or two. Sometimes they hit, sometimes they miss. I don’t know the adoption rate, or catchiness quotient, or conversion statistics for the stuff I share with friends and family, but I do know that I like the idea of collecting, sorting, and imposing subjective evaluation on new music.
For me, I can attest as of August 20 that this is the year that the album was resurrected. I’ve purchased 18 complete new albums this year so far, and if you break down those acquisitions into individual tracks, I’ve picked up and broken in about the same number of song downloads here and there, thanks mostly to Peel and the blogs that provide the mp3s. By the way, if you have a Mac and love music, Peel is the best $15 you will ever spend on anything in your life (I don’t care if the code is three years old).
Here’s a rundown of what stands out to me so far in 2010. You might notice that hip-hop, R&B, and electronic are missing, and conspicuously so, but it’s only because the new recordings I love from those genres don’t have standout tracks. I can justify those omissions; I limited this list to 18 songs, and like I said before, the album has made a comeback this year in my estimation.
Note: An asterisk in the list below denotes one of my daughter’s favorite dance tracks.
I Was Thinking… — Gauntlet Hair
Heart to Tell* — The Love Language
Odessa* — Caribou
The Suburbs — Arcade Fire
Mouthful of Diamonds* — Phantogram
Marathon — Tennis
O.N.E.* — Yeasayer
Round And Round – Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti
Albatross — Besnard Lakes
Promises — The Morning Benders
Empire Ants* — Gorillaz
Lucidity — Tame Impala
Gold Skull — Miniature Tigers
Walk in the Park — Beach House
Shadow People — Dr. Dog
Bloodbuzz Ohio — The National
That’s Some Dream — Good Old War
Sinister Kid — The Black Keys
The most popular of the tracks listed above contains a close-to-home-hitting verse:
So can you understand
Why I want a daughter while I’m still young?
I want to hold her hand
And show her some beauty
Before all this damage is done…
Updated: I added several good pictures, including the Witkin family of Winston-Salem, horses, and a modified garden wagon.
I don’t have time right now to go into details about our weekend in Boone. Of course, Jackie’s time with her grandparents on Blue Knob is always post-worthy, and our most recent visit included feeding horses and the Cadillac of kids’ wagons (or maybe Humvee of kids’ wagons) — she rode in comfort and rugged style down the winding gravel road. Maybe after we return from holiday I’ll sort out the many videos and pictures from last weekend.
Our fun wasn’t limited to Watauga County. We also had a good time at a party thrown for the upcoming Halsey/Busick union. In fact, I would bet the ranch that no one at the party had a better time than Jackie.
Here she is running happily amok, as the band played on:
Updated: the following pics were added on July 13.
The JACKIE-LAC; a rugged, yet stylish mode of Blue Knob transportation
Cheers! (pronounced "Che-ouh-was")
Eustace's horses
Post-bubble blowing
Michael, Jackie, and Spencer enjoy story time
Sharon, arms full
Annie Dillard wrote, “The sea pronounces something, over and over, in a hoarse whisper; I cannot quite make it out.” Well, when the sea spoke to Jackie this past weekend, she talked back to it.
The three of us really enjoyed our first nuclear family vacation (and only nuclear family vacation for just the three of us, considering that McLain arrives in September). We spent four days and three nights in Nags Head over the Memorial Day weekend. Our home base was within walking proximity to a public beach access, a grocery store, an ice cream shop, and Sam & Omie’s — we had everything we wanted adjacent to our modest motel suite. Katie deserves all the credit for coming up with the idea and putting it all together.
Jackie loved the beach with the exception of that huge body of bothersome salt water; it must have seemed so unpredictable to her, the way it continually advanced and retreated. Whenever the tide came within ten feet or so, she scolded it, shouting, “NO wa-wa.” In her defense, the water was pretty chilly.
Jackie is a little beyond 17 months old, and it’s hard for me to imagine a child being more fun at any other age. Here’s some holiday video.
Note: The music snippets used in the video are from songs by Shabazz Palaces, Toro Y Moi, and Gauntlet Hair.
A couple of years ago, pregnant Katie and I went to see R.E.M., Modest Mouse, and The National at Walnut Creek (or whatever corporate name it has now); Jackie’s first prenatal concert experience showcased some of the best (R.E.M.), most innovative and raw (Modest Mouse), and worthwhile contemporary (The National) alt-rock.
A couple of weeks ago, pregnant Katie and I went to see My Morning Jacket with the Preservation Hall Jazz Band at Koka Booth Amphitheatre in Cary; McLain’s first prenatal concert featured the pre-eminent live experience of Jim James and company, preceded by the mostly-Dixieland style of a New Orleans jazz institution.
Pooch displays the set list from the Cary show
The show was also one of the biggest conventions of Triangle friends and family I’ve seen in years. My brother and his wife, Katie’s sister and her husband, as well as five college friends and other acquaintances. We really appreciate the baby sitting services of the Grandparents Jones.
Katie and Mindy
I’ve been waiting about six years to see MMJ, so my expectations were probably a bit inflated. As Katie and I walked to the car after the show, she asked me how I would grade it. I told her that I gave it a B for two reasons. First, the town of Cary has a noise ordinance that limits the volume (and therefore, limits the fun); there were four or five times when I was consciously irked that there wasn’t more output resulting from the band’s hard work. Second, they played too many songs from their most recent (and my least favorite) album. Even worse, the heart of the encore was the one MMJ song I detest: Highly Suspicious. So, count me among the curmudgeons who are old enough to complain about wanting to hear more of the “old stuff” from the “good old days.”
The end of Run Thru
Now that I have the negative out of the way, I want to say that the band was extremely tight considering that they didn’t really tour at all in 2009 or the beginning of 2010. The final song included the PHJB in a moving (literally for Rich and me) rendition of Curtis Mayfield’s Move on Up. What’s more, they played about six of the 15 or so songs that I really wanted to hear. That’s a pretty good batting average, and it included my Jim James favorite, The Way That He Sings. Why does my mind blow to bits every time they play that song? It’s just the way that he sings, not the words that he says or the band.
Dondante was one of several highlights
In one of my fantasies of the future, McLain will come to me one day and ask about the virtues of Southern Rock and who killed it (when it needed to die gracefully). Or maybe he’ll want to know how powerful a voice can be under the command of good songwriting. Perhaps he’ll just want to know what constitutes a great live rock and roll show. We’ll listen to It Still Moves or Z and I’ll remind him that he was in attendance, sort of, in Cary of all places.
Earlier this year, Tom Ewing summarized the power of popular music quite nicely:
Often, the pleasure of pop is surrender: when a record overrides your reflexes or emotions for a few minutes, when you let it possess you. That feeling isn’t easy to write about, let alone argue over.
Pop music, for me, has come to mean two things: current and fun. Somewhat contrary to the modifier “popular,” the music described here is not overplayed and overconsumed.
So, when I spend a few hours every week catching up with my mp3 blog aggregator (much cooler than it sounds) and reading band news and album reviews, I’m actually chasing new sources, hoping to find those diamonds in the rough that will possess me. It sounds like an addiction because it is an addiction.
The capacity of any song to induce surrender is temporary. After the first few listens my memory starts to capture the most prominent qualities of the song (a bass line, a vocal harmony in the chorus). Soon the song realizes its full potential in my brain, and the song possesses me.
Possession continues for multiple future listens; the staying power of a song varies from five to about twenty replays. Then, as the newness of the melody, dynamics, and rhythm wanes, it loses its grip on my brain.
If the song is merely good, it sits quietly somewhere on my hard drive until I stumble upon it on some future date. If it’s a really good song, it has several different long-term locations in several different playlists, and I will listen to it occasionally in the future. If it’s a great song, it will have a celebrated retirement home where I will visit it (similar to beach-side assisted living in Boca).
Every song must retire. Here are my 2009 inductees for the Dog Food Money Hall of Fame — the most surrender-inducing songs of the year.
Best songs
Note: An asterisk in the list below denotes one of my daughter’s favorite dance tracks for Saturday and Sunday mornings.
Tier One
Two Weeks* — Grizzly Bear
Idiot Heart — Sunset Rubdown
French Navy — Camera Obscura
My Girls — Animal Collective
All the King’s Men — Wild Beasts
Home — Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros
Take it Easy* — Surfer Blood
Rain on — Woods
Islands* — The xx
Oslo Campfire — Port O’Brien
River — Akron/Family
Tier Two
Chi Don’t Dance — BBU
While You Wait for the Others – Grizzly Bear
Tonight’s Today* – Jack Peñate
Skeleton Boy* – Friendly Fires
Lisztomania – Phoenix
Lust for Life — Girls
Pyrex Vision – Raekwon the Chef
Ghost Life – Bowerbirds
No Reasons* – VEGA
Tier Three
Hazel * – Junior Boys
Velvet – The Big Pink
Lost Words – Ganglians
Vacationing People – Foreign Born
Suburban Beverage – Real Estate
The Now – Muzzle of Bees
Shine Blockas * — Big Boi featuring Gucci Mane
Norway — Beach House
You Don’t Know What You Do to Me – Blakroc
Ambling Alp — Yeasayer
Best album
Veckatimest — Grizzly Bear
Best album runners-up
Girls — Album
Built 4 Cuban Linx Pt. II — Raekwon
xx — The xx
Dragonslayer — Sunset Rubdown
The Bright Mississippi — Allen Toussaint
Note: This is jazz, not pop, but it’s super.
Best mashup
Two Weeks of Hip Hop (Dead Prez vs. Grizzly Bear) – The Hood Internet
Best remix
Paris* — Friendly Fires featuring Au Revoir Simone (Aeroplane remix)
Note: I know, it was released in ’08, but it wasn’t put on blast in our house until January ’09, and I didn’t hear anything better that came out this year.
Best video + song created from recorded clips of a legendary astronomer and physicist
Glorious Dawn — Carl Sagan (featuring Stephen Hawking)
Best chillwave (new sub-genre of the year)
Feel It All Around — Washed Out
Green Knight — Memory Tapes
Fire Ant — Bibio
Weak 4 Me — Nite Jewel
Last One Awake — Memory Cassette
Terminally Chill — Neon Indian
Most Annoying
At least in indie and mp3 blog circles, 2009 was the year of AnCo. They started the year with a much-anticipated, inevitably-leaked full length album, and ended it with a heralded EP. They narrowly escaped the list below because they produced interesting music throughout 2009, but when will the AnCo hype machine take a breather?
Here are the bands that I think were overhyped and overrated in 2009.
The Antlers — I know that music critics loved “Hospice”, but it was a bit too whiny and monotonous for my tastes.
YACHT — Psychic City was amusing the first few times I heard it, but the other tracks from this album annoyed me.
The Dirty Projectors — If I’m just not sophisticated enough to appreciate the dissonance and tempo changes, then so be it.
Wilco — Just because I’m a dad, that doesn’t mean I have to like dad-rock.
Modest Mouse — I know they didn’t realease a full-length album in 2009, but I’ve heard plenty of the EP they put out. After This Is a Long Drive for Someone with Nothing to Think About and The Lonesome Crowded West, I would have never guessed their music could be boring after Johnny Marr joined the band (not that it’s his fault). Oh, and Isaac never screams like he used to (that’s a bad thing).
The Very Best — Someone explain to me why they are so widely adored by critics.
Kings of Leon — They’ve regressed in a similar way, yet in a much more dramatic way, as Modest Mouse. They have a clothing line now, and I hear their music on sports radio. I am now proposing a new law (the Followill rule) for evaluating music: The second a song is used as a segue snippet on sports radio, it is instantaneously lame.
MGMT – See the Followill rule, and I’m talking specifically about Kids of course.
Now, on to 2010. In with the new!
There are many musical associations lurking in our heads. In my experience, a connection between a certain song and a stimulus happens often, and some even happen and repeat on a regular basis. For example, “Summertime Rolls” by Jane’s Addiction is triggered every year during the month of August, and I think I’ve experienced this — the song evoked by the late summer heat, set to repeat in my head — since I was 14 or 15 years old.
I thought about personalizing and re-hashing the lyrics for this post, but that seemed a little too contrived (although the line “there is so much space…I cut me a piece” is a perfect fit for beachgoing). I also didn’t use the song as a soundtrack to the beach footage below, but for me, it’s playing in my head when I see my daughter barefoot, fingernails of mother’s pearl playing in sand, gumming cantaloupe, and dancing with her Uncle Rich.
