As the year is very nearly drawing to a close, I as an avid listener of music feel compelled to put together some sort of write-up offering up my thoughts on all the albums I listened to throughout the year. Chronologically speaking, my music taste wanders all over the map, but I found a lot of good music from all over the history of rock this year and I don't mind sharing my discoveries with the public at large.
This year is somewhat special, because I managed my goal of buying, on average, one album a week for the entire year. I won't get to listen to the last two albums I bought until after Christmas (
Ratatat's self-titled and
Tom Waits's Rain Dogs), but I'm exploding with words to write, and so I present to you 50 Albums Over 50 Weeks (presented in alphabetical order).
A Band of Bees - Free the Bees (EMI, 2004)
A pleasant lo-fi album that will appeal to fans of late-Sixties psychedelia. I bought this album early in the year and didn't give it too many spins, so I don't remember a whole lot about it, except that there's a song trifecta in the middle of the disc that is absolutely to die for (Chicken Payback/I Love You/The Russian). The first of those songs is just plain silly-billy fun, the second is heartfelt and will move you to tears under the right circumstances, and the third is a rollicking instrumental that lays down the funk on the organ and the rock on the trumpet. Recommended.
Best tracks: Chicken Payback, I Love You, The Russian
Air - Moon Safari (Astralwerks, 1998)
It's a ballsy move to call yourself a fan of electronica and not own this seminal debut album by Air. The album starts off with La femme d'argent, which comes as close to being able to bring one to orgasm using only its melody as any song I can imagine. I find Sexy Boy silly and gimmicky and kind of a rough patch among the tracks on this album, but the rest of it is ethereal and among the best electronica ever laid down on disc, especially the final track, Le Voyage de Penelope, the driving ferocity of which stirs the stomach to never-before-known levels of beautiful motion sickness. And that final organ chord? *shudder* Awesome.
Best tracks: La femme d'argent, Kelly Watch the Stars, Le Voyage de Penelope
Bad Livers - Blood & Mood (Sugar Hill, 2000)
As the Bad Livers' musical discography, they separated themselves further and further from traditional bluegrass, and this album represents the absolute furthest point of that separation. If you thought the tuba and the klezmer on Industry and Thrift were weird, you have no idea what you're in for on this album. Punk influence and sampled drums are all over the place. Danny Barnes is an insane bastard. Definitely not an album for the faint of heart.
Best tracks: Fist Magnet, Love Songs Suck, Death Trip
Beatles - Rubber Soul (Capitol, 1965)
A great bridge between the bubblegum pop of their early years and the more complex, artsy music of the later years, and the acoustic flavor found mostly throughout is just absolutely scrumptious. Drive My Car is a rollicking starter to the album, and from there it just takes off. It's so easy to lose yourself in the songs and sing out loud with them, not caring who's looking at you. If you're not at all familiar with the Beatles and need a good starting point, this is your album right here.
Best tracks: Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown), Girl, In My Life, Run for Your Life
Beatles - Abbey Road (Capitol, 1969)
And as for flat-out best Beatles album, I put in my not-so-humble bid for Abbey Road. There's not a weak track on here, from the beginning triad of Come Together, Something, and Maxwell's Silver Hammer to the infamous Abbey Road Medley, which just takes on a life of its own and becomes just godly. One wonders what kinds of music the Beatles might have gone on to make had their egos not rent an irreparable rift between them, but as far as final albums go, this is a good note to end on. The Beatles were experimentalists to the bitter end, and this album is the culmination of that slant in their music. 10/10 and then some. It's egotistical to make statements to the effect of "you're no kind of music fan if you don't have this album in your collection", but when people make music that's this good, they're kind of hard to avoid.
Best tracks: Maxwell's Silver Hammer, Octopus's Garden, Here Comes the Sun, Because, She Came in Through the Bathroom Window, Carry That Weight
Beulah - Yoko (Velocette, 2003)
Although no one will ever accuse them of writing happy or even slightly optimistic, Miles Kurosky and the other members of Beulah make the kind of pop that really appeals to a guy like me. The solid arrangements and embittered lyrics that make up all their other albums are also in full force on Yoko. Like Abbey Road, it's a final album that any band should be proud to leave the game on. Hooks abound on this album, which gives any lover of well-made pop music plenty to love.
Best tracks: A Man Like Me, Me and Jesus Don't Talk Anymore, Don't Forget to Breathe
The Books - Lost and Safe (Tomlab, 2005)
A total blind buy for me, but one I'm not quite sure I either regret or treasure just yet. It's very heavy on the sampling, especially of long segments of voice work, and that's what my mind tended to latch onto as I listened to this album, which sadly kind of rendered the music an afterthought. On the first (and so far only) listen, my brain didn't find a whole lot to latch onto, but one thing it knows for sure is that this album has a really strong middle, where the fun picks up and the song titles perk up the mind's ears and encourage one to pay attention. Ask me a year down the road what I think of this album and I'll probably have a more complete answer for you.
Best tracks: Be Good to Them Always, An Animated Description of Mr. Maps, Venice
BT - This Binary Universe (Digital Sound, 2006)
Picked this one up on my first trip to Conway, Arkansas to visit my girlfriend who lives there. As musical souvenirs go, this one burns itself into the memory well. Over the course of 70 minutes, little noises and chilling ambient music creep into your brain and make you turn around in your chair, wondering what that noise was, and then you realize it was only the CD. 70 minutes of that, and never once do you settle into it or get used to it. A definite mindfuck the whole way through, but in the best way imaginable. Best listened to with an excellent set of headphones - I don't mean to go all stoner on everybody, but it'll really freak you out, man.
Best tracks: All That Makes Us Human Continues, The Internal Locus (honestly, these are random picks - all the tracks basically run together)
The Decemberists - Picaresque (feat. Picaresqueties) (vinyl) (Kill Rock Stars, 2005)
You're not going to get a lot of information out of me on the vinyl records that I picked up this year, because I didn't get to listen to any of them because I lost the hookups to my portable turntable. Fortunately, I already own Picaresque on CD, and we've all heard that CD and we all know it's great, and if you haven't heard the CD and you don't know yet how great it is, well then, what are you waiting for? Get up off your lazy duff and go buy it! And maybe I'll see if I can't download some of those extra tracks from the second side of the second LP later.
Best tracks: The Infanta, We Both Go Down Together, The Engine Driver, The Mariner's Revenge Song
The Decemberists - The Crane Wife (Capitol, 2006)
As they sometimes say in less evolved regions of the Internet, this album is full of win. The Decemberists made the move to a new label this year, and they showed up on the mainstream scene with their strongest assemblage of material yet. From the first strong chords of the third part of the Crane Wife saga to the Pink Floyd-esque epic The Island, there's not hardly a flawed moment on this disc. It loses momentum toward the middle with When the War Came and Shankill Butchers, but picks right back up with the breezy Summersong and rides the crest of the wave all the way to the very end of the whimsical roundelay that is Sons & Daughters. I don't care if anyone accuses the Decemberists of making carnival music, and I don't care if
Colin Meloy could win the award for Singer Who Most Resembles a Largemouth Bass, and I don't care what else came out this year - I'm voting it my Best Album of 2006, and YOU CAN'T STOP ME!!!
Best tracks: The Crane Wife 3, The Island (all parts, but especially The Landlord's Daughter), The Perfect Crime #2, Summersong, Sons & Daughters
Deep Banana Blackout - Feel the Peel (Flying Frog, 2001)
A great album to follow The Crane Wife on this list, because with the exception of one track (the silly, ridiculous, so-bad-it-doesn't-even-make-you-laugh Universal Song), Feel the Peel is totally awesome despite the very weird sexual implications of its title and album cover. These guys are well-equipped to carry the torch of jazzy funk rock through the 21st century. You don't often hear jazz- and funk-inflected rock that makes you want to kick people's asses, but DBB inspire such feelings with almost no expenditure of effort. Plus, they're pretty big players on the New England jam band scene, so if you're bored by your current repertoire, give these guys a spin.
Best tracks: Raspberry, Everybody, Big Thing, Rocco's Lament
Deep Purple - Machine Head (Warner Bros., 1972)
Often cited as one of the albums responsible for the birth of heavy metal, half of this album completely cooks and the other half is entirely forgettable. Highway Star is a great song, with its hot guitar solos from none other than Mr. Ritchie Blackmore. The next three songs are good but not great, and Smoke on the Water has gotten enough lip service over the past 30+ years that it doesn't need any from me, but the two songs that end the album, the epic Lazy and the crunchy Space Truckin', come together along with Highway Star to make this album a must-buy for any fan of classic rock. Pick it up if you can find it on the cheap.
Best tracks: Highway Star, Lazy, Space Truckin'
Dire Straits - Love Over Gold (Warner Bros., 1982)
This and Making Movies often flip-flop between first and second in my book for the position of Dire Straits's best album. It's certainly an anomaly in the Dire Straits catalogue with its longer, more classically influenced songs, but it's no less amazing than the minimalist pub rock of their self-titled debut or the precise pop jewels that made up the front end of 1985's Brothers in Arms. As far as faults go, Industrial Disease has some horrifically dated lyrics, but its infectious upbeat tempo still makes it a great tune to groove to now and again, and It Never Rains, the album's closer, can grate since
Mark Knopfler isn't as discreet with his Dylanesque imagery theft as usual. The rest of the disc is masterfully crafted though, although it (along with almost every other DS album) unfortunately tends to get shuffled out of most listeners' fields of view because of the scope and girth of Brothers in Arms.
Best tracks: Telegraph Road, Love Over Gold
The Ditty Bops - self-titled (Warner Bros., 2004)
Last.fm itself recommended this songwriting duo to me earlier this year, and I fell in love with their dulcet voices and their tendency toward acoustic beauty and vaudevillian showmanship right off the bat. I could lose myself in the creamy goodness supplied by Amanda Barrett and Abby DeWald on each and every track for days. Admittedly, I put my masculinity in the line of fire by having such vocal adoration for this group, but to that I say that good music is good music no matter what kind of package it comes in. It's clear that these girls have great respect for the genres their music puts on display, and they have the skills to rise above the snares of novelty and gimmickry and put out some crazy-awesome honest-to-God music.
Best tracks: Walk or Ride, Wishful Thinking, Sister Kate, Four Left Feet
The Durutti Column - Return of the Durutti Column (Factory, 1980)
Fans of guitar skill and the kind of ambient music that's good to put on when you're, say, cleaning your room will love the Durutti Column. Vini Reilly puts his guitar skills to work on 15 tracks on this expanded disc, and although it's not an album that rewards close listening, the strangely melodious cacophony of the whole thing makes it a real treat for any fan of deep rock music. By far, the coolest song here is Conduct, which displays impeccable skill and actually manages to convey the sort of good manners and carriage of oneself suggested by the title.
Best tracks: Sketch for Summer, Conduct, Sketch for Winter
Eels - Electro-Shock Blues (DreamWorks, 1998)
I don't usually take my albums relentlessly depressing - upbeat, optimistic, happier music is my bag - but there's no denying the skilled craftsmanship of an album like ESB. The mysteriously named E is a master of morbid alternative rock that isn't gory, but rather introspective and worth several listens. The lyrics do get pretty insane from time to time, and I'm glad I don't have an outlook - or a life - quite as downtrodden as the songs here depict, but it's nice to step out of my comfort zone every once in a while and check out something like this. Even better when I'm rewarded for the effort.
Best tracks: Elizabeth on the Bathroom Floor, Going to Your Funeral (both parts), P.S. You Rock My World
The Flaming Lips - At War With the Mystics (Warner Bros., 2006)
I discovered the two Lips albums prior to this one years after they came out, so it figures that the musical direction that sounds so beautiful on The Soft Bulletin and Yoshimi would start derailing when I finally reached the same page as the band itself. Not that it's a
bad album, per sé, but it's nowhere near as strong as its predecessors in the same vein. A fair assortment of neat tracks are scattered throughout the album, although the singles (Yeah Yeah Yeah Song and The W.A.N.D.) leave a lot to be desired. A lot of other tracks sound like they might be good, but even after repeated listens, I'm still not sold on the album actually being any
good. It might be time for the boys from Oklahoma City to start looking for another revolutionary sound, because I don't think I can take an album that sounds the same as AWWtM but isn't even any better than
that.
P.S. Sorry to go all Tycho on y'all with the italic words and whatnot.
Best tracks: My Cosmic Autumn Rebellion, The Wizard Turns On..., Mr. Ambulance Driver
Gomez - Five Men in a Hut: A's, B's, and Rarities 1998-2004 (Hut/Virgin, 2006)
Sometimes, you're out there and you're looking for a good place to start with a band that you're interested, and you don't think that any single album is going to do the trick, and so what do you do? You buy a compilation. I don't do that often, but I did it here. Now that I've listened to a few songs outside this compilation, I figure a better intro to the group for me probably would have been their most recent album, How We Operate, but whatever. Incidentally, I'm going to have to listen to this compilation again, but not in one sitting - my interest in it tends to wane after about eight songs. Despite my sporadic interest, I can already tell that I can safely lump Gomez into a group of bands I call "Sounds Kinda Like the
Dave Matthews Band But I Like Them About a Million Times More Than That" (currently not inhabited by any other bands, but I'm sure I'll find some to fill it). It's also cool that half the songs on it are B-sides or unreleased gems. That makes for kind of a weird picture of the group to get starting out, but I enjoy it.
Best tracks: Whippin' Piccadilly (Turbo Version), Catch Me Up, Step Inside, Get Myself Arrested
J. Geils Band - Nightmares ... and Other Tales From the Vinyl Jungle (vinyl) (Atlantic, 1974)
Another album I bought on vinyl and thus haven't gotten to listen to since I purchased it, but I have heard a few of the songs on it. Detroit Breakdown is
a funky number that pays homage to the band's home away from home (their actual home being Boston). Also, I love the cover art.
Also, mentioning the J. Geils Band gives me yet another opportunity to sound off on the superiority of the pre-1980 blues bar outfit JGB to the post-1980 synth-heavy pop JGB, which you will see I have just taken by reading this sentence. Confused? Let's move on.
Best tracks: Detroit Breakdown, Musta Got Lost, Stoop Down #39
J. Geils Band - Monkey Island (vinyl) (Atlantic, 1977)
Another vinyl I haven't yet gotten to listen to. I have heard the title track though, and it is fucking amazing.
Best tracks: Monkey Island is all for now, others to be determined later
King Crimson - Red (EG, 1974)
The real treat of this CD is the song that ends the album, Starless, with its haunting vocal melody, slow burn jam, and the guitar riff from the beginning that becomes a rousing saxophone run at the end of the song. Purchase of this CD was mostly an attempt to give a fair shake to a band I've previously been unfairly giving the short shrift, having only listened to Moonchild from their debut album (and what a terrible song
that is, for real). And honestly, it's not bad, but the first four songs all kind of run together in my head except for One More Red Nightmare, which I seem to recall was pretty kickass.
Best tracks: One More Red Nightmare, Starless
Lemon Jelly - Lost Horizons (Beggars XL, 2002)
One of my favorite electronica acts that I've discovered in the past year is Lemon Jelly, and this album confirms the awesomeness of that find. As each song ends, it segues seamlessly into the next, and each one is real ear candy for the lover of good solid electronica. The thing about the music on this disc is that so much of it is so beautiful. The acoustic guitars and piano riff on Space Walk are godly, and there's no way to resist cracking a smile when the horns come roaring in on Nice Weather for Ducks. This is music I can put and start feeling better no matter how sour a mood I'm in, and any music that succeeds at doing that is bound to shoot up to the top of my favorites list regardless of genre or makeup.
Best tracks: Elements, Space Walk, Nice Weather for Ducks, The Curse of Ka'Zar
Lemon Jelly - '64-'95 (Impotent Fury/XL, 2005)
This, on the other hand, is nowhere NEAR as good as Lost Horizons, and leans on not one, but TWO gimmicks to boot. One is that each song is named after a year between 1964 and 1995, and the other is that the samples in each song are taken from the year the song is named after. Adding to the confusion, most of the samples are pretty obscure, although you do get a few occasional humorous ones, like
William Shatner on the closing track. Looking back, I wonder how this album sowed enough interest in me to buy another Lemon Jelly album, but since it resulted in me getting Lost Horizons, I'm sure glad it did.
Best tracks: '88 AKA Come Down on Me, '68 AKA Only Time
Little Feat - Feats Don't Fail Me Now (Warner Bros., 1974)
If you don't count the medley at the end, which is boring and exactly ten minutes long and is actually comprised of two songs from an entirely different Little Feat album, then there's really only about 25 minutes of music here, but if you're all about layin' down the funk, then the shortage of material won't really matter because what is here absolutely cooks.
Lowell George and Paul Barrere flex their songwriting muscles on Rock & Roll Doctor and Skin It Back, respectively. There's definitely a lot here to groove to, and it's a great driving CD. I'd probably feel a lot worse about getting this album if I hadn't picked it up super-cheap.
Best tracks: Rock & Roll Doctor, Oh Atlanta, Skin It Back
M83 - Before the Dawn Heals Us (Mute U.S., 2005)
Does this album count as shoegaze, to an extent? Or are we just going to leave it as electronica for now? That's probably a better idea, for now, at least. And so you've probably gathered that I wouldn't have mentioned shoegaze had I not heard at least some elements of it in this album, particularly the "wall of sound" that characterizes the genre. That accounts for a lot of what made this album an interesting listen for me, which is good, because the rest of it tended to be an amorphous blob, indistinguishable from the rest of itself. But I have to give the love to Car Chase Terror - everywhere I look, I see people bashing on it! What gives? Bonus points to that song too, because whenever I play it with my sister in the room, it REALLY freaks her out.
Best tracks: Moon Child, Don't Save Us from the Flames, Car Chase Terror!
John Mayer - Continuum (Columbia, 2006)
If you'd have come up to me in 2001 when Your Body Is a Wonderland was all over the radio and told me not only would I own a John Mayer CD but I'd enjoy the ever-loving crap out of it, I might have punched you in the face. (Or not, I'm not really that kind of guy, I'm just sayin'.) The point is, this CD is mind-boggling. Maybe not as mind-boggling as Try!, since that was what really made me stand up and notice Mayer, but mind-boggling all the same. It looks like Mayer's tutelage under guitar greats like
B.B. King and
John Scofield has paid off, as there aren't a whole lot of weak points on this CD (Bold As Love is a notable miss, however, since not only is it a weaksauce cover, but I don't even like
Jimi Hendrix at all in the first place). I have a feeling such mentoring will continue to pay off in the future as he grows even more as an artist.
I used to get John Mayer and
Dave Matthews confused a lot, but no more. This is a kid with identity, purpose, and mad skill.
Best tracks: I Don't Trust Myself (With Loving You), Gravity, Vultures, Slow Dancing in a Burning Room
Medeski Martin & Wood - Bubblehouse EP (Gramavision, 1997)
Picked this up at CD Warehouse for three bucks one day, and the remixes on display here are even more screwed up than the cover art. The EP starts off with the original version of Bubblehouse - a crafty move that allows you to hear it and the "BBQ Mix" of the same song back-to-back. I've used this word already earlier in this write-up, but the best word to describe Bubblehouse's BBQ Mix is "crunchy". The remix of Spy Kiss (weirdly subtitled as the "10:00 p.m. Whr. R. Your Childrn Mix") is too crazy to be ignored, and unlike the Bubblehouse BBQ Mix, it has almost no detectable connection to the source material. A nice non-remix reward found here is an original composition (Macha) that you won't find on any of their full-length albums, and it's this short little ditty that is really what makes the EP worth purchasing for fans of MMW.
Best tracks: Bubblehouse (BBQ Mix), Macha
Medeski Martin & Wood - Uninvisible (Blue Note, 2001)
If you like your fusion trios funky and cerebral, this is a great album for you. Medeski Martin & Wood have two distinct sides, the straighter side (which is still pretty avant-garde a lot of the time) and their outright trippy side, and this effort falls firmly on the latter side. MMW are good at making songs which still retain a strong semblance of melody despite branching out into the more experimental aspects of jazz, which is most notable on the album's second track, the hilariously vulgarly named I Wanna Ride You. Although like most MMW albums it loses momentum toward the end of the disc, it's still a great addition to your collection if you like forward-thinking music at all.
Best tracks: I Wanna Ride You, Your Name Is Snake Anthony, Nocturnal Transmission
Medeski Scofield Martin & Wood - Out Louder (Indirecto, 2006)
This album marks MMW's second team-up with John Scofield (the first being A Go Go from 1997), and. Surprisingly, the core trio's bassist,
Chris Wood, contributes the finest two songs in the stomach-churning Tequila and Chocolate as well as Chachaça (which, for the record, nearly everyone on last.fm has labeled incorrectly). Aside from that, the first two songs lay down the kind of relaxed groove that will set the tone for the rest of the album. Surprisingly, nearly all of the album's second half is something of a snoozer, but the ride is fun while it lasts, and it really makes you wish that Scofield would hook up with the group permanently.
Best tracks: Little Walter Rides Again, Miles Behind, Tequila and Chocolate, Chachaça, Julia (yes,
that Julia)
Charles Mingus - Mingus Ah Um (Columbia/Legacy, 1959)
What happens a lot of the time when I buy straight old-school jazz albums is that I honestly try really hard to appreciate the genius and the talent behind the music but just kind of wish I was back listening to some fusion like
Weather Report or
Return to Forever or something that really puts me in a groove or makes me want to dance instead of a bunch of crazy notes being strung together through improvisation or whatever. Mostly, that happened here too, although MAU was helped by its eponymous lead man thumpin' away on the bass and laying down some solid grooves to help the tunes along. I don't know. I guess I just don't "get" regular jazz yet.
Best tracks: Better Get Hit in Yo' Soul, Boogie Stop Shuffle, Fables of Faubus
Neutral Milk Hotel - In the Aeroplane Over the Sea (Merge, 1998)
Darling album of the indie subculture that it is, I figured I'd give it a try one day after waffling on it for a while, and I liked it. The music is enigmatic by itself, but not nearly so much as the man who wrote most of it,
Jeff Mangum. Mangum spins some beautiful tales here, and I've heard that his lyrics are inspired by the dreams he has...? If that's true, it's pretty freakin' awesome. I wouldn't say Aeroplane deserves all the hype it gets, but almost all of it is warranted to some degree or another.
Best tracks: In the Aeroplane Over the Sea, Holland 1945, Two-Headed Boy, Pt. 2
The New Deal - Receiver EP (Jive, 2001)
Since the New Deal don't have a lot of studio work to start with, this is as good a launchpad as any. Over 20 minutes, you get a solid introduction to the spur-of-the-moment electronic stylings of the New Deal, and the group's chemistry makes the songs cohesive and enjoyable. Best of all is the final track, Exciting New Direction, which is one of the darkest songs I can ever recall hearing, and upon which I always superimpose my own narrative of a guy going to commit suicide by jumping off a bridge in the wake of the collapse of the dot-com startup he worked for. That's just my imagination though.
Best tracks: Moonscraper, Exciting New Direction
New Grass Revival - The Best of New Grass Revival (Liberty, 1994)
You know, the group
Béla Fleck was in before he created the Flecktones (he's the one on the far right on the cover)? Fleck's songs are the ones that are the best, if only because they show what great promise he'd have as a composer later on. Both Metric Lips and the 8-minute instrumental Big Foot make for great listens. The other part of the album not to be denied is the rip-roaring vocal work of bassist John Cowan. He's at his best when he's belting it out on done-me-wrong songs like Can't Stop Now and the amazing cover of I'm Down (originally by the Beatles). If you want to get a taste of Fleck before his fame with the Flecktones or just want to stomp down with some good grass in general, this is a great compilation to get, weighing in at 18 songs and just under 80 minutes.
Best tracks: Can't Stop Now, Metric Lips, Big Foot, I'm Down
of Montreal - The Sunlandic Twins (Polyvinyl, 2005)
It's always nice when I buy an album of the twee indie pop variety and find that I like it. It's gone pretty far in both directions before (I HATED Team Boo by
Mates of State), so liking an album in this vein always makes me breathe a sigh of relief. Wraith Pinned, as we all know, has penetrated the mainstream by making it, albeit in a different form, into an Outback Steakhouse commercial, so I always get a kick out of it when music I listen to penetrates the mainstream consciousness. (This goes both ways too. See the entry for St. Germain's album Tourist below.) Honestly, I'm really weirded out by the title of the new album due out in February (Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer? or something like that), but based on the strength of Sunlandic Twins, I look forward to it all the same.
Best tracks: Requiem for O.M.M.2, Wraith Pinned to the Mist and Other Games, Oslo in the Summertime, Keep Sending Me Black Fireworks
Phish - A Picture of Nectar (Elektra, 1991)
I've often heard that this is THE album that will help you decide whether you like Phish or not, and that it's the best album of all their studio works, but really, there's too much filler here for me to really consider it a great album, and most of the other stuff doesn't hold up very well either. As far as Phish's early catalogue goes, I'm a much bigger fan of Junta. There are some definite keepers here though, mainly in the longer songs. You can tell they were having a lot of fun when they recorded this album, and that sense of humor and looseness is what contributes to making this still one of their better studio albums, and one that is among the easier ones in their studio-based archive to listen to.
Best tracks: Poor Heart, Stash, Magilla, Chalk Dust Torture
Phish - Hampton Comes Alive (Elektra, 1999)
This is the set to pick up if you're thinking about seriously cracking into the live Phish archives and becoming a scholar of the Phish mythos. Spanning two
consecutive nights and four epic sets, this is the record that will decide whether you enjoy Phish's live scene or not. Whether you end up enjoying the set or not (and it's quite a Herculean task to get through the whole thing), one thing everyone should come away with after listening to this six-disc set is a better understanding of the special element present at every Phish show that connected them with their fans. The interplay between these four guys is fantastic, and there's no better way to hear them than in their live element.
Best tracks: Tube, Funky Bitch, Stash, Bathtub Gin, Roses Are Free, Wilson, Big Black Furry Creature From Mars, Divided Sky, Wading in the Velvet Sea, Simple, Weekapaug Groove
Phish - Live in Brooklyn (Rhino, 2006)
A three-disc live set from a show on June 17, 2004, placing it near the very very end of the Phish saga as we know it so far. Just because things were winding down this point doesn't mean they don't give it their all, and a lot of the songs are here are amazingly polished and really show how long these guys have been playing together (in a good way). I got my copy for $23 at Hastings, and I'm only mentioning that because I feel the need to tell you: the bass-driven jam in Free alone is worth the entire price of this set. You listen to that, and the bass touches something way down in the pit of your stomach, and you remember all over again why you fell in love with this band. Thanks for that, Mikey.
Best tracks: The Curtain With, Moma Dance > Free, Nothing, Frankenstein, The Oh Kee Pah Ceremony, Axilla I
Pink Floyd - Dark Side of the Moon (vinyl) (Capitol, 1973)
There wasn't actually any motivation or real want behind this purchase - I just thought it would be cool to have such a seminal album on vinyl, really. And then, of course, imagine my chagrin at not being able to find my turntable hookups. I'm actually going to go out on a limb and theorize that no one really has to listen to this album in its entirety anymore - enough of it gets played on the radio nonstop that you can form a valid opinion of DSotM (and possibly even most post-Syd Floyd) simply by hearing the songs on the radio over and over and over and over and over again. But that's just me, I could be wrong.
Best tracks: Time, Money, Brain Damage
Roxy Music - Avalon (Virgin, 1982)
Another cheap pickup at CD Warehouse, and two words spring immediately to mind when you hear this album: making out. All of it contributes to a definite mood for making out - the swirling synthesizers, the smooth lyrics, everything. I haven't remembered to test this album out as a surefire makeout deal-sealer when I had the opportunity, so maybe this entry will serve as a reminder.
ANYWAY, in addition to the many beautiful love songs that'll make your lady go "awwww", there are a couple of short instrumentals worth your while too. They're very atmospheric and they don't break the momentum at all like you'd think they might. I'm not sure if this album is the best introduction to the band per sé, but I sure liked it.
Best tracks: Avalon, Take a Chance With Me, Tara
Sigur Rós - Agætis Byrjun (Bad Taste, 1999)
Unlike most albums that firmly know their place as background music, you can actually listen to a lot of the songs on this album actively. The first two proper songs, Svefn-G-Englar and Starálfur (the latter of which can also be found on Wes Anderson's Life Aquatic soundtrack), have an unmistakable beauty that's just so easy to melt your soul into. Liking this group is a big step for me; I wasn't able to get into Sigur Rós until I learned to treat the vocals as just another instrument rather than holding myself back because I had no hope of understanding what the lyrics meant. (And by extension, this has allowed me the comfort to explore some other foreign-language music as well.)
Best tracks: Svefn-G-Englar, Starálfur, Olsen Olsen
The Slip - Eisenhower (Bar/None, 2006)
Had The Crane Wife not completely blown every other album this year out of the water, I'd have submitted my humble vote for Eisenhower for Album of the Year. I love this album because it's got something for everybody. The Slip is most readily identified as a jam band because of their reliance on touring and their epic live improvisations (check out the track list for Live at Lupo's on Allmusic for some big-time jaw-droppers), so there are some long tracks for the jam fans. There's a stirring love song in If One of Us Should Fall. The rock is hard enough that no one will accuse them of being soft. Even the lovers of the older jazz tendencies found on their first few albums will find something to appreciate in
Brad Barr's awesome guitar skills.
And in case you're feeling a little déjà vu, yes, you probably remember seeing these guys in the inaugural installment of Guitar Hero. Even Rats was trimmed down by a few seconds for this album, but it feels even more swirling and hard-rocking than ever (even though the differences between the Guitar Hero version and the Eisenhower version are barely detectable).
If musical history eventually gives all its true greats their proper dues (and it does), then the Slip will be properly lionized someday, even if the listeners aren't coming out in droves now.
Best tracks: Children of December, Even Rats, If One of Us Should Fall, Suffocation Keep
Slowdive - Souvlaki (SBK, 1993)
I made an observation in passing about M83 partially qualifying as shoegaze, but in all seriousness, this was the album I bought when I felt like wading in the shoegaze waters this year. I loved the album, but the only thing about it that was kind of a downer was that that weird phenomenon occurred where all the tracks I downloaded to see if it would be a good purchase ended up being exactly the tracks I liked the best (see also: Social Distortion's self-titled). Other than that, if I were to judge the whole genre of shoegaze just by this album, I'd say I like it a lot.
Best tracks: Alison, Machine Gun, When the Sun Hits
St. Germain - Tourist (Blue Note, 2000)
I know this is pretty much straight jazz with a lot of electronic influence, but are there traces of other genres in there too. I don't know anything about genre names, I'm so bad at them, so I'm not even going to try and I'm just going to say that if you like jazz you can stomp your feet to, this is an album to look at. By far the standout track is the rollicking So Flute, which contains plenty of the instrument mentioned in its title (and is even replete with
Jethro Tull-style heavy blowing!). If you have XM radio, you're in a good position to hear material from this album - Beyond Jazz plays at least one or two songs a week from it that I know of, and it even plays sometimes on the alternative station. Recommended.
Best tracks: Rose Rouge, So Flute, Sure Thing
Stars - Set Yourself on Fire (Arts & Crafts, 2005)
Had to pick up the album after hearing Your Ex-Lover Is Dead on XM too many times. Isn't it funny how the radio can do that to you? And yet it's time for an admission - I haven't listened to this album in its entirety yet. I've just kind of skipped around it here and there, never quite building up to a level of interest where I can just get the whole thing out of the way in one sitting. That's not to say that I've just blown it off, but I don't know, that just happens sometimes, where I buy an album and then never listen to it entirely. I suppose it's somewhat of a result of collecting CDs with reckless abandon.
Best tracks (so far): Your Ex-Lover Is Dead, Reunion, The First Five Times
String Cheese Incident - On the Road: Vegoose 2005 (SCI Fidelity, 2006)
I've given in to my urge to gobble up as much String Cheese (the band, not the food) as much as possible in years past, but I didn't do that so much this year. In fact, my only SCI-related acquisition this year was this 3-disc live set from a late-night Halloween show in Las Vegas. For me, the unequivocal highlight of this package is the 18-minute version of
Michael Jackson's Thriller. Kang doesn't quite have the vocal chops to make it as solid as the original, but there's a great voice sample in the middle and a great jam to close out the first set, and it's worth having for any SCI fan.
I'll probably get on another SCI kick once we approach the end of next summer, when we'll see for sure whether the band breaks up for good or just plugs on ahead without Billy, but for now I want to explore as much other music as I can. These guys took up a humongous chunk of my listening habits - and they still do - but sometimes you just gotta move on for a while.
Best tracks: Thriller, Las Vegas, Pack It Up, Rivertrance, This Must Be the Place (Naive Melody), Desert Dawn, Miss Brown's Teahouse (always sounds great with horns)
Ween - 12 Golden Country Greats (Elektra, 1996)
What's this? Me owning a country album?!? Only because it's Ween and I had to see what kind of twisted shit Dean and Gene could pull off within the genre. Surprisingly, they seem to treat it with a great amount of respect while at the same time employing those crazy-ass touches that make Ween Ween. The album starts off with the saccharine-sweet I'm Holding You, which actually works as a bona fide love song (I sent it to my girlfriend, at least). The big highlight, however, is Piss Up a Rope. You won't find too many country songs that are much more fun to sing along with than this one. If you enjoyed the song Don't Shit Where You Eat from their album Chocolate & Cheese, there's good reason to believe you'll like this album as well.
Best tracks: I'm Holding You, Piss Up a Rope, Powder Blue
Ween - Chocolate & Cheese (Elektra, 1994)
In addition to having one of the most badass cover photos of all time, Ween shows on this album that they're not just a bunch of silly goofballs interested only in being a novelty act, but that they've got the musical chops to cover a bunch of different genres, be funny, and earn the respect of the attentive listener all at once. The songs range from the gut-wrenching (Spinal Meningitis Got Me Down) to the scathing (Baby Bitch) to the downright goofy (The H.I.V. Song), so you're in for quite a trip when you plug this bad boy in. There are some missteps, like the silly Voodoo Lady (which is inexplicably the best-known song from this album) and the wretched Candi, but they're few and far between. Not for everybody, certainly, but those who do enjoy it will enjoy it a lot.
Best tracks: Take Me Away, A Tear for Eddie, Roses are Free, Baby Bitch, The H.I.V. Song, Don't Shit Where You Eat
White Stripes - White Blood Cells (Sympathy for the Record Industry, 2001)
Although I don't like it as much as the seemingly cleaner and more polished Get Behind Me Satan (probably because for some reason I enjoy
Jack White a lot more when he's playing piano than when he's playing guitar, oddly enough), but there's a lot to enjoy here. Lo-fi hard rock doesn't get much better than this assemblage of 16 songs which just go by like boom-boom-boom in a flurry of awesome rockin' guitar sound and crazy drumming. And speaking of drumming, I'm still firmly of the belief that Meg White needs to learn that there's more to a drum set than just the crash cymbal, but whatever.
Best tracks: Hotel Yorba, I'm Finding It Harder to Be a Gentleman, We're Going to Be Friends
Stevie Wonder - Talking Book (Motown, 1972)
This has got to be one of my favorite albums that I picked up this year, for a couple reasons. One is that it's got some real big-time L-bombs on it, the most notable of which is the closing track, which I'm sure any nice sweet girl wouldn't mind having dedicated to her sometime. Another is that this dude just plain knows how to write a good song. This album is the perfect consolidation of all of Stevie Wonder's talent, be it love songs (You Are the Sunshine of My Life), scathing political commentary (Big Brother), or just laying down a good solid line of funk (Superstition, of course). Another album that any alleged fan of music should be ashamed to not own, and one of my favorite purchases this year.
Best tracks: Superstition, Big Brother, I Believe (When I Fall In Love It Will Be Forever)
Yo La Tengo - I Am Not Afraid of You and I Will Beat Your Ass (Matador, 2006)
I'll admit it - I only bought this one purely for the album title, even though I've had some bad luck with YLT in the past. I was not a fan of And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside-Out or whatever it's called, although after hearing their latest effort, I may reconsider my position. Ira Kaplan simply tears it up on the opening track, and after 10 minutes of tasty noise licks from him, the album branches out into a lot of other really cool shit. Over an hour long and so spread out in terms of material that there's bound to be some stuff in there that anyone could like, this is a pretty good introduction to a band that critics seem to be in love with more than fans.
Best tracks: Pass the Hatchet I Think I'm Goodkind, Mr. Tough, Black Flowers, Daphnia
Well, that's everything I listened to this year. What a mouthful, eh?
And feel free to post your thoughts as well!
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