Lists

So, lists. I'm not going to make a "Favorite albums of this year" or "Favorite albums of this decade" list. Those lists would be short and uninspired, because I just haven't been paying that much attention the lasts few years, and largely the albums I liked that came out 2005 and before I don't like now (things such as the Decemberists and of Montreal. Wow have I ever switched off on stuff like that!). There have been a few albums from this decade that have become ones I'd place among my favorites. Blacklisted and At Dawn come to mind. There were a lot of albums in The College Years and the couple years after that I loved to death but now I can't stand to hear. I don't want to revisit them much. There's really only been one album this decade I can think of (Ys) that I would stack up with any other throughout time and wish to be buried with. That is, if I had to be selective about which records I was going to be buried with. It seems like most other things I've heard have been pleasant enough to listen to once or else trash.

(Someone is driving through the neighborhood honking their horn, apparently because they think honking a car horn is a universal way of saying it's a new year to all the people sitting in their homes that obviously have no desire to be anywhere near that fucker and his car. Or it's just a way for him to get some attention, whether it's from someone in his house or someone in his passenger seat. I hope he hits a tree. Or finds a canyon.)

That's not to say I haven't listened to a lot of stuff that was new to my ears during this decade that I did enjoy. (Although, not so much the last year.) But it really has no relevance to the last decade. They're only relevant to me. For instance, in college I was probably the last person to figure out the Velvet Underground was awesome. More recently, I'm probably the last person on Earth to figure out Yes is better than just Fragile. But, anyway, maybe I can make a few lists.

First of all, in terms of new music I tried to follow, the overwhelming trend this decade seemed to be that I would get into a band heavily, get incredibly excited when they were about to put out a new album, and then be disappointed with the new effort. My top five examples:

(5) Wilco - A Ghost Is Born. I don't care much for Wilco now, but at the time I thought they were super geniuses. I thought they were versatile in the styles they covered with excellent execution, thought the lyrics were good, and the instrumentation was pretty interesting too. Then A Ghost Is Born came out and I was bored to tears. End of that. Where before I had liked Jeff Tweedy's vocals, all of a sudden everything he sang from then on sounded like he was as bored as I was listening to him.

(4) The White Stripes. I'm not really sure which album to pick here. I was crazy about them. Bringing blues (though as much a put-on as it has ever been) into indie in a simple way that was both fun to listen to and eye-catching. Elephant came out and had a bunch of tracks on it I really liked, but by and large I wasn't that taken with it. So was that the disappointment? After that Get Behind Me Satan came out and I didn't care much for that at all. A big departure for them, and not one I was enamored with. But actually, after some time, I grew to like that one more and more. So was that the disappointment? Icky Thump, that was absolutely a disappointment, and it's totally indicative of why I can't stand to see Jack White's face anymore. I couldn't help but think that album would have been a lot better if hadn't been trying so hard to make himself a jack-of-all-trades. He wants to be everywhere and everything to everyone, and sort of assumes that anything he does will get a massive stamp of approval. And so far it has, even though every album he makes sounds more half-assed than the one before, especially when it comes to the White Stripes.

(3) My Morning Jacket - Z. Sweet merciful christ did I love My Morning Jacket before this album came out! I guess what I loved about It Still Moves was just the guitar rock aspect of it. The songs sounded ENORMOUS, and you got this back and forth in the guitars that was rare. Then Z comes out and it's dominated by keyboards, or at least that's what I heard. I was so mad. And that happened a lot to me this decade, keyboards taking over. I am not totally averse to keyboards. At the time I was heavy into The Band, and part of why I was so into My Morning Jacket was that I thought they incorporated a lot of that guitar-keyboard interplay on At Dawn and It Still Moves that made The Band so great. But they synthy sounds on Z that seemed to come with the new keyboard player just sounded so inorganic to me that it was a total turn-off. And when I read the lyrics. Geez. I had thought of Jim James as a pretty good lyricist, but I didn't like these at all. Like "A good showerhead and my right hand, the two best lovers that I ever had." (In fairness, after that I went back and read a lot of his previous lyrics and was less impressed than I thought I'd be.) I've since sort of come to terms with and can listen to this album, but still not the follow-up I was hoping for.

(2) Neko Case. Another one where I wasn't sure which album to pick. Blacklisted hit me hard when I first heard it. These very mysterious songs, they seemed out of time, classic, and a beautiful balance of song and story. And obviously her voice thrilled me. When I heard Neko was working on a new album and Garth Hudson was going to be out, little squeals of excitement came out of my ears. When Fox Confessor came out, not so enamored with it. I thought the mood on Blacklisted was so natural, here it seemed like something she was trying to create. She was very wordy now, sometimes at the expense of lyrical flow. Some of the songs like Teenage Feeling and At Last, I just plain didn't like. Then I heard her trying to connect all these songs to Russian folk tales. Geez. Basically an intellectual exercise where Blacklisted was completely visceral. The big problem is, that album is actually very good. Star Witness is up there with anything else she's done. Another big problem is that I have met several people who got into her on the basis of this album and think it's a masterpiece, which a lot of people do think. But it bothers me because those people don't even acknowledge, or perhaps haven't even heard, Blacklisted. Anyway, as I say, Fox Confessor was a very good album, but initially a disappointment. Middle Cyclone came out and just was not memorable. Now she was very very wordy, and it always sounded like she wanted to speak more than she wanted to sing, making the songs a lot less than memorable. Middle Cyclone is definitely the lesser album, but I don't know if it was quite as big a disappointment.

(1) Flaming Lips - Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots. Oh boy, do I really want to get into this? I loved everything about The Flaming Lips from their inception to the time when I got into them, which I guess was 2001 or 2002. They made great albums, they got better and better with every album, they made great B-sides, they did lots of crazy stuff with the packaging of their records and singles to promote fanaticism, they had a revolving cast of some of the most genius musicians to contribute to "indie" rock in ways that other bands just seemed completely incapable of approaching, and their live show seemed to be taking steps to since the days of flaming cymbals to becoming a circus. I loved that they had that one hit, and that seemed to actually keep them more obscure than they should have been. It seemed like people knew that hit and figured that was all they needed to know. I loved telling people at WCWM that I was going to do a nine hour Lips show and having them say, "Shit. I didn't know they had that much music," and knowing myself that I was not going to be able to fit in all I wanted to play in nine hours. Yoshimi was the first album newly released while I was into them. I convinced myself at the time that I liked it, I forced myself to like it, but deep down I wanted more from them. It seemed so gimmicky to me, it reminded me of someone trying too hard to be weird, which became what the Lips were all about after that. The live show became the same thing for, what, four years? Bringing people to dance on stage, a plastic bubble, Wayne's suit, the same list of songs (had to stay the same so they could play to the tapes!). I was not impressed anymore, and I think it started with Yoshimi. The robot gimmick, Do You Realize as a pandering to the audience, pandering throughout the album, trying to approach these big questions which their audience just ate up, but ultimately I thought were too easy for these guys. And they did make some great songs at the time. Funeral In My Head is still one of my favorite Lips songs. And I could just as easily say Mystics here. That was definitely a disappointment, that was just a disaster. They should never have made anything that awful. But Yoshimi is the one that sticks with me, because I was waiting for it with such anticipation.

Well, now it's 2am. That took too long. If I keep writing too much explanation I'm not going to get much written. I'll try.

Favorite Things Of The Past Year:
(5) Limited Edition Everything: Lots of fun hunting, lots of fun doing my best impression of serious reviewing, lots of good discoveries, a couple of favorites being the Strawberried Peanut Butter M&Ms and Ginger Snap Ben & Jerry's. I even have a new review to put tonight for Turkey Hill Ginger Snap. Ooooo! Controversial comparisons! I had an enormous satisfaction when, after a couple months, I finally found that Snickers Fudge bar I had been obsessing over. It was fun, but I think I'm going to let that hobby be stuck in 2009. I'll explain that more if I make a list of resolutions.

(4) Texting: In general, I hate cell phones. They are a necessary evil in my opinion. I can't imagine not having one with me in case of an emergency in my car, but I cannot buy into them wholesale. I really hate that people feel like because you have a cell phone, they are entitled to your time. There have been numerous times at work where people from the schools have gotten my cell phone number from HR, called and left a message, completely subverting the proper channels they're supposed to go through to put in a help call to me, and then been mad when I didn't get and respond to the message immediately. They like to think because they called my cell number, I have no excuse for not immediately responding to them. Well, here's my excuse. I didn't tell you you could get ahold of me through my cell phone. Personally I can't buy into carrying this thing around with me at all times. And the fact that everyone on Earth does so now is becoming really inconvenient for me. It also just plain bugs me that people cannot stay off their phones. Like, I live right next to the college. When school is in and I drive out in the morning to go to work, I drive by countless students walking to class and every single day talking on their phones. Who are they talking to at 7:40 in the morning every single day?!? That means they have an accomplice in this. If someone wanted to call me everyday at that time, after a while I would just have to convince them they don't want to talk to me through obscenities and threats of bodily harm. That's off-topic. Despite how much I dislike cell phones, this year I fell in love with texting. Mostly to my family. It's rare that I need to have a long conversation with my family, I guess because they're all so close. Usually all I need to know from them is where I need to be and at what time. I don't need all the hello's and pleasantries of a phone conversation anymore, all I need to is a quick text. Then I can disperse the pleasantries in person. So convenient too. If I send my brother some bullshit text just to remind him that my kung fu is superior to his kung fu, there's no sense of urgency yet applied to texting. You get to it when you get to it, a lot like email, and that's all anyone expects of it. Unlike a call, where if you don't answer immediately, it's an inexplicable national disaster! Should we call the police?!? I will be very upset if texting takes on that quality in the future. Right now I'm looking for a new cell plan that lets me limit my monthly minutes to a bare minimum but gives me unlimited texting. Not easy to find. Because most months I literally use between zero and two minutes of calling, but I use more texts than I'm allotted.

(3) Jazz and Prog: I was in such a musical rut for most of this year. I was listening to the radio a lot, like the hits stations, just to have something playing while I was driving around. But I wasn't really into anything. I shifted my focus constantly, mostly between current pop hits, neo-soul, and a lot of lunk-headed classic rock. When I went to the beach, I ended up having a bunch of Ornette Coleman and Sonny Rollins on my mp3 player, and since the water was way too cold to go into, I ended up sitting on the beach a lot listening to that. And I was totally bowled over. When I got back, it was back to the same old stuff for a while. Eventually I just said "I've had enough of this!" and wanted something that was exciting, being good for driving, but I just didn't want lyrics or singers, because posturing vocalists were irritating me at the time. I also wanted something to explore. Thus my new enthusiasm for jazz. I knew next to nothing about it really, so I decided I was going to start buying an album a week from someone I had never heard of, but that could get me excited based on an allmusic description. That didn't last much more than a month, but my interest had definitely been tickled. AND even better, I didn't feel guilty about buying jazz CD's, because the records are so much more difficult to find than old rock. Then there's my latest enthusiasm for prog. Mostly Yes. I had always had problems with prog, thinking it was more of an intellectual exercise than an emotional one. Yes kind of helped me put that to rest. So far I've only struck the tip with Yes, ELP, King Crimson, and a little Mahavishnu Orchestra. (And thank you, Adam, for that last rec. Definitely enjoying the first couple Mahavishnu albums, and I would probably never have checked them out if you hadn't told me to, because the words jazz-fusion in general make me cringe.)

(2) Lost and The Shield: The two TV series I breezed through this year. Started the year off having gotten the first season of The Shield as a Christmas gift. Fell in love with the series and blew through it in a couple months. Similarly, finally gave into the recommendation of Lost when it was presented to me by The Kissicks in a way I could not refuse. "Here are all four seasons, you can start from the beginning and watch as much as you want." And I got majorly hooked, quickly. Most times, if a show where the major evil could have easily been a giant cyclops or a dinosaur but instead turned out to be a menacing plume of smoke, I would be screaming angry. Not this time. That show developed so masterfully, and I'm siked for the final season coming up. Both these shows were obsessions for me, literally haunted my dreams and for the time I was watching practically altered the way I perceived the outside world.

(1) Netflix: You know how the number 1 of Letterman's top 10 lists is usually the least entertaining entry of all? That's what this is. Finally broke down and joined Netflix this year, after everybody else on Earth, and, big revelation, I can't get enough of it. Initially I did it because I was getting heavy into martial arts movies and wasn't going to find them on VHS at the thrift stores, and I was sick of dealing with the always iffy quality of torrents. Since then I've used it to feed my MMA obsessions, my love for Westerns, through the streaming I was able to watch the entire original The Office and after years and years of remembering that commercial I saw so long ago finally saw the movie Satisfaction. I could not be more pleased with it, and can't believe I ever though eight dollars a month might not be worth it.

Well, I want to come up with some more lists, but being seemingly incapable of briefly explaining myself, I'm kind of wondering when I'm going to get to bed. Might post some more tomorrow if I come up with something, but that just about sums up the decade doesn't it? Disappointment in and distraction from music that used to rule my life. Dismay. On the bright side, I'm listening to Sade's Stronger Than Pride album for the second time tonight and it is fantastic. And I have record news and a couple new/ltd. edition reviews that I should get up tomorrow, plus a list of resolutions I'll try out. And I'll try to come up with a couple more lists reflective on the past year(s). I should at the very least be able to make a list of the albums that hit me hardest this decade, even if most of them are not from this decade.

But lastly, here's one more thing. The #1 sign that I am old, way older than I ever realized. Songs from my youth are now considered oldies. Once the oldies station stopped playing 24/7 Christmas music this year, they officially announced they'd be playing music from the 80s on the oldies station. I'm hearing music from Elton John (Too Low For Zero-era) and Eurythmics on there that I have distinct memories of hearing on the car radio as a child when they were still considered fresh if not brand new. Now, I was jarred the first time I heard Welcome To The Jungle on a classic rock station, but I could justify that as sort of a loose translation. But oldies?!? Bring on the shaving kits and baby food.