Mumbleberry Pie

I quite enjoyed this NY Times article on the National. It's a great piece on a band filled with literate, brilliant, and obviously strong-willed individuals. The tension between them explains quite a bit about the music they create.

The National Agenda

Also, it contains two of the best quotes I've ever seen in the Times on any subject.

This, describing the process of perfecting a new song:

“Lemonworld,” for instance, had by now sustained upwards of 80 takes followed by upwards of 80 onslaughts of derision. Versions of the song had been fragged for being really annoying, really bombastic, really boring, really cheesy, too destabilized, really meatball, really saccharine, too sludgefest, too Dave Matthews swank and too all-fancy razzle-dazzle. At one point, Bryan worried aloud, “We’re throwing the baby out with the bath water,” to which Matt replied, “What is the baby?”

And then this description of the lead vocalist, Matt Berninger:

Over the years, Matt has accumulated a flock of snide nicknames from his band mates, including the Dark Lord, the Naysayer, Mumbleberry Pie, Mr. Knee Jerk, Mr. Sony Headphones and the Echo Chamber.

Albums of the Year - 2009

It's the end of the year, so let's do a frigging list!

Sometime, if I get around to it next week, I may put together a list of my favorite albums of the decade. But for now, here's my fave albums of two-diggity-diggity-nine. In no particular order. (That's not really true.)

It's an idiosyncratic list. It's only the albums I actually heard. So while some people thought Grizzly Bear or Animal Collective or Pearl Jam or the Dirty Projectors produced the best album of the year, I never got to hear them all the way through. So I can't judge. (To be fair, the Dirty Projectors and Animal Collective were two bands that I chose not to check out. They weirded me out a little bit.)

Now that I said that, I'm going to break my own rule with the first selection. That being:

Lady Gaga - the Fame Monster

I started the year not knowing who this woman was, and ended up the year fascinated by her. I haven't heard half of this album. Doesn't matter. Lady Gaga is one of the strangest and most interesting people in music today.

Wilco - Wilco (the Album)

Predictable, sure. (After all, they did borrow my name for their previous album.) But I really loved this album. They continue to produce sweet, introspective songs like "One Wing" and "You and I", and added some new classics like "You Never Know" and "I'll Fight." A great album, all the way through.

St. Vincent - Actor

This was such a delightful surprise for me. The combination of those lovely orchestral flourishes and snarling, scuzzy guitar really won me over. Saw her on Austin City Limits, and it did absolutely nothing to remove my crush on Annie Clark.

Taken by Trees -

East of Eden

Another surprise. Waif-like singer goes to Pakistan and ... what? Devours Pakistani music in a Graceland-like colonization? Tosses her vocals onto someone else's music like Jay-Z did with that Panjabi MC song? (Which I love, for the record.) No, instead this is a glorious merging of beautiful songs and sublime instrumentation. A gorgeous merging of styles.

Kitty, Daisy & Lewis - Kitty, Daisy & Lewis

Thanks to TBTL for turning me on to this album. It's pure, old-timey fun music, full of old novelty songs and slide guitars and harmonica and hand clap percussion. Love this one.

thenewno2 - You Are Here

This was a real surprise for me. I listened to it because Dhani Harrison was on Sound Opinions. I was intrigued by the sound of the music, picked up the album, and loved it. It's right in that sweet spot between rock and electronica. Memorable songs, interesting and unexpected hooks. A band to watch.

Lunch Money - Dizzy!

That's right, I put a kid's album on the list. Lunch Money is completely awesome. They write effortlessly hooky songs that your kid can sing and will cause him/her to jump around the house like a maniac. Any band that sings out loud about how much they love their library gets my vote.

Seriously, go listen to these guys. Go listen to "Tiny Dinosaurs" or "I Love My Library" or "It Only Takes One Night to Make a Balloon Your Friend" and see if you're not grinning. I love Lunch Money.

Yeah Yeah Yeahs - It's Blitz!

Neko Case - Middle Cyclone

Metric - Fantasies

"Help I'm Alive" and "Sick Muse" were probably some of my most-played songs this year.

Passion Pit - Manners

Dark Was the Night - Various Artists

Biggest disappointment of the year: Green Day - 21st Century Breakdown

I loved American Idiot, and I wanted so badly to love this album. But I've listened to it a couple of times and just gotten bored by it. They took all the wrong lessons from American Idiot. It sounds like show tunes and Hot Topic faux punkrawk and has the whiff of desperation. Omigod, we have a niche! Quick, let's plug something else into the niche before someone else does it! Sorry guys, I ain't buying it.

The Best of 2008

After much thought and deliberation, and a good deal of slacking off, here is my list of top ten albums of the year. These are the ones that never left the iPod, that never left the heavy rotation, the ones whose melodies played in my head before I fell asleep. I've tried to link streamable tracks or mp3s where I could find them.

1. Son Lux - At War with Walls and Mazes
This was an astonishing debut album. Son Lux - real name: Ryan Lott - is an classically trained electronic producer with soul. The songs on this album are all as simple as hymns - there's not much more than a sentence or two of lyrics in each song. But the songs are emotional symphonies, explosions of passion and despair and hopefulness. I played this one all year.

More about Son Lux here. Go get his record. Seriously. You will not be disappointed.

Sample: Raise

2. My Brightest Diamond - A Thousand Shark's Teeth
You all know about my obsession with Shara Worden. She makes good on the promise of her first album with this deeper, more complex, and more layered album. From the crunch of Inside a Boy to the playful kalimba-fueled dance of Apples to the heartbreaking sweep of Ice and the Storm, this is a magnificent record.

Sample: Inside a Boy

3. Shearwater - Rook
A breathtaking album. Jonathan Meiburg's songwriting has never been better, the music never more effective. Wow.

Sample: Leviathan, Bound

4. Cloud Cult - Feel Good Ghosts (Tea-Partying Through Tornadoes)

I already knew I was going to love this when I read this review. Playful and creative songs and a constant theme of wonder and joy.

Sample (video): Everybody Here is a Cloud

5. Juana Molina - Un Día

Juana Molina sings cryptic dazzling songs in Spanish. I have no idea what she's saying. She's completely comfortable with me not knowing what she's saying. She creates her own music with stacks of keyboards, her own guitar, and her looped voice singing mad choruses over and over. This is great stuff.

Sample: Un Día

6. The Fireman - Electric Arguments

Paul McCartney - wow. This record is fuzzy, scuzzy, loud, danceable, and challenging. And beautiful. A great album by an artist I thought was done making great albums.

Sample: Nothing Too Much Out of Sight

7. She & Him - Volume One

If you haven't already caught this bug, I don't know where you've been. Catchy songs, multitracked girl-group vocals, tasteful music. Can't wait for Volume Two.

Sample: Why Do You Let Me Stay Here?

8. Girl Talk - Feed the Animals

This is my first real exposure to Girl Talk, and I was blown away. He takes the last thirty years of popular music, throws it in a blender, pours out the results, and makes it all danceable. Brilliant.

Sample: In Step

9. David Byrne & Brian Eno - Everything That Happens Will Happen Today

This is really all about David Byrne's soaring, inspirational vocals. The music is just a backdrop for his clever lyrics and amazing performance. Unexpectedly moving.

Sample: Strange Overtones

10. Bon Iver - For Emma, Forever Ago

If you haven't heard this, brace yourself. It's quiet, introspective, and absolutely devastating. Listen to it on headphones, in a dark room, while thinking of your last conversation with the first person who broke your heart.

Sample: Flume

Honorable Mentions - Mercury Rev, Snowflake Midnight; Shelby Lynne, Just a Little Lovin', the Hold Steady, Stay Positive; Adele, 19; Esperanza Spaulding, Esperanza; Nine Inch Nails, The Slip; the Ting Tings, We Started Nothing, Fleet Foxes, Fleet Foxes (this would have been higher probably, but I haven't heard the whole record yet).

Song of the Year

Tie: "Inside a Boy" by My Brightest Diamond. Both the original and the remix by Son Lux.

Both songs are amazing. The roaring song by MBD was one of the highlights of her new album. Son Lux' swirling, pulsing reconstruction of the song is one of the best remixes I've ever heard by any artist, and it made me want to hear more of his music.

Biggest Surprise of the Year

The Fireman - Electric Arguments. I thought about naming Son Lux' album here, too, but I can believe that there is a unknown yet brilliant twentysomething composer/producer out there. I did not believe that Paul McCartney would ever make an album this good and this challenging again.

Biggest Disappointment of the Year

My Morning Jacket - Evil Urges. I loved their performance on SNL, and I had such high hopes for this album. But it was just weird in all the wrong ways - an erratic, tragic misfire. I listen to four or five songs off the album and fast-forward the rest. And as for "Highly Suspicious?" I don't even know what to do with that song.

Let me know in the comments what albums I missed or what I got wrong. Have a happy new year, everyone.

An Eight-year-old Reviews Cloud Cult

The guy who runs the Sneeze asked his "almost eight year old" to review an album. His thoughts:

This album is the best one I've ever heard in my life. It makes my insides stand up and salute the appreciation of rock music made by you.

Also, for good measure:

If you're in a Radio Shack and you see guys dressed up for a tea party with clouds, buy that one. Because that one's "Feel Good Ghosts." It's the best. It makes me want to get up out of my seat and start par-taying. That means partying.

Come on now. You'd buy any album in the world if someone described it like that. In this case, he was describing Cloud Cult's new album, Feel Good Ghosts. I haven't heard it yet - I'm sampling a few songs from their MySpace page right now and I'll probably own it before the day is out.

June - The Best Month for Music

Three of my favorite artists are releasing new albums this month. (And, as it happens, all three of them are currently on EMusic. I think I'll be able to get each album the day it's released in record stores - although there are good arguments for picking up each one as a physical CD.)


As mentioned earlier, My Brightest Diamond will be releasing A Thousand Shark's Teeth on June 17. (And there's just nothing else I can about Shara Worden without qualifying for a restraining order.) This album will be one for the ages.


The mysterious and brilliant band Shearwater is coming out with Rook on June 3. (Two new tracks, "Rooks" and "Leviathan, Bound," can be heard here.)

If you don't know these folks, you should. Start out with their magnificent album Palo Santo, which was released in 2006, and re-released (in a 2 CD expanded edition) last year by Matador Records. Here's a great live performance of "Red Sea, Black Sea," featuring the wildest abuse of a tambourine ever captured on video.






My Morning Jacket is coming out with their eagerly anticipated follow up to the mindblowing Z on June 10th. It's called Evil Urges. If you caught them on SNL, you know that this one's going to be good. And if you didn't, you can check out the title track in their corner of MySpaceland. (Check out the falsetto that Jim James unfurls - sexy!!!)

Squint with your Ears

From the NY Times' review of Spoon's new masterpiece, Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga:

“Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga,” Spoon’s sixth album, is full of songs that seem to have been carefully, lovingly teased apart, leaving behind fragments. Some assembly is required: Listen long enough, squint with your ears, and you can hear it whole.

Later in the review, he describes Britt Daniels' singing voice:

He sounds like a British guy with a Southern accent and a cold, which means he sounds like a rock star, only more so.

The review is entertaining, but the record is sheer precision-tuned audio brilliance. And hey, it's on EMusic today, the very day it's released in record stores. Cheers for Merge Records!

(And a very gentle boo for New West Records. Jason Isbell's new solo album, Sirens of the Ditch, is out today, but it's not on EMusic yet. Hopefully it will be soon, although NWR seems a bit finicky about which records it chooses to give to EMusic.)