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Best of the best

This year has been a renaissance in music, at least for me. I’ve rescucitated my interest in plenty of older bands (like Pavement), discovered a cornucopia of artists whose back catalog I now must mine, and an enormous list of brand new bands I love. Several artists I already knew and loved released stunning follow up albums that have floated to the top of my last.fm charts. Of course, there’s been some very steamy piles of crap as well – artists who tried something new and failed, or tried to continue on their normal path and never quite figured out how to do it. Like everyone else on the internet, I’m going to list them.

So in thinking about how to do this, I realized that all such lists suffer from the failings of human memory. More recent albums are naturally going to be elevated a little higher on the list, while albums from February and March tend to drop off (unless they’re still heavily rotated). So I’m going to make two things: first, I’m just going to quickly list what I deem, at this moment, to be the best albums of the year. I’m sure a few Spring/Summer gems are going to be subsumed by some shininess from November, but that’s ok – my second list will take care of that (in an upcoming post). That one will be an analysis of my iTunes playcounts, which will simply list artists by popularity in relation to the time their album’s been out.

Onto the list…first, the top 10:

10. Ra Ra Riot – The Rhumb Line

A traveler circling the globe from pole to pole faces several navigation options. They can cut across the currents of the great oceans vertically, covering an impressive amount of longitudinal distance; they can zig-zag around haphazardly; drill through the core… but a more mathematically inclined traveler would follow the rhumb line, a course of constant bearing that crosses all meridians at the same angle and gives an incredible view of the diversity of earth. Ra Ra Riot make a valiant effort to chart just such a musical course; driven by steady drumming and battling cello and violin, they’re (for the most part) as steady and intense as a Mongol horde sweeping across the musical globe. High points include Dying is Fine (below), a song based on the e.e. cummings poem of the same name, and Winter ’05. Too Too Fast is the only detour; an unadvisable foray into bad ’80s synth and an uneven rhythm in the lead into the song mar an otherwise enjoyable track.

9. Port O’Brien – All We Could Do Was Sing

Even in a non-Palin filled year, Alaska occupies a unique space in the nation’s consciousness. The Great White North it’s a land of mystique, all snow and elk and oil, where boys travel to spend their summers learning to be men on the oil rigs. It’s a land of month-long nights, of the hard scrabble life of the last frontier; turned on its head, that seems to be a sad life, one as empty as the frozen tundra. One just has to listen to Fisherman’s Son (below) to collect the mournfulness of such a life. But bleakness and loneliness have always had a romantic edge; he who can overcome such challenges is stronger, more powerful, more comfortable with themselves and certain of their tasks. The songwriting duo that forms the backbone of Port O’Brien spends each summer in Alaska in a small fishing village. It shows.

8. Bon Iver – For Emma, Forever Ago

And so we move on, from Alaska to Wisconsin, where Bon Iver (real name Justin Vernon) spent a winter nursing his life in a cabin in the woods. Vernon wrung the pain of a bad breakup and a band’s dissolution into the album, and in so doing infused the music with winter’s majesty. The sound is enormous, with generous choral backings (all overdubs from Vernon’s lonely recording sessions) that howl like the wind rushing from the mountaintop, ample horns, and simple strumming. Even better, Vernon and his touring band recorded a beautiful 4-song EP for MySpace, which is available for free here.

The album’s been all over the place since its release, showing up in TV shows like Chuck and Grey’s Anatomy (too big of a show for a link, sorry). For the sample, I’ve picked Creature Fear, which is quite a bit less mellow than the rest of the album. At its apex, though, it’s pure adrenaline; the rush of endorphins that push us to our animal state. As such, it is effective both as a recounting of a man all alone in the middle of the wilderness and as a treatise on crushed dreams.

7. Midwest Dilemma – Timelines & Tragedies

I’ve been reading a lot of histories lately of ancient societies, and it’s striking to me just how in touch these societies are with where they’ve come from. A man is not just who he is; he’s also the son of his father, and his father before him, and so on back through time. In moving away from this connection to our past, we’ve (theoretically) offered each individual the opportunity to break with their past, ensuring that the sins of the father are not bestowed on the son. Obviously, this has encouraged incredible societal expansion, but it has left us unmoored from who we are. We have no base from which to begin; instead, we have to assemble each block of ourself from scratch.

Justin Lamoureux, the creative force behind Midwest Dilemma, understands this predicament, and uses Timelines & Tragedies to explore his past. Beginning with his family’s first settlement in Montreal, through their eventual settlement in Omaha, he assembles a history that sounds quintessentially American. Sonically, it’s a rich texture of folk rock, with brass and woodwind accompaniment. Enjoy The Great Depression, in which Lamoureux’s ancestors fight to keep their farm.

6. Hold Steady – Stay Positive

I’m not sure the kids of St. Paul have had a better scribe than The Hold Steady’s Craig Finn. Through four albums, he’s painted a picture of parties and pain, ritualistic redemption and purging. He’s told the tale of Hallelujah and Charlemagne and their peers, all kids trying to balance right and wrong, visceral urges and moral teachings, rock and roll and religion. Hallelujah was a sweet kid, once, before she set herself free from the strictures that defined her, letting herself go, she eventually was reborn in one of the most spiritually wrenching songs of the decade (“How a Resurrection Really Feels” off of 2005′s Separation Sunday). It’s a struggle that careens between stinging defeats and glorious victories, where lives can be lost to chemicals or regained through blessed words. Finn is at his best when he’s contrasting these, so I’m including the two most prominent samples – Lord, I’m Discouraged and Stay Positive. Really, though, The Hold Steady needs to be enjoyed in the context of their full catalog; the story leaps back and forth across albums.

5. Amanda Palmer – Who Killed Amanda Palmer

This album was difficult to place. On the surface, it’s a bit too melodramatic for its own good, little more than a rock cabaret. And when I first listened to it, that’s all I heard. But slowly, recommendations and exultations of its brilliance percolated on the edge of my musical landscape, popping up on the horizon with increasing frequency. And with some of the collaborations – Ben Folds and Neil Gaiman! – how could you go wrong? Eventually, I realized the theater was just part of the appeal – even the album title and cover are provocative – a stage full of characters cycling in and out, each with a brief soliloquy about their life. Just a re-telling, nothing more; a story floating in the air.

It’s also a great rock album, with the one-two punch of Astronaut and Runs in the Family buttressed by Ampersand, a beautiful, brooding ballad about losing one’s identity in a relationship. But the highest point, I think, has to be Oasis, a song about a year in the life of a mid-90s teenager, about the goals we set for ourselves in a celebrity obsessed culture. Enjoy.

4. Vampire Weekend – Vampire Weekend

Sure, these guys have been all over the blogs. Sure, people hate them for their pedigree (Columbia University kids) and more importantly, the fact that they don’t try to hide it behind a dingy Brooklyn walk-up. But I think it fits. It makes the harpsichord on M79 (below) more appropriate – not an aspiration to a higher class, but a simple representation of who they are. The songs are about nothing, but that’s ok – the music is fun, the songs are richly textured, and they spent the first few months of the year at the top of my playlists.

3. Spiritualized – Soul on Fire

Songs in A&E is an old fashioned jewelry box, with multiple locks, unfolding shelves and hidden compartments. It’s rather plain at first, with the exception of a few absolutely stand-out tracks, but a little exploration yields some beautiful gems. Baby I’m Just a Fool is a spacey Beatles song. Yeah Yeah is a belligerent protest chant, a protest swarming down the street. You Lie, You Cheat is all feedback and distortion, the chaos and tumult of the anger of deception.

Driving force Jason Pierce finished this album after a near death experience, and like other such albums (Sparklehorse’s Good Morning Spider comes to mind), the songs dealing with death are the most poignant. Death Take Your Fiddle is simply haunting and otherworldly – it is the experience of death. Maybe Soul on Fire (below) chronicles the catalyst; if anything, it sounds like a boisterous tribute to heroin. Finally, Borrowed Your Gun is a disconnected tale of murder, misplaced regret, and loneliness. The songs are eerie, but resonate with grace.

2. Elbow – The Seldom Seen Kid

This band just keeps improving. 2005′s Leaders of the Free World helped me rediscover them (thanks Chuck!) and I’m glad that I did – otherwise I would have missed one of the best albums of the decade. Kid is densely layered. It opens with a soft dream (Starling), the sound of an old and cynical man whispering his love for an angel – until love pours forth, and ‘violets explode.’ Later, on Audience with a Pope, singer Guy Garavey struggles with faith and flesh, while in Grounds for Divorce he spins down a whirlpool of alcoholism and distrust. On and on the album dwells, mining tumultuous everyday conflicts for inspiration. It sounds like an older, more mature version of The Bends, and might end up somewhere around that album’s lofty all-time record position.

1. Frightened Rabbit – The Midnight Organ Fight

“You must be a masochist/to love a modern leper on his last leg” Scott Hutchison belts out in his Scottish brogue at the outset of Midnight Organ Fight. The album is about uncertainty; of finding your place in the world. Dealing with defeat. About filling in the “faults and cracks…the blanks and gaps.” After the breathtaking anguish of Modern Leper, the album tackles the lonely dance of the one night stand, the recognition of your failings that led to a breakup. It has the 1-2-3 emotional punch of Head Rolls Off/Backwards Walk/Keep Yourself Warm, one of the most tortured mid-album sets I’ve ever heard. Poke’s guitar line sounds like rain dancing drearily on a tin roof. This is an album for the world-weary, the melancholic who never found their path.

But it’s not all distress; the penultimate track is an inspiration. A ship on choppy waters, if piloted well, can still make it to shore, better served for the experience gained.

Runners up (alphabetical order):

• Army Navy – s/t: Just fun power pop. I think I found it on eMusic one day and haven’t looked back.
• Gentleman Auction House – Alphabet Graveyard: All reports note that these guys put on a great show, which is not surprising given the boisterousness of this album. Great contemporary folk rock.
• Glasvegas – s/t: Trainspotting in 2008. Set to music.
• Grand Archives – s/t: Former Carissa’s Weird members ditch slowcore for fun pop.
• Jared Mees & the Grown Children – Caffeine, Alcohol, Sunshine, Money: As my carpool rider knows, I could not stop listening to this folk-rock stomp.   Not great, but damn catchy.
• The Kills – Midnight Boom: Everyone needs an infusion of pure rock and roll. The echoes of the garage made it onto the recording, I think.
• Lykke Li – Youth Novels: Incredibly textured, with a sumptuous voice. Full of surprises.
• Mountain Goats – Heretic Pride: For obvious reasons, I was drawn to “San Bernardino.”
• Okkervil River – The Stand-Ins: Oh hell. I should have done a Top 20 list, not a Top 10.
• Portishead – Third: Shocking follow up. Why can’t every band that takes almost a decade off come back sounding so good?
• R.E.M. – Accelerate: Seems every decade or so, Stipe & co. have to unleash all their rock energy in one swoop. This time they succeeded admirably.
• Rosebuds – Life Like: Great.
• Santogold – s/t: Surprisingly alluring dance/rock/unclassifiable.
• She & Him – Volume One:M. Ward is my hero. Zooey Deschanel is just all around sweet. No better combination imaginable.
• Sigur Ros – Med sud I eyrum vid spilum endalaust:Nothing can match the intensity of that opening track.
• Submarines – Honeysuckle Weeks:Not as endearing as their first album, but better rounded. Great live show too. And their song about excessive consumerism was used to sell iPhones!
• TV On the Radio – Dear Science: I loved this album. But then I grabbed a bunch of other stuff, and this one fell by the way side. Please forgive me, TVOTR. I promise I’ll give you more attention this coming year.
• Wolf Parade – At Mt. Zoomer:I wish I’d listened to you more this year. Why’d you have to hide at the bottom of iTunes?

Honorable Mention:

• Airborne Toxic Event – s/t
• Blue Eyed Blacks – Black Eyed Soul
• Conor Oberst – s/t
• Deastro – Keepers
• Devotchka – A Mad and Faithful Telling
• Dr. Dog – Fate
• Fleet Foxes – s/t
• Helio Sequence – Keep Your Eyes Ahead
• One for the Team – Build It Up
• Pomegranates – Everything Is Alive
• The Postmarks – By the Numbers
• Pretty Good Dance Moves – EP
• Raveonettes – Lust Lust Lust
• Rural Alberta Advantage – Hometowns
• Shearwater – Rook
• The Standard – Swimmers
• The Walkmen – You & Me
• The Week That Was – s/t
• What Made Milwaukee Famous – s/t
• Winterpills – Central Chambers
• Wintersleep – Welcome to the Night Sky