My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy

My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy
(2010)
Kanye West

It is a difficult thing, in this day and age, to release an album as an event. It used to be easy, even a bit of a given, as the album was impossible to hear ahead of time, and often the best taste you could get was a single, released a month or two before. In modern times, with albums leaking as a regular course of events, the actual release is typically seldom more than a formality. The artists try to keep their albums a secret, but it doesn't work.

Kanye West has taken a different, very intriguing approach to making My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy an event; instead of hoarding to the best of his abilities, he has released a song every week for the past several months. Not all of them are on this album, but they were all produced in the same session, and a number of them are indeed featured here. The quality of the tracks was such that anticipation ratcheted up with each song, until finally this week the album was released.

The danger West faced in this tactic, of course, was that we would get the album and find that they put all the funny bits in the trailer. It was crucial that My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, in order for it to truly do well critically (commercially, West is at the peak of his powers, so there was no danger there, unless it was horrible, which, thanks to the inclusion of "Power" and "Monster," it couldn't be), make these songs work well together. I think the most impressive thing about this album is the feeling of an arc. When it finishes, you feel everything come together as a cohesive whole.

West's greatest gifts have always been in producing. His first big success was the track he made for Jay-Z's "Izzo (H.O.V.A.)," which relied on a sample of "I Want You Back" by The Jackson 5. An obscure sample it wasn't, but his utilization was great. The most interesting part of any West album, 808's & Heartbreak aside, has been the tracks. His skills as an MC have improved, certainly, but there are dozens of better rappers out there. I don't listen to Kanye West for how he rocks the mic. I listen for what's going on behind him. And My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy provides some of his best. The sample of King Crimson's "21st Century Schizoid Man" thrills me every single time I hear it. West leaves the first blast of saxophone after the vocal in, to propel the song into the next verse. It's perfection itself. His programming on the drum machine transforms Bon Iver's "Woods" from an intimate experiment in harmony into a behemoth of a tune, and it sends a chill down my spine every time those drums kick in. "All of the Lights" is the other standout, with a world-straddling horn loop.

As far as the verses go, the best ones are consistently provided by the guests, which brings me back to my belief that West shouldn't be an MC. But here's where the disappointment in this album lies. Previous West albums have had songs about faith, about trying to visit his mom in the hospital, about things that aren't common to rap. They were what made his otherwise-mediocre rapping interesting. Not what he was saying, but why he was saying it. If the sound of this album now soars above those previous releases, and it does, then he's made the words less essential. I've never liked that rap sticks to braggadocio so insistently, and I like it less when it's inserted itself in songs by a man whose statements have never been humble, but whose music has always sought elsewhere for inspiration. It works in one spot, on "Monster," because Nicki Minaj is so off-the-wall bats that she's wildly entertaining. But it wears thin on the rest of the album.

To summarize: The music on this album, straight through, is brilliant. Most of the songs are too long, and by several minutes at that, but the tracks are all fresh, inventive, and harbor great samples. With some aforementioned exceptions aside, the rapping will decide for you if this is a masterpiece, or just another example of why Kanye West should be the biggest producer, and not the biggest artist, in Rap.

Laugh, Lenny

I Speak Because I Can
(2010)
Laura Marling

Outside of Joni Mitchell's Blue, I don't really "do" acoustic solo folk. The lyrics tend to be hyper-poetic, something I've never been a big fan of. For all the praise shoveled on Leonard Cohen, with the exception of "Hallelujah" and "Diamonds in the Mine," I've never gotten it. This is music populated by lines like "There's a crack in everything, that's how the light gets in," which seems deeper than it really is. I feel that way about everything he wrote, even those I enjoy, such as "Dance Me to the End of Love." It's full of the sorts of general, broad, intentionally obscure lines that other writers get belittled for scribing. The idea almost seems to be to make the lyrics so general and so meaningless that everyone will assume them to mean only the deepest things. This is, of course, only one man's opinion.

There's a line in "Made by Maid," the beautiful second track on I Speak Because I Can, where Marling says, "On the hill where I was born, there is a rose without a thorn. They cut it off each year and give it away." I have no idea what it means, but it's lovely, and, unlike when I listen to Joni Mitchell or Laughin' Lenny, I don't feel like Laura Marling is judging me for not knowing what it means. Perhaps it is the canonical pressures attached with listening to Mitchell, Cohen, or Dylan, but I've always felt like I'm a lesser listener for their music not meaning anything to me. It could be that they all take themselves so damned seriously.

I know why I love "Diamonds in the Mine," on Cohen's Songs of Love and Hate; it's the sound of Cohen having fun, something he's really only ever done the once, something Dylan's getting better at as he gets older, and something Joni Mitchell has never been accused of. I bring this up because Marling, whom I realize I have barely mentioned in a review of her own album, sounds as though she's enjoying herself. She is serious, she is astonishingly mature for 20 years old, she has a gorgeous voice and is a formidable guitar player, and her words are clearly invested with more meaning than most, but it doesn't get in the way. I don't feel like she's judging me for not knowing what she means when she talks about the rose on the hill. And for that, I am more willing to try and form my own interpretations.

***

This review is admittedly premature. I've only listened to this album three times, twice on Saturday and once last night, and I don't believe that's enough time to digest anything. I will likely be driven to reappraise this album in the coming month.

The Suburbs

The Suburbs
(2010)
Arcade Fire

When Arcade Fire first came around, I wasn't one for them. I actively disliked them. I felt they were over-hyped, an easy hipster (the term didn't exist yet, but I knew what I meant) benchmark for the self-consciously hip. They were over-rated, and would soon disappear into obscurity. Of course, I hadn't listened to a note of their music.

When I finally deigned to listen, a few months after Neon Bible came out, it took a while, but I got there. And I really enjoy that album. I do not love it, but I feel it every time I listen to it, which is what Arcade Fire are after. They do not make music to contemplate cooly, though you're welcome to if you'd like. They make music that's meant to get right into the core of you and slap you around, to stir up those emotions so many musicians forget.

It took me another two and a half years to listen to Funeral. That was about two weeks ago. And it's really brilliant. I haven't heard an album that good in years. It's better than most of my favourite albums, something I'll have to take into account the next time I do the poll.

Due to my conversion, I've been listening to The Suburbs with a bit more intent. Like Joanna Newsom's imposing Have One on Me, an album I still haven't worked all the way through (You try it. That's right. You can't either. Not all at once, anyway.), I haven't sat through the entirety of what's on offer here. I have listened to the whole thing, just not all at once. And I haven't made it through the album twice. I've listened to 3/4 of it twice, and that 3/4 is great. I imagine the last fourth will fall in line come its second go.

They're still reaching for the emotional gist. Win Butler has calmed down since the last album, likely out of a sense of futility, and it suits him. Neon Bible's weakest point was hard to define from its greatest strength; it is a record of bombast and straight-forward lyrics. "Better stop now, before it's too late. Eating in the ghetto on a hundred-dollar plate," he said, intoning the oncoming recession and venting frustration over six years of an inept President.

Here, he's more alone. It's called The Suburbs, but there is no song here about the soul-crushing nature of that particular residential community. Instead, it is suggested in the weariness of the everyday people. There are grand statements here, as there will always be on an Arcade Fire album (I hope), but they are presented with tact instead of a bullhorn. God bless 'im for it. Is it better than Funeral? No. And don't bother asking that question ever again. Because little is. But it is better than Neon Bible. Where that one was immediate, this one requires your patience, and a little time, to reveal how truly good it is.

The ArchAndroid

The ArchAndroid
(2010)
Janelle Monáe

How do you rate an artist of ambition? It's a harder question than you think. As (forgive me) a critic, I find myself in a position of wanting to reward and encourage ambition, while needing to look at the product I'm holding in hand. I need to judge the music for what it is, not for what it represents.

If it were all about the intent, Janelle Monáe's debut would certainly earn an A+ for effort. The ArchAndroid is over an hour of music, spanning a large number of genres. There's high-wire funk, tight-grooved R&B, a pop ballad (The Carpenters with a drum machine, and, yes, it's just as awesome as that sounds), and then there's the latter third.

We're dealing with a compound album here, consisting of two separate bits. There's no relation, musically, between the first two thirds and the final third. The first bits are indebted to James Brown and George Clinton. The last third features an Of Montreal song. Not a song that sounds like Of Montreal, but an actual song written and recorded by Kevin Barnes, the man responsible for Of Montreal. I'm still trying to figure out what it's doing here. Briefly, I thought it was a mistake. If you're at all familiar with Of Montreal's queazy art-pop, that will give you a vague, slightly mistaken idea of how this album goes out.

Whether or not The ArchAndroid works is a good question. It certainly never fails to, but the album only takes off sporadically. "Come Alive (War of the Roses)," "Tightrope," "Cold War," and "Oh, Maker" are phenomenal. The rest of the album is consistent, and promises great things in the future. The reviews I'd read earlier of this album left me confused, as it didn't seem terribly genre-spanning, up until the change over into Suite III which marks the final third. There are two albums by two different artists here, or, at least, a single artist separated properly by a good twenty years. The music does me fine, but the ambition blows me away.

This Is Happening

This is Happening
(2010)
LCD Soundsystem

LCD Soundsystem were founded on the premise of self-awareness. James Murphy, the singer and songwriter, has spent all three albums embodying the persona of a man aware of himself to the point of paralysis. How much of this is actually a persona remains unclear, which is part of the appeal. Their early singles, such as "Losing My Edge," were ironic slams against the knowingly hip. So it seems appropriate that such a knowing band would make their final album knowing it going in. This is, I'm sad to say, supposed to be the final LCD Soundsystem album. And it's written all over its face. Or grooves.

The lyrics, which Murphy tends to extemporize in the last possible moments, reference going home everywhere. Out of nine tracks, at least four of them explicitly say a variation on "take me home." Murphy is tired, and doesn't want to play anymore. At least, not as LCD.

So it's fitting that This is Happening isn't a big leap forward for the band. It is, in fact, a summation of their previous accomplishments. Each song here can be traced to a previous LCD song.As far as being a survey of their style, it could almost be a Best Of, but for one track ("You Wanted a Hit" never quite works). Murphy has always fascinated with his ability to take major landmarks of pop and tack them to other bits, making something new. David Bowie has always been a favourite, but here it rises to new levels. If David Bowie was working in 2010 instead of 1980, I think it's very possible that this is the music he'd be making. "All I Want" uses the guitar from 'Heroes,' and "Drunk Girls" uses an ever-so-Bowie two-note hook.

Oh, it's also hilarious. "Drunk girls know that love is an astronaut: It comes back, but it's never the same." Brilliant.

Sound of Silver was great because it took the knowing sense of humour from the first LCD Soundsystem album and tacked it onto a real emotional core. I don't care for the first LCD album, because it's too removed. "All My Friends" and "Someone Great" were songs from Silver that drew you in and slowly devastated you with their perfect observations, and they helped make Sound of Silver a great, great album. I'm not so sure This is Happening is on the same level, but it's damn close. And that's better than most bands could manage. Let alone a band that tries as hard as LCD Soundsystem.

Otra Cosa

Otra Cosa
(2010)
Julieta Venegas

I figured out recently why it is I enjoy Julieta Venegas' current set of records so much. She makes willing pop music, with a bit of a wistful air. I'd compare it to Ingrid Michaelson, if I liked any of her records. I'd compare it to Sarah Bareilles, again, if I liked her record. You remember her. She's the one who's not going to write you a love song cos you need it, etc. To be fair, I do like that song. But the rest of the album, much like everything Michaelson has done, is too empty. If there were a strong breeze, these albums would be blown away.

And that's just fine. A lot of people like that. And I'm sure more than a few people would chastise me for saying their songs are without heft. The appeal of Ingrid Michaelson seems to be that her words are "confessional," which has lately seemed to be code for "tactless." I like "Love Song" because Bareilles wrote it to her record company when they asked her to write a hit single for the album. So she gave them a single, a big one, telling them to fuck off. Which is a nice way to go about it, really. Usually, these women, and 99% of men are guilty of it as well, forget to have a sense of humour.

The point of this is that Venegas is a Spanish version of these young ladies. She's a bit older than either of them, but she's in that same vein, of crafting pop music for the masses. I should find her ingratiating, shallow, witless, and impossible. Fortunately for both Venegas and myself, she doesn't sing in English, so, unless I pay attention, I barely know what she's saying, and we both like it that way. So there you have it. I am capable of just enjoying a nice tune, despite what most of my friends will tell you.

The trick, as it turns out, is to make it so I can't understand a word you're saying.

For We Are Living In a Digital World...

Plastic Beach
(2010)
Gorillaz

There are many things to expect from a Gorillaz album. I think, with two prior full-lengths and a pair of B-Side collections, Damon Albarn has established a decent set of parameters. This is a quietly experimental band, of course, but their sound is fairly well established. You know when you're listening to Gorillaz.

For example, we know to expect a fusion of hip-hop and pop. Plastic Beach delivers there with the superb "Superfast Jellyfish," featuring Demon Days highlights De La Soul. You'll remember them from "Feel Good, Inc." What we don't expect is an album lacking a "Feel Good, Inc." That is to say, Plastic Beach doesn't come ready made with a massive single. It has some great songs, many in fact, but it doesn't come with a song destined for the Top 40. This may not be a bad thing.

We've come to expect unusual collaborations. Bobby Womack, unheard from for the last twenty years, makes two rip-roaring appearances, on first single "Stylo" and on near closer "Cloud of Unknowing." What we don't expect is that Damon Albarn has given the vast majority of the spotlight here to those collaborators. He is heard on every track, at one point or another, but you don't get the feeling that this is his album, and some friends are stopping by. It feels like Gorillaz have finally become what I believe Albarn meant them to be all along; a consortium, the King Crimson of pop. (To quote Fripp, "King Crimson is not a band, it is a way of doing things.")

We can expect airtight compositions. It's a Damon Albarn project, and this is a foregone conclusion. If Blur's final offering, Think Tank, suffered one ailment, it was that the songs were hermetically sealed. There was no oxygen anywhere. This has been an ongoing issue for Albarn. In Blur, Coxon gave ragged, soulful life to the songs which Albarn so brilliantly constructed. There has never been any Coxon on Gorillaz albums (pause for *sigh*). Demon Days, for all its daring, suffers the same problems as Think Tank. Aesthetically speaking, Plastic Beach has the least organic sound of anything Albarn has released. It is an album delivered from the middle of the 1980s, with synthesizers everywhere.

But here's the most unexpected thing: This is, without a doubt, Albarn's most feeling album in over ten years. I'm extensively (re; obsessively) familiar with his entire, remarkable discography, and nothing comes close to feeling like Plastic Beach, save 13, my favourite Blur album. And then he had Coxon. The highlights on this album are numerous, but none hit me so hard as "On Melancholy Hill," where, according to Damon, "you can't get what you want, but you can get me." He's only made me cry once before, back in 2003, with "Battery in Your Leg," the final track on Blur's final record. Here, Albarn taps into that vein of melancholy and sweetness which seems to belong to him alone.

The album opens as one would want a Gorillaz album to; there is pop mixed in with hip-hop and world music. But then it does a few things differently. For the most part, the hip-hop disappears. The album builds to a powerful, remarkable set of six songs that constitute the body, from "Stylo" to "On Melancholy Hill." Both the previous Gorillaz albums,irrefutably excellent in their own right, were spotty. Here, there is only one mis-step, "Broken," the removal of which would make this, dare I say it, a perfectly sequenced album. And on the way, we get insight into the remarkable talents of Damon Albarn, which continue to flower in directions nobody could have ever possibly expected.

Sound of Silver, Talk to Me

The new LCD Soundsystem album has sort of been announced, in the sense that we now know the names of the songs to appear on the album, and we know it will be out on 17 May. We don't know a title. Oh, and we also know it's 65 minutes long. This is going to be a big year for doubles, isn't it?

While I'm just as excited as the next girl for the release of their follow up to the masterful Sounds of Silver, I do have one note of disappointment. One of the many song titles thrown around for a period of time in association with the album was "Why Do You Hate Music?" The title does not appear on the finalised list of album tracks. With his gift for irony and acerbic anger, I would love to hear a James Murphy song called "Why Do You Hate Music?," and so would you. Whether you know it or not.

Field Music (Measure)

Field Music (Measure)
2010
Field Music

I wonder sometimes, when I see that a new album exceeds the 45 minute mark, why artists want to give us this much music. I don't mind when it's a real album, with a good sense of sequencing and a larger-scale vision in regards to a pervading mood or a theme. But most new releases exceed 50 minutes, many reach past an hour, and this often seems to be only because the artist doesn't know the difference between a killer track and studio filler. The CD has freed us to put out anything we want to, whereas vinyl forced us to delineate between the tracks we wanted to and the tracks we needed to release.

Ironically, as the format of the album is dying, the album band seems to be making a comeback, and while the focus required to make a real album does not always dictate brevity, the two often come hand-in-hand. Witness Field Music, possibly the modern album band. Of the four Brewis Brothers' albums which predate Field Music (Measure), only one of them exceeds the forty minute mark. And that was The Week That Was, Peter Brewis' side project. Their best album, Tones of Town, flies by, clocking in at 31 minutes and change. There's no room for fat anywhere on that album. And now this band, this band which embodies my ideal of brevity in the name of perfection, has released Field Music (Measure), an old-school double album which times out to somewhere in the neighbourhood of 70 minutes.

I say this is an 'old-school double album.' It's sequenced like one. I've listened to it on vinyl, and each side has its own feel. This is how albums, double or otherwise, are meant to be. It reminds me of XTC's brilliant English Settlement. The two bands bear comparing, even if, from a timbrel standpoint, they sound almost nothing alike. Field Music are cleaner, more refined. XTC are a little sloppier. The Brewis brothers each have smooth tenors, as opposed to Andy Partridge's rough-edged howl. XTC became more precise with age. The Brewis Brothers are starting to sound like Led Zeppelin.

What XTC and Field Music have in common is that both draw massive benefits from repeated listens. Forensic levels of detail, which reward the attentive ear, litter all of their collective releases. The intriguing difference here, I believe, is that while XTC were a pop band with artistic tendencies, Field Music are an art band with pop tendencies. That is to say, XTC become more impressive while retaining their enjoyability, and Field Music become more (read: immensely) enjoyable while retaining their impressiveness. The first time through Field Music (Measure) was too much for me. There was too much to digest intellectually for it to hit my gut. The second time flew right by.

For those unfamiliar with Field Music, we have here precise, weird, blindingly brilliant pop music. It's all a bit angular, and it's not very loose, but the melodies throughout are top-notch, and the music rides an impressive sense of groove. Any band that can make 11/8 work without you noticing is riding a great groove. "Let's Write a Book" has an amazing riff at its core. "In the Mirror" opens the album with a dark, foreboding guitar line. I like it for personal reasons. Are there flaws? Certainly. The third side isn't as engaging as the rest, and the closer, "It's About Time," standing on its own, is indulgent. But within the context of the album, which is, mind you, what this is, everything has found its proper place, and the relaxed strings and score-like dashes of piano serve as a come down from what you've just experienced. Is it for everyone? Of course it's not. None of the best stuff is. But it's amazing, what you can do with 70 minutes, when you have a need, and not a want, to fill it.

Shutter Island

Shutter Island
(2010)
Directed by Martin Scorsese

It's not often in life that you get to leave the theater, after having seen a Martin Scorsese picture, feeling a rush. Feeling impressed, sure. Feeling exhausted, as with The Aviator, and not in the rewarding sense? Sure. But a rush? Pshaw. No. These things are supposed to take a long time to digest, and they're not supposed to really hit you until the digestion is complete.

Shutter Island is Scorsese's stab at a Dennis Lehane novel, and, as a cinematic experience, it is utterly fantastic. The tone is tense without being exaggerated. You do not feel worried unless Scorsese wants you to, though he almost always wants you to. Simple shots of windows are terrifying, while offering seemingly nothing scary. There were many moments where a lesser film would have gone for the cheap scare, but this movie leaves most of the dissonance brilliantly unresolved. You are on the edge of your seat 99% of the time. Not to say you are necessarily scared... but you're antsy. Fantastically played.

The whole cast is superb, without anyone to single out as a downer. Leonardo Dicaprio is impeccable, as always, and Mark Ruffalo continues to show that he's not used often enough. He should be in more movies; we would all benefit from that. He is the type of actor who's work is always subtle enough that you can't notice it. To do so would violate the point. Michelle Williams has been making a slow comeback since her days on the 'Creek,' and she's phenomenal in her role. What she has to sell us in the few scenes she has would be formidable for any actress, and she fucking sells it.

What did surprise me, though, were the things that were wrong; none of them are excusable. The CG, which is admittedly used very little, was a bit obvious. Green screens were used to ill-effect, with the backgrounds in those scenes looking very, very fake. There was some incredibly sloppy editing, which in a Scorsese film is unforgivable. And, on a final note, whoever was in charge of mixing the sound for the first ten minutes of the movie should be shot. Or, perhaps, fired. I'm open to negotiations.

These little complaints do add up over the course of the film, and were occasionally distracting. Having said that, it is, I think, one of Scorsese's best from a directorial sense. I intend to see it again. As I've gotten away from it, I've started running it over in my mind, and I'm tantalised by what I think I remember. The end changes everything. Remember that. Or don't. Better yet.

Hell, Legoland!

Heligoland
(2010)
Massive Attack

There are a lot of bands struggling to live up to their past glories. It's part of what comes with moments of genius. And since we as a culture tend to assign genius to a person as an attribute, instead of viewing it as something they've come into contact with, all that pressure resides within. It can't be pleasant for anyone who's had a Top 40 single, or a Top 40 album. It really can't be pleasant for anyone who's actually touched God, as Massive Attack did with Mezzanine over ten years ago.

Keep in mind, I don't use that phrase lightly. If you've listened to any of Massive Attack's albums prior to 100th Window (which some thought was mediocre and others a masterpiece; I remain undecided), you know they were one of the best bands of the nineties. And they did it very, very quietly, without attracting all that much attention to themselves. Don't get me wrong, they were a big band; they just weren't filling stadiums.

Heligoland doesn't stand much chance, then, of being received favourably. Not when its forebears are such stone-cold classics. If you listen to it pretending this is a new band, which is how I feel most albums should be listened to the first time, it's pretty good. Not great, but pretty good. There are some morose fifteen-year-olds out there who will come across this having no idea who they've found, and their minds will be blown. The rest of us will simply nod appreciatively.

If you listen to it knowing MA, you'll enjoy the new bits of Dub they've added to their sound. It's darker, which I'm always a fan of, from just about any band. If only the material were at all memorable, which none of it is. So this is not Mezzanine, Pt. 2, either in quality or in sound. If it had been the latter, though, I would have been a bit disappointed. Say what you will about Massive Attack, but they never stay still. God blessed them for it once. That's more than most get.

The Trouble With Eels

End Times
(2010)
Eels

To One Mr. E,

First of all, hi. How are you? I don't want to skip the niceties. Just don't think I'm really listening. I have a point to this, and I wish to make it quickly.

I'm a fan, sir. I've been one since Blinking Lights and Other Revelations came out a few years back, right around the beginning of my musical awakening. You were instrumental in my early forays into songwriting. You, uh, you may choose, understandably, not to take that as a complement.

I've always been one to say you write the same two or three songs, and you've never been one to lie about it, either. There's something to be admired about that, I suppose. I even used that point in your favour when I reviewed last year's Hombre Lobo, which was pretty snazzy. Swish, even.

Here's the thing; you usually manage to spread it out, so we have four repetitions of each song type on each album. On End Times, you seem to have written the same, I will say splendid, song fourteen times. And it's to the point that I have a hard time listening to even half of this thing in one sitting. Again, I want to emphasise, that song is great, but fourteen times is a lot to take in. Some variety is all I ask.

I can't say your album is bad, Mr. E. No. That would be a lie. Each song, on its own, is at the least competent, and at times very, very good. Like you do. But you usually mix it up slightly more than this. So I won't give you a bad grade. But I'm not going to give you a good one, either. I'm just not going to give you one.

Sincerely,
Andrew Lynch.

Blood in the Water

Astro Coast
(2010)
Surfer Blood

As I continue to sit back and drink in the year, what pleases me most is that some of the strongest entries thus far have been from veritable non-entities, or at least from bands I've certainly never heard of before. Four Tet and Beach House have issued two of the best albums of the year, and I wouldn't have known either of them prior to those releases (There is Love in You and Teen Dream, respectively). Keep in mind, by the way, as I strive to point out my inconsistencies, that Spoon's excellent Transference will top at least Four Tet's album in my year-end list, despite having received an inferior grade.

Anyway, why we're here. There continues to be an upswing in excellent albums from people I don't know. Surfer Blood, a Florida-based guitar band, are releasing their debut, and it's remarkable how familiar it feels on the first listen. Think The Shins (sporadically, here and there), just a bit. Think Vampire Weekend (on 'Take it Easy'), oddly enough. Think Weezer, mostly. That's what this is. I read a review, in Spin I believe, which stated that the melodies in this album show latter-day Rivers Cuomo who's daddy. And what's wonderful is that's entirely accurate. Weezer haven't made an album this good in at least ten years, if ever. Keep in mind I'm not a huge fan.

What we have here is a young band with great ability for songcraft and loads of ambition. It's a sign both of their hubris and flat-out skill that two of these tracks, "Fast Jabroni" and "Slow Jabroni," are, musically, the same song; the latter has different lyrics and a tempo that's 50% of the former's. And it works. These songs come with "Stadium-Sized" stamped on the label, and I would be surprised if they didn't reach that scale within an album or two. It sounds like these boys deserve it and, more importantly, want it.

Bailey Raes and Anglophilic Tendencies

Since not every record review warrants, or will get, a full review, but I like to keep you abreast, here's the skinny on what's happened recently:

Corinne Bailey Rae's new album, The Sea, has moments of brilliance on it. The opening four songs are perfect, but the album falters in the middle. It does, however, finish strong, and if you're in the mood for some soul/R&B, you could do much worse.

Second, I've listened to Charlotte Gainsbourg's new album, IRM, and I didn't care for it. It was produced by Beck, fresh off his luke-warm (at best) Modern Guilt, and he seems dead-set on recycling an aesthetic that barely maintained interest the first time around. This album could have been produced by Danger Mouse, and I would never have doubted it. But I'm sure some people will love it. It came highly recommended.

Now, we have a playlist, which I've made for three friends. I won't be including explanations, but here is the track list. This is a good introduction to slightly more obscure British music for the current music fan with slightly limited experience.

"Anglophilic Tendencies Pt. 1"

1. "Rockist Part 1" by School of Language
2. "Rockst Part 2" by School of Language
3. "Situation Vacant" by The Kinks
4. "Line Up" by Elastica
5. "The Sea is a Good Place to Think of the Future" by Los Campesinos!
6. "If You Found This It's Probably Too Late" by Arctic Monkeys
7. "Jason and the Argonauts" by XTC
8. "This Year's Girl" by Elvis Costello
9. "She Came in Through the Bathroom Window" by Joe Cocker
10. "Womanizer" by Lily Allen
11. "No Distance Left to Run" by blur
12. "In Context" by Field Music

Beach House

Teen Dream
(2010)
Beach House

Growers are the best records.

This is a fairly well-established principle of the music lover, the connoisseur, the audiophile; albums that get better on repeated listening are generally preferred, and for the obvious reason that they give you, in a purely fiscal sense, more bang for your buck.

Growers are fairly common; not common enough, unfortunately, and they tend to become less common as the public taste grows away from albums, but they aren't exactly a rare beast. You'll always be able to find a few. What's less common, and what I tend to appreciate the most, is a sub-family of the grower album, the Active Grower. Now, the Active Grower is an album that actually grows on you as you listen the first time. These tend to be albums with a hypnotic power, which, I'll admit, could be argued as a form of cheating, but it works for me, so who's to argue?

I haven't listened to Beach House before. This album, Teen Dream, is a lovely thing, with great, slow-burning melodies. The track that first stuck out to me was "Walk in the Park," which sounds so much like Grizzly Bear's "Two Weeks" that it provoked me to pull out Veckatimest and give it a listen. The rest of the album follows the same general pattern, with dreamy tracks topped by sweet, hummable melodies. It's all very... nice, I suppose. But not in the bad way.

No, this is actually very good. And as you listen to it, you get sucked further in... most of this album hovers at a similar tempo, and, as I said earlier, it becomes hypnotic. By the end, you love every moment of it. And then you start it over and realise you loved all of it the whole time.

Dat-da-da Hollywood, ba-dup-du-dup-du-da-duh Hollywood

The Oscar Nominations have been announced, and so, as a blogger, it is my solemn duty to comment. That I didn't do so for the Grammys should tell you in itself the esteem with which I fail to regard that particular award show. The Grammys are to music what the Blockbuster Movie Awards were to movies, and should go the same way they did.

At any rate, let's start small and work our way up. I will list both my personal choice and my prediction, when those two things don't coincide.

Best Adapted Screenplay
'District Nine'
'An Education'
'In the Loop'
'Precious'
'Up in the Air'

My choice, and prediction, coincide on the superlative 'Up in the Air', but look for a possible upset from 'District Nine' or 'In the Loop,' which is the token "Excellent film we couldn't be arsed to nominate in any other category, so we're doing it here" entry. 'In Bruges' was given a similar distinction in its time, though it didn't win.

Best Original Screenplay
'The Hurt Locker'
'Inglorious Basterds'
'The Messenger'
'A Serious Man'
'Up'

My mind says 'The Hurt Locker,' but my heart says 'Up.' I would be surprised if it went elsewhere. 'Inglorious Basterds' was too messy to rightfully take this award home.

Best Animated Feature
'Coraline'
'Fantastic Mr. Fox'
'The Princess and the Frog'
'The Secret of Kells'
'Up'

It's going to go to 'Up.' I say so with certainty because of what I've cunningly coined the 'Crouching Tiger' Principle of Oscar Nominations; When and if a film is nominated both in a 'lesser' film category, such as Best Foreign Film or Best Animated Film, and in the 'greater' film category of Best Picture, said film will, inevitably, win the 'lesser' category, essentially by a process known as 'default.'

Oh, before I forget, I hadn't heard of 'The Secret of Kells' prior to reading the nominations, and so I looked it up. It's a foreign animated film, and it looks absolutely gorgeous. Gob-smackingly so. It doesn't come out in the United States until March, but I very much look forward to it.

Best Supporting Actress
Penelope Cruz, 'Nine'
Vera Farmiga, 'Up in the Air'
Maggie Gyllenhaal, 'Crazy Heart'
Anna Kendrick, 'Up in the Air'
Mo'nique, 'Precious'

The smart choice, both on buzz and on current award season success, is Mo'nique, and I won't stray from that. But I want Anna Kendrick to win. Her tightly-coiled performance in 'Up in the Air' was a source of much of that movie's humour and, more importantly, its emotional heart. Mo'nique should win for her incredible, brutal work in 'Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire,' but I want Kendrick to win. I know it's selfish. Leave me alone.

Best Supporting Actor
Matt Damon, 'Invictus'
Woody Harrelson, 'The Messenger'
Christopher Plummer, 'The Last Station'
Stanley Tucci, 'The Lovely Bones'
Christoph Waltz, 'Inglorious Basterds'

I like that The Tuc is getting all these nominations. It's nice to know 'The Lovely Bones' had at least one redeeming quality to it. Let me be clear, here and now, that Christoph Waltz will win, and Christoph Waltz should win, and Christoph Waltz gave what is, for my money, one of the all-time great performances of cinema. I mean it. Watch it, Oscars. Don't fail me here.

Best Actress
Sandra Bullock, 'Blind Side'
Hellen Mirren, 'The Last Station'
Carey Mulligan, 'An Education'
Gabourey Sidibe, 'Precious'
Meryl Streep, 'Julie and Julia'

Oooooh, a real knuckle biter, this one. Honestly. Sandra Bullock keeps winning awards, but so does Meryl Streep. Carey Mulligan won't win, but her career has been made, provided she uses this momentum properly, and we'll be seeing her name many, many times in the future. This much I promise. Hellen Mirren thinks it's nice to be nominated, I'm sure, and she's still got Oscar for 'The Queen.' It comes down to a vicious three-way fight between Meryl, Sandra and Gabourney. Gabourney hasn't won many of the major awards yet, despite across-the-board praise, and that could work in her favour. On the other hand, Meryl Streep hasn't taken an Oscar home since the early '80's, believe it or not. On the third hand, this is the only time Sandra Bullock will ever be nominated for an Oscar. So she has that going for her. Well, that and a Golden Globe and a SAG Award. She has all those things going for her, too. Consider my arms thrown up.

Best Actor
Jeff Bridges, 'Crazy Heart'
George Clooney, 'Up in the Air'
Colin Firth, 'A Single Man'
Morgan Freeman, 'Invictus'
Jeremy Renner, 'The Hurt Locker'

Jeremy Renner was overlooked by the Globes, and it really bothered me. Without him, 'The Hurt Locker' wouldn't have worked. So he's where my personal choice goes, though George was great in 'Up in the Air.' He's a close second. Jeff Bridges is going to win, as a beloved veteran actor who's rarely appreciated in awards seasons. But wouldn't it be swell if Renner or Clooney won? It certainly would.

Best Director
James Cameron, 'Avatar'
Kathryn Bigelow, 'The Hurt Locker'
Quentin Tarantino, 'Inglorious Basterds'
Lee Daniels, 'Precious'
Jason Reitman, 'Up in the Air'

I would ultimately be okay with this going to Cameron, under the strict, strict condition that he not take home Best Picture. I say this because it was an incredible job, arranging everything for 'Avatar' to function properly, and I'm not above awarding that accomplishment. Kathryn and Jason, however, should be the winners. There have been ties in the past at the Academy Awards. Wouldn't it be wonderful if they tied? They won't. James Cameron will win. But it, too, would be swell.

Best Picture
'Avatar'
'The Blind Side'
'District 9'
'An Education'
'The Hurt Locker'
'Inglorious Basterds'
'Precious'
'A Serious Man'
'Up'
'Up in the Air'

Let's start by getting rid of the films which certainly wouldn't have been nominated had it not been for the increased number of nomination slots. That kills 'The Blind Side,' 'An Education,' 'District 9,' and 'A Serious Man.' I'd have gotten rid of 'Up' as well had 'Beauty and the Beast' not set the precedent back in 1991 for Animated movies occasionally (re; twice) getting nominated for Best Picture.

This leaves us with 'Avatar,' 'The Hurt Locker,' 'Inglorious Basterds,' 'Precious,' 'Up,' and 'Up in the Air.' We can say with great confidence that 'Inglorious Basterds,' 'Precious,' and 'Up' will not win, though I may do flips if 'Up' wins. 'The Hurt Locker' and 'Up in the Air' were undoubtedly the two best movies made in the last year, with 'Up,' in my opinion, very close behind. I'd like it to go to 'Up in the Air,' but I think it needs to go, whatever that means, to 'The Hurt Locker.'

I can't say with as much confidence as I'd like that 'Avatar' won't win, but, honestly, it better not. That's a threat, Academy.

My Betting Ballet:

Best Adapted Screenplay: 'Up in the Air'
Best Original Screenplay: 'The Hurt Locker'
Best Animated Feature: 'Up'
Best Supporting Actress: Mo'nique, 'Precious: Based on the novel Push by Sapphire'
Best Supporting Actor: Christoph Waltz, 'Inglorious Basterds'
Best Actress: Sandra Bullock, 'The Blind Side'
Best Actor: Jeff Bridges, 'Crazy Heart'
Best Director: James Cameron, 'Avatar' *
Best Picture: 'The Hurt Locker'

* I would love to be wrong. You don't even know.

Los Campesinos!

Romance is Boring
(2010)
Los Campesinos!

I listen to a lot of hyper-precise music; Field Music, Gorillaz, early-to-mid-and-latest-period Blur, Radiohead, Elvis Costello. The list could go on. Even Spoon are precise, albeit in a way that can occasionally come across as remarkably im-. While I dislike bands that are too precise, such as Supertramp and, increasingly, middle-period Coldplay, I seem to enjoy it on a general level. So it is always a great pleasure when I find messy bands I enjoy.

Los Campesinos!, a Welsh band from Cardiff, have been around since 2006, and this is the first of them I've heard. They feature a male and a female lead singer, both of whom have good voices with great personality, and that's the first thing they have going for them in my book. Second, they have a good variety. Opener "In Media Res" is a nice piece of work, with one of the only bits of music I've heard in the last several years which I would go so far as to describe as dangerous.

Los Campesinos! have a very nice sense of melody, though they seem to do their best to hide it. "Plan A," for example, is a rapid fire two minutes of almost noise, and, if you can make it through that track, you'll be good for the whole album. It's the heaviest thing here by a long shot. The other thing I like about them is, I think, the lyrics. Whilst that may sound a weird thing to say, I've never focused on the lyrics all the way through a song (one very notable exception coming up in a moment), but when I catch fragments of them, they're very good. They seem to be picking out details from the ether, and using them to tell wonderful little stories. "I think we need more post-coital and less post-rock," he says in "Straight in at 101." Which reminds me, they also have a very nice way with titles.

The best example of all of this, and the first great song I've heard all year, is "The Sea is a Good Place to Think of the Future." The song had me so excited early on that I created a teaser post about a week ago. It opens simply enough, with a simple repeating guitar figure. Strings enter, followed by drums, and it feels like you're standing on a wharf, looking out over the ocean. The first verse opens with "I grab a hold of her wrist and my hand closed from tip to tip. I said, "You've taken the diet too far, you've got to let it slip." One of the more gorgeous lyrics I've read recently is, "I ask her to speak French, and then I need her to translate. I get the feeling she makes the meaning more significant." It's a perfect bit of story telling, the whole thing. And it's sonically fascinating, which is a bonus most bands with writing of this caliber don't bother with.

They seem to know the only way to follow that song, on most albums an ideal closer, is to distract you with something unexpected, and so "This is a Flag. There is no Wind" opens with "Please can we all calm the fuck down?" It's a flawless transition. That the rest of the album doesn't pale in comparison to "The Sea is a Good Place to Think of the Future" is merely an indication of how proud Los Campesinos! should be of this mess.

Hut Two Three Four

There is Love in You
(2010)
Four Tet

In the last year or two, I've discovered a growing love for electronic music. Not necessarily dance electronic, though it never hurts if I can move to it. No, what I like, and quite specifically, is being able to listen to the same groove for seven minutes. I enjoy that. I like sinking into the sensation, and letting myself go. The best electronic music doesn't just make me lose my sense of time; it runs over time with a bulldozer. And that's what There is Love in You does so spectacularly.

Here we have a very gentle record, though at no point does it fall into the category of ambiance. The instrumentation is never pressing or aggressive, it never intrudes on a room, but it sits there, comfortable that you are interested enough to give it most of your attention. Any time you start to fade, it pulls you back in with a new detail.

The only unfortunate part of being fairly new to electronic music is that I don't have much to say about it. I know what I like. I like Four Tet. From the albums I already have, this is going to be a great year, folks. Get comfy.

I'll Explain Later

I've just heard the first great song of the year, Los Campesnos!' "The Sea is a Good Place to Think of the Future." I'll explain more when I review its parent album, Romance s Boring.

That Great Motown Sound...

Transference
(2010)
Spoon

Spoon have always been about the sound.

Calm down. I'm not saying that's all they have going for them. Far from it. We're talking about one of my favourite bands of the last decade; I assure you, it doesn't boil down purely to their sound. They have airtight songs from Britt Daniels. They have Britt Daniels' uncanny ability to emote anything with a few choice words. They have Britt Daniels' voice. Mostly, they have Britt Daniels. But they also have Jim Eno, a drummer who's understatement is by far his greatest attribute. And the two of them together are remarkable as an engineering team. After Eno's production of "The Underdog" on their last offering, Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga, Spoon decided to break off from the rest of the world, and recorded this one on their own. The results are very good, and very Spoon.

To start off with, Transference is not Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga. But this isn't surprising; no two Spoon albums are the same, nor do any of them try to be. Series of Sneaks was a hungry, young band. Girls Can Tell was a suave, new-wave influenced band playing around with a less toothy sound. Kill the Moonlight was a band, finally convinced of their sound, stripping everything down to the support beams. Gimme Fiction was darker, and more full-sounding. Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga was a culmination of all that; it featured the tightest songs, the best lyrics, the best arrangements. It was, simply put, the best Spoon have offered, and will likely remain so. I'm okay with that.

The first half of Transference is sloppy and aggressive. "Written in Reverse" has been on the radio for a few weeks now, and you may well be familiar with its clumsy, gripping piano riff. The second half of the record (it's easy for me to do this; I've only listened to it on vinyl so far, and what's nice is that it is really divided to work that way, much like Gimme Fiction) is much more gentle, with "Goodnight Laura" being perhaps the loveliest thing Spoon have ever offered. Most of the record, however, goes by without a strong sense of form. Or, at least, with as little a sense of form as these guys will allow. The songs start to bleed together around the edges, resulting in an album that probably wouldn't work well divided up.

But this is not such a bad thing, and Spoon have always been about the album. Sure, they write impeccable singles too, but they've never focused on that so much as the broader tapestry. This is best exemplified when "Got Nuffin," the albums most ferocious track, comes roaring out of the gentle wreckage of the second side of the record. It reminds us where we've been in the last thirty or so minutes, before giving away to "Nobody Gets Me But You," a great Spoon closer as they always are. The song rides a groove with a melancholy progression while Daniels espouses the title in a way I've come to believe only he is capable of doing.

So, this is not Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga. Consider yourself warned. This is not about the songs. Spoon have always been about the sound, and that's what this is.