2011 New Year's List

Believe it or not, this used to be a blog about music. Some of you may remember when I used to write reviews of new albums, along with the occasional essay. Simpler times. Times with more free time, really. I've spent the last four months being as busy as I've ever been, and the music listening has suffered as a result. I wish I could say I'm as well versed in this year's releases as I was in years prior, but I'm not. I'm really not.

It would be disingenuous of me to provide you with a Top 10 list. Getting past my lingering doubts about numbered lists, I don't think I've listened to most of this year's releases enough times to really get a sense of them. Having said that, I can still make some recommendations. Here are the things that did manage to bend my ear in the last 365 or so days.

Albums:
There weren't that many complete albums that held my interest, to be honest. Which could be due to my not paying attention, or maybe there just wasn't anything that really hit me right. There are albums I still want to talk about, though. A few I loved. A few were great. And a few I'm still not sure about, but I feel compelled to discuss.

Lykke Li's Wounded Rhymes was one of the two albums I really fell in love with this year. I still haven't listened to Youth Novels, her previous album, nearly enough, but that's largely because it always sounded a bit empty to me. Musically, it created the skeleton, and didn't put on the flesh. There's nothing wrong with that, of course, but on her second album, Li elected to go big or go home. The album opens with "Youth Knows No Pain," as massive as opening tracks get. It's more than that; for this album, it's a statement of intent. In her writing, she creates the same corners as her last album, but here she fills them in. Some will walk away feeling like she stuffed them to the point of bursting. It helps, I think, that her singing is so restrained. Like her Nordic sister Annie, she turns her lack of emoting (to be fair, she does a great sad) into a strength. These tracks with a voice eager to share would be overwrought and too much. But Li's lyrics need something to drive them home, and, for her, it's the marvelously detailed music going on all around her. If you get the chance, pick up the actual single for "Get Some". The non-album b-side, "Paris Blue," is intoxicating in the right mood.

Alison Krauss & Union Station were not a band I had put high up on my list of expectations for the year, but I loved Paper Airplane as much, if not more, than anything else that came out in 2011. I listened to it almost every night in June, and it's easy to see why. The title track is my favorite piece of songwriting from the last year. The cover of "Dimming of the Day" is elegant, understated, and the perfect vehicle for Krauss' crystalline voice. "On the Outside Looking In" gives Dan "Foggy Bottom Boys" Tyminski a powerhouse of a bluegrass number. And throughout the album, you are reminded of what it's like to listen to people who can really play their instruments. There aren't many bands so fine-tuned at playing together as this lot. "Paper Airplane" along is a masterclass in handling dynamics and feel. And what's truly terrifying is that they make the whole thing sound effortless.

I'm happy to admit that I jumped on the Elbow bandwagon when most people did, around the release of 2008's The Seldom Seen Kid. In that time, I've really only listened to their first album, Asleep in the Back, and their latest, Build a Rocket Boys!. They are a band that requires time, under the best of circumstances, but they reward it fully; every time I listen to one of these three albums, I like it just a little bit more. Guy Garvey writes lyrics perfectly pitched between the every-day and the grand; He's Springsteen if Springsteen didn't sometimes leave me with the uneasy aftertaste of pandering. On the music front, as with all of their releases, this is a beautiful, patient album, full moments of intense quiet and cathartic release. It makes you wonder why more bands don't take advantage of both the "loud" and "quiet" opportunities music can afford. Probably because it's so damn difficult. Elbow used to be pegged as Radiohead/Coldplay also-rans. That has always been unfair. Radiohead are far afield in their own world. Coldplay are one of the biggest bands in the world. Elbow, meanwhile, have once again quietly made the argument that they are the best.

It's an aphorism at this point that there's nothing original left to do in music. In the broadest sense, that is likely true. But I firmly believe that, working in specifics, there will always be something new to do. And lo tUnE-yArDs' w h o k i l l, an engrossing take on what popular music can be. The rhythms are always somehow jilted, but the music moves seamlessly between melodic and dissonant, between the angularly beautific ("Wolly Wolly Gong") to the riotous ("Gangsta") to the frustrated ("My Country"). As far as replay value is concerned, I am drawn to words more than music, which is why I will always rate The National above this, and Randy Newman above everything else, but the music gets you in the door in the first place. And this is some of the best music you will hear. If you like it a little weird.

It's likely this will become known as the Difficult Radiohead album, a title that seems to get perpetually back-shifted with each new release since it was first claimed by either Kid A or Amnesiac, depending on whom you ask. For my money, the difficult one is still Pablo Honey, but that's a cheap shot. The King of Limbs is definitely the low-key Radiohead album, which is both to its credit and detriment. The upshot is that it makes the outward statement of appearing calm while feeling anything but, and that's not easy to pull off. The downside? You have to pay it much more mind than previous releases, and I'm still not positive it rewards the effort. But I keep coming back to it, and I've not been the sort who would blindly follow a band anywhere for at least the last year and a half. The first half is where my uncertainty lies. But that half is texture. The second half, the songs, is hauntingly beautiful. And if none of it is knew, well, neither was anything on Hail to the Thief. I'll still get excited about the next one.

I want to spend more time with Bad as Me, but I want to spend more time with Tom Waits albums in general, so that's hardly surprising. It's harder and has more drive than what he's done before. There's no "Misery's the River of the World", in sense of arrangements moreso than tone. He takes a (modest) step away from the mad carnival director angle, and while I've yet to tire of that take, it's probably the right time. "Bad as Me" is the most immediately engaging song he's written. Everything before that and after doesn't quite stick in the mind, at least not yet; but, as I said, I'd like a
while longer with it.

St. Vincent's Strange Mercy is well worth listening to just for the second track, "Cruel," which a coworker described as the best song he'd heard in years. He might be right. St. Vincent specializes in putting together all these lovely, completely singable bits and pieces, and then slathering them with baroque arrangements and fuzzed-out guitar. It can have mixed results; her first album, Marry Me, isn't as good when you're not listening to it as it is when you are, while her second album, Actor, is flat-out awesome. I'm not sure what I make of Strange Mercy. The perfect "Cruel" aside, the songs don't come together for me. The verses are great, and then the choruses annoy me. And so it goes.

At long last, it is here. 40-odd years of waiting have seen the original tapes for the infamous Smile Sessions come out in an official release. Brian Wilson's final days as an uncontested genius on display for all the world to see. What separates it from the 2004 release of SMiLE, recorded by Brian Wilson and a few magic fairies? Well, for one, this one's actually sung by the Beach Boys. The first second of the album makes it abundantly clear as to why that matters. While the "Our Prayer" on 2004's album was beautiful, this one is transcendent. "Heroes and Villains" contains more twists and turns than most albums do. "Surfs Up" is haunting. Outside of that, I'm not so sure what I think. The music is often top-flight, but the lyrics, written by Van Dyke Parks, refuse to mean anything to me. Worse than that, they feel like they're striving for meaning. I don't mind meaningless prattle when it knows that's what it is. As for the extensive bonus material, Brian's solo demo of "Surfs Up" is my favorite thing here, including everything from the album proper.

I seem to be in the minority on Bon Iver, Bon Iver. I don't like it for reasons entirely unrelated to the embracing of soft rock. I've listened to it seven or eight times, in a multitude of settings and mindsets, and I just don't like it. I don't like how it sounds, I don't like how it's mixed. Some of it is beautiful, and Justin Vernon's voice remains an incredible instrument, but I just don't like it. It's too busy, I guess. I'm coming to piece with it. Everyone else can enjoy it, though. Don't stop on my account.

Another disappointment, ultimately, was Brad Paisley's new album, This Is Country Music. Unlike his still-masterful American Saturday Night, after a few spins, the new one smelled suspiciously like pandering. Which, too be fair, may have been an attempt to apologize for recommending on his last album that country music embrace multiculturalism. A final album note, I wish I had spent more time with Laura Marling's A Creature I Don't Know. She remains truly impressive.

101

101
Keren Ann

Pop music is all about the sound. The writing is secondary. That's not to say the writing is less valuable, as the best bands are those where the writing and the sound come together in glorious, glorious congress. But the sound is where it starts, even for the writing snobs such as myself.

In movies, great acting can make an alright movie very, very good. "Rachel Getting Married" comes to mind. But in pop music, a great sound can make a mediocre song mind-blowing. "Be My Baby." I need say no more.

This brings us to Keren Ann. Her songs are... they're good. Often just alright, honestly. For my money, she's only ever written one exceptional song, "Lay You Head Down". But hers is a sound that makes me want to cry. And I mean that as a compliment.

Her new album, 101, changes none of this. The songs are... decent. None of them stand out in my mind, save for "Sugar Mama," which someone should have told her to cut from the final product, and "101", which I'm going to give its own entry in a few days. But the album is hypnotically, even perversely, listenable. The sound of the music and the sound of her voice are a wonderful combination. Her lyrics are often clever in a pleasantly ignorable sort of way. But the songs themselves just don't stick with you. The whole almost never equals it's parts. This has been a consistent problem throughout her career.

I should note that I really enjoy Keren Ann. I don't include her on my list of favorites, but I did get very excited when I found out she had a new album coming out. I don't fault her for not writing better songs, because she never sounds like she wants to; it's almost as if she writes the songs she does only because she needs skeletons to hang her arrangements on. If I didn't love the sound of her voice, I would say she should become a producer. She's that rare artist who has a sound so good, and it is good, that it completely and utterly transcends her songs. There are countless artists who would kill for that.

Something in the Water

It seems to have all started with ABBA.
The first indications of the genetic mutation which predisposes the Swedes to being absolutely brilliant pop songwriters could be seen in the stream of albums released by Anni-Frid, Björn, Benny, and Agnetha during the 1970's. Nobody else could write songs as cunningly catchy as "Waterloo" or, lest we forget, "Dancing Queen". After they broke up in 1982, the mutation went dormant for about 15 years, but they were clearly an indicator of what was to come. Think of them as the Magneto or Charles Xavier of the Swedes.

The new class started to make themselves known with the Boy Band craze at the close of the last millennium. I could have said century, but Max Martin, the Swedish Svengali responsible for a remarkable array of hits ("...Baby One More Time", "It's My Life," "Since U Been Gone," "Raise Your Glass", and "I Kissed a Girl" are but a meager portion of his contributions to radio's Top 40 over the last 15 years), wrote half of the songs on Backstreet Boys' Millennium, one of the more successful albums of all time. I'm aware of Martin's contributions to pop music, and I'm still stunned every time I read his curriculum vitae.

One of Martin's first successes was in 1997 with, naturally, a fellow Swede, pop siren Robyn. Their powers combined to give the world "Show Me Love," which remains one of the better singles of the era. After a weak second album, Robyn took some time and returned five years later firmly in control of her own career. Working primarily with Swedish writer Klas Åhlund, the self-titled album she released remained an unequaled piece of art-pop perfection until her own series of Body Talk albums came out last year. It seems that the only person in Robyn's league at the moment is Robyn herself.

Martin is unapologetically commercial, and there's nothing wrong with that. ("It's Gonna Be Me" by 'N Sync just popped up on shuffle. It's Martin.) Robyn is beating out her own path, making music that should, by all rights, be hugely successful, but manages to stay just below the radar. Commercial viability aside, they are both clearly touched by the same blessed mutation as the mighty ABBA.

With her new album, Wounded Rhymes, Lykke Li makes a serious argument for being granted membership into this formidable and exclusive assemblage. While her first album, Youth Novels, was very good, and very catchy, it lacked the clear display of ambition necessary to gain full rights. If she wanted to bring any guests in to use the pool, Robyn, Max, or Klas would have to sponsor them. Wounded Rhymes is a different beast entirely. Where Youth Novels had a delicate, almost mock-low-fi aesthetic, Wounded Rhymes is a pop leviathan. It is loaded with dense, elephantine beats, perfectly conveyed by opener "Youth Knows No Pain" and standout "Get Some." Tucked in between the rumblers, the are gentle songs such as "Unrequited Love," a song in 6/8 which is played with appeasing lack of precision and cast Lykke as a girl at the corner of the bar, bemoaning her misfortune. The title is derived from the lyrics of "Sadness Is a Blessing," a sublime Phil Spector pastiche. It is loaded with unique electro-pop touches, some tucked way in the back of the mix. It is ear candy with a serious brain. It may be my favorite album to come out so far this year. Whether or not it holds that distinction until the end of the year, it makes me grateful for whatever those Swedes have been putting in the water.

You & I

One of the distinctions between an art and a science is that an art cannot always be explained.

For example, "Why do baking soda and vinegar volcanos work?" can be met with "The acetic acid in the vinegar engages the sodium bicarbonate in the baking soda in a double replacement reaction, and what little baking soda isn't broken down overflows as the produced carbon dioxide expands within the confines of the volcano." But ask me why those final, mighty chords in Beethoven's Fifth always send chills down my spine, and you'll likely get no more than a shrug.

This is, of course, one of the appeals of the arts. Munch's The Scream is a strangely captivating painting, and you can't really, for all the art history and composition and color theory classes in the world, tell me why. You can explain the parts forever, but they will never equal the whole.

Yesterday, for example, I spent about fifteen or twenty minutes listening to The La's' "There She Goes?" over and over again. It is a good song: The lyrics are generally about love without being inane (the pop equivalent of being an instrumental, really), Lee Mavers' voice has a nice combination of the sweet and the gritty (It occurred to me yesterday that I would love to hear Spoon take a crack at this song, actually), and all the guitar parts are hypnotically simple. But I can name about 1,000 other songs with the same qualities. So what is it that makes this one song so compelling? You can't tell me, and I can't tell you. It is the simple magic of the pop song.

This is what we are accustomed to with music. We cannot explain what separates the very good from the transcendental. Same goes for individual lyrics. It's been well over a year since I heard "Conversation 16" by The National for the first time, and I'm still reeling from "I tell you miserable things after you are asleep." This is a poor example, because that lyric is so brilliant in how it encapsulated the situation that it speaks for itself. So how about this: In the Robyn song "Get Myself Together," she drops the line "I can't tell what's right or wrong, and I wish that something could be done, but I'm not that clever." Every time she sings "I'm not that clever," I can feel it in my heart. And I have no idea why. Again, though, this is within a good song.

I'm significantly more interested in when this happens with music we may not normally give much credence. On "You & I", the otherwise unremarkable new album by The Pierces (a conventionally attractive sister duo who somehow managed to become friends with the bassist for Coldplay), there is one song, "We Are Stars," that seems touched by this magic. "I could think of nothing worse than to sail this universe without you," either the blonde one or the Burnett one opines. And I find it genuinely moving. In the middle of a soppy song in the middle of a soppy record. Yet I keep returning, time and time again, to experience that moment. If only they could figure out how to make that magic last the length of a song, or even an album.

But, of course, if they do that, they'll have found the pop equivalent of the Holy Grail.

Location:Boston, MA

Suck It and See

Suck It and See
(2011)
The Arctic Monkeys

I think T'Arctic Monkeys have been, as David Brent would say, having a laugh. With each of their three albums, the modern Saviors of British Rock have gotten heavier, and, to their peril, more serious. The dangers of a rock band taking itself seriously are myriad, and history is littered with Be Here Nows to serve warning.

Humbug showed them disappearing up their own asses. And I think they've figured that out since then. The first single off of Suck It and See, "Brick by Brick," followed where they left off, and the second single, "Don't Sit Down, Cos I've Moved Your Chair," said what I'd feared: Their desire to become the British Queens of the Stone Age had over-run all common sense. And they'd all grown beards. None of this boded well.

And then there's that title. Suck It and See. Stay classy, boys.

So imagine my surprise when I listened, and it ended up being an album of mostly melancholic guitar pop. A pleasant surprise if ever there was one.

It isn't a great album. Turner's lyrics are maturing well, but as far as the music goes, nothing much more than "competent" comes to mind. I've listened to it three times, and I can't hum a bar of anything. But that's not the point here. In an age where the release of an album no longer means anything, The Arctic Monkeys made me nervous, and they made me wonder. And don't think they don't know it.

I found out the other day that "suck it and see" is slang for giving it a try. Touché, T'Arctic Monkeys. Touché.

This Is Country Music

This Is Country Music
(2011)
Brad Paisley

Bob and I used to debate the merits of contemporary country music. Most of these conversations escape my memory, but there was one time when I brought out my two major sticking points: The lack of breadth in subject matter, which relates directly to my biggest problem, the vaguely patronizing way with which the genre seems to treat its audience. In response, he nodded sagely and said, "Simple stories about life."

Now, whether you agree with him or me, this is still my problem with country as it stands today. Bob looks at country music as presenting the audience with what they want, simple stories put into song. I feel like the genre is constantly insulting its own audience by practically refusing to talk about social issues or complex stories. The world isn't always a happy place in country music, but it's always cut and dry. The envelope containing the accepted subject matter in country is very narrow.

For about a decade now, Brad Paisley has been finding very clever and very subtle ways to push that envelope. Most of his songs concern the normal fare; "I love my wife", "Weren't we stupid when we were young?", "Fishing and hunting while drinking beer is paradise on this Earth", etc. But his writing is so witty, it doesn't sound like he's pandering. He's not writing about these things because he knows it's what the audience wants: he's writing about them because he is, in many ways, a traditionalist, and they are the conventions of the genre he loves.

But every now and then, he lets out a song like "American Saturday Night," about multiculturalism in America. Not a big deal in most genres of music, but country is, both fairly and unfairly, thought of as the last bastion of racism and intolerance. So that was actually a pretty big deal. And that it was a hit made it even better. Most of the audience missed the point, yes, but that's not his fault.

So it's a little disappointing for me when This Is Country Music, his newest album, opens with a title song that features everything I don't normally like about country. Take this verse as a prime example of what I'm talking about:

Are you haunted by the echo of your mother on the phone,
cryin' as she tells you that your brother is not coming home?
And if there's anyone that still has pride and the memory of those,
that died defending the old red, white, and blue,
this is country music, and we do.

Maybe it's just me. I don't like it when music panders that blatantly. And I expect Paisley to be better about this kind of thing. It's as though he feels he may have over-played his hand on American Saturday Night, and so he's here to make amends.

The biggest complaint about This Is Country Music is that it's too long. If Paisley had cut it back from 65 minutes to 35 or 40, it would be an absolute slam-dunk. As it is, songs like "Be the Lake" and "One of Those Lives" are accomplished and entertaining enough, but they never amount to more than filler. And while country music is all about giving the people what they want, which is usually more, Paisley is smart enough to know better. Still, a remarkable talent at what I can only assume to be the peak of his powers. It may not be a great album like his last one, but it's still damn good.

LCD Soundsystem

"New York, I Love You" was, and, it seems, forever shall be, the last song LCD Soundsystem ever play in a live setting. Tonight, after a three-hour farewell show in New York City's Madison Square Garden, James Murphy's band of miscreants hung it up for good. And I don't blame them.

I came to LCD Soundsystem slowly, after reading a number of glowing reviews for 2007's Sound of Silver. I picked it up at a Newberry Comics in Connecticut, and I can still remember listening to "Get Innocuous!" for the first time, driving in my car at night with my best friend from high school sitting next to me. Music that doesn't just ride a groove, but relies on it, was new to me. Despite being the simplest form rock can take (and I mean that not in reference to its execution, but to its form), I took ages to warm to it. But it worked its way in, and "Get Innocuous!", "Time to Get Away," and "North American Scum," the opening salvo of Silver, slowly bore deeper and deeper into my mind.

A year later, I picked up the debut album, LCD Soundsystem, in New York City, while on a day off from my job as a camp counselor. It also took me some time to warm to, and, in fact, I would say I'm still working on it. But there is a reason for this. When LCD Soundsystem started, James Murphy was already clever. His songs could make you move, and his words could make you laugh. But there wasn't any heart. As cliché as that sounds, it's the truth. Much of what he says throughout LCD Soundsystem is genuine, but there isn't a moment of honesty to be found within its 100 minutes. That's what Sound of Silver changed, and that was what made me love this band. "Someone Great" and "All My Friends," the central pillars of Silver, remain two of the most touching, moving, honest, and thrilling songs I know. They are without question two of the songs I hold most dear.

After three years, in 2010, LCD Soundsystem released This Is Happening, with the proviso that it would be the final LCD Soundsystem album. From almost any other band, it would have felt like an expression of frustration in being out of ideas, an excuse to duck out before hitting bottom, or a desperate grab for the "No, no, please don't go"s. But there was something about the way Murphy delivered the news that made me okay with it. The band were getting bigger than he wanted them to be; not that he didn't want LCD to be popular, but James Murphy seems to be one of the rare sorts who are truly about the music, and he expressed repeatedly a desire to be free to do other things. So it was with knowledge of what was to come that LCD released their third and final album, and launched an extensive tour. And it was very, very good.

As I said above, what set LCD apart, starting with Sound of Silver, was Murphy's honesty, his willingness to put it all out there in between the songs meant only to make you sweat. This Is Happening epitomizes what made them so special. Movers like album opener "Dance Yrself Clean" were better than any of the other dance music being put out there; if you saw it live, you know nothing demolishes a concert venue like "Dance Yrself Clean." Meanwhile, "All I Want" and "I Can Change" were two staggering pieces of honesty in a scene that tends to pride itself on being one step removed from the situation.

It is an irony that has not been ignored that LCD Soundsystem became a flagship band for the hipster scene. The first single, "Losing My Edge," was an ironic play on the hipster mentality, an out-of-step hipster from way back talking about all the new kids and how the internet has leveled the playing field. Murphy never seemed to want the status of a Hipster hero, and, while he never turned out a song as blatantly hipster-bashing as Arcade Fire's recent "Rococo," he kept his distance. He just wanted to make great music. He never tried to deny his influences, and he never tried to hide them. Most bands would feel like naughty children if you pointed out the similarity of the guitars on "All I Want" to David Bowie's "'Heroes'". Murphy nodded and said, "Yep, that's where I got that from." And kudos to him. In an age with as much music as there has been, there's no point in pretending your influences don't exist. Embracing them gives you more freedom to do what you want, and to come up with something interesting.

I had the good fortune this summer of seeing LCD Soundsystem three times. The first time was at the Pitchfork festival in Chicago last summer. It was transcendent. The eight minutes of "All My Friends" are frozen in my mind, a series of perfect moments. But it was during the final song of the night, "New York, I Love You," that I saw a flash of what we'd all truly be losing when LCD threw in the towel; three-quarters of the way through the song, the music gave way to an acapella rendition of Alicia Key's "New York". And it was stunning. I discovered in that moment that a band which always seemed to rely on repetition to hammer the point home didn't need it at all. They just liked it better that way.

There was no acapella rendition of "New York" in tonight's finale. LCD Soundsystem are no more. Their Wikipedia entry even says so. And while this is the first time I've had to say goodbye to an extant band which means something to me, at least they never rode it out, and at least they never seemed to take it for granted. James Murphy has left behind something flawless, on his own terms, and now he's free to do whatever he wants. Wouldn't you want it that way if you had a choice?

Hywel, Don't Read This: The Best of 2010 Playlist

I was prompted by a friend to make a playlist summarizing the albums on my Best of 2010 list. I spent a lot of time on this, choosing not necessarily the most representative nor the best songs from each album, but I tried to make a cohesive statement that incorporated all 16 albums. I cheated on one, but it was worth it, and the song I used still came out in 2010. In case you want to make it.

The Best of 2010 Playlist

1. "Right On," The Roots, How I Got Over

2. "Each Time Is a New Time," Field Music, Field Music (Measure)

3. "White Sky," Vampire Weekend, Contra

4. "Glitter Freeze," Gorillaz, Plastic Beach

5. "We Used to Wait," Arcade Fire, The Suburbs

6. "Anyone's Ghost," The National, High Violet

7. "Come Alive (The War of the Roses)," Janelle Monáe, The ArchAndroid (Suites II and III)

8. "Used to Be," Beach House, Teen Dream

9. "On a Good Day," Joanna Newsom, Have One On Me

10. "Vesuvius," Sufjan Stevens, The Age of Adz

11. "Monster," Kanye West, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy

12. "All I Want," LCD Soundsystem, This Is Happening

13. "Jamelia," Caribou, Swim

14. "Dancing On My Own," Robyn, Body Talk

15. "Trouble Comes Running," Spoon, Transference

16. "The Needle and the Damage Done," Laura Marling, The Blues Run the Game 7" single

Best of 2010

2010 has come and gone, my friends. Or, at least, it's about to. This was, I think, a great year for music, with a remarkable number of mini-masterpieces, and two big ones. This was a big year for bands with A Sound. Of the 16 albums which are featured in this list, eight are by bands which trade in a unique sound more than anything else. Two are by individuals who could trade in A Sound if they wanted to, but they're far too happy jumping around and playing in the different ponds available to them. Like last year, I will be sticking with an unnumbered format, as ultimately naming a favorite would be impossible. My preferences for any one of these over any other shift constantly, which is why such lists are ultimately an inane exercise. Still, it's fun to write about the music you love, and there's no better excuse. The further down the list the album is listed, the generally higher marks I would give it. Let me know your favorites in the comments section, and what you do or don't agree with in my list.

My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy
Kanye West
The more I talk about and think about this album, the less I like it. Kanye West is, let's not fool ourselves, frighteningly talented. His producing and sampling in rap are the best in the world. His rapping skills have improved with each album, but it's still not what he's meant to be doing. It's just not. His ego is so rampant, and his self-confidence so minute, that he has to do it all. He has to make himself the best artist in the world. This is an incredible album, musically. "All of the Lights" has a world-straddling hook. "Power" has one of my favorite moments of the year, every time King Crimson blast in with "21st Century Schizoid Man". "Runaway" uses a gorgeous, simple piano loop. "Lost in the World" makes a mammoth out of a gentle Bon Iver track. The only bad thing I can say about the music is that all of the songs, all of them, are too long. Where it falls apart is when he starts rapping. And all of his guests start rapping. And we learn that Kanye has stopped rapping about trying to bring his mother some flowers in the hospital, and he's now rapping about having money, power, sex. Yes, these are the hallmarks of the genre, but that's not why Kanye has always managed to transcend. He used to pay them relatively little mind. And now he wallows in them. The people who say this album is about a personality trying to come to terms with his internal contradictions are, I think, wrong. I don't think Kanye is that honest. I don't think he can be. Some people find that compelling. I find it to be nothing special. But the music, ye gods, the music.


I Speak Because I Can
Laura Marling
There is a long line of singer-songwriters following in the steps of Joni Mitchell. Attempting to, anyway. I'm not a massive fan of Mitchell, outside of Blue, but even I can tell most of her admirers pale in comparison to her peak-period work. Laura Marling, all of 20 years old, may be the heir to the acoustic-folk throne. The Joni Mitchell comparisons are easy, and they do Marling no favors, as she already has her own voice and style readily apparent, but they also work. All the hallmarks of a good influence are there; her style will remind you of Mitchell, but you won't think you're listening to Joni. Where they differ the most is in their voices; Both have singing voices of startling beauty, but where Joni's was high, Marling's is low to the ground. She sounds far more weathered than 20 years of life could possibly allow. Marling's voice is my favorite part of this album; once her songs can match that voice, as happens on "Made by Maid" and "Blackberry Stone," this will be something special indeed.


Have One on Me
Joanna Newsom
How much is too much? I think that's really what this album comes down to. It's a triple-album, divided into three sets of eight songs. Any one of those three sets is astonishing in its own right, and this is a case of an album deserving more appreciation than I can give it. As a whole, it's practically perfect. Newsom's songwriting abilities are beyond questioning at this point, and her musicianship is to such a degree that thinking about her playing makes me a little queazy. The arrangements that support her throughout are wondrous things, inventive and inviting. Her voice continues to improve, though I could also just be used to it at this point. I could easily understand saying this was your favorite album of the year. I could easily understand not being able to make it through the first song. Taken on its own terms, the whole thing is perfect. I just can't digest this much information in one sitting.


Teen Dream
Beach House
Beach House have a sound that makes you feel as though all of their songs are waltzes. I don't know how else to explain it. The instrumentation is limited to a reverb-drenched electric guitar, an electric keyboard, and a combination of drum machine and real drums. With this limited palette, though, they've created a sound you could sleep inside. Victoria Legrand's voice has a quality which makes it simultaneously sexy and sexually ambiguous; I'd thought the singer was a man up until I saw them play at Pitchfork over the summer. Her voice sits beyond gender identification, as does the songwriting, which is a unique thing. It is an album that could easily pass by in a dreamy haze, but it deserves more of your attention than that.


How I Got Over
The Roots
In a class on popular music, we had a discussion on the state of Hip-Hop. We were attempting to discern between Rap and Hip-Hop. Eminem raps, we all agreed, but I don't think anyone would refer to him as a Hip-Hop artist. He's a rapper. So what makes it Hip-Hop? Is Hip-Hop extant? Someone mentioned The Roots as an argument for the continued existence of Hip-Hop, even if they are just about the sole survivors, or rather the sole purveyors. And it was a good call. One listen to How I Got Over is all it should take to ensure the nervous listeners out there that Hip-Hop is still alive. What's the distinction? Hip-Hop isn't solely about posturing. It's quick to comment on the social issues happening around it. It has a different feel; there are drum machines here, but most of the percussion is provided by the rightfully adored ?uestlove, a man I would desperately like to buy a beer. There are samples, including a perfect sample of Joanna Newsom's "The Book of Right-On". The rhymes are dense, the flows are faultless, and the backing music is sublime. If I'd given this the time it deserved, it would likely be higher.


Transference
Spoon
I love Spoon. I really do. They're right up there with the Yeah Yeah Yeahs in my Best Band of the Decade list. With their last album, Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga, Spoon made a blockbuster, everything planned out and executed perfectly. With Transference, you get the impression that they wanted to relax. And that's fine. They deserve to take it easy. Spoon have always been known for their sound, which Britt Daniel curates with a jeweler's eye for detail, and on this album he moved the sound to the fore. "Written in Reverse" is a fierce, groove-riding beast. "Trouble Comes Running" ranks up with "The Underdog" and "Sister Jack" as some of the best power-pop Spoon have recorded. "Got Nuffin" is a steamroller. "Nobody Gets Me But You" rides a tense bass hook, and is my favorite closer to a Spoon album (I'm big on album closers). All of them sound just as great, if not better, than Spoon ever have, but they have done all these songs before, and they've done most of them better. The only composition here without a companion in the canon is the delicate, lovely, lullaby-esque "Goodnight Laura." Never before have Spoon sounded so stripped down, never before has Daniel sounded quite so consoling, and, as with the relative (very, very relative) sloppiness that pervades this gem of an album, never before have they sounded quite so human.


Contra
Vampire Weekend
This album and I didn't speak to each other for about nine months. I still don't like a large portion of what Ezra Koenig says, though I do love how he says it. Their sound is unique, and the music is insidiously catchy. The arrangements are clever. And while I think it was good this album and I took a break from one another, one of the only songs to stay with me all year was "I Think Ur a Contra," a striking, hauntingly beautiful song about a relationship that just isn't going to work. "I had a feeling once that you and I could tell each other everything for two months," it begins. Vampire Weekend are regularly an excellent, entertaining band, but when I love what Koenig says as much as how he says it, this is a band to reckon with.


The ArchAndroid (Suites II and III)
Janelle Monáe
If ambition alone made for perfect albums, this would be one of the all-time greats. Divided into two suites, and encompassing a mind-boggling array of musical styles and influences, The ArchAndroid was one of the bravest commercial releases of the year. Monáe is a small woman with a big voice, and remarkable writing chops. The songs here go from P-Funk to Gershwin to Psychobilly to, well, an Of Montreal song. Really. For reasons I can't even begin to fathom, there is a song written and recorded by Kevin Barnes. There is literally an Of Montreal song shoved in the middle of Suite III. But it seems fitting, given that Monáe clearly doesn't want to settle in one place. The sequencing is great, with songs constantly not only bleeding, but evolving into one another. "Cold War" is an electrifying combination of funk, R&B, and straight-up Rock, and one of the more impressive achievements in music this year. This is a young artist still finding her voice, no question, and what makes The ArchAndroid so exciting is how far Monáe's willing to go to find it.


Swim
Caribou
Caribou's newest release had opportunity to grow on me for an unusual reason; I played a lot of Super Mario Galaxy back in May and June of this year, and Swim happened to be what I chose to put on most of the time I was playing. To this day, several months after I put the game down for the last time, I cannot hear "Sun" without seeing Mario in my head. And I am okay with that. From what I've read, Caribou was attempting to make Liquid Dance Music. And I feel like he achieved his goal. The whole thing feels drenched... in what, exactly, I'm not sure, but it feels like it's drenched. This was the year's great Break-Up album, every song imbued with that sense of loss and directionlessness. What I love is that you get that sense from it without it ever being an explicit part of the equation, and that keeps the album from ever taking sides. It's possible the whole Break-Up thing is only in my head, but I don't care; it made it a great experience.


The Age of Adz
Sufjan Stevens
I didn't know what hit me. I didn't write a proper review of this album for Thought's Dowinion, it so thoroughly confused me, but, then, I didn't give this a proper listen the first time through. This is a headphone album, and I listened to it on a boombox on the roof of a Home Depot. The arrangements are intricate and marvelous, inventive and fresh. As per my original thought, the songs are still not "songs", but Stevens manages to hold my attention for the entirety of the 25-minute closer, "Impossible Soul." There are four minute "proper" songs which fail to keep me so rapt as that song did the second time I listened to it. Music collides, falls apart, and restructures itself constantly. This is a remarkable achievement, is what this is. It goes beyond being an album to being a true work of art. Could I hum it for you? Never, and that will keep it from ever being one of my favorite albums. But I will likely return to it for years to come, always puzzled and intrigued by what's inside.


The Suburbs
Arcade Fire
Finally, we have the mature Arcade Fire album. Funeral was a massive debut, of course, by a group of kids with a lot of grief to air. Neon Bible was equally impressive, though it felt weighed down with its own expectations of being important. The Suburbs feels like the first Arcade Fire album to be done from a perspective of comfort; it is the sound of a band riding a wave of confidence and certainty. Arcade Fire were never musically adventurous, and that hasn't changed. They are about bombast, about dynamics, and what's edifying here is how they seem to be leaning on the bombast less than before. Win Butler's lyrics, as ever, concern worry and the terror of the everyday, and if he frequently strays into the overly-broad and under-applicable, he sounds so full of conviction that you just go with it. What makes this album better than its contemporaries is that it never takes sides; the suburbs are not loathed, and they are not treated as the enemy. They are treated as a reality which must be dealt with. Another top-flight album from a band which seems to be inexhaustible as far as such things are concerned.


Field Music (Measure)
Field Music
Every Field Music album takes a while to sink in. Addled with the sort of musical ADHD which only seems to affect God's chosen few, Field Music songs cannot stand still, and what's terrifying is that the Brewis Brothers have between them enough hooks, guitar lines, and killer melodies to afford such luxuries as getting bored halfway through a song. While they know how to ride a good thing out, as in "Let's Write a Book", they're equally as capable of using up four or five songs' worth of material in the course of a three-minute exercise. While their previous full-length, 2007's Tones of Town, was more flagrant about burning through material, Field Music (Measure) is the sound of the band stretching out. They let themselves take up a bit more room, and the results are so uniformly stunning that you will forget how good the album is as a whole until you hear any one of the songs on its own later. That's an odd fault for an album to have, but there it is; the songs are all so good that the whole doesn't feel stunning enough. There aren't any valleys to make the peaks feel more remarkable.


Plastic Beach
Gorillaz
With each Gorillaz album, Damon Albarn has ushered in a new set of collaborators, trying to keep the creative juices fresh. For this album, he brought in the most diverse set yet, and the results are quite possibly the best of his career. Despite the wider breadth of talents involved, this is the most focused Gorillaz album, and it's the first one where you can really feel Albarn ceding the spotlight to others. Bobby Womack owns the new-wave soul of "Stylo," and "White Flag" features some excellent tag-team verse swapping by UK rappers Kano and Bashy. This is simultaneously the most varied and the poppiest album of Albarn's career. In the middle of it all, he managed to create "On Melancholy Hill", quite possibly the loveliest thing he's ever written. I always see a couple dancing to it at their wedding. So it is a mixture of the gorgeous, the melancholy, the upbeat, the danceable, the aggressive, and the ponderous. You get the feeling that this is what Albarn wanted Gorillaz to be all along.


High Violet
The National
I listened to High Violet about 35 or 40 times in two weeks over the summer. That's not an exaggeration. I listened to it at least twice a day for two weeks straight, and on several days, I even gave it a third spin. It's an album in which I find it frighteningly easy to lose myself. And it never wore out. After two weeks of near-constant listening, I started to forget how amazing it is, but I never tired of it. The music of The National has always been good, but what makes or breaks the songs is Matt Berninger's lyrics, which have never been better than they are here. He manages to combine abstract imagery with hypnotic repetition and specific details to create a lyrical persona all his own. "Lemonworld" and "Conversation 16" are the best-written lyrics of the year, the first about a soldier struggling to readjust to life after war, and the second about a couple falling apart at the seams while trying to hold it together. There are individual lines that will stick out and haunt you for weeks; "Conversation 16" has one of my favorites, 'I tell you miserable things after you are asleep.' Everything you need to know about the narrator's situation is in that line. Just about a masterpiece.


This Is Happening
LCD Soundsystem
It should have been impossible for LCD Soundsystem to follow up Sound of Silver. Their sophomore outing was one of the decade's best albums. It was a quantum leap over the self-titled debut, bringing into the consummate sound a sense of emotion and heart. It turned out that James Murphy could not only be clever, but genuine and touching. This Is Happening picks up where Silver left off, and you can't blame him for not trying to improve what was already perfect. "North American Scum" found its counterpart in the destructive "Dance Yrself Clean," an absolute monster live. But what made LCD into a great band was when they began tapping into Murphy's uncanny awareness for the complications of relationships, both romantic and otherwise. The emotional nucleus of This Is Happening is provided by the yearning "All I Want" and the desperate "I Can Change," a remarkable 1-2 punch in the middle of the album, and the whole thing finishes with "Home." The sense of melancholy that song instills will stay with you for days. To think that we may never get another album from this band makes me incredibly sad, but then I consider that there may not be much left for them to say. If This Is Happening really is their final album, then their legacy is just about pristine. How many bands can say that?


Body Talk
Robyn
Back in June, Robyn released Body Talk, Pt. 1, an excellent, eclectic collection of nine songs. She followed it up a few months later with Body Talk, Pt. 2, and promised that a third volume was almost complete. In a masterstroke, instead of Body Talk, Pt. 3, she released Body Talk, picking her five favorites from each of the first two volumes, and including five new tracks. She has released an album that, on its own accord, could be a best of. She has released the best no-holds-barred pop album to come out this year, the best one to come out since her last album, 2005's Robyn, and one of the most purely enjoyable albums I've ever heard. It is a masterpiece of the genre, toying with its conventions while delivering fresh, invigorating, intelligent music. Robyn is a gifted singer. Her ability to emote complex situations with simple lyrics in three-minute songs is unrivaled. "Call Your Girlfriend," "Dancing on My Own," and "Hang With Me" all manage to convey the complexities of relationships in danceable, hummable, euphoric bursts. "U Should Know Better" is manic, four minutes of braggadocio with Robyn and Snoop Dogg (He had a great year for cameos) trading lines. And "Get Myself Together" might be my favorite, with a chorus you can't ignore. I said in my review of this album that it should make Robyn the biggest pop star on the planet, though I accept that it won't. That still stands. If the music industry still made any sense, this would be bigger than Thriller.

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.

Body Talk

Body Talk
(2010)
Robyn

At last, it is here.

At the beginning of 2010, Swedish avante-pop star Robyn announced that she would be releasing three albums over the course of the year. It had been five years since she released the kooky masterpiece Robyn, and she was ready to flush out the vaults. The albums, titled Body Talk Pt.1, Pt.2 and Pt.3, would be staggered over five or six months, and each would be a mini-album. The nine songs on Body Talk, Pt.1 were released to general critical praise in June, and it was the pop album of the summer. Not, you know, for the greater population, but those of us who were "hip" to it spent the summer dancing away to "Dancing On My Own," one of the best pop songs to come out of the last ten years. No joke. Pt. 2 dropped in September, and if its eight offerings didn't quite hold up as well, it was still a great EP.

It was announced about a month ago that Body Talk would be the name of an album, cherry-picking the five best songs from each of the first two mini-albums, and adding five more. That Robyn actually did pick the five best from each of the previous portions was a miracle in its own right. When the songs she chose were confirmed, it was a case of the new songs making or breaking the album. Considering the modern pop album, where there are typically four singles, one or two ballads, and six or seven inoffensive fillers, an album with nine killer (and I mean killer) tracks and one arguable filler (I don't have strong levels of affection for "Love Kills," but it's enjoyable enough), this was already going to be better than most, and possibly great. She could only fuck up.

Body Talk runs at an impossibly fast, taught 61 minutes, and it's packed to the point of bursting with radio smashes. That is, of course, if they get played on the radio, which they may not. Robyn doesn't make album tracks, really. She's here to make singles, and the efficacy with which she accomplishes her task is dizzying. It should be this easy for everyone. Pop is a formula known for not taking risks, and if Robyn isn't as inventive as she was on her self-titled offering back in 2005, she's certainly not resting on her laurels.

Highlights are impossible. This album feels like a Best Of collection. I haven't heard an album this calculatedly perfect from start to finish in a long time. The only disappointment is the Max Martin-penned "Time Machine." Considering that Martin has regularly provided the standout pop songs of the last 15 years ("Baby, One More Time," "Everybody (Backstreet's Back)," "Show Me Love" for Robyn in her late-nineties incarnation, "Since U Been Gone"), "Time Machine"'s status as the second weakest track on the album is truly a disappointment. The momentum was in favour of it being a masterpiece. Ah, well.

Each of the Body parts has a standout track. The first album had "Dancing On My Own," which is, I reiterate, the best thing to happen to dance-pop in the last ten years. The second album had "U Should Know Better," which hearkened back to the quirky and experimental nature of Robyn. "Dancing On My Own" could have been released by any artist, which is often my problem with pop music, the lack of individuality. "U Should Know Better," which, by the way, featured a brilliant guest turn from Snoop Dogg, could only come from Robyn. I was ready for the next addition to the trinity to be "Time Machine," but it's "Call Your Girlfriend." The way the melody stretches on, "And the only way her heart will mend/is when she learns to love again", defies description. It's four minutes of utter dance-floor bliss.

In short, Robyn has unleashed a masterwork that balances her natural tendency towards the odd with an unflinching eye for massive pop hooks and choruses. That she manages to still sound like Robyn throughout is a tribute to her talent, and her willingness to explore complex emotions and situations within the idiom of the pop hit. This album won't make Robyn the biggest pop star on the planet. But it really should.

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.