20) Eminem featuring Rihanna - “Love the Way You Lie” (Aftermath/Interscope)
I have an odd admission about this song: I’ve never heard it on the radio. But oh my goodness, I’ve heard the opening seven seconds what seems like hundreds of times. A co-worker mixes a weekly hip-hop countdown show just outside my cube area at my office, and I swear that this year the only time I’ve ever heard him assembling something besides the host’s voice track is when he’d cue up the intro to “Love the Way You Lie.” The first time I ever heard the song all the way through is when I saw the video one night on MTV Hits. And it got stuck in my brain for a couple of days. It’s easily the best track Eminem has done since “Lose Yourself.” And considering Rihanna’s history, it’s a perfect song for her to supply the hook.
19) Josh Ritter - “Change of Time” (Pytheas Recordings)
Josh Ritter’s So Runs the World Away wasn’t as strong as his 2007 effort The Historical Conquests of Josh Ritter. However, the first single from So Runs, “Change of Time,” is a total standout. It builds from a sole acoustic guitar and Ritter’s soothing voice in the first verse all the way to massive of electric guitars and bashing drums that (this is gonna sound weird) reminds me of a ticking clock. Ritter’s drummer keeps hitting the ride symbol and all I can think of is the ugly faux grandfather clock that was in the living room of my house growing up. I’m pretty sure that wasn’t what Ritter was thinking of when he penned this song about dreaming of one’s love. Yet it’s another example of what makes music great—it gives the listener the ability to place his own life experience into the song and identify with it.
18) Robert Plant - “Angel Dance” (Rounder)
17) Carolina Chocolate Drops - “Hit Em Up Style” (Nonesuch)
16) J.C Brooks & The Uptown Sound - “I Am Trying to Break Your Heart” (J.C. Brooks & the Uptown Sound)
2010 was a pretty damn good year for covers. So much so that for the first time in 14 years I have three of them on this year’s singles list. (The three from 1996, you ask? Oasis’ “Cum on Feel the Noize,” Prince’s “Betcha by Golly Wow” and The Fugees’ “Killing Me Softly.”)
Robert Plant continues his late career renaissance with his Buddy Miller-produced album Band of Joy. The ex-Led Zeppelin singer has excelled at finding interesting collaborators and picking interesting material to cover over the past decade. “Angel Dance" is originally from Los Lobos’ 1990 album The Neighborhood. I’ve given that album the short end of the stick over the years because it didn't seem as strong as 1987's By the Light of the Moon and then paled in hindsight compared to 1992's masterpiece Kiko. I’ve gained new respect over the years for The Neighborhood because I’ve seen the Lobos perform many of the songs, outstripping their studio incarnations. I saw Los Lobos at Bowery Ballroom back in August and seven songs into their set singer-guitarist David Hidalgo made a comment about Robert Plant giving him a call saying he wanted to cover one of their songs. I had to chuckle when Hidalgo said, “Wow, it turned out really good,” because he’s exactly right.
Carolina Chocolate Drops are a string band from North Carolina that, according to their bio, does “traditional music from the Piedmont region of the Carolinas” with the occasional modern song thrown in. And what a modern song to take on in Blue Cantrell’s 2001 smash “Hit ’Em Up Style.” The Drops transform this ladies’ revenge song into something that sounds like it could have been broadcast on radio back in the 20s and 30s. (Well, except for the reference to Neiman-Marcus.)
And speaking of transforming, I’m sure that Wilco frontman Jeff Tweedy had to be ecstatic with how the Chicago soul combo J.C Brooks & The Uptown Sound rearranged the Yankee Hotel Foxtrot opening track “I Am Trying to Break Your Heart” into an infectious old school R&B song. And as much I consider myself to be a huge Wilco fan, it took until the fourth time I heard this cover to figure out that Brooks sings a verse from the A Ghost is Born song “Theologians” as the bridge. That totally blew my mind. It’s rare that a cover will show a song in a completely new light that makes me rethink the original. “I Am Trying to Break Your Heart” is precisely one of those.
15) The National - “Bloodbuzz Ohio” (4ad)
It’s taken me a while to get into The National, mostly because the baritone voice of Matt Berninger. Whenever I heard the guy sing I thought, “Is he bored with his own lyrics? The guys in his band? The last season of Survivor? The service at his coffee shop in Brooklyn?” It took their contribution to the Red Hot compilation Dark is the Night, “Around the Bend,” for me to crack the key to Berninger’s voice. That newfound keymaster ability made The National’s latest album High Violet the first one I was able to listen to all the way through. (I do plan on revisiting a couple of their older albums once this year’s list is done.) Now that I have a feel for the voice, I just have to figure out what the heck Berninger is singing about. Here’s a “Bloodbuzz Ohio” sample lyric: “I was carried to Ohio in a swarm of bees/I’ll never marry but Ohio don't remember me.” Huh?
14) Vampire Weekend - “Giving Up the Gun” (XL)
This New York quartet avoided a total sophomore slump with their second album Contra. It’s true that most of it was more of that Afro-pop-lite that they perfected to a T on their 2008 self-titled. That didn’t take away from me enjoying tracks like “Cousins” and “Holiday.” (Well, in the case of “Holiday,” I ceased enjoying it about the 805th time I saw that Tommy Hilfiger Christmas ad or heard that Honda radio spot that featured the song’s opening lines. Now the initial guitar line makes me want to go all Ladysmith on someone’s ass.) My first listen through the album I almost thought something was wrong with the CD when track eight started. There was some weird drum machine loop, followed by a whole messy of dancy-type programming. This sounded nothing like Vampire Weekend, except when Erza Koenig’s vocals came in singing about someone’s rusty sword. (Hmm, I wonder what he could be talking about.) “Giving up the Gun” was that track, and I think my Led Zeppelin In Through the Out Door theory can explain my love of this song. Back in college (a time we like to call the Reagan years), someone scrawled a note on 106 VIC’s vinyl copy of In Through the Out Door—“This is my favorite Led Zeppelin album, because it doesn’t sound like Led Zeppelin.” That’s exactly why I loved (heck, still love) that album, and it’s precisely why I dig “Giving up the Gun.” I’d love to hear an album of songs like this from these guys. Oh, and I’d like more videos like the bizarre one for “Gun” that features a Jonas brother, a member of Wu-Tang Clan and the dude dating Taylor Swift. But have them wear longer shorts next time, thanks.
13) The Hold Steady - “Hurricane J” (Vagrant)
12) The Baseball Project (featuring Craig Finn) - "Don't Call them Twinkies" (YepRoc)
The Hold Steady’s Craig Finn can spin a tale in the space of three and half minutes unlike any songwriter working today. These two tracks show off his talent in spades. “Hurricane J” is the story tale of an older dude dating a younger woman and trying to nudge her into a better life—and admitting to himself that he’s not the man to help her get there. His description of that breakup conversation is a thing of beauty: “I know you’re gonna say what I know you’re gonna say/I know you’ll look at the ground, I know you'll probably cry/You're a beautiful girl and you're a pretty good waitress/but Jessie, I don’t think I’m the guy.”
In “Don’t Call Them Twinkies” Finn penned the lyrics to a gritty track written by The Baseball Project singer-guitarist Steve Wynn per the request of the band’s resident Minnesota Twins fan, drummer Linda Pitmon. I wish that the lyrics were on the web somewhere, as they are an amazing history lesson of the three times the Twins have gone to the World Series. Finn nails all the details of certain plays (“Ron Gant was out” is something Twins fans have yelled before, I imagine) and the vibe of the tightly fought series that went seven games in 1987 and 1991. My favorite line just might be “I’ve never seen something so lame as that Fonda-hawk chop.” Yet with all the nuances of Twins lore he crams into the lyrics, the whole thing is damn catchy. I found myself singing along to the chorus upon my first listen. This bodes well for the second Baseball Project album (Volume 2, natch) that is due out in February.
11) Tired Pony - “Dead American Writers” (Mom + Pop)
There are certain years where I sit down to write this list and it just pours out of me. I’ve found myself up at 1:00 a.m., pouring another glass of Diet Coke just because I know I’ve struck a rich vein of creativity and I don’t want to lose it by going to sleep. Other years, errrrr, not so much. This year, for example. It’s been like, well, I can’t even come up with a good cliché to describe how hard it’s been to extract the words from my brain and get them to come out my fingers into this here ancient keyboard. When you’re checking your Twitter feed once every six minutes or so because you’ve written only a sentence in a half hour and you’re desperate for anything to take your brain away from writing…well, it’s not good. In the midst of my mind needing some Metamucil, I started looking over the lyrics to Tired Pony’s “Dead American Writers.” And I’ll be damned if Gary Lightbody didn’t nail the pains of writers block in a song, um, about dead writers. Check out the first and second verses:
“Here's to every time that you rock a boat
Here's to every word that you ever wrote
There were clues but it was never clear
You've got to choose your own way out of here
I've been waiting for the spark myself,
I've been scrambling in the dark for health
I have read your words a thousand times
All this spark but smashed up love and crime.”
Waiting for the spark myself. Fucking a, Gary, I feel your pain. Thankfully, I listened to this insanely catchy song enough to help break that block. I mean, if I hadn’t, you’d be holding this list in February.
10) Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings - “The Game Gets Old” (Daptone)
I love, love, LOVE how this song starts. There’s this crescendo of horns and strings, as if it’s the opening of a classic film that (said in a big announcer voice) is totally important and requires your attention. Come to think of it, Sharon Jones is a New York classic (MTA and Rikers Island worker hits it big) who should really capture everyone’s attention as soon as she opens her mouth. Jones usually comes across as big and as brassy as her band, yet in “The Game Gets Old” she tones it down a notch to inhabit the character of a wounded lover. It’s a tremendous performance by Jones and company. And while the entire I Learned the Hard Way album is solid, they don’t come close to capturing the magic this opener provides.
9) Mumford & Sons - “Little Lion Man” (Glassnote)
Okay, I am still amazed that a song with such a blatant “fuck” in the chorus became a hit.
Wait.
Let me rephrase that.
I’m amazed that a rock song with such a blatant “fuck” in the chorus became a hit.
(Thinking.)
Wait. Let me try that again.
I’m amazed that a rock song that uses a banjo as its lead instrument that contains such a blatant “fuck” in the chorus became a hit.
(Thinking some more.)
Ladies, it’s because that Marcus Mumford guy is a cutie, right? Thought so.
8) Lady Gaga featuring Beyonce - “Telephone” (Interscope)
I’d like to apologize for my dissing of Lady Gaga last year. I just didn’t understand how smartly she has developed her persona. It’s like watching a master’s class in marketing. Make one crazy video after another, upping the ante of shock value and/or surprise each time. How did I not grasp how awesome it was to wear a gown made of Kermits? And the meat dress? Holy shit, that is either the stupidest thing ever, or the best gag of the decade. I’m still not sure. I can pinpoint exactly when I started to grasp the whole Gaga thing. I was up in the middle of the night in the late winter (not surprising with my proclivity for insomnia) and as I often do when I turn on the TV that late (or early, whatever) I punch in the numbers for MTV Hits. It was the exact moment the “Telephone” video started. Seven minutes later, I was converted. And then the next day I had to download the song. The way the producers turned a ring and a dial tone into a hook of the backing track is truly inventive. This is one of the few songs on this year’s list that sounds good on the dance floor—but is an even better experience in headphones.
7) Ted Leo & The Pharmacists - “Bottled in Cork” (Matador)
If someone asked me, “Hey, can you sum up Ted Leo’s solo career into three minutes?” I would give them an MP3 of this song. (Or say to them, “Who the hell are you, and how did you get into my living room?”) It’s as if Leo decided to make a greatest hits album in one song. He packed his pop, punk, political and heart-on-the-sleeve emotional sides all into this track. And even though the final chorus (which doesn’t pop up elsewhere in the song, so maybe it’s not a true chorus at all?) lasts for about 30 seconds, I could easily listen to that line “Tell the bartender, I think I’m falling in love” for another two or three minutes. (Not that I’ve ever thought of uttering that line. Um, how about we forget that last sentence happened and we move onto #6? Excellent. Join me at the next paragraph.)
6) B.o.B featuring Bruno Mars - “Nothing on You” (Atlantic)
I could type out a few words about how B.o.B. is pretty multi-talented guy that has a smooth flow when he rap and how easy he makes the transition to singing within this song. Or how awesome it is that he namechecks Wonder Woman and Mister Fantastic from the comic world. Or how Bruno Mars and his production team The Smeezingtons are the hitmakers of this year. But really, this song is up this high because it sounds awesome when it’s blasting out of car speakers and that Mars guy has a great voice. So, there you have it.
5) LCD Soundsystem - “I Can Change” (DFA/EMI)
"I Can Change" bears more than a passing resemblance to Eurythmics’ “Love is a Stranger.” I have no problem with that. “Love is a Stranger” is my second favorite Eurythmics song behind “Would I Lie to You,” so that puts “I Can Change” in good company. I don’t know how LCD frontman James Murphy gets his voice so damn high on the line “hoping and hoping and hoping/the feeling goes away.” It could be some sort of studio trickery, but Murphy seems so into playing the character of a guy who’ll do anything to save a relationship falling apart that I can imagine him pushing himself to hit that high note without any extra computer help. Oh, and did I mention it’s a nifty dance number too? Nothing like dancing to someone’s depression!
4) Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers - “I Should Have Known It” (Reprise)
The first time I heard this single from Petty and company's new album Mojo, I was not happy. I even wrote on my Twitter, “Uh-oh—TP w/o hooks? Not good.” Where was the classic Petty chorus that I would want to sing at the top of my lungs while driving my car with the windows down? I just didn’t hear anything that would stick with me. Then I finally watched their performance on Saturday Night Live. And holy shit, I was wrong. Everything about the song is a hook. Mike Campbell and Scott Thurston’s intertwined guitar lines, Steve Ferrone's Bonhamesque thump, Petty’s venomous vocal…fuck me, it’s all fantastic. I even recorded the SNL performance to put it my iTunes, just so I could relive that adrenaline rush again and again. Petty hasn’t written something this nasty since Echo. It’s about damn time, Tom.
3) Superchunk - “Digging for Something” (Merge)
Decades from now when I listen to “Digging for Something” (and trust me, it’s that good to make such an outrageous claim…which is that I’ll have my hearing in decades from now) it will always make me think of the summer of 2010. Mac McCaughan’s lyrics “We were dancing on the propane tank/Everybody in the half-light out on the lawn/They were kicking up dust ‘til they were gone” and “It’s just getting dark and you’re waking up, waking up, waking up” instantly take me to a summer bash somewhere. (It’s not a bash I would have been at this summer since I was on the wagon, but the alternate universe version of me must have been drunk all the time, so I’m sure he pulled a daysleeper few times.) And the backing vocal from The Mountain Goats’ John Darnielle is so infectious that I can actually picture him smiling in the studio while he was belting it out. And that puts a smile on my face. Even if I did spend an entire summer without a single beer. Okay, let’s focus here…
2) Cee-Lo Green - “Fuck You” (Elektra)
I have one question. Does anyone think “Forget You” is a suitable edit? Hands? Anyone? Yeah, I thought not. Good. So let’s just enjoy this insanely catchy, insanely filthy song in high rotations in our iPods and YouTube and our brains. Fuck the FCC.
1) B.o.B featuring Hayley Williams - “Airplanes” (Atlantic)
Again, I wish I could come up with some lengthy essay about this song and how B.o.B. is sharing about his life before a record deal. But I got nothing. It’s just a great pop song with a great hook sung by the young lady that fronts Paramore. Jeebus, this song just sounds so fucking good when it’s blasting out of a rental car as you’re driving through the sunny streets of Austin. I’m sure a few of you, dear readers, are probably sick of this song. But I’ve never even heard it on the radio. I first heard it walking around an Old Navy while buying a pair of pants. I had to use the Shazam feature on my iPhone to figure out the track’s name. I still have never heard it on the radio, so I guess I’ll have to spin it 1,000 times on my iPod to catch up with the rest of America.
Friday, December 10, 2010
Compilations, Reissues, EPs, Soundtracks, Etc.
10) Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers - Damn the Torpedoes: Deluxe Edition (Backstreet/Geffen/UME)
In the era in which seemingly every album needs to be reissued or repackaged as a deluxe edition (sometimes just a few months after the disc was first released) it’s slightly surprising that it’s taken this long for one of Tom Petty’s albums to get afforded this treatment. The extra disc that comes with Damn the Torpedoes is kind of flimsy as these types of things go. Nine tracks that barely scratch 30 minutes doesn’t seem like a lot when compared other packages further down on this list. Yet those nine tracks are of extremely high quality. The two previously unreleased leftovers, “Nowhere” and “Surrender,” could easily fit in on Torpedoes or its follow-up Hard Promises. The alternate take of “Refugee” shows a fascinating window into how the song developed into the monster hit. Anyone who’s listened to a classic rock station over the past 30 years can sing most of those lyrics. The original album gets a nice facelift, too, as songs like “Even the Loser” and “Century City” sound much, much better than the ones on the CD version I’ve owned since 1988. Hopefully the rest of Petty’s catalog will be spruced up soon. I’d kill for a deluxe version of Southern Accents. (Well, not literally kill. Hmm. Maybe if I could kill one certain older person my co-worker know and get Southern Accents as a reward. Yeah, that’ll do nicely. Let’s get cracking on that Universal.)
9) Doves - The Best of Doves (The Places Between 2000 - 2010) (EMI/Astralwerks)
I find it hard to believe that a band that’s issued only four albums over a decade could be doing a best of collection, especially in the era of cherry-picking single tracks. Yet here we are, with single disc, double disc, and two CD/one DVD packages from the UK trio Doves. I’m not trying to demean the quality of these collections--Doves have been one the most consistently rewarding bands I’ve been exposed to over the past decade. They have more than enough great songs to fill up an entire CD. The new song “Andalucia" that closes out the single disc version is on par with the other tracks that precede it. The two disc version of The Place Between comes with 19 rarities, B-sides and alternate versions. And these guys know how to make quality B-sides. After having to collect singles and download EPs the past few years, it’s nice to have a bunch of them all in one place.
8) Sweetheart 2010: Our Favorite Artists Sing Their Favorite Love Songs (Hear Music)
It finally happened. I bought a disc sold only at Starbucks stores. (Well, it was sold through iTunes too, which is where I downloaded it.) The years of iced venti skim chais took over my brain. Heck, I’ve even got a Starbucks Gold Card because I spent so much on my regular Starbucks card. The next thing you know I’ll be going to McDonald’s or ordering things online through Amazon and using a Microsoft web browser to do it from my desk at a Clear Channel owned company. (Oh, wait…guess my level of selling out to corporate America has already been rather high. I feel less guilty now. Thanks.) No matter what the origins were for Sweetheart, they’ve attracted a great roster of artists. Jose Gonzalez (tackling Kylie Minogue), Spoon (transforming a song by The Damned), Broken Bells/Shins frontman James Mercer (a low key take on Bob Dylan’s “Spanish Harlem Incident”) and Yo La Tengo (doing justice to The Zombies great “You Make Me Feel Good”) deliver some great covers. One stands way above the rest—The Long Winters’ stripped down piano and vocal version of ZZ Top’s “Gimme All Your Lovin’.” It’s one of the smartest reworkings of a hit song I’ve ever heard. Singer John Roderick takes Billy Gibbons words and turns them from some oversexed dude demanding more booty to a plaintive cry from a man struggling to keep a relationship going. It’s a stunning achievement, and one of the best covers I’ve heard. Go to iTunes and download it now. You’ll thank me later.
7) Nada Surf - If I Had a Hifi (Mardev Records)
When a band does an entire album of covers that’s usually a warning sign that something is amiss, as if they’ve run out of original ideas and they’re just looking to have something to tour behind. That might be the case with Nada Surf, but If I Had a Hi-Fi sounds like more than a holding action. Matthew Caws, Ira Elliot and Daniel Lorca give this wide array of songs their personal stamp without losing sight of what makes the originals worthwhile. The arrangements are imaginative, with the trio bringing in top notch guests like guitarist Doug Gillard and keyboardist Joe McGinty to broaden the scope of the music. It’s obvious to see why they would cover tracks by fellow pop lovers The Go-Betweens and Dwight Twilley, which makes the choices of The Moody Blues and Kate Bush that much more interesting. The cover of the Moody’s “Question” surprisingly hews the closest to the original. I love the original Bush track “Love and Anger” and I honestly had a hard time picturing a man singing it. But Caws uses the upper range of his voice to deliver a beautiful performance. “Love and Anger” has a big expansive sound that I’d love to hear them try with one of their originals. Hopefully, whatever the trio learned in making this album can be applied to their next original project.
6) Norah Jones - …featuring Norah Jones (Blue Note/EMI)
Norah Jones became an in demand duet partner since the release of her 2002 blockbuster debut Come Away With Me. Invariably these duets would require Jones to tap into sultry, low key delivery that she used to great effect on her debut and the albums that followed. While that sounds like a very limited use of Jones’s talents, ...featuring proves otherwise. This collection brings together 16 of these duets (as well as songs from two of her side projects, The Little Willies and El Mad Mo) with a wide range of collaborators. Jones sounds as comfortable trading lines with Willie Nelson and Dolly Parton as she does sweetening up tracks from Q-Tip and Outkast. Jones pulls off a neat trick on these songs—with the veteran acts she gives them a youthful vibe, while the acts more her age get a touch of classy elegance. All these tracks might have appeared on other artist’s albums first, but when put together in this format, they seem to belong only to Norah.
5) Through a Farway Window: A Tribute to Jimmy Silva (Steadyboy Records)
Any tribute album that includes four songs with lead vocals from my friend Scott McCaughey is going to make this list. McCaughey and his two bands Young Fresh Fellows and The Minus 5 have appeared on plenty of compilations and tributes over the years. But this one, which sees a roster of cool acts covering the late Jimmy Silva’s pop gems, holds a special place in McCaughey’s heart. So instead of me blabbering on trying to explain why Silva’s music is worth checking out, I asked Scott to pen a few words about his friend:
"Jimmy Silva was a great friend of mine, and probably the guy who most got me started at writing and recording my own songs. (Don't hold that against him!) The half a million or so who bought the Smithereens first LP were privileged to hear them tearing up Jimmy's creepy ‘Hand of Glory.’ Until his untimely death in 1994, he was a constant companion/collaborator/inspiration in the Young Fresh Fellows historic rise to, uh, whatever we rose to. Here, the YFF's extended family pay tribute to the songwriting greatness of our obscure, stage-shy, legendary, brilliant, and sorely-missed pal. Roy Loney of the Flamin' Groovies, Sal Valentino of the Beau Brummels, Dennis Diken of The Smithereens, Jon Auer of The Posies, Chris Eckman of The Walkabouts, John Wesley Harding, the Minus 5, and of course the Young Fresh Fellows. Amongst others. Hopefully this heartfelt sampling will encourage fans of The Who/R.E.M./Byrds etc. to seek out Jimmy Silva's four albums, most of which are still available on CD or LP by mail order from PopLlama Products (http://www.eggstudios.net/popllama.htm#silva). Kudos to Freddie Steady Krc and Jud Cost for herding the cats and making this album a reality. You can get more info at: http://www.steadyboyrecords.com/."
4) Bob Dylan - The Witmark Demos: 1962-1964 (The Bootleg Series Vol. 9) (Columbia)
This two disc compilation serves up 37 songs Bob Dylan recorded for his publisher at the time, Witmark and Sons. And Dylan wasn’t in a true recording studio when making these demos—it was a tiny room at the publisher’s office. That gives these recordings of some of Dylan’s greatest songs (“Blowin’ in the Wind,” “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall,” “Masters of War”) an intimacy that’s at times breathtaking. These familiar songs receive a new level freshness when you hear Dylan thump against a microphone or someone quickly closing a door as they were trying to leave before he starts the next demo. It’s a fascinating look at these songs in their infancy. As the collection goes on, you can hear Dylan get more confident in his own songwriting voice. It’s Dylan truly becoming “Bob Dylan” and it’s just as thrilling as it was almost 50 years ago.
3) The Monkees - The Bird, The Bees & The Monkees: Deluxe Edition (Rhino Handmade)
I was very fortunate to get the deluxe versions of the first four Monkees albums—The Monkees, More of The Monkees, Headquarters, Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones Ltd.—for free from the folks at Rhino. Alas, as the record industry slow dies, the gravy train of free collections has dried up. Along with that, labels are also more wary of mass producing reissues of minor releases from well known artists. So The Bird, The Bees & The Monkees: Deluxe Edition was produced in very limited quantities by the Rhino Handmade division of the amazing Rhino label. My co-worker Mike got a rare promo copy of the three disc box, so I borrowed it and ripped it into my iTunes. The original album features two killer singles (“Daydream Believer,” “Valleri”) and some cool deeper cuts, but damn, this box is chockfull of great songs that didn’t make the album that the four Monkees were recording on their own. Forty-five out of the 88 tracks are previously unreleased, a stunning amount of productivity for a group dismissed by critics over the past four decades. One listen to the gems on The Bird, The Bees & The Monkees: Deluxe Edition might make people change their minds.
2) Weezer - Pinkerton: Deluxe Edition (DGC/Geffen/UME)
As write this I’m exactly three weeks away from going to see Weezer on their Memories tour, which has them playing their self-titled debut album (a.k.a. The Blue Album) in its entirety one night and then Pinkerton the next. Unfortunately, the album performance comes after they play a set of “hits,” which will likely include such crap as “Memories,” “Beverly Hills” and a bunch of shit from their last three insanely horrible albums. I can predict that when any of those songs are being performed, I’ll either be at a bar at Roseland or checking Facebook and Twitter on my iPhone. To prep for that show, I’m sure I’ll be playing this fantastic reissue a few times. The two disc version of this 1996 classic gathers up all the B-sides, tons of live performances and a bunch of unreleased tracks in one handy package. In that spirit, I thought I’d gather up some greatest hits of writings about Pinkerton over the years:
1996 RT 20: “Many people have slammed it for not being as sonically smooth as their Ric Ocasek debut, but there’s nothing wrong with sloppiness (just look at my handwriting).”
SOTW 5/13/05: “I could go on and on about Pinkerton's impact on me and the many messed up young adults who worship the album, but plenty of other folks have already done that. I will say that its crazy, mixed up, self-loathing lyrics resonated with a self-loathing unconfident 26 year-old, and they still do to a much more confident, yet still incredibly self-loathing 35 year-old.”
2005 RT20: “Thankfully they only did five songs from Make Believe, and redeemed those poor selections by doing a few songs from Pinkerton. Those tracks got me pogoing, and then gave me the Achilles heel problem I’ve battled for most of the year. So thanks for that leg pain Weezer, it was worth it.”
(Postscript to that last one: my right heel has bothered me ever since. Oh, joy.)
1) Bruce Springsteen - The Promise: The Darkness on the Edge of Town Story (Columbia)
I feel like I offered up most of my thoughts about this incredible box set during the two part podcast I did last month with my friend and fellow Springsteen fanatic Bob Giordano last month. (Check it out at RT20podcast.com) Basically, this was perhaps the most productive time in Springsteen’s career. Between the proper Darkness album, the Darkness-era outtakes on the 1998 box Tracks and the 22 songs included on The Promise (the two disc collection of unreleased material available in the box or as a standalone album) there are over 40 tunes that Springsteen and the E Street Band recorded in 1977 and 1978. The dude wrote four albums worth of material to boil it down to one. Amazing. It’s a staggering amount of songs to create. The best one that never made any album, the full band version of “The Promise,” I think ranks among the best 20 songs the guy has ever written. It’s an epic song that takes some characters from “Thunder Road” and puts them in the prism of Springsteen’ own legal hassles with his manager after Born to Run. It’s easy to see why he scrapped releasing it, as it’s an unflinching look into the battle of artistic vision versus the harsh realties of business. The Promise also includes “Racing in the Street (’78),” a powerful, souped-up version of the Darkness ballad. It’s such a 180-degree turn from the album take that if I didn’t know the original’s lyrics, I never would have known they were the same song. And I hate to say it, but I think it’s better—much, much, much better that the version Springsteen decided to release all those many years ago. I’m very happy to have it right now, as I listened to it three times in a row composing this paragraph.
In the era in which seemingly every album needs to be reissued or repackaged as a deluxe edition (sometimes just a few months after the disc was first released) it’s slightly surprising that it’s taken this long for one of Tom Petty’s albums to get afforded this treatment. The extra disc that comes with Damn the Torpedoes is kind of flimsy as these types of things go. Nine tracks that barely scratch 30 minutes doesn’t seem like a lot when compared other packages further down on this list. Yet those nine tracks are of extremely high quality. The two previously unreleased leftovers, “Nowhere” and “Surrender,” could easily fit in on Torpedoes or its follow-up Hard Promises. The alternate take of “Refugee” shows a fascinating window into how the song developed into the monster hit. Anyone who’s listened to a classic rock station over the past 30 years can sing most of those lyrics. The original album gets a nice facelift, too, as songs like “Even the Loser” and “Century City” sound much, much better than the ones on the CD version I’ve owned since 1988. Hopefully the rest of Petty’s catalog will be spruced up soon. I’d kill for a deluxe version of Southern Accents. (Well, not literally kill. Hmm. Maybe if I could kill one certain older person my co-worker know and get Southern Accents as a reward. Yeah, that’ll do nicely. Let’s get cracking on that Universal.)
9) Doves - The Best of Doves (The Places Between 2000 - 2010) (EMI/Astralwerks)
I find it hard to believe that a band that’s issued only four albums over a decade could be doing a best of collection, especially in the era of cherry-picking single tracks. Yet here we are, with single disc, double disc, and two CD/one DVD packages from the UK trio Doves. I’m not trying to demean the quality of these collections--Doves have been one the most consistently rewarding bands I’ve been exposed to over the past decade. They have more than enough great songs to fill up an entire CD. The new song “Andalucia" that closes out the single disc version is on par with the other tracks that precede it. The two disc version of The Place Between comes with 19 rarities, B-sides and alternate versions. And these guys know how to make quality B-sides. After having to collect singles and download EPs the past few years, it’s nice to have a bunch of them all in one place.
8) Sweetheart 2010: Our Favorite Artists Sing Their Favorite Love Songs (Hear Music)
It finally happened. I bought a disc sold only at Starbucks stores. (Well, it was sold through iTunes too, which is where I downloaded it.) The years of iced venti skim chais took over my brain. Heck, I’ve even got a Starbucks Gold Card because I spent so much on my regular Starbucks card. The next thing you know I’ll be going to McDonald’s or ordering things online through Amazon and using a Microsoft web browser to do it from my desk at a Clear Channel owned company. (Oh, wait…guess my level of selling out to corporate America has already been rather high. I feel less guilty now. Thanks.) No matter what the origins were for Sweetheart, they’ve attracted a great roster of artists. Jose Gonzalez (tackling Kylie Minogue), Spoon (transforming a song by The Damned), Broken Bells/Shins frontman James Mercer (a low key take on Bob Dylan’s “Spanish Harlem Incident”) and Yo La Tengo (doing justice to The Zombies great “You Make Me Feel Good”) deliver some great covers. One stands way above the rest—The Long Winters’ stripped down piano and vocal version of ZZ Top’s “Gimme All Your Lovin’.” It’s one of the smartest reworkings of a hit song I’ve ever heard. Singer John Roderick takes Billy Gibbons words and turns them from some oversexed dude demanding more booty to a plaintive cry from a man struggling to keep a relationship going. It’s a stunning achievement, and one of the best covers I’ve heard. Go to iTunes and download it now. You’ll thank me later.
7) Nada Surf - If I Had a Hifi (Mardev Records)
When a band does an entire album of covers that’s usually a warning sign that something is amiss, as if they’ve run out of original ideas and they’re just looking to have something to tour behind. That might be the case with Nada Surf, but If I Had a Hi-Fi sounds like more than a holding action. Matthew Caws, Ira Elliot and Daniel Lorca give this wide array of songs their personal stamp without losing sight of what makes the originals worthwhile. The arrangements are imaginative, with the trio bringing in top notch guests like guitarist Doug Gillard and keyboardist Joe McGinty to broaden the scope of the music. It’s obvious to see why they would cover tracks by fellow pop lovers The Go-Betweens and Dwight Twilley, which makes the choices of The Moody Blues and Kate Bush that much more interesting. The cover of the Moody’s “Question” surprisingly hews the closest to the original. I love the original Bush track “Love and Anger” and I honestly had a hard time picturing a man singing it. But Caws uses the upper range of his voice to deliver a beautiful performance. “Love and Anger” has a big expansive sound that I’d love to hear them try with one of their originals. Hopefully, whatever the trio learned in making this album can be applied to their next original project.
6) Norah Jones - …featuring Norah Jones (Blue Note/EMI)
Norah Jones became an in demand duet partner since the release of her 2002 blockbuster debut Come Away With Me. Invariably these duets would require Jones to tap into sultry, low key delivery that she used to great effect on her debut and the albums that followed. While that sounds like a very limited use of Jones’s talents, ...featuring proves otherwise. This collection brings together 16 of these duets (as well as songs from two of her side projects, The Little Willies and El Mad Mo) with a wide range of collaborators. Jones sounds as comfortable trading lines with Willie Nelson and Dolly Parton as she does sweetening up tracks from Q-Tip and Outkast. Jones pulls off a neat trick on these songs—with the veteran acts she gives them a youthful vibe, while the acts more her age get a touch of classy elegance. All these tracks might have appeared on other artist’s albums first, but when put together in this format, they seem to belong only to Norah.
5) Through a Farway Window: A Tribute to Jimmy Silva (Steadyboy Records)
Any tribute album that includes four songs with lead vocals from my friend Scott McCaughey is going to make this list. McCaughey and his two bands Young Fresh Fellows and The Minus 5 have appeared on plenty of compilations and tributes over the years. But this one, which sees a roster of cool acts covering the late Jimmy Silva’s pop gems, holds a special place in McCaughey’s heart. So instead of me blabbering on trying to explain why Silva’s music is worth checking out, I asked Scott to pen a few words about his friend:
"Jimmy Silva was a great friend of mine, and probably the guy who most got me started at writing and recording my own songs. (Don't hold that against him!) The half a million or so who bought the Smithereens first LP were privileged to hear them tearing up Jimmy's creepy ‘Hand of Glory.’ Until his untimely death in 1994, he was a constant companion/collaborator/inspiration in the Young Fresh Fellows historic rise to, uh, whatever we rose to. Here, the YFF's extended family pay tribute to the songwriting greatness of our obscure, stage-shy, legendary, brilliant, and sorely-missed pal. Roy Loney of the Flamin' Groovies, Sal Valentino of the Beau Brummels, Dennis Diken of The Smithereens, Jon Auer of The Posies, Chris Eckman of The Walkabouts, John Wesley Harding, the Minus 5, and of course the Young Fresh Fellows. Amongst others. Hopefully this heartfelt sampling will encourage fans of The Who/R.E.M./Byrds etc. to seek out Jimmy Silva's four albums, most of which are still available on CD or LP by mail order from PopLlama Products (http://www.eggstudios.net/popllama.htm#silva). Kudos to Freddie Steady Krc and Jud Cost for herding the cats and making this album a reality. You can get more info at: http://www.steadyboyrecords.com/."
4) Bob Dylan - The Witmark Demos: 1962-1964 (The Bootleg Series Vol. 9) (Columbia)
This two disc compilation serves up 37 songs Bob Dylan recorded for his publisher at the time, Witmark and Sons. And Dylan wasn’t in a true recording studio when making these demos—it was a tiny room at the publisher’s office. That gives these recordings of some of Dylan’s greatest songs (“Blowin’ in the Wind,” “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall,” “Masters of War”) an intimacy that’s at times breathtaking. These familiar songs receive a new level freshness when you hear Dylan thump against a microphone or someone quickly closing a door as they were trying to leave before he starts the next demo. It’s a fascinating look at these songs in their infancy. As the collection goes on, you can hear Dylan get more confident in his own songwriting voice. It’s Dylan truly becoming “Bob Dylan” and it’s just as thrilling as it was almost 50 years ago.
3) The Monkees - The Bird, The Bees & The Monkees: Deluxe Edition (Rhino Handmade)
I was very fortunate to get the deluxe versions of the first four Monkees albums—The Monkees, More of The Monkees, Headquarters, Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones Ltd.—for free from the folks at Rhino. Alas, as the record industry slow dies, the gravy train of free collections has dried up. Along with that, labels are also more wary of mass producing reissues of minor releases from well known artists. So The Bird, The Bees & The Monkees: Deluxe Edition was produced in very limited quantities by the Rhino Handmade division of the amazing Rhino label. My co-worker Mike got a rare promo copy of the three disc box, so I borrowed it and ripped it into my iTunes. The original album features two killer singles (“Daydream Believer,” “Valleri”) and some cool deeper cuts, but damn, this box is chockfull of great songs that didn’t make the album that the four Monkees were recording on their own. Forty-five out of the 88 tracks are previously unreleased, a stunning amount of productivity for a group dismissed by critics over the past four decades. One listen to the gems on The Bird, The Bees & The Monkees: Deluxe Edition might make people change their minds.
2) Weezer - Pinkerton: Deluxe Edition (DGC/Geffen/UME)
As write this I’m exactly three weeks away from going to see Weezer on their Memories tour, which has them playing their self-titled debut album (a.k.a. The Blue Album) in its entirety one night and then Pinkerton the next. Unfortunately, the album performance comes after they play a set of “hits,” which will likely include such crap as “Memories,” “Beverly Hills” and a bunch of shit from their last three insanely horrible albums. I can predict that when any of those songs are being performed, I’ll either be at a bar at Roseland or checking Facebook and Twitter on my iPhone. To prep for that show, I’m sure I’ll be playing this fantastic reissue a few times. The two disc version of this 1996 classic gathers up all the B-sides, tons of live performances and a bunch of unreleased tracks in one handy package. In that spirit, I thought I’d gather up some greatest hits of writings about Pinkerton over the years:
1996 RT 20: “Many people have slammed it for not being as sonically smooth as their Ric Ocasek debut, but there’s nothing wrong with sloppiness (just look at my handwriting).”
SOTW 5/13/05: “I could go on and on about Pinkerton's impact on me and the many messed up young adults who worship the album, but plenty of other folks have already done that. I will say that its crazy, mixed up, self-loathing lyrics resonated with a self-loathing unconfident 26 year-old, and they still do to a much more confident, yet still incredibly self-loathing 35 year-old.”
2005 RT20: “Thankfully they only did five songs from Make Believe, and redeemed those poor selections by doing a few songs from Pinkerton. Those tracks got me pogoing, and then gave me the Achilles heel problem I’ve battled for most of the year. So thanks for that leg pain Weezer, it was worth it.”
(Postscript to that last one: my right heel has bothered me ever since. Oh, joy.)
1) Bruce Springsteen - The Promise: The Darkness on the Edge of Town Story (Columbia)
I feel like I offered up most of my thoughts about this incredible box set during the two part podcast I did last month with my friend and fellow Springsteen fanatic Bob Giordano last month. (Check it out at RT20podcast.com) Basically, this was perhaps the most productive time in Springsteen’s career. Between the proper Darkness album, the Darkness-era outtakes on the 1998 box Tracks and the 22 songs included on The Promise (the two disc collection of unreleased material available in the box or as a standalone album) there are over 40 tunes that Springsteen and the E Street Band recorded in 1977 and 1978. The dude wrote four albums worth of material to boil it down to one. Amazing. It’s a staggering amount of songs to create. The best one that never made any album, the full band version of “The Promise,” I think ranks among the best 20 songs the guy has ever written. It’s an epic song that takes some characters from “Thunder Road” and puts them in the prism of Springsteen’ own legal hassles with his manager after Born to Run. It’s easy to see why he scrapped releasing it, as it’s an unflinching look into the battle of artistic vision versus the harsh realties of business. The Promise also includes “Racing in the Street (’78),” a powerful, souped-up version of the Darkness ballad. It’s such a 180-degree turn from the album take that if I didn’t know the original’s lyrics, I never would have known they were the same song. And I hate to say it, but I think it’s better—much, much, much better that the version Springsteen decided to release all those many years ago. I’m very happy to have it right now, as I listened to it three times in a row composing this paragraph.
Concerts
10) Guster, Beacon Theater, New York, NY 10/29
Here’s a good rule of thumb to determine the quality of a concert—if a ukulele is lowered from the ceiling for someone to play (twice!), you’re probably getting your money’s worth. That cheeky nod to big rock productions (and reminiscent of the Stonehenge sequence in This Is Spinal Tap) was one of many humorous moments that make seeing Guster a fun experience. It also helped that the two songs I requested via text—“What You Call Love” and “The Beginning of the End”—were on the setlist. Oh, and the fact that we drank a large amount of hugely overpriced Bud Lights. And that my voice had come back after losing it earlier in that week so I could sing along with the chorus of young women screaming the words to “Amsterdam.” Basically, there was a whole lot of fun happening on stage and off that night. As an added bonus, I only saw two people dressed in costume. That was a relief, because at the rate Halloween seems to have expanded over the past few years I’ll soon have to deal with idiots wearing Frankenstein masks on my birthday.
9) The Acorn, Littlefield, Brooklyn, NY 9/24
I saw this Canadian quintet twice this year and both shows were great. I’ve rated the second show a little higher because the crowd seemed much more responsive and in tune with what the band was doing. During very quiet songs you could barely hear a peep out of the crowd. When the band ramped up the volume, the cheers at the end of each song responded in kind. And even though I had been up since 5:30 in the morning, I was still able to make it through their entire post-midnight set without thinking “Gosh, I’d like to lie down in the corner during this nice ballad and just close my eyes.” Of course, the bottle of Coke I had at 11:15 p.m. might have helped a bit. And frontman Rolf Klausener’s sense of humor helped, too. The band’s music can be rather serious and, at times, somber. But Klausener offsets that with witty, self-deprecating humor. I recall saying something like, “Who knew we’d get some stand-up at this show?” to my friend Lynne during their set. Hopefully we won’t have to wait another three years before they return to our fair city.
8) Buffalo Tom, Mercury Lounge, New York, NY 5/21
Like The Acorn, I saw Buffalo Tom twice this year. Unlike The Acorn, I’d rate the first BT show just a bit better than the second. Everything I would expect from a BT gig was delivered at this gig: singer-guitarist Bill Janovitz singing as if his life depended on it on each and every song; singer-bassist Chris Colbourn adding great backing and counterpoint vocals to Janovitz’s songs and delivering passionate performances whenever he stepped up to sing lead; drummer Tom Maginnis laying down a steady beat that holds it all together; and Janovitz joking with the crowd about various topics (aging, baseball, the 90s), bringing smiles to the faces of his two bandmates. Both shows saw the guys debut material from their new album Skins, which is due out February 15th of next year. What I’ve heard so far has me excited that I’ll be starting my third decade as a fan of BT.
7) Pavement, Rumsey Play Field, Central Park, New York, NY 9/22
I’ve heard reports and rumors that by the end of this lengthy reunion tour the five members of Pavement were not on the best of terms. I didn’t see any evidence of that during the rain-filled night two out of four in Central Park. I do believe that I never saw them play as tight or focused at any of the five shows I witnessed during their ’90s heyday. Frontman Stephen Malkmus didn’t toss off the lyrics as if they were totally inconsequential. His singing was strong and he enunciated all of the words, giving them a heft that I suppose only age and wisdom can imbue in them. (Or, if I was to be a cynic, that only a ton of reunion tour cash can imbue in them.) He and Spiral Stairs played crisp intertwined guitar lines and multi-instrumentalist Bob Nastanovich was as enthusiastic as I’ve ever seen him. Giving that guy a wireless mic so he can run around screaming lines in songs like “Conduit for Sale” was a technical masterstroke. If they never get together again, that’s fine. At least I was able to witness a Pavement show that wasn’t a letdown in any aspect. (Even the rain came with an amazing lightning show, so props to Mother Nature as well.)
6) The Baseball Project, Solid Sound Festival, North Adams, MA 8/13
The Solid Sound Festival was Wilco’s baby. They picked the bands playing over the three days, all of their side projects performed and they did the longest show on the main stage (which was set up in the backyard of Mass MoCA). Yet The Baseball Project’s hour-long set was my favorite part of the weekend. R.E.M.’s Mike Mills filled in for his bandmate Peter Buck on bass, and seeing (and hearing) him tackle material that wasn’t his own made me realize that he’s one fine melodic bass player. I’ve known that, of course, for many years. But it was nice to get a little reminder of the man’s talent. And it was great getting to hear some new Baseball Project songs and to watch Steve Wynn and Scott McCaughey (in stop action motion below) do some guitar heroics on Wynn’s “Amphetamine.”
5) Jenny Dee & The Deelinquents, Barrence Whitfield & The Monkeyhips, Union Hall, Brooklyn, NY 3/3
Full disclosure: my good friend Ed Valauskas plays in Jenny Dee & The Deelinquents with his wife Jennifer (a.k.a. Jenny Dee), so I’m obviously biased about their 60s girl group-influenced music. Each time I’ve seen them perform they deliver a level of musicianship and fun that seems lacking in other acts that mine the same rich territory. I went to this show with every intention of watching Ed, Jen and company play and then head back home since it was Wednesday night. Then I saw Pete Caldes walk into Union Hall and I discovered he was playing with the headline act on the bill, Barrence Whitfield & The Monkeyhips. Pete is the drummer in two of my favorite bands, The Gravel Pit and The Gentlemen, and I’ve been fortunate to see him display his talent with other bands as well over the past decade. So I figured I had to stay and see Pete play with this act I knew nothing about. After Ed got done playing I told him I’d never heard of Barrence Whitfield. He cocked his head to the side and said, “Oh man Reynolds, you’re going to have your mind blown.” Now if anybody else had said this me I would have discounted it as just typical hype. But I respect Ed’s opinion (and ears) very highly, so I sensed I might be in for something special. And holy crap, it was incredible. Whitfield—who is a highly respected old school R&B vocalist from Boston—has one of the best voices I’ve ever heard. He can go croon in a low growl, stop on a dime and switch to a high-pitched wail. And the man has stage presence by the bucketloads. If it could be bottled and sold, there would be hundreds of singers half Whitfield’s age (he’s 55) clamoring to buy as much as possible. I left Union Hall 2 hours later than I expected—and with a shit-eating grin that was entirely surprising.
4) The Figgs, Fontana’s, New York, NY 5/14
The late booking of this gig meant that The Figgs were playing very early and only had a 45 minute slot. When they arrived on stage they decided to just play their new album The Man Who Fights Himself in order. I had seen all of the songs live in the past four years since their last album Follow Jean through the Sea, but it was fun hearing them all bunched together like that. Before the show singer-guitarist Mike Gent told me that his uncle had died and he'd have to travel up to Troy in the morning for the funeral. Just before the fifth track “A One Man Fiasco,” Gent told the crowd about his uncle and asked everyone to raise their glasses in honor of him. And every single person did. It was a very moving sight. And then when Gent got to the third verse, things got a little bit dusty in Chinatown:
“Maybe some sleep, will bring a little peace.
The saddest thing I've ever seen.
Family will come, and eventually
All will have to leave.”
It was the most emotional moment I've had at a Figgs show in probably a decade, and one that I won’t soon forget.
3) Wilco, Wellmont Theater, Montclair, NJ 4/3
It seems every year I have a Wilco on this list. I’m running out of words and phrases to describe how much I enjoy them. So I’ll just say that any time I can see Jeff Tweedy and company play 37 songs—and close their main set with two Big Star covers (“Thank You Friends” and “In the Street”) in tribute to the late Alex Chilton, I will totally go through the hassle of renting a car (and making a wrong turn in the swamps of Jersey) to go.
2) LCD Soundsystem, ACL Festival, Zilker Park, Austin, TX 10/9
Here’s a funny thing about the concert list this year—seven out of the 11 acts I’ve mentioned I’ve seen two or more times this year. So a lot of these artists have been competing with themselves. Hmm, weird. In any case, I was able to see LCD Soundsystem at two very different parts of their tour schedule. The first was back in April as LCD mastermind James Murphy was warming up the latest lineup of the band with two New York club gigs before they officially started their tour at Coachella. It was okay, but it was obvious throughout the night that Murphy was letting his perfectionist side take over as he kept going to various band members to critique whatever part they were playing. The second time was six months after that show just as the sun was starting to set on Zilker Park. The crew of folks I was hanging with at the festival all planned on seeing other acts at the time. So I focused on getting ready to enjoy what could be the last time I see LCD Soundsystem. (Murphy has made comments about retiring the band after this tour cycle is over, which would be a shame.) I got a couple of huge cans of beer and got up close to the stage. As showtime got close, I found myself next to a guy who was getting ready to film a few songs with a snazzy looking camera. We ended up talking about the band and other times we had seen them. I mentioned that I had seen their second warm up show and that they weren’t as tight as I expected. Then the band came on and played an epic version of This Is Happening opener “Dance Yrself Clean.” At the end of the nine-plus minutes the camera guy turned to me and said, with a huge smile, “Dude, I think they’ve gotten a bit together since then.” And he wasn’t kidding. LCD Soundsystem is the only band around that makes me want to dance during their entire set. And I’m no dancing fool, as Frank Zappa would say. Yet the mix of rock elements, vintage keyboards and phenomenal playing from drummer Pat Mahoney touches some part of my musical soul and I feel my body moving. It’s not a pretty sight, trust me. I suppose that’s why I’ve loved both times I’ve seen LCD Soundsytem at ACL—I got to dance around amongst the younger teeming masses and no one I know saw it.
1) Nada Surf, John Roderick, The Bell House, Brooklyn, NY 3/26
Nada Surf joined the “let’s play an album straight through” club with a three-night stand in Manhattan and Brooklyn early this spring at three different clubs. The trio did Let Go the first night at Bowery Ballroom, The Weight is a Gift at The Bell House the second night and Lucky at the Music Hall of Williamsburg the third. I was lucky (no pun intended) to see the first two nights, each of which was thrilling in its own way. Both albums have become huge parts of my life over the past six years and definitely would be listed in my fifty favorite albums of all time. (I won’t be writing that list this year. You’ll have to wait until the 25th anniversary or something.) The Weight is a Gift is the album I prefer, so I guess it’s not surprising that show was better to my eyes and ears. Yet what truly made the night special was the opening acoustic set by The Long Winters’ frontman John Roderick. He was side-splittingly funny in between his songs. And the man’s songs, goodness. His creative wordplay and knack for memorable melodies have made them one of my biggest discoveries of the past decade. Roderick was obviously honored to be sharing the stage with Nada Surf in their hometown, commenting “if [frontman] Matthew Caws wants me to open, I’ll fly wherever needed to do it.” Roderick’s set closer “The Commander Thinks Aloud” saw Nada Surf and their guest keyboardist Joe McGinty come out and slowly transform the song from an acoustic number to a full-fledged rock anthem. The joy in Roderick’s and Caws’s faces as the song built were total infectious. It was one of those rare moments of: “Wow, I can actually feel the hair standing on the back of my neck, seriously, it’s really doing that.” Roderick later returned the favor by reprising his studio role of singing on two Weight songs, “What is Your Secret” and “Your Legs Grow.” And while seeing Weight all the way through was a joyous and cathartic experience, Caws and company followed that up with a great set drawn from their other albums and their brand new covers disc If I Had a Hi-Fi. All in all, it was one of those nights that make me realize why I’ve devoted so much time of my life to seeing and listening to music.
Here’s a good rule of thumb to determine the quality of a concert—if a ukulele is lowered from the ceiling for someone to play (twice!), you’re probably getting your money’s worth. That cheeky nod to big rock productions (and reminiscent of the Stonehenge sequence in This Is Spinal Tap) was one of many humorous moments that make seeing Guster a fun experience. It also helped that the two songs I requested via text—“What You Call Love” and “The Beginning of the End”—were on the setlist. Oh, and the fact that we drank a large amount of hugely overpriced Bud Lights. And that my voice had come back after losing it earlier in that week so I could sing along with the chorus of young women screaming the words to “Amsterdam.” Basically, there was a whole lot of fun happening on stage and off that night. As an added bonus, I only saw two people dressed in costume. That was a relief, because at the rate Halloween seems to have expanded over the past few years I’ll soon have to deal with idiots wearing Frankenstein masks on my birthday.
9) The Acorn, Littlefield, Brooklyn, NY 9/24
I saw this Canadian quintet twice this year and both shows were great. I’ve rated the second show a little higher because the crowd seemed much more responsive and in tune with what the band was doing. During very quiet songs you could barely hear a peep out of the crowd. When the band ramped up the volume, the cheers at the end of each song responded in kind. And even though I had been up since 5:30 in the morning, I was still able to make it through their entire post-midnight set without thinking “Gosh, I’d like to lie down in the corner during this nice ballad and just close my eyes.” Of course, the bottle of Coke I had at 11:15 p.m. might have helped a bit. And frontman Rolf Klausener’s sense of humor helped, too. The band’s music can be rather serious and, at times, somber. But Klausener offsets that with witty, self-deprecating humor. I recall saying something like, “Who knew we’d get some stand-up at this show?” to my friend Lynne during their set. Hopefully we won’t have to wait another three years before they return to our fair city.
8) Buffalo Tom, Mercury Lounge, New York, NY 5/21
Like The Acorn, I saw Buffalo Tom twice this year. Unlike The Acorn, I’d rate the first BT show just a bit better than the second. Everything I would expect from a BT gig was delivered at this gig: singer-guitarist Bill Janovitz singing as if his life depended on it on each and every song; singer-bassist Chris Colbourn adding great backing and counterpoint vocals to Janovitz’s songs and delivering passionate performances whenever he stepped up to sing lead; drummer Tom Maginnis laying down a steady beat that holds it all together; and Janovitz joking with the crowd about various topics (aging, baseball, the 90s), bringing smiles to the faces of his two bandmates. Both shows saw the guys debut material from their new album Skins, which is due out February 15th of next year. What I’ve heard so far has me excited that I’ll be starting my third decade as a fan of BT.
7) Pavement, Rumsey Play Field, Central Park, New York, NY 9/22
I’ve heard reports and rumors that by the end of this lengthy reunion tour the five members of Pavement were not on the best of terms. I didn’t see any evidence of that during the rain-filled night two out of four in Central Park. I do believe that I never saw them play as tight or focused at any of the five shows I witnessed during their ’90s heyday. Frontman Stephen Malkmus didn’t toss off the lyrics as if they were totally inconsequential. His singing was strong and he enunciated all of the words, giving them a heft that I suppose only age and wisdom can imbue in them. (Or, if I was to be a cynic, that only a ton of reunion tour cash can imbue in them.) He and Spiral Stairs played crisp intertwined guitar lines and multi-instrumentalist Bob Nastanovich was as enthusiastic as I’ve ever seen him. Giving that guy a wireless mic so he can run around screaming lines in songs like “Conduit for Sale” was a technical masterstroke. If they never get together again, that’s fine. At least I was able to witness a Pavement show that wasn’t a letdown in any aspect. (Even the rain came with an amazing lightning show, so props to Mother Nature as well.)
6) The Baseball Project, Solid Sound Festival, North Adams, MA 8/13
The Solid Sound Festival was Wilco’s baby. They picked the bands playing over the three days, all of their side projects performed and they did the longest show on the main stage (which was set up in the backyard of Mass MoCA). Yet The Baseball Project’s hour-long set was my favorite part of the weekend. R.E.M.’s Mike Mills filled in for his bandmate Peter Buck on bass, and seeing (and hearing) him tackle material that wasn’t his own made me realize that he’s one fine melodic bass player. I’ve known that, of course, for many years. But it was nice to get a little reminder of the man’s talent. And it was great getting to hear some new Baseball Project songs and to watch Steve Wynn and Scott McCaughey (in stop action motion below) do some guitar heroics on Wynn’s “Amphetamine.”
5) Jenny Dee & The Deelinquents, Barrence Whitfield & The Monkeyhips, Union Hall, Brooklyn, NY 3/3
Full disclosure: my good friend Ed Valauskas plays in Jenny Dee & The Deelinquents with his wife Jennifer (a.k.a. Jenny Dee), so I’m obviously biased about their 60s girl group-influenced music. Each time I’ve seen them perform they deliver a level of musicianship and fun that seems lacking in other acts that mine the same rich territory. I went to this show with every intention of watching Ed, Jen and company play and then head back home since it was Wednesday night. Then I saw Pete Caldes walk into Union Hall and I discovered he was playing with the headline act on the bill, Barrence Whitfield & The Monkeyhips. Pete is the drummer in two of my favorite bands, The Gravel Pit and The Gentlemen, and I’ve been fortunate to see him display his talent with other bands as well over the past decade. So I figured I had to stay and see Pete play with this act I knew nothing about. After Ed got done playing I told him I’d never heard of Barrence Whitfield. He cocked his head to the side and said, “Oh man Reynolds, you’re going to have your mind blown.” Now if anybody else had said this me I would have discounted it as just typical hype. But I respect Ed’s opinion (and ears) very highly, so I sensed I might be in for something special. And holy crap, it was incredible. Whitfield—who is a highly respected old school R&B vocalist from Boston—has one of the best voices I’ve ever heard. He can go croon in a low growl, stop on a dime and switch to a high-pitched wail. And the man has stage presence by the bucketloads. If it could be bottled and sold, there would be hundreds of singers half Whitfield’s age (he’s 55) clamoring to buy as much as possible. I left Union Hall 2 hours later than I expected—and with a shit-eating grin that was entirely surprising.
4) The Figgs, Fontana’s, New York, NY 5/14
The late booking of this gig meant that The Figgs were playing very early and only had a 45 minute slot. When they arrived on stage they decided to just play their new album The Man Who Fights Himself in order. I had seen all of the songs live in the past four years since their last album Follow Jean through the Sea, but it was fun hearing them all bunched together like that. Before the show singer-guitarist Mike Gent told me that his uncle had died and he'd have to travel up to Troy in the morning for the funeral. Just before the fifth track “A One Man Fiasco,” Gent told the crowd about his uncle and asked everyone to raise their glasses in honor of him. And every single person did. It was a very moving sight. And then when Gent got to the third verse, things got a little bit dusty in Chinatown:
“Maybe some sleep, will bring a little peace.
The saddest thing I've ever seen.
Family will come, and eventually
All will have to leave.”
It was the most emotional moment I've had at a Figgs show in probably a decade, and one that I won’t soon forget.
3) Wilco, Wellmont Theater, Montclair, NJ 4/3
It seems every year I have a Wilco on this list. I’m running out of words and phrases to describe how much I enjoy them. So I’ll just say that any time I can see Jeff Tweedy and company play 37 songs—and close their main set with two Big Star covers (“Thank You Friends” and “In the Street”) in tribute to the late Alex Chilton, I will totally go through the hassle of renting a car (and making a wrong turn in the swamps of Jersey) to go.
2) LCD Soundsystem, ACL Festival, Zilker Park, Austin, TX 10/9
Here’s a funny thing about the concert list this year—seven out of the 11 acts I’ve mentioned I’ve seen two or more times this year. So a lot of these artists have been competing with themselves. Hmm, weird. In any case, I was able to see LCD Soundsystem at two very different parts of their tour schedule. The first was back in April as LCD mastermind James Murphy was warming up the latest lineup of the band with two New York club gigs before they officially started their tour at Coachella. It was okay, but it was obvious throughout the night that Murphy was letting his perfectionist side take over as he kept going to various band members to critique whatever part they were playing. The second time was six months after that show just as the sun was starting to set on Zilker Park. The crew of folks I was hanging with at the festival all planned on seeing other acts at the time. So I focused on getting ready to enjoy what could be the last time I see LCD Soundsystem. (Murphy has made comments about retiring the band after this tour cycle is over, which would be a shame.) I got a couple of huge cans of beer and got up close to the stage. As showtime got close, I found myself next to a guy who was getting ready to film a few songs with a snazzy looking camera. We ended up talking about the band and other times we had seen them. I mentioned that I had seen their second warm up show and that they weren’t as tight as I expected. Then the band came on and played an epic version of This Is Happening opener “Dance Yrself Clean.” At the end of the nine-plus minutes the camera guy turned to me and said, with a huge smile, “Dude, I think they’ve gotten a bit together since then.” And he wasn’t kidding. LCD Soundsystem is the only band around that makes me want to dance during their entire set. And I’m no dancing fool, as Frank Zappa would say. Yet the mix of rock elements, vintage keyboards and phenomenal playing from drummer Pat Mahoney touches some part of my musical soul and I feel my body moving. It’s not a pretty sight, trust me. I suppose that’s why I’ve loved both times I’ve seen LCD Soundsytem at ACL—I got to dance around amongst the younger teeming masses and no one I know saw it.
1) Nada Surf, John Roderick, The Bell House, Brooklyn, NY 3/26
Nada Surf joined the “let’s play an album straight through” club with a three-night stand in Manhattan and Brooklyn early this spring at three different clubs. The trio did Let Go the first night at Bowery Ballroom, The Weight is a Gift at The Bell House the second night and Lucky at the Music Hall of Williamsburg the third. I was lucky (no pun intended) to see the first two nights, each of which was thrilling in its own way. Both albums have become huge parts of my life over the past six years and definitely would be listed in my fifty favorite albums of all time. (I won’t be writing that list this year. You’ll have to wait until the 25th anniversary or something.) The Weight is a Gift is the album I prefer, so I guess it’s not surprising that show was better to my eyes and ears. Yet what truly made the night special was the opening acoustic set by The Long Winters’ frontman John Roderick. He was side-splittingly funny in between his songs. And the man’s songs, goodness. His creative wordplay and knack for memorable melodies have made them one of my biggest discoveries of the past decade. Roderick was obviously honored to be sharing the stage with Nada Surf in their hometown, commenting “if [frontman] Matthew Caws wants me to open, I’ll fly wherever needed to do it.” Roderick’s set closer “The Commander Thinks Aloud” saw Nada Surf and their guest keyboardist Joe McGinty come out and slowly transform the song from an acoustic number to a full-fledged rock anthem. The joy in Roderick’s and Caws’s faces as the song built were total infectious. It was one of those rare moments of: “Wow, I can actually feel the hair standing on the back of my neck, seriously, it’s really doing that.” Roderick later returned the favor by reprising his studio role of singing on two Weight songs, “What is Your Secret” and “Your Legs Grow.” And while seeing Weight all the way through was a joyous and cathartic experience, Caws and company followed that up with a great set drawn from their other albums and their brand new covers disc If I Had a Hi-Fi. All in all, it was one of those nights that make me realize why I’ve devoted so much time of my life to seeing and listening to music.
Discovery of the Year
The Acorn
I never would have heard of this band except for my friend Jonah Eller-Isaacs playing them on a podcast I recorded with him last year. The two songs he played—“Hold Your Breath” and “Glory”—came from the album Glory Hope Mountain. Instead of trying to explain how much the band meant to Jonah and how that drew me into be a fan, I asked Jonah to explain it in his own words:
"It was an opening set by the Canadian band The Acorn that first caught my attention, a set strong enough that the headliner is lost to me now. I discovered later that it was the band's first set in the United States, and they left the Union Hall audience with a collectively dropped jaw. It wasn't just the music that drew us all in; it was their energy, a spiritual Tesla coil of energy that electrified the enraptured crowd. I took home Glory Hope Mountain and listened, and listened, and listened. It was like being a teenager again, that obsessive love, the poring over lyrics and album art, the search for connection and meaning in another's artistic vision. Of course, I had just been handed a potentially terminal cancer diagnosis, which heightened the emotional stakes of, well, everything, and certainly made it easier to fall madly in love with a tender album like this one.
When The Acorn returned to Union Hall for their first American headlining set, I made sure to bring a crew of friends, knowing that they would all be hooked, as they were. I approached the band after the show and said, “Look, I know this is kind of intense, but I'm dealing with a cancer diagnosis right now, and your album has been a balm for me. It’s lovely and beautiful and thank you.” And then the touring female vocalist and I had a good long cry.
I've seen The Acorn numerous times since then, and when they played Mercury Lounge earlier this year, Steve had just finished an interview with the band. He had explained my love of the band and their music, and as the band began their song “Glory,” the lead singer Rolf Klausener dedicated the song to me. Sweet, to be sure, but I don't think Rolf knew how deeply that particular song spoke to me. At “Glory’s” emotional peak, Rolf sings “Oh, the morning sun has come, and you’re not there.” It’s a terrible necessity of living with chronic illness that one must confront the question of mortality; I've always imagined that line anticipating a Jonah-less morning. And yet The Acorn's music fills me with hope—hope as in esperanza, the middle name of Rolf's mother, to whom Glory Hope Mountain is dedicated. As long as bands like The Acorn keep producing music of depth, resonance and meaning, I will continue to find hope."
I never would have heard of this band except for my friend Jonah Eller-Isaacs playing them on a podcast I recorded with him last year. The two songs he played—“Hold Your Breath” and “Glory”—came from the album Glory Hope Mountain. Instead of trying to explain how much the band meant to Jonah and how that drew me into be a fan, I asked Jonah to explain it in his own words:
"It was an opening set by the Canadian band The Acorn that first caught my attention, a set strong enough that the headliner is lost to me now. I discovered later that it was the band's first set in the United States, and they left the Union Hall audience with a collectively dropped jaw. It wasn't just the music that drew us all in; it was their energy, a spiritual Tesla coil of energy that electrified the enraptured crowd. I took home Glory Hope Mountain and listened, and listened, and listened. It was like being a teenager again, that obsessive love, the poring over lyrics and album art, the search for connection and meaning in another's artistic vision. Of course, I had just been handed a potentially terminal cancer diagnosis, which heightened the emotional stakes of, well, everything, and certainly made it easier to fall madly in love with a tender album like this one.
When The Acorn returned to Union Hall for their first American headlining set, I made sure to bring a crew of friends, knowing that they would all be hooked, as they were. I approached the band after the show and said, “Look, I know this is kind of intense, but I'm dealing with a cancer diagnosis right now, and your album has been a balm for me. It’s lovely and beautiful and thank you.” And then the touring female vocalist and I had a good long cry.
I've seen The Acorn numerous times since then, and when they played Mercury Lounge earlier this year, Steve had just finished an interview with the band. He had explained my love of the band and their music, and as the band began their song “Glory,” the lead singer Rolf Klausener dedicated the song to me. Sweet, to be sure, but I don't think Rolf knew how deeply that particular song spoke to me. At “Glory’s” emotional peak, Rolf sings “Oh, the morning sun has come, and you’re not there.” It’s a terrible necessity of living with chronic illness that one must confront the question of mortality; I've always imagined that line anticipating a Jonah-less morning. And yet The Acorn's music fills me with hope—hope as in esperanza, the middle name of Rolf's mother, to whom Glory Hope Mountain is dedicated. As long as bands like The Acorn keep producing music of depth, resonance and meaning, I will continue to find hope."
ReDiscovery of the Year
Nine Inch Nails
It took two bucks to reignite my love and respect for Nine Inch Nails. That's how much I spent on a copy of their 1999 double album The Fragile at a moving sale on Union Street in Park Slope at the end of this summer. It was a total impulse purchase—I hadn’t listened to any NIN in at least three years, and even then it was a one-time only spin of Year Zero before I filed it away in my library. I ripped The Fragile into my iTunes and listened to it all the way through on a lengthier-than-expected trip from my house out to the U.S. Open on the Friday of Labor Day weekend. And it blew my mind. It was perfect for an overcast, kind of steamy day filled with slow moving F and 7 trains. The following day I ordered three used Nine Inch Nails discs through Amazon and downloaded The Slip, which Trent Reznor gave away for free in 2008.
I’ve always been amazed I ended up liking Nine Inch Nails. When Pretty Hate Machine was released in 1989 I lumped the band in with all the other goth/industrial dance acts that the guys and gals that wore black played with a righteous fervor at WICB. It was the 1992 Broken EP that won me over because a) it rocked and b) I finally could get the angst and rage that Reznor was spitting out in his lyrics. With a much more discerning ear 18 years later, it's not Reznor’s words that hook me in songs like “Wish” or “Happiness in Slavery,” but the pure wall of noise that he's painstakingly constructed that gets down into my very core. Sometimes all that racket sounds almost joyful to me, like Trent was having fun making these crazy layered noises. I started jogging again this year and the NIN playlist I assembled on my iPod might be the best thing on there to get the blood flowing.
Of course, getting into a band again a year after their frontman decides he doesn’t want to tour any more and is going to devote himself to other projects? Why yes, that is excellent timing, thanks.
It took two bucks to reignite my love and respect for Nine Inch Nails. That's how much I spent on a copy of their 1999 double album The Fragile at a moving sale on Union Street in Park Slope at the end of this summer. It was a total impulse purchase—I hadn’t listened to any NIN in at least three years, and even then it was a one-time only spin of Year Zero before I filed it away in my library. I ripped The Fragile into my iTunes and listened to it all the way through on a lengthier-than-expected trip from my house out to the U.S. Open on the Friday of Labor Day weekend. And it blew my mind. It was perfect for an overcast, kind of steamy day filled with slow moving F and 7 trains. The following day I ordered three used Nine Inch Nails discs through Amazon and downloaded The Slip, which Trent Reznor gave away for free in 2008.
I’ve always been amazed I ended up liking Nine Inch Nails. When Pretty Hate Machine was released in 1989 I lumped the band in with all the other goth/industrial dance acts that the guys and gals that wore black played with a righteous fervor at WICB. It was the 1992 Broken EP that won me over because a) it rocked and b) I finally could get the angst and rage that Reznor was spitting out in his lyrics. With a much more discerning ear 18 years later, it's not Reznor’s words that hook me in songs like “Wish” or “Happiness in Slavery,” but the pure wall of noise that he's painstakingly constructed that gets down into my very core. Sometimes all that racket sounds almost joyful to me, like Trent was having fun making these crazy layered noises. I started jogging again this year and the NIN playlist I assembled on my iPod might be the best thing on there to get the blood flowing.
Of course, getting into a band again a year after their frontman decides he doesn’t want to tour any more and is going to devote himself to other projects? Why yes, that is excellent timing, thanks.
2010's Top 10 Visual Aids
10) Human Target (FOX)
This series (which surprised me by getting renewed for a second season) is loosely based upon a DC Comic where the main character, Christopher Chance, takes the place of the people he's protecting using complex disguises. Since having a bunch of guest stars as the main character each week doesn’t bode well for a TV show, Chase became a guy who protects people by being good at everything: shooting, foreign languages, piloting planes, etc. Mark Valley is a charismatic lead as Chance and because the guy was actually in the Army, he looks totally natural holding a gun and other weapons. But the show’s main appeal is the amusing, frustrated comic chemistry between Chi McBride (Winston, Chase’s partner) and Jackie Earle Haley (Guerrero, a sort of reformed bad guy hacker). These two actors bring their characters bickering to a level that is a pure joy to watch. However, I’m not sold on the second season so far as the new show-runner a) completely dismissed last season’s cliff-hanger in like five minutes; b) changed the opening theme music and credits, which were a cool throwback to the shows I loved in the 70s and 80s and c) added two other regular characters that will likely take away from the screen time that McBride and Haley get together. The show will air after American Idol in January and February, so it might get a third season. And I might not care if it does after seeing the first few episodes of the second.
9) Lost (ABC)
Let’s get the finale out of the way: I disliked…no, no. Let me rephrase that:
I HATED THAT FUCKING FINALE WITH A SCALDING HOT PASSION THAT I USUALLY RESERVE FOR THE YANKEES OR A CERTAIN PERSON WHOSE NAME I CANNOT UTTER WHO I KNEW FIVE YEARS AGO.
(Whew, I feel better now. I better grab a bottle of water and take a couple of sips.)
(Okay, now I’m really better.)
Yet with my, um, distaste for the finale and the reveal that the sideways world was some sort of purgatory, I did enjoy much of Lost’s final season. I thought Terry O’Quinn did some rather fine work playing the evil incarnate on the island that had taken on the form of John Locke. The episode where we found out the backstory about Richard Alpert (Nestor Carbonell) was easily one of my top five favorite of the entire series, even if it didn’t follow the usual Lost template. (The same can’t be said for the backstory about Jacob and his brother, oy.) And seeing Sawyer (Josh Holloway) and Miles (Ken Leung) in what could have been a buddy cop movie in the sideways world (cough, cough, pardon me, puuuuuuuuuuurgatory) made me pine for an actual spinoff with those two actors in a buddy cop series. I’m pretty sure it would have been more Fraiser, less AfterMASH. I will honestly miss Lost when January rolls around. There’s rarely been a show that’s made me so enthralled, puzzled, scared and hungry (those Dharma Initiative food drops were like subliminal advertising for food for me) all at the same time. I’m doubtful that there will be show that I follow as fervently ever again.
8) Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (Universal)
Scott Pilgrim vs. the World is yet another movie based on a comic book/graphic novel. The title character is a typical slacker in his early 20s, playing bass in a band (Sex Bob-Omb) and living in a tiny apartment because he’s broke. (He sleeps in the same bed as his gay roommate.) He falls for a messenger named Ramona Flowers, pursues her and quickly finds out that he has to beat her all seven members of her League of Evil Exes in combat if he wants to make things work. That summation probably makes you think, “That’ll never work as a movie.” Yet Pilgrim is perhaps the closest anyone has captured the actual feel of reading a comic book on the big screen. (Sorry Ang Lee—cool panel graphics didn’t save your craptacular attempt at The Hulk.) The way Pilgrim (played by Michael Cera) dives into the fights against the execs as if he’s playing a video game seems completely natural in the world director Edgar Wright has drawn from the original source material. I can honestly say that I haven’t had such an enjoyable, fun and rollicking experience in a movie theater in many years.
7) Bruce Springsteen - The Promise: The Darkness on the Edge of Town Story (Columbia)
Yes, I had this at the top of the Reissues, etc. section just a couple pages back. But it’s my list, so if I want to give this box a spot on another list I totally can do it. The wealth of visual material in this set is overwhelming. The documentary about the making of Darkness is top notch, yet it’s still the weakest part of the box. Watching Springsteen and the E Street Band perform the album in its entirety in 2009 is a thrill, even with the lack of an audience at the Paramount Theater in Asbury Park. That decision pays off big time as director Thom Zimny was able to put cameras on stage and film the band from different angles that wouldn’t be used in a typical concert DVD. (I especially liked the camera that swoops around Springsteen and Steve Van Zandt as they share the microphone during one song.) Combine that with a treasure trove of in studio performances from the Darkness sessions and an entire concert from Houston in 1978 and you have a collection that will be hard for any artist to top. I guess the box set ball is in your corner, Neil Young.
6) The Good Guys (FOX)
I only know one other person that’s watched this show from the creator of Burn Notice. My former co-worker Erich lives in Dallas, where the show is filmed, and he told me once that “If you want to know about Dallas, watch The Good Guys. It really embraces the city.” Alas, by the time you read this it will have aired its last episode. And that’s a shame, because it’s the first show since The X-Files that’s been on a network on Friday nights that I would consider staying in for. On the surface, The Good Guys is a standard mismatched buddy cop show. Colin Hanks plays the tightly wound, by-the-book younger partner, while Bradley Whitford plays the “I don’t go by the book, I go by my gut” older partner. Yet it’s much richer than that description. Every bad guy on this show has some sort of issue that is always hysterical—explaining at every turn why he’s vegan, worrying because he’s the second best assassin in the world, trying to keep his bed and breakfast clean, or worrying how he’ll keep their falafel restaurant open. And Whitford (and his amazing, straight-from-the-early-80s moustache) just chews through the scenery with an over the top performance as Foghat-loving, Trans Am-driving, beer-swilling Dan Stark. He delivers some of the funniest lines on TV week after week while laying out his creed about police work. Some examples include:
—“Evidence is like a bowl of soup. It goes cold you gotta heat it up again and scrape off the film that grows on top and dig in.”
—“I am proud of my willingness to lubricate myself for the cause of justice.”
—“Crime is like a woman, when she needs your attention you gotta pull your gun out.”
I am really going to miss Dan Stark. And his moustache.
5) Chuck (NBC)
In last year’s list I made a plea for folks to watch the third season of Chuck debuting in January 2010. That was a mistake. I should have said, watch season 3.1 that’s debuting in late April. Those six episodes, ordered after the initial 13 of the season had been mapped out, showed off everything that’s great about this action/comedy/sometime-drama-when-the-mood-requires-it. I’ve finally come to the acceptance that this show will never be a mid-sized hit. It always comes in fourth in its time slot. Of course, that’s like every other show on NBC, and since Chuck doesn’t get as pulverized as other programs the last place network puts on there’s a good chance it might make it to a fifth season. And that would be amazing after the Subway campaign to save it in 2009.
4) Terriers (FX)
Full disclosure: one of the regulars on this highly underwatched series, Jamie Denbo, is married to one of my good friends from college, John Ross Bowie. And honestly, I wouldn’t have thought about watching or DVR-ing the show if she wasn’t on it. Wow, am I happy that I did. It’s the best new American-made series of the year. (That distinction will make sense in three entries below.) I’ve always enjoyed the work of the star Donal Logue, yet the FX campaign that showed a couple of barking dogs made me think the show was about dog catchers or something. (And this is coming from a guy that reads a great deal about the TV business each and every week.) Whoever came up with that campaign at FX ought to have their genitals attacked by a dog. Terriers was not picked up for a second season, and that is a crime. Not as big as the crimes that Logue and his co-star Michael Raymond-James’ characters investigate as unlicensed private detectives, yet still very bad. Terriers is a loose and funny buddy show, starring two incredibly likable actors that you can buy instantly as friends. The season-long arc about rich and powerful men doing wicked things in Ocean Beach, California is compelling. Yet many of the episodes can be watched just as a stand alone story. It’s a show that’s perfect mix of the two, featuring heart on the sleeve acting by the entire cast. Their joy in acting on such a quality show comes through in each and every performance. Do yourself a favor and download it from iTunes or watch it online now. I promise you’ll get hooked.
3) Community (NBC)
I never imagined how much funnier this show would get when I placed it upon last year’s Top 10. Then came a note-perfect homage to Goodfellas, in which the study group became an organized crime syndicate controlling the supply of the school cafeteria's beloved chicken fingers. Two weeks later came “Modern Warfare,” which had a storyline about a campus paintball tournament that ended up spoofing every major action movie cliché of past 30 years. I don’t think I’m a good enough TV critic (actually, if you’ve read this list over the years, you know I’m as much of a TV critic as Sarah Palin is an author) to describe the awesomeness of those two episodes. Community’s second season hasn’t hit those heights yet, but it’s still the best network comedy to come along in many, many years.
2) Inception (Warner Bros.)
Okay, did the top continue to spin? Someone tell me. Please!!!!!!!!!!
Ahem.
Movies often seem to come from the recycling bin these days: how about a sequel? This TV show would be great to remakes? When’s Michael Bay creating another stupid franchise? Writer-director Christopher Nolan does a difficult thing with Inception. It is completely original, cut from a new cloth, and yet structured like a standard action movie so it feels like it makes more sense than it probably does. It’s popular art at its best, and I’m so glad I didn’t wait for it to come to cable like I did with Batman Begins, The Prestige and The Dark Knight.
1) Sherlock (PBS)
I have exactly one book that I’ve saved from my days as a child—The Complete Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. This tome (which is 1,122 pages long!!! Holy shit! I’m glad I looked at the book, I never would have thought it was that long!) has been packed and unpacked and moved through every single apartment I’ve had as an adult. The Holmes canon struck a chord that has seen me watch almost every film and TV adaptation. (I even went on a first date to see the Robert Downey Jr.-Jude Law take. Thankfully that stinker didn’t ruin what was otherwise a pleasant evening.) I can honestly say that this PBS version, brought into the 21st century by one of the producers behind the recent Dr. Who, is one of best I’ve ever seen. In this update Holmes—played by an outstanding Benedict Cumberbatch—exists in a world much like our own, where characters watch TV and listen to music and a killer can taunt Holmes by asking if he wants to phone a friend. Doctor John Watson (Martin Freeman from the British version of The Office) keeps a blog instead of a journal and Holmes doesn’t smoke (he uses multiple nicotine patches to help himself think). Perhaps the most interesting change is that by today’s standards, Holmes comes off as extremely weird, bordering on creepy. His intellect, highly sensitive powers of observation and fixation on bizarre crimes makes him someone the cops don’t entirely trust. One of my favorite lines comes from one of Scotland’s Yard’s finest, saying Holmes “gets off on it. One day, we’ll be standing around a body and Sherlock Holmes will be the one that put it there... He’s a psychopath. Psychopaths get bored.” Later in that same scene Holmes explains, “I’m not a psychopath. I’m a high-functioning sociopath. Do your research.” The cliffhanger in the final episode makes me confident that this version of Sherlock will return. Don’t miss it when it does.
This series (which surprised me by getting renewed for a second season) is loosely based upon a DC Comic where the main character, Christopher Chance, takes the place of the people he's protecting using complex disguises. Since having a bunch of guest stars as the main character each week doesn’t bode well for a TV show, Chase became a guy who protects people by being good at everything: shooting, foreign languages, piloting planes, etc. Mark Valley is a charismatic lead as Chance and because the guy was actually in the Army, he looks totally natural holding a gun and other weapons. But the show’s main appeal is the amusing, frustrated comic chemistry between Chi McBride (Winston, Chase’s partner) and Jackie Earle Haley (Guerrero, a sort of reformed bad guy hacker). These two actors bring their characters bickering to a level that is a pure joy to watch. However, I’m not sold on the second season so far as the new show-runner a) completely dismissed last season’s cliff-hanger in like five minutes; b) changed the opening theme music and credits, which were a cool throwback to the shows I loved in the 70s and 80s and c) added two other regular characters that will likely take away from the screen time that McBride and Haley get together. The show will air after American Idol in January and February, so it might get a third season. And I might not care if it does after seeing the first few episodes of the second.
9) Lost (ABC)
Let’s get the finale out of the way: I disliked…no, no. Let me rephrase that:
I HATED THAT FUCKING FINALE WITH A SCALDING HOT PASSION THAT I USUALLY RESERVE FOR THE YANKEES OR A CERTAIN PERSON WHOSE NAME I CANNOT UTTER WHO I KNEW FIVE YEARS AGO.
(Whew, I feel better now. I better grab a bottle of water and take a couple of sips.)
(Okay, now I’m really better.)
Yet with my, um, distaste for the finale and the reveal that the sideways world was some sort of purgatory, I did enjoy much of Lost’s final season. I thought Terry O’Quinn did some rather fine work playing the evil incarnate on the island that had taken on the form of John Locke. The episode where we found out the backstory about Richard Alpert (Nestor Carbonell) was easily one of my top five favorite of the entire series, even if it didn’t follow the usual Lost template. (The same can’t be said for the backstory about Jacob and his brother, oy.) And seeing Sawyer (Josh Holloway) and Miles (Ken Leung) in what could have been a buddy cop movie in the sideways world (cough, cough, pardon me, puuuuuuuuuuurgatory) made me pine for an actual spinoff with those two actors in a buddy cop series. I’m pretty sure it would have been more Fraiser, less AfterMASH. I will honestly miss Lost when January rolls around. There’s rarely been a show that’s made me so enthralled, puzzled, scared and hungry (those Dharma Initiative food drops were like subliminal advertising for food for me) all at the same time. I’m doubtful that there will be show that I follow as fervently ever again.
8) Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (Universal)
Scott Pilgrim vs. the World is yet another movie based on a comic book/graphic novel. The title character is a typical slacker in his early 20s, playing bass in a band (Sex Bob-Omb) and living in a tiny apartment because he’s broke. (He sleeps in the same bed as his gay roommate.) He falls for a messenger named Ramona Flowers, pursues her and quickly finds out that he has to beat her all seven members of her League of Evil Exes in combat if he wants to make things work. That summation probably makes you think, “That’ll never work as a movie.” Yet Pilgrim is perhaps the closest anyone has captured the actual feel of reading a comic book on the big screen. (Sorry Ang Lee—cool panel graphics didn’t save your craptacular attempt at The Hulk.) The way Pilgrim (played by Michael Cera) dives into the fights against the execs as if he’s playing a video game seems completely natural in the world director Edgar Wright has drawn from the original source material. I can honestly say that I haven’t had such an enjoyable, fun and rollicking experience in a movie theater in many years.
7) Bruce Springsteen - The Promise: The Darkness on the Edge of Town Story (Columbia)
Yes, I had this at the top of the Reissues, etc. section just a couple pages back. But it’s my list, so if I want to give this box a spot on another list I totally can do it. The wealth of visual material in this set is overwhelming. The documentary about the making of Darkness is top notch, yet it’s still the weakest part of the box. Watching Springsteen and the E Street Band perform the album in its entirety in 2009 is a thrill, even with the lack of an audience at the Paramount Theater in Asbury Park. That decision pays off big time as director Thom Zimny was able to put cameras on stage and film the band from different angles that wouldn’t be used in a typical concert DVD. (I especially liked the camera that swoops around Springsteen and Steve Van Zandt as they share the microphone during one song.) Combine that with a treasure trove of in studio performances from the Darkness sessions and an entire concert from Houston in 1978 and you have a collection that will be hard for any artist to top. I guess the box set ball is in your corner, Neil Young.
6) The Good Guys (FOX)
I only know one other person that’s watched this show from the creator of Burn Notice. My former co-worker Erich lives in Dallas, where the show is filmed, and he told me once that “If you want to know about Dallas, watch The Good Guys. It really embraces the city.” Alas, by the time you read this it will have aired its last episode. And that’s a shame, because it’s the first show since The X-Files that’s been on a network on Friday nights that I would consider staying in for. On the surface, The Good Guys is a standard mismatched buddy cop show. Colin Hanks plays the tightly wound, by-the-book younger partner, while Bradley Whitford plays the “I don’t go by the book, I go by my gut” older partner. Yet it’s much richer than that description. Every bad guy on this show has some sort of issue that is always hysterical—explaining at every turn why he’s vegan, worrying because he’s the second best assassin in the world, trying to keep his bed and breakfast clean, or worrying how he’ll keep their falafel restaurant open. And Whitford (and his amazing, straight-from-the-early-80s moustache) just chews through the scenery with an over the top performance as Foghat-loving, Trans Am-driving, beer-swilling Dan Stark. He delivers some of the funniest lines on TV week after week while laying out his creed about police work. Some examples include:
—“Evidence is like a bowl of soup. It goes cold you gotta heat it up again and scrape off the film that grows on top and dig in.”
—“I am proud of my willingness to lubricate myself for the cause of justice.”
—“Crime is like a woman, when she needs your attention you gotta pull your gun out.”
I am really going to miss Dan Stark. And his moustache.
5) Chuck (NBC)
In last year’s list I made a plea for folks to watch the third season of Chuck debuting in January 2010. That was a mistake. I should have said, watch season 3.1 that’s debuting in late April. Those six episodes, ordered after the initial 13 of the season had been mapped out, showed off everything that’s great about this action/comedy/sometime-drama-when-the-mood-requires-it. I’ve finally come to the acceptance that this show will never be a mid-sized hit. It always comes in fourth in its time slot. Of course, that’s like every other show on NBC, and since Chuck doesn’t get as pulverized as other programs the last place network puts on there’s a good chance it might make it to a fifth season. And that would be amazing after the Subway campaign to save it in 2009.
4) Terriers (FX)
Full disclosure: one of the regulars on this highly underwatched series, Jamie Denbo, is married to one of my good friends from college, John Ross Bowie. And honestly, I wouldn’t have thought about watching or DVR-ing the show if she wasn’t on it. Wow, am I happy that I did. It’s the best new American-made series of the year. (That distinction will make sense in three entries below.) I’ve always enjoyed the work of the star Donal Logue, yet the FX campaign that showed a couple of barking dogs made me think the show was about dog catchers or something. (And this is coming from a guy that reads a great deal about the TV business each and every week.) Whoever came up with that campaign at FX ought to have their genitals attacked by a dog. Terriers was not picked up for a second season, and that is a crime. Not as big as the crimes that Logue and his co-star Michael Raymond-James’ characters investigate as unlicensed private detectives, yet still very bad. Terriers is a loose and funny buddy show, starring two incredibly likable actors that you can buy instantly as friends. The season-long arc about rich and powerful men doing wicked things in Ocean Beach, California is compelling. Yet many of the episodes can be watched just as a stand alone story. It’s a show that’s perfect mix of the two, featuring heart on the sleeve acting by the entire cast. Their joy in acting on such a quality show comes through in each and every performance. Do yourself a favor and download it from iTunes or watch it online now. I promise you’ll get hooked.
3) Community (NBC)
I never imagined how much funnier this show would get when I placed it upon last year’s Top 10. Then came a note-perfect homage to Goodfellas, in which the study group became an organized crime syndicate controlling the supply of the school cafeteria's beloved chicken fingers. Two weeks later came “Modern Warfare,” which had a storyline about a campus paintball tournament that ended up spoofing every major action movie cliché of past 30 years. I don’t think I’m a good enough TV critic (actually, if you’ve read this list over the years, you know I’m as much of a TV critic as Sarah Palin is an author) to describe the awesomeness of those two episodes. Community’s second season hasn’t hit those heights yet, but it’s still the best network comedy to come along in many, many years.
2) Inception (Warner Bros.)
Okay, did the top continue to spin? Someone tell me. Please!!!!!!!!!!
Ahem.
Movies often seem to come from the recycling bin these days: how about a sequel? This TV show would be great to remakes? When’s Michael Bay creating another stupid franchise? Writer-director Christopher Nolan does a difficult thing with Inception. It is completely original, cut from a new cloth, and yet structured like a standard action movie so it feels like it makes more sense than it probably does. It’s popular art at its best, and I’m so glad I didn’t wait for it to come to cable like I did with Batman Begins, The Prestige and The Dark Knight.
1) Sherlock (PBS)
I have exactly one book that I’ve saved from my days as a child—The Complete Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. This tome (which is 1,122 pages long!!! Holy shit! I’m glad I looked at the book, I never would have thought it was that long!) has been packed and unpacked and moved through every single apartment I’ve had as an adult. The Holmes canon struck a chord that has seen me watch almost every film and TV adaptation. (I even went on a first date to see the Robert Downey Jr.-Jude Law take. Thankfully that stinker didn’t ruin what was otherwise a pleasant evening.) I can honestly say that this PBS version, brought into the 21st century by one of the producers behind the recent Dr. Who, is one of best I’ve ever seen. In this update Holmes—played by an outstanding Benedict Cumberbatch—exists in a world much like our own, where characters watch TV and listen to music and a killer can taunt Holmes by asking if he wants to phone a friend. Doctor John Watson (Martin Freeman from the British version of The Office) keeps a blog instead of a journal and Holmes doesn’t smoke (he uses multiple nicotine patches to help himself think). Perhaps the most interesting change is that by today’s standards, Holmes comes off as extremely weird, bordering on creepy. His intellect, highly sensitive powers of observation and fixation on bizarre crimes makes him someone the cops don’t entirely trust. One of my favorite lines comes from one of Scotland’s Yard’s finest, saying Holmes “gets off on it. One day, we’ll be standing around a body and Sherlock Holmes will be the one that put it there... He’s a psychopath. Psychopaths get bored.” Later in that same scene Holmes explains, “I’m not a psychopath. I’m a high-functioning sociopath. Do your research.” The cliffhanger in the final episode makes me confident that this version of Sherlock will return. Don’t miss it when it does.
Tuesday, December 07, 2010
Song of the Week 12/3/10
The Figgs - "Racing Around"
The Figgs celebrated 10 years since the release of Sucking in Stereo by playing the entire album at two shows here over the weekend. Hearing all those songs in a row was like revisiting an old friend. No, actually, it was like revisiting myself at age 30, when I watched all these songs take shape over a year of shows and I had the energy to pogo for almost an entire set. Now, I can pogo for about 30 seconds before I start worrying about my knees.
I don't have a clip of the guys doing that song, but on Saturday at Bruar Falls in Williamsburg I did get a chance to shoot them busting into the Couldn't Get High gem "Said Enough" with its writer Guy Lyons stepping up to do vocals. It was a great moment on a night filled with them.
The Figgs celebrated 10 years since the release of Sucking in Stereo by playing the entire album at two shows here over the weekend. Hearing all those songs in a row was like revisiting an old friend. No, actually, it was like revisiting myself at age 30, when I watched all these songs take shape over a year of shows and I had the energy to pogo for almost an entire set. Now, I can pogo for about 30 seconds before I start worrying about my knees.
I don't have a clip of the guys doing that song, but on Saturday at Bruar Falls in Williamsburg I did get a chance to shoot them busting into the Couldn't Get High gem "Said Enough" with its writer Guy Lyons stepping up to do vocals. It was a great moment on a night filled with them.
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
Song of the Week 11/26/10
Tired Pony - "Dead American Writers"
There are certain years where I sit down to write this list and it just pours out of me. I’ve found myself up at 1:00 a.m., pouring another glass of Diet Coke just because I know I’ve struck a rich vein of creativity and I don’t want to lose it by going to sleep. Other years, errrrr, not so much. This year, for example. It’s been like, well, I can’t even come up with a good cliché to describe how hard it’s been to extract the words from my brain and get them to come out my fingers into this here ancient keyboard. When you’re checking your Twitter feed once every six minutes or so because you’ve written only a sentence in a half hour and you’re desperate for anything to take your brain away from writing…well, it’s not good. In the midst of my mind needing some Metamucil, I started looking over the lyrics to Tired Pony’s “Dead American Writers.” And I’ll be damned if Gary Lightbody didn’t nail the pains of writers block in a song, um, about dead writers. Check out the first and second verses:
“Here's to every time that you rock a boat
Here's to every word that you ever wrote
There were clues but it was never clear
You've got to choose your own way out of here
I've been waiting for the spark myself,
I've been scrambling in the dark for health
I have read your words a thousand times
All this spark but smashed up love and crime.”
Waiting for the spark myself. Fucking a, Gary, I feel your pain.
There are certain years where I sit down to write this list and it just pours out of me. I’ve found myself up at 1:00 a.m., pouring another glass of Diet Coke just because I know I’ve struck a rich vein of creativity and I don’t want to lose it by going to sleep. Other years, errrrr, not so much. This year, for example. It’s been like, well, I can’t even come up with a good cliché to describe how hard it’s been to extract the words from my brain and get them to come out my fingers into this here ancient keyboard. When you’re checking your Twitter feed once every six minutes or so because you’ve written only a sentence in a half hour and you’re desperate for anything to take your brain away from writing…well, it’s not good. In the midst of my mind needing some Metamucil, I started looking over the lyrics to Tired Pony’s “Dead American Writers.” And I’ll be damned if Gary Lightbody didn’t nail the pains of writers block in a song, um, about dead writers. Check out the first and second verses:
“Here's to every time that you rock a boat
Here's to every word that you ever wrote
There were clues but it was never clear
You've got to choose your own way out of here
I've been waiting for the spark myself,
I've been scrambling in the dark for health
I have read your words a thousand times
All this spark but smashed up love and crime.”
Waiting for the spark myself. Fucking a, Gary, I feel your pain.
Sunday, November 21, 2010
Song of the Week 11/19/10
Bruce Springsteen - "The Promise"
The epic day I went through on Tuesday to get this new Springsteen box is a tale that I don't feel like repeating. But after 9 hours of travels, frustration and unexpected purchases, it was worth it. And this song (and video) are just stunning.
You can check out more about the box set in my last two podcasts. Oh, and I might have more to say on December 10th.
The epic day I went through on Tuesday to get this new Springsteen box is a tale that I don't feel like repeating. But after 9 hours of travels, frustration and unexpected purchases, it was worth it. And this song (and video) are just stunning.
You can check out more about the box set in my last two podcasts. Oh, and I might have more to say on December 10th.
Friday, November 12, 2010
Song of the Week 11/12/10
Warren G and Nate Dogg - "Regulate"
My pals Allison and Melanie (along with their respective roommates and significant others) out together a master list of songs to choose from for our initial foray into doing a 90s themed party. You can see the playlist for the Class of 2000 (Re)Union below. Out of the 100 songs I downloaded to flesh out my library, this jam based on Michael McDonald's "I Keep Forgetting" brought me the most joy.
My pals Allison and Melanie (along with their respective roommates and significant others) out together a master list of songs to choose from for our initial foray into doing a 90s themed party. You can see the playlist for the Class of 2000 (Re)Union below. Out of the 100 songs I downloaded to flesh out my library, this jam based on Michael McDonald's "I Keep Forgetting" brought me the most joy.
Tuesday, November 09, 2010
Song of the Week 11/5/10
Extreme - "More Than Words"
You know what? This is a perfect song to play at a wedding/enagagement celebration. (Even if your guitar player ends it a bit too early.)
You know what? This is a perfect song to play at a wedding/enagagement celebration. (Even if your guitar player ends it a bit too early.)
Saturday, November 06, 2010
Class of 2000 (Re)Union (a.k.a. Party Like It's 1999) 11/4/10
As this has been a year of going out of my comfort zone, why not expand that to DJ-ing a night devoted to a lot of 90s pop, hip-hop & R and B? It was a lot more fun than I expected it to be--and hopefully we'll do it again. Thanks to Allison and Melanie (and assorted others) for getting the ball rolling and coming up with a wide ranging list of tunes.
Garbage - "Only Happy When It Rains"
Nada Surf - "Popular"
Meat Puppets - "Backwater"
Foo Fighters - "Everlong"
The Breeders - "Cannonball"
"Beverly Hills 90210 Theme"
The Flaming Lips - "She Don't use Jelly"
Spacehog - "In the Meantime"
Letters to Cleo - "Here and Now"
The Cardigans - "Lovefool"
Oasis - "Don't Look Back in Anger"
Gin Blossoms - "Found Out About You"
Live - "All Over You"
Everclear - "Santa Monica"
Fastball - "The Way"
Marcy Playground - "Sex and Candy"
The Offspring - "Come Out and Play"
Rancid - "Ruby Soho"
Blink 182 - "What's My Age Again"
Lit - "My Own Worst Enemy"
Toadies - "Possum Kingdom"
Candlebox - "Far Behind"
Cracker - "Low"
Spin Doctors - "Two Princes"
Better Than Ezra - "Good"
Weezer - "Buddy Holly"
The Presidents of the United States of America - "Lump"
Divnyls - "I Touch Myself"
James - "Laid"
Ace of Base - "The Sign"
Hanson - "MMMBop"
Backstreet Boys - "I Want It That Way"
Wilson Phillips - "Hold On"
Amy Grant - "Baby Baby"
Britney Spears - "Baby Hit Me One More Time"
No Doubt - "Spiderwebs"
The Breeders - "Divine Hammer"
Chumbawamba - "Tubthumping"
Cornershop - "Brimful of Asha (Norman Cook Remix)"
Skee-Lo - "I Wish"
Coolio - "Gangsta's Paradise"
2Pac & Dr. Dre - "California Love"
Dr. Dre & Snoop Dogg - "Nothing But a G Thing"
House of Pain - "Jump Around"
Six Mix-A-Lot - "Baby Got Back"
Heavy D - "Now That We Found Love"
Montell Jordan - "This Is How We Do It"
Boyz II Men - "Motownphilly"
Mary J. Blige - "Real Love"
Mariah Carey - "Fantasy"
Notorious B.I.G. feat. Puff Daddy & Mase - "Mo Money, More Problems"
Paula Abdul - "Opposites Attract"
Spice Girls - "Wannabe"
TLC - "No Scrubs"
En Vogue - "Don't Let Go"
Janet Jackson - "That's the Way Love Goes"
Aaliyah - "Are You That Somebody"
Salt-N-Pepa - "Shoop"
Freak Nasty - "Da Dip"
Dee-Lite - "Groove Is in the Heart"
Pras, Mya & ODB - "Ghetto Superstar"
Lauryn Hill - "Doo Wop (That Thing)"
ODB - "Got Your Money"
Positive K - "I Got a Man"
Tag Team - "Whoomp! There It Is"
Biz Markie - "Just a Friend"
Warren G & Nate Dogg - "Regulate"
Jodeci - "Lately"
Seal - "Kiss From a Rose"
Lisa Loeb - "Stay"
Semisonic - "Closing Time"
Garbage - "Only Happy When It Rains"
Nada Surf - "Popular"
Meat Puppets - "Backwater"
Foo Fighters - "Everlong"
The Breeders - "Cannonball"
"Beverly Hills 90210 Theme"
The Flaming Lips - "She Don't use Jelly"
Spacehog - "In the Meantime"
Letters to Cleo - "Here and Now"
The Cardigans - "Lovefool"
Oasis - "Don't Look Back in Anger"
Gin Blossoms - "Found Out About You"
Live - "All Over You"
Everclear - "Santa Monica"
Fastball - "The Way"
Marcy Playground - "Sex and Candy"
The Offspring - "Come Out and Play"
Rancid - "Ruby Soho"
Blink 182 - "What's My Age Again"
Lit - "My Own Worst Enemy"
Toadies - "Possum Kingdom"
Candlebox - "Far Behind"
Cracker - "Low"
Spin Doctors - "Two Princes"
Better Than Ezra - "Good"
Weezer - "Buddy Holly"
The Presidents of the United States of America - "Lump"
Divnyls - "I Touch Myself"
James - "Laid"
Ace of Base - "The Sign"
Hanson - "MMMBop"
Backstreet Boys - "I Want It That Way"
Wilson Phillips - "Hold On"
Amy Grant - "Baby Baby"
Britney Spears - "Baby Hit Me One More Time"
No Doubt - "Spiderwebs"
The Breeders - "Divine Hammer"
Chumbawamba - "Tubthumping"
Cornershop - "Brimful of Asha (Norman Cook Remix)"
Skee-Lo - "I Wish"
Coolio - "Gangsta's Paradise"
2Pac & Dr. Dre - "California Love"
Dr. Dre & Snoop Dogg - "Nothing But a G Thing"
House of Pain - "Jump Around"
Six Mix-A-Lot - "Baby Got Back"
Heavy D - "Now That We Found Love"
Montell Jordan - "This Is How We Do It"
Boyz II Men - "Motownphilly"
Mary J. Blige - "Real Love"
Mariah Carey - "Fantasy"
Notorious B.I.G. feat. Puff Daddy & Mase - "Mo Money, More Problems"
Paula Abdul - "Opposites Attract"
Spice Girls - "Wannabe"
TLC - "No Scrubs"
En Vogue - "Don't Let Go"
Janet Jackson - "That's the Way Love Goes"
Aaliyah - "Are You That Somebody"
Salt-N-Pepa - "Shoop"
Freak Nasty - "Da Dip"
Dee-Lite - "Groove Is in the Heart"
Pras, Mya & ODB - "Ghetto Superstar"
Lauryn Hill - "Doo Wop (That Thing)"
ODB - "Got Your Money"
Positive K - "I Got a Man"
Tag Team - "Whoomp! There It Is"
Biz Markie - "Just a Friend"
Warren G & Nate Dogg - "Regulate"
Jodeci - "Lately"
Seal - "Kiss From a Rose"
Lisa Loeb - "Stay"
Semisonic - "Closing Time"
Saturday, October 30, 2010
Song of the Week 10/29/10
Guster - "Bad Bad World"
This was a highlight of their show at the Beacon Theater last night. And this video is so awesome:
This was a highlight of their show at the Beacon Theater last night. And this video is so awesome:
Friday, October 29, 2010
Song of the Week 10/22/10
Night Ranger - "Sister Christian"
It's not often that I repeat a Song of the Week, but I figured after shredding my voice to this song on my birthday it was probably worth it. (Click here for the previous entry.)
It's not often that I repeat a Song of the Week, but I figured after shredding my voice to this song on my birthday it was probably worth it. (Click here for the previous entry.)
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Song of the Week 10/15/10
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Song of the Week 10/8/10
LCD Soundsystem - "Dance Yrself Clean"
I'm not sure if the following clip shows just how awesome an opening song this was for James Murphy and company's ACL set. The people around me were so into it I couldn't help but get swept up into the dancing and jumping around. It was such an improvement on when I saw them at Webster Hall in the spring. It's definitely one of my favorite shows of the year and it made me think everyone should see this band play as the sun sets.
I'm not sure if the following clip shows just how awesome an opening song this was for James Murphy and company's ACL set. The people around me were so into it I couldn't help but get swept up into the dancing and jumping around. It was such an improvement on when I saw them at Webster Hall in the spring. It's definitely one of my favorite shows of the year and it made me think everyone should see this band play as the sun sets.
Monday, October 04, 2010
Song of the Week 10/1/10
The Young Veins - "Take a Vacation"
Why yes, I think I will. See you when I get back from ACL.
Oh, and this is one of the best albums of the year. You'll think it's 1966 all over again.
Why yes, I think I will. See you when I get back from ACL.
Oh, and this is one of the best albums of the year. You'll think it's 1966 all over again.
Monday, September 27, 2010
Song of the Week 9/24/2010
Pavement - "Conduit for Sale!"
I'm still digesting (mentally, that is) how great Pavement were last Wednesday. I'm sure it'll end up being one of my Top 10 shows of this year, so I'll have an apt description of the joy it brought put into words by December. "Conduit for Sale" was the final song of lightning and rain-soaked set, and my goodness, Bob Nastanovich just makes everything better.
(This clip is from the night before at Central Park, but I think you'll understand my point.)
I'm still digesting (mentally, that is) how great Pavement were last Wednesday. I'm sure it'll end up being one of my Top 10 shows of this year, so I'll have an apt description of the joy it brought put into words by December. "Conduit for Sale" was the final song of lightning and rain-soaked set, and my goodness, Bob Nastanovich just makes everything better.
(This clip is from the night before at Central Park, but I think you'll understand my point.)
Thursday, September 16, 2010
Song of the Week 9/17/10
Superchunk - "Digging for Something"
Holy shit. Holy SHIT. This song is so damn good. After my first listen, I wanted to hear it again. And again. And then, yup, again. The whole damn album is just as good, which is kind of stunning for a band that hasn't released a full album in nine years.
As my my friend John commented to me, "Phenomenal. Might be their best since Here's Where The Strings Come In."
Oh, and this video is pretty good too:
Holy shit. Holy SHIT. This song is so damn good. After my first listen, I wanted to hear it again. And again. And then, yup, again. The whole damn album is just as good, which is kind of stunning for a band that hasn't released a full album in nine years.
As my my friend John commented to me, "Phenomenal. Might be their best since Here's Where The Strings Come In."
Oh, and this video is pretty good too:
Monday, September 13, 2010
Song of the Week 9/10/10
Nine Inch Nails - "Hurt"
It took two bucks to reignite my love and respect for Nine Inch Nails. That's how much I spent on a copy of their 1999 double album The Fragile at a moving sale on Union Street in Park Slope a few weeks ago. It was a total impulse purchase--I haven't listened to any NIN in at least three years, and even then it was a one-time only spin of Year Zero before I filed it away in my library. I ripped The Fragile into my iTunes and listened to it all the way through on a lengthier-than-expected trip from my house out to the U.S. Open on the Friday of Labor Day weekend. And it blew my mind. It was perfect for an overcast, kind of steamy day filled with slow moving F and 7 trains. The following day I ordered three used Nine Inch Nails discs through Amazon and downloaded The Slip, which Trent Reznor gave away for free in 2008.
I was always amazed I ended up liking Nine Inch Nails. When Pretty Hate Machine was released in 1989 I just lumped the band in with all the other gothy/industrial dance acts that the guys and gals that wore black at WICB played with a righteous fervor. The Broken EP in 1992 won me over because a) it rocked and b) I finally could get the angst and rage that Reznor was spitting out in his lyrics. With a much more discerning ear 18 years later it's not Reznor's words that hook me in songs like "Wish" or "Happiness in Slavery," it's the pure wall of (sometimes almost joyful, if that makes any sense) noise that he's painstakingly constructed that gets down into my very core. I've started jogging again this year and that NIN playlist I assembled might be the best thing on my iPod to get my blood flowing.
"Hurt" from 1994's The Downward Spiral took a life of its own after Johnny Cash covered it. In the hands and voice of a man near the end of his time on this planet, it become probably more powerful than Trent Reznor ever imagined. The original is the song that won me over completely 16 years ago. The only time I've seen Nine Inch Nails was the week after their mud-soaked appearance at Woodstock '94. When they performed "Hurt" -- the exact same way it is in the video above that was released in 1995 -- it overwhelmed me. The combination of the visuals and Reznor's passionate delivery is still one of my favorite concert moments ever, and that entire show is definitely on my short list of Top 10 concerts. I've played this live version multiple times in the past week, and it hasn't lost it's power to move me yet.
It took two bucks to reignite my love and respect for Nine Inch Nails. That's how much I spent on a copy of their 1999 double album The Fragile at a moving sale on Union Street in Park Slope a few weeks ago. It was a total impulse purchase--I haven't listened to any NIN in at least three years, and even then it was a one-time only spin of Year Zero before I filed it away in my library. I ripped The Fragile into my iTunes and listened to it all the way through on a lengthier-than-expected trip from my house out to the U.S. Open on the Friday of Labor Day weekend. And it blew my mind. It was perfect for an overcast, kind of steamy day filled with slow moving F and 7 trains. The following day I ordered three used Nine Inch Nails discs through Amazon and downloaded The Slip, which Trent Reznor gave away for free in 2008.
I was always amazed I ended up liking Nine Inch Nails. When Pretty Hate Machine was released in 1989 I just lumped the band in with all the other gothy/industrial dance acts that the guys and gals that wore black at WICB played with a righteous fervor. The Broken EP in 1992 won me over because a) it rocked and b) I finally could get the angst and rage that Reznor was spitting out in his lyrics. With a much more discerning ear 18 years later it's not Reznor's words that hook me in songs like "Wish" or "Happiness in Slavery," it's the pure wall of (sometimes almost joyful, if that makes any sense) noise that he's painstakingly constructed that gets down into my very core. I've started jogging again this year and that NIN playlist I assembled might be the best thing on my iPod to get my blood flowing.
"Hurt" from 1994's The Downward Spiral took a life of its own after Johnny Cash covered it. In the hands and voice of a man near the end of his time on this planet, it become probably more powerful than Trent Reznor ever imagined. The original is the song that won me over completely 16 years ago. The only time I've seen Nine Inch Nails was the week after their mud-soaked appearance at Woodstock '94. When they performed "Hurt" -- the exact same way it is in the video above that was released in 1995 -- it overwhelmed me. The combination of the visuals and Reznor's passionate delivery is still one of my favorite concert moments ever, and that entire show is definitely on my short list of Top 10 concerts. I've played this live version multiple times in the past week, and it hasn't lost it's power to move me yet.
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