Eh, I’m done with the year-end list. I can’t sum up a whole year of music like that, and besides, I don’t think of music that way anyway. I just want to share some music with you.
1. “One Day” – Sharon Van Etten
Sharon Van Etten can write songs, friend. Like, actual songs. Her album last year, Epic is seven songs long, and is about a half-hour, which is my favorite length for an album. I love being able to listen to something twice in an hour – really feel the topography of it. Simple chords, simply strummed – it’s all in the melody (which is one of those meaty ones that takes up more than a couple of bars) and the harmony she sings with herself. This is the best one on the album, but there are a couple of other killers as well. It reminds me a little of James Mercer’s country song, “Gone For Good.”
2. “Helplessness Blues” – Fleet Foxes
I was worried when I read that Robin Pecknold was writing songs inspired by Roy Harper’s Stormcock that he’d ignore his ear for songs that have a kind of ancient logic to them (I know, I know). I don’t mind Stormcock, and I love Astral Weeks, Pecknold’s other big influence right now, but I don’t want those kinds of ragas and meditations from Fleet Foxes. I want “Helplessness Blues.” It’s way more lyrically dense than anything from Fleet Foxes or Sun Giant, and the fact that it’s still breathtaking is a relief to me – sometimes guys who write great poetry write awful prose. This is a folk rock song that has two movements, which gives his band room to move around, which they do. I love this so much.
3. “No One But You” – Doug Paisley
Doug Paisley, where have you been? Canada, I guess. This the first song from Paisley’s Constant Companion album from last year. I don’t think people who pick up an acoustic guitar for the first time realize how hard it is to do what he’s doing here without accidentally ending up on a Cities 97 sampler. One way to avoid that terrible fate is by getting Garth Hudson (of The Band) to wig out on every song.
4. “Sad Songs And Waltzes” – Willie Nelson
I’ve recently been trying to absorb Phases and Stages and Shotgun Willie. When I put either of them on, they feel so substantial. They’re just so full of effort and art. To say how hard this stuff is to find in 2011 country music is to forget how hard it was to find in 1973. I’d generally prefer that songwriters didn’t try to make jokes, because a gag usually pushes me out of an otherwise engaging song (take note, Ben Folds), but the joke of this song is a really, really sad one, which makes it funnier and sadder, like all the best jokes.
5. “Life Is Suicide” – Percy Mayfield
Percy Mayfield was an influence on Ray Charles, which you can hear right away. This is not a pose, this is genuine cathartic tragedy in song. I’d like to see some dumbass on a stage at Famous Dave’s try to pull off a song called “Life Is Suicide.”
6. “Walking Far From Home” – Iron & Wine
On first listen, I was really disappointed in the new Iron & Wine album. I’m still in two minds about it. In his attempt to escape his trademark sound, it sounded like Sam Beam was leaving his strengths behind. But there are moments of the album I love. The coda of “Your Fake Name Is Good Enough For Me” is as good as anything he’s done. And when you set aside the burping keyboards and the argumentative percussion of this one, there’s a melody that’s fun to sing and a set of lyrics that stand somewhere between “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall” and Beam’s own “The Trapeze Swinger.”
7. “Swim” – Surfer Blood
Surfer Blood are a really good band that I almost didn’t notice because of all the stupid reviews written about them that used all the wrong points of reference. These guys have nothing to do with Pavement. I also think the lead singer, like the guy from Band of Horses and James Mercer on the first Shins album, is doing himself a disservice with the mush-mouth reverb treatment. But this is a really great pop song, and there are a handful of other really great pop songs that have that Shins-ish spirally melodic sense on the album. You should get it, I think.
8. “True Love” – Pointed Sticks
See, when you dry up the vocals on a pop song (unless that pop song is “Crimson and Clover”), it’s more immediate and fun to listen to. Guitar solo! Organ solo! ORGAN SOLO! It’s not even a farfisa, which would have been less cool.
9. “Crossin’ Fingers” – Kid Dakota
I challenge you to find a meaner love song than this. So, so mean. Like, apocalyptically mean. A song in praise of jealously. That’s rock and roll. That long-held harmony break would be corny if it weren’t for those two pickup notes before everything comes crashing back in. AWESOME. “Jealousy: it’s what saved me from believing the lies and doubting the truth.”
10. “Henry Plainview” – Jonny Greenwood
Since we’re getting dark, this is from the soundtrack from There Will Be Blood, which I still haven’t seen. We saw a dance piece from the company at Zenon a couple of years ago that used this soundtrack extensively, and it was heartbreaking. Constant climbing and death-defying falls. It worked really well.
11. “Unluck” – James Blake
I’ve already listened to James Blake’s self-titled album (and the EPs that preceded it), more than anything I’ve bought in the last several months. It takes so much nerve to chop up a song like this, especially when you know how good it is. On “The Bells Sketch” from his first EP of last year, he pitch-shifts and screws Stevie Wonder’s “They Won’t Go When I Go,” which is a great jumping off point for what Blake does so well. When Stevie was at his best, he was totally fearless – he would take pretty melodies and break them, then harmonize to sew the pieces together in the wrong order, and then he’d make you sing along. James Blake is a good singer in the tradition of Talk Talk’s Mark Hollis, only he shares my weakness for those rich major sevenths in 70′s soul music – the kind that used to be played on a Wurli. So when he reduces his songs to the sinew, even if there are only a few notes left, they’re notes that really hold some emotional weight. Blah blah blah. The point is, James Blake likes a lot of the same things that I like, and he combines them in a way that is very welcome to me.
12. “Mr. Handagote” – Tomas Dvorak
If you like adventure/puzzle-solving computer games (the name Guybrush Threepwood should mean something to you), you should summon up $20 and download Machinarium from Amanita Designs as soon as you can. It is funny, smart, and beautiful. Tomas Dvorak composed all the music for the game, and it fits right in with his other recorded work as Floex. I recently spent about forty hours in a few days traveling to and from England, and the Machinarium soundtrack (free with purchase of the game) was on heavy rotation. Check the mixture of electronic and organic elements. Check the sounds of marbles dropping or something at the end.
13. “3-Way Phone Call” – R. Kelly
R. Kelly is hilarious, but if that’s all you hear in his music, then I don’t have much time for you. I’m happy to have read recently that Will Oldham and I both love this song. I’m not a Christian, and I’m not really a “spiritual” person either, but I find the vulnerability and the unconventional story/conversation structure of this song really moving. And yep, it’s funny as well. I love that he wants to hang up the phone when his sister tries to call Kim, and that he doesn’t realize that Kim is talking to him at first. I don’t know how he pulls this stuff off. R. Kelly is a real original.
14. “Lune TNS” – Company Flow
I tried to get into El-P when I first discovered Aesop Rock, but I started with Fantastic Damage, which was kind of a mistake…although I had some success with stuff like “Dead Disnee” and “Squeegee Man Shooting”. I should have started with Company Flow’s only album, Funcrusher Plus. The beats are a little less frightening, and El-Producto is rhyming with a bit more of a traditional flow, if you can call it that. But you can still hear what makes him great – the stridence, the arhythmic and compelling nonsense. Big Jus is good too. And I love how far up front the vocals are mixed. It’s really confrontational. It’s quitting your office job music, I figure.
