Top 10 albums of the 00's
very biased, and yes, noticeably skewed toward the first half of the decade. I didn't bother coming up with an order by rank, so we'll proceed alphabetically by artist...
The Decline of British Sea Power by British Sea Power
top tracks: Carrion, The Lonely, Blackout
Parachutes by Coldplay
top tracks: Don't Panic, Sparks, Trouble
Discovery by Daft Punk
top tracks: Face to Face, Aerodynamic, One More Time
O by Damien Rice
top tracks: Cannonball, Older Chests, Eskimo, Delicate
Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots by The Flaming Lips
top tracks: Fight Test, Ego Tripping at the Gates of Hell, Do You Realize??, All We Have is Now
Gorillaz by Gorillaz
top tracks: Clint Eastwood, Sound Check (Gravity), Slow Country
Antics by Interpol
top tracks: Evil, C'mere, Slow Hands
Give Up by The Postal Service
top tracks: The District Sleeps Alone Tonight, Nothing Better, Such Great Heights
Hail to the Thief by Radiohead
top tracks: A Punch Up at a Wedding (No No No No No No No No), There There (The Boney King of Nowhere), 2+2=5 (The Lukewarm)
( ) by Sigur Rós
top tracks: track 1, track 3, track 4
I'm not saying so much that nothing good has come out since midway through the decade... but that nothing better has.
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
Friday, July 17, 2009
another great divide
top five awful bands with great names
5. Wham!
Unadulterated enthusiasm.
4. My Chemical Romance
Some may disagree with me here, but I think this name screams promise. I want to state for the record I'm not so much agreeing with the "My" (after My Bloody Valentine, no one gets to do that anymore - and god, is there anyone that the name "My Morning Jacket" doesn't annoy?) as the "Chemical Romance." Too bad putting those two words together was the best poetry this band ever came up with.
3. The Killers
Their first album came out in 2004. How did a better band not already have this name by then?!
2. Creed
It's simple, it's memorable, it says who they are. It's even kinda cheesy... just like... well, never mind.
1. The Rolling Stones
Okay, maybe not an awful band, but certainly one of the most overrated bands of all time. What an iconic name though.
top five great bands with awful names
5. U2
They're named after a spy plane? It's a shitty pun? It's just plain fucking meaningless? This band, which has released some of the most sweepingly thematic and insightful music I've ever heard, deserves a better name.
4. Split Enz
Even before you get to the Z at the end, you're already naming your band after a fairly unprofound phenomenon. Why guys? Why?
3. Death Cab for Cutie
A couple of problematic elements here. First is the trend of naming your band after a song by a better band. I hate that. Second, it completely misrepresents the band's tone and image. (And yes, their cover of This Charming Man aside, they do qualify as a great band in my book.)
2. Barenaked Ladies
The band: Masters of painful ironic comedy and imagistic songwriting. The name: schoolyard immaturity.
1. Beatles
It's a pun for fuck's sake! Don't tell me it's not, I know a pun when I see one!
(For the record, the worst band name of all time is "...And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead." I fell asleep three times typing that.)
5. Wham!
Unadulterated enthusiasm.
4. My Chemical Romance
Some may disagree with me here, but I think this name screams promise. I want to state for the record I'm not so much agreeing with the "My" (after My Bloody Valentine, no one gets to do that anymore - and god, is there anyone that the name "My Morning Jacket" doesn't annoy?) as the "Chemical Romance." Too bad putting those two words together was the best poetry this band ever came up with.
3. The Killers
Their first album came out in 2004. How did a better band not already have this name by then?!
2. Creed
It's simple, it's memorable, it says who they are. It's even kinda cheesy... just like... well, never mind.
1. The Rolling Stones
Okay, maybe not an awful band, but certainly one of the most overrated bands of all time. What an iconic name though.
top five great bands with awful names
5. U2
They're named after a spy plane? It's a shitty pun? It's just plain fucking meaningless? This band, which has released some of the most sweepingly thematic and insightful music I've ever heard, deserves a better name.
4. Split Enz
Even before you get to the Z at the end, you're already naming your band after a fairly unprofound phenomenon. Why guys? Why?
3. Death Cab for Cutie
A couple of problematic elements here. First is the trend of naming your band after a song by a better band. I hate that. Second, it completely misrepresents the band's tone and image. (And yes, their cover of This Charming Man aside, they do qualify as a great band in my book.)
2. Barenaked Ladies
The band: Masters of painful ironic comedy and imagistic songwriting. The name: schoolyard immaturity.
1. Beatles
It's a pun for fuck's sake! Don't tell me it's not, I know a pun when I see one!
(For the record, the worst band name of all time is "...And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead." I fell asleep three times typing that.)
Sunday, June 14, 2009
some door to open
It might be shallow, but having a record store owner rant about one of your picks when you go to check out is one of the purest joys of geekery.
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
should've known better
Despite (or perhaps because of) the consciousness of my musical fandom, I tend to be remarkably insulated from that segment of modern music that is reflected in mainstream radio and the tastes of high school students. While this is usually a mercy, it does mean that the occasional piece of crucial information will escape my notice. This is why it only recently came to my attention that Seether, a group whose musical crimes extend back to the days when I was woefully engaged in their musical sphere, currently has a cover of Careless Whisper in circulation.
A bit of background: My cousin PK and I have, for several months now, been indulging in the music of Wham! (whose exclamation point is less an affectation and more a grammatical necessity). The ironic nature of these listening exercises dwindles by the moment - the fourth time in a weekend that one intentionally exposes themself to Young Guns, it becomes difficult to uphold the alibi that their enjoyment is anything less than sincere. Technically, we have a strong dislike for George Michael, and deservedly so; his music is terrible. Nonetheless, our veneer of cynicism has become strained, to say the least.
Back to the topic at hand. You would think that a bad cover of a song that I enjoy for its badness would be doubly delightful. However, Seether's concoction is somehow anything but - it's bad in the wrong way, a way we never offered our complicity. It's a goddamn Wham! song guys, you don't improve on it by adding melodrama. The appeal is the cheese, trying to be serious with this material is like doing a coffee shop reading of Dr. Seuss. Observe how Exile (whose theme song for Street Fighter IV has become another guilty pleasure) gets it right.
And with that, I think I've exposed myself to enough shame for today.
A bit of background: My cousin PK and I have, for several months now, been indulging in the music of Wham! (whose exclamation point is less an affectation and more a grammatical necessity). The ironic nature of these listening exercises dwindles by the moment - the fourth time in a weekend that one intentionally exposes themself to Young Guns, it becomes difficult to uphold the alibi that their enjoyment is anything less than sincere. Technically, we have a strong dislike for George Michael, and deservedly so; his music is terrible. Nonetheless, our veneer of cynicism has become strained, to say the least.
Back to the topic at hand. You would think that a bad cover of a song that I enjoy for its badness would be doubly delightful. However, Seether's concoction is somehow anything but - it's bad in the wrong way, a way we never offered our complicity. It's a goddamn Wham! song guys, you don't improve on it by adding melodrama. The appeal is the cheese, trying to be serious with this material is like doing a coffee shop reading of Dr. Seuss. Observe how Exile (whose theme song for Street Fighter IV has become another guilty pleasure) gets it right.
And with that, I think I've exposed myself to enough shame for today.
Thursday, April 9, 2009
there's a record that I love to play
Okay, so here's the story of what exactly I mean when I say that my mom made me become a Kings of Leon fan.
The thing is, no matter how good a band is, there's a danger zone that exists if I've known who they are for more than six months or so and never gotten around to making a definite buying decision. Sometimes something reminds me, the band catches my attention again, escapes the danger zone and becomes a part of my collection. Part of the team, if you will. Other times the sense of urgency burns out before I act upon it, and they fall into quicksand never to be heard from again. I first heard Kings of Leon in 2006 (I think). They were interesting and catchy, but their lyrics didn't make a lasting first impression and they didn't end up getting bought. They hung in there though, somewhere in the back of my mind. This weekend, because the local bookstore chain was liquidating their music inventory, and consequently selling CDs at huge discounts, my mother offered to buy an album for me. I love music and I'm broke, so it should have been a fairly easy decision, but fifteen minutes later I was still looking through the picked-over music rack without success. (This sensation must be familiar to some of you... where you know you want to buy something, but every time you think of a good candidate, you look and it isn't there... yeah.) Mom comes up carrying a copy of Youth & Young Manhood, thinking the title (which incidentally is a Hemingway quote) is hilarious, for reasons I still don't entirely understand. Imagine her surprise when I said "Yes! Great idea!" She hadn't been serious, and then she couldn't tell if I was serious, and it was a very bizarre moment, but it concluded with me and the first two Kings of Leon albums together in a sort of weird happy ending.
other business:
If you don't already know about Barry Manilow's cover of "Never Gonna Give You Up," check the video out on Youtube. Good lord is that man chipper.
Find a way to listen to Doris Day's 1950s hit "A Guy is a Guy" and be terrified. Also on that note, Dean Martin's "Standing on the Corner." Yikes.
The thing is, no matter how good a band is, there's a danger zone that exists if I've known who they are for more than six months or so and never gotten around to making a definite buying decision. Sometimes something reminds me, the band catches my attention again, escapes the danger zone and becomes a part of my collection. Part of the team, if you will. Other times the sense of urgency burns out before I act upon it, and they fall into quicksand never to be heard from again. I first heard Kings of Leon in 2006 (I think). They were interesting and catchy, but their lyrics didn't make a lasting first impression and they didn't end up getting bought. They hung in there though, somewhere in the back of my mind. This weekend, because the local bookstore chain was liquidating their music inventory, and consequently selling CDs at huge discounts, my mother offered to buy an album for me. I love music and I'm broke, so it should have been a fairly easy decision, but fifteen minutes later I was still looking through the picked-over music rack without success. (This sensation must be familiar to some of you... where you know you want to buy something, but every time you think of a good candidate, you look and it isn't there... yeah.) Mom comes up carrying a copy of Youth & Young Manhood, thinking the title (which incidentally is a Hemingway quote) is hilarious, for reasons I still don't entirely understand. Imagine her surprise when I said "Yes! Great idea!" She hadn't been serious, and then she couldn't tell if I was serious, and it was a very bizarre moment, but it concluded with me and the first two Kings of Leon albums together in a sort of weird happy ending.
other business:
If you don't already know about Barry Manilow's cover of "Never Gonna Give You Up," check the video out on Youtube. Good lord is that man chipper.
Find a way to listen to Doris Day's 1950s hit "A Guy is a Guy" and be terrified. Also on that note, Dean Martin's "Standing on the Corner." Yikes.
Saturday, January 31, 2009
time is running out
Well, there have been no new answers for about a week, so for the edification of my readers:
3. This Charming Man - The Smiths
5. A Scale, A Mirror, and Those Indifferent Clocks - Bright Eyes [honestly, congratulations to everybody for not knowing this song]
7. Wandering Star - Portishead
9. The Background - Third Eye Blind [where was J-Verb on this one?!]
10. You Are The Everything - REM [readers will recognize this as one of the top 5 most underrated REM songs]
12. China Girl - David Bowie
14. Wet Sand - Red Hot Chili Peppers
19. Passing Afternoon - Iron & Wine
20. Sing for Absolution - Muse [as trendy as Muse is these days, I'm surprised this one went unanswered. I know at least six people that own this album.]
24. Anyone Can Play Guitar - Radiohead
25. She's Lost Control - Joy Division
26. Veronica - Elvis Costello
3. This Charming Man - The Smiths
5. A Scale, A Mirror, and Those Indifferent Clocks - Bright Eyes [honestly, congratulations to everybody for not knowing this song]
7. Wandering Star - Portishead
9. The Background - Third Eye Blind [where was J-Verb on this one?!]
10. You Are The Everything - REM [readers will recognize this as one of the top 5 most underrated REM songs]
12. China Girl - David Bowie
14. Wet Sand - Red Hot Chili Peppers
19. Passing Afternoon - Iron & Wine
20. Sing for Absolution - Muse [as trendy as Muse is these days, I'm surprised this one went unanswered. I know at least six people that own this album.]
24. Anyone Can Play Guitar - Radiohead
25. She's Lost Control - Joy Division
26. Veronica - Elvis Costello
Monday, January 19, 2009
is it all in that pretty little head of yours?
Note: A few people have reported being unable to post comments on this entry, and have sent their answers to me via email. (This especially seems to happen to people who sign their comments via AIM.) All comments are approved by me before they're published, but if it seems that a reasonable amount of time has passed and your comment isn't appearing, it's possible that it never got through the system to me. Feel free to use email as a solution to this problem.
Since the last lyrics game generated some attention, but not until it was already over, we're gonna try it again. First lines from 25 random songs (selected by my iTunes library on shuffle), eliminated when someone guesses correctly, with credit to that person. That's how they do it on Facebook. The title of this post will be a line from song #26.
1. now I don't hardly know her, but I think I could love her (Crimson and Clover - Tommy James & The Shondells, credit to Dad)
2. so I look in your direction, but you pay me no attention do you? (Shiver - Coldplay, credit to JZ)
3. punctured bicycle, on a hillside desolate
4. you know that it would be untrue (Light My Fire - The Doors, credit to JZ)
5. here is a scale, weight it out and you'll find easily...
6. hot august night (Brother Love's Traveling Salvation Show - Neil Diamond, credit to Dad)
7. please could you stay awhile to share my grief?
8. rows and flows of angel hair (Both Sides Now - Joni Mitchell, credit to JZ)
9. everything is quiet since you're not around
10. sometimes I feel like I can't even sing
11. I think I've already lost you (If You're Gone - Matchbox 20, credit to JZ)
12. I could escape this feeling
13. hey you creeps, punks and freaks (Virus - KMFDM, credit to Sean)
14. my shadow's side so amplified
15. and I'd give up forever to touch you (Iris - Goo Goo Dolls, credit to Alex)
16. estuans interius ira vehementi, estuans interius ira vehementi, Sephiroth! (A One-Winged Angel - Nobuo Uematsu, credit to Sean)
17. love, I get so lost sometimes (In Your Eyes - Peter Gabriel, credit to Kinks)
18. city dweller, successful fella (Country House - Blur, credit to PK)
19. there are times that walk from you
20. lips are turning blue
21. all those bugs buzzing around your head (Buggin' - The Flaming Lips, credit to Alex)
22. I don't drink coffee, I take tea my dear (Englishman in New York - Sting, credit to Don)
23. we move like cagey tigers (The Lovecats - The Cure, credit to Sean)
24. destiny, destiny protect me from the world
25. confusion in her eyes that says it all
Obviously instrumentals and songs in languages other than the one this blog is written in (except for 16, which I couldn't resist) were skipped. I also skipped any song by an artist that had already been represented, or any song that was used in the previous game. As chance would have it, some of these are pretty damn obvious, so don't cheat.
Since the last lyrics game generated some attention, but not until it was already over, we're gonna try it again. First lines from 25 random songs (selected by my iTunes library on shuffle), eliminated when someone guesses correctly, with credit to that person. That's how they do it on Facebook. The title of this post will be a line from song #26.
1. now I don't hardly know her, but I think I could love her (Crimson and Clover - Tommy James & The Shondells, credit to Dad)
2. so I look in your direction, but you pay me no attention do you? (Shiver - Coldplay, credit to JZ)
3. punctured bicycle, on a hillside desolate
4. you know that it would be untrue (Light My Fire - The Doors, credit to JZ)
5. here is a scale, weight it out and you'll find easily...
6. hot august night (Brother Love's Traveling Salvation Show - Neil Diamond, credit to Dad)
7. please could you stay awhile to share my grief?
8. rows and flows of angel hair (Both Sides Now - Joni Mitchell, credit to JZ)
9. everything is quiet since you're not around
10. sometimes I feel like I can't even sing
11. I think I've already lost you (If You're Gone - Matchbox 20, credit to JZ)
12. I could escape this feeling
13. hey you creeps, punks and freaks (Virus - KMFDM, credit to Sean)
14. my shadow's side so amplified
15. and I'd give up forever to touch you (Iris - Goo Goo Dolls, credit to Alex)
16. estuans interius ira vehementi, estuans interius ira vehementi, Sephiroth! (A One-Winged Angel - Nobuo Uematsu, credit to Sean)
17. love, I get so lost sometimes (In Your Eyes - Peter Gabriel, credit to Kinks)
18. city dweller, successful fella (Country House - Blur, credit to PK)
19. there are times that walk from you
20. lips are turning blue
21. all those bugs buzzing around your head (Buggin' - The Flaming Lips, credit to Alex)
22. I don't drink coffee, I take tea my dear (Englishman in New York - Sting, credit to Don)
23. we move like cagey tigers (The Lovecats - The Cure, credit to Sean)
24. destiny, destiny protect me from the world
25. confusion in her eyes that says it all
Obviously instrumentals and songs in languages other than the one this blog is written in (except for 16, which I couldn't resist) were skipped. I also skipped any song by an artist that had already been represented, or any song that was used in the previous game. As chance would have it, some of these are pretty damn obvious, so don't cheat.
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