Thoughts on Music From the Last Year and Half, or, An Entry Slightly Longer Than the Average Sufjan Stevens Song Title

As you might have noticed, it’s June of 2006. As you also might have noticed, I never got around to doing my year in review for 2005. I don’t know how you have been able to live these past five months. This has made the wait for the Pazz and Jop results seem brief by comparison. And after all this wait will you finally get a full fledged year in review? No you will not. Because at this point that would be REALLY lame. Even lamer than having an online journal. Or still calling your blog an online journal. Yes, it would be THAT lame. So in place of that, I’ll give you my musings on music from the past year and a half. After all, I think I covered my views on the movies of 2005 pretty extensively back all my Oscar “coverage”. And besides movies and music what else is there?
Okay, I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear your answer to that question, as it was intended to be rhetorical ….

Thoughts on music January 2005 – June 2006
Say what you will about Odelay, but I think Guero is by far Beck’s best album. Listening to it one time made me go from not really “getting” Beck to paying money to see him in concert. That’s a good album. I still say "Girl" should have been the first single though.

(Of course no discussion of Beck would be complete without mentioning the fact that he once wrote and sang the immortal lyric “flashdance asspants”. A fact that still remains simultaneously the best and worst thing you can possibly say about Beck.)

After much scientific research I have concluded that Bloc Party’s Silent Alarm is the official soundtrack of sitting alone in a subway station in New York City at 2:30am both hyped with energy from a night of activity and falling asleep at the same time.

Kanye West, Rapper: The Good, The Bad, The Ugly:
The Good: “The rock stand tall and you aint never believe it / Take your diamonds and throw em up like you bulimic”
The Bad: “You tellin me if my grandma’s in the NBA / right now she’d be okay / but since she was just a secretary working for the church for 35 years things supposed to stop right here”
The Ugly: “Maya Angelou, Nikki Giovanni / turn one page and there’s my Mommy”

Memo to Kanye: Maybe I’m a little confused but it would seem to me that you are actually in fact saying that she’s a gold digger. But maybe it’s just me.

Did Common call his new album Be because it’s the de-facto B-side to Late Registration, or because he wants to be Kanye? Either way it’s a great album.

(Also after seeing John Legend on Real Time with Bill Maher I am only further convinced that the Kanye/Common/John Legend/etc. posse is by far the greatest hip-hop posse of all time.
Followed closely by The No Limit Family of course…)

I think we can all agree that the best lyric of the year is Jay-Z’s “I’m not a businessman, I’m a business, man.” In fact his whole verse on “Diamonds From Sierra Leone” is some of his best work ever. (Props to Nas’s verse on “We Major” while we’re at it) And since I’m on the subject of Jay-Z I think it’s worth mentioning that even though he’s dating Beyonce, I really love and respect the Jigga Man. His career has been amazingly long and consistent, especially considering that 50 Cent’s is already over. And after watching Jay-Z on Centerstage on YES (don’t ask) I even sort of understand the whole Beyonce thing.

(On a semi-related note I really think 50 Cent should open a sandwich shop called Gangsta Wraps. It would instantly become my favorite restaurant of all time.)

Has anyone ever sold out as completely and shamelessly as The Black Eyed Peas?
Yes I see you raising your hand Liz Phair…

Someone alert the Pulitzer committee – there’s a new Red Hot Chili Peppers album!
I kid because I love.
No but seriously, “Hump De Bump” really speaks to me lyrically.

With Stadium Arcadium the Chili Peppers have pulled off one of the hardest feats in all of music – making a double album that actually warrants being two discs long. That’s something that even The Beatles and Bob Dylan couldn’t really pull off. So congrats boys.

For anyone who thinks rock is dead (that would include me...but more on that some other time) listen to “Turn It Again” off Stadium Arcadium. I don’t know if it proves the rock isn’t quite dead yet or just that John Frusciante and Flea are perhaps the most underrated musicians of all time, but I do know that it’s a damn good song.

(I really think Flea and John Frusciante should team up with Bono and Tre Cool from Green Day to form the greatest rock super group of all time. They could rule the world!)

(On a less exciting Stadium Arcadium related note: sadly “Wet Sand” is not a sequel to “I Like Dirt”. But I guess it at least establishs that Anthony Kiedis does still enjoy soil-like substances.)

I cant verify this for sure but I have a sneaking feeling that the guys in Wolfmother might have possibly listened to some Led Zeppelin at some point in their lives.

Some reviewer somewhere described Thunder Lightning Strike by The Go! Team as the soundtrack to the best day of your life. I would say that is a perfect description. And if you haven’t heard “Ladyflash” yet, your life is not complete.

This has nothing to do with anything but were you aware that the Canadian nickel has a beaver on it? Just thought that was worth noting.

I don’t know what’s sadder - that the Best Buy on 5th Avenue didn’t carry Morph the Cat or that I’m under the age of 40 and I made a special trip to Best Buy to get a solo CD by one of the members of Steely Dan the morning it was released.

Does Jenny Lewis have a younger sister? If so, does anyone have her number?

Separated from all the hype and expectations X & Y isn’t as bad as you remember. It’s not great, but go back and listen to it again. You’ll be glad you did.

(Plus, besides being one of my personal favorite songs in a long time, “Fix You” really makes the whole Gwyneth / Chris Martin thing make perfect sense doesn’t it?)

Before I forget, how about a moment to discuss my favorite music related “thing” of ‘05 – Sufjan Stevens’ song titles. Much like the great !!! (Chk Chk Chk) problem of ’01, only not completely lame, we need to come to a consensus on how one should refer to specific Sufjan Stevens’ songs. Let’s take “They Are Night Zombies!! They Are Neighbors!! They Have Come Back from the Dead!! Ahhhh!” for example. Now if one wanted to tell their friend they should listen to this song how would they tell them the song’s name? Would they use the whole title? If so, how would they deal with the “Ahhhh”? Would that just consist of them yelling? Now the obvious answer would be that the person would just use the first part, “They Are Night Zombies!!”, but unlike Polyphonic Spree or Billy Corgan, Sufjan didn’t put the rest of the ridiculously long title in parenthesis, which means he considered the whole thing to be the title and not just the first part. And if one did disobey Sufjan’s intentions and just refer to it as “They Are Night Zombies!!” that still leaves the issue of the punctuation. Its clearly there for a reason, so does that mean that when saying the title out loud you must exclaim it? What if the location where you are telling your friend about this song is in a library? What then? And don’t even get me started on the problems raised by others songs like “The Tallest Man, the Broadest Shoulders, Pt. I: The Great Frontier/Pt. II: Come to Me Only With Playthings Now” or “The Black Hawk War, or, How to Demolish an Entire Civilization and Still Feel Good About Yourself in the Morning, or, We Apologize for the Inconvenience But You’re Going to Have To Leave Now, or, ‘I Have Fought the Big Knives…’”. See why we really need to, as a nation, come to some sort of consensus about these.

(While we are talking about “They Are Night Zombies!! They Are Neighbors!! They Have Come Back from the Dead!! Ahhhh!” I think its worth considering the fact that if that song title is accurate then that means that the zombies could clearly give Andre 3000 some sugar.)

I think its quite possible that when Sufjan gets around to making his album about Texas it will be the greatest album of all time. And I’m not just saying that because I’m from there. Which brings us to…
Top 3 & 1/2 Most Anticipated Sufjan Stevens Albums:
1.) Texas
2.) California
3.) New York
3 & 1/2.) Alaska

(Rumor has it his next one will be about Oregon which somehow feels completely appropriate)

(It’s been said many times but it bears repeating that the fact that Sufjan Stevens could make a graphic song about a serial killer (“John Wayne Gacy, Jr.”) both moving and somewhat sympathetic is a sign that he’s a ridiculous talented songwriter. I think equally impressive though is the fact that he could make the phrase “Stephen A. Douglas was a great debtor / Abraham Lincoln was the Great Emancipator” so catchy that it was stuck in my head for two days straight and there was absolutely nothing I could do to get it out. Oh no...I think by even typing it I just got it stuck in my head again…AHHH!)

I think its safe to say that “Come On! Feel the Illiniose!, Pt. I: The Worlds Columbian Exposition / Pt. II: Carl Sandburg Visits Me In a Dream” is the best song ever written about the World’s Columbian Exposition and/or Carl Sandburg.

I couldn’t come up with anything clever to say about them, but they’re worth mentioning anyway: My Morning Jacket, Broken Social Scene, The Hold Steady

On to the awards…

Album of the Year 2005:
Late Registration – Kanye West. Although if you didn’t already know that then I wonder where exactly you spent your 2005. To take nothing away from Kanye but it was a pretty weak year for music overall. In fact you could make the case that although Late Registration was the best album of 2005, that it isn’t even the best Kanye West album from the last 24 months. College Dropout is better in almost every category: massive ubiquitous single (“Jesus Walks” over “Gold Digger”), 7+ minute song with spoken segment (“Last Call” over “We Major”), family song (“Family Business” over “Hey Mama”), number of hit songs, skits, etc., but somehow Late Registration just FEELS like the better album. College Dropout felt like a great commercial hip-hop album, but Late Registration feels like Outkast-level art. Its more adventurous, more socially conscious, less commercial and hit driven, and you can literally feel Jon Brion’s influence. After all, he’s “on the keys right now”.

(Does anyone else find Kanye’s apparent obsession with Fiona Apple a bit strange. And why has more not been made of the fact that Jon Brion produced the best rap album of the year and Mike Elizondo produced the best Fiona Apple album of the year? Am I the only one who thinks about these things? Probably.)

Single of the Year 2005:
I think we all know the best song of the year is “Since U Been Gone”. There’s really no point to even discussing this fact. I think the only real debate is: is it the best song of the decade? I don’t know if it’s quite on level with “Lose Yourself”, “Hey Ya”, and “Jesus Walks”, but the fact that it’s even in the discussion is pretty good. And the fact that a song by Kelly Clarkson might be the clubhouse leader for non-hip-hop single of the 00’s is pretty astounding. (See, told you rock is dead).

(On a side note, since this decade is almost half over can we figure out how to refer to it sometime soon? I mean are we really destined to be watching “I Love the Aughts: 3-D” in 10 years? Is that the best we can come up with?)

(I can’t mention singles of the year without also acknowledging “This Modern Love” by Bloc Party. I only wish Id written it first.)

(On the opposite end of the spectrum: “Laffy Taffy”, “My Humps”, “Had a Bad Day”, “Don’t Cha”.)

Most Underrated Album of 2005:
Almost as undebatable as Best Single of 2005, is Most Underrated Album of 2005. That tile indisputably belongs to Ben Folds for Songs for Silverman. It a huge leap forward and a radical and unexpected shift in tone and direction for a critically respected and commercially successful artist and yet it wasn’t in Rolling Stone or Spin’s Top 40 Albums of the year. I don’t understand how really. “Landed” is by far one of the best singles of the year and its probably not even one of the top two songs on its own album. Those would be “Late” and “Jesusland”. All of the songs, but especially those two, take simplicity and understatement to magical new places. Instead of wallowing in sentiment or taking a song about his daughter, or Jesus and the hypocrisy of his followers, or the death of Elliot Smith to the places 99% of artists would take them to, he scales them back to almost nothing, leaving unique, personal and deeply felt songs that are infinitely better for their stark minimalism. Listen to Ben talk about “Late” on the DVD that came with the CD and you can really grasp the song's brilliance. He didn’t even really know Elliot Smith but he enjoyed his music and had heard that he played a dirty game of basketball, so he wrote a song to him using that information and nothing more, and it’s one of the best tributes a person could receive. It’s only a shame Elliot isn’t around to hear it. Coming off his three EPs and, well, his whole prior ovure, hearing such grown up, stripped down, simple songs from Ben was starling and completely unexpected. And its only a shame more people didn’t hear it.

(You should also check out Ben's songs from the Over The Hedge soundtrack. Although its what Jeff Daniels' character from The Squid and the Whale would call "minor Folds", it's still worth checking out. Although the less said about the "Rockin the Suburbs" remix with William Shatner the better.)


Top 3 & 1/2 of the Week
1.) No Direction Home
2.) Red Hot Chili Peppers - Stadium Arcadium (album)
3.) Quiznos
3 & 1/2.) Tenacious D – “Wonderboy” (why I am the last person on earth to get into Tenacious D, and how come no one exposed me to them sooner?)

Thought of the Week:
Apparently Mike Nichols is directing Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts in a film written by Aaron Sorkin, and Spike Jonze is directing an adaptation of Where the Wild Things Are written by Dave Eggers. It’s hard to know which project to be more excited about.