Best Albums and Tracks - 2011

There were plenty of albums that lived up to the hype in 2011 (Bon Iver, Helplessness Blues, and Watch the Throne), albums that were pleasant surprises (Let England Shake and Gloss Drop), and albums from well-established artists that, in my humble opinion, were underrated (The Whole Love and The King of Limbs). Apologies to James Blake, Foo Fighters, Weezy et al., but here are my favorites, in no particular order:

BEST ALBUMS

WILCO - The Whole Love

• TWL will probably not appear on an overwhelming number of year-end lists due to mixed reviews, but I think this is Wilco's best work since A Ghost is Born and/or Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. Yes, I believe it is better than Sky Blue Sky, and it is far superior to Wilco (The Album), the latter of which goes without saying. Tracks like "Art of Almost," "I Might," "Born Alone," and "Capitol City" are still in consistent rotation in all of my music-playing devices.

FLEET FOXES - Helplessness Blues

•  Chances are that if you, like most people, thought that 2008's self-titled album was outstanding, then you will enjoy Helplessness Blues from start to finish. Pecknold and Co. continue to take modern folk-rock in a promising direction.

BON IVER - Bon Iver

• Justin Vernon gets his mainstream recognition, and deservedly so. Proudly representing Wisco rural-wave (thanks, Carles), Justin Vernon has put together a rich, eclectic album that has appeal across many genres/musical tastes. The album has now been nominated for four Grammy Awards. "Perth," "Holocene," and "Calgary" showcase an all-around "bigger" and more expansive sound than For Emma.

TUNE-YARDS - Whokill

• Merrill Garbus takes it to another level here. This is probably the most eccentric and vibrant album of the year, but it is also meticulously crafted. "Bizness" and "Gangsta" are standouts.

TV ON THE RADIO - Nine Types of Light

• Sadly, TVOTR lost its brilliant bassist, Gerard Smith, to lung cancer this year. However, before his death Smith was able to contribute to another great album that defies classification. Standing on the shoulders of Dear Science (but a bit more restrained), Nine Types of Light is thus far the closest thing to successfully combining The Pixies + Prince.

BATTLES - Gloss Drop

• Gloss Drop may be polarizing, especially due to the absence of Tyondai Braxton. However, the appeal of the first two tracks is undeniable, as is the wonderfully disorienting nature of the instrumentation. Also, "Ice Cream" was a terrific selection for the FIFA 12 commercial.

PANDA BEAR - Tomboy

• I am waiting patiently for news of another Animal Collective project, but Noah Lennox's dark electro-pop will do for now.  I will openly admit that I have not listened to more than one track from Person Pitch, so I cannot justifiably compare it to Tomboy.  I can say that I am really glad NPR made Tomboy available for streaming so that I could indulge.

JAY-Z AND KANYE WEST - Watch the Throne

• By most accounts, it was a disappointing year for hip-hop albums (I am looking at you Lil' Wayne, Tyler, the Creator, Beastie Boys,  et al.). despite plenty of great individual tracks (Tyler's singular creation "Yonkers" is, well, hard to explain -- see below). However, there was indeed one great album that managed to live up to the hype and side-step its potential to be an epic failure: Watch the Throne. Though it does not rival last year's Dark Twisted Fantasy, the production is great, as per usual with Kanye, and "Otis" might include the best sample of the past few years. Jay-Z sounds as good (in the studio, at least) as he ever has.

P.J. HARVEY - Let England Shake

• I included LES on this list based on the tracks "The Words that Maketh Murder," "Let Engliand Shake," and "The Last Living Rose." The lyrics and delivery in these songs are enough to make it a favorite, depicting war in a number of different contexts. You can read more about the lyrics/stories here:

http://nymag.com/arts/popmusic/reviews/71623/


RADIOHEAD - The King of Limbs

• The newest album has generated plenty of backlash, with critics labeling the band's current direction as "boring" or "listless." I could not disagree more; I think the "direction" is profound. I really appreciate the beautiful, moody sound produced in only eight distinctive tracks. "Lotus Flower" is probably as good (not necessarily better) as any song Radiohead has put together since "Idioteque." That's right.

M83 - Hurry Up, We're Dreaming

• This is a very late edition, but thanks to my brother and to Spotify, I have been listening to Hurry Up non-stop over the past week. The album has an epic feel to it; the songs are entrancing but also intense. Pitchfork's obtuse and hyperbolic writing is beyond ridiculous in most cases, but I like how Ian Cohen describes the track "Steve McQueen": "Point blank, it's as close as most of us will get to being strapped inside a space shuttle, as midway through an almost unbearably tensile verse, you don't hear drums so much as afterburners kicking in. By the chorus, it simply cannot go further up, and it explodes at the perfect moment into hair-metal guitar chords and synth-led skywriting. And yet, because it's almost impossible to say what "Steve McQueen" is about (certainly not the actor), it's capable of glorifying anything you choose-- a slow motion shot of Kirk Gibson rounding the bases in the 1988 World Series, a holiday fireworks display, or getting into your car and simply celebrating the end of an exhausting day."

BEST TRACKS

My favorite tracks are listed below, in no particular order and without commentary. Many of the tracks come from the best albums list, but there are also a few wonderful tracks that stood out on underwhelming albums (tracks from Das Racist, My Morning Jacket, etc.). In my infinite blogging wisdom, I am unable to embed each track as audio only, and including a YouTube clip for each seems excessive. However, excessive works for me, so scroll and enjoy. Also, please note that some of these songs are NSFW, so headphones up.

TV on the Radio - Second Song

Portugal. The Man - Got it All (This Can't Be Living Now)

Wilco - The Art of Almost

Middle Brother - Me, Me, Me

Bon Iver - Holocene

My Morning Jacket - Holdin' on to Black Metal

Jay-Z and Kanye West - Otis

Tennis - Marathon

Radiohead - Lotus Flower

Das Racist - Michael Jackson

Foster the People - Pumped Up Kicks

The Dodos - Black Night

Tyler, The Creator - Yonkers

Battles - Ice Cream

Fleet Foxes - Grown Ocean

Tune-Yards - Bizness

St. Vincent - Cruel

Bon Iver - Calgary

Wilco - I Might

Fleet Foxes - Helplessness Blues

P.J. Harvey - Let England Shake

M83 - Midnight City

Panda Bear - You Can Count on Me

Cults - Go Outside

Beirut - Santa Fe

Indie Music in Feature Films: Scores and Soundtracks

As I lounge on the sofa in our front living room during the early evening on Saturdays, I have grown accustomed to a lazy routine that involves scanning the HBO and Showtime channels in 30-to-60-second intervals in search of filler before a) I prepare to leave the house for some reason and socialize with other humans, or b) prime time college football games begin (the latter happens much more frequently). At some point during my search, I typically find a film that I have already seen but is good enough to watch again for about 45 minutes or so while my wife concurrently struggles to decide which Veganomicon recipe would be the simplest and least time consuming to prepare (first-world/white-people problems). Last weekend I watched the end of Runaway Jury, which is still a great random film to watch on cable, and I also caught the tail end of It's Kind of a Funny Story, which I have seen a number of times and thoroughly enjoyed, despite the mixed reviews it has received. Funny Story is written and directed by the auteur-ish Canadian tag team of Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden, who are responsible for one of my favorite films of the past decade: Half Nelson. I recognized a Broken Social Scene song during the closing credits of Funny Story, and then I remembered that Broken Social Scene was behind the entire soundtrack for Half Nelson.

Unlike Half Nelson, which used already-existing songs, BSS composed an original score and recorded a new song specifically for the soundtrack. BSS apparently graduated from soundtracking to scoring. The marriage of indie music and indie film is usually a welcomed thing, and composing a "score" for a film always seem more "prestigious," but which type of contribution generates more cultural capital within the indiesphere? The type of the contribution, and even the style of music, seems to matter less than the actual film for which the music is being produced. Moreover, minor "soundtracking" transgressions are overlooked if the band/artist develops a score for a great indie film. Here are some recent examples to consider:

1. In 2010, Trent Reznor, the chosen one from Nine Inch Nails who has somehow established and maintained indie credibility over a long period of time, won an Academy Award along with partner Atticus Ross for their original score in the critically and commercially successful film The Social Network. It was, admittedly, an amazing score, and undoubtedly caused some to run to record stores in search of a Pretty Hate Machine reissue. Reznor and Ross will be collaborating yet again in Fincher's forthcoming adaptation of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, although it appears that in addition to the score, the pair reworked Led Zeppelin's Immigrant Song for the soundtrack, which is featured in this trailer:

Ambivalence persists.


 2. Another recent example is Radiohead guitarist Jonny Greenwood's original composition for P.T. Anderson's There Will Be Blood, which should have won the Academy Award for Best Picture in 2008. Greenwood's score was also nominated for an Academy Award that year. In 2007, EW's Chis Willman opined about the P.T.A. and Radiohead visionary's collaboration:

"At or near the top of most cinephiles' list of the most exciting filmmakers working today is Paul Thomas Anderson. Fill in ''music fans'' and ''bands'' in the above construction, and Radiohead is the no-brainer choice to end that sentence. Now, Anderson and Radiohead guitarist Jonny Greenwood have teamed up. There will be strings... often abrasive, dissonant, disturbing, and always very loud strings."

The music is certainly unsettling and beautiful, and many feel it is the masterpiece underpinning the masterpiece. Greenwood even took a song that he composed earlier for the documentary Bodysong. Here is a sample of Greenwood's work in TWBB:

Reznor, Ross, and Greenwood received mainstream attention, but also generated plenty of discussion in the indiesphere. These types of comments were common on Stereogum:

"his score MADE (and daniel day lewis) this movie…
had anybody else scored this film, it wouldn’t have had the same impact….oscars [sic] around the table!"

Further, Stereogum even featured a post where users could download the entire score for Reznor and Ross's Social Network and portions of Greenwood's TWBB work .

The indiesphere seems to get excited for potential recognition from some mainstream publications and awards ceremonies that are otherwise ridiculed (see: Arcade Fire and The Grammy Awards), and then it becomes predictably dismissive if or when the work is overlooked and/or does not win. Both of the above examples (TWBB and Social Network) are "good" art in the eyes and minds of the indiesphere (critical reception + indiesphere buzz + moderately but not overwhelmingly popular); however, is there any difference when the indieshpere's beloved artists contribute music to films  that are not "good" art or may be too "commercial"? Consider these artists who contributed to the second film (I think) in the Twilight series:

Death Cab for Cutie, Thom Yorke, Lykke Li, Bon Iver, St. Vincent, Grizzly Bear, etc.

There is no "scoring" involved here, but all of these artists lent or recorded tracks for the OST. None of these artists seemed to catch very much negativity for their involvement in this project; most of the ire was reserved for the tweens who would not or could not appreciate the work of indie artists in their silly vampire movie (the indiesphere could never embrace the Twilight series, but I am guessing it will display affection for the Hunger Games series).
For instance, despite its contribution to Twilight, Grizzly Bear was mostly given a pass because the following year it composed music for the film Blue Valentine, using some previously recorded songs and some instrumental or "choir" versions of other songs. Here is Grizzly Bear's "Shift":

The indiesphere loved this, could not get enough of it. It seems to me, when it comes to taste-making in the indiesphere, composing an original score for a "good-art" film banks some cultural capital for an indie band and can generate further buzz, subsequent album sales, and so on. An individual song on a compilation soundtrack to a "bad-art" film is forgivable, but I think the trend of one band either composing an entire score or owning an entire soundtrack is the important trend here in the increasingly-transcendent world of indie music.

I am certain that I have overlooked some other good examples, so feel free to leave some comments. Now I am off to watch Thursday night TV. Who knows? Maybe I will hear a Neutral Milk Hotel song in tonight's episode of Parks and Rec., and then the band will reunite to score Michael Bay's next Transformers film and then the universe will literally explode.

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Thoughts on Drive and indie soundtracks to video games

*** There are a few (minor) Drive spoilers below:

I would estimate that close to 80% of the audience who attended the 10:00 p.m. showing of Drive on Friday evening at the iPic either disliked it or were at the very least indifferent and confused as they exited the theater. Based on their reactions, I think they were expecting The Fast and the Furious Part 17, or something. To the dismay of probably many moviegoers this past weekend, Drive is an art-house noir film from director Nicolas Winding Refn that was screened at the Cannes Film Festival this year.  I absolutely loved it, and I think it is one of the two best films of 2011 thus far. [Update - Salon posted a discussion on its website this morning about why mainstream audiences hate Drive. Read it here]: 

Salon - The "Drive" Backlash

Drive juxtaposes stylish shots and meaningful periods of silence with sudden and extreme violence. The film borrows from a number of different genres to create the tone, style, and story, but the finished product is unrecognizable neo-noir awesomeness. It is simply fantastic. The violence may be gratuitous at times, but I really like the way that the violence is "treated" in the film. Gabe Delahaye of Videogum (humorously) explains this element better than I can [spoilers]:

"This movie, unlike so many movies and TV shows these days, did at least take its violence seriously, which is good. I’ve briefly mentioned this before, but it is crazy how pretty much any character in any movie or TV show made in the past 10 years will just straight up grab a gun without ever having seen one in their lives before and blow some dude’s face off and giggle because it’s Cameron Diaz or something and then there’s a one-liner like, “Are my panties showing?” [Or "Did I mess up my hair?"]. It’s awful. Violence is fine and I have no problem seeing it depicted, but there has to be some sense of the [seriousness] and moral weight of it, I mean, come on. Similar to the moral consideration of the violence, I also appreciate that he [Driver] doesn’t 'get the girl' in the end. Because he shouldn’t. Because he’s a murderer and a fucking dangerous maniac."

Essentially, the violent moments in Drive are serious and dark, and although many of the violent acts occur suddenly and without warning, those who commit the acts of violence are clearly dangerous sociopaths, and the protagonist is no different. We know from the start that Gosling's character is not just a normal guy who will have normal relationships with other normal characters and that he has the potential to commit acts of violence.

The restrained dialogue and cinematography are also brilliant. I am clearly not a film critic, and I will not pretend to be one. I find that I struggle to adequately explain or articulate components of a film that I think is absolutely superb and unique (other recent examples include Beginners, Winter's Bone, Animal Kingdom, Cyrus, and There Will Be Blood). But I know that it has been a few years since I've been this enthusiastic about a movie I saw in theaters.

Of course, I cannot move on without also addressing how similar art-house or indie films have managed to secure wide releases in recent years. Selling the film to a major studio is obviously an important factor when it comes to promotion and the number of theaters in which it will be screened nationwide or worldwide. For example, Drive was released by FilmDistrict, which like many other deceptively "small" distribution companies is just an appendage of GK Films and Sony Pictures Worldwide. However, the cool thing is that film distributors like Fox Searchlight or Focus Features often give art-house films a chance at greater exposure through their parent companies. Drive made approximately $10 million in its opening weekend. Other recent (within the past 10 years) indie or art-house films like Black Swan and The Wrestler (Darren Aronofsky), The Royal Tenenbaums and The Life Aquatic (Wes Anderson), or There Will Be Blood and Magnolia (P.T. Anderson) have been unleashed upon mainstream audiences. I like this trend. Even if the majority of moviegoers who saw Drive don't "get" the concept, or they "get" it but just think the idea is stupid/pointless/uninteresting, at least the realization is out there that these films exist and that directors and artists are willing to approach a conventional premise (car-chase action thriller) from an alternative or unconventional perspective.

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I failed to mention something in my previous entry on indie bands: video games. This week I read a story about how FIFA Soccer 12 used the track "Ice Cream" from Battles' new album Gloss Drop in a commercial featuring Steve Nash, among others:

I like this commercial because I like Battles and FIFA Soccer. Nailed it! But indie* bands have also been featured on the soundtracks of previous versions of FIFA for PS3 and/or Xbox. Passion Pit, Major Lazer, and Peter Bjorn and John songs all appeared in the 2010 version; Yeasayer, MGMT, LCD Soundsystem, We Are Scientists, and Chromeo were all a part of the 2011 version. Then I remembered that The National recently recorded the song "Exile Vilify" specifically. for the high-brow video game Portal 2:

The National's music publisher said that "after I met with Valve [the software company] and learned about the intricacies and story line of the first Portal game, I knew The National's music would fit beautifully in the sequel." I struggled to find a decent amount of discussion on this strange/symbiotic relationship; the best quotation I could find on Stereogum was: "I guess wallets are tight since Tyondai [Battles' former lead singer] (smartly) jumped this sinking ship." In other words: Battles ain't what they used to be, and now this is a sad (in the eyes of the elitist indie community on Stereogum) attempt to make some extra coin. However, video games provide a unique medium for the "distribution" of songs from indie bands, and this is a stealthy alternative to lending songs to ubiquitous commercials and enduring the subsequent backlash (see Vampire Weekend + Tommy Hilfiger or Wilco + Volkswagen).


* I realize that I use the term "indie" quite frequently in these blog posts, and I also realize that the term is difficult to define or conceptualize. I personally like how Michael Z. Newman, Assistant Professor of Journalism and Media Studies at UWM and a former grad school professor of mine, describes the term in his article “Indie Culture: In Pursuit of the Authentic Autonomous Alternative”: "Indie is contradictory insofar as it at once serves to oppose the dominant culture but also to produce cultural capital that distinguishes its consumers."

"I never figured out how to come out and just start [blogging]"

In his brilliant stand-up film Hilarious, comedian and actor Louis C.K. explains to his audience that he is never quite sure how to begin his shows:

"I never figured out how to come out and just start talking. The first thing you say onstage always feels stupid, because there is no real reason for me to talk to you. I don't know you. [Most of] you don't even know each other."

I feel the same way, to a certain extent, as I sit here and attempt to write the first entry in a blog that was created to share my thoughts on various aspects of popular (and unpopular) culture. I should add that this blog is also intended to "engage" in the blogosphere and its pop culture discourse, if that is even possible. First of all, it feels self indulgent to participate in any form of social networking these days. I recently rediscovered Twitter after holding out for quite some time, and I feel awash in puerility and self-importance every time that I send a "first-person" tweet. The "first thing" I say will always seem foolish, even if I know only a dozen acquaintances are reading these tweets. Blogging is not quite the same, I suppose, because ideally a blog will provide some depth and description beyond 120 characters or inane Facebook updates. Nonetheless, I am not sure that there is any real reason to talk to "you." Ultimately, I may be writing to myself; "you" could be nobody, really (i.e. no actual persons). There is no demand, of which I am aware, for my writing or perspective on cultural, academic, or political topics, outside of perhaps a few friends and family members. I may simply be another random annoying dude who feels like writing about his interests and whom nobody is particularly interested in indulging, at least via this whole internet networking thing. But I am cool with that. At least Louis C.K. is confronted with an audience that is familiar with his craft and has paid money to sit in a chair, laugh at his one-hour monologue, and appreciate his art.

That said, here I am. This blog may simply be an outlet for me, but it still somehow feels good sit down and write and "publish" something (It has been awhile. Does my thesis count?). The bottom line is that I love and consume music, film, and most aspects of popular culture. I realize that one of the things I enjoy most is discussing and analyzing popular culture and current events. I also love to write. I blog, therefore I now exist.

- - - 

C.K. begins Hilarious by explaining how most people are actually dead, including Ray Charles and Hitler,  but being dead is probably the only thing that Ray Charles and Hitler had in common. "According to most accounts, Ray Charles killed very few Jews." C.K.'s stream-of-consciousness opening is his solution to a cold opening in a stand-up routine if one does not know how to "just come out and start talking." So here is my cold opening to a "blog routine" in terms of pop culture stream of consciousness:

I think an extensive collection of vinyl, which includes Sup Pop records and 21st century indie bands as well as decades-old jazz and blues records, is now the ultimate form of cultural capital in music "communities." I believe Bon Iver's second album is outstanding, and I think James Blake's album is grating. Their recent collaboration is thus difficult for me to reconcile. I enjoyed Tyler, The Creator's performance on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon months ago, and I appreciate the fresh and innovative hip hop production from Odd Future, but I do not appreciate the aggressive homophobic "identity" on Tyler's Twitter feed. Das Racist is far superior to OFWGKTA. I agree with Justin Vernon that MTV is  in its current state sad and terrible, but that is also obvious.  It is also sad and terrible that The White Stripes broke up and I never got the chance to see them perform in person. It is sad and terrible that SC Johnson did not pay a penny in taxes on billions in profit over the last few years while teachers and public workers who make $30,000 or $40,000 a year are blamed and disrespected and accused of being "greedy." I think a person can enjoy and analyze fiction from David Foster Wallace and also obsess over Fantasy Football and Prince Fielder's OPS. I believe that The Wire is the greatest television drama of all time, and I am aware that every TV snob with a blog now says that. I think that Beginners is the best film of 2011 thus far. I have a major crush on Melanie Laurent, and I believe that my beautiful wife knows this. I suspect that I have a lot to learn about hegemony theory and its relationship to media. I am certain that Ray Charles' iconic rock 'n' roll song "What'd I Say" (or "What I Say") is one of the greatest rock songs ever, and I also know that listening to this song while playing "Be A Pro Seasons" on Playstation 3's FIFA 2011 can be an exhilarating and unique experience. I seem to remember Ray Charles making a cameo appearance in the 1993 film Rookie of the Year. I contend that Louis C.K.'s sitcom/drama Louie is currently the best new thing that exists on television. I suggest that you listen to Ray Charles once in awhile and watch C.K.'s stand-up film Hilarious, which is truly hilarious, and that is not hyperbole.

I sincerely hope that I will soon figure out how to "just start blogging."