Wow, 2010, what a shitcan of a year, huh? Not totally. I did come away with some important life lessons that have completely reshaped who and what I am as a person. It has been the year of transformations from the lowly, depressed, anxiety-driven little boy I used to be to a confident, well-adjusted, positive man. I kept saying to myself, "shouldn't this have happened years ago?" Maybe. But not everyone is the same person with the same experiences and the same emotions. Some of us take a little longer to gestate in the womb of the world.
But the muffins aren't done yet, folks. Part of being a good human is to constantly keep growing. Keep evolving. Keep learning. And to never stop this process. To be stagnant is to become stale and just another pair of eyes and ears for the half of the world that is too stubborn to change. We don't want you on our team. You will be picked last, if picked at all. And if you are already on our team, you will be cut. Again, we need to keep going and not let anyone get in our way. No one.
Let's make 2011 as positive as we can. Let us all take what we've learned from 2010 and apply it to the problems we may face in the future. It seems as though not enough people are doing this. I used to be one of those people. I never listened to myself or others and I regret that. But I saw the error of my ways and I made it my goal to change them. Shouldn't you as well? It's never too late. The path to home is perilous and is never paved in gold, but that doesn't mean you should stop walking it. We brake for no one.
Oh yeah, almost forgot. Here are my top 10 albums of the year.
With the onslaught of the 80's come back it's nice to know that some bands take themselves a little more seriously than others. Odd Blood is put together with finesse and with no detail left behind. I like it when a band knows what they're doing and knows how to accomplish it without sacrificing their vision to appease a specific group of people. Namely the reviewers at Pitchfork. And while Yeasayer's sophomore album is good enough to slip into the list it warrants the number 10 position because of the album trailing off after track 6. Still, a good album to jam to at a party or perhaps even a bar mitzvah.
Having lost a member during their fall tour SVIIB became yet another guy/girl electro-duo to add to the already long list in indieland. What sets them apart is obviously their lack of being held back during a live show because of it. They have no shame in running tracks behind them while playing. This gives the listener an experience as close to the album as possible, which in my opinion is what I look for when I go see a band perform. I want that sound duplicated. I want to be able to hear every synth fill and every drum beat that accompanies whatever is being played live. SVIIB does a great job of keeping you interested by filling those sonic gaps that are easily overlooked by others of the same genre. However, the album could've used a bit more variety with the type of sounds being used. Still, it's a hell of a lot better than almost all the duo's swarming the scene right now.
One part overdrived-synth. Two parts bit-crunched drum loops. Throw in some punk, dance, and glitch and you have an album to keep you going through the night (read: early morning) when you're already hopped up on enough FourLoko for the after after after party. Also a good album to listen to when you're beyond your deadline on a project and are rushing to get it done only to be sent back for more changes anyway. I digress. I have a crush on singer Alice Glass, I also have a crush on Ethan Kath's production techniques. Both of those combined inspire me to want to start a similar project. Having Robert Smith's phone number wouldn't be a bad thing to have either.
I have come to appreciate this band a lot more lately. Their previous album In The Future was better, but Wilderness Heart should definitely not go unnoticed. I mean, c'mon, look at the album cover! There's a great white shark on it! That already makes the album awesome without even listening to track 1. Album cover aside, Black Mountain have made another solid LP for the fans of folk and psych-rock alike. I recently had a chance to see them with The Black Angels as their opener. Great show. Another band that doesn't suck in the live sound department.
Another guy/girl duo. They are indeed popular these days. But they deserve all the recognition they receive especially since their debut album totally blew away MIA's new one. And she was the one who signed them to her label!! How do you feel now, Maya? Pretty dumb I bet. All that hype for your new album and it sucked...a lot. At least she did something right by making Sleigh Bells known to the world. It's funny to think that an ex-guitarist from Poison The Well could come up with this kind of stuff. But that's why I put the album on the list. It's unconventional and very raw. A friend had asked me when she listened to it for the first time, "is it suppose to blow out my speakers?" Yes. Yes it is.
Austin, TX has a history of putting out some pretty decent music. I would hope so considering the city is music capital of the world. I could name a few bands for you, but I'd rather just name one. One Hundred Flowers. Their debut album, Mechanical Bride has a lot of heart and guts sewn in and is stronger than most band's third or forth albums. The driving force of these up and comers are the layered vocals of lead singer/guitarist Harrison Speck and keyboardists Eva Mueller and Amber Nepodal. Their three voices create the trifecta of what makes Bride stand out amongst the rest. Along with bassist Gary James and drummer Curtis Henderson the music this quintet plays has something for everyone's taste, as bitter or as sweet as it may be. Be on the lookout for them in 2011. They will be touring the countryside bringing their unique blend of chamber pop and indie rock to your neck of the woods very soon. I hear they may open for Kanye.
James Murphy. You can't say too many bad things about the guy and his music. Always fresh, always relevant, never stale. But look kids, he's getting older, as he has explained on This Is Happening. What's happening you ask? Age is happening. Getting older is happening. Striving and doing his best to be set apart from the rest is happening. Being bored is happening. Nevertheless, Murphy has made an album dedicated to the fact that his longevity as an artist is in danger. He's been quoted as saying he won't make another album, then later rebuked that statement. Makes you wonder if he really is getting bored with doing it all; Pleasing people that is. Maybe he wants a successor? From the sarcastic "Drunk Girls" to the brutally honest "You Wanted A Hit" Murphy casts his shadow over all the other would-be indie/electronic/dance acts and naysayers alike while politely saying, "This is the level I'm setting for you. I dare you to top me."
The best albums, in my opinion, are always the most simplest ones. Ones that seem to be created effortlessly. The ones that make me feel the most without the over-saturation of an emotion connected to a memory. During my growth this year I have let go of a lot of music that has some kind of connection to the past. That's not to say I won't ever listen to it again. They are the friends I have grown apart from, but will never say goodbye to. With that being said and done I can now open myself up to new experiences and memories through the new music I am listening to. I started that process with this album. I kept it to myself. I never shared it with anyone. Sure, I recommended it to people, but I never allowed it to be a part of any situation that may have turned sour and therefore force this album into the "don't listen to this unless you want to think about _____ and blow your brains out." category.
Just because Pitchfork gave it a perfect 10.0 doesn't mean it's the Muhammad Ali of all hip hop/rap albums, though it does come damn close. Kanye has created himself a legacy with MBDTF, and it is indeed a great album, but his legacy will also show the antics of Mr. West proving how much of a screwball he is. He takes advantage of his position in celebrity world by giving others who may not be heard a voice. Everyone in New Orleans probably wanted to call George W. a racist, but when were they going to get a chance to do that? Yezzy can do it. And I'm sure some people disagreed with Taylor Swift's getting the award for whatever the fuck it was. Yezzy can tell it like it is. Yezzy can be raw if he wants. Say whatever he wants. And you know what, I can kind of respect that. No one can tell another person to keep their mouth shut. Not our superiors. Not the media. And certainly not the government. Yezzy has indeed taught us well.
It's tough getting older. More responsibility. Less time to do what you want. Walls start appearing where before they didn't exist. Conformity takes hold. You've become a peg to fit in their hole. You wake up, go to work, come home, cook dinner, put the kids to sleep, watch your television, and then go to bed to do it all over again. It's the American nightmare, one that most of us are just now beginning to wake up from. We were handed down from our parents and their parents before them a way to live to be happy. Except the same kind of happy they were okay with does not apply to our way of life. We're hungry for more and because of that hunger we're fighting with ourselves, our families, and our friends just to get a taste of a better life. Arcade Fire exploited this battle and wrote an album about it. An aural Revolutionary Road if you will. The roads and houses our parents built, the same ones we grew up with are crumbling. And we're crumbling along with them. No wonder Win Butler says in the title track opener "I want a daughter while I'm still young." He recognizes, as does the rest of the population in our age group, that our own mortality is more transparent now than it ever was. We need to carry on, but how do we take what we've learned from our parents and apply it to today? How do we rebuild our cities, our suburbs, and ourselves?
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