Best of 2012 – Part 1 January 9, 2013
Posted by Matt in Best of 2012.Tags: best of 2012, Cory Branan, Fun., Green Day, JEFF the Brotherhood, Lost in the Trees, music, Paul Thorn, Ray Wylie Hubbard, Soundgarden, Titus Andronicus, Ty Segall Band
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Life is a crazy thing. At times things can seem to be going smooth and easy like a sports car on cruise control, at times the sun is high and the wind is in your hair and all seems right with the world. But all peace is temporary. All places of solace are eventually bulldozed to install a parking lot.
2012 was tumultous year for me personally, one filled with heartache and the occasional triumph, all of which were tied together by the beloved music I fill my senses with each and every day. By my last count, I listened to about 100 new albums over the course of 12 months. Some were better than others, some were good, some are destined to be classics, but overall it was another very good year for music. These are 50 my favorites.
50. Green Day – Uno! / Dos! / Tres!
I’ve been a fan of Green Day since they first burst onto the scene with 1994’s Dookie, a breakthrough work of catchy, punkish pop about teenage angst and self-gratification. In the 2000’s, they took the music world by storm with two huge concept albums, American Idiot and 21st Century Breakdown, both of which rank among the best of the decade and set the band up as the unlikely rock opera heirs of The Who. Though I’ve enjoyed the band for years, and had the chance to see them in an insane concert back in 1999 or so, I approached these latest releases, a trilogy of albums within just a few months of each other, with great trepidation. It turns out my unease was a fair assessment of the direction the band had taken. Each of the three works has some great songs, but these are far outnumbered by unmemorable filler. “Nuclear Family,” the song that kicks off Uno! is a classic burst of Green Day, but when Billie Joe Armstrong sings “Like a nuclear bomb and it won’t be long ‘til I detonate,” it takes on a shade of reality with his recent outburst and subsequent entry into a program for addiction. I find the band at their most interesting on songs that swerve away from their normal formula, like “Nightlife,” with guest vocals by rapper Lady Cobra. Overall, the collection is decent, but if the best tracks had been culled into one album, it would have been outstanding.
49. JEFF the Brotherhood – Exotic Nights
Nashville guitar-drums duo JEFF the Brotherhood, comprised of brothers Jake and Jamin Orrall, may have created the ideal summer album of 2012 in the Dan Auerbach-produced Exotic Nights. With a sound reeking of Weezer’s Blue Album era-guitar, weed, and cheap beer all being blasted through the thick haze and heat of summer in the south, their music evokes the frivolity of youth and blowout house parties and times to be talked about for years to come. When Jake opens the album with “I want a place where I can smoke meats. Where I can drink and swim in the creek,” over an eardrum-bursting fuzzy guitar, you know you are in for a fun ride. It’s songs like “Six Pack” (“Let’s load the car up / I got a bag of ice / I got a six pack / And I don’t wanna go back”) that bring back fond memories of those endless, sweat-drenched summer nights.
48. Ray Wylie Hubbard – The Grifter’s Hymnal
The 65 year old Ray Wylie Hubbard, perhaps best known for penning “Up Against the Wall, Redneck Mother,” has been in the business a long time, lurking just below the radar for more than four decades while influencing untold numbers of Texas singer-songwriters. This latest release shows that the aging outlaw still has quite a bit left in the tank and a seemingly infinite number of pearls of wisdom for following generations. Notable lines abound in songs like “Lazarus” (“At least we ain’t Lazarus / And have to think twice about dyin’) and in “Coricidin Bottle” (“If you ever get to heaven say ‘Woo, thank you!” / If you ever get scared say the 23rd Psalm”). But the highlight of the album comes in the autobiographical “Mother Blues” where Hubbard tells of being a young man who only wanted a “gold plated Les Paul and a stripper girlfriend.” Good stuff.
47. Cory Branan – MUTT
I had heard of Cory Branan before he was name-dropped in a song by one of my favorite bands, Lucero, but it was after that quick reference that I started to pay attention to the work of this great Memphis singer-songwriter. Branan shows a diverse set of influences as he deftly transitions between styles, from the Tom Waits-esque “The Snowman,” to “Bad Man,” with its E Street Band piano riff and vocal styling of Tom Petty, the Mellencamp-like summer jam “Circa Summer 80 Somethin,” (with one of the best lines of year “You were dancing barefoot on the picnic table and dammit girl, truly goddamn it girl, truly goddamn it girl, truly goddamn”). The centerpiece of the album, though, is the great “Survivor Blues,” a tune that takes a darker look at the “Born to Run,” escapist mythology, with the refrain of “What didn’t kill you / Will make you wish you died,” ringing out as the stark voice of realism. It’s a very good album from an artist who stands as a musical treasure of this city.
46. Paul Thorn – What the Hell is Going On?
The state of Mississippi has a long and rich musical history steeped in the blues, from Delta bluesmen mourning their plight in life to the more groove-oriented sound of the hill country. Tupelo-raised Paul Thorn carries on this tradition, mixing elements of blues guitar with riff rock, to create an instantly listenable and danceable concoction. As a live act he regularly tells stories and jokes in his slow, deeply-accented voice in between songs, proving himself to be both a formidable guitarist and entertainer. This collection of relatively obscure covers is dingy and dirty and exudes his outsized personality in such a way that he makes every song seem as though they are his own. “Snake Farm” employs a dirty, Southern rock riff while Thorn tells about a snake farm that, “Sure sounds nasty,” affirms the suspicion by saying it “pretty much is.” Other highlights include “Blue Mountain Bridge” which tells the story of Stone Fox Dan, a marijuana dealer who Blue Mountain Hawk finds with his woman and gives this gospel-inflected set of instructions, “Take him on down below the Blue Mountain Bridge / Tie his hands and throw him in the river / You might as well give him his farewell party tonight. / He said, knock him in the head, he’s better off dead / Break his arms and throw him in the river / If anybody asks, just tell ‘em he committed suicide.”
45. Lost in the Trees – A Church That Fits Our Needs
Written after the suicide of vocalist Ari Picker’s mother, this work blends gorgeous orchestration with haunting morbidity. It is beautiful and haunting and ultimately life-affirming, an album that will stick with you long after the final chords. It is not an easy listen by any means, Picker fills each song with so much gut-wrenching honesty, his own form of catharsis, that you can’t help but feel a bit uncomfortable, but in the end that’s what true art is supposed to do. In the opener “Neither Here Nor There,” when he delicately sings, “Oh look in a golden light / After the sun burns out / Loneliness you’re haunting me,” you physically feel his pain burrowing its way into your heart and soul, tearing away the places where they hide. In standout track “The Dead Bird is Beautiful,” he almost seems to sigh the words, “I’ll carry her, but I’ll always have her eyes,” and you can almost picture him looking in a mirror and seeing those, his mother’s eyes, staring back at him. Perhaps most fitting, the album closer, “Vines,” ends with questions, “Am I hopeless? I trust you. But where are we walking to?” It’s not an easy listen by any means, but Lost in the Trees have crafted a brilliant, beautiful work about human mortality and grief.
44. Soundgarden – King Animal
“You can’t go home / I swear you never can,” Chris Cornell belts out in an unmistakable voice that provides so much comfort to those of us who came of age in those halcyon days of the 90’s. Crunching guitars, plodding bass lines, high volumes: this is the music of my generation and here it is, returning in all its flannel-clad glory. It has been sixteen years since their last release of original material, but the band picks right back up again with this collection of dirty, grungy rock tunes that will almost make us thirty-something fans from 20 years ago want to jump back in the mosh pit. Kim Thayil’s guitar pumps out heavily distorted, chugging riffs like few others, with Cornell’s soaring, eardrum-piercing vocals leading the way. It’s a strong return to form for the band, particularly on the nostalgic opener “Been Away Too Long,” and the heavy “Blood on the Valley Floor.”
43. Titus Andronicus – Local Business
New Jersey’s Titus Andronicus is not your average punk band. I first came into contact with their music on their 2010 album, The Monitor, with its utterly pessimistic view of modern American life as told through the lens of a Civil War travel story. It was loud, bleak, and absolutely brilliant. Their new album eschews the narrative structure of their previous release and instead turns its focus to the disaffected youth of America, the angst-driven Millennials discovering that the adult world isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. The opener, “Ecce Homo,” kicks off with a nihilistic line of self-discovery, “Ok, I think by now we’ve established that everything is inherently worthless / And there is nothing in the universe with any kind of objective purpose,” but instead of being delivered in a depressing, suicidal sort of way, vocalist Patrick Stickles is crying out with the conviction of one struggling to find their place in the emptiness of the American dream. Stickles lays his problems bare for the world to see, particularly on songs like the 8 minute “My Eating Disorder,” about, you guessed it, his suffering from an eating disorder. In that confessional work, his refrain, “I know the world’s a scary place / That’s why I hid behind a hairy face,” resonates. It speaks to those plodding through life, lonely and frightened, looking for somewhere to belong. Yes, Titus Andronicus have set a new standard for the medium of punk rock.
42. Fun. – Some Nights
Come on, you know you like it. With catchy, unavoidable choruses, and vocalist Nate Ruess’s channeling of Freddy Mercury, the band has created a power pop phenomena this year. One of the more interesting aspects of the band, however, is that, despite the band’s name and the singalong nature of the songs, their lyrics are often anything but fun. The title track has a sense of resignation, as if they must make the music because that is all they know to do, and that they must do it, even though they “try twice as hard I’m half as liked.” They’re pleading for something, for a sense of meaning amidst the chaos when he sings, “Oh Lord, I’m still not sure what I stand for / What do I stand for? / What do I stand for? / Most nights, I don’t know anymore.” Between that and the song, “We are Young,” fun. has created an album of generational anthems for the Millennials and whoever comes next, and luckily some of us stodgy Generation-Xers can still enjoy it as well.
41. Ty Segall Band – Slaughterhouse
Ty Segall is, without a doubt, the most prolific artist on this year’s list, having released three full length albums in 2012 to go along with the numerous others he has recorded since his debut in 2008, but I regret to say that Slaughterhouse was my introduction to him. Segall resurrects the spirit of garage rock, with Stooges-like punk, prevalent guitar noise, and an underlying pop spirit that holds it all together. The album kicks off with “Death,” a feedback-laden blast that evolves into chanted lyrics (“Eye of the eye / Eye of the queen / Eye of the king”) like a bunch of demented monks, before turning into a chaotic scream accompanied by loud, distorted guitars. As the album progresses, melodies and crunching riffs intertwine into a thoroughly enjoyable whole, one that will no doubt placate any fan of loud, melodic garage punk. The aptly titled final track, “Fuzz War,” is a 10 minute barrage of chaos and noise, one that both closes this collection and leaves the listener hungry for more. I know I’m already anticipating the next one.
To be continued…
Ten For Tuesday: 1991 September 13, 2011
Posted by Matt in top ten.Tags: 1991, A Tribe Called Quest, Garth Brooks, metallica, My Bloody Valentine, Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Smashing Pumpkins, Soundgarden, top 10, U2
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It’s been a while since we’ve climbed into the top ten time machine, but with the 20th anniversary of so many great albums being celebrated at this time, it only seems appropriate that we set the dial for 1991, fire up the flux capacitator and take a trip back to that time of flannel and youthful apathy, to the Gulf War, Part 1 and Rodney King, to Super Nintendo and Bill Clinton and the end of the Cold War, and to perhaps the greatest year for music in my generation.
10. Red Hot Chili Peppers – Blood Sugar Sex Magik
The Red Hot Chili Peppers had already gained some renown by this point from their album Mother’s Milk and their crazy cool cover of Stevie Wonder’s “Higher Ground,” but Blood Sugar Sex Magik marked their launch into the superstar stratosphere. Funky and fun, the Peppers blew the roof off the place with Flea’s bass guitar heroics on danceable songs like “Give it Away” and “Suck My Kiss.” The album’s centerpiece, though, and one of the greatest songs of the era, was an ode to their city, “Under the Bridge,” with Anthony Kiedis’s famous opening line, “Sometimes I feel like I don’t have a partner.” It’s the best album of RHCP’s long and lauded career.
9. A Tribe Called Quest – The Low Theory
The beauty of rap and hip-hop lies in an artist’s ability to take a piece of familiar music and then twist it into something wholly different and wonderful. This is sometimes done through sampling another song verbatim, then mixing it up and adding to it as seen fit, and at times it is done by borrowing riffs from different genres and building around them. I have long been a fan of the sub-genre of jazz-based hip-hop. From De La Soul in the late 80’s to the newly released album from rap collective Shabazz Palaces, it has continued to intrigue me in its inherent jam-based style. A Tribe Called Quest are the masters of this chapter in the history of hip-hop and this is their best work. With songs like “We Got the Jazz” and “Scenario,” the seminal work of Q-Tip’s group continues to astound today.
8. Garth Brooks – Ropin’ the Wind
In 1991, there was nobody more popular in the music industry than country-crossover sensation Garth Brooks and this album continued to carry the crowd-attracting torch lit the previous year with the huge bestselling album No Fences. In 1991, everyone loved country music and Garth was the reason why. While Ropin’ the Wind didn’t have an era-defining song like “Friends in Low Places,” or “The Dance,” it was still quite good and certainly deserved its massive popularity. If songs like “Rodeo” or Billy Joel cover “Shameless” don’t take you back, you aren’t human.
7. Smashing Pumpkins – Gish
While the debut of Billy Corgan’s band may not have garnered the huge attention of their later works, Gish served up a sonic blast of energy unheard of at that time on the radio. Combining layers of loud guitars, feedback noise, and Corgan’s androgynous vocals, the Pumpkins blew out speakers across the country as they took their first steps in the direction of stardom. In reality, it is every bit as good as their other work, only rawer and hungrier, without the trappings of rock star life. Corgan’s words in songs like “Siva” (Way down deep within my heart / Lies a soul that’s torn apart) were almost providential to his generation and the song “Rhinocerous” with its repeated chorus incantations of “She knows,” bore its way into the listener’s soul.
6. Soundgarden – Badmotorfinger
By 1991, Soundgarden had been toiling away in obscurity for years in the cloud shrouded city of Seattle, churning out Sabbath-like riffs under Chris Cornell’s amazingly versatile vocals while gathering little attention. In 1991, though, the attitude of the country itself began to change. War and Recession were changing an entire generation, from the manufactured happiness of the 1980’s to something darker and more realistic in the 1990’s, and the sound of bands like Soundgarden filled that underlying need. Songs like “Rusty Cage,” “Outshined,” and “Jesus Christ Pose,” rocked loud and hard like those great bands of the early 70’s and, in so doing, the band rightfully became part of Seattle’s own holy trinity.
5. U2 – Achtung Baby
Achtung Baby marked a major milestone and turning point for Bono’s band as they began to embrace styles from alternative rock to electronic dance in their continuing evolution as one of the biggest bands in the world. This album, along with its subsequent world tour, may be rightly seen as the band taking the next step to superstardom. Songs like “Mysterious Ways,” “Even Better Than the Real Thing,” and the amazing “One” (One love / One blood / One life / You got to do what you should) make this perhaps the last truly great album from Dublin’s favorite sons.
4. Metallica – The Black Album
In the 1980’s, when hard rock was becoming something of a joke under the banner of lightweight hair bands, Metallica charged ahead with their brand of aggressive thrash metal, releasing albums that epitomize the term classic, but in 1991, following on years of epic albums, the band decided to take a new and different turn. Eschewing their past sound, with its loud and long songs of darkness and destruction of Biblical proportions, the band turned to something different, compacting their tunes into bite-sized, radio-friendly chunks, and, for better or worse, transforming the metal scene for years to come. Today, twenty years after its release, songs like “Enter Sandman,” and “Sad But True,: and “Wherever I May Roam,” are among the best crowd rousers
3. My Bloody Valentine – Loveless
One of the most celebrated albums of the decade, this brainchild of the elusive genius, and father of the shoegazing movement, Kevin Shields is certainly worth the effusive praise. My Bloody Valentine piles layer upon layer of guitars in a veritable symphony of noise, topping it with ethereal and obscured vocals like some strange and dark dessert. This album is a masterpiece, without a doubt, and perhaps the only disappointing thing about it is that it is the last full length work to come from the band. This is the type of work meant to be listened to from beginning to end, as an entire body of work, but there are some songs that stand out, namely, “Only Shallow,” and “I Only Said,” but I would still urge everyone to listen to it from beginning to end, preferably at a high volume.
2. Pearl Jam – Ten
Despite its unrepeated plethora of hit songs, when looking back at Ten after listening to all of Pearl Jam’s catalog, it actually comes across as one of the weaker links in the canon. When it comes to cultural importance, though, nothing else in Eddie Vedder’s huge collection of recordings matches this one. The songs “Alive,” “Evenflow,” and “Jeremy” are doubtless the first ones thought of when one considers this debut from our generation’s greatest band, but one’s attention should also be turned to live staples like the rocking “Porch” and the cigarette lighter-waving “Black.” We sing of the “pictures have all been washed in black,” and it reaches down deep into a primal place, welling up with innocence lost and unrest, “I take a walk outside / I’m surrounded by some kids at play / I can feel their laughter, so why do I sear?” But, perhaps one of the most notable songs associated with this debut album is not actually contained on it. “Yellow Ledbetter,” an almost incomprehensible, yet emotionally moving tune that is found on the B-side of the “Jeremy” single, far outdoes the headlining song on its single disc. I love Pearl Jam, and have now for 20 years, so the nostalgia found within these songs is as great as any for me personally.
1. Nirvana – Nevermind
By all accounts, Kurt Cobain never meant to start a revolution. He had no desire to lead a radical new movement, to have millions of people follow his each and every move. But, regardless of his intimations, the new generation was here and looking for something to grasp hold of in their despair, their coming to grips with the human condition. Nirvana, with their mix of nihilism and feedback-laden guitar fit the bill perfectly for that time and quickly Nevermind became a veritable Bible for millions of young people looking for escape from the doldrums of everyday life and meaning in their life to come, as adults. The lyrics where oftentimes nonsensical (“a mullato / an albino / a mosquito / my libido), but the rage behind them became the true catalyst for its popularity. It was the inescapable “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” “Come as You Are,” and “Lithium” that lead the youthful charge into the decade, but it was the slower, more introspective tunes like “Something in the Way” that truly captured that sense of hopelessness, of powerlessness, when Cobain sang of his time as a homeless vagabond, saying, “Underneath the bridge / My tarp has sprung a leak / And the animals I’ve trapped / All become my friends.” It is perhaps most poignant that an album so full of anger and rage should end on such a note (not counting the hidden song, “Endless, Nameless”, but I digress).
Thoughts?
A Playlist for the Apocalypse May 20, 2011
Posted by Matt in music, top ten.Tags: AC/DC, Apocalypse music, Beck, Bob Dylan, Bob Marley, end of the world, Hayes Carll, John Prine, Johnny Cash, May 21, Nirvana, Oasis, Pearl Jam, Pink Floyd, playlist, Prince, Radiohead, Soundgarden
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My friend Susan gave me an idea today when she posted R.E.M.’s “It’s the End of the World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)” on my Facebook wall in celebration of the global apocalypse scheduled for tomorrow (Check your local listings). I think we need a good playlist to celebrate our last day on earth. Here are some choices from my iPod.
10. Hayes Carll – She Left Me For JesusIt’s time for those last minute conversions and this is the perfect song for it.
9. Beck – Earthquake WeatherAccording to the apocalyptic prognosticators, we can expect a global earthquake tomorrow that should reach us around 6:00 pm. I think we should dance to Beck.
8. Prince – Sign O’ the TimesYes, we should have been looking for the signs, I know, I know…
7. Radiohead – How to Disappear CompletelyWell, that is what happens in the rapture, right? Cars will veer off the road unattended and suddenly unpiloted planes will crash and burn. Well, either that or it will just get a little more pleasant for the rest of us.
6. Pearl Jam – Given to FlyThen again, maybe we’ll actually see people ascend bodily into heaven. That would be much cooler.
5. Johnny Cash – The Man Comes Around / Metallica – The Four HorsemenYeah, worldwide destruction is what’s in store for those of us left behind. At least we have some diverse music choices dealing with it.
4. Soundgarden – Black Hole SunThe sun will turn into a black hole? I think they’re reading of Revelation may be a little off.
3. AC/DC – Highway to Hell / Nirvana – Lake of FireSorry, evildoers, but this is the end of the line.
2. John Prine – Your Flag Decal Won’t Get You Into Heaven AnymoreMaybe extreme patriotism isn’t the best way after all…
1. Bob Dylan – Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door / Oasis – Live Forever / Pink Floyd – The Great Gig in the SkyFinally, how about some tunes for those who make it…
P.S.
Most likely, though, I think this song will be appropriate for those actually expecting the world the end tomorrow.
Bob Marley – Waiting in Vain
What songs would you put on the End of the World Playlist?
Sound of a Generation – pt.3 July 11, 2008
Posted by Matt in Sound of a Generation.Tags: grunge, music, Screaming Trees, Sound of a Generation, Soundgarden
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You can read parts 1 and 2 of our series here.
In addition to the three bands previously mentioned, there was another that helped the Seattle music scene burst forth from its cloud-enshrouded home – Soundgarden. Chris Cornell’s band had existed since the mid-80’s, churning out heavy Sabbath-like riffs underneath his octave-stretching vocals. Though they seemed to lose their focus towards the end of their years together, 1991’s “Badmotorfinger” is a classic album from the grunge era.
There were several other bands that reached some level of popularity in the early 90’s as well, though none reached the same heights of commercial success as the four bands we have looked at over the past two weeks. Another favorite song of mine from that time is this one by the Screaming Trees, a band that never came to be a household name, but who put out this great tune from the Singles soundtrack.
