* "Dear Science" do TV On The Radio
* "Third" do Portishead
* "Modern Guilt" do Beck
* "Midnight Boom" do The Kills
* "Oracular Spectacular" do MGMT
* "Accelerate" do R.E.M
* "Santogold" da Santogold
* "Esperanza" da Esperanza Spalding
* "Only By The Night" do Kings Of Leon
Jan 12, 2009
Jan 10, 2009
DAN PELLEGRINI - Oakland, CA, USA
My list for the best of 2008:
I really need to differentiate between albums and singles. As with so many of you, in the digital age, I don't really listen to albums as much as I used to in the past. That said, I think there have been some truly exceptional works in 2008.
Albums:
Nine Inch Nails - Ghosts I-IV:
Electronica, Rock, Industrial, Etc. Impossible to put plainly into words. No lyrics but emotes plainly without. Simply gorgeous music. Trent Reznor just makes music with a raw beauty that is unparalleled. Downloaded directly from NIN site for those interested.
The album of the year imho. Nothing else like it.
Kings of Leon - Only By Night:
Gets better every time I listen to it. They have evolved wonderfully. Sensitive aggression. Great chord progression.
My Morning Jacket - Evil Urges:
America's Radiohead, and they are living up to it. I happen to like "Z" better than this one, but still fantastic.
Ray LaMontagne - Gossip in The Grain
Organic, sweet. Credit for stretching his wings without losing the essence of what makes him special. Angst ridden, but not Emo. Besides, anyone who pens an ode to stalking Meg White deserves props! And that VOICE!
Fleet Foxes - Fleet Foxes:
Ethereal Beach Boys. Brings to mind "Pet Sounds" crossed with My Morning Jacket. The surprise out of nowhere band for me this year. The beauty if this music blew me away.
Coldplay - Viva la Vida:
Again, didn't rest on their success. At first I was ok with this, but the more I have listened the more I think this is truly special. A great band using everything within them, using all of their talent in new directions. Gongs, strings, rhythmic hand clapping, african and latin elements - whatever! Brian Eno moved them out from their comfort zone and is a genius. Their best yet.
The Ravonettes - Lust, Lust , Lust:
Sounds right out of a Quentin Tarrantino movie. Dreamy distortion and reverb meet 60's kitsch. Great harmony along with electro-fuzz. Cooler than cool.
Glasvegas - Glasvegas:
Anthemic, fun, loud. The debut effort shows great promise. Strong 60's style punk - pop - rock.
Singles:
* Duffy - Warwick Avenue - heartbreaking
* The Gaslight Anthem - The 59 sound - calling Bruce Springsteen
* Coldplay - Viva la Vida - the French revolution???? it works!
* Raphael Saadiq - Love that Girl - Smokey Robinson reincarnated
* The Black Keys - Strange Times - rock and roll the way it was meant to be
* Weezer - Pork and Beans - still just make you laugh out loud
* David Byrne and Brian Eno - Home - still sounds good
* The Hold Steady - Sequestered in Memphis - Piano and guitar joined together just right
* Connor Oberst - Moab - how sometimes the road can heal you - and it does
* The Ravonettes - Aly, Walk with Me - see above
* OneRepublic - Stop and Stare - beautiful lyrics, forward or die
* The Killers - Spaceman - ultimate in stadium rock ready, and pretty funny on top of it all
* Glasvegas - Geraldine - just listen
* The Ahn Trio - All I Want -again simply heartbreaking, beautiful strings - classical, electronic, blues, jazz all in one package
* NIN - Discipline - sounds like The Downward Spiral
I really need to differentiate between albums and singles. As with so many of you, in the digital age, I don't really listen to albums as much as I used to in the past. That said, I think there have been some truly exceptional works in 2008.
Albums:
Nine Inch Nails - Ghosts I-IV:
Electronica, Rock, Industrial, Etc. Impossible to put plainly into words. No lyrics but emotes plainly without. Simply gorgeous music. Trent Reznor just makes music with a raw beauty that is unparalleled. Downloaded directly from NIN site for those interested.
The album of the year imho. Nothing else like it.
Kings of Leon - Only By Night:
Gets better every time I listen to it. They have evolved wonderfully. Sensitive aggression. Great chord progression.
My Morning Jacket - Evil Urges:
America's Radiohead, and they are living up to it. I happen to like "Z" better than this one, but still fantastic.
Ray LaMontagne - Gossip in The Grain
Organic, sweet. Credit for stretching his wings without losing the essence of what makes him special. Angst ridden, but not Emo. Besides, anyone who pens an ode to stalking Meg White deserves props! And that VOICE!
Fleet Foxes - Fleet Foxes:
Ethereal Beach Boys. Brings to mind "Pet Sounds" crossed with My Morning Jacket. The surprise out of nowhere band for me this year. The beauty if this music blew me away.
Coldplay - Viva la Vida:
Again, didn't rest on their success. At first I was ok with this, but the more I have listened the more I think this is truly special. A great band using everything within them, using all of their talent in new directions. Gongs, strings, rhythmic hand clapping, african and latin elements - whatever! Brian Eno moved them out from their comfort zone and is a genius. Their best yet.
The Ravonettes - Lust, Lust , Lust:
Sounds right out of a Quentin Tarrantino movie. Dreamy distortion and reverb meet 60's kitsch. Great harmony along with electro-fuzz. Cooler than cool.
Glasvegas - Glasvegas:
Anthemic, fun, loud. The debut effort shows great promise. Strong 60's style punk - pop - rock.
Singles:
* Duffy - Warwick Avenue - heartbreaking
* The Gaslight Anthem - The 59 sound - calling Bruce Springsteen
* Coldplay - Viva la Vida - the French revolution???? it works!
* Raphael Saadiq - Love that Girl - Smokey Robinson reincarnated
* The Black Keys - Strange Times - rock and roll the way it was meant to be
* Weezer - Pork and Beans - still just make you laugh out loud
* David Byrne and Brian Eno - Home - still sounds good
* The Hold Steady - Sequestered in Memphis - Piano and guitar joined together just right
* Connor Oberst - Moab - how sometimes the road can heal you - and it does
* The Ravonettes - Aly, Walk with Me - see above
* OneRepublic - Stop and Stare - beautiful lyrics, forward or die
* The Killers - Spaceman - ultimate in stadium rock ready, and pretty funny on top of it all
* Glasvegas - Geraldine - just listen
* The Ahn Trio - All I Want -again simply heartbreaking, beautiful strings - classical, electronic, blues, jazz all in one package
* NIN - Discipline - sounds like The Downward Spiral
Jan 7, 2009
MICHAEL SHORE -- LAWN GUYLAND, NOO YAWK, USA
Funny thing -- last year I complained how I was the last guy in the known universe without an iPod. Since then, I've gotten one -- as a holiday gift last winter ...and after taking months to get round to actually bothering to learn how to program it, it has of course CHANGED MY LIFE. Well, along with the ongoing slow death of the music industry, which has meant less new music coming into my life while I cram the iPod with as much of my 10,000-plus CDs as I can (and wait til I figure a way to get my 6,000-plus vinyl LPs on it!).
The upshot is that -- at enormous risk of turning into the crank next door shaking his rake and snarling "you kids get outta my yard!" (turning? or have I already turned...?) -- I find myself having gone back to the future...or as Firesign Theater once put it, "forward into the past." For whatever reason, I heard precious little new music over the past year, and even less that made any impression on me whatsoever. I did READ about, and heard dribs of, stuff I bet I'd like -- Drive-By Truckers, Boniver, Santogold and more -- but I ain't about frontin' just to look hip, so take it or leave it.
Therefore my list is very short and, with one glaring exception, backward-looking...which suits me fine.
ALBUM:
SUN RA & HIS COSMO JET-SET LOVE ADVENTURE ARKESTRA: The Complete Detroit Jazz Center Residency, 1980-81. 28 CDs worth of the guy who anyone who knows me knows is my favorite big-band-swing-space-jazz-free-form-electronic-afro-psychedelic-gospel-funk-composer-arranger-keyboardist-rapper-shaman...and caught here at the height of what for me personally is my favorite part of his singular-sensation of a career, which began on record in 1956. Ra was the virtual houseband at Squat Theater on W 23 St from 1979-82, delivering spectacular medicine-show magical-mystery-tours of the African-American cultural continuum (by way of Ancient Egypt and his homeplanet Saturn, of course) every couple of weeks. This is the best document of that era I have ever found, not least because it finally preserves all the obscure big-band classics of the early/mid 1930s Ra was doing then in by-the-book arrangements, as well as his fabulously authentic and swinging arrangements of Tin Pan Alley classics like "Tea for Two," "Three Little Words" and "Over the Rainbow." As the flavors-of-the-month seem increasingly processed and disposable, there is more and more to be said for timelessness...and as things get increasingly Pro-Tooled and sequenced, there is something to be said for the skip-in-your-step and breath-of-fresh-air that is true SWING.
SINGLE:
M.I.A. "PAPER PLANES." My concession to the contemporary. What can I tellya? It 's a great catchy track and Of The Moment like a single should be, and sorry folks, she's HOT (though I did chance upon a recent Spin interview which was a crushing disappointment in unmasking her crass, corny careerism...).
LIVE:
STEVE BERNSTEIN'S MILENNIUM TERRITORY ORCHESTRA at Symphony Space, NYC, Nov. 08. As indicated re the Ra box above, there is something about late 20s/early 30s swing that, when done right (Ra, Fletcher Henderson, Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, Don Redman, Bix Tram...), I find absolutely magical. This 10-piece did it SO right this night, in a benefit for Karl Berger's Creative Music Studio in Woodstock. (Ra acolyte Marshall Allen in duet with NRBQ's Terry Adams, at John Zorn's Lower East Side Venue The Stone, runs a close second).
that is all. thanks for asking, Charlie, and regards to all out there!
The upshot is that -- at enormous risk of turning into the crank next door shaking his rake and snarling "you kids get outta my yard!" (turning? or have I already turned...?) -- I find myself having gone back to the future...or as Firesign Theater once put it, "forward into the past." For whatever reason, I heard precious little new music over the past year, and even less that made any impression on me whatsoever. I did READ about, and heard dribs of, stuff I bet I'd like -- Drive-By Truckers, Boniver, Santogold and more -- but I ain't about frontin' just to look hip, so take it or leave it.
Therefore my list is very short and, with one glaring exception, backward-looking...which suits me fine.
ALBUM:
SUN RA & HIS COSMO JET-SET LOVE ADVENTURE ARKESTRA: The Complete Detroit Jazz Center Residency, 1980-81. 28 CDs worth of the guy who anyone who knows me knows is my favorite big-band-swing-space-jazz-free-form-electronic-afro-psychedelic-gospel-funk-composer-arranger-keyboardist-rapper-shaman...and caught here at the height of what for me personally is my favorite part of his singular-sensation of a career, which began on record in 1956. Ra was the virtual houseband at Squat Theater on W 23 St from 1979-82, delivering spectacular medicine-show magical-mystery-tours of the African-American cultural continuum (by way of Ancient Egypt and his homeplanet Saturn, of course) every couple of weeks. This is the best document of that era I have ever found, not least because it finally preserves all the obscure big-band classics of the early/mid 1930s Ra was doing then in by-the-book arrangements, as well as his fabulously authentic and swinging arrangements of Tin Pan Alley classics like "Tea for Two," "Three Little Words" and "Over the Rainbow." As the flavors-of-the-month seem increasingly processed and disposable, there is more and more to be said for timelessness...and as things get increasingly Pro-Tooled and sequenced, there is something to be said for the skip-in-your-step and breath-of-fresh-air that is true SWING.
SINGLE:
M.I.A. "PAPER PLANES." My concession to the contemporary. What can I tellya? It 's a great catchy track and Of The Moment like a single should be, and sorry folks, she's HOT (though I did chance upon a recent Spin interview which was a crushing disappointment in unmasking her crass, corny careerism...).
LIVE:
STEVE BERNSTEIN'S MILENNIUM TERRITORY ORCHESTRA at Symphony Space, NYC, Nov. 08. As indicated re the Ra box above, there is something about late 20s/early 30s swing that, when done right (Ra, Fletcher Henderson, Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, Don Redman, Bix Tram...), I find absolutely magical. This 10-piece did it SO right this night, in a benefit for Karl Berger's Creative Music Studio in Woodstock. (Ra acolyte Marshall Allen in duet with NRBQ's Terry Adams, at John Zorn's Lower East Side Venue The Stone, runs a close second).
that is all. thanks for asking, Charlie, and regards to all out there!
Jan 6, 2009
SIMON MURRELL - Barcelona, Spain
This list is best defined as music that I have enjoyed in 2008, in approximate order of merit.
* Tracy Chapman - live at Palau de la Musica, Barcelona: exceptional.
* Adriana Calcanhotto - Maré
* Living Colour - comeback gig at Barcelona Apollo. Vernon is still God.
* Jimmy McGriff - 'Round Midnight. Extremely rare track this: it used to be the sign-off song on Radio Caroline, a 1960s pirate radio station that broadcast from a ship somewhere in the North Sea. The combination of organ and jazz guitar is wonderful.
* Kanye West - all his work, despite the fact that 808s is underwhelming
* Finley Quaye - all his work
* Mogwai - all their work
* Orchestra Baobab - all their work
* Ed Motta - despite the fact that he didn't turn up to his gig in Barcelona in September, leaving us stranded with some heinous lo-fi band from Oregon...
* Estelle - Shine
* Tracy Chapman - live at Palau de la Musica, Barcelona: exceptional.
* Adriana Calcanhotto - Maré
* Living Colour - comeback gig at Barcelona Apollo. Vernon is still God.
* Jimmy McGriff - 'Round Midnight. Extremely rare track this: it used to be the sign-off song on Radio Caroline, a 1960s pirate radio station that broadcast from a ship somewhere in the North Sea. The combination of organ and jazz guitar is wonderful.
* Kanye West - all his work, despite the fact that 808s is underwhelming
* Finley Quaye - all his work
* Mogwai - all their work
* Orchestra Baobab - all their work
* Ed Motta - despite the fact that he didn't turn up to his gig in Barcelona in September, leaving us stranded with some heinous lo-fi band from Oregon...
* Estelle - Shine
Jan 1, 2009
STUART MOWAT - New York, USA
They aren’t all necessarily released in 2008, but I listened to them in 2008. Seems to be a movement towards pop and dance records this year.
1 Vampire Weekend
2 Killers Day And Age
3 Katy Perry One of the Boys
4 Ne-Yo Year of the Gentleman
5 Akon Konvicted
6 Rihanna Good Girl Gone Bad
7 Bravery The Sun And The Moon
8 Gnarls Barkley The Odd Couple
9 Paramore Riot!
10 Raconteurs Consolers Of The Lonely
1 Vampire Weekend
2 Killers Day And Age
3 Katy Perry One of the Boys
4 Ne-Yo Year of the Gentleman
5 Akon Konvicted
6 Rihanna Good Girl Gone Bad
7 Bravery The Sun And The Moon
8 Gnarls Barkley The Odd Couple
9 Paramore Riot!
10 Raconteurs Consolers Of The Lonely
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