hippiesandhipsters

the year’s records #11-#1

Part of the fun in music writing and broadcast is discussing records and releases in a ranked order and getting into, hopefully, heated discussions with friends and family members. I encourage everyone to make their own year end lists for records, top tracks, performances, videos, comebacks…whatever you like. And while you run the course, enjoy mine!

10. Helplessness Blues – Fleet Foxes

Helplessness Blues

A capella and choral singing has never been more in style. This record is beautiful enough to make you cry. Tears of happiness, of course. It’s a soundtrack to every rolling hill and city sidewalk daydream. You couldn’t escape Fleet Foxes this year. Everyone loves them. This record lives among few where the music speaks for itself. It makes you feel at peace with everything. You’ll just close your eyes and…

9. El Camino – The Black Keys

El Camino

It was hard to consider this album for a year end list, for all of us I hope, because of its recent release: December 6. But any rock and roll lover can’t deny their inner self that you just love The Black Keys. This record is full of hard work and volume. You can never crank it up too high. The year would be incomplete without it. I hope every year we can see a record from the Black Keys and maybe find it in all of our top ten lists.

8. Tarot Classics EP – Surfer Blood

Tarot Classics

Don’t let people tell you that album art isn’t important anymore in the digital age. It is. Surfer Blood managed to keep with their cut-up-whole image on this October EP. The second EP on my year end top 20, this one will always be four songs too short. I sing along to every verse and chorus every time. Happy with this sophomore release I am ecstatic that they kept their sound without letting it get boring. I hope the boys do us proud in 2012. Until then, savor these Classics.

7. Circuital – My Morning Jacket

Circuital

My Morning Jacket really delivered on their sixth studio album. Returning home to Louisville, KY they gave us rock, psychedelia, angelic choirs and folk at its best. This record is a massive sound. It hushes us to sleep with Wonderful (The Way I Feel) it and reminds us why we fell in love with Jim James in the first place with Holding On To Black Metal. When you play it start to finish it seems impossible. And then you’re so glad it’s real.

6. The Whole Love – Wilco

The Whole Love

For those of you who really know me, you know that I will never love anything like I love Wilco. This record plays like a greatest hits. Every song is a great song. As a follow up to the disappointing Wilco (the Album) this record delivers some of Tweedy’s most charming lyrics. They can be considered romantic gibberish, but I consider it an endless love song to life. Only Jeff Tweedy can make the lyric “i was born to die alone” sound so admirable. All over this record there are tiny sonic details. Details of keyboards, of horn sections, panning, hand claps and some winning sound effects on the great Capitol City. This record is so good it’s like candy.

5. Out In The Light - WATERS

Out In The Light

I found out about this band because of this. Like a lot of my upcoming favorites, it was an accident. Van Pierszalowski was the front man of the now defunct Port O’Brien. And thank god they’re defunct. I hope there is more of this project to come. These songs are wonderfully written with short movements of simple rock, sometimes surf rock, hooks and great choruses. When you listen to it sound gets pushed into your body through every pore, whether or not you’re ready for it. Van says the record is about starting over. Lets hope that he starts over every year.

4. Bon Iver – Bon Iver

Bon Iver

Remember when iTunes accidentally put this record up for sale for about two seconds? Not many people do. But I do. I was part of the lucky few who had this record early. So much has already been said about this record. Justin Vernon is out of his lone cabin, made friends with Kanye West and showed us that he doesn’t care about his Grammy nominations [record and song of the year, best new artist, best alternative album]. I’m not sure why anyone would dismiss any sort of honor. It’s a remarkable record that deserves all the press and recognition its received this year. I’ll never forget the day I got it. It was mid May – weeks before the June 2nd release – and the sun was shining. I sat on my bedroom floor and blasted it into the warm evening. When a record paints a picture like that, you never forget it. None of us ever will.

3. Life Fantastic – Man man

Life Fantastic

Nothing makes a room full of people more uncomfortable than putting on this record and letting it play. I found this album by accident too. Having grown up in the New Jersey suburbs of Philadelphia, finding a band you genuinely love from your city and are mildly obsessed with [like Dr. Dog] makes it even more fun. [Considering Philadelphia isn't known for their psychedelic strange bands.] The lyrics are uncomfortable [like Haute Tropique's tale of turning people into furniture] and the instruments and percussives get weirder and weirder as the album goes on [like everyone's desire to immediately fast forward through Dark Arts' opening.] This album taught me patience. I found myself listening to it more and more because I was singing the melodies aloud to myself on the streets. I couldn’t get the songs out of my head. The experiments of Man Man are scary to many and usually un-listenable to most. [Listen up Tom Waits fans.] Not many bands include :51 long instrumental tracks. But that just makes me love them more.

2. Go Tell Fire On The Mountain – WU LYF

Go Tell Fire To The Mountain

If you thought Man Man was weird, brace yourself. The top of my list this year is a weird fest. After appearing as almost invisible on the internet all year, WU LYF [World Unite Lucifer World Foundation - pronounced Woo Life] is an English band that blew me away, once again, accidentally. I listened to almost all of it on a whim getting sucked in to each track more and more. I bought my $12 dollar ticket to their show at DC’s Rock and Roll Hotel months in advance out of sheer joy and excitement. While their lyrics seem indecipherable almost all of the time, the sound and production remain unique. No other album this year sounds like this one. I’ve read that they are working on a sophomore album. And psychotic excitement has set in.

1. w h o k i l l - tUnE-yArDs

w h o k i l l

 I know I said I found three other albums in my top ten by accident. And I promise I’m not lying when I say the same about this. Like when you find a favorite book from being drawn to the cover, I found my favorite album because I couldn’t get over how weird it looked. Now, knowing what I know, it seems perfectly weird. w h o k i l l is my number one because it’s simply the best. This record is so fresh. It is unlike anything else. Merrill Garbus is one of the most incredible singers and performers I have ever seen. [And I find it safe to say, will ever see.] Sasha Frere-Jones wrote about her in May [and those of you with online subscriptions can enjoy here and find out why she chose such crazy capitalization] and I fell in love with her further. Her World Cafe Live episode is worth your attention too. Some people have had a hard time with it, which is understandable. Listening to the tracks away from the album can sour the mood when you lose the context. But when if you give it time, a few months even, you will find love for her. I can’t imagine living life without tUnE-yArDs and that’s why she is simply the best.

the fourth wall comes down

Usually performers stay in their world on stage. And everyone else watching plays along. It’s what makes live theater so fun. But then they can break the fourth wall and directly address the audience. Breaking the fourth wall lives in all mediums. Lyrics address their own pop song and Wayne Campbell narrates his collection of hair nets and name tags right into the camera. But in the online world, there is no fourth wall. The participants are the audience and visa versa. The method of distribution has changed. Instead of being controlled by few, it is (or can be) all of us. And there are so many of us involved that it doesn’t matter that its happening at the same time. [Mind, we are still learning to deal with an overflow. Also mind the gatekeepers.] But if the fourth wall is still there, it’s tiny and shrinking.

So it seems strange to me why people are still discussing do-it-yourself, or DIY if you will. When I hear the phrase do-it-yourself in music I think about early record labels like SST and tales of Black Flag and the Minutemen touring in a friend’s van. Since those ‘early days’ DIY has become commonplace in music. With the rise of what technology and home recording have become, how could it not?  Between the online soon-to-be-famous hip hop mixtape and chillwave sweeping the nation, we’ve seen nobodys become everybodys on the cover of magazines and national press discuss those bedroom heroes.

Odd Future has been one of the most talked about acts of the year online, and they began with online mixtapes and track releases - just like Washed Out, Cults, Lil B, Wiz Khalifa and A$AP Rocky – who ended up signing a $3 million dollar deal with Sony/RCA. The majors are snatching up the minors, if they’re lucky. [Part of his $3 million is going to fund a group label A$AP Worldwide.]

These acts have captured the attention of anyone with the internet. But this whole list, aside from the Odd Future collective, have been boring to me. [Odd Future is one of the newest sounds this year has seen. And certainly the best hip hop.] I’m still baffled by the hype surrounding Washed Out and Cults. It proves the point that if enough fingers point in the same direction, we’ll all turn our head.

SPIN Dec. 2011

It’s an uneasy feeling, thinking that everyone buys into the same sounds. I recently spent time back-listening to WXPN’s World Cafe episodes. In his  20th Anniversary compilation episode Beck said something in particular that struck me. That ‘samples have become so expensive, almost as much as an album budget, it has shoved hip hop into a world of generic drum machines’, where they all start to sound the same. ‘It’s pushed us away from traditional hip hop that was built off borrowing music and samples’, like DJ Kool Herc, Public Enemy, Run-DMC and the Beastie Boys. While the home mixtape makes for great artist discovery, what follows can and usually leads to  generic production.

Home recording leaves me troubled. While some of it works, others lose their detail. It’s where we get washed up sounds of dreamy scapes and undecipherable mumblings. Indie rock home recordings all start to blend together perhaps because they are all coming from the same place. But even knowing this, I know we cannot live without home recording. Without it we would have a fraction of content to discuss and it would strain the creative freedom of so many. Basement tapes and backyard sessions are just the natural progression.

While it seems to be working in hip hop’s favor, chillwave and indie rock are getting more and more boring. [Or shall I say 'bro-ing'?] They are all steeping in success, while the sounds and lyrics are diluting. Maybe it’s just mimicking the Turn On, Tune In, Drop Out psychedelia of the mid 60s. And chillwave is the answer to the new apathetic recession era twenty-somethings. As for hip hop, still Odd Future aside, it’s been unimpressive. Especially the new Drake (wait, were we ever impressed?) And I love it when your hair’s still wet/Cause you just took a shower/Running on a treadmill, and only eating salad/Sounds so smart, like you graduated college/Like you went to yale, but you probably went to Howard. Boring and generic. I was distracted and almost forgot that he was in a Sprite commercial…but then I remembered that he looks like a marketing tool.

Not only do I still miss rock and roll, I am growing more and more frustrated with new music. M83 belongs in a Victoria’s Secret commercial and not in the new chillwave front-runners section. The end of the year is strangely looming. Thank god we have one more coming. El Camino from The Black Keys is out Dec. 6th. Until then, its month old records and strict listening – to make sure I know my place. Do you know yours?

rock and roll, i miss you-

New music has been dissatisfying. The majority of new acts have become one man synth bands. We either get that or A$AP Rocky- which seems to fulfill people’s hip hop needs with drum machines and lyrics full of hype and swag. Nothing profound [also see Watch The Throne. Note: this is in no way shape or form hatred towards hip hop. I love hip hop. Thank you, Das Racist. It's just this indie hip hop world  is pop rap. Simply here to entertain white bread and dilute the genre's necessary racial lines.]

Where have all the rock bands gone?

I have found one recently, barely recent with their record released on September 9th, that I’ve fallen in love with. WATERS, dare I say it, is a one man band. But he isn’t the kind that hides behind his buttons and nobs. Van Pierszalowski, mouthful: yes, plays rock and roll guitars. Imagine that. Out In The Light rocks really hard and is embedded with indie rock charms, full of folk and romance. I love it more each spin.

Another new romantic record happens to be from a returning favorite band, Surfer Blood. Tarot Classics EP is four songs too short, hence the romance. The listening is intimate because after the first time, you replay it out of  bare necessity. It’s great to hear a band take their original sound from a debut, keep it, and manage to make something fresh.

They still remain Surfer Blood – but you aren’t tired of them. Their catchy, wavy songs from Astrocoast are charming and unforgettable. And the new EP is a hopeful look into the future. It’s a new band who used their second release to show us that they wont be swallowed up in the blogosphere. That they wont be a one-record-wonder. That they might really have something to sonically show for themselves. I just hope more bands in this boat can deliver a sophomore record. Debut favorites from Yuck [who are already strangely releasing a remaster] WU LYF (below) and Unknown Mortal Orchestra only get my hopes up further. All of which, by the way, are excellent live shows. WU LYF’s drummer is the best I’ve seen all year.

I dearly hope they don’t get washed out with chillwave acts. In a recent interview, Bradford Cox [of Deerhunter and Atlas Sound] spoke about the chillwave ‘movement’ [his word, not mine]:  “Chillwave came along, and it turned ambient music into this perfume that overwhelmed the room. It used to feel therapeutic, but then it started to feel like people would put anything through three delay pedals.” I’m not sure I could’ve said it better myself. From Toro Y Moi, whose new EP, Freaking Out belongs in 1986 [it took me a few listens, but I really do dig it (listen to a goodie below)], to M83′s Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming and Panda Bear and Washed Out remixes from Clams Casino and The Weeknd and newly hyped Glass Candy – I am overwhelmed. Thank god we are hearing more from White Denim. And I’ve fallen in love with Patrick Carney all over again as he produces the new album from Tennis [a band I've recently realized I love. And I love how little excitement has surrounded them. Maybe I can keep them to myself for a little while longer.]

Consider this a love note to rock and roll. I miss you. Please come back soon. Bring my variety and be more brash. And also, as a post script to chillwave, or whatever it is you call your remixes and mash-ups, revisits and reissues: take a break. I’d love to hear something different. Few of you have surprised me, mostly you all sound alike. As for the rest of you…

dr. …i think i have Shuffle Syndrome

At one point, everyone listened to music the same way. You bought a new record and put it on your stereo. Listening parties weren’t what they are now. Listening Parties weren’t even a thing – it was just how folks got together to listen to a new album, or any music. Today we have so many ways to listen to music through so many portals, websites and devices. And unless you find yourself among audiophiles, communal listening is rare outside of bars and actual concerts. People hide away in their headphones and keep others out by blaring music from their car. Although there is one device that the masses use, and prefer, that might end up hurting them in the end.

The iTunes Shuffle is breeding lazy listeners. No one has to make a sonic decision and everyone is fine with it. The album is lost. Popular music and top 40 is being swallowed up by an endless sea of drum machines and overproduction. Availability to all is excellent, but with such great artistic power we need to cherish artistic responsibility, which is drowning.

Pandora provides “easy listening” the same way with effortlessness. Although it does help you discover new music, all the work is done for you. Shuffling your songs creates song ADD and restless listeners. About ten years ago radio stations starting popping up in major cities, Ben FM, Jack FM – usually a generic name with generic programming. Actually no programming at all – all the stations play are hits and commercials, keeping their listeners satisfied with the music they know and love. With the rise of the shuffle we have lost our love for deep tracks and misplaced the art of the mix tape.

There is the function to shuffle between artists and within an album but it compromises the artist’s original intent for their record, their art. Musicians record certain tracks in a certain order, placing the single just so and the uppers and downers far enough apart and close enough together.

The Shuffle is undoubtedly a function that changes the way masses listen to music. But is it changing the way popular music is being released? Deferring people from listening to albums [making full albums less common and less known] and just preferring the hits? We go to bars where bands only play covers that everyone knows. DJs blare familiar music, to sing along to. No one is in control. More Than A Feeling has left us in the dark. Rarities and B-sides may be somewhere in the shuffle but unless we step outside our comfort zone and stop ourselves from skipping forward we might never Go Our Own Way.

Just the other day I was sitting in a diner eating lunch with two friends. There was constant play of old R&B records, Georgia On My Mind, It’s In His Kiss, Signed Seal Delivered, Mamma Told Me, Please Mr. Postman. “Isn’t it great that no matter how many times we remaster the same songs over and over again, no matter what – these songs still sound great. They stand up on their own, after all these years,” my roommate narrated. It got me to thinking how we still love the music from fifty and sixty years ago. Will it take years for a generation to pass before the music of our age becomes the new favorite? Or will it ever? “I wonder when we’ll hear our hits played everywhere, if ever?” I continued. Will we be lost in a continuous shuffle of our own hits years from now? Or will people just always stick to what they know and never move on? I can’t help but think if I am overreacting…

I always have, and always will, listen to full records. It’s how you get to know the artist, record by record you can hear how they grow, change, get better or worse. You can fully digest the art. The shuffle has always seemed useless to me. Like watching only bits and pieces of my favorite movies, why would I not listen to the whole record? Sure hits compilations are useful, but without the full record we never hear the music in between the hits.

iTunes is the most popular and most used music listening program – with its great organization and dominant operating system in dominant music listening devices – the shuffle is everywhere. Other programs have adapted to it and it’s possibilities are as endless as your library. The only ending I can provide is hope that you will listen to full records, or start to, or continue to. Don’t be lazy with your music. The same way we need to know our food, as it enters our body, we need to know our music. It’s just as much a part of us as all the other choices we make. Life is about choices and we need to make them. Or else we might just get lost in the Shuffle.

what have you been listening to lately?

I want to challenge and change the way people think about and talk about music. Force them to listen and step outside their comfort zone. Find the losers, b-sides, unknown and walk through the great uncomfortable curves.

In the same vein of saying no to gatekeepers, RSS feeds, and Rolling Stone’s history of music, we need to experiment with everything. Talk to people of all kinds about what music they love and why. Spending time with people from different musical backgrounds – musicians and not, avid followers and people stuck in the past, elitists and top 40 radio folks – they all need to be heard (even if its hard to listen to some of them.) Making everyone’s opinions and ideas about music available and letting them know that what they think and say about music is valid is just as important as listening to music. We cannot rule out music and we cannot rule out people. If every band is someone’s favorite, every song someone’s favorite – listening to the individual can help individuality in music and unique, innovative art thrive.

Whatever it takes for people to engage in the conversation. Little kids need to listen to Led Zeppelin. You need to go see a band live before hearing them on the album. Scan the dial from the Spanish radio stations to the classical and through top 40 and the oldies station – see what’s out there. People need hip hop and they need Lou Reed. They need to be shoved into new sounds while learning where they came from, what the inspiration is. Culture and music history are just as important, or more so, than the medium itself.

Place yourself somewhere new once an hour, a day, a week – or as infrequently as you want. But make it happen. Listen to albums you’ve never heard or go back cataloging. Don’t block it out or knowingly ignore something because you aren’t ready for the challenge and the change. You will lose the growth that music and talking about music brings to life. It gets harder, and consuming. But the best part is there is no right and wrong. There’s just change.