Best of 2010, Muzak Edition

Albums:

1. Gemini, Wild Nothing
2. High Violet, The National
3. Clinging to a Scheme, The Radio Dept.
4. Teen Dream, Beach House
5. Speed Is Everything, The Bomb
6. Love Remains, How to Dress Well
7. There Is Love in You, Four Tet
8. Crystal Castles (II)
9. Nothing Hurts, Male Bonding
10. Halcyon Digest, Deerhunter

Tracks:

1. “Song for the Helenas,” The Bomb
2. “Crown on the Ground,” Sleigh Bells
3. “Live in Dreams,” Wild Nothing
4. “My Old Brittle Bones,” Dreamend
5. “Lemonworld,” The National
6. “Heaven’s on Fire,” The Radio Dept.
7. “Baptism,” Crystal Castles
8. “Hospice Gates,” Lower Dens
9. “Paris Cafes,” The Art Museums
10. “Crush,” Abe Vigoda

As always, I’ve got a mix CD in the works with samplings of most of this stuff on it. Let me know if’n you’d like a copy.

Things Matt Berninger likes to sing about

1. Lemons
2. Water fowl
3. Paranoid sociopaths

Snowed-in-Stir-Crazy Mix

It’s kinda swirly-guitary, trip-hoppy. Let me know if you want a copy.

1. “Crystalised,” The XX
2. “Wholehearted Mess,” Bear in Heaven
3. “Yellow Wings,” Keepaway
4. “Winter Wonder Land,” Animal Collective
5. “Wet and Rusting,” Menomena
6. “Norway,” Beach House
7. “Paradise Circus,” Massive Attack
8. “Catch the Light,” Sin Fang Bous
9. “Krimson,” Warpaint
10. “Summer Babe [Winter Version],” Pavement
11. “The Colors Aren’t You or Me,” Letting Up Despite Great Faults
12. “Catholic Pagans,” Surfer Blood
13. “Synthia,” FM Belfast
14. “Fot I Hose,” Casiokids
15. “C-Side Girl,” Chenard and the Sand
16. “Mind, Drips,” Neon Indian
17. “On Giving Up,” High Places
18. “I Think it Is Beautiful That You Are 365 Colors, Too,” Black Moth Super Rainbow
19. “Wilderness,” Active Child
20. “Always a Relief,” Radio Dept.
21. “Plain Material,” Memory Tapes

(Special thanks to Lipsynchsuck for the awesome blog with the awesome downloads of awesome songs.)

the inevitable best of 2009s

Okay, maybe just this one last time.

Best albums:

1. Post Nothing, The Japandroids
2. Two Suns, Bat for Lashes
3. XX, The XX
4. Hometowns, The Rural Alberta Advantage
5. Logos, Atlas Sound
6. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Phoenix
7. Bromst, Dan Deacon
8. Bitte Orca, The Dirty Projectors
9. Veckatimest, Grizzly Bear
10. Tarot Sport, Fuck Buttons

Kick ass movies, some involving significantly more ass-kicking than others:

1. Inglorious Basterds
2. The Fantastic Mr. Fox
3. Star Trek
   
4. Moon
5. Adventureland
6. District 9

Big-ass disappointments:

1. Hazards of Love, The Decemberists — Amidst their grand ambitions to craft a great album, they forgot how to craft a great song.
2. Time to Die, The Dodos — Where went all the unwieldy exuberance of their debut?
3. Top Chef Finale, Seasons 5 & 6 — Burn me once, shame on you. Twice…  yeah.
4. The Watchmen — It’s not that it was so horrible, but that I wanted so badly for it to be so good.

Stuff I should have started adoring, like, years ago:

1. Deerhunter and its various offshoots.
2. The Mighty Boosh
3. manjari chocolate
4. ballet flats
5. cuttlefish

spamarama

Subject lines appearing in my spam folder today:

1. Protrude deeper and give pleasure to every woman!
2. Become more appetant with females.
3. We offer cheap pills from every problem.
4. Become macho de luxe

I just can’t get over the first one. How does one “protrude deeper”?

(I realize that, by posing that question, I’m practically taunting some of you to answer it.)

the search is over!

Searches that have led people to this website today include:

crazy germans
zooey deschanel hot
“katy perry” underwear*
zooey deschanel hair
dobler effect
underwear girl
naked etiquette

I’m concerned that my blog is leaving these folks feeling unsatisfied. Though it’s good know it needs more girls in underwear!

*quotes theirs

love hurts!

In honor of Valentine’s Day, here’s a list of my favorite love songs of all time.

They all make me cry. Huzzah!

10. Decemberists – “Red Right Ankle” (Her Majesty)–This one gets the award for most unexpectedly grody love song opening: “This is the story of your red right ankle/and how it came to meet your leg/and how the muscle, bone, and sinews tangled/and how the skin was softly shed.”  It also works the word “ventricles” in there toward the end. Mmmm.

9. Frightened Rabbit – “Poke” (The Midnight Organ Fight)–Don’t let the break-up backdrop fool you. Or the fact that the first verse includes the word “cunt.” This is totally a love song. Really.

8.  Cure – “Plainsong” (Disintegration)

7. The Beatles – “Julia” (The White Album)

6. Magnetic Fields – “The Book of Love” (69 Love Songs)–Stephin Merritt says fuck you to love-with-a-capital-L, but he still loves you, which is really all that matters.

5. Yo La Tengo – “The Whole of the Law” (Painful)

4. Simon and Garfunkel - “Kathy’s Song” (Sounds of Silence)

3. Regina Spektor – “Samson” (Begin to Hope)–It turns the biblical story on its head so sweetly. And the opening line is a sucker punch.

2. Rufus Wainwright – “Hallelujah”–I really love that Samson and Delilah story, I guess. (Yeah, Jeff Buckley’s version is wonderful, but I like this one just a bit better.)

1. Joni Mitchell – “River” (Blue)–In Love, Actually, this is the song playing when Emma Thompson’s character tells her husband that Joni Mitchell taught her how to feel. Feel fucking depressed is more like it, but, yeah. Pretty much.

muzak, 2008

I’m feeling kinda ‘meh’ about the music that came out this year. Seems like for every album I really liked there was one that felt overhyped and underwhelming.

The new M83 record felt like Loveless 17 years later; The Week that Was’ self-titled album ike 70s prog-rock; Beach House like the Velvet Underground with even more barbituates and fewer melodies. And I couldn’t get past Santi White’s abrasively strident vocals, though I almost like “Lights Out.” Almost.

None of these records made me feel the way I did last year the first, second, third time that I heard “Atlas” by Battles. (In order: confused and a little flustered, still confused but intrigued, less confused and on the road to addiction.) None of them had the simultaneous singularity and familiarity of Panda Bear’s Person Pitch. Nothing knocked me off my ass and made me want to dance like a nerdy white girl the way Los Campesinos’ “Sticking Fingers into Sockets” EP did. Nothing hit the perfectly giddy mania of Of Montreal’s Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer (which, along with Person Pitch, was probably my favorite album).

And so, my favorites this year a bunch of pretty simple records that don’t reinvent the wheel, but do what they do really well. They remind me that a great song is great first and foremost because it has heart. Otherwise, it’s just kind of a musical exercise.

Favorite Albums
1. Bon Iver–For Emma, Forever Ago (limited release 2007; wide release 2008)
2. Frightened Rabbit–The Midnight Organ Fight
3. The Dodos–Visiter
4. Fleet Foxes–Fleet Foxes
5. TV on the Radio–Dear Science

Favorite Tracks
1. “White Winter Hymnal,” Fleet Foxes
2. “Flume,” Bon Iver
3. “Keep Yourself Warm,” Frightened Rabbit
4. “Sentimental Heart,” She and Him
5. “2 Atoms in a Molecule,” Noah and the Whale

Train Wrecks of 2008!

Some of my guiltiest of guilty pleasures are the best/worst dressed celebrity lists that come out at the end of each year.

There are three reasons why:
1. I am a sucker for FASHIONNNNN!
2. I am a sucker for lists.
3. I am a sucker for anything that makes famous people look silly.

I’m sure the latter is rooted in a deep-seeded inferiority complex of some sort. But I double dog dare you not to feel a bit of the old schadenfreude as you enjoy the Undressed! Worst of 2008.

Some favorites:

Red carpet underoos!

Keith, this one is for you…

And, lest you planned to actually sleep tonight…

“Ohhhhh, BuuuuuHsterrrrrrr!”
(Wobble.)
(Crash.)