Shut Up And Listen 198
Chad's Year In Music
I bought/received a shitload of CDs this year (99 to be exact). I am fast running out of room for them all (same with DVDs, books, comics, and all of the other junk I'm accumulating). So, like last year, I thought that my year-end/year-beginning column should be devoted to the CDs that became my property this year. Unlike last year, there are five categories this year: Canadian albums released in 2004, non-Canadian albums released in 2004, Canadian albums released prior to 2004, non-Canadian albums released prior to 2004, and "classics". In each category, I've also limited my choices to my top five, and when applicable other albums by the same artist are listed in brackets (also, in the "classics" category, I'm going with alphabetical order rather than ranking them). Well, let's get this show started.
Canadian Albums Released In 2004
5. Solar Flare by Paintbox
Paintbox was one of the bands I interviewed this year for The Gazette and because the show they were playing in town was free, a couple of friends and I decided to go. It was a pretty good show where we were basically the entire audience. It took place in a hotel bar downtown and pretty much everyone else who was there was there for the booze first and the music not at all. The opening band was a local group called The Straits who were supposed to play at another club in town, but the owner didn't want them to go on until two in the morning, so they said fuck that. They were alright, but sounded like a young band, you know? Paintbox was much better, actually sounding like a seasoned band. Their two sets and encore consisted of their own songs mixed with covers (like "Sweet Jane" and "Highway To Hell"). After the show, both Aaron and I bought copies of their latest album Solar Flare and it was a standard in my discman for the next week or so. "X-Ray Specs" is a fun song and the first single. It's all about how the guy bought x-ray specs from the back of a magazine back in 1983. The rest of the album is pretty decent. Not the best rock out there, but pretty damn good.
4. Every Page You Turn by Boy
Stephen, the frontman for Boy was the first person I interviewed for The Gazette and I was very nervous about it. I got the assignment the day before and didn't quite know what I was doing. I think it went rather well, for the most part. I looked up their stuff online, listened to a few tracks from their new album, prepared questions, asked the questions and wrote the article. I was pleased that when I listened to some online samples that I liked the music. It kind of reminds me of Sam Roberts' stuff, but just in a similar kind of way, not an exact duplication. Currently, the first single "Same Old Song" has been getting some play on Much Music and radio stations, so they could be the next big thing here in Canada. My favourite song on the album is "Up In This City" which has a rather cool sounding echo effect on the vocals.
3. White Light Rock & Roll Review by Matthew Good
This album was either a let down or just what you were waiting for, it seems. In my case, I love this album. It's a straight-up rock album with some great protest song lyrics. The people who were disappointed were the people who thought that Good would continue on the path he seemed to be on with his first solo album Avalanche. Instead, he appeared to go back to his roots and just write simple rock songs. I found this to be misleading, mostly because these "simple rock songs" are a shitload better than the "simple rock songs" he wrote when he was in the Matthew Good Band. I'm quite pleased that he went in this direction, actually. As much as I liked Avalanche, the second half never really grabbed me. Oh, when I was listening to it, I'd hear it, but if I was listening and doing something else at the time, like reading, it would all blend together and I'd only really notice it when I heard the little sound the CD player's laser makes as it returns to its starting position. The songs were good, but they were boring. They were boring fucking songs. There's only one song like that on White Light Rock & Roll Review, and thank fucking god for that. The rest of the album is full of both simple and complex rock songs with some great lyrics. In some places, the disparity between music and lyrics becomes painfully apparent, like in the first single, "Alert Status Red": great lyrics, average, almost shitty music. A good rock album.
2. Day One by Sarah Slean
For this one, I think I may just take the lazy way out and just give you the original review I wrote of this album for The Gazette. The published one was altered to make it more objective, which I understand, but I have a soft spot for the original version, so here it is:
I dare you not to fall in love with this album. I really do.
Day One, Sarah Slean's follow-up to 2002's Night Bugs is fun, happy, sad, funny, heartbreaking, joyful, loud, clever, quiet, and most of all, amazing. It's a record that I'm having a hard time reviewing because to focus on one part over another just seems wrong. Any time I try to think of a track or two to discuss or point you towards, it feels like I'm leaving out the rest. It is definitely a case of being more than the sum of its parts.
I'll start with the first single: "Lucky Me", which features Billy Talent guitarist Ian D'Sa on guitar, is the most "rock" of all the songs and discusses science versus faith in their effort to win us over. On the other end is "Your Wish Is My Wish", a piano-only love song that I find to be far more hopeful than the melody would have you believe. The title track is the catchiest, funniest, and just most fun song on the disc with perhaps my favourite line from the album: "I put my head back where it belongs up there in the clouds." That's only three of the twelve songs (including the bonus track) and now I'm almost out of space.
I cannot stress how much I think you should get Day One by Sarah Slean. It will be in my discman for the next few weeks and it should be in yours too.
1. Joyful Rebellion by K-os (w/ Exit)
Imagine if you will that OutKast was one person and much better at making music. That's K-os. K-os is so good at what he does that his album Joyful Rebellion was the best Canadian album released this year, in my opinion, and that should mean a lot considering the write-up I gave Sarah Slean's album. The album starts off with "Emcee Murder", a song about how the recording industry fucks up creative talent in the pursuit of money. The best song is "The Man I Used To Be" which sounds kind of like a Michael Jackson song. Or there's "Dirty Water" which features Sam Roberts singing the chorus . . . about dirty water in his bong. It is a great fucking album that is hip-hop, but not in the strictest sense of the term. K-os goes for different styles and is great at all of them. I'm definitely happy that he didn't retire after Exit like he said he was going to (strange since that was his first album). If you can, pick this CD up. It's the kind of CD that will appeal to a wide variety of people more than pretty much any other CD released this year. Normally, I can't stand hip-hop and here it is at the top of my list. That says something, right?
Non-Canadian Albums Released In 2004
5. American Idiot by Green Day
The last Green Day album I bought (not including their greatest hits) was Insomniac. Needless to say, Green Day hadn't really thrilled me in a while. Oh, I liked some of their singles, but in the same way I like a lot of songs whose albums I'd never pick up. There was just nothing there that made me want to go and get more. To be honest, after hearing "American Idiot", the first single off of the album of the same name, I was feeling sort of the same. It wasn't that good. It was good, yeah, but enough for me to pay money for more? No. What got me to pick up American Idiot was the fact that it was a punk rock opera. How could you not pick that up? Conceptually, I just couldn't not buy the album. I'm glad I did, because it's a good CD. There's no real story per se, not in the traditional rock opera kind of way, it's more thematic I found in its indictment of American society. It has some nice multi-part tracks and a few fantastic tracks ("Boulevard of Broken Dreams" being the best song, I think). Not as good as Dookie or Insomniac, but still a damn good album.
4. The Grey Album by DJ Danger Mouse (The Beatles and Jay-Z)
In the strictest sense of things, this isn't really an album released this year. It kind of is, but not really. It's just too good not to be listed though. Who would have thought a Jay-Z album, of sorts, would be this good? I guess the only way to make his shit remotely listenable is to add a band as good as the Beatles to the songs. As a result, I can't listen to any of the songs off of Jay-Z's actual album without thinking "Wow, this sounds so fucking flat and incomplete". And they do. Listen to The Grey Album and then try to listen to any of the singles from The Black Album. It just shows you how fucking lame the backing "music" for most rap songs is. Of course, there is a downside to this, because I'm pretty sure as a result of this, we were subjected to that fucking horrible Jay-Z/Linkin Park "mash up" shit. I fucking knew that was going to happen. Have one person do it right and next thing you know, you'll get a shitload of people who can't do it worth shit. Anyways, go download this. It's good.
3. Franz Ferdinand by Franz Ferdinand
This album kind of annoys me. Not anything on it or the music or the band, but the record company behind it. See, I bought this album the week it came out back in March. I had seen a video for "Take Me Out" on Much Music one afternoon (one of their "Unchartered" videos) and was hooked immediately. What a fucking great song, you know? So I found out when their album was coming out and bought it that week. Jump to the end of the year (November, maybe?) and I'm doing my daily check at www.chartattack.com for news and shit, and what do I come across? Why it's a news story about how the album is being re-released with a new version of "This Fire" and a few songs from their first EP. Wow, that fucking sucks, doesn't it? Here I am, a fan who bought the album back when it first came out and I'm fucked over in favour of some other person who comes late. How fucking fair is that? The shitty thing is that this isn't the first time it's happened (to me or others) and it won't be the last. I just wish that in cases like this there was a way to exchange copies, because fuck, if anyone deserves extras, wouldn't it be people who have supported the band for a while? And I'm not saying I've exactly been the biggest and best fan in this case (because I haven't), just that it's annoying. Very fucking annoying. The album itself is great, so is the band, but the record company? Annoying.
2. Pawne Shoppe Heart by The Von Bondies
Strangely enough, this album came out the same week as Franz Ferdinand's, so I picked it up at the same time. The Von Bondies haven't had quite the same kind of year as Franz Ferdinand, which is baffling considering how good their album is. The Von Bondies are a Detroit band and were at one time associated with The White Stripes (in fact, remember when Jack White beat the shit out of someone? Yeah, it was the frontman of The Von Bondies), and they make similar (I guess) rock. Not quite the same, but the same kind of stripped away sensibility. How anyone could hear the first single "C'mon C'mon" and not pick this up is beyond me. That is just about the most "rock" rock song I've heard in a while. The rest of the album is in a similar tone with my favourites being "Not That Social", sung by the ladies, and about a guy who's "not that social, just a good drinker", and the title track, which is one of those perfect "yell, don't sing, along songs". Fantastic stuff.
1. Tyrannosaurus Hives by The Hives (w/ Your New Favourite Band)
Come on, it's the motherfucking Hives! Have you heard Tyrannosaurus Hives? If you have, you know why it tops this list. If you haven't, then what the fuck is the matter with you? Half an hour of near perfect rock isn't your thing? I won't even go into specific songs for fear of leaving something out. Well, except that I'd love to go to a karaoke bar sometime and see that "Diabolic Scheme" is available as a selection. What was a cool surprise was the release of Your New Favourite Band over here in North America along with the bonus DVD. Your New Favourite Band was a UK release that contains songs from their previous albums, sort of like a greatest hits CD after releasing two albums and a few EPs. The DVD contains a documentary and a couple of live shows, which is great. Howlin' Pelle is just amazing to watch on stage with his total fucking over-the-top arrogance. It makes me laugh. The best thing about music by The Hives is that that confidence seems to rub off on you after you've listened to them. I'd listen to this album, or one of their other ones, and feel fucking invincible afterwards. The Hives were the rock band to be of 2004 and I just hope we don't have to wait so long to get another album out of them this time.
Canadian Albums Released Prior To 2004
5. We Sweat Blood by Danko Jones (w/ Born A Tiger)
Speaking of pure, balls out rock music, let me introduce you all to Danko Jones. There are no slow ballads here, just loud, fast, hard rocking songs that make your ears bleed. Shit. I can't think of anything else to add.
4. For Him And The Girls by Hawksley Workman (w/ Almost A Full Moon)
It took me fucking forever to find this album. You'd think that when an artist releases a new album (last year's lover/fighter in this case) that the stores would keep the past ones in stock. I'm not saying have fifty billion copies, just that you should have a copy or two. Of course, none of them ever seemed to until I finally found a copy of this back in February or March (before seeing Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind). For Him And The Girl showcases the eclectic frantic side of Workman and contains what is probably the sweetest song of all time "Safe And Sound". Of course, I now see this album almost everywhere I go because isn't that the way things work? You look and look and look for something, finally find it and then from that moment on, every fucking store has twenty copies at all time. Fucking universe.
3. Make Up The Breakdown by Hot Hot Heat
I really just bought this album on a whim. I'd heard a couple of the songs and thought they were alright, but I wasn't really looking for the CD. But there I was in Future Shop with money and nothing to buy, and I saw it, so I bought it, listened to it and loved it. It's a damn good album full of quirky songs. Hot Hot Heat kind of reminds me on Tangiers, but since they came first, I guess Tangiers sounds like them a bit. "Talk To Me, Dance With Me" is insanely catchy and fun. It's a song to dance to . . . I guess. I don't really dance, so I can't tell for sure. Except for that lame sort of thing you do when you're alone and are sure no one is watching. Yeah, yeah, laugh it up, but you do it too. Admit it. Fine then. Don't admit it, but we both know you do it. Shut up.
2. Old World Underground, Where Are You Now? By Metric
Buying this album was another case of me just happening to see a video on TV, loving it and making sure I found where it came from. The video in question was "Combat Baby" by Metric. It was a cool video with puppets and a girl in a short skirt dodging missiles. The woman in question was Emily Haines, the lead singer. I picked up the album soon thereafter and was blown away. Old World Underground, Where Are You Now? is a somewhat political album with a techno/funky underside to it. The most overtly political songs are "Combat Baby" and "Succexy" with its chorus "invasion's so Succexy" repeated over and over again. Definitely something to be picked up.
1. No Cities Left by The Dears (w/ End Of A Hollywood Bedtime Story & Thank You Good Night Sold Out)
The Dears' music is epic. Every song sounds like it belongs on the soundtrack to a big time Hollywood film. Like on The Tragically Hip's live CD Live Between us, the singer Gord Downie made a joke introducing one song about how it was being made into a movie, but if someone said a song by The Dears was being made into a movie, I'd almost believe it. The album that introduced me to The Dears was No Cities Left, which I got mostly because I needed a few more CDs as my free selections when joining Columbia House's music club. I'd picked a bunch and still needed three or four, so I picked this one after hearing a lot of good things and enjoying their song "Lost In The Plot". It took me a few listens to really get into it. I liked it the first time through, but I didn't really get it. It wasn't until this one day when I was coming home from my job at the university, and because there was construction on one of the roads, the buses were rerouted and I got on the wrong bus by accident. It's not as stupid as it sounds, because the bus I usually take, the 31 Orchard Park turns into the 32 Windermere, which then turns back into the 31 Orchard Park. Sometimes, the driver will forget to change the sign, so I just thought that was the case, since the 32 never went to the stop I was at, but it did during the summer apparently because of the construction. So, I rode the bus for an extra hour or so, and decided to listen to No Cities Left and just fell in love with it. The song that really pulled me in was "22: The Death Of All The Romance", which has become one of my favourite songs. It's basically the best song ever written about a relationship where the spark is gone, but you don't want to dump the girl because you don't want to hurt her feelings. Have there been any other songs written about that? Thank You Good Night Sold Out was a live album they released this fall and should make the list of the best new Canadian albums, but since it's a live album, I didn't include it there. Somehow, the songs are made even more epic live, especially on "Autonomy" where Lightburn is just yelling the line "While the world falls apart!" and then quiets down for "You've got my soul" and then lets the audience finish it with "I've got your heart." Fucking brilliant.
Non-Canadian Albums Released Prior To 2004
5. Under The Pink by Tori Amos (w/ Boys For Pele, The Choirgirl Hotel, To Venus And Back, Strange Little Girls and Scarlet's Walk)
I was introduced to Amos' music by my friend Lauren who is a big fan. Big big. Super fantastic big. So when joining Columbia House, I figured "Might as well get what they have of these" since she'd gotten me to listen to a few of her songs and I liked it. To be honest, I've only really listened to Under The Pink and Boys For Pele because I didn't want to just breeze through the CDs and end up only knowing them in a small kind of way. I wanted to actually absorb them the way you would if you were getting them as they came out. I should have gotten more through them, but another thing was that when it comes to Tori Amos, I need to be in the right mood, I find. I need to be in the right headspace. So, as a result, I've only listened to those two albums. I rather liked them though. Very eclectic and different.
4. Permission To Land by The Darkness
This is a tongue-in-cheek album, but it's also pretty damn good. Honestly, my favourite part is the fact that the song "Love Is Only A Feeling" follows "I Believe In A Thing Called Love". I remember waiting for the bus one morning, listening to this album for the first time and hearing the two songs together and trying my best not to laugh my ass off right there. My main problem with this album is that I tried to listen to a few weeks back and it just didn't grab me as much. It didn't have it anymore. It could be a mood thing, as like I said earlier, sometimes you just need to be in the right mood for some kinds of music. I still think "Love On The Rocks With No Ice" is a brilliant song.
3. So Much For The City by The Thrills (w/ Let's Bottle Bohemia)
I got this album for free on a whim. See, my mom works as the supervisor as a high school cafeteria (and makes good food, not that usual shit you'd expect from a high school cafeteria--really, she worked at my high school for the first few years I was there and the food was great) and there's this listening post program where record companies give free samples that are played in the cafeteria on this jukebox thing. They change CDs every month or so and once a CD comes out, the idea is to give it away to students. They have something like 24 CDs in there at a time (although now, they get the CDs and this special kind of disc which contains all of the music for the month). So, because my mom's in charge of this, we always get first crack at the free CDs. I've gotten a lot of CDs this way (I got the Sarah Slean album over a week before it came out that way) and this was one I got that way too. It was back near the end of January and I was downtown buying comics, and stopped by my mom's work because she was just there cleaning up since exams were on, and I thought I'd get a ride with her. While waiting, I looked through the CDs she had and this one just looked interesting so I took it. When I got home, I put it in and was blown away. A group of Irish guys making California surf music? Didn't see that being much good. It became a CD I listened to religiously for the next while, especially since it seemed to go well with Less Than Zero by Bret Easton Ellis, which I was reading around that time (it's about a college student's Christmas break back home in LA). The Thrills also released a new album this year, Let's Bottle Bohemia and it was alright, but I found it to be too similar to So Much For The City. It seemed kind of like the outtakes, you know? That's still good, but I would have preferred something more original. So Much For The City though is a fucking great CD, especially the song "Old Friends New Lovers" which is about how when someone begins dating someone new and that causes problems with their friends.
2. Tenacious D by Tenacious D
Do I even need to tell you why this album is great? My only real comment is that I'm ashamed it took me this long to get it. That, and "Double Team" is one fucking great song.
1. lloR N kcoR by Ryan Adams (w/ Gold, Demolition, and Love Is Hell Pts. 1 & 2)
Another Columbia House buy. My summer was divided up into three parts really: Ryan Adams, The Hives and Led Zeppelin. lloR N kcoR dominated the early part of summer. I remember listening to it after finishing my exam in Poetics and feeling so damn good because that was my last exam. It was my freedom music. And . . . wow, that's lame. That is so fucking lame. Ah well. The CD is great. Not the best CD in a technical sense, but it's rough, raw and energetic. The two songs that really stood out to me were "Note To Self: Don't Die" and "Rock And Roll". "Note To Self: Don't Die" has the great lines "Note to self: don't die for anyone. Note to self: don't die. Note to self: don't change for anyone. Don't change, just lie." And "Rock And Roll" is the ultimate "I am such a fucking loser" song. Because of lloR N kcoR I also got Gold, Demolition and Love Is Hell Pts. 1 & 2. Gold is a great album, while Demolition sounds like what it is: a disc of demos and outtakes. The two Love Is Hell discs are slow and generally very good. On the first one, Adams does a cover of Oasis' "Wonderwall" which is just brilliant. It's far better than the original Oasis version of the song and was even nominated for a Grammy for best vocal or something like that. It's a version of the song that is slow, quiet and horribly depressing and melancholy, the way it should be.
Classics
Eric Clapton and Cream (CDs: The Best Of Eric Clapton Twentieth Century Masters Collection and The Best Of Cream Twentieth Century Masters Collection)
I fucking love these Twentieth Century Masters Collection CDs. They're petty good "best of" collections that cost anywhere from seven to ten dollars. How great is that? So I picked up these two ones and was rather impressed. More so with the Eric Clapton one than the Cream one. I guess what surprised me about the Clapton CD was how many of the songs I actually knew, but didn't know the titles of. That happens a lot of the time, I find. You grow up hearing songs on the radio, in movies and such, but never hear the titles. I'm not sure whether or not I'll pick up more CDs by Clapton though.
Bob Dylan (CD: Biograph)
I bought the Biograph 3-disc box-set from Columbia House because it was half-price and cost like twenty-three bucks or something. I've only listened to the first disc (for the same reason I mentioned about the Tori Amos CDs). That one disc was quite good, I thought. The song that really got to me was this live track at the end of the disc called "She Pretends We Haven't Met", I believe. It just has that perfect blend of music, mood and energy. The rest of the songs ran hot and cold with me. Some are pretty damn good and others aren't so much. The thing about Dylan is that he has so many albums that I wouldn't really know where to start with buying his past work.
Led Zeppelin (CDs: Led Zeppelin, Led Zeppelin II, Led Zeppelin III, Led Zeppelin IV, Houses Of The Holy, Physical Graffiti, Presence, In Through The Out Door, Coda, The Song Remains The Same, BBC Sessions, How The West Was Won, Early Days: The Best Of Led Zeppelin Vol. 1, Latter Days: The Best Of Led Zeppelin Vol. 2, & No Quarter by Page and Plant)
If one band captured me the most this year, it was Led Zeppelin. I don't even know where to start. I guess I'll start at the beginning. I had a couple of free choices left at Columbia House, so I got the two best of Led Zeppelin CDs since I'd heard a lot of good stuff about them. I devoured those CDs and began buying up the other stuff Columbia House had of theirs, which didn't include any of the actual albums, because they weren't available as sale/free selections. I ended up spending September and October buying up their nine studio albums in stores and loved pretty much all of them. It is amazing to hear how the band changed over their decade or so of existence. Their live stuff is even more amazing in its own way. On disc one of BBC Sessions there are three different versions of "Communication Breakdown" and none of them are the same. Another thing that I find cool is that I will hear Led Zeppelin songs on classic rock radio stations all of the time, but it's rarely the same song. It seems every time I hear a song by them it's always a different song. The only ones that are repeated really are "Stairway To Heaven", "Black Dog" and "Kashmir". The only thing I don't like is that all of the live CDs go up to the material from Houses Of The Holy and not beyond (except on the Led Zeppelin DVD). I kind of hope that more live stuff is released in the coming years.
Lou Reed and The Velvet Underground (CDs: The Best Of The Velvet Underground, The Velvet Underground Live Vol. 1, Transformer, and NYC Man: The Collection)
Why the fuck can't I find any Lou Reed CDs in stores except for "best of" collections, a recent live album and The Raven? What the fuck? There is something seriously wrong with that. Really. Something insanely wrong. I can't think of a Lou Reed-written song I don't love. He is the master of the cool song and the tragic girl song. I mean, every single time I listen to "Carline Says II" my heart breaks. Throw in "Sweet Jane", "Stephanie Says", and "Lisa Says" and you've got some great songs that are insightful about women. Then there are songs like "I'm Waiting For The Man" and "Heroin" which are all about drugs. Or "Pale Blue Eyes" which is incredibly lovely song. Transformer was an album that surprised me with its quirkiness and the fact that it didn't really sound like the Velvet Underground stuff I'd heard. "Blue Mask" was a song that grabs you by the balls with its darkness. I would have picked up more of these CDs, but like I said, Lou Reed albums are damn near impossible to find in stores and I lack a credit card (and thus don't buy things online). I do plan on getting the Velvet Underground CDs (especially if the two-disc special edition versions are in the store).
The Who (CD: Then And Now)
I picked this up just because. Some of the stuff grabbed me, other stuff didn't. "Behind Blue Eyes" is by far the best song by The Who, in my opinion. I really don't have much to say about The Who, actually. I probably will pick up some of their other CDs, maybe the box-set.
And that's that. Those were the CDs that affected me the most this year. The shitty thing is the fact that I had to leave off a lot of other good CDs (The Tragically Hip's new album or the soundtrack to Team America: World Police). Well, happy new year, all. See you next week.