1. Grizzly Bear – Veckatimest :: Gets better with every listen.
2. Mos Def – The Estatic :: Really glad he’s back, the last two have been phoned in. This one is solid.
3. Phish – Joy :: My favorite band is back together, and that makes me happy. They could have had 4’33″ on here and I would have listened intently.
4. Animal Collective – Merriweather Post Palivion :: I couldn’t stand this when I first listened. Saw them at Bonnaroo, thought they were still bad. After some encouragement from Lincoln, I listened again. It is actually really really good.
5. Passion Pit – Manners :: Fun.
6. The Avett Brothers – I and Love and You :: You can play this for every member of your family, and they’ll love it. Even Grandma.
7. Beirut – March of the Zapotec EP & Realpeople – Holland EP (the Holland EP is better) :: This kid makes me jealous of his talent. The ethnomusicologist in me loves the Oaxaca inspired EP. The ears like the Holland EP better.
8. Black Joe Lewis & The Honeybears – Tell ‘Em What Your Name is! :: Saw them at Bumbershoot. Sweet jesus, I was sold. Reminds me a lot of Buddy Miles.
9. Built to Spill – There is no Enemy :: Don’t believe they can make a bad album.
10. The Flaming Lips – Embryonic :: Different. Saw them at Marymoor this summer. Wayne started the show by climbing out of a … nevermind, don’t want to ruin it.
11. Wilco – (the album) :: Looking forward to getting old with Wilco.
12. The XX (self titled) :: What’s a VCR?
13. Lily Allen – It’s Not Me, It’s You :: She is genuinely funny, and can write a really good pop song. However, usually requires headphones.
14. Super Furry Animals – Dark Days/Light Years :: The Welsh version of the Flaming Lips are great. See them live if you can.
15. Jay – Z – The Blueprint 3 :: But really, only ‘Empire State of Mind’. The rest of the album is kind of dull.

My favorite list of the decade is coming.

The original premise for this came up through him mentioning (or at least how I remember it) the classic Radiohead album, OK Computer. Some would argue that it isn’t the best Radiohead album, but few would argue that isn’t a classic. He’s never listened to it. That’s cool, I didn’t listen to it until well after it had been released. My only regret about it is that I didn’t discover it earlier. He doesn’t seem to think that it’s what everybody cracks it up to be.

The other side of it came last week, he asked me about an album called Destruction of Puppies or Appetite for Puppies or something like that, can’t remember exactly. Nonetheless, in all my 28 years of listening to almost all types of music, it had slipped through. He was noticeably shocked and disturbed by my lack of knowledge of said album.

Over beers we decided that we should duel over discuss these albums publicly on our blogs and continue the discussion to two other albums. We both agreed to give well thought out critiques that are fair to the music and not to look to score cheap hits. I’m not intent on changing his opinion, rather I’m intent seeing him acknowledge the choices I give him as important and/or interesting pieces of music. OK Computer is first. There will other choices afterwards and I’m totally undecided on what direction to take. Think I’ll just wait on it and see where to go.

His side of the discussion is here. Stay tuned, this will be fun.

Santigold:
I almost bought this a couple times when i saw it at the top of the best seller list on iTunes. Apparently the 30 sec samples didn’t sell me the way her live show . After seeing her recently, I immediately came home and bought the album. This is an album for the summer. It’s loud, obnoxious (sometimes), there are some cool dub sections, and it’s catchy. Sometimes you just need to listen to obnoxious catchy music. This is new territory for my ears, and they’re reporting back good things.

Mos Def
The Estatic
I didn’t listen to hip-hop until the summer of 2004. I feel bad about this. While I don’t regret any music I listened to before that (except that Right Said Fred single I purchased when I was 10), I think I could have dabbled a little bit while in music school. Two of the first albums I bought were Mos Def’s Black on Both Sides and his collaboration with Talib Kweli Black Star. I listened to these two albums a lot that summer. I’ve grabbed every Mos Def album that has come out since that summer, and I’ve been disappointed every time. I’m glad I didn’t give up, because this one is killer. Good rhymes, great production by Madlib and others, and nice guest appearances. I need some more time with it, but I can already tell that this one is a keeper.

still in the bin …Lil Wayne, Tha Carter III; Ray Charles Modern Sounds in Country and Western; Bright Eyes, Digital Ash in a Digital Urn

I spent this past weekend in the middle of Tennessee. It took me 24 hours to get there via plane, and I spent the next 24 hours without any luggage. But I’m not going to talk about that here, I’ll save that for a future post about how American Airlines could have used Social Media to get my business again. I want to talk about Bonnaroo, the best music and arts festival in North America.

The music lineup was top notch. I have extremely eccentric tastes in music. My philosophy when someone asks me what I listen to comes from Duke Ellington, “there are only two kinds of music in this world, good and bad.” So yes, there was one band that made me buy a ticket to the festival, Phish. But it was the diverse and deep lineup that made it a great weekend. In just two hours on Sunday I bounced between Merle Haggard , Erykah Badu, Andrew Bird and Okkervil River. My ears are constantly open and Bonnaroo does not disappoint.

The highlights:

My name is Brad and I like Phish. I used to hide myself as a Phishhead, I was tired of being pigeonhold but since Phish has come back, I just don’t care anymore. I was awfully excited to see them on Friday night. I utilized my semi-secret way to get down to the front of the stage, ending up 40 feet back on Fishman’s side. These guys are hot right now. They had a 3 hours to play, so I assumed we would hear 2 sets with a short break in between. That turned out to not be the case. We we’re given 3.5 hours of both classic and new songs. The jams were contained to the right songs and the right places. When I would find my mind wandering, someone would always come through and bring my attention right back. This was a good show. The new songs, Kill Devil Falls and Stealing Time from the Faulty Plan are good tunes with lots of opportunity to grow into being classics. I had never been so close to the stage during Divided Sky, so it was neat to see the silent jam that close. I’d only heard that at the Gorge, while the sun was setting so I can’t exactly complain. Harry Hood, YEM, Silent in the Morning and Down with Disease all were awesome. They were hitting everything with authority and meaning. It sounded like Phish, it didn’t sound like they were trying to be a pop band or a funk band or a cover band. This is the band that I grew up on, and this is the band that I know. They’re going back to being themselves, and everybody should be happy about that.

I love Wilco (the band). Last time I saw them, I believe I said, “this is a band I’m looking forward to getting old with.” Everything they put out is great, and the new album is no different. I was lucky enough to be down in front for the show again. You could tell that everyone was having lots of fun. Nels Cline is one of my favorite guitar players, and did not disappoint. Jeff Tweedy was very chatty, at one point he said, “we’re pretty happy about playing before Bruce, because if you boo, we can’t tell a difference.”

Grizzly Bear translated their lovely new album to the stage perfectly. Wish I could have seen their whole set, but I was transitioning from seeing the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, on my way to see King Sunny Ade and Santigold. All were excellent and they were all at the same time. That’s the wonderful and frustrating thing about these festivals, you can only see so much.

David Byrne brought the house down. I’m looking forward to seeing him again next week in Seattle. He had a number of interpretive dancers on stage with him, they were fun to watch. I wish the drunk assholes from Jersey next to me weren’t yelling every lyric. Then again, I think drunk assholes from Jersey make the world go round (yin ‘n yang?).

The last time at Bonnaroo, I neglected to go to the comedy tent. This year I opted to go to see the Daily Show cast; John Oliver, Rob Riggle, Wyatt Cenac, Kristen Schaal and some others. All the standup sets were hilarious and a nice change of pace.

It would be wrong to neglect the excellent set from Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band. I’ve never been a big fan of The Boss, but I’ve always respected him and his band. They’re hard working and lots of people are devout fans, so who am I to judge? That man knows how to put on a show. The only other person I’ve seen work so hard and fill such a big stage without any doubt of who is in charge is Mick Jagger. He puts performers half his age to shame. The other memorable part was watching Max Weinberg’s 18 year old son take over the kit half way through the set, this kid has a future.

The disappointments:

MGMT had the crowd at the tip of their fingertips. That Tent was as overflowed as I’ve ever seen in my two years of going to Bonnaroo. Everybody was asking for a dance party, but sadly, they didn’t deliver. Maybe I was too far away, and the sound wasn’t loud enough. I don’t think so though. These guys need to tour some more and work out their live show. Take a lesson from the jambands and pull the song out a little. The crowd was ready.

I’m bummed that I missed these shows; moe. (they played until 7am), MURS, Passion Pit, Public Enemy, Phoenix, Femi Kuti, Al Green, Galactic, Elvis Costello, Jenny Lewis, David Grisman, Citizen Cope, Neko Case and Band of Horses.

The roundup:

I’ve been to a number of festivals, all around the country, some better than others. For the most part, I generally get discouraged by the organization. Having to sit in a line for hours on end to get anything is not the way that most people want to spend their time at a festival. The good folks that run Bonnaroo know what they’re doing. Everywhere you go, the lines are manageable, the food is good, the beer is reasonably priced and the stages offer good sight lines, even if you show up late. You can tell that the organizers think about the experience and not just how they can make money. They’re taking the bet on the long term, not the short term. If they continue doing what they’re doing, Bonnaroo is going to be around for a long time. In the middle of June, there is no city I’d rather be in than Manchester, Tennessee.

Oracular Spectacular was produced with by Dave Fridmann, the Flaming Lips’ producer. It is very apparent. The album made complete sense after I discovered.* The feel of the album reminds me very much of the Lips. The ways that he creates space and timbres in the music gives it buoyancy and life. Crisp, interesting, and permeable sounds dominate the landscape. He seems to do this by bouncing ostinato style sounds between the left and right speakers, as well as using it for call-response type lines in other instrumental sections. It turns it into definite headphone material.

This one is worth picking up. 

8/10

* I love my iPhone and buying music on iTunes, but it sure does suck that you can’t look at linear note like you used it. I know apple will solve this sooner than later… but it’s still too bad.

I grabbed a copy of this at work the other day and I listened to it for about two weeks straight. I listened to it with the kind of obsession reserved for only select bands. I listened to it in my car, while eating dinner, at work, on the iPod on the bus. It’s a simple piece of work, when it comes down to it. Female songwriter with a killer band playing interesting instruments, interesting progressions with great musicianship; you’ve heard that before, right? Not this band, you haven’t heard a band that sounds like this before, I guarantee. Thao Nguyen has the kind of voice that you remember. It’s not pitch perfect, nor is it sweet like so many singers on the radio. But it’s totally 100% honest. The lyrics are funny without being cheesy. I adore her voice.

“I am all in a ball,
In your front yard,
I have this bag of hammers,
and I won’t ask you to come in,
cause I have sold everything”

The band … gawd damn, these guys are good. There are some heavy hitters on the album, that’s for sure. Seattle organist Wayne Horvitz, indie rock queen Laura Veirs, Tucker Martine. The grooves are in the pocket, but not stiff. The band plays with confidence and intensity. There are great little guitar lines in the background that pop and fizzle, occasionally meeting up with the piano/organ. Cool horn lines come in to cover the chorus. Plus, the band knows when to say when and sometimes provides a little silence in the breaks. Clapping, snapping, tongue in cheek noises (literally, not figuratively), all give the album the sprinkles on the sundae.

“I will keep my station wagon stationary,
and I will learn to juggle all the things we carry,
Must be hard on your bodyguards,
when you charge at icicles”

As an avid reader of Tape-Op magazine, I was glad to see that they recorded a portion of the album at Jackpot! studios in Portland with Larry Crane. Portland is a lucky town.

“Let’s go home and eat sweet things,
throw our arms across our eyes
they are angry like motorcycles,
tuck your chin and ride”

Oh ya, the beginning of the song Geography reminds me of Norah Jones. Then Thao’s voice comes in and I breathe a sigh of relief. Thao’s an IPA (hoppy and interesting), while Norah is more of a Lager (simpler and domestic).

Don’t steal this record, buy it.

p.s. Please come back to Seattle soon.

… and I don’t care.

EMI in the past year has lost Radiohead, Paul McCartney, and the Rolling Stones from it’s roster. Last week they laid off 2,000 people. The other majors aren’t too far behind either. The word is, jobs at the labels are being lost left and right.

According to Bob Lefsetz of the LefsetzLetter …

Sales in 2007, including both physical and digital, topped out at 500.5 million albums. The peak year was 2000, when 785 million units were sold. So, you’d expect sales of best sellers to drop by approximately one third, or 36.25%, to be exact. 

There are are so many reasons for the majors to die. They refused to grow beyond what they had at the peak of music purchasing in 2000. They refused to redraw their business plan when the technology allowed people to get whatever they wanted, when they wanted. They waited for silicon valley to make the easiest, sexiest, and most satisfying method. It turns out that silicon valley would much rather sell ipods than maximize profits on singles.

I was in college from 1999-2003 and I hated file sharing. When I lived in the dorms it was the first time I experienced having a high speed connection every day. I downloaded Napster to my iMac (baby blue, 6gb’s on the HD, 350mHz processor) and I tried to steal as much as I could. As a college student, what you don’t get caught for isn’t really illegal. I loved music more then anything else in the world. My cd collection had been growing substantially, I spent the previous summer following Phish for 3 shows, nothing else seemed to matter but listening to music or playing my trumpet. Napster always gave me nothing but crap. Even when I did find the music that I wanted, it was incomplete, poor quality. Most of the time, I didn’t find anything close to the eclectic tastes I had as a 18 year old (regrettably, I listen to far more mainstream music now).

When iTunes came about in 2001 it was a revelation. I loved the fact that I didn’t have to hike from my dorm room to the Tower Records on University Way to buy a CD if I wanted something right away. I loved the fact that you knew what the quality would be when you purchased it. I loved the fact that you knew it would be the entire song. I still didn’t get into buying any music from the iTunes music store until i received my first iPod in 2003. It held 10gb’s and I loved it. I told everyone I had a new best friend. At the time I was finishing up my music degree from the University of Washington. I remember walking through the halls of the School of Music with my white earbuds in thinking, why the hell does nobody else have one of these. I could listen to essentially anything I wanted to without worrying about hauling 100 cd’s around in my backpack all day.

The major labels have abandon what made them big and great. They built artists careers. They promoted quality musicians. Not junk that sells heavy for a summer and goes away the next (souja boy, wtf??!?). They got greedy and stopped treating it as a record label and started maximizing profits over the short term, rather than long term.

Once record labels lost the main distribution point, they lost the industry. In ten years, two more labels will consolidate and we’ll be left with 3 (not-so major) majors. In ten years, all music that is purchased digitally will be equal in quality to uncompressed music. In ten years, digital sales will account for > 75% of all music sales. In ten years, homeowners insurance will cover hard drive failure for those who don’t back up their music. And most importantly, in ten years, artists will have the ability to make most of the money they earn without paying middle managers in suits at record labels.

The major record label is dead and you should be happy.

Long live Ubiquity, Nonesuch, Concord, Kill Rock Stars, Sub Pop, Okay Player, Rope-a-Dope, and all the other purveyors of quality music.

Dr. Dog, “We All Belong”:
I’ve heard nothing but wonderful things about this band from the musical tastes makers that I trust the most (see: favorite local and national writers, band mates, and friends). The album was everything I expected it to be. Most people seem to say that they remind them of the Beatles. I have a hard time hearing that, because while everyone WANTS to be the Beatles, nobody but the Beatles actually is. Luckily, these guys don’t let down. The whole album is full of great songs that make you want to sing along, listen intently to the changes or just rock out. These guys are great, I’m really looking forward to appropriately absorbing the album over the next month (or more).

Two Gallants, self titled:
The Stranger is all over these guys as the savior of music, in general. As a loyal reader, I felt obligated to give them a listen. They’re good, not great. Good songwriting, interesting (enough) melodies, and good musicianship made it worthwhile. Kind of reminded me of Tom Petty (?).

West Indian Girl, “4th & Wall”:
They’ve got it all, good horn sections, nice songwriting, and (I never thought I’d write this) good electronic dance beats. The combination makes me feel okay about listening to it. I don’t think there is a single bad song on that album and enough variety to please the whole family.

btw, I really wish the Rockies would win a couple games to make this World Series interesting. Another sweep would be really, really, really boring.

But for me.
That’s bullshit.
I’ve heard a lot of music that’s popular today.
I don’t really understand why.
But maybe that’s just me.

———–
UPDATE:
I started this post on Saturday and neglected to finish it. It’s a dissertation, really. I want to work on it more some day… but not now. It’s not the right time for me.

Epic is hopefully wishing (through extensive marketing campaigns) that this summer is dominated by another “Float On”. Whether or not that’s true, is hard to tell. The album contains familiar Modest Mouse themes; the ocean, fuck-you, death, etc… Typical, I am holier-than-thou screaming indie bullshit, Isaac Brock.

Nonetheless, it’d be quite a accomplishment to top 2004′s Good News for People Who Like Bad News. This album might just have the recipe to do that. As a latecomer to the band, I was introduced to them on the last one. I heard it everywhere I went for a couple months. When I finally broke down and purchased it, it became the soundtrack to a memorable summer. By the fall, it had worn dangerously thin on many peoples ears. The new album, has a long name, some good hooks, and a familiar sound.

I bet its hard to feel tortured soul when you’re a on a major label and have a giant recording budget. Keep on keepin on…