The albums below are the ones I kept turning to when I just wanted to kick back and enjoy some tunes. Sure, there was more artistically challenging stuff released this year than some of the selections below — and I certainly do appreciate that sort of thing — but my year end lists reflect which music ultimately did for me what I think rock and/or roll is ultimately meant to do to any listener: it grabbed me by the heart and/or crotch and wouldn’t let go.

TOP 21 ALBUMS OF 2008

It should be noted I only counted albums released in 2008. If it was released digitally in 2007 it was NOT eligible … which is why you don’t see Radiohead, Robyn or MGMT on this list.

TV on the Radio, Dear Science
This mixture of high art and dance floor squonk not only bears up over repeated listens, it actually gets better. In that most rare of occurrences, the album I found myself turning to again and again too sate my more base musical desires also ended up feeding my intellectual hungers as well.
MP3: Dancing Choose | Buy on Amazon

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Kanye West, 808s & Heartbreak
West’s cold digital soundscape provides the vehicle for his most human album of his career. People are still arguing over this one — and in particular the near unhealthy dose of AutoTune running through the whole thing — but I still say that the whole thing works excellently as both an artistic and emotional statement.
Message Board Discussion | Buy on Amazon

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Friendly Foes, Born Radical
This is the perfect vicious indie-pop Minneapolis-based band of 1986 / 1996 … that didn’t form until 2006 … in Detroit. It is only available digitally at the moment, and that’s the only reason I can think of to explain why everyone is not going ga-ga over this disc. When it gains more exposure next month I predict it’s gonna explode. Simply indispensable.
MP3: Couch Surfing

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Sad Day For Puppets, Unknown Colors
These Swedes mine shoegaze and 1989 indie-pop a la The Darling Buds to create a sound warmly familiar and immediately arresting. Dreamy guitars and gauzy vocals entrance while solid rhythms ground the songs
MP3: Little Light

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Cut Copy, In Ghost Colours
Cut Copy stole my hearts with their last minute set at Pitchfork and I have yet to tire of their smart electronic-pop / dance-rock blend nailed down by exuberant melodies. Any time a bunch of boys can create smart dance music that causes throngs of people to just completely lose their shit — and then manage to carry that same vibe over onto their album — you’re going to find us in their fan base.
Youtube | Buy on Amazon

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Rachael Yamagata, Elephants…Teeth Sinking Into Heart
Yamagata takes her familiar sound a large stylistic leap forward. The song arrangements are daring, the instrumentation is dark and often starkly minimal. This is a world of grays punctuated by brief flashes of color and light. One tends to feel constricted, and the moments when things open up — as on the strings that swell during “Elephants,” it feels as if you’re taking in deep breaths of delicious oxygen. But even the tighter moments exalt as they bind the listener ever closer to Yamagata’s delivery. Buy on Amazon

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Supergrass, Diamond Hoo Ha
Tossing off the more lethargic tendencies of the group’s last album, Supergrass return to their harder rockin’ roots, inject a healthy dose of Glam, and finally find their swaggering stride again. We’re extremely glad these grown men decided to re-channel their harder tendencies through equal parts sneer and smile on this album.
MP3 Mix | Buy on Amazon

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The Features, Some Kind Of Salvation
Intensely delivered R&B wrasslin’, pop lovin’, Southern rock that delivers equal parts preacher fervor and lover’s lament. Soul searing as it reaches for the height of the skies, and crotch tingling as it revels in, uh, more secular waters. The turbo-charged anthems sit alongside naturally with the more introspective softer pieces to reveal a band comfortable on many terrains.
MP3: GMF | Buy from Official Site

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Ting Tings, We Started Nothing
This explosively and deceptively simple-sounding debut still gets my blood boiling every time I hear it’s infectious beats and chirped vocals. This is the sort of band that is easy to write off as a one-hot wonder until you realized that you are compulsively humming the whole album from start to finish, again and again.
Youtube Channel | Buy on Amazon

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Lykke Li, Youth Novels
Lykke Li’s minimal electronic pop is informed oh so subtly by the hip-hop aesthetic that when less is more it can be thunderous in its restraint. Her whispers can knock you and her wispy hooks will slip under your skin quietly and then absolutely refuse to let you go, no matter how hard you fight.
MP3: Dance Dance Dance | Buy on Amazon

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Ladyhawke, Ladyhawke
Ladyhawke IS Pip Brown, and she expertly handles just about every instrument and arrangement in this surprisingly complex and engaging collection of dance pop firmly based in the day-glo ’80s. After hearing the ’80s mined so clumsily and inexpertly by so many other groups this year we’re tickled to see someone who re-realizes the giddy potential of that era’s more engaging composers.
MP3 | Buy on Amazon

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The Dandy Warhols, …Earth To The Dandy Warhols…
The Dandy Warhols had to escape the Majors and form their own label in order to fearlessly pursue their own muse again to the listener’s great reward. Droning, funky, propulsive, and dreamy; The Dandys have both regained a steady footing while launching their music back into the stratosphere.
Subscription Service | Buy on Amazon

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Sloan, Parallel Play
After the double-album preceding this one, Sloan focuses on creating timeless pop-rock that creates sing-alongs you’ve learned the word to a quarter of the way through the first listen. They stun us with their ability to consistently release albums that are, well, consistently great.
Yep Roc

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Raphael Saadiq, The Way I See It
The best R&B album of the year. Timeless. Perfect. It’s simultaneously an homage to Stax and Motown while proving that organic, vibrant soul music can both convincingly and honestly be crafted by a younger generation. Saadiq has moved seamlessly between genres in the past but this album proves his talents as a musical chameleon might have located their most honest perch. Buy on Amazon

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The Uglysuit, The Uglysuit
Deceptively meditative baroque arrangements on The Uglysuit’s debut give way to expansive choruses and swirling walls of well-mannered psychedelia. Live this band is capable of searing your face off, but their album is more likely to find your cheeks streaked with tears.
MP3: Chicago | Buy on Amazon

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Darker My Love, 2
These West Coasters are handy at transforming drone into hooks, incorporating groovy hooks with guitars turned to 11. The group has discovered expert ways to weave their obvious influences into their sound, for evidence of this check out the deliciously unholy mixture of The Beach Boys, My Bloody Valentine, and The Jesus and Mary Chain on “Two Ways Out.” When I listen to that song I picture the beach on one of those freak of nature days where it’s simultaneously sunny and raining.
Donewaiting Interview | Buy on Amazon

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Erykah Badu, New Amerykah Part One (4th World War)
The weirdest and most difficult to penetrate R&B album of the year also proves the most interesting view of it’s creator’s core. Badu isn’t delivering your mainstream “smooth grooves,” and instead opts to take you on an extraterrestrial journey through the inner self. Buy on Amazon

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Mystery Jets, Twenty One
These young Brits lost a bit of the ‘67 Pink Floyd freneticism that drew us to them in the first place, but they’ve replaced it with an alarmingly mature grasp of rhythm and dynamics injected into their winning blend of Britpop. The only downside to hearing this more realized sophomore effort? We’re totally jonesing for them to make another trip Satateside so I can see them play live again!
Youtube

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The Feeling, Join With Us
These kids are equal parts Queen, Big Star, and The Greys … in other words if I didn’t know better we’d mistake this disc for a Jellyfish reunion album. Multilayered choruses with monster sized hooks dominate this disc … and the expansive production puts Jeff Lynne to shame.
Youtube | Buy on Amazon

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Weezer, Weezer (The Red Album)
Scrap the non-Rivers Cuomo contributions, add the bonus tracks from the “Deluxe Edition,” and you have the best Weezer album in over a decade. Cuomo once again mixes the weird, the catchy, and the downright epic to create songs that move beyond the stadium constructs of the previous disc.
Weezer (Red Album)

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Girl Talk, Feed The Animals
I don’t care if you love or hate Gregg Gillis as a person, or whether you view his mash-ups as “art” or you think he’s just a pandering hack behind a keyboard … Feed The Animals was the soundtrack that just dug into my inner dance party and would not let go. Wikipedia

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Keep reading for favorite Chicago albums and songs of the year. (more…)

I’ve never paid to see Lollapalooza in its current incarnation in Chicago

The first year a friend got me in to the Lollalounge through a radio contest she won, and each subsequent year I’ve had press access. I’ve read and written countless previews and reviews of the festival, and it wasn’t until this year that I realized each and every one was basically flawed. Sure, they tackled the bands appearing, and attempted to capture the vibe, but they never really grappled with the most primal question surrounding Lollapalooza; should you go?

You see, most reviews you’ll come across are written by folks like me. We get in for free, are granted access to amenities 99% of attendees are not, and – this is most important – we come from a vantage point of relative privilege since most critics have probably already seen the vast majority of the bands appearing at Lollapalooza. What does this result in? Well, usually you end up reading uniform reviews semi-complaining about the line-up, flagellating the festival and the bands involved for sponsorship issues, gripes about ticket prices, and much hand-wringing over the infamous “radius clause.” Oh, and if you’re lucky, you get some griping about drunk meatheads, sound bleed, and general overcrowding. (And, yes, every once in a while, you get honest-to-god reporting on isolated incidences.)

The thing is, all those write-ups sort of miss the whole point of Lollapalooza.

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Much print has been spilled in the most recent flurry of Liz Phair news, and a lot of it just clearly misses the fucking point.

As an artistic piece I still think Exile In Guyville is an amazing piece of emotional honesty. I could care less what motivated Liz Phair to write the songs, and from what I can tell she was an artist first and foremost, but she wanted validation from Nash Kato and that crew, so I think that supplied the drive to actually get her stuff released. I think the “potty mouth / slutty blowjob queen / Exile On Mainstreet / priveleged rich kid going bohemian” thing is an angle that lazy journalists employed then, and still employ. One watch of the Guyville Redux DVD that comes with the reissue is paints a much better representation of the indie scene at the time — Chicago in particular — and the way she actually fit into things at the time.

But I think she was/is an artist with a limited well from which to draw. There’s a reason the good songs on later discs were mostly reworkings of stuff from the Girlysound tapes. I think she hit upon a bright burst of inspiration at a certain point in her life and after that was gone she didn’t have anything else unique to say.

Another journalist and I were having an argument recently over whether or not Guyville is even a feminist work. I argued it wasn’t philosophically, but understood that since it empowered so many women some folks just lump it in as a “feminist work.” And I think that’s the most important thing, and one that gets severely overlooked since almost everyone that’s ever written about the album is male, and they totally fucking miss this point just about every single time, but when that disc came out there were a LOT of girls that were suddenly like, OH my GOD, I think those same things too. And it’s O.K. I’m not alone!”

Who cares if Phair never writes another decent song, or that her career nowadays is one naked grab for attention after another? That’s her business, and I don’t hold it against her one whit, and I think it’s idiotic for people to hate on her for trying to make a career within today’s totally fucked up music industry. What matters is that, once upon a time, she created a piece of art that gave a lot of people courage by shouting universal truths previously held behind closed doors. For that Liz Phair will always have my respect.

I’m reviewing Liz Phair’s Exile In Guyville reissue for another publication and got the digital version of the album a week or two ago so I could hear the bonus tracks. I just got the physical version in the mail today since I needed that to review the DVD that’s included. (Which, just from this brief bit, already looks pretty awesome.) However I noticed that the CD no longer includes the bonus track “Wild Thing,” a playful rework of The Troggs tune.

I wonder what happened?

The Hood Internet has gone and remixed an entire city! This fun mashup album features a ton of bands and the songs range from the straight up insane (Kanye + Wilco + the Super Bowl Shuffle!) to some really great stuff, like this Andrew Bird track I’m posting up.

MP3: Simple X-plosion (Diverse vs Andrew Bird)

Click here to download the full album for free.

Tracklisting:

1. Intro
2. Pro Nails Forever (Kid Sister vs Walter Meego)
3. Frog Minutes (Shawnna vs LMNOP)
4. Cakeicide (Hollywood Holt vs Prairie Cartel)
5. Juke And Pop (Mic Terror vs Green Velvet)
6. Superbowl Jesus (Kanye West + 1985 Bears vs Wilco)
7. Trenchache (Juice vs Liz Phair)
8. 80s Problems (Tha Basix vs Mahjongg)
9. When Baby Mamas Collide (Qualo vs Chin Up Chin Up)
10. Simple X-plosion (Diverse vs Andrew Bird)
11. Your Love Iz What It Iz (The Cool Kids vs Frankie Knuckles)
12. Sisters Of Chicago-Rillas (Rhymefest vs The Changes)
13. I Ain’t That Bowie (Twista vs The Sea And Cake)
14. Hay Electric (Crucial Conflict vs Reds and Blue)
15. Watch My Big Feet Jump (Dude N Nem + Twista vs Office)
16. Ten-Day High (Do Or Die + Kanye West vs Tortoise)
17. Eatchyo Stigmata (Yea Big + Kid Static vs Ministry)
18. Smash That There (Yung Berg vs The Smashing Pumpkins)
19. Stages Of Standby (Psalm One vs Kleenex Girl Wonder)
20. Can You Eat Some More Heavy Fists Of Love? (Kanye West + GLC vs Bumps + Terminal 4 + Big Black)
21. I Used To Love The Blue Line (Common vs Bang! Bang!)
22. I Gotcha Trees (Lupe Fiasco vs May Or May Not)
23. What Chu Like, Old Mare? (Da Brat vs Sleep Out)
24. Kells-Tone For The Painfully In Love (R. Kelly vs Casiotone For The Painfully Alone)

In Chicago they’re trying to shove through a new ordinance that would force independent promoters to purchase a “promoter’s license” and insure their events even if they’re promoting an event in a venue that’s already insured. This would put me out of the promotion business. Local blogs and fanzines would no longer be able to book a bill at places like Double Door, The Empty Bottle, Schubas, Metro, or Hideout. Fundraisers would cease to exist.

And I’m just thinking of the live music community … if this thing passes the dance scene in Chicago will basically disappear overnight.

Chicagoist — the local Chicago website I write for — writers Marcus and Lizz have written about this situation much better than I have, and Jim DeRogatis’ daily updates have proven invaluable.

If you are reading this and live in Chicago LET YOUR ALDERMAN KNOW HOW MUCH YOU DISAPPROVE OF THIS … TODAY! RIGHT NOW! RIGHT THIS SECOND! And be sure to mention that if they DO vote for it, they’ve lost YOUR vote when they run for re-election.

If you don’t live here, well, wish us luck … or your band / DJ crew / hip-hop group might have a much harder time finding a gig next time you come through town.

UPDATE: The Chicago “anti-promoter” ordinance has been tabled for “further research” so there will be no vote on it tomorrow. Independent promotion is safe in Chicago for now, and I think it’s entirely due to the strong and immediate response from the music community. I’ve been told this is 100% sure to still come to a vote — possibly within the next month — so folks need to keep the pressure up on Chicago aldermen!

MP3: Year of the Cretin
MP3: Wildflower

The Evil Queens are a band on the donewaiting.com record label, Sunken Treasure Records. They’re heading to Chicago and Detroit this weekend:

11/2 Detroit @ The Belmont
with None More Black

11/3 Chicago @ Quencher’s
with Milk at Midnight and America’s #1 Sweetheart

America’s #1 Sweetheart also features Chicago man-about-town Tankboy. I think it’s one of their first shows.

Here’s a recent review from Jambase:

The Evil Queens are the Buckeye State’s best kept secret. Charging with a brand of sloppy stoner rock that’s tough as nails, you could easily find the Queens sitting at the end of a bar sharing a bottle of Old Granddad or challenging you to a tussle with a broken bottle. While the music has the most abrasive elements of grunge ala early Soundgarden and the tormenting stance of Mudhoney, it’s bar rock and “fuck you” attitude will leave the leave barkeep mopping up blood and sweeping teeth off the floor after one of their gigs. Guitarist Mike Eckhardt’s scraggy riffs are more chiseled than Clint Eastwood while the chili powder snarl from lead man Jacob Sundermeyer’s voice sears with the heat of a tattoo needle. Loud, fiery and pulverizing, The Evil Queens remind us that rock & roll and troublemaking have never been too far apart.

I haven’t really written much about Rachael Yamagata, and what I have written tends to stick strictly to reviews of her music and previews of her performances. I’ve had lots of people ask me to write more about her, but I think that when a friend becomes famous you tend to grow overprotective of them. Considering Rach was like the little sister I never had, I’d say that was certainly the case in this instance.

However her name has been popping up more and more lately, so I’ve been thinking about her more. My little brother pointed out that she did an interview with Mandy Moore recently — which really is a good read since it dispenses with the usual back-and-forth in favor of a more revealing look at how Moore actually operates — and I keep hearing murmurings that her new album is coming out in the near future, though I’ve been hearing that for over 6 months now, so who knows.

I don’t really get to talk to Rach that much anymore. Aside from a couple of “catch-up” emails a year we don’t really get to talk, which is too bad, but that sort of thing happens even with friends who still live in town, a couple blocks away from me. It’s just sort of the natural progression of things. There was a period of time where all we would do is have hours-long conversations late into the night, and now I think our last spoken conversation was at my birthday party last year. Or was that the year before? Time flies.

Anyway, I dug out some old demos of hers that never saw the light of day. One batch is a bunch of recordings she did with Chris Holmes, some of which showed up in her later released stuff in a slightly less gritty form. I can’t really post them or share them, since they were given me by the artists involved and I don’t think they were ever meant to see the light of day. What I can share, however, is a track off her first demo, since that got passed around, and at one point Rach was giving them away at her solo shows, so I think it’s safe to share it.

The track, “Super,” was in regular rotation in Rach’s early sets. I didn’t give Rach her first solo show, but i do think I gave her the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th solo shows! It was fun to watch her go from playing to an audience of 9, including me and two of her bandmates from Bumpus, to playing sold out shows. Due to timing constraints I haven’t seen her the last few times she came through town, and I admit it might be a little weird to see her playing the Metro to a sold-out crowd of Rachael Yamagata fans, but I’m sure she’s still terrific on-stage.

Anyway, “Super” is a little poppier than some of the stuff she’s now better known for, and I think it was maybe one of her attempts to write a “guitar rock” type of song. It’s a little simple, but in this case I think “simple” is perfect for the song.

MP3: Rachael Yamagata “Super”

Chicago cool kids OFFICE have made their first video in advance of the release of their newest disc, A Night At The Ritz, on September 25. They are getting massive accolades all over the internets, and I couldn’t be happier for them.

The only unsettling thing about the video is that I’m pretty sure the look Scott gives the woman coming down the stairs is the same one he gave me when I ran into him late last Friday. Kidding!

Our man TJ drove from Columbus to Chicago to see Wednesday’s Grinderman show, and he’s posted a pretty extensive reivew in our message board.

“This is gonna be hard for anything to top as show of the year. Hell, it might be show of the year for a couple of years ”

Set list:

grinderman
get it on
depth charge ethel
electric alice
set me free
honeybee
go tell the women
man in the moon
when my love comes down
no pussy blues
love bomb

red right hand (encore 1)
the weeping song (encore 1)
deanna (encore 1)
lyre of orpheus (encore 1)

the ship song (encore 2)
jack the ripper (encore 2)

I’m sure every city is littered with great bands that just, for whatever reason, never took off. Sometimes it’s just bad timing, or lack of exposure, or the simple fact that the gods seem fond of cruel jokes and often raise up the unworthy while holding down the excellent.
Chicago’s Hushdrops are certainly well connected, leader John San Juan’s “Summer People” was covered by The Webb Brothers and became a minor hit overseas. San Juan and fellow Hushdrop Joe Camarillo are both unbelievably talented musicians that can have performed in an astounding number of other bands over the years, but Hushdrops was always their baby.
The band’s love of both The Beatles and the Who is evident in their songs, with both influences making their presence known without ever overtaking San Juan’s own personal tone. His sweetly melancholic verses often go hand in hand with sunny pop choruses, while clean keyboard tones embed themselves amid the fuzzed out guitar lines. The end result is modern pop with a classic pulse, and songs that would have been breakout hits in a bygone era, and could still be hits once the future catches up to them.
Take a listen to two of my own favorites from Hushdrops’ first (and only currently available) album, Volume One. if they pique your interest, and I’m sure they will, feel free to pick up your own copy and help a criminally overlooked band gain the recognition they so richly deserve.
MP3: Hushdrops “Emily”
MP3: Hushdrops “Doctor V”

This is from Joel Reese’s profile of the band in this week’s issue of Time Out Chicago:

Given the stellar band Tweedy has assembled, it occasionally feels like he’s behind the wheel of a brand new Porsche but won’t take it above 25 miles per hour.

You can download a nifty Wilco family tree created by Time Out here.

Finally, a court ruling about digital music that seems grounded in some semblance of reality! ASCAP attempts to double dip into royalty streams by claiming digital download count as public performances has been slapped down by a federal court. This confused me, since ASCAP sells itself as being super artist-friendly, and this tactic was sure to hurt artist’s audiences by making it more difficult to distribute their music. I tried tried to get some insight into this from the local Chicago ASCAP office when the story broke a few weeks ago, but they didn’t return my emails.
As an aside, I’d like to point out that all my interaction with representatives from ASCAP has always been positive, and in Chicago they do their damndest to get exposure for artists they sign with. So I view this whole legal action as a gross misstep grounded in the greed of ASCAPpers in corporate positions … which would probably explain why our local reps had nothing to say. Would you want to go o0n record disagreeing with the actions of the boys upstairs? Probably not.

We’ve all gotten the emails / bulletins / memes asking to throw the iPod — or whatever music media player you prefer — on shuffle and post the first ten songs. Or put those songs into some sort of fake narrative for hilarious (not) results. As I was scrolling through the ol’ tankPOD today, looking to do some housecleaning, I noticed certain bands took up an awful lot of screen time as I scrolled through.
So that got me to thinking, wouldn’t those bands be the best litmus test when it came to really pinpointing one’s musical tastes? I mean, sure, I’ve got loads of super-obscure, truly indier-than-thou bands, unheard masterpieces by regional acts, IDM prone to inducing seizures, and white label singles in the tankPOD / diPOD team, but when pressed what really informs my tastes?
So I did an experiment and decided to list all the bands who have four or more albums on my MP3 / M4A / OGG / WAV player in hopes that such information would be rather revealing (full list after the jump). You see, in this age of instant gratification I think it really says something about a band if you feel the need to carry that much of their material around with you at all times. Such a list might prove unintentionally revealing and betray one’s actual musical tastes, even if they are usually hidden under a patina of hipster aloofness.
Of course such a list is automatically going to skew towards older acts, since it takes a few years to push out 4+ albums’ worth of music, but that would make such a list an even better reference for divining one’s musical tastes, since it would probably skew towards artists that helped formulate a particular individual’s musical background. Right?
In my case the result pretty obviously favored artists that came to the fore in the ’80s and ’90s, no surprise there. And it is pretty light on electronic artists, but that makes sense when you consider that most electronic music lives in the world of the single, not the multi-album arc.
The interesting about my own results, actually, is that I almost NEVER actually listen to any of the 4+ album bands on my iPod anymore. It’s almost like they’re there as more of a security blanket. Truth be told, I have so much new stuff coming in every day I need to listen to, for various reasons, I rarely get the chance to peruse deep cuts from my personal catalog … but it’s interesting to note because I think these are the sorts of discs I may not listen to every day (or even once a year), but that I might like to take to a desert island to keep me going in tough times.
Anyway, if you’re interested, my list is after the jump. Feel free to post your own lists in the comments and let me see where your musical soul actually dwells when no one else is around to judge.
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I just can’t make up my mind.

I’ve got the wristband, but not the badge. I’ve got peeps to stay with in Austin, but it’s a couple miles from the action. Obviously, as our excellent SXSW blog indicates, there’s a lot going on down there, but it’s been a few years since last I went and I’m not totally sold on going.

Part of this is because it doesn’t seem like a lot of folks I know are going. Of course that may be a complete misconception. For instance I had no clue my friend Chris was going until he asked me if I was going last week. So maybe that’s how it is for most folks around me: we all just assume the other is going and haven’t thought to bring it up.

Also, it seems as if the shift has turned to day parties, which would actually be good since this would be the first time I’m working the fest with a press wristband instead of a laminate (the primary downside of this: no Pete Townsend keynote for me. Boo!). On the downside, I’m still scarred from my early years of attending and always having to wait until the last minute before scoring an invite to the Spin party which, back then, was the end-all be-all of fest parties. I’ve been told it’s different, and a bit more egalitarian now, but there is always that younger sting lying under my older, more weathered surface.

So what do y’all think, should Tankboy make up his mind and just buy the plane ticket? Do you know of anything that would shift me decisively one way or the other? Parties for me to DJ? Day parties I shouldn’t miss? Inside info you’ve been keeping to yopurself, waiting to spring with just this sort of prodding?

I reckon I’ve got to buy the ticket today or tomorrow if i’m going to do do it, so help me make up my mind!