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

TOP 10 RELEASES BY CHICAGO BASED BANDS IN 2008

Tom Schraeder and His Ego, Lying Through Dinner EP
On his latest EP Schraeder often mixes Americana with the feel of a humid New Orleans bordello. Boozy, swinging strains spill out of darkened nightclubs into puddle-splashed streets. Rouged nipples brush inches away from the unshaven crevices of a miner’s chin on the boozy sing-along “When You’re Not Around,” an excellent compliment to the soaring hopeful organ strains permeating “Guadalupe Cries.” Schraeder expertly mixes the dark with the light creating a chiaroscuro effect on his compositions.

Local H, 12 Angry Months
12 Angry Months deals with the intensely personal cycle of the demise of a major relationship and the year of fall-out that follows. It’s not like break-ups are exactly unusual territory in pop music, but Local H’s Scott Lucas has the undeniable talent to take an individual experience and expand its relevance to universally touch. Lucas still has a gift for injecting a darkly pretty melody into even the most abrasively angry guitar lines, and Brian St. Clair’s drumming is both massive and tasteful. This is the near perfect album Local H has been threatening to make for years … all it took was something deeply personal to allow them to make a universal statement.

Milk At Midnight, Less love More Acid
Milk At Midnight’s sound is chimeric, with the primary sonic tether between tunes being the group’s ability to graft memorable melodies onto craggy surfaces. The other connecting point is angry lyrics that both condemn and soar. The sunshine is there if you really quint and search it out, but eventually your eyes are going to tire and the light will temporarily slip from your vision again. It’s the hope that keeps us going even as I stare wide-eyed at the horrors around us.

Grammar, The Grammar Self-Titled Short Player
Grammar has the potential to grow into kings (and queen) of Chicago’s orch-pop particular scene. The band’s debut self-titled EP contains six songs of wistful and airy pop that flickers and twinkles, delighting the ears. Jaunty piano numbers melt into choirs of intertwining vocal melodies, politely restrained rockers descend from above, sparse and cutting acoustic odes seep in underfoot, and pleas for inclusion are folded into tiny synthetic symphonies and plinking xylophone runs. Sound like an earful? It is, but it’ll leave you wanting more. Not bad at all for a debut EP.

Walter Meego, Voyager
Voyager is one hell of a first album. It’s slinky, sexy guitar and synthesizer lines kiss and cuddle with each other, while the underlying beats seem destined to unleash a whole new class of freaky line-dancers getting ready to make babies. Their urbane, sophisticated delivery gives off images of disco balls, DeLoreans, glow sticks and day-long lollipops.

Fall Out Boy, Folie à Deux
Shut up, I don’t care what you think. Once you get past Pete Wentz’s celebrity antics and allow yourself to become enveloped by Patrick Stump’s powerhouse vocals that forsake emo delivery for good old fashioned soul you’ll begin to realize why Fall Out Boy’s albums actually seem to be getting better as they get more famous instead of the other way around.

Prairie Cartel, EP 1
The Prairie Cartel’s debut 12″ successfully lays out the group’s sonic manifesto in two original tracks, a cover, and a remix. Think of it as punk blood coating a Go-Go cage. The highlight of the EP is the cover of 999’s “Homicide” since it does the best job of offering the group a chance to let their talents for truly mixing the big rock with the surging dance. In my opinion it also does the best job of capturing the group’s electric at times careening live show.

Textbook, Boxing Day Massacre

Boxing Day Massacre is equal parts All, Uncle Tupelo, and Cheap Trick. “Desperation Free” is the sort of song that lyrically appeals to the eternal 15-year-old in us, while sporting a a musical envelope that would fit equally well on Fuse or in the back room of Hideout. Textbook is one of those weird beasts that I could see the kids going gonzo over while the older crowd hangs near the back by the bar and tips perspiring bottles of PBR the band’s way in admiration.

Big Science, The Coast Of Nowhere EP
Big Science came out of nowhere during the latter quarter of this year to blindside us with their glam-pop. Their ’80s-inflected pop would have put them in permanent rotation on 120 Minutes between vintage Cure, INXS, and XTC. And believe us, I mean that as one of the highest compliments I can offer to a pop band. [Download the EP for free]

Parks and Gardens, Avec Cloture
Parks and Gardens doesn’t really deviate from the form of loop and sample laden rockin’ designed with the discotheque in mind, but instead of utilizing those elements to create a cliche they inject an angular artsiness into their songs. In effect this creates a minor agitation in the listener, and I think that’s kind of a bold move for any band trying to ingratiate themselves with a crowd not particularly interested in anything beyond basic Sybaritic pleasure.

THE 50+1 SONGS OF 2008
(in almost no particular order)

These tunes are all songs that will scream “2008!” any time I hear ‘em. They may not be the highest charting singles, and some are barely even known to more than a handful of people … but they are the top tracks on the mixtape that defines the feeling and experiences of 2008 for me.

MGMT “Kids”
Hey Champ “Cold Dust Girl”
Walter Meego “Girls”
Katy Perry “Hot N Cold”
The Black Ghosts “Repetition Kills You (with Damon Albarn)”
Neon Neon “I Told Her On Alderaan”
George Pringle “Carte Postale”
Alphabeat “10.000 Nights Of Thunder”
Amanda Palmer “Oasis”
Beck “Chemtrails”
Beyonce “Single Ladies (Put A Ring On It)”
Black Kids “I’m Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend How To Dance With You (The Twelves Remix)”
British Sea Power “Down On The Ground”
Chairlift “Bruises”
Coldplay “42”
Cut Copy “Lights and Music”
Does It Offend You, Yeah? “Dawn Of The Dead”
Estelle “American Boy”
The Feeling “Turn It Up”
The Futureheads “Think Tonight”
Hot Chip “Ready For The Floor”
Jay Reatard “See/Saw”
Kanye West “RoboCop”
The Killers “Spaceman”
Ladytron “Ghosts”
La Scala “ Love! Love! Love!”
Ladyhawke “My Delirium”
Lettuce “Blast Off”
Lily Allen “The Fear”
M83 “Graveyard Girl (Speechless Edit)”
Mansions “The Worst Part”
Mardeen “Telephones”
of Montreal “Gallery Piece (Jon Brion remix)”
Phantom Planet “Leader”
Pink “So What”
Prairie Cartel “Homicide”
She & Him “I Was Made For You”
The Submarines “You Me and the Bourgeoisie”
Supergrass “Rebel In You”
The Boy Least Likely To “A Balloon On A Broken String”
Titus Andronic
The Ting Tings “Great DJ”
The Virgins “Rich Girls (RAC Mix)”
Weezer “Pork & Beans”
What Made Milwaukee Famous “Sultan”
Friendly Foes “My Body (Is A Strange Place To Live)
Black Mountain “Stormy High”
Darker My Love “Two Ways Out”
The Hold Steady “Sequestered In Memphis”
Local H “White Belt Boys”

…aaaaand, while I was DJing the song regularly last year, it didn’t really explode until the summer so…

M.I.A. “Paper Planes”

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.

To the average person, all of the above doesn’t mean shit. Look, let’s say you like only 10 of the 120 or so acts appearing at Lollapalooza, and let’s say of those 10, 4 are headliners. If you were to see those 4 bands alone in an alternate “shed” or arena sized venue, you’d be paying upwards of $50 a piece, before Ticketbastard even hit you with their own charges. By that math alone, you’ve already made out with a relative bargain.

And the line-up? Who the hell can legitimately gripe about a 120 band line-up? Sure we heard gripes there wasn’t enough local talent, but last time we checked, Lollapalooza was an international destination festival and we just happen to be its base. By that virtue, shouldn’t the festival bookers be more interested in a diverse line-up and not be beholden to sticking a couple Chicago band on the bill? I’d love to see more Chicago acts play Lollapalooza, but I’d like to think they got on the bill through the virtue of their music and their draw rather than because the organizers were guilted into including them. Right?

Sponsorship issues? Well, if Rage Against The Machine and Radiohead can play on the AT&T stage, I don’t think there are any sponsorship issues. I’m just as old school indie rock as the next grouchy music critic, and I actually remember the ‘80s and the corporate-directed anger that lay within that decade, but at this point, in this climate, the point is moot. I have no problem seeing a logo plastered across the stage if it means that logo is partially lowering ticket prices through subsidization. More importantly, does anyone actually think the current generation of concert attendees even notices sponsors anymore after navigating websites festooned with pop-ups, banner ads, and other various attempted attention-getters they’ve already learned to tune out?

I’ve also heard Lollapalooza is killing the local music scene through its “radius clause,” or the contractual obligation it asks of its band not to play shows in the Midwest for months before and after their Lollapalooza appearance. Now, this is a gripe I used to buy into, having been a local promoter in the past, and having seen the summer scene dry up over the last few years. This year I realized something important though; the local scene isn’t drying up because of Lollapalooza, it’s drying up because of heavier inter-club competition and a dearth of bands large enough to actually command large followings over repeat performances. This year any band playing the festival that I wanted to see play in a small club ended up playing a small club later on in the evening. And some smaller bands seem completely unaffected. For instance locals OFFICE ended up playing during the Pitchfork Music Festival weekend and are also appearing at a local street festival next week. Well, so much for that draconian “radius clause” choking the smaller working indie talent, huh?

And finally, here’s the most important thing every single review seems to miss; people go to Lollapalooza to have fun, and to check out a few of their favorite bands. By the sheer virtue of the size of the festival we applaud the bookers for including a wide swathe of music, and hold out hopes that many attendees end up stumbling across a new favorite band playing some other stage as they make their way to the next ticked box on their personal schedule, and from a critical standpoint that’s all I can really hope for. I think it’s incredibly silly and short-sighted to slight a festival of Lollapalooza’s size for booking acts they hope will draw a crowd. Not to mention any line-up that includes Dierks Bently, Amadou and Mariam, Explosions in the Sky, Spank Rock, and Kanye West can’t exactly be called either predictable or generically mainstream.

And the folks at the festival had fun. Even those that had to wait in line and pay for beer, wait in line to use a porta-potty, wait in line to struggle through the crowd watching Girl Talk, and wait in line to wait in line to get into the festival. I tromped from one side of Grant Park to the other at least a dozen times each day. I waded through the masses. I waited in line for beer next to drunk frat boys. I saw indie chicks in day-glo green gym outfits camped out on bright red blankets. I say kids passed out in the shade after one to many afternoon cocktails. I saw you. And in all of this I saw a mass of 75,000 people a day having a good time, mostly getting along, and all smiling while watching either classic favorites or new musical discoveries. I saw a small city of people unwilling to consume itself, and a community hell-bent on having a good time.

And that my friends, is what makes Lollapalooza worth it, for you and for me.

You can see all of the photos the author shot at Lollapalooza by visiting here.

The author at Lollapalooza 2008  shot by Clayton Hauck

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 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)

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.

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!

“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)