San Francisco's Girls take their psychedelic pop to Conan on Wednesday.
Hey, it's SPRING BREAK, bitches, and I'm in freakin' Cabo right now. Who cares who's playing on the late night talkies, as I'll be 3" inches deep in sand smelling of sun tan lotion and tequila when these are on.
But, for those that do care... seeing Girls play on Conan is my highlight for the week, but I suggest setting up your DVR to just tape late night TBS for the week as the twee-folky-bluegrassy Swedes First Aid Kit are on Conan as well (Monday), and they're too precious to miss. Elsewhere, it's mostly repeats as most the hosts are on Spring Break themselves (is that Letterman in the suite next to me???), but there is the spectacle of seeing Bon Iver on Ellen. Just try and dance to THAT, whimsical daytime host dancer lady.
I'm sure I missed a few things this week, but this is me early Thursday sitting in a coffee shop, Nostrodamus'ing shit on the fly, so any holes are the fault of the 'advance notice' Gods. Enjoy your weak week.
Top 10 includes Destroyer, Girls, tUnE-yArds, M83, Bon Iver, James Blake, PJ Harvey, St Vincent, Shabazz Palaces, Real Estate
If 2010 was 1993 all over again, 2011 seemed to ignore this trend (and all the corresponding 20 year anniversary reissues), instead reaching back a decade prior. Releases from Destroyer and M83 mined that decade to make great albums, while several bands of that era (Gang of Four, Wire, The Feelies) returned with new releases. Another minor trend we noticed here was artists absolutely obliterating the tired "sophomore slump" myth, with Girls, tUnE-yArds, Bon Iver, Real Estate, Fleet Foxes, Male Bonding and Smith Westerns all having strong follow ups to their hyped debuts.
2011 also marks the second year in a row where anyone of my top 5 could have nabbed the top spot, but Destroyer's Kaputt edges out the aforementioned sophomore releases from Girls, tUnE-yArds and Bon Iver along with a career defining release from M83.
As a side note, I've had this Top 50+ Album list done for weeks now, but it's been a real bear to get formatted and find time to write. And since I want to get it out before the year ends, some of the writing is TBD (look for more in the coming days). But the albums are the meat of the matter, right? Here's the list. Hate it, debate it, relate it, whatever -- in the end, I'm just another jackass with a blog and a list.
1. Destroyer - Kaputt Stream / Purchase [mp3]
Every once in awhile, an album comes along that makes you rethink your past listening habits -- a re-evaluation of what is kitsch and what is genuine art. The smooth 80s sax solo, for instance, has long been filed in the 'bad idea' folder (and I'm a sax player!), but in the hands of Dan Bejar, it's a revelation. Much like listening to Steely Dan back in the day, you feel like your hearing something much greater than the smoother-than-smooth parts making up the song. Kaputt does that and more. I didn't know what in the Hell was going with it when I first heard it a year ago, but it quickly became the 'go to' listen for nearly all of 2011.
2. Girls - Father, Son, Holy Ghost Stream / Purchase [mp3
Frontman Christopher Owens was raised in a cult, and with every stellar release, he's unwittingly creating his own. Father, Son, Holy Ghost not only beats the sophomore slump, it's miles beyond and not looking back. The nods to 70s rock abound, with all the modern touches you can't do without -- like Elliott Smith fronting Pink Floyd, with even a nod to Deep Purple ("Die") thrown in for good measure. Required listening.
3. tUnE-yArDs - w h o k i l l Stream / Purchase [mp3]
Another impressive sophomore long player, w h o k i l l is a brilliant anti-pop pop masterpiece that mixes R&B, folk, jazz, afro hop and funk for an addictive concoction. And Merrill Garbus does it mostly herself, even live, sampling drums, guitar and all her vocal calisthenics. One of the few truly great odd albums that is enhanced tenfold in a live setting.
4. M83 - Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming Stream / Purchase [mp3]
Anthony Gonzalez continues to mine his childhood for nuggets of nostalgia, and his fifth release ups the ante to a double album. Hurry Up We're Dreaming mixes up the best parts of his previous releases and throws in some Peter Gabriel-like vocal squalls in case you didn't get the 80s decade reference in the music.
Bon Iver's gotten a lot of love during this year-end list season, and with good reason. With his eponymous sophomore release, he's injected his gorgeous sound with some of the adventure of the side projects he's dallied in (Gayngs, Volcanic Choir), making the songs on Bon Iver reach for, well... more. I didn't find myself returning to this album as much as the other top four, so that's why it's here, but there's a greatness here that provides ample reason for it's near consensus "album of the year" tag that you'll find elsewhere.
Like many indie California artists with interesting backgrounds, Girls has quickly moved from the lo-fi aesthetics of its charming debut, Album, to a return to Hi Fidelity of the early 70s. Frontman Christopher Owens still has that child-like sincerity in his lyrics, but now on Father, Son, Holy Ghost*, his voice has softened to that of a honey-tinged Elliott Smith, occasionally backed here by gospel singers. The songs are stretched out to allow for an incredible attention to detail, begging to hear the album on vinyl on a lazy sunny Sunday afternoon. Owens has confessed that Album was recorded in a heroin daze and that he's cleaned up his act, so it should be less of a surprise the amount of focus put into FSHG, but as last year's excellent EP Broken Dreams Club hinted, Owens and partner JR White were working towards this all along. The first two singles, "Vomit" and opener "Honey Bunny," are the perfect representatives of the spectrum that FSHG runs, as the album starts with a burst of energy and then pulls back the pace and brings out the gospel singers. The whole thing climaxes with the epic ballad "Forgiveness," which at about the 5:20 mark moves into a Crazy Horse stoned out jam. Girls' progression through these three releases is so wondrous to behold it's tempting to think about what's coming with the fourth, but that might spoil the beauty currently in hand.
*In title, Father, Son, Holy Ghost references Catholicism, which is interesting in that Owens grew up in the Children of God cult -- it takes one cult to recognize another.
It's tempting to look at Wild Flag as a sort of Sleater-Kinney 2.0, given it's got 2/3 of that illustrious band's members in Carrie Brownstein and drummer Janet Weiss, but more than that, it's a celebration of music in general -- both the listening and the playing. With Mary Timony (Helium) and Rebecca Cole (The Minders) rounding out the quartet, the band's sound is one of rollicking guitars, Brownstein leg kicks and smiles reaching from ear to ear. Wild Flag starts out strong with the album's default anthem, "Romance," thanks to a Brownstein-Timony shared chorus of "We love the sound/The sound is what found us/Sound is the blood between me and you." The tracks get kind of choppy after that, trading between the slack dissonance of Timony and Brownstein's chop melodic energy -- these songs are all fine by themselves, they just feel a bit incongruous. About midway, during "Short Version," the two parts begin to meld and the rest of the album sounds like the band has found their sound. It's like they tracked the album to represent the growth of the band, a process the listener gets to experience in the convenient length of an album. The climax comes on "Racehorse," with Brownstein singing "Well I'm a racehorse. yeah I'm a racehorse. you put your money on me," leading me to believe if there's a filly out there named Wild Flag, money is being put on it, no matter the odds.
Three albums into her solo career, after getting a nice start with artists Polyphonic Spree and Sufjan Stevens, Annie Clark's St. Vincent project is at the apex of a sort of "Art for Public Consumption" movement that we're currently enjoying in popular music. Between Dirty Projectors, Animal Collective and St. Vincent, 'difficult music' that still aims to be palatable has rarely been better, and Strange Mercy comes at a time when it should bring Clark to a much larger audience -- even the prog jazz bass flourishes seem ripe for a comeback in her hands. Clark has never sounded so confident and comfortable in her own skin as on tracks like "Cruel" and, especially, on "Cheerleader," which feels like her declaration to once and for all be her own woman, not the beautiful young woman who was once part of Sufjuan Stevens' touring clan. "I don't know what good it serves / Pouring my purse in the dirt / But I-I-I-I-I don't wanna be your cheerleader no more."
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S.F.'s Girls make network TV debut on Fallon Tuesday night.
Two of the hottest SEO words to have on an entertainment site right now make appearances on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon this week (Zombies, Girls). Tonight (Monday), baroque pop legends The Zombies celebrate the 50th anniversary of their forming. Two members, Rod Argent and Colin Blunstone, are the principals present for the performance, with a full band to back them.
Meanwhile, in support of what just might be the album of the year, San Francisco's Girls makes their network TV debut the next night. Father, Son, The Holy Ghost, out Tuesday, represents another leap forward for the Christopher Owens and Chet "JR" White.
Remember my complaints last year about Chuck manufacturing obstacles to keep Chuck and Sarah apart? Well, even with that issue supposedly removed, the writers continue to manufacture obstacles in their relationship. Of course any growing relationship is going to have rough patches here and there, but Chuck seems obsessed with the Chuck/Sarah relationship to a fault.
Conflict resolution for "Chuck vs the Coup D'Etat" comes in the form of couples counseling between Generalissimo Goya (return of Armand Assante) and his wife (Huge's Tia Texada), so that meant at least a little bit of time with Devin, Ellie and Angel de la Muerta, but the Chuck/Sarah will they/won't they thing still lives on as the core of Chuck. It's like a chewed up bone that the dog won't give up, and it's starting to grow tiresome. They better find mommy quick so we can turn the page already. Oh, but wait... Sarah modeling bikinis and a marble statue of Awesome? Ok, I'll stick around.
And if they want to play more Girls ("Laura") in the soundtrack? Yeah, I'd stick around for that as well.
One of my favorite items of the year is PFork's singles list, because it's so loooooong -- and I like 'em long, yo (scroll down for playlist).
Topping the list is Animal Collective's "My Girls," a song that nearly could've made last year's list -- having leaked over a year ago. Other songs we knew were locks for the top 10 (and albums likely as well) are Dirty Projector's "Stillness is the Move" (#2), two from Phoenix ("1901" at #3, "Lisztomania" at #8), Grizzly Bear's "Two Weeks" (#5) and Girls' "Lust for Life" (#9). It was a good year for music -- probably the best since 2003 -- and it shows.
