December 23, 2008

My Favorite 11 Albums of 2008

Hotly anticipated by perhaps two of you, here's my list of the eleven albums I listened to, recommended, argued about, and just plain enjoyed the most this year. As I say every year, they're not necessarily the best in an objective and critical sense, which is something I used to value more highly. Instead, they're only the best for me: subjective, personal me, Matthew Webber.

From rock to rap to (gasp!) pop/country, this is the stuff I loved, unashamedly. The stuff I played again and again, when no one I wanted to impress was around.

In short, these albums are simply my favorites. I love them.

My Favorite 11 Albums of 2008
or, Eleven More Nails in My Hipster Coffin

1. Aimee Mann, "...Smilers"
2. The Roots, "Rising Down"
3. Guns N' Roses, "Chinese Democracy"
4. Taylor Swift, "Fearless"
5. Ben Folds, "Way to Normal"
6. Death Cab For Cutie, "Narrow Stairs"
7. Coldplay, "Viva La Vida"
8. Jenny Lewis, "Acid Tongue"
9. She & Him, "Volume One"
10. Kate Nash, "Made of Bricks"
11. Girl Talk, "Feed the Animals"

December 20, 2008

Albums of the Years

All you music fans should do this...

I took a break from rearranging my list of the year's top ten albums (my album of the year is revealed below!) to compile another list I keep seeing all over the Internet, a list of my favorite albums from every year I've been alive. Like all music lists, this one was fun to make, but much more difficult than I imagined. I actually had to do research!

Here's the list, with commentary afterwards.

The list:

1979: Pink Floyd, "The Wall"
1980: Van Halen, "Women and Children First"
1981: Van Halen, "Fair Warning"
1982: Michael Jackson, "Thriller"
1983: U2, "War"
1984: Prince, "Purple Rain"
1985: Tears for Fears, "Songs From the Big Chair"
1986: Run-D.M.C, "Raising Hell"
1987: Guns N' Roses, "Appetite for Destruction"
1988: N.W.A., "Straight Outta Compton"
1989: Beastie Boys, "Paul's Boutique"
1990: Public Enemy, "Fear of a Black Planet"
1991: Nirvana, "Nevermind"
1992: Tori Amos, "Little Earthquakes"
1993: Smashing Pumpkins, "Siamese Dream"
1994: Jeff Buckley, "Grace"
1995: Blur, "The Great Escape"
1996: Fiona Apple, "Tidal"
1997: Radiohead, "OK Computer"
1998: Elliott Smith, "XO"
1999: Fiona Apple, "When the Pawn..."
2000: Eminem, "The Marshall Mathers LP"
2001: Ben Folds, "Rockin' the Suburbs"
2002: Beck, "Sea Change"
2003: Rufus Wainwright, "Want One"
2004: Nellie McKay, "Get Away From Me"
2005: Eisley, "Room Noises"
2006: Dixie Chicks, "Taking the Long Way"
2007: "Once" Soundtrack
2008: Aimee Mann, "...Smilers"

Commentary:

1) I actually lived through "The Wall"? Rad.

2) No surprise. The early '80s are a musical wasteland for me. Not only did I fail to mention a single album from 1980-83 in my Albums. 100 Words. project, I literally had to search Wikipedia to remember what albums came out in those years. Although I wouldn't mind listening to my final choices of Van Halen, more Van Halen, the black Michael Jackson, and U2 on my deserted (but somehow electrical) island, I'd much rather listen to the suitcase full of albums from 1991 that I was required to leave behind.

3) Wow. 1987 was easy.

4) I wish I listened to '80s rap in the '80s, instead of the silence (because I didn't listen to the radio) followed by the Paula Abdul (because I did) that I actually listened to. When I discovered groups like Run-D.M.C., N.W.A., and Public Enemy in college, I realized how many gaping holes there were (and still are) in my music library, despite my claims of listening to everything...

5) ...kinda like when I discovered the Dixie Chicks and country music, a genre which I'm still getting to know. You can mock me if you want -- but I'd much rather you actually recommend stuff to me. Statements like "I listen to everything... except country" sound uninformed, prejudiced, and just plain dumb to me now -- even though I said that for years. Does anyone remember when I said the same thing about rap back in 1993? We all saw how that turned out.

6) I love the '90s. Blah blah blah.

7) I swear I didn't cheat and cherry pick my all-time favorite artists (non-Beatles category). But most of them are here, from the Smashing Pumpkins to the Beastie Boys to Tori Amos. (Congratulations to two-time honoree Fiona Apple. My condolences to zero-time honoree Stone Temple Pilots.) So, while this list is far from perfect, it's a great introduction to the artists and music I love -- and to me.

8) Your turn!

December 6, 2008

Song Sketches: Guns N' Roses

Welcome to the Jungle

This is how a life begins: Screams and blood and a miracle, supposedly.

As if the pain will go away, as if our dreams aren’t fictional.

This is how a nightmare sounds.

This is how it feels to live.

This is not a music review.

Don’t Cry

She tells him goodbye. He hangs up the phone. He closes the door to his room.

He’s alone.

He replays the call, and the sweetest month before it. Clumsy kisses, furtive hands, the meteoric crash of his heart to the floor. Over and over and over... It’s over. Thirty days in fourteen years. A lifetime left to mourn the loss.

Find the tape. Rewind it. Listen.

Rewind it. Listen.

Rewind it. Sing.

He sits, he remembers, he cries to himself, like no one else has ever cried. No one else can understand, since no one else has ever loved. No one else has ever lost. No one else? It’s what he wants.

He doesn’t understand himself.

Forgive, forget, move on? He’ll try. First, this song, these chords, that voice: “I still love you.” Ha! A lie. “There’s a heaven above you.” Doubt it. “Don’t you cry-y-y tonight.” Too late.

Over and over and over, he listens.

Lifetimes later, notes stay held.

Someone, maybe, understands.

Someone, somewhere, loves him. Maybe.

November Rain

Rainy-day metaphors, calendar rhymes, the sugary sweetness of wedding-cake frosting.

Orchestral bombast. Choir-girl pomp. Not one solo, but two, both epic.

High-school poetry set to music. The single most grandiose rock single ever.

Walking riders. Changing hearts.

Holding a candle in spite of the rain.

Everybody needs some time alone.

Everybody needs... just everybody needs.

The wedding won’t happen, but this is the song.

That’s how much it means to me.

It’s something like faith: Unprovable. Ineffable.

Something to avoid if you see me with a pamphlet.

Patience

Expecting a singer to understand is dumber than the singer.

Waiting for him for seventeen years is something close to lunacy.

I’d whistle along, if I knew how to do it.

This is how the music feels.

Rocket Queen

This is how an album should end: not with a bang, but the whimper of a woman, singing a duet of ecstacy, depravity.

As soft and loud, as pretty and ugly, as frank and totally full of shit as every human being.

Give it a spin, and see if you hear it.

Or listen to those songs of yours that move you to aphasia.

January 13, 2008

My Top 11 Albums of 2007

Plot Synopsis

Tired of seeing a certain kind of list – the very same albums, described the same way, year after year in different publications – our critic sits down to craft something special, or at least something different than a Metacritic rundown.

Thus, this unconventional, and probably crazy, format.

Not that I hate consensus – I don’t – but these are the albums I listened to the most, the ones that meant the most to me, whether or not they’re the quote/unquote best. I long ago decided I wouldn’t write objectively, considering that’s not how we interact with music.

Some of these albums you’ve probably heard – or read all about on another year-end list – so here they are again in their universal glory. The others, like Eisley, perhaps you’ll seek out, just because they’re really good, and maybe even different.

All of these albums mattered to me. Telling you why seems equally important.

Setting

My apartment, the office, and especially my car, and anywhere else I listened to music.

Cast of Characters

1. Once Soundtrack

A busker wearing his scruff on his sleeve. A stranger with a voice of gold. They meet just once, and everyone knows, their music is better together, forever. Picture them, hear them, as your most romantic self, perhaps at a time when you weren’t afraid to sing, and maybe you’ll discover the music in yourself. Meet them once; you won’t forget. The truest art they’ll ever create, the most real magic they’ll ever make, their music is simple, heartfelt, timeless – and still not crushed by the weight of such hyperbole. It helps if you yourself play guitar, or if you’ve ever been in love. The guy wears sweaters. The girl wears a scarf. Both of them walk with grim determination, but also with the bounce of hope in their step. Voices carry; chords are struck. Once is not, is never, enough.

2. Rufus Wainwright - Release the Stars

Ebullient, joyous, glorious, fey. Baroque, operatic, phantasmagoric, happy. A genius unbound from commercial expectations, he’s free to compose and perform his own fate, vamping on stage like the diva he is; twinkling, in his suit of mirrors, as if he were a star, as if he were the brightest light his music helps you reach. His honeyed voice engenders doubt – perhaps you want to be him, yes? The spotlight shines. You make a wish. He sings as if he’ll grant it.

3. Rilo Kiley - Under the Blacklight

The girl next door you want to corrupt. The girl gone bad you want to hug. L.A. lady, blue jean baby... dancing in some smoky bar where indie kids grow up. Charming, flirting, teasing, seducing, she still sounds sweet and sorta surprised, the way her voice attracts attention, the way the men behind her play. She knows she can get whatever she wants, whatever that means, whatever the sound, cooing or purring or belting it out – so what does she want? A band? A boyfriend? A chance to make, and shake, some money? She sells herself, but she does it with conviction. Which only makes you want her more.

4. Eisley - Combinations

The house band of idealized youth. The very kids you wish you’d been. Cute, precocious, potentially unlimited, they’re growing up quickly before your ears. Amazing, astonishing, aspiring to greatness, they play as if their dreams are timed, as if they know how fast youth fades. It’s humbling, too, how nice they sound, how talented they clearly are, how lyrically wistful despite their youth – and oh, you condescend to them, and oh, you sell them short, just because you’re way too old and no one plays your songs. They’re not a band of young adults, they’re just an awesome band. That’s all. They’re not the former whiz kids yet. They’re living in their moment, now. They’re people you wish you could hear all the time, as happy as they make you feel.

5. Brandi Carlile – The Story

Country, folk, acoustic rock? She tries to write the truth she’s learned. No one knows how fierce she is. Until she opens her mouth to sing. Until she makes you listen.

6. Kanye West – Graduation

The guy who knows how good he is... at popping everyone’s expectations. A blend of spaceman, mall rat, and B-boy, he stomps to the beat of a different scratched record. A guy you sorta want to punch. But that would only stop the party.

7. Common – Finding Forever

Kanye’s older, wiser brother. Knows the importance of being earnest. Drops bon mots like a black Oscar Wilde. Consciously (?) rocks the conscious tag. Sounding smooth is what he does. Jealous, perhaps, but he hides it well. This dude brings the peace and love.

8. Lily Allen - Alright, Still

The kind of girl you shouldn’t fear, a girl with maybe more problems than you, the least of which is a penchant for reggae. Dancing, drinking, getting dumped, she’s an adorable sloppy mess. Picture her sloshed and stumbling, but hot, enough to where you’ll take her home, as long as she keeps that cute British accent. Plus, she tells a wicked joke. And it’s not like she’s Amy Winehouse or anything. She’s actually nicer than all of this sounds. But yes, spending time with her requires some finesse, a certain concentration to her brash yet pretty voice. Make her amusing, she’s one of the girls. Make her mean, you hate that chick. The line between charm and smarm is thin. To get it, you have to listen again, exposing the cracks beneath the veneer, the doubts beneath the bad-ass facade. Listen again, you kinda relate. Even if you’re not a chick.

9. Tori Amos – American Doll Posse

Quoted from the text: “I am an M.I.L.F., don’t you forget.” Albeit incomplete and lacking in context, it remains one option for playing this character. Feminist texts and wigs aren’t included; her sharpest tunes in years sure are.

10. Arcade Fire – Neon Bible

You already know how this band’s supposed to sound, either from hearing them or from reading about them everywhere. And yet, the sheer size of their sound still surprises. Outfit them in military garb and nontraditional instruments. Give them memorable slogans for choruses. Listen, watch, enjoy. Repeat.

11. Fall Out Boy – Infinity on High

OK, you definitely want to punch them. One of these dudes is proficient in makeup; the others are better at selling catchy choruses. Remember the screaming, 12-year-old extras – and maybe yourself, if you’re not afraid to sing. Disregard the fact that you’re almost twenty-nine, a generation older than most of their fans. Surprise yourself by giving them a chance, and then by how often you play their little screeds. But only if you’re open to that kind of thing, and if your wrists are still intact.