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.