December 22, 2010

My 11 Favorite Albums of 2010

I used to write hundreds and thousands of words, on music and myself and their Venn intersection, but now I just tweet to my tens or ones of followers. I’ve never stopped listening, I listen all the time, but these are the albums that made me want to speak. These are the albums whose chords struck a chord. This is the music that made me miss writing, the music that left me more awestruck than articulate. The music that deserves more than 140 characters.

1. Kaiser Cartel – Secret Transit

She sang into my ear like a lover. I fell.

2. Kate Miller-Heidke – Curiouser

The smart girl who’s wilder than anyone suspects (& also loves your favorite bands).

3. Kanye West – My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy

A gryphon & a sexbot walk into a club…

4. Ben Folds & Nick Hornby – Lonely Avenue

Top 5 desert-island rocker/author mixtapes. Go!

5. Taylor Swift – Speak Now

31 y.o. man seeks country/pop ingenue. Must love singing, journaling, avenging.

6. Arcade Fire – The Suburbs

Where the wild things rock out; Canadian beauty.

7. Gorillaz – Plastic Beach

What: A party. Who: Everyone. When: Now. Why: Why not?

8. Janelle Monae – The ArchAndroid

Concept album? Androids? Nope. Just love songs.

9. Erykah Badu – New Amerykah Part Two: Return of the Ankh

Part two? Ankhs? Nope. More love songs.

10. Rufus Wainwright – All Days Are Nights: Songs for Lulu

The diva’s throat catches. (His eyeshadow sparkles.) The notes plummet earthward, then ascend to greater mysteries.

11. The Roots – How I Got Over

“Matthew Webber’s Daily Commute: The Original Motion Picture Soundtrack”

December 3, 2010

The Year in Tweets: Music

Here's most of what I listened to this year, in 140 characters or less...

Katie Herzig: Charming singer/songwriter cuts to the bone, aided by a cello. Nothing I haven't heard b4, which is probably why I luv it.

Roseanne Cash: Smoother than Daddy, but no less haunting.

Kate Miller-Heidke = Jill Sobule + Nellie McKay + Gwen Stefani. But totes herself. Totes original. Catchy, quirky, charming, etc.

The Sundays: Why didn't anyone mention them before? 90s alt rock band w/ femme lead singer? Just like Mazzy Star? Where have I been?

Tom Waits: Growly troubadour, barroom bard. Why o why did I wait so long?

Willie Nelson: Another American treasure worth finding.

Grizzly Bear: Another party to which I finally showed up, much too late to be fashionable. Pitchfork-tested, Matthew-approved.

Scar Jo/Pete Yorn: Almost as great as She & Him. Don't understand why hipsters ignored em. Scar Jo is husky, Yorn brings the pop. Harmony!

Carrie Underwood: So loud, so sassy... so awesome?

Country music: I guess I'm a fan now. Shit.

She & Him: More vintage radio gold. Zooey wows w/ voice, woos w/ library card liner notes.

Charlotte Gainsbourg: Chanteuse seduces in English & French. A bed of lush strings & room-quaking beats. (Best Beck album since...?)

Rolling Stones: I hereby take back everything bad I ever said about em. This band rocks. Who knew?

Gorillaz: D. Albarn throws world dance party. Snoop, Mos Def, Lou Reed show up. Even tho ur not cartoon, ur wanted on the dance floor.

Lady Gaga: Overexposed? Sure. Edgy? Not as much as she thinks. Catchy? As hell. That's why I care. Monster hooks + underrated vox = fanboy.

Plus her song Speechless is Elton John-esque. Already sounds like a classic 2 me. 4 better or worse, she's here 2 stay. (Sorry, h8ers.)

Ke$ha, on the other hand, is just awful. Grating voice, uninteresting persona, sophomoric songs.

Gang Starr: Essential hip-hop. RIP Guru.

Natalie Imbruglia: International pop tart's going stale continues. Pleasant voice, pleasant tunes, but dance jam lacks the sting of Torn.

Hole: I love it, I'm disappointed, it sounds too much like old stuff & not enough, Love creaks & still sounds fierce... I am not objective.

Hole: Thinking about it a lot, listening to it a lot less.

MarioMedina/Amps4Buddha: Best instrumental experimental metal artist I've ever heard.

Mad Titans: Best instrumental surf punk band I've ever heard.

STP: Instead of ripping off other bands, they're ripping off... STP. Plus Bowie, Aero & other classic rawkers.

STP: And yet, of course, it's growing on me. I figured it would. I'm a sucker. Those chords!

Hold Steady: I finally get it! Thanks to the slide guitar and @NicholasLHoneck 's persistence. Boozy, bluesy rock.

Court Yard Hounds: Dixie Chicks + bluegrass - Maines' mouth = more rustic, less rousing sound. Not backwoods, but back-porch country.

Kate Nash: Foul-mouth Brit chick betrays her past: doo-wop, riot grrl & even spoken word. Often thrilling, often WTF. More piano please.

MGMT: Trippier than ever, 60s psychedelia, kinda sorta indie pop.

Rufus Wainwright: Stripped-down songs sound painful to write, beautiful to listen to. But I kinda miss the ornamentation.

Erykah Badu: Eccentric genius grooves accessibly.

Eminem: Guess who's back? Spits hot fire. Hungry again. Simple beats & complex rhymes. No skits, accents, pop culture jokes. Purist rap.

Big Boi: Underrated 'kast-mate doesn't need Andre. (Does need an editor, esp. for skits.) Nowhere near Speakerboxxx, but good summer fun.

The Roots: Late nite TV hasn't dumbed em down. Somehow it's made em sharper, harder. Keepin it real w/out getting preachy. Rap album of yr.

hip-hop: Luv its essence (beats & poetry), hate its devolution (autotune, party rap, sexism, etc.). Gimme the golden age! Yes, I'm cranky.

Juniper Tar: Another fantastic opener. A fantastic local band.

Arcade Fire: Grandiose, yet intimate. (You know, for the kids.) Believe every word, every chord, even hype. Great 3rd album rumbles forward.

Band of Horses: Chiming guitars, honeyed vox, lovely songs for a slow afternoon.

Kaiser Cartel: Boy/girl duo sings to me directly. After a month of heavy rotation, they're nowhere near finished revealing their secrets.

Kaiser Cartel: Who do they sound like? Swell Season + Mazzy Star. How does it feel? The rush of discovering a new fave band.

Lady Antebellum: Pleasant country pop, no more, no less.

Merle Haggard: As Haggard as his name implies, in spite/because of his age.

Christie DuPree: Eisley's lil sis sings equally ethereally. Only the production needs more maturation.

Band of Horses, Black Keys, Broken Bells: Great year for good (not great?) indie B bands. Keys: Blast it! Bells: Doesn't burn, but simmers.

Weezer: Lacks the emotional depth of first 2 & sugary superficiality of last 2. Maybe the haters r right now. Damn. Lotsa hooks, but why?

Stars, Grace Potter: 2 more good, if not great, women-fronted indie bands. This is what I listen to.

Janelle Monae: Space funk? Outkast for ladies? Jams & torch songs & other indescribables? Affirmative.

The National: Deep, dark indie rock. A better word: brooding. I shouldn't have been so skeptical.

Nick Hornby: After obsessing about music for yrs, the author tries writing it. I hope he doesn't quit his day job, but he totally could.

Ben Folds: Sounds like self, even w/ someone else's words. Sentiment, smarm & smarts combined. I expect he'll continue exceeding my hopes.

Jenny & Johnny: They're having fun now. I am too. A loose record, not a sloppy one. Garage-y & hook-y & other made-up-words-y.

KT Tunstall, Nellie McKay: Old faves return w/ new-ish sounds: dance-y (KT), vaudeville-y (Nellie). Yeah, I need some better adjectives.

Taylor Swift: can write a song about me anytime.

Taylor Swift: "Dear John": Dissing John Mayer while biting his style? Hilarious. Brilliant.

ODB + Radiohead = LOL. Girl Talk, you crazy!

Spacehog? Toadies? Girl Talk has impeccable taste in 90s 1-hit wonders. But where's the New Radicals?

Kanye West: Crazy good, or just crazy?

Kanye West: Most ambitious pop album of the yr. Best? I'm still making up my mind. Do I really need this much opulent arrogance?

Kanye West: Arrogant opulence?

My biggest problem w/ the Kanye West album will be trying to fit 1 of these 6-minute tracks on a mixtape.

Lissie: My emasculation continues. Another female singer who whispers in my ear. Another beautiful indie pop record.

Adam Lambert: A danceable Freddie Mercury? A harder-rocking Mika? Not that there's anything wrong with either.

June 10, 2010

100 Songs. 100 Words. Fourth 10.

John Mayer – No Such Thing

Hate the singer, love the song. Before John Mayer spoke to “Playboy,” I used to think he spoke for me. His songs, at the time, were sensitive but insightful, the kinds of songs I hoped to write, the kind of persona I hoped to project. (Remember, this was back when he used his mouth for singing.) Like Mayer, I wanted to defeat the real world, to not let its conformity choke my creativity, to shatter the doors at my 10-year reunion, 10 years wiser, cooler, sexier… until I gently opened those doors and remembered my classmates were really nice people.

Natalie Imbruglia – Torn

I read enough blogs to know what’s good: innovative, experimental, and inscrutable compositions that push the boundaries of music (art itself?) so far beyond the traditional verse-chorus-bridge structure (constriction?) of most multiplatinum pop songs (garbage?) that most brainwashed, spoon-fed, and bleating consumers (automatons?) will never hear them, let alone enjoy or buy them, thanks to a lifetime of conditioning by the recording industrial complex (the axis of evil?).

I also know what I actually like: songs so sticky I sing them for years, pretty (models?), poppy (bagels?), and perfect (models eating bagels?). This catchy little ditty is a masterpiece. Period.


Johnny Cash – Folsom Prison Blues


From frat boys to bikers, pop tarts to cowboys, everyone longs to be this bad. To shoot a man, to watch him die, to do this deed in Reno… the Man in Black in all of us is capable of anything, even though, for most of us, our only crime is tunelessness. To the crime of off-key hooting and hollering, the defendant pleads for you to join in. But wait! There’s more (to this ballad than murder)! Along with the thrill of vicarious bad-assery, there’s also the sting of vicarious remorse, the tragedy of train tracks rolling by without you.

Ice Cube – It Was A Good Day

-Why do you like gangsta rap so much?

Why not?

-Um, look at you. Clearly, you’ve never “used an AK.”

Can’t I just appreciate it? Can’t I just enjoy it as escapist entertainment?

-But it’s so offensive.

Not this song.

-Isn’t it an exception?

Maybe. But that only makes it even more exceptional. For one perfect day, in one perfect song, nothing bad happens, and all this cool stuff happens instead. His team wins. A blimp has his name on it. “Yo! MTV Raps” is on. Who wouldn’t want a day like that? Who wouldn’t want to hear this story?

Frank Sinatra – New York, New York

The goddamn Yankees won again. Indulgent, arrogant, rude, they won. Their moxie was contagious. And yet, the Midwesterner didn’t cheer. Instead, he watched the fans stream out, light-blind, star-struck, flying to the moon, feeling much happier than cheering could convey, bopping along to Frank’s benediction. He was there, in old New York, an intern at a magazine. He was writing. He was living. Closer than he’d ever been to really truly making it. He’d make it anywhere. Sinatra promised. His magic was less dangerous.

He didn’t know he’d peaked, plateaued. It isn’t the song’s fault he hasn’t made it back.

Journey – Don’t Stop Believin’

For most of my readers, like most of America, Journey’s importance isn’t debatable. There’s nothing cheesy about our devotion. When we’re down, they pick us up. When we’re listening, we’re singing and smiling. (Even the sad songs make us happy. Their ballads, yes, empower.) What more can you ask of a band? What more can music do for you? This song’s transcendence isn’t deniable. I believe – I’ll never stop – it’s more than merely a personal favorite. No, it’s one of the all-time best. (At closing time, we belt it out, straining to hit the highest notes.) We’re all streetlight people.

Jay-Z – 99 Problems

Lyrically, I can’t relate. My problems are innumerable. Musically, I count them out, the ways this song assails me:

1) The riff is heavier, more metallic, than any song ever I’ve heard that doesn’t mention Satan. Someone sold their soul for this, or had it stolen forcibly.

2) The cowbell rings out like a slaughterhouse phone. The cowbell tolls for thee.

3) The rhythm of those lyrics is relatable to everything: footsteps, heartbeats, gunshots, blood. One hand clapping. Fallen trees. (No one’s around to read these words.)

4) Problem 100: My words fall short. I’m not the poet Jay is.

N.W.A. – Straight Outta Compton

I’m singing the same song over and over. Rather, I’m repeating the same old excuse. “Sure, it’s vile and hateful but…” …it’s only entertainment? …it voices my rage? …it’s no worse than a gangster film (and oftentimes it’s better)? Don’t hate tha playaz, hate tha game? White, suburban, comfy, I’m guilty, part of the problem that causes this music. Plus, I’m male, so I’m really The Man. “Sure, I can’t relate but…” …why not try? …why not pretend? …why not drop the critical pose? Knowing better (knowing nothing?), I crave this artwork in ways unexplainable. The beat kicks in and…

Aerosmith – Dream On

A funny thing happened after Nirvana. Instead of discovering that band’s favorite bands – all of them indie, or downright obscure – I happily “discovered” the world’s biggest bands. If classic-rock radio played it, I loved it. If I heard it all day, every day, even better. That just made it easier to memorize, better to blast while learning to drive. Now, I’ve mostly blocked out this rock block, except for those bands (and songs) that transcend it, the music of life and love (and dreams). How is a song so magical possible? How does a dream get a melody so scream-able?

Sir Mix-A-Lot – Baby Got Back


Look, I’m a dork. I admit – no, embrace – it. Who else would write 10,000 words that perhaps 10 people read? Who else would waste 100 words on burger jokes (“I want ‘em real thick and juicy, so find that juicy double!”), unconvincing feminist rhetoric (“By dissing the whitewashed beauty standards in ‘Cosmo,’ this knight of the ‘round and big’ table figuratively and literally broadens our definition of acceptable femininity…”), and supposedly embarrassing revelations (“I know it, I rap it, I quote it, I love it!”) that 1,000 people already know? I just can’t help myself. I’m writing like an animal.

February 27, 2010

100 Songs. 100 Words. Third 10.

Elliott Smith – XO

One, two, three, the drumbeat counts. The chords cry out. The crowd breathes in. Ashtrays full and glasses empty. Buzzing neon, buzzing hearts. (In your story, this is true.) It’s a waltz, without a dance. It’s a prayer, without a god. The singer stands there, bathed in blue. Knuckles white and eyelids black. (In your dreams, he never dies.) The singer starts to whisper now. You cup your ears to understand: “I’m never gonna know you now, but I’m gonna love you anyhow.” Songs, singers, love itself. (Infinity plus one.) Drumbeat, chords, the crowd fade out, counting down to zero.

Hedwig and the Angry Inch – Wicked Little Town

Hedwig gets it: We’re all alone. Male or female, gay or straight, transgendered or even fictional, we’re strange, confused, and incomplete, searching for our missing halves. We run away from little towns. We follow strangers’ promises. In cities, in the world, we find and lose: our halves, ourselves, our voices. We seldom dare expose our scars, to risk, to chance, to sunshine. Clothed, bewigged, made-up, we hide. Our words, our songs, are silenced. But Hedwig wants and needs and loves. She hopes and fears and chases. She dares to sing, to find her voice, to fill the sky with wishes.

Rufus Wainwright – 14th Street

Pop Quiz

4) This song is best classified as…

a) Tin Pan Alley pop/rock/opera.
b) a show tune for which you imagine the show.
c) a timeless standard no one’s heard.
d) a trick question. It’s unclassifiable.

5) The piano is…

a) rollicking.
b) ribald.
c) lost in a reverie.
d) shooting at your two left feet, commanding you to dance.

6) His voice, here and always, is…

a) dulcet.
b) decadent.
c) devil’s food cake.
d) purposefully left blank by the instructor. Just listen.

7) Tear this test into confetti and toss it. A ticker-tape parade for champion heartbreak.

Garth Brooks – The Dance

Pop Quiz

Essay Question

8) With its sentimental lyrics (the refrain, “I could’ve missed the pain, but I’d have had to miss the dance,” could easily fit in a card or on a bumper sticker), treacly piano (the outro is a goddamn never-ending story), and overall vibe of cornpone complacency (life sure sucks, but it’s also kinda wonderful, and gosh almighty that piano is purdy!), you’ve often dismissed this song as schlock (probably because it totally is). Why do you know all the words then, huh? Why do you let it breach your defenses? Can’t you just admit it works?

Don McLean – American Pie

A long, long time ago
I can still remember
How that music used to make me smile…


Music class. Car rides. Band practice. Prom. The days the music lived forever. And not so long ago, just this week, the history of rock ‘n’ roll, those syllables, that melody, this song that belongs to America, to anyone, hurtling through my ear canal and tumbling out my mouth. It still makes me smile, from headphone to headphone. Yes, it touches me deep inside. Yes, I believe in rock ‘n’ roll. Yes, I’m unoriginal, but aren’t we all? Haven’t I caught you singing?

The Beach Boys – God Only Knows

I wish I could sing this, and mean this, for someone, free of doubt and dissonance: How do I love thee? God only knows. The message is simple, sincere, and disarming, never sentimental, sappy, or dumb. It’s heartfelt, honest, and head over heels. It doesn’t need gimmicks (like I do) to grab you, mostly because of how gentle it is. The melody soars, the sleigh bells ring out, but the soft, plaintive voice is the star of the show. It’s naked and beautiful, true love embodied. I wish I had someone to harmonize with. God only knows where she is.

Jon Brion – Here We Go

For years, I’ve explained my aloneness away. For years, I’ve made excuses: I’m shy, I’m busy, I’m picky, I’m happy… I’m not bitter. I’m not lonely. I’m not lying. I’m not sad. When does quirky become eccentric? When does solitude become isolation? How can an artist get me completely, even though we’ve never met, when no one I’ve met in years has tried, or maybe I haven’t let them in? Alone or lonely, I play this song, a lullaby, a lozenge: “You gotta hope that there’s someone for you, as strange as you are.” My throat and heart unclench themselves…

Aimee Mann – Guys Like Me

…And then I play another song, and damn near choke on hopelessness. “Guys like me,” this woman sings, this woman who speaks both to and about me, are “numb,” “chilly,” and “absentee.” We can’t be trusted, we’ll let you down, we’ll be our own worst enemies. Somehow this woman understands. She feels and sings so deeply, so truly, the things I’m scared to even think, let alone write or share or give, she comforts me completely. Solitude? Solace? Strangeness? Strength? The spaces between are shrinking, screaming. I open my throat and find the strength to sing my lonely heart out.

Liz Phair – Why Can’t I?

The jilted bloggers nailed it: Indie princess sells her soul. Old woman rips off Avril Lavigne. That’s why, when the chorus hit, I recognized it instantly. The song felt mildly subversive, but sticky, a kiss-off song delivered with an open-mouthed kiss. A spoonful of power chords made the vitriol go down. What the bloggers didn’t know is how much it would hammer me, one woman saying what another would not (or maybe I was hearing what I couldn’t before): It’s over, really over, since she’s seeing someone else. (“The best part of breaking up!”) Jilted, I couldn’t breathe or speak.

2Pac and Dr. Dre – California Love

Pop Quiz

True/False

9) In high school, I denounced this song (and the entire rap genre) for its excessive violence, rampant misogyny, and unrepentant privileging of rhythm over melody, sampling over live instrumentation, and killing other people over killing oneself.

10) I didn’t know what “misogyny” meant, much less how to say it.

11) Meanwhile, I cited the lyrics of nonviolence advocate Axl Rose and feminist scholar David Lee Roth as poetry.

12) Jesus, I was fucking dumb.

13) Tupac wrote more meaningful songs, but this is the one that rattles my windows.

14) Inglewood always up to no good.

February 6, 2010

100 Songs. 100 Words. Second 10.

Blur – The Universal

I heard this song once and remembered it for years. The swell of the chorus, the sweetness of the melody, the lyrics so strange, so specific, so slippery, meaning the universe but also maybe nothing, other than the joy of music, sweet music, perfect for the soundtrack of the movie of my life. But 1995: No downloads. No money. All I could do was love it unrequitedly, waiting to hear it one more time. Finally, I found it, in 2003, a bootlegged cassette to rewind and play again, twice and thrice and hundreds of times. I didn’t love in vain.

The New Radicals – You Get What You Give

The artist and title are trivia answers, one more wonderful one-hit wonder. The song itself is a series of questions: What does the perfect pop song sound like? Can humans capture joy on tape? How many synonyms can Matthew Webber use to describe how this song makes him feel? (Effervescent, jubilant, ultraviolet, toothy…) Do words even matter when the music’s so… good? I’d give my fingers and larynx to have written this, as long as I could keep my ears, so I could enjoy its perfection again. (Buoyant, zippy, maniacal, darling…) Did the artist get as much as he gave?

Guns N’ Roses – November Rain

Sometimes rock stars understand. When art and ambition align in their heavens, when poems and pianos pour out of their hearts, when used-up illusions – delusions? – of grandeur trick them into thinking they know what we want, sometimes they give us the music we need. Especially if you’re young, and you think you’re in love, but your candle is out, and you can’t stand the rain, and you can’t stand November, it’s not a cliché. It’s new and specific and written for you. It’s epic, mythological, from time immemorial. And when that solo kicks your ass, you understand what love is.

Brandi Carlile – Fall Apart Again

Many lines glance, but this one’s a gut punch: “I think the world of myself, but the world doesn’t think much of me.” If, on paper, it doesn’t steal your breath, listen to it in her own breathless voice, choking on fear and swallowing pride. Listen to the other lines of friendship, falling, failing. Listen to me as I chronicle the damage, in 100-word reviews that nobody reads, in three-minute tunes that nobody hears, while slaving in an office reading other people’s words, flailing again and again. I used to think I’d beat the world, until it beat me bloody.

Fiona Apple – Shadowboxer

This is the sound I’ve chased ever since: Pounding piano, almost percussive. Sultry voice, her lips, my ears. Lyrics that catch in my throat when I sing them, line after line I’d love to have written – the imagery! the wordplay! the metaphors! the heartbreak! – but still love to hear in my home, in my car, especially from the stage with the singer almost bleeding… I stalk this sound in stores, on the Internet, especially when talking and sharing and stealing… What do I listen to? What do I like? What enraptures? What beguiles? No wrong answer, but this comes close.

The Notorious B.I.G. – Gimme the Loot

This song scares the shit out of me. It isn’t the topic, the stuff of gangsta fantasy. It isn’t the beat, so ominous, so menacing. Instead, it’s the glee with which Biggie narrates, the obvious pride in his murderous flow, the laughter that threatens to puncture the shell. It’s an epic poem of vengeance and vast ultraviolence, with Biggie making villainy vicarious and loveable. He raps in different voices from different points of view. He drops the all-time baddest boast: “Stepping to your wake with your blood on my shirt.” Truth or fiction, this story kills. I’m lucky I’m alive.

The Carpenters – Superstar

Dear Karen,

Did anyone ever love you so much, their mouth so full of desperation? Did anyone ever call you “baby” – and “baby, baby, baby, baby, oh baby” – so many times it scared you, yet soothed you, fearing your aloneness was perpetual, yet mutual? How could you sound so much like a woodwind – rich, symphonic, blustery, beautiful – and still sound like a human being – fragile, needy, defiant, contradictory? How can your voice – and you – seem so huggable? Surely someone sang for you, just as you sang for everyone else, just as you still sing out to me. Baby, baby, baby…

The Smiths – This Charming Man

Pop Quiz

1) The guitar lick is…

a) slinky.
b) jaunty.
c) boppable.
d) charming.

2) “Punctured bicycle, on a hillside, desolate” is…

a) an image so tangible, I want to reach out and touch it…
b) …and yet it remains just slightly out of reach, spinning like a movie reel.
c) a metaphor for loneliness. Duh.
d) the all-time best opening line. Don’t argue.

3) This song is about…

a) child abduction and Stockholm Syndrome.
b) a curbside pickup, not of trash.
c) the wit and wisdom of an older man, possibly ironic.
d) anything; whatever; you tell me.

Kermit the Frog – The Rainbow Connection

1) The music begins. The boy starts to dance. He doesn’t move his feet, but he sways in one spot. He shakes his knees, his hips, his butt. His parents record this, blackmail for later.

2) The man flips through his record collection, seeking a dog-eared, musty sleeve, the only album saved from his parents’ collection. He finds the familiar picture of a rainbow, wipes off the dust, and anticipates the magic: the needle, the crackle, the banjo, the frog. Gentle and dreamy, nostalgic yet now, the music overtakes him as it’s done for 30 years. Is he swaying? Maybe.

Salt-N-Pepa – Shoop

Clearly, these aren’t the all-time best songs. They’re merely my favorites, my personal bests. So, when I insist this is my best karaoke jam (“the cutest brother in here” doesn’t need the lyrics), my best wedding rap-along, and apparently one of the best ways to remind people of me when they hear it, all I’m asserting is, hey, I like it. Scratch that. I love it! It’s not a guilty pleasure; I don’t feel any guilt. It’s merely a pleasure. It’s fun. It’s catchy. When it’s on, I forget to be critical, cynical. I sometimes giggle. I always feel alive.

January 29, 2010

100 Songs. 100 Words. First 10.

Eisley – Golly Sandra

I know it’s clichéd, yet I say it all the time: “This song breaks my heart.” But this song, Jesus, it shatters that vessel, stopping my pulse and stealing my breath and grabbing and gripping and wringing me dead, shivers and toe taps and sighs and oh God. Something in the way the girls themselves sigh, the slide guitar cries, the drum is a heartbeat. Something in the lyrics, ineffable yet tangible, real and true and… mysterious? Magical? This is the reason I listen to music. This is the meaning I’ve always been seeking. This is it. I simply know.

Neko Case – This Tornado Loves You

The music swirls. The voice is a gale. The lyrics are a broadcast, a storm chaser’s dream – trailer parks, train tracks, motherless souls – told from a lovesick tornado’s perspective. She wants you, she loves you, she’ll show you how much, running and crashing and watching you sleep. A force of nature, a siren, a fury, the perfect storm of form and function – the perfect song, period, perfection itself – personifying love and destruction and storminess, the shelter I’m chasing, the brokenness I’ve found. Lost in its eye, my walls overturned, I haven’t come down since the first time I heard it.

Jeff Buckley – Last Goodbye

I’ll never forget the first time I heard it: the starry-eyed sunrise, her scent on my skin, wanting to whistle but not knowing how, so cinematic it might not have happened, but isn’t it pretty to think so? It’s gorgeous. Savor the sweetness of every goodbye, the bitterness of every kiss, the taste and smell of every new hope: hi, hello, how are you, I love you. Another cliché: his angelic voice, winged and haloed and coated in gold. My own voice: earthy, torn and choked, but isn’t it pretty to sing along anyway? I believe it’s what God wants.

Nada Surf – Popular

1) Without this song, I’m not a musician. Senior year. Talent show. My first-ever band. I stood at the microphone, blinded by the spotlights, speaking or yelling the lyrics we’d rewritten, terror giving way to elation. We rocked!

2) Without this song, I’m not a failed novelist. Years out of high school, seeking inspiration, I tried to steal the themes of this wonderful hit – jocks and nerds and their guide to popularity – and almost got away with it, until I started meddling. I’m still in search of my one big hit, the thing I’ll be remembered for, that similar elation.

Nirvana – Come As You Are

I could and probably should write an essay about it: the song, the album, the band, the sound; my ears, my brain, my heart, my life. Everything I’ve ever heard and known and felt and lived. My generation, my cliché. Shredded eardrums, shredded throats. It’s all been said, it’s all been read, I’ll have to sing or scream it: Memoria. Memoria. Memoria. Memoria. This song is mine, it belongs to me, as much as any monster hit can ever belong to anyone. It won’t burn out, or fade away. A hundred times a hundred words would still not be enough.

Stone Temple Pilots – Interstate Love Song

“Leaving,” they sing. I hear it too often. Yesterday, Sunday, full steam ahead. Train rides, train wrecks, blazing horizons. Lies, promises, no reply. Left behind, I watch and wave. Exhausted, derailed, departed. Terminal. Seldom my fault, because I’m the hero. (An odyssey through my music collection.) It’s also true I’m seldom the leaver, watching them shrink, then finally disappear. (This narrator is seldom unreliable.) This song helps me lose that map, bound for opportunity, possibly glory. Vicariously, I travel south, wanting, like always, to whistle along. Wherever I am when I hear it, I’ve arrived. Whenever that happens, I’m happy.

Tori Amos – God

“God, sometimes You just don’t come through.” I didn’t write that, but I’ve sung it and believed it. I’ve questioned and doubted and possibly blasphemed, shunning Your mercy and grace and love, seeking my redemption in humanity instead. I’ve idolized artists. In them, I’ve put my faith. In music, blessed music, I’ve found the sublime, by far my favorite gift from You, except for life itself. A song like this, a sound like this – pounding piano, impassioned cries, wisdom, understanding, transcendence, soul – it proves You sometimes answer prayers. Sometimes You do come through, loud and clear. Forgive me for forgetting.

Billy Joel – Scenes From An Italian Restaurant

In just eight minutes, a lifetime unfolds: Brenda and Eddie, “the popular steadies,” from dating to divorce, from hope to nostalgia, from everyday acquaintances to old friends forgotten. A story to be told over bottles of wine, a cautionary tale for everyone listening, a requiem for innocence, a singalong concerto… A work of flash fiction posing as a pop tune, there’s even a narrator, a frame tale, a saxophone... Even as a kid, I cared about these characters. Now I want a sequel, or some gossip of my own. Consider these reviews my story so far, a melody I’ve memorized.

Young MC – Bust a Move

Dances, weddings, karaoke. Plus, my cover, acoustically arranged, sung and strummed so sweetly, unironically, often introduced as the best song, like, ever, the dopest in the history of dopeness, or history. Just because it’s laughable doesn’t mean it’s false. Revisionist personal history? True. Apologizing always, ardently, apoplectically: “He raps way faster than anyone remembers. The beat is influential. He taught me ‘libido…’” No one doubts my dumb devotion; everyone knows how deeply it’s felt: “I heard ‘Bust a Move’ and thought of you.” “I made ‘Bust a Move’ your ringtone.” “Your ‘Bust a Move’ cover is the greatest thing ever…”

Vanilla Ice – Ice Ice Baby

Alright stop, collaborate, and listen
I am back with an age-old affection
This song grabs a hold of me tightly
Memorized lyrics daily and nightly
Will I ever stop? Yo, I don’t know
Turn off the song? I say no!
To the extreme I’m rocking out like a vandal
Liking the song in perpetual scandal
Dance, blush, my speakers still boom
Killing my brain like a poisonous pop tune
Deadly? Well, it’s got a dope melody
No, not the best, but my favoritest felony
Love it or leave it, you better not wait
Better hit four-eyes before I press play

January 13, 2010

My Favorite 10 Albums of 2009

Here it is, the groove, slightly transformed, just a bit of a break from the norm, just a little something to break the monotony... of all those lists with Animal Collective at number one. These are the albums I felt the most fervently, adored the most ardently, and redundantly verbed the most alliteratively adverbally. They had me at "hello," they completed me, etc. (They were not a dress, they were an Audrey Hepburn movie. Like dogs and bees, these albums could smell fear.) They caused the most shivers and singalongs and arguments; they made me quote artworks which were years, or decades, old. Perhaps not the best but indubitably my favorites, these are the albums I couldn't stop playing. These are the albums I'm sure I never will. Stop, that is. Like this neverending paragraph. These are the albums which inspired sound and fury, and caused me to signify nothing but love.

1) Neko Case - Middle Cyclone
2) The Decemberists - The Hazards of Love
3) Jay-Z - The Blueprint 3
4) Miranda Lambert - Revolution
5) Green Day - 21st Century Breakdown
6) Regina Spektor - Far
7) Florence & The Machine - Lungs
8) Lily Allen - It's Not Me, It's You
9) Weezer - Raditude
10) Tori Amos - Abnormally Attracted to Sin

In 2009, in short, in summation, what kind of music does Matthew Webber like? Sirens, concept albums, token rappers and country singers, bands I liked when I was a kid, Tori Amos, and artists who have been inspired by Tori Amos.

The Year in Tweets: Music

Since none of you (approximately) are on Twitter, here are my 140-character reviews of all the music I listened to this year.

Lily Allen: Songbird grows up, gets poppier, sells out? The sass remains the same, so no. Topics: Boys, surreal life, Dubya.

Neko Case: Personified tornadoes, animals, heartbreak. Torch songs as enveloping as burnt electric blankets. Favorite for 2009's No. 1.

U2: Typically massive, but newly, bravely intimate. They sound like bands that sound like U2. Bono still makes Jesus weep.

Decemberists: Huzzah! Old-timey folk-rock by lit geeks for lit geeks. Best concept disc since Mechanical Animals. Murder ballads slay.

Adele: Another white Brit chick appropriates soul. Sweeter than Wino, better than Duffy.

Ray LaMontagne: Gritty yet smooth, warm & inviting, the sound of the last of ur favorite cup of coffee. Plus, u can actually hear the wood.

Fleet Foxes: Backwoods beards sing songs of beauty. Perfect background for computer-based job.

Taylor Swift: Sugary sweet & adorable, sure. But also insightful beyond her years. I'll proselytize for her to all u country haters.

Vampire Weekend: Sounds like stuff that white ppl like: sweaters, libraries, boarding school singalongs. Neither as good nor as bad as…

…you’ve read.

Baseball Project: Anyone heard this? Indie all-stars dream of Mays, curse T. Williams & thank Curt Flood. Humming fastballs. Catchy. Jangly.

Ditty Bops: 3 albums in, they're cute as ever. 2 pretty voices, prettier songs, a barnful of pretty old-timey instruments. Sweetness.

Eminem: Dope beats, dope rhymes, but somewhat disappointing. I'm almost as sick of Shady as he is.

Ben Folds acappella: Strictly for diehards & acappella enablers. Do I love it? Duh.

Green Day: Same ambition & pop/punk hooks. American Idiot II pretty much. Rawk!

Tori Amos: Crystalline, magical, sounds like the 90s. A record w/ grooves (but few standout songs). The muse is back, if she ever left.

Pearl Jam: Legendary up to & including No Code. Snooze-inducing afterwards. What happened to the riffs? To the reverb on Eddie's vox?

Thriller: As amazing as ever. R.I.P.

Regina Spektor: Cute, quirky - but not too much. She's too good for marginalization, at least for guys (me!) in luv w/ chick pianists.

Kings of Leon: Kings of classic-sounding rock. Not yet classic, but on the road to same. Arena ambitions - what's wrong w/ that?

Wilco: Good, but great? Consistently consistent.

Early Neko Case albums: They keep getting older, but her amazing voice stays the same. A lil bit country-er, but u know what? That's fine.

Mos Def: Call it a comeback. Bob your head in bangin' contemplation.

Q-Tip: Call it a comeback. Hearkens back to late-Tribe spirit.

Meth & Red: Blah-ckout 2. Is misogyny still funny?

Abbey Road: Still my favorite album, artistic creation, human achievement ever.

Per every music mag ever, (old artist's new album) is their best since (old artist's last good album).

Having said that, Blueprint 3 is clearly Jay-Z's best since The Black Album.

Bjork live album: Makes me wish I was rich enough to see her. Makes me wish I lived in Iceland. Makes me wish she still wrote pop tunes.

Marilyn Manson albums: He keeps making em, I keep buying em. Songs sound relevant (scary, good), even if he's not.

And by "buying em," of course, I mean, "checking em out of the library and burning em."

Brandi Carlile: As raw & heartfelt as always, but... melodies aren't as head-sticking yet.

Miranda Lambert: Country spitfire cleans up nicely, remains authentic, gun-toting, crazy. Country for ppl for who don't think they like it.

A Fine Frenzy: Too adult-contempo for most of my friends, but perfectly poppy for me. Chick, piano, melody, etc.

Monsters of Folk: Pro: Monsters of harmony. Con: Monsters of writing better tunes on their own than in a supergroup.

Swell Season: Real-life loss of chemistry hurts. After few listens, songs start to grow. Sadly, not as majestic as Once.

Nellie McKay sings Doris Day: New chanteuse sings old one's tunes. Funny, jazzy, loungey, smooth. Hopefully more new Nellie tunes soon.

Florence + the Machine: Big-voiced Brit makes epic pop. Lungs indeed. Debut of the year. (Again, I'm the target audience tho.)

Muse: Pretentious. Over the top. But kinda awesome.

Weezer: Far from Pinkerton, but pure pop pleasure.

John Mayer: Some would call his blues/pop bland, but this guy calls it bloody good. Guy's got chops & songcraft skillz.

Norah Jones: Lil bit funky & not just for her. New songs swing where old ones smoldered.

Paramore: Pop songs packaged as teenage angst? I am totally cool w/ this.

Jill Sobule: No less quirky in her old age. No less melodic or deserving of audience. Rustic sound is new for her. Tunes are fun as usual.

St Vincent, The Bird & The Bee, Bat for Lashes: The kind of CDs I always buy & love. Songs that burrow in2 my brain. Written by women 4 me?