The Best Music of 2007, as Chosen by Reasonoids
Radley Balko and David Weigel | December 29, 2007, 11:57am
As promised yesterday, here's a special music thread: Reason editors David Weigel and Radley pick their favorite music of the year (and a couple disappointments). Prove us wrong in the comments!
David Weigel's picks:
I. Best Albums
Porcupine Tree – Fear of a Blank Planet
Lyrically, it's ridiculous: Steve Wilson burbles and whines about the crush of technology and XBox 360s turning young brains into mush. If your grandma was theming a prog rock album, it'd come out something like this. Musically, though, it's some of the tightest and most evolved music the band has ever composed. They're aided by the guitar work of Robert Fripp, who's in more of a thrashy Thrak mood than a repetitive Lark's Tongues mood. You don't like Fripp? No problem: Alex Lifeson guests on this too. (Watch the video for the title track.)
Sloan – Never Hear the End of It
Released at the end of 2006 in Canada, where it has some commercial success, but dropped in January here, where it met the usual chorus of snores that greet new Sloan albums. (When they hit D.C. they only filled a third of the Black Cat's mainstage.) That's more perplexing than ever. In a year when Fall Out Boy sold out stadiums and Rilo Kiley metamorphized into Fleetwood Mac I'd have thought there'd be room for throwback 70s cock rock with heavenly melodies. And if the band was ever going to break through, it would be with a 30-song LP that has everything from hardcore pastiches ("HRXNSHC") to psychedelica ("Golden Eyes") in between the pop songs. (Watch the band play "I Understand" on the 2007 tour.)
M.I.A. – Kala
Yes, critics occasionally call this stuff right. Two years ago the Pitchforkerati anointed a tough-cute, fashion-conscious Tamil rapper named Maya Arulpragasam for an album, Arular, that sounded awfully gimmicky. If M.I.A. had released another album of warped horn samples and Space Invader bleeps I probably would have written her off as a music video director who'd been a little too clever about her image. Then comes this album and its Bollywood cover ("Jimmy"), its funked-up Clash and New Order samples, and the use of automatic gun fire as pop hooks. And the lyrics, even if they're not straight outta Jaffna, are pretty much what I'd expect terrorists to rap about. In "Bird Flu":
I have my hard down
So I need a man for romance
Streets are making em hard
So they selfish little roamers
Jumpin’ girl to girl
Make us meat like burgers
When I get fat
I’ll pop me out some leaders
(Watch the video for "Paper Planes.")
Rufus Wainwright – Release the Stars
It's striking, how influential Wainwright hasn't been. His first record came out nine years ago and critics swooned over his anachronistic, baroque pop. He had a minor hit ("California") in 2001 and covered Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah" for Shrek that same year, the first in a string of stirring movie themes. But nobody's tried to copy him. He's gotten more bombastic and operatic as the rest of the singer-songwriter world has gotten more earthy (KT Tunstall) or more cutesy (Regina Spektor). Opinion on his music is completely split: You think he's a genius or you think he's an insufferable whiny rich kid. I'm one of those first people and think this is the best album he's made. (Watch the video for "Rules and Regulations.")
Roisin Murphy – Overpowered
I don't like to bitch about this or that musician not getting the fame they deserve, but I don't understand how Roisin Murphy hasn't broken through stateside. She writes hooky electro-pop at least as catchy as anything by Gwen Stefani or Rihanna or Robyn, but with smart-assed, Stephin Merrit-style lyrics. From this album's title track:
As science struggles on to try to explain
Oxytocin's flowing ever into my brain
So there's that, there's her Alison Moyet-on-a-diet voice, there's her stunning good looks, and her willingess to obscure said looks by dressing like an insect or an opera clown. For this record she put some of her quirks on the shelf and hired pure pop producers who supply shockingly catchy dance track after shockingly catchy dance track, in a plenitude of styles: I didn't know electro-glam existed, but that's what "Movie Star" is. (Watch the video for "Overpowered.")
II. Best Songs
Richard Thompson, “Dad’s Gonna Kill Me”
I'm From Barcelona, "The Painter"
Aesop Rock, “None Shall Pass”
Rihanna, "Umbrella"
KT Tunstall, “If Only”
III. Most Underrated Album
Rilo Kiley, Under the Blacklight. After years and years of inching into the mainstream, they make it all the way there, and the pile-on begins. But I like it better than the rest of their catalogue.
IV. Most Overrated Album
LCD Soundsystem, Sound of Silver. The three fantastic singles are bordered on either side by a bunch of boring studio wankery. (And "North American Scum" is 9/10 of a ripoff of "Homosapien.")
V. Worst Album by a Good Artist
I almost chose Erasure’s Light at the End of the World, but really, who was expecting greatness from a 2007 Erasure record? My biggest disappointment was the barrage of Robert Pollard releases: Coast to Coast Carpet of Love, Standard Gargoyle Decisions, and the Circus Devils side project Sgt. Disco. His experiment with staying at home, trading the live circuit for studio time, is resulting in dingier songs with duller chord sequences.
VI. Best Concert
Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova, touring their songs from the movie Once. Almost unbearably sweet, from the Technicolor love between the two musicians to the joy in Hansard’s face when he saw he’d sold out the 9:30 Club. Before Once he was struggling to fill tiny clubs in the Virginia suburbs, and now he was filling D.C. ballrooms with swooning hipsters and oldsters.
VII. Best Movie Soundtrack
Strange Weirdos, Loudon Wainwright III's soundtrack to Knocked Up.
VII. Time Capsule Song
Tay Zonday, "Chocolate Rain." The guy lived a Dickens novel this year. He writes his latest in a series of weird, inscrutable songs, but this one is an epic about racism in post-Katrina America. His intonations and weirdness make this hilarious, and 12 million people check out the video on YouTube. He gets on late night TV. By the end of the year his song has been remixed and he's shot a music video for Doctor Pepper, turning his mournful cry for justice into a soda jingle. When Hit & Run Commenter Jr. asks you what the 2000s were like, you can point him to this.
Radley Balko's Picks
I. Best Albums
Joe Henry - Civilians
The 1900s - 1900s
Mavis Staples - We'll Never Turn Back
Josh Ritter - The Historical Conquests of Josh Ritter
Iron & Wine - The Shepherd's Dog
Honorable Mentions: John Fogerty, Spoon, Ryan Shaw, The New Pornographers, Joan as Police Woman, The National, Ian Hunter.
II. Best Songs
"You Don't Know What Love Is," by the White Stripes
"Looking for a Love," by Ryan Shaw
"Fans," by Kings of Leon
"Florescent Adolescent," by Arctic Monkeys
"Berlin," by Black Rebel Motorcycle Club
III. Most Underrated Album:
Everything Joe Henry has ever done. But this year, Civilians.
IV. Worst Album by a Good Artist
I was pretty disappointed in the new albums by both The Shins and Fountains of Wayne.
V. Best Concert
The Tarbox Ramblers at Iota in Arlington, Virginia.
VI. Best Movie Soundtrack
Loudon Wainwright III's Strange Weirdos from the movie Knocked Up.
VII. Time Capsule Song:
Given the Lohan/Anna-Nicole/Spears/Hilton/Ritchie sagas, I'll go with "Rehab," by Amy Winehouse.
(not really) Eric Dondero | December 29, 2007, 3:10pm | #
I nominate the new Anal Cunt album,
Defenders of the Hate. Check out this track listing:
1. "All Our Fans Are Gay" – 1:25
2. "Limp Bizkit Think They're Black, But They're Just Gay" – 0:45
3. "You Were Too Ugly to Rape, So I Just Beat the Shit Out of You" – 0:57
4. "Hebosaurus" – 0:28
5. "Even Though Your Culture Oppresses Women, You Still Suck, You Fucking Towelhead" – 1:06
6. "If You Don't Like the Village People, You're Fucking Gay" – 0:32
7. "Obviously Adopted" – 0:54
8. "Walker, Texas Corpse" – 1:31
9. "The Word "Homophobic" Is Gay" – 0:24
10. "You Converted to Judaism So A Guy Would Touch Your Dick" – 0:28
11. "Bonus Track #4" (Live) – 0:20
12. "You Quit Doing Heroin, You Pussy"
13. "Fred Shitbreath"
14. "Beating Up Hippies for Their Drugs at a Phish Concert"
15. "Anyone Who Likes The Dillinger Escape Plan is a Faggot"
16. "I'm Glad You Got Breast Cancer, Cunt"
17. "The South Won't Rise Again"
18. "I'm Glad Jazz Faggots Don't Like Us Anymore"
19. "Bonus Track #5"
20. "Ha Ha Holocaust"
21. "We're Not 'In Da House', You Fucking Wigger"
Track 5. I got chills. You pussy mother fuckers should get this. It's the real shit.
NP | December 31, 2007, 8:45am | #
Ken,
Music, of all genres (well, most), is the single great love of my life, and your screw-that-trash attitude towards pop music is an issue I encounter and think about often, so I thought I'd provide a detailed (and hopefully constructive) critique of your last comment(s). (And Warren, feel free to chime in if you're inclined or interested.)
First of all, I think you, like most classical buffs, don't understand the virtues (if I can call 'em that) of popular music. You're right that the great dead white males (but, alas, no females thus far--sorry gals) of the past have left us with timeless music that will never appeal to--let alone be understood by--the masses. I think it's safe to say that even if everyone in the world had compulsory musical ed (of the usual kind, not courses in, say, the societal ramifications of trance and hip-hop), only a select few would truly understand and appreciate, to use a few famous examples, Bach's
St. Matthew Passion and Chaconne, or Beethoven's late piano sonatas and string quartets. Which is fine, because that's the way it's supposed to be. So far we're in agreement.
But--and this is an important
but--the mistake you and many others make is to judge popular music by the same standards you apply to classical or (to use a term I dislike) "serious" music. Almost all popular (save jazz) musicians have little if any formal musical training, and even those are classically trained often turn to pop, some because they're not among the most gifted who can make it to the top, others because they simply find it more appealing. And they find pop more appealing
because it is cruder and less sophisticated than classical music. With Britney Spears or even the Beatles you're not gonna get a whole lot of counterpoint, modes, high Cs or lengthy melismas, and this is a side of popular music that appeals to many listeners.
That's all good, you say, but there are many classical works that are downright catchy and don't require a nanosecond of musical training to enjoy. Why don't people prefer these works to the current Top 100 jingles? And you know what? They do. I'm willing to bet that, in terms of numbers, Beethoven's Fifth, Mozart's Turkish March (actually it's a rondo, but I digress) or
The Nutcracker in fact have a larger audience than all but the biggest chart-toppers right now, and if not now they will eventually, years after the current bunch of hits make room for the next. (BTW, this exposes the claim that classical music is dying as the nonsense it is.) So there must be something besides its simplicity and accessibility that make popular music
popular.
And now we come to the most important point: Pop is not just about music; it's about
culture. People don't listen to the Sex Pistols for intellectual rewards or even great tunes, because there isn't any; they listen to the Pistols to feel what it is like to be the most nihilistic, impolite brat in the world without becoming one themselves. Likewise, no (informed) one who listens to Eminem thinks he really means what he says (well, most of it); they listen because they know and appreciate his lyrics will offend the prudes and puritans who will miss their funny yet dark social commentaries. Sure, catchy melodies and beats help, but stripped of its cultural underpinnings pop music would greatly lose its power and value. This is why pop/rock criticism is a lot more fun and interesting to read than mostly boring classical books and reviews, though I admit that I myself read more of the latter than the former. (And it's also why I can't stand Radiohead and their ilk who think their music a lot more than it is, though I have to say RH do serve pretty nicely at cocktail parties.)
So let me wrap this up. It is, again, simply wrong to apply the same standards to pop that you would to its classical counterpart. People listen to pop because it is
democratic, not necessarily because they find it musically superior to the great masterpieces from the past (though some clueless listeners do). And I think this is a state of affair that we libertarians, even classical diehards like you and myself, should celebrate. I hope you agree and, if not, at least give credit where and when it's due.
Ken | December 31, 2007, 1:22pm | #
NP:
Thank you for your intelligent, knowledgeable and reasonable response.
This may shock the heck out of you, but I agree with just about everything you wrote.
First, let me respond specifically to some of your statements:
First of all, I think you, like most classical buffs, don't understand the virtues (if I can call 'em that) of popular music.
I grew up with virtually no exposure to classical music, listened exclusively to rock music, got in my first rock band at the age of 15 and played in bands, on and off, for the next 20 years. (For a number of those years I studied music, composition specifically, in college. So I am one of those who came to classical AFTER {and during} my experience with rock music.) My point here is that I “get” rock music.
But--and this is an important but--the mistake you and many others make is to judge popular music by the same standards you apply to classical or (to use a term I dislike) "serious" music.
I am glad you brought that up…and I agree with you completely. For one to use the same standards that apply to classical music to judge popular music would be like a gourmet using their standards of fine dining to judge McDonald’s. In the same way McDonald’s serves a FUNCTION, a function quite different than a 3-star restaurant, so does popular music serve a different function than classical…I recognize that fully. (One problem I have is that most folks don’t.) As such, I am not going to criticize any of the bands named on this page for not producing music on the level of Palestrina or Haydn or Stravinsky or Corigliano.
Sure, catchy melodies and beats help, but stripped of its cultural underpinnings pop music would greatly lose its power and value.
There was a time when “cultural underpinnings” were mostly irrelevant in regard to the power and value of popular music. Good popular music had some MUSICAL value. In short, popular music started going downhill MUSICALLY when it started taking itself seriously and “making a statement”.
…it's also why I can't stand Radiohead and their ilk who think their music a lot more than it is…
Amen to that!
Now let me explain something: my original “beef” here wasn’t about popular music per se…it was more along the lines of this post by Wayne:
Reason has degenerated into a dopey, pop-music rag. What next, a bunch of fourteen year old girls as contributing editors for Reason? Geesh!
As such I purposely played provocateur and posted:
Always amusing to see people take such garbage music so very seriously.
What I should have posted is:
Popular music is (or can be) fun and enjoyable and all but it really doesn’t warrant this type of attention and discussion. It’s musical fast food; consume it and enjoy it but see it for what it is. And why is an excellent magazine like this wasting time and space on this subject?
Thanks again for your post NP.
Ken
NP | December 31, 2007, 9:43pm | #
Ken,
I'm glad you liked and took the time to respond to my last post. (BTW, I'll also assume that you had a temporary fit of insanity when you put Corigliano in the same sentence with Palestrina, Haydn and Stravinsky. Well, at least you didn't mention Philip Glass...) Let me add one last comment before the New Year celebration kicks in.
It's good to see that you do "get" and enjoy pop/rock music, but I gotta say you still give it less credit than it's due. As I said, pop often has more to do with culture or personality than with music per se, and as such it
should be taken seriously. I don't think any of the comments here (at least none I've seen so far) have suggested that M.I.A. or Rufus Wainwright offers the same spiritual depth as Mozart's Requiem, or the same level of sophistication as any of his serenades, for that matter. They and other artists/bands, besides providing entertainment, tell the cultural trends of our time, and it would be a great mistake for magazines like
Reason not to devote time and space to this subject.
You also objected that the pop artists, in all their brass and arrogance, often make a "statement." I find that annoying as much as you do, but I don't see how anyone who deals with lyrics can avoid that. Now of course some do wear their self-importance on their sleeve (Radiohead, again), and these clowns deserve all the contempt we throw at their face. But others can make a statement and not come off as grandiloquent half-wits, even when their words and attitude suggest an unmitigated itch for chaos and rebellion. And it is this ability to make a statement but also
not take themselves too seriously that informs the best of rock'n'roll (again the Sex Pistols are my favorite example), and for which we listen to and enjoy it.
One more thing. You said in your earlier post that any of the bands currently in vogue may be listened to 50 years from now by the old generations, but will be forgotten a century later after those generations are gone. I don't think that's quite true. Sure, most will be mere relics of the past, but I think the very best tunes will survive.
Take the famous old Portuguese theme "La Folia," for example. It's a short, charming tune, but also very simple and, dare I say it, unsophisticated--much like pop music, in fact. But the tune has lived on, as you know, having been used (or should I say recycled?) by all the bigwigs from Ortiz in the 15th century through Corelli and Marais (my favorite) during the Baroque up till today's Vangelis. And we have many other examples of old tunes still with us: the last of the
Goldberg Variations (based on German folk songs), the countless arrangements/transcriptions of "Greensleeves," and, last but not least, the good ol' Christmas carols. If these tunes have survived for so long I don't see why today's most popular tunes can't do the same.
Now you may counter that these tunes are either traditional or folk music, so it's wrong to compare them with today's pop songs. And I say: The great hits of our time, given their popularity with the folks,
are folk songs in all but name, and they
will be traditional a century or two from now. Try this: Take the most popular musicians of the 20th century--Sinatra, Elvis, the Beatles, Michael Jackson and Madonna--and compare them with, say, most of the New Wave one-hit wonders from the '80s. Which side comes out ahead? Talk about a rhetorical question. These guys (and gals) didn't get all those ridiculous sales figures for nothing. Great tunes live on
regardless of their genre, and I'm willing to bet that their (and others') best songs, if not necessarily in their original form, will still be heard and enjoyed many years from now.
Hope I've provided some food for thought. Enjoy and Happy New Year.
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