Can't Stop, though we wish we could!!

So there was a time when I was 17 and so heavily influenced by Lagwagon and other punk staples that I used to heckle yuppies on the subway and in other places around Hong Kong. I thought I had it all figured out. I saw them as incredibly lame with their suits, cell phones and presumably dull music.
Looks like things have come full circle. My closet is full of slacks and Brooks Brothers dress shirts. I have a phone that gets work email. And now I think I like world music.

JJ is a mysterious Swedish band that has put out an EP and full length with another promised this spring. It sounds a lot like Enya. But there is something very slippery about them. The song From Africa to Malaga sounds like it could be the score of a cruise ship commercial but on a deeper lyrics there is a darkness that could draw in the 17 yr old punk that is still hanging on inside of me. Yet on a surface level it's pleasant enough that I played it without hesitation while driving around an out-of-state upper management at work.

The third track is very hip-hop. Much like Discovery this band has a fascination with rap. Thankfully they don't actually try it. The song Ecstasy is about as urban you can get without actually spitting raps. It's an ambient cover of Lil' Wayne's Lollipop, sung about a drug fueled club night out in Miami. Before you write this off as trash please note that they pay homage to the ultra clean rapping Will Smith.

Enjoy it because it's great and don't care what the guys in your high school band would say if they knew you listened to world music.

Most Dangerously Catchy Album of the Year
Discovery LP
Because it’s catchy, because it has gender blending lyric voice arrangements because I used the line “I want to dress you in the morning in last night’s clothes” Because I love it Discovery’s LP is the most dangerously catchy album of the year.

Most Getable Album of the Year
The XX The XX
Much has been written about the stark qualities of this south London quartet’s debt album. I agree mostly with the deliberate use of every note, the heavily R&B influenced bass lines. But what makes this album so great is the personally intense lyrics. The vaguely sexual conversations sound like DTRs I have had in the early 2000s. I like this album in the way I like the girl across the aisle from me on the Milwaukee Denver flight I’m 1/3 into. It’s gettable.

Most Amazingly Unrelatable Album of the Year
Grizzly Bear Veackatimist

In complete contradiction to the previous album the avante garde beauty of Grizzly Bear’s third album Veckatimist is something you either buy into or do not. I have spoken a few times on this blog of my love or Kanye West. I buy into his persona and love when he acts out. In short I get him. Much on that vain is my love for this album. I fully agree with accusations that it is over the top and pretentious. But I think there is place for that in everyone’s life. For me this album’s place is the score to me cooking green chili hominy stew on a Sunday morning.

As an aside I was at an Art Brut show in October and got to hear the lead singer complain about how unrelateable the Bowie song “passenger” was, and explain that there was no way the normal person could relate to Bowie and Iggy Pop doing heroin in the back of a limo on the way to an awards show. Fair enough but I do not want to hear songs by rock stars that I can solely relate to, imagine how boring Lil Wayne would be if he were an Airline Revenue Management Analyst.

Most Disappointing Album of the Year
Avett Brothers I and Love and You

Dear Super Producer Rick Rueben,

Please leave things I love alone. I was very excited when the brother from Concord, NC were signed to Columbia. I was glad they got a break. I was excited for so many more people to experience the sloppy mess of emotion that is the Avett Brothers. As a banjo player myself I really need more people to appreciate it. Please take bluegrass out of the hands of pretty boy groups from new England like the insufferable “Old Crow Medicine Show.” So much was possible on the onset of this project.

Now Rick before you think I am nothing but a hater I want to say I have been a fan of yours for some time. In Jay-Z’s 99 problems I knew it was you who Hova gave a shout out to “You’re crazy for this one Rick.” I think it’s safe to say that was the track that allowed me to begin really getting into Jay-Z. For that I will be forever grateful. But sir what you did to the Avett’s is unforgivable. Instead of harnessing the rawness and angst that made them so great you mellowed it out. Got it ready for favorable reviews in Rolling Stones. You made it so boring. The title track to the album seems so disingenuous. ‘Brooklyn Brooklyn take me in?’ Like a ballad asking Williamsburg hipsters to accept them. Like it is a haven for all things artistic. These guys are country, they are suburbs, they are malls wearing sweats, they are borrowing parents minivans unapologetically. That’s the charm.

I don’t think I am being unfair in blaming you for the mediocre album. The ep “the second gleam” the boys released on their own months before this full length far surpassed “I and Love and You.” It’s sincere. You sir are not sincere. Again I petition stay away from things I love.

Paul

Most Stereotype Shattering Album of the Year
Phoenix Woflgang Amadeus Phoenix

Admittedly I don’t know many French people, just a handful really. Not enough to agree or disagree with general stereotypes of them. But I am familiar with the idea of a Frenchman snooty, unhelpful, and uncooperative. With that said Phoenix’s new album is everything their national stereotype is not. This foursome from Versae took American indie pop and perfected it. What Spoon and The National were so close to Phoenix arrived at. The two singles from the album 1901 and Liztomania are just fantastic. If this was only what all Frenchman are known for Parisian tourism would be such a delight. But sadly the album over promises as even the band are typical Frenchman in interviews I have heard. Just being difficult, for example refusing to acknowledge that fact that they are from the same town as other French indie pop heroes Air is even remotely interesting, but insisted on downplaying the fact by explaining that Air is a few years older than they are and so completely unrelated.

Best Indie Artist to Not be a Small Man
Bon Iver Blood Bank

After Justin Vernon’s earth changingly beautiful 2008 release For Emma I was curious what he would follow it up with. It couldn’t be something that matched the sadness and solidarity of his first album. First of all I don’t think that was possible and second I don’t know if I could take another album that heavy. But the album Blood Bank came out, so hopeful so fresh, quite a turn around from Emma. Still a very wintery album from the cover to talking of rubbing hands in cars to keep hands warm. Some bands flop on the sophomore album. I learned this from Talyor Bradford as we waited for the follow up album from Harvey Danger. This album is not a flop. Considering this, Veron’s side project Volcano Choir and the work he has done with high school jazz bands I hope to be hearing from J. Vernon for much longer than I had listened to Harvey Danger.