The G asks for music recommendations. I can oblige! Remember how I bitched about 2008′s crop of music? And how I closed by saying “but there are a bunch of things I haven’t listened to; maybe they’ll be better”? Well, I listened to a few of them, and they’ve all been fantastic. Here are some albums I should’ve paid attention to earlier, and a few that I’ve been paying attention to recently:

No Age (too cool for skool, but in a pleasant way); Glasvegas (awesomely overwhelming, and prompted me to finally listen to Lust Lust Lust for a full-on fuzz-fest); Gaslight Anthem (actually as good as Spencer says); Titus Andronicus (wears thin by the end, but awfully energetic). And as I mentioned, the new Dan Deacon has leaked and is fantastic — better than Spiderman of the Rings, I think. Although I should preface this observation by noting that my knowledge of classical music is more or less limited to the soundtrack for Beef Council commercials, I will go so far as to say that Bromst sounds Coplandesque to me in a lot of places.

Oh! Also, Julian says that Pains of Being Pure at Heart are good, and the couple of songs I heard at his place bore that judgment out.

Not recommended: Andrew Bird, Animal Collective. Neither are bad (although Bird’s a bit boring, which is disappointing given how wowed I’ve been by the handful of live TV performances of his that I’ve seen), but neither really did it for me, either. Admittedly, my lukewarm feelings for the AC album may have something to do with the displaced rage that its title elicits.

OH YEAH: Speaking of music, this Diplo interview is pretty funny.

Hey! The City Veins got nominated for a Wammie! That’s kind of awesome. Nice work, fellas.

Prompted by Stanley, it’s suddenly occurred to me that this is the last day that many of you will spend at your desks, staring at your computer screens. That means it’s also the last good opportunity to capture your attention with Christmas MP3s. I haven’t got anything original to offer, but it never hurts to re-share some personal favorites:

The Pogues – Fairytale of New York

Frightened Rabbit – It’s Christmas So We’ll Stop

I suppose I’m willing to admit debate regarding the Frightened Rabbit song — I’m a big fan of it, and typically find myself listening to it for months after the holiday season. I even like the all-choral b-side version, and have gone so far as to buy the new 2008 version from iTunes (which, thanks to some ludicrous overproduction, isn’t nearly good as the version linked here). But it’s a newcomer, and so I’m willing to accept dissenting opinions.

The same can’t be said for “Fairytale of New York”, which is pretty clearly the greatest Christmas pop song of all time. Temporary waivers allowing dissenting opinions may be granted for “So This Is Christmas”, I suppose, but only if you’re feeling too depressed and dissolute to listen to the Pogues — which, unless you’re presently stumbling through the trash-strewn streets, cold, alone and wearing a Santa beard caked with sick, you’re probably not.

Also, hey, here’s last year’s equivalent post, which includes that Christmas Dismemberment Plan song.

I was going to write a post complaining about 2008′s crop of music, but after reviewing a few more year end lists in addition to the first two that prompted my ire (Rolling Stone, NPR) it’s clear that I was just listening to the wrong things.

It’s not entirely my fault — people were getting excited about some pretty boring stuff. I wasted a lot of time on new acts that focused on nostalgic sounds, folksiness or acoustic arrangements. That’s fine — the world needs a way to fill its Starbucks compilation CDs, after all. But I’m only interested in that stuff in small doses, and this year offered a surplus that was so vast as to be off-putting: Bon Iver, The Dodos, She & Him, The Ting Tings, Vampire Weekend and Fleet Foxes were inescapable. It would be naive to pretend that bands can or should avoid being informed by the past, but many of these acts wore their influences (e.g. Paul Simon, the guy who invented reverb) on their sleeves a bit too prominently for my taste. And the rest were just flat-out wussy. I prefer music that makes me feel young, especially now that I’m not anymore.

Other, more established acts released albums that were pretty okay, but less than mindblowing. The Hold Steady treaded water entertainingly; Mates of State inched forward rather than blasting upward; Wolf Parade finally reemerged but failed to match their debut; and Kanye made a great album that no one would be calling great if it were by, say, Imogen Heap. Also the Killers, Death Cab and Coldplay all released albums that I’m told are pretty good, but which I’m content to ignore until their component tracks show up in Rock Band.

There were two albums that both made it to my iPod and seemed to actually possess some vitality: the ones from Girl Talk and Lil Wayne. Not coincidentally, both underscored how doomed the old recording industry system is. On the one hand you’ve got Gregg Gillis, whose work is fresh, engaging, and commercially unreleasable thanks to our intellectual property regime. On the other you’ve got an album that frankly seems just okay*, but which was seized upon in order to anoint a deserving new talent who’d done his reputation-making work on mixtapes and other artists’ releases — although admittedly a huge commercial success, Tha Carter III was a rallying point as much as it was a collection of songs.

Anyway, I’ve now got a formidable list of 2008 albums to acquire: Titus Andronicus, Frightened Rabbit, TV On The Radio, Deerhunter, the Walkmen (sorry Amanda) and Gaslight Anthem (sorry Spencer). That’s a lot of music to get through before the new year, but I’m optimistic that the exercise will leave me feeling cheerier about 2008 and the musical downturn that’ll inevitably be brought on by the coming Democratic administration (less suffering means worse art, or so the theory goes).

* I won’t pretend that I know much about hip hop, but I find it hard to believe that anyone can make it all the way through “A Milli” when wearing headphones. On the other hand, the parts of “Lollipop” that aren’t stupid are genius.

It looks bad on paper. A rap song about the Blagojevich scandal filled with wonky in-jokes? Sure, points for adopting a timely form. But Mark Russell could set up a MySpace page, and that wouldn’t make it okay. Actually, it’d just underscore the outrages that he continues to perpetrate.

But damn if Spencer doesn’t have a knack for this stuff. This isn’t the first such track I’ve heard him cut that runs along these lines. Could anyone write a verse as verbally profane as Blagojevich’s profaning of the public trust? Probably not, but that doesn’t mean you can’t try:

Go read Dave’s review, which is both smarter and more measured that I ever could have managed — I’m just so goddamn in the tank for this band.

In particular, Dave’s point about the new material is well-taken. After the precision pop machinery of Bring It Back, the new album left me disappointed. But live — faced with singing, emoting human beings — the relatively nuanced piano compositions of Re-arrange Us are ultimately more gratifying, if less immediately, dizzyingly dopamine-pumping¹. Dave’s absolutely right when he says that this is a band that’s still getting better.

Which isn’t to say that they aren’t already really good. This was the first time I’ve managed to see MoS, and I was surprised by how closely the live arrangements matched those on their records — I’d just sort of assumed that the magic of overdubs played a big role in the albums’ appeal. Not so. Their high-register stuff doesn’t hit as reliably as it does on the records, but then you wouldn’t expect it to. In general their records seem to be a fair representation of the noises they make live.

One thing Dave said that I will quibble with: I really liked their version of “Something”. Sure, it sounded out of place in the set. But in a good way — it sounded casual. I may be wrong — maybe they’ve toiled over that cover — but the impression conveyed was that you could take pretty much any classic song, feed it into the MoS machine and have it come out harmonized and singable and keyboarded-up. It makes you think that everything they touch turns to pop (not to say the Beatles aren’t pop, but you know what I mean). It allowed me separate their sound from their songwriting, which made their musicianship seem all the more impressive.

But like I said, you shouldn’t listen to me: I’m just a hopeless fanboy.

¹To be fair, the poppier numbers weren’t helped by the fact that the sound at the Cat, while perfectly good and perfectly audible, was turned down to a relatively humane level — comfortable, sure, but there really should’ve been no escape from that keyboard tone.

I only mentioned Man Factory’s Street Fighter concept album in passing at first, but having given it some more attention (and having done so at Ezra’s recommendation), I feel like I should push it a little harder: it’s pretty clever and catchy, and is really more of a straight-up rock opera than a mere concept album. Its brevity left me a bit confused at first, but I now see that this is just the first of three planned “rounds”.

It’s a free download — what have you got to lose?

Looks like the labels went after Muxtape faster than I’d expected. Relaunching as a direct competitor to MySpace’s music player functionality strikes me as a smart move — the fidelity offered by MySpace is pretty terrible, and bands are willing to spend a few bucks, I think, for better promotional tools. There are plenty other services out there that scratch this itch, but most haven’t got the brand cachet or design sense of Muxtape. I think this could turn into a nice little business for Justin, the site’s creator.

On a side note, reading about the licensing challenges faced by Justin should underscore the impressiveness of the Hype Machine‘s continued existence. I don’t know the details of whatever arrangement Anthony worked out, but he obviously did it a while ago, when the labels were presumably less resigned to the importance of the internet. The Muxtape saga shows that threading this particular needle is still a difficult task; it must have been nearly impossible when HypeM did it.

Tonight! Black Cat! Word on the inter-street is that they go on around 11 — that’s right, it’s a headlining spot. I think I’ll be in the Red Room by 10 or so. See you there? Of course I will.

CORRECTION: A more recent notice from the band says they may be on as early as 10:30. Are they just saying that to make your dilatory ass show up on time? It’s hard to fathom their mysterious ways.

It’s been a while, and so a backlog of musical tidbits has been gathering at the top of my spine, periodically releasing pleasant shivering waves. I’ve been enjoying listening to some things, in other words. Hey, let’s direct some of that energy at the internet!

The song from the new iPod commercial will give you cavities, but you’re not fooling anyone by pretending you don’t have it stuck in your head:

Al3x tweeted this a while ago, and I’ve been meaning to pass it along: a Beach Boys mashup that adds yet another layer of harmony — or maybe shifts everything into a different key and uses the original melody as the harmony? Whatever’s going on here, it’s clear that it’s beyond my pretending-to-know-about-music comfort zone. One thing I can say with confidence is that the process strips away the cheery, brave face covering the song’s subtle plaintiveness. It also goes THUMP THUMP THUMP, which I find less exciting. But the net effect is pleasing.

SugaMotor – Wouldn’t Nine Lives be Nice?

original link

Friday’s Penny Arcade unveiled a world of amazingly competent videogame rock. Things have come a long way in the past few years — it’s no longer enough to just channel 8-bit nostalgia through a six string (although that remains pretty fun, too). Most impressive are The Protomen, who seem to be in the business of recording Thermalsish epics about Megaman. Check out the flash video at their site. Things don’t really get going until past the second voiceover, but after that point they get better and better. There’s also this, their newest track, an unholy mix of Springsteen & Styx which actually works out quite well.

Also linked from that post: Man Factory’s concept album about Street Fighter 2 (available as a free download). It’s somewhat hit or miss, but the slow jam about Balrog is definitely worth your attention (as are the titles of all the tracks).

Talking about this stuff prompted Chris to send me a link to a project of a friend of his: remixed Megaman 2 themes. I haven’t listened to them all yet, but Chris is right when he says that the Amen break-laden Airman track is solid.

Finally, it’s been a while since I’ve engaged in any Wrens advocacy. I understand that some of you are doubters. However, I also understand that a number of you are having emotional crises about getting older. Hey, me too! I’ve been at it since I was about 16, in fact. If you’re new to this you may not have noticed just how amazing The Meadowlands is when you first listened to it. The first five songs are the strongest block of album-openers I can think of — go listen to them. I’ve been revisiting Meadowlands after spending the past year or two with Secaucus, and it’s just as good as I remembered.