I Leave and Celebs Drop Like Flies

So, I had a great time overseas. Spain is one of the coolest, most beautiful countries I've seen. If you have the time and the means, I recommend going on a van tour. I didn't get to see Valencia like I wanted to, Sevilla is amazing and I was unable to get to most of the stadiums I wanted to. Just gives me an excuse to go back. More on Spain later.

The last day of my trip was marred with a bit of sadness. Michael Jackson passed away. I was unaware of his health problems, so it all came as quite a surprise to me. Yes, I'm like 2 weeks late here, but I was out of the country, give me a bit of a break. Jackson wasn't even in my top 20 favorite artists of all time. When Joe Strummer and Johnny Cash, two artists I hold far closer to my heart, left us, I was sad to the point of taking the day off work. However, I felt no need to revisit their entire catalogs and bludgeon myself to death aurally. Jackson was a different case, I felt the need to listen to his work again and remember funny things from childhood they accompany. I remember seeing him do the moonwalk on the stage at Motown 25, "Thriller" scarred the pants off me when I saw it as a kid, my cousins and I all, embarrassingly so, imitated the moves at my parents' wedding in 1985 and I will always remember the first conversation I had with my mom's new husband (my dad). I was sitting at my grandmother's kitchen table in Dukes of Hazard pajamas, listening to Thriller on a walkman and telling him how good it was. I think my mom or grandmother gave me cookies there at some point as well. It's sad he's gone, but probably some form of relief can be drawn here too. I'm not going to go into it, but a cloud can have a silver lining. At least he gave us some truly great music, videos and moves that will be remembered for a long time. I'll hold on to his work and champion Off the Wall, Thriller and much of his work with his brothers as I've done for as long as I can remember.

One thing, no matter how crass or ignorant, that I do want to say is this: Farrah Fawcett dying was sad, but Michael Jackson dying the same day saved her from a bunch of mindless exploitation. If I hear or read someone or something talking about, "Why couldn't Michael give her a day?" I'm going to scream. I say that with utmost respect to those who know and loved her work when she was doing it. I personally can't stand Charlie's Angels, Logan's Run is one god-awful shit fest of a movie, but somehow watchable, and Myra Breckinridge was just terrible. Of course the primate male in me finds her attractive in 'the poster', I can't lie about that. She meant a lot of things to a lot of people, that can't be denied. But the media overblowing Michael Jackson is a different than everyone coming out talking about how her contributions were under-appreciated. She was a central figure in one of the most dominating TV shows in the 70s, but that never really took her anywhere else. She will probably always be remembered for 'the poster'. I apologize if I offend anyone with these remarks, but it's just not a fair fight no matter how you slice it.

In closing, I'll be publishing a feature via mxdwn tomorrow about Jackson contributions to the music video. It's a long one, but I thoroughly enjoyed revisiting all his clips again. Please check it out.

My Jackson Faves:

10. Songs

1. "Billie Jean"
2. "I Want You Back" - The Jackson 5
3. "P.Y.T."
4. "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'"
5. "Don't Stop Till You Get Enough"
6. "Can You Feel It" - The Jacksons
7. "We Are the World" - USA for Life
8. "Thriller"
9. "Remember the Time"
10. "Rock With You"

5. Albums

1. Off the Wall
2. ABC - The Jackson 5
3. Thriller
4. Dangerous
5. Bad

I'm not going to do a countdown for his videos because I feel the best way to see them is as one complete evolution rather than one being better than the other. If there's one I have to pick above all others it's "Smooth Criminal," but if you can find a way to watch everything from "Can You Feel It" up through the film Ghosts including Captain EO and Moonwalker, it's worth the time for both the aesthetic and entertainment value.

Busy 2 Months

It's been 2 months and change since I've even thought about posting here. No one ever said I was going to compete in the blog Olympics, but I should probably try and do this a bit more often. Just more proof that I'm part of a natural order of species that just aren't evolved enough to manage all of the many ways to get worthless pieces of information about their lives into cyberspace. Like a stubborn old man with chores to do would say, "I'll get to it when I'm good and ready."

Since I last popped on here to pour a bit of praise Paul's Boutique's way, I've been involved with a bit of life activity. Nothing too extravagant, but changes is changes. We actually had to make proper house purchases like adults. We picked up a lawn mower, edge trimmer, grill and patio furniture. Coming from the midwest, I was hoping for some Hank Hill-esque euphoria when shopping for these sorts of things, but maybe I'm just not wired that way. Anyone I know from home or here that is hip to Hank Hill-isms has been giving me all manner of crap about not getting a propane grill to boot.

I will say this, there's nothing that gives a pseudo manly feeling like mowing your lawn for the first time, with a mower you bought. Anyone who says it's no big deal is lying. Sure, it's not like taking a drive in your new car for the first time, but there's a bit of a satisfaction you take from it nonetheless. Now, what can take that feeling away, is trying to grill for the first time. My man credentials were severely questioned when it came to grilling. I'd never really taken much interest in how to actually cook on a grill rather than eat what has been cooked. That first time around a charcoal grill can really make a mouse out of you if you don't know what you're doing. Having said that, the fact that our first attempt at grilling turned out shoddy only motivated me to get better at it. So, my goal is to, by the end of the summer, be mediocre at it. Next year I'll go for my masters.

Taking a chunk of time out of grill practice will be a two-week vacation. We're going to Spain. While most that've interacted with me over the past 2 months may not have noticed, I'm absolutely stoked for this trip. We'll trekking up and down the country and seeing a ton. Let's not keep the cat in the bag here, I don't know much about Spain to begin with; at least not much in the grand historical sense. I'm excited to see the land that gave the world individuals like Cervantes, Pedro Almodovar, Luis Bunuel, Antonio Gaudi, Pablo Picasso and Salvador Dali. I'm also curious about - this is going to sound weird - the different social climates in places like Catalonia, Valencia, Andalusia and (hopefully) Basque Country. Plus, being the football fan that I am, I want to see Estadio Mestalla in Valencia and Camp Nou in Barcelona. I'll possibly try and pick up a couple of jerseys while I'm there. If this is going to be anything like my first trip to Romania, it'll be one to remember as well as exhausting as hell.

Speaking of football, the season ended and what a conclusion it was. In England, it went almost to the last day with Manchester United taking the title over my Liverpool. While I'm sick of United seemingly winning everything put in front of them, I do have to say that my Reds gave them a proper challenge this year. With the possibility of huge names leaving United this summer and Liverpool keeping most of, if not all, its squad, next year could finally end the title drought for the reds.

In Spain, Barcelona showed the world what the height of all-conquering Catalan style can bring in terms of technique, class, dominance and flat-out entertainment. They made winning La Liga look almost academic while scoring and keeping the ball at will. Thierry Henry, Samuel Eto'o and Lionel Messi scored almost 100 goals between them and that's more than most TEAM's in the world have scored this season. They also became the first Spanish team to complete the treble (winning La Liga, The Copa del Rey and the UEFA Champions League). If they could play the way they did this season for a decade, I don't think anyone would complain.

Germany saw a VFL Wolfsburg win the league for the first time ever. Providing entertainment second only to Barcelona, Wolfsburg were a team that no one saw coming at all. They quietly wowed onlookers with the attacking brilliance of Christian Gentner, Zvjezdan Misimovic, Edin Dzeko, Josue and the defender-eating Grafite (scorer of my favorite goal this season).

France finally saw Olympique Lyonnais not win the championship ending their run of 7 in a row. Girondins de Boardeaux topped Ligue 1 when all is said and done. I will say that it was nice to see Paris Saint-Germain really put up a fight this season. Hopefully, they can build on it. Inter Milan won Serie A in Italy, but I can't say I really care. Italy was really hard to watch for me this year. Apart from seeing Genoa wreck some shop all over the place and finishing 5th, the always enjoyable Palermo, Napoli and Fiorentina finish in unsurprising spots, Serie A really lacked gravitas for me.

The best moments from this season though came in the form of teams breaking from tradition and delivering great performances where negative, defensive tactics were expected. In the Champions League, when Real Madrid went to Anfield, no one expected Liverpool to put on a show and light them up for 4 goals. Then, in the very next round, no one expected anything dramatic from a Liverpool - Chelsea tie (something that Jorge Valdano once called shit on a stick). However, viewers were treated to a two-legged affair that amounted to 12 goals (Chelsea going through 7-5 on aggregate). Sad to see my team eliminated, I could hold my head high knowing they went down fighting rather than worrying about damage control. Then, one week later, viewers were treated to a 4-4 thriller as Arsenal came to Anfield (one of the best matches I've ever seen). Again, their chances for the league title effectively eliminated there single-handedly by Andrey Arshavin, but they went down with a fight. Hopefully it's a good omen for the future.

That's all I have time for today. Be back soon!

Get Stone Bag Trippin' While You're Doin' the Bump

Sicka Sicka Shake Your Rump!

Yes, I know that the actual lyric is "Disco bag schlepping while you're doing the bump..." and so forth, but when I first heard this album in 1996 (yeah, I came to the party late, imagine that), that was how I understood it. Even after I read the lyrics to this album, I still said it that way. Not saying I think my version is better, but more than anything, The Beastie Boys' sophomore effort is about - maybe now more than ever - what the listener can take away from the experience. All of the lyrical references and samples don't need to be known for anyone to get maximum mileage out of this, possibly the most New York of New York albums, if that's even a category.

Can you believe it's been 20 years since this was released? I'm not sure what's scarier, the fact that 20 years have passed or that I'm still no where close to tired of listening to an album almost entirely stuck in another time. Funny as it is, if you examine those samples and lyrical references that I stated don't need to be known for full enjoyment, you'll find a hip-hop album that seems obstinately intent on dating itself. Robotron, the Quarter Deluxe, Green Eggs and Ham and Yosemite Sam are all name checked at some point along with countless others and a vast majority of the samples are firmly placed in either 70s funk or old school (as it was at the time) hip hop. This approach was so far out of left field in 1989 no one would've thought that, by 1998, it would be called one of the greatest albums in rock history by Vh1 or, in 2009, that Paul's Boutique would be able to look back and see the trail it blazed so prominently. Capitol Records clearly didn't know what they had in Mike D., Adrock and MCA because this album almost disappeared on arrival. Def Jam, the label that saw The Beastie Boys conquer the world with Licensed to Ill, looks even more clueless in retrospect, because all they wanted was more of the 'white Run-DMC' sound that brought the first album to the fore.

Now, I'm not going to sit here and go track by track into why this album's a masterpiece as plenty of folks have covered this - none better than Dan Le Roy though. What I can say now is that this album pointed a new direction in how music could be made. I'm not 100% positive that this is the first album where a collage of samples is the focal point, but in conjunction with The Dust Brothers (who produced this album), The Beasties forged a path for intelligent, artistic use of sampling that has oddly seemed to gain more traction in the rock arena than in hip hop from where I sit. Look at bands like Animal Collective or Dan Deacon whose music is almost 100% sampled from somewhere or even in Matthew Herbert's or Richie Hawtin's brand of dance music. There are many more artists today using the sampler than before. Thanks to The Beastie Boys, who are probably still getting sued for the samples within Paul's Boutique given their volume - there's an addage about omeletes and eggs that fits here.

I just wanted to take a quick few moments and give a 20th birthday shout out to one of the greatest (firmly in my top 5) albums ever made. And after 20 years - just like the man says towards the end of "B-Boy Bouillabaisse," "It's a trip, it's got a funky beat and I can bug out to it."

A Bit of An Update From My World

As promised, I'm going to take some time to give you a bit of a peak into what I've been up to.

The short story is work. When you elaborate into what that actually means, you find a combination of moving, travelling, packing, unpacking, writing, interviewing, hiring, depriving myself of sleep, playing futbol, attempting to watch it on tv, as well as adopting, acclimating and raising a new dog. I've been a bit distracted with all of that. I don't want to make excuses, but that's the way it's been.

On the moving front, yes we've actually moved from an apartment to a house in Roxborough. More specifically, half of a duplex. It's about twice the space we had at our apartment, it's only a fraction more expensive.

We've officially settled in and gotten used to the fact that we no longer have to patron places that specifically deal in doing laundry. Love that! We also have a bit of a yard and a deck. Can't wait to get a barbecue going on that thing! We even have a garage and a shed. Inside, we've got more storage space than we know what to do with. We've got 2 living floors, plus a basement and an attic (I call it my fort). Now, all we have to do is have an actual housewarming and I think our living there will be symbolically official. Even better still is that the city is still completely accessible and the bus ride doesn't feel much longer than at our old place (which was actually in the city). We were really lucky to come across this place and even luckier to actually move in.

The move, I must say, was simultaneously easy and a pain in the ass. We were lucky in that we'd just paid our rent at the old place and, due to the whole first month/last month clause in the lease, were able take the better part of 2 months to get from one to the other. That was a great thing to think about. Throwing a wrench into that engine was the fact that we had to move over Christmas as well as do the whole Christmas travel as well. There's nothing quite like biting off more than you can chew.

Christmas was quite the fiasco too. I went to visit the parents in Portland (yeah, they moved to Portland, Oregon). This was our first trip out west and, believe it or not, it felt more like an Iowa winter than anything else. We get there and there's probably a foot of snow on the ground. To make things worse, no one there has any idea how to deal with it, people talk like it's the friggin' apocalypse and the mention of snow shovel meets more blank stares than anything I've ever seen. At any rate, the holiday was basically a microcosm of how living at home was for me. Everyone is happy to see each other for a few hours, we all coexist in some form of harmony and then someone disagrees with someone else (like always, this happened to be me) and the waters grow rough. The one anomaly was the fact that all parties involved here were able to amicably agree to disagree. Then what comes is the all out war that usually breaks out (usually because someone wants to jump into the middle of something they don't belong in - this is also my territory normally, but not this time out). The war is timed to perfection to be the night before the first part of us leaves (which is usually us) and then order is restored. It's not a vacation with my family without a fight and we refuse to disappoint.

In the midst of all this, I had to basically hire another newswire staff for mxdwn. That entails dealing with the lovely, but often uncooperative, folks at CraigsList. While I have my problems with them, I cannot fault their ability to give me an outlet to hire decent individuals. I could easily go on a rant against them, but the red tape they require me to get through in order to get an ad posted has to be needed for some reason. And, while it's not a full compliment yet, the staff I've gotten together are really pulling their weight well and learning quickly. I don't consider myself good at interviewing or training, so that makes the work doubly hard because I have trouble getting motivated for it. But, it has to be done, right? Right!

Staying in the mxdwn realm, I was given the opportunity to review what may become the best album of 2009. If you don't recognize the image on the right-hand side of this text, it's the cover of Animal Collective's Merriweather Post Pavilion. This album not only combines everything that's made the band great to this point, it contains a lyrical timelessness that'll make it great for years to come as well as enough accessibility to bring plenty of new fans into their camp. If you haven't heard, please go listen to it in any way possible. If for some reason you don't like it, I apologize for wasting your time, but with songs like "My Girls," "Brother Sport," "Summertime Clothes," "Bluish" and "Also Frightened," I can't imagine how anyone can get through this album and not find at least one thing they like about it. Avey Tare, Panda Bear and Geologist have once again brought forth an album that exhibits the joy of making music in bold, new, thought-provoking ways.

I was also given the chance to review the new Asobi Seksu album Hush. Now, this album may not even be in the running for album of the year by the time July rolls around, but there's still a certain greatness due for a band that makes albums that are akin to genre films in the golden age of Hollywood. Shoegaze may not be on the radar of every hipster in the world - hell, Loveless by My Bloody Valentine may have been the album to kill the style despite being the undisputed heavyweight champion of it - but Yuki Chikudate and James Hanna have, over 3 albums, injected new life and energy to the style. Songs like "Mae No Meh," "Layers," "Transparence" and "In the Sky" create a solid foundation of a great set of songs, but the really jewel of this set is "Me & Mary." A lovelorn ballad of drained emotion and loss, Chikudate's in perfect vocal form and an argument could be made for this as Hanna's strongest hook to date. That's why I nominated it for song of the year last year.

And finally, the biggest thing that kept me busy over the recent past was the newest addition to our family. His name is Milo and he's coming up on a year and a half. He's a rescue dog with bags of both personality and strength on top of being adorable as hell. Overall, we really couldn't be happier with him, despite him driving me to question whether or not we were ready for another dog after Brixton. He's got a very dominant personality and he's a challenge to keep calm, but he listens the vast majority of the time and is pretty good about going into his crate for the day when we go to work. On walks, he tends to be more of a challenge. He knows that, inside the house, he's not the boss. He's still trying to be boss outside. It could be worse, he could have a bad attitude and be aggressive. Thank heavens he's not. Instead, he's just a fantastically welcome addition to our household.

That's A Record! My Favorite Albums of 2008 vol. 2

Due to personal commitments, work and playing futbol 2 nights a week, I'm doing this in 2 installments. As I said before, these are not in any order because the climate in 2008 seemed to honor the collective good rather than a prevailing trend. It seems a bit lazy to word it like that, but hey, I'm writing this and you're not. :)

Here's the next 10:

Hauschka - Ferndorf

In my life, a lot of things have seemingly chose me under whatever the circumstances were at a given point in time. Through music I was listening to at the time and an obsessive desire to beat my friend in FIFA (one the N64 iteration), Liverpool became the team I would grow to love. The same has often been true when walking through a record shop. I saw this album on a shelf at Borders (it could've been somewhere else too - I don't remember at this point). It was all by itself almost asking someone to look at it like a dog in a pet store. Of course, the album wasn't preview-able at the store which put a happy spin on things, but I was bound and determinted to listen to the music within its package. Whether I was duped or not, I was absolutely absorbed into the piano work on this beautiful album. I don't know much about Hauschka, but in trying to find out, I learned of his 'prepared piano technique' where objects are placed between the strings and hammers and such. I always did that to the piano that my sister played when I was a kid. All I can really say without further relating via anecdotes and stupid stories is that this album is sublime. That's all that matters really.



Hercules and Love Affair - Hercules and Love Affair

Remember those commercials in the early 90s with falsely amped up 30-40 somethings optimistically musing about how disco was making a comeback? More than a decade later, we can finally be glad those crappy advertisements might've actually been on to something. Is this the disco of Donna Summer, The Village People or KC and the Sunshine Band? Is this the soundtrack to debaucherous, coke-laced celebrity shenanigans on the floor at Studio 54? No. It's better. Oh so much better. Hercules and Love Affair saturate their stellar debut to the brim with an unavoidably danceable mix of R&B, Krautrock and funk for days. While the immediate standouts may be sung by Antony Hegarty ("Raise Me Up," "Blind," "Hercules' Theme," etc.), there is no missable moment within this album. If THIS is the disco that's back, long may it live.

Now, I'm going to simply cut my losses and just list the rest because a) I've taken too long and b) It's ridiculously late to be adding a best of 2008 to a blog. If anyone actually reads this, I apologize and will try to get better about this in the future. Here's the rest of what I thought was great about 2008 from a music standpoint.

Hot Chip - Made in the Dark
No Age - Nouns
Portishead - Third
Ruby Suns - The Sea Lion
Stereolab - Chemical Chords
Times New Viking - Rip it Off
TV on the Radio - Dear Science,
Wolf Parade - At Mount Zoomer

It's a shame that I failed to get in gear on this. The final 8 contained some great albums that I sincerely recomend to anyone who likes music. If you're reading this and haven't heard any of these, do yourself a favor and give 'em a shot. You won't regret it.

Now, if you want the story as to why this entry took so long. That's my next entry. Till then, peace.

That's A Record! My Favorite Albums of 2008

(Yes, I actually began this on December 19th. Then travel, moving, exhaustion and work got in the way. My apologies, but better late than never as the old adage goes)


It's Friday, December 19th and I've been in the final year of my 20s for a few weeks now. I still don't feel old, I don't care what anyone says. Moving is coming along, and we're on the cusp of getting a truck to move our big stuff to the new place. But that's not what I'm hear to talk about. I'm hear to shout into the vacuum that is the internet my opinions that, let's face it, don't really matter to anyone other than me. But hey, I'm going to do it anyway.

Now, the countdown begins. Much like my list in 2007, football was at the center of my thinking. I thought about actually numbering them and trying to pick the best album, or taking a note from a really great book I read this year - Brilliant Oranje: The Neurotic Genius of Dutch Football by David Winner - and putting the numbers in a random order like a team sheet for a football team, but I settled for saying these are my faves as they are and listing them alphabetically. The quality of music coming out in 2008 across the board was so consistently good that I see no other way to do this. If you read this, I hope you don't think it sucks. Here's the first 10.



Air France - No Way Down

Standing strong enough on its own as a 6-song EP, No Way Down has more beauty wall-to-wall than most albums that have come out this decade. Air France has released a second straight suite of brilliant dance music that can both provoke thought and shuffle feet. It almost makes me afraid what'll happen if a full album actually comes out from this artist. In an odd way, the cuts on this album seem to build on the sonic textures that the Chemical Brothers created with "Star Guitar" and augment them with a euphorically tropical sheen and whimsy. The opener, "Maundy Thursday" fades in with imagery of someone frenetically typing as baroque synths seem to wisk the listener away like a daydream. With "Windmill Wedding" waking said listener as it fades with distant church bells and a low, hissing scratch, they'll have no problem hitting play another time to dream again.



Atlas Sound - Let the Blind Lead Those Who Can See But Cannot Feel

I'm a big fan of music that can absolutely haunt others. While, like most, I don't want to be scared whilst listening to music, I like music that can really etch itself in the walls of one's brain. Bradford Cox over Deerhunter's brilliant 2007 effort Cryptograms and this, his solo debut, has shown that ability in spades. Who ever thought that a child telling an innocently precious and cute ghost story could loom so darkly over an album? The opening cut, the aptly titled "A Ghost Story" comes of as something so simple, but maintains a monolithic presence throughout this warmly isolated and almost cerebral collection of songs that come off like the subject of R.E.M.'s "Life and How to Live It" putting his heart and soul to tape. Cox's vocals are nestled in ethereal synths and guitars in a mix that simultaneously huddles in a distant corner while reaching for the stars.



The Bug - London Zoo

This album would be perfect to listen to on vinyl (though it's probably long enough to spread over 2 LP's). While the production is completely controlled chaos and the songs are thunderously in your face over the first half. The second is more muted, sludgy, dubby and even trippy at parts. In a manner that's crazy off the chain, "Angry" kicks things off in a fury of reggaeton and modern dancehall as Tippa Irie sounds off on what pisses him off. No, he's not going to talk about stormy weather or the state of traffic on the highway, he rails against the ignorance of the American government to Katrina, the rape of Africa and terrorism amoung other things. "Fuckaz," just after the midway point in the album, features Spaceape sounding off against the inherent hipocricies in society today. On top of those, there's a wealth of replay value within this album for a long time to come.



Cut Copy - In Ghost Colours

Be it dance, rock, electro or something else, there's not really a match for a truly perfect pop record (as in a single, not an album). Often in music, albums full of great songs that stand on their own don't always match up to what the sum of their parts should be (it's a funny contradiction, but there's some truth there). In Ghost Colours is an album full of perfect pop songs from "Feel the Love," "Out There On the Ice," and "Lights and Music," all the way through its final cut, "Eternity One Night Only." As my friend Rob said, "They make the same leap from Bright Like Neon Love that New Order did from Brotherhood to Technique." Cut Copy, however, is doing it earlier in their career. While it wasn't them that made dance music cool again, I'd place money on them keeping things interesting for years to come.



David Byrne and Brian Eno - Everything That Happens Will Happen Today

There's something about reconnecting with old friends even for a short time that's gratifying. Nearly 30 years ago, Brian Eno and David Byrne had the universe at their feet. After working on a string of brillian Talking Heads albums and Byrne's solo debut, they did an album, My Life in the Bush of Ghosts, together that was as far ahead of its time as it was brilliant. So, at the sound of rumblings of another Byrne/Eno effort, expectations easily went high. Not only were those expectations met, but exceeded as well and with only little glimpses at their past. This was clearly an album of songs rather than ideas that their work in the 80s tended to be. Lo and behold, David Byrne can still write and sing and Brian Eno is still a studio wizard. Byrne is clearly in sage mode on "Life is Long," "Home" and "Everything That Happens" imparting wisdom through pseudo gospel-toned lyrics. Let's just hope it's not another 30 years before they come together again.



Deerhunter - Microcastle/Weird Era Cont.

With Let the Blind Lead Those Who Can See But Cannot Feel, it appeared that Bradford Cox himself was on a streak. With both the size and quality of this simultaneous release (Weird Era Cont. was released as a bonus disc for Microcastle), it's abundantly clear that the individuals in Deerhunter are just as ambitiously creative as he is. With this effort being the most accessible Deerhunter-related album to date, one can't help but notice the coinciding arrival of guitarist Whitney Petty with a double suite of songs that bring together the worlds of experimentation and pop song craft that the band has displayed to a possibly frustrating yet fascinating result thus far. Here everything coalesces into an ornate, widescreen, yet intimate and rewarding experience. Cox and company draw from a massive well of innocent 60s psyche-pop, krautrock, shoegaze and jangle to create trippy, beautiful soundscapes with a C-86 sort of intimacy. One can get lost in this album for days, weeks, maybe even months at a time and not get bored. Well, at least I did.



El Guincho - Alegranza

This is an album that helped warm my bones during the winter months in which it was released. There are so many sunny, inviting melodies here that it was almost impossible to be cold when this album was on. "Palmitos Park," "Antillas," and "Fata Morgana," with there seamless blend synth grooves, latin and calypso tempos and a stomping beat that's never out of place - although, "Fata Morgana" is the somber track of the 3 - form one of the most memorable opening trios of the year. "Kalise" propels things along in a joyous, canival-sque manner without ever feeling tacked on. Then there simply sublime, head-bobbing beats like "Cuando Maavilla Fui" and "Costa Paraiso" that may not quite get the feet moving as much as those previously mentioned, but they're still stellar. As almost a sonic grand finale, "Prez Lagarto" brings the thunder back to the party before "Polca Mazurca" closes things of in a "Happy Trails" sort of way. While the fact that it's all in Spanish may be considered a deterrant, if you're not worried about not understanding the words, the music is more than a sufficient reward for giving this album a shot.



Erykah Badu - New Amerykah, Part One

Erykah Badu was one of the hardest artist for me to actually give a fair shout to. I'm not going to go into why, but it was a pretty stupid reason that maybe only a few people may know or even remember. What finally did it was Worldwide Underground, with its modern, seemingly improvisational take on the 70s soul legends of Al Green, Stevie Wonder and Marvin Gaye. While there are sign posts in that album to those artists, she never once sounds derivative. With New Amerykah, she takes notes from the expansive masterpieces of Isaac Hayes, Parliament and Funkadelic. It's been a long time since a stone groove, Afro-toting funk masterpiece has been on the cards. Some have tried and come close (Outkast came close, really close), but Badu made astute choices in both style and sound, and has almost made it impossible to wait for Part Two.



Fleet Foxes - Fleet Foxes

Who'd have thunk that appalachian mountain folk filtered through indie rock sensibilites and sprinkled with Phil Spector-esque production and reverb-laden vocals would work let alone be provide one of the most inviting and haunting listening experiences that came from 2008. What's more is how full of hope everything sounds. Much like Grizzly Bear's Yellow House in 2006, this album feels like it came from another time, but Robin Pecknold comes across as stronger, more confident and with more belief in his music. The most eerily alluring thing about Fleet Foxes is their choices in album art. As with their EP, Sun Giant, they have the most oddly fitting choice of painting for the cover of this effort. While Sun Giant's cover looks like something out of Brigadoon and Lawrence of Arabia, Fleet Foxes has a religious painting which portrays either the 10 commandments or the 7 deadly sins (Thank you Mike A.). While there is a deep spirituality eminating from the music, it's in feel alone. All the hype that's surrounded this band this year may be overbearing, but you can't say that the music doesn't deserve it.



Fucked Up - The Chemistry of Common Life

Punk and all of its factions hold on so steadfastly to traditions that they've almost reached the religious fanatic level hypocrisy. There were those at the time that reviled the ability of The Clash to look to a more expansive sonic palette, or said that The Jam weren't punk. We also shouldn't forget that everyone and their mother in the punk community criticized The Minutemen as well as Husker Du for incorporating 'outside-the-box thinking' and catchiness to their respective oeuvres. Heaven forbid those who formed a band without knowing how to play develop a sense of forward thinking, right? With The Chemistry of Common Life, the paths of pop and hardcore cross just as they did for Bob Mould and company 2 decades ago. However, Damian Abraham brings piss and vinegar by the bushel to the mix with a delivery like the cookie monster amped up on anger and red bull. Every song here from the epic "Son of the Father" to the closing title track like a siren from The Odyssey; the melodies bring you in while they pummel your eardrums with volume, speed and intensity.

The next 10 are coming soon...