A spiritual update of '77 Lindsey Buckingham that sounds like a synthesis of NIN and N'Sync. Possibly my single of the year.



Joel's "Hilary Duff has turned me into an a emosogynist asshole" trip gets tiring over the entirety of Good Morning Revival (I'll review the album on here eventually, which might actually be worthwhile if this single resurrects the album's sales - and if God wears Hot Topic, it should), but in short bursts like this, I'll play along, dancing with tears in my eyes.

Someday soon, I hope to have a consistent internet signal again. When that happens, I hope to be updating this page a lot. But for now, here's a Top Ten Of What I've Heard From 2007 So Far.

1. LCD Soundsystem, Sounds Of Silver
2. Modest Mouse, We Were Already Dead When The Ship Sank
3. !!!, Myth Takes
4. Arcade Fire, Neon Bible
5. Marnie Stern, In Advance Of The Broken Arm
6. Nine Inch Nails, Year Zero
7. Clinic, Visitations
8. Fratellis, Costello Music
9. Low, Drums And Guns
10. The Stooges, The Weirdness

Put the Brakes' Beatific Visions at #6 if we're including belated US releases of 2006 albums. But we may not be, if we're following the rules.

Back when my internet service is back.

WHO'S GONNA RESET THE BONE??!!
(Why the hell do I like Neon Bible, pt. 2)

I'm not under the impression that "Ocean Of Noise" is about abortion, but when Quiverin' Win follows "who here among us still believes in choice?" with a solemn, echo-chambered "NOT I," I can't help but hear it as one of those Slow Train Coming* lines in the sand that liberal music fans live in fear of. What if they WERE announcing their moral certitude that abortion was murder? It wouldn't really clash with their prosaic language, fashion sense and fetishization of childhood. This threat overshadows and saps all climactic energy from the song's "gonna work it out" coda, their basic triteness revealed by a minor fillip. And since my politics are basically "chop that child in half," would I still enjoy it if I knew that pro-life proselytism was the band's intent? Am I just getting off on the perversity of the moment? Do people think about this when they sing along?

--
*Speaking of Dylan references, the Voice has removed one.

Why the hell do I like Neon Bible, pt. 1

Are you ready for a few posts about why the Arcade Fire's Neon Bible is currently "my second favorite album of the year*"? I'm not sure I am either, but I've been thinking about the issue long enough that it's going to happen. I looked online to see what exactly Win Butler is singing about in hopes that it would either strengthen my convictions or knock it down a notch. But while the lyric sheet wasn't at all impressive, it had little effect on my appreciation. Maybe the muffled mediocrity is a good thing? It gives their BAR** enough ambiguity to let me appreciate it as mere college rock crossover beauty; their goal isn't clear aside from cathartic nervous crescendos. The SNL performance didn't grab me - just some quaker kids in a Waterboys cover band ("The Big Music!") with less endearing stage shtick then they had on Conan in 2004 - but on CD the songs take shape.

And what a mediocre shape it is! The humblest, least offensive BAR yet? Rock can't do better than that? Or rather, I get more joy out of that than almost anything else I've heard this year? Why doesn't harsh analysis make me play the album less?

--
*#1 being Sound Of Silver, in which a aging hipster realizes that being jaded about the scene is really about mortality, putting his post-techno Enoisms to better use.

**Benign Arena Rock - an ironic term for artists who seem to think their oversized pop music helps them Make The World A Better Place. Not just naughty, not just a self-adoring laser show, not a passive-agressive outpouring of psychedelic neuroses, not We Will Rock You, but Making The World A Better Place. Springsteen, U2, Green Day. You can not like their music, but you have to "appreciate where they're coming from." In principle, I think it's a way for artists to protect their ego trips from criticism and some serious False Idol bullshit. But I'm a liberal, well-meaning boy raised on the stuff.

I probably shouldn't mock a paper willing to pay me more than two dollars a word (I'll happily write again at that rate, guys), but I have to share the headline for the Village Voice review of Patti Smith's Twelve:

"Cheers (and Tears for Fears) for Patti's Own Biograph"

Note that Twelve is a covers album, not a 3CD retrospective. You'd think the Voice music section, at the very least, would still know its Dylan.

Not to beat a dead horse, but Lois and Clark get it on in Superman II AFTER she discovers that Clark is Superman. In Superman Returns we're to believe that Superman FUCKED Lois WITHOUT telling her that he's also Clark Kent. When he returns FIVE YEARS after disappearing without notice, he stands next to her wearing those identity-concealing glasses, wishing she knew how much he loved her. Couldn't he have brought it up when he was TAPPING THAT ASS?!


America's hero, worse than syphilis

You ignore details like the suits Clark must leave all over Metropolis whenever he strips down to his Superduds (does he leave his wallet behind, too?), or that Superman never expects Luthor to have some Kryptonite handy. Suspension of disbelief, yadda yadda. But the surprising amount of critics who praised Superman Returns for restoring his respectability must not have noticed that 2/3rds of the movie was babymama drama skeevier than Kevin Federline's wildest dreams.

Also, if Lois Lane's current flame Richard White believes that HE'S the babydaddy, we may assume that her relationship with the boss's nephew was already in progress when she got busted out with the supersperm. The Man of Steel is down with O.P.P.! How exactly does this film restore his mythic luster again? Do all the slo-mo shots of him watching earth from above really make up for this?

"The movie may not be a single-bound building-leaper but Bryan Singer reconfigures the daddy of all comic-book sagas into something knowing, witty, and even sensitive. - J. Hoberman

(As these last two posts should make evident, there's no reason to assume that rants on here will be at all topical. All that matters is that it's on my mind.)

Plot: Soon after having unprotected sex with his girlfriend, a man who suffers from severe multiple personality disorder disappears with no explanation. Upon his return five years later, he's horrified to discover that his former lover has a child and lives unmarried with her babydaddy. After a few days of spying on the family, he finally confronts her. She's understandably angry about his extended absence, and he explains that saying goodbye before his journey would have been "too hard." This is followed by a debate as to whether or not he's God's gift to mankind. While searching for the source of a catastrophic blackout (a subject which seems to only interest her - an unassigned journalist - and no government representatives), she brings her child with her while trespassing on a boat. They are discovered by the boat's owner, a middle-aged gigolo with dreams of mass-murder and real estate fraud. While rescuing her and her family, the troubled ex is rendered comatose by mineral poisoning. As he hovers near death, she whispers into his ear that he's the true father of her child. Revived by this revelation, he creeps into the child's room to tell the sleeping tot that his life will be hard, leaving through the window before the child awakens. As he departs, the woman asks him if she'll "see him around." He responds that he's "always around."

Running time: Two and a half hours.

Title: Superman Returns.

Most inexplicable casting choice: Kal Penn as Henchman #2, who gets fewer lines than The Ghost Of Marlon Brando (whose coherency and diction has not improved since death).

People praising B Tarantino over A+ Rodriguez REALLY PISS ME OFF!!!

Death Proof didn't even have the best road violence!



Eric Rohmer is trash, so maybe Tarantino's homage to his languid pace was intentional. But Planet Terror still had better dialogue!



So wtf? Shots of spinning records are better than shots of spinning guns or something? The Village Voice rightly points out that "the tradition [Tarantino is] elaborating on is the Tarantino Movie," only who the hell thought after Kill Bill that the Tarantino movie required further "elaboration"?!!? I'm not saying Death Proof was without its merits, but preferring it to Planet Terror means you walked into the wrong theatre. I'll take Tarantino screaming with a stake in one eye and a syringe in the other over Tarantino touching himself behind the camera while a group of women discuss the glory of Vanishing Point (actually, watching Mary Elizabeth Winstead eat bacon in a cheerleader outfit was some sort of fantasy fulfillment for me too).

Anyhow, Planet Terror rules and I can't wait till Harvey Weinstein does a King Solomon on Grindhouse so I can go see it a couple more times.

I'm visiting State College, and almost immediately upon arrival I was reminded how much I've missed radio. Current hits like Xtina's "Candyman" and Avril's "Girlfriend," songs I could find enough quibbles with to delete when they existed solely in the context of my windows media player, sound outstanding when driving around or getting a McLanahan's sub (which I called a hoagie while standing in line! Philly should be proud). I don't know if it's the size of the place, the emotional baggage of visiting my hometown, or the change in sound quality (I have no idea whether mp3 or radio is worse), but hearing married teen poppers use the Andrew Sisters and echo effects to praise penile girth and incoherently trash competition means a little more to me here.

I've considered putting the US top 40 on my ipod as a placebo, but I'll also have to throw on a bunch of earlier hits like "Pon De Replay," "I Don't Wanna Know" and "Semi-Charmed Life" to truly re-create the vibe of randomized pop cheese. As long as I can't get good reception in the city, it might be worth it. No ads, too!

Fred Durst's latest Myspace blog (3/16/07), saved for posterity in case he deletes this one like all the rest. :(

tour

i really want to do a limp bizkit tour. not just any tour. one that is monumental. a landmark event. i would love to do a tour with the ORIGINAL limp bizkit. john, sam, wes, me, and lethal. that's what i truly want. i miss touring SO FUCKING BAD. the feeling we have on stage as limp bizkit is like no other feeling i have ever had and no other feeling has been so rewarding. wouldn't that be fantastic? wouldn't it be a blessing? imagine that me and wes could work things out together and be a band again, friends again. fucking imagine that!! we had so many wonderful times. so many magically unforgettable moments. i am proud to say that i have learned so much from my mistakes and it has taken a long time to evolve to this place where i finally let myself be healed. without limp bizkit i would have never gotten here. without wes i wouldn't know what it is like to work with the best. without john i wouldn't know how to protect my family. without sam i wouldn't have ever learned to trust anyone. without lethal i would have never been house of pain and without house of pain i would be missing too much of my inspiration. the list goes on and on and on. i just want to say that limp bizkit is my life whether i am holding onto the past or pushing for the future. imagine how impossible i am to deal with. that alone fueled many of the fires. when i look back i can only study and learn. so here we are NOW. i want limp bizkit. always. that is what i want. i want it so bad. wouldn't that just be the absolute best? it is time!!!!!!!!!!!!! now!!!!!!!!!!!!! rock and roll is not rock and roll without the pain we experience along the way. today is another day. today can be the day. what if we could just let the drama go and rock the fuck out because we can and because that is what we do? i listent to all the limp albums all of the time and i get so mental and emotional. it tears my heart in half the same time it makes my adrenaline boil. i live it. we all live it. all of us. i want limp bizkit.

as for your madness on here....lighten the fuck up. or don't. either way you will always be heard and understood. we connect with all of you. you connect with all of us. we know you're pain. you must know ours. there is no right and there is no wrong, but there is limp bizkit. so don't you worry your precious little minds when there is silence. remember there is always a calm before any storm. put your energy into wanting the bizkit as bad as we do and something is bound to provide for us all.
have some faith. now turn it the fuck up!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

love,
fred

Earlier today I realized that no potential celebrity death would make me sadder than Fred Durst's. The idea that he'd never blog or rap or direct a music video again is like a raincloud over my soul.

Mission Impossible III may feature the finest opening (re-enacted above, presumably in jest) of a Tom Cruise film ever, in which a tired, contemptuous actor kills the superstar's wife as punishment for his inability to give a convincing performance. We learn later that all is not as it seems, but J.J. Abrams knew we would enjoy the out-of-context implications. Two montages of the Cruise ouvre (incorporating every film except Losin' It and Legend, as far as I noticed) are included on the DVD as ancillary evidence.

I can't think of a band alive that wouldn't be improved by this footwork. MAYBE My Chemical Romance, but that's it.

Both versions of Black Christmas have Andrea Martin and a woman resembling Margot Kidder, but only one has holiday ringtones!

Tried to watch three of Jacques Tati's movies over the last week or so. Each one longer than the last, the cast pushed further away as he focuses more and more on architecture and consumer products. Some would assume this is cultural critique, but the gangly, awkward hero, played by Tati himself, is monochromatic, mute and duller than anyone else in shot, despite the occasional gurgle of slapstick included to guarantee "Chaplinesque" status. Ebert says Tati gives us as "an amused affection for human nature," which must be beneficial if you're doomed to watch it from afar.

Reasons I Haven't Been Posty McPosts-a-lot.

1. Philadelphia Me doesn't need this like State College Me did.

2. State College me listened to the radio everyday, and Philadelphia Me can't even GET radio. Discmans with radios are too expensive, and the walkman I bought last fall (for real, I bought a walkman!) gets craptastic reception. Plus I got an Ipod for Christmas and nuff said. Without radio pumping the same 20+ songs into my ear as I walk around town, it's hard for me to gain the kind of personal relationship with New Pop Hits that makes me want to wax poetic. I've only heard the current #1 "Glamorous" ONCE, and that was when I was making a Itunes playlist called 40 Oz. Of Ludacris (a 40 song extension of the Featuring Ludacris CD-R I made last year) on my girlfriend's computer, well before it was a single.

3. Said girlfriend (of almost a year) is very distracting. And awesome.

4. My input glut and other people's output glut. I've got several dozen LPs and about a hundred CDs culled from used bins and such, sitting in alphabetical piles, waiting to be judged. Either I'll toss them, put them in my collection, or throw them on the pile of hit-or-miss I need to cull key tracks from. Said culling pile is about 40+ deep itself, waiting for when I clear out the 44 hours of music on my computer I need to put into 70+ minute playlists and burn onto disc. I'd be lying if I said I didn't enjoy it, but it's time-consuming and I'm not inspired to describe in detail why I kept these 7 tracks off of Washing Machine and not the other four. If the album's profound, usually somebody's already noted that, and if it's just a preferred guitar sound over consistent beats, somebody's usually called that one profound as well. I'd rather move on and King Solomon Crappin' You Negative.

5. While I still read Billboard.com every week and download mp3s from Forkcast and Idolator almost every night, the cost-benefit of perusing new releases regularly seems awful. The only upcoming album I know I'll be buying asap is Era Vulgaris by Queens Of The Stone Age. I still check out stuff from my housemate Sara's promo pile, and occasionally some pop product will be enticing enough to get me on limewire collecting singles'skits'n'all, but when I go to AKA to shop, I usually walk out with some used CDs I used to have on cassette, and a shoegaze album from 1990 (my version of "pure moods") that's avaiable for $10. Not Neon Bible.

6. If I knew screencaps and soundclips like Rich, I'd probably detail my adventures in DVD-land (thanks to my job I see plenty), but as of now I'm too lazy to bite his motif like I should. I'm thinking about jackin' Joshua "Jane Dark" Clover's soon, though. I'd be so lowbrow in comparison you wouldn't even notice.

7. I really shouldn't say this out loud, but I think I want to write a novel...wait for it...based on a dream I had two years ago. NOW you can laugh. Yes, sometimes I feel like I want to make the jump from critic to avid fan/mediocre artist. I've got Ira Kaplan's Disease. Maybe I'll get Leila to harmonize with me in an acoustic duo called The Gun In Betty Lou's Handbag. How is that NOT better than a blog?

8. Pop culture seems very sickly and unimpressive right now, and I don't really have a baby boomer's courage of conviction to either give it my all or wail repeatedly about how Taking Back Sunday is barely fit to lick Sponge's asshole.

Thing is, writing this has made me curious to actually review Neon Bible, if only to ponder whether people got this excited about the Waterboys. I also should praise the glory that was Tommy Lee Jones in 2006. Having voiced my neuroses, I'll probably just return to the blurbier, multi-post format I used to have, rather than this one-biweekly-treatise-at-a-time set-up I've got now. That way I can save my deeper thoughts for the novel!

Tony Sunshine Is Right

Full disclosure: I am Tony Sunshine. My readership* is small enough that I'm not worried about public outcry if I reveal that I was paid a hefty sum to let some 21st century Zelma Davis pretend he handled the vocals on this remake of the Patrick Swayze classic. It's all good, though - I didn't do it for fame. I did it for financial reward, emotional catharsis** and the artistic challenge of conveying the song's anguish in a lithe hip-hop context. While I think some of the song's character is lost (without the climactic key change underlining the swing from torment to bittersweet acceptance, the song's mood is merely pensive), I'm proud of my "baby, PLEASE" embellishments. The track still succeeds as erotic ear candy.

That said, there remains an obvious flaw: the lack of Diddy. The original "She's Like The Wind," for all its earnest majesty and commercial success (Swayze, despite his continuing status as a renaissance man, has yet to top it), is a left-field choice for a streetwise make-over. Due to historical precedence, it's the kind of initially off-putting interpolation most people associate with Diddy and his self-regarding "uh"s. Lumidee's vocal presence*** is minimal enough that there's plenty of room for the music impresario's grunted verbal encouragement. As it stands, "She's Like The Wind" lacks the grandeur necessary to bring listeners back to the time when multiplatinum was a matter of weeks rather than months and the internet**** had yet to remove all luster from the artform.

The singles on Press Play are doing better than they have any right to, but "She's Like The Wind" shows by comparison how far he's strayed from his initial mission: turning '80s cornflake into feel-good struts for the youth of America with a minimum of fuss. While he still dresses like a champion***** and does his best to make his songbirds sound good, recent singles lack the infectious obviousness that made his late '90s heyday so rewarding to proto-poptimists. It was so much more fun to laugh in the jealous faces of haters and wanna-bes when his accomplishments seemed effortless.

Here's an example of better times, when Diddy was capable of instilling fresh energy into a forgotten slice of retro-chintz with bravado to spare:

If I was still on speaking terms with Mario Winans, I'd try to get him to propose We Invented The Reggaeton! Don't act like it wouldn't rule.

---

*especially after a full month without posts, sorry.
**I've known the pain of an unreliable lover, yes.
***I was under the impression this track was being produced for Zooey Deschanel's upcoming debut album, Limelight Fantasies: A Personal Journey Through American Film, and hopeful our collaboration would increase my chances of meeting/doing her, but you never know where songs will wind up nowadays. While I have no interest in meeting/doing Lumidee, I wish her all the best with her psuedo-career and anxiously await a song where she's in key.
****and MIMS.
*****

The Twenty Albums From 2006 I Kept In Their Entirety...fin.

Lily Allen, Alright, Still

In hindsight, it was only a matter of time before England burped up a trip-hop Nellie McKay, not that I was optimistic enough to predict it. Fine with me, as it makes her arrival all the more fantastic and inspiring. The "fake reggae" backdrops might bother you if you're unfamiliar with the last thirty years of British music, and not everyone will enjoy hearing her repeatedly bemoan fakes and disappointing boys. But only on "Take What You Take" does she forget to keep things dishy, and "Littlest Things" shows how much she notices the good things we do too.

Eef Barzelay, Bitter Honey

As heartful and catchy as John Prine, but with none of the good cheer. He identifies with one of Ludacris' pussy-poppers on the opener, and I believe it, because he spends the rest of the album self-loathing and fucked over. After making breakfast for an ungrateful alcoholic, apologizing for asking what that actress's name was when you clearly don't give a shit, spewing bile you know he's probably waited a decade to unload and almost wishing you would die just so he could prove his emotional bond, he ends with "Joy To The World" because good intentions are all he's got going for him.

Basement Jaxx, Crazy Itch Radio

After the all-star nuclear damage on Kish Kash, the singles here originally felt relatively milquetoast (relatively) and diffuse. This turns out to be a boon album-wise, as I don't pass out from exhaustion before Jaxx has finished extending the songs with techno doodles, which are less offensive in this mellower context. The Balkan influence helps make the album relatively naturalistic (relatively) and warm, as do the anonymous (Robyn excepted) but skilled and endearingly human (Robyn included) vocalists. The atypically manic "Run 4 Cover" is Kelly Osbourne's 2008 Lady Sov-rip "Grimin' (feat. Crazy Frog)" - which I predicted on last year's list - two years early.

Be Your Own Pet, Be Your Own Pet

Two-minute fuzzbomb yell-alongs topped with sexed-up in-jokes from a chirpy, frenetic moll for the first two thirds, before they drop a ballad and stretch the rest out to three-plus. Fever To Tell did on 11 tracks what takes Be Your Own Pet 15, which isn't an improvement (and, despite its charms, "October, First Account" isn't "Maps"). Jemina Pearl's hyper, humorous persona is more approachable than Karen O's, though, and less likely to be ditched after the first buzz clip.

Clipse, Hell Hath No Fury

By the end of '06, the last thing I wanted to hear was more trap rap (why does anyone find the minutia of the cocaine trade fascinating in and of itself?), especially if the rapblog-Pfork posse had already voiced their undoubtedly schooled opinions about the verity of the terminology and emotively hailed this vicarious, exploitive braggadocio (this album is about love, Peter Macia? You don't say.). The best review I read was Ethan Padgett's contrarian dis "Mobb Deep with more backpackerish lyrics," as Hell Hath No Fury is proof that Mobb Deep's cruel if infectious bullshit would have benefited from more shows of nerdish intellect. I might compare the album's compact, razor-sharp feel (it's so nastily seductive that I'm almost disappointed no one's panned it on principle) to high grade cocaine if I knew what the fuck I was talking about, and even then I'd be ashamed of myself.

CSS, Cansei De Ser Sexy

My "album of the year" for Jackin' Pop is the best pottymouth prefab faux-naive art-school pop-cult hipsterism I've heard since LeTigre, only even funnier and less reliant on concept - Paris Hilton and Death From Above aren't what "Meeting Paris Hilton" and "Let's Make Love And Listen To Death From Above" are about, let alone the true selling points (music really is their hot hot sex). With their witty broken English and accomplished amateurism, the rewards are so giddy and plentiful that you feel like a pedant for trying to figure out whether it should tickle like it does and why. And just when you've got a hold on the formula, they turn into the Mekons (a sign they know their faux-naive art-school roots).

Eagles Of Death Metal, Death By Sexy

You know how to get away with a song consisting entirely of woman-as-dog metaphors? Hide the track nine deep into an album devoted to spandex-tight rawk bubblegum and mutual objectifcation ("We're the magic boys and we'll make you smile/ real hot meals, won't you stay awhile, baby/we'll come dancing and we'll make you sweat/we're really rolling/we're solid gold/sweat!"). "I Like To Move In The Night" ("you know we move/yes, we move/yes, we like our dancing!") beats all Stones since "Start It Up" if not "Rocks Off" just by sounding like a good time. The Eagles' devotion to falsetto fuck-boogie trash doesn't demean retro-rock, it reaffirms its vitality.

Electric Six, Switzerland

They make cheaper videos now and bracket Switzerland with slower, slighter numbers, so I understand if people assume they've fallen off, even though "I Buy The Drugs" through "Rubber Rocket" is as strong a stretch as they've ever recorded. They're still a crunk Roxy Music (compare "Mr. Woman" above to "Editions Of You"), just more lyrical three albums in, which fits if you've heard Stranded. Their bonkers, apocalyptic vision - which they sum up this time as "There's Something Very Wrong With Us So Let's Go Out Tonight" - is one most people can only handle for the length of a novelty single, but they've got me like Barney Gumble screaming "OAHH, JUST HOOK IT TO MY VEINS!" They deliver, too, touring so much that I've caught them three times since moving to Philly in Aug '05, not including the Dick Valentine solo gig in NY where he played Def Lep's "Hysteria" and Camper Van Beethoven. I missed them this December (sold out!) but they'll be back in March. Album four should be out fall '07. Favorite band alive.

Ghostface Killah, Fishscale

Fishscale is so blatantly "more Ghostface" (god forbid he ever stops yelling) that I assumed the critical hype was based on desperation (familiar, cryptic pleasures...but it's all about crack so I don't sound out of touch! Eureka!). While I'm still not sure whether it's my second or third or fourth favorite Ghostface LP, I also can't figure out which near-psychedelic narrative fragment on it I'd toss. His sense of detail is peculiar but evocative, and never devolves into Kool Keith nonsensicality. I wish he was better at beginning-middle-end, and I worry that inspiration will wane if he accepts cult status. Judging from the remix of "Irreplaceable," this isn't an issue quite yet.

Lady Sovereign, Public Warning

Feminem without any Emonem. SOLD.



(Previous post: The Twenty Albums From 2006 I Kept In Their Entirety, Second Half)

Here's the second half of The Twenty Albums From 2006 I Kept In Their Entirety. Next week: the first.

Jenny Lewis with the Watson Twins, Rabbit Fur Coat

Her ornate affectations and truisms are sufferable only when compared to her indie-folk peers, who either can't sing or can't write. But though I worry about its obtuseness compared to Rilo Kiley's More Adventurous, Rabbit Fur Coat still sounds direct, and similarly beautiful. At first the cover of Traveling Wilburys' "Handle With Care" seems like a trainwreck trifle, but it actually offers a tempo boost, cops to the relatively contemporary influence of VH1 and makes a joke of a New Dylan.

Love Is All, Nine Times The Same Song

It's fine to reduce post-punk to hipster dance as long as you're a great dance band, and these guys hop from rave-up to power ballad like Liliput rocking the prom circuit. I read in the issue of Venus my housemate keeps by the toilet that the tracks were remixed by a dude from Comet Gain, which helps explain the air-tight clatter and why the singer has a shirt over her mouth. But the lyrics, when I bother to focus on them, make me curious how they'll sound when they break free of his kung fu grip.

MSTRKRFT, The Looks

I checked this out after discovering I prefered DFA 1979's remix album to the original, a rare compliment to remixers and a rare insult to a band. A true technoid would know better than me if the sound is inherently post-the-other-DFA, but The Looks offers a less theoretical take on the crass pleasures Daft Punk always got backpats for. So smart stupid I want to bring up the Ramones, but less hung up on novelty than most '90s big beat I've heard. Hopefully it won't age like "The Rockafeller Skank."

Ne-Yo, In My Own Words

His songwriting is so assured that it's almost charming when he goes for amateurish vocal fireworks (including a prolonged, sub-Idol WOAAAAAAAAAAAH) on "It Just Ain't Right," which also happens to be one of the few songs where he's looking to get out of a relationship (and then, only to return to an earlier one). He's no pimp, just "a man with a very healthy appetite for chicks" who smiled in grateful disbelief when you said you'd be with him, telling his fuckbuddies he won't "get down like that" anymore. You're his sexy love, even when you're mad (especially when you're mad), and while he knows you're not ready for his "directorial debut," would you be bothered by a mirror in the bedroom? If you leave, this sex fiend with a heart of gold will sit alone by the radio, thinking about how he failed you.

Phoenix, It's Never Been Like That

Is This It? fans who liked to reference Television and the Feelies have a new band to adore, and, judging by First Impressions Of Earth, it's right in the nick of time. Band perky not ugly, singer lyrical rather than lethargic, this may be the only time in rock history where the French variant is preferable to the American brand. You'd never guess they still don't have a full-time drummer.

The Presets, The Presets

"Girl And The Sea"'s hazy synth-psychedelia didn't prepare me for the brash electro-clash and slight instrumentals that surround it on Beams. But the brash seems less rote with every listen, and the instrumentals are cute, minor joys. Then there's the processed vocal gibberish of "I Go Hard, I Go Home," a twisted melange of all three poles. Some, especially if they're tired of looking at party photos no one made them click on, might want more there there. I'll take my techno trash transparent.

Scissor Sisters, Ta-Dah

Aside from the disco Floyd, I thought their first album was shtick in search of songs. On Ta-Dah, they're a song band with a shtick I can get behind. They apply the same distilled, nothin'-but-hits aesthetic to soft-rock disco that the Darkness did to harder forms of pomp on One Way Ticket..., or Love Is All with femme post-punk on Nine Times The Same Song. That I'm no fan of Elton John means I'm even more grateful than usual for such a wry, big-hearted effort. If the hate for "I Don't Feel Like Dancin'" is on point, I need to pick up some Leo Sayer.

The Thermals, The Body, The Blood, The Machine

Having mastered power trio pop-punk, they speed-read the bible, noting what's fucked and what isn't, why that is and why they give a shit. Spending more time than usual on the words, Hutch Harris abstracts them enough to avoid harangue but not so much that you miss the gist. I'm glad they've chosen thematic ambition over the musical kind, which would have defeated the point of mastering power trio pop-punk in the first place.

Tiga, Sexor

You've got to love a Jellybean Benitez that can double as Madonna. His DJ career implies a great love for mindless pop songs that intimate profundity, but there was no guarantee this immersion would enable him to write and perform his own. Irreverent covers blend in with his own confident prattle so well that Public Enemy, Nine Inch Nails and Talking Heads fans could be forgiven for missing them. Beatwise, he's got peers, but I'd be surprised if they could handle the mic with similar success.

Thom Yorke, The Eraser

After his agonized, song-sinking wails on Hail To The Thief, I would have assumed this for a Scott Walker-esque chore. But instead of reaffirming his intolerability, The Eraser's spare beats and samples make Radiohead sound like too many cooks in the kitchen. Ringing emotion out of key phrases and gorgeously mumbling the rest, Thom resembles no one so much as mid-period Michael Stipe, increasingly comfortable in the spotlight but still blessed with entrancing, elliptical logic. It's an "Idioteque" fan's fever dream, and I hope he never records with a real band again (at least not his).

(Previous post: The Twenty Albums From 2006 I Kept Eight Or More Songs From! (A-L))

Close, but no cigar! A-L of the The Twenty Albums From 2006 I Kept Eight Or More Songs From!

Jon Auer, Songs From The Year Of Our Demise

His voice and songsense are pretty in a way that can be expected from a Big Star sideman who sang Grant Hart's "Green Eyes" a few years ago and wrote a song called "Grant Hart" a few years before that. What's surprising is that, ten years after the Posies were thrown from DGC and forced to breastfeed off their indie cult, his debut solo full-length would be so memorable and grand. Like Grant Hart, his morbid lyrics are usually less convincing than his melodies, but he's putting more work into his craft than I expect from semi-pop lifers who only need preach to the converted.

Blowoff, Blowoff

Blowoff consists of two well-toned and shorn gay dudes who throw shirtless parties in DC and make the kind of techno-rock you'd find on late 90's soundtracks (that "Setting Sun", Crystal Method Vs. Filter shit). I'm not familiar with the work of DJ Robert Morel, but I know the discography of the other guy, Bob Mould, pretty well, and it's official that he's at his best when he has to share credit with other people. This would have had to come out right after Sugar's Besides to sound remotely hip, but Mould's more engaged over these dance beats than on recent solo efforts (the author of "The Biggest Lie" now sighs about trying to get to "Overload"! Yow!) and Morel's shoutinglagerlagerlagerlager holds up to David Barbe if not Grant Hart. (I can't find any Blowoff youtube, so check out their Myspace page and enjoy some Husker Du)

Ciara, Ciara: The Evolution

Meta interludes sound stupid from just about anyone, and Ciara's no exception. But there's way too much fun on this album for me to sweat it much. Her voice is tender but assertive, her restraint less about being demure than simply knowing her limits. Her persona on the less literal tracks is one of a nice, romantic girl with enough common sense not to put up with crap from boys. From this context, her retro moves just seem like a taste for reliable pleasures (hey, I too love "Planet Rock" and "It Takes Two"). As long as her silly pretensions stay mostly on skippable skits, we're cool.

Kimya Dawson, Remember That I Love You

I hope that motherhood gives her something new to write about, because constant touring is leading to fewer novel rhymes and more livejournal-style status reports. But she's still capable of great twee ("Joey never met a bike that he didn't want to ride/ and I never met a Toby that I didn't like/ Scotty liked all of the books that I recommended/ and even if he didn't I wouldn't be offended") and "My Mom" and "12/26" are proof she hasn't lost her gift for heartbreaking empathy. Comparing the MP3 demo of "Loose Lips" to the version here reveals how much better she sounds without her buds hollering along. But when she busts out a batshit road-radio medley (Bette Midler into Metallica into Third Eye Blind into Edwin McCain) I can see why she wants her sing-alongs to include other singers.

E-40, My Ghetto Report Card

Judging from his overly g-funked best-of and the faceless if enjoyable Hyphy Hits comp, E-40 and this Bay Area brand of disco clap have a mutually beneficial union. The veteran swagger that seperates him from other crime-fetishizing egomaniac misogynists (is there anyone else today that sounds like they may have been influenced by KRS-One?) is most easily appreciated when the music supplies enough firecrackers for all asses in earshot (Keak Da Sneak also works better as a firecracker than as a track's focus). The album eventually trails off into uncharming ho dismissal, but thanks to Rick Rock and Lil Jon, the first half or so boogies past any qualms.

East River Pipe, What Are You On?

First, you think that East River Pipe songs, especially bitter jokes like "What Does T.S. Eliot Know About You?" or the resigned ballads like "Druglife," are begging for covers from folks who can get them more attention than the bedroom recordings of a shy guy who works at Home Depot usually receive. But then you wonder if any singer could resist the urge to add pathos or smirk to his slices of despondent life. You also realize that the vocals and music are pretty damn coherent for bedroom recordings. Finally, you just wish more people would hear his music.

Field Mob, Light Poles And Pine Trees

In which amiable if corny also-rans offer spins on other people's sounds and stand behind Ciara and Ludacris in the videos. "At The Park," which literalizes the food metaphors and jacks the vibe of Trick Daddy's "Sugar," is the highlight. "I Hate You," with the guy from Lazyeye(?) barking the chorus from "Caught Out There," is the dorky low. But the celebrity collabs seem more evenhanded on disc than on MTV, "1,2,3" is as good a screwed southern brag as I heard this year, and the sex rhymes are as cute as they are vulgar.

Ghostface Killah, More Fish

Also more Theodore Unit, which sucks (though I love to hear Eamon try out for Three Times One Minus One on Shawn Wigs' "Gotta Hold On"). The cover's unpromising enough that I planned to ignore this like I do most mixtapes. But rather than freestyles with commercial interruption, these are tangents and ephemera that didn't fit Fishscale's overriding narrative (waiting for GQ to declare this album "the black Amnesiac"). I love the fantasies about Minnesota, Hollywood and the World Poker Championship, "Josephine" deserves a video, and some of those group tracks would have been fine on Fishscale. I do wish the Beyonce remix was here along with the excellent Ne-Yo and Amy Winehouse.

Grandaddy, Just Like The Fambly Cat

Jason Lytle goes on a bit for somebody who says he's tired of going on and on, but I believe his new year's resolution of "50% less words" and that this is the last album he'll ever do. These noised-up fuzz-odes to old girlfriends, summers gone and outdated technology are some of his strongest - he wants to leave you something to remember him by. I did enough talk about moving on myself this year that I'm more than sympathetic, though in general I think you're better off going somewhere rather than leaving. If he changes his mind about retirement, I hope he takes longer than Jay-Z did and does a better job explaining why he came back.

Lyfe Jennings, The Phoenix
Rich's review on FourFour (last time I'm kissing his ass for a while, promise) got me to check out the album, so you should read it too. Lyfe is hands-down my favorite lyricist of the year: unbelievably eccentric, but so visionary and convincing that I never feel like laughing. If it wasn't for the excruciating intros before EVERY song, The Phoenix would probably make my top ten.

(Previous entry: The Twenty Albums From 2006 I Kept Eight Or More Songs From! (M-Z))

It's time to celebrate the finest overlong CDs of last year! Here's M-Z of The Twenty Albums From 2006 I Kept Eight Or More Songs From!

Nellie McKay, Pretty Little Head
Self-producing your second CD a year after the first? Your second DOUBLE CD, at that? Even before the label woes, this was a guaranteed sophomore slump. The best tracks are slighter takes on Get Away From Me's giggly but politically acute cabaret, and they're surrounded by startlingly vague emotional meditations and brief blurts of whimsy whose appeal depends on your fondness for cats, Tipperary and the French language. The arrangements are so sloppy that I'm surprised she wasn't credited with the mix. But her vocal charm and cracked wit push "The Big One," "Beecharmer" and "Real Life" past their bulk, and give her lyrical fog some necessary intrigue. Her mother issues are more interesting than Eminem's, and I'm almost always down for minute-long ode to cats. Like guest Cyndi Lauper, it's possible that McKay will wind up a one-album wonder, especially if she gives up singer-songwriterdom for the stage success she's already begun to achieve. But she's so gifted that I could imagine her making an album as rich and thought-out as her first, producer or no, whenever she decides to bother.

Mission Of Burma, The Obliterati
The falsettos, sea chanteys and hooky declarations are appreciated, but these guys are so dependent on the power of their wrangled feedback and martial plod that I have to play this one loud or not at all. Even if they're beyond (or incapable of) their '80s blitz tempos, the band has regained its cohesive force, making their initial reunion, 2004's OnOffOn, sound tentative in comparison. Only folks who think everything after "Revolver" was a waste of their time will complain about the songwriting, but I'll take the cheap musical joke of "Donna Sumeria" over the cheap lyrical joke of "Nancy Reagan's Head," because music's what they're good at.

Pharrell, In My Head
Just when I get used to this nerd's omnipresence, everybody else decides he's not ready for prime time. Well, no shit! I've been saying the Neptunes are like a hip-hop Ween (inherently an improvement, I'll admit) for years, rarely capable of seperating their craft from knuckleknob eccentricity. But with a year's-plus worth of tinkering, and Chad Hugo not there to whip out the spock ears and bongos, Skateboard P finally made a musical backdrop controlled enough to keep his goofy loverman lyrics afloat. Pharrell once admitted in Blender that, as a teenager, he'd do the robot while getting to his next class. This is as close as that kid's ever gonna get to being James Bond, and I'm nerd enough to enjoy it.

Pitbull, El Mariel
The political interludes are courtesy of slam-poet ringers - Pitbull would rather ruminate on how "the gift and the curse" of fame makes him feel like Keanu Reeves in The Devil's Advocate (his simile, I swear!). While some of his county-of-Dade callouts have energy, it's his enthusiasm for pussy that makes his albums rewarding. Panting, gasping, howling, slobbering - dude is HUNGRY. Reggaeton, crunk, Neptunes, the hook from "Rock Lobster," he'll use whatever gets you excited. "Pretty please, girl, GET IN MY FACE WITH IT!!!" It may be a tragic sign of the times when cunnilingus is as close as a popular rapper gets to feminist thought, but even if Young Jeezy was Alan Alda, I'd love Pitbull.

Placebo, Meds
"Because I Want You," "Infra-Red," "Meds" and "Pierrot The Clown" will wind up on the sequel to Once More With Feeling, a 2005 compilation that reveals how consistently Placebo has delivered their nervous buzz of a sound for the last decade. But fans will still need this album to hear "Follow The Cops Back Home," which would make the comp if "Pierrot" wasn't already the token resigned ballad, the anxious "Post-Blue," the anxious "A Song To Say Goodbye" and the anxious "Drag," which would be the best song they've written about jealousy if they hadn't already written a dozen or so classics on the subject. These eyelinered alt-rockers are such an anachronistic miracle (has anyone ever made a post-comp contract-capper this strong before?) that even Xgau gave them props.

Gwen Stefani, The Sweet Escape
Ever heard the version of "Wind It Up" without the "Lonely Goatherd" sample? So boring! If you're going to make an A+ Missy rip, you need to incorporate something grand and perverse, something truly "bizz-yerk" (as I mishear Gwen in the first verse). It's her first solo single that I wholeheartedly love, thankfully distracting me from the conundrum that is Fergie. She doesn't promote geisha slavery in the disco tetris, and the creamy new wave ballads don't stall in search of a word that rhymes with "Rossdale." Madonna sounded a lot more pretentious and mannered a decade after her first album, and Debbie Harry was already a has-been.

T.I., The King
I tune out on 2004's Urban Legend when T.I. asks God why nobody else cares about the streets except for him (check Billboard for the names of fellow missionaries, asshole), and I tune out on The King when Pimp C reprimands rappers who don't appreciate that T.I. calls himself King Of The South because he believes that we're all kings except for "fake-ass niggas" and so forth. "Prayin' For Help" was track 5, though, and "Pimp C (skit)" shows up at the tail end of track 11, so it'd be churlish of me not to acknowledge the improvement. The best selling rap album of the year should do better than double platinum, and the failure of The King to do even that is a sign that rap's classic-rock-style retrenchment (it's all payin'-dues and love'em-and-leave'em) is wearing on listeners. But the best macho boogie still holds up, and T.I.'s got more charisma than Paul Rodgers ever did. Maybe next time he'll compare to Ronnie Van Zant.

Robin Thicke, The Evolution Of Robin Thicke
He has a confident falsetto on the memorably descriptive ballads, and his voice is equally authorative on the rap collabs (Lil Wayne sounds overeager, downright lil, in comparison). The guitar and percussion hooks are classic and varied, rather than throwbacks to futurism past. His musical gifts are so attractive that I still want to hear them after discovering he looks like his not-particularly-sexy dad in the videos. I'm embarassed to put this mature r&b accomplishment so close to Timberlake's amateurish eclecticism, but that's alphabetical order for you.

Justin Timberlake, Futuresex/LovesoundsI've seen more than one person compare this album to Bowie, and if it fits, it's because he's r&b for new wavers and vica versa, all too gawky when compared to those who play it straight (see above). I still want Usher to pistolwhip the dork with a new album pronto, but Justin's copping more quirk here than on Justified, and it's a step in the right direction. Coldplay codas, vocal filters, guest rappers and all things Timbaland (who does seem inspired by JT's undeniable enthusiasm) help make something of the whinnying, herkyjerk manchild. The last third's ballads have me praying he'll hear about the DFA before he meets Robin Thicke.

The Vines, Vision Valley


(Previous entry: Anthony Is Right's Honorable Mentions Of 2006 Inna Xgau Stylee)