2012: born 2 be strong

and we're off to the races! or the watering hole, i guess, to go by my basically arbitrary alcohol-themed sidebar ranking metaphor for the year*

2012! @)!@ [that's "2012" in "caps"] good stuff! after a kinda lackluster 2011 – at least, until the very end when i figured out what i'd been missing (though even then pretty much just singles, mostly in the dance/hiphop/rnb singles dept..) kinda feel like i and music alike are coming back a little refreshed. good things poppin' all over. it feels so good, it almost feels like 2010 all over again.

specifically, there are my two absolute hands-down favorite albums of the year so far – both of which i was already completely smitten with as of late january (both released 1/31, as it happens), and there's no real competition in sight. and the nominees for let's-just-call-it-a-wrap best album of 2012, yes already: be strong by the 2 bears**, and born to die by lana del rey

the 2 bears!! the 2 bears!! oh, my, god, the 2 bears. well. i know i'm a little weird and all, but why is nobody else running around the internet proclaiming this album the best thing since whatever? srsly. (yup, i've got officially the highest critical opinion in meta-land, by a solid 10 %pts.) (and lets not mince tapes here: this album is unquestionably a 10 in my book, but amg writers are basically not allowed to rate anything newly released at more than four and a half stars.) (and, ok, yes, pretty much every reviewer out there gave this 80% or at least 70%, but they're talking about "fun" like it's some kind of "novelty" or something. people, FUN is at the core of being don't you get it?)

but forget numbers. on the one hand, i basically already said everything i needed to say about be strong in my review. on the other hand, that review is just a lot of words put together, and words are pretty much boring. be strong is the opposite of boring. it has words, most of which are about music (and/or life, usually at the same time), but it says things about music (and/or life) that i couldn't hope to put to pixel with one whit of the oomph. and when it doesn't have words, it says those same things even better. okay, i need to stop this paragraph. just dance with me, ok?

[i just thought of: joe goddard's middle name should be "puts the god in"] [also: i had a fantasy of meeting hot chip, and telling joe and alexis how amazingly awesome i think they both are, but also having to tell joe, still in alexis' presence – after first, of course, telling him that i want to give him a bear hug – that he is the awesomest of the awesome. in fact, that he is hands-down my favorite person in music. especially now that james murphy is out of the running. though i guess that's not technically true.]

born to die, on the other hand... well, i said almost nothing i needed to say about it in my review. because, well, what can you really say in 75 words about something this ambiguously complex (/complexly ambiguous... that is: it's unclear whether it's really simple or really not simple.) [or even 90, since i totally went over word count and got cut; i'll post the full version hear when i get around to a round-up; we're about do.]

mostly, it's a hard album to write about. or, i should say, i have a lot of feelings about it which are hard to express. naturally i was pretty predisposed to like it (or, at least, have feelings about it) considering that it contains my #1 and #2 favorite songs of 2011. that's a pretty improbable head-start on my heart.

and i didn't know what to expect from the rest of it; "born to die" suggested it would be more like "blue jeans" than "videogames" – which turned out to be true, and which, to some extent, seems to be at the heart of the problem some people seem to have with the album. i can sympathize with that: an album more in the mode of "videogames" – one focused primarily around a smart, powerful, poetic songwriting voice – a voice with the degree of nuance and insight that song seemed/seems to contain – could have been something pretty incredibly great.

that's not really what born to die is. lizzie grant is, of course, a songwriter, and i would say a pretty good one, perhaps better, and she definitely has a hell of a voice (writerly that is, not to mention singerly) which is plenty powerful – or at least effective – in its way; which is full of – if not poetry, exactly, certainly poetics, and which, i am gonna say, is smart enough to know that there's more to being smart than being smart. (nuance and insight? i'll let that one slide for now.) but no, she isn't chan marshall. (which, honestly, i guess i'm just not a cat power person.) or whoever else "videogames" might have suggested. (in a weird way – in the way it discourses with melancholy, devotion, and indifference, perhaps – might i propose edith frost?)

instead, she wrote every song on the album with a collaborator – including "videogames," it turns out. (apparently, he supplied the chord progression. we'll probably never know how much of the lyrics on the album are solely hers, though it's certainly conceivable that most or even all of them are.) (which isn't to say that songwriters, of any caliber, can't collaborate while still maintaining their voice and self – that's probably a good hobblehorse to poke a few holes in one of these years.) (besides, forget "videogames" – after all, it was only my second favorite song of 2011. and it came to me at such a different time and with such a different set of associations that it doesn't really feel of a piece with the album anyway, yet, still.)

and, instead, born to die is an album of aesthetics, rather than an album of songwriting. damn is it ever. a super-pow wham-whomp aesthetic, full and fleshy and forceful – a musical aesthetic and a lyrical/linguistic aesthetic and a symbolic/poetic/conceptual aesthetic (not to mention visual, and also vocal) all of which fit together almost seamlessly, in a so-uncanny-it-seems-obvious way, though they could also stand separately, i think.

and basically, to get specific for a second, i think it's doing something really original, just in purely musical terms (setting aside, for now, any question of persona/content/context/subtext): there is nothing that sounds like this album. (is there?) really. it seems like such a basic, obvious formula – slow hip-hop beats, big gushing orchestral bits, and pop songs – but i can't think of anybody who's really made anything like it.

[matt proposed portishead and garbage, and yes i can see how those are prefigurations to some extent – and plus, it would be totally awesome if more bands decided to sound like those bands (and were actually able to do it) – but, no, not really, no way: portishead are spooky and alien and/or utterly detached/monotonically depressed, plus they don't really write pop songs; garbage are edgy and punkish and also schmaltzy and effusive and urgent, plus they are an electronic/rock band – lana del rey is none of these things, and more importantly she is hardly anything like either shirley manson or beth gibbons.] [here's one though: fiona apple. should have thought of that before, maybe. but i never completely loved her either...]

it's big, lavish, "produced," "pop," but it's not "pop" in any kind of familiar, narrow sense – it certainly doesn't sound like anything "on the radio" these days – the beats are sort of hip-hop (or possibly, if you like, trip-hop), as is some of the production personnel, but this is obviously not hip-hop music (even if, i will assert, lana does rap at numerous points throughout the album.) so, it's ...pop-by-default, i guess (cuz it's clearly not rock or folk.)

more interestingly though – and i have a little suspicion that this is lurking somewhere behind the issues/confusion/difficulty some people seem to have around the album, it's neither self-evidently "indie" nor clearly "mainstream" – in its sound, signifiers, anything. it's not readily recognizable as belonging to any particular established world/scene/concept. [<<it came from the internet....>>] even to hear her sing "i'm playing on the radio" feels weirdly incongruous (as in, how is this music that can coexist alongside other music?) – even if she probably actually is. (though, obviously, that's not the point... she is not actually telling us to "love [her] because she's playing on the radio." right? are you with me there?)

oh yeah, the words. i probably need to talk about the words. to be honest, i'm more interested in the lyrics of the album (or rather, they have, as yet, mostly presented themselves to me) as a collection of images; a lexicon of tropes; a bright smattering of clichés both old and newly-turned; a piecemeal articulation of an aesthetic or worldview (not, to be clear, one i would presume to ascribe to lizzy grant), than as direct, literal, content.

i would agree, sure, that there are some potentially substantially troubling things going on in these songs from a feminist/gender/sexual politics standpoint (not to mention from an emotional health standpoint.) and, yes, extremely similar lyrical themes are repeated quite frequently, ad nauseum perhaps (if you're prone to lyrical nausea) throughout the album. (in general, the album is extremely samey in most respects – something that definitely ties in with it having a strong, emphatic aesthetic – though that's not to say that the similar songs don't distinguish themselves as more individual – and some stronger, some weaker – with repeated listens.)

somehow, though, those things don't really bother me too much when i'm listening. maybe it's because almost nothing here comes across as "real": the album is so wholeheartedly wrapped up in fantasy, fantasies, of various kinds (wealth, fame, love, sex, youth, glamor, misery, hollywood...american dreams), it feels more like an exploration of fantasy worlds within worlds than anything really relevant to lived reality. (though, arguably, issues of sexual politics have as much to do with what's in our heads and dreams as anything else.)

anyway. forget the haters. screw the hype. i like it.

------
* not exactly sure how i arrived at that, or how "cheers (drink to that)" became the theme tune for it either – maybe i should switch it to "tubthumper"? – tho i do rather like it. but anyway h/t to bedbugs for the format; glad to see he's still using it. but why so samey, ernold?

**i called this "my favorite album of 2012, so far," and my roommate turned to me and said "um... it's like january 10th."

2012: stop stringing adjectives together

2011 in heaven: muddled, muted, moody, mature

that'll do, 2011, that'll do. i think we agree by now that there's no such thing as a "bad year in music" but at least from where i was sitting this last one felt a little less than exciting, both in terms of the stuff i was listening to myself (and i listened to a ton – once again, probably more than any previous year, if i had to guess – which might after all have been part of the problem...) and also the consensus faves (meh..Bon Iver, Drake, Destroyer, M83, Adele, Watch Jay-Z + Kanye fail to get us to call them The Throne – sure i listened and enjoyed plenty well enough, but none of that felt especially momentous or truly substantial. tUnE-yArDs and shabazz were intriguing at first, but neither really got its hooks in me. which basically leaves us with azealia and lana, each with ≤2 tracks apiece.)

hard to find any major patterns in my listening... my lists are a pretty typical mish-mash of singer-songwriters both newly discovered (Frank Turner) and long-beloved (Devon, Paul, Jens); pop-minded soul both retro and nuevo (Mayer Hawthorne, Beyoncé, Miguel),
funky-future-dancemusik (Chrissy Murderbot, Four Tet, Jacques Greene) and, sticking out like three ugly blue sore thumbs, one unconscionably old-fashioned record of pure-power pop (Peter Bjorn & John) which i readily forget to care about whatsoever except for whenever it's actually playing...

there was, though, what felt to me like a distinct, prevalent 2011 sound, or sound-world, or sound-concept, that was something of a through-line through many of my favorites: a lush, warm, synth-heavy but also organic-feeling aesthetic that was sometimes woozy and swoony, but not in a warped/texturally-distressed/chillwavey sense; sometimes subdued, often sophisticated-seeming, but definitely still pop and very melodic; definitely focused on sonic prettiness, but also surprisingly emotionally deep and complex.

i heard it throughout my (in some ways very different) three favorite albums of the year: When Saints Go Machine's Konkylie, Ada's Meine Zarten Pfoten, and Architecture In Helsinki's Moment Bends. (my "official" ranking of these three has been shuffled and reshuffled innumerable times by now; suffice to say i think each of them is something pretty special – all of them, incidentally, were pretty much completely unexpected discoveries for me.) i also heard it in much of Hercules & Love Affair's surprisingly varied and largely underrated (/misunderstood, i'd say) Blue Songs, not always in the danciest tracks (though sometimes) but in the more understand < songs > which form the album's heart.

i heard it in Wild Beasts' soft but squirmy Smother, in Twin Sister's dreamy, dappled and ultimately aptly-titled In Heaven, in Young Galaxy's lusciously thick-sounding Shapeshifting (which, like Taken By Trees' utterly phenomenal East of Eden two years back, owes much of its greatness to the sonic wizardry of Studio's Dan Lissvik), in the gentle meandering of Dixon's elegant Live at Robert Johnson mix, in the lovely soft pop of my friends Xylos, in ArchInHels's utterly lovely acoustic/electronic rework of Cut Copy's "Need You Now." and i heard shadings of it – in mood, if not necessarily sound – in music by Active Child, Austra, WhoMadeWho, Pallers, Panda Bear, Joan as Police Woman, Art Department, and total-fave-2011-discovery,-if-only-they-had-more-music, Benoit & Sergio. (and even, to some extent, and for what it's worth, in Bon Iver, Drake, Destroyer and some of M83.)

so, i guess, it was a great year for this particular muted, moody interstitial muddling of pop, rock and electronic. not necessarily what i think of as my favorite kind of music, but somehow that's what did it for me in 2011. and it did it just fine.

~

these are already on the sidebar. but just to make it officialishial, and put some pretty pictures together (eh, no great shakes really. devon's puppy wins this batch hands down; with ada's furry-paw donkey as a runner-up...) my favorites of last year: songs, albums; twenty, eleven.




[SONGS]1. Lana Del Rey: "Blue Jeans"
2. Lana Del Rey: "Video Games"
3. When Saints Go Machine: "Kelly"
4. Ada: "Keep Me In Mind"
5. Jens Lekman: "Waiting For Kirsten"
6. Azealia Banks: "212"
7. Beyoncé: "Countdown"
8. Xylos: "Not Enough"
9. Young Galaxy: "B.S.E. [Black Swan Event]"
10. Allo Darlin': "Tallulah" [*2010/2012]
11. Jacques Greene: "Another Girl"
12. Four Tet: "Pyramid"
13. Low: "Try To Sleep"
14. The Dø: "Too Insistent" (or Trentemøller remix)
15. Pallers: "Wicked"
16. Benoit & Sergio: "What I've Lost" [*'10]; "Walk and Talk"
17. Frank Turner: "Peggy Sang The Blues"
18. Soulja Boy "Zan With That Lean"
19. Hercules & Love Affair: "Boy Blue"; "Painted Eyes"
20. tUnE-yArDs: "Bizness"



[ALBUMS]
1. When Saints Go Machine, Konkylie
2. Ada, Meine Zarten Pfoten
3. Architecture in Helsinki, Moment Bends
4. Hercules and Love Affair, Blue Songs
5. Devon Sproule, I Love You Go Easy
6. Paul Simon, So Beautiful or So What
7. Mayer Hawthorne, How Do You Do + Impressions EP
8. Beyoncé, 4
9. Peter Björn and John, Gimme Some
10. Cults
11. Chrissy Murderbot, Women's Studies

the mix ends before the world

Happy February! So I guess I still owe us an albums list for 2011? I've sort of got one (check the sidebar) but I'm not particularly attached to it –I've switched things around a bit since completing my pazz'n'jop ballot and I'd probably rejigger it more (and possibly sneak in a couple of late-breaking discoveries straddling the 2011/2012 divide) if I were to post about it in earnest. We'll see.. Basically, 2011 felt like a pretty unexciting year for albums – in fact, I've already heard a couple of 2012 releases that I like way more than anything that came out last year (more on those soon...) And it kind of felt like an off year for music in general (though I've now come around to the feeling that it was an excellent year for singles, many of which I didn't fully catch on to until the final round of list-scanning and binge-downloading.)

In fact, I wasn't even sure if I was gonna make a year-encompassing mash-up dance mix this time 'round. But, of course, I did.

And here it is:

[now with a title!]
DANCE UNTIL THE MIX ENDS


[download here]

ETA: back once again with a tracklist:
Cults: Go Outside (2 Bears Remix)
James Blake: Limit To Your Love
Kelly Rowland ft. Lil Wayne: Motivation
Skrillex: Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites
Britney Spears: How I Roll
Wiz Khalifa: On My Level
Magnetic Man ft. Angela Hunter: I Need Air
YC: Racks
Soulja Boy: Zan with that Lean
Sepalcure: Pencil Pimp
Chris Brown ft. Busta Rhymes: Look at Me Now
DJ Khaled ft. Drake: I'm On One
Reema Major: I'm The One
DJ Diamond: Decoded
Kreayshawn: Gucci Gucci
Miiguel: Sure Thing
Kei$ha ft. Andre 6000: The Sleazy Remix
Deerhoof: Super Duper Rescue Heads
Star Slinger: Mornin'
Charles Bradley: The World is Going Up In Flames
Beyoncé: Countdown
The Throne: Otis
Washed Out: Amor Fati
Das Racist: Celebration
Lykke Li: Get Some
Big Freedia: Y'all Get Back Now
M83: Midnight City
Adele: Rollin in the Heat (Jamie xx remix)
Africa Hitech: Do You Really Want To Fight
Architecture in Helsinki: Escapee
tUnE-yArDs: Bizness
Fool's Gold: The Dive
Atropolis: Huepa Je
When Saints Go Machine: Kelly
Pictureplane: Body Mod
The Bees: Gaia
Rebecca Black: Friday
Katy Perry: TGIF
SebastiAn: Tetra
St. Vincent: Cruel
Bullion: Magic Was Ruler
Escort: Cameleon Chameleon
Twin Sister: Bad Street
Hercules & Love Affair: Painted Eyes
Hercules & Love Affair: My House (Stopmakingme remix)
Beyonce: End of Time
Todd Terje: Snooze4Love
Cut Copy: Need You Now
Coldplay: Every Teardrop Is A Waterfall
The Rapture: Come Back To Me
Lana Del Rey: Blue Jeans
Lana Del Rey: Blue Jeans (Penguin Prison Remix)
DRC Music ft. Washiba: If You Wish To Stay Alive
Pallers: Wicked
Blawan: Getting Me Down
Yelle: Comme Un Enfant
DRC Music ft. Love: LOVE
The Very Best: Super Mom
Robyn: Call Your Girlfriend
The Kills: Nail In My Coffin
Kathryn Calder: Who Are You
Purity Ring: Ungirthed
Jamie xx: Far Nearer
Drake ft. Rihanna: Take Care
Benoit & Sergio: Walk and Talk
Lady Gaga: The Edge of Glory
Nicki Minaj: Super Bass
Azealia Banks: 212
Beyonce: Run the World
Nicola Roberts: Beat of My Drum
SBTRKT: Pharoahs
Peter Bjorn & John: Dig a Little Deeper (Mayer Hawthorne Remix)
Foster The People: Pumped Up Kicks
Big K.R.I.T. ft. Ludacris: Country Shit
Rihanna: S&M
Chrissy Murderbot ft. MC Zulu: The Vibe Is So Right
Jacques Greene: Another Girl
Maroon 5: Moves Like Jagger
Ill Blue: Meltdown
Rihanna: We Found Love
LMFAO: Party Rock Anthem
Omar ft. Don Lucenzo: Danza Kuduro
Buraka Som Sistema: Candonga
Jens Lekman: An Argument with Myself
Rustie: Ultra Thizz
Britney Spears: Til The World Ends
Four Tet: Pyramid
#OWS: 99% Chant