With Three Months Down, My Favorite Records of the Year So Far

what is this? I am intrigued by the idea of people doing Pebbles-style comps for old school rap.

http://www.stonesthrow.com/3rd/

11-year-old (in 1981 or so) Pookie Blow rules, trust me...And so does the ventrioliquist guy doing the rap duet with his dummy!

That's a vision. (Also, I knew this would be Chuck's list from the subject line alone = ONE OF US.)

ummm....

Anthony: Yes. I'd say don't let not absolutely loving those songs prevent you from checking out the album; if you HATE them, though, maybe hold off. You'll notice I didn't list those among my favorite singles. If you hear "We Don't Care" and don't like THAT, though, don't buy the CD. (I got my copy for ten bucks in Quakertown, PA, by the way.)

Vahid: I've heard all of those Sublime Frequencies compilations, I think. I like the new batch of four way more than the batch that came out late last year (I can never make it through the DVDs, actually), but Nicotine and Morocco are the ones I keep returning to, for some reason. Maybe they're just weirder, or more beautiful? I dunno...

And Death Comet Crew's album is better than the new Rammelzee album (which I do like, just not as much), though nothing on it is as great as "Beat Bop." But I've been liking some of that Death Comet Crew stuff ever since 1984, when I bought at "At the Marble Bar" EP. Haven't decided whether it's as good as the Gettovetts album yet, though.

woa

of the three mideast ones i definitely like morocco best if only because it's the least cut-up. they actually let songs play out, etc. and less of that "impressionistic" field recording nonsense that plagued the syria disc.

all four of the indonesian discs seemed about comparable to me. slight edge to the radio java disc but i've listened to the new one the least.

i'm sad to hear there's nothing as great as "beat bop" but that was really hope against hope, i guess.

Funny thing about this is that there's also a rapper-and-his-dummy song on the Sugarhill box set ("Check it Out" by Wayne and Charlie the Rapping Dummy).

Kanye and Cee-Lo's albums are the only of my favorite albums that have come out so far this year that I can listen to like EVERY DAY and still love them. There's others I love (Air, John Frusciante, Fantomas, Gift of Gab in partic), but those two are so fucking great. I really want to hear a Kanye-produced Cee-Lo track so fucking bad.

1. Madvillain - Madvillainy
2. Kanye West - College Dropout
3. Arthur Russell - The World of Arthur Russell
4. Arthur Russell - Calling out of Context
5. David Banner - Baptized in Dirty Water
6. Junior Boys - Last Exit
7. Wiley - Treadin' on Thin Ice
8. Murs - 3:16
9. Superpitcher - Here Comes Love
10. Young Gunz - Tough Love
11. Jay-Z - The Grey Album
12. Cee Lo - Cee Lo Green is the Soul Machine
13. TV on the Radio - Desperate Youth, Bloodthirsty Babes
14. Three 6 Mafia - Da Unbreakables (Screwed and Chopped)
15. Mission of Burma - OnOFFOn
16. N*E*R*D - Fly or Die
17. Savath and Savalas - Apropt'a
18. Stereolab - Margerine Eclipse
19. Twista - Kamikaze
20. Probot - Probot
21. GM Grimm - Digital Tears
22. Air - Talkie Walkie
23. Girls Aloud - Sound of the Underground

1. Madvillain - Madvillainy ("interesting" in a really tedious way...
On second thought, not that intersting. I hate concept records!!)
4. Arthur Russell - Calling out of Context (it was, um, listenable,
I suppose. He was always way more boring in non-song mode, though)
6. Junior Boys - Last Exit (their EPs, anyway) (at least the second
one; the first one didn't COMPLETELY go in one ear out the other)
12. Cee Lo - Cee Lo Green is the Soul Machine (neo-soul. "tasteful.")
13. TV on the Radio - Desperate Youth, Bloodthirsty Babes (worst
record I've heard this year, no contest)
17. Savath and Savalas - Apropt'a (though I actually liked their EP
from a couple years ago okay. This one is just an exotica move,
though, right? Kitsch bosa nova, with "real instruments" and
stuff?? So: even more a snoozer than his Prefuse stuff!)

Now this is saying something! The separate thread on them turned up plenty of defenders; the only song I heard was pretty shrugworthy.

1. Twista
2. Cee-Lo (my favorites tend to be the least 'tasteful' and most hip-hop tracks, i.e. I'll Be Around, Scrap Metal, Glockapella, but there is some beautiful stuff on the rest too)
3. Kanye
4. Bad Plus (I'm not quite as excited about it as I was at first, but I still love the band and a couple of the tunes are as good as anything they've done)
5. Squarepusher (still haven't gotten to listen to it that much yet)
6. Stooges Brass Band "It's About Time" (y'all don't know)

haven't heard this yet but i have high hopes for these guys. these are the vistas is a really exciting record; i love hearing groups that just obviously LOVE music. though i'm a bit nervous about the choice of iron man as a cover this time, after the three covers on the last record were really its high points. (that and "everywhere you turn")

doing some ornette is always a good idea though.

My main problem with the record is that some of the originals don't seem to be as memorable or strong melodically (and melody is so important for this band), but like I said some are fantastic (like And Here We Test Our Powers of Observation). I definitely want to spend some more time with it.

Calling out of Context and Madvillain are amazing though...Madvillain is one of the best hip-hop albums I've heard in ages. Better than Trap Muzik, Non-Prophets, Mississippi, Black Album, Viktor Vaughn (my favorite hip-hop albums from last year).

I think you are partly right about Cee Lo. But partly wrong. There are definitely some strong tracks on it.

re: Junior Boys. High Come Down is amazing.

1. Noxagt The Iron Point Load
2. cLOUDDEAD Ten Mush
3. Mark Gergis/Porest I Remember Syria Sublime Frequencies

Reissue/Archival

1. Arthur Russell Calling Out Of Context Audika
2. Henry Flynt and the Insurrections I Don't Wanna Locust
3. The Scientists Pissed On Another Planet Sympathy

Band whose new album I kinda WISH I liked: The Mountain Goats, just because John Darnielle sounds like such a smart and nice guy on this board. A couple songs sorta hold my attention for the duration I guess (the one where somebody gets shot, the one where he tells us to get in the goddam car, the one with the sort of sea chantey Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald melody), but the songs never draw me in because (despite nifty breaking glass sounds here and there), there's never half enough MUSIC in them. It all sounds like SONGWRITING DEMOS to me. So maybe John should get some death metal or crunk band to cover them? I dunno... But lotsa smart people I know disagree with me (see: lead review in this week's *Voice, etc). So again, maybe it's just me.

See, I think there's as much fun in jazz as any other kind of music ("manic" is a judgement call), but I think the Bad Plus guys agree with you, or think they should. So, much of the time they're about "FUN," thrown in your face. Which is no fun. The cover tunes are better tunes than their own tunes. But that isn't exactly a fun thing, either.

Are his vocals amorphous? His voice seems to really gently but effective cut right through a song.

I can see how feeling like you're being beaten over the head by them would be a turn off, but part the charm for me is that they can clearly be over the top and obnoxious at times. I've heard SO MUCH jazz that is playful and polished and great and all, but it's nice to hear something that's different from everything else and so confident in it. For me, it actually is fun and is in a happy area far away from tasteful and stopping just short of tasteless.

Kenny Chesney *When the Sun Goes Down* (if Petty/Mellencamp/Buffet
counts)
Crime in Choir *The Hoop* (if Gentle Giant count)
Ghost, *Hypnotic Underworld* (if Amon Duul count)
Girl, *My Number*
Living Things *Black Skies in Broad Daylight*
Mr. Wonka!?, *Codeine Rock* (if screwed and chopped Foghat counts)
Red Swan *After the Barn Goes,*
Winterhawk *Wind From the Sun,*
*Monster Records: The Seventies Sampler*,

singles:

Last Days of May "The First 7 Billion Miles" (if 40 minutes of
instrumental Hawkwind counts)
Red Swan "What Really Happened at Rose Lake"
Skye Sweetnam "Number One" and "Billy S." (if Scandal count)

I started to write more, but realized I'm going to write an entire review of the album (for my own benefit) and I'll post it here when I finish so you can understand what exactly it is I love about this album...trust me, its not just some intellectual jizzing over his "artsy" lyrics.

I don't feel the least battered by the Bad Plus (wish I did) and the only thing obnoxious is the nudge-nudge wink-wink insistence about how wild and wacky they are. I get blah-obvious and kitschy, not over-the-top. If only they really were tasteless.

(then again, i haven't heard that band cocorosie yet. so who knows?)

Chuck,

Do you really think this is a good record on its own terms, or are you just pleased to see someone, anyone, carrying on the storied tradition of the "answer record"? I wanted to find something interesting or redeeming in "F.U.R.B." -- but "your sex is wack" just doesn't cut it.

Haha, I see. So is it just that the concept feels forced then? I think some of it is absolutely supposed to be kitschy, but songs like Big Eater and ...Powers of Observation (and some of their better 'pretty' songs) are winkless and just plain killin'. They make me laugh and shake my head a lot though, in good ways.

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B0001NBM2G.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg

(I meant "No Pigeons," not "Two Pigeons," though...)

That's a fair description. I simply cannot shake the feeling that's persisted through two albums that they are the latest "jazz for cool people who don't like jazz."

TV on the Radio sounds like Crash Test Dummies crossed with a bad M83 cover badn, at least from what I've heard (something off the Young Liars EP).

Singles
1. Usher feat. Ludacris and Lil Jon - Yeah
2. T.I.-Rubberband Man
3. Jay-Z - Dirt Off Your Shoulder
4. Ying Yang Twins - Salt Shaker
5. Ghostface Killah - Tush
6. David Banner ft. Static – Crank It Up
7. Basement Jaxx - Good Luck
8. Madvillain - All Caps
9. Kiley Dean - Keep it Movin'
10. Jay-Z – 99 Problems
11. Cee-Lo - I'll Be Around
12. Junior Boys - High Comes Down
13. Jacki-O - Slow Down
14. Sage Francis F/ Brother Ali & Slug-Doomage
15. Young Gunz - No Better Love
16. Basement Jaxx - Plug It In
17. Missy Elliott - I'm Really Hot
18. Lil Flip - Game Over
19. Twista feat. Kanye West and Jaime Foxx - Slow Jamz
20. Pitbull - Culo

We've established positions and come to the end of this, seems to me. But I do want to point out that I think this is the old “sincerity gambit.” If performers don't think of themselves as a marketing ploy and play with evident earnestness, this approach somehow makes the music more satisfying or valid.

No. It's irrelevant. Total scams can provide eternal pleasure.

No. It's irrelevant. Total scams can provide eternal pleasure.

Yeah, that argument left kind of a bad taste in my mouth when I wrote it. But it's just as irrelevant as a band being worse somehow for being embraced by clueless hipsters.

We've established positions and come to the end of this, seems to me

Agreed, I've been kind of sick of playing 'defender of the band' anyway. I can easily see how people would not dig them no matter how much I do.

Pantha du Prince - Diamond Daze
The Rotating Assembly - Natural Aspirations
Superpitcher - Here Comes Love
Triple R - Selection 2
Kanye West - The College Dropout
DKD - Future Rage
Kerrier District - Kerrier District
Raiders of the Lost ARP - 4

I am going to give TV on the Radio a chance. Why? Because I'm stupid. Also giving them a chance (i.e. haven't heard; will probably like): Wiley, Junior Boys, Squarepusher, Felix Da Housecat.

United States of Electronica makes Junior Senior sound like Probot so right now I'm in "like in small doses" mode. Depending on whether or not I have ready access to a pool and numerous frosty beverages this summer, I could get a bit more into this record. It does come across as an electro-glee version of almost every boy-girl indie-twee-pop band I've heard on Radio K in the summer of '99.

Speaking of Probot: they make me feel like I'm missing something for not knowing as much about metal as I should, but I also get the odd feeling that if I did know a fair deal about metal, I wouldn't like it at all.

Kanye's OK. I haven't given it more than a cursory listen because the cover vaguely reminds me of Buddy Miles' Booger Bear and, therefore, scares the bejesus out of me.

Yes, it was! And he covered Notorous BIG and the Spice Girls and Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes and Puccini and ??? on the same album! (His last one before he died, I think!) Come to think of it, I like that record better than any Bad Plus album I've heard. But I still way prefer Bad Plus (whose new record is okay, not as good as the one with Nirvana and Blondie and Aphex Twin covers on it) to what Sex Mob I've heard (which just struck me as some kitcshy camp thing; don't ask me to explain WHY it struck me that way though; I can't remember!)

Hey, here's a reminder-comp I made for the first three months a couple days ago (so it's not all from this year, sue me):

Lanterna, "Clear Blue"
Pace de Lucia, "Cositas Buenas"
Ghost, "Feed"
Fragile State, "Four-Four-Four"
Dani Siciliano, "Come As You Are"
Salif Keita, "Madan" (Gekko remix)
Sally Timms & Jon Langford, "Joshua Gone Barbados"
The Fiery Furnaces, "Don't Dance Her Down"
Jon Langford, "Sputnik 57"
Amy Farris, "No Exit"
Mel Brown, "Greasy Spoon"
Dave Douglas, "Rock of Billy"
Black Blood, "A.I.E. (A'Mwana)" (orig. single mix)

It's fine and all, and I love that MMW record, but for some reason it's always felt like TBP are prepared to work with pop music more on its own terms aesthetically. Like expressing the original feeling of the song, just in a totally different way.

This sounds correct to me. I just don't think they're any good at it. Sending up Blondie as piffle and approaching Nirvana with reverence ... would have been lots more impressive if they'd pulled off the reverse.

Haha yes! That is almost exactly how I feel.

Regarding kanye, I think the cover art is terrific! Roger Mexico/Slumberlord said that he wasn't feeling albums as much as singles this year thus far, and I have to agree.

I heard a couple songs from Diamond Daze, and I want to hear more, although it hasn't blown me away thus far.
I also want to hear the new DJ Spooky.

and I'm not just hearing the acclaim here, some friends at the station are nuts about it too.

Decemberists, "Tain"
Mission of Burma, "ONoffON"
What I've heard of "Penance Soiree"
Jim Guthrie, "Now More Than Ever"
Most of the Nellie McKay album
Most of "The College Dropout"
Scissor Sisters, self-titled LP
N.E.R.D., "Drill Sergeant" (the first part)
The Hold Steady, "The Hold Steady Almost Killed Me"
Modest Mouse, "Good News..." (still waiting for full-quality files...)
The first twenty-four seconds of "Simple" by the Beta Band.

Of course, I also really like both of the Maroon 5 singles, so this may not mean much here ... ah well.

By the way, after another listen, the Tanya Stephens record belongs in my top pantheon. No better reggae album has been made since like forever. It's also kinda dancehall and doo-wop and folk-song, fiery and horny (the sweetest love song is about a guy's huge dick)...wow.

I thought so. All talk.

jc chasez, schizophrenic
the intelligence, boredom and terror
erland oye, dj kicks
eletrelane, the power out
the hold steady, almost killed me
incubus, the crow...

I might end up liking it more than the second Lawrence album. The samples at the beginning and end of "Circle Glider" were driving me nuts -- it finally dawned on me the other day that they're from the Chills' "Pink Frost."

albums
Archimides Badkar *Tre*,
Big & Rich *Horse of a Different Color*
Kenny Chesney *When the Sun Goes Down*
Country Teasers *Secret Weapon Revealed At Last*
Crime in Choir *The Hoop*
Death Comet Crew *This is Riphop,*
DNA *DNA on DNA*
The Hiss *Panic Movement*
Living Things *Black Skies in Broad Daylight*
Loretta Lynn *Van Lear Rose*
Montgomery Gentry *You Do Your Thing*
Neurosis *The Eye of Every Storm*
The Ponys *Laced With Romance*
Red Swan *After the Barn Goes,*
Arthur Russell *The World of Arthur Russell,*
Warren Brothers, *Well-Deserved Obscurity*
Will to Power, *Spirit Warrior*
Gretchen Wilson *Here For The Party*
15.60.75, *Jimmy Bell's Still in Town*
*Monster Records: The Seventies Sampler*,
*Princess Nicotine,*
*Radio Morocco,*
*The Third Unheard: Connecticut HipHop 1979-1983,*

singles

Big & Rich "Save a Horse (Ride a Cowboy)"
Big & Rich "Wild West Show,"
Sara Evans "Perfect"
Jay-Z "99 Problems"
J-Kwon "Tipsy"
R. Kelly, "Happy People"
Last Days of May "The First 7 Billion Miles"
Courtney Love, "Mono"
Loretta Lynn featuring Jack White "Portland, Oregon"
Martina McBride "This One's for the Girls,"
Measles Mumps Rubella "Fountain of Youth,"
Montgomery Gentry "If You Ever Stop Loving Me"
Red Swan "What Really Happened at Rose Lake"
Julie Roberts "Break Down Here"
Britney Spears "Toxic,"
Subterranean Masquerade "Observation Through Metamorphosis"
Gretchen Wilson, "Redneck Woman"
Ying Yang Twins featuring Lil Jon "Salt Shaker,"