The heat is so great
It plays tricks with the eye
It turns the road to water
And then from water to sky
And there's a crack in the concrete floor
And it starts at the sink
There's a bathroom in a gas station
And I've locked myself in it to think
And back in the city
The sun bakes the trash on the curb
The men are pissing in doorways
And the rats are running in herds
I got a dream with your face in it
That scares me awake
I put too much on the table
Now I got too much at stake
And I might let you off easy
Yeah I might lead you on
I might wait for you to look for me
And then I might be gone
There's where I come from and
Where I'm going
And I am lost in between
I might go up to that phone booth
And leave a veiled invitation
On your machine
And you'll stop me, won't you
If you've heard this one before
The one where I surprise you
By showing up at your front door
Saying let's not ask what's next,
Or how, or why
I am leaving in the morning
So let's not be shy
The door opens
The room winces
The housekeeper comes in
Without a warning
I squint at the muscular motel light
And say, hey, good morning
As she jumps her keys jingle
And she leaves as quickly
As she came in
And I roll over and taste the pillow with my grin
Well, the sheets are twisted and damp
The heat is so great
And I swear I can feel the mattress
Sinking underneath your weight
Oh sleep is like a fever
And I'm glad when it ends
And the road flows like a river
And pulls me around every bend
It seems I've been predicting the year 2008 to be disappointing from the very start. And though comparatively it has nothing on the awesomeness of last year (except more hipster MGMT-whoring), many mostly unexpected albums have been enjoyable in their own right. This was supposed to be a recap but it kind of turned into full reviews for each release, with way too many videos/free mp3 links for your enjoyment. Anyway, here's my best of 2008.
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - DIG, LAZARUS, DIG!!!
The only people dismissing this album are:
a. The ones crying "oh, Nick Cave's just making the same album again" - see Stairway to Hell: The 500 Best Heavy Metal Albums in the Universe (a.k.a. There Are Only 100 Good Metal Albums So I'll Just Complain About The Others) author Chuck Eddy's comments that he preferred John Mellencamp's (!!!!!) 2008 release. They didn't listen to it.
b. The ones crying that Nick Cave DIDN'T make the same album again - the same people who hated Murder Ballads because it wasn't serious enough.
But really, on this album Cave takes the lessons learned from last year's (also fantastic) garage-rock influenced Grinderman album and applies them to this more conceptual music with less abandon, the title track telling the story of Lazarus resurrected from the dead in New York in a thrilling, rambling faux-preacher voice. Another highlight is the self-deprecating We Call Upon the Author, where he calls on God/literary authors/himself "to explain" in wordy, syllable-cramming verses, then jokes "Prolix! Prolix! Nothing a pair of scissors can't fix!" As prolific as Cave may be, he really has no need to self-edit. It's fantastic to know that a man half a year younger than my parents can, thirty years into his career, not only make new, fresh-sounding music, but some of his finest work to date. Free mp3 via Here Comes The Flood - Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!
Dead Letter Circus - Next In Line
Not sure if this is a second, half-length EP or a single from an album that's yet to be written or recorded, but it sees Australia's Next Big Thing in progressive-influenced music further consolidating and streamlining their already tight sound. The title track bursts out of the speakers at full blast with typically epic vocals and what sounds like a tapped rhythm guitar part in their heaviest song yet. The other two tracks Reaction and Tremors relax the dynamics slightly, but not the intensity. This release's one fault is that it sees the band's sound becoming a little familiar - they'll really have to bring it up a notch if their debut album in 2009 is to live up to the hype. MySpace - Dead Letter Circus
Ani DiFranco - Red Letter Year
Here's a stereotype: motherhood changes female singer-songwriters. In Tori Amos' case, The Beekeeper was arguably her worst album (though I certainly don't hate it). But on Red Letter Year, Ani DiFranco doesn't pander to feel-the-love sentimentality. She's certainly discarded her more direct punk tendencies, but that doesn't mean she'll settle for the status quo. But she is content with where she's at in life, and that shines through in the uplifting, yet determined music she's making now. On songs like Alla This, her ever-capable acoustic guitar plays second fiddle to powerful drums and a string quartet, creating a different musical beast, yet she's as passionate as ever - she "won't pray to a male god, 'cause you know that would be insane". Interestingly, the album both starts and ends with a version of the title track. Red Letter Year opens on what seems like New Year's Eve 2007, declaring that this'll be a "red letter year", following with a statement of discontent, one being: "And representing the white race
A man with a monkey for a face
Is flying over in his helicopter
Whistling dixie and playing dumb"
But change is in the air: "So let's pull up some barstools
And get ourselves a ringside seat
For one unnerving moment
They're gonna show the truth on TV"
Closing track Red Letter Year Reprise in contrast sounds like the New Orleans jazz band soundtrack to a DiFranco New Year's Eve party on New Year's Eve 2008. The mood is joyous, and something has changed: no doubt Ani DiFranco was betting on a Barack Obama victory; but more than that, it feels like she's found self-satisfaction during the 366 (leap year) days in between.
On Present/Infant, the most autobiographical song about her new experience as a mother, she declares this: "Lately I've been glaring into mirrors
Picking myself apart
You'd think at my age I'd have thought
Of something better to do
Than making insecurity into a full-time job
Making insecurity into art
And I fear my life will be over
And I will have never lived unfettered
Always glaring into mirrors
Mad I don't look better"
Is there anyone who could possibly be unsatisfied with, from 1990 to 2006, 14 independently issued studio albums worth of self-evaluation and raging against the machine? Does anyone want unhappiness in Ani DiFranco's life so she makes apparently better music? If you do, you're every bit as conservative as the patriarchy she's been subverting for 18 years. Trent Reznor knows this too: true artists sometimes have to move on. Ani says it best herself:
"And I've got myself a new mantra
It says: 'Don't forget to have a good time'"
Thomas Feiner & Anywhen - The Opiates Revised
So this is actually a reissue of the 2000 album The Opiates by Anywhen, under a different name and with an extra song. But it's nothing short of a lost classic that deserves a second chance at exposure. Vocalist Thomas Feiner has a beautiful, archetypally baritone voice, and the music is in the vein of the orchestrated Songs of Leonard Cohen album via a modern Jeff Buckley perspective. Opening track The Siren Songs has a sublime. haunting string part, and its big, reverb-filled production makes an already strong song stunning. This is authentic chamber pop from before the likes of Arcade Fire and Broken Social Scene even existed; yet the mood often invokes a 1930s film noir-type soundtrack of black-and-white, mysterious figures in lonely jazz bars. Certainly my vote for reissue of the year (and the most obscure album on this list). Free mp3 via RCRD LBL - The Siren Songs
Fleet Foxes - Fleet Foxes
The one kind-of hipster indie album with ubiquitous acclaim that WASN'T synthpop, and (not necessarily as a result) was genuinely fantastic. Fleet Foxes seemed to come almost out of nowhere with their fully formed, timeless folk harmonizing sound, yet never sound dated, "retro" or derivative. But personally I have to disagree with one thing: I think the album is more representative of their future potential rather than an achievement in itself - Robin Pecknold himself has commented that listening to it now, all he hears is things he would change. The best is yet to come. Free mp3 via RCRD LBL - He Doesn't Know Why Free mp3 via Stereogum - He Doesn't Know Why Free live EP - Daytrotter Session
Genghis Tron - Board Up The House
The word grindcore scared me off, but the album's actually very melodic. Genghis Tron do a great job of combining that melodic sense with both brutality and electronic influences that extend to having no drummer (the drum machine's given quite a workout). But unlike many mathcore-oriented bands, they can actually write coherent songs. One of the best, most distinctive bands in extreme music today. MySpace - Genghis Tron
Girl Talk - Feed The Animals
The one 2008 album that can turn anyone into an instant party DJ. Greg Gillis, a.k.a. Girl Talk, basically does what The Avalanches do with the complete opposite effect - where their Since I Left You album used obscure samples to create nostalgia-evoking songs, Gillis samples hundreds of popular songs on this album to create a distinctly modern product. The recognizability is much of what makes Feed the Animals pure fun - if you hear this for the first time on your computer, try to write down how many songs you know (I scored around 25).
On a creative level, recontextualization must be Greg Gillis' favourite word. He breaks down the rockist barriers between so-called "good" and "mainstream" music - say, combining Jay-Z's Roc Boys with Radiohead's Paranoid Android, or Sinead O'Connor's Nothing Compares 2 U with the gangsta delivery of "I was gettin' some head". Whilst the people who hate this mistakenly look for the intellectual in the end product, they'll find it in the pedantic, time-consuming process required to make such a work. No, instead the end product is unashamedly populist, and the most fun you'll have all year.
Goldfrapp - Seventh Tree
Diversity is one of the most underrated qualities any artist can have. Goldfrapp kickstarted the recent trend of stomping glam-influenced electropop with 2003's Black Cherry and 2005's Supernature, causing the likes of Kylie Minogue to attempt their own takes. Wisely, on Seventh Tree Goldfrapp jump off the bandwagon before saturation point and into an unfamiliar folktronica style that shares only occasional introversion with their 2000 debut Felt Mountain. They pull off the pastoral folk convincingly, especially impressive since neither Allison Goldfrapp nor Will Gregory plays guitar. But as the likes of Pitchfork have so gloriously misunderstood, beauty and naturalistic imagery aren't the point here - an undercurrent of lyrical subversion (perfectly likened to The Wicker Man) lies beneath the surface. Opening track Clowns has two obstacles to comprehending it - Allison Goldfrapp's intentionally slurred delivery, such as "only clouwns would play wid dough balloooou", and the actual meaning of what "those balloons" refers to. You'll be surprised at how obvious it is when you get it.
The first single and uncontestable album highlight A&E is Goldfrapp's best synthesis of both folk and electronica, and beautiful music with strangely dark lyrics. It opens with just Allison and an acoustic guitar, creating the nitially pretty mood of a "bright blue Saturday", subtlely adding instruments into the mix as the listener tries to decode the lyrical images such as "a backless dress on a pastel ward that's shining". The overwhelmingly beautiful chorus is full of longing, and the second time around it leads to a climax of pure bliss through keyboard swells and low-end folk strums, fading almost too soon back into where it came. If Black Cherry and Supernature were the nightclub and the pills before you felt their effects, this is the morning after, which can only be described as post-overdose bliss. It's not necessarily something Goldfrapp should be encouraging, but if taking ecstasy can lead to musical ecstasy like this, it's hard to disagree. Hands-down the best song of 2008.
Video - A&E
The video is strangely beautiful, but ultimately a diversion when it comes to the song's meaning - a more literal interpretation could have been incredibly powerful.
Guns N' Roses - Chinese Democracy
I found the fact that I enjoyed it even more surprising than its actual release. It certainly doesn't justify my almost literally lifelong wait, but what could? The songs are decent, bar a few ballads bordering on Broadway pastiches without the heart or Slash standing on a piano of a November Rain. The overproduction - ostensibly the cause of all the delays - is actually quite fascinating, and ends up being one of the best things about the album, giving the decade-old songs a much-needed modern sound, making up slightly for the overall stylistic anonymity of the many guitarists (though Buckethead's shredding on Shackler's Revenge is unmistakable). Of the three rather unexpected "legacy rock" releases of 2008 - the others being AC/DC and Metallica - Chinese Democracy is the only one that does something new, and for me, that helps it limp into the year's most enjoyable and intriguing, if not best albums. Shame they bungled its [url=http://www.metalsucks.net/2008/12/05/chinese-democracy-the-sound-of-epic-fail/>release, though even if I was American I'd still find Dr. Pepper disgusting.
To the critics who see Guns N' Roses as some four-chord misogynistic 80's hard rock relic and expected, no, desired something in that vein, I ask you this:
1. Wouldn't the 17-year wait have made even less sense then?
2. Did you know that the final line of Appetite for Destruction is, with total sincerity, "All I ever wanted is for you to know that I care"? Free mp3 from unpiano - Chinese Democracy
House vs. Hurricane - Forfeiture
These guys have come a long way since I saw them as Beyond Mine at my second ever gig in 2006. Melbourne seems to be producing a handful of fantastic, heavier progressive bands (Be'lakor, Ne Obliviscaris etc.) with distinctive sounds, and House vs. Hurricane are no exception. Described as "cinematic hardcore", they combine detuned, almost melodic death guitars with a keyboardist who doesn't show off with flashy leads, but manages to fit in without ever sounding intrusive. In their debut EP's first four minutes, they go from a playful yet unsettling glockenspiel intro into convincing metal complete with growls, to melodic choruses and even dance beats that, strangely, work perfectly. This is a band at the forefront of post-hardcore, for those who find the likes of Thrice to have drifted too far from the genre or emos who want genuine music. It'll be nice when one day the first thing that comes to mind when someone mentions "Australian hardcore" isn't Parkway Drive. Video - Forfeiture
Jenny Lewis - Acid Tongue
It's better than Under the Blacklight!!!* But the first Jenny Lewis-related release I got to anticipate (having finally listened to Rilo Kiley on 1/1/2008) ended up being a little less than I expected. The short analog recording process gives it a nice organic feel, but bar the title track, Jenny writes from a somewhat detached point of view, which forces you to appreciate almost the music alone rather than the overall intent like on Rabbit Fur Coat or More Adventurous. And The Watson Twins are missed too. Even if the songwriting isn't her absolute best, she's still breaking new ground - like the nearly 9-minute medley The Next Messiah, and the thrilling double-time country-rock coda in Jack Killed Mom, where she pushes her vocal range into the upper registers we've never heard before. But is it too much to ask for some of this stuff on the next Rilo Kiley album (if there even will be one)? Still, one of the best of 2008.
*After two months I realized I actually do prefer Under the Blacklight despite Dejalo... There's just something compelling about Rilo Kiley as a unit. Sadly, there isn't that much about this album that says it couldn't have worked as a Rilo Kiley record - it certainly would've benefited from Blake Sennett's guitar playing.
Video - Carpetbaggers (live on David Letterman with Elvis Costello)
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e0CTfwphpes?[/youtube]
Also, her record label Team Love has generously started a "library" initiative - this month, you can "borrow" (permanently) her first solo album Rabbit Fur Coat for free! For any hipsters who've just caught on, DOWNLOAD IT NOW. It's better than Acid Tongue! Free album download via Team Love Library - Rabbit Fur Coat
Nine Inch Nails - The Slip
Trent Reznor, once the tortured genius who laboured in the studio over every note, has done the unthinkable and actually become prolific. Since before the release of Year Zero in early 2007, he's managed that album's brilliant online "alternate reality game" and its dozens of websites, purposely leaked tracks on USB drives at gigs, written a treatment for a TV adaptation, one-upped the Radiohead model with both Saul Williams' NiggyTardust and his own Ghosts I-IV and their different packages, done a world tour or two and updated a daily photoblog with pictures from it. Oh, and he's given the record industry The Slip by giving it away online for free.
So obviously The Slip doesn't have the sonic attention to detail of even Year Zero, but it's nevertheless a solid album. In his forties, he seems to have realized the futility of turning Nine Inch Nails into a stereotype of junkie angst, and instead, on songs like Discipline and Echoplex, he in fact sounds like he might be having fun. But there's no shortage of experimentation either - Corona Radiata is a drone piece up there with the best on Ghosts I-IV. There's also simple but beautiful album artwork in PDF form for each track. But really, it's almost as if the music itself is irrelevant - download it now. Free official album download - The Slip
Opeth - Watershed
Even some of Opeth's comparatively worst work is still among the year's best music. It doesn't have Ghost Reveries' combination of accessibility and art, but at least they're not repeating themselves. Some of the most unexpected moments turn out to be the highlights, such as the funk organ in The Lotus Eater, and the beautiful acoustic outro of Burden shifting into the sinister as the guitar is continuously detuned whilst being played. The new additions of Fredrik Åkesson and Martin Axenrot have proven to be solid, just like the album, and though it's not (as) brilliant, nothing Opeth puts out ever fails to be both enjoyable and thought-provoking. Free mp3 via Metal Bastard's MP3 Blahg - Burden
Portishead - Third
One of this year's most shockingly original works. Leave it to Portishead to defy their iconic, sparse trip-hop roots and create, 14 years later, something that would confound any hipsters attempting to hijack their music for dinner parties. But though Third is an easy album to respect, it's far more difficult to outright enjoy, or even comprehend, like the minute-and-a-half Deep Water - Beth Gibbons backed by just a ukulele and baffling barbershop-inflected backing vocals. The one song with a clear intent could be single Machine Gun, one of the most visceral and best songs of 2008, which contrasts Gibbons' mournful singing with a harsh, continuous industrial beat. I find it hard to believe that Pitchfork-worshipping hipsters and their affected indie pop can appreciate an album as claustrophobic as Third, but the rest of us will also have to put in multiple listens to reach anything close to understanding. This album demands a full 55 minutes of undivided attention like nothing else in a world on constant shuffle, but it'll be more than worth it. Free mp3 via Winnie Cooper - Machine Gun
Protest the Hero - Fortress
If I'd heard of Protest the Hero a few years ago, they'd have been my favourite band ever. They incorporate progressive, unconventional song structures into their music, yet focus 100% its melodic components by basically having constant shred-worthy lead guitar. Nowadays, despite having some sort of incomprehensible that makes me question the amount of depth and meaning to their music where I never would have before. But there's no question they do it well, and it makes for great Frets on Fire workouts. Free mp3 via Music Fan's Mic - Bloodmeat
Rhymefest - Mark Ronson presents Rhymefest: MAN IN THE MIRROR
If you missed the lack of a stadium-filling Kanye West album this year, download this for free now. If you need further encouragement, it's the best Michael Jackson-related album in about 17 years too.
"Number one Michael Jackson fan" Rhymefest's collaboration with Mark Ronson has seen him forking out for studio time to create a legally almost unreleaseable "dedication album", full of grand, yet personal hip-hop songs using Jackson material. But they never take the easy way out by doing a Puff Daddy and, say, simply rapping over Thriller or Billie Jean - instead, most of the samples are from Jackson 5 songs. The interplay and chemistry between Rhymefest and Jackson feels incredible, especially given they've never met - see the contrasts between the rapping and a child Jackson on the affecting No Sunshine, or the original chorus of the hit title track acting as if to reasssure Rhymefest of all his self-doubts and weaknesses. They even manage to create skits WORTH LISTENING TO (in my opinion, a first in the hip-hop world) - if you recognize the original Thriller reissue's bonus content with Jackson and Vincent Price, you'll actually laugh out loud when Rhymefest inserts his own voice into it.
This is my single favourite hip-hop album, and maybe I haven't explored the genre enough, but that doesn't diminish it one bit. Out of his own time and money, Rhymefest has created a tribute to Michael Jackson far better than Thriller 25 in the same year; one that's also thematically cohesive, concise (a very rare quality in hip-hop albums), and totally heartfelt. The least you could do is to download it for free, unless you're Michael Jackson, in which case Man in the Mirror could make quite the career revival. Free official album download - Mark Ronson presents Rhymefest: Man in the Mirror
School of Seven Bells - Alpinisms
Though School of Seven Bells have been labelled as shoegaze, it's not really an apt description - there's a strange clarity to Alpinisms rather than the Loveless-like haze one might expect. Instead, the music is rooted in indie pop, but instrumentated with keyboard swells and electronic beats, identical twin sister vocalists Alejandra and Claudia Deheza providing almost telepathic harmonies over the top. At its best - in my opinion second track Face to Face on High Places - a slightly tribal beat achieves an unstereotypical world music sound, evoking nature with electronica. It's like their take on what I think Björk wanted but failed to achieve with last year's Volta, or The Postal Service with more influences and less Ben Gibbard earnestness. It's rare to find a band debuting with such a distinctive, fully-formed sound. Very promising. Free mp3 via Stereogum - Connjur
Sigur Rós - Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust
Translated as "With a buzz in our ears we play endlessly", the album title and cover sum up the music perfectly. This is beautiful music, but mostly performed with more grounded, organic pianos and acoustic guitars, though songs like Ára bátur take a more epic route via triumphant orchestrations. In contrast, opening track and first single Gobbledigook is filled with playful falsetto jabbering as unselfconscious as the band are naked on the cover. Everyone's favourite Icelandic band must be applauded for being not only willing to change stylistically, but for doing so whilst retaining the joyous quality that's always been central to their music. The greater sense of accessibility and structure makes this album a great introduction to post-rock for those who might not be prepared for formless instrumental epics as first listens. Free mp3 via Stereogum - Gobbledigook
Son Lux - At War With Walls & Mazes
Ryan Lott, a.k.a. Son Lux, makes amazingly modern electronic music with classically influenced melodies and instrumentation. His songs often start with minimal piano and his Sufjan Stevens-esque voice repeating a few lines like mantras for the whole song, then they build and build and build, adding everything from flutes to choirs to massive post-trip-hop, Nine Inch Nails-esque beats. The song Stand in particular has this one HOLY SHIT moment where an electronic drum freakout and crazy soprano opera singer's glass-shattering high notes creep up slowly behind Lott's soft vocals and big piano chords. It's like the perfect headphone soundtrack to stargazing, but at the same time it's grounded by an incredible spiritual and emotional quality to the music. This is without a doubt the most overlooked album of 2008 - though after hearing a track on NPR's year-end summary, I've sadly only had the chance to listen to it twice. Amongst all the critically acclaimed debuts of this year, I have to say this stands out the most. Highly recommended. Free mp3 via Pitchfork - Break
Thrice - The Alchemy Index Vols III & IV: Air & Earth
The Alchemy Index is four separate EPs, each with musical explorations of one of the classical Greek elements. Following up on last year's Fire & Water volumes is the final installment of Air & Earth, and appropriately, neither of the two have any of the aggressive post-hardcore/metal Thrice were once known for. Air largely uses almost Explosions in the Sky-esque tones to invoke its chosen element: largely clean lead guitars and big drums. Yet they also manage what sounds impossible - making the heavy guitars at the end of Silver Wings sound "light" and airy. In particular, Daedalus is one of the best songs they've ever written - a retelling of the Greek tale of Daedalus and son Icarus' flight with feather-and-wax wings to escape from the Minotaur-containing labyrinth Daedalus built. Told from the father's perspective, it makes the tragedy feel truly real, relating perfectly to the elemental theme.
Earth establishes an equally distinct sound - pianos that evoke empty saloons in Westerns and snares played with brushes, or drums that plod as if walking through the desert. Single Come All You Weary is undoubtedly the highlight, but while Earth is full of evocative sounds, it's a little short on solid songs, and for that reason it's possibly the worst of Thrice's four EPs.
It's still a monumental achievement though - the concept behind The Alchemy Index could be distinctly fantasy-prog like Tales from Topographic Oceans, but Thrice have made it emotionally powerful, yet thematically coherent and diverse. The EP format is a perfect length, yet it also creates the necessity of experiencing The Alchemy Index as a somewhat inaccessible double album. While I look forward to a true album-length follow-up to Vheissu, probably still their finest work, The Alchemy Index certainly can't be considered a band indulenge or diversion. Free mp3 via Circles of Concrete - Daedalus
To-Mera - Delusions
Female-fronted progressive metal: four words that should make me go weak at the knees. Combine that with a short attention span for musical styles (longer than Between the Buried and Me; shorter than Opeth) and it makes for some fascinating music. But at the moment, their problem seems to be that vocalist Julie Kiss is in the wrong band. She's a fantastic Within Temptation-style singer, and whenever she is singing, the band leans more to the melodic, and there's real potential for an emotional pull. But the band's intricate instrumental parts are a double-edged sword; it's a major advantage they have over virtually every verse-chorus gothic metal band, yet they're often just too abstract. It takes only two minutes for opening track The Lie to veer into not a jazz-influenced metal section, but a literal jazz section, complete with walking bass and a synth horn section. Other times the keyboardist steers them towards circus-esque interludes; more in the vein of Mr. Bungle than Arcturus, but not being a band whose basis is schizophrenic style changes, it feels largely inappropriate.
Nevertheless, this is a band with massive potential, and at least on the first five tracks here, they do it well. MySpace - To-Mera
TV on the Radio - Dear Science
This is clearly one of the best bands of the moment, yet it's just as hard for me to say why as to even classify them. They engage me more intellectually than melodically - Dear Science is clearly an appropriate soundtrack for the end of the Bush era, yet I find some moments musically awkward - like most of Dancing Choose (which I suppose is kind of intentional), and singer Tunde Adebimpe's somewhat goofy fifth-interval jumps in the verse of the otherwise moving Family Tree. But otherwise, their art-rock soundscapes and occasional hip-hop rhythms are made fairly accessible through the likes of funk guitar, but they're no less powerful for it.
Video - Dancing Choose (live on David Letterman)
Whenever Weezer releases a self-titled album, they're trying to make a statement - introducing themselves on Blue, the originally-enjoyable streamlining of their sound on Green that eventually led to worse things, and Red, an attempt to reclaim their creativity. Red's enlarged ambition alone, reflected in Rivers Cuomo's bizarre lyrical point of view, written from a caricature of a brash teenager's perspective, means I want to rank it above Green, but it's hit-or-miss. But in one way or another, every song on this album tries something new: Troublemaker and Pork and Beans made up for their slight familiarity with awesomely entertaining videos. The Greatest Man That Ever Lived (Variations on a Shaker Hymn) goes gratuitously from gangsta rap to driving power-pop to overdubbed choirs and works perfectly, and The Angel and the One is their most emotional, epic closer since Only in Dreams. As for Heart Songs, a Cuomo autobiography through musical references with the most sentimental ever mention of Slayer in all of music, everyone should have their own version of this song with lyrics adjusted to fit, even if unemotional indie hacks more retro-oriented than Weezer found the nostalgia overly sentimental.
But the other half isn't as successful. Everybody Get Dangerous makes that weird teenage perspective downright juvenile, and similarly downgrades the music to Good Charlotte-lite. Dreamin' is an attempt at a pop song in sonata form: at least it works, but it's overdone. The real problem with this album is the songs by the other three members of the band - an experiment that you'd love to work. Brian Bell and Scott Shriner can harmonize spectacularly, but are weak lead vocalists. Even worse, their songs aren't just average, but they don't sound like Weezer songs; in contrast, the stylistic shifts every thirty seconds on the Cuomo-sung The Greatest Man That Ever Lived still sound like Weezer despite going far beyond than four chords. Admittedly, drummer Patrick Wilson fares better in all aspects.
Either way, the good tracks on The Red Album have been severely underrepresented - Pitchfork in particular seem to have a hard-on for Cuomo's solid but unmemorable demo compilations solely for their lo-fi quality. Weezer will never make another Pinkerton, but when it comes to reclaiming their creativity, this is a start.
Video - Pork & Beans
Steven Wilson - Insurgentes
I didn't even expect this album's release, let alone such ambition in a Steven Wilson solo album. The songwriting style is much more loosely structured than recent Porcupine Tree, and incorporates electronic influences for a greater focus on texture - moments like the massive distorted bass tone in Abandoner are amazing. The variety of the album's sounds and influences lead one to think that with a little more focus, it actually could have been the best album of 2008, as opposed to the best in Rate Your Music fanboys' heads. Still, solo albums usually have no right to be this good. MySpace - Steven Wilson
Here they are, all in one place. We received just under 1000 votes overall, so thank you for taking part. Look out for our 2008 yearbook issue, coming soon.
I'm bored. And I never really got around to doing this, so why not? I'm adding in an extra category and doing all 50 top artists just for the hell of it.
Ani DiFranco
Shy
