Rilo Kiley – Music For Kids Who Can't Read Good

20 Albums Snubbed By The People's List

Like many of you, I’ve been spending a lot of time today digging into Pitchfork’s People’s List and, while I think the 27,000+ voters got lots of stuff right, there was also plenty of albums I thought were criminally overlooked. So I turned those harbored resentments into a list (because that’s just what bloggers do, right?).

So, these are my picks of the albums from 1996-2011 that were robbed of their deserved People’s List glory by the 88% male, urbanites that voted in this thing. I limited myself to one album per artist (otherwise you’d be getting a lot more Mountain Goats albums on here). So without further ado, here’s the 20 Albums Snubbed By The People’s List. Enjoy!

20 Albums Snubbed By The People’s List

20. Beluah – When Your Heartstrings Break
MP3 Score From Augusta

19. The Decemberists – Castaways & Cutouts
MP3 July! July!

18. Bright Eyes – Lifted or The Story is in the Soil, Keep Your Ear to the Ground
MP3 Bowl of Oranges

17. Mates of State – Bring It Back
MP3 Beautiful Dreamer

16. Destroyer – Destroyer’s Rubies
MP3 European Oils

15. Andrew Bird – Armchair Apocrypha
MP3 Heretics

14. Rilo Kiley – The Execution of All Things
MP3 With Arms Outstretched

13. Okkervil River – Black Sheep Boy
MP3 For Real

12. Jens Lekman – Oh, You’re So Silent Jens
MP3 Black Cab

11. Cloud Cult – The Meaning of 8
MP3 Take Your Medicine

10. Phoenix – It’s Never Been Like That
MP3 Consolation Prizes

9. Sunset Rubdown – Shut Up I Am Dreaming
MP3 Us Ones In Between

8. Belle & Sebastian – Push Barman To Open Old Wounds
MP3 I’m Waking Up To Us

7. Stars – Set Yourself On Fire
MP3 Ageless Beauty

6. Sunny Day Real Estate – How It Feels To Be Something on
MP3 How It Feels To Be Something On

5. Iron & Wine – The Shepherd’s Dog
MP3 Resurrection Fern

4. of Montreal – Satanic Panic In The Attic
MP3 Disconnect The Dots

3. The Mountain Goats – Tallahassee
MP3 No Children

2. Beirut – Gulag Orkestrar
MP3 Postcards From Italy

1. The Hold Steady – Separation Sunday
MP3 Your Little Hoodrat Friend

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If you have any albums you thought were overlooked by the People’s List, let me know in the comments!

50 Songs Of The Decade (2000 – 2009)

(photo by dcdead)

I released my 50 albums of the decade list two years ago with all intentions to follow it up with a matching songs list. Days turned into weeks and weeks into months. No such list ever materialized and I kindof gave up on the idea. That is until earlier this summer when I took a weekend trip to visit some friends in Chicago and decided to soundtrack the drive with a playlist of my favorite songs from 2000-2009. I thought the mix turned out pretty good so I chiseled it down to my absolute favorite 50 songs, gave them a mostly-arbitrary ranking and now I’m sharing it with you. Of course, belating this list for two years has given me the necessary perspective to narrow this list down to only the essentials. These are the tracks that I play over and over and never get tired of, the songs that always make me turn the volume up when they shuffle on my iPod, basically the songs that are “really, really ridiculously good looking” and not just “so hot right now”.

A few words of about this list, I’m not claiming to have made an end-all be-all “greatest songs of the naughts” list, just my personal favorites. A few folks took offense to the lack of some genres (ahem, hip hop) on the albums list but hopefully this one will counterbalance that woeful underrepresentation somewhat. Furthermore, I didn’t do full reviews of each track, because seriously, who has that kind of time, but I’ve created a Spotify Playlist where you can listen to all of the tracks (there’s also vimeo/youtube videos linked to each one). In keeping with my yearly songs lists I’ve limited myself to one track per artist. If you scroll all the way down you’ll see some songs that “just missed” and some per-year stats (‘05 reins supreme again in my book). So here it is, the long overdue top 50 songs of the decade according to me. Feel free to dispute or agree with my choices in the comments. Enjoy!

music for kids who can’t read good presents: 50 Songs Of The Decade (2000 – 2009)

Most easily found on: The Earth Is Not A Cold Dead Place

Most easily found on: The Execution Of All Things

Most easily found on: Bows + Arrows

Most easily found on: Veckatimest

Most easily found on: Sticking Fingers Into Sockets

Most easily found on: Black Sheep Boy

Most easily found on: White Blood Cells

Most easily found on: Let It Die

Most easily found on: Shut Up I Am Dreaming

Most easily found on: Give Up

Follow the jump to see the rest!

Continue reading “50 Songs Of The Decade (2000 – 2009)” →

You know how to whistle, don't you?

From “(Sittin’ On) The Dock of the Bay” to “Me and Julio Down By The Schoolyard” to basically any song by Andrew Bird, there’s always something about whistling that that makes a track burrow deep inside your brain and stay there. Earlier this year, Foster The People’s “Pumped Up Kicks” turned a catchy melody and even catchier whistle into a massive crossover hit (it even inspired a cover version by Weezer). This is nothing new of course, if you look at the most popular indie songs of the past few years you’ll find that many of them feature a healthy dosage of whistles (see: “Tighten Up”, “Home”, “Young Folks”). In a tribute to fine artform of just putting your lips together and blowing, I’ve made a mix of some of my favorite whistling tunes, including ones you all know as well as a few that may have slipped under your radar. Enjoy!

MP3 Foster The People – Pumped Up Kicks
MP3 Andrew Bird – A Nervous Tick Motion of the Head to the Left
MP3 Chad VanGalen – Sara
MP3 Noah and the Whale – 5 Years Time
MP3 Rilo Kiley – Ripchord
MP3 De La Soul – Eye Know
MP3 The New Pornographers – Crash Years
MP3 Suckers – Roman Candles
MP3 Black Keys – Tighten Up
MP3 Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr. – Simple Girl
MP3 Paul Simon – Me and Julio Down By The Schoolyard
MP3 Radical Face – Glory
MP3 Peter Bjorn and John – Young Folks
MP3 David Bowie – Golden Years
MP3 The Maccabees – Toothpaste Kisses
MP3 TV on the Radio – A Method
MP3 Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros – Home
MP3 Lovin’ Spoonful – Daydream
MP3 Loney Dear – I Was Only Going Out
MP3 Karen O and the Kids – All Is Love

Let me know some of your favorite whistling songs in the comments!

The F-Bomb Mix

When Sufjan Stevens’s new album Age of Adz hit the web, apart from the auto-tune section in “Impossible Soul”, the most talked thing about the album was the multiple F-bomb drops in the song “I Want To Be Well”. Rewind a couple months back and Cee-Lo’s delightful anthem “F*** You” was making waves for it’s incessant usage of the word. So, inspired by the recent upswing of F-bombin’, I’ve made a mix of my favorite uses using the notorious word in song (with the lyric in question highlighted below). Let me know some of your favorites in the f***ing comments.

MP3 Sufjan Stevens – I Want To Be Well
“I’m not f***ing around I’m not, I’m not, I’m not f***ing around”

MP3 The Antlers – Two
“Daddy was an asshole, he f***ed you up”

MP3 MC5 – Kick Out The Jams
“Right now, Right Now, Right Now, I think it’s time to…KICK OUT THE JAMS MOTHERF***ER!”

MP3 Vampire Weekend – Oxford Comma
“Who gives a f*** about an Oxford comma?”

MP3 Cee-Lo Green – F*** You
“I see you driving ’round town with the girl I love and I’m like, F*** you!”

MP3 Bright Eyes – Lover I Don’t Have To Love
“I want a lover I don’t have to love / I want a girl who’s too sad to give a f***”

MP3 UGK – Int’l Players Anthem (I Choose You)
“My partner yellin “Too soon! Dont do it! Reconsider! Read some litera – ture on the subject. You sure? F*** it”

MP3 Broken Social Scene – Cause = Time
“They all want to f*** the cause”

MP3 Islands – Don’t Call Me Whitney, Bobby
“f*** what you heard, you were lied to”

MP3 The National – Mr. November
“I won’t f*** us over, I’m Mr. November”

MP3 Wilco – Ashes of American Flag
“I wonder why we listen to poets and nobody gives a f***”

MP3 MGMT – Time To Pretend
“I’ll move to Paris, shoot some heroin and f*** with the stars”

MP3 Ryan Adams – Come Pick Me Up
“i wish you would come pick me up, take me out, f*** me up”

MP3 Titus Andronicus – Theme from “Cheers”
“And now that I’m older, I look back and say, ‘What the f*** was it for anyway?'”

MP3 Rilo Kiley – Spectacular Views
“It’s so f***ing beautiful”

50 Albums of the Decade

(photo by dcdead)

I told myself I wasn’t going to do a decades album list. I mean how can you really rank all your favorite albums over a period of ten years that isn’t even completed yet? Over the last couple of months though, I found myself slowly beginning to compile a list of my albums from the 00’s that I loved and I then I began chiseling the list down to around 50 albums. I guess my love for making lists got in the way of the logic and reasoning I had for not making a list. Also since, I started this blog around the middle of the decade I thought only fair that I share this list to acknowledge those great albums that I wasn’t around to write about or put into a fancy EOY list.

A few words of about this list, firstly, these are my personal favorites of the decade and not the end-all be-all of decade-end lists. I realize that some genres (ahem, hip hop) are being woefully underrepresented because of this. Secondably, I would have liked to do full-scale reviews for each album but life kept getting in the way so instead for each album I’ve linked reviews that I feel capture the spirit of the album (click the album cover to go to there). Scroll all the way down to see some albums that “just missed” and some per-year stats (if you want to know which year is best, it’s between ’02 and ’05). So without any further ado, here’s the top 50 albums of the decade according to me. Feel free to dispute or agree with my choices in the comments. Enjoy!

music for kids who can’t read good presents: 50 Albums Of The Decade

Key track: “Beautiful Dreamer”

Key track: “Two Weeks”

Key track: “Postcards in Italy”

Key track: “Hotel Yorba”

Key track: “Consolation Prizes”

Follow the jump to see the rest!

Continue reading “50 Albums of the Decade” →

New Songs: Jenny Lewis, Los Campesinos!

While, I’m getting prepped up for Pygmalion Fest this weekend here’s a couple new tracks for you to chew on from two artists who couldn’t be more different. First one is from everyone’s favorite indie rock hottie / Kanye West song-tester (not to mention extremely talented singer/songwriter/bandleader), Jenny Lewis and it’s the title track from her new album, Acid Tongue.

MP3 Jenny Lewis – Acid Tongue

Jenny Lewis experimented with gospel on Rabbit Fur Coat, but this is her first shot at full out Sunday morning choir music. What’s noticeable from the very beginning is how stripped down and vintage the sound is. The old-fashioned acoustics is what gives the song its life, making Jenny Lewis’ gorgeous voice and the multi-layered harmonies that surround it even sharper. It makes for a completely enchanting 3 minutes and 50 seconds of music. This song seems like the somber, beaten-down cousin to the Rilo Kiley track, “With Arms Outstretched”. It’s as if Jenny arrived at the promised land, optimistic and wide-eyed, got in with the wrong friends, dropped acid a few too many times, and is leaving wiser for the wear.

MP3 Los Campesinos! – Ways To Make It Through The Wall

For as much as I love Welsh indie-pop collective Los Campesinos!, I felt something was missing from their debut album. I songs I already knew, I liked better in their demo/EP form and the new songs weren’t as memorable as I hoped. I’ve listened to the new album, We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed a few times through now and in my opinion the band has completely redeemed themself.

The melodies are as catchy and the instrumentation as dynamic as anything they’ve done, and they’ve perfected the art of accenuating their music with unrestrained sonic outbursts (take 1:38-2:00 as an example). As always, LC! have peppered their lyrics with the same clever / inventive observations and references that you’d expect from them. “Ways To Make It To The Wall” is the first track and presumable single of the album, and in my opinion, is probably the best chorus that the band has created. It’s been stuck in my head since the moment I heard it.

Headlights – Some Racing, Some Stopping

Headlights have changed a lot since I last wrote about them. While their last album, Kill Them With Kindness, fit pretty nicely into the shoegaze-pop category, their new album, released today on Polyvinyl, is huge step in a different direction for the band (who are sort of like local heroes from where I come from). The band’s sound is still luscious and textured with gorgeous melodies and boy/girl harmonies and a noticeable upbeatness, it’s mainly the instrumentation that has changed. The reverb, drowning guitar sounds and are out and have been replaced with primarily acoustic and percussion instrumentation, and the new wavey keyboards have made way for the warm organ tones. Additionally, The band has added two more members, now becoming less of a “small band that packs a huge punch” and becoming more of a folk collective.

The album starts out with one of it’s best and brightest tracks, “Get Your Head Around It”, which effectively transitions the listener from the electric reverb of the first album to their current sound. The song really picks up midway, with bells, organ and a marching drum sound added and to end if off the band throws in some well-placed buh-duh-duhs and ooo-ooohs (the band really excells at syllabic melody carrying). The next track is the first single, “Cherry Tulips” and it’s a wonderful choice as an introduction to the album. I can’t help being reminded of early Rilo Kiley when I listen to this song, taking all the pop, folk, and alt-country influences and putting it in one scrumptious mix. Erin’s vocals are at their best here, and the harmonies during the chorus are absolutely perfect with the love-crazed “I want the sea / I want the whole sea / for you and me” lyrics. Once the slide organ starts, you’re just in indie pop heaven.

The album doesn’t let up after the first two standouts, with the light-on-its-feet-shuffle of “Market Girl” and the sugary-sweet 60’s throwback tune, “On April 2”. “School Boys” is a more drawn-out tune that features some wonderful guitar work and harmonies, as well as a gorgeous string arrangement for the ending. Two of the albums big standouts appear at the end of the of the album with “Catch Them All” and “Towers”. The former is actually quite danceable with a bouncy bass line and a quick moving rhythm, and Tristan does a wonderful job with the lead vocals here. The stunning guitar-led bridge gives you a taste of the feedback-heavy virtuosos that were featured in prior Headlights albums. “Towers” is a delicate, tasteful pop song that puts the keyboards/organ front and center and just gives you that warm, sunshiny feel all over (it also brings back those awesome strings).

In the end, while I was at first skeptical of the new direction for the band, Some Racing, Some Stopping Headlights pulling off their new sound amazingly. Just further proof that they’re one of most talented bands in the indie pop scene, or just making music period. I’m expecting this album to rank very highly for me come list-making time.

MP3 Headlights- Cherry Tulips
MP3 Headlights – Catch Them All

Buy Some Racing, Some Stopping, seriously

The "good albums with really bad album covers" Mix

Back when compact discs were all the rage, if you didn’t care for the album art, it really didn’t matter. You probably just took it out of it’s cover and threw it in a giant CD Holder or used a CD-R that your friend burnt for you (probably with the incorrect tracklisting) anyway. In the age of iPods and iPhones though, the album cover is what identifies the track, you look at it everytime the song plays and often browse albums by art. So if I shuffle to one of my favorite tracks and I look down to see some crappy looking album art staring back at me, it causes the equivalent of a mental train wreck. It’s an internal battle of good vs. bad that I’d rather not have to deal with.

While most bands seem to create generally appealing and sometimes fantastic cover art some just really stand out, in a bad way. Here’s some of the worst album covers that were created by some of my favorite artists. I plead to you, hire some better graphic designers! Sound off on your least favorite album covers in the comments.

The Mountain Goats have generally been pretty lo-fi with their album covers but Get Lonely just took it too far. I’m not at all a fan of the all-caps, italics text and the whole cover is ridiculously off balance. There had to be a better way to frame that boxing guy then with that crappy looking marble stuff. The album ranked high on my list of favorite albums of ’06, but the album cover was one of my least favorites of the year (unfortunately I didn’t make that list). Even a messy stack of undeveloped camera film is better than this.

MP3 Woke Up New

This one probably disturbs me the most since The Execution of All Things is such a great album, definitely my favorite of Rilo Kiley‘s career (assuming they don’t make a miraculous comeback). The album cover though looks like it’s trying to be artsy but just turns out as a muddy mess. The worst thing is that it doesn’t fit the music at all, which is anything but bland and actually exhibits quite a bit of youthfulness.

MP3 The Good That Won’t Come Out Of Me

The album cover for Cat Power‘s The Greatest was trying to make a simple statement with the gold chain, but it turns out looking really cheap and kitschy. Also, the whole boxing gloves thing takes away any subtlety that the album cover could have had. I don’t know what the idea going into the pink background was but it doesn’t match the warm tones of the album at all. Thankfully, a new cover was released that was much more fitting featuring Chan in sepia tones.

MP3 Lived In Bars

This album art for …And The Glass Handed Kites is so bad that it’s disturbing. It could almost be put in the horribly awesome category, but that might be giving it too much credit. The photoshop work here is just offensive, it looks like something a junior-higher would do for a few laughs before throwing it away. What the hell does Mew think eating each other represents? I love the epic dream-pop sound, but I can’t get over how bad this cover is.

MP3 The Zookeeper’s Boy

I love the art for their newest album but Cloud Cult‘s creepy album cover for Advice From The Happy Hippopotamus doesn’t appeal to me at all, even if the album is thoroughly awesome. The frame really clashes with the rest of the cover and I don’t understand why they needed to put a boy on the front, when showing an empty room could have been a much stronger statement. What really tops it all off is the stupid looking hippo in the background. Come on!

MP3 Transistor Radio

Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin somehow manages to make a plain black background with some dead flowers boring. How did they do it! Seriously though, for quirky fun pop music this has to be the worst idea for a cover ever. With such a wacky band name you would think they could come up with something funner than some dead ugly flowers for Broom, what does that represent anyway? The horribly bland all-caps serif font just puts the nail in the coffin.

MP3 Oregon Girl

Kala hasn’t even been released yet, but the cover is so bad that I felt like it had to be mentioned. Usually you don’t want to feel like you’re going to vomit when you look at an album but that seems to be the thing that M.I.A. is going for here. There’s something truly awful about those color patterns and you can barely read the blocky words on the front. M.I.A.’s first album used some of the same repetition and eye-grabbing color themes and made it look cool. This cover though, really can’t get any worse.

MP3 Jimmy

What We Don't Know

With so many great bands releasing albums this year it’s especially nice to have an artist who can drag me away from the Okkervil Rivers, Sunset Rubdowns, and Go! Teams of this world and completely surprise me with something fresh and fantastic. Aaron Schroeder has done just that with his sophomore album Black & Gold. Although there’s many modern influences on the album, it seems to me that the most direct comparison that I can hear is a more upbeat The Smiths. Whatever you choose to compare Black & Gold to, the music is undeniably impressive.

The album begins with a startling pretty piano melody that sucks you right in and then pays you off with a drum beat that sounds like it was taken out of a the Phil Spector wall-of-sound era. The track is “What We Don’t Know”, and it quickly evolves again to a head-bopping power-pop song with a chorus that seems right out of Carl Newman’s songbook. It’s one of the most completely delightful delightful 3 minutes and 32 seconds of music that I’ve experienced this year. This is followed up by another absolutely killer pop song “Fake Crimes”, whose exuberant and piano/guitar/trumpet combo could have fit perfectly on Belle & Sebastians latest. Aaron’s clean-cut vocals on these songs work great, as they seem to float above the instrumentation giving the melody direction and personality.

The rest of the album is honestly just as solid as the first two tracks showcasing many more of the folk and country influences of the artist. Aaron Schroeder is someone I can guarantee that you will more about from me as I continue I let this album sink in. Very Very Highly Recommended!

MP3 What We Don’t Know
MP3 Fake Crimes

Pre-order the album here.

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There’s a feisty discussion about Rilo Kiley’s new single going on at Stereogum. I, like many, hated “The Moneymaker” with a passion (as well as the faux porn star video) but the new one, “Silver Lining” has restored some of my hope in the new album.

Still I can guarantee it won’t be nearly as good as anything on The Execution of All Things. Here’s an example of some of Rilo Kiley’s best work.

MP3 The Execution of All Things

If you’d like to stream “silver lining” and join in on the discussion click here. If you’d rather just look through pictures of Jenny Lewis click here. What do you guys think of the new songs? Will Under The Black Light be a complete dud or did they just pick a horrible first single?

The "If they ever made a Indie Rock Guitar Hero" Mix!

I don’t know about the rest of you, but where I’m from Guitar Hero is absolutely massive. The second edition came out last week and everyone on my dorm floor has been playing it nonstop. If you’ve never played before, I’m not going to go into the details, but basically you pick up a plastic guitar and use hand eye coordination and rhythm skills to rock out to songs like “Ziggy Stardust”, “Freebird” and “Sweet Child of Mine.” (Read tons more about it here). Pretty awesome, even you’re not into classic rock or metal (they occasionally throw an artist in there like Franz Ferdinand or Wolfmother).

After a week of Guitar Hero playing though, you begin to wonder what other songs that could be Guitar Hero-ized. There’s already a fansite dedicated to songs that should be on the next editions (Crazy Train is leading), but I’m wondering, if they ever made some kind of “indie edition”, whatsongs should/could be added. I made a mix of some current indie tracks that I would like to see. Qualifications are: 1) The guitar should be the forefront of the song. 2) The guitar part should be somewhat complex at times and evolve throughout the song 3) There should be a rockin’ guitar solo or breakdown during the song. Here’s what I came up with:

MP3 Wilco – At Least That’s What You Said
MP3 Broken Social Scene – Cause = Time
MP3 The New Pornographers – Jessica Numbers
MP3 Muse – The Small Print
MP3 The Hold Steady – Hot Soft Light
MP3 The Futureheads – Stupid and Shallow
MP3 Silversun Pickups – Well Thought Out Twinkles
MP3 Rilo Kiley – My Slumbering Heart

Feel free to add some more guitar hero-worthy indie tracks in the comments. No, Pink Floyd’s “Comfortably Numb” doesn’t count.