No One's Got it Like "Michelle" (Best Favorite Music 2007)

(original photo)(photo fiddler, via)

2007 was a great year for music!  No, wait:  It was a great year for great quantities of music!  For people who like their stuff in lots, 2007 was your year!

2007 was a year for music!

There are folks out there trying to convince themselves they haven't been wasting their time by declaring every piece of timefiller "epic" or "brilliant" or (ugh) "transcendent" or "genius" or "a masterpiece" or "unique."  They sure do like those words!  I bet their parents told them they were special!  A lot.  You get the feeling that, should these people ever encounter anything resembling greatness, ejaculate would shoot from their every pore, all language would be lost to them, they'd spend the rest of their days doing string art and licking giant, invisible rodents.

They're not helping my "There is No Such Thing as Blog Hype" essay come along any faster.

Make your life a whole lot simpler, and their notices a billion times more accurate, by doing a mental search/replace for every exaltation.  Substitute the word "Okay."  Which is okay!  It's okay to be okay!  I'm okay, you're okay!  If you're not okay with the word "okay," then try the phrase "slightly better than average (but not much!)" or the qualification "a year from now you'll probably forget that you own this."

I've said this before!  And I'll say it again!  Whatever.

I didn't get enough sleep and I'm cold and I'm bitter.  So let's see just how positive I can get about my favorite albums from this past year.  I think I'll be brief.  But then I always think that when I start out.  Who knows?  Who knows?

First, for no good reason whatsoever, here's Mika doing a Shakira song:

Mika - Hips Don't Lie (live Shakira cover)(mp3)

That was horrible!  Moving on...

Below's a list of ten records.  I enjoyed listening to these.  You might like them too. 

1.  Stars of the Lid, And Their Refinement of the Decline (home - myspace - buy)

This album is huge.  H(ux5)ge.  Not in a blockbuster sales way, of course.  Not in a changing-music-forever way, not in a Havergal Brianish I need three-symphony-orchestras-and-five-tabernacle-choirs way, either.  The music - minimalist, ambient, largely electronic - takes up room, creates a space so vast it could turn the most ardent outdoorsman into an agoraphobe.  It's built on waves, and listening to them recede makes you feel like you're trying to stare past the horizon.  It surges and recedes as smoothly as the world turns.

Sometimes it gets so big that you cannot breathe.

Big trick here is that SotL will, in a very sparing way, add warm acoustic sounds to remind you just how alien your new environment is.  The strings rise up in "Articulate Silences Part 2," it's homesickness and heartbreak; the water dripping in "The Daughters of Quiet Minds" is helplessness.  When some found sound speech drops in, the guy's speaking French, he offers no assistance.

When things go to minor chords in "Apreludes (in C minor)" it's really terrifying!  Something bad's going to happen, Mommy's left the room.  (Buy into it whole and there's an inclination towards isolation tank regression, newborn captivation.)

But there are no climaxes.  Two hours and no post-rock mega-boom-boom wakey-wakey.  When time's up, you miss this music incredibly.

I love this record for a couple reasons.  The first is that I Just Do, and best-favorite lists should be all about inarguable, irrational love.  (Seriously, fuck me for telling all those people that their favorite records are just "okay."  Though they are.  Fuck me, again!)  Technically - like most music - I'm not going to be able to argue why this works and how it's all that different from New Agey Hearts of Space fodder.  Except that it's a mammoth, cohesive experience, and is hypnotic without being soothing.

But there's a political reason, too:  This record is anti-Internet, anti-iPod.  It doesn't work right while you've got sixteen windows open and IM boxes going, it doesn't work right as an excerpted mp3, it doesn't work as a soundtrack to your morning commute or lunchtime spinning session.  My argument's not logical - "ambient" doesn't just imply "background music,"  it's in the definition - but when all music has become background music, when our attention's become so fragmented that every single experience comes diluted, devoting 120 minutes to do nothing - nothing! - but sit still and absorb an ambient composition seems like an act of defiance.  Refinement demands, rewards your time.

Holy crap I blew my whole wordcount wad on the first record.

2.  Various Artists, I Don't Feel at Home in This World 1927-1948

What do you do when new music ain't doin' it for you?  Go backwards, blindly grab compilations of old stuff.  Portland, Oregon-based Mississippi Records (which doesn't seem to have a website) released some excellent ones this year:  Lipa Kodi Ya City Council, (a gorgeous collection of Pan-African tracks laid down between 1967-1972), Life is a Problem (gospel blues), and this superb bit of curation.

Home brings together recordings by American immigrants:  Greek rebetiko (from Marika Papagika, who "died of disappointment" ) shares room with Trinidadian calypso (Lord Caresser and Wilmoth Houdini), Cuban son (Sexteto Bolona), Texan Tejano (Lydia Mendoza), Cajun (Cleoma Breaux Falcon, Blind Uncle Gaspard and Dela Lachney), Appalachian ballad (The Blue Sky Boys), a gorgeous Sundanese folk song, reed pipe blues (Big Boy Cleveland), Xylophoned klezmer (Kandel's Orchestra), vintage Hawaiian (Mme. Rivirie's Hawaiians, Mike Hanapi's Ilima Islanders), and gospel (Two Gospel Keys).  And E effin' pluribus Unum, it sounds like it was all meant to be together, and it all sounds so alive.  Spirited but somber, this stuff's so much more vital than any of the ones and zeroes that were generated in 2007.

It will make you proud to live in this country and proud to have ears.

Unfortunately, this was an LP-only release, one that appears to have sold out its printing.  Because of that, because the performers can't be basing their income around its sales, and because this music shouldn't be allowed to disappear with a slim vinyl printing... I'm going to pretend to not have misgivings over pointing out a place you might find the whole thing available for download.  I do hope Mississippi (or someone) releases this on CD.  I'd kill for some liner notes.

3.  Arcade Fire, Neon Bible (home - myspace - buy)

Where has outrage gone?  We're heading into a presidential election, we're in the fifth year of a misbegotten, mishandled war, our poor have gotten sucked down a well of debts and bad loans while the rich keep scarfing up repossessions and fencing off resources.  Our land and water and air and bodies and minds and souls are all turning to sludge.

We don't need divisive rawrawrawr; nor do we need anything subtle and introspective and clever, snide little indie fucks who prefer to disappear up their own assholes.  Where are the artists who can focus our anger and move us together?  The populists?

Big bold Radiohead, complain about how technology breaks down humanity while you hide in your studio, communicate exclusively online, pretend you're science fiction.  Be sure to play limited engagements!  Make sure the tickets are expensive!  This isn't social commentary, it's marketing and supply-demand economics.  Pretending to give a shit is good business.

Neon Bible is a big beautiful sad angry human thing.  I'll stand by what I said back here;  I kept waiting for this one to run away, but every time I went back it was all still there.  Quibblers gnawing at this record's imperfections - its clumsiness, its silliness - seem to miss that that's sort of what this record is all about.  It's all right to reach for greatness and to come up short.  That's what people do.

For those who like to jump around in one place while patting yourselves on the back, you'll always have Funeral.

4.  M.I.A. - Kala (home - myspace - buy)

Episyllogism.  Vectorcardiography.  Lumpsucker.

Those are the only three words in the English language that have not yet been used when talking about this woman and her work.  None of them are appropriate, but I'm a completist.

So much of what I like about this very good record comes from its hows.  Paper Planes, just as good as everyone says it is, is bright sounds and blam blam and ching ching and childrens choruses... but it's delivered with a perfect, casual boredom.  The Modern Lovers and Pixies bits aren't name-checked for cred or presented with museum-piece reverence, they're assimilated as easily as everything else.  "Jimmy" is unguarded joy; it's the best kind of sharing.

[Also, I'd really like a friend named Habibi.  And a didgeridoo.]

5.  Emmy the Great - My Bad EP (plus singles and demos and internet-swiped whatnottery) (home - myspace - buy at iTunes or eMusic)

I know!  Me too!  When I passed along that cab video I really thought she was - like most of what I've tended towards this year - a passing fancy.  Turns out that people who like Emmy love Emmy, and I like her lots.  Her voices - singer's, writer's - have been the ones I've been most happy to find in my headphones these past couple months.  The material plays right at my sensibilities:  Smart stuff with a healthy puerile streak, tuneful, ultra-accessible.  The finished tracks are very sharply arranged.

We've already seen an out-of-print vinyl-only release in my faves; now I'm threatening to become a mirror of that classic Poop list:  All her releases have been on vinyl, none distributed domestically in the U.S.  (The EP's on iTunes, and two singles - including the latest, a torn love letter called "Gabriel" - are also on eMusic.)  Some of my favorite songs ("Edward is Dedward," "Two Steps") don't seem to be officially available anywhere.  It'll probably all be collected properly in ‘08... but by then Emmy - who's already been featured on MTV in the UK, who just got off a short tour opening for the Mountain Goats - will be insufferably ubiquitous.

Quick!  Enjoy this stuff while you're still allowed.

6.  Miranda Lambert, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend (home - myspace - buy)

The critics' Token Country Pick, this year - must be tough to decide whether to remember Porter Wagoner's Wagonmaster because he died, or because it was a real good record - but for those of me who've been stomping around screaming too-much-mewl-not-enough-roar,  Ex's got the best ‘tonk since Waylon started lugging the wrong kind of amp around.  Miranda Lambert, she rocks.(*)

Character's key:  There's a method to Lambert's crazy.  She wrote or co-wrote all but three of the record's tracks, and there's not a one here that couldn't belong to a single fierce, emotionally complex woman.  There's anger and jealousy, but the CD's not called Psycho Bitch.  She's got teeth and smarts and self-awareness.  She can get a little scared of her own self.  She wields pity effectively.  Sometimes, she could just really use a drink.

(*)  Curses at Amy for time-travelling to now from last Tuesday and defusing my opening line.  (More likely, it's just me being a hack.)

7. Dan Deacon - Spiderman of the Rings (home - myspace - buy)

It's tough to beat "This is the sound of a nerd exploding" as a one-line summation.  Except that Jesus has it backwards:  This is the sound of everything coming together, a celebration of geeky wholeness.  In Spiderman, Deacon manages to balance his two sides:  the serious, studied composer, and the spazzy dumpster-diving human cartoon.  Deacon's earlier songs were always one or the other.  There's a dissonant pain in some of his work, and whether that has come from an inability to reconcile his two halves with each other, or himself with the world at large, or from some deeper, genuine trauma (show monologues have featured his father's head screaming at him from his penis) - the music here has healed.  Well-earned, surreal joy.  Everything will be fine.  As long as someone brings an extra set of AA batteries.

8/9.  Tokyo Jihen - Variety (buy)/Shiina Ringo x Saitou Neko, Heisei Fuzoku (buy)

Two free tickets just for the privilege of having known you.  This was the year someone introduced me to Shiina Ringo (I-II, III is perpetually on-its-way); her 2003 album Karuki Zamen Kuri no Hana IS an epic-brilliant-genius-unique-masterpiece, probably the best record yet released during this young millennium.  That's a great record, these are not.

But they're not bad, either.  Variety - from Shiina's post-solo jazz-touched band Tokyo Jihen - has plenty of what its title promises, and plenty of fun.  (I blabbed about it last month.)  Heisei Fuzoku is a film-related release that doesn't offer much that's new; Shiina loves to re-work her material, but the best stuff here had been previously reworked in an identical way for a live DVD.  It's fine, but doomed to be an afterthought in her catalog.

Neither of these had, nor will ever have, U.S. distribution. 

Below are a pair of show tune-inspired offerings; it's Friday, so "show tune-inspired" is allowed.  Ringo's brother Junpei joins her on the track from Heisei Fuzoku, and it's okay if you want to get cynical and call the video a less-inspired "Oh So Quiet."  It's still probably going to make you want to spin around with your arms extended.  Sunshowers and stuffed cats and balloons.  Balloons!

Tokyo Jihen, "Killer Tune":

Shiina Ringo x Saitou Neko + Shiina Junpei, "Kono yo no Kagiri":

10.  Black Moth Super Rainbow, Dandelion Gum (home - myspace - buy)

This record makes me so happy.  I should charge people money to stand near me when I'm listening to it.  It's three cups Air, one cup Boards of Canada, one drop of acid, five million warm fuzzies.

*

A longer list might have included Future of the Left's Curses, The Intelligence's Deuteronomy, St. Vincent's Marry Me, Les Savy Fav's Let's Stay Friends, Liars' Liars, and random bits of The Dirty Projectors' Rise Above.

There were other things that were probably "objectively" good but just didn't fit in my head the right way.  If you don't see your favorite record here, either assume I didn't get around to it or that it really isn't that good after all.  Feel free to pretend - pretend with your mind! - that I've actually chosen ten completely other things.  Feel free to pretend that they mattered!

[Lily Allen's Alright, Still (released UK 2006/US 2007) and O'Death's Head Home (self-released 2006/label-released 2007) were on last year's slightly hidden best favorite list.  And no, I've no idea why I feel the need to clarify this.]

*

The best new song I heard all year was Local H's "Michelle."

Yeah, they're my favorite band, and I'm definitely not above playing favorites - fuck, that's what this is all about, right? - but it's one goddamn heck of a tune.  Perfect in its simplicity, smart with its mock-dumb lines.  It hooks, it pops, it rocks.  Or it will, if the record it's supposed to be on ever gets released.  (The song did some time on the band's myspace page, got pulled so they could rotate through others.)

The band is not shiny and hip and new.  They're never going to get a Pitchfork review (a good thing, probably, because the site would inevitably break out its extra lengthy schnozz for staring-down purposes), they're not going to be on the late night talk shows, they've got too much integrity to be an iPod jingle.

Good luck to them, getting it out there, and to you, getting to hear it.  It's awesome.

*

And now, in a very specific order only a Navajo codebreaker might comprehend, my best favorite songs of the year that weren't also on my favorite albums and that weren't Yeasayer's "2080" or Battles' "Atlas:"

Jason Isbell, "Try," "The Devil is My Running Mate," "Dress Blues;"  Radiohead, "Jigsaw Falling into Place;" Amy Winehouse, "You Know I'm No Good," "Me & Mr. Jones," "Back to Black;" Mark Sultan, "We're Sinking;" Babyshambles, "UnBiloTitled;" White Rabbits, "Kid on My Shoulders;" Britney Spears, "Piece of Me;" Shitt Hottt, "Boxx Damage;" Grinderman, "No Pussy Blues;" Future of the Left, "Manchasm;" Kickball, "Fight;" Nine Inch Nails, "The Greater Good;" James Blackmore, "The Cloud of Unknowing;" The Grails, "Origin-Ing;" Black Kids, "I'm Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend How to Dance with You;" Screaming Females, "Boyfriend;" Emma Pollock, "If Silence Means That Much to You;" The Veils, "Not Yet;" Johnnette Napolitano, "Scarred;" Lucky Soul, "Ain't Never Been Cool;" Gogol Bordello, "Supertheory of Supereverything;" Art Brut, "St. Pauli;" Liars, "Clear Island."

Golden Globe for Best Comedy/Musical:  The la-la-la-la's in the White Stripes' "Icky Thump"

True Confession:  I have a very strong love/hate relationship with Mika's "Love Today."

The Dollyrots' awesomely derivative "Because I'm Awesome" would be here, but now it's a Kohl's jingle.  Not so awesome!

Favorite Best song title of 2007:  Times New Viking, "Imagine Dead John Lennon."

Disappointments:  Cloud Cult, Róisín Murphy, The Stooges.

tags: best music 2007  best of lists  top ten albums  top ten lists  emmy the great  dan deacon  shiina ringo  tokyo jihen  stars of the lid  mississippi records  arcade fire  black moth super rainbow  mia  

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