candidate. Love metal. Love pop. Love blues. Loved indie rock from
2001-2006.
TOP ALBUMS
6.) ARSIS, We Are the Nightmare. Technical death metal that's really
technical and really deathy. Cool.
5.) WARSHIP, Supply and Depend. Simple, sweaty, riff-driven hardcore.
4.) ELUVEITIE, Slania. Folk metal = death metal + folk instruments!
The band has a hurdygurdy player! The lead singer screams in the
cookie-monster voice and then stops to play the Irish tin whistle! All
the songs are about ancient Gaul! Yes yes yes yes!
3.) TRIVIUM, Shogun. After dabbling in pretending they were Iron
Maiden and Metallica, Trivium get back to their metalcore roots.
2.) UNEARTH, The March. New Wave of American Metal champions pull through again.
1.) PROTEST THE HERO, Fortress. Another group of absurdly talented
kids who should be too young to be this talented (see also August
Burns Red, The Number Twelve Looks Like You).
OTHER ALBUMS
BLOC PARTY, Intimacy. I ADORED Bloc Party and did my best to hold onto
them this year. But I have no idea what this is. It's a bad kind of
unlistenable.
WEEZER, Red Album. Yes, most of the album is disposable. But did you
all listen to "The Greatest Man That Ever Lived" and "Dreamin"? For
two songs, Weezer gets back into Blue Album/Pinkerton form.
METALLICA, Death Magnetic. This is confusing. Metallica asked Rick
Rubin what their next album should sound like and he told them to go
and write the second half of Master of Puppets. And on paper, they did
to some extent. It sounds like an album I should love: the riffs are
back, the long songs are back. But I don't like it at all. The good
Metallica albums still sound TERRIFYING to me. The anxiety in the
lyrics, in Hetfield's voice, in the riffs (the intro of ...And Justice
for All sounds like the end of the world approaching)... the formulas
were applied on this album but they're no longer effective because
other bands now have better ones. Metal is more metal than Metallica
now. That and the production... I remember Paul bringing to our
attention an article about how music is mastered louder than it used
to be. Death Magnetic takes this to an extreme... the tracks are all
overdriven to the point of distortion. A clever choice, conceptually.
In reality it's distracting.
POP
Katy Perry and Lady GaGa made pop fun again! By this I mean that the
pop princesses of the last few years (Rhianna, Britney v 3.0,
Beyonce), as bubblegum as they may have been, still had this
unnecessary air of seriousness. Katy Perry and Lady GaGa celebrate pop
bliss and revel in its silliness and actually look like they're having
fun doing so. Sure, it may be a manufactured fun, but when I'm
listening I don't care.
I'm really disappointed to see people on this list taking potshots at
Katy Perry. I thought we were better than this. Let's go over it
again: albums/songs/artists, like movies, must be critiqued on their
own terms. Ebert's favorite movie is Citizen Kane, but he loved Speed
and thought it should have been nominated for an Oscar. No, One Of
The Boys isn't In The Aeroplane Over the Sea. But it's not supposed to
be. Be fair.
Seriously though... I thought of making my whole Paulies entry a
second-by-second commentary on the video for Katy Perry's "Hot and
Cold." I think I've watched this video about 50 times. I haven't loved
a video this much... rephrase... wanted to BE IN a video this much
since My Chemical Romance's "Helena." I think I'm a sucker for playful
choreography.
Oh... Dr. Luke and Max Martin are the new Matrix.
MOVIES
Why have I not heard from more people about Synecdoche, New York? This
is definitely the scariest movie I have ever seen, and one of the
best. My strongest reaction to a movie ever. Are people bothered that
Charlie Kaufmann can be overbearing in his cleverness? Is there such a
thing as being too clever? I think to retell one of the most cliched
lessons ever, you have to be as clever and original as possible.
SHOWS
The Number Twelve Looks Like You are the most talented, compelling
live band on earth. Not since The Polyphonic Spree have I been so
excited to be watching a band do what it does.
TV
Gossip Girl.
OTHER DISCOVERIES
Post-metal. Took me longer than it should have to get into this.
Rosetta, Baroness.
More blues albums. Koko Taylor's early Chess work. Junior Wells' early
stuff with Buddy Guy. Magic Sam. Lots of stuff re-issued by Delmark
records.
Nile. Death metal + history = Nile. Songs all about Egyptian history
and mythology. In their liner notes, after the lyrics for the songs,
they include an essay providing historical commentary (of surprisingly
decent caliber) about the lyrics. Oh also one of the fastest bands
ever recorded.
3 comments:
I think I read it in Tape Op (great free mag any musicians here should get) that the totally crushed sound of the new Metallica record really hit consumers when they found that a more moderately/sanely mastered version of one of the songs was featured in one of those Guitar Hero type video games and sounded noticeably better. If everything is loud and heavy, nothing is loud and heavy, I guess.
I don't know where to start here, but I'll start with Synechdoche - agreed, terrifying. This might be the most unwatchable movie of the year...and not because it's fucking insane (though it is), but because its nihilism is so damn effective.
I'm rethinking Pork n Beans. This song might actually be great. Also, have you heard Can't Stop Partying?
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