Bartley's list

Hello all,

I'm Bartley, I went to high school with Paul. I'm currently in Austin, TX where I work overnights 3 out of 4 weekends, and therefore lose out on what I hear is a very robust local music scene. I've continued my 3-4 year streak of doing a piss poor job of finding new music to listen to.

I only bought eleven albums that came out this year, this year (well, twelve, but I haven't listened to the live Rasputina album yet). So, sorry to you Nine Inch Nails for Ghosts I-IV, Aphex Twin beat you to the punch...by about two decades. Here are the other 10 in some sort of order with brief commentary, followed by additional commentary.

Music:

10. Ladytron - Volicefero: Follows the usual Ladytron formula of 3-4 standout songs, 4-5 good songs, 3-4 forgettable songs. Saw them in concert this year, they were better than expected, but nothing special.

9. Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!: It's ok, like most Nick Cave albums of the past few years. Nothing too memorable or exciting. I miss Blixa.

8. Lil Wayne - Tha Carter III: Isn't nearly as good as Da Drought 3. Loses major points because that damn "Mrs. Officer" song is terrible AND on the radio constantly. "Got Money" wasn't much better. "A Milli" may be been the best rap on the radio this year though.

7. MGMT - Oracular Spectacular There's a pretty steep decline in quality on the second half of this album. The first half is good times.

6. Nine Inch Nails - The Slip: In addition to being free (yay!), it's pretty good.  Who knew that NIN would recover from The Fragile and whatever two albums came after that?
 
5. The Roots - Rising Down: It's The Roots! What did you expect? Also, do not subscribe to Questlove's twitter feed. It will slowly drive you mad.

4. Kanye West - 808s and Heartbreak: It's Kanye West! What did...nevermind. It's infinitely better than the hype of "Kanye West makes an album with a drum machine and an auto-tuner in 5 hours" could ever make me think it would be. I try to ignore him when he's not making music, it makes enjoying the music easier. Saw a Glow in the Dark show...it was ok, but N.E.R.D. was better...also, Rihanna did a (terrible) cover of "Paper Planes" before Pineapple Express made it ridiculously popular...and the night before I saw M.I.A. down the street (disappointing show!).

3. TV on the Radio - Dear Science: Umm, wow. I'm of the opinion that everyone should like TV on the Radio. Sadly, most of my friends disagree. Surprisingly disappointing live show. Think the venue (Stubb's BBQ) was too big.

2. Amanda Palmer - Who Killed Amanda Palmer:  Since this one wasn't on (m)any Top Whatever lists, I'll spend some extra time praising it. For starters, you can hear most of it at: http://www.whokilledamandapalmer.com/videos. It's a concept album and has an accompanying book by Neil Gaiman that I haven't bothered getting, but hey, you can't go wrong with Neil Gaiman. Anyway, she's got a unique voice, plays the hell out of a piano, and Ben Folds usually managed not to overproduce the album to hell. Also, her record label said she was too fat to bare her midriff in a video (she's not!), and said she'd never be popular making music like this...so you should help prove them wrong.

1. Portishead - Third: I never expected this album to be this good.


Pop Songs

These are overplayed radio hits I can't resist. Obviously, my weakness for girly pop songs endures! Here are the highlights:

Fergie - Clumsy I generally hate the Fergie, but there's nothing wrong with this song. Well, except for the part where she breaks it down about 2 minutes in. That's awful.

Nelly Furtado - Say It Right Umm, I think this may actually be a good song, not just a good pop song.

T.I - Live Your Life After I got over the ridiculous Numa Numa sample, I realized it's a pretty decent song.

Beyonce - Whatever song wasn't that damn Put A Ring On It song


Movies
The Dark Knight - First time it was actually worth seeing a movie at IMAX (fuck you, Harry Potter 3-D). I kinda hate Christian Bale's Batman voice though.

Ironman - Overshadowed by Batman, still way better than it deserved to be. Someone better tell Samuel Jackson to take whatever pittance Marvel is offering and play the hell out of Nick Fury.

The Wrestler - I loves me some Aronofsky, but this kinda disappointed (relative to near-universal glowing reviews). Still a good movie and a great performance by Rourke. Just not everything I was hoping for. Maybe I just miss Clint Mansell.

No Country for Old Men - Almost forgot about this. My girlfriend absolutely hated it, I loved it. Ridiculously suspenseful, does an excellent job of storytelling.

Slumdog Millionaire - My vote for best movie of the year.


TV

Discovered The Wire via the girlfriend. Still working on Season 5 (which I hear has some Godfather 3 problems), but is pretty high up there for Best TV Show Ever.
The Soup rewards weekly viewing. Way better than the (horribly reformatted) Best Week Ever.
Umm, Project Runway? I had no idea Tim Gunn was so awesome.


Things To Try

Fleet Foxes, Knux, Sigur Ros (again), Mad Men

Terrible Things

The Ting Tings - That's Not My Name: I'm going to start crying if I have to hear this again.
Religulous - You know, I saw this and actually kinda liked it. Until I thought about it more. And more. And it's just a wasted oppurtunity...it's hard to explain what about it bugs me since I do (in theory) agree with most of what Maher is saying.
The Real Housewives of... Wow. I'd seen ads, but watching the real thing is even worse. Even the people who aren't terrible human beings are still annoying.
Prop 8 - Way to taint an otherwise excellent election night, Mormons.
Mormonism - Really, Prop 8 aside, WTF is up with Mormonism. It's like the Scientology of the 1800's. I'm sure most Mormons are (overly) nice people or whatever, but yikes.
Overly long lists - Hello! I bet there's some horrible formatting error in here. Let's find out...