Best of the Oughts: Albums 41-50

Strangely enough, I discovered all these albums after moving here. A couple were actually released before making the nine-hour trek, but I didn't listen to them until landing in Misery. It says something about my tastes that so many albums from recent years are popping up at the top of my list. I'm either forgetting how much I loved music from the first half of the decade or the newer stuff is just fresher. It will be interesting to see what I'm listening to in ten years.

This list really could be someone's top-10 of the decade. I'm not kidding about that.

Although my list is still vacant of female musicians, there are typically 2-3 in each set of ten, which isn't as bad as I thought. It's certainly better than the hip-hop representation.


50. TV on the Radio - Return to Cookie Mountain
All the magazines told me this was the best album of 2006 and I believed them. With this record, TVOTR became the next REM/Radiohead/Wilco. Now, they're collectively known as Remradioheadwilcotvontheradio: The Band Pitchfork will never admit to loving all the way, but Spin will crown as album of the year every time.


49. Okkervil River - Black Sheep Boy
Have I mentioned my affinity for Will Sheff and his indie rock star powers?


48. Band of Horses - Everything All the Time
I still can't get that "Funeral" song out of my head. This formula of falsetto voices over straight up guitar onslaughts should not work anymore, but it does. That and trucker hats and beards. Aren't we done with that look yet? Apparently not.


47. Eef Barzelay - Bitter Honey
I never really ever got Clem Snide, but this I did get. Eef Barzelay made the saddest record about Thanksgiving disasters and music video girls you've never heard.


46. Clap Your Hands Say Yeah - Clap Your Hands Say Yeah
What a perfect way to end a band's run. Clap Your Hands decided to put out their best record first, delegating them to one-indie-hit wonders. Bravo! It sounds like a John Hughes movie to me.


45. Jenny Lewis and the Watson Twins - Rabbit Fur Coat
Lovely Jenny Lewis and the lovelier Watson Twins Patsy Clined and Neko Cased their way into our hearts. Pairs nicely with She and Him.


44. Bonnie "Prince" Billy - The Letting Go
Who knew that Bjork wasn't the only Icelandic princess? Will Oldham is bald with a beard to boot. Haunting and beautiful and haunting. Again.


43. Cat Power - The Greatest
Actually, it's #43, not the greatest of the oughts. Chan Marshal sold her soul to get some soul and a rhythm section plus some horns and guitar. This shouldn't have worked, but it did.


42. Spoon - Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga
Spoon. They are all over this list. They might be another candidate for band of the decade. This album just has them chugging along until the next. They are on such an incredible roll of great, great albums it's unbelievable.


41. Modest Mouse - We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank
For me, this was Isaac Brock's best effort of this decade. He brings in guitarists from melodramatic 80's Manchester bands and singers from melodramatic 00's Portland in order to add layers to his warped vision never thought possible. I suspect big things beyond this album.

Six Hours for Thirty Minutes

I had two tickets for last night's Band of Horses show in St. Louis, but no one wanted brave the snow to see them.

Then, an eleventh-hour reply to emailed pleas gave me the permission I needed to take on Old Man Winter and make the trek to see Band of Horses. My friend TJ came through and together we headed to St. Louis.

The roads weren't actually that bad for most of the trip, but as we closed in on St. Louis, our progress slowed. It took us two hours to hit the city's outskirts which isn't far off the pace on a clear day. However, the snow was beginning to pile up and we found ourselves behind a line of snowplows that caused us to add another hour to our trip.

Somehow we found the venue, The Gargoyle, hidden in the basement of a student center on Washington University's campus. It was thirty minutes into Band of Horses' set, but we had arrived!

BoH were really solid live. Front man Ben Bridwell's voice sounded almost human without the heavily engineered effects of the band's two Sub Pop releases, but it was still powerful enough to hold its own among the guitars, bass, and drums. The band overall was tight but loose enough to cause the prerequisite head-bobbing one expects.

TJ and I had to laugh that although we had missed half of the band's set, we still got to hear the "hit", aka "The Funeral". But that wasn't even the highlight of the set. The band played a Credence Clearwater Revival b-side called "Effigy". This has to be one of my all-time favorite tracks, especially the version recorded by Uncle Tupelo for the No Alternative compilation. It was a pleasant surprise.

After the encore, we had to make our way back to highways which had only accumulated snow while we were at the Gargoyle. A drive that usually takes me just under two hours, took us over three. Between the drifts, fishtails, and iced over windshield, we were lucky to get out that quickly. It was so bad at one point that we turned onto an exit to clear the windshield and knock the ice off wipers that ended up placing us on a whole other highway.

We eventually made our way back to I-70 and back in COMO. It took us three hours to get there and three hours to get back. All that for thirty minutes of rock and roll, but it was worth it.

This Moment Indie Rock

I realize that I've been writing too much about jock straps and the politic lately and need to get back to some good old (indie) rock 'n' roll.

I received two new Matador releases in the mail yesterday. One was Columbus, OH heroes Times New Viking with their lo-fi coming out party. The second was Cat Power's latest collection of covers. I liked my review format from December so much that I've adapted it for these two new releases.

Times New Viking - Rip It OffTwo Hundred Forty-Three Words: The title of Times New Viking’s Matador debut, Rip It Off, implies that they have ripped off their sound from somewhere. That somewhere is indie rock lore. The band’s lo-fi aesthetic summons the ghosts of Guided By Voices (pre-Ocasek) and early Pavement. To complete the Matador holy trilogy, the band takes on Yo La Tengo in the aptly titled “Times New Viking vs. Yo La Tengo”. The naiveté of the riot grrrl movement and anything touched from Calvin Johnson to Daniel Johnston are present in the constant, back-and-forth, riotous boy/girl hollers throughout the record.

I used to hope that the band’s Matador signing would expose the band to better sound equipment, but as I listened to the hiss of tape and static due to too much treble, I realized it would just sound as crappy as Lou Barlow did once he stepped out of the bedroom had TNV discovered a real recording studio. The band’s sound is too harsh for lo-fi disciples and too poppy for those of the hardcore set, but it’s place somewhere in between makes it stand out in an era of sleek, iMac-recorded MP3’s.

I know this band is difficult for some, but isn’t that what makes it important? Don’t the best bands insight hatred from some listeners while their fans love them? Isn’t that what punk is all about? Times New Viking is the most punk thing to hit the music world in a long, long time.

The one song that makes it worth $17.95: "Drop-Out"

Pitchfork Says: 8.4

Cat Power - Jukebox
Two Hundred Twenty-Three Words: Chan Marshall (aka Cat Power) has released her second collection of covers to commemorate her rebirth…I guess. Anyway, after reading the Pitchfork review, I expected the record to suck. It actually doesn’t. I just think the music is far beyond the scope of the typical Pitchforker. Usually the blogging hipsters of the Windy City demonstrate a decent amount of music knowledge and historical perspective, but they missed the boat on this one.

The disc opens with “New York, New York” (yeah, the one by Sinatra) in a form that makes the cheesy standard sound downright soulful. From there, Marshall takes the listener through her various musical influences from jazz to country to soul with a little folk mixed in for good measure. The best song is “Song to Bobby”, a tribute to Bob Dylan. The song sounds like that Bob Dylan song he didn’t write.

Speaking of Dylan, the album almost makes a case for Cat Power as being the anti-Dylan. I’m not knocking her songwriting ability. What I mean is that Dylan songs always sound better when sung by someone else. Maybe Chan Marshall sounds better singing other’s songs. Maybe.

My only real complaint is that the record did not include the Cat Power covers featured on cell phone and diamond ads. But I guess you can’t have everything your way.

The one song that makes it worth $17.95: "Song to Bobby"

Pitchfork Says: 5.7

In other indie news...

I am attending some shows in the near future. There's Band of Horses in St. Louis on the 31st. I'm still waiting for Billy to get back to me on whether he wants my extra ticket, but if he doesn't want it...

Then, the other band that sounds like Band of Horses but was doing it a long time before that and will eternally have a place in my heart despite a detour through jam-band-Reggae-purgatory, aka Built to Spill, is coming in mid-March.

Lastly, I'm really excited to announce that we will be traveling to the cornhusker state to see the late, great Daniel Johnston. Of course, I owe R big-time for this one since it's on her birthday, but we're going anyway.

That's all from my corner of the indie universe. Hopefully something else will come up soon. (Stephen Malkmus?)

#7 of 2007: Band of Horses - Cease to Begin

Thirty-One Words: Band of Horses do their best Built to Spill impersonation (sans crazy-good guitar work, plus tinkering keyboards) and release basically the same album they released last year. I’m OK with that.

The one song that makes it worth $17.95: "The General Specific"

Pitchfork Says: 7.7