It must be spring, or close to it, because I just feel...better. You know? More hopeful. More excited. More motivated. It must be the warmer temperatures and the extra daylight. It might be that I’ve been spotting some more rich green tones on my daily walk down the trail.
So I want to do some gardening. Fix the lawn. Learn to paint better. Listen to new music I’ve never listened to. Read more books. Cook new food. Try new food. Take better care of myself. Get lost in a new place. Take more pictures. Share more of the things I make.
I’m crossing my fingers that I hold onto this motivation for a little bit longer.
Some recent inspirations and/or things that I’ve been in love with:
Dust & Grooves: Adventures in Record Collecting (a gorgeous book by Eilon Paz)
Zappa/Mothers’ Uncle Meat
My wife’s homemade deep-dish pizza
MGMT’s Little Dark Age
Danielewski’s House of Leaves (Every few years I need to come back to this and experience it again)
The YouTube wormhole of modular synthesizer videos
SNES Classic
My new shoes, which I’m sure I’ll wear out in 2 hours
Dear Videogame Diary, Why Did I Buy Secret of Mana HD?
I spent $40 on the Secret of Mana HD Remake for the PS4. I knew I shouldn’t have done it. But I did it. Because the HD version is literally worse in almost every way. The graphics, while more modern, lack the charm of the original’s art style. The music is definitely worse (thank goodness you can opt for the old soundtrack in the options). The voice acting sucks. The newly added mini-map seems almost entirely pointless. The characters mouths don’t move when they talk in cutscenes. Bringing up the menus for your allied characters is confusing, since it's hard to know which character’s menu you’re looking at. Your characters now say stupid things when they cast spells. There are loading screens for every single new screen, even if you’re just going into a pointlessly empty house in a village.
But beyond that, it's literally the same SNES game. The barebones plot is the same. It’s the exact same poorly written dialog. The same weirdly slow combat with a Final Fantasy-esque active time meter for combat, despite it not being a turned based combat game. It’s the same “cross your fingers and spend all your money” experience at shops, since there’s nothing to tell you if new armor is better or worse than your current armor. It’s the same frustratingly grindy gameplay mechanic of having to level up every single weapon and magic element. It’s the same experience of swinging your sword 25 times at a monster that’s directly in front of you and only managing to hit it twice.
And so I ask, what the hell did I actually like about this game in the first place? Why have I spent the last 20-something years calling this one of my favorite games of all time?
And why am I still playing this remake? And why am I having so much fun doing it?
Oh wait, check this out: A week after I bought the HD remake, I managed to finally get a Super NES classic, which the original game is loaded onto. And I’m still playing the HD remake.
I started typing out a defense for the game, but nah. If you know this game, and you love it, you know what you love about the game. You get it. It's a weird game, and we’re cool people for liking it and embracing it’s flawas.
But if you’ve never played it before? Don’t get the fucking HD remake. Don’t spend $40 of your hard-earned lifebucks on this. Shadow of the Colossus costs the same, I think, and that actually enhances the experience (what a novel concept).
Yeah, I’m having fun. No, I don’t know why. Leave me alone.
I got lazy, or maybe I just found more respect for your time, and I opted not to write some lengthy blurb about every song - just the songs where I felt like I had something to get off my chest.
Frankie Cosmos - “Jesse”
Kali Uchis, featuring Tyler the Creator and Bootsy Collins - “After the Storm”
I’m With Her - “Game to Lose”
Car Seat Headrest - “Nervous Young Inhumans”
Cavern of Anti-Matter - “Liquid Gate” - This was off their last album, and it features everyone’s favorite Deerhunter on vocals, and it sounds nothing like their other songs. Just a perfect 2 minute track that makes you wish there was a whole album of this collaboration.
Belle & Sebastian - “We Were Beautiful” - Probably one of my favorites overall in the How to Our Solve Human Problems series. It’s hard to know what to expect from a band you often consider one of your favorites, but are at a spot in their career where they could easily start half-assing it. But this feels fully assed.
The Fall - “Kurious Oranj” - RIP Mark E. Smith, who I credit with helping me expand my musical horizons when I stumbled across The Fall 18 years ago (when I had much worse taste than I do now). This song (and album) has always been a favorite of mine, maybe because I could just listen to Smith snarl “Or-an-ge” all day long.
The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band - “Piggy Bank Love” - An oldie, but goodie. I sometimes like to pick just random Bonzo songs to stick on playlists - they’re happy little surprises. This particular song just sounds so...adorable.
Black Rebel Motorcycle Club - “Question of Faith”
The Octopus Project - “Wrong Gong”
Eels - “The Deconstruction”
Old Crow Medicine Show - “Flicker and Shine”
Priests - “JJ”
Television - “Marquee Moon” - One of those songs/bands/albums I knew of forever with this thought of “I’ll listen to it later,” but never did. But the time has finally come and I’m sad that it took me this long to do that. Like, this song is 10 minutes long. 10 amazing and glorious minutes. I don’t know how much time in my life I have left to maximize my plays of this song.
Belle & Sebastian - “The Same Star”
The James Hunter Six - “I Don’t Want to Be Without You” - My local NPR affiliate keeps playing this song and I kept thinking it was some 40 year old soul jam that I didn’t know about (and, honestly, I’m not like an expert in the genre so it wouldn’t have been unheard of). But, no, this is a new song from some British guys. There’s something really timeless about this kind of soul that I really love.
First Aid Kit - “It’s a Shame”
Anna Burch - “2 Cool 2 Care”
Bat Fangs - “Boys of Summer”
Albert Hammond Jr. - “Muted Beatings”
Khurangbin - “Maria Tambien” - What a great instrumental track from a great instrumental album. One of the most pleasant surprises of the year. I can’t recommend this enough.
Unknown Mortal Orchestra - “American Guilt” - SO FUCKING GOOD.
Kyle Craft - “Exile Rag”
Jeff Rosenstock - “Beating My Head Against the Wall”
Hookworms - “Negative Space”
King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard - “Barefoot Desert”
They Might Be Giants - “I Left my Body” - I probably have listened to more TMBG in my life than any other band (last.fm will back me up on this). I always worry when a new TMBG album comes out, because I worry it’ll be the one where I feel like I’ve finally gotten over them. But...no? Still good here. Still good.
Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks - “Middle America” - Malkmus still has a knack for writing great songs, and this is honestly one of the best songs of his since...like...his first solo album?
Ed Schraeder’s Music Beat - “Dunce” - Oof. This is it, people. No fucking around - this is the leader of the pack. The song I am most in love with right now. The jam of the winter. The potential song of the year. The song I can’t get enough of. The king of songs. A good tune. It's the kind of song that I listen to a lot, and when I’m not listening to it, I think: “Man, I wish I was listening to that song right now.”
Go! Team - “The Answer’s No - Now What’s the Question”
MGMT - “Little Dark Age”
Franz Ferdinand - “Always Ascending”
U.S. Girls - “Pearly Gates”
Superchunk - “What a Time to Be Alive” - This politically-charged version of Superchunk is kind of amazing, and I’m super duper in love with this entire album. But especially this song.
This is mostly new(-ish) music, but sometimes there’s a just a song or two or three or nine that I want to listen to a lot that ends up here too. Here’s what I’m listening to as of late:
Yamantaka // Sonic Titan - “A Star Over Pureland” - Y//ST had been on my radar for a few years now, though I hadn’t listened to them much. But between their name and their visual aesthetics, there seemed to be something pretty exciting about them. Finally delving into their back catalog in anticipation for their upcoming album Dirt (and I think there’s a song from that somewhere in the future of this playlist), I’m super pleased that I’m finally devoting more time to them. Heavy at times, more folky at other times, and even a little splash of electronic texture here and there. They remind me of this group Mr. Gnome that I had gotten into a few years ago. Anyways, this particular track (from their 2011 debut) is one of my favorite things I’ve listened to in a while, period. Apocalyptic waves of drums and guitars meet blood-thirsty chanting. I could listen to 100 minutes of this, but I’ll settle for the 7 minutes of this track.
Tune Yards - “ABC 123” - I wasn’t super impressed by the new Tune Yards album, and I was pretty bummed by that considering how much I liked her last two. I think Merrill Garbus has such an awesomely unique voice and great messages in her lyrics, but the actual songs on this album fail to keep my interest. This track is one of the few exceptions, a bouncy pop song that belongs in the top tier of Tune Yards songs - if not one of the best songs I’ve heard so far this year. Weirdly disappointing, then, that the rest of the album fails to meet this bar.
Caverns of Anti-Matter - “Make Out Fade Out” - If a gun was to my head, I’d say Stereolab was my favorite band of all time. And with the likelihood of ever getting another Stereolab album diminishing year by year, I’m now just living off of new albums by Laetitia Sadier and Caverns of Anti-Matter. Last year was Laetitia’s turn, so now we’re back to Tim Gane’s post-Stereolab outfit, Cavern’s of Anti-Matter. Instrumentally, I think Caverns lean far far closer to the electronic side of things than Stereolab had, yet there’s still these hints of krautrock and lounge in their sound that don’t seem that far removed from the prior band. The bass line in this new track is killer, and the vocal-less track kind of whizzes by - the soundtrack to a fictional cartoon about spaceships racing each other, maybe. I’m extremely excited to hear more.
Teenage Wrist - “Dweeb” - I’ve never heard of this band, but I’m very happy that I stumbled on “Dweeb.” It has its roots firmly planted in the grunge/alternative rock sound of the 90s, yet still feels refreshingly new. I’m a sucker for things that make me think “Wow, this is like those rock songs from the days of yore.” There’s a good amount of, for lack of better adjectives, some authentic sounding angst here.
Damaged Bug - “Jet in Jungle” - A track that’s a few years old, but I discovered last year while falling through some Oh Sees wormholes. I loved the track then, and I can’t stop listening to it now. Seriously. I have a genuine addiction to this track.
Jay Rock, Kendrick Lamar, Future, James Blake - “King’s Dead” - I love Kendrick’s voice, y’know? And he’s a smart guy. And, I guess, he’s so hyped about Black Panther that he oversaw the entire soundtrack? God, I love this track. It’s all over the place, and there’s so many little pieces that somehow work together. I said I was going to listen to more hip hop music this year (well, I didn’t say it out loud, but I did say it in my head), and this song definitely inspires me to make good on that promise.
Of Montreal - “Paranoic Intervals/Body Dysmorphia” - I already said some words about this song last month in this here blog. But I still love this song.
David Byrne - “Everybody’s Coming to My House” - Like, the first 40 seconds of this song annoy me every time, admittedly. The music's queuing up and David has this squeaky voice happening and I’m always juuuust about to skip the track, but then the drums kick in, the music starts rolling, and all the elements just suddenly meld together beautifully. I’m way more excited for a David Byrne solo album in 2018 than I thought I would be.
Jeff Rosenstock - “USA” - There are two Jeff Rosenstock songs on this album I love to pieces, and...actually, you know, I love all the songs on this album. Like every fucking song. This album is fantastic and its timing couldn’t have been better - hitting my sweet spots du jour for politically charged sing-along punk rock. But this song, in particular, is like the theme song for 2018. “We’re tired!/We’re Bored!” Another track that stretches past the 7-minute mark without every coming close to being exhausting or wearing out its welcome.
Yamantaka // Sonic Titan - “Someplace” - I said a bit about Y//ST already, so I’ll keep this brief. This is from their upcoming album Dirt, which I’m pretty excited about. This track still has some pretty heavy stuff in the instrumentation, but there’s also a really pretty and serene quality about the track, especially early on. I’m pretty interested in hearing the rest of the album.
The Vaccines - “I Can’t Quit” - I’ve never listened to The Vaccines before, but I don’t think I ever really had to. You see the band name, and you kind of just know what they sound like - some sort of garage/punk/rock commotion. And I gave this track a whirl, seeing as it was new and I gave an apathetic “why the fuck not” should shrug” and ended up digging it. Yep - sounds exactly like I expected it to. But it's catchy. Fun. Good. I’ll probably listen to more. (Okay, also, their first album was called What Did You Expect from the Vaccines? Jesus Christ.)
Turbowolf - “Domino” - I don’t know who Turbowolf is. Another apathetic shrug. But, also, another head nod of approval. The easiest comparison here is Death from Above and maybe Bass Drum of Death. Maybe...Wolfmother? Like, any band that that has “death” or “wolf” in its name. Is there a band called Deathwolf? There is, so says Spotify. With 273 monthly listeners. Step up your game, Death Wolf. Anyways, I like this song. Fun, speedy, this will be on a summer playlist or two.
Jay Som - “Pirouette” - I’m sorry (I say to myself). I totally slept on Everybody Works last year, despite listening to it a handful of times and loving it and wanting to have listened to it more. And now this post-album track hits and its so so so so good. I’ve literally listened to this song more than I’ve listened to all the tracks on that album combined. Like, I should go listen to it, but...this songs not on it. And I love this song.
The Wombats - Cheetah Tongue - I kind of remember The Wombats? They were, like, one of a hundred bands who all kind of sounded/looked/acted the same in the late 2000s. They’re still making music, so good for them. I wonder if I’ve unfairly judged them/dismissed them, though, because this song is really quite great. Despite its terrible name. Dance-y alt-pop-rock that definitely makes me nostalgic for illegally downloading music in 2008.
The National - “The System Only Sleeps in Total Darkness” - True story: I never really liked The National before. I’ve admired what they’ve done, and I’ve never hated them. But they always just sort of seemed like the most stereotypical/streamlined version of indie rock. If someone was like “This is what indie rock sounds like…” they’d put on a National record. So I never really cared about them before. But then I heard this song late last year, as every website, radio station and entertainment outlet praised them and their latest album. And...I kinda fell in love with this song. Am I a convert? Shrug. Look, I like this song an awful lot. And they should be grateful for that right now.
There’s a conspiracy afoot to make me listen to Green Day and Smashing Pumpkins until I die. Because every week I have to read the same fucking article in my social media feeds about how somewhere in your early 30s you stop exploring new music and just stick to what you know - and not just what you know, but the shit you listened to in your teens, I guess.
Look, I’m sick of the music I listened to when I was a teenager. I was sick of it then too, because that’s why I went searching for better music, y’know? And Billy (or is it William now?) Corgan can re-assemble The Smashing Pumpkins from his vast collection of frozen past band members for the millionth time, and I’m still not all that interested.
So part of me hopes I’m 80 years old someday and checking out the new urkelwave albums. Maybe this is the year I finally plateau and give in to riding out my life with “Lightning Crashes” playing ad nauseum.
Right now, in Winter 2018, I’ve accumulated a list of over 50 songs, and counting, of new discoveries and music that still makes me excited. So I’ll talk about ‘em.
Eels/of Montreal/Decemberists Have New Songs and I Like Them.
What a weird and unexpected week for new singles from bands I had once loved but kind of gave up on. First, there were new singles out this week from both Eels (“The Deconstruction”) and of Montreal (“Paranoic Intervals/Body Dysmorphia”). And so I was writing this blob of words about how impressed I was by them - and then I see that there’s a new Decemberists single too (“Severed”). Well alright.
At different points in my life, all three of these bands would’ve been seen as being top tier in my hierarchy of personally important music. But also, all three bands had managed to lose my interest through their last few album(s), whether it was just by becoming boring (Eels), prolific and unfocused (Of Montreal), or just being past the days where they had something new to say (Decemberists).
That I actually enjoyed all three of these singles was a nice a surprise.
“The Deconstruction” isn’t revolutionary, but it is the first new Eels song I’ve heard in ten years that I haven’t just shrugged my shoulders at. While on the surface the song doesn’t seem like that much of a departure from the material I’ve heard from them in the last 10 years, the dynamic between the soulful drums and the vocals is refreshing and kind of...beautiful. I’m liking it a lot.
From what I’ve read about the new Of Montreal album, White is Relic/Irrealis Mood, I’m kind of excited in a way that I haven’t been for an OM album in years. 80s-esque extended dance mixes? The mention of vaporwave? I’m in. The new single “Paranoic Intervals/Body Dysmorphia” is a pretty neat 7 minute journey that recalls Hissing Fauna, albeit an darker take on Fauna’s electronics. Around the 5 minute mark, the song detours into this cool sequence with some heavy bass synths that make me think of New Order. I know this won’t be the Of Montreal we get next year, but this year’s model seems alright.
Lastly, and I suppose this will be the most divisive of the three, is the new Decemberists single “Severed.” While I thought that The King is Dead was a pleasant change of pace for the band (especially coming after The Hazards of Love, which I did not care for), What a Terrible World, What a Beautiful World was such a middling Decemberists-by-numbers slog that I assumed this was the path the band would ride out until death - middle of the road NPR stalwarts. So this album and its...Roxy Music influences...is interesting to me. I kind of like “Severed,” though I suspect not everyone is going to. I won’t call this “experimental,” because the band is doing absolutely nothing that hasn’t been done before. But it's a bold path for the band to take, and it reminds me of Belle & Sebastian’s last album’s flirtation with electronics - it's basically the same band you know and love, with some new tricks.
Anybody other bands I’ve written off in the last few years want to join this party? Manic Street Preachers? Mercury Rev? Rogue Wave?
Dear Video Game Diary, I Wish I Was Better at This Overwatch Game
A periodic journalesque blurb about the video games I’m currently getting mad at.
I really want to like Overwatch. And I do, I guess, in some sort of way.
Here’s what I like about Overwatch: I love the visuals, I like the characters. I like the settings. I like the story (so much so that I bought a damn Overwatch comic book). I like the gameplay. I like the mechanics of the game.
So, like, I guess that’s everything. Oh, except for the people who play it.
Oh, calm down. This isn’t another rant about the toxicity of cranky video game babies. Sure, there’s lots of them, but I don’t even care much about them much. You can scream about character selections, the lack of teamwork or about how you got blown up by a Junkrat 12 times in a row all you want - I’m probably just going to snicker or shrug my shoulders.
No - it’s that everyone is so much better at this game than I am. Like...I suck, I guess.
“Git gud.”
Yeah, no, I know. Hey, listen, I’m having fun in Quick Play (mostly). And so long as I don’t get Symmetra (what the hell do you do with her?) in Mystery Heroes, I’m having a pretty good time there too. But I made the mistake of investing time in Competitive and watching my SR continue to plummet and plummet (sigh, hello Bronze) is like watching my soul get chipped away.
It causes me more stress than it should. I care wayyy more than I should. Not only is it just a video game, but it's a game that I really like. And maybe that’s just it, you know? It sucks to be be told that you’re bad at something you’re otherwise enjoying.
The options at this point are pretty obvious. Get better, sure. Don’t care as much. Or, like, don’t play. So I’m taking a little bit of a vacation from Overwatch in the pleasant world of Stardew Valley (hint: future post about that game on the horizon). I’ll come back to Overwatch, for sure. And I’ll play it in the ways that are fun to me. And if I end up with an SR of, like, 12 I’ll deal with it. There’s a new character on the way. There’s a new map on the way. There’s more loot on the way. I’d like to see those things. I’d like to buy another comic book about Overwatch.
There’s a life lesson here, maybe, about having restraint towards things that you know are going to stress you out. I don’t know what that fucking lesson is because I just want to blow up everyone else. But I’ll sleep on it for a few weeks and maybe it’ll come to me.
It’s 2018, and its that weird tween area where things still feel like the previous year and you still write the wrong year on everything. It’ll take a few months before we get to say things like “Man, this year really blows” or “Hurry up, 2019!” So far now, lets all just relish in our hatred of 2018.
I’m not one for “resolutions” though the new year seems like as good as any time to at least set a few goals that coincide with the figurative clean slate this year. A few goals for me to work on this year:
I wanna sell a piece of art. A zine, a print, a thing. I dunno. I just want to do that.
I have to finish Persona 5. Its a good game that I’m taking way too long on. And other videogames keep distracting me from my high school romance dreamland.
I have to read some books this year. I like books. Books like me. We should make this happen more.
I need to do more kayaking this year. Join me.
I have to reassemble my DnD boys/girls for a new adventure. We talk about it often and we’re all too lazy. But goshdarn, we have some dragons to kill (or get killed by).
Make more things. Make all the things.
See? By keeping my goals simple and easy, I’m setting myself up for success.
Here’s something else I’d like to see happen this year: Drumph gets tarred and feathered. He’s then taken around the country on a tour of humiliation so we can all laugh at him.
Other notes:
I listened to a Lil Pump song this morning. And I was thinking “Maybe I’ll broaden my horizons.” But...not all horizons are worth exploring. Heyyy, if you like him, keep liking him. I’m too old!
I still have no idea what I’m doing on this stupid Tumblr account, and I’m still essentially talking to myself. I see nothing changing about that in the near future.
I really really suck at Overwatch. I just want to throw that out there. I’m, like, almost an Orisa main? Blehhhh. Boring as fuck.
10. Alvvays - Antisocialites: What a delightful album. Like, I should just leave it at that, because I’m not sure what else I want to say about it. This is just the kind of indie pop-rock album that felt plentiful and unavoidable 10 years ago, but doesn’t show up as much anymore. But I don’t think its noteworthy just because it’s filling a niche. It’s just an effortlessly tight album. It sounds good, the vocals are great, the songs are amazing. There’s hints of some interesting inspirations sprinkled throughout (someone was listening to Stereolab…), and I just can’t get enough of it. I wouldn’t be surprised if, in the longrun, this album has some more longevity than most of the other albums on this list.
9. Thundercat - Drunk: Let me start here: I picked up this album on vinyl this year, and it’s one of the coolest looking packages to come out this year; great cover art, lots of art inside, and...the album spread across three 10” discs. To get through the album on vinyl you need the steadfastness to flip three different discs after each side, and to put away each disc and replace it with the next at least twice. That’s a lot of commitment for any album, and the very thought of listening to this album on vinyl exhausts me (considering that my turntable is located on the opposite side of the room from my couch). With that said, I’m pleased to announce that I love this album, despite its presentation. I feel like this is the third year in a row that Thundercat has felt like an important part of important music (see also: To Pimp a Butterfly, You’re Dead! and The Epic), and its good to see that its own name on the cover of his work this year. This is an album that feels uniquely his, and somehow makes a song about watching anime in Japan seem as much of an artistic accomplishment as making the best yacht rock song in 30 years with the help of Michael McDonald and Kenny Loggins. The entire album is an equal parts quirky and soulful trip and hints that future albums could be even quirkier and more soulful. Just, like, listen to it digitally.
8. Rolling Blackout Coastal Fever - French Press EP: So what does this say: For a 6-song EP, these songs must be exceptional if it was better than all those other albums? Or that, as an EP, there’s less of a chance to be bored with it by the end? Well, for what it's worth, this is the only EP on the list, so it clearly did something right. Honestly, if this was at LP length and was 10 songs at the same quality as the 6 presented here, this would probably rank even higher. As is, this is just a breezy and effortless set of indie rock songs from a new band that sounds like they’ve been around 10 years longer than they really have. There isn’t a moment that goes to waste, and I’m always left wanting more at the end - a quality that even some of my favorite albums this year didn’t have. I sincerely hope there’s a full length on the horizon, and that it makes good on the promises hinted at here.
7. Oh Sees - Orc: Sometimes there’s just the perfect album at the perfect time. Maybe its a band that you’re finally getting into as they put out a new album, or maybe it's an album that just seems to mesh with the kind of music you’ve been into lately. Maybe it's an album that just resonates with how you’re feeling in that moment. Sometimes it's all of the above, as was the case here. I finally got into Thee Oh Sees last year, absorbing their two albums in my quest for more music that was in the same vein as Ty Segall’s Emotional Mugger. Between these albums, and King Gizzard’s 2017 output (we’ll come back to that), I was 100% on board the fuzzed out psych-garage-punk bandwagon, and that's when this album fell into my lap. I just love everything about this album. It’s raw, it’s weird, it’s loud, it has the most epic drum solo I’ve heard all year on it. My garage-rock sensibilities were spoiled silly this year, and this album played a huge part in that.
6. Japandroids - Near to the Wild Heart of Life: I read a review earlier this year for this album, and I’m kind of paraphrasing from memory, but it essentially said: “In a trying year like 2017, you’d think a band like Japandroids would have more to say on that, rather than making more fun punk music.” And that literally made me love the album even more. The best response to the darkness of our world, as it turns out, was to remind you of what it looks when you make it to the light at the end of the tunnel. The band doesn’t necessarily do anything they haven’t done before - there are few risks or moments that would sound completely out of place on an earlier album. But they really are great fucking songs. The title track is, hands down, the best song that was released this year. Yeah, maybe this didn’t call our orange meat puppet a buffoon or anything, but it sure as hell will be playing on my headphones on the day that we wave goodbye.
5. Washed Out - Mister Mellow: As we approached the end of 2016 and with the mostly unknown, but likely dark, void of 2017 looming ahead, I vowed to make art more important in my life. It needed to be an escape just as much as a response. And when I felt overwhelmed by the news cycle, or when the inspiration I needed just wasn’t there, Mister Mellow was. Between the “visual album” aspect of this project (that I strongly urge you to check out) and the music itself, it completely fit in with my aesthetic as artist and never failed in giving me a little pep talk. It's not a long album, nor is it an especially deep one. But in terms of style and just being a pool of strangeness to get lost in, this album never let me down. It might not be an explicit reaction to 2017 in itself, but it definitely aided me in creating my own.
4.Tyler the Creator - Flower Boy (or probably, Scum Fuck Flower Boy): The genesis of Odd Future was a weird time for me as an aging fan of music. On one hand, here was this collective of talented young rappers churning out a near-constant stream of albums for free - a concept that was novel and exciting to follow. On the other, between fast-paced Twitter stream-of-thought and community in-jokes, Odd Future definitely felt like the exact moment that I felt like I was an old man who didn’t get what the kids were listening to. And through that, I followed Tyler from afar. He’s a funny guy who you’ve been able to watch mature, year by year, to someone who feels very much like a spokesperson for a generation (am I crazy for thinking this??). This album feels like his most personal, self-aware, and world-aware album in his career, and there’s a quality in the production and the songs worthy of that awareness. I recognize the lack of hip hop music in my list this year, and that’s a very fair observation. My only excuse (and it is just an excuse) is that Flower Boy was just that hard to beat, for me. I listened to this album a lot this year, and I found myself relating to some of Tyler’s own personal revelations.
3. Father John Misty - Pure Comedy: Earlier this year, speaking to a friend of mine about this album, I was voicing my displeasure: “The album is just far too long and says far too much. I just feel like I’ll never have the energy to slog through the whole damn thing.” But, again, 2017. The world needed protest music, or at the very least, music that seemed to understand the world we now lived in. So I slogged through Pure Comedy and...it wasn’t a slog at all. Okay, sure. It’s long. It takes its time. But Josh Tillman GETS it. Its a bad, and darkly amusing, world out there, and he’s here to let loose about it. The album only got better through the year, with every single listen. Even the 13 minute “Leaving LA” centerpiece feels wholey essential, acting as almost an origin story for FJM as much as it's a state-of-the-union on Josh’s personal life. This album didn’t just grow on me this year, it came to feel absolutely essential.
2. King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard - Flying Microtonal Banana, Murder of the Universe, Sketches of Brunswick East, Polygondwanaland: Not only did it not seem right to pick just one album of the 4 (at the time of my writing this) albums released by KG&TLW this year, but it felt like there was a larger picture here that needed to be recognized. King Gizzard promised 5 albums this year, and of the 4 we got, not a single one disappointed. Not a single one felt like a weak link to me. Not a single one felt like a misstep or seemed inessential. In a year where albums from some of my favorite bands bounced off of me after a listen or two (sorry, Grizzly Bear), this one band somehow made 4 albums that I cared about and kept coming back to. Flying Microtonal Banana and Murder of the Universe were both instantly loveable. They feel right into the same psych-rock wormhole that Oh Sees had me traveling through - especially the latter, with its story-driven sections and spoken words just hit the spot in every way possible. Sketches didn’t resonate with me at first, admittedly, perhaps because of its vast difference in sound from Murder - but I came around on it quickly, and its jazz-leaning pop would actually become the second most listened to of the 4 albums (with Murder being 1st). Polygondwanaland, finally, felt like a singles compilation - a complete set of tracks that, while feeling a little disconnected from each other thematically, shows off everything the band is capable of as well as hinting at what could be on the horizon. I honestly can’t say enough good things about this band, nor can I recall the last time that a band’s entire aesthetic just resonated with me so much. And to bring such a great quantity of music (with equal amount quality) to the table was just...perfect. Or, y’know, close to perfect. Because these albums are only #2 on the list.
1. Priests - Nothing Feels Natural: Nothing Feels Natural was one of the first (if not the actual first) albums I fell in love with in 2017, and it felt like the album that all others would be measured against. And, for the most part, this album always felt like the best. There were times when other albums felt more important in a moment (Murder of the Universe and Flower Boy both immediately come to mind), but when the buzz wore off a little, I was always happy to come back to Nothing Feels Natural. Here, Priests nail both a cohesive sound, yet its done through an assortment of genres. The surf-rock of “JJ” (another contender for year’s best song), the spoken word punk of “No Big Bang” and the new wave of “Suck” all seem to be at contrast with each other on paper, but the entire album flows together effortlessly. The band is tight as hell, and for as much as I want to call them “punk” there just isn’t a lot of the discordant noise I’d associate with that label on this album. There’s a Spoon-esque attention to production on this album - everything feels planned and well thought-out and there’s barely any wasted moments. Musically, I think the album holds its own against almost any other that I’ve listened to this year. Yet, I don’t even think its the music that even puts it here in the top spot - that’d be the lyrics. You’re probably as sick of hearing about the influence 2017’s politics had on music as I am sick of writing about it, so I’ll try and condense it a little...but you get the idea. For songs written prior to the year, they certainly hit all the right spots for the issues that mattered in 2017: Identity. Feminism. Consumerism. Culture. Even if it would’ve been the right album at any time, it still felt especially poignant this year, and the fact that it sounds so great only propelled it the very top.
And that’s it. That was my favorite music of this year. All done. The end. Onwards to whatever black hole of despair 2018 will be.
Alright, let’s do it. 20 albums that I liked more than the rest of this year’s albums. Some are easy to stand behind because they’re just genuinely and technically great, but there are a few albums that just resonated with me a lot - seemingly in ways that didn’t with others? But, whatever, it’s my list and I’ll forget about all of these albums a few weeks into 2018 when I’m just listening to If You’re Feeling Sinister ten times a day.
20. Black Mass - World Eater: In what will likely be a recurring theme as I talk about albums that were important to me this year, it was hard not to weigh any art (music or otherwise) against the flaming circus-tent of a year it's been for anyone who wasn’t an old white male billionaire. And while I didn’t always seek out music that seemed to directly react to the state of the world, some albums just seemed to fill that role naturally. In any other year, I probably would’ve embraced World Eater’s dark and noisy aesthetic as a good counterpoint to all the lighter power pop I consumed, but this year, World Eater felt more like necessary noise in drowning out the barrage of darkness in our newsfeeds. For an album without any actual intelligible words or lyrics, it's hard to say just how much of a reaction World Eater is to 2017, but it still managed to fill that role perfectly.
19. Dirty Projectors - Dirty Projectors: It’s like listening to your best friend talk about his recent breakup. And you love your best friend, and he tells a really good story. And in the moment you’re thinking “Man, that sounds like it was really hard.” But later on, after he left your house and your mulling it over, you think: “She might have been too good for him.” Look, I don’t know what happened between Amber and Dave, and I’m not supposed to know either - that’s their business. But they made some of my favorite albums together, and this album - the first without Amber - simultaneously feels both incomplete and like an evolution in the sound of Dirty Projectors. The last thing I wanted was to feel like I was between two of my friends as they broke up, but at least the fallout sounded beautiful.
18. Los Campesinos - Sick Scenes: What year did Hold On Now, Youngster… come out? Oh, 2008. Wow, seems surreal it's been almost 10 years, and like, 4...5...6 EPs and LPs since then? I gotta admit, I fell off the wagon for a while. It wasn’t you, Los Campesinos, it was me. But, man, am I glad that I checked back in this year. I dunno what happened. Maybe you were fucking killing it the whole time and I wasn’t paying attention, or maybe I just happened to check back when you made exactly the album I was hoping I’d get a few years/LPs ago. Still twee. Still snarky. Still angsty. It’s the bitter version of Belle & Sebastian we needed right about now.
17. Protomartyr - Relatives in Descent: There’s a lot of archaic sounding rock music anymore, right? I still like it, but to stand out in 2017, a good rock album needs to have something special to say. This album, and the band’s Joe Casey, has a lot to say. It’s hard to describe the band’s sound, and I mean that in the best way possible. The Fall’s chatty lyrics and punk sound is a good starting point, maybe a dash of Titus Andronicus (or maybe I just listened to TA a lot this year, and they were always on my mind when I listened to Protomartyr?). This year’s album by Priests actually felt akin to this album, and vice versa (and we’ll talk about that album more later…). But this album felt wholly original, political, socially aware and personal in a year where all of those things mattered more than usual, and we were all better for it.
16. Ariel Pink - Dedicated to Bobby Jameson: More than ten years after having discovered Ariel Pink, I still feel like there’s no artist or band that sounds like him. His honest-to-goodness songwriting knowhow always seems at odds with his continued embrace of absurdism. Whereas his older material always reminded me of listening to someone’s AM radio through the wall (at midnight,after you had a few drinks), his newer material is more like finally being invited into your neighbor’s apartment, only to find out that the music is coming out of the sink. There’s almost a sense of maturation on this album for Pink, but only in that he seems more comfortable than ever in exploring the niche that he’s made for himself and remains alone in.
15. Everything Everything - A Fever Dream: You know those bands, or albums, that you think you know everything about before you listen to them? That. For the last three albums, I kind of wrote off Everything Everything based on nothing more than a bad hunch. “I think they’re from the UK? They probably have a guy on the synths. I bet NME likes them. Nothing to see here, folks.” I was wrong (and why would any of those things have mattered?). I’m always wrong when I do this (sometime I’ll tell you about the years I was really wrong about The Mountain Goats). This band, and this album in particular, feels so much refined and on point than I ever would’ve imagined. The strength of “Night of the Long Knives” alone, and it being the first track, was like a slap to the face. Who else was I wrong about?
14. Grandaddy - Last Place: I told them not to do it. They probably couldn’t hear me, and I doubt they would’ve listened had they heard me, but I fucking told Grandaddy: “Don’t come back. You’re music is of a time and place, and this isn’t the same world. Nobody’s going to get your slacksadaiscal lo-fi indie-pop. Please, think of me: You’re fan who loves you and who used your music to get through some dark days.” But they went and did it. They came back. And they made an album. And that album sounds exactly like what I would’ve expected from a Grandaddy album 10 years ago. And you know what? They fucking killed it. Welcome back, Grandaddy.
13. Gorillaz - Humanz: Now here’s a doozy. What do you say about an album that, while inherently flawed and less than perfect, is still a blast to listen to? Look, I know, this doesn’t sound much like a Gorillaz album. Even as a mixtape, it's kind of uneven. But, you know, according to Last.FM, this is the album I listened to most this year, and I believe it. A flawed package can’t distract from just how enjoyable most of these songs are. There has never been a time when I’ve heard one of these songs in a playlist or when my library is on random, and I wasn’t excited to hear it. Maybe it lacks the vision and cohesion of every Gorillaz album that came before it, but maybe that's its biggest strength too.
12. New Pornographers - Whiteout Conditions: I know. I knooow. This isn’t the best New Pornographers album, and it probably wasn’t, technically, one of the best albums of the year. AND Dan Bejar isn’t even on this album! Yeah...but I still love this album. Coming off their last album, Brill Bruisers (an album that I firmly believe is one of their best), there is still a thrilling amount of energy left in a band that is pushing almost 20 years together. And, like BB, there’s a continued sense of cohesion here. This sounds less like a bunch of good songs collected on an album, and more like the end result of old friends getting together in a specific mindset and mood. Its an effortlessly charming and smooth power pop album that still sounds manages to demand attention, despite the shadow of their more acclaimed classic albums.
11. Spoon - Hot Thoughts: I dunno, should I just copy and paste the write-up I did for the New Pornographers? I could switch out Brill Bruisers with They Want My Soul, and it’d still be accurate. I could point out that they’re still putting out amazing work this late into their epic career. Maybe the difference here is that while New Pornographers continue to hone and perfect the same sound they’ve always had, Spoon always seems to be stretching itself out a little bit. Never too far from their core sound, but enough to give each album its own feel. This time out, Spoon leans on some new electronic elements that seem to fit in with their sound perfectly. Britt Daniels continues to seem incapable of writing a bad song, and there are just so many good songs this time around. Like, I predict that I’ll still have “Do I Have To Talk You Into It” in my head when Spoon releases their next album.
2017: Good Albums Not on the BEST OF THE YEAR List
Every year when I sit down to make some sort of End of Year music list, I’m never really sure what seems like a good cut off point. I remember once, in my Live Journal days (early 2000s?) I did a Top 50 list one year. And, like, that was kind of dumb. What really differentiates #43 from #42 when they’re all just my opinions (and there’s a good chance that I haven’t listened to whatever #11 through #50 were since then anyways)?
20 or 25 usually seems like a pretty ideal goal. A few years ago, maybe 2013, I did a Top 10 list only because I hadn’t listened to much music that year. Or hated most of what I had listened to, I don’t remember.
Anyways, I had a shortlist of, maybe, 40 albums that I felt like I had a pretty good grasp on this year, and I’ve whittled that down to a Top 20 list, which I’ll slowly dole out for the rest of the month. In the meantime, here are a few of the albums that didn’t make the cut - albums I liked a lot, but just happened to be beat out by albums I liked more.
Bjork - Utopia: A gorgeous album that did a lot to rehab the reputation of the flute after Arcade Fire sullied it earlier this year. If I had more time to absorb this album, it prolly would’ve made the Top 20.
Foxygen - Hang: I feel like I was one of the of the very few people who liked their last album a lot. Even so, this album is pretty weird. Like...indie-pop showtunes? It grew on me a LOT this year, and it continues to grow on me.
Daniele Luppi and Parquet Courts - Milano/A.Savage - Thawing Dawn: Parquet Courts are, easily, one of my favorite bands of the last few years. I ranked Sunbathing Animals as my Album of the Year in 2014 and last year’s Human Performance was #2. And while I liked both of these PC-related projects quite a bit, neither felt as essential as the last two studio albums. That said, I’m very excited about the recent news of a new PC album early next year.
Beck - Colors: I’ve read some negative pieces on this album, but I didn’t think it was too bad. Even if, at times, it felt like Beck was sitting on a chair backwards so that he could rap with the kids, he’s still a pretty good songwriter and it’s always nice to see established artists experimenting. And I don’t care what anyone says, “Wow” is a great song.
Kaityn Aurelia Smith - The Kid: This is a really cool album, and one that I wish I found time to listen to more. This was, probably #21 on my list, if such a thing existed. It’s simultaneously organic and synthetic sounding and there really wasn’t any other album this year that sounded quite like it.
Death From Above - Outrage! Is Now: I wasn’t too thrilled with the last DFA album, their comeback, but this felt like the band making good on a reason for coming back after all those years.
Avey Tare - Eucalyptus: A very good album that recalls both early Animal Collective and something uniquely Avey’s. I know everyone was feeling Deakin’s solo album this year, but I think this one might have been better.
Rozwell Kid - Precious Art: I’ve been following RK since their first album, and I love seeing them get more attention. This album almost sounds like a maturation for the band, but they also sing about boogers, so maybe not. Just fun and witty power pop, the kind that feels harder to come by these days.
Phoenix - Ti Amo: I liked this album quite a bit, though I had it in my head that it was so much better than Bankrupt! because Bankrupt! wasn’t good. But then I went back and listened to Bankrupt! and it was better than I remembered. Oops. Well, still Ti Amo is still probably better than Bankrupt!
I am just one human, and there’s an awful lot of sounds out there. And I wish I could listen to every album 200 times but, like, King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard put out 326 albums this year (as of the time I write this) and those took up a lot of my time, y’know?
Here are a few albums I a strong initial impression of, but just never found the time to return to. There’s probably a much larger list than this of albums I wish I listened to more, but these are the ones that I have the most regret over not listening to more…
Perfume Genius - No Shape
Jay Som - Everybody Works
Milk Music - Mystic 100s
Black Lips - Satan’s Graffiti or God’s Art: I love Black Lips, but the timing of this album just coincided with a ton of other things I was listening to a lot, and I kept putting this off. Black Lips + Sean Lennon? I really shoulda made more time for this.
Mountain Goats - Goths: I loved Beat the Champ, and I’ve been on a John Darnielle kick between older Mountain Goats albums and reading Universal Harvester this year. So, like, why didn’t I listen to this more? Sad!
Fleet Foxes - Crack Up: Despite being a pretty big fan of Fleet Foxes, I think I did the same thing with Helplessness Blues, where I didn’t listen to it much at the time it came out, only to completely fall in love with it later. I liked what I’ve heard so far, but I just haven’t devoted the time to the album that I think I’ll need.
SZA - CTRL
Big Boi - Boomiverse
Toro Y Moi - Boo Boo: Admittedly, I listened to a LOT of Chaz Bundick Meets the Mattson 2 this year, so I don’t even know what my excuse is for not listening to this more.
Girlpool - Powerplant: I really love seeing/reading interviews with these two women, as I think they’re very smart and cool. But I also wish I spent as much time actually listening to their new album, especially considering how much I enjoyed their last one.
Cornelius - Mellow Waves
Boris - Dear: I love Boris as a band, but they sometimes fall into the same trap as other post-rock bands (see also: Mono and Mogwai) of making albums that aren’t especially different than what came before it. So Dear, to me, felt like just more Boris music. Which isn’t a bad thing, but I ended up just coming back to Pink and Heavy Rocks when I needed a Boris fix this year.
Amber Coffman - City of No Reply: I love, and always have loved, Amber’s voice, and I was really sad that she wasn’t a part of this year’s Dirty Projector record (though she had a pretty good reason for not being on it). I was actually more excited for Amber’s record than DP, but I feel like this had a really stealthy release (or an extremely quiet one), and I hadn’t even realized it was out until close to the end of the year...
Obviously I can’t like every album that comes out in a year, nor do I try. I know I won’t like that new Maroon 5 album, but it probably wasn’t meant for me anyways. Still, there are plenty of albums I feel like I should like - some from artists I’ve previously enjoyed, some because everyone else has a favorable opinion on them - but I just don’t. And that’s what this list is: Stuff I tried to like, but didn’t.
I was excited for Courtney Barnett and Kurt Vile’s Lotta Sea Lice, being a big fan of both’s solo endeavors. While, admittedly, there’s a charming chemistry between the two, they never seem to push each other or take any chances, thus the whole album just kind of meanders by with few memorable moments. Not a bad album, just not one I’ll ever choose to return to instead of when of their better solo albums.
Lana Del Rey’s first album Born to Die was, at best, just okay. But I bought into her aesthetic pretty hard around that time. I remember reading all the articles, interviews and think-pieces before she even had an album out, and I was listening to “Video Games” endlessly (Last.fm still ranks it as my most listened-to song in the last 10 years). And it’s kind of weird because with each album since then, she seems to have grown as a songwriter, seems to grow her fanbase and seems to get an even better critical reception - yet I continue to cool on her. Fatigue? Did I like her better as an underdog? I don’t know. But Lust for Life did nothing for me.
I’m not bitter about the mainstream attention Portugal the Man found this year. The writings been on the wall for years that this is exactly what the band was waiting for, and they finally found the right balance of weird, pop and Danger Mouse to get them there. Still, the PTM I fell in love with were a different band. Woodstock is my stop, and I’m getting off the train. Thanks for the ride!
People have spoken very highly of Japanese Breakfast, and I really wanted to like Soft Sounds from Another Planet, but it just didn’t happen. Certainly not a bad album in any way, just not one that resonated with me.
2017 was a trying time in the struggle with separation of art and artist. I actually liked Brand New’s album a lot, but in the fallout of the accusations against Jesse Lacey, I find it impossible to return to the album, and I don’t see that changing anytime soon. Ditto for Morrissey, who I already have a contentious appreciation for. On the same day I planned on going to the record store to pick up his new album, his comments on the Hollywood sexual assaults proved to be the final straw for me. There simply isn’t time to support artists like these when thousands of other bands and artists are actually helping to contribute to and build a safer space for their fans.
I still like Mac DeMarco way more as a human than I do as a performer. See also: St. Vincent.
Mastodon continued to stray from their epic awesomeness that made me a fan in the Leviathan/Blood Mountain era. Their latest was alright, but just alright.
I don’t know why I thought The National was going to win me over this year when their older albums (and their most acclaimed albums at that) hadn’t. But, nope, still not into The National.
I defended Weezer for way longer than I should’ve (like, I bought Raditude), but that new album... No.
I continue to hold out hope that one day War on Drugs will click with me, but it hasn’t happened yet. And I’ve tried! Maybe that just one just isn’t meant to be.
I hope that time doesn’t prove me to be exaggerating when I say this, but Arcade Fire’s Everything Now might be one of the most disappointing albums I’ve heard in a long time. Not to say that they’ve had a perfect track record up to this point, but the worst thing I could say about AF up to this point is that their last two albums were just too long. But there’s just so little of EN that I like. Even the album’s best moments (maybe...”Creature Comfort” or the title track?) still sound like parodies of better AF songs. Everything about EN, down to the marketing and roll out, just felt heavy handed and exhausting. I continue to appreciate AF as a band, and clearly their overall message comes from a good place.
Next: the albums I wished I listened to more this year.
