BEST OF 08: “Life Is A Movie” by GZA

[Talkin' the best songs of 2008.]

Back around 1993 this big, jewel-encrusted, irresistibly awesome boat came rolling through youth culture — and, fool that I am, I watched it sail right by. That boat was the Wu-Tang Clan, and I still vividly recall how so many of my suburban white friends insisted it was the most incredible thing to happen to hip-hop music since Run-DMC or the Beastie Boys.  But at the time I was too steeped in either jangly alternative rock music or the hazy feedback of music to take drugs to to be bothered. Of course, if listening to music to take drugs to was really what I was into (and it was — even though I never took drugs back then), I should have run, not walked, to my local record store to buy Enter The Wu-Tang (36 Chambers). But I didn’t; my head was far too engulfed in the asses of Johnny Marr, Lou Reed, Dave Fridmann, etc.

My loss. And even though I later figured out that I’d made a big mistake by ignoring Wu-Tang, I never went back and bought that first classic album, or any other Wu albums. The moment had passed. Once I started seeing Target commercials advertising the album, I knew I’d never buy it. Instead, I only ever enjoyed the music of GZA, RZA, Ol’ Dirty, Inspectah Deck et. al. when in the company of friends who either caught the train when it first came around or weren’t too proud to jump on after big box retail stores had hijacked it.

So like I said, I missed that boat 100 percent. And now, even though it’s not against any personal policy of mine, obtaining those old records just isn’t a priority. Anyway, I suspect my ability to properly enjoy them has diminished now that I’m in what (no matter how much I would prefer to euphemize it otherwise) can only accurately be referred to as my mid-30s.

Still, I’ll pick up the solo work of Wu members if it’s easy enough to do. Like, for example, if it’s available at the local library. Such was the case with Pro Tools, the 2008 release by GZA. I know a lot of people count Liquid Swords among their very favorite hip-hop albums of the ’90s, but I’ve never heard it. Here it is, 2008, and Pro Tools is actually the first GZA album I’ve ever listened to. And I would be lying if I said I’ve given it anything more than a cursory listen. But one track, “Life Is A Movie,” somehow ended up on an oft-played playlist a month or two ago, and it quickly became one of my favorite songs of this year.

GZA is joined by RZA on this shamelessly simplistic song, the music for which is cribbed almost totally from “Films” by Gary Numan. The only original contribution other than RZA and GZA’s rhymes and the liberties RZA, who produced the track, took with the sample, are the vocals of the Irfane Khan-Acito, who sings “And sometimes I feel like my life is a movie” on the chorus, followed immediately by Numan’s opening line from “Films”: “I don’t like the film. I don’t like the film.”

The narrative of the song is sketchy; RZA’s verses are all typically bizarre takes on traditional hip-hop boasts, while GZA’s first two verses are one long lament about his woeful lot and luck in life, e.g.:

I got a smile that’ll make the mirror crack

And I seem to stay under clouds that stay pitch black

So when it rains, it pours, and when it pours, I’m soaked

I contracted lung cancer from third hand smoke

I’m like the frog that’s dying to be a prince

The boy who cried wolf and no one was convinced

The man who hit lotto and lost his ticket

In a rainstorm and stuck by lightning trying to get it

All of this is complemented by Numan’s relentlessly menacing soundtrack, which sounds even more darkly cinematic thanks to RZA’s gritty sound tricks. The final result is a brooding hip-hop classic with unlikely pathos — an existential dirge in rap form; a French new wave downer with a Wu score. Listen:

BEST OF ‘08: “Bye Bye Bye” by Plants and Animals

[Talkin' the best songs of 2008.]

The other day, a friend emailed asking for my top 10 albums of the year. I dutifully put the list together, but I felt like a fraud doing it. I rarely listen to entire albums any more. There are a number of reasons for my estrangement from the album: “Shuffle” on my iTunes and iPod; the growing popularity of online music sources like Pandora and Last.fm; my growing tendency to buy music from Emusic, where I can buy individual songs, rather than at the record store, where I have to buy CDs.

But another factor unrelated to technology has  limited my consumption of albums in their entirety this past year: My mix CD club. Every month, the club, which is comprised of a few good friends, gets together to exchange CDs based on a topic selected by one of our members. A month later, we reconvene to  exchange thoughts on each others’ mixes. It’s a fun exercise — and a time-consuming one. With eight mix CDs to get through each month, about 75% percent of my driving time is now spent listening to mix CDs rather than proper albums. Since the car is by far the place I’m most likely to play a whole CD, this has severely cut into the number of proper albums I’ve heard this year. The upshot is, I feel woefully ill-equipped to judge the year’s best albums. On the other hand,  I’m especially well-prepared to opine on the best songs of the year.

The mix club exposed me to a number of great songs by artists I otherwise never would have discovered. And even though many of our mix club members are more likely to use songs from 1988 than 2008, those select members who DO keep up with the current wave of pop music have introduced me to some great new stuff. Among the very best of them is “Bye Bye Bye” by Plants And Animals. I still haven’t heard anything else by these guys, but this particular song is among the freshest blasts of air that blew into my earphones all year. If the Polyphonic Spree and The Band ever recorded a song together, this is what it might sound like.

BEST OF ‘08: “Scratch The Surface” by The Week That Was

[Talkin' the best songs of 2008.]

None of the year-end best-of lists I’ve encountered have recognized The Week That Was’s terrific eponymous debut — a reminder that, like the All-Star game and the Pro Bowl, those lists are largely vapid popularity contests.

Few songs gave me more pounding-the-steering-wheel pleasure this year than “Scratch The Surface,” the album’s closing track. It’s a hammering prog-pop anthem executed with German-like precision. I have no idea what the song is about (band leader and former Field Music fella Peter Brewis says the whole album was inspired by the fiction of Paul Auster), but different bits from the song grab you by the lapels and shake: “It’s only a scratch, but you’re crying like a girl,” “I’m not responsible for how I react,” “It’s strange that we compete in this way” and, especially, the refrain: “Give to me some purpose, you’ve only scratched the surface.” And if you’re unemployed like me, the video (below) is a sobering reminder of what awaits you when you return to the Force.

BEST OF ‘08: “Dickshakers Union” by Surf City

[Talkin' the best songs of 2008.]

Surf City (formerly Kill Surf City) is an indie band from New Zealand, so it’s no surprise they sound a bit like the great Flying Nun bands of the ’80s and ’90s, particularly the Tall Dwarfs and the Chills. But even more than those bands, Surf City sounds like American pop innovators like Animal Collective and The Shins. But Surf City — and I mean this in a flattering way — isn’t nearly as brainy as either of those bands.

Tangentially: As interesting and occasionally mesmerizing Animal Collective is, I think their widespread success is largely creditable to a bandwagon effect. Because a good portion of their music is insufferably boring. The only thing worse than sitting through an entire Animal Collective record is sitting through an entire Animal Collective concert. I applaud the band for so succesfully bringing experimental music to such a large audience, and for working outside the confines of generic conventions. They’re terrific at what they do. But what they definitely don’t do is make music that I want to listen to over and over again. MGMT and the Bee Gees do that.

And so does this young Auckland band. “Dickshakers Union” is a so-simple-it’s-silly garage pop song propelled by a metronomic guitar, crashing drums, liquid-like vocals (very Animal Collective-esque, actually) and a mindless “wa-wa-wa” chorus. It’s practically rock-by-numbers. And it rocks.

BEST OF 08: “Sax Rohmer #1″ by The Mountain Goats

[Talkin' the best songs of 2008.]

John Darnielle of the Mountain Goats.

My fondness for The Mountain Goats borders on the irritatingly geeky. Yet my ardor pales in comparison to that of a number of the people at the Mountain Goats concert I attended in Chicago last October. Like They Might Be Giants in their heyday, The Mountain Goats has a certain cachet with well-educated white introverts with busy minds who, I assume, identify with the the unabashedly bookish and feverishly adenoidal John Darnielle.

Darnielle — the band’s founder and driving force — is nothing if not feverish. His songs — which are almost always first-person narratives and which, except for those on 2005’s The Sunset Tree, are almost always fictional — are singularly powerful. Words that come to mind when I think of them: Desperation. Intensity. Mania.

Many MG songs are vaguely apocalyptic, referring obliquely to the rapturous dawning of a new day or the destructive ending of an old one. Whatever is happening to Darnielle’s characters — however base or insignificant their lives are in The Grand Scheme — is blown up to big screen proportions. Although they’re often miserable people, they speak and act with the decisive fire of characters in epic films or the Bible.

Darnielle is a wickedly astute lyricist. He has a skill for descriptive writing rarely found in singer-songwriters, and he inhabits his carefully crafted characters with the conviction of a method actor. It’s easy for a singer to express scream-at-God, scream-at-yourself or scream-at-your-lover fury, but it’s much harder to write a song where that fury has a narrative context that gives it real, lasting resonance. Darnielle does that — and does it better than any working singer-singwriter, in my opinion.

Darnielle also has a knack for the cathartic anthem. A perfect example is “Sax Rohmer #1″ from this year’s Heretic Pride, one of my favorite songs — and videos — of the year. Check it out, and then check out Darnielle’ excellent blog (it’s certainly the best blog by a popular musician I’ve ever encountered), Last Plane To Jakarta.

BEST OF ‘08: “Recent Bedroom” by Atlas Sound

[Talkin' the best songs of 2008]

Bradford Cox of Deerhunter and Atlas Sound.

It can’t be denied that the indie rock webzine Pitchfork has a brilliant editorial model: Its newsfeed is THE go-to place for the latest updates on the goins-on of bands who for whatever arbitrary reason fall under the “indie” rubric. And its daily reviews, which always include something for everyone (and by everyone, I mean those who are ravenous about expanding their knowledge of music enjoyed by college-educated, middle-to-upper class 20- and 30-something music geeks), appear with militaristic regularity. Best of all, Pitchfork has remained steadfast in keeping its offerings simple.  While competitors like Popmatters (who occasionally publishes your author’s work) continue to beef up their editorial offerings to include everything under the pop culture sun, Pitchfork has stubbornly restricted its purview to indie rock CD reviews and news, with a few columns and some multimedia thrown in for good measure. It is better off for the simplicity.

However, Pitchfork’s approval of certain bands reaches such a pitch that one has to wonder what motivates it. For example: I wouldn’t be surprised if the more casual readers were under the impression that Pitchfork puts out Deerhunter’s records, so enthusiastic has been its promotion of the band. This is not to speak ill of Deerhunter, who, in fact, is a great band. Rather it is to speak of Pitchfork with a measure of suspicion. Why give certain bands such a disproportionate amount of positive coverage? Judging from the editorial voice of Pitchfork, I suspect it’s an effort to bask in the reflective glory of a band that currently ranks high with the young indie rock intelligentsia. Still, to a not-so-young reader like your author, it smacks of shameless promotion masquerading as journalism.

To their credit, they’re promoting a good band. Deerhunter’s Microcastle is one of the best pure pop albums of the year — if not the best. But none of its singles appealed to me as much as “Recent Bedroom” from lead singer Bradford Cox’s side project, Atlas Sound, which also released an album (with an annoyingly long name) this year. Atlas Sound isn’t as good as Deerhunter, but this song is haunting, sorrowful, beautiful.

BEST OF ‘08: “Lights Out” by Santogold

[Talkin' the best songs of 2008]

Pitchfork really phoneed in their annual “Worst Album Covers” feature this year. The “winners” skewed even more indie than usual, and were obviously chosen not so much for their objectionable art but because they lend themselves to lame punchlines. Example: They called out Santogold’s 2008 debut album cover (seen above) for a Goldschalger groaner.

It’s actually a pretty interesting cover in a bedroom, D.I.Y. sort of way. It certainly piques one’s curiosity about what kind of music it might contain.

As for the answer to that question, it’s hard to say. I hear similarities to everyone from Tegan & Sara and Nelly Furtado and The Breeders. Santogold (nee Santi White) has been influenced by the Pixies according to her Wikipedia page. And contrary to what a lot of journalists have suggested, Santogold is not influenced by R&B, and she has been angered by online websites classifying her music as “hip-hop,” calling it a “racist” assumption.

I dunno. But I do know the 32-year-old singer’s 2008 album is among the most interesting of the year, and contains one of the year’s best songs, “Lights Out.”

BEST OF ‘08: “One Fine Day” by David Byrne

[Talkin' the best songs of 2008]

David Byrne performed in Indianapolis a few months ago, and very few of my friends — pretty much all of whom have always regarded Byrne with the proper reverence — chose to go. It wasn’t even like they’d seen Byrne before, or had recently undergone some sort of major life crisis that made rock ‘n’ roll seem as insignificant to them as it probably should seem to me. They just didn’t think it was that big of a deal. Of course, I went — I wouldn’t have missed it for anything.

This made me worry: Is my enduring fervor for certain rock artists an indication of some sort of arrested development? I considered the possibility, but then realized that some of those same friends of mine who elected to skip the Byrne concert spend a good chunk of cash and time on video games, personal effects and other things that are just as commonly enjoyed by elementary school students. So it’s not like they’ve become emotionally frozen adults who only care about the undulations of the stock market. They love entertainment.

And that’s why I had such trouble figuring out their indifference to the David Byrne show. Here was an entertainer of monumental proportions (HELLO, Stop Making Sense) and one of the most significant rock ‘n’ roll figures of the final quarter of the 20th century right in our own backyard. And unlike a lot of his peers (Sting, Michael Stipe, etc.), he’s still making excellent music.

What was wrong with my friends? Should I continue to think of them as friends at all?

Cutting ties with my pals wouldn’t solve anything. I could simply ask them why their priorities are so misaligned. But I know their answers wouldn’t satisfy me (“I didn’t want to spend the money” “I had plans” “I really don’t listen to much of Byrne’ solo music.”) As my friend Damon (who, ironically, is among those who skipped the show) is fond of saying, some people just don’t like fun.

Anyway, if you get the chance to see David Byrne in concert (he’ll be trotting around the globe throughout February and March), GO. Byrne’s stage show is as awesome and engaging as ever — he’s got a great corps of dancers and back-up singers. His voice may sound even crisper and clearer now than it ever has. He still plays some great Talking Heads numbers (when I saw him, he played “I Zimbra,” “Heaven,” “Air,” “Crosseyed And Painless,” “Life During Wartime,” “Burning Down The House” and “Once In A Lifetime.”) And his new material, which he recorded with Brian Eno on the 2008 album Everything That Happens WIll Happen Today is excellent — especially the soaring gospel-influenced number “One Fine Day,” which I regard as one of the greatest songs of the year. Listen to the MP3 here:

And watch Byrne sing it with the folks from Young At Heart here:

BEST OF ‘08: “Dig Lazarus Dig!!!” by Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds

[Talkin' the best songs of 2008.]

I didn’t always like Nick Cave. I was 19 or 20 years old when I had my first memorable encounter with him. I was a student at Ball State University in Muncie at the time, living in a small efficiency apartment my grandfather owned on the corner of Main and Madison Streets, just across from the Downtown firehouse. I remember how I could look out my window and see the Cintas man staring back at me, his lifeless eyes auguring something sinister. At least that’s how it seemed when I was high, which was fairly often back then.

There wasn’t much to do in Muncie those days, so my friends and I watched a lot of TV. And this may sound strange to you youngsters, but back then, MTV was one of the best channels on TV. And one of the best programs on MTV was 120 minutes.

It was while watching an episode of 120 minutes that I had the aforementioned encounter with Mr. Cave. Bill Corgan was guest-hosting the episode, which was recorded at the opening date of Lollapalooza in Las Vegas, Nevada. It was the fourth year of the festival, and Corgan’s Smashing Pumpkins were headlining a bill that included the Beastie Boys, The Breeders, Boredoms, A Tribe Called Quest and several others — including Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds.

As host, it was Corgan’s job to walk around and try to interview the other artists. Eventually, he got to Cave. I don’t remember what Corgan asked Cave, but I do remember that Cave was a colossal dick in response. He obviously had no respect for Corgan, and he obviously tried to make him look stupid. At the time, since I sorta liked the Smashing Pumpkins, and since I didn’t know much about Cave and his Bad Seeds but assumed them to be in the same vein of goth outfits like Bauhaus or industrial bands like My Life With The Thrill Kill Kult, I decided then and there I didn’t like Cave, and never would.

Meanwhile, life continued for me in Muncie. I continued to watch TV, get high, and try like hell to avoid meeting the eyes of the Cintas man. A few years later, I would graduate and move to South Korea, where I would teach English to young children. It was during my time in Korea that my feelings for Nick Cave and those Bad Seeds of his would change.

How? There was no great revelation; no dramatic sequence of events. I was simply introduced to an album that sounded unlike anything I’d ever heard from Cave before: The Boatman’s Call. It was one of the most ruthlessly, beautifully heartbreaking things I’d ever heard. With sparse arrangements consisting mostly of piano, drums and violin — the last of which was played with extraordinary feeling by Warren Ellis of Dirty Three — the album eliminated the noise that accompanied prior Bad Seeds recordings. As a result, Cave’s deep baritone sounded painfully forlorn and alone. The thematic content certainly contributed to the morose vibe. Songs like “People Just Ain’t No Good” and “Where Do We Go Now But Nowhere?” — dark meditations on human weakness and doomed romance, respectively — are among the best songs Cave has ever written. And the gentle declaration of love “Into My Arms” has surely been played at a number of fans’ weddings — and with good reason. It’s absolutely gorgeous.

I have been a Cave fan and advocate ever since. But none of his albums have moved me as much as that one does. Still, every Cave album (and there have been a lot of them now) has a great song or two on it. And that’s true for 2008’s Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!, on which Cave may have written his catchiest pop song yet in the title track. I regard it as one of the top five or six singles of the year, and I bet I’m not alone.

BEST OF ‘08: “Un Dia” by Juana Molina

[Talkin' the best songs of 2008]

In her home country of Argentina (and all around Latin America, for that matter), Juana Molina is more famous for being the star of a Spanish-language sketch comedy show, Juana Y Sus Hermanas, than for her solo music career. But over the past decade, the 46-year-old Molina has become one of the more respected avant-garde musical artists in America and Europe.

Molina is first and foremost a vocal artist, and that fact has earned her more than a few comparisons to Bjork. But Molina eschews Bjork’s throaty expressiveness in favor of an airier, almost sedate approach. While Bjork’s music is often the sonic equivalent of a Jackson Pollock painting, Molina’s is more like exquisite latticework. And to these ears, Molina’s 2008 release “Un Dia” is the most sonically mesmerizing of the year. It’s a headphones-in-the-dark classic, and if you happen to dabble in psychotropic drugs, you may find it to be quite a nice accessory to your illegal excursions.

Here, Molina performs the title track, “Un Dia”: