The Best Record Of This Year (Or Any Year?) or How I Survived American Express

This summer I worked in an American Express office in the suburbs outside Portland, Oregon. In a somewhat misguided effort at packing lightly I left all of my records and CDs in storage in Poughkeepsie, thinking that digital music would just have to suffice for the duration of the summer. But I'm an idiot. I don't have an ipod and I can't remember if I was just planning to plug my computer into my car stereo or what but I found myself facing an oppressively hot rush hour commute with nothing but the radio to keep me company. I decided that something had to be done. Fortunately the office I was working at had an adequate supply of blank CD-Rs that didn't appear to have any off-limits signs on them. I managed to smuggle five out of the office one day early in the summer and when I got home I realized that thieving was the easy part. I now had to pick which five records were going to serve as "the records of the summer." Usually music geeks tend to wait until the end of a designated period of time before declaring the top five or top ten hot jams of said period of time. Here I was though, in the unique position of declaring which records would define my three months in Portland when I had only been on the west coast for a few days. It was a frighteningly limiting task before but at the same time I couldn't help but feel a little drunk with power. This was almost like time travel. I say almost because one thing I definitely didn't see coming was the spectacular record "The Getty Address" by the Dirty Projectors.

Why exactly I have come to regard this particular record as one of the best things to happen to American music in the last ten years still remains somewhat of a mystery to me. But I do have a few ideas. I say American music because the kind of songs that Dave Longstreth is writing are characteristically and distinctly American. This, of course has something to do with the the subject matter of the album itself: life in post 9-11 America, the Battle of Gettysburg, Hernan Cortes' invasion of the Americas, and a mythical protagonist named Don Henley.

It also has to do with sounds. I don't feel like I have to do to much explaining when I say that songs that are popular today sound a lot like songs that were popular twenty years ago, and that garage rock as a genre has been around the block more times than a dime store hooker. Even artists working with older vocabularies and attempting to revitalize and reinvent genres within a more modern framework run into the same problems (the entire "freak folk" scene). It would have been easy for this to happen to the Getty Adress were it not for the record's unique evolution. Longstreth first began formulating the core ideas for this album as a student at Yale, where he wrote and recorded arrangements for wind septet, women's choir, and cello octet. Had he left the arrangements as they were recorded the result would have been less remarkable. However after dropping out of school and releasing two records on Portland's States Rights label, Longstreth returned to his previous recordings, digitally deconstructing each of the themes and crafting new songs out of the rearranged parts. The result is a glitchy, jarring masterpiece that fuses European and African influences with American folk, jazz, soul, pop.
What is most compelling about the record though is the marriage of the subject matter and the musical vessel that holds it. By wholly conceiving the piece in the styles and sounds of years past and then filtering those sounds through the distinctly contemporary environments of laptop pop, Longstreth brings the entire history of American music forward while at the same time addressing what exactly it means to be American.

What it meant to be an American for me that summer was a wretched eighty minute daily commute to suburbia and back. It went like this: I put on the Getty Address just as I am leaving the office and see weather or not the record finishes by the time I finally pull into my driveway. "I Will Truck" usually hits as I pull onto I-5 south jousting with frieghters and SUV's for my share of a lane while enjoying, arguably, one of the best uses of finger snapping in a song ever. Nothing scares me more than a mack truck at sixty miles per hour and I find the abrupt alternations of horn riffs and gated choirs a perfect musical manifestation of my tangled nerves. I arrive at the I-84 interchange as Cortes is making his landing in the new world in "D. Henley's Dream." Cortes not only as the conquerer of America but Cortes as a metaphor for invasion itself. "There's an eagle and a snake" waiting for him but there's also "a lake of black gold"-a prefiguration of invasions to come. As Longstreth expands on this symbol in "Drilling Profitably" and "Finches Song" I am close to my house. The questions he asks and the themes he touches on are simple, poignant and as important in a historical context as they are to life today. "Who is the searcher? Who is the colonist?" but the answers are not easy and the warnings he gives of invasions to come ("do not colonize the insides") often lend an air of despair to the last third of the album. But I don't have time to think about those questions. I've just had a hard day at work and now I'm pulling into my driveway. I barely even think about how, everyday, I "benefit from the legacy of the fallen." I don't contemplate because there's always some distraction, some commodity gloss. Some tour guide pointing me towards the gift shop. I notice how quickly I've used the tank of gas I bought yesterday and those questions start to sink in-they sink just like bodies sinking into the ground and decomposing into a black lake for the next generation of invading forces to fight over.

some meaningful movies

hey, kids, in longboat key, florida. i go here every christmas-new year's to see my cousins and my grandparents. come in from philadelphia, marin county, chicago, and the north shore to celebrate my fickle grandmother's birthday and the joys of a classically disorganized large jewish clan. the grandfather's clinging to claims of patriarchy and the mothers are kvetching.

i saw syriana and munich. while both ambitious and self-righteous flicks with all the hallmarks of each (beautiful shots of middle eastern and european locales, respectively, and stone-faced stares aided by pulsing, supposedly ethnically correct soundtracks), one is a disorganized mess, not even in its handheld camerawork, while the other flies directly into the face of tactless kitsch. i will explain more, i hope, when my internet access isn't confined to my aunt's computer. but read a helpful new yorker review of munich -- does spielberg really need to portray the protagonist's war-ridden anguish by literal gunfire in his bedroom while he climaxes in his wife? and understand that syriana is a second-rate traffic, several discombobulated narratives that, thank god, ask you to make the moral judgments yourself (because it's so confusing!) and has its hunky broham put on 30 lbs, instead of munich's adonis-like regular old jew.

see you in 06.

Sacred Objects

The fragments of opinion and intricicies of taste that are forever defining the world of the music lover can, to one who has not fully absorbed the complexities of said world, appear confusing and arbitrary at face value. And when these intricicies and opinions reach their full potentiality in a frenzied state of heightened activity, such as during the compilation of an annual top ten list, the world of the music lover, in the eyes of the uninitiated, gives itself over completely to irrationality. How, the observer asks, can the music lover commit himself fully to his unassailing love of the creative process-which every music lover must posess or his opinion is worthless-embrace a vast array of genres, make breakfast with his music, drive with it, sedate himself with it, and at the end of every year sweep the majority of it to the side and into the dustbin of history? Why not let music be? Never mind that these questions only summon up ongoing critical debates in every area of the arts. With regard to the phenomenon of classifying music in general and top ten lists in particular it is specific enough. So why does the music lover classify?

A quote from the anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss regarding the herbatology of native tribes of South America can be just as usefully applied in this situation. "It may be objected that science of this kind can scarcely be of much practical effet. The answer to this is that its main purpose is not a practical one." The classifying that goes on in the mind of the musci lover cannot be said to aid in his physical survival. Professional music writers, critics, and industry types excepted. This classifying "meets intellectual requirements rather than or instead of satisfying needs. The real question is...whether some initial order can be introduced into the universe by means of these groupings. Classifying, as opposed to not classifying, has a value of its own." Now the world is illuminated. The top singles/ten/dozen/genre list suddenly takes on signifigance because of itself. Though the structure itself is the most important thing there is no denying that this structure alters the objects it holds. The sacredness of the great record must be preserved by a system of order. Or rather "it could even be said that being in their place is what makes them sacred for if they were taken out of their place, even in thought, the entire order of the universe would be destroyed. Sacred objects therefore contribute to the maintenance of order in the universe by occupying the places allocated to them." And with a full fledged endorsement of this maintenance of order, here are my sacred objects. There are eleven of them.

XI) Bonnie "Prince" Billy/Matt Sweeney-Superwolf
X) Dungen-Ta Det Lungt
IX) Genghis Tron-Cloak of Love
VIII) M.I.A.-Aruler
VII) Antony and the Johnsons-I Am a Bird Now
VI) Gang Gang Dance-God's Money
V) YACHT-Mega
IV) The Kallikak Family-May 23 2007
III) [[[Vvrrssnn]]]-s/t
II) Animal Collective-Feels
I) Dirty Projectors-The Getty Adress

The National, a "Tops" Addendum

A year is long, things get lost by the way or just plainly never picked up at all. My only point of reference for The National was as Clap Your Hands Say Yeah's touring partner early this fall. That was Clap Your Hands' big come-out party, even if I remember their show at Vassar in September (withouth the National) more for the jumping and pushing we did in the crowd, and less for the music. I did get to meet Alex Ounsworth after the show and chat for a minute or two, which was cool, but that's digressing. The National was not at that show, but maybe if they had opened, instead of the prepster-wanker Yalies known as the Harlemshakes, I could have heard one of the best bands of 2005 back in September, rather than now, less than two weeks before 2006. Their album Alligator is lyrically direct, the guitars and percussion are bare and simply-structured. Songs start slow, walking along with their head at their shoes, until looking up and racing toward what's ahead. At first, think of the Wrens. But even as the guitars and drums run, surging, the vocals remain low, baritone, and paced.

There is some cheesiness in the songs at first - I suppose that's on account of the lyrics and their low, manly-but-emotive delivery. Whether this is derivative, I can't really measure, partly out of a lack of grapsable references, and because, you know, fuck being derivative. If I read somewhere that The National's singer sounds like Ian Curtis and that this is all a well-executed ape of Joy Division, I really don't care. A.) Because I don't listen to Joy Division on a daily basis, though I have an idea of what awful apings of their songs sound like (Interpol), but more importantly, B.) Because for all the derivative bands (Wolf Parade, Clap Your Hands, Arcade Fire) that are variously banal and overhyped, The National are neither of those things.

Their songs, which I'm still getting into - Zach passed Alligator along earlier this week - are not massively original, in the sense that precise, well-played rock is familiar. The National's songs are spirited and pointed, forgoing a blatant formula, which means they are the only new indie-rock I've been able to enjoy this year without reactions of "well, here come the drums; here come the 20 seconds of overtly shrill Talking Heads:77 vocal rip-off; here comes the synth line; doesn't this sounds like Modest Mouse?"

Such things are important these days, not only to satisfy the snide tendencies of a disollusioned Pitchfork reader, but as reassurance that the chance to hear pleasing, challenging music that has some ownership of itself does not only lie with the old guys - Will Oldham, David Berman - or the new crazies like Animal Collective.

My Tops

I've made it a baker's dozen. In order, the records that have fit my fancy this year:

1 Antony & the Johnsons - I am a Bird now
2 Matt Sweeney and Bonnie "Prince" Billy - Superwolf
3 Silver Jews - Tanglewood Numbers
4 Animal Collective - Feels
5 Genghis Tron - Cloak of Love EP
6 Thanksgiving - Cave Days and Moments
7 Architecture in Helsinki- In Case We Die
8 Xiu Xiu - La Forêt
9 Devendra Banhart - Cripple Crow
10 Y.A.C.H.T. - Mega
11 Bright Eyes - I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning
12 Jose Gonzalez - Veneer
13 David Knowles - Home (I disagree with one Chelsea Cochran, who had this to say, among other nuggets:

"Unfortunately, it soon becomes obvious that Knowles needs to spend a little more time exploring composition and basic musical skills. His inability to stay on rhythm or to play simple chords consistently begins to replace the image of minimalism with the image of ineptitude. "

the best the best the best

Yeah, whatever, I listen to boring music. But honestly, here's what I've listened to and enjoyed most this year:

15 Ladytron - The Witching Hour (garage Ladiez)

14 Spoon - Gimme Fiction (fallacy of Spoon's barebonesism)

13/12 V/A - Nao Wave/The Sexual Life Of Savages (Ian Curtis in Portuguese -- got two Brazilian post-punk comps and it's all the same to me!)

11 Pansy Snowflake and the Lilypads - Demos (cutesy VU/Mag Fields fakers)

10 Ninja High School - Young Adults Against Suicide (#2 for Glenview brohams)

9 Babyshambles - Down In Albion (la belle et la bete)

8 Out Hud - Let Us Never Speak of It Again (skinny chicks are cute on the dancefloor)

7 V/A - Grlz: Women Ahead Of Their Time (riot g's)

6 Orange Juice - The Glasgow School (pre-Prince post-Buzzcocks, all B&S freshly squeezed demos)

5 The Dirty Projectors - The Getty Address (I see the piano and it keeps going forever)

4 Deerhoof - The Runners Four (the audience members were just hugging each other)

3 Animal Collective - Feels (just like my father)

2 The Go! Team - Thunder Lightning Strike (a little bit better with We Just Won't Be Defeated)

1 M.I.A. - Arular (the best album since Inches)

Honorable mention lamers

The Go-Betweens - Oceans Apart
Art Brut - Bang Bang Rock and Roll
Franz Ferdinand - You Could Have It So Much Better
Bonnie "Prince" Billy & Matt Sweeney - Superwolf
The Books - Lost and Safe

In fact, Teri Hatcher's passion wagon does not exist

This might be too close to Gawker, so I've been trying to come up with a seven-degrees connection of Teri Hatcher to some musician. Can't think of any now. Suggestions welcome, otherwise I'll justify this under the banner of "Daft Culture," or what David and I originally crafted as the the scope of the 'Seat.

From Slate:

Buried on Page 30 of the National Enquirer is a small-type "apology" to the Desperate Housewives star: "A cover story we ran entitled 'Teri Hatcher—Amazing Bedroom secrets' was based on an interview sold to us by an experienced freelance journalist who we now believe never actually conducted the interview. … Ms. Hatcher has never engaged in sexual relations with men in a van parked on her property, nor does she leave her child alone in her house while having 'steamy romps' with men in a 'passion wagon.' … We also published a story suggesting that Ms. Hatcher … had become 'desperately thin' and was 'wasting away.' … We now know that during the past seven years, her weight has fluctuated by only three pounds—a result of healthy diet, moderate exercise and a good metabolism. Ms. Hatcher is fit and looks great, and her healthy appearance is nothing new."
http://www.slate.com/id/2131912/

Top Ten Albums of 2005

Hey dudes. Hatesomethingbeautiful.com contacted our publicist and requested a top ten list from "Glitter Pals" for their site. You guys should make lists too!!!

(I'm pretty much down with everything on here)
Glitter Pals 2005 Top Ten Albums:

1. Oneida - The Wedding
2. Yip Yip - Pro-Twelve Thinker
3. Boredoms - Seadrum/House of Sun
4. Alan Braxe & Friends - The Upper Cuts
5. Gospel - The Moon is a Dead World
6. Vitalic - OK Cowboy
7. Apse - s/t
8. Gang Gang Dance - God's Money
9. Mike Jones - Who is Mike Jones?
10. usaisamonster - Wohaw

Shania Twain and everybody loves money

First she came out with three versions of Up!, each with slightly tweaked instrumentation to appeal to its respective market (country, pop, and world music). Then on Shania's greatest hits album, she released two versions of "Party For Two," one with country star Billy Cunningham, the other with Extra correspondent/Sugar Ray lead singer Mark McGrath.

The video's here (http://www.musicremedy.com/audio/index.cfm?FuseAction=ShowAudio&AudioId=2078 -- I dunno how to do links. David?). If you can, try to find the one with the country dude, which is more excusable, I guess, because Billy didn't get into the music industry on a punk band with two guitarists who met because they were both wearing Jam pins, and who'd previously played greasy LA locales before, you know, state fairs and stadiums (Mark McGrath and Aerosmith are equisellouts, I guess, but I could say more about that later). But as you watch Mark McGrath, now acting like a retard in a Shania Twain video, mugging for the camera and scooping up mad honeys and flashing the bro sign everywhere, which is already terrible enough, try to imagine some equally decked out metro dude doing the EXACT SAME THING and singing the EXACT SAME PART in the "country" version of the video.

It's way funny. But, whatever, good for all the folks involved. They're making money.