Top Ten Albums, Music of The Year, Romantic Thoughts and More! Yeah!

I gotta say, 2008 was a pretty fantastic year for music.

There was the continuation of a re-disco revolution (on the heels of last year’s After Dark compilation and James Murphy’s fantastic disco-loving but not exactly disco Sound of Silver) with Hercules and the Love Affair, Air France, hot singles from Juan Maclean, and Air France to name a few. Oh and a little band that could: CUT COPY. Then there was the dominance of a new wave of earnest girly-boy beard rock bands (Bon Iver, Fleet Foxes), bands who made excellent records. We also had bands like No Age and Abe Vigoda smash preconceptions of what noise is and how it relates to pop (they are now one!). And while My Bloody Valentine reunited to blast everyone’s ear drums on stage, new school shoegaze came to the forefront thanks to Deerhunter’s double album and the cheesy oh so cheesy but how can’t you love them amoregaze (new genre?) style of M83.

It was a year where Bob Boilen dro0led over Ting Tings singer and the Vivien Girls (Spirit of Karen O you just won’t die, will you?) while Brooklyn continued to dominate with TVOTR’s new awesome album and Todd P friendly bands like Crystal Stilts (my personal fav), Fuck Buttons, and Titus Andronicus (ok they are from NJ but dude they play in Brooklyn like every fucking day) hanging right below the radar.  Baltimore also kept kicking ass post-Deacon with Beach House’s breakout album Devotion and the weird but kinda wonderful Round Robin Tour. Now if only that fucking Animal Collective album would leak…Also speaking of great bands who put out great or almost great records: The Walkman, Nick Cave, PJ Harvey (I loved White Chalk despite her being out of fashion), Spiritualized, Byrne/Eno, Magnetic Fields, and Portished (comeback!).

For me, though, 2008 was not just a good year in music, it was a year where I fell in love with and over music. I really thought that my mid-to-late twenties would mean I couldn’t bank on my interest in music dork trivia or my love of piano in dance tracks to get me a date. But uh, thanks to Cut Copy it sort of did. I must say 2008 taught me you can still fall in love with an LP and a mate at the exact same time. So go get on Nerve.com peeps and get your Beach House and red wine ready!

Top Ten Albums (ok, 11 albums…)

1. Cut Copy: In Ghost Colors

So I remember a few years ago when I was 17 or so my dad had a cocktail party with some of our NYC graphic designer 40-ish gay friends. The gays loved me because I had a New Order pin. “Someone still listens to New Order!” Then they started talking about how they went camping and someone brought a book with the lines “she has gray eyes, she has blue eyes” and they all knew where New Order got that line and they were so excited they all got naked and went night swimming in a lake (0k I made that last part up, but one of these gays is Abercrombie and Fitch’s art director). They were still excited, 15 years later and had a glow in their eyes. Uh, that’s how I feel about Cut Copy.

2. Chad Van Gaalen: Soft Airplane

Dude produced the Women self titled album (which is getting even more press/praise than his album) and he is also visual artist. So there you go. But with Soft Airplane he also produced his own nuanced, abstractly poetic songs with a subtle roughness that somehow feel soft…?

3. Deerhunter: Microcastle/Weird Era

They learned to play live. Bradford stopped wearing dresses. Magic was made.

4. Hercules and the Love Affair: Self Titled

Fuck that I hear this in every Gap store and it’s probably thumping somewhere at a lame meatpacking district hellhole. It’s Antony singing disco and that is the best thing since Arthur Russell’s dance records. When gays get arty and dancey and have a lot of money to produce music it’s a beautiful, beautiful thing. (Giorgio Moroder much?)

5.Department of Eagles: In Ear Park

Not better than Grizzly Bear but certainly more accessible. Also it’s all about the dude’s dad which makes it all that more poignant. “No One Does It Like You” is the breakout song of the year….and a bunch of my buds agree.

6. Beach House: Devotion

7. Grouper: Dragging a Dead Deer Up a Hill

Best name for album.Fall asleep with me to this…

8. Air France: No Way Down (EP–yeah they count!)

More awesome French disco.

9. Gang Gang Dance: Saint Dymphna tied with Fuck Buttons: Street Horrrsing

Similar yet different. Tribal yet electronic. One has got a chick that sounds like Siouxsie Sioxsie and one has a gameboy player. Can’t decide. Buy/download/steal them both.

10. Disco Not Disco Compilation: Post Punk, Electro & Leftfield Disco Classics 1974-1986

Listen to your history you would be James Murphys of the world! This is not a perfect compilation but it’s got some sick tracks–from “Laundrette” by Vivian Goldman to ’s “Spine is a Bassline.” There would be no DFA with out this kind of wacked out/highly ignored NYC disco, noise dance autres like James Chance, and crazy British weirdos obsessed with dub like Goldman.

Notable mentions:

Hot Chip: Made in the Dark

The Walkmen: You and Me

Women: Self Titled

Dosh: Wolves and Wishes

No Age: Nouns

Crystal Stilts: Alight of Night

Nick Cage: Dig Lazarus Dig!

TVOTR: Dear Science

M83: Saturdays = Youth

Fleet Foxes: Ragged Wood LP

Abe Vigoda: Skeleton Punk

Je Suis Animal: Self-Taught Magic From A Book

We Are Wolves: Non-Stop Je Te Plie En Deux

Spritualized: Songs in A&E

PJ Harvey: White Chalk

Sool: Ellen Allien

Atlas Sound: Let The Blind Lead Those Who Can See But Cannot Feel

Magnetic Fields: Distortion

Bon Iver: For Emma

Tobacco: Fucked Up Friends

Beck: Modern Guilt

Health: Disco

Crystal Stilts, WFMU photo by Farinas

Top Five Songs not on these albums…

1. Little Boots: Stuck on Repeat (Fake Blood Remix)

Best dance song of the year hands down.

2.Kids (Cut Copy remix): MGMT...ok I’m one of those fuck MGMT people (they don’t really have talent although they are witty) but good song thanks to Cut Copy’s touch.

3.L.E.S. Artistes: Santogold

Parts pf Santogold’s album sorta reminds me of Yoko Ono’s “Walking on Thin Ice” period which isn’t bad but it’s sort of misleading since the world wants us to think she’s the next M.I.A. But I do like this song a bunch.

4.Happy House (Original): Juan Maclean (from Happy House EP)

Love those piano parts of disco songs…”I thank you for being so…excellent.” Love it.

5. Invisible Conga People: Cable Dazed

Why won’t these guys put out an album?

For a dose of excellence via MP3 from my best ofs go here (30 fucking tracks!).

**PS this is for fun/non promotional use only, please don’t arrest me since it will only be up for 100 dls and 7 days….

Dude It’s Holiday Time! Good Things Despite the Shitty World

So after a week of watching violence in Walmart and Mumbai on CNN it’s a bit hard to get psyched for a happy holiday. However, Christmas/Thanksgiving is about who and what you love, not about buying things or lamenting your company’s canceled holiday party or watching terrorists bomb the shit out of banking capitals. And there is a lot of fucking sugar to get excited about! That said, here are a few things making me deliciously happy despite the sad state of the economy, the world, the environment and retail killing, ahem, shopping.

Christmas lights/star shaped sugar cookies/fake sparkly xmas trees/the tacky decorations all over the outer boroughs of NYC.

Best of music lists for 2008 (compiling mine now but I’ll give you a hint: CUT COPY and a lot of Chad Van Gaalen)

“No One Does It Like You” (click on it to listen on NPR.com) from Daniel Rossen’s (Grizzly Bear) other band Department of Eagles

Slumdog Millionaire and A Christmas Tale: The sweet and sour (respectively) of holiday art films.

Really good looking/fucked up French couple or really good looking/fairy tale Indian couple?

David Foster Wallace’s (RIP) “A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again.” I’ve never wanted to go on a cruise but now I seriously question the sanity of those who DO want to go on a cruise.

Twin Peaks’ via Netflix. Now that Mad Men is over for the season I need a smart soap opera that features some 1950’s values turned on its head and this Lynchian murder mystery/meta series from the 90’s does the trick.

Anticipating the Irma Vep Essential Edition DVD on December 9th. Assayas is my favorite French filmmaker working today and Irma Vep–starring Maggie Cheung and legend Jean Pierre Leoud–is his masterpiece. This 1996 film is a work of sublime satire and a stunningly stylish film to boot. Finally it’s getting the treatment it deserves. (Also check out Luna’s excellent cover of “Bonnie and Clyde” showcased in the film).

OVATION TV: I don’t have this channel at home (I don’t even have cable…boo…) but I did get to watch a bit of quality tv (as opposed to the E! True Hollywood story of the Osbournes and multiple episodes of “The Real Housewives of Atlanta”) while in PA for Thanksgiving vacation time and over the course of the a few days I was able to view a documentary on photographer David LaChappelle, the tail end of How To Draw a Bunny (about “outsider” artist Ray Johnson ), and the making of Blur’s record 13. Did anybody else know about this awesome art-tastic cable network?????

The Vaselines’ sad/scratchy/lofi genius (thanks the emphatic praise via blog from Bryan..oh and a dude named Kurt)

Butternut squash and pinot noir: Quite simply the perfect late fall wine/vegetable combo.

The Looking at Music show at MOMA

Hanging with the family: When my roommate came home today we recapped our Thanksgiving break activities. And it turns out we both just hung out in the burbs drinking wine, eating, and watching the telly with our families (for me it included, along with aforementioned trash tv and OVATION gems, IFC showing of Shallow Grave, a great pre-Slumdog Millionaire treat from a very, very young and sardonic Danny Boyle and Stuart Saves His Family, my family holiday film). Instead of going to the bars full of people you kinda hate from high school, why not reconsider staying in the night before Christmas and hang with your rents instead. Although, a suggestion: it helps if you have a buddy to keep you sane, so bring a boyfriend/girlfriend/bestfriend/cousin home with you or make sure you’ve got a brother or sister you really like there to help from parent insanity setting in too deep (DEAR MANFRIEND, THANK YOU FOR KEEPING ME FROM SCRATCHING OUT MY EYEBROWS OUT OF RESTLESSNESS).