2008: The Crappening (updated again on 12/28 I keep remembering things I forgot to add)

I spent a good amount of this year catching up on some of 2006 and 2007's albums that I didn't grab the first time around. 2006, in particular, was an awesome year for music. I finally listened to "The Crane Wife" by The Decemberists, "The Loon" by Tapes n Tapes and "Boys and Girls in America" by the Hold Steady. I also bought "Boxer" by the National, one of '07s best records.

Though it can't compete with the last two years, music fared better than film in 2008, and did do an OK job fulfilling its most useful purpose — distracting me from everything happening outside my front door. Some of my favorite bands released overhyped and underwhelming records (My Morning Jacket, Black Keys, Beck, Kings of Leon) but the year stayed afloat thanks to a handful of promising debuts. In fact, 2008 churned out the best crop of indie freshman in recent memory. Haunting folk by Fleet Foxes and Bon Iver hung like a thick fog, slowing down my daily chores with heavy reverb and timeless harmonies.

Vampire Weekend succeeded in reinventing the wheel, making ska and African rhythms sound fresh 25 years after art-damaged kids and popsters alike turned the same trick.

And, with the year's best singles, MGMT brought danceable Psychedelic glam-rock into dorm rooms everywhere.

Favorite albums:

1. Fleet Foxes - Fleet Foxes

Youtube video is the track "White Winter Hymnal"

2. Vampire Weekend - Vampire Weekend

Youtube track is "Cape Cod Kwasa Kwasa"

3. Bon Iver - For Emma, forever ago

Youtube video is "Skinny Love"

4. The Walkmen - You and Me

Youtube video is "In the New Year"

5. Girl Talk - Feed the Animals
Video is "Play Your part (Pt. 1)"


6. MGMT - Oracular Spectacular

Video is "Time to Pretend"

7. Dr. Dog - Fate

Video is "The Breeze"

8. Deerhunter - Microcastle

Video is "Agoraphobia"

9. Blitzen Trapper - Furr

Video is "Furr"

10. The Raconteurs - Consolers of the Lonely

"Solute Your Solution"

11. Black Keys - Attack and Release

"I Got Mine"

12. Ponytail - Ice Cream Spiritual
"Beg Waves"


13. Hold Steady - Stay Positive

"Sequestered in Memphis"

14. TV on the Radio - Dear Science

"Dancing Choose"



15. Black Mountain - In the Future
"Wucan"

Biggest Disappointment:

My Morning Jacket - Evil Urges

Moderate Disappointments:

Beck - Modern Guilt

Gnarls Barkley - The Odd Couple

Kings of Leon - Only By the Night

Kanye West - 808s and Heartbreak

Lil' Wayne - Tha Carter III

Cold War Kids - Loyalty to Loyalty

Albums yet to be fully digested that could possibly make the list:

Okkervil River - The Stand Ins

Portishead - Third

WHY? - Alopecia

Spiritualized - Songs in A and E

Magnetic Fields - Distortion

No Age - Nouns

The Knux - Remind Me in 3 Days
Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks - Real Emotional Trash
Department of Eagles - In Ear Park
Jenny Lewis - Acid Tongue

Albums I didn't even get to:

She and Him - Vol. 1

The Kills - Midnight Boom

The Bug - London Zoo

Randy Newman - Hearts and Angels

Q Tip - The Renaissance

People Under the Stairs - Fun DMC

Heralded albums that I could give two shits about:

Hercules and Love Affair - Hercules and Love Affair

Fucked Up - Chemistry of Common Life

Death Cab for Cutie - Narrow Stairs

Coldplay - Viva La Vida

FILM

2007, and 2006, were probably the two strongest years of the decade for film. Last year had prestige films actually worthy of prestige in "No Country for Old Men," "There Will be Blood" and Zodiac, a comedy classic in "Superbad" and a good comedy in "Knocked Up."

2006 was worth it of not just for "Children of Men" and "Pan's Labyrinth." Admittedly, I didn't see many of this year's films, spent most of my Netflix que catching up on classic and obscure old movies. But, 2008 did have two of the strongest summer blockbusters in recent memory with "The Dark Knight" and "Wall-E." Other than that, the year was grim.

Favorite films of '08

1. Wall-E

2. The Dark Knight
3. Burn After Reading

4. Tropic Thunder

... and that's it

Best comedy that wasn't Tropic Thunder

Role Models

Biggest surprises

The Bank Job

In Bruges

The Foot Fist Way

Guilty Pleasure
Hitman

Disappointments

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
W

Yet to see
Slumdog Millionaire
Pineapple Express
Man on Wire

THE GRAMMMYS!!! ughhhhh ...

The Grammy Awards has backed itself into a paradoxical corner.

The artists nominated (with few exceptions) in the major categories are neither the inane pop heard on Top 40 radio stations, nor is it the critic/indie rock currently receiving the best writing and influencing serious artists of the future. Besides the two or three acts with the most nominations, the hundreds of other slots are filled by marginally acclaimed music listened to by nearly nobody. Industry types assume that an acclaimed indie band wont bring the ratings, but they would feel silly giving (fill in the top 40 name blank) an award for Record of the Year . Finding interesting popular music to give awards to is nearly an impossible task. No one buys a Christina Aguilera CD because Pitchfork (they would never) gave it a good review. But poeple will tune into the awards show if Xtina is peforming, same goes for J. Lo, whoever else is hot ... im dating myself ... shit.

The nominations fill the void between cutting-edge brainy rock and soulless T-Pain executions, and land somewhere in Starbucksland. In other words, the nominations are as safe as telling Grandma that you like her pumpkin pie - acoustic guitars rule (along with 4/4 song structures) and any female vocalist needs to sound slightly less edgy or interesting than Amy Winehouse.

I don't think anyone worth a shit was raving about Jason Mraz's new album. You can put it on in the background and not offend your frumpy aunt, but it's not going to inspire any creative thought or new perspectives about music or the world. Same goes for Coldplay, who's "Viva La Vida" was only slightly less bland than "X and Y" and "Rush of Cold Blood to the Head." These are the kind of nominations you get when the pop-country bunch, ring-tone rap and auto-tuned R 'n' B are the top-selling genres and the best sounding artists print 80,000 copies of their albums on tiny labels. The Grammys simply split the difference and nominate Coldplay, which is popular enough with soccer moms who refuse to admit that they are, in fact, soccer moms. Nominations for Adelle, Duffy, Mraz and even Plant and Krause are for big corporate acts that long to be indie, the rock 'n' roll version of in-denial soccer moms. Some of the acts - Coldplay - are actually pretty popular and can fill stadiums. Others - Adelle and Duffy - are simply on major labels that try to promote them as something big when really I don't think anyone is listening to more than maybe their single.

But, the Grammys have always been afraid to go out on a limb, or be in on any current or future trends. That's how you end up with Jethro Tull winning best Metal album over Metallica in 1990. With our short memories, obvious past mistakes such as the Tull/Metallica debacle are often white-washed by the fuzzy glow of romanticism. People are relentlessly nostalgic about pop's past (why can't music - that actually sells - be as good as it was in the '60s? blah blah blah). While there is some truth to that idea, I don't remember the Clash winning album of the year for "London Calling" in '77, or N.W.A. winning in '88. The Grammys would always rather be safe than sorry, even if the year's most offensive album is the most relevant and influential. (I can see why the Grammys would not like to award an album containing "Fuck the Police,," as its stand out track, as best album of the year - but it did sort of popularize a little thing called gangster rap.)

There is also a reason Lief Garret and the Partridge Family are still popping up on VH1 circle-jerk sessions - people listened to a lot of horrible fucking music back in the day, too.

So the Grammys have always been a little behind, but the lag only becomes more apparent as the glaring riff widens between what's "interesting/good/creative/accomplished, etc" (at least defined by the Pitchfork/hipster/critic crowd) and what's "popular" (at least according to the Jonas Brothers set.)

Side note: When did tweens become the American barometer for pop? Isn't it universally accepted that tweens are the least cool age to be - i.e. - wannabe teens with childish reflexes? Have you ever been in a middle school? I don't think even middle school kids like middle school kids. If anything else, their recent choices for entertainment have been dubious at best - High School Musical, WTF? ).

Admittedly, the Grammys did seem to do slightly better this year than past, but barely. The nominating commitee threw folks like myself a few bones. But M.I.A. most likely would not have received a nom if the "Pineapple Express" trailer didn't introduce "Paper Planes" to sorority girls everywhere. Little Wayne was one of the nomination leaders. "Tha Carter III" - was a good album, but it doesn't hold a stick to other hip-hop monuments. Radiohead received a bunch of nods. Kings of Leon did also, for probably the worst song the band has recorded, "Sex on Fire," off the band's weakest LP so far. And with the Grammys weird-ass calender, 2007's Radiohead's album feels like ancient history.

The category that really exploits the Grammys overall lack of fresh opinion is "Best New Artist." The obvious omissions strike the heart of this entire rant. The debut by the Fleet Foxes is my favorite record of the year (in any category). They are a bunch of 22-year-old Seattle kids that construct baroque-folk melodies and harmonies as rich as anything by the Beach Boys, CSNY or (more recently) Band of Horses. I'm not the only one, the album has one of the year's highest scores on Metacritic.com (an average of critic reviews across the country). Vampire Weekend, whose debut might just be my second favorite album of the year wasn't nominated either, neither was MGMT. Here's who was nominated: Adele, Duffy, Jonas Brothers, Lady Antebellum and Jazmine Sullivan. Who the fuck is Jazmine Sullivan? I subscribe to three music magazines and check at least 3 or 4 music Web sites daily and have never heard of her or her music. Duffy and Adele are preprocessed, over-hyped, over-packaged Winehouse-lites, and The Jonas Brothers have already been popular on the Disney channel for at least three years.

I will only be watching the Grammys this year if I can score some really pure heroin, or have been in a debilitating car wreck and rejoice at any opportunity to kill four hours.

Of course this rant is deflated by simply saying "Your entire look at the Grammys is warped through the lens of your own tastes."

And my answer is: my tastes are better, and you should know that already.